It's time for the Lawn Jean Chronoscope. A television journal of the important issues of the hour brought to you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. A presentation of the Lawn Jean Wittner Watch Company. Maker of Lawn Jean, the world's most honored watch, and Wittner. Distinguished companion to the world honored Lawn Jean. Good evening. This is Frank Knight. May I introduce our co-editors for this edition of the Lawn Jean Chronoscope? Larry Lasser from the CBS television news staff, and August Heckscher, chief editorial writer for the New York Herald Tribune. Our distinguished guest for this evening is Norman Thomas. Our guest tonight may not have been the most successful man that ever ran for president of the United States, but surely he was one of the most persistent. He was a presidential candidate six times on the Socialist Party ticket, but now Mr. Thomas devotes his time to writing and talking and thinking about the problems of the post-war world. Mr. Thomas, the world recently witnessed the victory of a Socialist Party in power in England directly after the war, but the Bevan government wasn't much of a success. Now, do you still feel that the socialization of big industries is the solution to social problems? Well, first I'm going to remind you that it was the athlete and not the Bevan government, and that it was a very considerable success. The fact is that England and Europe are very much better off. You have no idea how many troubles would have happened if they hadn't. And if you'd had Churchill, I doubt if you'd had the settlement in Burma and India, and you might have had Indochina scattered all over the world. Do you attribute that to the fact that it was a socialist government? Yes, I do, because socialism, not perfectly, but socialism was more definitely in favor of independence than the conservatives were. I do not think and never did that the final road to heaven is state ownership, but I do think there are certain things that should be publicly owned. Things like the natural resources and certain monopolies and oligopolies, but they should also be democratically managed. The British labor government played out its score, and it was a good score, but there remained things to be done. You will remember, of course, that they got a bigger popular vote in the general election than the conservatives who won more seats in Parliament. True, but what about world socialism, Mr. Thomas? Do you think that if democratic socialism were adopted the world over, that would be an answer to permanent peace? Yes, in the same sense that I believe that if real Christianity were adopted, it would be an answer to permanent peace. Norman, do you think that... Well, do you think that the socialists in Europe might together form some kind of a third force? They ought to, they might, especially if you could get any kind of integration in Western Europe. You've got to remember that democratic socialists, partly because they are democratic, have to win by programs of immediate appeal to the voters in the country, and nationalism cuts across, of necessity. And it isn't a disloyalty to socialist ideals, but practical politics that brings it about, that Paul Henry Spock, a good socialist, could declare rather pessimistically that the thing that socialists had learned best to nationalize was socialism. What about the Marxian theory of the ever-increasing conflict between the classes? Do you American socialists hold with that? No, and most socialists have really abandoned that, at least in its extreme and most rigid sense. Most democratic socialists would now tell you that they advance socialism as the necessary fulfillment of democracy, the application of democracy in the field of economics. Norman, you said earlier that British tourism had failed in the colonial problem in Asia. Do you think that the American democracy is succeeding any better? No, chiefly by a kind of a combination of modesty and arrogance. Every now and then we're so modest that we won't speak up to the French on the subject of what should be done. And every now and then, perhaps unconsciously, we're so arrogant that we seem to our friends to introduce a new kind of isolationism, a sort of Uncle Sam knows best isolationism, which doesn't persuade them to go along. I think the substance of our intentions is pretty good. Our manners need to be improved. Norman, you were an articulated pacifist in World War I at least. Now, how do you feel about sending troops to Indochina now to wage war or to stem communist aggression as a part of American democracy? Terribly. Not because I am longer a religious pacifist in the sense that I once was. In some ways I wish I were. I have, for a good long while, accepted the principle of collective security as a necessity in our modern world. I supported Truman's policy in Korea, as you probably know. I think that it would be the worst of all things, and many things are bad. We're America to go it alone in Indochina or to intervene alone or without support of Asian opinion or without a far better base native support than is now evident. I was horrified by the trial balloon Nixon flu. I thought that was