sales. So Brett and me, we did a video about why we shouldn't hire a sales guy. I think if you dig through there you'll find that. But there's a little bit more to the story and part of it's finding the right salesperson. And I decided to contract Brett to do sales here because I want to, well of course we want to grow as a business and we're trying to find the right salesperson. So for now Brett is the right salesperson. And what we mean by that is a learning experience and he wanted to give it a try because Brett came from insurance sales. And he's actually been able to accomplish a lot since October of 2019. It's currently December of 2019 and so far you threw out what over $200,000 with the bids. Yeah we're like 211,329 to be exact. Yeah. It's been an incredible ride going from insurance to IT sales. Yeah. Except for the fact that they both protect people. Right. And that's what I, once I got that in my head it was actually pretty. Yeah. And a lot of that was project sales. So let me just be upfront about this. A lot of the way my company brings in money isn't just MSP. MSP is a piece of it but actually the larger amount of annual revenue that comes into my company is project work. Some people may call it break fix work. I like to call it project work because well you're selling things like installing Wi-Fi throughout several warehouses or installing and ripping and replacing infrastructure, rebuilding firewalls and that. And these sales numbers are only the new business brought in. And what I'm going to talk about is that process. And I like to just reiterate it that people buy from people they like and the kind of deliverable I hope that you may get from this video. One, I like to be very open about how we do sales. But I am separating this though from two pieces. One, one of my inbound lead generation systems is YouTube. I put a lot of videos out there that generates a lot of leads for us. That is a big piece of it. This is not part of that. We're only going to talk about what is. Because I'm not saying that you shouldn't do YouTube. I'm not saying it's for everyone. I'm not going to try to sell you on some line of BS. Oh yeah, just get on YouTube. It's like the next best thing, rah, rah, rah. So I see people doing that. It's not for everyone. If it's a fit for you, awesome. It's a fit for me. So I like it. It is inbound lead. Let's talk about relationship building, landing MSP clients. Because included in that is some MSP sales in there. But in a lot of project work. And it starts with getting out there. They say it's about who you know. That's actually highly, that's a very true statement, wouldn't you say? That's reality. Let's face it. It's hard to get jobs out there. It's hard to meet other people. It's who you know. I would say when you think about referral based business and people who get to know and like you, those things close at a higher percentage rate. Yes. And it's about building that relationship. It's not just going out there and handing your card to somebody and hoping they call. It's maybe getting their card, giving them a call, sitting down having a cup of coffee and actually talking about what their wants and needs are. Yeah. And it's one of the things that is so important about the sales process.  Zero dollars. We quit advertising in, I think, 2017, late 2017. It was probably the last time we ever bought a Google or any type of online advertising. We just don't do that anymore. I really found when you started breaking down the clients. Now, who's shopping on Google? Consumers, yeah, if you're running a retail store, separate story, this is all about B2B sales and MSP sales. You look the same. Everyone goes, oh, look at that. I typed in, I need a computer repair. And look, these people popped up that who's the cheapest price? Who's got that? A lot of the price shoppers. Well, the best clients we have, the ones that are, that you have good margin on, that you have a good relationship with, that is not you just competing to do it as cheap as possible, are people that you have a relationship from. And we just, one of the MSP deals that Brett landed, someone actually, I met from 2015. It took a long time to land that particular company, a big engineering firm. And how do we land them? I knew the guy from 2015, we had talked, we had conversations over time. And about anything, I'd say, hey, we belong to unrelated, but another business group that I had met him in. And though you just keep those relationships up because with IT, you have to wait for the pain point. And they had it. They had it with their other IT company after a few years. They already, there was grumblings. But that's one of the things you have to be at the ready when the pain comes in IT. It's not easy to get someone switched when they're happy. That's as simple as that. Right. And you got to solve for that pain. You can't come up there and have it, they have an issue and you can't help them with that issue. You've got to be able to solve for that pain. And it's about understanding your product. Yes. One of the things in having a sales person, like myself, who, yes, I came from the insurance industry, but I know enough about technology to be able to get by. I know about a mill of percentage of what he knows, but I know enough to be able to have an intelligent conversation about what the product can do for that consumer. And that's important. And you have to think about it from a business integration standpoint. And the reason I bring that up too is because so many people get deep technical. I love deep technical. Don't get me wrong. That's on my YouTube channel is about. That's my place. I like to live is in a deep technical side of things. But I do realize myself as a business owner, I have to deal with the property that we manage here because we're in a strip mall. And why do I bring it up? Well, the guy wanted to tell me about a new guy that want to tell me about what kind of salt he's using and stuff like that. I just stopped him. I'm like, dude, I'm sure that's really interesting. I was not too rude about it. But I said, let me give you some advice. Just tell me how much is honestly the price. Yeah. And he really, I could tell he was enthusiastic about it. And I didn't cut him off really, but I want to I kind of want to make the point. I'm really worried. I just need to know the price, how much can cost to maintain this parking lot with all these spots? Oh, yeah, it's about $3,000. This is the contract. Cool. And, you know, that's mean not deal and deal with that. There's other aspects of the building like, you know, that I don't really want to do with the HVAC system. I mean, the guy wanted to tell me what brand I said I want a good brand. I want a good warranty. Cool. And when you look at it, how it solves for the pain of their problem, that's how you speak like they call, Hey, we really want to be protected. We have this problem. We had ransomware, etc. What do you guys do to stop it? Oh, we're going to put in a filtering system. We're going to help maintain your business continuity. Rarely do we even get into do you even get the question from you're sitting down of what anti-virus brand do you use? Never. No, I haven't yet. And I've seen people's technical where they want to lead with that. Oh, we're using XYZ product. They want to brag about it or something.  