How Small Businesses Can Embrace AI Without Losing Their Creative Spark

sandraacham
Jun 16
24 min read

Ever felt overwhelmed by the complexities of IT in your business? In this episode, we’re getting a behind-the-scenes look at what the IT department actually does (and doesn’t do) for small to medium-sized businesses with my guest, Colin Poon Tip.

Listen in as Colin explains how IT can support your business goals, not simply sell you on the latest tech. Forward-thinking business owners incorporate IT into their business strategy to help plan for the future.

As a global IT consultant, Colin helps companies with networking infrastructure. He serves high-profile clients, including a prominent restaurant chain. I know you’ll appreciate his fresh take on IT, his candid view on AI, and an uncommon side of most IT professionals, his love of cooking for creativity.

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Sandra: It's so great to see you here in sunny Barbados. Hello. Thank you. I really wanted to talk to you today because as you know, I am doing this podcast series to help all you viewers out there who are small businesses, and today, because you're so well versed in it and you've had a career global consultant in it.

I wanted to just get a sense from you a few things that a small to medium sized business should consider when it comes to it, because I think when we think about it, it seems so complicated. There's so much to do, it's a bit intimidating. So maybe we can just start off by just talking about what you do specifically, how you got into that line of work, and then, uh, we'll take it from there.

Colin: Okay. My Ikey solutions, so.

I got into the IT computer science field through school and came out and did the, the routine things of working in oil and gas, working in realtime, what they call SCADA systems, which is controlling pipelines and such. Just worked in the system side and ultimately started my own company in about the year 2000.

I think my last consulting job was in software. I worked for one of those companies you might be familiar with, which was Enron,

Sandra: right.

Colin: And

Sandra: Verizon TechOne the

Colin: source of the global crisis. But, um, that was the last company that I worked with as a software developer. Beyond that, uh, I started my company as a systems guy, basically helping companies with their networking and the systems that they use to just operate computer and stuff.

That's over the years. I was asked one time. I wanna say 20 10, 20 12 or so to, to join the company that I was one of the companies that I did work for. So I've set up all their networkings and things like that. They were a restaurant company, so a franchise company that opened restaurants. Maybe I won't talk about the particulars of that, but at the same time they did restaurants, and we still do that today.

They've since been acquired by a, a larger company.

Sandra: Mm-hmm.

Colin: That happened about seven years ago. So now we're part of a conglomerate of companies, which is roughly about 1300 restaurants across Canada and the us. Wow. So the brands that you'd be familiar with, a lot of people would be, especially in Canada, and we're gonna grow a lot too.

So I became their director of it, although I'm not technically employed with them. I'm a consultant.

The world of remote is here and I'm taking advantage of that.

Sandra: Okay. I love that. So this is one thing that I think you just debunked. One thing for me, I think when some people think of it, they think of in-house, they think down in the basement, somewhere behind the scenes, not remote. And so that brings me to a question about it itself.

So. It means different things to different people. So what would you say encompasses it? Some people think it's security, some people think it's network infra infrastructure.

Colin: The problem with it in general, I mean it is confusing to people because they'll have their, just like you, they have their notion of what it is.

And I guess the problem is like it is so much and it encompasses so many things. And from a business standpoint, which was one of my, you know, notes that I was making, just like. You're asking about things like this, what is do you view as, is it in a business related to business?

Sandra: Mm-hmm.

Colin: My answer would be pretty blunt and simple, which is it is everything

Sandra: uhhuh.

Colin: I just challenge people and it's not to be flamboyant or anything. It's just like, tell me what you can do without it, because it is everything you not sure. I'll get off topic here, but it's ironic because business doesn't view it. And the real problem that I've always seen over the years, and I might get off track with your questions, but the notion of it has always been historically that it's a non-revenue generating, uh, department.

Correct. And, and the opposite is actually true. And I say that with the most respect, but it is the one that generates. The revenue for your efficiencies, for your systems, for how things are integrated and all those things that cost significant amounts of money. So the idea that it doesn't contribute to the bottom line is foolish in my eyes.

