The CarriersEdge Podcast | Episode #97
Mark: Hello, and welcome to episode ninety seven of The CarriersEdge Podcast. And happy New Year.
Jane: Happy New Year.
Mark: I'm Mark Murrell. I don't remember what my intro is, but I'm here, and I'm hosting a podcast, and I'm joined by
Jane: Jane Jazrawy, the cofounder of CarriersEdge, and
Mark: that's how we normally do it.
Jane: Yeah.
Mark: Yes. It's been a while.
Jane: It has. And we've both been sick and I think you're still on cold medication fumes.
Mark: I'm definitely yes. I'm on borrowed energy here, and I'm sure I will crash at the end of this episode.
Jane: So you just keep it up.
Mark: You have to keep talking.
Jane: Forty five minutes.
Mark: Forty five minutes. Or I will die. Yes. And I also am very excited that I finally have a new machine or recording here.
Jane: Which won't mean anything to anyone probably, but what it means to us is that I don't know. What does it mean to us? Does it mean that we can actually record, like, I think that old machine was actually dying.
Mark: Well, yes, I'm not sort of taking my life in my hands each time I use it. The old machine was more than ten years old and I've had this new machine now boy for a while and wanted to move everything over, move all the recording over to it, but I had to get a bunch of things set up adapters and different plugs and things. So the joy of moving from one Mac to another is the jungle of adapters that you have to use
Jane: Yes.
Mark: Especially when you're using pro audio gear that needs to plug in in particular ways. So
Jane: Well, I guess the biggest change is that you can actually upgrade to the latest software version of Digital Performer which you're probably using like
Mark: I was using a very old version. Yeah. Well, here's what sad about it. This machine, my new fancy machine that I'm so happy about, was a machine I bought as an emergency backup for you during COVID in like March of 2020 or April of 2020 when your laptop crashed. The laptop died and we had to take it in for repair and we needed to spare machine.
So this was basically what I could get delivered from the Apple Store. So it's been kind of the emergency backup machine, the spare. And also, it's been on deck to be my recording studio, new recording studio machine, and it's taken me this long to actually get the various parts that I need in order to get all of my gear set up with it. So
Jane: And that's not I mean, that just means that it took you this long to get around to
Mark: it was quite tricky getting one part, mostly because nobody at the music store could figure out how to order it. But once they figured out how to order it, it yeah. It was a month and then it arrived, and then I got Okay.
Jane: Can we have a segue about music stores and how I don't know how they're operating. It's like they don't wanna use they don't wanna use any technology at all. They just wanna use printed forms
Mark: Yes.
Jane: And just the memory of all their associates. They do not they're not even in if they're they might be working in the 1950s.
Mark: They're no. They're not quite there. They're firmly in the 80s because their inventory system is like command prompt. It is like an old style UNIX or DOS terminal.
Jane: But they would rather get your order and then call around to see who has it.
Mark: Yes.
Jane: And then use their crazy old UNIX based or I don't know. What did you DOS? They're DOS their amber prompts. To to actually order
Mark: it. Yeah. It's a green screen.
Jane: Yeah. It's it's not modern. And it seems like at some point in the 80s, they all had enough money to buy some basic computer system and that's the one they've kept.
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: So if you've ever been to a music store and you try to buy something or you try to order something special, It's it is a it's a journey.
Mark: Oh, yeah. And all the people that work there are snobs. They all look down their nose at you because they work in the music store and you're just a lowly customer, which cracks me up because these are forty year old guys working in retail. You get nothing to be that snarky about.
Jane: Well, there in a music store. They're closer to being a musician than you are, than the likes of you.
Mark: I suppose.
Jane: They're closer to the industry. And then when I was in there with you the other day and the guy that you were talking to was going on and on and on about well, you guys just started talking in another language.
Mark: Yeah.
Jane: I didn't even know. I was just sort of like, okay. We're now talking about equipment and I don't know what it is, so I'm gonna tap out of this conversation. But it was almost like a test. It was almost like he wanted to see how much you actually knew, so he was just dropping in all of these weird names of things.
Like, I don't know, can you give me an example of the kinds of weird names of things that
Mark: I don't even remember.
Jane: It's like things you needed you needed something that had these kinds of connectors and
Mark: Oh.
Jane: Do you remember?
Mark: I don't remember. We were we were talking about audio converters. And
Jane: Yeah. Just there. Stop. Audio converters. Don't explain it, but I didn't know what they were talking about.
