1 00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:03,040 You have to actually understand the area before you can put 2 00:00:03,040 --> 00:00:05,320 together a good set of requirements. 3 00:00:05,640 --> 00:00:10,080 And so I think that's where maybe that RFI really can help 4 00:00:10,080 --> 00:00:12,240 because you don't know what's out there. 5 00:00:12,240 --> 00:00:15,040 You don't know what are the standard set of requirements. 6 00:00:15,400 --> 00:00:18,520 Obviously if you start putting the other requirements like the 7 00:00:18,520 --> 00:00:22,720 system must be able to levitate above the ground, like no system 8 00:00:22,720 --> 00:00:24,560 showing to meet that. So you have to have. 9 00:00:24,600 --> 00:00:26,840 But it's in the cloud, it levitates automatically. 10 00:00:27,480 --> 00:00:36,160 Yes, this is identity at the center. 11 00:00:36,840 --> 00:00:42,520 If it has anything to do with IAM, this is the go to podcast 12 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:47,160 now your hosts Jim McDonald and Jeff Steadman. 13 00:00:53,640 --> 00:00:55,360 Welcome to the Identity at the Center podcast. 14 00:00:55,360 --> 00:00:56,840 I'm Jeff, and that's Jim. Hey, Jim. 15 00:00:57,520 --> 00:01:00,320 Hey, Jeff, how are you? Oh, not so bad yourself. 16 00:01:01,600 --> 00:01:05,840 And it's been quite a week and it's only Monday already. 17 00:01:06,840 --> 00:01:10,520 It's been quite a day. It's I'm on mountain time. 18 00:01:10,520 --> 00:01:15,000 So part of my challenge they off the bat is that 6:00 AM is 8:00 19 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:18,520 AM. And by the time that I get 20 00:01:18,520 --> 00:01:22,280 everything together, it's like 7:00 AM and the world is like 21 00:01:22,280 --> 00:01:27,880 full speed and I'm not ready. Well, here's a pro tip for 22 00:01:27,880 --> 00:01:29,520 consulting. Don't live in the West Coast 23 00:01:29,880 --> 00:01:31,520 because everything's going to be done in Eastern Time. 24 00:01:32,200 --> 00:01:36,480 Or just embrace the early life and the early release, I guess, 25 00:01:36,480 --> 00:01:38,520 right. People kind of disappear 26 00:01:38,520 --> 00:01:41,880 probably around 3:00 PM, you know, for, for folks on the West 27 00:01:41,880 --> 00:01:43,560 Coast. But yeah, that's that's life. 28 00:01:44,560 --> 00:01:47,520 Yeah, exactly, Exactly. I don't think I could do it. 29 00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:51,600 You know, I thought about, you know, moving to Hawaii or 30 00:01:51,600 --> 00:01:56,040 something and it would be great, but you'd have to get up so dark 31 00:01:56,040 --> 00:01:58,960 early to have like 2:00 in the morning, 3:00 in the morning, 32 00:01:59,280 --> 00:02:01,760 That's not going to work for me. Well, if you're moving to 33 00:02:01,760 --> 00:02:04,080 Hawaii, you you probably can just set your own schedule at 34 00:02:04,080 --> 00:02:05,800 that point. Yeah, right. 35 00:02:05,800 --> 00:02:08,080 You've saved up your pennies. Exactly. 36 00:02:08,840 --> 00:02:10,479 So you have a little bit of different background. 37 00:02:10,479 --> 00:02:11,720 You're, you must be travelling right. 38 00:02:12,120 --> 00:02:13,160 You said you're. Travelling. 39 00:02:13,800 --> 00:02:19,480 I'm in Sturgis, SD and so my partner Denise direct here. 40 00:02:19,480 --> 00:02:24,560 This is actually her family home and you know, this house he 41 00:02:24,560 --> 00:02:32,920 built in the 60s, late 60s. And yeah, I mean, so it's, you 42 00:02:32,920 --> 00:02:36,440 know, 8 foot ceilings and everything and, and it's a it's 43 00:02:36,440 --> 00:02:39,760 a great home. I feel really comfortable here. 44 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:43,120 And then of course, what's going on in surgery, South Dakota is 45 00:02:43,440 --> 00:02:47,120 they have the big motorcycle rally every year and it's pretty 46 00:02:47,120 --> 00:02:50,560 crazy, man. I have a motorcycle I ride, but 47 00:02:50,560 --> 00:02:55,960 there are motorcycle enthusiasts here who, you know, come from 48 00:02:55,960 --> 00:02:59,880 all parts of the world. Most of people come in from the 49 00:02:59,880 --> 00:03:04,040 United States and ride their bikes, and it's pretty crazy, 50 00:03:04,040 --> 00:03:05,440 man. There's like hundreds of 51 00:03:05,440 --> 00:03:08,640 thousands of motorcycles here. Sounds very loud. 52 00:03:09,720 --> 00:03:12,640 It's super loud. It's super loud on top of all 53 00:03:12,640 --> 00:03:15,320 the rock'n'roll music that your heart could desire. 54 00:03:15,800 --> 00:03:17,760 And there's a big concert right too, that kind of goes along 55 00:03:17,760 --> 00:03:20,240 with this bunch of. There's a lot of big concerts. 56 00:03:20,240 --> 00:03:22,840 Yeah, Last night we saw someone named Elle King. 57 00:03:23,600 --> 00:03:25,400 Oh yeah. That's functional. 58 00:03:26,320 --> 00:03:28,720 Yeah, she's like a country star. She's really good. 59 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:32,080 Jelly Roll's going to be here this week. 60 00:03:32,360 --> 00:03:37,040 Travis Trait is here last night. Is anybody good going to be? 61 00:03:37,040 --> 00:03:40,200 There Kid Rock was he's going to be here. 62 00:03:40,360 --> 00:03:42,440 I like Kid Rock. I like Jelly Roll. 63 00:03:42,760 --> 00:03:45,800 I like Travis Strait. It sounds like. 64 00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:50,880 Country, but well, there's a lot of, you know, cover bands, Bret 65 00:03:50,880 --> 00:03:53,560 Michaels is going to be here. So it's a lot of like there's 66 00:03:53,560 --> 00:03:58,640 just like that would appeal to like motorcycle folks and a lot 67 00:03:58,640 --> 00:04:00,880 of the people I think could ride motorcycles. 68 00:04:01,120 --> 00:04:04,000 Well, there's, there's really a big age range, but there are 69 00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:07,520 definitely a lot of people with, you know, Gray hair. 70 00:04:09,200 --> 00:04:13,160 It sounds it sounds like a very interesting event. 71 00:04:13,360 --> 00:04:15,560 Are there any electric bikes? That's what would interest me. 72 00:04:15,680 --> 00:04:18,079 Any E bikes like electric motorcycles? 73 00:04:18,079 --> 00:04:20,440 A single one. I haven't seen a single one. 74 00:04:20,959 --> 00:04:23,520 Is that interesting? The bikes, the bikes I like a 75 00:04:23,560 --> 00:04:27,640 lot are the custom bikes where people go and like, you know. 76 00:04:28,200 --> 00:04:31,720 They can put the handles out like like this, but I don't get 77 00:04:31,720 --> 00:04:33,360 that like that doesn't seem very comfortable. 78 00:04:34,200 --> 00:04:37,320 We're safe, right? Yeah. 79 00:04:37,320 --> 00:04:39,200 I don't know, man. That's why I don't have time 80 00:04:39,240 --> 00:04:42,360 riding my regular motorcycle. I don't think I can ride 81 00:04:42,360 --> 00:04:46,600 something like that. I'm not a gear head, so I'm more 82 00:04:46,600 --> 00:04:47,840 interested in the technology sides. 83 00:04:47,840 --> 00:04:51,120 That's why I asked about the the electric, you know, bike meaning 84 00:04:51,120 --> 00:04:53,240 like the electric motorcycle. That seems like that'd be 85 00:04:53,240 --> 00:04:54,320 pretty. Cool. 86 00:04:54,320 --> 00:04:57,880 Yeah, I did see a a Tesla charger somewhere. 87 00:04:57,960 --> 00:05:01,640 And of course, that'd be immediately like Jeff be hanging 88 00:05:01,640 --> 00:05:04,160 out there. Wait, you have to have a place 89 00:05:04,160 --> 00:05:06,680 to charge? You know what you gonna do? 90 00:05:06,800 --> 00:05:08,760 All right, so you're in Sturgis, you're on the road. 91 00:05:08,840 --> 00:05:12,640 I'm on the road like every day for this month, if you like, 92 00:05:12,640 --> 00:05:15,280 except for maybe a couple. So it's made scheduling this 93 00:05:15,280 --> 00:05:19,800 podcast extremely challenging. So hats off to you for pulling 94 00:05:19,800 --> 00:05:22,400 this together. We're going to try and make this 95 00:05:22,400 --> 00:05:25,560 show a little bit shorter, just the interest of time and making 96 00:05:25,560 --> 00:05:27,440 sure that we put something out that's quality. 97 00:05:28,000 --> 00:05:30,840 But I do want to give a shout out a gentleman by the name of 98 00:05:30,840 --> 00:05:37,160 Ron sent in an e-mail or Ronald sent in a contact form to us and 99 00:05:37,160 --> 00:05:38,720 notice there was a bug at our website. 100 00:05:38,720 --> 00:05:41,920 I've been chasing this bug for a long time and if I was like I 101 00:05:41,920 --> 00:05:44,320 thought, I thought I had it fixed, well now I think I have 102 00:05:44,320 --> 00:05:46,680 it fixed again. So if you have been using our 103 00:05:46,680 --> 00:05:50,200 listen page on our website and then you would refresh, what 104 00:05:50,200 --> 00:05:53,280 would happen is you'd go to a four O 4 page because for some 105 00:05:53,280 --> 00:05:55,800 reason it kept looping around to a page that no longer existed as 106 00:05:55,800 --> 00:05:57,120 I was doing some work on the site. 107 00:05:57,840 --> 00:06:02,440 I think I have fixed it again so we'll see how it works, but 108 00:06:02,440 --> 00:06:05,200 shout out to Ron for noticing the bug and actually taking the 109 00:06:05,200 --> 00:06:09,360 time to send in a a, you know, a message to let us know about it 110 00:06:09,440 --> 00:06:13,960 and I will cross my fingers. Hopefully it is now fixed again. 