How do i industry sign banking maine presentation online
all right good morning eyes on it and I'm talking away I'm inaccessible and I'm president of this piece of and today we're hosting the third events where we can speakers come in and talk to us about technical education future careers in education body custom point the house to see it in future overall today we have two wonderful people from our logic ons mr. Garrick barks engine and Erica bus you Lord our resident are illogical a hard logic and ecology skilled as because I've got all right all right thank you thank you so much alright thanks thanks for coming in early everyone on your way and I appreciate it but we will woke up on time to make it here for the for the event we like is there I everyone he knows you can people follow my logic we are right here mortgage York well I smell she is one of our lead access support people on staff and we'll have it releases for you too mr. Devereaux former students were voices all within a year for more than a few years and what I really wanted to come back in when this because I aspect come by and just because everyone you love you know coming back or I graduated we're used to working in ensuring you know some of knowledge of the things that I will I'm crew or some of the things that help me and you know something like turning point in me not only my personal life like I feel nice well you'll be able to something I've really grown to love I'm hoping that you guys have a passion for technology a person that's probably why your alien the crowd and you're looking to learn some of those things as well so we share a lot of those tidbits today I do encourage you to questions if you have small questions we're going along that should be just fine if you want to ask if it's something more formal or take a little bit longer I hope to dedicate you know perhaps 10 to 15 minutes or so of hands to a Q&A with everyone okay so I like to share when I talk to dispenses make sure this is that career here up past year I right over ahead in Maine South export worked over a little uh 2020 so I'd like to start off with believe my friends think thing would I do repair here in connecting we're there by my mom of course like some halal or Einstein or connect computers all the time before society calls us all geeks I would say that's necessarily case with my mom a geek but you know we're not all 40 like this guy in this picture over here this one doesn't necessarily apply to me since I am the boss so I'm going to skip that slide but I did have some former co-workers that they get caught sleeping on the job so it is fairly a loophole um what I think I do is a photo from Star Trek and what I actually do Google letting us friend sure everyone else uses google point event yeah we do it a day to day in our lives as well professionally and there's nothing wrong with that would cover why there's nothing wrong with that a little bit later in my a my presentation you know it's not always about being that encyclopedia it's about knowing where to go to find the answers to problems that you're having and I mention why that's important as I continue on here if you just came in while we're doing something you know if you hand out I'll be referencing these two exams comptia network+ an a-plus I brought some informational and on that and sort of they had a gender she but some things i'll be covering in terms of some summary item some topics i'm covering today so you can feel free to grab one if you like all right back to it so ever will I say ask me where my passion for technology came from I wouldn't say I was always as passionate as I am in technology and alter the sort of a it was course was sort of a an adventure you know that really started for me in earnest in high school before that I mean a lot of things as I will show that came up previously that I would like to call my progression in field mighty or my growing love for IT and working in this field I like to call a story first well I mean I astoria purse my first computing experience I'm off a little bit earlier than most of you guys I remember I fall have some memories and I think her first-grade gone to a computer lab we had one computer lab I used to go with our carpenter school immature school / and cartridge and it was good here party when you like computer lab you be able to travel threes ever had exactly what they were but we had to check out five a haha disks to go go ahead and be able to use these computer so we hit the pull the discount you right to the designer April card pump it in the computer and we were able pretty simple typing controls are working like a stone I love society when I was uh Gail for five years older self so that was that was my first experience with computers and you know it only progressed from there she's having a great time with that I have an ax quarter floppy my first computer was a blazing fast sony vaio computer sony doesn't make anymore they just exited the industry uh I had a Sierra auditor that came with a blazing fast anything else took under three google consummated pale in comparison to anything that's out of the market today but I love my personal computer and a lovely blouse Ozil plant my first pc games and use windows for the first time and have my own computer was you know an experience for me and I want to go ahead over the course operating my roommate don't love my hand my system and I thought that was the coolest thing that I could do so my first computer struggle is our experience first happy windows I ever used way back when windows 95 so this was one of the first version the window the hannah graphical interface my sleeper was a big deal because he could play a game I was not in command prompt Anna on a green screen so what is all I make your Apple amazing you know the days of the mid nineties but that was a fun enjoy my hood who