58:36
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, posts, cybersecurity, linkedin, company, ron, comments, game, security, programming, technology, writing, talking, point, spacex, business, garmin, technical, gary vee, trust
SPEAKERS
Ron Craig, Damon Pistulka, Andrew Cross
Damon Pistulka 00:02
All right, everyone. Welcome again today to the exit your way business roundtable with Damon Pistulka. With me today. I’ve got Ron Craig. Ron is a cyber copywriter for cyber security and technology companies. Welcome Ron.
Ron Craig 00:19
Hey, David, thanks for having me here. I think this is a This should be fun and interesting. And it may be a little bit weird. I mean, I have to bring all three.
Damon Pistulka 00:28
So, yes, yes. Well, I gotta say that when when we were talking before this and you go on through your background, it’s got an interesting background, man. It’s gonna be fun to talk about it and talk about some of the things that that you you’ve really done on social media that’s different for people in in in your industry, and and kind of what you’re thinking of the industry now. So cool.
Ron Craig 00:55
Yep. Yep. Thank you. Yeah, it’s been it’s interesting. Yes. But an interesting lengthy lengthy kind of career interesting journey to to this spot and an interesting place I would think compared to you know where I started and kind of where I’m at now yeah
Damon Pistulka 01:16
yeah so this let’s start back in the beginning man so when you when you got out of your what the technical school or college there and you started programming you were doing game programming
Ron Craig 01:28
yeah yeah when I when I first got into computer industry so if I go if I go way back you know it’s no show my age here so I got into doing computers programming, the fun and joy and love all that stuff when I was about I was about eight when I first got into computers in terms of doing some things in you know, in the in the mall, going to Sears, things like that playing with things. And I started doing a lot of a lot of fun things from there. And then yeah, I mean it really continue kinyon from that point forward to getting into programming and programming was my bread and butter my hobby. right up until I was about yesterday. No, yeah. And so yeah, that’s what I that’s what I did for most most of my life. So it was a, you know, programming assembly language. I did a lot of that game programming. So when I made my way up to Ontario, Canada, I was doing some odd jobs when I first got up here because I kind of just up and left without a plan. Typical young guy, go somewhere, see what happens and get up here couldn’t get a job in programming right away, or in tech. So I basically had some odd jobs and finally got one working on a game company Digital Illusions, actually, which is a dice as you know, we used to be fairly well known. It created a lot of Battlefield 1942 things that people people know. So yeah, so that was great and I interesting to it. How you get a job at a game company is your resume you have to write a game so I spent two weeks writing a clone of breakout you know the block smashing game. Yeah, yeah. Get to them and they called me up and said, Hey, come on down to Well, we’ll pay for you to come down to London and you know, we’ll get you hooked up and get your work in here. So that was awesome and I did that for a couple years until they closed half the company on big layoff you know, whenever they were restructuring they were doing but it was still good. Good couple of years at a good time. made a lot of games at about eight eight games, that I actually am credited for that you can actually find me online for for Gameboy Color mostly
Damon Pistulka 03:43
asked what I was for, but it was for Gameboy and the color version.
Ron Craig 03:47
Yep, gameboy color and one on Xbox One and Playstation. Ah, and we did we were doing one game on Gameboy Advance when the old hammer came down, but I didn’t get to finish that but yeah, no, I was a no we won awards, actually. For a few of our games, actually, so we, you know, it was quite a time interesting time, a lot of hard work making games. It’s a lot of work.
Damon Pistulka 04:08
And you know that the whole the whole, I mean, that, to me, it’s a mind blowing concept to bring that whole world into reality. I mean, when you watch some of the games that are coming out now, it’s, it’s amazing that you’re thinking this is all created from nothing. And how the heck do you do that? I mean, it’s just amazing. It absolutely crazy to me.
Ron Craig 04:32
Yeah, I think, you know, yeah, it’s, uh, you know, what I found was tricky, too, with, you know, as the programming side is the technical side, it was, you know, there, you know, we worry about algorithms we worry about, you know, Ai, you know, how things kind of all work together. I always had such admiration for the artistic side of things, and I still do I mean, that somebody can sit there with open up Photoshop or whatever they’re using, and come with it with something where it kind of blows your Mind, you know, in terms of the 3d models, or whether it’s a texture, it doesn’t matter. It’s like, yeah, you know, that’s, that’s a skill and a talent I just don’t have and that’s okay. But I definitely have a lot of admiration for anybody in the creative industry in the art, the arts in general. It’s just to me, it’s just, it’s something there always seems like out of my reach.
Damon Pistulka 05:20
It is to think what it takes to do that stuff. And that’s why I mean, I don’t want to geek out about games, though. You’re talking here, but I saw that you started out doing this and, and man, you’re doing it and it’s not like it’s 100 years ago, but you’re doing it a while ago and and that was before a lot of the advancements now to make it easier to make a game. So I gotta imagine that even making basic games was harder at that point.
