0. Reintroducing the Tech Field Day Podcast – Tech Field Day Podcast

Hey, Tom, what's going on? Uh, we've got a podcast to publish. What are you doing?

I'm trying to finish the script. Steven, I'm trying to finish the script for the on-premise IT podcast that we have a lot of great things to talk about. Just gimme like one more minute and I'll be done, Tom, On premise.

Are you sure you're not using that wrong? Don't you mean on premises Again? Really?

I, you know what? Fine. Let's just change the name of the podcast so we don't have to worry about that anymore.

Forget it, right? This used to be the Tech Field Day podcast. That's what it should be.

Again, Welcome to the Tech Field Day podcast, the only podcast that dares to be both on topic or on premise, and sometimes on location. Each time we meet, we bring together a group of independent IT technical experts to discuss a single idea about key concepts in our industry. On this episode, well, we're discussing this episode.

Um, this is episode zero of the Tech Field Day podcast, but it is actually episode 433 of the podcast series. So if that's got you scratching your head, stick around and we will explain exactly what's going on here. So this episode, we are rebranding from on-premise it to the Tech Field Day podcast.

I'm your host, Stephen Foskett organizer of the Tech Field Day events series, which is now part of the futurum group. And joining me on this episode is none other than the other moderator, uh, longtime moderator of the on-premise IT podcast, and now the Tech Field Day podcast, Mr. Tom Hollingsworth.

Tom, welcome to the show. Thanks, Steven. I'm very happy to be here.

And it, it feels interesting to be on a podcast with you for once, because normally when we do these, we kind of split it up a little bit, but I think it's important that you and I kind of give our audience a a little bit of a heads up. Nothing is changing. Like, like this is still the same podcast that you've subscribed to and you've listened to for years.

We, we just change the name on it. So, for example, one of the things that you and I feel is very important about this, there's still gonna be a premise in every episode. Like, we have to have that, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And I, I, you know, it's interesting because we didn't set out to having that be, uh, sort of a differentiator for this podcast. I, I'll talk about the history here in a few minutes, but, um, the premise to me really is the core of this podcast.

What are we talking about today? Because so many podcasts, well, I mean, there's kind of two kinds of podcasts out there. There's the, the listenable ones that have a topic in each episode, and then there's the ones that I can't stand, which is just people blathering.

Yeah, you're, you're totally right about that. And I feel the same way whenever I'm looking for information about a given topic, say on a YouTube video, do I wanna watch the 25 minute version of that YouTube video that is very specifically focused? Or do I wanna watch an hour and 30 minutes of five co-hosts rambling about whatever comes into their head at a given time?

Well, I know which one I would pick. And, and based on our numbers, I know which one our audience would pick too. So the premise is still going to be there.

We have to have that just like the people who are participating on the podcast in our panel format, we still have to have those folks as well, because it's not exciting to hear just one person talking about something for hours upon hours. It their voices in these panel sessions, which we'll talk about in just a minute, you know, who our, our guests are. That format works really well because it involves conversation and involves interaction.

And quite honestly, you can see this premise develop given that people have their own unique perspective and opinion. And that's one of the things that has always been critical to what we do as well. Yeah, and, and the, the, the, again, that's a differentiator from a lot of podcasts.

A lot of podcasts have a very set group of speakers, and occasionally they'll invite in a guest speaker. Um, but usually it's the same voices. Now it's probably pretty, pretty weird for our, our audience to actually hear you and me talking on the same episode because we almost never do.

Um, it's usually we're kind of alternating episodes, you know, we record them with different groups of people and that kind of goes to the tech field day angle, which we'll talk about in a little bit more detail. But yeah, most of the time we try to have the, uh, the guests be the ones that are doing almost all of the talking. And I think, again, that's another differentiator for this, this podcast.

Yeah, and, and it's something that people seem to have enjoyed for a number of years, as a matter of fact, because once we started looking into what we've been doing here, it turns out the roots of what we do at the Tech Field Day podcast go back further than you might think. Yeah, it's interesting. Um, I, uh, until Corey, our producer, uh, went and ran the numbers for me, I didn't even know, uh, exactly what this was, but let me give you guys, let me, let's set the way back machine here.

So we launched this podcast actually in 2010, um, which is wild. Um, that's a long, long time ago. Originally, this was the Tech Field Day podcast.

Really, it, it's kind of funny to think that, that that's what it was. Um, it was the Gestalt It Tech Field Day Round Table. It was the Gestalt It podcast.

