Ken Patterson of Todyl

[00:00:00] Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to August 6, 2024. Today is actually a Tuesday. And this is another edition of the MSP Initiative MSP talk. We're going to get some housekeeping out of the way like we do at the beginning of all these sessions and then we'll get

[00:00:21] on with all of the good stuff MSP initiative.com. Here's where this recorded session and every other recorded session will be listed as well as our YouTube page, podcast page and all that good stuff. You can scroll backwards, download, subscribe forward, all that good stuff. Yeah,

[00:00:39] please do that. We do these for you. So follow us there. Then we have MSP Community Mines. We did one of these in Nashville earlier this year. So in September 25th and 26th, we are

[00:00:50] coming to Denver, which was the original place of MSP Community Mines where we launched different venues, same town. So again, September 25th, 26th, we have the agenda posted, the schedule for the two day event, our panelists, which are MSPs like you from the trenches

[00:01:06] and our expert speakers who are doing two hour workshops with no credit cards wiped at the end, you will actually learn something and it is meant for you to actually, you know, get a non-pitched learning session on many topics. So this event is absolutely

[00:01:22] free other than you have to get there. Please come and register MSP Community Mines Denver again, September 25th, 26th. Then we have the remainder of our five, not four, not three, not two, but five. My LeBron. Now forget that. Block Party's left for the

[00:01:38] rest of the year. We have IT Nation Australia coming up literally in like, I don't know, a week and a half. So if you're headed down under, we will be there on August 21st, right after the welcome reception. Walk literally down the street and you will meet us

[00:01:54] at Cargo Bar in Darling Harbor and we will be doing our first MSP Community Block Party in Sydney. There's a second one coming up, but stay tuned. Then we're going to Germany if you're going to Paxsapion, the Berlin. Connect with us

[00:02:10] on October 14th. It'll be right on the second night of Paxsapion, Berlin, where we'll be going to a brewery, Berlin brewery right after October fest. Sounds about right. Then we go to Miami to DattoCon and on the 29th of October at

[00:02:29] the fountain blue inside of the venue. We have a space for a MSP Community Block Party. So you will see us there. And then second to last IT Nation Orlando where we are in the middle of negotiating our special band. Two years

[00:02:47] ago, American rejects last year. Better than Azure Sugar Ray Tonic this year, TBD. But we're coming to you. So be the first night of IT Nation Orlando and right after the welcome reception down the street like we did last year and the

[00:03:01] year before, you can see we've got a bunch of people already involved here. Definitely check that out and stay tuned for our entertainment announcement. And then lastly, we go back number two to Sydney for DattoCon, Sydney.

[00:03:15] And again, on November 12th, you got to walk right down the street and we will block party you until you can no longer be block party. Of course, you'll see our industry calendar and our deals on the website. If you can take

[00:03:30] advantage of either of those, do that. And let's not forget in like literally 30 days from now, the NFL season begins and the Eagles and the Packers will be opening up the league schedule in Brazil. How about them apples? Should I call up the Fast and the Furious team?

[00:03:53] Meet you down there, you know? I don't know. There you go. There you go. There's all the good stuff. We welcome a no stranger to the show. It's been a minute, but you know, we talked to Ken always behind the curtain.

[00:04:06] Our good friend, Ken Patterson, back on the show. Kenny P. You know, just like it feels like yesterday, the bus was rolling. We were rolling out of America. You know, actually, you know, it's funny. We still talk to people who bring up that bus.

[00:04:22] And before the bus, they talked about boats. Before the boats, they talked about rooftops, but the bus was not that long ago. Yeah, we still, I've been at a few events in the last couple of months. I'm lucky I remember my name right now.

[00:04:37] But yeah, we had, we were just at Channel Con, which, you know, it's funny. You think about, you know, the events and you think of Channel Con, you say, oh, there's so many vendors, right? And, you know, you have Bob Coppidge on this side that says,

[00:04:54] hey, but I love the idea that I get to see vendors that I never see anywhere else, right? At this big event. And then you have other people who are like, I'm vented out. I'm scared. I walk in there and there's all these vendors.

[00:05:05] I got to say, A, they did a better job this year with the separation of the vendors. It wasn't as compact and squeezed in like it was in Vegas. It was open, was very bright. And they had a better floor plan for that specific part of it.

[00:05:22] But in general, I feel like there was a lot of collaboration going on. A lot more conversations going on. And from that perspective, I liked it a lot better this year than I did last year from a standpoint of, from a collaboration standpoint,

[00:05:39] it seemed like just more people open, especially vendor to vendor. You know how that goes. Well, there's like three vendors to every one MSP at Channel Con. So right, there's a lot of vendors there. Right. Listen, there's no doubt about it.

[00:05:53] There's a whole bunch of vendors, but I will also say it's like going to Philadelphia for an Eagles game home game. There's going to be more Eagles fans than the opposing team. That's just how it goes. So you're always going to work that thing in there.

[00:06:05] Well, yeah, I mean, I can't help it. It's my perfect analogy. I mean, you got to go to Channel Con. There's going to be like 300 vendors and 100 MSPs. That's how it's going to be. It was separate from that piece too. Also, the content was better.

[00:06:18] I felt like the content was really, really good. And again, it wasn't a whole lot of pitchiness, if any, a lot. I sat in a lot of the panels and the panels were very well thought out. The questions and the answers were done very well.

[00:06:34] I think that's where we're, you know, you know this, we've been doing this for how long now. Panels are the way to go. Yeah, but people actually need to show up. This is the problem. I know. I know. But the bus conversation did come up at Channel Con.

[00:06:52] One person who didn't know that's what we were doing was like, wait, oh, that was a thing for COVID. I just thought that was a, you know, traveling circus type thing. And I'm like, well, it's a little column A, a little column B,

[00:07:03] but it was really mostly because of COVID. We had nowhere to go. Nobody was, you know, no one was going out and doing anything. And George and I being the people that we are, A, we love community and B, we were getting bored.

