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Power Skills Academy Nurtures the Future of IBM i

TechTalk SMB Host Charlie Guarino welcomes Linda Alkire, senior program manager at IBM, to discuss how Power Skills Academy is training the next generation of IBM i practitioners

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This podcast is edited for clarity.

Tech Channel podcast November 2024 Linda Alkire:

Charlie Guarino: Hi everybody. This is Charlie Guarino.  Welcome to another edition of TechTalk SMB.  As you can see in the video here today, I am thrilled to be joined today by Ms. Linda Alkire, Linda of IBM.  Linda is a senior program manager at IBM specializing in content design and UX design at IBM.  She is also a red book author which I’m very impressed quite some time ago implementing AS/400 VPNs, networks which to me is absolutely amazing to be a red book author. I think that’s amazing and I know you’re very passionate about educating people and users in the IBM i technology, IBM i Power technologies working with IBM doing this with over 25 years of experience doing this. I know you-you also work with the Power Skills Academy and we’ll talk about that because that’s an important thing. I know that’s a big part of why we’re meeting here today with the mission to help attract and nurture new talent to this platform which is very vibrant. We’ll talk about how we’re going to do that.  I know you’re also-0ne thing we talked about is you’re a huge Vikings fan as evidenced by behind-the wall behind you I see lots of Viking memorabilia there.  What can you tell me about the Vikings wall there?

Linda Alkire: Oh, I’ve got my signed Justin Jefferson jersey.  I’ve got a signed photo of him.  I’m a huge fan and we’re 5 and 0 today. As of today-I think this is coming out in November so hopefully we’ll be 6 and 0 by then, maybe 7 and 0 by then [Laughter].  Anyway, I love my Vikings.  Go Vikings.

Charlie: Go Vikings. Well, I’m not from Minnesota but good-good luck to the Vikings.  Go Vikings.  I’m there with you.

Linda: This doesn’t happen very often so I’ll-I’ll take it.

Charlie: And you should you know enjoy the moment while you-while it lasts as they say, right?  So, thank you for joining me today, Linda. It’s-it’s-

Linda:  Thank you for having me.

Charlie:  It’s so nice to see you. We-we-we did have the chance to spend a little bit of time at the recent COMMON NAViGATE experience and we talked about Power Skill Academy and-

Linda:  Yup.

Charlie:  I-I want to get that message out because I think you have a very important message that needs to be shared with the world and with the community and talking about not just Power Skills Academy but just in general how-about the IBM i community, the community and the platform and getting new talent so let’s-let’s go back to the beginning. I mentioned a couple of times Power Skills Academy.  What actually is the Power Skills Academy?
Linda:  Okay, good question.

Charlie: Thanks.

Linda: So, the Power Skills Academy many of your viewers probably have heard of the Power System’s Academic Initiative. The Power Skills Academy is sort of the next generation of-of the Power System’s Academic Initiative which by the way is very difficult to say quickly three times and we’re-you know we-we are on a mission to develop and nurture as you said the next generation of IBM i professionals. We heard the call from the community and our-our customers and partners worldwide that there’s a looming skills shortage and you know in previous years, maybe the program wasn’t as-as active in the community as it had been in years past and we’ve decided to change that so that’s what the Power Skills Academy is and we’re-and-and just as another little point of clarity, it is a program focused for academic initi-institutions throughout the world, colleges, universities, technical schools. Faculty and students will then get free access to the many resources that we have available on that program.

Charlie: So, it is intended really for universities.  It’s not intended for the-

Linda:  Right.

Charlie:  Traditional everyday lay person who might be in the industry right now.

Linda: Yes, that is-that’s a true statement with a little bit of tweak.  There are several really great resources that we’ve been adding over the last six to eight months that are-that we’re keeping open to everyone.  We have a whole new guest lecture series you know that-that are presented by IBM experts throughout the community not just from IBM but we have several of them from IBM of course but also from the community. We’re looking to add more all the time. Those are open to everyone. They’re small, easy to consume you know hour long educational you know webinars or replays or videos.

Charlie:  So, the mission is indeed expanding?

Linda:  We are looking to take over the world.  No, I’m just kidding.  No-yes, we’re expanding because we’re listening to you know I’ve been kind of on a listening tour for the last-since I’ve you know started managing this program to understand the needs and the requirements.  One of the you know biggest things we hear is this is great for students. What about my new employee?  How do-how do I get my new employee skilled?  So, we’re-you know we’re looking at some ways that we can address that with this Power Skills Academy but also with you know other resources that we provide.