It was a few different things. We even, and maybe Tom and I will get talk about this in a second, we even experimented with a limo cast format of this, where we recorded it in the car. But this was always from the very, very start a podcast featuring the tech field Day delegates.

And so in those early, early episodes, what we were trying to do was, and this is kind of why we did the limo cast thing, we were trying to capture what happens behind the scenes at Tech Field Day when the delegates talk to each other, because that's the most magical thing. And it's something that people don't get to see. You know, even if you're watching Tech Field Day events, usually it's the, the sponsors presenting content, um, and the, the delegates asking questions and discussing.

Sometimes we'll do a round table table discussion, but those are fairly rare from a time perspective mostly. And also, um, you know, they're kind of hard to organize. 'cause some, you know, for those two, we need to have a topic.

But what we found was that those Roundtable discussions were really good. And we did them from the very start at Tech Field Day. Literally the first Tech Field Day event, November of 2009, we had a round table discussion following every presentation.

And, and it occurred to me that it would be really cool to share some of those with the, with an audience in kind of a podcast format. So we published the first episode of the, I guess Gestalt it Tech Field Day podcast or something like that, way, way back then. But it was really inconsistent.

Um, we didn't have a set, um, format. We didn't, you know, go weekly. Uh, we didn't have a day of the week.

We didn't even have a real format. 'cause sometimes they were recordings of the delegates discussing the presentations, and then sometimes they were actually just good presentations and we decided to throw those in the podcast feed. Um, but things changed over time.

You know, it's funny, we never, I, I didn't realize this. I thought we had published the, the limo cast. We never did publish the Limo cast, but that's actually where this whole format came from.

Were you there at that time, Tom? Now I wasn't there, but I did work here. And that was one of those fun things because I got a message from Steven saying, Hey, I've got this really cool idea.

And so he sent me these audio files and they were recording of our delegates in a limo. Now, for those of you who have never been to Field Day, yes, we really do drive around in a limo most of the time because it turns out that that's just as sufficient as getting any other kind of bus that you can find, plus rolling up to a company in a limo. That's a cool way for us to, you know, kind of make our presence known.

But in reality, what it is, is it's a way for our delegates to kind of be in one spot and interact with each other. And I'm sure at some point, Steven was sitting in the limo just like I was and said, man, if I could only get all of this great conversation on some kind of a recording. And what you do is you pull out a recorder, right?

And of course, you let everybody know that they're being recorded and you give everybody a chance to chime in. And so I got these audio files and I love the conversation. The problem was, is that the conversation sounded like it was taking place inside of a limo with all the road noise and everything that was going on.

So, you know, going back to that whole, you know, production stage management thing, great idea in theory, but you really have to work on the practice part of it. And so we, we tweaked it as much as we could, but I think we finally got to a point where we were like, either I had to leave a little bit of the road noise in, or we're all gonna sound like we're talking through some kind of weird electronic vo voice changer, because that's what it would take to strip all that stuff out. But then it was like, well, what if we took that idea, the limo cast, where we had that downtime and we just built that down downtime into the schedule where people could sit down and have that conversation.

And I think that's really where the idea for our podcast kind of leapt into life. Yeah, and, and of course, um, there was another important, uh, element here, and that's our friends, the packet pushers. So those of you who don't subscribe to Packet Pushers podcasts, um, they have a bunch of great podcasts.

They're great friends of ours. They're wonderful human beings. They came to Field Day, um, I think they kind of got together at Field Day.

Um, and we actually published a bunch of crossover episodes with the PO packet pushers in the early stage of this podcast, too. So early on, our subscribers would sometimes get a packet pushers episode. Often it was an episode that featured me or Tom.

Sometimes it was an episode that featured our delegates or was recorded at Field Day or something, but it was kind of a crossover. But then, uh, what happened was in 2017, we decided, okay, enough is enough. By then, I guess we figured out we actually need to have a podcast.

We also hired a, uh, professional producer to work here. And so we decided, you know, let's go ahead and do this. We're gonna publish a real podcast.

And so we had episode zero of the on-premise it Round Table, which is what it was called then. Um, uh, and that was in April of 2017. Kind of hard to believe that that was four years ago.

Uh, Tom was the host of the first episode, the first two episodes. Um, you did, uh, SD WAN on, uh, May 1st, 2017. Um, my first episode was episode two, which was May 2nd, 2017.

