Current State of Technology

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Hi, welcome to this special edition of the CTO Advisor. I'm Pumla Schmidt. You may know me as Exchange Goddess. I'm here today with an all-star lineup. We've got Leah, Teresa, and Jody. You ladies want to introduce yourselves? Sure. I'm Leah Shove. I work for Rubrik as a master technologist in TME. I've been in the industry for over 20 years. I'm Teresa Miller, and I'm the founder of 24x7 IT Connection. I also have put some time into the industry over 20 years.

And I'm a Microsoft MVP, Citrix CTP, and VMware VXpert. Hi, I'm Jody Shealy. I am a principal TAM in the office of the CTO Global Field. I've also been in the industry for a little over 20 years, and also the expert, and you may know me as RightAlways. Okay, ladies. Let's relax now. Let's just have a real conversation. We all look like we're, like, all stressed out. Okay. So, we're all here to talk about the state of IT, and that's a really big, loaded question.

Well, that's why we look all stressed out. Yeah. So, let's get started. Where do you think IT is headed? I mean, from roles to just, I mean, everything. Culture. Let's just throw it out there. Leah? Or Jody? Whoever wants to go first. One thing that I noticed with our industry in general is that it's cyclic. So, we have everybody rushing everything to the cloud, but what a lot of financial folks are finding is that those bills are very big.

So, now they're, like, pulling back on-prem, and then there's this balance between what we put in the cloud, what we put on-prem, and so there's kind of this tug-of-war going on. So, even though we see more folks putting things in the cloud, I think over time, I think we're going to see certain things come back on-prem and stay on-prem because they're trying to learn what that balance is and where their dollars go. Do you think it's more of lessons learned, where maybe some folks jump too quick in the pool?

Yeah. Where they, you know, dip head first without dipping. Yeah, because, you know, they get their first AWS bill or Google bill or from whoever else, and you know, it's the size of a phone book, and they don't know how to read it, just like an AT&T, you know, bill that you used to get when you used to get your mobile bills, and every little itty-bitty phone call or second that you took, you know, it was like this stack. And then they realize that, wait a minute, I got to think about this a little more, and I got to dial this back.

So, you know, there's a lot of lessons learned. I also think there's a fundamental shift in the way that people, DevOps is moving to the cloud, and then there's so many disparate sections in the companies where there's silos, and some people, developers, have the ability to just dump whatever they want up there, and they go run off, and then pretty soon, companies start coming back, and they don't know they have three, four different clouds that they're working in all of a sudden just because, yeah, they're running right out, dumping it in there, not sure how much it's going to cost and what it's doing to the company, and then you start getting into all the, you know, infrastructure shifts, I think.

So you're right, that's going to be a big problem for companies, for sure, the multi-cloud thing. Yeah. Because... Buzzword. Yeah. Do we want to start some bingo? Well, you said two buzzwords. Multi-cloud and DevOps. I know. But it's so true. Now, back to Leah's point, though, about companies coming back on-prem, I think some are not going to do that. I think some are capable of it, but the cost tied to coming back on-prem is a whole nother conversation.

Once your data's there, it's very expensive. And when you consider, like, these cloud companies, the large ones, they'll send trucks to your location to get your data, to be able to put it in their cloud, right? That's expensive, too. They're not going to probably, I mean, maybe they would, but bringing that truck back and the cost tied to it is extreme. So I think long-term, I think people are going to potentially feel stuck in the cloud if they made the decision to go there.

But that being said, it's not a bad thing, either. There are many things that are great in the cloud. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Office 365, Exchange Online being one of them. Exchange Goddess. Yeah. Even though I'm Exchange Goddess, I still love Office 365. I think it's a great solution. So do you think coming back on-premises is just kind of a fairy tale or just exaggerated stories? I see, even just this week talking to customers, a lot of people are taking their DevOps out there and then bringing them back in to bring, because they won't put production right out there.

