IT in the D

IT in the D, Episode 37...and what a great time we had tonight. Bob and Dave flew without their safety net as the Voice of Reason was out of town, and miraculously, nothing seriously went awry. We were joined in-studio by Adam Kaump of One Month Apps, Tolly Marcus of Air Packet and Zing, and our go-to, unofficially official fourth horseman of the apocalypse, Jeff Haase. Couldn't have asked for a better show. Great conversations with the guests, lots of insight into cool stuff they have going on...let's go ahead and get to the details and the files so you can listen...

IT in the D, Episode 36 We're joined in studio by Mike Dennis, who valiantly tried to help us understand WTF bitcoin is all about, and the Hell Yeah Detroit guys to talk about their stories and the blurring of lines between bloggers and journalists. And it was Opening Day downtown, so there might have been some drinking involved. I know, that shocks you greatly, so listen on for the fun...

IT in the D, Episode 35. This time around we were joined by Andy and PJ from Go Comedy! Improv Theater and Neil Nosakowski of Activ8 Gaming. Both companies are located in Ferndale, and have a lot going on that you're going to want to know about. And we actually got to that in between the usual mayhem that always takes place during these shows...

IT in the D, Episode 34. For those listening last week, Bob was horrified when he realized that last Monday being the 10th meant that this Monday was the 17th, and so we'd be in the studio on St Patrick's Day. We're all very proud of him for struggling through. Some great guests also made it in-studio with us on this greenest of days, including Gary, Elyse and April from Brightwing, our old buddy Russ Dotson who's back on leave for a couple weeks from his deployment overseas, and Adam from the DLux Expo popped in for a segment, which resulted in a couple rather random celebrity phone calls into the show. All in all, a great night...so on with the recap...

IT in The D, Episode 33. I'm pretty sure that my favorite part of tonight's episode was when Bob had the stunning realization that tonight was the 10th... ...which means next Monday is the 17th... ...which means we're in the studio on St Patrick's Day. He didn't seem amused. However, that didn't get in the way of us having one hell of a time tonight with Steve from Arrow Strategies, one of our sponsors for Thursday's Pink Slip Party event at St Andrews Hall, along with David, Bryan and Amanda - the good folks from Bamboo Detroit, and we finally talked the (in)famous Doctor J from Hell Yeah Detroit into hopping on the mic with us for a while...

IT in The D, Episode 32. We experienced some serious technical difficulties with the show last night - the live stream had some problems, and it turns out that the recording did as well. So...publishing this partial version which contains the first hour of the show for now, with the hope that recovery efforts will be successful and we'll have the rest available shortly. Because oh, man did we have some cool stuff happen during tonight's episode as Adam "D Lux" Lux joined us in-studio tonight...

IT in The D, Episode 31. We're joined in-studio by veteran guest Billy Strawter of Social Coop Media, as well as newcomer Julie Van Ameyde of Simply Social Media, along with Jeff Haase, who somehow keeps getting roped into these things. As you'd expect, we covered a whole host of social media topics with those two on-hand, but that hardly begins to cover everything we talked about in this episode...

IT in the D, Episode 30. We had Hajj Flemings as our in-studio guest to talk about his areas of expertise like branding, social media personas, and everything else he's got going on these days. Detroit's Largest Selfie. The #DetroitWeek hashtag and activities. And a bunch more. He's a busy guy with a lot of irons in the fire, and it was great to sit down and chat with him about it all. That just scratches the surface though, because oh, did we have some fun with the latest news and events...

