669 IT Nation Secure, Pax8Beyond & Swag

[Uncle Marv]
Hello friends, Uncle Marv here and welcome to a very special edition of the IT Business Podcast powered by NetAlly. It is Wednesday afternoon on July, no, June 26th. This is a show before the live show this evening and I'm doing this because I wanted to get in my conference review.

I usually do these right after a conference that I've attended, but this year is a little unusual. Normally I attend one tech event a quarter, but I have already attended seven events this year, including the last three weeks, three events in three weeks, which is a first for me. So I did not have a lot of time to sit back and reminisce and reminisce, reminisce and review all the swag that I got.

Plus I got a ton of swag as we attended IT Nation Secure and Pax8Beyond, both huge events. I also attended the Super Ops Super Summit in Tampa the Friday before, not a big event. I think there were about 50 of us there and I already had all the Super Ops swag, so no need to chat about that.

But I did want to go ahead and review the two conferences. Usually I would do a, you know, voyage home and I'll have some people on and we'll chat about the conference. I will do that a little bit with the next guest on the live show that is coming up this evening, but today I just wanted to give my thoughts on the two conferences.

The big one, ConnectWise Secure, and let me just say that you probably now should have heard that the big announcement that came out of that event was that ConnectWise released their Security 360 product built on the AZO platform and enables MSPs to aggregate data from various security tools, normalize these inputs, and derive an MSP security score. And this will help MSPs clearly communicate the risk exposure across their client base and visualize the effectiveness of their security services. So that was a big event announcement, as well as ConnectWise Sidekick for security, where they would leverage generative AI and natural language processing models to allow MSP owners and technicians to use natural language prompts to quickly generate executive reports on their or their customer's overall security posture.

Those were the big announcements that were made. Now, IT Nation Secure in itself was, let's see, over 1,200 people that attended, making it one of the largest IT Nation Secure events in history. Attendees experienced three impactful days of speaker sessions and peer networking opportunities.

Of course, the focus is on cybersecurity. Some of the big things that were out there, Robert Cioffi of Progressive Computing Inc. delivered a compelling talk about managing a ransomware attack on his MSP during the Kaseya VSA event in 2021.

And let's see, Wes Spencer of Empath called it required listening for every MSP. Another speaker, Teresa Payton, former White House CIO, gave a riveting keynote on the AI-driven cyber threat landscape. And she shared insights on sophisticated AI use in cybercrime and demonstrated AI voice cloning to illustrate potential social engineering attacks.

So a lot of things there, of course, network opportunities were abundant, and the reports from MSPs were that this was a valuable experience and things go well. So the reaction was overwhelming. Most people loved the Security360 and its ability to consolidate and standardize security data.

They loved the security store. They loved the introduction of the AI-powered site kit for security and appreciated the holistic protection offered by Security360, which allows them to unify their entire tech stack and minimize client risk exposure. So that was the recap of IT Nation Secure.

And again, it was in Orlando, so it was a nice, easy drive up for me, a nice little venue, good three-day event there. So the next time there is an IT Nation event, which will be this November, head on down. I believe it's at a different venue.

I don't know if it's the SeaWorld Marriott or something down there. I'll look it up and, of course, let you guys know. The second big event that I attended was the PAX 8 Beyond held on behalf of the godfather, Rob Ray.

And that was actually just this past week, June 9th through the 11th. And again, it was at the Gaylord Rockies Convention Center in Denver, Colorado, although it really should say outside Denver, Colorado, because it's in between the airport and Denver with very few spots in between. So, of course, the biggest announcement from PAX 8 by now, you've heard, is the unveiling of the new PAX 8 Marketplace.

So it was interesting. I'll go ahead and give the response first, because I think people were underwhelmed. The Marketplace was first announced last year at PAX 8 Beyond, and I think it was just a matter of when is it going to be here, when is it going to be here.

And, of course, it was announced being here at the event, and it was kicked off by an interesting little fireworks display on the 11th, specifically for attendees that were there. It was interesting. So for those of you that don't know the Marketplace, let's at least talk about a little bit about that.

So one of the things that was introduced was the idea of storefronts, and that's a feature that will allow partners to create custom-branded self-service spaces in the Marketplace, where you can send your customers to go ahead and self-provision licenses and products for them. They have something called the Opportunity Explorer, which is a new feature that shows how product and AI come together to provide actionable insights for improving business. And it was very interesting there.

