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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.
Aaron Bock: Welcome to the IT
Matters podcast hosted by
Opkalla. We're an IT advisory
firm that makes technology easy
for your business. Our vendor
neutral technology advisors work
directly with your team to
assess technology needs and
procure the best IT solutions
for your organization. On this
podcast, expect high level
expertise from our hosts, plus
experience driven perspective
from the leading experts on
topics like AI, cybersecurity
industry focused IT solutions,
strategy and more. Now let's get
into today's discussion on what
matters in IT.
Keith Hawkey: This episode
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And welcome to the it matters.
Podcast, the podcast where we go
behind the scenes with
technology leaders who are
making a real impact, not just
with their systems, but with
their strategy. I'm your host,
Keith Hawkey, and today's
episode is all about what it
takes to transform it from the
back office function to a
business driver, especially in a
mission driven organization, and
today, my guest is Dana Staples,
Vice President of IT, of
ReVision Energy, a company
leading the clean energy
movement in the northeast, Dana
stepped into a leadership role
at a time when It wasn't yet the
front and center of the
organization, and through a
blend of pragmatic leadership,
cultural change and smart
technology investments, Dana has
helped ReVision elevate it to a
key strategic pillar. In today's
episode, we'll talk about how
Dana approached his first 90
days in a fragmented
environment, what it means to
balance internal capabilities,
vendor partnerships, and how
he's building a culture of
empowerment within his team. He
also shares lessons from his
time and public service and how
those experiences continue to
influence his leadership
approach. Today, let's get into
it. Dana, welcome to the IT
Matters podcast.
Dana Staples: Wow. Thanks,
Keith, that was quite an
introduction
Keith Hawkey: to the discussion.
And let's, let's jump in. This
is going to be awesome. Well,
thank you, Dana, that is what
they pay me for. If I can't do
an introduction, why? Why even
do a podcast? Right? Awesome.
Off to a great start. That's
right, I was actually doing a
little bit of research before we
started today. And ReVision
Energy is a solar panel
organization. You guys install
solar technology. And I asked
chatgpt, what the average number
of days in Maine that were sunny
compared to the rest of the
country. And I was like, I
wonder, I can't imagine Maine
has more sunny days on average.
And the answer was, Maine has
around 200 sunny days, maybe a
little less than 200 sunny days
in the average. What do you
think the average is in the
United States?
Dana Staples: Number of sunny
days, you know? I bet it's not
too much different from Maine,
honestly. You know, it's just we
get the snow, and other places
gets get, you know, they get
different types of weather. I
would say, let's see if it's 200
in Maine. Let's say it's 220
somewhere else, that's about
right between 205, to 250, is
about the average.
Keith Hawkey: So I was thinking
Maine was was overcast most of
the time, but it sounds like you
guys actually get some sun.
Dana Staples: Yeah, sure. Well,
you know it's, it's, it's a
misconception, especially in the
solar industry. I know when I
personally was putting panels on
my roof. I went into it thinking
that maybe we would really just
produce them this summer, you
know, because that's when you
feel the sun, but, but the the
fact of the matter is, you know,
we get sun all winter. It's just
that the days are shorter, and
so you may make a little bit
less power then. And I guess.
The added benefit of living in
Maine is that we get the snow,
so you gotta wait for the snow
to fall off the panels. But you
know, with the right roof, it
does it pretty quickly. So lots
of lots of things to consider,
though, I can't wait those sunny
days, though, in the summer,
aren't they beautiful?
Keith Hawkey: They are speaking
of the snow, I'm curious, does
the snow impact technology?
Impact it in any strange ways,
where someone that's like an IT
leader in Arizona doesn't really
have to deal with I guess they
might get a little snow in the
mountains in Arizona, but
thinking maybe South Carolina,
where we get very little snow,
you know, where I find that it
makes the biggest impact,
especially, I would say, before
the pandemic, where remote work
never really happened was you
get a big snow storm, and
suddenly it's a lot harder for
some people to get into work.
Dana Staples: You know, we clean
the roads pretty well here in
Maine, but you get the right
storm. And, you know, a 30
minute commute turns into an
hour commute pretty quickly, and
especially when you have, you
know, daycare not open in a
school closed, you know. So you
end up with childcare
responsibilities sometimes, and
you got to juggle those things.
