Secrets to Attracting IBM i Talent (and Keeping It), With Steve Wolk
Steve Wolk, a distinguished IBM i evangelist, joins Charlie Guarino on TechTalk SMB to discuss ways the IBM i community can overcome challenges in attracting qualified talent
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The following transcript has been edited for clarity:
Guarino: Hi everybody. Welcome to another edition of TechTalk SMB. Today, as you can see, I am so happy to have an associate, a fellow speaker in the IBM i community and a real good friend for many, many, many years, Mr. Wolk. Let me read your bio, Steve, because it’s really impressive. Wolk is the chief technology officer for PC Richard & Son. It’s a retailer with over a hundred years experience in the retail space, operating a chain of more than 60 appliance and electronic superstores throughout New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. In 2000, after working his way through many positions in the IT roles, Steve has assumed the role of CTO for PC Richard and Son. I might add the company’s first CTO. As CTO, Steve does lead a very large team of very talented developers.
I know personally that Steve is truly a real advocate for the IBM i i and is very well known in the IBM i community for his advocacy, and it’s no surprise, no surprise to me that he’s also an IBM i Power Champion, a longtime standing and award-winning speaker, well-known to have complete blowout sessions, which is pretty amazing, and a subject matter expert and also part of COMMON education team, which is really impressive as well. Addition, I’ve had the good fortune to speak globally with Steve, and I’m very fortunate to have those experiences. Thank you for that, Steve. But more interestingly, Steve is also very involved in a very local level, very prominent with the Long Island System User Group, LISUG, where every month he works his role as the emcee for the meetings, and he’s also on their board. Wow, what a Bio. Well, welcome to our little podcast. I’m so glad to see you. Thank you.
Wolk: Thank you, Charlie. I’m thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
Guarino: Absolutely. The reason why I thought this was a very interesting time to have a chat with you, Steve, is because I know recently you gave a very compelling session at LUG, the IBM i Local User Group.
Wolk: Large User Group.
Guarino: Large user group. Excuse me. Right. Large group. Exactly right. Large user group. And the topic really was the state of IBM i talent, how to hire and retain IBM i talent from a CTO’s perspective. And there’s a lot of jewels or a lot of nuggets, I should say, that I think you gave out to the audience there. I wanted to go over some of them with you because I think this is a topic that needs to be heard.
Wolk: I agree. It’s something that’s on a lot of people’s minds, and I think that we can solve this problem working together.
Guarino: I totally agree with you, Steve. So before we even get into the meat of this, let’s just set the stage. What is the current state of the IBM i workforce?
Wolk: I think it’s in a really interesting place right now. It’s both challenging and exciting. The greatest thing about the IBM i is the talented and giving community that surrounds the platform. I’ve never seen anything like it for any other technology platform out there. And that’s definitely part of the secret to the IBM i’s success. But that community just never seems to be large enough. And that’s evident if you are trying to hire experienced and qualified IBM i professionals. And for years now, we’ve talked about how it’s hard to hire those people. It’s hard to find those people, and that’s still true. I hate to say it, but many of the experts who’ve built their career on this platform like myself, we’re not getting any younger. And the pipeline behind us hasn’t always been strong. But what we’ve proven at PC Richard is that this problem can be solved if we’re willing to rethink how we go about hiring.
Guarino: So there legitimately are people out there, even if they’re not necessarily IBM i people, there are people out there who are completely viable candidates.
Wolk: When many companies place an ad to try to hire, they list all of the potential requirements, things that they would love to have, all the skills, all the experience, how many years of each, that’s a wishlist. But when you look at all of that together cohesively, there are so few people that have all of that experience and you’re cutting down the candidate pool by so much. Instead, we’re willing to teach. So I look for things that I can’t teach. I look for people who are curious, people who have good communication skills, people who are lifelong learners, people who are passionate about technology and love applying technology to solve business problems. I can always teach another language. I can teach another operating system. I’ve got plenty of people who are passionate about this platform and love teaching it, but you can’t teach someone to be a lifelong learner.