So, again, many MSPs have been eagerly awaiting this. They appreciate PAX 8's focus on streamlining processes and providing the one-shop stop for cloud distribution. Of course, vendors that were there, also very happy about it, loving the AI and data-driven aspects of the Marketplace.

Although, I will say, some MSPs are a little cautious. Cautiously optimistic is probably the best way to describe it, waiting to see how well the final product integrates with existing systems and stuff. The other wait-and-see approach is based on the fact of how the leads are going to be distributed, I guess, is the best way to say it.

So, those of the smaller MSPs are wondering if the larger MSPs will get a little preferential treatment. So, we'll have to see how that goes. PAX 8 says, nope, not going to happen, and everybody will be treated great.

And then, of course, the other aspect that people are wondering about is, is this going to be a straight-to-consumer model where customers will be able to bypass MSPs and go straight to PAX 8? So, I don't know. Seems a little interesting.

I, personally, am waiting to see myself, and that probably will be the best thing I can say about that. But those are the big announcements that happened at PAX 8. Again, it was a great venue, the Gaylord Rockies.

Now, I do want to say this. I know that I mentioned already that it's been a couple weeks since I was able to do this. Some of you are probably thinking, Marv, you're behind.

There's already been three other conferences in between. Yes, I know. There are a ton of conferences this year.

In my opinion, there's too many conferences. I mean, there is probably two conferences a week that are directly channel-related, and then, of course, another one or two conferences that are adjacent to us that are either just general tech conferences or maybe partner conferences. There are a lot.

So, I will say this. I will continue on my journey to do conferences this year. I believe the total is going to be 13, an unprecedented number.

And I will say this. I will not be doing that again. That is a lot of traveling.

I love seeing some of you people out there on the road. I love hanging out with people. I love seeing the vendors.

I love doing the swag run, but that's a lot of flying. So, if the conferences are in Florida, I can do that. I can drive to Orlando.

I can drive to Tampa. I might even drive to Jacksonville for Florida Man next year because, you know, the Florida Man games, they're on. They are on.

All right. So, let's see here. Let's go ahead and move along.

I see we've got some people ready for the revealing of the swag list because, for some reason, that's what you guys are really interested in. So, let me say this. The first thing I want to do is I am actually wearing one of the swag items from Infima.

It's a little friendship bracelet. I won't give this to either my niece or nephew afterwards, but interesting little swag item there. So, throw that out.

But I want to give a shout out because when I saw this, when I first walked into the vendor hall, there was a line of people waiting for a shirt, and I did not understand what was happening. And I thought, obviously, this shirt must be the bomb if everybody is willing to wait in line for it. So, I got in line.

I got me a shirt, but I didn't have to wait too much because, I will say this, Brian Kane from Malwarebytes actually took care of me there. Here's what happened. So, if any of you have been at events before, most notably an ASCII, a couple of ASCII events, a company called the Silk Screen Machine was on site there, and they do live event screen printing on shirts.

And they were there. It's led by Troy, fantastic group of guys there. And what they did was they had shirts, black and blue, and they had four designs, and you just picked which design you wanted, and you got to wait in line to get it.

So, this is the one that I got. Basically, it reads, Yippee-Ki-Yay, Mother Fisher, a rip off from Yippee-Ki-Yay, Mr. Falcon, if you're not somebody that curses, or Yippee-Ki-Yay, motherfucker, if you like diehard in its true form. So, that was what I got.

So, I thought this was going to be an early finalist, but it did not be. But I wanted to make sure that I did a shout-out to Troy and the Silk Screen Machine Inc. They did a fantastic job.

They moved people through quickly. And shout-out to Malwarebytes for being the ones that secured them to do the shirts there. Another shout-out that I want to do is to a new partner of the program here, TruGrid.

And the reason I'm giving them the shout-out is because one of the best things that I can say that happens when I walk through the vendor hall is when their vendor shouts out to me, Moth, come on over. Let me show you what we got. Well, this was a little different because I'm standing there.

Actually, I wasn't standing. I was walking by, and Brandon, the TruGrid rep, literally started picking up shirts and throwing them at me. And of all the people to do this in front of, the Millers.

The Millers were probably there working TruGrid, trying to get a deal or whatever, but no. Brandon literally threw the shirts at me in front of the Millers, and it was just nice. But I want to say thank you to TruGrid for being a partner and for getting me the shirts.

