Heavy Strategy
Episodes
HS130: Wait, AI Doesn’t Secure Itself? Developing an AI Security Strategy
21 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Your enterprise better have a cybersecurity strategy for AI. But where to start? Everywhere! Securing AI means securing all the AI layers and througho...
HS128: Planning for an AI Bubble Burst
10 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How should you shape your IT strategy around the possibility–or is it probability–that the AI economy is a true bubble and will burst soon? John B...
HS129: Achieving Operational Excellence
07 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The best strategy in the world won’t succeed if a team falters operationally. But what is operational excellence, and what does it take to acquire i...
HS128: Planning for an AI Bubble Burst
24 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How should you shape your IT strategy around the possibility–or is it probability–that the AI economy is a true bubble and will burst soon? John B...
HS127: You’re Not Thinking About Your Network the Way You Should (Sponsored)
17 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Mav Turner, Chief Product Officer at Kentik, joins John Burke and Drew Conry-Murray for an in-depth conversation on the importance of deep visibility ...
HS126: AI Everything, AI Everywhere, AI All At Once
10 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
At CES in January, NVIDIA, AMD, Siemens and others spun elaborate tales of a world suffused with AI: AI in the cloud, AI at the desktop, AI in the fac...
HS125: How to Choose an IT Hiring Service
24 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Every employer knows to conduct background checks. However, conducting background checks on IT professionals requires an extra layer of verification, ...
HS124: Administration DDoS on AI Regulation
10 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The recent U.S. Executive Order 14365, Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence, is the administration’s latest attempt to p...
HS123: What Can You Stop Worrying About in 2026?
27 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Are there some things that can come off your strategic planning radar for IT and cybersecurity in 2026? If you ask AI, you’ll get some surprising an...
HS122: Insider Threats in the Age of AI
13 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Leaders may shy away from thinking about insider threats because it means assuming the worst about colleagues and friends. But technology executives d...
HS121: Digital Security Teammates: From Fantasy to Operational Reality (Sponsored)
16 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Your next security teammate might not be a traditional hire — it could be a Digital Security Teammate (DST),” says Secure.com CEO Uzair Gadit. In ...
HS120: Eight New Year’s Resolutions for 2026
09 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As you wind down 2025, what should you be planning to do for 2026? The Heavy Strategy team breaks it down for you with eight resolutions for the new y...
HS119: Securing 2026: How AI, Quantum, and the AI-Powered Browser are Driving Enterprise Defense (Sponsored)
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Anand Oswal, Executive Vice President at Palo Alto Networks, joins Johna Johnson and John Burke for a wide-ranging exploration of two emerging focal p...
HS118: Bricking the Company – Discussing Existential Threats with Leadership
25 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI and other technologies are increasingly capable of delivering company-ending events. How do you have “the conversation” with senior leadershi...
HS117: Environmental, Social and Governance Initiatives: What That Means for Your Organization (Sponsored)
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) initiatives aren’t just “the right thing to do”, they can also save companies real dollars, particularly...
HS116: Nth-Party Risk May Put You on the (Block) Chain Gang
11 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The evolution of the modern, Internet-driven economy has created the conditions for essentially unbounded Nth-party risks (that is, risks from your su...
HS115: Cyber-Risk Assessment and Cybersecurity Budgeting: You’re (Probably) Doing It Wrong
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
To understand how much to spend on cybersecurity, you have to accurately assess or quantify your risks. Too many people still peg their cybersecurity ...
HS114: In or Out? Deciding Which IT Functions to Bring In or Push Out
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In times of major change–whether in IT or the economy–organizations should take a fresh look at their sourcing strategy. Companies outsourcing key...
HS113: Bad Tech Romance: Five Signs You’re In an Abusive IT Relationship
30 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sure, some days you hate your job. But how do you know when an IT position has gone from being run-of-the-mill annoying to truly toxic? And what do yo...
HS112: Standardizing NaaS Service Definitions
16 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) promises enterprises the ability to set up and configure connectivity and network security with a couple of clicks. But fo...
HS111: When Someone Makes Your Cloud Service Go Poof!
02 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The modern enterprise is built on cloud, with most organizations using SaaS for their “horizontal” work horse layers, such as communications, conf...
HS110: Cryptocalypse Soon! The CRQCs Are Due Sooner Than We Thought
19 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Google now estimates that the specs for a Cryptographically Relevant Quantum Computer (CRQC), which can break conventional public key encryption in a ...
HS109: Is AI a Purchase or a Hire?
05 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Is adding AI to your environment a software purchase? Or is it more like hiring an employee? Heavy Strategy’s John Burke and Johna Johnson debat...
HS108: Keeping the (IT) House Clean to Avoid the Plague
22 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Whether it’s CNAME records pointing to dead endpoints or abandoned cloud storage buckets still mentioned in the makefile or Chef recipe, seeming...