Well, I kinda knew that you were gonna be converting audio from one form to another, but I didn't know why and I didn't know what equipment you needed to do that. Again, I don't know wanna know now. Like, don't explain it. I know you're dying too. You're just wanting to tell me.
Mark: So let me explain to you how digital audio conversion works
Jane: That's what it's like with you guys in a music store because if I asked a question, then it would just be like, oh, you're a noobie, let me just impart all my information to you. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm just the girlfriend who's coming with, you know, the guy to buy some cords.
Mark: Yeah. It is a little bit like going to a friend's house and they all speak a different language at home. And a friend just drops into that language without even thinking about it.
Jane: Yeah and then they all start laughing at you after somebody makes a comment in the other language? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Mark: So it's a little bit like that. But, yes, we have it all have it all set up now and I've been using it to do drum recordings, and it's very nice. Yeah. I'm looking forward to seeing what it does with our podcast. So big excitement on the ear front.
Jane: I don't know if it's going to make my voice any lower.
Mark: It won't make any real difference to it because I'm using all the same settings as before. It's just gonna be faster. Yes.
Jane: Okay. It'll be faster for Carly.
Mark: Yes. Well, faster for me to get the the files to Carly. Okay.
Jane: That's that's what's important.
Mark: Yes. So our New Year is off to a great start with New Year and a first episode of a podcast.
Jane: Mhmm.
Mark: And of course, what we're really spending all of our time doing when we're not laid up in bed being sick is Best Fleets scoring.
Jane: Yes, Best Fleets scoring.
Mark: And this is a different one for me because I've done the least amount of scoring that I've ever done. I think I've scored five questions so far, which a week into it. Normally, I would have done three times as many as that. But we've got a lot of people that are working on it. So my primary job right now is talking to them about the different things that they're seeing and discussing which things are more valuable for drivers than others and figuring out how to build scoring matrix around that and putting all of the the point values in reviewing it altogether.
So it's been different.
Jane: Yeah. It's much different we're coming at it from the point of view of supervising
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: And, you know, looking at what other people are doing and trying to explain the relative value of one thing over another, and why is it more valuable? And, sadly, it often comes down to how much money are you spending on it. How much investment is actually in in this offering, are you just kind of doing it for free when you feel like it or when it's convenient?
Or are you thinking, okay, this is a program I'm gonna invest not necessarily money, but time. Yeah. And planning
Mark: Resources of some sort.
Jane: Yeah. It can't doesn't have to be like, you don't have to tell me about the billions of dollars. But you do have to impart that that is an important thing. And we care about it.
And you can really tell between the people who care about something and the people who don't.
Mark: Yes.
Jane: Or the things where you can tell it's the person's job, that one but, like, if they're in ops, then the answers and operational strategy are a whole lot different than they are in the HR. And when they're HR, you get very granular on HR, but they don't their answers in operational strategy are or, you know, performance are different.
Mark: Oh, yeah. For sure. So we're going through and reviewing those, the other thing that is tricky when people are kind of looking at it and because we look at a question on its own, you have to look at the answers, but then look at it and think about, okay, well, this thing that they're talking about, we actually score it somewhere else.
Jane: Yeah.
Mark: Right? So we're not going to score it here. So we're gonna separate those out because it's actually covered somewhere else. Because people will put everything in that answer that they can that might get them some points. If you chop out the stuff that scored somewhere else. You also have to chop out the stuff that you know everybody is doing but may not have mentioned.
Jane: Is the baseline?
Mark: Mhmm. Like people have dispatch available after hours. Well, that's pretty much everybody in the truck industry.
Jane: You're not gonna get an extra point for that.
Mark: Yeah. There there's no dispatch office that closes at five on Friday.
Jane: Well, I just was talking about industry programs for drivers, like getting drivers involved in in industry. And that's like drivers being part of Wreaths Across America or being part of a Road Knight program or driver captain type of thing or road captain I mean, And that's interesting because a lot of people will say, well, we belong to twelve associations.
Mark: Yeah.
Jane: And that's it.
Mark: Right.
Jane: So
Mark: But are your drivers doing anything?
Jane: Exactly. Like, you know, that's great that you belong to all these organizations, but what are your drivers doing? And it's the same thing. And once you sort of kind of get in the flow of how important does the company think these programs are and how much investment in is there in it, you kind of get the sense of of what's important, but also it's whether, because we have a lot of new people and this is kind of, we put new people into scoring so that they can learn the industry. And there's just often a lot of things that they have no idea what they are.
Like, Trucker Buddy.
Mark: Oh, yeah.
Jane: It was Trucker Buddy. And yeah, that came up today. And Selase mentioned it, and he's like, I don't know what that is. And like, oh.