And if the client asks, I mean, feel free to present, but I wouldn't lead with it. And that's part of that relationship building. Like Brett said, you have to be there to solve for X and have a concise sheet, have a concise answer. It helps get your quotes out faster. Well, let's face it, most business owners, when they open up their doors, they just want to make sure their computer turns on and that it can connect to the internet or connect to their network. They don't care how it does it. They just want to know that it will do it. Right. So you got to solve for that kind of a pain and be simplistic. Don't, don't over-tech it. Don't, don't overthink it. Just have a conversation, take lots of notes and build that relationship. Yeah. And people dig into like having lots of handouts to close this business. Do we have a ton of handouts? I created two and I haven't used one yet. Yeah. And people think that's like the key, like they need all this stuff. What you need is be likable. It sounds, it sounds weird, but it actually helps a lot. If you come in, you talk concisely, you talk about how you can solve the problem. And, or matter of fact, the big warehousing job is because a year ago, I couldn't solve the problem. Right. So the person had a problem. We went and looked at it. We realized selling them new Wi-Fi wouldn't have solved it, although they had already taken two bids from other competitors. I told them the honest truth. I said, I can sell you new Wi-Fi, but the problem is the devices you have over here don't support this function. I'm sorry, I can't sell you Wi-Fi because my new Wi-Fi won't solve your old device problem that you're trying to get connected. And he's like, why are you the first tech to tell me that? I'm like, I don't know. And he said, why had two other companies come out here and give me these huge bids? And I'm like, I just wanted to make money. Yeah. That's all they didn't care about.  Right around there, 90 something thousand. I think once we can do all the locations, but they chose us because we couldn't, we were honest and everyone else just wanted to hurry up and make the sale without actually taking the time to look at it. And it's not the first time that's happened. A lot of companies, especially in the MSP space, they just look in not to solve the problem. They just go, rip and replace. Let's put all of our stack in and all of our magic will just work. And they give them a really big bill as opposed to looking at what are the, how does this integrate in your business and having that conversation with them? Well, I've been surprised when I've come back from meeting with somebody and I sit down with with the guys here and talk over and we'd like to talk about every project and everybody here is involved in every project because it's almost like a family here. It's kind of a cool, cool aspect of it. But we taught when we talk about a project and I'm surprised pleasantly when someone will say, you know what, let's keep this there with them. We don't need to take that out. That's working. Let's continue that to be working and let's just add to this whole rip and replace and come in. I've heard of companies coming in after a few months of a business owner having equipment and then taking it all out, throwing it away and putting in their stuff. Why would you do that? Yeah. I mean, I get it that some companies want to be everyone on exactly the same stack and things like that. But those companies become very generic. They treat people like tickets and not like people. And it's always been our thing. We treat you like a person, not like a ticket. I've said that many times and, you know, we just had a guy who came in today. He stopped in to say hi to us. The law firm, which he took over. And it's great. And this is a complete Bret sales. You meet these people at the chamber. So, you know where the leads are coming from. Referrals following up and lots of Chamber of Commerce events and lots of business networking events. And like Bret said, you're playing the long game of building relationships saying, hi, just offer to go have lunch with people once in a while and start with, hey, what problems are you having? You know, see if they want to do that. Buy them lunch. It's not that expensive.  And I've never been big on that. I mean, I'm not saying cold calling won't work at all. But cold calling is a numbers game. You need a thousand numbers. And if you're lucky, you'll convert one or two of those. And that's a lot of time and effort on there. And you're calling random strangers versus, hey, build this relationship. And now the relationship we built with this law firm. Because you know what this guy at the law firm knows? A lot of other people. A lot of other law firms. A lot of other law firms. Apparently they pass off business to people that will say, hey, we don't do this type of law. And we'll pass it off to them. And lawyers apparently hang out, especially defense attorneys. We have a group of defense attorneys that know each other. They start with some of the wildest stories. We haven't had to use them though. And we haven't had to use them. Let's make that clear. Yeah, yeah. Defense attorneys, I'll just say that they have some of the best stories. And they're interesting people. And they do, they have like a lot of water cooler talks. So if you treat them really well, well, and we don't offer any commission for them. We're not doing finders fees. A lot of people ask about that.  So that's a big thing about this one. And people always ask where your inbound needs come in. It's not from some job board.  And what are these list people looking for IT? I've never found them to be that concise. I mean, you can build target lists and stuff like that. And there's marketing companies out there, if you ever wanted outsource it. We don't use any of them, but I know some of them do work. But trust me, you can expect to pay quite a bit. I've seen some of them charging like, you know, five, $6,000 a month just to do those calls. And it's because there is genuinely what they do. It's someone smiling and dialing. My wife used to work for quick and long. Roll up numbers, right? Yeah. And it's a numbers game. They have a list of 5,000 numbers that they're handing out to a group of people to say, Hey, solve for X, man, start smiling and dialing. But the problem is who jumps around on prices when it comes to IT? People price shopping. So do you get the highest bidding cost? Or you might land some, I'm not saying you won't, but statistically, who switches on a phone call? Hey, I got this, and I'll do it for this much. Cool. I pay X and I can pay X minus 20%. Okay, I'll switch to your little bitter creed. You know, is it the relationship you want to build? But if you spend the time like we do curating people, meeting them, and I know it sounds impersonal, I see curating, but it's just being friendly, you know, out there have a conversation. Be genuine. Be genuine. You know, if you look at a close ratio, so if you want to get technical about sales, let's talk about close ratios. If you're going to be doing Facebook leads and going for those people that are price shopping for your service, you're going to be dealing with people that are price shopping for your service when they go and find the next person. Right. When then they go and find that next person. But you build a relationship.  