Charlie: You know Linda I’ve been in this community long enough to recognize some of the issues that the platform has which-which by the way this is my entire career so I-it is to me a platform that is second to none but there are unfortunately I think a lot of misconceptions out there about the platform and I think Power Skills Academy might help dispel some of those misconceptions. What-what-what do you think some of the misconceptions are and how do you think there are some ways to dispel some of those?

Linda:  Sure, I mean I think this is like not new news.  You know some of the primary misconceptions that we hear all the time is IBM i is a legacy platform. I mean this is even if they know what IBM i is, right so if they’ve even heard of it, it’s legacy; it’s proprietary; it’s difficult to learn; it’s obsolete.  Who-what companies are using IBM i?  Those are the kinds of things that we hear a lot and I’m sure you all have as well. So, to answer the you know the other side of that question what are some of the things that Power Skills or IBM in general can do? I think that we really need to continue talking about and socializing with students and faculty, early career professionals and really anyone that guess what? IBM is not only the backbone of thousands of companies around the world but actually IBM i, we embrace open-source and new technologies for modernization.  Think of for example code for i.  We were just talking about Liam Allan so you know code for i is a free open-source extension to Visual Studio code and that allows programmers to develop and maintain their IBM i apps right within Visual Studio code. Now I’m not the most technical girl on earth but I do know that this is a big deal in terms of getting new skills because most programmers coming out of college know Visual Studio. Then of course there’s the AI based RPG Code Assistance Project that Steve-out CTO Steve Will and his team have been working on. You know that’s another really great modern initiative that I think will resonate with students and early career professionals. It’s not old new IBM. It’s new, exciting IBM.

Charlie: It’s completely true. I mean everything you’ve-everything you have said, I totally agree with yet I still find this bit of nagging concern that I have myself is that I think the message is not being heard loud-as loud and we’re-we’re-that’s why we’re doing this today to help you know get that message out there but-but if I’m a developer or if I’m a new developer to just IT, what-what do you think would make me drift more or focus more on IBM i vs going to a different platform?

Linda: Well I-I like to put it like this:  Do you want to be a small fish in a big pond or a big fish in a small pond?  What I mean by that is if you have even a propensity for IT and an understanding of what IBM i does, you’re probably going to find a job and a really good job and have a fulfilling career.  I-I-I-if that’s not a selling point to a student, it’s certainly a sell point to a student’s parents.  Easy for me to say. I have English majors for kid. [Laughter]

Charlie: So, let’s-let’s-let’s flip this around just for a minute. So, if I’m an employer and now I need to attract somebody to come to my company, what-what things should I be offering to attract young talent because I’m not going to get them in the front-in the front door if I’m not allowing them to use these modern tools you just talked about.

Linda: Yeah, that’s-that’s a really good question and it kind of goes back to some of the things that I learned at NAViGATE last week or two weeks ago that maybe we’ll talk about in the moment but once-so an employer needs to understand that they don’t necessarily need seven years of experience on the AS/400 or RPG programming or sys admin or operations in order to find an employee that is going to thrive in their environment so employers need you know they need to help themselves as well if that makes any sense. I hope-hopefully it does and I’m not trying to be harsh but that is a reality.  A lot of the jobs-oh and where are these job reqs coming from?  We heard from the students that we talked to at our workshop last week that they don’t even know where to begin looking. They don’t know what the key words are so the-companies can help themselves with-with honing in on those skills or honing in on those items and IBM- Power Skills Academy can hopefully you know bridge that gap and provide guidance on both sides on how to find that stuff.

Charlie: All right so what you’ve said to me so far, it sounds very promising and very inspirational in fact but if I’m a-if I’m a student today, how-how do I even learn more or get engaged with the Power Skills Academy?  How do I-what’s my-what’s my roadmap?  What are my-my next steps to-to get more involved?
Linda:  Yeah. That’s a really good question also Charlie, thank you. I guess that’s why they pay you big bucks. [Laughter] It-it’s-it’s a bit of a dilemma obviously.  W-we have been working these past few months on some targeted outreach to universities and mostly technical colleges that are in the region of you know some of our customers and talking and trying to you know break through the wall and say will you talk to us and can we come to you with XYZ company and talk to you about the kind of jobs that they-they hire for?  Those are the kinds of things we can do working with the COMMON Education Foundation and you know with their meet and greets that they do and trying to bring more of our companies that we know about that they don’t know about into the mix and then you know make that connection. There’re so many things in the plan that we-you know we still need to do to-to build that and obviously that’s the bread and butter of this whole program-

Charlie: Right.

