IT in the D

Episode 7, air date: July 15, 2013 The IT in the D crew is joined by Stephanie Goodrich from Secure-24, Billy Strawter of Social Coop Media Detroit, and Jennifer Strawter of Savvy Kids Consignment... This episode was a lot of fun.  Great people in-studio, great conversations and topics, just an absolute blast. Hopefully that came through on the other side of our broadcast. Tonight...well, how could we not talk about Sharknado? We also managed to chat about our casual networking event for professionals in and around the metro Detroit information technology industry taking place this Thursday night at Blackfinn in Royal Oak, as well as what we've got going on to help out Operation Kid: Equip that night.  Other topics included the arguments and fights between sales, business and technology, recruiters and how they approach things, and a whole bunch of other great chats. You can listen live now from our show information page over at http://www.ITinTheD.com/listen/, with links to the on-site archives you can listen to via a browser, as well as into our iTunes feed and the RSS feed here from our site. For the links from tonight's episode: Information on our upcoming events can always be found here: http://www.ITinTheD.com/meet/ What we're doing with Operation: Kid Equip can be read about here: http://www.ITinTheD.com/5656/help-us-help-some-kids-next-thursday-night/ Stephanie Goodrich is a recruiter from Secure-24, and they're hiring for a ton of positions right now, including everything ranging from entry-level to senior and advanced career positions.  Their open positions can be found at http://www.secure-24.com/ Billy Strawter is with Social Coop Media Detroit, and they can help your company with any and all of your social media needs, from consulting to implementation and beyond.  They're at http://socialcoopmedia.com/ Jennifer Strawter has launched Savvy Kids Consignment at http://www.savvykidsconsignment.com/, with their next sale and event coming up at the end of September.  

Episode 6, air date: 7/8/2013 The IT in the D crew is joined by Scott Sabellico of Project Leadership Associates (http://www.projectleadership.net/) and Jeff Haase...of...well, he's a good guy, trust us... ...and both of them are long-time members of our group, and they've both been around the block a few times, which makes them great guests for our "It's a Trap!" episode talking about ways you can screw up your job, your job search, and other facets of your life. Hit the Show Archives page to listen: http://www.ITinTheD.com/listen/  

Episode V: Something, Something, Something Strikes Back is now live and available. QA is Quality Assurance, and we had two practitioners in-house to chat with us about the perils of software development and the stresses of being the ones trying to make sure things don't suck when code reaches Production environments... ...and yes, Bob totally fell asleep... Hit the Show Archives page over at http://www.ITinTheD.com/listen/ to check it out and listen, or to catch the link to find us on iTunes.

So that was fun. Welcome to Episode 4 of IT in The D, and we've got some really great guests in studio... Billy Strawter of Social Coop Media We've got Billy Strawter from Social Coop Media, and Mark from Falling Down Beer Company in with us. Social media and beer.  What more can you ask for? Billy Strawter can be found on Twitter at @bjstrawter: https://twitter.com/bjstrawter Social Coop Media can be found at http://socialcoopmedia.com/ Falling Down Beer Company can be found at https://www.facebook.com/fallingdownbeer More importantly, Falling Down Beer Company can be found at 2270 East 10 Mile Road Warren, Michigan 48091 Stop in and try the reuben eggrolls, grab a pint, and say hello to Mark for us.      

Welcome to our third episode of our "IT in The D" radio show, and we're all about networking. This time around, we've lost our Voice of Reason, but we've gained... ...Mark Brown of Brown Staffing Solutions.    