And a genuine relationship, not fake, but truly getting to know somebody. I mean, there are people that know what you do with your kids, what you know. Oh, yeah, yeah. We have personal conversations. You know, this is me, you know, I do use Facebook at a personal level. I'm not out ranting about whatever the political or hot button topic of the day is, whatever people want to be outraged about.  Anyways, I don't find either side of the fence being very productive on Facebook. It just becomes a place where you divide people if you participate in that. But you know, what I do have is a lot of genuine conversations with people. We landed a country club over that they were just it came into discussion of photos and things like that. And one of the people that also likes photos I had posted happens to do photography for the country club and knew they needed IT and it was just someone I knew on Facebook. We landed a country club and when we solved a big Wi-Fi thing at the country club and put a new service for them and started solving that problem, the next thing that happened was the board. You know, who happens to be on the board of the country club? A lot of people that also own businesses at times. And they want to do business, they're making the decisions. Yeah. And then we happened to land them as we now service their businesses. But it's, you know, it's about leaving an impression on people. We follow up with them. Follow up, I will tell you, is absolutely huge. So much of it. And this is where I knew I had a problem myself and why I had to bring Brett. I'm like, Brett, I just don't have time to follow up with these people. And so most of his sales, I mean, we did go to the Chamber of Commerce and meet some of these, but the 200,000 there was mostly him just follow up in the last, you know, it was like a month and a half. I've been doing that landed 200 more thousand on top of there's still other sales that happened off YouTube and everything else that's got the business, you know, coming in. And that's where I try to focus because those inbound leads are hot and they're coming in and people, we have a really, I mean, I think my close rate, I think it's still at like 70% close rate. Yes, it is. The YouTube stuff, I'm going to do a separate video on how we do inbound leads on YouTube, but our close rate on it from, from inbound lead to converted to someone spending money with us is really, really high for that. So it's been good. But I just wanted to throw this video out there because this question comes up all the time.  I can't because I don't know how many times I've sent all these different sales videos to people and I keep saying it like there's not a secret to it. You have to get out from behind the keyboard. There's not like the best key words you ever use that suddenly landed you a bunch of MSP sales or things like that. The MSP stuff, like I said, he's like selling insurance.  I mean, I think you know what, I just got tagged in a Facebook post. This is indirectly related to YouTube, which probably going to turn into an MSP sale for a 30 person office because tagged in a Facebook post, had a conversation with a person on Facebook like, Hey, we're growing. We're a little worried about security and things like that. Cool. Let me, I'll look at what you have and let's put a solution together. And you know, it's not that hard. It's as simple as that. It really is. But it is hard work. There's hard work involved. Oh, yeah. Know your stack and everything else. Don't talk over people's heads. And this person's highly focused on their industry and they're doing well in it and their company's growing fast. They want someone that can grow with them. And you know, Brad had that set down, had that conversation, took about an hour maybe. Yeah. And then get along great, have some conversation and away you go. It's not as hard as people think in some ways, but it's different because everyone's looking for the magical, but I have a pretty website. Why don't the leads just pour in from the website? Why don't the leads just come in from these ad clicks? Oh, don't we need to click funnel them into a bunch of a webinar stuff? I know not. I've not really found not when it comes to MSP cells. Honestly, I've never found them effective at all. No matter how much technology evolves, it's never going to replace face to face communication. Yeah. Ever. People are nervous. And especially because you're faceless when you're doing all these ads. You want to put a face in front of them. You want to put some confidence in front of them. And that's really what sells it. So that's a lot of what is my deliverable from this video that I'm hoping that people have a takeaway with. It's just you do need to do the legwork. You do need to get out there, build relationships.  So those are people you've met and built relationships with. Yeah. Met them in person, things like that's anything linked in conversations, not not some blah, blah, blah. We offer the best this this those generic spam messages just get you banned. People see right through that. So yeah. All right. Well, we're going to leave you with that. I just wanted to bring it up and give you that because this, like I said, it's repeated question comes up and I'll be sending this video to all those people that keep dropping links in the forum going, but Tom, what's the secret to your sales? You're seeing it right here. It's actually hard work and meeting people. Get out from behind the keyboard. All right. Thanks. And thank you for making it to the end of the video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you'd like to see more content from the channel, hit the subscribe button and hit the bell icon. If you like YouTube to notify you when new videos come out. If you'd like to hire us head over to laurancesystems.com fill out our contact page and let us know what we can help you with and what projects you'd like us to work together on. If you want to carry on the discussion, head over to forums.laurancesystems.com where we can carry on the discussion about this video, other videos or other tech topics in general, even suggestions for new videos. They're accepted right there on our forums, which are free. Also, if you'd like to help the channel in other ways, head over to our affiliate page. We have a lot of great tech offers for you. And once again, thanks for watching and see you next time.


