Public Libraries as an IT Niche? Yes! (EP 807)

[Uncle Marv]
Hello friends, Uncle Marv here, continuing with day two at ASCII Edge in Orlando. And I have landed a prize. I don't know how many years we have been trying to make this happen, but I have sitting next to me, Lisa Johnson, AVC Technology, long time ASCII members, her and her husband Brian.

They wave to me all the time.

[Lisa Johnson]
Never stop by.

[Uncle Marv]
Never stop by. Here we are. Lisa, welcome to the show.

[Lisa Johnson]
Thank you.

[Uncle Marv]
So let's start with the most obvious question. How do you like it in Orlando?

[Lisa Johnson]
Love Orlando. I'm a Disney nut, so any and all things Disney is good with me.

[Uncle Marv]    
Really?

[Lisa Johnson]
Lots of walking, you get your exercise, see cool things.

[Uncle Marv]
With or without the kids?

[Lisa Johnson]
Either.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah?

[Lisa Johnson]
I mean, my kids are adults now, so.

[Uncle Marv]
I know, but most people, they go through all of this, bringing the kids year after year, and they just get so sick of it, they never come back as adults.

[Lisa Johnson]
Oh, no.

[Uncle Marv]
You are coming back as adults.

[Lisa Johnson]
We came here on our honeymoon. Get out. Years ago.

Brian did not know what he was getting into.

[Uncle Marv]
Wait, the honeymoon or as part of the marriage?

[Lisa Johnson]
As Disney part of the marriage. He was like, oh, we went once and we're done. And I'm like, no, we're going to go like every year for the rest of your life, multiple times.

He did not know that.

[Uncle Marv]
Now, did you guys sign up for any of the packages or did you get one of the, they're not called timeshares.

[Lisa Johnson]
Yes. So last month when we were down here for something and another event, I finally talked him into getting the Disney Vacation Club, which is their timeshare. Yes.

I think I've been trying to talk him into that since like 2008 or I don't know, something like that. We are officially DVC members now.

[Uncle Marv]
Nice.

[Lisa Johnson]
I have all that as a toy to play with.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. Because I know there's multiple resorts. Which one did you get?

[Lisa Johnson]
Polynesian. Okay. The newest one, which will be really cool and nice views of the castle from your room.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Very well. So that means you're going to be here.

I mean, you're always here anyway, coming down to Orlando. Now, let me let the listeners know. So you're based out of Indiana.

[Lisa Johnson]
Yep.

[Uncle Marv]
But we see you everywhere.

[Lisa Johnson]
Yes. We like to be, you know, we find that the industry is a great place to be. So we hit a lot of events.

[Uncle Marv]
Right.

[Lisa Johnson]
I think 23 last year.

[Uncle Marv]
23.

[Lisa Johnson]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
So that's not Henry Tim type of territory. No. That's above most.

[Lisa Johnson]
Yep.

[Uncle Marv]
That's a lot.

[Lisa Johnson]
That is a lot. I mean, we combine them with other trips or we, you know, Brian spoke at some. So that was.

[Uncle Marv]
Right.

[Lisa Johnson]
That, you know, got us to some. Each event has its own feel and knowledge. So, you know, and we don't hit every session at every event.

But it's good to get out there and talk to people and see what's going on in the channel.

[Uncle Marv]
So the big question then, based on that, is how is it running the business and being on the road so much?

[Lisa Johnson]
Fine. Our employees are all remote. So they don't care if my background is Walt Disney World or my office in Indiana.

I mean, we work most of those days. I mean, like a day today, I worked an hour or so.

[Uncle Marv]
Right.

[Lisa Johnson]
Did some things. But in general, when we're combining events and trips, we're working during the week just like we would be working.

[Uncle Marv]
If you were.

[Lisa Johnson]
If I were sitting in my office at home.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay.

[Lisa Johnson]
And my, you know, my team doesn't, you know, they know we're available. They know we're around.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So let's talk about the business in terms of size of the business, type of customers you have. I know you guys have been in business for a while.

[Lisa Johnson]
Yep.

[Uncle Marv]
You want to start with how long?

[Lisa Johnson]
So we've been in business technically since 1971.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. What do you say technically?

[Lisa Johnson]
Well, because I was not born in 1971. So my father ran the business before we did. Oh.

So we've been doing managed services. I remember as a high schooler, I would go in and clean computers. That was what we managed.