They're the nice long sleeve shirts I probably will never wear, but it was nice. Thank you, TruGrid. And I've already mentioned Infima and the Friendship Bracelet.

So let's get on now to the categories because I'm combining the two conferences together. So some of you may think, oh man, it's a little unfair. No, it's not, because I've had two full weeks to go through stuff, and there's a lot of swag, a lot of duplicate swag.

And I will mention that point later as to why that's important. But the first thing I want to talk about in the category of best tech gadget, the runner up for this category is Ionos, and they provided a little tiny Bluetooth speaker, which actually works. Sometimes you guys bring Bluetooth stuff that doesn't work.

This one did. Not very loud, but it works. Works both for MP3s, works for your Bluetooth radio from your iPhone or iPad or other device, and it doubles as a phone device.

So runner up to Ionos for that. But the winner in the category of best tech gadget goes to BitTitan. And it's because of this.

I mentioned, I don't know, two years ago that I wanted to see the USB cables come back because these things are gold. And there were a lot there. And some of them looked like this.

And I mean, these are nice. And this one was actually good because the USB is on one side and the cable's on the other. Some of you do them where they're all together.

And this company, I can't even mention because they're not on there. But BitTitan, migration whiz. It's a nice, long cable.

It's a heavy-duty cable. And it's a nice, vibrant, neon color. So you're not going to miss it.

I liked it. I actually went back for two. So there you have it, BitTitan.

And for those of you that do not know, BitTitan has the program Migration Whiz, a popular cloud-based migration solution that simplifies the process of moving data between various cloud platforms and on-prem systems. I use them for 365 migrations all the time. Well, I will only use them one more time, I think, because I have only one more on-prem exchange server.

That will go away soon. All right. And probably the most popular category, writing utensils.

And I'm going to just hold up a whole bunch of them now because there was a lot of debate because everybody loves pens. And the early runner was this one. I'm not going to say who it is, but I like pens with a little heft to them, a little bit of weight to them, a little bit of a nice design, not too plasticky.

And this design seemed to really be popular this year. And let's see, Blackpoint, OpenText, Sentinel-1, we're all among them here. I will go ahead and say this one.

It's WatchGuard. Very nice pens. However, the true test, after I walk around and do the click, click, click to make sure it works, the true test is to come back and write with them.

And the pen that stood out above the rest was ScalePad, a similar type design, very sleek, very nice, very good clickety thing there in a very smooth writing, all in black, no ink gel leaking or anything like that. So ScalePad wins for writing utensil. Now, for a category that I thought I would never, ever really chat about much, socks.

I'm not big on these Oompa Loompa looking socks, but apparently that's all the rage. I have a bag full of like 50 socks that are going to make a trip up to the cabin. SonicWall actually had some socks that looked okay, but the winners in this category, and this is based on just on me personally, because I don't wear the socks that look like leggings or stockings and come up to the knee.

I'm like a quarter crew sock person. So these, even though they're orange, would be the types of socks I would wear if I were to wear orange socks, but they're nice. They're a good, solid weight to them.

They're not too thin, not too thick. And these are by Threatmate. Threatmate, thank you very much for doing nice socks.

I didn't take off the thing here. I'll take it off now, but it says Threatmate Inquisitive something. I don't know.

We'll figure it out. But there's your sock category, Threatmate. Let's see here.

Best shirt. Tons of shirts. Lots of shirts.

And I will say this. People have been listening when it comes to shirts because the shirts are getting nice. They're getting soft.

They are getting wearable. Now, those of you that have been giving shirts just the cheapest ones you can get, if they feel like cardboard, come on, folks. Shirts need to be soft.

They need to be wearable. They need to have the type of logo on them that's going to look well in public. Now, there's two types of shirts.

There's the shirts that you wear to other tech events so the other tech geeks will look at you and go, I know that shirt. And then there are shirts that you can wear in regular public that people won't make fun of you for being a tech person. So the first shirt that I kind of thought was going to be is this shirt from AppGate that had a nice soft feel to it.

And the logo, I mean, it's a little much for me, but I have zero trust issues, something that regular people, yeah, they may not say too much about. And if they ask, you can give the tech story. But it was a nice, soft shirt.

But that's not who won it. The company that won it was Mesh, a company I had not heard about until this year. So Mesh Email Security, their shirt was even softer.