Ron Craig 05:47
I have a I have a friend who, back in Seattle who got his job was he’s in quality control for one of the big gaming companies there. And his job is just to break them. He’s been doing it for 10 years and I’m like, how do you get a job breaking video games that he goes talent? I have a talent for it. You know, it’s important you know, it’s all part of the you know, whether you’re in programming, whether you’re doing games, it doesn’t matter. It’s all part of the QA process, you know, the test debate process, and you want to make sure that knows these things are solid back when we were doing Gameboy games you have to imagine to these things were going on on hardware ROMs you know, you burn these things, right. There’s no passion, there’s no fixing this problem down the road, you burn a million of these ROMs you send those out the door, and there’s a major problem. You’ve got a future world. So yeah, you and you know, that’s, you know, and happens today. You know, when something goes wrong, I mean, you know, you can release something that’s kind of maybe 80% of the way there and fix it on a service pack. Didn’t have service packs when you were dealing with ROMs, you had to get it out there and get it solid. And I remember doing some of the testing for the games and, you know, especially when we were because we did Trek and trek was a launch title for Xbox on there when Xbox was brand new. And, you know, when you get picked to do a launch title, like, you know, Microsoft made, you know, their, their requirements and their, you know, how thorough they were. We’re really at the max, you know, they were taking it. So we were testing almost four testers that day, or that day, that two weeks, like we were testing for two weeks, all of us, you know, and like three or four programmers were actually fixing the issues, but we were doing 12 hour shifts, the entire company, everybody, and they were putting in, you know, if you think it 24 hours a day, two full weeks nonstop to make sure that thing was and yeah, it passed and went through first pass at Microsoft. Yeah, they were very Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 08:00
that’s crazy. Cool. I mean, I never even thought about that part. Right. Yeah, cuz you. I mean, the Gameboy things used to come out on the little, whatever the plug in things and junk like that, or whatever it was. I had a couple. He has many of those things. But you’re right. There’s no change in at once. It’s done.
Ron Craig 08:19
No, no, there’s no. Yeah, it’s pretty. Yeah, pretty much impossible at that point. Yeah. Because it’s so it’s so easy nowadays, right? You can Yeah, I shouldn’t say easy, but you have to still do a lot of work. But you can just, you know, put it out. And, you know, maybe catch up later. And I don’t want to say people are doing that. I mean, that’s tough. But, you know, it does happen. And you know, the complexity just like you were saying, you know, where you think that, you know, things were maybe, let’s say easier or harder in the past. You know, I think that’s, you know, it’s relative. You know, we weren’t doing things especially at Digital Illusions. One thing that we did that was actually probably very unique, is we were programming all the Gameboy Color game. In assembly language, low level machine language very directly, we weren’t using C or anything like that we were actually going low level. And that was allowing us to manipulate the hardware at a level that most people were just not capable of doing. You know, we knew every instruction we knew every cycle or every, every, everything that was happening on the hardware, we knew where the raster was, it was drawing the screen. And so we were doing some pretty, pretty awesome things. We came up with a high color technology that allowed us to put on more than 256 56 colors on the screen at one time. That also the company was able to do, because we can manipulate things at that level.
Damon Pistulka 09:40
Yeah, yeah. That’s That’s cool. Pac Man cuz I this when you think about what that was like, now, I think he’s having some internet troubles there. But we got him back. Yeah.
Ron Craig 09:53
Yeah, we’re geeking out here.
Damon Pistulka 09:55
How we can’t run our computers in normal people mode. But, but we got that’s, that’s interesting because it is it is as you saw it that kind of thing somewhat even today I think there’s people that are doing doing work that’s at a more basic level. And I don’t mean basic level I don’t mean they’re using the the fundamental stuff rather than the more advanced to be able to control some things that they can’t by using the the addition say easier, but whatever, I’m not using the right words, but now I understand you understand what I mean. You know what I like about it? So the interesting thing, right, we’ve known each other for a while talk a few times on on LinkedIn, we’re in a couple chat groups together messaging groups together. Good stuff. You’re relatively new to social media.
Ron Craig 10:47
Oh, yeah. I mean, I’m I’m new to a lot of things. You know, it’s I’m new to this, this this hair issue. I mean, it’s it’s, yeah, I only got on social media about I would say about a year and a half ago, I was just doing the day job I was doing it cybersecurity and, and programming and basically all three small company typical and I’ll wear all the hats and I, you know, I think like a lot of people you know, I had a LinkedIn account and it was there I think it had 40 year connections or something like that just you know, people they work with in the past that you know, the typical stigma of LinkedIn in the past where you added people you work with, if you ever went wrong in the first place. So yeah, yeah, so I was at work and you know, one day I you know, I was sitting there I was I was getting burned out at work at one point and so I did this I took some time off and I kind of relaxed and I chilled I kind of really thought about things you know, it kind of reflected on what I was going forward. And I I’m not even sure how I even came into doing a LinkedIn I’m not even sure like what why that flat. You know why? This platform, you know why I know why the time and the time was, you know, I’m coming back I took a I took about six weeks off, recharge, recoup, you know, get get kind of the health back and, and then I thought, but why, you know, why am I getting myself in this state, you know, I’m working nonstop, which I didn’t I still work nonstop. But I didn’t feel like I was doing what I wanted to do. You know, but you know, one thing about me, you know, I’ve always been very, you know, dedicated, and to helping people. Yeah, and that’s why I’m in the security, you know, what I do now and, you know, helping and support and things like that. So I wanted to do that in a bigger way. So, you know, come You know, and enter LinkedIn in the picture. So I started out, you know, with very few connections, very few followers and I started commenting, you know, on posts and getting myself known and being strategic in that in that fashion and not having the courage to really post and I’m sure that’s a common story for a lot of people, you know, You know, who wants to hear what I have to say, you know, I mean, so I did the usual you know, you go in the comments you comment, you know constructively on value as you go people start adding you and, and yeah, then I just, you know, finally, if you don’t drop the hammer one day and decided, you know, I’m gonna rip my own posts, and I wasn’t really writing post in the beginning what I was doing in the beginning was I think we’re still I see a lot of people doing the same thing today is they just, you know, what’s the trending story of the day? Oh, it’s on, you know, CNN. So you paste the link in, add a couple words at the top maybe. And that’s it, you’re not really providing any additional value other than, you know, I mean, you know, other than what your your thoughts are, but you know, it’s not original content. And then I did that for a bit. You know, I was sharing documents and putting a lot of good things out there. And then I realized I was doing well. You know, I was, you know, growing and following growing and connections and you I’m getting a lot more confident. And then I came across because I got on LinkedIn. Kind of interesting. Where were Kirsty Bonner was actually, you know, still on a little following level. Yeah, that’s not the case now. Yeah. And, you know, I was chatting with her one day because I was connected with her and we kept you know, we used to chat back and forth. And then I asked, she asked, you know, I asked her one time I said, you know, you do really well, I like your posts. I like how you write. And so she actually all just like with almost no warning, she said she had time for a call. So it calls me up in the evening, which I guess would have been her middle of the night. Yeah. And just like, went through my profile went through my my posts, and she said, Well, okay, well, here’s some recommendations and actually said, something that has stuck with me today that I still hold, you know, too hard into value today, where she kept asking me like, you know, why are you doing this? Why are you sharing this while you’re doing this? This is all third party. This is Somebody else’s work. She goes, why are you you know, I want to know what Ron Craig expert has to say, I want to know what you think I want to know what you do. She goes, I don’t care what they do if I want to. And she said, This is what she said to me. She goes, if I wanted to read an article on CNN, I’ll go get it myself. I don’t need to be. And so that advice has still stuck with me today. And I still take that to heart on you know, so I owe her a lot in terms of that, that one session with her a year and a half ago, where she and not even no charge. Just let me help you. Yeah. As it was amazing.