[00:07:16] It's true. We were very bored. Like everybody in their basement and yeah, yeah, we needed to do something different. And the open road was that different. And by the way, every time I passed like a pre-vose on the highway, now that I know what those are,

[00:07:32] yeah, that's cool. I wonder how much that one goes for. So yeah, that was what a time, man, America by road. Yeah, if you ever get, I know a lot of people do the whole RV, you know, camper thing,

[00:07:45] but it really is a crazy big country that, you know, I always tell my stat, my Jeopardy stat, right? It's like, well, how much of the nation's current population are between, you know, like Boston, Pittsburgh and Washington, DC? Like everybody guesses, guesses, guesses.

[00:08:01] And it's like, OK, 41% is the answer. Well, that leaves 60. Yeah, that's almost half the country in like just this little triangle. Right, right. A whole big rest of the country with a Donald. Yeah, with those people, the rest of the people spread out. So we covered all that.

[00:08:18] We covered that land. I mean, there's not much that we didn't cover. That first trip was it. 9000. That was a little. Yeah, 9000 miles or something crazy. And that was before I drove you back to Boston and got pulled over.

[00:08:34] Yes, that was before you had to drive me back. That was the original trip where we couldn't go home. We couldn't do anything for three weeks. Well, some people did. You and I did not. Yes, our states were a little bit sketch on the once you once

[00:08:50] you leave and come back rules. But hey, it's all good. We figured it out. We made it. It's in the book. And and. You know, you know, time has passed, but Kenny P is still the same. George might be a little bit slimmer, but I'm still the same.

[00:09:04] But you are. Which is a lot slimmer. You you are a different company. OK, I am. I am. Let's hear all about that. Yeah, you know, like, well, I mean, it's a little bit more surprising for me, right?

[00:09:19] I think we all know that I'm no gypsy and I'm not going to pop around from place to place. I wanted to find a home. But I really felt like in just, you know, in pure transparency, which, you know, that's who Kenny P is,

[00:09:34] Total was the first company to come talk to me when I left PAX. They were like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to say like they literally were right on top of that conversation

[00:09:44] through some MSPs that were like, oh, we need you over here type of conversation. And they just weren't ready. Admittedly, they're smart. They're smart group of people and they knew they weren't ready,

[00:09:54] but man, they wanted to, you know, put it make it be known that they love to have me. And I'm at the time, you know, Taylor Business Group was the right fit through you. Of course, we had conversations and we chatted.

[00:10:04] We had conversations for MSPs that were thirsty for community, right? We have a lot of, we have a lot of mutual friends that are members of TBG and wanted that and asked for that. And, you know, Taylor stepped up and said, hey, we're going to do this.

[00:10:18] We're going to make this happen. So it worked out well. I got to help a lot of MSPs. I got to do a lot of events with them and get things rolling in the right direction.

[00:10:27] But then as things started coming down the road this year, Total got more ready. And, you know, there were some things, some, you know, some powers that be that were shifting as far as what Taylor Business Group was going to do

[00:10:41] and the direction they were going to go in. And the direction that Total was going in was complete and utter community. And I couldn't ignore the fact that they basically started with, hey, we just got funded and we want to make a major investment in community.

[00:10:56] We know that first step is you. You know, so that's step number one. Right? You got to have the money and you got to have the bandwidth to be able to handle what that entails going into the community.

[00:11:08] It's not just hiring some person that you think is a face and that's it. People come. It's about building that and having the roadmap that says we're going to go to these events. This is our strategic way of doing it.

[00:11:19] This is how we're going to measure it and all of those things. And they understood that. Some of the keys though, George was talking to the people at Total and talking to the MSPs, right? I know a few MSPs and, you know, putting it up there.

[00:11:35] Yeah, putting it out there and talking to you. MSPs, it was all it was all the same thing. The tools that Total has are amazing. The tech is amazing. Well, crap, that's the hardest part, right? The tech's amazing. What's the problem?

[00:11:49] Oh, some communication, some community type stuff, the bigger things. Those are all things that I can change and help with, right? Help grow there. So for me, it's like, OK, the tech is good. They need help with community. How about leadership? Where's leadership's heads at?

[00:12:07] And I got to be honest, man, talking to the CEO of Total was a breath of fresh air. It was completely different. Initially, obviously, like most CEOs, right, they they don't want anybody talking about their baby, right? Someone comes in and tells George B.

[00:12:23] Vivoj has got this problem, that problem. In the beginning, you were probably like, yeah, no way. No way. My product is great, right? That's how CEOs act, because it's their baby. They put their blood, sweat and tears into it.

[00:12:33] And I think much like you, the CEO at Total has evolved and understands that he needs that feedback and he needs to understand what's hitting and what's not hitting. And it was just the passion that he had when he talked to me

[00:12:46] about community really got to me, sunk in quick, much like John Street. When I talked to John back in the day with Pax 8, like, wow. This person really gets it and understands what he wants to change and how he wants to change and he's willing to change.

[00:13:03] That's the biggest thing, right? And so now the cry for Total now is community and we're going to push to make community better. And it's going to take all the MSPs and everybody out there and our team to work together and do that.

[00:13:17] But for me, this is like the next big thing as far as what Total is doing now and their focus on the actual community. Sure, we have the tech, tech's cool. But like you know, it's about those solutions working

[00:13:31] and how they work with the community to make them better. Yeah, no, 100%. I mean, listen, it's an often used word. If I, you know, it's almost like overused in a lot of cases. But I'm glad you found the place that, you know, sees the world

[00:13:47] the way that, you know, you've been living at, which is great. Like community is great. But again, you know, it's a big word that's used in a lot of different ways. And I think that more of it would be good, right?