knows 95 with makers computer pc game very cool very pointed in your apple it even sound and coffee a minute left I really thought that even warmer games it didn't have any sound the reason being because I computer for some reason didn't have fiber network with my god you do a pc computing you know pc gaming is just not this was kind of caving so um yeah I'm forgot to fix that but later on I found out for my cuz of that you know he's a cat sound and like a girl is just a little screwed up oh my first experience era was not I don't know anyone here use a copper get the doctor and dial-up it was a lovely experience you would sit there and wait your motive to connect to the internet service and in your unlucky not any second Oh way that you could use just for dial-up internet you're stuck with angry parents are telling you to get off the internet because that pic phone calls so yeah a little bit one of the main town signs of dial-up internet you couldn't be polite on the on the polite with us downloading music took hours at a time I mean everything we take for granted today and past internet was definitely not the case on on dial-up but first time I got to use Google when I was in at Emerson in middle school probably a sixth or seventh grade using good using google on the old colorful max that they had over at over at Emerson and this is how google used to look very plain look still kind of looks the same way hasn't changed very much but google did just fine with a very plain interface i but i guess hmm i was using a tablet before the ipad was never out people think that the ipad was the first tablet it was not the first tablet there was a line of computers called tablet pcs before the ipad ever came out or any of those devices i owned one of these when i entered college I used to take notes on one of these devices I actually still have a style laptop like this today quite ironically but these were the first tablet computers and I was sitting there in college taking notes on this when other people who are on large laptops or just using notebooks and they called me crazy well how the tables have turned in just about a half decades this is a case where the hardware was way ahead of the software just like anyone that's used windows XP and how buggy it will used to be and how many blue screens had got that experience on a tablet was quite pitiful so you know the one application i gave it justice was one note if you've ever used one note i was using the first version of OneNote when that came out back in 2004-2005 my first smartphone a windows mobile pocket pc smartphone this was about the year two thousand six or so I was just out of high school I was a probably a second year in college or first year in college at that point and I was working for a competitor of mine in town actually I'm not going to name any names and we were issued these smartphones they ran a consolidated a little small version of windows XP if windows XP was bad on a desktop computer imagine how bad it was on a little phone like this it was bad you had to close out of programs that froze with your task manager it was pitiful so be glad that we have androids and iPhones now that make life a lot lot simpler but yeah my first experience with smartphones was quite bad I hated hated hated this phone then I moved to blackberry and I and I liked I liked those my first IT certification some of you probably heard of this if you're looking to get into the IT industry and I'm going to mention this at a few other points during the presentation my first IT certification I got when I was that was the summer before I entered my senior year actually took the A+ class that was here at may nice i don't know if these did he still offer a plus oh what a question um so I took I took a plus with an awesome teacher named mr. hunter people none he would probably ran into him one of my favorite teachers I ever had in high school gave me a lot of motivation one of you know one of the people that really gave me my boost and you know told me you know what I t really is for you so I took day plus class my junior year I actually to travel from maine south to maine east early in the morning because we don't now they didn't have it at maine south so i should take a little little mini bus domain east every morning and then back for my first period so that was my junior and senior year were filled with taking that class and the network plus i did my senior year it was a pain in the rear it was time consuming but you know that was really my first go into getting my hands on two computers and getting a feel for what you know working in technology really was like so I pept I took the class I took the exam summer before I entered my senior year and I passed it I end up taking the Network+ then which is the one step above this the spring a spring break of my senior year and there we go before I graduate high school I had my first 2i t certifications and it helped me because I was able to get a job my senior year I was actually working doing what I'm doing now I was I was actually doing IE consulting before I left high school I was doing that for Bobby the last half of my senior year so life was was busy I didn't have as much time for friends or hanging out you know because i was working after school but i enjoyed it i really i love technology and I was glad to be able to start doing something that I that I really loved and if you're curious what a plus is about I actually I have a handout one of my handouts over there is about the A+ exam if you're looking to get into any of the IT jobs sort of the site of IT that we work on support and infrastructure and networking this is really the base level exam that lot of employers look for it as a matter of fact we just hire two people and that was one of our requirements is that you either have a plus or that you gain your a+ certification within a few months of working for us so it is something that's accepted actually globally it's a global exam it states that hey I know technology to a point where I can repair computers troubleshoot things have the people skills to work with others on issues things of that nature so you know the definitely something to look into if you're really interested about going into the people support side of sight of IT and my first tech job so this is where my career really started was actually right here at the district at main south so before i was even working doing IT consulting my senior year for one of my competitors right now i actually took a position as a well as like a writing lab assistant before i started into an actual internal as a technology department intern and you know the department they gave me a chance they knew i was really interested i was i was hanging around the department trying to you know see how much more I could help out and things of that nature and they said you know what we'll give you a chance come on this is my summer after my junior year and they said you know let's give it a shot let's see what you know if you really like this and i work that summer and then i work throughout the year a little bit of my senior year after my senior year is well a little bit and you know that's really where I got my start and you know wasn't only myself I was wanting to wait a little bit longer you know to just say what Erica you know how we got introduced but when I actually was came back to work at main south in technology Erica actually was one of the interns that came to work for us when I was a formal employee like mr. Kenneth so here in technology so everything kind of comes full circle so erica was used to be very quiet and a little bashful she was you know editor chief of equinox the the magazine over at main south um but you know I was really hesitant I really didn't know if you know erica was gonna be a good fit to teachers and students and technology um you know but she ended up surprising us she was actually one of our best interns that we ever had and you know as things progress like she will get to her in just the moment but and things ended up coming for a silk full circle and she actually works with us now she's one of our full-time workers and she provides our day-to-day phone and remote support for customer so you know anyone that says that real things don't start in high school they are completely wrong that is gonna be any further from the from the truth just a brief about how my company started fire logic I was another journey as well it wasn't something that you know I just you know woke up one day and said I'm gonna write a business plan and you know start my company you know it really wasn't like that and I feel the more I talk with people in the IT industry and technology the more I hear that you know this is kind of you know it's never where you wake up and you have that formal plan you have that plan of attack it's sort of something that falls in your lap or you know you sort of give a try and it's something you enjoy and you end up going down that direction and it's kind of how it happened to me so my company used to be a hobby ace did you just computer repair for friends and family probably like a lot of you do doing virus cleanup doing my hard drive died can you replace my hard drive can you reinstall windows for me simple stuff like that so that turned into a part-time business when I was working at main south for four years I actually started this halfway through and and you know I was doing so much of it that you know for few reasons i went ahead and formalized it as a business because of you know how much money I was making on the side with it it made sense to go ahead and do that uh and it a blossoming into something more than a blossoming into a full-time job I was actually working and running fire logic at the same time as I was working at main south and doing technology over there and you know lunch breaks were worth you know doing customer calls and after work I was going out and doing customer work so it became so much where I said you know what I gotta pick one of the other either you know working for maine south or doing fire logic and my real passion came out and running fire logic and growing that does you know I felt there was a need to offer friendly computer service in the area you know I i I've heard of the experiences with geek squad and some of the other big box stores out there and I said you know there's a better way to do this this can be done bett
r you know if you ever watch shark tank on and John nabc you know there's always that question you know can it be done better you know that's what I always thought there is a better way to do this and that's really what gave me some of that motivation to go ahead and start this so a part-time hobby something I did on the side is now a we're a 10-person company as of this week ten people between full time and part timers providing small business and mid-sized business technology support so you know we sort of fill into the gap of companies that are a little bit too large for the business owner to be doing everything on his own but too small for someone to hire a professional IT person on their staff so that's where we fall in we are the outsourced IT department for a lot of small businesses in the area we still do residential support we did a lot of computer repair for homes and and and and residents in the area but small business midsize business support is where we really are starting starting to you know fall into the play and if you're curious what this is over here we actually got a chance to do a commercial of Microsoft it actually went live last April or so we filmed it in November of 2013 you probably never saw it on TV because it didn't broadcast on TV it was meant for