Damon Pistulka 15:41
It’s so funny that you said that wrong because I remember that same conversation I had with Michael Connor. Last this time last year, maybe sometime in the fall,
Ron Craig 15:54
too, right.
Damon Pistulka 15:55
It probably was I don’t know when, but it was like, it was like he’s like Why are you Why are you sharing people’s content? You’re just making them famous or something like that. You said you need to be writing your own stuff. And I was the same damn way I was like, man, I write, write, write something Who the hell wants to listen to me? You know? And then you start doing a little bit like you said, and it gets easier and then pretty much the the training wheels come off and you really don’t give a f what anybody thinks after a while and you just say what you think and, and and what you feel really because as as you talk about it, and I see this in your stuff, too, is like, it’s like, Listen, this is this is around a subject or who I am or how I feel about things. And you will develop people that like that. There are people that will connect with that, and that’s what I think she was probably trying to say and yeah, she’s got a bit more following now. I think, point 2 million now or something like that is pretty significant, but That’s, it’s it’s so interesting that you say that because I think that’s the journey for a lot of people.
Ron Craig 17:06
Yeah. Paula, Paula goodmans in here, or just say, hey, just got to start, you know?
Damon Pistulka 17:13
Yeah, yeah. She’s exactly right. You do just have to start it just everything.
Ron Craig 17:19
It’s Yeah, with everything in life. You really just have to jump in, you know, if you know, you can, you know, you can wait for the perfect moment. But as we all know, in business, it does. Woman, you’re never going to start there. Already. We’ve already failed before you
Damon Pistulka 17:35
even get out of the gate. That’s a great, that’s a great, great thing. It’s a great thing to think about. Because there’s, you know, people you see people all the time. Well, it’s not the right time. when is the right time. It’s never gonna be the right time.
Ron Craig 17:51
To come now is the right time basically. Actually, what time that’s
Damon Pistulka 17:55
actually the answer. I gotta remember that next time somebody says that
Ron Craig 18:00
For you, it is a quick question for you, Ron. What’s, uh, what’s on the T shirt? Oh, this is just something a conference who out is called spin Toronto typically you don’t see me wearing? No, you see me wearing shirts and pants by the way. Yeah, man. Pants. Yeah, so yeah, typically, most of the time the shirts that I’m wearing are actually usually SpaceX or NASA because I mean, that’s, that’s my biggest one of my biggest passions is, you know, SpaceX, NASA. I mean, the number of NASA and SpaceX groups actually that, you know, we talk every day with a lot of a lot of scientists in there and so something that’s really dear to me, is So,
Damon Pistulka 18:41
I mean, you look at what SpaceX did. It is absolutely freakin incredible. Yeah, yep. They got to be able to launch a rocket and land that son of a gun. That is, I mean, the physics and the difficulty in that if people haven’t contemplated And what that is, it’s the control explosion, and you’re trying to make, you know, first of all the rocket, but then bringing it back down and setting it and not racking it. It’s it’s just incredible. They are. They have revolutionized space travel MP and I don’t think people make nearly enough of it.
Ron Craig 19:17
I do I make. I say I praise them all the time. And one thing that we have to look at too now we have, you know, we see this on Earth, we’ve done the same thing on earth or where we’ve kind of dumped our garbage everywhere in the world. And space is no different. There’s about 200,000 pieces of shrapnel is the best way of looking at it because this stuff is moving at, you know 18,000 miles an hour, you know, it’s it, they’re their bullets that are flying through space 200,000 are currently being tracked all through orbit. SpaceX has basically gone through and said, you know, we can, you know, we can reduce that we don’t have to keep adding to that anymore. And and plus The technology is just phenomenal, you know, that they’re doing and of course that launch the, you know, the other day where they put the grain silo. So 150 meter hop there, but it was, you know, it’s like, yeah, it’s just amazing. No, I like what, you know, the NASA Administrator said about Elan musk and i think it’s uh, because you know, we mean it’s definitely my I would call my biggest mentor hero. You know, I love the guy and know that he will get it done. It doesn’t matter what the odds are. It doesn’t matter how hard it is. He will dig in he will work yeah, to his fingers fall off to get it done.
Damon Pistulka 20:42
I gotta respect that man. Cuz Oh, and then when you listen to the story behind SpaceX when he put like 100 million in and they blew up the rockets and you get to the end and the last one had to perform otherwise they were done. Yep. Put it on the line like that. You know? And it’s in it’s really cool to see that the way that that’s changed, but I digress. It’s, it’s, it’s very interesting and cool from a technology standpoint as well. So, couple, couple other things here. Now, you, you’ve got a couple things here that you’ve done. So, Gary Vaynerchuk has mentioned you in some comments and and, and so so that wasn’t by chance you sat back and you figured out what you are going to do to get to Gary Vaynerchuk correct.