[00:14:02] You know, but at the end of the day, I just think it comes down to feels like the people, the bigger companies with the bigger bank accounts are the people who usually go down this lane, right?

[00:14:14] Because it's not, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot, especially in our space, right? A technology land, software land, right? Like you spend money, you hope to make money back, right? Community is not necessarily the same conversation.

[00:14:26] So, you know, it's interesting that these guys are wired that way, right? Right. Right. Well, I mean, look, you've done it. You're not huge, but you found a way to tap into community by saying, I lived it. I breathed it. I understand the pains you're going through.

[00:14:44] And when someone tells you something's wrong, you fix it. Like it's not that difficult. From that perspective, right? It's just a, it blows my mind that people find that so difficult. And by the way, the bigger companies aren't exactly buying into community.

[00:15:00] All they're doing, a lot of them are doing are naming people community. Oh, hey, John, so and so you're a pretty good salesman. Now we're going to call you community. And it's like, wait, that's not how it works. Community is not about your customers. That customers are customers.

[00:15:14] Your community are people who actually believe in what you do and are stark raving fans of what you do. Right. And we, you know, Bol says it, Eric Bol says it best. Community is not about belonging to something. Community is about belonging to something that makes belonging matter.

[00:15:30] And that's the difference. And just having customers doesn't do that because there's a lot of companies that have way more customers than any of us in the IT field, but they also hate that company. They're stuck. They're tied to them. Right. And so that's the difference.

[00:15:44] If you really want to make a difference and make a community, you got to go to where the community is and find out what they need, what makes them happy and work with them and show them that the stuff

[00:15:54] they're saying to you matters and that you're making changes based on those. I've witnessed you do it. I go to your pack meetings. I've seen it. I've seen people come to you with a problem and at first you're like, oh, that's weird.

[00:16:05] And then next thing you know, we're at another pack meeting and they're like, hey, this thing was fixed. That's how it should work. It's that it's that it really is basic. Go to where your community lives. Learn, work with them and make the changes that they want.

[00:16:20] I wonder why Microsoft doesn't do that. Hey, remember Microsoft? We got to give them credit. They did have the bus back in the day. Yeah, they did. Now way back in the day. Way back. I wonder if CrowdStrike listens to the community.

[00:16:36] Oh, well, I don't know if this ten dollar lunch, you've already given cards, but it went over so well. Well, first of all, it had to work and it did. Right. So it didn't work. It had problems. It has problems across the be right.

[00:16:53] That's not a hey, we know our people type of thing because it affected. Everybody right. So who you sending that to it affected. And I still say this, the worst people in the middle of all this is the MSPs that did all that work for free

[00:17:10] went out, fixed all these problems because they recommended CrowdStrike. Right. And right wrong and different. I'm not bashing anybody because I do believe that especially a company of that size, something like this can happen even with the best processes. Although I do believe there's some process there

[00:17:25] that probably could have helped. I still believe it could happen to when you're that large, things like that can happen. But you got to have a way of fixing it quicker. I guess it seems like it took a lot longer to fix. And now they're blaming Delta

[00:17:39] because they said they told Delta they'd help and Delta didn't take the help and Delta is suing them and none of it's good because now one lawsuit, you know that leads to many more lawsuits. But who in the middle of all this, right?

[00:17:53] The people that were at the hospitals and we're ready to go and get operated on and couldn't got affected, right? Okay. The people flying had to deal with, you know, 30 hour or deals, but is that worse than being in a hospital ready to be operated on

[00:18:09] and have to flip the switch? I don't know. It depends on your situation. But out of all of it, I feel like the MSPs got hit the hardest. The people in the trenches got hit the hardest because they- Oh, it's not, I mean, they got hit.

[00:18:21] It's not over yet. They're still in the- Right, no, they're still doing it, right, exactly. George, I went to my doctor. Yeah. I went to my doctor at the end of the week when it was supposedly, you know, everybody was back and fixed except for Delta.

[00:18:34] And walked into my doctor's office, everything looked good, but I had to go to the lab. I walk over to the lab, there's 20 people in the lab. There's never 20 people in the lab. I look over, there's a girl behind the computer.

[00:18:46] I walk over on, you know, typical IT guy. I'm like, is there anything I can help with? She's like, no, we know what it is. It was that whole thing, but the text came in and only did the doctor's office, not the lab.

[00:18:59] So it was still affecting, you're right, those one-offs that the places where maybe someone didn't think would have the same problem. So I got delayed a little bit for my blood work. It wasn't the end of the world. But I still say, like you said,

[00:19:13] the MSPs, they're in a position, because you're right, they're still dealing with it. Oh yeah, and they will, they're at the business side of this, it still hasn't shaken out, right? It might take some time, but somebody's gotta come in and ask that question. It's coming.

[00:19:27] It is coming. And like we've seen stories like this happen before, right? Not specifically this company, but other companies in the sandbox. And, you know, listen, it's not, it's not pretty conversation. It's not a fun conversation. Quite frankly, it's a very unhappy conversation, but it's gonna happen.

[00:19:47] And when it does, there's gonna be a conversation about comma zeros and dollars or whatever you see that you... I'd like to think that we could learn something from it, right? Can people, can you learn something? First off, let's start at the top. PR, the whole mess.

[00:20:04] That CEO should have never got on TV the next day and not been prepared. He was sweating bullets. He looked horrible and his message was not great. It's like, yeah, he might have... I think he did say we did it. He didn't point the finger, right?

[00:20:17] No, but he's also the same. He also had a previous job with something like this happened just so you know. Look it up. Oh, is that right now? There's a previous job. Anyway, let's look at some of them. I don't know the handling of this

[00:20:31] was great from that perspective. And this comes into planning, George, right? When you're talking about, hey, if something goes wrong publicly, what's our plan? Yeah. It didn't seem like they had that plan in place. Uh-huh. Yeah, I look at you like navigating. I have, I have.