Yeah, we didn't quite have the schedule down right, but it's okay. Um, you know, I focused on DevOps and, and it was the first of our, um, our very pro provocative ones. Is DevOps a disaster?

Unfortunately, that's not a premise, that's a question. But, um, I think I'll give, uh, past self, uh, pass on that. Um, but yeah, and, and, and since then, it's kind of hard to believe, but we have published a total of 322 episodes of the On-Premise IT podcast using the on-premise name, um, almost weekly now, as Tom pointed out.

Um, we used to be alternating weeks, um, and then we would fill in in between with, uh, spotlight Podcasts, which are sponsored podcasts. Um, but then we decided to make the Spotlight Podcast, podcast indistinguishable from the regular podcast and just put it in wherever we want and go weekly. And so we've been weekly for a long time, long enough to publish 322 episodes of this darn thing, um, which is just amazing.

Um, I, I guess, uh, over that time, uh, just to give you guys some, some of a feel for what we've been doing. So, uh, eventually we also, um, I think actually around that same time we started posting the videos as well on YouTube, and we started building up, uh, viewership on that platform as well. Um, we typically will get, you know, more audio listens than YouTube listens, but the YouTube videos do get some traction.

They're also nicer to put on the Gestalt IT website. Uh, we started writing, um, show notes and articles on the Gestalt IT website and so on over time. Uh, and, and the thing really has, has gotten a life of its own to the point that I'm sure there's some people listening who aren't aware of what Tech Field Day is.

So we'll have to talk a little bit about that as well. Um, and, uh, you know, probably just listen in, uh, to this, you know, expecting basically an interesting coverage of some aspect of enterprise tech. So, as I said though, the most important aspect of this podcast are the voices of the delegates, whether it's at Tech Field Day event in a limo, uh, on PA, packet pushers, uh, you know, in the studio, virtually whatever.

Um, they are the star of the show. And again, that's an unusual thing for a podcast because most podcasts have consistent speakers, hosts, and occasional guests, if at all. Um, ours is completely different.

So, so let's talk about that for a second. I'd love to, Steven, because this is one of my favorite parts of recording our podcast, is having all of these diverse, unique voices that can join us. Um, I I always kind of say, you know, there, they're luminaries experts in their field, and if you only have a rotating list of say, five or six people, that will be on your podcast at any one time, because the recordings could take an hour or two hours, that really limits your perspective on things.

But because we get to see so many unique different people during a Tech Field Day event that we invite in as delegates, that means that they kind of drive a lot of what we talk about. Now, of course, we have to take their ideas and form them into a premise. Sometimes people will be like, well, let's talk about ai.

I am like, no, we're not gonna talk about ai. We're gonna talk about, you know, is AI gonna destroy the galaxy? That's a premise.

Or, you know, AI will destroy the galaxy. 'cause there's no question mark on a premise. But the idea is that we have people who understand that at a very deep resonating level, that they have done this, that they have worked with these things, and they know the promise and the pitfalls, if you will.

And because we're constantly bringing new folks in, they can add their voice to a given premise and kind of create an entirely new episode. I mean, how many episodes of a podcast have you seen recently that are kind of hitting the same topics over and over again? Is this gonna get banned?

Uh, should this be regulated? Uh, is this a thing we we wanna say? No?

You know, we're gonna say this is a thing and here's why, but here's what you need to be careful of. And that means that we need those delegates. We need those people, the independent experts in the audience to give us that perspective.

And Stephen, you've been dealing with delegates as long as anyone since, you know, tech Field Day is something you've been a part of. Do you feel that they have a unique voice compared to a lot of the other, I don't know, media trained people in the industry? Well, certainly they do.

I mean, that's why they're picked for Field Day is because they have an opinion. Um, some, uh, some are more opinionated than others, and some are too opinionated for me. But, uh, but they're still good folks.

And, um, you know, truly, I think that bringing in people with independent voices is important because again, um, especially in the tech industry, uh, a lot of people are kind of being paid to be here. Um, you know, whether this is, you know, a podcast for their employer, uh, a podcast for, uh, a topic that they are beholden to, um, you know, there's a lot of, um, insincere voices out there, and I think that it's very different with what we are doing simply because the delegates are not being paid. I mean, let's just make that very, very clear.

Uh, the delegates on editorial episodes, the delegates are not being paid. We do pay them to participate in what we call Spotlight episodes, which are the, the, the sponsored episodes, simply because it would be unfair of us to take money from a sponsor and then not share it with the people on the show. So we give them a share of that money, but we don't do that for the normal episodes, simply because we want it to be a fair and open discussion.