Ron Craig 21:35
Yeah. That almost makes me sound like a stalker. Damon. I’m a Vayner. stalker. Yeah, no, I mean, it was it was for a reason. I mean, it was, you know, I mean, I really, I really appreciate, you know, the guy I mean, I love I love his message. I love his work ethic. I love what he does. So it wasn’t even a question of Okay, let’s just Stop, oh, look at this guy here. I don’t know, let’s see if I can get him to say hi to me. So it wasn’t a question of that it was, I was showing up every single day, consistently. And not just every when we see what he posts, he posts like eight times a day, you know, I would be normally posts, providing value and making convert, you know, side conversations and every one of his posts because I mean, that’s the thing about engagement, is you can put a comment in two different ways. Or you can put a comment where you basically say, Hey, you know, great job, I agree. 100% but you can also write a comment that encourages additional side conversations or engagement underneath your comments. So I was very, you know, I’ve always had a very good knack of doing that in general. So I would start a lot of conversations in his and you know, so I would have the highest like, comment, you know, for most of his posts, so that that got me noticed by his team. And so what happened at one point, it came up to them having I was like, contest, it was like a challenge or something. And I, I entered the challenge to a point of you know, doing the content side of it. And then they got back to me it was actually one of his, one of his team members, right have said, you know, we see you like everywhere, on Gary’s stuff, we appreciate all the support you have done. So we would like to offer you a free ticket to come see Gary in Edmonton in March. So this article Oh, so that got me in a sir. And then of course, you know, he wrote he replied to a couple of my comments after that as well. They tell me actually him personally actually actually grabbed the phone out of their hand and wrote the comments himself on my posts, which is pretty cool story and, and then what happened is he had alive so I wanted I asked a very, you know, a question that said, you know, how do we make cybersecurity marketable? How do we get people to care? You know, I basically just put that out. I know he doesn’t do cybersecurity, but A deputy was how to get people engaged and interested in following me. He knows that that’s, that’s, he’s one of the best at it. So I posted the question to him. And they liked that question. So when he was out driving in his car, he you know, they basically, you know, I felt like him content is everywhere. They literally just asked him my question in his car, and he answered it while they were driving. Yeah, and they made a post of it. And of course, I get a tag, you know, you know, Gary Vaynerchuk, you know, talking about cyber security, as you know, because of Ron Craig, you know, asked me this, and I thought, wow, okay. I didn’t even know it was coming was just like, yeah. So yeah, so yeah, that was that was great.
Damon Pistulka 24:42
Dude, I still remember it. I remember him sitting in the back of the car and seeing the video and I’m like, that’s just cool as hell or I mean, Ron, God is right.
Ron Craig 24:52
Yeah, no, it’s awesome. I’m grateful. And I mean, I put the work into it. And I still do. I mean, I you know, I don’t ease up. I mean, I still put the work in day in and day out to make sure that I’m providing the value. Not just, you know, to my audience, but you know, to the people that I invite enjoy, you know, like this you guys included? No, I want to make sure that no people are there for me. I’m there for them. I mean, what does Michael Connor say? When when
Damon Pistulka 25:17
it’s when
Andrew Cross 25:19
you know that? You know, Keith for Ozzy, you know, talks about that in his book on connecting and you having aspirational contacts? And, you know, it isn’t? Yeah, I mean, it’s hard work than making contacts, you know, and all those connections, but it’s, it isn’t all about just at the end of the day getting a sale or $1. You know, it’s just getting interest getting something back, you know, but, you know, that that just reminded me of that that’s, if you have then the shirts by you know, to go and actually, you know, call the guy, you know, why not, you know, I’m calling them but young, you know, worked at Ford Motor Company, well, I’m going to call the CEO and you know, they don’t get a lot of calls. It wouldn’t be surprised if you know that That was his whole point was, he was like who’s calling me Okay, I’ll talk to him. Yeah, it’s the courage to take the leap. It’s like we talked about when is a good time to start? When is a good time to reach out? When is a good time to take somebody who might be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company? Now, you know, we’re I’m, I don’t I’m not I’m not overly shy. You know, I will take the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and I’ll go for it. Okay, the guy the CEO Tick Tock the other day, just why not? say he did it either. Because you know what, what’s real about it is that you are interested, you’ve been following them. You didn’t just do it and say I got in touch with Gary Vee when a reason and he entered in what they were talking about and those kind of things and, you know, that came through so that’s one of the reasons he picked up the phone. Yeah. Was that you know, something for him there too. For sure. Yes. As I said, You know, I sent to him right on the you know, when I was on the other comments on on that last When I said that, you know, I, you know, I, I get a really, really annoyed, really pissed off at times. Most days when I see you know, companies people, you know being taken advantage of by scammers and, and criminals, you know taking their money taking their their security taking everything that really gets me pissed off. This is Oh, so I went and I posed the question to him I said, you know, with your influence, and with what you know, and what you can do, how would I do that, and what you can do for cybersecurity and actually get more eyeballs and more people to care about what’s going on. And I think, you know, I’ve done that, you know, I think I’ve been successful to a degree where I’ve gotten a lot of people that follow me and read about security and, and, you know, and I think that, you know, you have to start you have to have the passion, you have to have the care, you have to be in it for the right reasons, which I am and yeah, and I literally just took that leap and I, you know, I said to him, you know, help me What do I do? And you know what? Gary Vaynerchuk he answered it.
Damon Pistulka 28:05
I love that story because, you know, I, I’ve talked about it as well, the whole stalking thing and you know, it Listen, if you want if you want someone, if you want to connect with somebody and really, really do it, your story there is how you do it. You got to show them you’re interested they got they’ll see you over time. And when you talk to people like IRA Bowman or Michael Connor or Paula Goodman or anyone that’s got a significant following. That’s not a following just because of their name like a like Gary or bill Bill Gates or somebody like that, that just gets fallen because their name that’s really worked at it, you know, they’ll all say the same thing. It’s about engaging with people and commenting and, and really what you think one of the things that you said I think as critical to it, too, is asking the question gait or making the engaging comments that, that promote side comments. I’m horrible at it. I’m absolutely horrible at it. And I even when I think about it, I’m horrible at it, but you are good at that I see you because we interact a lot on the same post and you do a lot of that, that that gets you 234 comments beyond it. So that’s, that’s really a gift. And that’s cool. Thank you.