Mark: That's funny. That used to be the main thing that people answered on that question. And it's really sort of
Jane: It's still there.
Mark: Still there, but it's dropped into the background quite a bit over the past few years.
Jane: Which is really unfortunate because it was a really good kind of PR program. It was a really good connection. I don't know if that's something that people just don't wanna do anymore or it's just kind of no one's promoting it, so no one's thought about it lately, but it's still they still have a website, they still have a phone number.
Mark: Yeah. They still have buddies apparently.
Jane: And if you're listening and you don't know what Trucker Buddy is, go to trucker buddy dot com. And it's really it's a pen pal program between truck drivers and a classroom. And it's like which is a really great way for kids to, you know, penpal programs are really good in sort of third grade where kids are just starting to learn to write. There's sort of in, you know, not quite middle cool yet, but a little bit younger, but not so young that they don't know what they're talking about. This is something that really is good for getting kids to understand what the industry is about.
Mark: Yeah.
Jane: It's interesting though, and it's an American program, I believe.
Mark: Yeah. It's been around for a long time. But, yeah, really good program. And interesting to see that that what used to be the main answer on that question is sort of dropped back down and now we see more things like drivers getting involved in truck driving championships or attending association events or being involved in different Road Knight type programs, captains of the road type programs. So that's good.
I was scoring environmental on the weekend.
Jane: Oh I did that last year.
Mark: And it was quite interesting. I gotta say I was surprised how many fleets are doing electric trucks. Are talking about those and alternate fuel vehicles, hydrogen. It used to be just CNG.
Jane: Mhmm.
Mark: That was the only thing was the natural gas trucks. There's still some of those, but there's more people doing electric trucks now and have actually taken possession of some electric trucks.
Jane: Is this electric trucks for shunt trucks?
Mark: Some is shunters. Some is actual tractors. They're all really doing kind of pilot programs.
Jane: Who's making them?
Mark: Freightliner has got an electric.
Jane: Oh.
Mark: The eCascadia I think it is.
Jane: Oh I think I've heard of that. Yeah.
Mark: Yeah. I think most of them have got some sort of electric alternate fuel vehicle, a lot of hydrogen stuff being talked about. So that was surprising. Number of people doing solar has gone up as well. That was surprising.
I was not expecting much in that program or in that question. I thought the environmental programs were gonna be really curtailed because people are hurting for cash and it's definitely a down year in the industry. I thought we were gonna see a lot less on environmental. But I guess these are longer term projects, so people wanna be better positioned when the downturn ends.
And they've got some really interesting stuff happening.
Jane: Well, I think I really love the idea of solar panels.
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: Now, I know that the solar panels are often at the terminal, but are you seeing more on the trucks?
Mark: Yeah.
Jane: Yeah. I think that's very cool.
Mark: EPUs
Jane: Yep.
Mark: Doing it that way, using that to charge the the EPU.
Jane: Yeah. Because if you think about it, the top of a truck is just a flat area that's perfect for solar.
Mark: Yeah.
Jane: Like, there's really I mean, It's amazing that they were thinking of doing anything else. But I guess, solar technology kind of has really amped up in the last couple of years.
Mark: Yeah, it's become a little bit more convenient. It's not as bulky. So you can put it on there and use it.
Jane: Yeah. Good. Well, we're thinking about using it. Because we have a big flat roof. Yep.
And I would love to have solar energy.
Mark: Oh, yeah. That would be very cool
Jane: That would be very, very cool. And I remember, like, ten years ago, we were sort of thinking about it a little bit, and it was super expensive.
Mark: Oh, yeah. There was a rebate program that we could've got, and we just never got around to it.
Jane: Oh god. Can you imagine? We would have done that. We hadn't even done our kitchen yet, which was falling apart.
Mark: Yeah. Well, we'll do it here eventually.
Jane: Yeah. Eventually, this is a longer term project, but I really like the idea of solar. Especially when you're in a house with where the sun's beating in and all you you think of is, you know, hey, if I'm producing my own power, how much less do I have to pay someone else to give me my power?
Mark: Oh, yeah. For sure.
Jane: Which I think is what a lot of people are doing in terms of doing it for their companies.
Mark: Yeah. There's a lot of people that are putting some real effort in there. Quite a huge range. You get people on one end and their answer is, well, we recycle in the office. Or We have LED lights that are really just like the only lights you can buy anyway.
Jane: Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Are there any non ELD lights anymore?
Mark: LED.
Jane: Or LED?
Mark: There's no ELD light yet.
