IGEL Weekly: Life on the Edge Season 2 Episode 2: Sustainability

We then look at what is sustainability and why it has become so important to companies. In fact, most companies annual reports now include sustainability as a strategic business objective.

We look at the pandemic and the impact it is had on the environment and how remote working is a key driver in reducing emissions.

We also investigate how EUC has a major impact on emissions and is responsible for 1% of Global emissions which is on a par with the airline industry which I thought was a shocking statistic.

Transcript

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Chris Feeney: Hello, everybody! Welcome to Zantgra Idol Weekly. This is episode Sixty one I am Patrick Toner. I'm filling in for Andy Whiteside this week. Who could not join us, and I'm joined by our familiar co-host, Chris Feeney, Chris. How you doing

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Chris Feeney: greetings, Patrick? I'm doing all right. Um,

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Chris Feeney: Sometimes I like i'm like When was the last time I was on the podcast, because it's it. Feel like the last few weeks has been a part of It's been just

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Chris Feeney: this. August is always when school starts and getting at least these days, my getting my daughter back to college and traveling to get her squared away, and I've had a few trips as well lately on the road. So

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Chris Feeney: but this week i'm not traveling, so i'm happy about that getting caught up on some stuff, and then

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Chris Feeney: and then today's topic is kind of something. I'll be actually speaking on next week that Vm.

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Chris Feeney: Explore V and works for it.

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Chris Feeney: Yeah, I think that was the last time I was in San Francisco was the two thousand and nineteen Vm. World. I i'm almost certain. Yeah, it would have been that because that was just before the

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Chris Feeney: onslaught of the pandemic. But, uh, any who

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Patrick Toner: you know, you know, if people say it's hard to gauge time over the last two years. Right you do. You find that yourself, like you know, two thousand and nineteen? If you were living back in two thousand and nineteen. It was easy to be like, Oh, yeah, That happened two years ago. This happened three years ago, but these last few years are just kind of a weird blur kind of like my background here. It's very blurry.

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Chris Feeney: Yeah, I mean um. There are some,

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Chris Feeney: especially after not doing something for a while, and then going back into. So, for example, travel used to do it more frequently, and then it just shut down for at least a year and a half, with very little trips, and just kind of going back and just dealing with

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Chris Feeney: You know what I, My personal thing was. I noticed, for example, just going to park

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Chris Feeney: parking. All of a sudden just people people started traveling again, and being on the parking lots are full again, whereas there used to be ghost towns there for a short time, but then Restaurants haven't quite caught up yet. People I they don't have enough people to work.

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Chris Feeney: The hours are, you know They're shutting down at five Pm. And you want to get dinner at the airport or something, and you're like nobody's open except for Starbucks, perhaps, and i'm not really sure. I want the muffin for dinner. So you know the first world problems, obviously right. But

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Chris Feeney: but but yeah, I mean just little things, you know, and it just looking back like

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Chris Feeney: halls and reflecting on what really has happened in the last couple years. The

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Chris Feeney: But what's interesting is part of the topic we're going to be talking about today is is also kind of translating into this whole idea of

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Chris Feeney: um sustainability, right? The The ability to extend the life of devices. We talk about this a lot, but the benefits that have come about from that

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Chris Feeney: I've got a lot of friends in commercial real estate, and I. We were just talking about this because Raleigh's out of building buildings go up, and you

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Chris Feeney: and I keep thinking to myself. Well, somebody's got to rent that space in these buildings. These are like not four-story buildings. These are like eighteen twenty story buildings, and like

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Chris Feeney: have they rented the buildings out. Do they have companies that are actually going to have people coming in and using the space. It does make me wonder, in this new way of working, that we have seen

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Chris Feeney: um, and Raleigh is growing more specifically. But, uh, but I do wonder, you know, with

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Chris Feeney: if the freedom that you get from working anywhere, or having a device that you can take with you, or you know you.

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Chris Feeney: What is that balance going to look like? And so,

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Chris Feeney: and also of the onslaught of the cloud, computing, you know, just the massive uptick in usage there, so we'll kind of get into a little bit about that today

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Chris Feeney: in our discussion. So

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Chris Feeney: Ah, but yeah, what do we got on? Tap, my friend, What's the blog we're going to be talking about today? Yeah. So let me share this out. So we've got. Ah, we're going to be talking about a Nigel blog today on sustainability. Your point.