Sandra: Right. You know, I never thought about that. It's, if we didn't have it in business, I mean, we really wouldn't be able to run anything. I mean, things could take a lot longer. I know this is kind of a, a narrow question, but, but kind of broad as well. A lot of businesses rely on it and they think about things like, this is a dangerous slope when I say this word, but ai, right?

And, and where we're going in that direction. There's so many conflicting things when you hear about it. Do I use it? Do I not use it? Is it gonna be good? Is it gonna be bad? And if you're a small to mid-size business, you don't have the budget to have these big departments who can guide you or recommend.

You often are Googling or looking for experts, consultants to kind of give you some direction. It's very, very confusing. Right. Yeah. And I know we haven't figured it all out, but what's your take?

Colin: So, so I've thought about this a lot in terms of how this could be presented in an on YouTube today scenario.

It's like, listen, AI is incredible. The challenge with AI in general, this is a little doomsday, is that people don't know the end results of AI and the idea that it's self-learning and the idea, because really if you just distill everything, what's happening, and this is kind of apocalyptic doomsday, they're trying to create a another species.

It'll be a machine species. And you could use the analogy very well with the, the Terminator mode.

Sandra: I was just gonna say Terminator. Yeah.

Colin: Everyone will do that. But what you'd also notice is that when you look at Terminator and sort of, 'cause people draw the parallels, is that AI is different than that. And it, it almost comes from like, people that authored the Terminator are more from an industrial age, right?

Sandra: Mm-hmm.

Colin: Because you'll notice that everything's very physical, guns and

Sandra: Yes.

Colin: Strength and power,

Sandra: right?

Colin: Whereas AI is different. It's intelligence and learning. And that is where the separation between the movie concept and what AI would be, because that's where the, when I say they're, not they, but trying to create another species.

Mm-hmm. A machine species, that's what they're doing because, and people will do it. Mm-hmm.

Sandra: And

Colin: there will be things, and you've already seen these prototype of robots that are astonishingly intelligent. So when you think about putting everything humanity knows mm-hmm. In one spot. Being able to access it in milliseconds and creating new answers that the normal human could never do mm-hmm.

Or could do in a thousand years. Mm-hmm. That gets a little scary. Right. But it also, on the positive sides, I would predict cancer will be solved in five years. Or, you know, theoretically just based on solutions, the telemetry of how fast these things can be done mathematically and computationally versus like people doing DNA tests one gene at a time.

I can do these things in milliseconds, right? So the best example now is if you didn't hear about the, um, can't remember the name, the Chinese company. Deep, I think it's called. Okay. Did you hear that one please? I,

Sandra: it's all blending.

Colin: So deep seek. This happened like yesterday, the day before, but what they did, and I'll just paraphrase it, so there's chat, GPT, all these things in basically chap GPT is kind of the, the monolith that people are familiar with, but lots of investment.

People putting stock investments in all of these millions and millions in the plans for it. Billions of investment into what chap GP is gonna do. So this Chinese company, deep think this is where it gets dangerous because we would, who would guess this? They put use chat GPT or whatever models they were using to create a better version, except it did it in months

Sandra: and

Colin: not years.

Sandra: That is so freaky.

Colin: So what happened if you, if you look at your news feeds lately, the F market crashed, right? Because everyone's saying like, why are we paying you X amount for what you're gonna take five years to build when they just surpassed you or came in parody with you in months? And who's to say who doesn't do that?

Right? Right. So it becomes this, it's out in the.

And no one even being able to predict some of these things. And that's, that's the scary part by ai. What the flip side, it's gonna be an amazing thing. Solved.

Sandra: I'm trying to think of some practical ways that a small, medium sized business would use AI right now. And it could be things like customer, like, kind of getting to know your customer, how to communicate to your customer market, your customer sale of everything.

So,

Colin: so what I would speak to, and IRC of technology thank you is basically that. Something comes out, it's shiny and bright. You're gonna hear about it. It's the talking point. There was a cloud, there's ai, this, there was whatever. For the moments. We had a decade of security and all of these talks happen and.

