Tech Talk 001 Darrell Parks | Hoxie School District

Tech Talk Interviews

This is a fun show by two IT sales reps trying to add some color to the DMR [Direct Market Reseller] world. In it they interview customers and prospect clients on good IT planning and implementation strategies. SHOW NOTES "This is a Tech Talk Interview with your hosts Trip Nine and John Giordano." Enjoy our first episode with our good friend and customer Darrell Parks. He is the IT Director over at Hoxie School District. When did you get interested in technology? @ age 13 when 20 GB was the largest hard drive capacity one could afford, Darrell was at a garage sale with his grandmother and bought his first computer. What hobbies do you have besides deploying systems and implementing switches? Racing Miada's, there is a local Miata club that Darrell is apart of. Darrell has done racing, drifting, and has a blast with his club. "You got to have a way to take off the stress". This is a good way. Darrell is also a gamer, first big game he liked was Starcraft. Star Wars or Star Trek? And Why? Star Trek! Star Wars has used the green screen too much. Who do you think would win in a battle – Star Trek or Star Wars? Check out http://gizmodo.com/who-would-win-in-an-all-out-battle-star-wars-or-star-t-1676075613 and comment below :) Current / new technology you like: Darrell likes the new intel Widi technology [display cast technology]. Listen in to find out why. Best IT moves of 2014-2015 YTD? Hoxie like any school deals with software updates a lot. In the past they would get the updates and put them on the server [it was time consuming]. They switched to a product called Ninite which helped a lot with the time consuming factor of the updates. Hoxie is also moving to Cat6 connections to increase their network speed. This is another win for the district. Biggest Lesson learned? Hoxie IT is a well run shop. Darrell’s advice is to just make sure you are keeping your teachers happy :) The way that he looks at it is he is running a business within a business – he needs to keep his customers [the teachers] happy so everyone will be happy. What brands do you like and why? Darrell has worked with Lenovo for a long time so it seemed like a natural fit when he moved over to his position at Hoxie. If you were on a tropical island and could only bring 1 piece of technology – what would it be and why? After thinking about it, Darrell said He would bring over a high powered radio to call for help [love the practical mindedness]. :) GO TO http://techtalkinterviews.com/techtalk001/ to see the hilarious video shot we did from this interview. AND VISIT http://techtalkinterviews.com/ for more great interviews.