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Patrick Toner: See the screen? Okay there for anyone.

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Chris Feeney: Yes, my buddy, James Reagan James, I think. Is it Oregon?

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Chris Feeney: No. Really good. Yes, clearly not Irish. No, yeah, definitely. Not. Just be your Italian rap over it. Yeah, he's gonna I won't. Tell him we talked.

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Patrick Toner: Hey, Listen. I'm genetically about as Irish as they come. I did. My, My! What do you call it? The ancestry com Dna test.

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Chris Feeney: Oh, you there?

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Patrick Toner: Yeah, Well, so, and we will take too long on this. But ah! But my mom didn't know her biological father was this whole thing. So she did. Her Dna tests got connected with people that we knew his last name was that it was pretty weird. So then I did one.

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Patrick Toner: It is pretty amazing how accurate it is. And you know I was able to meet people that I was related to um. But you know, basically, it was like It shows you a map like, hey? Where are you from? And it's like just Ireland a little bit of Scotland, and that was pretty much it for me. I think there might have been a little dot in Norway or something, but it was

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Chris Feeney: yeah, and I didn't know I had grown up. I wasn't entirely sure,

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Chris Feeney: you know I could easily see you being an extra and uh braveheart easily. Maybe Robin Hood perhaps right kind of the Kevin Costa version one, that one. What a great movie, What a great movie

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Chris Feeney: or men and tights men of tights! I've seen that one. What are you talking about? You've never seen rabbit and Manitites?

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Chris Feeney: I'm sure it was parts of it on Youtube. I think it was a Mel brooks Mel Brooks. Oh, yeah, like a satire version of the Kevin Costner one, It was

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Chris Feeney: Yeah. Oh, it's pretty good,

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Chris Feeney: Mel: Yeah, it's certainly Satire, My son recently discovered.

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Chris Feeney: Uh what was it? Um blazing saddles? The

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Chris Feeney: so it's it.

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Chris Feeney: So Robin Abenotites is in the, you know, in the ah, the spirit animal of you know one of those types of movies like space balls or whatever. Yes, yes,

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Chris Feeney: very, very good. Anyway, we've gone way over here. You can see it back. Thank you, James O'reagan for taking us off the rails there, all right, So we're going to be talking about sustainability today. We're going to be talking about

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Patrick Toner: um. You know something I really think about. I gel it's kind of been in that space from its inception, or at least when it when I Joel, moved from Hardware Company to software company,

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Chris Feeney: you know, being able to kind of repurpose devices. So you know, we're gonna kind of take a look at what what James wrote here, and you know, and go through it. But, Chris, I know you mentioned before we got started. You've been kind of

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Chris Feeney: you know. This is something you've been doing a little bit more research on. You've been kind of more involved in. And so you know what your

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Chris Feeney: so the it takes me back to When I first heard of, I gel,

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Chris Feeney: and

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Chris Feeney: I first met my my first person. That was a guy named Jeff Colbert, who many of our listeners probably know You've been with Idl for

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Chris Feeney: probably twenty years now, but he was the first Us. Employee of idl that I met, and as we got to talking, and I was beginning to learn about them. I I knew that they were from Germany, for example, but I

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Chris Feeney: I didn't quite know much about their thin client technology. But ah! The thing that stood out to me and my the lightballs began to go off was they actually could repurpose. They could install their os on devices that were supported

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Chris Feeney: and convert it. And then I started thinking about like, Wow! Well, if we could do these use cases just by converting. They don't have to go out and buy new heart. They could take that. And you know all these lights began to click. Go off, and

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Chris Feeney: here we are fast forward. This is seven, eight years, maybe ten, at this point ago, and and

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Chris Feeney: all these other things have begin to emerge by just doing that. And you

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Chris Feeney: the point where we've had customers come to us and say, yeah, like one of my use cases that have seen is they they

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Chris Feeney: in health care. They've got those roaming carts right. They've got a monitor, and they've got stuff on it, and you have a keyboard and mouse kind of thing that comes open, and and they're always if they're running around they're all they're running off of battery.