Ultimately, the opportunist will come in with all sorts of little products and say like, Hey, you need this. And then they'll have all the mocking, monikers, ai, it'll be like powered by ai and everyone will be like, we gotta have that. Even in, in the boardrooms that I've sat in literally where I was rolling my eyes listening to the executives talk about, we need to get into ai.

Like careful what you wish for. I know how this goes because from a salesman standpoint, you can go out right now and sell anything you want to people with a little AI monitor. It'll be cool and it'll be this, but the arc of technology goes like this. All of these stuff will happen. All these things.

You'll see amazing things. You'll see all these stupid things, uh, some good, some bad, and it'll settle somewhere. And all technology does that. I'm not saying ai, it's gonna be exactly the same. Mm-hmm. The differe is, we never had one that would learn and that will change because it's always been fairly static and quantifiable.

Cloud is. We're still, in my view, about 75% in the cloud adoption. Okay. Because even though that people are in the cloud, they still don't know what that means. That's right. And they don't know how to use it.

Sandra: That's right.

Colin: And it's the same thing happened when the web came out. Yes. Happened when wireless came out.

Yes. Said, what do we do? That's how I view ai and I caution people to be careful of the snake oil. There's gonna be people selling you a lot of stuff.

Sandra: Oh my God, that's such a good way of saying it. Be careful at the snake oil. Don't be too,

Colin: and, and, and it's because I think part of your questions, it seemed, or this presentation was about trying to advise people of that, and it, it's hard for me because mm-hmm.

Although I see things like that, that doesn't mean I'm right. It's an opinion. But I do have the experience and I lived through it. And when I say I lived through it, I, I see it through the people that I work with still today. I'm a failure at trying to convince them

Sandra: advice. Well, you know, that's what this whole podcast isn't about, providing a solution or saying it's this or that.

It's about perspectives. And that's why yours to me is so interesting because you've been there, you've seen it, you're still learning, you're still seeing things. Mm-hmm. And you're deep in it. I mean, you, you've done a lot and you're seeing, you're in those conversations where you really are at an advantage to be able to form own opinions as well.

And I feel like that's the caution I wanna give some businesses is to not get caught up in the bright, shiny, don't read everything that you see and be like, I'm getting that now I gotta do that. Now I have to stay ahead. And it is a moving target, right? For me personally,

Colin: I don't, you know, think of Warren Buffet and some of these, you know, people that are what you'd view as intelligent or some of the top level of those things.

They say the same things I would say. It's like, if I don't understand it, I don't, I won't invest in it. I won't invest time. They don't invest money. Say, why don't invest in this? Because I don't understand it. And for me, I don't understand ai. I don't wanna pretend I do. And that's the thing about it, is everyone's gonna come to you and say, do.

They only need to be one chapter ahead of you, right? Because, uh, you won't know any different and it's good. In my advice to small business in particular, and this is really about the, um, it being involved in your decisions. I believe that is a strong suit or hand to play. It is very uncommon in small business to have it as part of those decision making.

Like you would say it is evil. What I see all the time is, I don't wanna use my quotes, but they think that Google can solve everything. Mm-hmm. And they think they're smart enough to know something, but they don't understand it. And there's a big difference in knowing that's a Google search and understanding that's like a computer scientist versus you Googling something, thinking you know how to program.

Sandra: There's

Colin: a difference and experience helps all of that stuff. When you go into these meetings, and this is, I see this countless times, and as a matter of fact, I still see it. There's an email in my email right now about how they just told me that they went to a new CR M system in November. It's like, huh?

Would be cool if your director of IT knew that. Oh

Sandra: gosh. So exactly.

Colin: But I don't, and that's how businesses run. That's a millennial thing. The executive leadership teams today are millennials that are born and raised to think that can just figure out. And they make decisions. But the interesting part about that is they don't pull themselves accountable because they don't have to, because Well, who's gonna question them?

Right. And that's why they tend to keep it outta there because that's, they kind of know what you're doing,

Sandra: Uhhuh, okay. Somebody knows what's going on. Yeah.

Colin: Yeah.

Sandra: If you had to think of like just. Practical, two, three tips that you would give? I mean, outside of don't go for the shiny things, you know, stay the course, that sort of thing.