[00:20:48] Oh, oh, oh, I see. Oh, well, why are you hiding it? Why don't we just share with everybody? Why do you make me Google? I'm not hiding it. I was just saying that there's been another, there was something previously that wasn't handled great like from that perspective.

[00:21:02] And it's just like, if you gotta learn something from these things, it's not like, oh my God, you know, everybody has to kick people when they're down, but learning from it. This happens, if this happens, what would we do? How would we react? What's our message?

[00:21:21] And I've seen good PR people in place of, that do these things. And now I, and I didn't know why at the time they were so damn rigid, but now I do. Yeah. You gotta have a plan. Wow. Yeah.

[00:21:33] I mean, listen, he's been at CrowdStrike for a long time. He was at McAfee before. McAfee was where the other mess happened. And then he was at Pricewaterhouse, you know, back in the day, in the 90s. Okay. All right. 50, 59 years old and front and center

[00:21:51] on the television worldwide. Nice haircut. It's a tough situation to be in no matter what. And we don't want, like I said, I wanna see, I would like to see some, what are little lessons learned? Are we all now starting to look within it processes

[00:22:05] and making sure that we have backups and the backups when it comes to process? Who would ever thought that an issue with process would lead to the biggest shutdown over a hack, over an incident, a security incident? I'll tell you this.

[00:22:24] I said, it's totally irony that the security software that's supposed to prevent the big incident was the big incident. Like I can't help but like, you know, find something there. I mean, the other part was, and again, I can't help but saying it

[00:22:40] because I've been saying over and over again, but it's so true. It's like all of the budget places that were like, we don't wanna pay for the higher expensive security. They were the people that were like, business as usual. Yeah, that's cause some of them,

[00:22:52] that's Southwest is bragging about still being on their Commodore 64s, you know? Windows 3.1, but I digress as well. I ain't like, come on, you gotta admit, like the budget airlines, you know, did you hear Spirit apparently is gonna abandon budget

[00:23:07] and now they wanna go for higher end clientele? Did you hear this? Really? And did you hear Southwest is ditching the, as some, our mutual friend says, the cow boarding process? Yeah, yeah, I did hear about Southwest finally doing that. They're all a mess.

[00:23:24] And Spirit, how is Spirit gonna go after higher clientele? They'd have to completely redo their planes. The plane that I was on, I was sitting like in an aluminum church chair. It felt like, and it had a bungee cord holding shit in the back. I'm like, how?

[00:23:36] I'm not, George, I felt like if I looked out the window, I'd see guys with a big elastic pulling the plane back to launch it. Like, let it go. It just, how do you, separate from all the crap that they do on the outside,

[00:23:48] the planes themselves look low budget. But did they get there? I was scared shitless, just gonna say it. And bleep that part out. I have a colleague of mine down in Australia that said there are two airlines in Australia

[00:24:05] that have gone under, closed their doors this year already. Of course the budget ones. It's like, oh, interesting. When was the last time you saw an airline go, imagine you show up for your flight and they're like, oh, sorry, we're out of business. Have a nice day.

[00:24:21] We had a TWA go. Yeah. Did someone take that or a TWA just go away? No, somebody did take that. I mean, TWA was the last time you saw that name. It was like the 90s, early 90s. If I'm watching movies. Home Alone?

[00:24:38] That's the only time I'm seeing that one. Home Alone. Which is still doing great by the way. I mean, it's the residuals, I'm sure. Of course. So yeah, I mean, listen, community, $10 Uber gift cards probably doesn't help the community aspect. I guess they try.

[00:24:56] You know what almost reminds me, Ken? Of when I got $1.68 Dairy Queen gift cards. I was supposed to be good enough for an ice cream cup. Right. From where? Dairy Queen. Oh, so it was from Dairy Queen, okay. Yeah, it was like, I got like 3,000 of those.

[00:25:17] Yeah, obviously some programs are better than others when they're trying to say thank you. I think Uber Eats does the same thing. It's like after you've spent $2,000 with them, they send you a little 10% off or something. Or get your first drink free. And oh, they always do it.

[00:25:36] Here's the best, George. Knowing your audience. Uber Eats almost always offers me a buy one, get one free deal at a place that I've never gone to. Right? Obviously they're trying to entice me to go to these places, but if you see my history

[00:25:51] and you know my history, why not pick the places that I'm always doing and give me a little love back? Because there's a lot of money spent there. Like, you know, it's like, hey Ken, you know, 20% off of Costco Schwarma. Costco Schwarma? To be honest with you, Ken,

[00:26:10] I don't know if I'm eating that just again. There you go. That's what I'm saying. See what I'm saying? Yeah, like. Even though, you know, according to Ryan Reynolds, the Avengers put Schwarma on the map. Oh, is that how it worked out?

[00:26:26] Pretty sure Schwarma for anyone that's, you know, from Middle Eastern background has been around for a long. Oh no, but he's just, you know what he's talking about from the scene when they all go get Schwarma. I know that, yeah, the after scene, yeah. No, it's been around.

[00:26:42] Have you seen it? Have you seen Deadpool and Wolverine yet? Oh yeah, I saw it. I got my Deadpool and Wolverine cup. Oh, you got the cup? Oh yes, 100% yes. So yeah, we can't spoil it, but if you haven't seen it, go see it.

[00:26:59] Absolutely worth seeing so many digs. I think I might have to watch it again just to catch up on all the things that are on there. Well, I'll tell you what, if you were a fan of the X-Men movies. Right. And the, you know, like all the Fox,

[00:27:17] all of the Fox properties, you will be very happy with this movie because they really did a great job. I like, I knew your big Disney guy, but Disney bought Fox 20 Century, which is how they got access to all of the rights to all of the...