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Chris Feeney: Ah! And they've seen where, by just taking them same machine that was on their running windows, and just converting it to ideal, or using a Ud pocket, or whatever that alone has allowed them to extend the life of the battery

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Chris Feeney: by another few hours, and that's, you know. Shift Time is generally thirteen hours within a couple of breaks whatever, but being able to take that, whereas they were only getting eight hours or more out of it, constantly having to charge these things, or whatever, or replace the battery, which was not cheap. So all these other benefits began to emerge, and

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Chris Feeney: Ah allow them to maintain the use of that machine for another two, three, years. So um! I think science began to look at the the details behind this right? And so we have some resources. Now that really actually kind of highlight the fact that.

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Chris Feeney: Yeah, I, Joe, can actually bring more benefits to you. Besides saving money, there's other things that you you do out of that. You can save. You use less electricity, less hardware.

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Chris Feeney: You're not sending stuff to recycling then, I mean, I've been. And when I first came to I gel I was covering Federal. I was out on a um down in Jacksonville, actually here in New hometown at the Navy Hospital there, and we're in the back of the room, and they're looking at replacing pterodiche devices which we can't repurpose, unfortunately. But we were trying out by gel devices that we had brought

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Chris Feeney: for them to test. But in the back room. We went from the back area where the it group is, and there was a whole closet full of four I five, I seven devices from Dell, or or whenever it was, I I think it was Dell. But these are like Pcs. And I asked, What? What's going on with these uh, we're gonna send those to the recycling bit, and i'm like what

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Chris Feeney: like these are your thin clients right here they could be, you know. Just that was just one small example, and I can tell you, in that room we probably had at least one hundred devices sitting there on the shelf not being used.

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Chris Feeney: So there's there's lots of

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Chris Feeney: things out there where I, Joe, can bring this, and just maintain those devices. And who cares if it's not under warranty any more hardware. Wise the audio license doesn't disappear with that device decides to belly up.

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Chris Feeney: You can just move it to another device. You're good to go.

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Chris Feeney: It's

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Chris Feeney: yeah, you know. And

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Chris Feeney: you know, because I was to say, you know, I think the you know ultimately right. We're we're talking about here is um. And again, we, you know we There are some political sides of this, right? So we we're not going to get in all that. But at some point it becomes about efficiency, Right? Um, you know. And and you think about the history of technology as you were talking. I was thinking about

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Chris Feeney: when I was a kid. The first video game system I got, You know I was pretty young, was a Nes, and it was like, Oh, my gosh! This this was like incredible, right? And then the sega Genesis and the super nintendo come out. You go from eight bit to sixteen bit, and I think, superintendent. So there are thirty, two bit, maybe.

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Patrick Toner: And then the Nintendo sixty, four comes out years later, I mean, after the playstation, and it's like everything was doubling. Basically Technology was going from eight to sixteen to thirty, two to sixty, four,

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Chris Feeney: and the same happened in personal computers, right where you had. I wanted to. I can't like the first desktop we had as kids, was about the size of a small child, Small Chan, and it was about forty pounds.

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Patrick Toner: Yeah, exactly. My My grandfather. My grandfather bought it for us. He was like he was in the the tech world, and he bought it for us, and I thought it was like the cool thing because I could play. I think it was like Nhl ninety, seven or something on there ninety, eight, and it had three d graphics, and I thought it was like the cool thing ever. But,

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Patrick Toner: uh, we could also. Obviously it was not meant for that. It was my for our school work and things, but

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Patrick Toner: you know, but I want to say there was like man I want to say there was like,

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Patrick Toner: and five five hundred and twelve Megs of ram in it. Maybe if that and

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Patrick Toner: you know I can't remember what the process was. But I mean.

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Patrick Toner: But again, processor Ram, you're talking about doubling, triple and quadrupling and speed, and then, of course, you had the processors two cores, now Quadcore. Now we have eight cores, all these different cores in our processors and our consumer processors not not just server processors.

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Patrick Toner: And I guess you get um. The point i'm making is everything kind of has doubled, and technology has gotten better and better, I guess at some point. It levels off right at some point, you know, until we go to something like potentially quantum computing. I don't understand that enough to even talk about it. But it's like

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Patrick Toner: at some point. You just the technology keeps doubling, tripling, getting better and better better to a certain point. It kind of levels off and out becomes about efficiency, right? It becomes about. You know. How do you?

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Patrick Toner: How do? How do you have devices that last longer, or, you know, put out less energy or just more efficient devices, and it's a it's a weird thing, because you know, a hardware vendor, and you know we We obviously saw this first, and a lot of agile a hardware vendor like Dell.