Okay. Once a year, we'd go through and blow the dust out of the computer and, you know, clean up around it kind of thing. That was our managed services.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay.

[Lisa Johnson]
And we've been doing that since the 80s. So my dad ran the company, and he did not like to bill people. So he's like, how about I bill you one flat fee, and we just work on that.

And so 1980, we had managed services. And then we took over the business in early 2000s. Okay.

[Uncle Marv]
Didn't know that.

[Lisa Johnson]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
See?

[Lisa Johnson]
So we've been doing it a long time.

[Uncle Marv]
Sitting down, talking, and you get to learn things.

[Lisa Johnson]
Yeah. All right. So we have customers we've had since the 80s.

We have some customers that we sold them their first computer, and we've put every piece of technology equipment in the library.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. So do you ever get asked the question about how your dad got involved, and how did he, you know, drag you into it?

[Lisa Johnson]
Yeah. So they started as Audio Visual Communications, which is AVC. But that was back in the 70s.

You know, there were a few computers around.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, but hi-fi was huge back then.

[Lisa Johnson]
Yeah. So, you know, it was things like overhead projectors and tape players and VCRs and that sort of thing, telephones. And then slowly they transitioned into, oh, well, someone needs a computer.

Well, we can do that. And then someone needs software to do something. And, you know, we have, even today we have software that he wrote in the 90s that people are still using to do random things.

Wow. And, you know, so it just came from that. Okay.

[Uncle Marv]
Now, how much of the business now, I mean, I know you're truly into managed services, but how much of the old stuff are you still doing?

[Lisa Johnson]
All the overheads and VCRs?

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, are you still doing? None of that, no. Okay.

I was going to say.

[Lisa Johnson]
We have all, I think all, but we have one lawyer that is technically not a managed client. But other than that, it's all managed services. We also have a software side.

We've got a custom piece of software that's used for accounting, fund accounting.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay.

[Lisa Johnson]
And we have about 130 customers on, 140 customers on that.

[Uncle Marv]
Fund accounting, is that similar to the, was it Blackbaud?

[Lisa Johnson]
It is similar to that. So nonprofits, governmental agencies, that sort of thing do fund accounting.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. Nice. Very interesting.

So here's the other question. Now that you're into managed services, you no longer do the audio visual stuff, ever get the urge or the push from other people in the industry? Maybe you ought to, you know, rebrand that name?

[Lisa Johnson]
You know, we've talked about changing the name. We've been around a long time. We have lots of customers.

We're known. We have about 30 to 35 managed public libraries. And so we're known in the space for our name.

And we have about 100, our software is also public libraries. So about 130 of those. So people hear AVC and they know us.

[Uncle Marv]
They know.

[Lisa Johnson]
So there's, we wouldn't want to do that. Now we have talked about splitting that off a little bit and doing two different. So, you know, we'd get something a little more trendy for the business market.

But it just seemed like a lot of work.

[Uncle Marv]
Listen, if you want my advice and you probably don't want it, don't need it, keep the name.

[Lisa Johnson]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
If that's what people know you as, just do that. I picked my name thinking I would change it. It's 28 years.

[Lisa Johnson]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
I'm not changing that.

[Lisa Johnson]
Yeah. It's too much work to change it. I've got other fish to fry.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Let me ask you about the libraries. Because that doesn't seem like it would be a normal, you know.

[Lisa Johnson]
Fit.

[Uncle Marv]
A normal vertical that people would do.

[Lisa Johnson]
Yeah. I haven't found anyone else that has their vertical niches as a public library. But we started in that years ago.

We got some traction. We had a few. They have very interesting needs because you have staff.

Like a business has staff. But you also have patron computers that are a whole different need in and of themselves. Because you have random people coming in and sitting down and doing random things.

You can't know if they're trained. You can't know if they're good at something. You can't know what they're going to click.

So, you have to have parameters in place and security in place for that. So, we had knowledge of that. And when you have knowledge in something, you grow.

So, as we've tried, you know, focused in the last few years on growth, we still see a lot of growth there. Because we have a good story to tell. We've put in, you know, thousands and thousands of computers in the libraries.

And we know what they need and how to best make it most efficient.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. So, when you got started in that, is it something where the libraries would refer you to others? Or is there some sort of library periodical that you advertise in?

I mean, how did you start to, you know, get known?

