Colin Demarest, Defense Networks and Cyber Reporter at C4ISRNET joins Tech Transforms to talk about some of his recent articles focused on 5G, aerial networks, and upcoming Capability Sets. Listen in as Carolyn and Mark learn about the ever-evolving field of defense and what emerging technology can do to support the mission.

Episode Table of Contents

• [00:30] Getting to Know Colin Demarest, a Defense Networks and Cyber Reporter
• [08:45] 5G Defense Investigation
• [12:28] Issues of Compatibility in the Defense World
• [17:51] Capability Sets 21 and 23
• [25:25] Another Layer of Defense
• Episode Links and Resources

Episode Links and Resources

• Colin Demarest
• C4ISRNET
• American Ulysses
• His Very Best

Carolyn:

Today we have Colin Demarest, defense networks and cyber reporter at C4ISRNET, a publication focused on providing the latest updates in defense it and cyber defense for the war fighter and the DOD Enterprise. How are you doing Colin?

Colin:

I am well. I'm doing well. Thank you guys for having me all. I'm excited for this conversation.

Mark:

Welcome to Tech Transforms.

Colin:

Yeah, it feels good to be back on a podcast. It's been a minute. So thank you guys.

Mark:

Yeah.

Carolyn:

Well, so before we jumped on, I went to your webpage, which we'll put in our show notes so our listeners can go look at some of your photography.

Well first, how long have you been a journalist, a reporter, a photographer? How long has this been for you?

Colin:

Carolyn:

Close enough.

Colin:

And then photography started in high school as a hobby and I chose it as a minor in college when I went to USC in South Carolina and it just snowballed from there.

Carolyn:

So I flipped through some of your photographs and-

Colin:

The stuff on Instagram is probably better. Just a heads up.

Carolyn:

Oh, okay. So do you always do black and white? Because the stuff on your website is black and white.

Colin:

I used to do that predominantly just because I started with film in 35 millimeter medium format cameras, and then I caved and got rid of my pretentiousness and went into color.

Carolyn:

Well, when I looked through, especially your portraits, I really wanted to climb into the portraits and ask their story.

Colin:

Well, thank you. That means a lot. That's the first time I've heard that, so that's good.

Carolyn:

When you photograph people, do you often interview them too and get their story or?

Colin:

So that's been the nice thing about having that combination of journalism and photography. One, I enjoy both. And two, they pair well.

You basically have an excuse as a reporter or a photographer to just interrogate people at will or take their photo and then just run down the street and never see them again. And that's a really fun part of it.

And most of the time, if I take a photo that I really do enjoy, especially for work and not just out on the weekend shooting, I'll ask them for their name, their age, where they're from, their backstory why they're there? Why are you at this protest? What are your interests? Why are you out walking through Central Park right now? That sort of thing.

So it's a mix of that, but I've also taken plenty of photos from afar with a big lens and never spoken a word to them.

Carolyn:

Creepy.

Mark:

This is interesting.

Colin:

Very creepy.

Mark:

Usually we do this backwards, right? Usually we get to the more personal fun stuff at the end, but this is great. We're starting right in on it.

Carolyn:

Well, I wondered as I looked at the photographs because you also have a lot of industrial and nature mix, which I loved because it made me think about this world that we live in and how technology really is, it's part of our lives.

It's interwoven into everything we do, including our walks through nature to some extent. No, I'm not going to let that happen. I'm not going to let that happen.

So you focus on defense reporting and primarily I feel like is communications, is that fair to say?

Colin:

The way I describe it to my mom is that it's the way one service talks to each other or talks to another service or the military just shares important data that let's X shoot Y, that sort of thing. And that's a good way to describe it to the layman.

Carolyn:

So with your photography and defense, which can be highly sensitive, are you able to do a lot of photography and be able to-

Colin:

Oh no, it's awful.

Carolyn:

Yeah.