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Patrick Toner: They'd note they don't necessarily want their devices to run for twenty years. You know. They know that the average, you know sales, you know, end of life, for a device is between three and five years. That's the business model right now.

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Chris Feeney: Yeah, um. So something like an idle comes around, extends the life, maybe to seven years right, and that it's better. I mean, you can make a lot of arguments for that, right? It's less trash going into the ground. It's less.

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Yeah, there's all of that. I was thinking about just as you were saying There,

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Chris Feeney: that model, that end user computing model was basically built off of the

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Chris Feeney: you know, Microsoft, coming out with a new version of windows every so often,

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Chris Feeney: and with that comes new uh requirements, and you would have some devices that could handle that as you're trying to things double right. You could take that device that originally had windows seven, or maybe it can upgrade a windows ten or jump to windows. Eleven.

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Chris Feeney: Ah! Or a device that had windows ten. But then the next version of Windows ten. I'll actually give an example of this next week. I've got some Lenovo laptops. We bought a best buy that we're initially on version of windows. Ten for a kids in school, whatever we're fine,

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Chris Feeney: but could not handle the next version of windows ten couldn't go upgraded A. There was enough to space. I should have known better. Thirty, two gig Ssd

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Chris Feeney: needed to be at least sixty, four more, but they just didn't have enough space on there.

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Chris Feeney: Not only that, but it was the the processor wouldn't be going out, so it was naturally like, Well, what do I do? This is Ah, the laptops fine! There's nothing wrong. The webcam works, the keyboard works,

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Chris Feeney: everything works. And so before. Ah, I I think I put Linux on there originally from my daughter. Sorry I mean It's cheaper to put Linux on there, and she used that she all she really went to was like office dot com, and but she craved a a little browser right or a word processor eventually. And so,

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Chris Feeney: you know, I I'd finally pulled the trigger and got her another laptop. But uh, but um!

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Chris Feeney: Ah! I was wishing I could just rent a Pc. Or something from windows in the cloud, and just say, Use this kind of like we have now, with avd or windows for sixty five. But ah! But the hardware was fine, and I still use it. I just throw an Id on it today, and it's,

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Chris Feeney: you know. I might actually give it to Andy's nonprofit community computers for community which we'll talk about here at some point.

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Chris Feeney: Yeah, what might be just a good time to segue into that, I mean. So we don't forget. Uh, Yeah, I mean, So

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Chris Feeney: everything we're talking about here, right? I mean. So everything that I drill does kind of in that sense of like, hey? I want to extend the life of hardware. I'm gonna, you know, basically make you know, habit. So we're not. You know that we're not having or throwing out devices, recycling devices or whatever. Every five years. Maybe we're moving to seven years, you know. Maybe we can extend that a little bit, and that's that's That's probably better for our landfills and everything like that right?

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Patrick Toner: Well, to segue into what you just mentioned. Computers for community That's something here at Santa Cruz.

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Patrick Toner: Um, you know, Andy kind of spun off a another organization. It's a a charity organization where you can. It's a nonprofit where you can. Basically if you're in a position at a company, and you know you're You're the one who's responsible for recycling devices.

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Patrick Toner: Um, you can. You can, You know, donate them to computers for community. They they'll wipe the hard drives, and what makes them a little bit different than maybe most recyclers. They're not just going to like

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Patrick Toner: throw everything now into the ground and say, Hey, we recycled it, or whatever they do. You know, I don't know, but commuters are. Community is actually going to repurpose it, and then they donate them to other nonprofits.

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Patrick Toner: The cool thing is,

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Patrick Toner: you're if you're the if you're the person, the company who donates them wherever and you have a charity in mind that you really love. You support. You

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Patrick Toner: tell computers for community, and they'll reach out to them. They'll donate them to them if there's a need. So it's really cool, cause you

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Patrick Toner: the other thing that that computers for community does. And I just want to mention this because I don't know if anyone else doing this is, they also have an entire um, you know, technical consulting division. So they're doing all types of services. So basically you know non-profits. Obviously a lot of them don't have a lot of money there. Some that have tons of money

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Patrick Toner: but most don't right. Most don't have. You know they're they're running on charity. They're not running on, you know, making profits on a product or a service.