IT in the D, Episode 29. No guests this time around, and it's just Jeff and Dave in-studio, joined a bit by Karen from The Corner with K-Hubb and Marcus from the band My Perfect Nightmare. A lot of the basics about our upcoming events got covered, as well as a whole bunch of the latest news, stories, and all sorts of fun. So let's go ahead and get to the recap... The night started off early for me sitting in with K-Hubb's show from 7-9 before our show got started, and I had an absolute blast. Jeff joined in for our normal 9pm start time, and away we went. We started off chatting about some of the basics of our events, and specifically about our next two upcoming ones - a casual networkign event next week, and our Pink Slip Party on 3/13. Thursday, February 20th. Clinton Township. Detroit Pub at 14 and Harper. You can find all of the details, a map, etc., out on our events page at http://www.ITinTheD.com/meet/, on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ITintheD, or in our Meetup group at http://www.meetup.com/ITintheD/. Should be a great night, looking forward to seeing everyone there. Our next event after that will be one of our Pink Slip Party events.  Thursday, March 13th down at St Andrews Hall. If you're not familiar with the difference between our "normal" events and our Pink Slip Party events, we have some handy-dandy Frequently Asked Questions for you, and those are located out at http://www.ITinTheD.com/meet/faq/ Want to read up on our last two events?  Here are a few links: - Our 3/13/13 recap: http://www.ITinTheD.com/5084/the-31313-pink-slip-party-recap/ - Our 3/13/13 event: http://blog.thedetroithub.com/2013/03/19/it-in-the-d-made-job-hunting-awesome-at-st-andrews-hall/ - Our 9/19/13 recap: http://www.ITinTheD.com/6314/919-pink-slip-party-recap/ - our 9/19/13 event: http://www.dailydetroit.com/2013/09/23/finding-a-job-can-be-a-party-pink-slip-party-brought-hundreds-together-to-find-jobs/ Literally hundreds and hundreds of people.  There aren't many better opportunities than this in the area for you to get your name out to your target demographic. We're in the middle of locking things down with companies who have expressed an interest in sponsoring this event, but there's still time if you want to get in front of some of the best and brightest folks in the metro Detroit information technology community.  There are only four slots available.  We're not playing favorites here and holding things until the last minute, so those slots will go to whomever books them with us first.  It's that simple. And yep, we've finally sat down and created an entire media kit.  So if you want to see some numbers, demographics, and statistics on what sponsoring and helping us pull these events together can get you, drop us a note and let's chat: http://www.ITinTheD.com/contact-us/ Then we got into a whole host of topics.  The "eating room" craze in South Korea where people are paying to watch webcams...of people eating.  A reminder about the Agile and Beyond conference on the 21st and 22nd from last week's episode.  Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner heading to metro Detroit while filming.  Robocop, Mad Max, Total Recall...and movie remakes in general.  The Recliner Principle and how I fell victim to it.  CVS taking a $2 billion hit by stopping selling cigarettes...and what a hypocritical move that is.  The latest hack...this time of Comcast. So, all that and more.  Listen in below, and join us next week when we've got Hajj Flemings in as a guest and for future episodes as well. The Corner with K-Hubb: https://www.facebook.com/TheCornerWithKHubb My Perfect Nightmare: https://www.

IT in the D, Episode 28: Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls We're joined in-studio by our guests from Agile and Beyond, making a repeat appearance to talk about their conference coming up in a few weeks...and they've got a special offer for you. So let's go ahead and dive in... Return guest Tom Churchwell and his partner in crime Jason Dinkelmann came in to talk Agile and Beyond. Along the way we learned that Bob doesn't understand how landmines work.  Or how hovercraft work. We also talked about cops in Rome using Twitter to crack down on bad parking, why the Superbowl is everything wrong with business today, the ads from Coke and Chrysler that stirred up some controversy, a bunch of Kinect systems wired up in the DMZ between North and South Korea, a printing press seized in Quebec that was used to print millions of counterfeit $20 bills...and more. But then we dove into what agile is. Is it a methodology?  A way of life? Is it for developers?  For project managers? For the technical side?  The business side? Apparently the answer to all of those is "yes"!  They've got more than 50 speakers covering multiple tracks, so it doesn't matter if you're a complete novice who doesn't know the first thing about agile or a seasoned veteran, this is sure to be a great conference.  And to make it even better... USE DISCOUNT CODE ITinTheD AND GET FIFTY BUCKS OFF YOUR REGISTRATION!  GO, GO NOW!!  http://www.agileandbeyond.com/ The Agile and Beyond Conference: http://www.agileandbeyond.com/ (reminder: your discount code is ITinTheD) Books and great teaching aids for your kids FREE for just a small shipping fee (tell friends, tell teachers): http://www.mfefamily.org/ The IT in the D Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ITinTheD IT in the D on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ITinTheD The ITintheD.com Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ITintheD ITintheD.com on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ITintheD Listing of our upcoming events: http://www.ITinTheD.com/meet/

IT in the D, Episode 27. Our second broadcast of the year. Just the three of us hanging out and talking about quite a few topics that caught our eye in the past couple of weeks... Why do a solid chunk of information technology professionals say they love their career...but won't tell people what they do? Why does Governor Snyder want the US Government to rewrite immigration laws for Detroit? Writers can, perhaps, get a free house in downtown Detroit...and we might want one.  We're writers, after all. How are Angry Birds and the Facebook app giving away your information? With all of the chaos surrounding the Super Bowl and the Olympics in Russia...is it even worth it to try and go to "huge" events any more?  Or even the movies? All that and a bunch more (which, yes, means we rambled a bit) on this episode of IT in the D. The IT in the D Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ITinTheD IT in the D on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ITinTheD The ITintheD.com Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ITintheD ITintheD.com on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ITintheD Listing of our upcoming events: http://www.ITinTheD.com/meet/ The Write a House project: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/19/write-a-house-detroit_n_4474976.html Angry Birds and the NSA: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/nsa-gchq-smartphone-app-angry-birds-personal-data Snyder and immigration: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9245728/Detroit_wants_its_own_high_tech_visa Google, NEST, and more of your data and habits: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/01/14/google_nest_acquisition_internet_of_things_is_next_frontier_for_data_machine.html    