So they'll build in the cloud and then bring it back on-prem and then build production up. So I think there's a little bit of both, but I'm seeing more of it coming back in to go to production first on-prem and then deciding whether they're going to take it off-prem. So you think it's more just careful planning? Yeah, because one thing that I found, especially with MSPs, is cost. Cost is huge, and that seems to be a bigger factor than the actual technology itself.

So we're going to see that war there between the evolution of technology, evolving technology, versus the cost of doing it. There's always going to be that war, because the CIO doesn't want to spend any money. Who does? Yeah. Can you do it for free? Yeah. But I mean, your admin, your technical directors, they're all going to want to spend money. They want the technology, they want to make things better, they want to bring better services, but the CIO doesn't want to spend any money at all.

He's trying to find out where do I save and cut back, while they're trying to figure out how do I spend money and expand. So you see that war going on between the two. So agile. I'm just going to throw that word out there. Agile IT. How does that play into this whole going to the cloud, coming back on-premises? I think that almost starts with architecture design, right? I think that gets us started figuring out architecture, and obviously being a VMware person validated designs, and waterfalling, and the other DevOps buzzwords that we're throwing out there.

I think it's a huge, it's playing a bigger, bigger part now that there's so many different facets to what we're doing and delivering at an architecture level. Well, I think it goes back to how, so the money is one piece, but it's about how you want your employees to spend their time too. So when you talk about agile and infrastructure, they're not maintaining that anymore. And I think in some ways that changes the roles and responsibilities of us in enterprises. And it's an interesting shift.

I think some people were afraid of that alone when the cloud first came. I remember some marketing that went out like, oh, now they're not going to have any work to do. So they're going to be having cake and parties all the time. And that's not true either. Right. If anything, there's some more work involved. Exactly. Exactly. Creating new work. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can definitely see it just from my experience working as an administrator.

You do shift, even though you still have your job. Your traditional roles or your traditional duties may have shifted to something else, maybe more security related or more networking related. It's just, it's a shift. I have these conversations a lot with people, especially at conferences. How is the cloud impacting your job now? And are you fearful of losing it? And I've heard some people say, yeah. I mean, what do you guys see? I know, Teresa, you still work for a customer.

Yeah. And both of you work for vendors. I work for a vendor now, so it's, you know, I've crossed over to the dark side. Yeah. The work doesn't go away. Yeah. It doesn't. The fear is always there. One thing that I do see is a big evolution around the type of software and services that are offered, which allows these folks to be able to evolve. And the previous company that I worked for, Turbonomic, it actually allowed them to be able to evolve into different types of roles.

But at first, when the product was brought in, there was a lot of fear that they were going to lose their jobs. So once they see that this new software and this new way of doing things with software as a service, as other types of software to help optimize infrastructure, that this just helps them move to new skills and makes their life a little easier, gives them a little more work-life balance. You know, like, for example, with the company I work for, you could be out on a beach somewhere and someone is terrified and needs their data back, and you just press a button on an app and it's done.

And you don't get disturbed, you don't have to run back to the hotel room freaked out. You just press a button, done. You know? Makes their life easier. You know what really cracks me up is we all work in IT and IT's all about change, but the people that are most fearful of change are the people that are in IT. Yeah. Yes, we are. I actually do a keynote on that. I do a keynote on that. Isn't that fantastic?

Yes. It's so funny. We fear change. Yeah. We really do. We do. But we love change. I was going to say, I really actually do love change, and when you talk about moving workloads to the cloud, I'd say 80% of what I do today is in the cloud, and I'm learning something new all the time, because there's so many integrations with on-prem that are still required for a business, whether it's your DNS or your servers. It all has to be available to your users, your network, your domain.

So your job won't go away. Be willing to learn and be willing to spread your wings a little bit further, but there's still plenty of work to do in the cloud. Yeah, I agree. So once we all agree that there's always going to be issues to solve. Oh, yeah. For sure. Yeah, that's called job security. That's what I was going to say. From becoming, and maybe that's the other segue into that, the state of IT and changing is that people are now becoming developers that weren't developers because they're coding for automation or they're learning how to do cloud work because they were never a regular admin.