Jane: I know. I hey. Listen, I've been sick too.
Mark: Yeah.
Jane: My brain is still a little fuzzy.
Mark: But, yeah, there's some that are really not doing much more than we recycle in the office, and we we turn off the lights when we leave the room. And at the other end, you've got people with electric trucks and solar panels and people that have done custom equipment designs to be more aerodynamic and worked with manufacturers who would produce new designs and things. So that's pretty cool. As usual, there's a wide range of answers in there.
Jane: I'm scoring right now, driver committee. And already, it's like, whoa. What happened here? Because driver committees are there are some people who are taking it to on steroids.
Mark: Really?
Jane: Yeah. I mean and these are relatively new companies that I'm scoring, and they have Like, okay. This is what I'm used to. Every, I don't know, about twenty five percent of companies that I score over the years will have a relatively formal driver committee and that committee will meet a couple of times a year. And then they'll put together some thoughts and then they'll give it to they'll tell management about it.
And management will do something or not do something. But now, like I know, couple of years ago, Garner started giving their driver committee a budget.
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: But I haven't gotten to the I'm still in the a's.
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: And there's one company that is they're they have a selection. They have twelve to fifteen drivers that have a two or three year term and they actually meet with the there's a board of directors. So there's executive management that they're meeting with, and they have, like, like, you know, a couple of days, there's an overnight where they're all meeting about variety of things and it's very formal. They are represented at a higher level.
And there's like this huge, big, long description of, like, this is a formal program.
Mark: Wow.
Jane: Yeah. And it's not it kinda goes beyond what driver committees used to be. Now driver committees seem to be like companies are taking drivers more seriously.
Mark: Wow. Interesting.
Jane: They're elevating the driver community to something that is kind of like, okay, management wants to hear from drivers come and talk to us, where before it was kind of going through lower levels of the company.
Mark: Interesting. Well, it's funny because last time there was a downturn in the industry, we saw it in terms of people scaling back their programs.
Jane: Mhmm.
Mark: And it was more of a circling the wagons and let's make sure we stay close and we'll scale back some of these things, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Jane: I would say that not that they're spending less or more money. There's a bigger focus and you can see the programs that they have started in the past. They're like, doubling down. Like, they're putting a lot more effort and investment into stuff that they know is already working. So I'm not seeing necessarily any new or much that is new or things that were started at the beginning of '23 not things that are new new.
But it's not necessarily that there's huge amounts of money being spent on it. It's just but they're spending effort not money.
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: Like, there's a lot of effort. There I really feel like this year is the year of effort.
Mark: Okay.
Jane: You know, there's more information in the questions and questionnaires. Like, sometimes it's duplicate and sometimes it's just a lot of word word salad, but, you know, there's a lot more people are like saying, you know, this is what we're doing and they're more descriptive of it. In general, I think. Don't you think that from what you've seen?
Mark: I wouldn't disagree with that. What I find interesting about it is that the downturn seems to be sort of a split or to use the marketing word. There's a bifurcation in the mark.
Jane: Bifurcation.
Mark: Yes.
Jane: I love that word.
Mark: Well, because we have a lower number of finalists Yeah. Than we had last year, we're sort of back to pre COVID levels in terms of participants and finalists and things like that. So we've got those people that really aren't doing that well, that just aren't in the program at all. Yeah. They're they're just busy trying to keep the lights on.
They didn't participate or sometimes they didn't get nominated. And those people are sort of off taking care of their own business. Then we've got the people that are doing okay, that are doubling down, that are doing alright. They're they're focusing on things. They're doing pretty well.
And they're the ones that are investing their effort. Maybe they're being a little bit cautious about their actual spend. But they're investing in building their process, in building their culture, and building their teams. It'll be really interesting to see what happens coming out the other side of that. Because the people that invest through the downturn are always the ones that are ready to run like crazy when it turns around.
Jane: Yeah. I think I don't know if we've talked about this on the podcast about how Apple did that in two thousand and seven. In that downturn, they spent money, and then they came out of it with the iPod and a couple years later, the iPhone, and then basically took over everything.
So there is something to be said for yeah. Okay. There's a downturn. But if you have sort of managed your company properly, you have enough to get you through.
Mark: Yeah.
Jane: And then if you can get through this crappy downturn, then if you can kind of reinforce what you've already got and come up with some some innovations or do something better, do something differently than when you come out of the gate and things get easier on the, you know, revenue front. Then things will be, you know, you're really far ahead.
Mark: Yeah. Well, we're seeing it. We're seeing it with tech companies as well.