IT professionals that were looking at using the surface tablets in the workplace so we film that and that went live on youtube its got like almost 9,000 views so partial YouTube star as a side note i'm never going to go into acting we shot a two-minute commercial it turned out to be a two-minute commercial it took us 13 hours of filming it is exhausting work to be in acting and I never want to do it so anytime you see a movie you think acting is easy give those actors props because it is painstaking labor to go ahead and record things professionally so you can watch that in youtube if you ever just go ahead and search fire logic surface up on YouTube so Eric I want just been a brief moment about her you know her and how she got her eyes actually I let her take the floor I provide a sort of a roadmap for some of the her direction where she's gone and professionally and she's still quite young do you want to share your age is that okay Erica I'm only 21 so she's still in college she still she's still going to depaul university in you're going for a bachelor's in graphic design i started at main south working on my first true technology job and it started they sent out a school-wide email to all the students and they had said you're interested send us your resume and a cover letter and I'm like oh it's about time I got a job my dad's probably going to kill me if I'm sitting around all summer so I applied I interviewed and it liked me and came back I worked there the whole summer and I made it more than what it needed to be really I mean we weren't asked to do some of the stuff that i did but the jobs what you make it and i turned it into an internship for my internship class during this my senior year and I continued to work there next summer before I started college and I was doing pretty much most of the stuff that the full time staff was doing there once I went to college I got other jobs at other places the second job at their company cortex I worked at that was a similar position helping with the full-time help desk support got to be a little far for me so um and a better opportunity over at cmap came up since it was right in the loop on that was just internal IT support for only a year on so I after that I got another offer at this other company which is a larger MSP type of company so we were taking calls at MSP stands for managed service provider that sort of direction our company's heading it is more of a formalized approach to being outsourced IT for a small business so it wasn't just great fix we were getting tickets day in and day out and constantly on the phone or somebody was out on site on versus like the other two places where it was like we were just servicing that office only kind of similar to what you would do here except it was not as intense in my opinion um and then finally I came here because um it was closer and it was a lot it's a lot of a better fit for me i'm doing what i really like to do and it makes me happy you know that I to go to work I'm not like really bummed out i don't have to wake up at five-thirty to make sure that i can get there by eight on time because it's not like i have to sit on the train you know and I don't mind it but this is a lot better makes me a lot happier a lot less grumpy more time for due balance from like schoolwork and hanging out friends and doing whatever I want to do so yeah one thing one thing I want to stress and I'm glad Erika brought that up is if you can't get up and be very happy and be excited to go to work you know some people find work to be you know a boar or you know that fun or exciting if you don't get that kind of dry from the the path that you're going and you don't feel that how are you going to last doing that professionally for 30 40 years you know for the rest of your life think about that I really want you to think about that because a lot of people go through life and do something that they don't really enjoy it said I'm just doing it for the benefits or I'm doing because of where the job is located you know there's a certain point in your life you have to say okay I need to figure out what gives me my drive and my passion and if you can't do that if you can't have that kind of excitement about going to work that's how I feel every single day I have to work long hours and weekends and you know a lot of things that I didn't expect to be doing as a small business owner but I enjoy it because I love the job that I do you have to be able to ask that question of yourself and see if that is where you see yourself you know down the road and that might not be IT that may be something else so that may be a sight of IT that you did not expect you know I didn't walk into becoming an Internet main south and know right away that I was going to love doing the support side of technology you know is something that grew on me or something that you know fellow my lap and I sort of you know took and ran with it and found that that's where my enjoyment was you know even though I used to be shy in high school and didn't like talk that much and now I have no prob getting up and doing presentations and training with you know groups of users out in a crowd it doesn't bother me that much you know so it really sometimes takes a little bit of getting out of your comfort zone to figure out what it is that you're really going to love doing in life so where do we work in terms of the IT so fire logic or what me and Erica do for customers this is sort of how I see the field of IT the different areas that are out there um you know some people like to stigmatize it as sort of the coding side and everything else side there's a few more pieces of the puzzle than just that I'm sure there's people in this crowd that have interests and you know different areas here which is great i t's such a big field it's not where you have to pigeonhole yourself into