[00:27:39] Oh dude, referenced about 50 times in the movie so good. Oh, they took every shot that could be taken. No question. And you know what? Good on them. Like, you know, it was funny, you know, they, you know, it was very good. So like bottom line is,

[00:27:58] I'm very, I'm very... I was very happy with it. I did not get the popcorn bucket. No. I did get the cup with the little guy on top. And I probably need to go back and see it a second time to like catch up on all the references.

[00:28:16] This is just the first Deadpool, the first Deadpool, I must have watched the first Deadpool three times at home just to catch every reference and all the... Cause he delivers comedy so fast and dry. It's like, you know, all of these little things where you're like,

[00:28:33] oh my God, that's hilarious. Yeah. So do it again. Can they, like, I'm sure at some point they've done it with Batman, they've done it with Superman, they've done it with all these characters. But this guy's been playing Wolverine for 20-something years.

[00:28:48] He's the only, he's the only Wolverine. They really put another character in there. I mean... Oh, I mean, like you said, they own you for the next 90 years. I mean, this guy has crushed that role. Yep. And by the way, look at him. He's a freaking beast.

[00:29:04] It's crazy. Well, there is a character called Beast. So let's be careful. Yeah, I know. Don't want to confuse you, but yeah. Now he's just in absolute great shape. So he's perfect for the role. Still killed. But totally off guard. Side question.

[00:29:19] Is it true that you have to pay to use a trash can at Disney World? What? You got to use your band to unlock the trash can? No, that is absolutely not true. Who told you that? I don't know. I heard this somewhere and I was like...

[00:29:31] That is not true. They charge you 50 cents for the trash can for 30 seconds. No. No. No. I've been all around that park never once, ever in a million new. Nope. And they even have trash cans that talk to you and follow you around. So no.

[00:29:47] Okay. I just wanted to make sure. Yeah. No. Yeah. I haven't done the magic band. I don't have one. I was in Disney before all of the cool technology that they have. You got to get one. Like when you just handed them a ticket, you know, old school.

[00:30:02] Yeah. Right. But now when you walk around, you use it for so many things. Your daughter will be happy but you won't. And you can never miss it. And looping right back around the football. Did you hear that NFL is going to be doing facial recognition now

[00:30:20] in all 32 stadiums or all 32 teams? I heard they were doing clear. Can I opt out? Can I opt out of this? Because now it means you're going to get padded down at Eagles Games. I mean, just like the airport. So here you go.

[00:30:36] I can opt out at the airport. You're going to be like, come on in, Mr. I got to tell you, I was there for you. So I took some of our friends to the soccer match last week and Lincoln Financial Field.

[00:30:50] And like the way they do security is great. You just walk through. You know, you got to like, you know, the towers on each side of you almost looks like a metal detector, but I'm sure it's a little bit more advanced.

[00:31:00] And you know, you just walk, walk, walk. And unless there's a queue with the ticket check in people, they just they only flag you if something gets picked up on the scanner. And I'm like, it's so much more efficient. Interesting. So much more. I keep on hearing that

[00:31:18] Denver airport is getting more efficient. But then I walk in like I went to. I don't know what event it was, but the last one I went to Denver and I left and it was like I walked right through security. I was like, this is amazing.

[00:31:31] It's they fixed it. It's finally back. And then two weeks later, I stood in a line at clear in TSA precheck and I'm like, what is going on? And it's extra money to do this. What do I have to buy a third thing to get past this stuff?

[00:31:44] And Atlanta was even worse. Yeah. TSA and clear take longer to get through than the regular line. Well, I mean, all I know is if you go into Denver and you walk the right direction from the street, they have like little make a left

[00:32:04] and it goes just into a TSA thing that dumps you past the main security, right by the escalator. So like you got to like come at it from the right direction in the middle hallway and it's on the one side. I don't know.

[00:32:17] It's door 625 or something like that. And by the way, now the Uber drivers know they're like, are you checking a bag? I'm like, no, so it doesn't matter. Can you just take me to this section? They bring me there. But that's the section that now is backed up.

[00:32:30] So I don't know if everybody knows about it now or what I just. I'll tell you what, when that's going and it's open, it's awesome. But yes, for all the travel laws, the Denver airport is still on the top of the, no moss list, no good.

[00:32:49] No good, no more. What's that? I was gonna say the Denver TSA. You know what I'm sure it would only hurt my situation. You know, like a T, I should do a rating system for TSA at all the airports, right? Yeah, yeah. That would probably hurt you.

[00:33:04] But yeah. That's okay. Atlanta took my lotion away. I should call Darren. I've had the same bag in my suit case all year. I've done 40 trips. I've done no problem. So that means the lotion is going down. It's the same moisturizer. Same moisturizer. I'm going through Atlanta.

[00:33:28] They pull my bag over to the side. I'm like, what the hell is going on? I do this on purpose. I don't wear anything that's gonna, I go right through the metal detector. No problems. My bag's coming right out. I whistle and walk away.

[00:33:38] All of a sudden my suit case is flagged. Opens up my, anything sharp in here I got to worry about. I'm like, no. Unless my underwear got crusty. I don't know. He's like rolling through the race. That's digging through the, he pulls out. Ah-ha.

[00:33:51] Opens it up and pulls out my moisturizer. He goes, do you know what the limit is? Oh, you know what it is? Like yeah, four ounces, whatever. He goes like, this is 7.5. I'm like, well, I gotta tell you, it's not liquid, it's cream.

[00:34:01] So we'll get a little bit technical there. And I've had that thing with me since it was brand new. And now there's probably only two ounces of stuff in it or three ounce, whatever is in there. Now he goes, that doesn't matter.