But as far as actual like it,
you know, I don't think that
there's huge impacts with snow,
as long as, as long as you're
not hitting too many power
outages and those types of
things. I think it's really just
the weather patterns that you
have to watch out for. As long
as the snow doesn't get in the
data center we okay.
Keith Hawkey: I remember a long
time ago, there was a data
center and a company I worked
for that got a little bit of
water, and it wasn't to the
point where it really impacted
things, but people were starting
to get pretty concerned quickly
about whether, whether or not
this is going to turn into
something. And, you know, we
brought in some fans and
dehumidifiers, and it ended up
going away, but people were
nervous, yeah, and speaking
about new situations, I'd love
to talk a little bit about how
you you know you stepped into
this leadership role at a time
when it could have looked and
could have became a more
prominent focus in the business.
And this is, this is not
unusual. There's a lot of
organizations that are out about
the size of ReVision Energy
where you start off and and
maybe you have an MSP, you know,
you buy, you buy into different
productivity suites. You have
some, some cyber security in
there, but it's kind of an
afterthought. And eventually
organizations get to the point
where they're like, we know we
need a professional grade IT
strategy. We need someone who's
going to lead this charge. So
it's a very, very typical
evolution, like small and medium
sized businesses. And I'm
curious, what are some of the
early signs that when you
stepped in, that you realize,
you know, some some things, some
of the things here, we need to
change.
Dana Staples: Yeah, sure. So I
think the, I think the path that
revision took, for for deciding
to invest a little bit more in
it was, you know, they worked
with some of the remote
consultants to do some of the
help desk work that they had,
and they ended up using a local
consultant to give them some of
the strategy lessons. And that
consultant got them into a place
where they started to develop a
strategy towards moving into
Dynamics. Microsoft Dynamics is,
you know, the the backbone of
our systems, really. And I think
a little ways into that, they
realized that the consultant was
was adding valuable work, but
they couldn't hire the
consultant, and so there was a
need to to move into something
more of a full time role. You
know, consultants are super
expensive, and, you know,
there's you can only really go
with them for so long to work on
a project, and so they brought
in the role that I currently
have. So I think one of the
things that we learned early on
was that the company grew from a
small just a couple of guys at
first, and it grew and grew and
grew, and over the years, there
was a lot of people that had
various needs in it that had to
figure it out. And so what you
end up with is, you know,
disparate systems that are kind
of managed by so many different
people. And you find, hey,
there's some redundancy here,
and maybe not the most optimal
solution over there. And okay,
maybe we need to put some of
this information together so
that one system can talk to the
other system. And how do we do
that? And you know, it quickly
turns into a problem that you
need somebody with some
expertise to come in and solve
some of those issues. And I
think that's really where
revision decided that they
needed to make an investment.
Where I see. Things get a little
tricky sometimes is that, you
know, those habits of people
that want to manage the systems
by themselves, sometimes forget,
hey, we got an IT department.
Now you can come to us and we
can help you solve those things.
So that turns into, you know,
sometimes there's some decisions
that are a little further along
than you'd like when it is
brought in. Yes, so can be a
little tricky.
Keith Hawkey: Yeah, that's yeah.
And the whole idea of making the
IT department feel as if it's an
enabler instead of a disabler,
is a cultural shift that many IT
leaders from working at small to
large enterprise, all across the
board, that that is the that
is,that is the Paramount
challenge. I mean, ultimately,
we're a cost center, you know,
so, so we're, we're, we're
charging the company to be here,
and so we're not bringing in the
profits. So ultimately, you want
the folks that are bringing in
the profits to be working on
figuring out how to do that,
rather than to solve it issues.
