Episode 85: Detroit Craftsman Guild, Solstice Consulting Group

Better Off Dead. Breakfast Club. Back to the Future. Commando. European Vacation. Fletch. Girls Just Want to Have Fun. Goonies. Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon. Real Genius. Rocky 4. Desperately Seeking Susan (remember when Madonna was hot?). Teen Wolf. Tuff Turf. Weird Science. Spies Like Us. Just One of the Guys. Moonlighting…yeah, 1985 was a great year, and episode 85 of our weekly broadcast wasn’t too shabby either.

With our guests from the Detroit Craftsman Guild and Solstice Consulting Group, we had a whole bunch of good things to talk about…

ITintheDnewspaper03302015We started off with the news, stories and events that caught our eye over the past week after our 1985 flavored intro wrapped up.  We chatted about the remade version of Poltergeist that’s hitting theaters next month, the return of the X-Files, Walking Dead’s season finale, how if you ever shopped at Radio Shack you need to be paying attention since they’re selling all of their collected customer data over the years during their bankruptcy liquidation, how a couple wound up driving off a bridge that had been closed since 2009 because their GPS told them to, the prisoner in Europe that got access to a phone and faked his own release letter via email to the prison…and it worked…and so, so much more.

473003bd9de5edb81355db23bed7f3b597992e05We’re testing out with a new sponsor again this week, so here’s this week’s offer to go try out.

Guys, we all shave, and razors and replacement blades can be ridiculously expensive.

So when Harry’s reached out and wanted to give things a shot with us, they sent us each a starter kit to check out…and, well, we’re talking about them, and you know us, so that says it all right there.  Solid products, great pricing, and we even have a discount code for you to make their prices even better.  Hit https://www.harrys.com/, check out their starter sets – that start at only $15, mind you – and then use code ITintheD at checkout to take $5 off.

306367_10150380076032138_1742107767_nAfter a flashback music break, we hopped in with James York.  He teaches classes over at Grand Circus when he’s not at his day job over at Lochbridge, and does a whole bunch of other stuff, but we specifically had him him to chat about his work with the Detroit Craftsman Guild.  If you’re not familiar with them, they’re an offshoot of the excellent Craftsman Guild in Ann Arbor, and the goal is creating a technology-agnostic user group for local Detroit software professionals who want to stay current in an industry in which there’s no way to stay totally current. The current plan is to have a healthy mix of hard and soft talks (tech vs. dev practices) as well as hands-on coding events from time to time.  They meet up on the third Tuesday of every month over at Detroit Labs, and it sounds like they’ve definitely got something going on that’s worth checking out.  Give them a look at http://www.meetup.com/Detroit-Craftsman-Guild/

acho-pic-for-useWe had a “couple skate” music break, and then we dove in with a guy who wears a lot of hats due to his varied interests, Steven Acho.  He’s the managing director of Solstice Consulting Group, a recruiting company that takes a different approach than many others.  He’s a musician with more than 3,000,000 downloads of his music.  He’s an author who’s written a book titled Why Technology Recruiting is Broken and What to do about it.  Needless to say, we had a great chat with Steve.  We talked about what Solstice Consulting Group does differently and their views on hiring talent and firing clients.  Lots of great stuff.  Follow up and check him out at http://www.steveacho.com/, grab his book at http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Recruiting-Broken-What-about-ebook/dp/B00U80A7I2/, and click on over to Solstice Consulting Group at http://www.scg360.com/

For our fourth and final segment, we doubled back on some of our earlier topics and wrapped up with our guests for the night.

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473003bd9de5edb81355db23bed7f3b597992e05Remember – check out Harry’s shave kits!  Solid products, great pricing, and we even have a discount code for you to make their prices even better.  Hit https://www.harrys.com/, check out their starter sets – that start at only $15, mind you – and then use code ITintheD at checkout to take $5 off.

Detroit Craftsman Guild is at http://www.meetup.com/Detroit-Craftsman-Guild/, on Twitter at @DetCraftsman, and you can find James on Twitter at @kroysemaj

Steve Acho can be found at http://www.steveacho.com/, grab his book at http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Recruiting-Broken-What-about-ebook/dp/B00U80A7I2/, and click on over to Solstice Consulting Group at http://www.scg360.com/

As always, we can be found:
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