Now, we're gonna have to talk about those Spotlight episodes here in a second, but, um, but as far as as the, the ordinary episodes, just again, for background, for the audience, how that goes is, um, you know, we, we bring together people for our field day events. Uh, those are usually also the same people that we call on for podcasts because it's topical. You know, I mean, if, if we're doing Tech Field Day, like we've got a security field event coming up, um, we've picked a dozen people to come to our Security Field day, uh, Tom is talking to those folks on a daily basis and trying of helping them to understand what the plans are for that event.

And so he's gonna contact them and he's gonna say, Hey, who wants to be on a podcast with us? Uh, you know, we're gonna record on Thursday or whatever it is. And, um, and we'll get 2, 3, 4 of those people together.

Um, and, and we'll, and, and the first thing we do when we get on that call is we say, Hey, what do you, what do you feel like talking about now? It, there usually is a lot of, um, let's say beverages, law of headlines, kind of things that go on there where people will ask a question that is obviously wrong. That's not the on-premise way, though.

So we kind of flip that around and basically say, look, you gotta take a stand on something in the headline. Uh, a lot of the time we try to make those fun, you know, DevOps is a dumpster fire, that kind of thing. But, um, truly, uh, it's all about the discussion.

And we have the delegates pick the, the topic. Uh, we editorialize a little bit. We don't really on behalf of ourselves or the sponsors or the event or anything.

I mean, basically if the dev, if the delegates come on there and they say, look, I wanna talk about this topic. If they're agreed that they wanna talk about it then, and if we feel like it's on topic for the, the whole podcast overall, then we're usually willing to do it. And I think, again, that does separate it from what you hear from a lot of other podcasts, because we really don't have, I don't know, I mean, we have an editorial voice, I suppose, but we don't really have a goal, an ax to grind with this thing, right?

No, we don't. And I love the fact that there are times when we've recorded podcasts where the delegates don't even agree with each other on the topic. Like, you can literally just kind of feel the energy in the room when one of the delegates say is, you know, well, I believe that, you know, shampoo is better.

And then the other delegate across the way is like, no, no, no. Conditioner is the best. And they just go back and forth, not angrily, but they're both trying to make their perspectives understood.

And, and that's one of the values of, you know, just taking a stance on a subject. You don't always have to agree. You can debate, you can do whatever you want to do and really make your voice heard.

Because when someone listens to the episode, they're like, well, I see where you're coming from. And I, I totally think that that is the way that I would believe in it. But I also see that there are good points being raised over here that in essence, creates a better environment for everyone, because not every issue is black and white.

Like for example, if I came out and I said that security audits cause more problems than they solve, someone out there is gonna go, yes, you're absolutely right. And I have evidence to believe that. And someone else is gonna say, no, you are absolutely wrong.

And they're absolutely critical. But the conversation is what makes this so ultimately valuable is because by getting everything out there without editorializing and saying, you know, Steven, you're wrong. And as the moderator, I have the final say that is super valuable to the community, because like we said, these are delegates.

They're not being paid to be here. They are not pushing some kind of other agenda. They are people who do the job that you do maybe in a different walk of I enterprise it, maybe for a different company, but ultimately they work on the technology, they understand the technology, they feel confident about talking about the technology, and that's one of the reasons that we invite them to be a part of Tech Field Day.

But Steven, I think it's important maybe to help people understand out there, if they've come to this podcast listening to our great premises and they have no idea what Tech Field Day is, maybe you give 'em a little bit of background. Yeah, thanks. Uh, I guess I'm the right, right person for that job, uh, since I started Tech Field Day, um, and it's been almost 15 years now, um, since I did.

So, yeah. Let me give you a little bit of background on who these people are and where this thing comes from. Now, some of you may know Tech Field Day, in fact, probably a lot of listeners know Tech Field Day, because we've been talking about it a lot for 432 episodes.

Um, but if there's a chance that you don't, and even if you do, maybe this will help kind of clarify some things. So ultimately, tech Field Day is an opportunity for companies and people who write and speak about those companies to get together in a, a forum that's fair, that's not tilted toward the product, toward the sponsors, but also not tilted away from them and, and, and learn and discuss and interact and ask questions. And, you know, grow technically, field Day is all about this practitioner, the technologist, it decision maker kind of audience.