Linda: Is connecting the student to the you know to the customers.

Charlie: Yeah, you mentioned you know a few minutes ago COMMON NAViGATE how and for those who don’t know about COMMON in general, it’s-you know it’s the largest community group if you will in this community, IBM i community for sure and COMMON hosts very large events you know many times a year POWERUp is their big one of course and you mentioned NAViGATE which was one we just attended a few weeks ago in Florida.  You were there and you and I got to chat a little bit. You mentioned just now that you-there were a couple of key take aways that you got even from NAViGATE. I’d be curious to hear what some of those are.

Linda: Yeah, it-it was a really interesting session. So, what we did at-at NAViGATE, Felix Portnoy who’s our design principal for Power, Brandon Patterson who’s our marketing manager for IBM i and myself, we ran an enterprise design thinking workshop and the primary goal of the workshop was to identify pain points that our participants experienced on their journey to IBM i so a career on IBM i.  We really focused on four phases of that journey, awareness and discovery so basically how did you ever hear about IBM i or IBM; skill development and education where did you get the skills, what were the pain points in getting those skills; building professional relationship so or relationship and networks what have you done, you know are you finding that to be difficult, is that easy, etc. what was your job search like; and then of course onboarding and continuous education so once you have a job, what kind of continuing education did you receive or what were the pain points in that area.  Then-so it was a-it was a you know it could have gone on all day probably because we had a lot of great input. I think we had a total of 24 participants-we had-

Charlie: That’s-that’s a big number.

Linda:  Yeah, it was 24-yeah it was 24 participants with four students, one instructor from Pennsylvania College of Technology, thanks guys for joining us. We plan to have more students there. Unfortunately, the Florida weather prevented them from attending but still we had eight early-what we call early career professionals and then 11 I-you know subject matter experts whether they’re from IBM i or from IBM, you know the company IBM or COMMON board or the community.  We have had 11 participants which was really great.  So, after we identified the pain points for each of these areas, then we spent some good time talking you know ideating on what are the solutions on those top three in each of those areas so you know where I’m at right now still is in analysis phase as I’m sure you can imagine.  We got a lot of great data and in fact when I showed you my-my wall of Viking up until a few days ago I had a wall of sticky notes that I brought back from Florida with me and-but you know early-early analysis tells me that this is-this is the key pain-or the key things.  Who are the companies hiring IBM i skills?  That’s been a thing. What are the specific skills required? Is there a roadmap or a curriculum by these com-you know what-what do these companies require in terms of skills and where do I get them?  You know this isn’t really new news to me. It’s sort of a validation of what we suspected all along but the really nice thing about this workshop is we have real customers, real students, real people who are engaged and interested in helping us solve the problems so event-you know once we do the analysis, we’ll come up with an actional plan to address some of these you know major things and hopefully make everybody happy. Oh, and I just wanted to mention too that we did have one bonus why.  Why don’t we make RDI free?  That one got a lot of votes [Laughter].  I had to throw that one out because I’m pretty sure we’re not allowed to do that so anyway-

Charlie: So-
Linda:  So-so the workshop was real-it was very, very interesting.  I’m working on a readout right now. Maybe you’ll have me back in a couple of months and we can talk about some of the things that we’ve done to address the major pain points.

Charlie: I think that would be a very interesting you know before and after kind of conversation.

Linda: Yeah.  Yeah, definitely.

Charlie: So-so let’s-let’s expand on that then. You-you-I know you’ve-so you’re done the initial deep dive. You’ve gotten the inquiries. You’ve gotten the questions, the pain points as you said and now the-you mentioned coming up with an actional plan but once you have this plan, how do you get the word out? How-how is this going to be evangelized in the community so people you know to gain more awareness?

Linda:  Well, the usual-the usual routes.  We will most certainly socialize our own net-to our own networks. We’ll-we’ll announce what we’re doing especially if there’s you know big announcements like oh, we’re launching XYZ badge, IBM i really badge.  We’ll-we’ll promote it in that way. We’ll attend conferences and I’ve got email communications with our-our member colleges that we’ll send out.  We just you know scream from the roof tops because we-I think that’s something that we’ve run into is awareness is a big part of our problem because as I think you know there is a lot of really great skills resources, education resources out there. It’s just knowing what to look for and-and where.

Charlie:  And many of them are free.  Many of them are free.

Linda: And many of them are free, yes.  Many of them are free. That is absolutely true.

Charlie:  So, it’s just a matter of-they’re there for the taking for sure.