Dare I ask we need to be more like Scandinavia so that we can be happy like them How do we need to be more like Scandinavia Bob? Their poverty rate is less than half the United States and they have free health care, free higher education, free paternal leave, free vacation, free retirement, a living minimum wage, a higher happiness index score, and a higher individual GDP than the U.S. Scandinavia proves that democratic socialism can work Actually Bob the Scandinavian countries that people like to point to like Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway aren't really socialist at all What? Not only has the prime minister of Denmark gone out of his way to publicly say that they're a market economy Those four Scandinavian countries rank about the same as the U.S. as far as economic freedom is concerned Yes, they have very robust welfare systems that previous administrations have put in place But they've been trimming back both their social programs and their levels of taxation since the 1990s Once the people realized that their economies were suffering because of the expanding tax and spend social democracy Policies that kept being implemented as far as levels of poverty are concerned National-level poverty is measured comparatively to what other people in this same country are making and where that line is set varies from country to country not even the World Bank will release comparative data sets on that and all four countries have higher Individual and family tax burdens than the U.S. with Sweden and Finland's being significantly higher if you earn $54,000 once your employer has paid the necessary taxes for hiring you and youth paid your income taxes You're left with 39,000 in the U.S. and only 20 to 25,000 in Sweden I wouldn't call that free anything, but what about their GDP, huh? Well, according to the World Bank's most recent data only Norway had a GDP per capita that was higher than the U.S. And that's largely because of their relatively large petroleum reserves It's also worth noting that their per capita GDP has sharply decreased in recent years They're high minimum wage by and large. It isn't set by their government It's negotiated industry by industry between unions and businesses usually Bob It's great that you want other people to be happier But maybe we could find a way that doesn't involve government mandates or Viking horns You can keep the Viking horns then Hey folks, thanks so much for watching if you enjoyed this, please check out fee.org for more educational content. Thank you You


The Government's Growth State Initiative sets a goal to lift South Australia's economic growth in gross state product to 3% per annum. Food, wine and agribusiness is one of the nine priority sectors identified to achieve this. The Food, Wine and Agribusiness Sector Plan sets an ambitious target to contribute revenue of $23 billion by 2030 to the South Australian economy. This industry is the largest manufacturing sector in our state. It is a key pillar of the South Australian economy and is the only major manufacturing sector in the state to show steady growth in employment and revenue over the past two decades. The Food, Wine and Agribusiness Plan will provide direction and focus for industry and government to achieve growth, help focus on common opportunities, build on existing industry plans and blueprints, show the importance of the sector here and overseas and seek opportunities for growth and innovation. Six priority areas have been identified to achieve our growth target. Grow productivity, increase local processing capacity and improve efficiencies, drive agtech adoption, enhance research, development, technology and innovation, add value through the supply chain. Examples of current initiatives include the $1.8 million commitment to establish an OAT Breeding Centre of Excellence, as well as $1.2 million to develop a Pulse's Cooperative Research Centre, and the establishment of an agtech advisory group, demonstration farms and development of an agtech strategic plan for South Australia. Grow people, improve business capacity and capability, support workforce growth and development of skills through fit for purpose training and education. Promote career opportunities, seen through initiatives like the Food and Wine Industry Growth Programs and the Excite Science and Innovation Strategy to support industry research collaborations and increase research investment and activity. Grow infrastructure, improve digital connectivity including cyber security and mobile phone coverage, strengthen supply chains and transport networks, improve regional infrastructure to support growth. Current initiatives include the state government's $1.1 billion investment on road infrastructure, allowing safer, more efficient freight movements and also recycled water projects to drive horticulture expansion in northern Adelaide Plains and the Barossa and Eden Valley. Grow markets, develop market opportunities and create new products. Improve market access through strong biosecurity systems, product integrity, traceability and food safety standards. Promote our state and premium products, like through the Food Essay Export Hub to increase the export of South Australian food and beverage products and the creation of a Seafood Advisory Forum to develop a 10-year seafood plan establishing common industry goals and driving growth and innovation. Grow sustainability, increase sustainable access to limited natural resources, encourage increased access and use of recycled resources, protect resources from biosecurity threats and pest animals, implement production and processing techniques that minimize costs and environmental impacts and drive business benefits. Current initiatives include the once-in-a-generation $25 million rebuild of the dog fence and the $24.5 million reform of the marine scale fishery. Grow the operating environment, nurture collaboration and co-investment. Deliver smart regulation, minimize business costs and administrative burdens. Examples include the state government's work to modernize our legislative frameworks through a new Biosecurity Act and review of the Pastoral Act, as well as legislative amendments to allow GM food crops to be grown across mainland South Australia in time for 2021 cropping season. The food, wine and agribusiness sector plan is jointly owned by partners, primary producers South Australia, Food South Australia, the South Australian Wine Industry Association and the South Australian Government. We look forward to working with you to harness opportunities to drive future growth. For more information visit 23billionby2030.com.au


How can I manage file uploads on my Moodle? Files added to your Moodle site come from repositories, which we can view from Site Administration, plugins, repositories. Let's look at the main repositories here. Private files is a personal area for uploading and managing a set of files. Recent files gives quick access to your most recently accessed files if you want to use them again. Server files allows teachers to access uploaded files in courses where they teach. Uploader file allows your users to bring files into your site from their own devices or from external file storage areas such as Google, OneDrive or NextCloud. Learners and teachers on your Moodle site will be able to upload files such as word process documents, images, videos, sound files and more. You can view and edit the types of files allowed on your site from Site Administration, Server, File Types. These all take up space on the server where your site is hosted. If you have a Moodle Cloud site, there are limitations on the maximum file storage allowed. See your package details to check yours. As an admin, you can set the maximum file upload size from Site Administration, Security, Site Security settings if you're hosting allows. This maximum can be changed to a lower amount in course and activity settings by teachers. If we return to Site Administration, plugins, repositories and click Manage repositories, we see the list of available repositories on your site. Some repositories have settings pages where you can change the name of the repository to make it clearer for your users and to make other changes. Enabled and visible means teachers and learners can bring in files from these areas. It's fine to leave the default settings if you're not sure. If you want to prevent access to a particular repository, you can disable it here. If we scroll down past the enabled repositories, we see external repositories such as Google, OneDrive, NextCloud and Dropbox. When you enable these, you then have to configure them by following the instructions in the documentation. To summarise, files are added to Moodle from repositories. Administrators control the availability of repositories. Maximum file upload size can be changed from Site Administration, Security, Site Security settings if allowed by your hosting.