111 00:06:14,160 --> 00:06:17,240 My shout out to Ron is like, I just heard that bug like six 112 00:06:17,240 --> 00:06:19,760 months ago, Jeff, and I told you about it and. 113 00:06:20,200 --> 00:06:21,560 I thought I had to. Fix it. 114 00:06:21,640 --> 00:06:25,080 It's my fault, yeah. It's it's, it's usually, it's, 115 00:06:25,360 --> 00:06:26,760 it's, it's usually the user, right? 116 00:06:26,760 --> 00:06:30,760 ID 10 T probably or PEP CAC, right, something like that. 117 00:06:30,760 --> 00:06:33,480 So, OK, well, shout to him. Let's see what else we got. 118 00:06:33,480 --> 00:06:35,960 Identity Week coming up. You and I are going to be there. 119 00:06:35,960 --> 00:06:38,200 We're starting to figure out what that plan is going to look 120 00:06:38,200 --> 00:06:41,600 like. I'll be hosting sort of a hour 121 00:06:41,600 --> 00:06:47,120 long panel talk, question and answer type thing for the future 122 00:06:47,120 --> 00:06:48,320 of identity and access management. 123 00:06:48,320 --> 00:06:51,200 So you'll see that that session is now up on the Identity Week 124 00:06:51,200 --> 00:06:53,840 America agenda. So hopefully people will come 125 00:06:53,840 --> 00:06:56,920 out and check that out. If you do, we have discount 126 00:06:56,920 --> 00:06:59,800 code. So if you use the code Ida C30, 127 00:07:00,160 --> 00:07:03,760 they get you 30% off of your identity week registration. 128 00:07:03,760 --> 00:07:05,840 And that's good for both the America Conference which is 129 00:07:06,640 --> 00:07:10,200 September 11th and 12th in Washington, DC and the Asia 130 00:07:10,200 --> 00:07:12,800 conference which is in Singapore, October 22nd, 23rd. 131 00:07:12,800 --> 00:07:17,320 So Ida C30 type that in you get 30% off and shows support for 132 00:07:17,760 --> 00:07:20,640 shows support for the show. Easy for me to say and I 133 00:07:20,640 --> 00:07:22,520 appreciate that. Same thing for the Authenticate 134 00:07:22,520 --> 00:07:24,360 conference that's coming up. Also, October. 135 00:07:24,360 --> 00:07:26,200 It's going to be a very busy couple months for you. 136 00:07:26,480 --> 00:07:30,880 For you and I, Jim, October 14th through 16 in Carlsbad, CA Love 137 00:07:30,880 --> 00:07:31,920 it. Great spot. 138 00:07:32,360 --> 00:07:37,680 ID AC15, you get 15% off of your Authenticate registration, so we 139 00:07:37,680 --> 00:07:39,840 will be there. We originally were going to 140 00:07:39,840 --> 00:07:41,920 record a session with Andrew Schickier. 141 00:07:41,920 --> 00:07:46,240 He had some travel things pop up over the weekend, so if you saw 142 00:07:46,240 --> 00:07:49,440 his notes on LinkedIn, I was like, oh, oh, that might be a 143 00:07:49,440 --> 00:07:50,960 problem for us. But we're going to have him back 144 00:07:50,960 --> 00:07:53,760 on here in the next couple of weeks and get something out to 145 00:07:53,760 --> 00:07:56,400 kind of talk about the the next authenticate conference in a 146 00:07:56,400 --> 00:07:59,240 little more detail with him. So with that business out of the 147 00:07:59,240 --> 00:08:02,320 way, I think the other thing we want to take today was we got a 148 00:08:02,320 --> 00:08:05,840 really good question from a listener and we're basically 149 00:08:05,840 --> 00:08:09,120 going to take this entire talk. The rest of the time we have to 150 00:08:09,120 --> 00:08:11,640 talk about that one question and maybe get into a little bit more 151 00:08:11,640 --> 00:08:14,800 detail, but try to keep it sort of on rails for us. 152 00:08:16,040 --> 00:08:18,160 So that's where we're at. Anything else you want to get 153 00:08:18,160 --> 00:08:20,000 before we get to our? Question. 154 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:21,520 No. Just thinking of something now 155 00:08:21,520 --> 00:08:24,680 with all the the trouble nightmares moving on. 156 00:08:24,680 --> 00:08:29,000 Just, you know, 4th, 3rd wall or third wall or 4th wall. 157 00:08:29,120 --> 00:08:32,600 Anyway, 4th wall hurricane moving through the southeast as 158 00:08:32,600 --> 00:08:35,080 we speak. Right now it's getting very 159 00:08:35,080 --> 00:08:38,520 close to Augusta, GA, which is right there. 160 00:08:39,720 --> 00:08:44,520 HomeAway frame. It's where I live now, so we're 161 00:08:44,520 --> 00:08:46,560 right on. The edge, like I looked at the 162 00:08:46,560 --> 00:08:51,960 path today and it's like you're just outside of it and I'm just 163 00:08:51,960 --> 00:08:54,720 outside of a Nashville. We're kind of like 2 hours apart 164 00:08:54,920 --> 00:08:58,040 from that same size. Depending on the trajectory, we 165 00:08:58,040 --> 00:09:00,760 could either totally miss it, totally get hit, or somewhere in 166 00:09:00,760 --> 00:09:03,000 between. Yeah, and I've been lucky for 167 00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:05,880 the past few years here. I haven't gotten hit by one, but 168 00:09:07,200 --> 00:09:09,840 yeah, but the I haven't been watching it all day. 169 00:09:10,040 --> 00:09:14,280 It's been one of these things. But I, yeah, I think at one 170 00:09:14,280 --> 00:09:17,200 point it was like we're in the dead on center path. 171 00:09:18,160 --> 00:09:21,480 Yeah, Well, hopefully we'll see. I mean, I'm flying out to New 172 00:09:21,480 --> 00:09:24,360 York tomorrow night. And so this is, let's see what's 173 00:09:24,360 --> 00:09:28,360 what's today. Today is Monday the 5th and so 174 00:09:28,360 --> 00:09:31,120 I'm flying out Tuesday the 6th. To where am I going? 175 00:09:31,120 --> 00:09:33,840 Minneapolis. And so as long as my flight 176 00:09:33,840 --> 00:09:35,560 leaves on time, I don't care at that point. 177 00:09:36,040 --> 00:09:39,040 Then you're happy and then I'm happy to get there first thing. 178 00:09:39,400 --> 00:09:41,400 Yep, got to get that for a couple days and then headed to 179 00:09:41,400 --> 00:09:46,640 Dallas for this weekend for some fun personal time with friends 180 00:09:46,640 --> 00:09:50,720 and then, yeah, back to reality Monday or Tuesday next week. 181 00:09:50,720 --> 00:09:52,920 So kind of all over the place this week. 182 00:09:52,920 --> 00:09:54,600 But let's get to our question. How about that? 183 00:09:55,440 --> 00:09:59,800 Yeah. OK, this came from Alfred from 184 00:09:59,800 --> 00:10:01,480 Canada. It didn't specify where, just 185 00:10:01,480 --> 00:10:04,600 Canada. So Canada at large, I'm about to 186 00:10:04,600 --> 00:10:10,080 issue an RFP for an IAM system. What are some tips or tricks to 187 00:10:10,080 --> 00:10:15,040 make sure it goes smoothly? I love and hate this question. 188 00:10:16,920 --> 00:10:18,880 Let me start. First, I'll say I like it 189 00:10:18,880 --> 00:10:22,800 because I think this is an opportunity to maybe help people 190 00:10:22,800 --> 00:10:26,560 out there figure out how to do a good RFP, especially from the 191 00:10:26,560 --> 00:10:29,280 customer side. And I've been on the customer 192 00:10:29,280 --> 00:10:30,240 side, so I kind of know how it works. 193 00:10:30,240 --> 00:10:32,680 Now I'm on typically the respondent side, right, the 194 00:10:32,680 --> 00:10:35,400 vendor side, whether it's implementation or advisory 195 00:10:35,400 --> 00:10:39,400 services or whatever it may be. And so on that side, I am really 196 00:10:39,400 --> 00:10:43,600 not a fan of RFPs because I feel like they are a lot of work for 197 00:10:43,600 --> 00:10:46,920 very minimal value. Because here's the secret. 198 00:10:46,920 --> 00:10:50,000 Every RFP answer you're going to get is going to say yes in some 199 00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:51,920 way, shape or form. Of course it can do that. 200 00:10:53,400 --> 00:10:57,880 And so I feel like it's, I think it's a little bit of an art to 201 00:10:57,880 --> 00:11:00,280 make sure that one you've got appropriately faced questions, 202 00:11:00,280 --> 00:11:04,360 but that you don't get lost in, I don't know in Ministrata when 203 00:11:04,360 --> 00:11:06,240 it comes to RFP. So that's my initial thoughts 204 00:11:06,240 --> 00:11:09,680 when I hear RFP for IM system. What do you think? 205 00:11:10,560 --> 00:11:13,200 Yeah, yeah, my, I think those are great points. 