What are some tangible things that you think a business owner can do? Two, three things, or not even things that they could do, but advice that you would give 'em, whether it's,

Colin: so what I, I'd say is that. You have to understand who you are as a business. Mm-hmm. Because there's different levels of aspirations for business.

Some people just want a successful business and that's, I don't know if that's your audience. Some people have the view of taking over the world in time, which is maybe your audience. The IT perspective is different than your perspective. My encouragement for any company is like, make sure that you have strategy and use strategy and tie it.

And make sure your IT is involved so they can strategize with you. That's, yeah, because what they will give you in return is the ability to scale systems of integration points.

Sandra: Mm-hmm.

Colin: All those things that you will need, not now, but maybe later. It's as simple as designing a database. You design a database and you say, well, we'll just put all these things, we'll call them A, B, C.

Yeah. Well. That won't work. Tech guy will know that.

Sandra: Right? Right.

Colin: He gotta use an identity, blah, blah. Very technical, but I see that in the companies I've sat in

Sandra: like,

Colin: how don't you know this? And the excuse I get, this is what I mean by non-technical people making decisions. It's like, well, we didn't know.

It's like somebody knew. I promise you they wanted

Sandra: to maybe be part of the decision making to help

Colin: what database is. Somebody knows and do not listen to the sales person advising you on what you need. Oh. Without getting the whole picture. Meaning your business, your business goals. Mm-hmm. With the system.

Mm-hmm. And the technical goals. Yes. With the integration.

Sandra: Yes. The

Colin: pathways that that will do, yes. The security, whatever it may be. Mm-hmm. They're separate and divergent sort of. In that decision. Yeah,

Sandra: no, that, that's excellent advice right there. I love that.

Colin: That's not very common.

Sandra: It's not. No. You know, it just seems like common sense too, doesn't it?

Doesn't it? It does, but I think we all get caught up. But I think it

Colin: comes from when, you know the point that you were saying how intimidating it is to people, because I feel that every day in my life, I feel people are scared of me. Because what? 'cause

Sandra: I seen people like yourself and especially somebody who's seen a lot, you feel like any question that you have is gonna sound silly, gonna be dumb, get.

Colin: People they prefix their conversation with. Like, I know I sound dumb. This is a dumb

Sandra: question. Just like,

Colin: and I say, I just like, no question's dumb. I don't expect you to know that. Just like, and if you did, I'd try to hire you. Mm-hmm. Because you also come with the stuff I don't know,

Sandra: which is

Colin: all those business things you're doing.

Sandra: Right.

Colin: So you have to think of it. This, this is how I always think, and I actually say it out loud into the business meetings I have says, listen. You're good at that? I'm good at this. Together, we can do something amazing. Oh, separate. We will never do anything. The enemy of great is good, and you'll always be maybe good, but you'll never be great.

Sandra: Voting colon flu tip. That's an excellent quote. It's so true. I mean, it's, it's not mine, but, but it's, it's a great thing to say because in the world that I'm in, which is marketing communications, you know, we, my approach is very integrated as well, right? So you can tell a story, you can market things, you can sell things, you can set up all the systems, but if it's not integrated, it doesn't mean anything.

So I, I really like that

Colin: switch, you know, when I it people giving you the ability to scale and. That also means is what you'll see in companies, especially small, going to medium and such, is you'll see them redo things.

Sandra: Mm-hmm. You know,

Colin: I leave the, my meetings with the companies I work for. And I say, you will redo this, because I know they didn't make that decision without my advice, against my advice.

Mm-hmm. And I said, you will redo this, because I know they're not understanding the real problem that they're about to face. Mm-hmm. Because I can see the downstream systems that they need. They don't see them. They see the bright shining lights saying, Hey look, it. It's got a little red light that shows me when this happened.

It's like that's not the system.

Sandra: Which is a benefit though for them to work with you because you're an outside consultant, even though you feel like family inside and you're there. Mm-hmm. These people that you've engaged with in companies. But that is a benefit of going to a consultant as well, because you're not there to persuade anybody and just there to do a good job.