Colin:

At my last job in South Carolina, I got to photograph a lot of politics and town stuff and live events and breaking news. But honestly I was more than happy to sacrifice some professional photography to move to the D.C. area, take on this really awesome defense reporting job, and then say, "Hey, I'll go photograph on weekends or when I'm off early one day, I'll just go into town and have at it."

Mark:

Are you od school or new digital technology, when it comes to photography?

Colin:

I'm definitely digital all the way now. I realized film and the dark room and the chemicals and the paper just got way too expensive way-

Mark:

And time consuming.

Colin:

And then way too much time. It's a big difference between throwing in your SD card into your little dongle or whatever your attachment versus developing film, and then having to figure out which ones you like and all that sort of stuff.

Mark:

I took photography classes in college and so this dates me. So you had no option back then. It was all old school. So when you went in the dark room, literally you could go in at the beginning of the weekend and come out at the end of the weekend. And you're like, "Poof. It's all gone." You've got the whole time in there.

Colin:

And for all you know your photos are bad, so there's no telling until you actually do it.

Carolyn:

So do you feel like the technology, the digital side of photography, has made it better or has it taken anything away from your experience?

Colin:

I think it's made it more accessible, certainly. It's great seeing people just grab a camera and start shooting on automatic and the photo will be good. Maybe not artistically, but it'll be in focus and exposed correctly. And that's a great way to get into things.

But I think I personally do appreciate the time spent in the dark room, sucking it up, realizing your photos are bad from that weekend and moving on.

There's something to be said for that learning process, right? When you're really hands on mixing chemicals, standing in the dark, trying to unspool your film and be hoping you don't mess it up or smudge it or scratch it. That hands on part is missing I think.

Mark:

There's a lot of solitary time.

Colin:

There's a lot of moments for reflection when you do analog photography.

Carolyn:

Well, that's just what I was thinking. There's got to be some catharsis involved in that process that you don't get with the digital, because now you're just looking at a screen to edit and curate.

Colin:

I do have to say Photoshop and Lightroom have definitely made me a better photographer. I'm not going to lie about that either.

Carolyn:

So you don't think that's cheating?

Colin:

No. As long as you don't break a certain line on that. Just like I couldn't be a researcher without Google or a reporter without Google. Excuse me.

Carolyn:

Yeah. So if I put twinkly stars around my head and stuff, that's cool with the filter?

Colin:

Yeah. You do you as long as you're happy.

Carolyn:

Never. I'd never do that. All right. Well, let's dive into some of the topics that you've been really focused on lately, and to full transparency here, Mark and I were talking beforehand. We're like, "We don't know what any of this is." So this is going to be great for us.

So some of the things that you've been focusing on include Capability Sets 21 and 23, never heard of that. And the chief digital and artificial intelligence office and 5G capabilities.

5G is where I want to start because to me, 5G is just like, meh, it's the next iteration. Why should I care? And then I read your article, which you can tell your mom that I've read your articles, you can fill-

Colin:

Okay. I will.

Carolyn:

You shame her.

Colin:

I'll send her this podcast right before I pretend to listen to it too.

Carolyn:

Okay. So the article that you wrote in June, it's titled AT&T demonstrates 5G capabilities for US Navy smart warehouse. And you discuss how Naval Base Coronado in California successfully demonstrated its 5G network.

And the more I read, I'm like, "Okay, clearly I'm missing something." So please enlighten me as to why we should care so much about the 5G network?

Colin:

So to your point, 5G was one of the first things I could really wrap my head around when I took this job in February. Because you deal with it every day.

You look at your phone, it's 5G when you're in a big city or something, and it's just there. Generally it's faster and don't have really any problems with

Carolyn:

And it means these God awful towers that are everywhere.

Colin:

Yeah.

Carolyn:

Right.

Colin:

But on the Pentagon side of things, 5G offers that quicker response, or more flexibility and opens the door to more advanced tech with its faster speeds, its lower latency and it can accommodate more and more advanced devices if that makes sense.