dangerous. One of the most likely ways, I think, to get into World War III and one of the worst would have been that. And I am convinced that if we had gone it alone, such as Asian feeling, that the communists could have exploited even in our hour of victory after a cruel and nasty war, hate and fear of suspicion of us and the rest of Asia so that we would have been incredibly hurt. How do you think we could win Asian support then? Only by a far better practice of persuasion than we have followed. Only by a degree of patience. Only by lifting up their hearts with hope. I have been twice, two successive years in Asia, and one of the things that worries me is our failure to make the average Asian believe that it is really we who care for peace. If only it's things that Truman and Eisenhower had said, for instance, have said about universal disarmament under proper controls, could have been lifted to the level of a kind of an ideological crusade, always keeping up our strength. We would have been better off. We would have been better off if we had used the United Nations a little more patiently in the matter of Indochina. We would have been infinitely better off if we had been clear cut in the opposition to colonialism and didn't seem to inherit the colonialism of the French and so on. But Norman, you then could see conditions under which you would be willing to support American participation in United Action in Asia. It isn't the idea of ground troops there that horrifies you, it's the idea of ground troops in conditions that now exist. Well, it horrifies me to think of the agony of it, but some things that horrify me may have to be accepted. And I think it's quite a dangerous nonsense to talk about war without thinking of ground troops. That is the notion that you can win by a couple of injudiciously distributed bombs. How do you feel about the massive retaliation, Norman? Do you feel it's practical as a threat or practical as a military operation? I suspect that if we come to the horror of Third World War, there'll be plenty of retaliation and massive retaliation. But I think the way that Mr. Dulles, whose good intentions also I admit, the way he used the phrase, his instant and massive retaliation, and I could bring mountains of evidence of this, had the effect of scaring lots of the American people and practically all our friends. And not much effect in scaring Joe and Lai or Molotov or Malankov. It was, in other words, a neither practical nor wise to speak as he spoke. He's been explaining it ever since. I wonder whether, Larry, we could change the subject a little bit. Norman, you've been around and seen a great deal in the field of civil liberties over a long period of time. I just wonder how you do feel about the atmosphere that exists in this country today compared, let's say, to the atmosphere that existed after the First World War. In some ways, the atmosphere immediately after the First World War, not only the atmosphere, but the actual things done were worse. After all, civil liberties reached their lowest ebb under that extraordinarily illiberal liberal, Woodrow Wilson, with the art, the view for Jim Ember and the deportations and the thousands of people arrested in what a historian is called Mitchell Palmer's obscene anti-red raids. And the lust laws, the campuses, college campuses were far more closed and intolerant than they are today. The situation today is heaven knows very bad and the comparison, especially in a couple of minutes or you don't even allow that, I know, is, cannot be scientifically pressed. Well, Norman, you got about a million votes in 1932. I think that was the largest number you ever amassed. Now, do you know anything that's happened to those people who did vote for you, who registered socialists when they tried to get jobs in civil service? I suppose that even in this country of happiness where we all are living longer and longer and longer, a lot of them are dead. But of the living and the good money before they were dead, they turned Democrat, at least for the nonce. Is that passed and held against them? A lot of them got jobs under Roosevelt and some of them have still got jobs, but they aren't socialists by acknowledgement anymore. I do not look at the past with unmixed satisfaction, but I do find myself slightly amused when the Republican president, so anybody supported by the editorial writer of the Harold Tribune, really got around to sending messages. He sent a complete and comprehensive survey for a welfare state. Now, I don't quite like his version of the welfare state for reasons we won't go into, but there wasn't any basis for it in 1932 and anybody's platform or anybody's speeches but mine. I accept the bowels of the audience. Now, I ask you this as a last question, since you just have about a minute. What do you think of the future of the Socialist Party here in America? Well, I have said publicly and in the party that the present party has much of a future. I still hope that it can be an educational agency and I still hope that in some measure it can serve as a catalytic force to do what we need. That is to help to cure our instrumental poverty. Our