Yeah. And like, make sure that they're successful. And

Colin: I, and I tell them that, just listen, they have no vested interest in you. Uh, they don't care. You could be a, a company like this, they're gonna sell you this, this company's worth more than you. They will get your priority. People think technology in general is about technology and it's never, so it people, the ones that I would respect, they never look at the tech.

They never look at the tech. So, so you need some new widget.

Sandra: Mm-hmm.

Colin: Just like it's never about the tech, it's about the support. So if I was to, for example. I used to sell, I used to be a partner with the Dell, so I used to be able to resell their computers.

Sandra: Mm-hmm.

Colin: They've gone down the crap, but yeah.

Sandra: Everywhere. Wow. Um,

Colin: being someone that doesn't wanna sell hardware, but I had to as a computer consultant sort of thing, I would sell Dell, but it was simple. Mm-hmm. It was easy for me to do.

Sandra: Mm-hmm.

Colin: And it, it worked, but I didn't. It's gonna be my product today.

Sandra: Yeah. And it

Colin: will change over time, designing into the system about where you go from here to there.

IT people understand that in particular, businesses make those mistakes. In my view, they, they can't see the system side.

Sandra: Yeah. And it's a hard thing to do, I think for even the most educated IT people, because

Colin: Yes,

Sandra: you have to have that vision.

Colin: Mm-hmm. And

Sandra: you also have to be able to think in complex ways, which like I

Colin: the strongest leaders, the best leaders.

Anyone, and even leaders will should tell you this, it's like are the ones that recognize their weaknesses.

Sandra: Oh,

Colin: it's

Sandra: so true.

Colin: Yeah. Yeah. But understand, you don't understand. Don't be offended. I don't understand. You don't understand. I'm not offended. Feel free to tell me I'm wrong. But together we can work coping out.

I'm gonna give you a lot of flack on my side. Mm-hmm. And vice versa. That's a perfect business relationship.

Sandra: It really is.

Colin: I don't think people, I. Like, listen, I work for some billion dollar company. I'd say, did their IT people say the same thing to me? It's like, yeah, they don't really hear what we're saying.

So it's just, and it's

Sandra: weird,

Colin: but I think it's just that inherent thing that you are saying that it's so intimidating to people.

Sandra: It's to not know. Even being an IT professional in IT is a complex, strange thing. It can be because

Colin: absolutely. You're on

Sandra: teams, right? Mm-hmm. And your teams are focused on a specific area of it.

Crossing over, and sometimes they do and, and I would know this from being in corporate and often their direction doesn't really come from. Then, right. It comes from another organization in the company. So it's just, it's just very complicated. Um, which is why I love the fact that you've been seeing this, these things, and you just say it as it is and say what you see, which I think a lot of companies, they're, they're appreciating that about you.

Obviously.

Colin: I like to just abstract myself though, right? Because I don't know, some people think I'm unusual and, and maybe I am in principle, still holds.

In the Google generation, people really think they know everything and uh, it's unfortunate they hate to break it, but they don't.

Sandra: Okay, so here's a question for you. It's my last question. You're in it, you love it, right? There isn't any other industry you'd wanna be in or is there

Colin: Oh, I shouldn't be in it.

Sandra: You shouldn't be in it. Tell me why. I think one, the,

Colin: that works for me. I keep, I say this all the time. I'm not an IT guy, just so you know. This is so

Sandra: crazy to hear you say this.

Colin: Well, I mean, I think he just thinks I'm just being sort of stupid and you know, lucky craving attention, which is possible childhood traumatic, traumatic trauma.

I don't, I've never considered myself that because I don't think I'm very good at it, even though, yeah, people will tell me differently, but you'll never.

Is what weighs on me.

Sandra: I see. Right.

Colin: So for you to say that I'm good at it, I'm better than you. Fair. I accept that. But why would you be better than me? Oh

Sandra: man, that is so interesting.

Colin: Yeah. So I mean, and that's really, you know, we can get back to AI from doing that circle, which I will never know. I don't expect to No, that's why I'm in Barbados.

Sandra: And maybe we don't want to, or do we want to?

Colin: Well,

Sandra: that's a whole nother conversation.