206 00:11:13,480 --> 00:11:19,000 I think my initial thought is, you know, what seat do you have 207 00:11:19,000 --> 00:11:21,360 in the organization? I think if you're the person 208 00:11:21,360 --> 00:11:26,080 who's like the I am practitioner of your organization, you have 209 00:11:26,080 --> 00:11:30,000 to ask the question, how objective or subjective do I 210 00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:32,760 want this to be? You want it to be a very much an 211 00:11:32,760 --> 00:11:36,480 objective exercise where it's like rate certain points and 212 00:11:36,480 --> 00:11:38,520 certain requirements and things like that. 213 00:11:39,040 --> 00:11:43,680 It doesn't give you a whole lot of leeway to, you know, direct 214 00:11:43,880 --> 00:11:48,000 your decision toward a vendor that you're really impressed by. 215 00:11:48,000 --> 00:11:51,560 Or maybe you've gone to the conferences and you really think 216 00:11:51,560 --> 00:11:56,800 that one system or one generator is going to give you a better 217 00:11:57,360 --> 00:12:00,920 end product than another. Or I'm not going to get change 218 00:12:00,920 --> 00:12:02,480 order to death and things like that. 219 00:12:02,480 --> 00:12:06,240 So I, I think that's a, a big key actually put the change 220 00:12:06,240 --> 00:12:08,800 order piece aside because I think it's totally separate 221 00:12:08,800 --> 00:12:11,880 exercise. But you know, me personally, I 222 00:12:11,880 --> 00:12:15,880 like to allow for more subjectivity when it comes to an 223 00:12:15,880 --> 00:12:19,720 RFPI. Think this price aspect is a 224 00:12:19,720 --> 00:12:24,000 very big one because I've seen some RFPs where it's like submit 225 00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:28,600 the price and there's not much specificity in terms of how much 226 00:12:28,600 --> 00:12:32,920 the price influences the decision or it's set to a a 227 00:12:32,920 --> 00:12:35,440 smaller percentage. I've seen it where it's been a 228 00:12:35,440 --> 00:12:39,880 very high percentage of how an RFP response gets created. 229 00:12:39,880 --> 00:12:43,440 And when it's a very high percentage, everyone's motivated 230 00:12:43,440 --> 00:12:45,800 to give you a better price. Sounds great, right? 231 00:12:46,040 --> 00:12:51,480 But I think most respondents, whether they're consultants or 232 00:12:52,360 --> 00:12:56,280 software firms, you know, they're not going to like give 233 00:12:56,280 --> 00:12:59,120 away their services or give away their software, right? 234 00:12:59,120 --> 00:13:05,000 They're they're going to try to wizzle down enough to to extend 235 00:13:05,120 --> 00:13:09,880 a a very good price. So I think that there's a danger 236 00:13:09,880 --> 00:13:12,840 in putting too much weight in the price, especially early on. 237 00:13:15,040 --> 00:13:19,040 So I think you have to ask yourself too is what is what is 238 00:13:19,040 --> 00:13:22,880 it you're looking to get out of this RFP because you know, tips 239 00:13:22,880 --> 00:13:24,280 or tricks to make this run smoothly? 240 00:13:24,720 --> 00:13:26,720 Like why are you doing it? Do you are you doing it because 241 00:13:26,720 --> 00:13:30,000 you have to do it right? Is it some sort of like internal 242 00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:33,800 organizational government step that because this is expected to 243 00:13:33,800 --> 00:13:37,800 be X number of dollars, you must submit to RFP and have X number 244 00:13:37,800 --> 00:13:39,360 of minimum, you know, responses, right? 245 00:13:39,360 --> 00:13:42,040 That sort of thing. You know, government definitely 246 00:13:42,120 --> 00:13:43,880 does it like this pretty much all the time. 247 00:13:43,880 --> 00:13:46,400 But I think you need to understand like, what is the end 248 00:13:46,400 --> 00:13:47,840 goal? Like what are you hoping to get 249 00:13:47,840 --> 00:13:51,440 out of this RFP? Is it find a solution? 250 00:13:51,440 --> 00:13:55,520 Is it determine pricing? Is it you don't know what you're 251 00:13:55,520 --> 00:13:58,440 looking for and you're hoping that somebody out there has a 252 00:13:58,440 --> 00:14:01,760 solution that kind of meets the needs that you've put onto a 253 00:14:01,760 --> 00:14:04,080 piece of paper. So I think the first thing is 254 00:14:04,080 --> 00:14:06,760 make sure you know what you want to get out of the RFP, because 255 00:14:06,760 --> 00:14:09,680 then you can start to figure out what are the questions you want 256 00:14:09,680 --> 00:14:11,120 to ask? What's the questions you don't 257 00:14:11,120 --> 00:14:12,560 want to ask? You don't care about, right? 258 00:14:12,560 --> 00:14:15,080 Don't waste time for things that aren't relevant to your output, 259 00:14:15,520 --> 00:14:17,440 or at least your your intended outcome anyway. 260 00:14:18,800 --> 00:14:22,760 Yeah, You know, I, I also think that if you're very early in the 261 00:14:22,760 --> 00:14:26,160 process and you have the time to do it, you can start with an RO 262 00:14:26,160 --> 00:14:30,080 5 request for information and then come to some kind of come 263 00:14:30,080 --> 00:14:33,080 forward and start to understand your requirements a little bit 264 00:14:33,080 --> 00:14:36,840 better, tell you about their software and our services and 265 00:14:36,840 --> 00:14:39,080 you can start to get a feel for the landscape. 266 00:14:39,400 --> 00:14:45,080 Now, I think if you're a company that does not have to go through 267 00:14:45,080 --> 00:14:49,680 a formal RFP process and RFI might be preferable where you go 268 00:14:49,680 --> 00:14:53,240 out and you use it as a tool to gather information. 269 00:14:53,600 --> 00:14:58,920 The RFP then gives you kind of a structured process for selecting 270 00:14:58,920 --> 00:15:02,720 a final and a final bidder, if you will. 271 00:15:03,600 --> 00:15:06,200 And that's the pair where I usually see the hang up where 272 00:15:06,600 --> 00:15:12,640 it's like, you know, if you're not setting up your RFP in a in 273 00:15:12,680 --> 00:15:18,200 a strategic way and getting pricing set in, in central or 274 00:15:18,560 --> 00:15:22,320 using pricing in such a way that it doesn't become on something 275 00:15:22,320 --> 00:15:27,080 where it's like, OK, we're going to kind of narrowly meet your 276 00:15:27,080 --> 00:15:30,520 requirements, but very narrowly just so we can get the lowest 277 00:15:30,520 --> 00:15:32,520 price so that we make the finalist list. 278 00:15:33,760 --> 00:15:35,840 I think you bring a good point there, like not everything has 279 00:15:35,840 --> 00:15:38,040 to be an RFP. Maybe you are more interested in 280 00:15:38,040 --> 00:15:41,080 an RFI because you do want that information or an RFQ request 281 00:15:41,080 --> 00:15:43,120 for quote. You just want pricing 282 00:15:43,120 --> 00:15:44,720 information based on certain information. 283 00:15:45,960 --> 00:15:48,240 You know, if I think there are options here, but I think the 284 00:15:48,240 --> 00:15:50,760 first question to ask yourself is what do you want to get out 285 00:15:50,760 --> 00:15:55,240 of this and make sure you tailor the RFX. 286 00:15:56,240 --> 00:16:01,320 You know, I QP, whatever are the letters there are to make sure 287 00:16:01,320 --> 00:16:03,760 that you're using the appropriate vehicle to get that 288 00:16:03,760 --> 00:16:07,600 information. So, OK, so now we've kind of 289 00:16:07,600 --> 00:16:09,120 figured out, OK, what are we trying to get out of? 290 00:16:09,400 --> 00:16:12,600 It what are? You know, for an IM system, 291 00:16:12,640 --> 00:16:16,440 there's probably some technical requirements, but it's probably 292 00:16:16,440 --> 00:16:18,760 more focused on business requirements is what I'm 293 00:16:18,760 --> 00:16:20,800 thinking. Or functional requirements. 294 00:16:20,800 --> 00:16:24,240 Meaning I'm looking for a system that can do this right. 295 00:16:24,240 --> 00:16:28,840 I want to onboard an identity from, I don't know, work day 296 00:16:29,200 --> 00:16:34,200 into my Active Directory or into my SAP or, you know, name 297 00:16:34,200 --> 00:16:38,680 whatever applications is that. Does that ring a bell or does 298 00:16:38,680 --> 00:16:41,160 that resonate with you all? Because they feel like most RPS 299 00:16:41,160 --> 00:16:44,280 are really kind of focused on sort of the requirements aspect 300 00:16:44,280 --> 00:16:45,720 of things. Right. 301 00:16:45,760 --> 00:16:47,720 They're definitely, it definitely seems like 302 00:16:48,480 --> 00:16:52,640 requirements of the driver and kind of the waiting for most R 303 00:16:52,640 --> 00:16:57,040 PS I think a good process for gathering, documenting these 304 00:16:57,040 --> 00:17:01,480 requirements is, you know, the the activity of going through 305 00:17:01,480 --> 00:17:04,440 developing a strategy. So if you have a strategy and 306 00:17:04,440 --> 00:17:08,359 say for I am, we're talking about a single sign on system, 307 00:17:08,640 --> 00:17:13,040 it could be a customer sign on system, it could be an employee, 308 00:17:13,240 --> 00:17:17,480 it could be your IGA system or privilege access management, or 309 00:17:17,480 --> 00:17:19,720 maybe you're getting into identity proofing. 310 00:17:19,720 --> 00:17:22,680 But it's some area. You have to actually understand 311 00:17:22,680 --> 00:17:25,319 the area before you can put together a good set of 312 00:17:25,319 --> 00:17:28,319 requirements. And so I think that's where 313 00:17:28,319 --> 00:17:32,680 maybe that RFI really can help because you don't know what's 314 00:17:32,680 --> 00:17:34,440 out there. You don't know what are the 315 00:17:34,440 --> 00:17:37,440 standard set of requirements. Obviously if you start putting 316 00:17:37,440 --> 00:17:42,000 the other requirements like the system must be able to levitate 317 00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:44,960 above the ground like no system showing to meet that, so you 318 00:17:44,960 --> 00:17:46,240 have to have. But it's in the cloud. 