Um, the goal from the very start was simply to address this weird situation that we find ourselves in where, um, companies generally are in the driver's seat when it comes to any kind of presentations they do, except when they're not, which they don't like participating in. And so, right from the very start, you know, I, I was being invited and to Tom was as well, and a lot of us were being invited to these blogger days or, or analyst or press days. And, um, you know, the company would fly us somewhere and they would, you know, kind of wine and dine us and give us presentations and demos and stuff.

A lot of us felt a little uncomfortable with that. And even today, that stuff, that stuff still happens, and we still feel a little uncomfortable. I gotta say, when I am paid to go to an event by a company, I do feel a little bit in the pocket of the company, even though at this point in my career, I am able to say, you know what, I'm gonna say what I want to say, and if they don't like it, they can not invite me back.

And some of them do. Um, but even then, I just feel a little skeevy going to these things. And, and it felt that way even back in the two thousands when we started this.

So in 2008, 2009, a lot of companies started inviting bloggers to blogger days. Um, companies like EMC, uh, like Dell, like hp, they deserve a lot of credit for this. Cisco.

They were reaching out to the blogger community because they saw that this was like a new media space, but a lot of us said, you know what, it would be better if these things were just a little more balanced. And also there was so much cool stuff going on with, with startups and stuff that could never even in a million years think about having a blogger day. And so we would just never hear from them in this format.

So a bunch of us were sitting together and I said, you know, I bet we could do that. And we did. And so in November of 2009, we did the first ever Tech Field Day event.

Uh, it was just called Tech Field Day, not, and number one, because there was no number two, it was just Tech Field Day. Um, it was a big hit. I brought in a bunch of independent people like me who were Techn, technically focused.

Uh, they enjoyed it. We had a bunch of companies present. Um, everything was cool.

Uh, we didn't live stream and we didn't, uh, we, we recorded the, the presentations on, on video, but we didn't know what to do with them. We didn't even post half of them. Um, so there it was a little bit different, but ultimately it was a similar idea.

And since then we've continued to do this. So we started having topical events. So Networking Field Day was the first one that was a topical focused event, um, Tom.

And, um, and we expanded more into Wireless Field Day and other topics, virtualization Field Day. And now, um, we have a bunch of different events. We go to industry events.

We started going to like Cisco Live and stuff like that, VM World early on. Uh, now we're, you know, continuing to do that, but ultimately the, it, it all remains the same that it always was, which is we, Tom and me collect interesting, independent technical people. We get to know them.

We have them be part of our community. We've got about 250 or 300 people in the community right now, uh, who are active. Um, and we, yeah, we had, I think a hundred people came to Field Day last year.

Um, we invite them to come to Field Day when they are interested and when they're available, when it makes sense for them. We're paying their airfare in their hotel, but we don't pay them to be there. And they come and they show up, and they ask questions, and they engage and they interact.

And the delegates trust us to bring good companies. The companies trust us to bring good delegates, and everybody trusts us to livestream it, to share those things, to have it be fair, to have it be open, to have it be, um, just like the podcast, um, really focused on the technology and the use case and not a bunch of political blah, blah. And, and it works.

And it's worked really great. And Tom, you've been part of this now, so I've been part of this for 15 years. You've been part of this for, well as a, as a, a, a, an employee staff member or person doing it for 10 years, but even longer as a delegate.

Uh, what's your perspective as a delegate on Field Day as well as the interaction with the podcast? So, I love this idea that I could be someone who was not in a very technically advanced area and go to a place where I could talk to people that I would not normally get to talk to the ones that understood the technology, like you said, you know, I get to go through that first level of, you know, account managers or marketing people, and I get to talk to the person who built the thing. And that was very exciting for me.

And that really fueled my creative engine too, because when I get the real good content, the things that I want to talk about, I'm a house of fire, right? I'm gonna write things, I'm gonna record stuff. I'm gonna make sure that everybody knows what's going on.

And that kind of was my journey at first was, you know, I got invited to these events, Steven kept asking me to come back. I'm still not sure why, but eventually we got to this point where I, I loved it so much that, you know, it was, it was a part of what I did. As a matter of fact, I, I think I even remember calling Steven and complaining.

I said, you know, I've, I've been invited to all these wonderful things this year and I can't go to all of them. And he's like, well, which ones do you wanna go to? I said, well, obviously if I get to invite go, come, come back to networking field day, I wanna do that.