Very nice. Again, a black shirt, an interesting logo on the front, just simply MSP, Managed Service Provider, with a little super high tramp stamp on the back there with their logo, Mesh Email Security. If I were to wear a tech shirt, this might be the one I would wear.

Very nice, very soft form fitting. And that leads us to Best Swag Overall. And this wins for a very unique reason.

So the channel program was the first one to win based off of the story. When I would show up and look at Swag and Justin Gilbert screamed across the room for me to come over and he had made this little wooden cigar smoky thingy and handcrafted, lovely deal. He actually did that again and he doubled down with cedar.

And again, very nice, very dedicated to do it by hand. But that's a lot of work. But I couldn't give him the prize again.

So this one, sometimes I walk up to a booth and I say, really? No new swag? And loosely translated, when I walked up to this booth and said, no true, really the same old swag?

Actually, you know what? Let me do this. I have this person sitting in the green room waiting to come out.

So let me introduce her because I want to see her reaction when I explain this. So I've got Cynthia Schreiner from CyberQP. Cynthia, how are you?

[Cynthia Schreiner]
Hi there.

[Uncle Marv]
I'm good. How are you?

[Cynthia Schreiner]
I'm great. Thank you.

[Uncle Marv]
All right.

[Cynthia Schreiner]
Happy to be here.

[Uncle Marv]
So of course I walk up to your booth. I see you all the time. By the way, you do a fantastic job when you're out there.

[Cynthia Schreiner]
Thank you.

[Uncle Marv]
But I walked up and of course I'm like, really? Same old swag? And your response to me, this is loosely translated, is that people lose their shit if they don't see this.

[Cynthia Schreiner]
Oh yeah. No, people are very upset about the hot sauce. The hot sauce and the mints.

Those are the two things.

[Uncle Marv]
Yes. And I'm like, really? So there it is, folks.

The CyberQP, just in time. That's hot. CyberQP hot sauce.

So I just thought, you know what? That is probably the best response that I have gotten when commenting about somebody's swag.

[Cynthia Schreiner]
You know, it is fun to have something that people come back and ask for, right? And that people say, oh my gosh, I have to get this. My wife loves it.

She's going to yell at me if I don't bring her back a bottle. And I'm like, here, bring two. I don't want you to get yelled at.

[Uncle Marv]
Nice. Nice. So let's do this real quick.

Tell me the history of how this actually showed up at an event for you guys.

[Cynthia Schreiner]
Yeah. So I had been wanting to do hot sauce for a while. I thought it was sort of an interesting item that I had not seen anyone else do, something that you might see at different trade shows, but maybe not at an IT trade show.

Also, it's a great way to start a conversation, right? So if I come and sit down with you during a meal or something, and I'm like, oh, here, look, I've got hot sauce. That's a way for us to start talking, right?

And that kind of bridges that gap. So we can use it other places than just the booth. And then from there, I had to have a hot sauce that tasted good.

Our main colors are green. So I wanted a green hot sauce. I needed it to be not overly spicy, right?

I'm not looking for a reaper or anything. This is a jalapeno hot sauce. What I like about it, and we literally sat in the booth with five or six hot sauces that my swag distributor had sent to me.

And we took crackers, and we had a whole video, if you look, about a year ago at Kaseya. We tried a bunch of them and even tried some red ones just in case, but I really wanted green. But this one was really bright and vinegary, which I find when you're on the road, you're usually missing that brightness in food.

So it was nice to have something that was kind of like nice and bright, a little bit of spice, but not too overwhelming. It had to be able to get through TSA, and it had to be plastic so that it would not break in your back.

[Uncle Marv]
Very nice.

[Cynthia Schreiner]
You weren't expecting me to say that much about it, were you?

[Uncle Marv]
Listen, that is the greatness of swag like this. Swag that has a story. And listen, thoughtfully put together.

I mean, I think most of the time, and listen, no fault to vendors, but you're at these events, you do 100 plus events a year, you can't spend a ton of money. So a lot of vendors are like, what's the cheapest thing I can get that people will want? And usually it's a $15 plastic pen, which, I mean, it's all right.

But to come up with a swag item like this, that not only, I mean, this can't be easy to put together, or did you guys find a cheap overseas manufacturer to make thousands at a time?

[Cynthia Schreiner]
I have someone out of Boston that I work with on it. And so they were able to source it for us. I think it's bottled.