Jane: Oh, the tech companies are hilarious. I have not been inundated with so much spam. So what I do is when I get spam. I or it's usually people who say, hey.
Hey. You wanna do business? Hey. You wanna do this? Hey.
How? You wanna spend some money with me? So I put them all into I have a very extensive way of getting rid of unwanted mails through rules in Outlook. And I have this list of, like, must be a hundred companies who've just been and it's I would say more like eight hundred companies because I have different lists, depending on what they're trying to do, and I have like fifty to a hundred names in each of them.
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: Just people who are just constantly pecking at me pecking at me. Do you wanna? You wanna? You wanna? And since I'd say in the last three months, last four months, it's been insane.
I get so many of them a day. It's it's not even funny. I don't know. It's like everybody is just doing this last hurrah. It's like, oh, maybe if I contact CarriersEdge, they'll be my savior.
I don't know.
Mark: Yeah, the scramble.
Jane: Yeah. That's what I'm feeling like everybody's freaking out. So tech companies
Mark: The tech companies that weren't profitable before the downturn
Jane: Yeah.
Mark: That are really scrambling now.
Jane: Yeah, they are really hurting now.
Mark: You can see the signs of desperation, and then I won't share too many of them because I don't know, it it feels mean to be pointing out the things to watch for, but there are definitely things that people are doing where they, like, scramble at different strategies and they try selling a bunch of different things. I guess I am gonna talk about it.
Jane: Well, I was gonna talk about tech companies outside of trucking. The like, what we've noticed Well, just the basic number of people who are going out of business or not going out of business but laying off.
Mark: Yeah.
Jane: So we have been entertained by layoffs dot FYI, which just goes through the sheer amount of people who've been shed
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: Because tech tended to over hire, and they were over hiring especially software developers, which basically meant it was very difficult for us to hire people, hire good people because everybody was being sucked up by all these tech companies who are all using all of this venture capital funding to just hire people and not even get them to do anything. You would just be hired and you'd sort of sit around waiting for something to do, but you'd get hired as a strategy to stop other software companies from hiring you, and which I found so annoying.
Mark: Yeah.
Jane: And these are all people who are now being laid off because there's like hundreds of people who are not really contributing to the bottom line.
Mark: Well, it also it completely throws off the market because all of those people were hired at crazy prices and not really given very much to do. And now they're set free they're out in the market looking, but they're used to what they were making before, and the market can't support that. Like, it it was never numbers that were supported by business fundamentals. It was only numbers that were supported by crazy amounts of private equity and just tons of cash that were being thrown at everything.
Jane: And so many software developers have no idea what they're doing. They wanna have like a hundred and twenty grand to walk in the door, but they can't code their way out of a paper bag. Yeah. Because they haven't had to do anything. They just sit around or do like one little thing, and they're getting paid like insane amounts of money to do it.
Mark: Yeah. So there's a reckoning happening in the tech world.
Jane: Yeah.
Mark: Much like there was happening in in the the trucking space for the people that were in the spot market.
Jane: Yeah.
Mark: Well, it actually kinda happened at the same time for different reasons. There's blood baths in a variety of places.
Jane: Yeah. And it's gonna be I think that it's not gonna be that much better through a lot of twenty twenty four because there's other things that are messing up the not the stock market. The industry, the
Mark: The supply chain.
Jane: Thank you. Supply chain, I knew it started with us. And I was just thinking stock market. But, yeah, I think it's gonna be bumpy bumpy bumpy.
Mark: So then our predictions, since we're in January, we'll do our predictions for the year, is that it's gonna continue to be rough
Jane: Yep.
Mark: In the industry for another, what, six to nine months?
Jane: Yep. And if you can get through that, it'll be it'll be much better.
Mark: So tech companies are gonna be more aggressively sending their sales reps everywhere. To hassle everybody.
Jane: Mhmm.
Mark: And more founders are going to get promoted into new more junior positions while their investors force them to bring in some outside CEO who does the exact same thing, or they'll be forced to pivot into some other markets and try and launch some new industry segments.
Jane: I think that I would say that beware, and I am certainly very aware of this, and I've been aware of this for a long time. And I'm a fan of tech. I like tech. But it's becoming tech over everything else. Everybody, you know, beware of too much tech.
You cannot replace everything with a computer, with a machine. You can't replace everything with AI. You have to be very selective of how you wanna run your business, what the tech is actually gonna do for you. And what your processes are gonna be while you're integrating the technology. Whatever that technology is because there are a lot, there's a lot of money in technology right now.