319 00:17:46,560 --> 00:17:49,720 It levitates. Automatically, yes, potentially 320 00:17:49,720 --> 00:17:53,520 you could get lucky. And I think what you want to do 321 00:17:53,520 --> 00:17:56,400 though is like understand how what's out there in the market 322 00:17:56,400 --> 00:17:59,280 now. Now, I'm not saying you should 323 00:17:59,280 --> 00:18:03,200 build your requirements to steer your RFP one way or the other, 324 00:18:04,240 --> 00:18:08,320 but you have to actually know, like say you're interested in 325 00:18:08,320 --> 00:18:12,560 ITDR, like what are the use cases that are solved by ITDR? 326 00:18:12,840 --> 00:18:16,240 And I think when you go and you research ITDR, you're going to 327 00:18:16,240 --> 00:18:20,360 find that the set of use cases that different vendors provide 328 00:18:21,160 --> 00:18:24,960 can be quite different. I think when you look at access 329 00:18:24,960 --> 00:18:29,200 management for customer identity and access management, you're 330 00:18:29,400 --> 00:18:32,680 going to find that most of these cases are very similar. 331 00:18:34,200 --> 00:18:37,600 Similar but different because there's always some weird 332 00:18:37,600 --> 00:18:40,880 wrinkle that's like, OK, well, we want a customer identity and 333 00:18:40,880 --> 00:18:43,720 access measure platform that does everything ACIM platform 334 00:18:43,720 --> 00:18:45,920 does. And we also want to do this 335 00:18:45,920 --> 00:18:49,720 other really weird custom thing. It could definitely be the 336 00:18:49,720 --> 00:18:53,200 custom thing or it could even be just like what the approach is, 337 00:18:53,480 --> 00:18:55,440 you know? I remember with customer 338 00:18:55,440 --> 00:18:59,840 identity and access management, Austa used to go up gives Alt 0. 339 00:19:00,400 --> 00:19:04,680 Now they're in the same company. But Optus focus was a a tool 340 00:19:04,680 --> 00:19:09,400 focus for I think like the engineering community, you get 341 00:19:09,400 --> 00:19:13,360 into the system and configure it using the UI. 342 00:19:15,440 --> 00:19:18,600 Alt Zero was very much focused on the developer community. 343 00:19:18,600 --> 00:19:21,640 So we give you a lot of code samples and ways to integrate it 344 00:19:21,880 --> 00:19:25,520 with the using AP is. And so you see those two 345 00:19:25,520 --> 00:19:30,840 systems, basic functionality was very similar, but the approach 346 00:19:30,840 --> 00:19:34,360 to integrating and operating those tools is very different 347 00:19:34,600 --> 00:19:37,400 and you may have a comfort level with one over the other. 348 00:19:38,280 --> 00:19:40,000 Yeah, that's true. I think that's again probably 349 00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:42,480 one of the good requirements is, you know, do you need things 350 00:19:42,480 --> 00:19:45,560 like AP is and other sort of dev friendly tools or are you 351 00:19:45,560 --> 00:19:48,200 looking for something that is configurable right 352 00:19:48,200 --> 00:19:52,000 out-of-the-box theoretically and try to stay within that? 353 00:19:53,480 --> 00:19:58,920 You know, sometimes with RFPs, you find that it's just like a 354 00:19:58,920 --> 00:20:01,280 grab bag of every requirement out there. 355 00:20:01,480 --> 00:20:05,640 And I think that's a a very immature way to approach it 356 00:20:05,640 --> 00:20:10,000 because, you know, having every feature, like if you went and 357 00:20:10,320 --> 00:20:14,000 you bought your Tesla and you got every feature engines on 358 00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:16,480 every feature that was available to it, but you didn't even know 359 00:20:16,480 --> 00:20:19,120 that you had those features or how to access them and you 360 00:20:19,120 --> 00:20:21,000 didn't have any reason to use them. 361 00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:24,600 What good would they do? You just be spending money for 362 00:20:24,600 --> 00:20:27,280 something that you didn't need. And I think that. 363 00:20:27,880 --> 00:20:31,480 And sometimes you're a practitioner secretary, I don't 364 00:20:31,480 --> 00:20:34,720 know all of what I need, so I'm going to ask for everything. 365 00:20:35,280 --> 00:20:40,120 And I think that that ought to trigger the thought that, well, 366 00:20:40,120 --> 00:20:43,400 maybe I need to put more thought of research into this rather 367 00:20:43,400 --> 00:20:46,200 than just keep things. And I know we're all dealing 368 00:20:46,200 --> 00:20:48,600 with deadlines and things like that. 369 00:20:48,600 --> 00:20:52,640 But you I guess the the end summary from my perspective is 370 00:20:52,640 --> 00:20:55,400 that you really need to know what you're asking for. 371 00:20:56,080 --> 00:20:58,400 Yeah, that's a really good point, because if you don't know 372 00:20:58,400 --> 00:21:00,520 what you're asking for, you're going to get blinded or 373 00:21:00,520 --> 00:21:04,680 distracted by something shiny or something that is really not, 374 00:21:05,080 --> 00:21:07,600 you know, something that you even care about from a from a 375 00:21:07,600 --> 00:21:10,480 capability standpoint. I think like I, I've been on 376 00:21:10,480 --> 00:21:13,640 this soapbox about AI for the last couple years and I'm I'm on 377 00:21:13,640 --> 00:21:15,480 record, right? I love AI, think it's awesome. 378 00:21:16,040 --> 00:21:17,960 But there's a lot of companies that get distracted like, oh, we 379 00:21:17,960 --> 00:21:20,160 can do AI this and that. They're still like haven't 380 00:21:20,160 --> 00:21:23,480 gotten the basics down. You really can't do some things 381 00:21:23,480 --> 00:21:25,560 until you do the basics well. And this is an area where you 382 00:21:25,560 --> 00:21:28,480 want to be very careful you don't get distracted, especially 383 00:21:28,800 --> 00:21:32,480 for an area or a subject matter that you're not really an 384 00:21:32,480 --> 00:21:35,120 expert. If you haven't taken the time to 385 00:21:35,120 --> 00:21:38,600 build up expertise, I would say go find someone who is to help 386 00:21:38,600 --> 00:21:41,240 you with that. Because I said at the very 387 00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:45,040 beginning, every vendor is going to say yes, we can do that and 388 00:21:45,040 --> 00:21:47,200 then twist the answer. So it makes it makes it sound 389 00:21:47,200 --> 00:21:50,240 like they're yes meets meets your need. 390 00:21:50,600 --> 00:21:52,800 And so you want to really be able to understand the nuances 391 00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:55,360 between OK, does that make sense? 392 00:21:55,360 --> 00:21:58,120 Or did they, you know, did it twist it around into a 393 00:21:58,120 --> 00:22:00,680 convoluted answer, right or, or something on those lines. 394 00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:03,720 So I would definitely recommend at least know something about 395 00:22:03,720 --> 00:22:05,080 your subject. If you don't know about it, go 396 00:22:05,080 --> 00:22:08,400 find someone who does, right, whether it's some internal or 397 00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:10,720 read a book or watch a video or hire a consultant, right, that 398 00:22:10,720 --> 00:22:13,360 knows that kind of area. I think that would pay off in 399 00:22:13,360 --> 00:22:15,360 the long run. Yeah. 400 00:22:15,360 --> 00:22:18,760 You know, I as you've been having this conversation, I've 401 00:22:18,760 --> 00:22:22,320 also thought about the positive aspect in RFP. 402 00:22:22,320 --> 00:22:26,640 So I generally don't like RFPs. I kind of tend towards what you 403 00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:30,040 said earlier, but I just put on the cap of trying to be 404 00:22:30,040 --> 00:22:33,600 positive. You know, one thing that we've 405 00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:37,240 seen over time is that people want to take the top leaders in 406 00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:40,760 the Magic Quadrant and picking on the Magic Quadrant because so 407 00:22:40,760 --> 00:22:44,520 many people rely on it. But they say that that the space 408 00:22:44,520 --> 00:22:48,720 is just the, the leaders. I think by putting an RFP out, 409 00:22:49,240 --> 00:22:53,560 you may get a response that surprises you from a vendor that 410 00:22:53,560 --> 00:22:56,840 maybe you're not familiar with or maybe a service provider that 411 00:22:56,840 --> 00:23:00,480 you haven't done business with in the past comes along and just 412 00:23:00,480 --> 00:23:04,240 like, wow, they actually pack their stuff together and they 413 00:23:04,240 --> 00:23:06,840 have a solution that's a better fit and they understand my 414 00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:12,600 industry better than maybe the incumbents or the leaders in the 415 00:23:12,600 --> 00:23:16,000 space. And I think one thing that I'm 416 00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:18,720 not saying it's the case now, but I think it's traditionally 417 00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:23,760 happened over time in this space is that sometimes the the 418 00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:27,560 leaders, they get, I don't know if lazy's the right word, that 419 00:23:27,560 --> 00:23:31,880 sounds very negative, but they get so big that they don't 420 00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:35,480 innovate as fast any of these up and comers that are innovating 421 00:23:35,480 --> 00:23:39,120 like crazy. And I mean, you've seen it with 422 00:23:39,120 --> 00:23:42,480 some of our sponsors spotlight episodes where some of these up 423 00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:45,360 and coming vendors are coming out with features that nobody 424 00:23:45,360 --> 00:23:47,480 else has. And I'm thinking of, you know, 425 00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:51,040 little security with that feature around, you know, you 426 00:23:51,040 --> 00:23:55,080 can kind of like point and click on a cloud application to kind 427 00:23:55,080 --> 00:24:00,880 of train its AI on how to than an excess certification. 