democracy is very weak in its instruments when we have two parties. Two major parties and that's what the situation requires constitutionally, in which both of which the differences are so much greater than they are in the average between them. That means irresponsible parties and it's very hard to govern in democracy with irresponsible parties and the great ambition of our life, the reason I ran so often was not because I thought I'd be elected or the Socialist Party as such would win. I thought the socialist ideal should win and I wanted it to be a catalytic as well as an educational agency and bring about a new political alignment, a real alignment. In other words, do you think we're going away from Socialism as you thought of it even in those days in 1932? Well, thank God not being a Republican, I can admit that I can change my mind. I don't have to talk the language of 1920 and do the things in 1954. That's the difference between me and some Republicans. And I therefore will gladly admit that I have learned enough to change my mind, but my fundamental convictions have not changed as I could prove by citing quotations. Even to Senator McCarthy I can prove it. Thank you very much. Thank God I don't have to. The opinions expressed on the long gene chronoscope were those of the speakers. The editorial board for this edition of the long gene chronoscope was Larry Lesser and August Texture. Our distinguished guest was Norman Thomas, veteran socialist leader and chairman of the Post-War World Council. When next you buy a watch, either for yourself or as an important gift in all probability, your jeweler will show you models of almost every make of watch that you can name at long gene prices and even higher. Now what's your best buy in this situation? Let's look at the record together. It is very significant that of all the watchmakers of the world, only long gene has won 10 World's Fair Grand Prizes and 28 gold medals. In a word, the highest honors for superiority of manufacture. Now what about accuracy? In the Grand Championship Contest for Watchmakers, the accuracy trials at the National Observatories, long gene watches have established many records, won countless prizes and honors for exceptional accuracy. And what is the opinion of the scientists? In all fields of precise timing, sports, aviation and science, long gene is everywhere the watch of first choice. Now these facts point to an inescapable conclusion. When next you buy a watch, either for yourself or as an important gift, if you pay $71.50 or more, you're paying the price of a long gene. And you should insist on getting a long gene, the world's most honored watch, the world's most honored gift. Premier product of the Long Gene Witner Watch Company since 1866, maker of watches of the highest character. We invite you to join us every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening at the same time for the Long Gene Chronoscope, a television journal of the important issues of the hour. Broadcast on behalf of Long Gene, the world's most honored watch and Witner, distinguished companion to the world honored Long Gene. This is Frank Knight reminding you that Long Gene and Witner watches are sold in service from coast to coast by more than 4,000 leading jewelers who proudly display this emblem. Agency for Long Gene Witner Watchers.


Live from the JSA Podcast Studio, presenting Data Movers, showcasing the leaders behind the headlines in the telecom and data center infrastructure industry. Welcome to our new podcast series, Data Movers. I'm your host, Jamie Scott-Okitaya, founder and CEO of JSA. And along with me, my co-host, my colleague in craziness, top B2B social influencer, Evan Christel. Hey everyone, we're still at home. Thanks, welcome to Data Movers, where we sit down with some of the most influential folks in today's leading telecom and data center world, supporting the network infrastructure requirements of this new normal. Jamie, speaking of new normal, now that we have a vaccine on the horizon, what are you thinking in terms of you and your team?  Well, I think it's a sense of hope, this 90-year-old woman getting the very first vaccination. There's definite hope on the horizon that we're gonna go back to some new normalcy, but JSA, we've always been virtual. For the past, we're gonna celebrate 16 years, actually January 1. So 16 years, we've been virtual and we're all about that with the right people, you can absolutely successfully work from home and giving the right hires and the right tools and technologies that it's actually potentially even more rewarding and satisfying to do so. So we're that model anyway, but what about you? Are you anxious to get back into any form of onsite action? Technically, I was intrigued by the Hawaiian offer to pay for your airfare if you fly there to work remotely. So maybe I'll consider my moving the underground bunker to Hawaii, but let's see how that plays out. I imagine you can't dig too deep into that island soil, though, right? So your bunker would be like- The bunker will be on the beach, but let's stop, maybe stop fantasizing here and get on with our guest. Yes, and it's a fabulous, fabulous guest, which I'm really excited to introduce you guys to. Today, we are welcoming David Johnson. He is, of course, the president of ComStar Technologies. David, welcome to our show. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Just a great, interesting show. You guys are running here, so I'm excited to be here. Excited to have you, David. So tell me, you're in the Philadelphia area. Most important questions first, where's the best place to find a chili-feast philly cheesesteak in the Philadelphia area? That's like a tongue twister. Yeah, that's an interesting question for me. I actually started before I worked at ComStar, I worked at a place making cheesesteaks. So my answer is going to be biased, and it's a place that not many people have heard of. It's called the Pepper Mill in Westchester. So if you're really looking for the best place to get a cheesesteak in the Philadelphia region, I would say Pepper Mill is the number one. I am Googling it right now, so I'm going to add it to my visits when I'm next in the Philly area. But more about you. You've been at ComStar Technologies for almost two decades. Tell us about that career path that's quite impressive these days. I've never actually heard somebody say it in those terms before. Two decades makes me kind of reevaluate my entire life right now. But yeah, two decades, I guess. So as I mentioned, you know, oddly enough, I worked at a cheesesteak place before I came to the Pepper Mill and I actually worked with a high school friend at the cheesesteak place called the Pepper Mill. And while I was there, he came in and said, hey, there's this company I work for. It's a technology company. We're really small right now. There were seven employees. We have a ton of work happening. We're growing quite a bit. I think you'd like working here. So I left the line cook career path that I was on and I moved over to ComStar as a cabling technician. So my first job, you know, kind of official career path job was a cabling technician at ComStar. So, you know, we would go into construction sites and install test category six, category five back then, category six cables. So that's really what kind of brought me into this field. I was pretty terrible at it, honestly, I don't know why they asked me to work at ComStar. The cheesesteak or the cabling or both? Really good at making cheesesteaks. Okay, let's just clarify. No, but I was not a great cabling technician. I really had no craftsmanship. I never, I barely knew how to use a drill, but I was in a pretty good learning environment with a lot of really supportive people and a really good team. So that's kind of where the journey began. And the thing I liked about what I was doing, you know, there was challenges to it. I was learning all the time and it kept evolving. We would go, the size of the jobs would get bigger. The types of technologies we were involved with would change. And that's just the way that I am. I'd like to continuously learn. And that position really provided me that opportunity. So I moved from, or not moved from, but you know, when you're an eight person company, everybody does everything. I mean, I would be in the field and then I would come back and manage the warehouse at night, clean everything up, organize it. And then I kind of moved a little bit more into the business side, but I was still in the field quite a bit. So that, I don't remember the timeline there, but let's just call it 2005, 2006. I got involved a little bit more in the client meetings, quoting projects, designing projects. And again, we were small. So it was, you know, there was probably three or four of us on the cabling side of the business. And we did everything. You know, I would quote a project, order the materials for the project. I would go and finish the data room a lot of times, like build out the data room. And then I would invoice the project. So I literally saw the entire cycle of a client experience and internally, operationally, how these things work. So over time we kept growing and that allowed us to, and at the same time, we were growing on the telephony side of the business. So, you know, I was kind of growing the cabling, what we ended up on the infrastructure side. And the founder of the business was growing the telephony side. And we had a, we never talked about it, but we had a little competition going on to see who could kind of leapfrog each other. So they were both growing really well, which allowed us to add additional resources. And, you know, again, I'm not exactly sure of the timeline because I didn't write my autobiography yet, but around, let's say 2010, it really kind of, to find the scale that we were looking for, I thought it was important to step out of the field operations, move into more of a business role where, you know, I was doing a lot more client requirement meetings, designing projects and moving us into audio visual building security at the same time. Around, right around that same time, maybe a year later or so, on the telephony side, they were evolving from a premised telephony company to a hosted telephony company. So the business was evolving internally in the two