I’d rather hire someone who knows nothing about what they need to do their job, but loves learning new things all the time than someone who knows everything they need to know today, but doesn’t want to learn anything else because they’re happy with where they are. So we’ve been hiring people on the entry level, oftentimes straight out of school. These people graduate from school with an incredible wealth of knowledge on building modern applications, and they’re curious. They’re good people. They have great communication skills. You find those people, show them the IBM i and their eyes light up and they get all excited. They fall in love with the platform for all the same reasons we did because it makes them a better developer and makes their jobs easier. And we’ve been very successful with this. I’ve hired eight new people on this platform in the last 24 months, and not one of those eight people knew what the IBM i was or ever heard of it before I hired them.
Guarino: Wow. Wow. So if you’re interviewing somebody, you only have a very short amount of time to speak with them. How do you call out that passion that they are? How do you identify that passion? Well, you’ve mentioned this lifelong learning. What are some things that they are saying to you that, wow, that this person really fits that mold?
Wolk: Well, you definitely want to step up your interviewing skills and make sure that you’re asking the right questions. And rather than asking questions about a particular technology or a particular platform, I’ll ask a number of different questions which might seem unusual. I’ll ask some basic technology questions that are platform independent. And I could give you examples of the types of questions, but we’ve had to do that because we’ve actually found that there are bootcamps out there that will teach people front-end web design, but make them believe that they are a full-stack developer, even though they’re not, because they just haven’t been exposed to so much and they’ve been sold on a false hope. So we’ve had to ask some basic foundational questions to really make sure that someone understands the basics, logic, for example. And one of the things we look for now, because we’ve had some bad experiences, we really do prefer someone who has a four-year college degree.
These six-month bootcamps just really don’t seem to cut it. Unless you have someone who has loved technology their entire life and has been passionate about it for so many years, now these bootcamps just add to that fuel. But in general, we look for someone who has a four-year degree. Also, we’ve partnered with some very good recruiting companies, and because we’ve built good relationships with them, we’ve worked with them for many years, they understand exactly what makes a great PC Richard and Son candidate. So they’re looking for all of those communication skills. And when you work with a recruiter, one of the best ways to tell if someone is doing a good job for you is do they ask for a conversation with you to get feedback after each and every interview? Because their goal should be that everyone they send you should be hireable. And if you interview someone and there’s immediately a reason why you wouldn’t hire them, that recruiter should want that feedback immediately so they can avoid that problem next time.
And generally when my recruiters send me candidates, every one of them is hireable because they know what I’m looking for. But even before you get to that point, one of the best things to do is to make sure that all of your current employees know that you’re looking because one of the last people I hired came from a recommendation for one of my current people and he’s turned out to be absolutely awesome. You hire these people because they’re incredible and they’re impressive and chances are their friends are equally impressive. So that’s a great way to get people. And even sometimes by reaching out to your network and letting other people you know that you’re connected to in the community know that you’re hiring because we all know people, and that’s some of the best ways to get people in. But certainly when you’re interviewing, you want to ask questions and start the conversation to make sure that the person can actually speak with you and that they have passions and interest in technology.
I like to ask how they keep current with technology and even what their pet projects are. I recently hired someone who told me that one of his pet projects he’s been working on was building his own smart mirror. And that fascinated me because I’ve seen those things, they’re very expensive, they’re complicated. He wanted one, so he built his own. And just hearing how he was talking about the technology and all the problems he had to solve and what went into it showed me how passionate he is about technology and using that to solve real problems.
Guarino: And that would easily translate into a big project that you have in your company.
Wolk: Absolutely.
Guarino: Yeah, for sure. So why is it that I speak with other CTOs or even when I speak at a session anywhere, and I’m sure you’ve encountered this as well, people come up to you at the end and somehow there’s this perception out there, not from everybody, of course, not from everybody, but sometimes I get the impression that there’s an undertone of us being in some sort of crisis mode that we can’t find anybody. What’s your response to these people?
Wolk: I think that if you’re going to continue looking for people who have all of this experience and all of this knowledge, and that’s your primary hiring criteria, there’s definitely a crisis. But we can solve this problem together simply by changing the way that we look to hire. If we’re willing to teach, and there are lots of resources out there, teaching is not a problem, and there are plenty of great candidates. I mentor through a couple of different organizations, and I spend enough time with students to constantly hear from them, “There’s no jobs out there. I’ve got all these skills and I can’t find the job.” And then I’m speaking at conferences in the IBM i community and I hear that I can’t hire anyone. I can’t find anyone to hire. There’s got to be a way to solve these problems together. And by working together, we can.