one thing but but the areas that we specialize in and what I love doing what we love doing the support and training side as we already said we work on the hardware side to repairing computers fixing motherboards I actually that was my first real computer class at edmee nice as I said a plus class I enjoyed that I love that getting my hands on computers and fixing them myself some people love repairing cars I love repairing computers so that's where that passion came from networking side of thing so connecting and putting in the infrastructure to be able to make a lab like this talk to everyone else and talk to the internet so we do a lot of that these days as well and of course security security as you all know with as much hacking has been going on and ddos attacks that have been happening in this tree you know small businesses need support for that too and we come in to fill that gap for them to the things in IT that we don't do we stood a little bit of development on the website side we don't do that anymore it's a totally different direction and I tea or something that I don't have a passion in I don't like development i don't like programming i never was that kind of person my brother is a programmer he works throughout the night for some kind of japanese auto import company and you know he works overnight and sleeps during the day but he loves the program it's it's just a different personality you know I'm a little more outgoing on the the people side of things he's more analytical and driven to code perfectly you know so it it just depends you know there's nothing wrong with either side you just need to find what you really love to do and give it a try and go down that path for yourself data warehousing that sort of an all encompassing term for people that work with databases and big data if you've heard of that all the big data centers and that hold all the data from insurance records the banking records there are people I need to maintain those systems so that's sort of like a cold data warehousing we really don't deal with that aspect either one of the biggest things that we do you know people think all we just work with technology to work with technology we are solving problems this is as much a technology company and as it is a people in a service company right i mean we're using technology assault and goals you know questions that we get asked all the time you know problems that people need salt how can I put servers in the cloud how can i get my workforce to be using tablets instead of desktop computers you know how can i get Wi-Fi across my entire campus or or property or building you know these are questions real business needs and things that people need solve so i love solving problems and i love technology and this is really the great marriage of those two things because i get to work with both sides of that in the field you know that we're in hmm so some of the skills that i want to make sure everyone knows that you know are necessary if you're looking to get into a job or go into the career if area of of networking or especially end user support or help desk into into more training position you know there are some soft skills that employers are looking for things that really start growing the latter part of high school and especially in college and these are the things that employers are looking for this is what i was looking for when i was hiring people just a few weeks ago so you know it's not always about grade point average it's not always just about the technical skills that you have or every encyclopedic thing there nugget that's in your brain a lot of is the things that you can't touch you can't put your hands on people skills the biggest item have to have good people skills if you're interacting with end users now or endless staff and anyone I mean most jobs unless you're on the programming side and really doing you know digging yourself into code you have to deal with people you have to deal customers and other staff members people skills being able to talk about things and and relate to others and you interoperate with others very very important and you know high school teaches you a lot of those things even more so in college as well but you know that's something that employers at least in my side of the IT arena are looking for most definitely maybe above it above and beyond all else you know on your resume troubleshooting skills can you go in can you solve a problem you know when I was doing interviews interviewing people I had some of the biggest brainiacs come in and yet they couldn't explain to me how they would troubleshoot an issue if a virus got on a computer you know simple question like if your mother's computer got a virus what would be the steps you go through and trying to solve that now looking for the answers of what antivirus program you're using or what particular aspect of Windows you went into to solve that I want to see how you think I want to see how you solve issues and problems and how you tackle and jump on items and some of those skills are tested and neck in the comptia a+ exam so they try to dig that in and and and really state the importance of that but troubleshooting thinking through problems logically even if you don't know the answer knowing how to jump and tackle and jump into an issue is just as important as knowing the resolution for that problem it really is time management uh obviously a big concern time is money especially when you're working in the private sector these days even even in the in the public side of it working for a school district like I used to or a government job time management is always critical if you're someone that over analyzes everything and never gets anything done because you want to work to perfection you need to be able to hone some of those skills and you know step back and say okay I need a balance