And that kind of started that process of me being able to sit on this side of the fence, where as an employee of the company, I'm now the one going out, finding the people, inviting them to be a part of these things, but also responsible for keeping those conversations at that level. The number of people who have come to me and said that they use Field Day as a primary research source because they know that they're gonna get a highly technical presentation when they step into the room, the number of anecdotal evidence, uh, things that have been shared with me about, you know, creating these great relationships with companies and, and, you know, signing partnership agreements and, and those kinds of things. You know, I could, I could fill a whole video with all of that, but key among it is the fact that we are unique, that we bring all of these unique elements together, and we put them in a room together and we say, okay, let's make some magic happen.

And it doesn't always have to be a presentation. It doesn't always have to include slides or a demo, because as we found, when you put enough people in a room together and you get them talking to each other, they come up with their own topics to discuss. And that's kind of where the whole Field Day podcast idea grew out of was let's get all of this on camera, on audio somewhere so that we can share it with the rest of the world, because the fun doesn't stop when the cameras turn off.

Yeah. And, and in fact, we asked the delegates after the event, you know, what they love about Field Day? Uh, invariably yes, they love getting exposed to these companies, especially like Tom said, the opportunities sometimes where you have a real industry luminary, you know, somebody who invented the thing presenting to you, that's awesome.

Um, they love the idea that as well, that we'll bring companies in that they've never heard of, or companies that they have heard of, but they don't really have good exposure to, or, you know, just different areas. I mean, just that, that's one thing they love. But the other thing that they love is each other.

They love the community. They love being able to talk to each other. They love to be able to have these kind of open and free conversations, and they love the, the ideas, the exchange of ideas.

And it's like, it is magic what we've seen, um, happen because, you know, the, the delegates will come in, uh, they, they, they find new jobs, they find new podcasts that they want to start, they launch companies. I mean, we've had multiple companies come out of Field Day. It's just, it's just so cool what happens there.

And it's not us, it's them. It's them taking the opportunity to spend time with each other. Um, so it's, it's great.

And like I said, I mean, the coolest thing too is that it's a, it's a really a, it's a volunteer audience. Everybody's there because they want to be there, not because they're being paid to be there. They love that we let them be themselves.

But I do think we need to talk about one Elephant in the room, which is the sponsored episodes. Um, so we call them Spotlight episodes. And essentially from the very beginning, we realized that we needed to have some way to financially support the podcast.

As you can imagine, recording over 400 episodes is, you know, a thing. And most podcasts, the business model, well, nowadays it's Patreon, um, where they have special levels of sponsorship or whatever, and they're basically trying to collect money from the listeners. Um, a lot of podcasts are ad supported.

I hate ads. I absolutely can't stand podcast ads, and I skip them maniacally. Um, I absolutely am a, you know, hey, voice assistant, skip 30 seconds every time one of those things comes on because I hate it.

And so we said, well, just like field day, like we have no ads on our website. We have no ads in our podcasts, we have no ads in our video. If I can help it, I try to turn it off on YouTube, I promise.

Um, mostly there are no ads on our website, um, as much as I can stop it. Uh, and the same with a podcast. We don't want there to be any ads, but that means that there are sponsored episodes.

But instead of them being, you know, our product is the greatest thing ever, we ask the sponsors to do exactly the same thing we asked the delegates to do. So my personal goal is that you, the listener, would never know which episodes are sponsored and which aren't because you are getting the same kind of information, the same quality information, the same feel, um, you know, 'cause a lot of podcasts, you know, they'll do a sponsored episode and it's a completely different animal. It's like, you know, you're used to, you know, giraffes.

And today we've got a zebra, you know, ours are not like that either. You know, basically, most people listening probably don't know, which are sponsored and which are not. And that's good because we never want it to feel like that.

We do sponsored episodes. Essentially what we'll do, every episode has 2, 3, 4 delegate panel talking about a topic that they've selected. The sponsored episodes are the same.

It's a 2, 3, 4 guest panel. One of the guests is from the company that's paying for that episode, but the others are not. They're delegates, they're field day delegates.

They're not shills by any means. And, and we pick them because they kind of understand the, the product area, the technology area. And just like the regular episodes, we basically put it to the guests, including the sponsors, and we say, what premise do you want to discuss?

We don't say, let's promote your product. We say, what premise? And we say that it's okay to mention your product, but it's better to talk about the technology and the use case.