And one of the best ways to solve that problem is to start early, even before you need to hire someone by starting to build your pipeline of candidates. One of the ways to do that is to mentor. I can tell you that I mentor through the COMMON speaking programs, one of the organizations that I mentor through, and one of my project managers, I met him and became friends with him through that program. He became a COMMON speaker through the mentoring program because of my help, partially. He became an award-winning COMMON speaker. At least they think that was partially because of my help and we became friends and now he works for me and that’s fantastic. Through the Long Island Systems Users Group we have an internship program and that internship program has proven to be an entryway into the IBM i community. And one of the best interns that we ever had through LISUG now works for me as our AI developer.
So by building these pathways to bring people into the IBM i community, you can help solve that problem before you even need to add new employees.
Guarino: You know, Steve, so much more goes into this. I mean, I agree with everything that you’ve said, by the way. And what we discussed so far is bringing somebody in the door onto day one, but there’s even another challenge, if that’s even the right word, a challenge, and that is keeping them in the door. And how do you address that? Because that’s a bigger concern. Maybe they come in with these wide eyes, but you have to provide this nurturing experience for them that’s going to keep them there. So what is keeping these people there?
Wolk: We can answer that question in two ways. Certainly there are things that you want to do for every employee to make sure that they stay as long as possible. And we’ve been pretty successful with that. I’ve got about 35 developers on my team, and among those 35 developers, the average tenure is just shy of 17 years.
Guarino: That’s unbelievable, by the way.
Wolk: And thank you. It’s something we’re very proud of. It’s only that low because we’ve grown, we’ve brought our new developers and it’s pulled their average down, but we have people that have been with us for many decades. So we must be doing something right just by treating people right, giving them a path forward, knowing that if they do aspire to lead and to move up, there are roles where they can continue to build their career by staying with the same company. But when you’re hiring someone brand new, they’re probably not looking at that as their top priority. They’re looking at the day-to-day work. And if you hire someone brand new, fresh out of college with all of these crazy skills, and you sit them down in front of a green screen editor and you ask them to use SEU and PDM to build you brand new green screen 5250 applications using fixed format RPG, they’re probably not going to stay with you very long.
A big part of this conversation is what kind of applications are you building? Are you building modern web and mobile application using modern technologies on IBM i? We are. And one of the great things about that is when you hire these brand new people who are new to the platform, they can be productive building those applications on IBM i right from day one because they can be doing all the front-end work for you while they’re learning the backend. So the days of bringing someone in and having them be in school with you for three months, just learning the platform, learning the languages, that’s all gone. We bring people in, they’re productive immediately right out of the gate, and they’re so excited and they’re much more enthusiastic because they feel productive. They feel like they’re giving back to the company and to the community. They’re accomplishing things. They’re not just going back to school, and they’re learning while they’re doing it and they’re falling in love with the platform because they see why we love it so much, and it allows their careers to quickly blossom because of all the incredible applications they’re building.
Guarino: So it quite literally is day one immersion.
Wolk: Absolutely. Absolutely. We certainly provide time to learn, to work with other people to go through the bootcamps that are available for the COMMON bootcamp series, but that’s not day one. Day one is let’s get some work done.
Guarino: And I guess it is. It’s those early wins that really to build them around, not just of that one person, but for the entire team, I imagine.
Wolk: Oh, absolutely. One of the best things about bringing new people onto the team is that they come with skills and experience that others don’t have. So it’s not just about us teaching the new people what we do and how we do it. It’s learning from them, which means you have to be open to listening to what they recommend. In fact, when we interview candidates, we actually ask questions about where they have come up with new creative ideas because we want that. We don’t necessarily have all of the answers. So I always like to ask candidates during an interview, “Tell me about a situation in the past where you’ve come up with a creative idea on how to make things better and you presented it to your boss and tell me about what happened. Were they receptive to it? Did it work out?” We want those ideas. And some of our biggest wins have come from some of those little crazy what-if ideas.
Guarino: There was a time when I personally was building very large applications. I don’t do as much as anymore, and I still look back fondly at some of those things that we’ve accomplished as me as a co-developer or as the lead, whatever, or even the designer. But even to this day, I just look back with these great memories and really proud of what we’ve accomplished in the past. And I have to ask you then, I mean, the same question then, is there anything particular that maybe you’re really proud of that maybe that you designed or even coded on some level? I imagine your days of coding every day are long gone too, but what maybe might be some of your fondest memories perhaps, or where you really saw an advance in the company and technology that really made a significant difference to the entire enterprise?