Ron Craig 29:25
Well, you know, it comes down to the the caring what people are saying, you know, when I go on there, I mean, I’m not I’m not I’m not really set out to make a side conversation for my own benefit. Because that’s one thing that you always have to be conscious of, like, if I come on your post for exit your way, and you’re, you know, you’re trying to promote your content, me coming on there and dropping a link to my stuff or, you know, dropping, you know, image, hey, you don’t do this, and hey, look at me, I’m wrong, Craig. And, you know, it’s not about me. You know, it’s about you know, I’m there to support you. So if I’m going to put a comment or a side comment, I’m going to I’m going to try to bring something on value that’s relevant. You know, I don’t I’m not on there for myself because I mean that, that it stands out, you can see it and and unfortunately, we’re seeing a lot of that today we’re seeing more and more of it where people are really, you know, they’re they’re, they’re looking after themselves. You know, it’s very, very one sided. You know, yeah. On your post talking about themselves. A Good Day.
Damon Pistulka 30:24
Yeah. And, and, you know, you say that, and I sit there and I give my opinion on posts, and as soon as I hit the send button, I was like, that’s not what I should do. You know, it sucks. Can I try to try to do it and but, but it is it’s, it’s a gift. It’s a gift and and it’s just, it’s something you really need to be cognizant of. And when you develop the skill, you can really tell Paul is on here and she’s talking about when we talk. Well, I mean, I don’t know anybody that uses words like she does. She As a writer, extraordinaire, man, and it is beyond words, you know, her, her, her writing is so so eloquent and the thought behind it and then the video messaging with it is I literally, it takes me three, four or five times just trying to figure out what the messages but I know for her it’s probably easy. And I sure appreciate your approach to Iran because it does develop those side conversations that really get people thinking about what we’re talking about in a post. And so that that’s, that’s really cool. And you know, considering that you you I mean, I got on LinkedIn in 2005 I mean, it’s been going on forever, right? And you’re you’re lightyears ahead in that in the usage of it and it’s very cool to see you and what you’re doing and the copywriting that that you’re doing for people because now you have people seek you out out to try to try to help them with their, their social media posts and such like that, don’t you?
Ron Craig 32:06
Yeah, yeah. So what did we say when when the stalker becomes stopped? No, it’s, uh, yeah, I have, I think, you know, I have a bit of a, I think I’ve always been, you know, very done very well when it comes to the communication part in technology and insecurity. And, you know, whether that’s by design or by, you know, effort or work or, you know, the fact that I’m comfortable, you know, getting in front of people and talking, is I have a knack for, you know, take something that’s overly technical, and actually having, you know, a lot of people being able to understand what’s going on because, you know, a lot of technical people are, you know, their communication skills aren’t always you know, when you say, you know, dealing with peers, I shouldn’t say they’re bad, they’re not bad at all. acronyms and technology and technical terms that are, that are, you know, very brilliant people. You know, You know, I’m a little smart myself. But you know, it’s, but yeah, there but you know, there I think in a lot of cases we are kind of in a little bit of a bubble where we’re used to communicating and talking to our peers, which are also technical and and of course, you don’t really get that the ability to kind of go outside of that bubble in a lot of cases. And I’ve had the fortune where I’ve worked a lot of places in my life where I’ve had to wear a lot of hats, I’ve had, you know, run a lot of different areas where I had to be the support I had to be I had to help you know, the the lady and have you know, that was at the desk and you know, she’s ready to retire doesn’t really know how to use a computer that well and, and have the patience to sit there and communicate it and learn how to put it into into a way she can understand, let’s say, so I would do that. And I think all I really what I’m doing now is an extension of that of everything that I kind of learned because I always looked at it. That if no one knows what you’re talking about, you must know When we talking, you’re really wasting your time because yeah, you have to be anybody any good. So and and my goal is to make sure that I raise security awareness so that you know, people and employees and businesses and families and parents and you know, children, you know, they’re out there and using technology as safely as they possibly can. But if they don’t understand the message that I’m actually giving them, then I’m just blowing air at that point. And it’s and it’s not helping anybody. I’m not doing what I set out to do. The goal isn’t being met. Now and it’s really interesting to see some of the smartest people in the world you know, who come together in the real masters the real gift that they could do, you know, I’ve had professors like that, that you know, that they can come out and do a lecture on, you know, highly technical or scientific subject and and do it. engage the audience with layman’s terms and they master it so well. That they can talk to anybody about it. That’s a real gift. That’s, you know, I’ve always been like really impressed. I mean, I think Fauci in a way, you know, can come out and talk about that kind of stuff and has that demeanor to do it, like, you know, it makes it understandable and digestible for the layman or anybody else, you know, oh, no, I agree. And that’s, it’s worked out well, for me, because I mean, I’ve been, you know, I, you know, I haven’t had to do a lot of marketing or a lot of, you know, people really have reached out to, to me to say, Can you help us, you know, get our message across, and it always started with wiser, which is 30 good friends, why is your, you know, free security awareness, because, you know, first of all his messages was very well aligned to what I wanted to do. You know, I wanted to spread awareness and give, you know, awareness to everybody. And here’s a guy building a startup company, was doing the exact same thing. So we actually had a lot of compatible energy and goals in the beginning and I became an affiliate of his And then, you know, I managed to get a bunch of people to sign up on that. And then we kind of, you know, we’re talking one day and he said, You know, I think you would be better off kind of just writing, you know, the posts and the content for me, and helping me out that way. So I didn’t even have aspirations of Business at that point. So he actually is the one that really gave me the confidence and helped me, you know, to say, you know, you’re good at this, you’re good at this, you know, the writing and the marketing and the content and the copywriting side of it. And I want to be your collect, not you mine, and it was and so kind of how it went and yeah, I started doing that. And then you know, from there, I mean, I have about eight security companies that I actually write copy for now. Yeah, it’s been fantastic and and they’re all reaching out to me really, for the same kind of reason where I have the ability to I speak the language, but I can also translate the language. There’s been a lot of a lot of interest in that. In that area,
Damon Pistulka 37:01
translating it is is, is really the, the the key there because, you know, and I and I think back to the people I’ve known like Andrew said, you know, there’s there are people that understand how to translate it into terms that their audience understands. And that’s really the, the key to it. And security is one of the things that always has kind of, I don’t want to say bath not baffled me, but it’s really because there’s so many different things to worry about, you know. And as, as in our in our work, we’re working with business owners and in our business owners, and when you look at it, you go, Okay, what am I really worried about? and What don’t I worry about anymore? And what are the new things that I should be worrying about that I didn’t know about? Or you didn’t know about last week or need to know about? And, you know, it’s people like you that can bring it to people like us. Yeah. So it’s So, we thought at least half a chance
Andrew Cross 38:02
that a lot of rats out there.