[Lisa Johnson]
Yeah, I think word of mouth. I mean, to be honest, in the early years, definitely when my father was doing it, marketing wasn't his thing. Like I said, he didn't like to bill.

He didn't like to market. He'd have a customer. He'd like to keep them happy and, you know, do what they needed.

So, over the years, though, we've marketed into that space a little more. You know, just getting the word out. And the beauty of being in a niche is that they talk.

So, you don't even have to do it because, you know, somebody says, hey, I'm looking for an IT provider. And they value each other's opinions and they're more than happy to talk about it. So, you know, you get critical mass in an industry and you're set because they market for you.

So, that's kind of how it happened is, you know, people ask. But, I mean, we do webinars. We do, you know, marketing-type things.

But in reality, it's what your customers tell other people that is important.

[Uncle Marv]
Now, do you treat those computers in the libraries the same way you would treat a regular customer in terms of the stack? Like are you putting in all of the same, you know, EDR products, you know, DNS filtering, that sort of thing? Because I'm imagining that you don't have the same restrictions that you would have on, say, a law firm or a medical office.

Because people go to the library, they want to be able to do what they do.

[Lisa Johnson]
Right. So, yes and no. In general, we definitely put our basic stack in there.

And we have probably 50-50 that have more of an enhanced security stack. It really depends on the size of the library, what they're trying to do. I mean, when you're talking government agencies, you have to talk budget.

And, you know, we really focus on, okay, here's your budget that you have. We can get you these things, and this is going to get you the most bang for your buck. So, but, you know, like I said, any computer that's a public-facing computer gets a little different stack.

Because you definitely don't want, for one, you need filtering on there. The last thing you want is someone sitting there pulling up things they shouldn't be pulling up. Or someone sitting next to a child who happens to maybe see these things, though.

And there are requirements for them for things they need to block.

[Uncle Marv]
I was going to ask that because I know that, so I watch a lot of crime shows. And that was a big thing is for those types of bad real-life actors to go into libraries, you know, to do that stuff. So I imagine that, you know, I would just say, let's say the pornographers and the, you know, child molesters and those types.

Or scammers. Scammers. You want to have those things in place.

Very interesting. Now, another thing about that is I know that I worked, I didn't work. I mean, I talked to somebody years ago that was in a shared type of environment.

But they did a thing where they would sandbox the computer so that at the end of every day it would reboot and almost reimage to come back to a clean slate. Do you guys do anything like that?

[Lisa Johnson]
Absolutely. So we've worked with, I mean, there's been 12 different solutions in the last 15, 20 years for that. But it's very important on those public computers.

I mean, in reality, if you move an icon from one side of the screen to the other side of the screen, you might as well have removed it. Because, you know, someone will sit down and say, well, it's not here. Well, it's just an inch from where it used to be.

They don't look. So, you know, we actually have created in the last couple years, it's not a piece of software. It's more a group of scripting and that kind of thing that does all of that.

It wipes the computer. It won't let you save your Google password. It won't let you download your tax documents and leave them on the desktop.

As soon as you get up, it removes all of that. Those are the kind of things. It used to be you just had to keep it running.

Now you have to look at the security and assume that the patron will do silly things and fix those silly things like they do, like saving their bank password. Oh, yeah. Would you like to save this?

Sure. And then, you know, that kind of thing. Okay.

[Uncle Marv]
So is there a script that happens, like if somebody does walk away, does the machine time out and the next person has to kind of log in and they get a clean slate? Okay.

[Lisa Johnson]
Yeah. You know, we said I think like 20 minutes. If it's unused for 20 minutes, then it just logs everything out, erases all the documents they saved, that sort of thing.

[Uncle Marv]
We'll have to chat about that. I think I want to do that for some of my branch offices where different people come in and, yes, they're all using the same products and stuff. But, you know, a secretary or a lawyer may switch computers three or four times in a week.

So to have them have a clean slate each time, that would be cool.

[Lisa Johnson]
Yeah. The only problem is if you like, you know, save something that you think you might want in a couple hours, it's gone. You have to know where to save it.

I mean, and it doesn't erase everything off the computer, but it erases everything out of documents and downloads and that sort of thing.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, but these are remote branch offices. They're remoting into a server someplace. So really they shouldn't need anything on the local side.

[Lisa Johnson]
Yeah. So, yeah, it's a pretty cool, I mean, I'm super excited about it. We're always, those things that you talked about before where it cleans the slate, you know, like a deep freeze or a disk protection type thing, there's a real pain in the butt.