between perfection and speed you need to find that middle spot for yourself team working in teams very very important we do a lot of group work in high school colleges or even more group work that you're going to be doing but the reason that you do so much it is because there's so much teamwork that goes on in the in the job field in the in the career arena these days especially nit when we're working on projects installing wiring or putting in servers or upgrading networks there are usually multiple parties multiple different vendors multiple people from the customer side that need to be involved in a project and multiple staff members on your own team that need to know where things are I need to be able to work with them in a good fashion you know I always say you need to be able to work out things in a solo manner as well as on a team equally well because I t calls for both of those if you're looking to get ahead and get into the IT arena you have to have a willingness as well to learn constantly I tease a field that is always changing as I showed you in some of those first slides that I brought up there my first computer my first tablet computer some of those things were only about you know 10 15 years ago sounds like a long time it's not that long it goes just goes to show that our industry moves so fast if you don't have a passion for things that change constantly and are always evolving and if you don't want to keep up with those changes IT may not be the best field for you because it's going to change so fast and it's going to leave you in the dust you have to be able to keep your skills your skill set and your knowledge about what's going on up to date and not be afraid of change it is not a career path for someone that is afraid of change you know you'd be better suited going into marketing or you know what are the more other areas are their careers that you know don't have that kind of constant influx of change and this is actually something I just added to the slide last night Geek Speak translation ability what do you think I mean by that Geek Speak someone tell me what's Geek Speak exactly right okay so they have a co-worker and our staff that had a problem with you know going up to a client and always talking and saying uh you know mr. customer your CPU and your RAM were not properly set up in the voltage were wrong and I had to change the front side bus and this and that the average person doesn't care about that much detail right I don't care what the mechanic had to do exactly deep down in my engine as long as it's fixed as long as he can relate that to me we have to be aware that in the technology side there's a lot of people have a tough time with that even though you have a lot of knowledge in your brain you can't convert that into average person speak right us geeks we think in a different level that's fine but we have to be able to remember that there are a lot of people out there that don't think and can't talk on our level of CPU and RAM and VPNs and firewalls and all that other stuff we need to be able to translate that so Geek Speak is something that I have to wade through in our hiring process and make sure that no one that couldn't filter out the Geek Speak made it o
board because that is difficult something very difficult to change and instill in someone on my hand out that I provide if you didn't get one you can grab one be on your way out today or if you want to grab one right now and one of the sides of the handout I put up there 25 hottest skills from 2014 on linkedin surprise surprise 19 to the top 25 skills on that list are all IT skills it'svery hot six of those skills actually are related to the field that Ned eric and i are in and an infrastructure support side of the field networking site of things so it's-- very high teas not going anywhere even though we have our ups and downs you know it's a little bit of a tumultuous industry we had a period of outsourcing and programming jobs which is starting to come back to united states there's no such thing as computers going away there's no such thing as you know being able to outsource all the IT jobs there is a growing demand for IET people there will always be a demand for IT people for as long as smartphones are in every pocket a tablets and every backpack and a computer is on every desk there will be a need for people like us so have no fear even if there's one side of IT that you feel like you know maybe doesn't have as many jobs there are so many different things you can do an IT don't pigeonhole yourself there may be something out there that you don't even know about that you may enjoy you know network and information security very big number one statistical analysis I did not expect that to be number one but again without much data is out there out in the wild someone has to be able to make sense of it that's probably why it's number one how to skill from last year business intelligence algorithm design more of the programming side the logic behind programs and data basing and things like that Mac Linux and UNIX systems right so on the other side of computers that are not windows machines so big need and growing need for things like that so you can look at the whole list but the predominant majority are IT skills so have no fear these things are definitely sought after and and you'll have no problem finding a job you know once you graduate as long as you you know put yourself to it and in some part of the IT field from 2014 some of the hot technology jobs the top six a few of those again are from our side of the field infrastructure side network engineers systems engineers IT Quality Assurance data warehousing that big data databasing stuff I was talking about and security professionals so as you can see in a lot of interesting stuff that you can do and you can go into in terms of IT and just some of