[00:34:11] What we do is go buy the container amount. Doesn't matter how empty or full it is, whatever the container number. But I have a trick for you. I'm like, what? Took it from me. Said I had to check it. I'm like, I'm not checking a bottle

[00:34:22] of friggin' moisturizer. If you freeze it, it's solid. Yeah, then what do I do? Let it melt. Like this is the thing. Take a bottle of water that would normally get flagged through security because it's liquid. Freeze it, put it in your bag.

[00:34:41] It's gonna go through, it's a solid. I don't need water that bad, but... I'm just saying, I have not tried this myself but I have seen this actually in effect. It apparently works. Okay, yeah. Well, I guess I won't do that for this

[00:34:56] but I went through that same airport the other way more than one time. Actually, I went to Jamaica with that same bag. What you did was you got somebody that's actually doing the job. Yeah. That's what it is, right? Good.

[00:35:09] You got somebody who's like actually following the job. But once it was true, he could have went, yeah, you're right, here you go buddy. Nope, took it. I said use it in good health. I usually, to that end, I guess,

[00:35:26] I get that type of stuff all the time so I hear you. Well, you get, yeah, I shouldn't be complaining to you because you know... I get that all the time. I get the best part, I almost have to stop carrying business cards with me

[00:35:37] because the $8 million X-ray machine can't figure out that that's paper. Yeah. Like, oh look, it's very, it's very thick and I'm like, it's paper. They got me with the autograph cybersecurity books once and I'm like, it's books, you mean because it says cybersecurity on it?

[00:35:57] Is that what you're saying? It's like, I don't get it, they're books. Yeah. I've gotten the, there's too many electronic wires in your back, too many cables. I'm like, oh, okay. Well, like should I call up all of these manufacturers

[00:36:13] and tell them to stop making one power cord for each device? That's what it is, I can't help it. What do you want me to do? Right, they'll tell you to check it. Isn't it going on the same plane? So why are we worried about these things?

[00:36:26] I said, hey, you can take them all out, you can test them, plug them in. Just like when they tell you about the weight of your luggage and I'm like, wait but it's all going on the same plane.

[00:36:34] So if I move it from bag A and put it in bag B, it's going on the same plane. I don't get it. Did you see the one where the guy got his, he was doing the bag checker to make sure that it fit

[00:36:47] and it got stuck in there? Oh, shh. Nobody uses that by the way, that's another thing. I'm on the plane and this girl comes on and she's got the bag completely zippered, you know how you zip her out and it was like accordion. It was huge.

[00:37:01] No one stopped her, she gets on the plane and she's literally smashing this thing. It won't go in. I'm like maybe try the bins on this side, they're a little bigger. The guys helping her smash it, it won't fit.

[00:37:13] And then I go, why don't you try sitting on it and you know, zip in the zipper or she goes, that's not happening. All right, check the bag. I'm like, but now you held up the whole entire plane because you've got this bag on there

[00:37:24] that was clearly too big. And some of these planes have really small overheads too, so you gotta be careful of that shit too. You know what? I know we love creating things. We should, I've been wanting to do this for years. It's gonna be the luggage Olympics.

[00:37:44] We need people to learn how to live out of the roller boarder. Not, you don't need all this extra stuff. We need to teach you how to pack your bag properly and you can do two weeks out of a roller boarder.

[00:37:57] It's been done, I do it all the time. Yeah, dude, I gotta say, I live out of my check bag, out of my carry on all the time. But when I did Pax 8 Beyond and then had to be in the office

[00:38:10] for the rest of the week, it was no bueno dude. I needed some change. You can do it, you can do it. Yeah, if I'm gonna wear the same clothes twice. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's called recycling by the way.

[00:38:24] It's not wrong, there's nothing wrong with that. To a point. You can pack your bag properly to get it all in, I promise. Yeah, I'm definitely not good at it. And God forbid I need more than one pair of shoes. Now I'm not wearing 10 like something.

[00:38:39] No, no, no, one pair, one pair. There's no need for you. There's this, remember I do nightlife. Okay, all right, here we go, here you go. You can bring flip flops. That's it. And you can, they're flat enough that you can do it.

[00:38:56] That's it, one pair of shoes. There's no reason for boots, unless that's what you get to wear the whole trip. There's no reason for multiple pairs of shoes. Enough, enough with the multiple pairs of shoes. Sometimes I might need sneakers and sometimes I might need shoes.

[00:39:10] No, you find something in the middle. You see the suits? Looks like you're wearing a dress shoe, but it's a sneaker, what's the problem? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then if you had to wear a suit, packing that into a carry-on isn't exactly...

[00:39:28] And you have to switch the style of bag that you're bringing. Mm-hmm. Listen, this is easy. And then put everything in that style of bag? That's, because that style of bag turns into a duffle bag. And then you can put the stuff in the duffle bag

[00:39:45] and then there's your bag. Sure, sure. I have it, I'm telling you, it's a thing. You gotta have the right tools for the job. It's like in technology, right? You're not gonna have some guy or girl who's in technology go to an onsite to go do IT work

[00:40:01] and not have tools with them. Gotta have the right tools. The right tools. Can't open up the computer to replace the hard drive, what's the point? And then weather, you know, weather can be a game changer. Well, go to Europe. In one country it's 50 degrees

[00:40:20] and in other countries, 90 degrees. You know, like you gotta, yeah, it sucks. That sounds like Massachusetts, me and I'm up. Massachusetts, what do you go from one town to next door and it's that different in Devon Jersey? I'm talking about the same place.

[00:40:35] I've been here when in the morning, it's like 90 and then at night it's like 50. It's changed, change is like insane. Believe me. Just have a jacket, have a jacket. We have them, soft jackets, soft shell jackets that like, you know, don't take a lot of space.

[00:40:55] It's a, Ken, do I need to go through a training tutorial with you? I mean, come on. I'll tell ya, it's always interesting. This traveling and it's crazy. Well, what are you up to? What are you doing next? Where are you gonna be next? That's a good question.