Wolk: Well, I could talk about that question for hours. There are a lot of things that I’m proud of that I’ve built, and you’re absolutely right. My technical skills when it comes to writing software are not where they used to be. I’m not the best software developer anymore, and I don’t need to be. My responsibilities have changed. My first passion with software development, I still love it, and don’t necessarily tell my developers about this, but sometimes when something breaks in the evenings or the weekends, I’ll roll up my shirt cleaves and fix it myself rather than calling someone because it’s fun and I miss doing it and I enjoy doing it. But these days I have people who are a lot smarter than I am and much more talented than I am building these incredible applications. And I’m lucky to have them because they’re not just great people, but they’re incredibly talented.
And one of the big inflection points that I think is worth talking about was when we started building modern applications because we have a lot of 5250 legacy applications. There’s nothing wrong with legacy applications. One of the best things about the IBM i is that it allows you to continue to derive investment protection from those old applications because you continue running them even without recompiling them. And there’s no platform out there that does that. But that doesn’t mean that you get a pass on developing modern applications because if you don’t do that, the platform itself begins appearing like a legacy platform rather than the legendary platform that it really is. And I like that. It’s legendary, not legacy, but we have to show people that by demonstrating what it’s capable of doing. And for us, the transition to modern development actually began about 15 years ago when one of our developers, who’s now our project manager, but he had the idea for mobile app development.
He saw what was happening in the world and he thought we needed an employee-facing mobile app. And we couldn’t get anyone to really give us the time on it because people just didn’t see the future. People couldn’t anticipate how it would transform the company. So we began a little Skunksworks project where we began building something minimally on our own just so we could demonstrate to people what it could do because we all know that people can’t always visualize what something is until they see it and play with it.
Guarino: Absolutely.
Wolk: So we built this little app that had a handful of features that we knew would be useful to our people. Then the challenge was getting people to actually use it. And I’m proud of the way that our team took care of that problem because we know that people want what they can’t have. So what we did is we found about a dozen power users in the company who we know loves shiny new objects and would love playing with it. And we enlisted their help. We gave them this new app and we built a feature into the app where they could share that app with other people. And then we leaked toward throughout the company that there was this cool new thing, but you couldn’t have it. Only these 12 people had it. But if you could find one of them and convince them to give you an invitation, they could send you an invitation and you would have it too.
So these 12 people, they loved the app, of course. And overnight they became superstars because everyone was seeking them out to try to get the app. And once you got the app, now you were in on it too and people were seeking you out to give them the app. And after working this hard to get the app, you certainly were going to try it and actually use it. Two weeks later, the entire company had the app and was using it every day.
Guarino: Well, who doesn’t want to be in the cool kids club, right?
Wolk: Exactly. That was the start of our modern application development, and that showed people that we’re capable of doing more than green screen. And when we would tell people that this runs on IBM i, it blew their mind. They had no idea that this platform could do that. And since then, once our user communities saw that we’re capable of doing this, they’re asking for more and more, but they never asked for that before because they didn’t know we could do it. And now we’re doing lots of mobile and web development. In fact, every time we build a new application, it’s always web or mobile first, unless there’s a really good reason for us to build it in green screen, it’s always going to be web. The only time we build something new in green screen is if there’s a reason for it.
Guarino: I’m sure there are those users who don’t care that it’s IBM i and they don’t need to care because it’s the IT’s responsibility to get to roll out these great projects or products, I should say, or both. So they don’t need to care. All I know is that the IT team just continues to keep pumping out these great tools that we can all use.
Wolk: Absolutely. I’m glad you brought that up because we do ourselves a bit of a disservice by referring to our platform by its previous name. And everyone knows what I’m talking about. It’s AS400.