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Patrick Toner: So what what um computers for community does is they can offer, you know, really great top-tier engineering talent to them at a great affordable cost. So just a great cause overall, and I think there, you know I've seen it just just

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Patrick Toner: and thriving. Pretty pretty pretty pretty cool to watch over the last year that I've been at Zen Tank, or almost a year, but it's a decor. But yeah, you know, I mean so obviously It's just a big thing right now. A lot of people recognize the need a lot of people,

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Patrick Toner: you know. We're just trying to, you know. I guess. Ultimately we're talking about a little bit beforehand, Chris, trying to be better stewards. Right. That's what it really comes down to is stewardship, you know. I know there's There's obviously a lot of

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Patrick Toner: views about this topic, but I think it just a real fundamental level. All of us want to be good stewards. We want to, you know. We want to do what's best for you. You know our our world, our environment whatever. And if you have a choice to make, you can either take your old devices and just dump them in the ground, or you can

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Patrick Toner: donate them to something like computers for community, and they can repurpose it and give it to an organization in need. I mean it's a win-win for everybody.

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Chris Feeney: Yeah, that's a great point. There's a lot of stuff, not even just technology, but just other things that

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Chris Feeney: you know somebody else could potentially use.

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Chris Feeney: Um, but there is um a lot of, I think. Certainly awareness right. I mean, I go back maybe twenty thirty years ago, when recycling became, you know a thing,

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Chris Feeney: and i'm all behind it, You know. I think today, if you get to the what's really going on when you put that stuff in the recycling B. And what happens to that recycled stuff,

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Chris Feeney: you know. Ah, I don't really know. To be honest, I know I try to put in what they say I should put in. But what happens after that? But um I will. I will try to be if i'm in a hotel, or traveling whatever like that, and I have like plastic bottles. I I will ask for, or look for

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Chris Feeney: the recycling band versus just using the trash can, if if at all possible, you know, and and i'm um i'm totally cool with that right. I think it's a good thing, but I will admit that I don't necessarily know what happens after it gets in. That. Can the blue one right with the,

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Chris Feeney: you know. But in this particular scenario I know, at least from the customers. We we know that, you know we are at least helping them save it from going into that dumpster pile, or whatever it was intended to go to and

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Chris Feeney: ah, and there's except there's There's many benefits to that. What's also really cool is when you see something like there. The maybe a ah organization is, is building a brand new wing or a tower, or whatever.

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Chris Feeney: And you see the green technology that's been used right, the efficient like you walk in a room. The lights come on after you walk out, and the lights,

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Chris Feeney: you know, go off after period. I'm i'm i'm really actually quite cool. With that I think it's It's kind of cool. You know, that you are saving that plus led. I like for the most part in my house. I've swapped out.

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Chris Feeney: Ah, I was using those ah spiral bulbs the more ones with Mercury in them. Not a fan anymore. That stuff will kill you if you're not careful. Ah, so I've swatched out to the led lights. You know the cost has come down somewhat. Not

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Chris Feeney: that led life should last you quite a while, and then use less energy, and i'm totally fine with that. But we find out in five years. Leds are killing us. Why do I need these blue light glasses.

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So

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Chris Feeney: yeah, exactly, we all thought it was good. And you know,

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Chris Feeney: disclaimer, we don't know if Led is actually yeah, let's make a disclaimer. That was a joke.

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Chris Feeney: Yes, thank your audience for understanding. We got to have fun some days so. But anyway, back to our blog.

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Chris Feeney: So, Chris, you know, back to the blog. I I You know I was reading one of the things that um, you know James was writing here. Um, and basically he's making the point, you know, hey? The pandemic happened. People were working from home, and there was a reduction in in carbon emissions from absence People Aren't driving

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Chris Feeney: um. So I guess the two two questions on that, you know, because you you mentioned commercial real estate in the beginning. You know what what are your thoughts on like? I know this is a huge debate in the industry. Is this actually sustainable? Is this going? Not? You know I don't that's a

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Patrick Toner: I didn't. It's kind of. I didn't choose the word sustainable intentionally there. But is it sustainable for people to work from home long term? And you know I know that a lot of companies are having that debate. Some companies are saying, Hey, look! We're kind of at the end of the pandemic you're coming back to the office.