428 00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:03,360 It's like that's innovative, man. 429 00:24:03,400 --> 00:24:05,040 I haven't seen that anywhere else. 430 00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:09,440 So I think, you know, looking down market sometimes can be a 431 00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:13,320 a, you can be forced to do that by RFPs. 432 00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:16,440 But I also think if you make your RFPs so difficult to 433 00:24:16,440 --> 00:24:21,000 respond to, it's going to turn those, those vendors off for 434 00:24:21,120 --> 00:24:24,760 even trying. Yeah, I please if you're if 435 00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:26,960 you're putting an RFP out there, make it reasonable. 436 00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:30,200 And there's people who spend a lot of time on these, I feel 437 00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:34,840 like I do one to two of these per month it seems like and a 438 00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:37,360 lot of them ask similar same questions. 439 00:24:37,360 --> 00:24:38,600 So that's, you know, kind of whatever. 440 00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:43,400 But that idea that you mentioned about down market I think is a 441 00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:46,560 really interesting one because there are a lot of good products 442 00:24:46,680 --> 00:24:50,760 that are not yet Gartner Magic Quadrant, right. 443 00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:52,920 They just started out, of course, they're not up in the 444 00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:54,440 upper right yet because they don't have any market share, 445 00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:55,960 they don't have customers, you know, etcetera. 446 00:24:56,560 --> 00:24:58,520 So there's some really good products there. 447 00:24:58,520 --> 00:25:00,280 They're also hungry for customers. 448 00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:04,440 So you may get better pricing or better terms on a contract or 449 00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:07,120 maybe even influence the direction of the product to, you 450 00:25:07,120 --> 00:25:09,560 know, to some degree. So it's definitely worth, you 451 00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:11,840 know, really kind of shaking the bushes a little bit and seeing 452 00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:14,080 what's out there before you just say, OK, well, we know it's 453 00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:16,960 going to be, you know, this solution or this is the type of 454 00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:20,040 IM system we're looking for and we know about the big two or big 455 00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:23,400 three in the industry. We'll just send it to them and 456 00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:25,360 you know, you end up with just those. 457 00:25:25,360 --> 00:25:27,720 And that's how it kind of self feeds stuff, right? 458 00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:30,480 They keep getting bigger and bigger and it's becomes harder 459 00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:33,240 for the smaller, more innovative companies to do it on their own. 460 00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:36,000 And then eventually they get bought out by somebody and 461 00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:37,480 become part of the Borg as a bigger company. 462 00:25:38,320 --> 00:25:43,280 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, another thing I would 463 00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:46,600 recommend doing in like some, like the biggest thing, the 464 00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:51,680 obvious is combining software and services into a single RFP. 465 00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:56,120 And the reason I think to do that is it's a time saver. 466 00:25:56,240 --> 00:25:58,880 I don't think you'd want to go out and select technology and 467 00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:03,760 then say, oh, how are we going to implement this now and have 468 00:26:03,760 --> 00:26:07,360 to go either get any other RFP or I mean, if you're, if you 469 00:26:07,360 --> 00:26:09,800 have to do RFPs, I guess that's what you would do. 470 00:26:10,160 --> 00:26:14,760 And or if your plan is to just go to software vendors 471 00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:19,560 resources, I don't generally find that that's the optimal way 472 00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:25,120 to go about implementing, you know, commercial self or 473 00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:31,120 software as a service products. Yeah, there's very few software 474 00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:35,240 vendors that really want to stick around for a, you know, 475 00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:38,440 long term implementation. They might help you out with 476 00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:41,080 like, you know, a first phase or kind of getting up and running, 477 00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:42,600 but that's not their business model. 478 00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:45,880 They don't really want to be in that mode of, OK, we know we're 479 00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:49,200 deploying an IM system, it's going to be a three-year program 480 00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:51,080 and we're expecting to introduce a bunch of different 481 00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:53,880 capabilities. Generally speaking, you know, 482 00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:55,280 the software vendors are not in that. 483 00:26:55,280 --> 00:26:57,760 That's where partners come in, implementation partners, 484 00:26:57,760 --> 00:26:58,960 etcetera. And that's where you definitely 485 00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:01,560 want to make sure that you know you've got the right 486 00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:03,960 implementation partner because they feel like that's one of the 487 00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:06,400 most important decisions you can make is you can have the best 488 00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:09,040 product in the world, but if you have a terrible integration 489 00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:10,800 partner, you're going to have a bad experience with that. 490 00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:14,240 That's then that's it. You can also have a product that 491 00:27:14,240 --> 00:27:16,320 is considered maybe not as capable. 492 00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:18,560 And if you have a really good partner that really understands 493 00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:20,600 the tool and is, you know, innovative in the way they use 494 00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:23,680 it, you can have a great experience better than if you 495 00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:26,440 had bought the quote leader right in the space. 496 00:27:26,840 --> 00:27:28,840 So there's a lot of calculus that kind of comes into this. 497 00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:32,680 Absolutely, yeah. And I, you know, I think this 498 00:27:32,680 --> 00:27:35,040 whole model of like one throat to shake. 499 00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:41,280 I think that there's just as many tiers that get associated 500 00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:46,200 with that idea as there are with we have so many vendors and 501 00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:49,080 things like that. I, I think you made a point 502 00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:54,240 earlier about smaller vendors sometimes going in exceeding 503 00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:58,480 expectations to, it's not just smaller vendors, but just 504 00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:04,200 sometimes it's vendors who you know, get an opportunity to and 505 00:28:04,240 --> 00:28:06,240 associate their name with, with yours. 