And I think that's the crux of
the issue is, how do we focus
people to do on, to do the
things that they're best at, and
to get those people out of the
the weeds of issues that they
may or may not be, you know,
equipped to solve, and so you
put the right people in a room,
and a lot of times, you kind of
figure out, all right, this
person's got this issue, and
this person's got that one, it
turns into, it turns into a
pretty good environment when You
have a collaborative team, and
you probably arrived with some,
you know, there are certainly
some motivation from the
business to make some
significant investments and it,
and one of your challenges is,
what, you know, what are the,
some of the first initiatives
that should be prioritized to
help show the value of those
investments? I'm curious about
kind of your thought process,
what the lay of the land was,
what were some of the verse
first initiatives that you
thought would be simple enough
to implement yet be able to show
a quick ROI on those
investments?
Sure. Well, I think the biggest
thing you have to focus on right
away is figuring out, what are
you working with, you know,
doing some sort of an inventory
of the systems and the in the
maybe not even necessarily the
systems, but what problems are
you trying to solve those
systems, and what are the, what
are the challenges of the
company, and how do the systems
actually solve those challenges.
So I think that's, that's part
of the initial look at things,
is just like, where are we, how
did, how did we get where we
are? And so, you know, after,
after doing all that and doing a
deep dive into what are we using
here and why, you know, you
figure out quickly that at least
at my company, we had a we had a
position where we had just
implemented a new CRM, and that
that CRM was was working really
well, but there were still some
things that weren't necessarily
handled inside of that CRM, so
some business processes that we
were trying to capture, and you
know, that work was being done
On the side someplace with
spreadsheets, or, you know, you
know, a little bit a little bit
of sticky glue just to put
everything together and make
make something work and and so I
think we enabled some of those
things to be done inside of
dynamics with a little bit of, a
little bit of actual, you Know,
engineering work to make some of
those changes. And that was,
that was a big win, I think, as
far as you know, making people
not have to do a lot of the
swivel chair stuff, where
they're in six different
systems, to do one thing that
really should just be in one
system. And one of the other
things that we've been doing is
we have a few different business
units, and trying to figure out
how to get the to figure out how
to get those business units to
talk and be able to, you know,
pass a project from one team to
another without having to jump
through a lot of hoops. And so,
you know, those types of things,
it's really what happens when
you have a disjointed system, is
that, you know, one business
unit doesn't really talk to the
other one all that well. And I
would be, I would be remiss to
say that I came in and solved
all those issues. I mean, the
team's been doing awesome work,
and we still have a long way to
go, but we've made some good
progress, and so I think that's,
that's probably where we're
going to focus a lot of our
work. In the future is to try to
make that story even better.
Yeah, and a lot of, I can
imagine you, you had some, some
pretty disjointed vendor
relationships that you know,
that are they were there when
you got there. You know, part
of, part of your challenge is.
Kind of understanding, all
right, we're, we are bringing in
some IT talent. You know,
there's an investment where, you
know, obviously your role,
potentially some roles that you
would, you would help support in
it. Some of that might encroach
on some of the vendor
relationships. Perhaps there's
MSP involved. Wondering, how do
you balance the, you know, the
new motivation to insource, some
of the it with what still needs
to be outsourced,
Dana Staples: you know, with
with capabilities. Yeah. So, I
mean, part of that is doing, you
know, figuring out what do we
have for vendor relationships,
and what work are they doing? So
for instance, we have a couple
different relationships with a
few different vendors. We found
out pretty quickly that one of
the vendors was you was being
used primarily for your bigger
projects, you know. And so we've
we maintain a relationship with
them because we had another
project that we really wanted to
accomplish. Wanted to
accomplish, to bring one of our
basically redo the dynamics
implementation that one of our
business units is using just to
better fit with the other ones.
And so that that relationship is
ongoing, and it's been a pretty
successful one. We had another
relationship that was, it was a
it was a vendor that was kind of
doing a lot of ongoing work.
And, you know, it was stuff that
just kept coming and coming. And
it wasn't really project based.
It was just maintenance and all
that and and from that one, we
found that, you know, over the
course of a year, we would
easily spend more and vendor
fees than we would in like, full
time salaries. So so we hired a
person to do some of that work,
and, you know, still coming up
to speed on some things, but
that's proving out to be a
pretty good move, I think, and
that person is able to do some
other things that the vendor
wasn't doing before. And so it's
even, you know, it's a win there
as well, yeah.