the headlines that were in a lot of the big publications US News said last year for the first time the number one job in America wasn't from health care it was technology surprise surprise top IT skills for 2014 big dadda mobile cloud security all those things that you hear about in the news big need and growing needs you know for people that have those kind of skills again tech job forecasts for 2014 hot and still getting hotter again no shortage of jobs out there for IT professionals how do you get your foot in the door I just don't want to spend a brief moment on this if it wasn't clear that you should look at becoming an intern and an organization that you know or a place that might be offering an internship might not be a bad idea to jump in there so what I did when I was in high school Erica did the same and you know we're now in positions where we really love what we do in technology so definitely jump into an internship get a feel for some of the things that you enjoying technology it won't hurt you to try something out of your comfort zone you may find yourself enjoying something you didn't expect entry level IT certifications for some fields may not be necessary for my side of the support networking side there is a big value placed on these and again a plus network plus from compte I've got Pat on the side you can grab a handout on those as their entry level exams that is for anyone entering the IT industry to go ahead and uh you know get those certifications and prove your knowledge not prove that you're an expert but be able to say that you can be trained and be able to say that you know what you know and also that you lost my train of thought there and also don't be afraid to look for a position that isn't in your number one area of interest in terms of internships as I said I didn't expect to love IT support as much as I do if I didn't go into you know my my internship what I did I'd main south my senior here so jump out give it a try you may be surprised with what you like if you're looking for people to reach out to for reach as a resource for helping you out and get you some information in terms of where should I go an IT right that was something that I asked myself and I found those resources and the tech department at main south and also you know some others that were in the industry that I was able to talk with my job that I started working at my senior year of high school career counselors we have them at the high school level we have them to college as well they're a great resource they talked to a lot of people people that have gone into job fields and they have that feedback for how they and what they enjoy what skill sets they have to have and what they can expect from different jobs so very good people to be able to speak with and online I know all of you are lying all the time for you know forums online reddit facebook all these different avenues you know there's not only you know fun stuff and and and you know conversations about you know Super Bowl going on their conversation is about where you like to work what kind of things do you like to do in life you know asking others how they feel about the technology industry or what they do in their job day-to-day so reach out on those avenues the people are out there there willing to discuss it I know they are because I use those things when I was still in high school so it's definitely out there and then just a brief moment on starting your own business you know sometimes people ask me if you know what you know now and uh you know with how much it entails running a business and all the long hours and weekends they have to work and paperwork and blah blah blah blah blah that I have to worry about we're learning a business you know what I do it again probably you know but there are some times when you know those uh 60 70 hours 80 hour weeks where you know you started to ask yourself is this really what I should have done with myself but in all reality I really enjoy running a small business um there are a lot of people that starting a business that is you know is probably the path that you should go down there are some net shouldn't go into it I on the back of my sheet that I made with the LinkedIn top 25 jobs I put a lot of things to consider and things that you know whether or not you should or should not start a business because you know a lot of people have a vision i know i did of how glorious running a business is and you know i forgot about all the other sides of it that you know are entailed with taxes and paperwork and managing workers and you know all the things i never had to worry about that now fell on my lap so it's it's a fun adventure running a company being an entrepreneur uh if you have that motivation if you can get up every day and say yes I enjoy the challenge I enjoy every day being a little bit different and not doing the same thing day in day out that could be a path for you starting your own technology business and what's great about starting a technology business it doesn't require very much in terms of start-up or startup capital as you know other people tend to call that right if you have a laptop computer a cell phone and a bedroom that you can make phone calls from and work from you can start a business I mean my company fire logic started my company fire logic started in my bedroom of my condo when I was in college and my dining room table was my workbench I was repairing computers bring them back repair them and get them back out to customers that's where fire logic really began now we have a 1300 square foot office space here in in parkridge so you know it doesn't take a lot to start technology business but again you have to ask yourself you know is do you not mind the long hours do not mind you know having to deal with managing people are you something that likes to lead others you know do you