So at Naval Base Coronado in California, that AT&T 5G network there, it powered experiments with virtual and augmented reality, HD video surveillance, and they were able to use AI that was extended from the cloud.

There's that big focus on logistics. How can we best or better move things around and make sure it's accurate, get something from the warehouse to a ship or vice versa quickly, accurately?

And having that advantage then translates to something down the road. If you're fighting against an enemy, if quicker and more accurately, you can do something the better.

And they're hoping, by they I mean the Defense Department, they're hoping that's the future for the reality.

Carolyn:

But what's so different about 5G that we have to experiment and test with it? Isn't it just like the next patch Tuesday just happens and now we're using it. Mark's shaking his head, "Oh, Carolyn."

Colin:

Going to say if Mark wants to chime in. But basically I want to be careful with what I'm saying here, but I think the Pentagon is more or less playing catch almost.

We have it in our phones and we use it no problem. And that's the commercial side of it day to day. But there are a lot of considerations on the defense side for security and that sort of thing that have to go into it so they can implement it and use-

Mark:

Incompatibility et cetera. So I look at it this way. Colin, tell me if this is a simplistic way of looking at it. It's like how government agencies or enterprises upgrade technology stacks.

It's like they have old legacy data centers and technologies including the network. And then you add everything new in there and it's like a modernization effort. Does it work? Is it compatible with legacy systems? And things like that.

I think there was the issue to the FAA did not want to, or airlines didn't want them to upgrade. They thought it might take down existing systems that they had in place and stuff like that-

Carolyn:

5G really is that much different for at least defense it's enough different. Does that happen with every iteration?

Colin:

I was going to say to Mark's point, there's a lot in the defense world when it comes to issues of compatibility. You're seeing that a lot.

Something else like cover is joint old domain command and Control. And that's trying to get the Navy to speak to the Air force, to speak to the army without any inhibitions or barriers.

And a lot of the problems there are these older systems that might be out of style or incompatible with one another. And you have to figure out how to get A to connect with B, but A was never meant to connect with B and that sort of thing.

Carolyn:

So hardware problem too.

Colin:

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Carolyn:

Interesting. Okay. So at this point, are they using 5G? And if they are, do you think it's changed the DOD Enterprise? Has it done everything they dreamed it would?

Colin:

So I would say they're still figuring things out and that's where all that $600 million investment where they're investing in all these bases to figure out where do we go from here? How can this best work?

The department launched another initiative, I want to say a couple months ago, that was give us your best solutions. We want to develop this commercial ecosystem where company one can work with company two and give us the best thing that's out there for our soldiers or our sailors or whatever have you.

So I would say that it's still in the experiment experimentation phase and things are certainly not all figured out.

Mark:

And just generally speaking, where do you think we are in the global landscape as it relates to 5G?

Colin:

And it recognizes that the nations or the players that really get a firm grip or master 5G will be afforded these economic and military advantages.

So there's always that concern of, "Oh, what if China gets ahead of us? What if Russia gets ahead of us on this? What does that mean for the US's footing on international stage?"

And I think most prominently, you might have seen that with Huawei and those security considerations that everyone's like, "Whoa, what's going on here?"

I think that's probably the most visible. Or when you talk about this to a layman or someone who's not necessarily an expert or an everyday consumer of this, I think that's one of the ones that really jumps out.

Carolyn:

Well, let's jump to one of your other articles where you talk about the US Army looking to improve its aerial tier network. Is the aerial tier network the same as 5G?

Colin:

So no, I think is the best way to answer that. So the aerial tier network are these things in the air, airborne assets, that can relay signals or information

Carolyn:

Satellites.

Colin:

The Army's experimenting with unmanned systems like small drones.

Carolyn:

Oh.