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Patrick Toner: Other companies are saying, Hey,

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Patrick Toner: We're seeing a savings, You know we're not. You know we're not spending rent. And all these areas we can just basically have people work from home. They're productive, you know. What do you think about that? And and ultimately does it? Do you think it really does drive down emissions? I think about

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Patrick Toner: in the kind of towards I want to say. It was like the first Christmas during Covid. Maybe the second. I don't know if it was Christmas, two thousand and twenty or twenty one. I think it was two thousand and twenty,

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Patrick Toner: you know. I was like I was mostly in my house, and, like I went like a few places in the beginning of the pandemic. You know we'd go to like our friend's house, or we'd go to our church or whatever. But we're really going out the opposite of the supermarket

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Patrick Toner: outside of, like the basic few places we went.

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Patrick Toner: I didn't travel much, and then I was driving on the highway. I can't remember. I was going somewhere, and I was driving through at the time where I was living, where it was kind of the town where everything is the malls there. And it was I could not believe how much traffic there was. I mean, it was just packed, so I guess

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Patrick Toner: you know. Does Does it actually equal less emissions? I don't know. I don't know if that's true or not. But ultimately that's not my question. My question is, is it What are you seeing? Are people actually staying remote?

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Patrick Toner: Um, or are they? Um,

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Patrick Toner: you know. Are we going back to? Are we going back to In-person or a hybrid model? What do you see with that?

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Patrick Toner: What do you say when you talk to your customers?

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Chris Feeney: I think it's I would say hybrid. At this point. We have

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Chris Feeney: some customers where they've they've gone back to. Maybe

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Chris Feeney: you know a flexible work schedule

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Chris Feeney: they've allowed for or said, Hey, certain departments don't have to come into the office.

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Chris Feeney: I know that there was one organization that they did

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Chris Feeney: divest themselves of the old office space that they had, and they they

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Chris Feeney: moved, you know, just a a few ah highway exits down the road, and the new space that they occupy. They built it up for a hoteling. A lot of zoom conference rooms, you know, so they could allow for people to come in and

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Chris Feeney: work really kind of anywhere, and some folks had a dedicated office. But, generally speaking, you know a lot of the cubicles and stuff was designed for people coming and going and in and out. And

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Chris Feeney: but ah, I think you're seeing a lot of that.

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Chris Feeney: Um, there's definitely

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Chris Feeney: I was at a in fact, a partner that we're working with as integrra. They are Some of your sales development reps. They making phone calls and things. They have an office space in Raleigh that they share. And we were there last week, and

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Chris Feeney: it's kind of a cool environment. To be honest, you've got, you know, certainly offices, but there are a lot of cubicles open space, but they had their dogs there, and I was hanging out and having a good time, and and they were just kind of a cool, and I think people liked

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Chris Feeney: that collaborative thing. They had a team meeting. You get together. You can talk, share ideas, whatever. Then you go off and you do your work, you know, and so you

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Chris Feeney: but I can be just as productive here at the house, and I think you know, if you,

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Chris Feeney: if you found yourself and you're able to do that, and you know,

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Chris Feeney: be productive, and and also balance that work-life thing.

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Chris Feeney: But sometimes the grass is not always greener, right. There are. There are things that maybe you give up by that more flexible work, schedule or work experience. So

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Chris Feeney: um. But I think generally we're seeing uh that the hybrid approach. Come back.

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Chris Feeney: We have seen some I I put this out on. I think it was linkedin, maybe, or whatever. But there are some organizations where they're telling employees. You've got to come back,

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Chris Feeney: you know, and I think about those commuting hours, especially in some of those bigger cities.

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Chris Feeney: I will say I went to Charlotte last week, and I was expecting at four o'clock in the afternoon, when I was heading out of the city that I was going to hit traffic based on years past I've been there. It wasn't as busy as I thought it was, and I don't know if that's because some of the construction has finished, or whatever. But I

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Chris Feeney: I've been through that city at different times, and it wasn't the same, even the downtown area wasn't the same as busy as trafficking. I think a part of that is

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Chris Feeney: um

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Chris Feeney: that

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Chris Feeney: you know.

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Chris Feeney: Where are the workers? Are they coming back into the city to work? Are they mixed? You know. This was on a Tuesday, a Wednesday. So

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Chris Feeney: um! But that's surprising to me. Just because when I lived in Charlotte it was nothing close to it was or is now. It was a Charlotte has basically become kind of like a little miniature in New York City. Ah! Compared to what it used to be when I lived there. It was like started to build up. It was

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Patrick Toner: just coming up, and it was just that it was a nice small city. I would not call Charlotte the small city anymore, But that's interesting. That's interesting. You would go in there at rush hour, and there wouldn't be as many people, you know.