Colin: Sure. I wanna give you the dday scenario, but, um, there,

Sandra: okay. So do you see yourself staying in it for a while? I mean, is is that something that you would still like to have, be involved in that mystery? Well, I mean, or,

Colin: okay, so I mean, if you say it's it, my story is more about what I learned about myself is that it didn't matter what I would've done.

What's the truth about what I like, even though I'm talking to you about very systematic things and stuff. Mm-hmm. What I like and why I'm in Barbados series is I like creating things.

Sandra: Mm. It's

Colin: also why I like cooking. I like creating things.

Sandra: By the way, I heard he's an amazing cook,

Colin: and again, I'll never admit that and I think back about this as a child and.

I was an artist. I used to draw my, my parents pretty much beat it outta me. You gotta get a job with that. And I reluctantly went to drafting school because I could draw and then realized, well, I'm not doing that. I went into computers science, 'cause engineering sounded hard and I wasn't, I'm a terrible student.

So when I heard computer science, I was that kid in the eighties. I carried around in Nintendo 64 and I, and I learned over time, even as I got older. I wasn't playing video games for the game. It was the graphics and how the presentations were done. The creativeness of all that and how it evolved and got tattered at being, you know, magazines looking at the new video games real.

So my concentration in computer science was graphics, actually. Mm. And then, you know, life happens. Mm-hmm. To say, well, I was supposed to go make video games in Vancouver, but I met a lady and that was a problem. Awesome. But I'm glad I never went. But, uh, ultimately started my company after working in industry for a bit, very short.

Sandra: Mm-hmm.

Colin: I knew that I couldn't work for people and I was really good at stuff back then. And I didn't even know if I was good. I was just ambitious, and I just did more than everyone. Hard to, right. Put those things together. It's just like, Hey, I didn't get a raise. Stop getting your senior guy to ask me how to answer his problems if he's gonna get a raise and I'm not.

No way.

Sandra: So, you know, Colin, as we're talking here, we're coming to close. Really what I'm gonna take away from this, it is putting somebody in a box, right? Because it's just one element when it comes to somebody like you, right? It's about being creative. Liking to problem solve, having a mission and something that you can discover where you're creating ideas, you're generating things just naturally.

It's got nothing to do with it. No, really it's just that the area that you fell into that you happen to be really good at. Yes. But honestly that's a great message for business owners because you don't have to departmentalize your talents and skills, right? It's if you can create and problem solve and think of things.

360. There's just so much opportunity.

Colin: Yeah. And if I was to describe myself, I would say I solve problems

Sandra: and that's not, everybody's up for that. There's a lot of people that are not up for that. They want the solution. I'm, come on. How many times have we heard it? Just tell me what to do. Oh, yeah. Tell me how to fix it.

Just give me the solution.

Colin: I hear it every time. I hear all the, the same things. People say things and, and they want this, the simplicity of it. It's like, Hey, I want anything too complicated. It's complicated. Right. It's just like, so,

Sandra: no, I know, and I, I get that because from, from a marketing perspective too, it's complicated to market something without sounding over-engineered autogenerated.

Audiences are so distracted these days. There's so many messages coming at you. Social media is one which I thought was funny when you told me one reason why you came to Barbados is to get away from the noise. Right. And that's why I wanted to have this conversation with you, person to person, because we're all on Zoom.

There's always recordings on Zoom. We're all trying to get a point across. Mm-hmm. But very little do we have these like just. Off the cuff, real genuine conversations with somebody like you. Mm-hmm. And I just thought it'd be really beneficial for my audience to be able to hear that. And so I love that you're sharing what you're about and that the real lesson here is it's not to departmentalize yourself because that will just.

Colin: And you won't find me on social.

Sandra: Yeah, you can look, I tried booking. I did see you, but

Colin: I have things I, I remember when it came out, I, I wanted to own certain things like, because I had my company, I was getting Pie Monkey Facebook, and

Sandra: well just talk about that for one second. It's like when you had your company to the beginning, you wanted to get out there right.

And help people find you.

Colin: Back then I was pretty aggressive and I had all that energy that young people have. Which I wish I had again. So actually part of Barbados strip is to regain some of that passion. I'm gonna write software and that's really my creative outlet to the world. I think it will will half the industry away.