Damon Pistulka 38:04
Oh, yeah. Yeah, cuz cuz look at these ransomware jokers. You know, I think they give millions of dollars to. I mean, it’s not like it’s not like you’re getting 50 bucks a night, you know, some Starbucks on the corner from somebody from what they do. They’re getting hospitals and colleges and all these other places, and that scares the heck out of me. Yep,
Ron Craig 38:26
yep. It’s, you know, there’s, you know, ransomware and cyber security. I mean, even the CEO of IBM said, you know, a couple years ago, that is the biggest threat of our time. And, you know, a lot of small businesses don’t survive a major attack. I mean, they’re, you know, you know, think if they come to you and ransom your company, and you have small business and they hit you up for 1.5 million. You’re looking at the bank account and going, that’s a problem. And you know, and even with cyber insurance, which isn’t cut and dried to get that and even, you know, if you’re going to even get paid you know the payout from that, you know, That you still have to meet certain, you know, controls and, you know, just like any insurance, right, there’s gonna looking for a way not to pay that out. So, yeah, you have to be careful a lot of companies won’t survive that. And you know, I actually had a post that later, was early this year, late last year, but about the company in the UK that 200 people were at work. They had to shut down the entire plant, because they just could not survive. The Independent. The rats, yeah, 200 people work just like that, because of, you know, they didn’t have the, you know, they didn’t take care of the fundamentals that were that were there. And it’s not easy. I mean, nobody is definitely out there saying that, that this stuff is easy. It isn’t. It absolutely isn’t. But it’s not something that you also want to put to the sideline and react because, you know, we’re gonna you know, security has always been a something that people react. It’s like anything, I think I think it’s human nature on its own. you react at the last second for a lot of things, and then it is too late at that point.
Damon Pistulka 40:08
And we have we have a lot of clients that are in e commerce right? So they’re there and you would think that they would be lining up to make sure that their their cybersecurity policies on insurance are solid and this and it is like, just like, you know, I don’t know, it’s trying to teach somebody that the color black is white almost, to get them to invest anything in cybersecurity coverage. And, and even beyond simple basic security, they just don’t really realize it because it’s never happened, like you said in it, and they would react when it does happen, but when it does happen, and you’re you’re basically hosed. It’s too late.
Ron Craig 40:54
Yep. And then neglecting the user side of it a lot because they’re always focusing on your what kind of tools can I put in place? spending a lot of money. But the thing is, is that you know, what we talked about, you know, when security is, you know, they, you know, we have to close all all the doors, all the holes, we have to have everything protected. They only have to find one way in. Yeah. And you’re gonna find the path of least resistance. So that could be somebody who doesn’t have a lot of experience or or security awareness training. You know, that’s sitting, let’s say in the front office, and they get through, they click a phishing email, you know that their trick they click it and installs the malware and you know, the company’s ransom. And there you go, there’s a another another small business basically out, gone. I’ve never worked. And so, you know, people are not taking care of the both sides Don’t you have to have the obviously the technology, you have to have the tools and you have to have the protection on that end, but you also have to have the people trained. And that’s why again, why I kind of really gravitated towards wiser in the beginning, because right off the get go, I could tell this this guy’s going somewhere. He just has it here. than everybody else. I mean, I’ve used other companies I’ve used you know, before I’ve used all these and it’s just so complex. Yeah, it’s on it’s complex. It’s boring. You know, I get them all sudden, it’s like, it’s fun. They’re like, nerdy. Everybody’s benefit. They’re a little bit maybe don’t know wiser you want a wiser free security? Yeah, it’s get wiser calm. And yeah, he’s a client of mine, a good friend of mine, and he gives away the majority of it for free. Yeah, no coach,
Damon Pistulka 42:32
training on there. And it’s good. I mean, some of the training informative stuff, it’s good stuff. And, you know, it is again, it’s the translation into something that people can understand because you’re right, you’re right. I mean, that the quality of the phishing emails anymore The the the amount of attacks you’re getting, just just when we’re just talking about email, and that’s not even the real the technical stuff that goes on behind the scenes, but you know, it’s When you look at a business and you just say you had 20 employees, and they were all over the age for everything from all over the range for age, education type of jobs are doing so if you got little say you got an HVC company with 20 employees and you’ve got your, your field people out there on their phone devices, you’ve got the people in the office on their computers, and somebody in the warehouse is doing this or that and the owner and the accountants and whoever else, you’re trying to, you’re trying to teach people with such varying levels of technology, awareness and skills in it and the whole thing, even in a small company, it’s it’s super hard. It’s at the best. So these the it’s it’s amazing, honestly, that more people don’t get hacked and do
Ron Craig 43:56
