Technology is an Enabler

You are limited only by your motivation, your dreams, and your drive.

Technology unlocks new opportunities: Where the tools used to limit us, now the tools enable us, so where do you want to go? What do you want to build? How big are you thinking? What do you really want for your business, your career, your family, your life?

Jump in headfirst and do not fear the unknown.

You got this.

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technology is an enabler

I really think technology is an enabler for those that want to be enabled, right? For those that want to learn for those that want to grow for those who are looking for new ways and new opportunities to either enhance their career, enhance their, their, um, relationships with their clients, with their contractors.

And in order to do that, there is no one that's going to be able to show you the way.

You are an irrigation, professional, older, new who designs installs or maintains high end residential commercial or municipal properties. And you want to use technology to improve your business, to get a leg up on your competition. Even if you're an old school irrigator from the days of hydraulic systems, this show is for you.

Good morning guys. What's going on today? This is your host, Andy Humphrey back for another episode of truck talk. I dunno why I call it truck talk. But anyway, here I am in the truck driving to work. I'm already about halfway. There had a little trouble getting this mic connected up this morning. And, uh, I wanted to tell you both a story and sort of, uh, an epiphany I had this weekend.

I was down in Detroit at my daughter's volleyball game. Actually, both my daughters had volleyball tournaments, but they were at different locations. So I was with my 11 year old and my wife. Was with our 15 year old and we pretty much sit either on the bleachers or in our. Kind of beach chairs, if you will, on the sidelines.

And we sit while they're playing and we sit while they ref and we sit while they wait. So yeah, we pretty much sit all day and you can entertain yourself on your phone or you can get a little work done, you know, but basically you're sitting in a chair and you're on a device. And for me, When I'm in those places, my mind starts, you know, my mind doesn't shut off.

It keeps going. And so I had this epiphany about technology and I started thinking about a little bit about sort of my story and how I first got involved with irrigation technology and the big epiphany I had. Which again, I think that if you're listening to this, you probably already know this because you've found this podcast looking for either landscape technology, irrigation technology.

Or just sprinklers in general. But if you found this podcast, you're likely already an early adopter of technology because 90% of the green industry is not out there searching for podcasts. So kudos for that. But it also just goes to show that I believe technology is an enabler technology unlocks. New opportunities that didn't exist before.

And so if we can think of it like that, we don't really know what kind of opportunities are ahead for us in the green industry and as professional. Irrigators and landscapers. And so the best thing you can do, and this is my recommendation is to jump right in headfirst. And I wanted to sort of give you an example of what that means by jumping in head first.

If, if technology is going to open new opportunities and these opportunities, weren't there a year ago, a month ago, a week ago, then there's also no one to. Show you how it works. There's no one to tell you how to use it. There's no one to hold your hand through these new opportunities that technology can unlock because we are creating them as we go.

And I think that that sort of a Tiffany I had this weekend, I was reminded because one of the first times I got involved with your irrigation technology was back in 2000. Well, there was two examples, but the first one was back in about 2002. This was in Baltimore, Maryland, and my good friend, Paul Bassett, who was just on Friday's episode, who you're going to get to know more and more is also an early adopter of technology.

And he sold one of the early two core systems. I believe this was a Flowmaster system. It was a. Mansion outside Baltimore. I'm not going to say the name, but it was about 70 zones of residential all to wire. And this Flowmaster was down in the basement. And if you've ever tried to program one of those first two core systems, it is definitely.

Not easy and just like most manufacturers in this industry, instruction manuals often aren't very clear. And so we sort of figured out this system by trial and error, but it was, um, It was a lot of trial and error, but also trial and error, meaning coming back to this site. So we must've come back to the site and content into this basement, you know, a dozen times, not just on site that day, but I mean set it, we think it's going to run.

Client says, Hey, it's not watering. And we come back and we figure it out slowly. Over time, we became experts at the system by trial and error because it was such new technology that there really wasn't a lot of information out there for us to use. You know, at that time, uh, John Deere landscapes was very helpful for us because some kudos to Jerry Schmidt who was, uh, definitely helpful in helping us figure it out.

Um, but it was one of those, you know, Paul was excited, we sold this system and then we just had to figure out how to program it and make it work. And we did, but it took some time. Now the second example, which is very similar was just a couple of years later. I want to say probably 2004. I was the quote unquote, uh, Toro Sentinel sales person, if you will, for, for this Toro distributor in Maryland, when, uh, when Torah had just purchased icon, it was rolling out the Sentinel product.

And, you know, we were chasing cities and municipalities and, and those sorts of retrofit clients. And we, we had a close customer of the distributor that was buying a lot of Toro, red iron equipment and such and sprinklers. And we ended up being able to secure the funds to retrofit the city's control systems.