It's just all of those shifting roles. Because it creates new problems. Yes. A new set of problems. Absolutely. It's not like all your problems go away. Your problems just shift. Right. With the culture and the change. Yeah. And a lot of times you don't realize what it's going to shift to, so then that creates a lot of work and surprise. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say. It is. Yeah. So you actually hit a point.

Do you think everybody should become a developer? I would say no. But should they have developer skills and be willing to learn about how development may play a role in their daily job or the company that they work with, yeah. I mean, you have to be invested in the change, and I think that's an important key to take away. And I also think it's also the opposite. I think developers ought to spend six months to 12 months in service. I like that.

I like that. I like that. I like that. That's a good one. Being in professional services, because I will tell you, once you've done that, you will code completely different. If I went back into development today, I would code completely different than I did. Yeah. Just because of what you know now. Right. Right. Yeah. The pain. Learning the different job and knowing what they needed. Yeah. Yeah. Because developers cause a lot of pain, and they don't realize it.

Yeah. Right. Which will show the infrastructure. You know, admins. Yeah. So we have to understand where we sat in that situation, and we understand what it's like to be sitting on the opposite end. So we think a little bit differently when we are deploying our servers and applications. So let's kind of move on to a different topic, or I guess similar topic. Diversity. That's always an interesting topic to talk about, especially now. We're all pretty good.

Yeah. Yeah. We've got it covered. This is all by accident. We just all started the line up. This whole diversity and tech, I'm going to be upfront. I'm always very gun shy when someone asks me to join a panel about all women, and we're going to speak about technology. Agreed. And we're going to speak about being a woman in tech. I run away. Yeah. Yeah. I do. I admit. And I'm like, why should we talk about women working in tech?

Can't we just talk about tech? Yeah. One thing that I notice is that there's a big difference. So there's women in tech, which covers marketing, business, other areas, and we have plenty of women in those areas. We do need more women in sales. I do have to say the front line of sales, there's not enough women there, but I notice a lot of the women in tech is covered by those areas a lot, only because they're outgoing. That's something that's easy for them to talk about in their jobs.

What we're lacking, that I don't see enough of, is the women engineers, the boots on the ground, the women that are actually pulling the cables, coding. The folks you don't see, we don't have enough of them. And to be able to spend the time to grow new women engineers is very different than women in technology, because you find women in marketing, they could go work for Frito-Lay. I've had friends in marketing, and they change industries all the time because their career is in marketing, the art of marketing, which is very difficult.

So they can do that. But as engineers, this is our bread and butter. This is who we are, and it's very different. I would say from my perspective, I heard something really ingenuine today. I'm talking to Betsy Sutter, and to me, I also agree. It's not about just talking about women in tech, but it's about just having a level playing field, everybody doing the same job and just getting the same pay. To me, if you're a woman in tech or a guy in tech, I think that we all have battles at different levels, and that it's not just about us.

It's about us helping each other all be diversified. So that's kind of just- I think that's a really interesting point. It really makes it seem like if we had that level playing field, things would feel a lot different. Right. For a little while, I actually taught at a university, and one of my students came in and she said, oh, I tried doing tech, and it was so frustrating. Not because of the work, because she didn't have that level playing field in the office.

She didn't feel she was offered the same. No. No. And so she left. And I think that's a common, a very common story. And I think it fosters from the top down, right? I think if there's executive support, no matter what company it is that supports any person trying to move up, whether it's a woman or not, but they have to teach management, make sure management's on board. I think it's a, like you said, back to that culture change.

And also on the women, us as women, we have to seek those champions. Absolutely. We can't just look for- Mentorship toward each other. Mentorship. So we can't just run away. We have to find those mentors. Because I know throughout my career, I found those mentors, and most of those mentors were people that you would never imagine that would help me out. And so just because it's a white male or it's something else that you're uncomfortable with, do not judge a book by its cover.

That person can help you. So your diversity has to come out and say, anybody can help me. I just need to find that right person. Look for the skills that you don't have and find the person with those skills, and then I think that's what helps you. And also be your own advocate. That's true. What I have learned is you have to be your own advocate. Yes, you do. And be willing to speak up. Yes. For sure.