Colin:

That can basically just pop up above your head and send information to the next valley where if you were in one valley and another team was in another valley, you couldn't directly talk, you pop one of these up and it can send it over the mountains or something and get that information to them when they need it and quickly. Obviously that's another main consideration.

So the army wants to extend these lines of communication on the ground, using those small drones potentially. And they also want to quicken the pace of information sharing air to air and air to ground.

So there's two considerations there. This was tested at what's known as Project Convergence 21. This is big experiment that the army puts on every year to test these cool new technologies and systems.

And they said in that test in Project Convergence 21, that this aerial tier prototypes and stuff were successful in sharing this information and doing

Carolyn:

Sorry, is 21 the year it happens or '21-

Colin:

Yeah, yeah.

Carolyn:

So does the aerial network have anything to do with 5G? Do they use those capabilities or it's really all about these popup communication centers drones?

Colin:

So the generals I've interviewed in the recent past are considered 5G. One of those avenues that would make this information sharing on the battlefield possible.

It's another option for them to use. And aerial tier network network is another one of those things where they're like, "Hey, we can use this technology. We can use this piece of gear to also extend or help our communications. If that makes sense.

Mark:

Does this have anything to do with line of sight, laser communication stuff?

Colin:

So line of sight communications is one of those things. Like when I mentioned valley to valley. If there's a bar in a city, if there's a building blocking your signal, that's one of those considerations you can do. You throw something in the air and bump it over that obstacle or that can appear, what have you.

Mark:

Okay.

Carolyn:

So same article you touched on this a little bit. What do Capability Sets 21 and 23 entail? I think we got 21. So is 23 just the next iteration of 21?

Colin:

So if I could walk that back a little bit just because this is how I learned it and it starts on this foundation that capability sets out their most generic or a means to inject this new technology into the army every two years.

I often liken it to the way Apple does their iPhones. They have the new enhanced hardware that rolls out on the heels of the last release and trickles into the population.

You start with those early, early adopters and then it gets wider and wider. And then the new one comes out and you rinse and repeat.

There's an army office known as PEO C3T. That's Program Executive Office for Command Control and Communications Tactical. And they use these capability sets to develop, evaluate, and then introduce these pieces of technology to the force.

So Capability Set 21 was really focused on infantry brigades. Increasing connectivity, making the communications gear smaller, lighter, faster, more flexible. In April, the army was basically almost done outfitting these brigade combat teams with that capability set gear.

And then Capability Set 23 is focused on Strykers. I don't know if you've seen them before, but they're just these big, I don't really know how to describe them, they're not tanks, they're not cars. Somewhere in the middle-

Carolyn:

There's ground vehicle thing.

Colin:

Yeah. They're ground vehicles.

Carolyn:

Okay.

Colin:

Yeah. And you can load a bunch of people in them. So Capability Set 23 focused onto these Strykers, boosting bandwidth and figuring out additional paths for communication.

And Capability Set 23 begins to lay the foundation for joint all domain command and control, which I mentioned a little earlier. And then you really start getting into the weeds with this kind of stuff.

Carolyn:

Joint all domain command control?

Colin:

Yes. And it's known as JADC2. It's one of those military things that really rolls off the tongue.

Carolyn:

Yeah.

Mark:

Generally you hear people talk about the government as a whole. Being behind the commercial world as it relates to IT and technology, kind of hear it generally speaking and I think it's true, but in the DOD and the IC, there's a lot of areas that that is not the case.

They're way out in front and the stakes are so high on this stuff that they're actually way out there compared to everyone else.

Carolyn:

Colin, sorry, my brain is thinking about how I would want to play with some of this stuff. You talked about the 5G and using it for augmented reality, which I don't have access to. Did you get to play with any of that?

Colin:

Sadly, no.

Carolyn:

Okay.

Colin:

Yeah. I know it's one of those things you get to write about all these things and like, "This is so cool. Can I get my hands on it? Can I get a photo of it?"