And, and that generally happens, um, sometimes the companies are, um, aggressive in pushing their product and okay, um, you know, I, I suppose that's how they would be, uh, but the delegates are still there, and the delegates are asking questions and they're, and they're discussing, and we try to bring them into the conversation to make sure that it's not just, you know, kind of shilling for a product. I think it pretty much works. Um, and I, I hope that people enjoy those episodes.

The best thing I would like to hear from people is if this is news to you and you say, I didn't know you did sponsored episodes, because to me, that would be the best. Now it does say sponsored in the, um, episode show notes on the, on the website, et cetera, because that's a law. And we are not trying to hide this, but the fact that the quality content is still there, that's what I want to people to know.

I don't want them to, I don't want them to feel like they're being sold up the river. Yeah. And just so everyone else out there, then our audience is clear.

There's nothing wrong with a sponsored podcast episode. I mean, everybody has their model that works for them. I, I couldn't do Patreon.

I just, it's just not my thing. But we have always said that sponsored or not, the podcast should have the same feel. And like you mentioned, Steven, when we get on a call to discuss what's gonna be on, on a Spotlight Podcast episode, I always start off with what's the premise like, like we need to get to that immediately, because that is the heart of what we do, and it is valuable for our listeners.

It, it tells you everything you need to know about the episode before you ever get involved with it. And that process works the same, whether it's a group of three delegates and we're sitting around having lunch in the middle of networking field day, or whether we're doing a Spotlight episode, talking about some new cool Edge technology that's coming up. We have to know what we're gonna be talking about, and we have to format the episode the way that it needs to be.

We would never release an episode that's an hour and 10 minutes long, and it just kind of feels like we're lazily working through things, and someone's reading a whole bunch of text specs. Our audience doesn't want that. They want to hear experts ask questions of other experts or, you know, pontificate about why they think that this particular part is important.

And you're gonna get that no matter what. And like Steven said, we, we have to tell you when they're sponsored, we wanna follow the rules and, and we wanna make sure that everybody knows that. But other than that, if you didn't know it was sponsored except for by reading it, then we've succeeded because that means that we've created the same great content that you've been listening to for years.

It just so happened that somebody was a little bit more directly involved in this one than they might have been in the past. And, you know, it's the same thing with Field Day, honestly. So this is the Tech Field Day podcast.

Podcast. Tech Field Day is sponsored. We call them sponsors.

We say that they're sponsors, et cetera. Um, but our commitment to the audience is to keep it real. And that's what the delegates do, because the delegates are as much part of the presentation as the companies are, and they keep the companies honest.

Sometimes the companies don't appreciate being kept honest. Most of the time. They do.

Most of the people that participate in Field Day on the company side, a hundred percent, they're on board with this. And, and I love that too. That's so cool.

I was talking to a, a company the other day, they were mad because they didn't get more pushback. They didn't get more arguments from the delegates and the delegates. I asked them, and the delegates said, oh, well, they made their case.

Like, you know, I'm not gonna push back on it. It sounded like a good, it sounded made sense. So that's fine.

Um, those are the ideal situations. But, um, yeah, a lot of the stuff we do is sponsored. I mean, uh, I'm not doing this outta my own pocket, but I have a commitment to people to keep it real, to keep it legit, to keep it credible.

And the delegates keep me honest, and the delegates are gonna keep this podcast honest. So going forward, uh, we're gonna continue doing the Tech Field Day podcast, though I am, you know, I think it would be interesting to, uh, what would our 20 podcast tiers be on Patreon, Tom? Um, you know, I mean, I can't imagine, uh, what our different podcast tiers would be named.

I think we could come up with some fun ones. Um, but before we do that, let me just say, I'm not gonna do it. We're completely not going to have, uh, Patreon tears.

We are gonna do what we've always done. We're gonna get delegates together as part of the Field Day experience. We're gonna ask them what they want to talk about.

We're gonna pick a premise. We're gonna record 30 minutes on that premise. We're gonna publish it every fricking Tuesday, and we're gonna make it happen.

And many of these premises are going to be recorded on premises. Uh, I did it, uh, at Tech Field Day. Um, before we go, the joke, okay, so for 300, how many is it?

Um, how many episodes did we do, um, of the, uh, of the on premise it podcast 322. So for 322 episodes over seven years, we have been leaning into this stupid joke, the on-Premise podcast, and the, the logo has a cloud in it. The point of the cloud was to say, no, we don't mean premises.

We don't mean on-prem, we mean on premise. Because the premise, we've said that at the beginning of every episode, Tom, what is the most common comment we get from audience and listeners? You meant on premises?