So last week's debut of "IT in The D" was kind of like Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. I mean, you already basically knew where things were going, there was only one woman in the entire galaxy room, and we even had our very own Jar Jar Binks Russ in studio with us for some comic relief.  Our drive to the studio from the bar felt like a pod race at times with some of the lunatics in beatup cars making weird noises on downtown side streets.  A weird, distorted holo-transmission phone call from afar.  The battle between Bob and the stairs was every bit as intense as the final scenes with Darth Maul. It probably shouldn't have been a surprise then when this week had some very interesting parallels with Episode 2: Attack of The Clones...   UPDATED: scroll down to the bottom for the links to listen to this episode of IT in The D Politics, plots, intrigue and all sorts of other fun taking place since our last show. But, most importantly...there's leather. I mean, come on...are you really going to try and pretend you didn't immediately whisper "Thank you, George Lucas" under your breath when, you know, that scene happened? Didn't think so. In a similar vein, there's absolutely no reason for us to lie or try and pretend that the ladies behind Girl Develop It - Detroit didn't blow our doors off last night. And yes, we kind of realize that makes us "typical"... ...to which we reply "shut up, you weren't there".  But we'll get back to that in a few, we've got a show to start. We had Davina Beh, a recruiter from iTalent that frequents our events and has hired a few people from the group, in-studio with us to comment on the women in technology theme we had going on.  We've decided that we really like having a recruiter on-hand and in-studio for the entire show, as it gives people someone to ask questions of whether by calling in or via Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/ITinTheD over the course of the night.  You can find the wide variety of positions Davina is recruiter for out on iTalent's website at http://italent-llc.com We kicked things off with a topic that's lighting up our LinkedIn group's discussion boards for the past few days, and that's the whole NSA / Verizon / Prism / Tech companies fiasco that's blowing up currently.  You should absolutely hop in at http://lnkd.in/22QFus, read up, chime in and comment.  It's a very interesting story that keeps getting more and more bizarre as each day passes, and it's definitely something to be paid attention to. The conversation evolved a little bit into the overall security realm, moving into locking down social media profiles while job seeking, and a few other hints and tips from Davina and her perspective as a recruiter. Because there's a major time/space distortion that takes place inside the studio when we're on the air, suddenly it was 9:30 and time for our first break. See? Leather. So we hopped out of the studio, and went to meet our guests for the next segment... ...and well played, ladies.  Well played. With our break rapidly coming to a close, we hopped back in the studio with our new guests, everyone got situated, and we were ready to go. As with last week's guest, the first question for Erika and Michelle was the same "What made you decide to take on the insanity of running a group like this?" From a posting on a Facebook page to a meeting over lunch, we got the story of how Girl Develop It - Detroit came into being. Erika and Michelle, while also being lovely ladies on the superficial level are also damned smart and completely committed to making things better for women in technology here in the metro Detroit area, and that's a cause we wholeheartedly support.

So Monday night was pretty awesome. You know...if we do say so ourselves. In case you missed the memo (and shame on you if you did), our "IT in The D" live internet radio show went live at 9pm on Monday night. We had some great in-studio guests, a couple phone calls, and just a great time was had by all. The best part?  This coming Monday's shaping up to be even better... UPDATE: scroll down to the bottom to catch the links that will let you listen to this episode of the IT in The D show The evening began with some pre meeting Pabst Blue Ribbons, food, and wrestling talk strategic planning over at Third Street Saloon.  If you haven't been to Third Street Saloon yet, you absolutely should.  AWESOME little place, and it's an extremely safe bet that you will find us there every Monday night before we go on the air.  If you DO go, get the "SMOG" meat pie.  Trust me. The three of us met up, along with Russ Dotson (a recruiter from Brightwing who attends our events, and was one of our in-studio guests that night) , to just basically make sure our brains were all in synch. Which, of course, had nothing to do with the conversation that actually took place. From wrestling to Tazmanian Devil impressions (don't ask - long story), we chatted about anything and everything but the show that night.  In fact, we were a little worried that we were riffing and cracking each other up so much that we should have just been recording that conversation and playing it back on the air because we'd be out of material... ...but that was hardly a realistic concern.  You know us.  We can talk for hours and Hours and HOURS and still not even be close to "empty". And so, meat pies consumed and PBRs downed, it was time to make our way over to the studio, just a few minutes up the road.  After, of course, a quick stop across the street from the bar we were at to grab some snacks for while we were in studio. And beer.  Don't think for two seconds we didn't grab more beer.  What spinach is to Popeye, beer is to us. We arrived a little on the early side, and then proceded to climb Mt Everest walk up the four flights of stairs to where the studio is.  Got ourselves situated, shook off some last minute jitters, and then made our way into the studio and took our spots.  Which looked pretty much like you'd expect it would... If you want to come on the air with us, keep reading down... At 9:00pm on the dot (I know, I know...us starting something "precisely" on time is a bit shocking...good thing we're not the ones running things here), we began. The sounds of "The Eighties" by The Killing Joke hit the airwaves...and we were rolling. The Imperial March kicked in...and we adjusted our mics, and we were off and live and ohmygod this is crazy... But we did it. And from the feedback we've gotten, both during the show (yes, "thank you" to all of the people who sent us tweets, text messages, and all sorts of other distractions during the show...jerks...lol... ) as well as afterwards, it seems like it came across as well as we hoped it would. Thanks again for coming in, Wolfgang! At 9:30, we took a break and brought J Wolfgang Goerlich in studio with us to talk about his upcoming Security BSides conference that's taking place this weekend.  While tickets are all sold out (so it was a bit of a tease, sorry), they are live streaming all of the speaker sessions and talks. If you're in or around the security field, or just have an interest in it, you really do want to pay attention to these guys. They'll have everything from a lockpick village setup to hands on hacking demonstrations and even a scavenger h...