different kind of departments or divisions that we had. So, you know, that journey kind of led us to 2015, 2016. And that's when the owner who had been in telephony since he was 19 years old was ready to move on and do some other things. So at that point, I took over a COO role and started running the operations of the business and he moved a little more out of the business, still was involved from a strategic, envision type of role, but he wasn't involved in the day-to-day as much. So probably two years after that, he moved on. We were acquired by a wonderful, great partner, private equity company called Winkove. Kevin Flounder's moved down to Charleston, South Carolina and I took over as president of the business in, I think, 2018. So it's been about 18 to 24 months where I've been president of the company. Now involved more in the strategy and vision and direction of the business that we're going. And I imagine that that beautiful path and all the experience that you've received and put into action over the years has really provided you the fodder to become a better leader in the organization. Where do you see the organization heading in the future? Yeah, we were definitely on a path of growth and growth for us isn't, there's a revenue element to that certainly, but growth for us is really operational maturity and opportunity for the employees that work here. And I think that's what's, one of the things when I talk about the path that I was on from a career perspective, I had direct line of sight into the growth of the business and the benefits that I had from that, but more importantly, there was a lot of potential for growth for me from a career perspective. So I liked where I was working, I like the people I worked with and I had opportunity for growth. And that's really what we're trying to emulate for all the employees at ComStar. So our growth mindset is really about operational maturity, creating opportunity for the employees inside of the company and the results of that are going to be revenue growth and we have an overlapped acquisition strategy that we're looking to, we have been implementing, but really takes to the next level over the next 12 months. That's tremendous. So you've seen a lot of changes over those years. What are some of the most significant changes you've seen in the data center space and related industries? Yeah, that is, in every field, I'm sure there's significant change, but in the technology field that we're in, I think that's probably been some of the most abrupt. When you look at the telephony side of our business, really, the years 1980 to 2010, let's round up a little bit, there was no telephony expert, except for a vendor like us. Everybody had to use a vendor like us to help them buy the solutions that they needed. Now it's everywhere. Like every day you probably see some sort of unified communication as a service advertisement or something like that. So the big evolution I think has been, went from like hardware focus to limited knowledge, to software focus, to an abundance of knowledge, infinite options. And so I think that's been kind of the biggest evolution in that industry that I've seen, is really it moving from hardware to software, but elements of it being commoditized and elements of it being specialized all at the same time. And going from that hardware to software, what do you see on the horizon regarding the technology growth that you're currently involved in? So I think what, and this kind of gets into the further evolution that we've seen happening. So there's been a, the word convergence was really, really popular, we'll call it 10 years ago. And really that meant from a hardware standpoint and some software in the background, everything was kind of converging into the network. Everything was kind of becoming data. Cameras were becoming data, telephony was becoming data. Everything was kind of converging into the IT space. So I think we're at that point where that convergence has happened on the hardware side, clearly. I think what's next is it's going to happen on the application side. So you see the way that there's these silos that are the boundaries of those silos are starting to come down. So you have your unified communication as a service platform, whatever it is, Teams eight by eight, any number of things. You have your CRM let's say. I think what we're going to start seeing is not just linking those two things together, but those two things literally overlapping. So they're one in the same, whether you acquire them, you have two different bills maybe, that's fine. But really, you're going to see a true integration at the application layer where it's not just that they talk to each other, they literally exist as one from the end user experience. I think that's really what we're at the forefront of right now. You've been successful in that. So what's your philosophy? What can you share on how to build an amazing client relationship over time? Yeah, as I kind of talked about that journey and as I was thinking about that journey, kind of reflecting on it, for whatever reason, premonition, luck, just an eight kind of thought, really early on, again, for