The fundraiser, helping you reach your target. So here we are in Kenya. It's day three, it's day two on the site and you can see things are going pretty well here. We're laying some phones down here at the minute. You can probably see it in the background.  And Mary Duffy is on very important duty today with Sister Catherine, Mary. How are you? How are you getting on? I've been with her today, Lee. Very important, isn't it Sister Catherine? Yeah. She's been helping me all day. We're delivering water round to all the workers. Very important to get the water in. On such a hot day, that's what we're at today, Lee. Is Mary a good worker, Sister Catherine? Yeah, she's a very good friend of mine and we are working very hard to supply some juice and water to the people who are working. And what do you think of the iris coming over, Sister Catherine, to do projects like these? Yeah, I think, and I feel very happy to have an Irish people here and they are working very hard and they are very friendly. And as a congregation, we are very happy to have a project like this in Kenya and especially in Kikambala. Thank you, Sister Catherine. Thank you, Sister Catherine.  Do you know there's a film called The Water Boy? You're the water girl today. I'm the water girl today. All right. See you later. We heard you were shopping and we heard you were shopping materials, wasn't it? Yeah, Mary Duffy, do you believe him? Yeah, he's given her a good price. Mary was the owner to check it out for me. All right, very nice to meet you, Mr. Jackson. Thanks, Olive. Olive made a trip today. Tell us where we'll be making it. We're here in the local hardware store. We're after buying two kilos of nails. Here they are here and the Irish are waiting for them up on the side. So we have to get moving. Let's go quickly. Well, you've just been to the hardware store. Are you happy with your dealings? Yeah, we have. We've just been to the hardware store. Now we've done all our, got our few nails. So that'll keep the slabs moving on site. We are now going to reverse out onto the crazy road. Jackson, the dealer, has given us our stuff. He whispered in my ear that he needs payment by this evening. Do you have the money? Yeah, I have, yeah. We have to change it. These are all these are his employees, all these lads. How much would they get per day? 400 chillings per day. How much is that? Four euros per day. That's hard work. Look at all that timber that they have to deal with. And then our car is so dirty. I can't see all the things we have to do. You're a good driver, Olive. I don't know. Look, you'll hear the car is blowing at me now in a minute. And they have no mercy. They have no mercy here in these roads. They won't allow you anyway. Oh, I'm just going to slip out of here. I'm just going to let him walk. He walks up behind me. Now, an order has come in from watch there now. And there are his staff. And they count each piece of wood and sell it at empty. What do you want to say to all the people at Doney Gull? He's probably watching us. Johnny Gull, I love you. Little did I ever, ever think I would be traveling in a car with Lee Gooch and I have Sean Daugherty and Mary Duffy here with me in Africa. And it's all because of the most special person, Derek Davis. It would never have happened. And I know that Derek Davis is watching us from above. What about this here? He's carrying the wood home and the motorbike. And that's their way of transport. They have no cars. So you can see three of them on a motorbike there. And it's a big way of transport the motorbikes to get the children to school. So you could have a father and a mother on the motorbike with four children. There'd be six people on the motorbike. And they just hire it. It's 50 Bob to go from A to B, short distances. Well, there you have it, Sean. We just visited the village. Mary, what do you think? Beautiful, absolutely. Very happy people here. Mambos, beautiful. Never had an experience like it. I don't know about you, Lee or Mary.  But I'm sure they're ever so happy. Yeah. And that's the thing that hits you when you get here straight away is the joy and the happiness. Despite the fact that I've never seen anything like it in terms of poverty. I mean, these people have very little, nothing very much materially, but they seem to have joy and they seem to have a lot of happiness in their lives and the welcome that they gave us. And it's one of those moments that I think, I'll not forget. Yeah. What about you, Mary? Very special moment, yeah. And so happy to see us. Well, I suppose that's a wrap from the Highland team today until the next day. Bye. Bye. So here we are, day four. It's 20 minutes past eight. And I think everybody's getting a little bit tired at the minute. The majority of us had about four hours of sleep last night and we're up very, very early in the morning. So much to do and there's a few changes. Like blocks have been knocked out again because we want ramps and it's all go here at the minute. Believe it or not, we'll give you an update in the afternoon. You're right, Duffy. Yes, Lee. All right, this is us recording now, we've got to be on our best behaviors at our right. Okay. All right, are you ready? Yeah. Is your makeup on? Yeah. Makeup's on, blusher, blusher. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With the lips, Mary. That was sunscreen, by the way. All right, okay. Mary, your glasses. This is what you get. All right, this is an update from myself and Mary. Mary, it's day five and it's day four on the side house. You're day going? Good, Lee. Very busy morning. Myself and a few other girls this morning were clearing the backs of the houses, getting it ready for topsoil. Kind of like this here that you see just behind us. Come you with me now. Everybody can see. It's very warm today here. It's about 37 or 38 degrees. So too warm now actually to work outside. So we're heading inside to clean out some of the little areas and the dormitories and the laundry in different places. There's been great shape in like four days on the side, haven't there? Absolutely, great. I mean, you did all the work ourselves. We did. Yeah. We're hard workers from Donegal. We'll have a nice weekend and we'll chat to you soon. Bye. Good morning from Kenya. It's day five and things are pretty going pretty good this morning. It's about 10 minutes to 10 o'clock. We've been here a few hours and on average we get about four hours of sleep every night, which is grand, believe it or not. You get well used to it. So the shrubs are coming along topsoil was put in yesterday. And there's a lot of furnishing off in the buildings and I'm walking through this and I'm very shaky. I do apologize. So we're doing the final touches. John and Patrick's down here. This is what I've been doing all week, all this slabbing. I'm actually a lot quicker than John and Patrick. I'm only joking. Top boys. And so you can see lots, lots going