Linda: Yup, yup.

Charlie: And you did-I did write down. You mentioned IBM i ready. I know that’s a new initiative. Can you speak to that?  I mean I know it may not be your-

Linda: Yeah.

Charlie: Initiative but can you speak to that and what’s the value in that?

Linda: Yeah, I-I along with-I guess I was more the logistics person and the tracker of the metrics so the pro-the IBM i product team working with several folks from I think the CAC came up with 20 to 40 questions to build this badge that we call IBM i Ready and it’s really a foundational badge that allows-I mean target audience of course was you know young-I won’t say young-earlier career professionals and maybe students who are taking you know IBM i related classes to show that they have foundational knowledge of the platform. I got to tell you. We launched it on August 27. We’ve had over-almost 1500 apps to date so and a 65+-

Charlie: Wow.

Linda: Badge issuing so it’s-it’s been popular and that kind of speaks to the whole social thing how did we get the word out about it so hopefully we can do that with our other program.

Charlie: And to me, if-if you’re a new developer to this platform, maybe not new developer, new developer to the platform certainly I think that-I think that certification does have some value to it to show that you’ve done-

Linda: Yeah.

Charlie: At least the preliminary work to say that you have some-

Linda: Yes.

Charlie:  Some literacy-some literacy.

Linda: Yeah, absolutely and-and we-you know I keep saying we.  I-I personally have heard from companies that that would be of value on a resume. That would you know if my res-if my job req says seven years of experience but I have an IBM i ready badge, that tells an employer that they’ve taken the initiative to learn enough to pass-you know to get the badge from IBM and you know I don’t think preannouncing anything when I say that we’re planning to do at least two, probably three additional badges of that type, foundation skills badges, not necessarily associated with any one course but with you know knowledge gained over time sort of thing.

Charlie: And you know a very valuable attribute that employers look for, you know you mentioned taking the-having the initiative to take the-the certification.

Linda: Right.

Charlie: Which-and I know you mentioned there 20-40 questions but I think you only get asked about 20 of them on the test I believe, something like-

Linda: Yeah, yeah.  We have a bank of questions so I think it’s not the same every single time.

Charlie: Right but the-but the larger point here is that you’ve taken the initiative and that’s a-and that’s a huge soft skill-

Linda: Yes, it is.

Charlie:  And that-you know that compliments the-the literacy of IBM.  You know to get those combined really just show I think it-it-it does have some ability to separate those who are more serious about their career.

Linda: Can you give me one second and I am going to actually break down.  One of the reasons we launched out this you know this badge is like I said to target early career professionals, less than five years, maybe less than ten years in-in-in the business or students and I can tell you that 34% of our badge applicants were between ages 26 and 35.

Charlie: That’s not insignificant.

Linda: 10% were between 18 and 25.

Charlie: That’s even more significant, I think.

Linda: Yeah, yeah, exactly and then 19.8 35 to 45 and then 18.9 46 to 55 and then the rest is over 55 so I think that what you know the great thing about that metric is it’s-maybe it’s disproving the myth of the looming skills shortage I don’t know but at least it shows that there’s interest in you know the more early in their careers’ professionals in the-in the platform.

Charlie: I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on -you mentioned there were some students at the workshop at COMMON NAViGATE.  I’ve be curious to hear-

Linda: Yeah.

Charlie: I’d be curious to hear what their view of the platform is.  I mean they-they-the fact that they were at NAViGATE obviously just by default does express some interest-

Linda: Yeah.

Charlie: But I’d be curious to hear what their particular interest was in the com-in the IBM i platform I should say or did they-do they even have a real you know knowledge and how deep is that or they even just IBM i ready if it is significant or not.

Linda: Well, I’m glad you asked because I did have an opportunity to talk to the four students and the instructor from Pennsylvania College of Technology and interestingly enough, they don’t have an i program at that college. That instructor however has attended COMMON or COMMON NAViGATE at least three times in the last couple of years so he has interest. He just doesn’t know where to start. Well, I finally met him and I said listen, here’s what we do. We start.  So his-the students that he brought with him were in IT or CS fields of various you know different technologies but they-they were really energized by the community and the-the support that folks like you Charlie gave them while they were at-you know it was just a really good positive experience and I’ve gotten-all four of them wrote me an email afterwards you know talking about even just the workshop and how valuable it was, asking for more information about how do I get more information about i until it’s at my university.

Charlie: You know one time-

Linda:  I thought that was really great.