506 00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:09,680 It doesn't have to be a small company, but just somebody who's 507 00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:14,040 like hungry for your business rather than just handing the 508 00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:17,680 business over to the biggest, biggest name on the block. 509 00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:20,840 Yeah. I mean, I think it's it's 510 00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:22,880 there's there's options out there. 511 00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:24,000 I guess it's probably the best way to. 512 00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:26,520 Put Yeah. The other thing that I find 513 00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:30,680 interesting sometimes in these conversations is, and this tends 514 00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:34,400 to come out more in the implementation side is what is 515 00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:37,840 your experience, you know, deploying this product or 516 00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:39,440 performing this service, whatever. 517 00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:43,000 And I find a lot of companies struggle at least on the, on the 518 00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:45,840 on the on the responder side around way. 519 00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:50,240 OK, well, you know, collectively like, you know, Jim, you and I 520 00:28:50,240 --> 00:28:55,800 have 40 years, 405050 years of experience doing IAM work. 521 00:28:56,360 --> 00:29:00,680 That experience doesn't go away when you and I change companies, 522 00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:02,600 right? We've been through Identity 523 00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:07,720 Protiviti and now we're with RSM, and each of those companies 524 00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:10,760 gained the benefit of our collective years of experience. 525 00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:14,160 So even if you have a company that maybe is a newer maybe 526 00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:17,480 identity for whatever it may be, don't discount the personal 527 00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:20,880 histories of the people who will be involved with the project. 528 00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:23,800 And the people involved with the project should absolutely be 529 00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:27,400 part of the response. You want to know who's there, 530 00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:29,360 you know, are they going to be assigned? 531 00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:31,840 And you never know. A lot of companies will not name 532 00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:34,920 resources because it's very difficult from the company's 533 00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:37,000 perspective to say, well, we don't know if Jeff and Jim are 534 00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:39,800 going to be here next year. They might win the lottery or 535 00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:42,880 the podcast takes off and they get a Netflix special, right, or 536 00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:45,240 something like that. Here's here's hoping, right? 537 00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:49,400 Not going to win, but you definitely want to have a sense 538 00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:51,640 of what are the people that are going to be involved with your 539 00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:52,960 project? Are they experienced? 540 00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:56,160 Don't discount personal experience is just what I'm 541 00:29:56,160 --> 00:29:59,360 saying as part of that. That equation that applies to 542 00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:01,840 vendors as well, because you could have a lot of really smart 543 00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:04,240 people who maybe they did a start up and they're just 544 00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:06,560 getting out the gates. But they spent, you know, 50 545 00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:10,120 years building Watson at IBM and they know AI inside it out, 546 00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:12,720 right? That experience didn't just go 547 00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:14,160 away because they changed companies. 548 00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:17,720 Right. And I think that if you're not 549 00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:22,160 an RFP scenario, you can easily judge that for yourself. 550 00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:28,720 If you if you are putting on an RFP, don't, don't make it so 551 00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:33,640 objective and so tightly worded that you miss out on those kind 552 00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:36,040 of things. I think that's the real key is 553 00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:43,240 like, don't make your RFP so difficult to respond to that you 554 00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:45,200 don't really get the right information. 555 00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:50,240 I think just respond to Jim, but also free to make a selection. 556 00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:53,320 I think what you said there is like T like don't make an RFP 557 00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:56,640 that doesn't allow you to select the vendor you like because of 558 00:30:56,640 --> 00:30:59,400 some scoring criteria that says they're not the best, right? 559 00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:01,960 Or whatever it may be. Yeah, exactly. 560 00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:08,640 So one last note that I had was the other thing is don't ask for 561 00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:12,320 a response. That's going to get you 100 page 562 00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:16,320 response and you're going to get 15 responses and now your 563 00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:21,040 selection team has to review 1500 pages of documents. 564 00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:23,640 So, in other words, don't ask for more than you care to 565 00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:26,640 review. Scope it. 566 00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:29,200 Don't ask questions you don't care about. 567 00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:30,600 Ask the questions you do care about. 568 00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:32,320 Ask For more information if you need it. 569 00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:35,200 You know, I think if, if a company is taking time to 570 00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:37,960 respond to this, chances are that of course they want your 571 00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:40,080 business, right? And they want, they need 572 00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:42,960 information to try and put together the best response as 573 00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:45,400 possible. So, you know, if you're able to 574 00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:47,560 take the time to answer questions, you know, a lot of 575 00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:49,200 companies might have like, OK, we're going to open up our 576 00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:52,080 bridge and we'll do a question and answer censor, you know, 577 00:31:52,080 --> 00:31:55,160 session now. And people can answer questions, 578 00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:56,360 right? Or ask questions or maybe. 579 00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:02,480 But yeah, I mean, you know, I, I don't want to say be easy with 580 00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:06,960 it, but only ask the stuff you care about and try to try to 581 00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:11,400 look for reasons to say, why are we ask this question? 582 00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:14,640 Is this mandatory or is this a nice to have? 583 00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:17,400 Or is this just plain not not relevant at all and let's cut 584 00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:19,520 it? Right, right. 