And so what venture capitalists want to do in the investment investment machine that is coming out of California is saying, okay. We need to in we need to put our money somewhere. We need to invest. We need to invest in tech. What kind of tech can you have?
What kind of tech do you need trucking? What kind of tech do you need retail? What kind of tech so they're they're just providing all these solutions where they're never was really a problem, where they're solving the wrong problem with tech. And if you are not thinking about what problems you actually wanna solve, then you're going to be swimming in a sea of tech and you're gonna lose touch. With what your connections are, like, what your real human connections are and who you your customers are.
It's just gonna be all tech, all the time.
Mark: Well, bringing that back to the Best Fleets scoring. There is very interesting connection there because over the past three years, we've talked about this several times that the industry went nuts bringing on all kinds of tech.
Jane: Yeah.
Mark: They were signing up for everything and lots of people were offering tech really wasn't that well proven, but it was cheap and it sounded good, so everybody's going for it. And we started seeing comments from the drivers about enough with the tech. Let's keep the personal touch. And so we've talked about that the importance of having the balance between the personal and the the tech side. Now, trucking was way behind on tech for a long time.
It needed to catch up. And it sort of caught up and went a little bit too far. And I think what I'm seeing so far this year is that it's starting to swing back into the middle a little bit. Like, we were talking about people that are investing in their process, investing in the things that they're doing, or spending time focusing on it. It's mostly around the people that they're working on.
You're talking about committees and all of the activities that they're doing with committees. I'm seeing it in a variety of other places as well that they are starting to see, okay, we've gotta balance these things. Right? They're looking at performance management and isn't just we've got scorecards that give us all of this information. Now it's more about the coaching that goes along with that, the discussion with the drivers, getting the feedback on how they build the business on top of all of that data.
So they're starting to really balance those. And I think that's one place where the people that are investing now really going to have an advantage because they will have figured that out. They will be able to move on to the next step when the others that have just been sort of not doing much for the past year, they're just starting to get into it.
Jane: Yep. I would agree with that.
Mark: Yeah. So it it's going to be interesting. I think we'll see more of that for the year. I think it's going to be very interesting at industry events over the next six to nine months as well because we were seeing this last year where those desperate tech companies are swarming events with salespeople. Yep.
And you get these conferences or conventions that are, like, seventy five percent vendors. This is just all the salespeople and they're all sort of scrambling. I think it's gonna be the same thing for the next six to nine months or so.
Jane: Speaking of events, Truck World is gonna come up in April.
Mark: Well, that'll be the place where I can kind of test that series. Although that's different. That's Yeah.
Jane: That is a lot of vendors.
Mark: Yeah. But the truck shows are a bit different. So, like, Mid-America, and we're going to the Florida Trucking Show this year. So those things are a little bit different because they're always driver shows and the vendors there are a bit of a different focus than what you get at conferences and conventions and things.
So I think it's gonna be is gonna be rough at the conferences and conventions, but I think truck shows like Mid-America and Truck World will be they're always kind of the same sort of party jamboree that they always are. You know, it's it's always the same thing. So let's talk about stuff that we're doing that isn't Best Fleets scoring and isn't advertising.
Jane: Oh, yes.
Mark: As I know, We talked about that on the last episode, and I think the last two episodes. And, sadly, Jane has still been buried in the bowels of animation, but we're getting it.
Jane: Yes.
Mark: So
Jane: Yes. Well, I have one done.
Mark: Alright.
Jane: Yes. One done.
Mark: We will just move on from there.
Jane: Yes. The solution has been, you know, not arisen, but there is a solution now. It has appeared. I understand it. It is now we are moving towards that, and it will be come something that we just do all the time.
But man, problem solving.
Mark: And so what are we doing that isn't that? That seems like nothing.
Jane: No. We've got tons of courses that are kind of going through the the works. Materials handling. That one is getting its final edits.
Mark: Now some of these courses we've talked about for a while.
Jane: I know.
Mark: But in defense of the content team, they completely changed their process
Jane: Yes.
Mark: For building, testing, deploying
Jane: Well they had to because they had to do it without me. Yeah. And it's, you know, I was so central to the course building process for so many years that it was really difficult to actually figure out how to extricate myself. And I had other things to do. So this last year was the extrication of me from that process.
And it is start and it was like just difficult for a few months. And now we're starting to get rolling with which is really good and really I'm very happy about it. So we're courses that have been sort of stuck in that wheel of not having Jane is Materials Handling is going to be. It's it's very close to the end. It's gonna probably go to audio this week.