Well, IBM i has been called IBM i for a lot longer than it was ever called AS400, but yet so many of us still refer to it as AS400. What’s the problem with that? Well, let’s say that your CEO hears that you’re using an AS400 because everyone in the company, and including in IT, refers to it as the 400. Well, now he’s at a conference and just like us, our CEOs attend conferences and he talks to other CEOs and says we’re using an AS400. Well, a CEO who actually knows something about technology says, oh my God, IBM hasn’t made an AS400 since the year 2000. You’re using a 25-year-old computer system. You’ve got to get rid of that antique. Enough people say that to you, and after a while you begin to believe that it really is an antique. Would you call your latest Windows active directory server, a Windows NT server?
No, it’s a quarter of a century old. It’s an IBM i. It’s IBM’s product. They get to name it. It’s important for us to get with the program and refer to it by what it is, but that notwithstanding, we also realized a few years ago at PC Richard that there’s no reason for our user community to know or care what kind of server we use. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the type of applications that we build, that they’re modern, fun to use, and that they get the job done. So we came up with a brand name for all of our applications and we brand our applications with that name. And the goal is that our user community will stop referring to our platform as IBM i or AS400, but rather our brand name for our software applications because that’s what really matters.
Guarino: It’s interesting to say that, Steve, because I continue to get resumes, I’m sure you do as well, from senior developers, people who’ve been doing this for 30-plus years, whatever. And even on their resumes, they’re putting AS400. And it makes me crazy. I mean, I imagine you get them too. Probably the same people.
Wolk: When I get a resume like that, I’ll admit I am very hesitant to interview that person because they’re stuck in the past.
Guarino: Yeah. It’s almost like it’s an immediate litmus test.
Wolk: Exactly. And it’s a giveaway.
Guarino: We keep using this word modernization and that word, I mean, I know it’s an important term and everybody uses it, but even that term needs to be modernized because we are so beyond modernizing which what you’re doing today is transformative. It’s not modernizing anymore. I imagine you still have some old RPG apps, I’m sure, running, but we have to look beyond that. And surely, even modern apps that were written maybe 20 years ago or 15 years ago, the ones you talked about, at some point they’re going to need to be remodernized. Is that a fair statement?
Wolk: Absolutely. We’ve taken a number of different approaches to modernization over the years. We were looking at one of those tools that puts a pretty graphical user interface over 5250 applications, and we decided against it. The reaction from our user community was that they didn’t love it, that they knew how to use our applications without even looking at the screen because they’ve using them for so long, and this just got in the way. So rather than trying to modernize our older legacy applications, we realized that there’s nothing wrong with having different technologies in use at the same time. So we began building thoroughly modern, fun to use, beautiful graphical applications that are mobile and web-friendly, and that’s the future. And there’s nothing wrong with having other applications that are older, but that still we derive business value from. But our user community knows that what we’re capable of is thoroughly modern, and there’s nothing wrong with having older ones, but we’re not considered a legacy platform anymore because everyone is fully aware of what kinds of quality applications we’re building today.
And one of our most exciting projects is our next generation point of sale, which is in use in all of our showrooms today. We’re still building it out until we can completely retire the old one, but it is React on the front end, it’s web-based, but it’s all IBM i on the backend. And it’s absolutely beautiful and easy to use and solves real problems for us because the green screen application was so complicated, it requires significant training, it’s a steep learning curve. The new one is so easy to use that if you ever shopped online, you already know how to use it.
Guarino: So what’s your response to the statement that I hear sometimes when I’m out in the field, or again, I speak with attendees at conferences or whatever the case is, and I hear, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” And I see your reaction immediately. Because that mentality still exists. Hopefully it’s shrinking, but it’s still out there. Because in those situations, how do they get funding perhaps or budget to approach a modernization project when in the end, maybe just the underpinnings of the application are modernized, but there’s no immediate visual enhancement or is that the answer right there? It has to be something that they can touch and see.
Wolk: If you are not learning new things and you’re not moving forward, you’re falling behind. Technology, more so than maybe any other career except perhaps medicine, is constantly changing. Would you go to a doctor that hadn’t learned anything new in 25 years?
Guarino: Well, of course not.
Wolk: Certainly not. And it’s the same thing with technology. I always ask developers during an interview, how do you keep up to date on technology? What’s the last new thing that you learned? And I even ask questions about what have you learned lately that didn’t have to do with technology, didn’t have to do with your job Because we want people who just love learning new things who are sponges and are constantly absorbing new information, because you never know where you’re going to get your next big idea from. You want to make sure you’re giving your developers access to modern tools like VS Code. We’ve transitioned, many of our developers have transitioned to VS Code already. A number are still using RDI. None of our developers still use SEU or PDM development. And we’re always open to using the latest technologies, but in terms of building modern applications, you just have to start somewhere and draw a line in the sand to show that we are capable of building these applications.