585 00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:23,120 And then try to design your questions that they're all not 586 00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:27,960 all yes or no questions where you have very objective criteria 587 00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:32,120 on, you know, whoever we get the most yeses from, they're going 588 00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:34,440 to win the business. Whoever gives us the lowest 589 00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:36,640 price, they're going to get the business. 590 00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:39,760 Give people ask open-ended questions like we do on this 591 00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:42,640 podcast. You're you're going to probably 592 00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:47,280 learn a lot more and you'll see if people actually give thought 593 00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:51,560 to your questions or if they just when you see the RFP 594 00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:55,200 response database and pulled a bunch of stuff out and pasted it 595 00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:57,240 in it, that's where you get back. 596 00:32:57,600 --> 00:33:01,240 I mean, you did not get the A-Team from that, from that 597 00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:06,600 respondent and look to the one where people put time into 598 00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:09,320 responding. They need, they need or really 599 00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:12,760 care about getting that business and then you'll get a better 600 00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:16,680 product from now, I bet. And just like every other 601 00:33:16,680 --> 00:33:19,920 industry, AI is impacting the RFP business just like anyone 602 00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:23,800 else, you know, it's making it easier to write responses and to 603 00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:26,680 have question banks of, you know, answers that you've 604 00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:28,200 previously used and things like that. 605 00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:32,120 So I the idea of an open-ended question is very is very good to 606 00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:34,120 make sure that you're not just getting a canned response. 607 00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:37,080 Some things will be can't you know, when was your company 608 00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:38,760 formed? How long have you been in 609 00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:40,800 business? Like that story doesn't change. 610 00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:44,760 Think about the questions that really that you want to get more 611 00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:48,320 of a, you know, less canned responses from and ask them in a 612 00:33:48,320 --> 00:33:50,760 way that it is open-ended that they can't use. 613 00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:52,800 OK, well, we use this answer for this one. 614 00:33:53,080 --> 00:33:55,040 Let's copy paste it from there and put it here. 615 00:33:55,040 --> 00:33:56,440 Good enough. All right, good luck. 616 00:33:57,680 --> 00:33:58,440 Agreed. Agreed. 617 00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:00,360 Yeah, great question on the candidate. 618 00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:02,160 Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Alfred. 619 00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:06,400 We spent 20 minutes talking about RFPs, which is generally 620 00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:08,719 20 minutes more than I ever want to talk about RFPs. 621 00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:13,040 So, so Jeff, I do have a question for you about an 622 00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:17,400 upcoming trip for your before we do that, I wanted to mention an 623 00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:21,760 update on my dad or actually it's a it's a really weird thing 624 00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:26,120 that happened yesterday. Say wake up to the text message 625 00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:31,520 from KD that my dad is on the way to the hospital and I left 626 00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:34,679 you a voicemail. So I look check my voicemail. 627 00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:39,080 So a female's voice saying, you know, this is Katie, your dad's 628 00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:43,600 on the way to the hospital. I wasn't able, you know, to get 629 00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:46,639 you or whatever after he get out. 630 00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:51,800 So I call my dad and he's fine. And then I, I text this person 631 00:34:51,800 --> 00:34:53,600 back. I'm like, I just talked to my 632 00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:56,760 dad and he's not I'm sorry I texted you in person. 633 00:34:57,240 --> 00:35:00,920 So I didn't know if it was like some kind of scam, but it was 634 00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:04,320 kind of nice because the heck my dad for like 1/2 hour, they gave 635 00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:09,800 me an update and we talked a lot about cybersecurity and how he 636 00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:13,800 doesn't answer the phone and as he knows the number and stuff 637 00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:16,920 like that say he's coming along. By the way, I figured I'd give 638 00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:19,400 you that update. I don't think he's using a flip 639 00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:24,360 phone anymore. And and I guess thank you to 640 00:35:24,360 --> 00:35:28,920 Katie for getting me to call my dad, but also and I think 641 00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:32,720 through the your heart is there. A spoiled word. 642 00:35:32,720 --> 00:35:35,040 It was actually your dad pretending to be Katie on a 643 00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:37,920 different account. He's gone beyond He's way more 644 00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:40,280 advanced than he's letting on. Yeah, Yeah. 645 00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:44,440 He's using AI, he's Simpson kind of bot to make sure that I call 646 00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:48,120 him on a periodic basis. That's nefarious. 647 00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:50,680 That could be nefarious, but that's interesting. 648 00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:51,880 Well, I'm glad to hear your dad's good. 649 00:35:52,720 --> 00:35:55,200 Yeah, yeah. So what are you, what are you up 650 00:35:55,200 --> 00:35:57,800 to? You're going on a a surprise 651 00:35:57,800 --> 00:36:03,160 50th birthday and party. And I'm wondering, what do you 652 00:36:03,160 --> 00:36:06,880 think of surprise parties? You know, I don't, I don't think 653 00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:08,600 I've ever been a part of one before. 654 00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:09,920 So this is kind of my first time. 655 00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:13,400 Yeah, it is a surprise birthday party. 656 00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:16,400 A bunch of us are flying into Dallas from kind of parts 657 00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:18,720 unknown. This is somebody that I've known 658 00:36:18,720 --> 00:36:24,240 for three, almost 30 years, 25 years, met at Chili's in 659 00:36:24,240 --> 00:36:27,760 Bolingbrook way a long time ago. And we're a crew that has been 660 00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:31,040 very close kind of since them. And so it'd be good to, you 661 00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:33,760 know, see folks that kind of came out of that cell. 662 00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:37,360 You know, my friend Jeff, Jason, Chad, we're all getting 663 00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:38,840 together. My wife is coming with me. 664 00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:41,280 So we actually found someone to come and watch our dogs. 665 00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:44,280 My brother's actually going to fly in, watch the dogs for us 666 00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:48,720 for the weekend, enjoy Asheville and the Tesla, while my wife and 667 00:36:48,720 --> 00:36:51,120 I are in Dallas with our friends kind of hanging out for this 668 00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:55,760 surprise birthday party. It is being coordinated by his 669 00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:59,680 wife, which is I find very cool. And so it's basically like we're 670 00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:03,640 meeting at a hotel to get on a party bus and then drive to 671 00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:06,760 their house and sort of surprise him at their house. 