Keith Hawkey: And, I mean, you
know, a lot of times like those
vendors that, yeah, we when
these organizations are evolving
in this sense, there are
relationships. There are, you
know, that maybe they've been
there since the inception of the
company, and they've grown in
some capacity. And I know for
one a lot of times, they have
some understanding of kind of
where the bodies are buried, of
some of the inner workings of
the company that is useful.
There's always this kind of give
and take, of trying to pry some
of the information out of them,
so perhaps you can look for a
better situation, or in source
some of that talent, maybe even
a better vendor partner that can
have has more capabilities. But
it's like there's always this
kind of give and take in the
beginning, as as you're starting
to try to uncover as much
information that the vendor has,
because they've been there since
the beginning,
Dana Staples: yeah, and I think
that that's, that's one of the
challenges, right? I mean,
obviously, if a vendor has been
working with a company for a
while, they they've got a lot of
that legacy knowledge that you
just necessarily won't find on
your own sometimes, with the
vendor that we I was just
talking about, we we maintain a
relationship with that vendor
even now, and it's more of a
well, sometimes stuff breaks and
we need to fix quickly. And you
know, it's good to have a person
in there that knows, like, how
did that get created, and why is
this problem happening now and
and so, you know, you maintain
some of those things and not
necessarily bring the same
number of hours to that vendor
in the that you did in the past,
but you still have that ability
that if something comes up that,
hey, we really need some help
here. They're still around for
you. Sometimes that ends up
costing a little bit more
because, you know, the hours, if
you're not using as many hours,
it's not necessarily the best,
the best price that you had
before, but it's still
important. You know, I think, I
think those things are good, and
sometimes you never know. You
might go back to them for
another project anyway. So no
sense in burning a bridge.
Keith Hawkey: Yeah. And, you
know, there are times those
vendors can absolutely save the
day, because they do have that
legacy knowledge. So, you know,
having strong vendor partner
relationships is, is one of the
the keys, in my opinion, to any
success of an IT leader,
especially new in the role of
leveraging, leveraging that when
it comes down to it, an IT
leader is, or any leader, the
biggest piece of anything is
relationships, right? And so I
think if, if you want to be
successful in a leadership role,
you have to be really good at
knowing how to work with people
and maintain relationships and
keep those types of things
working well.
Dana Staples: Well, I think
that's always, it's always a
challenge, right? Because you
have different different
motivating factors that are that
are driving you every day,
right? So everybody that you
work with is going to have their
own thing that they need to get
done. And, you know, sometimes
that may not align with what you
need, but I think building those
relationships a lot of times can
get you out of some sticky
situations if they come up,
because they're always going to
come
Keith Hawkey: up. Yeah. I mean,
one thing that stood out to me
was the way that you view
enabling your people,
particularly the idea of kind of
getting out of the way of your
team innovating and being able
to do their jobs. Can you talk a
little bit about how you've
empowered your team and what
what your vision of leadership,
technology of leadership, looks
like in your organization?
Dana Staples: Yeah, absolutely.
So I think I believe really
strongly that you hire people to
do a role, and once you hire
them, you should let them do
it.And so to me, what that means
is I don't necessarily always
need to be there in the room
looking over your shoulder and
making sure you're doing the
work, you know. And so if, if I
tell a team that we need a
project done, and they and they
go and they look into it, and
they figure it out, and they
give me a project plan. I look
at it, you approve the project
plan, then you let them do it.