Charlie: One thing even though it was a long time ago, one thing that really sent me on this journey if you want to call it that in IT-it wasn’t even called IT when I started of course you know 3000 years ago but what got me started was-

Linda:  Rock.

Charlie: Well maybe not quite [Laughter] well maybe not quite-I hope not. Maybe not quite that far back but anyway what really got me started and I-I will say this until for a very long time and that is that I had an instructor who really inspired me with a vision and an excitement about wanting to learn more about this crazy industry of IT and data processing and you know IT in general but it-it-it speaks to the value of the mentor and I think Power Skills Academy can really capture that and really run with that-with that mission or that-that spirit of mentorship because that to me is-I mean we can talk all day long about learning and take initiative but when you have a mentor who’s really rounding out that whole set of-of-of-

Linda: Yeah.

Charlie: Talent, I think it makes-it can really you know hit the gas pedal and really accelerate someone’s career.

Linda: Well actually no.  I 100% agree and in fact that is definitely one of the areas that we received the most votes on solutions to pain points in this workshop, again not really new news but a validation of what we already knew so now how do we-how do we execute on that?  You know we-we know the N2i organization, part of COMMON, they have a mentorship program.  How can we incent those in the community to participate in that as mentors?  Then you know we can help do our part by getting the students there because every-every single-I think every single student and even the early career professionals said having a mentor makes a difference you know in-maybe not in those exact words but that was the spirit of it.

Charlie: And you know it doesn’t take much to be mentor.  You can even be an accidental mentor.  You know you don’t have to be-

Linda: Right, right.

Charlie:  Be-I’m deliberately going to take some by one individual and run with this person-just by helping the community at large whatever that means you know-

Linda: Right.

Charlie:  Even-even the simplest little blog post for example, anything but I think it might be interesting even for students to do the same things especially those who have may have spent a little bit of time going through the program as you talked about or anything, just to show those who are even-even newer than them that there’s a path that they can follow-

Linda:  Of course.

Charlie:  And-and there’s-and let me add to that, the path can be successful.

Linda: Yes, abso-absolutely.  I have an example of a woman that I met, a young woman if I’m allowed to say that at POWERUp at Fort Worth and her story was just so interesting to me. She is newly out of college.  I won’t say her-I won’t say her name because I didn’t tell her I was going to talk about her on here but newly out of college, worked for one you know one of our partners and real techno geek, just really interested and she saw a job posting for the company she works for now for like some sort of senior system admin. Well, she didn’t even know what IBM i was, but she-she’s like this sounds interesting to me so she went in.  She did the interview. They were so impressed with her that they did hire her, maybe not for that position but the-the crux of the story is she got the job.  She’s going to COMMON now-in fact she couldn’t go to COMMON the year before, her first year, because she wasn’t 21 [laughter] and that’s how young she was and-but her friends are intrigued by the fact that she has this really neat job that she loves and so now she is trying to become an IBM Champion because she sees the value and she has been at COMMON and she you know she understands so it’s stories like that that we need to continue to tell so and hopefully we have a lot of them to tell.

Charlie:  You know to this particular young woman you mentioned you know one of the things about becoming a Champion is advocacy for the platform-

Linda: Yup.

Charlie:  And-and that might be a path not just for her but for many people. That’s-you know you literally are you know advocating for the platform. That’s one of the basic requirements-

Linda:  Yup.

Charlie:  One of the basic requirements of being a Champion so just as-as an aside but the other thing before we kind of wrap this up I want to just speak to one more thing with you and that is that you-you mentioned it earlier to me I think before we started recording this was just the IBM i community itself and I think that-I think the community at large while it’s-for those who are in it every day understand the value of it but those who are saying well there’s more to just a-a computing platform. It’s-it’s the-it’s the community at large; it’s the support that you have of the people that are in it. What’s been your experience with the community because I know you’re still fairly new to the IBM i community but what’s been your experiences so far?

Linda: Well, I’ve come full circle because I wrote that book about it-

Charlie: Oh, that’s true.  That’s true.  Exactly right.

Linda: 900 pages by the way back when they were actually red books-

Charlie: And printed.

Linda:  Yes, and printed, exactly but to answer your question so I-I started my-my-the director of my organization asked me to take a look at Power Skills Academy and try to rebuild it.  One of the things that she asked me to do was go to COMMON and we call it a listening tour so I didn’t have a session.  I didn’t really have any-any plans to go to any specific sessions but I sat at the booth and listened to people talk.  I’ve got to tell you. She wasn’t able to be at that one and-and when I came back, I said these people are so energized and passionate and they want to help. We need to focus on i because our Power Skills Academy cover AIX and Linux. We have programs for both of those operating systems but we’ve got so many people interested in helping us be successful. It is-it is quite awesome.  I’m going to-so I have a lot of tattoos. Those of you who know me know I have a lot of tattoos.  Maybe I’ll get my IBM i tattooed the next time.