on here. So it's like any job. It's the last probably five or 10% that makes the big difference. And here's my pal, John. Pat, how are you doing? I'm waiting on you to take the interview. Explain now to everybody at home what I'm doing here today, what we're doing. Oh, well what we're doing is... In 15 seconds. Okay. We're putting stuff in some external parts and we do a fantastic job and it's going to keep the heat up. These wonderful, wonderful people here in Kenya. Okay. Pat, see you later. Bye-bye. That's the morning update. We'll give you another one in the afternoon and this evening. All right, from the team here at Highland Radio. Mombasa, day five, bye-bye. So we have Charlie from Kerry here, the Kingdom. Charlie, what have you invented here today? Lee, I painted this new clothesline for Sister Catherine and it's a six line drying line and it's very simple the way it works. Down here, Lee, you have your control for the line. You're slipping up like that. You have the small children who can hang their clothes on it and then when they want to stretch them out again, Lee, you come down like this and in under the nails like that and the perfect invention. So what are you calling this line then? What are you calling the line? It's called the Sunshine Line. And when are you going to be on Dragon's Den? Well, if we're going to be on Dragon's Den, Lee, I think I'll have to get something better than six inch nails but it's going to do for the job out here and it's been a pleasure making it for Sister Catherine. So it's day five in Kenya and we're joined by Frank, the four man house, how's things going, Frank? Yeah, going very well, Lee. Progression is very good. We're on day five. I honest to God, I didn't think we'd get this far so quickly but everything's getting done so fast that the Kenyan workers themselves are just amazing. The work they do, the talent they have and we're using it to the full extent so they're really joining in with us. Is there any pressure on it at the minute? Just savage pressure. To be honest with you, Lee, there is extreme pressure but to be honest, everyone is on top of it. We're really, really, I know we're going to get the job finished but it does get extremely hectic. There's a lot of stuff, a lot of finishing up stuff that when you look at it and you feel, oh, it's not going to be done, it's not going to be done but it will be done because the guys come to you all day long and they say, where are we, Frank? What do you need me for? And everybody just jumps in and gets it done. Like if you look at the transformation of this site from we got here five days ago, Lee, I mean, just take a look around you, the footpath and it's not just a basic footpath. It's, we put all the swirls and curls on the path. It's all paved, the crazy paving, it's double bonded to the floor, the cement finish on top. It's just amazing.  It's an amazing experience, Lee and it's really, really happening. It's really going to work, I honestly, honestly and 100% fully confident that by Monday evening we were... Well, it's trendy to wait on the last day of the project and we're on the second bus, the first bus has left and we're just waiting for one or two more people before we head back to the hotel. Last day of the project, finishing touches being done at the moment and it's back now for a bite to eat and a lot of bed. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Right, John. Home time. Home time. The bus is waiting. We're saying goodbye. I've got a little friend who's saying goodbye as well with her mum and it's been a very, very special time. It's sad, but we're also very happy that this project is going to be open now and available to take in the young girls who are so much in need of their help. So from all of us, I'm Mombasa. Bye!


Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Covering Dell Technologies World 2018. Brought to you by Dell EMC and its ecosystem partners. Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of Dell Technologies World 2018. Here in Las Vegas, I'm Stu Miniman, joined by my co-host, Keith Townsend. Happy to welcome to the program first time guest, Kevin Schatzkamer, who's the Vice President of Service Rider Strategy and Solutions with Dell EMC. Kevin, thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. All right, so first time on the program, give us a little bit about your background.  Sure, absolutely. So I've been in the service provider industry supporting and working with service providers, gosh, about 20 years, working in areas. First at the launch of 2G mobile data services, 3G, 4G, now as we are at the advent of 5G. And during the entire time, what we've continued to witness is continued move away from proprietary, more towards open technologies. Obviously moving away from proprietary hardware appliances, more towards x86 based appliances, the networking stacks moving more and more open. And in the last 18 months, during my journey here at Dell EMC, it was an opportunity to really come in and recognize Dell EMC and Dell Technologies family of companies as the foundational technologies for how we watch the telco industry really transform itself and start to embrace IT transformation to their own operations. Yeah, great background. We had a great, Keith and I had a great discussion with Tom Burns talking about networking. We've been watching the open networking piece, but we haven't gotten into all the Gs as much. So, you know, explain to our audience, you know, we've got interop down the street, you know, we've done coverage of Mobile World Congress, but, you know, 5G, some of the standards are there, some of the things are going to sort out. These time fit transitions do take years to go, but why so important and how does Dell play into the story? I think, you know, if we go back towards kind of the 2012 timeframe, I think there were two acronyms that really came to the forefront. It was SDN and it was NFV. And at the time, it was really discussed in the lens of how we saw the second half of 4G materializing and recognizing that for the second half of 4G with the early days of IoT, the economics of how you operate the networks needed to change drastically, right? So, we saw some of that start to happen. When we look at NFV in the industry, I think there's a little bit of trough of disillusionment out there. I think we see some use cases that have been successful. We've seen some challenges in terms of operationalizing NFV at scale. I think SDN to date has really been confined to sitting within the data center for interconnecting servers and building overlay technologies for the data centers. But what I expect to see now as we go into 5G is not the need for incremental improvement, but the need for an absolute step function in terms of performance, in terms of reliability, in terms of reduction in latency, all at a drastically different cost economics. So now when we start to think