Between Fires and Futures: Real Conversations for Tech Leaders Navigating What’s Now—and What’s Next
Between Fires and Futures: Real Conversations for Tech Leaders Navigating What’s Now—and What’s Next
Podcast Description
Between Fires and Futures is the podcast for modern tech leaders caught in the constant tension of today and tomorrow.It’s the space between daily firefights—cloud issues, AI hype, security breaches—and the visionary work of building scalable, resilient, future-ready organizations.Each week, we talk with the strategists, technologists, and innovators doing the real work of leading change. These are unfiltered conversations that expose the tradeoffs, wins, and lessons no one puts in the case studies.No spin. No fluff. Just pressure-tested leadership, real-world insight, and bold thinking.https://www.technologymatch.com/
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast covers a range of themes relevant to tech leadership, including AI adoption, organizational resilience, and strategic foresight. For example, episodes delve into pressing issues like daily IT crises, practical AI use cases, and the necessity of shifting mindsets for successful transformation, ensuring that leaders have the tools they need to transition from firefighting to future readiness.
Between Fires and Futures is the podcast for modern tech leaders caught in the constant tension of today and tomorrow.
It’s the space between daily firefights—cloud issues, AI hype, security breaches—and the visionary work of building scalable, resilient, future-ready organizations.
Each week, we talk with the strategists, technologists, and innovators doing the real work of leading change. These are unfiltered conversations that expose the tradeoffs, wins, and lessons no one puts in the case studies.
No spin. No fluff. Just pressure-tested leadership, real-world insight, and bold thinking.
https://www.technologymatch.com/
In this episode, Tonya sits down with Josh Einstein, Cloud Architect, Software Developer, and AI Engineer at ConRes IT Solutions. With over two decades of experience spanning the dot-com boom, telecommunications, and now artificial intelligence, Josh has built solutions for emerging technologies long before they hit the mainstream. Today, he helps organizations design and deploy the next generation of AI-powered systems—and he’s here to share how IT leaders can take the first real step toward practical, measurable AI success.
Together, Tonya and Josh tackle one of the most urgent questions facing IT leaders today: Where do we even start with AI? Boards are asking for strategies, budgets are tightening, and the pressure to “do AI” is mounting. But without a clear playbook, many pilots stall or fail before ever reaching production. Josh breaks down how to identify the right use case, test it within 90 days, and deliver the kind of results that executives actually care about.
Through grounded insights and real-world examples, you’ll learn how to turn AI hype into sustainable business outcomes—without betting the company on your first project.
You’ll learn:
- The key difference between doing AI and solving business problems with AI
- How to spot your first high-impact use case (and what to avoid)
- The 90-day roadmap for testing an AI pilot and proving ROI fast
- Why most AI pilots fail—and how to avoid the top traps around data quality, scope, and governance
- The role of security, compliance, and human oversight in responsible AI adoption
- How to measure outcomes that matter to the board—like hours saved, errors reduced, and dollars added
- Why AI should never be treated as just an IT project (and who really needs to be at the table)
- The myth of “AI replacing programmers” and what jobs will actually look like in the next wave of tech
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