well, you know, there’s a lot we don’t know and that’s where it gets also scary too. Because the A lot of the time that these attacks, you know, these, these criminals could be poking around in your network for six months before they even lay and drop the axe because what happens is they want to make sure that you have no way to recover. So if they can get in, they want to stay in there for a bit, they want to basically poison the backups for the next six months, they want to, especially for something like Garmin, which you sell the Garmin attack, you know, yeah. Yeah, they would have probably been in there for months, setting that whole thing up and putting that all together so that when it came time to, you know, drop the hatchet, you know, when they sit, you know, the ransomware goes out, or whatever, you know, the bot script goes out and says, Let’s ransom the entire network. They’re thinking, well, we’ll just go back, you know, to our backups. Oh, wait, all nine months are completely encrypted. Or wreck we have nothing to go back. We know. They’re basically screwed at that point. And they do they have to pay the ransom from what from what we think at this point. So, you know that I think it was, I think it was a $10 million ransom. And so even somebody like Garmin, as big of a company with you know, you know, billions of dollars of revenue. Yeah. Still fall victim to that. And, you know, and they can absorb the loss. You know, but you know, small businesses can absorb that loss. And, you know, one thing about breaches and hacking is, you know, we always look at it as the crime that keeps on taking, because what happens is the data that they grabbed from these companies, they don’t, they don’t get rid of it. They take a cop, they grab it, they take it out of there. So they actually have all that personal information. Yeah, not to engineer and attack somebody else. So it’s like an exponential. It keeps on going like the Energizer Bunny. You know, it just keeps going. And you don’t really know the final, you know, casualty body count of what’s actually going to happen from these breaches. So you want to make sure that you know, we really get our the grips on these things, and get people trained And, you know, get budgets to where they need to be, you know, for you know, I mean, every CEO out there if they’re watching this and seen it, I mean, think about it, you know, can you can you afford and your small business today? If somebody came on there, and you had no backups and no way to recover, do you have $2 million in the bank? Yeah, if you get data back, plus whatever lawsuits or whatever is gonna happen from your client data that you lost that you failed to protect? Because it’s cascading. Right. So you want to make sure that we definitely get on top of this for sure.
Damon Pistulka 46:32
Yeah. Well, that’s great. That’s a great thing to think about, you know, on a smaller level, we even had a client a couple years ago that had someone was in it must have been through phishing or something. Someone got into the CEOs email and had been listening for a very long time and, and watching their wire transfers going back and forth offshore wire transfers for product and intercepted Email had them change the account where a wire transfer was going and and they they initiated the wire transfer but they somehow stopped it before it got to the other end but it was that close because there was something that didn’t feel right in the way the email was written and then they they messaged the supplier and the supplier said no we didn’t change it and they stopped it or something was super close but as you know they just like you said it just sits in the background and and listens and listens and listens or even on a personal level now to what you know what actually my wife had it happen to her as someone I don’t know if it’s fishing or what it was but they were doing small transactions out of her account and she didn’t realize it and then all sudden they hit it with a big one. And it’ll it’s it’s just the the different tactics all the way into the the garment thing which is it to me that’s it they can hit Garmin, hey.
Ron Craig 47:56
Yeah, now they’re they’re also one of the best out there or best of the worst around with it. Word is but evil core. I mean, they’re, you know, they’re they’re kind of the elite, you know, organized crime for the hacking, you know, so yeah, they weren’t hit by the but you know, Twitter the Twitter was just a, you know a, let’s say script kitty if you want to use the old term, they’re just a bunch of couple guys or a few guys that were just really good at making connections and getting in there and getting building trust. I mean, that’s the whole thing. It’s kind of coming back to the social media and the selling and the and the clients and the business you know, people buy from those they trust. Yeah. And you know, and and, you know, the the fine line between like marketing and scamming, there really is a line there, there’s a fine line between it’s the exact same, you know, strategies that are used, you know, you you go through, you have to build trust, you have to, and if you if somebody implicitly trust you, and you connect to somebody else that’s connected to them. You there’s, there’s a level of trust there that you don’t necessarily see. And we see that even when you’re connecting the dots on LinkedIn, right if you’re going to connect to somebody reaches out to you to connect, you say oh Dave Okay, they’re connected today when they’re probably okay. But you may have may have missed that and connected to the scammer, right but because I see them connected to you, I am more likely to click Accept on them right so it’s the same idea so it all comes down to is to that trust level and that trust factor.
Damon Pistulka 49:24
Yeah. And when I see all a Bitcoin and forex people that you’re connected to, I connect to them right away.
Ron Craig 49:35
300 I think I had 312 as of today that I haven’t dealt with that came in just this week alone. Me
Damon Pistulka 49:45
Love You and I love hearing you talk about it too, because ron ron loves it and then the wonderful messages you get. So I mean, that’s a whole nother topic that we could go on but, but it is, but it is. It is frustrating I’m sure for you and and entertaining it for everyone else at the same time. So, you know,
Ron Craig 50:07
I live to serve was looking at
Damon Pistulka 50:10
- And but it is interesting though when you talk about when you look at social media or in LinkedIn, especially in the amount of business that that is done because the relationships are built like you talked while ago with the Gary Vee example and building the trust and engaging in that side of things and getting to know people through their, their interactions, what you can really do with it.