about the second wave of NFV and we think about SDN leaving the data center, I think that's where we're going to see 5G really play a lead from taking some of the technologies we've been talking about in siloed pockets and really see them move to scaled operation. So you mentioned a lot of the telco space in this environment. I've got familiarity with how EMC used to work with the service providers. Dell, of course, plays up and down and all over the place. What's the relationship of the telcos and the service providers from the Dell family? Yeah, I think when Dell technology speaks about the four transformations, we talk about workforce transformation, IT transformation, digital transformation, and security transformation, I think all of those are opportunities for the telcos and service providers in two ways. One is recognizing that their own network operations are transforming and that embracing the concepts of the IT transformation inside of their own operations, obviously with the telco grade reliability is an area that we work very closely with the telcos and SVs around. The second part is recognizing that the digital transformation and the shift towards digital for most of small medium business will be recognized through service providers, through cloud technologies. So the second way we work very closely with these service providers is helping them build the services that allow them to capture digital transformation as it moves off-prem into the cloud. So Kevin, can you provide some clarity or vision into the service provider space when it comes to the need for innovation to make that step transformation to 5G? In enterprise, we can see VMware NSX and we're blown away by it and that's way beyond what a lot of customers need, but there's still a lot of work to go to your point. What are some of those innovations that have to happen? Yeah, absolutely. So I think if you're at Mobile World Congress and just about any trade show event and even Michael Dell's keynote this morning at Dell Technologies World, the conversation of the edge came up, right? And I think that there's still a lot of debate around what the edge is and I know that the conversation came up around distribution of compute, but I think that the conversation is really around decentralization, right? So if we've looked over the last five years as cloud services like AWS and Microsoft Azure, IBM, software, various others have really been built. They've been built around a model that said that to achieve efficiency and scale, you have to build massively scaled centralized data centers. Now it turns out that low latency, highly interactive services that are very data driven just don't work well when the distance between the applications and the users consuming those applications is really large. Latency is too high, jitters too high, it's a little bit too unpredictable. So I think that the number one iteration and the number one innovation that we will see in the networks is the innovation at the edge. Now the edge can be on-prem, it can sit on-prem at stadiums and venues, it can sit at the cell site, it can sit in the mobile backhaul network, it can sit at central office locations and I think what we'll continue to see is recognition of not necessarily if you build it, they will come model, but recognition that there is a class of services and applications that the edge just makes sense to rally around and we'll see the edge become the new cloud. So as we talk about NFV, the edge, share some like, what would a CPE device look like at the edge? Is that NFV running on the customer's virtualized infrastructure? Is that truly some x86 box that the service provider puts in place that's provided by Dell? What clearer picture, our whole four of the edge? So the answer is yes, right? So the answer is that it's a CPE that sits on the branch and at the enterprise-prem, right? And Dell EMC and Mobile World Congress and most recently announced our virtual edge platform family of products with the first platform being the virtual edge platform 4600, right? The industry's first Skylake D platform specifically targeting the access and branch edge. But in addition to that, I think that what we're going to see is in these central office locations, the boundaries between what is a compute device and what is a network device really start to blur, right? And that modular servers that include x86 and merchant silicon and FPGA to terminate certain circuit switch workloads like cloud ran and smart NICs to be able to process data on the NIC itself are really going to start to come to the forefront. Maybe we see GPUs start to be included in that as well for more machine learning and artificial intelligence use cases. But I think that going forward, the end goal of the programmability that we talk about both at the application layer as well as at the infrastructure layer means that the boundaries between what's a server and what's a network device really start to blur. Kevin, last question I have for you. When I talk to server fighters, it feels like they're being pulled from both sides. So on the one side, there's public cloud, lots of them are figuring out how to do direct connect, work integrate into those services for VMware's partnering with them on that. On the other side, there's all this edge stuff that you've been talking about. Massive footprint and so many pieces that they need to think about. What do you hear from your customers? What's their biggest challenges and opportunities that they're facing? Yeah, and I think you're right. I think that when customers are being torn and service providers are being torn in the way that they are, they somewhat retreat to an or mindset. Is it this or this? Do I live in the public cloud or do I live at my edge? Do I live in an open source environment or do I embrace technologies coming from industry vendors? And I think more and more what we're seeing is a transition to an end environment and recognition that certain applications and workloads are well suited to reside in particular locations. Michael said in his keynote this morning that the cloud is not a place it's a business model. And I think that what we actually see is even extending that thought a little further is that the cloud is just a whole bunch of different places, right? We're going to move services and applications and workloads to the locations that are best able to meet the subscriber experience and deliver on what the applications expect. Kevin, really appreciate you help giving us some insight into one of the more dynamic pieces of the IT industry. We'll be back with much more coverage here from Dell World 2018. I'm Stu Miniman. This is Keith Townsend. Thanks for watching theCUBE.


I don't care. It's tough that professionals get they have a tough time tackling me. So you know everybody who has the comments just meet me in the hole one day. Let's see if that works out for you.