And especially when you start applying Windows updates with those on there because you have to thaw them. And if you, I mean. Resave them.

And then, so then you do it once a quarter because, and then, you know, in today's world, you have to apply Windows updates. But doing it with something like that on there is a real pain in the neck. So we created this so that it doesn't have to be frozen and thawed.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. Very nice. Very nice.

The other part of your world that I wanted to ask about is not just the fact that you traveled to 23 events last year. You guys are traveling all the time anyway. And you even, I want to call it, had RV life for, was it a full year?

Was it a full year?

[Lisa Johnson]
No, no, no. We are in and out of the RV. We have a house.

We live in our house a lot. I can't remember how many. Brian tallied it up.

But we spent probably under 100 but more than 50 nights in the RV last year. But it's not full time by any means. Okay.

And we do a lot of, you know, I mean, we're staying in the hotel here. Our van is in the parking lot, but we're not sleeping in it in the hotel parking lot or anything. Maybe we have done that before.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. So it's not as much as I'm imagining. Yeah.

I imagine you guys were gone from your home in Indiana for like six months at a time.

[Lisa Johnson]
Oh, no. I think the longest we've been gone is probably two, two and a half months.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay.

[Lisa Johnson]
That's still a long time. That is a long time. And we, you know, we split it up.

We'd, you know, go stay with friends or we'd do an event or we spend nights. You know, we were just in the, at the Disney campground for three or four nights this last week after being at my in-laws. And, you know, so we split it up.

We do have two workspaces so we can both run the business from the van, which is kind of tight and snuggly, but works.

[Uncle Marv]
And we did talk earlier. So you technically have a remote business. You said most of your employees are also remote.

What was the transition to get to that point? COVID. Really?

It was COVID?

[Lisa Johnson]
Yeah. We all went home at COVID and everybody said, we don't really want to go back into the office. I'm an office person.

I would love to be back in the office. My tech's not so much. Brian, definitely not.

So, you know, we do a ton of teams meetings. You know, our people are expected that if I call you, I'm calling you on a team's meeting. It's like being, you know, walking in their office.

It's not like picking up the phone. So, yeah, we just, everybody wanted to stay remote after COVID and we still have office space.

[Uncle Marv]
Just not as much?

[Lisa Johnson]
We have the same amount of office space. Actually, our landlord is a customer.

[Uncle Marv]
Oh, okay.

[Lisa Johnson]
It's just easy. You know, when you've been in business as long as we have, there's a lot of stuff in our office. Some would call it a graveyard of sorts that we would have to do something with and it's just easier to leave it there.

[Uncle Marv]
If it works with the landlord, that works.

[Lisa Johnson]
So, that's our official address. We have somebody that goes in there once a week and gets the mail and that sort of thing. And, you know, we have a big printer.

We have a few things there that we use. Otherwise, everyone's remote.

[Uncle Marv]
Everyone's remote. Now, I'm assuming that with things like public libraries and stuff, you still have to do some on-site maintenance stuff that just, you know, can't connect to a remote machine or something like that. So, how much, you know, do you have to worry about, you know, hands and boots on the ground?

[Lisa Johnson]
In today's world, we very rarely, you know, maybe less than a handful of times a year send someone out for a problem.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay.

[Lisa Johnson]
We send people out all the time for project delivery. You know, they'll order new computers or new firewall. So, we'll send people out for that.

But as far as IT support, 95% of it, you know, we sent someone out yesterday for some computers that had that crazy deep freeze stuff on it. I can't remember the last time we've sent someone out for a problem. Nice.

And our people are local. We do have a couple of employees in the Philippines. Obviously, they won't go on-site.

But our local people are local to Indianapolis pretty much. So, they could go on-site if they needed to.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. Very nice. Sounds like you guys have the perfect business that most MSPs want.

You can travel as much as you want. Do people ask you a lot about that in terms of how do you spend so much time away from your office and still manage to get things done?

[Lisa Johnson]
I mean, we get the question a lot. I mean, a lot of people know of us in the industry because we've been doing this a long time. So, I don't know if we get it that often.

But, really, you just have to balance. And you have to know what you want and design your business to work that way. And you have to just look at that.

And we've looked at it and said, hey, we want to be able to be on the move. And in order to be on the move, we have to do these things. And that does mean that people say you're on vacation.

