Centric Commemorates presents a conversation about understanding and celebrating Juneteenth in this special edition of our Couch Convos: Biz and Tech Talks podcast. Monday, June 19, marks the celebration of Juneteenth, which became a federal holiday in 2021. The holiday now reflects an even more widespread recognition. Team members Maurice Faison, Blaiden Kirk and Dr. Jodi Merriday join our Couch Convos podcast host John Kackley for an insightful discussion on Juneteenth. They dive into why – and how – people celebrate it today. Whether you actively celebrate Juneteenth or are just starting to ..read more

In this episode of our Centric Biz and Tech Talks, we talk to Michael McNeal about Marketing Automation. How do you define marketing? Maybe you think it's a continuous cycle of campaigns to customers, with metrics tracking hits, responses, and - hopefully - sales or revenue. Maybe, if you're especially savvy, you successfully target a campaign at high-quality leads. But often time, it's no more than a guess. Well, welcome to the 21st century of marketing! In this episode of Centric Biz and Tech Talks, we talk with Michael McNeal, our National Marketing Operations Lead, about the journey into m ..read more

This year has taught us the importance of flexibility. Sometimes that need for flexibility overflows into who you select to be on a project team. In this episode of our Biz and Tech Talks podcast, we discuss how to tackle the difficult subject of staffing changes for your company's benefit. How do you know when to replace someone on a project? When do you remove someone from your team and bring in someone else? When has someone contributed all they're going to contribute to the team? In this installment of Centric Biz and Tech Talks, John Kackley talks with Centric colleague Hilary Lee to dive ..read more

In this episode of Biz and Tech Talks, we hear from Traci Whetzel about Salesforce's role in the world of CRM tools. Over the years, Customer Relationship Management tools (CRM) have become ubiquitous, and Salesforce has been leading the charge. A pioneer of software as a service, Salesforce is a major player with its CRM tools and more. In this episode of Centric Biz and Tech Talks, we listen to Traci Whetzel talk about her background with Salesforce and what she's learned from it. What does it take to make a Salesforce implementation successful? What should executives consider in planning fo ..read more

This week on Centric's Biz and Tech Talks, we talk to our four founders, the Four Amigos, to reflect on the start of Centric Consulting and our 20 years together. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the founding of Centric Consulting, although that wasn't the name back then. The name's changed, and so have a lot of other things. Or have they? In this episode of Centric's Biz and Tech Talks, we talk with the founders and long-time leaders of Centric, Dave Rosevelt, Eric Van Luven, Larry English, and Jeff Lloyd. With the Four Amigos as our guides, we go back to the early days of Centric to l ..read more

In this episode of our Centric Biz and Tech Talks, we share our “Using Microsoft Teams to Enable Remote Work” webinar. In this edition of our Centric Biz and Tech Talks podcast, Office 365 Teamwork Lead Michael McNett, Microsoft Certified Senior Solutions Architect Veenus Maximuik, and People and Change expert Phil Swettenham talk about how to deploy Microsoft Teams rapidly while driving employee adoption and maintaining company culture and engagement. To meet the urgent need for remote work during the COVID-19 crisis, thousands of companies worldwide turned to Microsoft Teams. In fact, March ..read more

There is more than one type of Cloud Provider. We take a look at two of the more notable options, Containers and Serverless, and determine if one is better than the other. On this episode of the Centric Biz and Tech Talks podcast, Jason Fisher leads a discussion about Containers versus Serverless architectures. Centric technologists Mike Brooks and Matt Miller join Jason Fisher to talk about Containers versus Serverless – the major differences, pros, cons and trends. Containers are a light-weight standalone execution environment for your application, with a complete operating system, applicati ..read more

In this episode of the Centric Biz and Tech Talks podcast, we discuss the importance of deep work. Jason Fisher led Centric's long-time technologists Chris  Urian and Shawn Wallace in a talk about deep work-- the basics, how to get started, practical tips to stay engaged, the benefits, and how to take advantage of it in business. Studies show that, annually, US companies lose approximately 28 billion hours in productivity each year due to distractions and interruptions. Their discussion goes beyond defining the subject into reflecting on how employing it improves employee p ..read more

In today's business world, data and analytics drive every decision made. Selecting the right technology tool plays a big part in successful implementation. A company realizes it's way behind the technology curve on data. The world runs on data, and they're moving at a slow walk. We need to do something, but what? In this episode of the Centric Biz and Tech Talks podcast, we continue our talk with Carlos Cruz, Jeremy Gruenwald, Sean Neben, and Ted Perez about how they took a client through the assessment of their data and analytics architecture, working toward a roadmap that drives the implemen ..read more

Determining the best means of implementing organizational change is half the battle in the execution of change. Understanding external resources and processes aids in achieving a smooth transition. The gig economy is the newest of business trends driving towards nontraditional employment models. For years now, companies looked at the tradeoffs involved with people who are not classic full-time employees, with analysis of the costs, risks, and company strategy implications. In this episode of Centric Biz and Tech Talks, we talk to organizational change management practitioner Colleen McFarland ..read more