You know, you get a periodic
check in once in a while to see
how that's going and make sure
that things are on track. But I
try not to get buried in the
weeds on the everyday stuff. As
long as you give people the
ability to go and do what you've
asked them to do, a lot of
times, that's when you see
people thrive and come up with
situations and solutions that
you may not have noticed or
expected in the in the past. And
I think that really empowering
people to do the jobs that
you're really hoping that they
do creates really good work and
allows allows people to thrive
and build skills that they might
not have had before. So I think,
you know, if you give one person
an assignment and you just let
them go and do it a lot of
times, they have to learn a
little bit of project management
skills to figure out, well, how
do I get the things done that I
need to get done? And the same
kind of thing happens with a
team and a manager. You give a
manager something to do, and
they're going to figure out,
well, how do I best speak to my
team to get the things done in
the right amount of time? You
know, I had a manager once that
that really helped me get out of
the weeds and and enabled me to
allow the team to do the work,
and I think that that allowed me
to scale the team and have a
bigger team. As as more people
came into my org, I was, I was a
little less focused on every
single thing that they did and
all and more focused on, well,
what are the results? How did,
how did you guys get to where
you are, and what are the steps
that you did, that you took to
get there, and where did things
go wrong, and how are we going
to do something better in the
future? Those types of things,
you know, I've worked with
managers in the past that are, I
mean, I hate the word, but micro
managers sometimes that are,
that are in a little bit too
much. And sometimes you wonder,
Well, do you want to do this
work, or do you want me to do
work, you know? And so I learned
from that as as a way to, you
know, let people do the things
that you ask them to do, and see
how it goes. And if it doesn't
work, then you have to course
correct, right? And then what
does that look like? It can be
different for everybody.
Sometimes, sometimes you get a
situation where you really have
to jump in and say, Okay, now
this is what I expect, and this
is how I think maybe you should
do it. But that's not, that's
not where I want to start.
That's, that's a, that's a thing
that you only do when you really
need to.
Keith Hawkey: You probably have
the opportunity to work with our
some of our younger generations,
particularly Gen Z, and I always
like to ask it leaders, because
some struggle with some of the
generational differences between
kind of the newer generation of
it practitioners and the old
guard. What? What have you
learned toalong the way to get
the most out of like new, fresh
college grads getting into it
space? How have you best enabled
them? And do you notice much of
a difference between someone
that's graduating college today
and and 10 years ago,
Dana Staples: I think that for
the most part, people have the
same motivations. You know, that
they're in this work because
they enjoy it and they want to
do it, or maybe they're just
good at it and they really want
to thrive and learn new things.
I find that, you know,
generationally, people work
differently, and. Um, so you
know, maybe your your older
generation, I guess if we're
talking in generational terms,
your boomers, your Gen X,
they're probably a little bit
more prone to wanting a meeting
to talk about something, your
your millennials, Gen Z, those,
those folks, are probably a
little bit more prone to wanting
to do something via messaging,
Slack, whatever, those types of
things. And, you know, I think
the thing that I've always found
makes me successful is I try to
talk to somebody and learn who
they are and find out what, how
do they like to work and meet
them where they are. You know, I
think, I think as a leader, you
really need to be adaptable to
different situations. You know,
sometimes coming in and saying,
This is the way it's going to be
is a recipe for disaster. And if
you have a team that some people
want to do it one way, and other
people want to do it another
way, well, figure out a way that
that works, and try, try to make
sure that you're, you're hitting
the right the right methods of
communication, the right project
management, those things,you
know, the one thing that is
interesting is, you know, you
get, you get some people that
work differently, and sometimes
from that, you come up with
interesting ways of working,
that, that that neither, neither
people, neither generation would
would have necessarily thought
of on their own. So, yeah, that
one's an interesting issue. I
think that as we,
as we see, you know, the next
generation move in and the and
you're probably going to come up
with new ways from that as
technology evolves. You know, I
think the younger generation,
typically is the early adopter,
and so it's kind of a fun thing
to find out. Well, how are you
guys doing this? And what can I
learn from that? Because there's
always something that that you
have to learn in it, and if
somebody is doing something a
different way, like, that's
that's my cue to find out, what
is that and is it good? Like,
let's figure out. Like, maybe
there's a better way to do it,
or maybe, maybe there's
something that I'm currently
doing that that I can do better.
And I just love that about this
job, I
Keith Hawkey: imagine in today,
especially going into the
future, that you're going to
you're going to be interviewing
candidates for role, and maybe
they're coming out of college,
maybe they have a couple years
experience, but you'll ask them,
how would you solve this
problem? How would you solve
this problem? And a lot of the
ways that they're solving
problems are using different
artificial intelligence
platforms of and that's a
different way of, you know,
going about it. You know, for
one, you have to have an
understanding of the
fundamentals. But also the
element of, you know, I've got,
I use these various AI platforms
to help solve these complex IT
troubleshooting issues and
introducing that into the mix,
teaching, you know, teaching the
manager of about, you know, how
these different platforms can
help and maybe how they how they
construct Their prompting and
get the most out of it. I can
imagine that being a pretty
seismic change when it comes to
interviewing of this
generational, institutional
knowledge divide, because that's
the world.