And it's typically no for obvious security reasons, but in what month was that? In I think late April PEO C3T, that office, invited a bunch of reporters out to Fort Meyer here in Virginia.

And we did get to see in person these technologies, these things that are being developed and we got to see what they looked like in person, as we write about it behind a keyboard, a little farther removed.

And that was really cool. We got to go inside of a command post and see a demonstration of their software that they're using to coordinate everything that's on the battlefield and make sure everyone's on the same page.

And we got to see the radios they're using and that sort of thing. So that I haven't gotten to go behind the augmented reality, but I have seen some things hands on.

Mark:

Speaking of augmented reality, how do you think AI plays into all of these technologies you're talking about?

Colin:

That's a really good question too. Because AI, I think the Department of Defense is really starting to focus on. And obviously I came into this job in February, so my sense of history really begins to develop there.

But in my time here, I'm writing about AI almost as much as everything else, because there's always an AI tie in it seems like when you want to make your decisions faster, if you want to go through all this huge ocean of data or information or photos, or what have you, you can't have one guy sitting behind a keyboard.

You could do that, but it'll take you forever to sort through it all and artificial intelligence or machine learning comes in at that aspect.

There's talk about unmanned systems, unmanned ships, what have you, and all that plays into it as well. So to better answer your question is I think it'll very important or will be a major slice of the pie moving forward.

Mark:

I bet you are excited to see how this develops over time. It's exciting stuff. I would love to see what was behind the curtain.

Colin:

It's definitely really cool, it's definitely really cool. Especially because I wasn't necessarily super familiar with all its applications or how it could be used coming into this role.

And now I'll dive in head first and it's so much stuff to take in and so much stuff to just chew on and digest. It's been a lot of fun

Carolyn:

So did you seek out this beat or how did you choose this?

Colin:

Half and half I would say.

Mark:

Is it a beat?

Carolyn:

Yeah. What is it? A beat?

Mark:

Is it called a beat?

Colin:

Yeah. So the beat is defense networks cyber and IT is the best way I like to describe it. It's a bit of a unwieldy title, but it gets to the heart of it.

I was more or less recommended for this job through a friend and it went well and I was like, "Yeah, let's try it. This seems really awesome."

I got that defense bug with covering nuclear policy in South Carolina. And I was like, "Where else should I go except for D.C. to write about this stuff?" So that's how it started.

Mark:

It seems like for a period of time, that whole concept of nuclear deterrence and discussion around nuclear weaponry went away for a little bit.

And now it seems to be back in the forefront of the public's mind with a lot of the things that are going on overseas and in Europe.

Colin:

Yeah. It's hard to ignore right now with the whole nuclear discussion. I think it's been brought to a lot of people's attention even outside of the defense sphere and I think more Average Joe's or whatever you want to call them are talking about it or at least reading the headlines.

Mark:

Yeah. So have you had a chance to work with space force at all?

Colin:

So we actually have a dedicated space reporter, her name's Courtney.

Mark:

Oh, okay.

Colin:

And she has much more experience than me and she's a better writer than me, I will say that. So if you have any questions to her, I'll forward those questions to her and I'll get back to you guys.

Mark:

No, I was just curious because we were talking about the communication technology, but then that's a very important piece of that world as well.

Colin:

So yeah. I tend to, in most of my interviews, satellite communications, the space tier you want to call it, that layer always comes up in conversation because it is vital.

Carolyn:

So you've only been in this role since February of this year, right?

Colin:

Correct.

Carolyn:

So not too long, but has there been anything that's really surprised you or just undone what you thought you knew when you've been reporting on these communication capabilities?

Colin:

I think every day I'm a little surprised by something and that might just be my naivete or that might be my ignorance or that might just be because I'm relatively new to this.