Charlie:  You wouldn’t be the first one by the way. There is someone else-

Linda: I know.  I’ve heard-I’ve heard that.

Charlie: But it-and maybe I’m a little bit biased because I am-I feel like I am part of that community and I think I do-

Linda: Yes.

Charlie:  Contribute a little to the community but I was just going to say no matter how much anybody gives.  I can guarantee you-and I say this all the time-no matter how much you give, you’ll be adding so much more back.

Linda: Well and I think the key message for-I mean for a person like me Charlie is that I was nervous to approach anyone. I’ve talked to you about you know like not in public but everyone wanted to tell me their story and everyone was supportive. If I said hey, would you be interested in doing X?  I-I have yet to receive a no so I think-I think that’s great so I really do appreciate it. I can’t tell you how much I do appreciate it.

Charlie: Yeah, but you’re-and I agree with you. I-I-I feel the same way by the way and I think that’s what makes it so special. It really does.

Linda: Yes.

Charlie: I mean it’s a-it’s a-I mean I don’t want to sound so corny I suppose but it’s-it’s a family. It’s really a family. It’s hard to describe it to people who are not in it and it’s an interesting-interesting community. It’s-it’s a great thing.

Linda:  Yup.

Charlie: And it’s all encompassing and all welcoming and it’s all those things. It really is.

Linda:  Yup.

Charlie: And-and there’s still room for more people in that space, you know to make a bigger pie as we say you know and that includes new-you know new-new talent, new speakers, new people who want to just advocate, new Champions as you mentioned earlier.  There’s room for that and I welcome it.  It’s-it’s wonderful so.

Linda: Yup, absolutely.

Charlie: So, before we kind of really wrap this up, I want to like what-what would be like your final message I think to anybody who needs to hear more about the Power Skills Academy or about IBM i or anything.  What’s-what’s the final message? If you had an opportunity to stand on top of the globe, on top of the planet with a-with a megaphone what’s the message you want to really just get out there and people-why they need to know more about this and how they get involved, you know specifically how they get involved?

Linda:  Well this is something that I say every time I talk to somebody about Power Skills Academy and our mission.  It’s-it’s what I like to think of as a three circle Venn diagram. It takes everyone, collaboration is key. In one circle is Power Skills Academy and IBM; in one circle are community and customers and partners that are interested in the skills; the third one are our academic institutions, the colleges that you know hopefully will embrace the technology and the platform and then right there in the middle is IBM i skills so it takes all-I guess the key message-that’s my long-winded way of saying the key message is collaboration is absolutely necessary. I can’t do it myself.  You guys can’t do it yourselves. The schools obviously can’t do it themselves. They don’t know the-they don’t know what they don’t know but we can all do it together so and I-and I welcome anyone who wants to talk to me about that at any time.

Charlie: I think that’s a great final message and for anybody needing to know more, reach out to Linda Alkire for sure; find the Power Skills Academy online; you can find a resource online; you can Google it I imagine; you can search for it.

Linda: Yeah.  Yup.

Charlie:  You’ll find it and hopefully this podcast will help-will help bolster that I think.

Linda: Thanks for having me. Yes, I hope so. Thank you so much.

Charlie: Oh, my pleasure. I’m so glad you were able to join me today.  This is great.

Linda: Yeah. Thank you, Charlie. Thank you everyone. Go Vikings!

Charlie: You beat me to the punch [Laughter].  I was-that was-you-you took my final line so I’ll say it anyway.  Go Vikings.  I hope they-I hope when I see you next time in person that you still have that great big smile on your-your-you know you’re wearing your Viking shirt.

Linda:  I will. I absolutely will be.

Charlie:  Great.  Linda, it was-it was so great to chat with you. I’m so glad we had this opportunity to do this.  Thank you for joining me.

Linda: Thank you.  Yeah, I mean-thank you so much.   I’m looking forward to seeing this.

Charlie: Yeah, it’s going to be great and everybody else-everybody else out there, thank you for joining me here today on this podcast, TechChannel podcast, always great. We always have some great topics, great speakers, great guests like Linda and until next time everybody, see you soon.  Bye now.

Linda: Bye now. Thank you.


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