Dana Staples: Yeah, I think it's
a it's an exciting proposition
to think about what the world,
the work, world, will look like
in the next 510, years,
especially with AI and its
introduction into the workforce.
I really look to really anybody
that's that's using AI as is as
a place of curiosity, really.
And like, well, what are you,
what are you doing with it?
Like, how do we, how do we learn
from what you're doing? And,
like, what are the things that
that you're doing with this,
that that we can replicate and
get other people to do? I try
not to shy away from that stuff,
right? I think, I think there's
a lot of opportunity, especially
with a new technology there, you
want to, you want to be a little
careful with it, right? You
don't want to, you don't want to
do unsafe things. So there's a
little bit of a security that
you want to, some best practices
that you want to try and adopt.
I think it's really interesting
from a from a technical
standpoint, to understand, like,
How much better can we be with
AI? Like, what are the things
that that we can learn from it,
and like, how do we how do we
grow? It's interesting, though,
when you bring up interviewing
people in their approach to
solving problems with AI, I know
that back in some of the early
stages of the pandemic, I was
doing a lot of interviewing at
the time, and I started seeing
people. Virtual with virtual
interviews kind of looking up
like they're looking up answers,
right? Yeah, asking a question
and like you could almost hear
him typing.
Keith Hawkey: That is a real
problem. So one of my good
friends interviews. He's an HR.
He interviews for roles in it
for a pretty large bank here in
Charlotte. Nit, you know, a lot
of these roles, potentially, are
from people that are just coming
into the country, that are new
here. And there's they have
different, you know, work visa
situations that are sensitive
you can't ask about. But, you
know, he speaks with lots of
different people, and he his job
is to really cut through the
noise very quickly and to ask
them very specifically about
certain projects that they have
in their resumes. Because
nowadays, resumes, a lot of them
are just copy and paste exactly
what the job pro post is, and
they put in the chat GPT, and
chat GPT writes exactly what is
on there. So all these resumes
look the same, so it's difficult
to filter, and it's that you
know, the challenge is asking
these probing questions and
understanding enough about you
know what your candidate
potentially has been working on,
to know if they really worked on
those things, if they had to
have that experience. And you
know, he's been in situations
where there's someone in the
background, like, they'll go on
mute, and then that person will,
like, answer the question to the
person interviewing. That person
will unmute and then
regurgitate, or try to
regurgitate an answer, but
you'll catch it somewhat.
There's been situations where
there's like one person that
kind of knows what they're doing
and but they kind of they manage
three or four different people
that have jobs they are
unqualified for. My is same
thing for my wife has has the
same energy. She's the same
issues with with her job. Yeah,
really, it's because there's a
lot of unqualification, and
especially with the remote work
and it I feel, yeah, it's
interesting.
Dana Staples: You know, at a
previous company, I managed a
lot of people who weren't in the
United States, and so when you
went to interview them, you
know, English wasn't necessarily
the first language that they
spoke. And so it I think that
one of the fascinating things
that I found is that there were
a lot of people who were able
to, like, really use some
interesting technology to do
some, like, translations, you
know, from their from English to
the native language, and then
they would translate back. And
some people were really, really
good at it. It was, it was kind
of impressive. You know, I think
some of the ways that you cut
through some of those interview
questions, though, is you just
have to ask some questions
about, like, how did you do it?
And, like, tell me about, like,
what is, what did this look
like? And, you know, some of
those, some of those things you
get from just talking to
somebody a little bit more than,
like, one or two questions, just
kind of dive into it and, like,
really figure out, like, what
happened here, but I don't know.