[00:41:21] Let's see, where am I gonna be next? I'm going to San Antonio. It's gonna be 102 degrees when I land. Well, that's a mistake. Don't go there. It's gonna be 102 all week. Oh yeah, yeah, we'll go to San Diego to see your buddy, Lisette. Oh, you are? Oh, yeah.

[00:41:43] And then after that, it's the gauntlet. Wait a minute, San Diego for owner summit? Yeah. That's at the end of the year, I thought. No, September. Oh, it's in September. And then after that, it's the gauntlet. Oh, I think we're going there by the way.

[00:42:00] It's the gauntlet, you know what the gauntlet is? The five block parties I just listed. All right, well, I'll be at two of them. Well, that's good. I'm sure DattoCon in Miami, my T-Nation Orlando, I could have told you that like this

[00:42:14] because that's the two big ones that everybody are at. Yeah. No Berlin, no Sydney? Yeah. No, how do I do Berlin and Sydney and between all the other stuff I gotta do? Teleport. Busy, busy, busy end of year. Meet me up, Dottie. Yeah, no kidding.

[00:42:32] Yeah, that's where I'm gonna be. And then, you know, I'm still trying to see if I can sneak to Brazil for that Eagles Packers game. I knew you were gonna... I listen. I have no flights. I'm not walking there.

[00:42:47] So I gotta like book something soon or I ain't go. Yeah. Well, I get in and out of there without a problem. It's a different story. Something tells me security down there is just the same as security up here when it comes to me. They like you. Oh.

[00:43:09] As our other friend has said, vaguely ethnic. Vaguely ethnic, that's right. That's right. Where are you gonna be? So we said DattoCon, we said IT Nation. Where else? You gotta go to Exchange, I guess, is what's in San Antonio. Yeah, I'm going to Exchange in San Antonio.

[00:43:26] I got your pack event and... I am in September, that's why I'm here. MSP Community Mines and then I have... I wanna be in Denver for a really long time. I have pack MSP Community Mines and then I have Karenin's Masterminds right after that.

[00:43:44] All boom, boom, boom in the same week, really. His goes Friday, Saturday, yours goes Wednesday, Thursday and Monday, Tuesday. So yeah, it's like the whole week of that. I am doing Big Big in Fort Lauderdale, going back to visit the team and the members with Total,

[00:44:04] so that should be interesting. No boats. No boats, no more boats. And then this little, you know, sprinkles in between, I gotta go to Denver because that's where the Total office is. So somewhere in between all that, I'll be going back out to Denver

[00:44:22] for just in-person stuff with the team. But yeah, it's been, you know, it's good. Get back out on the road, do some cool things and meet the community where they live. Should I get you a little miniature bus for you to just... A little miniature bus?

[00:44:40] Yeah, like something that you can carry with you to remember the bus? Should I give you... Is it gonna be a school bus or it has to be, can't be a school bus. It has to be the legit, you know. It'll be the tour bus. The tour bus.

[00:44:53] The first one where we were basically sitting in the back of a U-Haul or the better one when we had the... Would you rather a U-Haul truck? No. I'm not even talking about the actual U-Haul. I'm talking about that first two of us we drove

[00:45:07] and that felt like a U-Haul because our driver was separated by a wall and drove off without us, drove off, all kinds of different stories that we had in that thing. Hey, it got us where we needed to go. It wasn't exactly... Oh, yeah.

[00:45:23] It was a multiple stories, but got us where we needed to go. Got us where we needed to go. It was a little bumpy at times, but it got the job done. Bumpy, there was the one where the engine was under the back seat,

[00:45:35] so that was really hot back there. There was the one where we were doing calls from the restroom, the bathroom that was in there. Man, we had a lot of them. Then we had the one that was really cool when it was parked, but when it was driving,

[00:45:47] all had to be squished in with the bed and the couch because it was one of those pop outs. Remember that one? Yep. The one where the tree went through the windshield? We had a lot of glass problems. Well actually, the tree went through the windshield

[00:46:00] and he ran over the sign at Bellagio or MGM or whatever it was. That picture is priceless. I don't know if they replaced that sign. They have not replaced it. The last time I was in Vegas, I checked. It was not replaced, so they just...

[00:46:13] They took the insurance money from it. They got the money. They definitely got paid. They got a new poker table, but they didn't put the sign in. Sure. That was like that picture. I was just like, oh my God, how did that happen?

[00:46:28] Guys, how do you not see that? Just saying. Hey, yeah. It was a trip to remember for sure. By the way, that guy was bragging to us that that was the only... He had never been in an accident till that time and then he had two problems.

[00:46:44] He had the windshield and then he drove over the sign. His accident record went up pretty high after that trip for sure. It absolutely did. Yeah, not good. Not good at all. Well, it will be as it has always been

[00:47:02] minus COVID in a bus tour or two or three, a busy time, right? September, October, November is always just rapid fire. It's where you get all your air miles to get your status for the next year. Right. It's where we see our security backups, right?

[00:47:20] I mean, bottom line is it will be busy, but there will be good stories to come from it. And we still got to book some entertainment, man. We still got to announce this band. So let's see who shakes out of this,

[00:47:33] but I'll even tell you that everything's more expensive than it was a year ago. Of course. Everything. Even that's more expensive. Of course. Yeah, it just, I don't know. Maybe we can pay everything in Australian dollars. That would be better. That would be...

[00:47:49] Or Canadian dollars, that would be good. Some rupees or some, you know, whatever. Whatever works. I heard the Indian currencies that it's all time low against the dollar. I was like, wow. Okay, sounds good. Although the stock market, if you've looked at your retirement account this week,

[00:48:10] may not be in good shape. Nobody should be looking at their retirement account right now unless they're close. Cause that's a blip in the system. Day traders, they should be nervous. A blip? Bit more than a blip. I ate it too. Yeah, I mean, it's happened before.