IT in the D, Episode 26. Our first broadcast of 2014. We had no guests when we hit our pre-show meeting spot...and then suddenly we had a full house. Great set of guests too, with some really solid topics... We had Ben Fraser and Mike Evans in from PishPosh.tv, as well as our recurring friend of the program Jeff Haase. Covering everything from 3D printing to 80s music to the Insane Clown Posse and more, this episode was a blast. We're definitely going to have these guys back in for another round in the near future. PishPosh TV: http://pishposh.tv/ The IT in the D Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ITinTheD IT in the D on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ITinTheD The ITintheD.com Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ITintheD ITintheD.com on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ITintheD Listing of our upcoming events: http://www.ITinTheD.com/meet/

IT in the D, Episode 25. We decided that the last broadcast of the year would be just the three of us hanging out, chatting about news, events, and just about any topic that popped into our heads over the course of two hours.  We even had the saucy little minx who hosts the show before ours, K-Hubb, join us to try and keep us in line. Didn't really work... The IT in the D Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ITinTheD IT in the D on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ITinTheD The ITintheD.com Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ITintheD ITintheD.com on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ITintheD Listing of our upcoming events: http://www.ITinTheD.com/meet/ Karen's show can be found at https://www.facebook.com/TheCornerWithKHubb

IT in the D, Episode 24. It's almost Christmas, and so let's chat about some good stuff going on in the area... Recapping our last event of 2013 at Rochester Mills, talking Code Michigan and all sorts of fun stuff with guest Cliff Nowicki. Oh, and we came up with a great new business model for any company that needs development done... Not going to even try and hide it, we had some serious technical difficulties with the raw recording on this one.  It's a little blown-out sounding and wound up being shorter than our other episodes as a result of the cleanup, but there's still a lot of solid information in here. You can find Cliff at http://www.cliffnowicki.com/ The IT in the D Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ITinTheD IT in the D on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ITinTheD The ITintheD.com Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ITintheD ITintheD.com on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ITintheD Listing of our upcoming events: http://www.ITinTheD.com/meet/

IT in the D, Episode 23. IT in the D learned all about IT in the O.C. last night, as we were joined in-studio by Phil Bertolini, CIO and Deputy County Executive for Oakland County. Great episode, and we learned a lot about things going on with Oakland County that a lot of folks probably don't even think about or realize are taking place... In our first segment, as always, we handled basic introductions and then dove into news and events that have caught our eye...which turned out to mostly involve fire this time around.  Conspiracy theories about the fires breaking out at The Heidelberg Project that have destroyed three of the houses.  The weird thing that happens that makes people burn things to celebrate.  Riots in Brazil at a soccer match...that hadn't even started yet...and the inevitable wondering about how they're going to handle World Cup traffic next year.  A lesson learned by Samsung about social media and how not to treat your customers when their phone literally melts down.  We also lightly touched on the recently opened customer support center for GM that brought 300 jobs back here from Argentina, and how part of what they do is social media monitoring. For our second segment, we dove right in with our in-studio guest, Phil Bertolini, CIO and Deputy County Executive for Oakland County.  He had mentioned something before the break about alternate ways that government entities can make money outside of the usual taxation model on their citizens...and hey, we're all in favor of that...and it was a perfect segue into what Oakland County is doing with their G2gCloud offering.  "G2G" stands for "Government to Government" - G2G Cloud Solutions was developed by Oakland County, Michigan to improve government services by sharing technology with other government agencies at little or no cost, therefore reducing the cost of government.  So Oakland County lowers their own infrastructure costs by effectively becoming a cloud services provider to other government entities in Michigan and around the country.  A very cool idea, and one that's definitely challenging the conception most people have that government / public sector work isn't cutting edge or worth looking at closely for a challenging career.  We also chatted about the differences between IT in the private sector and public sector, and what different issues and obstacles exist in government operations that most of us probably aren't familiar with in our day to day private sector. When our third segment started, we finally remembered that we have our Support The Troops event Thursday night and should probably talk about that a little bit.  Rochester Mills in Rochester Hills, 5:01pm start time like always, and the Frequently Asked Questions document you should read can be found here: http://www.ITinTheD.com/6807/support-the-troops-faq-2013/.  After that chat and reminder we were right back in with Phil talking about how Oakland County is run from an operational and budgetary perspective, and why they haven't faced the same issues that a lot of other municipalities around the nation have because of the way they manage things.  We doubled back on G2g, talked through some of the "day in the life" issues that are dealt with on a daily basis when you're working for a government office, and how they map their strategy to their operational plans and are constantly measuring against both to ensure that they're doing the right thing for Oakland County's citizens.  How the three pillars that L. Brooks Patterson focuses on are Financial Management, Economic Development and Technology as a matter of everything going on.  A bit about cybersecurity and the balance between "enabling citizens access to do things" and "keeping their data secure", and how Phil wound up as the CIO of Oakland County in the first place. For our fourth and final segment,