Have your own voice. And actually own it. I mean, make sure that you have the qualifications. Make sure you have the chops to do it, because if you don't, just like anybody else, you're not going to make it. I agree. People talk a lot about making sure there's having women with certain skills. Women won't apply for certain jobs if they don't have 50% of the skills. They just won't even go for it. As for a male, they will.

But I think that's only because they don't give themselves enough chance to say, 75% I can do, 25% I can learn. And I can learn it in 30 days or whatever the day. I apply for everything and anything. My career has been so diverse. Do we think that's a confidence issue? I think so. It is. I think so. It is. Well, I think we're very detail-oriented. We were talking about that this morning. And I think if we look at a list, we think we need to meet all the criteria.

I was actually working with my sister this week on a job that she was going to be applying for. And I sent it over. I said, you know, because I ran into it, I said, are you interested? And she didn't quite meet all the qualifications. And I said, don't look at that. Are you interested? It's a wish list. And she's like, you know what? Yes, I am. So I'm glad, you know, so she's going to go for it.

Yeah, absolutely. And you have to. Yes, you have to. What's the worst that can happen? Yeah. They say no. Yeah. Big deal, right? And then she's met for something else. Yeah. And it's also the law of numbers. Okay? So if you're looking for a job, you have to apply for so many jobs a day and increase that every few days. So you start out with five a day, you go to 10 a day, you go to 20 a day, you know, and it's the law of numbers to get that, get that next job.

You don't have time to sit there and say, okay, I meet all the qualifications. That sounds good. I'm applying for that. Exactly. And you would be surprised at what comes up when you do that. Stepping out of your comfort zone, you know, taking a little bit of rest. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Another topic. Soft skills. You know, unfortunately, you know, IT folks were, that image of the IT guy in the basement, you know, it's all dark, sitting in the corner.

That is kind of shifting, or I would definitely say has shifted. From my experience, you've got to be more than, you know, have technical chops. How do you guys feel about the whole soft skills topic? I think it's important for whatever you want to do. So depending on what you want to do will depend on the type of soft skills you have and how much you need. Because one thing that I found coming along, because I came out as a OS developer, I came out on the development side out of college, and one thing that I found is anybody who like actually had a personality, they wanted to put you in front of customers.

They wanted to put you in front of the public because of what you just described as the IT guy. So did the developer who developed the product. He's described that way, or she's described that way as well. So one thing that I'm finding is that if you want to do more activities that put you more out in the public, then you do need the soft skills. You do need to understand how to present. And one thing I have, I have an executive coach.

I've had an executive coach for three years. And I'll tell you, the guy is worth it, who is here in Las Vegas, and he is just absolutely worth it. And it's made a difference in my career. It really has. And I've gotten companies to pay for it. So most of the time I'm not even paying for it. That's wonderful. That's fantastic. Yeah, that is fantastic. If you need a number, just let me know. Sometimes, you know, I wonder if companies are investing in soft skills for their employees.

They talk about it. But is there a lot of investment in it? Because I think it is important to have that, because you're going to interact with other people. Yeah, because I see it mainly in the executives, but not necessarily in folks like us. No. I'll tell you this from our perspective. We had this conversation. We had a great women's breakfast this morning, and we talked exactly about soft skills this morning. It was another topic. And one of the things that we are focused on is doing pods, so we have pods to help each other come up with skills or get better at soft skills or executive presentations or other things like that, that you really need speaking in front of people, because you can speak in front of any executive, and then you have to go do a presentation in front of your own executives, and you wonder how to speak.

So I know that we're working on that at VMware from a VMware perspective, but I mean from other companies. But even just speaking. I don't see it at all. Unless somebody shows that they have some soft skills, there's no extra training, at least in almost all of my experiences. If you want soft skills, you have to, like you said, get an executive coach, put yourself through a degree. I did my master's degree, and I also helped build soft skills by running an academic student organization.