And no, we didn't. We're using on premise correctly. And trust us, if there's anybody in the world that knows that we're using it correctly, it is these two gentlemen, because anytime anybody, anywhere says on premise, when they met on Premises, we get notified about it.

It happened on stage. Pat Gelsinger at VMworld one year said on premise, when he meant On Premises, my Twitter app exploded. So trust me, we are using it correctly.

In fact, it said that on the stickers for a really long time. And, and we, we wanted to lean into it. I remember the very first time that I saw the logo, Steven shared it with me, and he didn't say a word.

And I remember looking at it, going, I'm gonna kill him. And then about an hour later, I realized that it was a joke, and it was the best joke. And now, seven years later, I'm starting to regret that joke just because yes, we know that we meant on premise, on topic, we have the right idea.

It it, it was not the best joke, Tom, it was a bad joke. It was, it was a, it was a misguided, it was a foolish joke that had us be, uh, so we're not gonna make that joke anymore. Um, but if you join now at the delegate level of just $22 a month, we'll send you surplus swag.

If you join at the $200 producer level, I will send you all the old on-premise it podcast crap I have in my inventory, and you can do with it what you please. We're done with that joke. I'm tired of people making fun of us.

Yes, going forward. This is the Tech Field Day podcast, which is what it was. It's the once in future name.

And that, my friends, is what this is all about. We are now announcing that from now on. This is the Tech Field Day podcast.

It has always been the Tech Field Day podcast. It will always be the Tech Field Day podcast. And we are gonna continue just what we've always done.

We're gonna get a group of delegates together. We're gonna pick a premise, we're gonna record an episode, we're gonna publish it on Tuesday, and hopefully you're gonna enjoy it. So thank you everyone for listening to this.

Thank you for putting up with us. Thank you for all of your incredible, uh, subscriptions and feedback and, and, and, and listens and so on. We get, you know, tons and tons.

I mean, it's, it's just amazing what's happened to this thing. Keep listening. We're gonna, we're gonna keep it great.

Um, thank you, Tom, thank you very much for being part of this. Um, you know, we've got Tech Field a, uh, events coming up with Tom. Uh, Tom focuses on networking on mobility and security.

So check those out. We've got all of those coming up soon for me. I've got, um, events focused on application development.

Yes, that's right. Uh, AI Cloud Edge. Uh, so listen in, uh, you can always catch Tom and I as well on our Wednesday, uh, gestalt It News Rundown, which is our weekly show where we talk about the tech news of the week, um, in, you know, 30 minutes.

Uh, we'll, we'll cover six or seven stories every week. So, so listening for that. On Mondays, we have our Utilizing Tech podcast, which is me talking about different areas of technology.

Um, we're about to launch a new, uh, season of that as well. Um, thank you for listening, though. Thank you for listening to the on-premise IT podcast.

Thank you. If you're one of the people who didn't correct us on using that term wrong, um, thank you. If you're one of the people who did correct us on using that term wrong, because at least you noticed and not so much thanks if you didn't notice, uh, moving on.

Um, if you enjoyed this discussion, please do give us a rating and review. You'll find us in all your favorite podcast, um, applications. In fact, your current, uh, on-premise it podcast subscription should just continue magically as the, uh, tech Field Day podcast.

That's what Corey tells me. Um, I'm, I'm watching you Corey. Uh, I hope you're right.

Um, we're gonna have new, um, episode artwork. Uh, by the way, there's an Easter egg in the episode artwork, and I want, um, I'm gonna give a, um, on-premise it sticker to anyone who can identify what the Easter egg is in the artwork. You'll have to wait and see.

Um, and, uh, yeah, give us a rating, give us a review. We would love to hear from you. If you enjoyed this podcast, um, this podcast, uh, as you know, is brought to you by Tech Field Day.

Uh, yes, it's all sponsored by us, um, home of IT experts across the Enterprise Tech Field Day is now part of the Futurum Group. So check out the futurum Group website to learn more about that. If you're interested in learning where we're going with this podcast, we're actually gonna be hopping it over to the Tech Field Day website now.

com/podcast for the a home of the epi of the podcast. Uh, you'll also find us on YouTube. Uh, you'll find, uh, writeups on Gestalt It, and so on, uh, just like you always did.

Uh, thanks for listening. Thank you, Tom, for joining us in, uh, announcing this new season. And, uh, we will catch you next week on the first episode of The Tech Field Day Podcast.

Take care.