And once people know that you are, they’re going to ask for it. And we’re not talking about a modernization project. We’re not saying that we need to spend millions of dollars to replace old applications and modernize. I’m saying start with new applications that you build. Nothing wrong with the old ones. If you need to replace the old ones, that’s a different issue. But if you’re still deriving business value and they still get the job done, just start with something high profile, even if it’s something small that’s high profile, just to capture people’s attention and let them see what you’re capable of doing. They’ll ask for more once they see that.
Guarino: I want to circle back to how we first started our discussion, Steve, and that was with your bio. And I got to tell you, I mean, it’s very impressive. And I wondered to myself, what keeps somebody—a CTO of a very large company now, what keeps you motivated, and what is motivating you to stay as involved in the community as you are? Because there’s no secret that you are very visible, you’re well known in the industry, in the community. What’s the purpose, or what purpose do you get out of that? Surely it’s giving you something back. What is that?
Wolk: It’s funny you ask that because it’s something I think about occasionally. It used to be technology. I simply loved technology. I loved coding, and I still love technology, but that’s changed over the years and I think I focus more on people these days than I do on technology. And to know that I’m helping build the community, that I’m helping individuals that I’m teaching, that I’m mentoring, that I’m building a great team at PC Richard, that people who are much smarter than I am and can do things that I never would’ve been able to do in my career, that’s the goal, that’s the dream, for each generation to keep getting better and better. And it’s not that different from being proud of your own kids when you see the people that you’ve hired and you’ve trained and you’ve mentored and they accomplished such wonderful things and they’re growing and their careers are blossoming.
And it’s even more than that because as an IBM Champion, I have nominated others to be Champions and I currently have two IBM Champions on my team and I just nominated a third. And to see that they’re getting the accolades now and that they’re helping to build a community and they’re getting involved in mentoring others and giving back and they’re writing blog articles and they’re speaking at conferences worldwide, it’s a great feeling to see that you’re perpetuating this and continuing to build community, and those people that you’re helping are helping others.
Guarino: So the IBM i community is still a great place to be part of.
Wolk: There’s nothing else like it. I’ve been involved in other platforms, other communities, and this is something really special. It’s worth fighting to protect because it’s so unique.
Guarino: And I wonder, just go back to our original point of hiring people. I wonder if they really have any idea when they first step through that door, what they’re really stepping into. But I mean in a very positive way. I mean, there’s so many wonderful things out there in still for these people who come into this world, into our world, I should say.
Wolk: So for anyone who knows me, they know that I’m a huge Star Trek fan.
Guarino: Okay.
Wolk: And one of the unique things about any actor who even accepts a guest starring role on any Star Trek is that you are now a member of the Star Trek community for life. You can’t escape it. You will forevermore be known as that role. You’ll be appearing at conferences, you’ll be signing autographs. It’s something that will be on your resume as a highlight for the rest of your life. And it’s funny because it’s very much the same thing with the IBM i community. We don’t lose people. Once you come into the IBM i community, to go leave this platform and work on another platform is almost unheard of. You may change careers, but even from our standpoint at PC Richard, we’re pretty proud of the fact that when we hire you, there’s a really good chance we’re going to keep you for the rest of your career. And that’s our goal. And we tell people when we hire them that it is our goal that this will be the last job offer you ever accept. And that can be a little daunting to people to think that, wow, I’m just committed to spending the next 40 or 50 years of my life working at this company. But we always hope that that is going to be the case and that they’ll look back and that they’ll be happy with that decision.
Guarino: Well, knowing you, as I do know you, Steve, we’ve known each other for many decades, which I can’t believe, but it’s completely true. And I know the people who work with you and are part of your team. And each and every one of them that I speak to, they echo your sentiment. So it’s a real testament to the management style of you and I think PC Richard in general.