TDG fuel at long last. TDG fuel is is I think it's gone back to QA and it should be out soon. We've got an updated WHMIS course that is I'm just looking at it right now. What else have we got? Oh, an Owner Operator's business course updating that.
Mark: Oh that's a brand new.
Jane: It is kind of brand new. Like, we did have one ages ago. And then, it was kind of based on ATBS Canada, which has kind of gone, but now I believe that the new one is both US and Canada and is more it's not like it's not any brand. It's just business skills. So that one is, I believe, it has been, the storyboard is done.
Yeah. What else we oh, we're doing a leadership course.
Mark: On what? What kind of leadership?
Jane: Leadership skills. So it's kind of building on what we do with emotional intelligence is gonna be kinda like that. I think it's gonna be more for non drivers, but drivers are definitely be able to use it
Mark: It'll be good for people that are moving into, like, driver committees or road trainers and coaches?
Jane: Yeah. Kinda kind of that that sort of thing. And we also have there's one other one, oh road rage. We are going we are working on it, I believe, that that one is in in the middle of storyboard development right now.
Mark: Okay.
Jane: So there's a lot. There's a lot that is coming. And also, we have a lot of translations I think we've had about four translations in the last little while.
Mark: Okay.
Jane: So the mostly French, but I think there's been one Spanish
Mark: Yeah. Well, you also mentioned the violence and harassment, and sexual harassment courses all getting updates too.
Jane: Right. So such sexual harassment. We have a general sexual harassment course coming out for the US. That is not quite the same in Canada. There's a update to violence and harassment, which which updates some of the the sexual adds more information about sexual harassment in there.
So we've got that, and it's a lot more scenario based now than it previously was, violence and harassment. So we've done those. And, yeah, I think that's it. There's a lot.
There's a lot kind of churning away. So there will be kind of a glut of courses just coming over and over in the next few months.
Mark: Wow. And on the system side, we are also about to release the thing that's been in progress for quite a while, the Zoom integration, which has been a hassle because we completely redesigned and rebuilt the way we manage events, the old event management side of the system. And now we have the ability to link in Zoom meetings much like you do through Outlook, you can create an event and automatically have it be a Zoom event. So that's live.
Our code part of it is live. We're just waiting for the app marketplace for Zoom. They just have to go through the process and finally release our app, which is weird. Our integration is of a separate app through their marketplace. And that will allow people to have much nicer integration for their live events and hybrid events or completely virtual events.
And of course, after that, we will do the same thing with Teams. The initial build is the first one. First one that's the hardest. We went with Zoom because that's what we use internally, but Teams will come as well.
Jane: Well, actually, Zoom Teams wasn't a thing. When we first started talking about developing this, Teams was not
Mark: Yeah.
Jane: Because we started talking about it in twenty twenty. Or twenty twenty one?
Mark: Teams wasn't as popular as it has become in the past couple of years.
Jane: Well, I have to say Teams has basically sat on everybody and said, hey, use us, use us, use us, use us, oh, making me crazy. I if you are an Office 365 subscriber, like, if you have that for your company, then you are harassed daily about Microsoft Teams.
Mark: Yeah.
Jane: They will give you a free trial, and then you cancel it, and they give it to you again, and then they give it to you again. And I swear, I've canceled a Microsoft Teams trial, maybe seven or eight times.
Mark: Oh, yeah. Just reminds me of Clippy that, hey, looks like you wanna write a note. Do you want help? And it's just now, hey, it looks like your interest in the meeting. We'll do it on Teams.
Jane: And every time someone upgrades their or does an update on their PC. It installs Teams again.
Mark: Yeah.
Jane: And or it starts the whole it starts that whole know, hey, we're gonna give you a free version of, you know, Teams for free for a year or whatever. At some point, they're gonna have to get people to start paying for it. And then I'm not sure what's gonna happen after that.
Mark: Yeah. We'll see what happens.
Jane: The Zoom is a great I really like Zoom for collaboration. I mean, I know it's an extra you have to kind of use an extra software application and but it is so much nicer than Teams. It's just it's just easier to use. It's easier to manage. I find Teams very obtrusive.
Mark: Obtrusive. Okay. Yeah.
Jane: I'd not obtrusive. Wait.
Mark: Yes. Can be a
Jane: That's a word.
Mark: That's a word.
Jane: Okay.
Mark: Just not a very commonly used word.
Jane: I you know. Okay. So, on a side note here. I often use really old fashioned words because I've read a lot of old books.
Like a old like written in the eighteen hundreds kind of stuff. So I'm currently reading War and Peace.
Mark: This is Jane's entertainment.