I think it's bottled like in North Carolina or something.

[Uncle Marv]
Nice, nice. USA.

[Cynthia Schreiner]
I don't remember, but I think it's a US one and pretty favorable pricing if I order enough of them at a time.

[Uncle Marv]
And again- This says North Port, Florida.

[Cynthia Schreiner]
Oh, there we go. See, it's a Florida hot sauce.

[Uncle Marv]
There you go. Florida.

[Cynthia Schreiner]
For us Florida people. See, I got my palm trees back here. Yep.

[Uncle Marv]
And wow, very nice. Jalapeno peppers, vinegar, salt, and xanthan gum.

[Cynthia Schreiner]
That's a stabilizer to make sure it doesn't go bad.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. Okay. So now let me ask you this, because you said that to me and because that made me rethink my criteria for picking swag, how many people like gobble these things up and take multiples when, you know, we should only really take one?

[Cynthia Schreiner]
You know, sometimes people will ask, right? So I have seen people come by and like grab a couple, but they usually do it very sheepishly. And they're like, sorry, like my guys love hot sauce back at the office or something.

And then that's the other thing too, right? I do want something that, you know, maybe the owner or the service desk leader is going to say like, hey, I want to bring these back for a couple of people in the office, right. And bring a little piece of that back.

And again, something a little different. And now it's going to sit on their desk at the office. So that works for me too.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. And that's what I always say. Swag should be something that people want to take, people are going to use, and then other people will ask, ooh, where'd you get that?

[Cynthia Schreiner]
Yes. And then I always thought it would be really funny to put that's hot on something.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Are you sure that Paris hasn't come after you for copyright?

[Cynthia Schreiner]
So far I'm okay.

[Uncle Marv]
That's hot. All right. So again, folks, Cynthia Schreiner from CyberQP.

You guys have not been on the show before, but we're going to correct that, aren't we?

[Cynthia Schreiner]
Yes, we absolutely are. I'm very excited.

[Uncle Marv]
So CyberQP, a cybersecurity company that provides privileged access management and help desk security automation solutions specifically designed for managed service providers. Did I get that right?

[Cynthia Schreiner]
That's correct. That is absolutely correct.

[Uncle Marv]
Sweet. All right. Since I got you here and asked, I mean, that's really all I had.

Is there anything else that you wanted to say or shout out to anybody?

[Cynthia Schreiner]
No, no. I'm so excited. Thank you so much for having me and shout out to Northpoint Printing and to Halo Solutions who helped me out with my swag ordering and who've been fantastic partners.

Definitely couldn't do it without them. And thanks to everybody that loves the hot sauce. We'll make sure it keeps coming.

[Uncle Marv]
Nice, nice, nice. All right. And we'll see you out on the road, I'm sure.

Where are you off to next?

[Cynthia Schreiner]
Me personally, I'll be at Exchange Security next. And then after that, I'll be at Channel Con. Will I see you at either of those?

[Uncle Marv]
No, I need a break.

[Cynthia Schreiner]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
So my next event will be at ASCII Boston.

[Cynthia Schreiner]
Okay.

[Uncle Marv]
And then let's see, that's July. And then August, I have two events. One of them is a personal reunion.

The other one is, I forget. And then September, TechCon, IT Nation. Oh yeah, tacos.

Yeah, tacos. IT Nation Connect. DattoCon, I think I'll be making a DattoCon this year.

[Cynthia Schreiner]
That's right down, because you're in South Florida, right?

[Uncle Marv]
Yep.

[Cynthia Schreiner]
It's right down in your neighborhood. I'll be there.

[Uncle Marv]
Alrighty. We will see you out and about. Cynthia, thank you very much for hopping on.

[Cynthia Schreiner]
Thanks so much for having me.

[Uncle Marv]
We'll see you soon.

[Cynthia Schreiner]
And thanks for the award. I'm so excited.

[Uncle Marv]
All right, folks, that's going to do it. You've just had your winner announced. And we're going to say goodbye.

So let me get the music queued up here. And if you are watching this in real time or before the evening, our live show tonight, we'll have Michelle Icardi from LionGuard on, and we will have a very eventful live show. And then we'll be back with more IT Nation Pitch It vendor profiles and additional shows.

So check out everything at itbusinesspodcast.com. And that's going to do it for now. We'll see you soon.

Holla!