Wolk: Well, thank you. I appreciate that, but it really all comes down to the people. I’m very fortunate to have an incredible team of very talented, very giving people. And one of the best things about our group is that everyone is willing to share. I’ve never experienced this because I’ve been with my company for so long, but I’ve heard of others who’ve been with the company where people were in a culture where they wanted to keep information close to the vest, and they felt that what they know is actually providing their job security. And in fact, what you know doesn’t provide job security, what you’ve done doesn’t provide job security. Your job security comes from what you’re going to do next. And by elevating each other and working together, we can accomplish better and greater things next. So it only makes sense to share. I’m very proud of our team because we all do work together to share information.
And we do that through a variety of ways, not just through informal conversations and through our local user group, which we’re a big supporter of. And that’s been a great venue for education and networking. But even beyond that, within our own company, we have monthly meetings with all developers. We started doing this during COVID and it was so popular that we have a monthly 90-minute meeting and we plan for it. We have a sign-up page for any topics that you want to present or that you want someone else to present. And we have a steering committee that puts together the agenda. And every month, everyone gets together on a Teams call for 90 minutes and we teach each other and share information and knowledge and all get better together.
Guarino: So what you’ve defined is, to me, a complete blueprint on how to solve the, and I’m going to say in air quotes, crisis that I keep hearing about. You’ve come up with a framework that really is so opposite to what I’m hearing out there from some people. You’ve done it. You’ve done it and you’ve continued to do it. I caution you to be prepared for the influx of people calling you after this podcast is published.
Wolk: I’m willing to help anyone that has questions. I believe that we’re only going to get better if we work together on this. It’s a topic that I’m passionate about, and I think it’s an important topic for the community. I care about this community. I care for this platform, and I think we can solve this problem by working together, and we can actually expand the community. And I’ve yet to see someone who is new to this community come into this platform and then leave it. They fall in love with it, they stay for a reason, for all the same reasons that we love it.
Guarino: So I want to wrap this up, but I want to ask you to give your graduation speech. And I don’t mean your college graduation. I’m talking about you speaking to a group of graduates. You’re the keynote speaker perhaps at a graduation. What final words do you want to instill or to impart to people to really be successful out there? I mean, you’ve already identified so many of the key points and the metrics, but what final words do you have to tell people, “Hey, here’s the way to do it. Here’s the roadmap.” What are those words? You’re now on for the next however long time you want to take, but you’re the keynote speaker. What do you want to say to them?
Wolk: In life, you’re going to face many obstacles and you’re going to face many forks in the road. When you have a fork in the road ahead of you, think about which one feels more comfortable and which one feels more uncomfortable. Always choose the path that is less comfortable, because that’s going to lead to more personal growth. For me, when I was younger, I played it safe oftentimes. And there were a lot of things that I didn’t do that I wish I had started doing younger. But today I never turned down something that sounds like fun. I don’t let fear get in my way, and I’ve learned to do things that I never thought I would ever learn to do. I had a reason in my 40s to learn how to scuba dive. It was something I wanted to get done, so I just went out and learned how to do it.
I took classes and managed to accomplish it. Today, I look forward to learning new things and trying new experiences, meeting new people, and that’s something that I didn’t do when I was younger. So my advice to anyone graduating today is don’t wait until you got to be my age to start doing all of those things. Take every opportunity and tackle every obstacle now. As long as it sounds like fun and it’s something that you want to do, don’t make any excuse, just go ahead and conquer it.
Guarino: That was perfect. I’m glad I captured that because that was so well done. It’s almost as if we had rehearsed it, which we didn’t. That was off the cuff and it was perfect. But I think it’s so perfect because I think it’s words that you truly live by.
Wolk: That I do. That I do.
Guarino: All right. Steve, I want to wrap this up. I want to leave it here because it’s such a high note and that was perfect. So I want to leave it there, but I also wanted to thank you for your really very useful tips and sharing a lot of what goes into building a team, retaining a team, and all those great things, and have anybody who’s really serious about a career in IT in general, how to get started. I mean, you’ve really given some really good steps and ideas, so thank you.
Wolk: Thank you, Charlie. I can’t believe the time went this fast. And I can’t thank you enough for having me on your show. This is really an important topic, and I’m glad we were able to share this information.
Guarino: So am I. All right. Everybody, thank you so much for coming to our podcast listening, and we had a great guest this month, as you can see, and I do hope you join us the future podcast down the road. And until then, everybody, take care. Thank you everybody. Bye-bye.
Wolk: Bye-bye.