I think, I think also, like,
some of the things that people
might use during a remote
interview, some of the software
that they use is kind of
interesting. I kind of think
back to, you know, when I was
in, you know, high school or or
elementary school, even, and you
go to math class and the teacher
would say, Well, you can't use a
calculator because you won't
have one when you're older and
working and, and I don't know
about you, but I think that
didn't, that didn't pan out. So
in a in a remote interview, do
you tell somebody you can't use
AI because you won't have AI? I
don't know if that's true, you
know?
So ultimately, you need to have
somebody that's really going to
be able to do to do the work,
and what tools they use to get
the job done sometimes, doesn't
necessarily disqualify them from
the position. If they're
producing results that that are
really good and like, it's not
just a flash in the pan. They
can do it over and over. Maybe
it's not such a bad thing. I
don't know. I kind of have mixed
feelings about it. Yeah, me too.
It's so for one and I have some
friends in the industry that
tell me these things, but when
they're using AI to write code,
and then they have to solve for
a bug, it becomes incredibly
difficult when you didn't write
the code to solve for so there's
a unique challenge there, and
you come first from a software
development background, so
you're probably more intimately
aware of the challenges.
Therefore, well, yeah, you know,
it's funny, though I haven't
been writing code. Think very
much in the last few years when
AI got a little bit bigger. So
back when I was writing
software, I, you know, I was
doing it the old fashioned way.
I had to figure it out. But we
still had Google, you know. And
back then, you know, most of the
things that you got stumped on
you could, you could kind of
solve with a few Google
searches. But, you know, I think
anytime you work on a bug,
though it's you really have to
be able to read the software and
then, or read the code and
understand, like, what is this
thing doing? And, like, how is
it, how is it failing? Like,
what's going on here? And I
don't know, yeah, I think, I
think currently, there's
probably not a lot ofAI
solutions that are going to
answer that for you, although
you know you have to hope, you
have to hope, you have to hope
in the future, there's a
solution for everything, right?
So let's, let's see if that, if
that comes around, I don't know,
maybe someday it will. Yeah,
maybe someday
Keith Hawkey: we're getting
toward the end of the podcast,
Dana and you know, typically,
what I really love to ask is,
is, what, what do you think is
missing if you are going to
broadcast an idea to every IT
leader in the world about what
you think is important, maybe
not spoken about enough within
your line of work. What would
that message be if it could fit
on a billboard or a cell phone
screen?
Dana Staples: Geez. You know, I
think the thing that has enabled
me to succeed a lot. And I think
in the in the scheme of things,
I think sometimes I see this as
missing is, what is the human
side of this? You know, at the
end of the day, the people doing
the work are are living lives
outside of the work. And how do
you make those people's lives
better. You know, it's, it's
interesting to think about,
like, one of the things as a, as
a an organization, that you can
do to enable people to be able
to live the life that they want
to live outside of work. I think
that a lot of the things that
I've seen are, you know, you see
a lot of these, like, anti work,
you know, people that are trying
to figure out how, what's the
quickest way I can retire? And,
like, how do I get out of this
situation? And, you know, job
hopping and like, like, the, you
know, lots of, lots of different
things. And I think a lot of us.
A lot of the answers to that is
like, how do we make work better
to the point where it doesn't,
it doesn't make anything that
you're doing outside of work
worse? And so I think
remembering that people are
people is is really important.
It's it's something that if you,
if you work for somebody who who
doesn't understand that, or
pretends not to understand that,
I think, I think it can make
your life miserable. So happy,
happy. Staff produces good work.
I think
Keith Hawkey: wise words from
the legendary Dana staples,
Dana, we I really appreciate you
taking the time to speak with us
in the it matter podcast. Where
can people find you? If
listeners wants to, would like
to reach out about some of
these, some of your ideas?
Dana Staples: Sure, yeah, while
I'm on LinkedIn, you can always
get me there. That's probably
the best place. I think I'm
always looking at that. I love
to go on LinkedIn and just see
what, what people I've worked
with in the past are doing and
and so I'm always checking it
LinkedIn. There it is. We'll put
it in the show notes to
everyone. Thank you for joining,
and we will catch you next time.
Awesome. Thanks for the
discussion, Keith. I really had
fun today. Likewise.
Aaron Bock: Thank you for
listening, and we appreciate you
tuning into the it matters.
Podcast for support assessing
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