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Patrick Toner: You know. I I always ask people, and obviously I've kind of gone to to a different, you know, going from New Jersey to Florida, in New Jersey. It was like a lot of people are still remote, depending on their job. Obviously, if you're a nurse, you have to be, you know, in an office You're in in an office in the hospital, you know. If you work some sort of a trade, you can't do that remotely. You're there. So you know it depends on what you do. But most people they're doing administrative or office, or whatever type work

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Patrick Toner: that you know. They they up there. At least we're either remote or hybrid model

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Patrick Toner: down here. It's a little bit more. People are just. It's almost like nothing ever happened down here. People just go into their offices, and um, you know, like one of my neighbors, asked me, what do you do for a living? Because I I never like leave in the morning, or barely ever leave in the morning. And she was, I I think I just needed to rest her mind that i'm not like a drug dealer or something.

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Chris Feeney: Well, you just don't, hey? It's a new

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Chris Feeney: That's right. I'm on a Youtube channel. I produce content. I do podcasts, and so you know. So it was a little odd for her to see that down here, So it's just a different different culture. But I think a lot of places in the country. You know that the hybrid model

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Patrick Toner: again. I guess it depends where you're at, but it really is. It's almost like cloud in a way. Right people are, hey? You're going to go to cloud or not. And the people went all in with Cloud and said, Okay,

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Patrick Toner: it's it's cool, it's great. It's good for what it is, but we need a hybrid model,

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Patrick Toner: and I think it's. Maybe we're seeing the same thing here. There's there is a balance with work from home.

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Chris Feeney: But hey, look! If if it is, if it's, if it's, if it is um, they better for the environment. Great, you know, if there's less people on the road and all of that, I mean that's that's a win. And obviously, if traffic's better, that's even a bigger win? Yeah. The one clear example that I remember from the early months of the pandemic was actually in India.

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Chris Feeney: There was this one city. I don't know how large it was,

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Chris Feeney: it's,

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Chris Feeney: but they're like two hundred miles from the Himalayas.

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Chris Feeney: But for thirty years

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Chris Feeney: they had not seen them

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Chris Feeney: because of the pollution and the smog and stuff like that. Now enter people staying home, not getting on the road, no commuting that kind of thing. And slowly but surely

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Chris Feeney: that smog began to lift, and they I remember seeing this out there. Probably find it out there on the Internet But um, the Himalayas appeared, and they're like in all of these massive, massive mountains that are two hundred miles away, mind you, but still look like they were right there,

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Chris Feeney: but they hadn't seen him because of all the I mean growing economy, growing population, and all the all the things that come with that

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Chris Feeney: uh, and it blocked out one of nature's uh, most amazing, you know. Uh sites right, I mean I've I've not seen the Himalayas personally. Uh, but uh,

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Chris Feeney: i'm sure they're majestic just like my first time I saw the Grand Tetons. That's a you've never seen those. Wow! Just that's pretty cool.

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Chris Feeney: Um.

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Chris Feeney: But yeah, just you know. So there are definitely some benefits to the not being on the road as much. Um,

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Chris Feeney: But I think also it comes down to company culture, right, I mean, and what you're trying to do. I mean there's there's um

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Chris Feeney: there's a notion of self-discipline right, I mean you have to

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Chris Feeney: discipline your time and effort, and if you're good at that. But if you need that collaborative thing, I mean, maybe you need that type of job, and I certainly as one who's worked remotely for many years. I certainly crave

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Chris Feeney: the opportunity to be together with folks when I when I have the chance. Uh. But but I can be just as productive, you know,

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Chris Feeney: working at home as I have for a long time. So um, anyway, would I ever go back to an office job?

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Chris Feeney: I don't know, maybe.

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Chris Feeney: Hello.

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Chris Feeney: How about you.

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Patrick Toner: No, yeah, I I I'd be honest. I really do. I do appreciate the the hybrid style, I mean, you know, even if I were to go back to an office. It would have to be

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Chris Feeney: hybrid type thing where I was, you know, remote a few days a week back in the office view because you got to break it up. I I really think that's I think that's the best model, you know, because it is good to get together with people you know that I think about like you and I talk multiple times a week at least.