To me, it was more about pursuing it on my own. Nobody said, go do this. Or you needed to learn XYZ. Correct. Not even speaking skills, but just getting along with your co-worker. Oh yeah. I can't tell you how much advice I'm going to hand out on that. Basic communication skills. Yes. They don't. They should, but they don't. Yes, there is a lot of that. Like writing emails, understanding how the tone of the email.

How does it come across? Yes. Always. Or certain things need to come through email rather than texting. Because 10% of our communication is the actual words. If all you have from a text or an email is words, 90% of the communication is not there. You have no idea what's going on. If you've never talked to that person, you have no idea what you're receiving or how their message is actually being delivered to you. You're guessing. Is this a tone?

It's so frustrating. It is. You're like, oh my God. I've gotten people angry and I don't even know they're angry. And then I keep going down the path. It works. And then you pick up the phone and you're like, can you explain? And you have this conversation and you're like, oh my God, I was stressed out for a minute. Took two minutes. Yeah. You know, I wish customers or companies would invest more in those basic communication skills.

It's just being a decent human being. It's very difficult though. Well, we used to learn that at home. I mean, we call that home training, but I don't know, the generations behind us didn't exactly get that home training somehow. It got missed. Are we trying to do too much? You know, we're the key of multitasking, right? Are we trying to do too much at work? Yeah, probably. I would think so. Trying to push out too many projects and not enough planning, not enough investment in the research.

We want to get done because we want to check that tick box. I'm a heavy overachiever, so I would definitely agree with that. I feel like I always have to do more just because. I tend to love the word no when I've reached my limit. You know a threshold then. You just keep piling it on until I say no, and then we're good. And I think that's important. One of the things that I have deliberately done in the last couple of few years is knowing that limit, but also I take a conscious effort not to multitask.

Good for you. I was going to say, please teach me that skill. I am serious when it comes to work. If I am writing an email, I am not answering my phone. I finish that email. You know, I noticed that you do that. Did you? I do, because I can't do that. I can't either. I'm like, keep talking to me. It's a conscious effort. If you don't set aside time for those deliberate pieces of work you're working on, I find that the quality of my work goes backwards.

So by single-tasking, the quality goes way up. And then it avoids those conversations, like the emails that we were talking about where someone didn't understand something. Because I took the time to make sure I worded it correctly and we didn't end up on that phone call 20 minutes later. And as women, we're built to multitask. We're the folks that have the five kids running around and we know what each one of them is doing. We have a conversation with each one of them at the same time.

As you're cooking dinner, doing laundry, and working. Oh, I've done that. I'm yelling at my kids, fixing something, cooking, and then fixing a server or doing a migration. And you're just like, oh my God. Are we setting ourselves up for burnout? Because that's another hot topic. Which affects men and women. So let's talk about IT burnout. Or just burnout in general. Because we're multitasking. We're trying to do too much. I think as we know, IT being fast-paced, I think a lot of us go towards the, we can do so many things.

And I like your comment about taking the time to slow down. And maybe a lot more of us should get that skill. But I think you're right. We are kind of burning out. We tend to see balls drop. And we tend to reach our hands out and grab everything. Be the juggler. Because we're built for that. I still get all my work done and then some. Just by still taking that time. And you mentioned the burnout.

That's where I was a few years ago. And I made some different changes in my career to make sure I could regain my bearings. And now I'm running again in a different way. And that single-tasking is huge for me. Yeah, I've done the same thing she's done. And it's conscious. It's a conscious effort. I will literally block out time. And I'll even put my phone on airplane mode. I'll do something. Just to stay focused for that segment of time.

But it does make a big difference. And I feel better. And the quality of my work. I feel better. I feel better. I feel better. And the quality of my work has gone up too. And it still gets done. I'm not missing deadlines. All the work is done. That was a great conversation, ladies. Thank you again for joining me. Leah, Teresa, Jodi. This has been wonderful. And thank you everybody for joining us here on the special edition of the CTO Advisor.

You can follow us on Twitter. As ExchangeGoddess. And TheLeahShube. And 24x7ITConnect. Thanks again, everybody. Have a great day.