[00:48:26] How about a cliff? Good time to invest, right? Well, that or you're gonna end up having to work a little bit extra cause you can't retire when you thought you were going to. Sorry guys. A lot of things could change that, but we won't go down that road.

[00:48:44] Yeah, I got you. I mean, you know, you could always invest in crowd sharing. Oh, actually might not be a bad time to invest cause they're more than certain to go right back up. More than certain? Yeah, come on.

[00:48:58] I don't think it was, I honestly, I get it, but I think a lot of people, I still think a lot of people are swinging. Sure, I think the smaller, the ones that are more apt to do that stuff are gonna jump ship and run around and shop,

[00:49:11] but I think a lot of people are like, okay, it happened. It's out of the way. Probably wouldn't happen again. Out of the way. Yeah, man, I'm telling you. I'm just telling you. In talking to people, I've heard that. Not joking. You think everybody's jumping ship?

[00:49:28] I don't know. I don't know. I've gotten a mix of, and that was one of the answers I got. That problem won't happen again. They'll fix it and everything else we love. Just saying. People do some weird stuff, dude. Again, and again, the comparison too,

[00:49:45] how many smaller MSPs are using CrowdStrike? Right? I mean, I don't know. If you follow our other friends, they've been pushing it like it's going out of style, like it's in an outburger over there. Our other friends. I mean... There's a lot of really good options,

[00:50:04] obviously, Total's one of them, other side, other side. I can't get that right. There it is. But I mean, again, I'm not out there pitching against it. I'm not an ambulance chaser. I think that's a horrible time to be going out there, but there are other options.

[00:50:19] And if you're gonna weigh your options, make sure you're weighing them properly. You're checking out everything that you possibly can as far as how sound the company is. How sound the tech is. You go to the software company and ask, what is your software development cycle look like?

[00:50:33] Hey, that might not be a bad thing to ask. Like, is that the thing to ask for now? Right? I know, right. How often do you update this to this and your thought like... Right. But we always talk about that on the MSP side, right?

[00:50:48] How often are you updating your terms and conditions and all the things that go along with your managed service agreements and all that stuff? Well, I shouldn't have been guys do that. Let's even boil it back down to something simple. Maybe patching right away is not the answer.

[00:51:03] Maybe testing right away is. Oh yeah, you think these MSPs have been testing Microsoft patch Tuesday for all these years? Oh, not them. I'm talking about it's on the people pushing the patches. Uh-huh. You know what I mean? A patch should be tested. I mean, do you think...

[00:51:19] The only thing about this I don't know is if... How quickly would have been caught if they tested it? Would they have been able to not push this thing out or would have been something that caused them to hit the brakes?

[00:51:29] What things was this patch supposed to fix? You know, someone said, well they rolled two out a week or two out a day. Like really a lot of patches or something. So I don't know. It gets complicated when you start talking about that. Two updates a day.

[00:51:45] That's a lot of updates. That's a lot of freaking updates. What's wrong? What's going on? I don't know. It's all interesting, but you're right. You gotta start going down to testing and process. Did you imagine Microsoft patch every day? No. Although sometimes it feels like it.

[00:52:04] I feel like my laptop now does it more than ever where it says, hey you have this update, let it run. I'm like no, I'm doing something. It's because you keep on saying no. Well you say yes every time while you're working,

[00:52:16] you just stop when you do it. No, if it's the end of the day, I'll go and do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if I got 10 screens open, which is when it usually is ready to rock, I have to say no. Okay. I can't stop what I'm doing.

[00:52:28] Like you're 60 days in, you haven't ever run. Right. They're like three updates wide. It's like you're stifed. No, no, I don't do that one. Okay. I'm not that crazy. Okay. I remember what it's like to have an update FME up. I mean when I don't install it.

[00:52:48] Everything stops working. I think they do that on purpose now. Don't you remember the clip from the Netflix show? Space Force? Space Force. Like it's because Windows is updating, they can't access the satellite. It's too funny, man. It's been too long. We would lose the grid.

[00:53:06] It's been too long, man. It really has. We'll have to get some cheesesteaks. That's right, I'm in. I'm in. If you said you weren't in, I'd be worried. That's right. As long as I don't have to stop down the other side of Philly with that,

[00:53:20] 12 steps below places, I'll be fine. Well, unless you want to go to Brazil, I mean, we're going to open up the decision. So we walked that 12 steps down and ended up in Brazil? Is that what it is? Why not?

[00:53:31] Because I thought it was like hell, but it was a little scary. Why not? You want to go to Brazil? I mean, what is that? It's a little scary. Too funny. All right, Ken. Where can people find more information

[00:53:40] about the new place and how to connect with you and all that good stuff? Yeah, I mean, so Total, obviously, you can go to total.com and that's your typical. If you want to find me, you can find me on LinkedIn and Facebook. I'm all over the place.

[00:53:50] If you can't find me, you should probably need some help with search capabilities. I'm just about everywhere. You can email me at kpatterson. That's K P A T T E R S O N at Total T O D Y L dot com. But always looking to help.

[00:54:06] And again, it doesn't have to have anything to do with Total. I was an MSP for many, many years and made a lot of mistakes. So if you just need help and you want to run down some things,

[00:54:16] I'm always open to help out this anybody in the space. Just love what we do and love this community. Super. Thank you very much guys. And this session was recorded. You'll find it at MSP initiative.com under sessions, podcatcher, YouTube page, all that good stuff.

[00:54:33] MSP community minds, the five black parties, they're all there MSP initiative.com. We'll see you if you want to be seen. We want to stay at home, no problem too, but you can keep watching these, listening to these, but some good times coming up ahead.

[00:54:47] Let's see in person. C S Live, come see us live. Here or two, why not? What do you got to lose? Take it easy guys. See you man. Bye.