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Chris Feeney: Uh, I don't know when's last time we saw each other in person trying to think about this.

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Chris Feeney: You're a little off.

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Patrick Toner: Oh, yeah, that's right. I saw you down in a Nashville. I know it was recent.

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Chris Feeney: But that was the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. Right, you know. Yeah, I think so. I think it's possible to still have some of that camaraderie some of that thing over zoom teams, whatever. But you know.

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Patrick Toner: But yeah, I I think he's a better model. But I think ultimately I think the kind of where we're talking about. We're talking about sustainability. We're talking about, you know, basically just being a better steward of

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Patrick Toner: the environment. Uh, you know of of resources. You know all these things we're talking about. It is a great way. Technologies to be able to fill in that gap. Um! And you know, something like an eye gel can be a great way to extend the life of a device to repurpose what you have. You know there's been so many

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Patrick Toner: customers I worked with throughout the years. They were just gonna throw stuff out. They were gonna just dispose of it. Whatever they do recycle it, wipe it whatever most of the time. They're just getting thrown in the trash right, and it's like,

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Patrick Toner: and they were able to take that device that was deemed no good, and repurpose it and use it. So I think that you know ultimately there's there's a really good story here. There's a really great use, and and look all of us pretty much anyone listening to this is, if you're working at a company, you probably have one.

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Patrick Toner: Ah, you know some kind of a, you know, Basically, you're being told. Hey? Look, we need to. We need to be better stewards. We need to, you know, recycle our devices where we used to throw them out right. So this is. This is a a trend that's happening in the country. So I think there's just some really cool ways. You could kind of

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Patrick Toner: um, you know, extend the extend the life of your devices. And if you can't, you know company like computers for community, you can reach out to them, they can. They can repurpose it and give it to somebody who can use it. So I think ultimately it just It's just a great thing overall.

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Patrick Toner: And um,

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Patrick Toner: I think. Uh well, we're kind of running out of time here, Chris. So I guess we kind of have to if we're gonna We could kind of you probably could keep going here, but it might be a good time to just kinda close this one down. What do you think?

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Chris Feeney: Yeah, I think so. I mean I So we we I was a If you're gonna be a Vmware explorer next week we'll have a session on this. I'll be on a panel with Jack Madden and you

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Chris Feeney: another gentleman who's kind of taken the concept of managing mobile devices a little bit more efficiently. I've got a an ipad here, for example. Ah, kind of repurposing mobile devices. Think about how many of those are out there? Phones or ipads or or tablets. That's a whole. Another

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Chris Feeney: solution set. I jel doesn't play in that space. But but yeah, there's extrapolate that across. You know those things. So it should be a good conversation. Certainly. I'm looking forward to it. It's been a while since I've been out

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Chris Feeney: to San Francisco. Um. But

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Chris Feeney: yeah, i'm looking forward to it,

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Chris Feeney: and we have lots of resources. There's this blog at.

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Chris Feeney: We highlighted today from our Mr. Our different James Reagan, but there's plenty of other things that I think we'll put into the podcast. You can resource. Look at these resources that your leisure.

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Chris Feeney: So here,

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Patrick Toner: And, by the way, I should probably mention, if anyone's listening if you Haven't checked out the workshop, we just did so. Chris and I were on with large blokener.

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Chris Feeney: Um, Who does the I jail? Unified communications uh documentation. The guys I mean the guy's brilliant When we get into the Ucc. And all the different technologies he had him on, he was he deeped over it, and all that stuff, and I was blown away

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Patrick Toner: uh by some of the content. So check that out. So i'm Zintecher's Youtube Channel. If you go to Youtube and search, integrate, you can find our channel there. Um, also our workshop next month we just ah just hammered that one down. That'll be a control up. So

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Patrick Toner: old friend Paul Bell will be joining us. Um! Which will be really cool and take a look at that edge. Dx solution. So stay tuned on that we'll have more details. Um, yeah, Chris, You know I appreciate it. Appreciate you jumping on, And as always, it's great talking to you.

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Patrick Toner: Ah, maybe we'll see each other person soon. I won't be at the vmware of it. I was gonna say Vm. World but um, you know, but i'm sure we'll. We'll catch up in person here soon, and everybody else. Thank you for listening. This is episode sixty, one, and we're gonna go ahead and sign out

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Chris Feeney: all right. Take care! Have a great week.