And I don't remember how many controllers they had. Let's just. For let's just say they had 15 and the Sentinel system is awesome as it was, and perhaps could be today. I'm not very familiar with it. And today's technology was really based on, on radio and we would do some confusing, some awesome and confusing things like set up hubs connected to the internet, radio out to the field satellite, then radio over to a map to, and, and again, It, we, we sort of figured this out trial and error by setting a program coming back the next day, seeing if the program ran, having the client give us feedback.

And again, it was a thankfully for me, I was living in Annapolis, Maryland at the time. And. This particular city was just about halfway between where the office was and where I lived. And so I had the opportunity to sort of babysit the project, one of the first controllers by stopping it at the site on my way to work or on my way, home from work and correcting over times, the things that we didn't know in order to get this technology to function.

And at the end of the day, it did function to function great, but we had to be sort of patient and we had to. Uh, learn what we didn't know. Um, and maybe that's another sort of good way to look at this as sometimes. Well, oftentimes. You don't know what you don't know. And you know, when technology is opening these new opportunities, the only thing stopping us is sort of our own curiosity and our own sometimes, maybe fear of failure.

Uh, and one thing I tell myself that I'll tell you guys too, is if there really is no failure, the only failure is really the person who's not willing to try or who gives up too soon, or who assumes that, uh, there's something wrong with the product. And it's the product's fault. And from my experience, working with, uh, specifically irrigation control systems, it's 95% user error.

And so what we really need to do collectively is, you know, stop, think about what we're doing, uh, ask questions, uh, try new things, uh, to, to figure out. How to do things, because again, technology is opening up these new doors. There's no one here to guide us, to hold our hand, to show us how it works. And so you all, as early adopters, like I said, I, I believe most of you are early adopters because you've found this podcast, which means you're already on the front side of technology.

The best thing we can do is. It's just dive in head first and, uh, you know, it's almost like we're going to, you know, jump out of an airplane and build the parachute on the way down. I think that's the analogy, something like that. But yeah, we just got to, first thing we got to have to do is sell it. And then the second thing we have to do is figure it out how to make it work and it will work.

Most of these technologies absolutely work if you're willing to put in the time. And one of the things I've experienced bringing baseline technology to market over the last 15 years, yours is there are definitely all kinds of people and all kinds of personalities. And it's been really interesting for me to see that those people that will embrace something brand new, like the two core, like Sentinel, like baseline, et cetera, that almost, it's almost like they're not afraid of what they don't know.

And personally, I am one of these people too. And then there's those people that want to take all of the training classes before they ever go to a site or they want the manufacturer's rep to come to the site to hold their hand because they're too afraid to, to not know something. And sometimes, actually most of the time, you're really not going to know everything.

And that's totally okay. It's, you know, it's the fear of not knowing that will stop you and just in life, you're never going to know everything. There's no way we could sit in a training class and I could teach you everything you needed to know about baseline before you go out to the site to help the contractor.

And the, the really the best thing you can do is have your know who your resources are, know who your contacts are, are be a willing participant in the process. And sometimes what we need I'll speak for the manufacturer side of things is we just need clear vision onto the site. We don't need to be there actually 99% of the time.

There's no need to have a manufacturer come to a site. If we have someone on the site who has a cell phone, this is 2021. Everyone on the site has a cell phone and quite frankly, Most people can even do a video conference through like FaceTime or Skype. And those types of tools can be super helpful. And that's sort of the, the takeaway that I've seen is there's different personalities.

Some are willing to jump in head first, go out to the site, figure out what they don't know, troubleshoot the problems, get the manufacturer's rep on the phone. And they're not afraid to be an expert. I think they might be more of a, a learner mindset. And then, yeah. So I think that, that those are kind of some of the things that were going on in my head this weekend, while I was sitting in the chair.

Uh, watching this volleyball tournament and of course paying attention to the volleyball, but at the same time, you know, thoughts were rolling through my mind. And I really think technology is an enabler for those that want to be enabled, right. For those that want to learn for those that want to grow for those who are looking for new ways and new opportunities to either enhance their career, enhance their.

Their relationships with their clients, with their contractors. And in order to do that, there is no one that's going to be able to show you the way. And so you gotta find a way, uh, on your own and be willing to, you know, get in the game, dive right in and see where this technology can take us. And I'm not just speaking about irrigation, you know, controls technology.

It's. Technology in general, you know, when was the last time you got really creative with a Google sheet, just as a side example, there's so many really cool tools out there that that can do awesome. Awesome things for your, your daily routine and your efficiency, um, as a, as a, as a professional. So that's kinda, my 2 cents technology is enabler.

If you're willing to learn and participate. And so. Yeah, jump, jump right in and let's see where technology can take us. And, uh, that's all I had today guys. So go out, have fun, be safe. And until the next episode, happy sprinkling. And we'll talk to you then. .