672 00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:10,280 And then we're doing some sort of like escape room thing, I 673 00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:13,920 think afterwards. So by the time this show goes 674 00:37:13,920 --> 00:37:15,760 live, that event will have occurred. 675 00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:18,520 So very much looking forward to it. 676 00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:20,120 It's been a long time since we've kind of gotten the crew 677 00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:23,360 back together. So I don't know what to expect 678 00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:25,920 other than I'm sure he's going to be shocked if the if surprise 679 00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:28,920 holds true because the number of people coming in is like 20 or 680 00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:32,280 25, His parents. And we're flying in from all 681 00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:35,240 over the place, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, 682 00:37:35,240 --> 00:37:36,960 Illinois, and they're in Dallas now. 683 00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:40,960 And so, you know, people taking the time to come out and and do 684 00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:43,640 this I think is very cool. That's really awesome. 685 00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:46,280 So did your wife work at? Is she a chili head too? 686 00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:48,880 No, she did not. We met at a different restaurant 687 00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:51,720 because that's how I roll, moving around restaurants when I 688 00:37:51,720 --> 00:37:55,320 was younger. No, she was not with Chili's, 689 00:37:55,720 --> 00:37:58,960 but the Chili's crew was sort of like my college years. 690 00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:03,160 And so, you know, we live together in a house, you know, 691 00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:06,480 my friends, Jeff and Jason and Chad, we were basically 692 00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:10,760 inseparable for many years. And of course, we got older and, 693 00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:11,880 you know, families and stuff like that. 694 00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:13,880 So it's been a little bit tougher to stay in touch, but 695 00:38:14,640 --> 00:38:16,560 very much kind of the crew getting back together. 696 00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:20,000 And every time, you know, it might be, you know, it could be 697 00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:23,520 five years, 2 years, a year, 30 seconds since I last talked to 698 00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:25,480 one of them. And it's like, you know, it's 699 00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:27,520 what it's like that friendship group that's like you just pick 700 00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:29,880 up right where you left off. Nothing has changed. 701 00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:32,640 Everyone still has the same personalities and kind of 702 00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:34,240 getting together. It's like no time has passed 703 00:38:34,240 --> 00:38:35,360 when we get into a room together. 704 00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:39,880 That sounds so cool, man. I had a great, great trip. 705 00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:41,160 Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. 706 00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:43,960 It's been a while since I had a vacation or like a real 707 00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:47,440 vacation. So it'll be, you know, a day or 708 00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:50,400 so, but we'll. Take a while to go on a real 709 00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:54,280 vacation and you go to Dallas. Well, last year it's not. 710 00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:57,040 The vacation capital of the world. 711 00:38:57,680 --> 00:39:01,560 Well, this is a busy month, so I have that and then let's see the 712 00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:03,480 weekend. So I get back from that on like 713 00:39:03,480 --> 00:39:08,600 a Tuesday, couple days of working, and then I fly to South 714 00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:12,400 Bend, I think it is to go to Michigan for my brother's 715 00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:16,160 bachelor party kind of weekend. So that's another weekend after 716 00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:18,160 that. We'll be like figuring that out. 717 00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:20,760 And then I think I go to New York City the week after that. 718 00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:24,440 And then the actual wedding for my brother is in Chicago at the 719 00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:27,480 end of the month. It's like every weekend this 720 00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:33,200 month I'm basically like busy. Get ready, you'll be watching 721 00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:37,360 all the episodes of Identity Center seem to be just me and 722 00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:39,840 our guest. Don't worry, I wouldn't put you 723 00:39:39,840 --> 00:39:42,480 through just me. It's going to be me and the 724 00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:45,560 guest that we're we're going to be missing out on Jeff for a few 725 00:39:45,600 --> 00:39:47,640 episodes this month. We tried. 726 00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:50,080 That's why I said like it's, it's been a lot of hassle trying 727 00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:52,120 to coordinate schedules and stuff like that for this month. 728 00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:54,960 So yeah, there will probably be a couple of episodes here where 729 00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:58,520 I'm not able to make it, but I will be editing them so I can 730 00:39:58,520 --> 00:40:00,960 make Jim say whatever I want to say to the power of cross 731 00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:03,440 production. As you had done before. 732 00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:06,360 All right, why don't we go ahead and wrap it up there? 733 00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:09,960 Anything else? YouTube. 734 00:40:09,960 --> 00:40:13,360 Go YouTube. Idacpodcast.tv will take you 735 00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:16,560 straight to our YouTube channel. Hit that, like and subscribe 736 00:40:16,560 --> 00:40:18,320 button. We're trying to grow the channel 737 00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:20,960 and yeah, put a lot of effort into that. 738 00:40:21,440 --> 00:40:25,560 See on the web, IDC podcast.com, Twitter X, whatever it's called 739 00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:29,520 at IDC podcasts and yeah, LinkedIn. 740 00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:32,640 Feel free to reach out to us, connect, send us ideas, send us 741 00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:34,920 feedback on our website. You know, something's broken. 742 00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:38,120 Let me know future episodes. What's that? 743 00:40:38,960 --> 00:40:42,440 Be like, be like Alfred. Send us questions for future 744 00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:44,280 episodes. Yeah, yeah. 745 00:40:44,280 --> 00:40:47,280 Send us, you know, whatever maybe you know, whether it's I 746 00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:49,120 am or not, We'll we'll try to find a time to answer it. 747 00:40:50,640 --> 00:40:51,720 All right, let's go leave it there. 748 00:40:52,120 --> 00:40:55,640 Thanks everybody for watching and or listening and we'll talk 749 00:40:55,640 --> 00:41:00,360 with you all in the next one. You've been listening to 750 00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:04,320 Identity at the Center. We hope you've enjoyed the show. 751 00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:08,600 Make sure to like, rate and review, and we'll be back soon. 752 00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:11,160 But in the meantime, hit the website at 753 00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:17,520 identity@thecenter.com. See you next time on Identity at 754 00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:18,400 the Center.