Another Tech Tip Tuesday with Jesse Mulligan at RNZ.
Jesse Mulligan (00:13): RNZ National, it's time for Tech Tuesday, our regular catch up with Daniel Watson from Vertech IT Services. We talk about all sorts of stuff, including answering your questions, and Daniel joins me now. Happy New Year.
Daniel Watson (00:26): Happy New Year to you too, Jesse.
Jesse Mulligan (00:28): Did you manage to unplug for a bit over the summer?
Daniel Watson (00:30): I make a point of doing that and doing anything but IT, just to reset things for the year to come.
Jesse Mulligan (00:38): Mind you, I guess you're a popular at Christmas gatherings. "Daniel, can you a look at this? I can't quite get this to log in okay..."
Daniel Watson (00:43): Uh, no. I'm a managing director now. I'm becoming increasingly useless over time, but I do tell a good story and help keep things in line. I just focus on getting good people to work for me.
Jesse Mulligan (00:56): How about your kids? They're late teenage years, are they following on their dad's footsteps?
Daniel Watson (01:05): Unfortunately, no. Going to have some other kind of transition plan for the business. One of them's doing early childhood education, and he's pretty popular because he's one of, I don't know, 300 students at his uni. And the other is looking at following in her mother's footsteps into psychology. So, yeah. Hey, you're young. Nobody's going to have the same career now that they're going to have for the rest of their life, so it's plenty of time to chop and change.
Jesse Mulligan (01:34): So, you're saying he's early childhood and he's what, is the only bloke out of 300?
Daniel Watson (01:41): Yeah. Yeah.
Jesse Mulligan (01:41): Wow. Amazing.
Daniel Watson (01:41): Yeah.
Jesse Mulligan (01:43): Amazing.
Daniel Watson (01:44): Yeah, it's good odds.
Jesse Mulligan (01:49): So interestingly, you were actually talking about career options for younger people in the area of tech today.
Daniel Watson (01:56): Yeah, I was flicking through an article that I saw on the RNZ website around Christmas time which talked about online streaming as a potential career choice. I remember a few years ago the kids came to me and they were talking about, "Oh, I'd like to be a YouTuber, Dad." And at the time it was probably more about just wanting to be famous, because there is that famous for being famous thing out there.
But at the same time, I've noticed that... Well, I've started watching certain gamer streamers, right? When I get time, I game. And I always thought it was odd that the kids would actually sometimes prefer to watch people gaming, playing the games, than playing the game themselves. And I didn't get it. I didn't.
And then they suggested a couple to me and I started watching this particular streamer, and I was going, "This guy's actually really entertaining," right? This is a very tough game. He's showing me tips and tricks on how to actually be somewhat competent at it, at the same time, being a really good entertaining storyteller, right?
These days, the internet is so massive, right? There is literally a niche for anyone. Culture and fashion, it's no longer a monolith. You will find your people on the internet, which is a pretty important need for people to do that.
So, if you've got a teenager who's quite out there and is willing to get out there and talk to people, or show how to do some kind of craft or focus deep on their hobby; chances are there will be somebody like them, who's interested in what they're producing, right? It can build up. You gain followers. And next thing you know, the kid might have a couple of dozen people that are following their videos on a regular basis, and it tends to snowball. So, I've been finding that quite an interesting idea. And on that article, it did say that most parents don't tend to support that kind of thing, which is...
Jesse Mulligan (04:23): Yeah. I mean, people might be surprised to hear, I'm quite conservative like that. I roll my eyes when I think about careers like streaming and YouTubing and so forth. But that's just my innate closed mindedness, really. The sooner you get used to this world the better. And I guess the nice thing is that kids who might otherwise have been a bit left out. If you're at a school with 300 people and you're into speed Rubik's cubing, you're probably not going to be the most popular person in school for that hobby, but there'll be hundreds or thousands of people around the world who you can connect with and be a hero for online.
Daniel Watson (05:02): That's right. Yeah, yeah. And even if they have a crack at it, and it doesn't come off, right? Because like I said, people will have multiple different careers. It's not the old days. My father, he worked at the same summer shirts and blouses there for 40 odd years. He thought I was insane after moving from my first job after three years. "Do you have another job to go to?" I'm like, "Uh, no. I'm just going to go find out what's there."
But the thing is, even if you give it a crack, right. You get a bit of equipment and have a try at it, guaranteed they're going to be learning skills that will be useful either for themselves and their next job, or starting in a business themselves. It's that principle of failing forward. Even if what you're trying to do doesn't come off, chances are it'll put you in a much better position for your next step.
So just thinking about if you're getting stuck into doing some podcasting, online streaming, or doing producing content for YouTube; you're going to be learning stuff about website design. You're going to be learning marketing fundamentals and the principles. You're going to be learning about social media and how to present things so that they are more attractive. You'll be learning about e-Commerce and merchandising and partnerships and collaborations, right?
All of these things, I use these inside my business now, and it taken me a long graph to figure it out because I started as a network engineer and then I had to learn these business skills after the fact. If I went into business already knowing this stuff, I would it be a lot more successful now than what I am. So, it's really quite a powerful tool for them to sharpen their ax on, right?
Jesse Mulligan (06:51): I mean, arguably the future of small business is to create this business from home for a global or audience. And as you say, doing all the sort of stuff you would if you were starting up a lemonade stand.
Daniel Watson (07:03): Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, not all of it necessarily has to be from... Oh, actually, no. There is a channel that I quite like, which is TA Outdoors, and they do woodcraft in the forest. Like that, I find that fascinating and I'll use that when I go out into the scout troop and doing stuff with the kids there. Loads of ideas, right? So, I'm really keen on people getting into this kind of stuff, because it works. You find people out there.
Jesse Mulligan (07:35): My hesitancy would be, what age do you talk to them about taking their hobby online? Because for me, the value of a hobby is the hobby itself. And then as soon as you start getting other people's comments or opinions or feedback, positive or negative, it becomes something else. It becomes performative, and maybe puts their brain in a different space. That's probably something a 16 or a 17 year old can handle, but maybe not an 11 or a 12 year old.
Daniel Watson (08:07): Yeah. Just like TVs became the babysitters when we were kids, YouTube has become that for young kids today. They have some restrictions on content, which you can download a kiddie version of the YouTube app, but there's nothing really which substitutes to a bit of supervision and having these conversations with kids.
I don't go looking into YouTube comments and that kind of stuff, because frankly, it's probably full of cancer. If you're a performer, if you spend all your time reading the reviews, then you're going to get into a bad head space. And that's as an adult, right? So, you probably want to guide your kids around those kind of concerns, right, and making sure that you're having discussions with them, because it's all part of their development. The more you talk about it, the less of a problem it's going to be, I think.
Jesse Mulligan (09:12): Hey, great thinking and good topic, too. Daniel Watson from Vertech IT Services on alternative careers, and careers in tech. Nice to have you on as always. Have a great week and we'll catch up with you in a couple of Tuesdays.
Daniel Watson (09:26): Cheers, Jesse. You have a great day, mate.