We're not on vacation when we're traveling. I mean, sometimes we are. But most of the time, we're working while traveling.

And so you just have to know that that's what you're doing.

[Uncle Marv]
How hard was it to – or how hard is it? I don't know how often you have turnover and stuff. But in terms of the people that work for you, because a big part of that is hiring the right people.

So what's that process been like?

[Lisa Johnson]
Turnover is hard whether you're in the office, whether you're in Florida or Indiana. I mean, training new people is always hard. We're at 12 employees now.

So, actually, it's gotten easier than it was five years ago when it was Brian and I doing all the training. Now we have other people in our team that take over. We'll talk about company culture and kind of the big-picture stuff.

And then everything else is done by employees. But you have to remember, they're all remote too. So traveling doesn't matter because they don't care if I'm delivering training from sitting in a hotel at the Orlando Airport or from sitting in my office that also isn't in the same place as them.

So it is a little more challenging, but it is – it's very doable.

[Uncle Marv]
So in terms of – I'm sure you're not going to be able to answer the entire question. But I'm thinking that being in business since 71 until now, I imagine that – I don't imagine that there's anybody working for you now that was back then. But is there, like, a long-term employee that has been around for a number of years and they're going to die with AVC?

[Lisa Johnson]
I don't know if we have anybody with that. Hopefully they all retire a nice, relaxing life before they die. My dad still is in the business a little bit, and he was, of course, around in 1971.

He does very little there, but he is still slightly involved. But, I mean, I think our longest term of probably seven or eight years. So we don't have anybody that's been here.

Like, Brian and I have been doing this 20-ish years, 20-plus, a little bit. So we've been around a while. But, I mean, it's an IT business.

You see turnover. And I will say that's one of the things that really made us put a focus on growth. And it was because – I don't know, it's probably been – it was during COVID, so probably five years ago or so.

We had two techs and us, and we lost one. And he knew a lot. He didn't have documentation.

And he says, I'm giving you my two weeks' notice. And we went, we will never do this again. And it was because we had nowhere for him to go.

Because when you have two techs, where do you go in a career path? So he moved somewhere so he could have a better career path. And we went, we can't keep doing this because training new employees stinks.

So we need to have a place that we bring someone in and that they can grow into. And in order to do that, you have to have a growing company because you have to be adding positions for them to grow into. Or you have to be huge, and we aren't that.

You have to grow to get huge. So our only option was really to have consistent growth. And without consistent growth, you can't grow customers and you can't grow employees.

[Uncle Marv]
Now I imagine, too, with that growth comes new opportunities that you can provide to clients. So, I mean, the library is one thing. The fund accounting software is another.

But is there particular areas that maybe in the last five years have been new to you? Or you've looked at, hey, this is a new area we can explore and expand?

[Lisa Johnson]
I think the biggest change is there's always new in technology. I mean, in the business that we're in, there's always a new product. There's always a new threat.

There's always so you have to. That's another reason to grow because you can't with one or two people. You can't with a one-man shop.

It's really hard to do all the layers of security that you need. So, I mean, every, you know, we couldn't onboard new products because when you're doing the day-to-day work, you can't even evaluate the project. You know, you have to, like, and then you have to onboard it, and it takes you six months because you're trying to do the day-to-day.

You know, we had to get out of that in order to keep up with the changing, you know, AI and everything. You have to have multiple people looking at things that are going on in the industry to keep up with what your customers need.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, that is true. All right. Lisa, I have more questions.

But this is the first time you've sat down with me, and I'd like to leave you with a good positive. But obviously now I'm thinking, okay, we've got to have you back on. I've got to get Brian in here and chat some more.

I think you guys have, like I said, you guys have a model that I think a lot of people would enjoy, maybe be a little envious of.

[Lisa Johnson]
We have a pretty good life.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. So I would like to share more of that. I think you guys have shared it.

I mean, you guys hang out here at the ASCII's all the time. I've seen you guys at the poker events.

[Lisa Johnson]
Yeah, Brian is the poker guy, not me. But, yeah, we'd be happy to be back. We enjoy the industry.

And if anyone can learn anything from what we've learned over the years, we're happy to share.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Well, thank you very much. Long time coming, but thank you for finally – Well, thanks for being patient with me.

[Lisa Johnson]
I appreciate that.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. There you have it, folks. Lisa Johnson, AVC Technology, finally in the house.

We'll talk to you later. Holla.