have that motivation or you can get up every day and and grind it and not worry about the ups and the downs you know because there are going to be a lot of downs that every day is a great fabulous day when you're running a small business there are times where things are things are not going to go your way and you know you're going to have to you know kick it out and grind it out a little bit so as long as you're okay with that you know starting a business might be something that you might you might really enjoy you know as I said there are long hours vacations especially the first few years are are short and few in between but when they do occur you know they're much deserved and welcome and it's a journey it's a journey just like my jump into IT my career and I T has been a journey it's a journey for Erica you know things you try the path you go down the career go down again you just the biggest thing is find that passion find what you enjoy doing branch out of your comfort zone and you may be surprised with you know what you end up liking and we end up going life in terms of IT all right any questions go ahead uh oh go ahead and ask it on the on the microphone just so everyone else remotely can hear it commuters able to like public the general public are they limited to only franchises your question there you can walk in with your computer to our office and we'll repair your computer and tell you what's wrong on the spot so yes we are open to the general public anyone can use us even though our specialty is in small and midsize business we still do a lot of work for residential regular people average computer users here in town in the local area so we still do both sides so many others it's got to be some more out there any question go ahead and grab the mic Oh what are the various positions what are the various positions that you have in the company my god what kind of jobs do you have mm-hmm at our company since we're a very small company we're not very rigid in terms of levels it's a very flat structure it's me so I manage the company around the company day to day I also am one of the leads consultants that goes out on site I still do a lot of the network repair and server work and the day-to-day activities in terms of client asing needs there are two others that go ahead and handle that same aspect with us for on-site work and they're also two people well surely will be two people that handle sort of the phone calls the remote support handling customer repairs that come into the office and that's sort of what Erica side does in our office and then we also have a few part-timers that help out with that with the residential computer repair and then my girlfriend is our front desk office manager that sort of is the glue to making sure everyone is where they're supposed to be on a day-to-day basis so very small a larger firms very similar structure but you have again you know managers in place and things like that but in general that's kind of the structure that uh you know managed service providers I'll half of our nature okay anyone else and Erica I'm not the only one up here she graduated that too long ago just a few years back so she doesn't bite what do you see yourself pushing for Erica erica what do you see yourself moving after you graduate college what is your goals over the next few years five years and my ground in life I'm really hoping to be doing something that I love pits and technology if I decide to make a complete 360 either way I just want to be doing what makes me happy and I want to keep making progression in my education and my knowledge and stay motivated and just keep going and that motivation and just want to know more is really what kept me going in high school if you know if you would go to my past self and say hey this is what you're going to be doing in four or five years I would be like yeah okay you don't talk to people at all it's like no you gotta like just get out there and do it and that's what I want to keep you guys keep getting out there and staying motivated by like and a lot of times it takes let what you enjoy finding what you enjoy to take you out of that shell right you know some of you may feel that way or may have felt that way previously icicle i know i did i was i get very shy dude had you know had a terrible time speaking in front of classes i may remember my sophomore year we had that communications class way to do speeches oh my god i always had nervous breakdowns doing that now I'm like laughing at myself like how could I have not had an easy time with that right so sometimes it just takes getting a feel for where you enjoy being to get you out and and and find something that motivates you and that's kind of the same you know same statement and path that I feel myself and Erica have both moda gone down and you know it's only been for the better yeah don't don't ever be afraid and if you think something might be out of your reach you know what the answer is you're probably going to be rejected if you never ask a lot of employers they don't want to take on part-time people but the answer is a rejection and so you ask them so maybe like go out somewhere and say hey I've you know I this is what I like this is what I want to do you know this is what I'm interested in who knows the answers know until you ask so i would not be afraid of doing that I mean well be careful but just be smart about it but the you know keep that motivation do we have any other questions from the audience okay I'd like to thank mr. Lhota arson miss Vasco for taking her time to come out and speak to us this morning we have a couple minutes if you want to stay around in a street full of individual questions get out here in about five minutes guitar for security classes thank you again for coming out thank you everybody for the thanks for hosting us and glad everyone came out