Jane: Well, okay. I didn't realize how much of a soap opera that thing is. It is a complete soap opera. I have to to help me sleep at night and to stop me thinking about work. I've been watching TV in the middle of the night with captions on, so it doesn't wake you up.
So I'm running out of things to watch. So I started off like, oh, I'll just watch War and Peace. What what is this about? I I've never read the book.
And so I watched it and like, once you get past all the Russian names and all the fact that every Russian name has twelve other nicknames. It actually once I knew who the characters were and what the basic story was is basically a love triangle and gossip. It's like serious gossip. So it's kinda like Game of Thrones when I read the first Game of Thrones book. It threw me because there's so many characters.
And then once I realized that half of those characters are just gonna die in the chapter and you don't have to worry about them anymore, then it was easy to read. It was the same thing with Tolkien. Once I realized that I didn't have to read the poetry, I could just skip all the poems and the songs. It was so much easier to read Lord of the Rings. And, like, he had to give yourself permission to skip things.
So I'm I'm trying War and Peace. And I have like, now I know who the characters are and I know how it ends, it's gonna be I can just now read the details.
Mark: Okay.
Jane: This is
Mark: some very good book hacks from Jane
Jane: Yeah.
Mark: Skip all of the poetry and songs in Lord of the Rings. Don't worry about the characters in Game of Thrones because half of them are gonna die soon. And what was the the hack for War and Peace?
Jane: Oh, you watch the movie first.
Mark: Watch the movie first?
Jane: No. Watch the twenty sixteen mini series Okay. Is really good. And it's basically, it, like, skips, I think, about three hundred pages of the book. Oh, okay.
But it gives you it gives you the general bones of the story and you know who the important characters are and you're good. And you also know what all their nicknames are.
Mark: Okay.
Jane: Yes. So there's like three people named Anna.
Mark: Okay.
Jane: Everyone is named Anna. So you have to kind of go, okay, that's Anna B, Anna C.
Mark: Okay.
Jane: This is this Anna. That's that Anna. Oh, Anna is her nickname. That's crazy. Annette people call a woman's name is Anna, but she gets called Annette.
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: So yeah. These are the things that when you read a lot of Because when you read books that are older, you realize how much wordier everybody was.
Mark: Oh, yeah.
Jane: Everybody was very wordy. And that's the other trick that I have is that kinda like Shakespeare. You kinda realize that when you read Shakespeare, he you have a in regular Modern English, you would have seven word sentence, he will say it in no less than thirty words.
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: So if you can't get your head around, okay, this is really long winded way of saying I love you. Or you're beautiful. But he says it in, you know, how shall I compare these to the summer's day? You know?
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: He thinks you're good looking.
Mark: Alright. Some very interesting life hacks.
Jane: I know. Sorry. That has nothing to do with anything.
Mark: No. That's fantastic. Before we wrap up, I want to point out one other thing. The next time we do one of these podcasts will be the day before our announcement. Of our top twenty.
And I will also highlight that we have our big event.
Jane: Yes.
Mark: Our first annual Best Fleets Education and Awards Conference. Three months from today, it starts. We have early bird pricing that is on until the end of January and I think until the twenty ninth. So It ends the day before we announce the the winners. But we would love to see lots of people there.
We are starting to get more and more people registering, which is great to see.
Jane: And it's going to be not just the awards but it's going to be how to get an award.
Mark: It's going to be a deep intense dive into the data. It's gonna be a lot of learning you'll write a lot of notes. You will learn a lot. Your heads will be full, but it will be a good time.
Jane: And we will have the Dave Nemo show.
Mark: Yes.
Jane: And we will also have Chris Henry, who's going to be talking about oh
Mark: How to be profitable
Jane: No. It but what's the title?
Mark: It's oh, it's like six traits of highly profitable
Jane: profitable companies or
Mark: something like that.
Jane: Yep. So and if you've missed him in from, you know, his previous lives, he will be giving you some good information. And so that will be good. And Do you have any other guests?
I think that's it.
Mark: Nope, that's it
Jane: Besides our winners and our Hall of Famers, and we will also last one, we will also be announcing a Hall of Fame overall winner.
Mark: Okay. Well, there's a backhanded way of announcing that. But more to come on that.
Jane: Yes. More to come on that.
Mark: Yes. We have more things that we're working on.
Jane: I just don't know how much more giant a trophy that we can get.
Mark: Well, that's what we might figure out in the next few weeks.
Jane: Exactly.
Mark: Alright. Well, let's wrap it up there later.
Jane: Okay. Thanks for listening.
Mark: Good day.