Sandra: I'm blown away already. I mean, I'm just so curious what this is all about. And the reason why too is just knowing now a little bit more about where your brain's at and like how you think about things. I can only imagine. I can't wait.

Colin: Well, I, I keep telling people it's like there's still a 90% chance that I can't do it because it's too hard.

I'm going through the Dunning Kruger. Did

Sandra: you just hear what he said?

Colin: The Dunning Kruger effect. Right now, just like I've been doing this for a few months now, it's exploding in my face because it is getting so much bigger and more complex. I'm not really a tech guy, so there's a lot of work to do.

Sandra: Wow.

Okay. Well, we'll stay tuned. Mm-hmm. And I might wanna call back on you sometime probably, it'd have to be like a remote conversation, but I feel like I'm just hitting this, like, just chipping away a little bit at the end. And there's so much more to hear from you. Oh, God. So, um, maybe we, my notes maybe we can chunk out on different topic and I know the audience would love to hear it.

So if you're up for that call, I love that.

Colin: Yeah, I love talking whenever we. You're gone. Gone. I won't talk to people for a while.

Sandra: It's on this island at Barbados, but if people ask

Colin: me about my passion, I'll talk to your ear out.

Sandra: Wonderful. Well, thank you for taking the time. I really appreciate it. It'll not be the last time.

Colin: We'll see.

Sandra: Okay. Thank you. We're gonna end this now, and I hope you enjoyed this conversation.

Debunking the Myth That IT is a Non-Revenue-Generating Department

Information technology, or IT, is a broad term with different meanings depending on who you ask. For businesses, the bottom line is that IT is everything.

The IT department often gets miscategorized as a non-revenue-generating department, but the opposite is true. IT contributes to your business’s bottom line by generating revenue for your efficiencies, systems, and more. Simply put, your business couldn’t run without IT.

Should Small Businesses Use AI?

Where does AI fit into IT? For small and midsize businesses that don’t have a huge budget for an IT department, AI tools are enticing.

However, Colin warns that the goal of AI creators is to create a new machine species. It’s a scary thought, but there are some benefits of AI. For example, Colin suggests that AI could solve cancer in a few years.

The most dangerous thing about AI is that it’s unpredictable, and it’s advancing rapidly. Chinese company Deep Seek just released a so-called better version of ChatGPT that only took them months to create, versus years.

There are several ways that small and mid-sized businesses can use AI to their advantage, but it’s important to avoid shiny object syndrome. Any time a new technology is launched, whether it’s the web, the cloud, or AI, there’s a big boom. Everyone wants to capitalize on it, so you’ll see tons of products that promise to revolutionize your business.

After a while, the frenzy settles, and businesses discover which tools are actually necessary and which ones are fads. This is the arc of technology.

AI may take a slightly different path since it’s an evolving technology that continues to learn, but the core message is the same: be discerning about which tools actually benefit your business and which ones are overhyped. Be careful of the snake oil.

Why You Should Integrate IT Into Your Business Strategy

Do you aspire to simply run a successful business, or are you trying to make a major impact? Either way, it’s important to understand who you are as a business so you can create an effective strategy.

Too many businesses fail to include IT in their strategy, and they regret it later. Your IT leads can strategize with you and put systems in place that will allow you to scale. Even if you don’t need those systems right now, it’s crucial to put them in place for the future.

Your IT person wants to be part of your decision-making, and they’re much better guides to listen to than salespeople, who don’t see the full picture of your business.

IT Isn’t About Tech, It’s About Support

Unlike a salesperson, an IT person’s goal is never to sell you on a new widget. Their goal is to support your business’s operations and growth. They can forecast the systems you’ll need downstream and put them in place so that you don’t have to redo them later.

The strongest business leaders recognize their weaknesses and build relationships with people who can help them fill in the gaps. Don’t let your intimidation of IT dissuade you from partnering with an IT consultant who wants to support your business.

The Link Between IT and Creativity

The IT field and the stereotypes about the people in it can put people in a box. The truth is that IT is more creative than most business owners realize. It’s about problem-solving, pursuing a mission, and creating new ideas.