whatever reason, I kind of pictured myself as an employee of our clients. And when I was barely in the office, I was almost out in the field, I was probably out in the field 80% of the time. So it was really easy to kind of see it that way. But that really put me at a perspective where I am our client's employee, or at the time I was our client's employee. And that didn't just mean that I was there to do what they told me to do, but I was actually there to advise them and say, I see what you're trying to do or what you're asking me to do, but what's the ultimate objective? I think that's the key is really becoming an employee of your clients and really advising them on whatever it is that nobody knows better than us how to align their business objectives with technology solutions. That's really what we're experts at. So once you kind of consider yourself an employee of this client or potential client, it becomes a lot easier to merge those two things together. So that's, I would say really put yourself not just in your client shoes, but like you literally work there. Yeah, well said, well said. We certainly try to do that here at JSA and this digital transformation has enabled that too. So it's funny how what you're doing every day has really emboldened other business models as well to be their client's employee and partner. Now to get to that rapid fire section, which I love, this is where we just throw out a few phrases and questions for you and you can just tell us the first thing that pops to your mind, pops into your mind. Yeah. So, okay, David, do you have any pets? Yeah, I have a dog named Clark. Oh, Clark, love it. How many cups of coffee do you have each day? One like clockwork, 120 ounce coffee in the morning.  I'm one of those people that I could drink coffee at nine o'clock at night and go to sleep. So, I don't know. I love it. When we already know this one, your first job. Well, was it your first job, Cheese Dates or? No, no, that was probably my fifth job or so, let's say. My first job was, this is kind of a weird one. I would go on, when there were bad snow storms, I wouldn't use the snow in Philadelphia, which it doesn't do too often anymore, but when there were bad snow storms, I would go on an oil truck and deliver oil to people's houses. And I was only 14 or 15, 14, 15, I wasn't driving or anything, but I was actually the guy that would take the hose and lug it through the snow into the people's houses and connect it up to their tank. So, that was technically my first job, but it was only when there was bad snow storms. Wow, kids these days have it easy, at least my kids do. And your favorite dessert? Oh man, I guess cheesecake, seldomly cheesecake? Yeah, nice, nice. And your most used emoji? No emojis. Come on, you gotta get with the program here. Not and get on Twitter, those are the two directives. As a kind of inside joke inside my family, because I'm a technology guy, but there's millennials and things like that. I'll actually type out the emoji, so I'll write smiley face, wine glass, confetti, or something like that, just to. I like it.  I'm like, no, I am, I know it's small, medium, large. I'm not gonna let them market me and change my diction. Yeah, I hear you. Stick to your conviction. I know to do that. And so in closing, I just wanna say, it's been such an honor, David, to have you here. Your leadership over at Comstar has been extraordinary.  Yeah, I appreciate it. We have a great team over here. I mean, just to deal with the things that we've had to deal with, we were not a remote working company. We made that transition in real time to have a team that's capable culturally to handle something like that is pretty incredible. So it's really been a great team effort. Well, congratulations. And as soon as the pandemic's over, we're looking forward to coming down to Philly and having a cheese steak and some cheesecake.  But we're going to do it and we look forward to it. We'll do it live. We'll video it. We could have a taste. See if I'm right about what is the best Philadelphia cheese steak. I know, because I have old school fellow friends who are like, there's a bridge. You go under the bridge and there's your cheese steak, like classic Philly cheese steak guy. And so... Yeah. What is the name of that? I've been there, actually. I can't remember the name, but I'll tell you. Yeah, neither. I'll get back to you on that one, but we have to taste test because people are passionate about this. Yeah, you'll see. I'm definitely right on this one. And if you guys enjoyed today's Data Movers podcast, be sure to check out jfa.net slash podcast for upcoming Data Movers episodes. We release every other week on Wednesday morning. So please go ahead and check out the entire series. And in two weeks time, we will be releasing a new episode. That's January 13th. Oh my God, January 13th. That's hard to imagine, but thank God this year is gonna be behind us. So additionally, follow us on Twitter at Jay Scotto and Evan Kerstel and tweet us your favorite emoji and we'll catch you there. Yeah, absolutely. And everybody keep safe. Happy, happy new year. Happy holidays and happy networking.