But part of me really enjoying this beat and enjoying what I'm writing about is every day it seems like there's a new piece of technology or a new application for the same technology that I get to write about and be like, "Oh wow. I hadn't thought of this. I'm glad I'm not the policy guy over at the Pentagon because I'd be really bad at that job."

Instead, I just get to write about it and learn about it myself at my own pace.

Mark:

Do you carry a secret clearance? Are you having to go full on Bob Woodward here?

Colin:

Yeah. It's Bob Woodward status. Although I would say I'm not nearly as qualified as that man.

Carolyn:

So is there anything that you've written about in this year, like one of these technologies that you're like, "If I could get one day to play with," which one would it be?

Colin:

I think going back it would be a Stryker. It would just be cool to drive to work.

Carolyn:

Really?

Colin:

Traffic doesn't matter at that point.

Mark:

Is it like a Humvee on steroids or what?

Colin:

Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And you could just whip around the beltway and not worry about anything.

Mark:

You'd just drive right over other cars.

Colin:

Yeah. Just ignore it. There's no traffic rules when you're in a Stryker.

Mark:

Hey Colin, is there any breaking hot off the press stuff that you can debut here?

Colin:

Oh, I haven't written...

Carolyn:

Did you just ask him to scoop himself?

Colin:

Yeah, yeah. Basically.

Mark:

Yeah.

Colin:

I had a really interesting conversation this morning and I will leave it at that and I will tell anyone listening to this to just check out C4ISRNET.com in the near future. I'm not going to scoop myself and I'm not going to spoil the conversation this morning.

Carolyn:

That was a really good teaser.

Mark:

I pulled a Colin on Colin.

Carolyn:

Yeah, you did. That was a good teaser. All right. Well, let's jump to our tech talk questions that Colin, they're just meant to be quick, hit fun questions.

So first question, what do you think the next big leap in tech and specifically for the Defense Department is going to be?

Colin:

So I was reading over these prompts and I was like, "I have no clue." I was so stumped by this question. I asked my fiance. I was like, "What do you think I should say to this?" I texted my dad and I was like, "What should I say?"

Carolyn:

Wow, you crowdsourced.

Colin:

Oh yeah. I did not want to sound dumb. So I'll let the listeners decide on that one though.

Mark:

He phoned a friend.

Colin:

Oh yeah, I phoned multiple friends. It's hard not to say AI or machine learning. I think it's also because I'm so invested in it as a reporter and always so close to it.

It's been really cool to see the investments there, how it's being applied, what the US considers its uses for. And the competition abroad is just hard to ignore from my perspective.

My dad said, I should mention hypersonics. Do you know hypersonic?

Carolyn:

Wait, what?

Colin:

I'm not a hypersonic expert and I don't want to pretend I am. My fiance said it might be autonomy, but that also plays into the AI thing.

Carolyn:

But wait, here's me sounding dumb. What is hypersonic?

Colin:

I would have to Google that to give you a good answer.

Carolyn:

Okay. So you were just mentioning it to sound smart?

Colin:

Yeah. I do that a lot.

Carolyn:

Cool.

Colin:

I could give you a cursory, but I would defer.

Mark:

Did you see the new Top Gun movie?

Carolyn:

Not yet. I'm saving it, Mark.

Colin:

I haven't seen the old one and I haven't seen the new one.

Carolyn:

You haven't seen the old one?

Colin:

Yeah. I'm sorry if I called it old too. That's a little, yeah, that places me-

Mark:

Tom Cruise still looks the same. So I don't know how they did that digital mastery. I will say that there is...

Colin:

Yeah, you might have to spoiler alert this.

Mark:

No, no, no, no spoiler alert. There's a piece of it where he's a test pilot. He's doing some work where he goes up to Mach 10 or something.

So it's like hypersonics is you think of, I don't know the answer to that first question or the first piece that you just raised about hypersonics Carolyn, but going so fast that it can't be picked up by traditional defense mechanisms or even radar stuff, I think.

Carolyn:

Oh, that's super cool. All right, Mark.