Ron Craig 50:38
Yep, it. Yeah, I mean, everything comes down to trust, and you have to build that trust relationship. And, you know, there’s unfortunate there’s people out there that are building these relationships to be used for evil. And, you know, and they’re using the same strategies that that were out there using for good and you know, and it’s like, it’s it’s a matter of, I guess, perspective, you know, you know, I think a question came up You know, a month ago, I remember somebody asking me about like, why duh, why does scammers Why did criminals do what they do? Like I don’t understand it. And the only really explanation I had to them was, I don’t think we can understand it. You know, I don’t think that we’re, we have the capability to even understand why because I don’t I can never even consider doing something that would hurt somebody or be malicious or or take advantage of somebody I don’t have. So I can’t understand it. I can’t really give you a good answer. We just know that there’s, you know, obviously, they’re hurt, they’re hurting or there’s something wrong with them. I don’t know. But, you know, they’re, they’re doing these things. And, you know, we never understand or never know, even what they’re going through when we you know, I think we’re living in a dream world to a point where we think that even maybe they are victims themselves, you know, they may be working, you know, in a country or at a place or an organization where they being forced to do this. Oh, yeah. Right. We don’t know so we can’t so the bat Oh, you What we got to do is we just got to, we have to defend better, we have to defend, you know, whether it’s business, whether it’s security, whether it’s, you know, economics, political, you know, economy doesn’t matter. We just have to be very good at defending. Yeah. Did not let them in. And that’s, you know, to me that’s, that’s the best way to go about what we call Bluetooth.
Damon Pistulka 52:22
Well, just just really, really quick here. So how much do you think the whole COVID thing and the remote work has has increased the the What do you call it the security? What’s that term? There’s one term about the security area of a company or the entry points for a company how much he saw fit it, did it increase it by fivefold tenfold Do you think or how much because
Andrew Cross 52:51
I just see just over abilities is a Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 52:57
the attacker risk
Ron Craig 52:59
if Look at it, there’s risk. And in terms of what’s coming in, I mean, I’ve seen I’ve seen statistics analytics out there that are showing, you know, increases in targeting, you know, people at home and home networks by up to 80% increase in attacks, because, you know, they know that the whole network, the home router, whatever, whatever thing you bought it at Best Buy or whatever it is, it doesn’t, it doesn’t match up, you know, default passwords that you know, so they know, it’s, it’s a much easier target to get into you. And again, it comes back to the whole trust once I get into you, in your home at your network, you know, before it used to be getting access to get a gift card, you know, on a personal level, but now, you know, we can all be jump points. You know, it doesn’t matter whether we’re, you know, a business, a person, a vendor, you know, I mean, these criminals are always looking for jump points. You know, they’re looking for getting into your small business because you are a contractor that’s working on aerospace technology for for these so they know they’re not going to get into let’s say You know, a large aerospace company there, that’s a lot of work the ROI is isn’t there, but if they can get into this small shop who builds the, one of the bolts that goes on the engine, who has access to a portion of the network at the large aerospace company, that again back to trust, they go through that path right and that’s where you know they’re doing a lot of work to to close those holes and make sure that you know, especially in like military type contracts that these that they’re certified Yeah. That they’re they’re watching not because they know of it that is a vector of very often overlooked defector.
Damon Pistulka 54:39
Yeah, that is a great point. It is a great point. And it is it is one of those things that that if you got a small business need to understand that you may not be the target of your customers could be the ultimate target that they’re looking for. That’s, that’s Yeah, it’s crazy. And I’m sure it people are everywhere scratching their heads over and really At night, wondering how the heck they’re going to keep their their data safe when you’ve got, you know, hundreds or thousands of people that are working from home that they don’t know what the heck they’ve got set up there. And yeah, so, Ron, if someone wants to get ahold of you, what’s a good way to do that is to reach out on LinkedIn.
Ron Craig 55:21
While you can go through a one of the many Bitcoin scammers that know me. I’m known everywhere in that industry, apparently. And anybody who calls me dear, I’ve got eight of those today. Yeah. But yeah, LinkedIn is pretty much where I do the majority of everything. So just go to my profile. It’s I think it’s Ron W. Craig is my, you know, slash, whatever LinkedIn URL is slash run your URL and reach out or send me a message, follow Connect. I’m always, you know, always interested in talking to people. If I can help and Uh, you know, even if you need some advice, I mean, you know, I’m always there, I’m always willing to help and, and, you know, somebody’s not sure what to do, they got an issue with, you know, maybe some issues at home technology, how to keep an iPad safe, you know, keep their kids you know, things like that if you know, I have a lot of posts out there people can search you know, I put a lot of guides out there over the last year and a half on how to secure your router. You know how to, you know, things like, you know, Instagram where most kids have a fake one, you know, stuff like that. So just go through, grab some, grab some stuff there. And of course, my my client posts that I do as well that I post, a lot of value there a lot of good information, especially from wiser, they actually have a webinar coming up on Tuesday, that actually is targeting the general audience and going through like a general awareness for like every single person on the planet. So that’s a great one if people want to sign up for that.
Damon Pistulka 56:56
I gotta say your post today with the whale shark. combination with somebody in the mouth that was awesome that was great. Yeah
Ron Craig 57:07
yeah I actually I actually made that gift mice a five hours to me I shouldn’t be allowed to touch I think that does art stuff. I almost broke all my stuff here. I got it done. I’m a farmer next time
Damon Pistulka 57:27
well it was good it was good though I tell you it was good and I enjoy it I enjoy your posts and I’m glad we were able to get you on on and thank you so much and I’m really appreciate what you do because the information that that you and the people you work with share is really awesome. And and thanks for calling in sharing the whole game Gary Vee stalking story which is great. So maybe it’ll inspire some people to go out and do those acids try to meet those aspirational contacts as Andrew said, you know So good stuff. Well,
Ron Craig 58:02
yeah, it’s awesome. And if anybody needs any help with, you know, copywriting ghost writing, technical writing, you know, in the technology cybersecurity industry then you know, look me up, you know, I’m ready, willing and able to help who I can.
Damon Pistulka 58:18
Well, Ron Craig, copywriter for cybersecurity and technology companies in the master of the lip, LinkedIn Bitcoin groups. So have a great day. We’ll see you Thanks.