Just wanted to make a quick video Reminding you to be chill. I know that Life can get a bit stressful It's okay. It happens to everybody But you know, you just know that Whatever it is that's happening to you right now Whatever you're going through You just need to know that it will pass like I know that sounds Extremely Far-fetched or it could sound a bit, you know too simple, but You just need to realize that the reality of life is change life consistently changes You know, sometimes it changes in a way where You believe it's a better change. It's a change for the best or sometimes it changes in a way that You might currently look at it as a bad change, but What you can take comfort in is knowing that as long as you're alive There's gonna be change And anybody who's lived more than like 18 years Knows that pretty good pretty well by now that No matter what's your situation. It's it's gonna change If it's a good situation It's gonna change and you want to do whatever you can to make sure that it will change for the better At least in the long run But besides that you don't really have any power to do anything So for me during the really tough times in my life One of the mindsets that really helped me kind of go through it is I would always tell myself, you know, I would Always explore these kinds of truths of the moment like things that You know, you know kind of underlying realities of life and One reality that I discovered one truth that I discovered was You never know what's gonna happen in the next day and Then I said, okay, you know, you never know what's gonna happen tomorrow, you know tomorrow You know the most attractive girl in the world could You know by chance start talking to you or you start talking to her and You're gonna find your life partner. So tomorrow You might find the person you're gonna spend your rest of your life with or Tomorrow you might get that Insight that epiphany that changes everything Tomorrow somebody you love could die, you know batch it could happen too. And I'm just saying this, you know, just be optimistic with no reason but Then I took that philosophy of Okay tomorrow Everything could happen and then I said wait a minute in the next hour Anything could happen, you know It's maybe it's less likely if it's the middle of the night, but no stranger things have happened so Then I took it even further then I said wait a minute Anything could happen in the next hour in the next minute and What I've realized through that thought experiment again, it's not theoretical. It's It's logical. It's something that you know, you could spot for yourself What I realized is that you never know what the next moment holds and Once you realize that you never know What the next moment holds you kind of chill You know, you kind of calm down a bit. You kind of realize that Yeah, I could you know affect it Sorry, I think there's a spider on me never mind So see never you never know what happens so You know, you might try to affect the next moment you might try to affect the rest of your life, but all in all, you know beyond Obviously this philosophy is really good When you're in a bad situation when you're in a good situation You know, you tend to want things to stay the same so you don't you won't like what I'm saying If I'm in a if you're in a good situation right now, you know, because you'll be like Hey, what you know, what do you mean? Everything could be bad all of a sudden But again, you never know Like I said, somebody you love might just pass away Any minute now any second, you know, tell I hope you tell the people you love that you love them But you know when shit is bad You just want to you want to get done with it, you know, you want to be over with it, you know I want the next thing You know, I don't like this Bring me the next thing after that that hopefully it's better so What that point of view does is again, it makes you relax a bit because You realize that any minute now anything could change and When you get into that frequency when you start Kind of looking at the world through that lens that actually Makes the odds of that happening a lot bigger because Um, this is kind of a lot of attraction thing, but it's also pretty logical beyond that Whatever you expect tends to happen let's say You're walking in the street And you're afraid of getting mugged So you're going to try defending yourself against that prematurely So you're going to start walking like, you know, all tight and shit So people are going to see that and they're going to know that you're afraid of getting mugged. So What's the first thing it's going to go in the hood? It's like, oh, he's Afraid it's going to get mugged. Oh the word mugged. So somebody who's a mugger That's you know, the first person he notices. So it's counterintuitive Uh, it's actually it's it's counter to the goal so When you sort of create the get the lens of Okay, anything could happen at any moment like the next moment could hold Something completely different than I've ever experienced The next moment could be the best moment of my life Again, realize that deeply The next moment could be the best moment of my entire life Or the next moment could lead up to the best moment of my life At the same time the next moment could lead up to the worst Moment of your life. So You know, obviously don't wait for that, but be aware So when it's good Enjoy it, but you know, don't attach to it because it's susceptible to change And when it's bad You know There's hope Because change happens so When you start looking at the world through that very open-minded way like, okay What's the next thing that could happen? Eckhart toll He's a spiritual teacher.   So You want to sort of be like that You want to be very present to the moment Enjoy everything that happens because you realize it's going to change very fast And be open to the change now once you're open to that change The odds of things changing is very high because you're preparing yourself for it actively So that's my message for today Again, if if things are not going the way you want them to go Chill you know do what you can and Beyond that just chill because it's going to change And if things are not good or good Then you know enjoy it because it's not going to last. Bye. Bye


Dreamscape presents Life on the Edge, The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology by John Jo McFadden and Jim Al-Khalili. Narrated by Pete Cross. 1. Introduction The winter frost has arrived early this year in Europe, and there is a penetrating chill in the evening air. Buried deep within a young robin's mind, a once vague sense of purpose and resolve grows stronger. The bird has spent the past few weeks devouring far more than her normal intake of insects, spiders, worms and berries, and is now almost double the weight she was when her brood flew the nest back in August. This extra bulk is mostly fat reserves, which she will require as fuel for the arduous journey upon which she is about to embark. This will be her first migration away from the spruce forest in central Sweden, where she has lived for the duration of her short life and where she reared her young chicks just a few months ago. Luckily for her, the previous winter was not too harsh. For a year ago she was not yet fully grown and therefore not strong enough to undertake such a long journey. But now, with her parental responsibilities discharged until next spring, she has only herself to think about, and she is ready to escape the coming winter by heading south to seek a warmer climate. It is a couple of hours after sunset. Rather than settle for the night, she hops in the gathering gloom to the tip of a branch near the base of the huge tree that she has made her home since the spring. She gives herself a quick shake, much like a marathon runner loosening up her muscles before a race. Her orange breast glistens in the moonlight. The painstaking effort and care she invested in building her nest, just a few feet away, partially hidden against the moss-covered bark of the tree trunk, is now a dim memory. She is not the only bird preparing to depart. For other robins, both male and female, have also decided that this is the right night to begin their long migration south. In the trees all around her she hears loud shrill singing that drowns out the usual sounds of other nocturnal woodland creatures. It is as though the birds feel compelled to announce their departure, sending out a message to the other forest inhabitants that they should think twice before contemplating invading the bird's territory and empty nests while they are gone. For these robins most certainly plan to be back in the spring. With a quick tilt of her head this way and that to make sure the coast is clear, she takes off into the evening sky. The nights have been lengthening with winter's advance and she will have a good ten hours or so of flying ahead of her before she can rest again.