Colin:

So I copped out on my answer by giving you three different things.

Carolyn:

No, they all sounded super smart.

Colin:

Cool.

Carolyn:

Good job.

Colin:

Cool.

Carolyn:

All right, Mark. You get the next one.

Mark:

Oh boy. So what's your favorite gadget, app?

Colin:

So my favorite gadget would definitely be my camera gear. I think I heard you say what's your favorite app? And I feel like saying Twitter isn't a real answer. I'm hopelessly addicted to Twitter.

So I think my second favorite app would be the Miriam Webster app because it's embarrassing but the amount of times where I'm just sitting there, I'm searching a word like, "Oh, that's cool."

And then you go down a rabbit hole of definitions and synonyms. Yeah, that would be my second favorite to Twitter.

Mark:

That's a good one, that's a good one.

Carolyn:

Yeah. I love that. Okay. So last question here. I'm always looking for something new to read and please don't try to make it be smart because the smart stuff is way beyond me.

So if you're a sci-fi lover or what's your favorite thing, favorite genre to read or watch on TV?

Colin:

My favorite thing to read is definitely historical biographies. I've really enjoyed those. It's the stuff you read 12 pages of it and you fall asleep and then you pick it up the next night.

Yeah. That kind of stuff. I always fall asleep reading them, but I really enjoy reading them. It's not because I'm bored. It's probably because I'm tired.

But my favorite genre of movies or something, it's not necessarily sci-fi but it's a cosmic horror or something like Event Horizon or Sphere. I don't know if you ever seen those movies, but a mix between sci-fi and horror. I'm a big fan.

Carolyn:

No, probably too scary for me. Does Alien count as that?

Colin:

Sure. Yeah.

Carolyn:

Okay. Old school Alien. So back to your historical biographies, is there one or a couple that stand out to you?

Colin:

I really enjoyed American Ulysses by Ronald C. White and then His Very Best, which is about the Carter presidency.

Carolyn:

Oh really? I watched on a flight the Jimmy Carter Rock & Roll President. Have you seen that documentary?

Colin:

I have not, no.

Carolyn:

Oh my gosh. It endeared me to him so much because I was raised in a very Republican household and my dad had all kinds of slurs for Jimmy Carter and in my old age and wisdom I'm like, "Okay. But I kind of like him." And the more I learn about him, the more I like him, but that documentary-

Mark:

He's a nice man. He's hard to dislike.

Carolyn:

Right.

Colin:

Well the book is really good because it does balance that good person, bad president question mark that I think clouded him or continues to follow him. And I really enjoyed it. It's not one of those books where you read 10 pages and fall asleep. I'll put that out there.

Carolyn:

Really? So it's a good story.

Colin:

Yes. Very good.

Carolyn:

Okay. So what's the title again?

Colin:

His Very Best.

Carolyn:

His Very Best.

Colin:

It's by Jonathan Alter.

Carolyn:

Awesome. Okay. Thank you. And Mark, do you have any more questions for Colin or? I promised him we would end so he can get to his next.

Mark:

Carolyn. We could go on and on.

Carolyn:

Oh, I know, I know.

Mark:

We have to stop.

Carolyn:

Do you have any last words, Colin? We got a great teaser for Mark trying to scoop you so people need to keep their eye on your articles. Is there anything that you would like to mention?

Colin:

No, I just really appreciate you guys having me on and this awesome conversation, there's not a lot of people that want to really talk about this over a beer or something so I do really appreciate your time.

Carolyn:

Oh. A beer would've made it even more fun.

Colin:

Mark:

Well, we appreciate your time, Colin.

Carolyn:

Yeah. Thank you so much. And thanks to our listeners, please like and share this episode. Thanks to Dynatrace for sponsoring us. And we will talk to you next week.

Thanks for joining Tech Transforms, sponsored by Dynatrace. For more Tech Transforms, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.