HS107: Your (Late) New Years Resolution: Follow Your (Amended) Strategy
01 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Here we are, a bit more than halfway through the year. How’s your execution against your strategy going? Roiled by the economy? Disrupted by tariffs...
HS106: Planning for the Epochalypse
17 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
IT teams deal with technology lifecycle issues all the time–including Y2K, which enterprises across the world grappled with for years. The Epochalyp...
HS105: How to Train Your Unicorn: Thoughts on Ops Architects
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
You need someone to design your operations processes–or perhaps redesign them. That’s an Ops Architect. Should you take an ops person and trai...
HS104: How Long Should Your Planning Horizon Be?
20 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How far ahead should you plan, and what things belong in your strategic plan? Conventional wisdom holds that a 3-year planning horizon is “about rig...
HS103: Why IT Is Like Ultimate Frisbee
06 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s all well and good to develop a technology strategy, articulate and document the strategy, and agree (supposedly) on that strategy. But what do ...
HS102: IT’s Role In AI (Sponsored)
29 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI can impact an enterprise in several ways: making individuals more productive, making products and services more effective, and making it easier for...
HS101: Time for a Cybersecurity Spring Cleaning?
22 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Most organizations have a long list of security holes in the form of unpatched systems and other known but unresolved vulnerabilities. Is it time to h...
HS100: Lead Without Lying: The (Radical) Strategy of Honesty
08 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Is it actually possible to run a team without lying? Steven Gaffney, author of the book, “Just Be Honest”, joins Johna and John to talk about why ...
HS099: From CLI to CFO: Translating Complex Network Data into Clear Strategic and Financial Insights (Sponsored)
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
IT and network leaders need more than uptime—they need to know what their networks cost, what they deliver, and how future changes will impact the b...
HS098: Just Following Orders?
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What do you do when your colleagues or senior leaders ask you to do something illegal? It’s hardly hypothetical; recent years have seen high-pro...
HS097: Build A Strategy, Not Just A Project Plan
11 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
IT teams too often wrap a strategy statement around a basket of projects already in progress or known to be coming, rather than defining a strategy an...
HS096: Corporate Foresight and How to Get It
25 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Someone needs to be scanning the horizon for the threats and opportunities that are distant for now–and they need to be able to turn that foresi...
HS095: The Journey to a Self-Healing Network: Intelligence, Agents, and Complexity (Sponsored)
18 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Can AI and automation create a truly autonomous network, one that’s self-diagnosing and self-healing? Join Vitria CTO and Founder Dale Skeen and...
HS094: How Risky Is Your Organization’s AI Strategy?
11 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI Large Language Models (LLMs) can be used to generate output that the creators and users of those models didn’t intend; for example, harassmen...
HS093: Strategic Trust-Building Among Ops, Engineering, Architecture – and Leadership
28 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Billy Joel had it right: It’s a matter of trust. Too often Operations, Engineering, and Architecture teams don’t trust one another–a...
HS092: Make a Plan…and Change It!
14 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s better to plan for your IT strategy than not. But sometimes circumstances arise such that the plan, no matter how well conceived, just does...
HS091: The Game Has Changed: Security Strategy After Salt Typhoon and the Pager-Bomb Hack
17 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Recent events have driven home a simple fact: neither your devices nor your network services can be trusted totally, and they could all be turned agai...
HS090: AI Regulations: What You Don’t Know CAN Hurt You!
03 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This has been a big year for AI regulation, from the EU AI Act to the much hyped California SB1047, currently in limbo. With things bubbling along acr...
HS089: Return to the Office: What’s Next?
19 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Some high-profile companies like Amazon are mandating all employees return to the office, full time. Justifications, when given, mostly revolve ...
HS088: Combating Analysis Paralysis
05 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Analysis paralysis is a huge problem in IT – we “study” and “evaluate” and “keep on our radar” but then all too often have a choice ...
HS087: Alkira’s Multi-Cloud NaaS Bridges Networking and Security (Sponsored)
29 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Startup Alkira has built a Network as a Service (NaaS) offering that extends from on prem to public cloud and multi-cloud. Today’s sponsored epi...
HS086: [Next] Highlights: Drone to Titan, and More!
22 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, John and Johna share the findings from the recent [Next] conference that most inspired them: How to project-manage an 18-year effort ...
HS085: The Perfect and the Good (Enough)
08 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good… it’s a challenge that architects and strategists often face. They may design a ̶...
HS084: Straight Talk from Cisco’s CIO (Sponsored)
01 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Cisco CIO Fletcher Previn visits Heavy Strategy to talk about how to create a technology culture, what it’s like being “customer zero”, and othe...
HS083: Why Protocols Fail: Russ White’s Perspective on Effective Architecture
24 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Network veteran Russ White joins the Heavy Strategy team for a rousing discussion on why protocols fail, how much complexity is too much, why “p...
HS082: Citizen Coders: Boon Or Bane?
10 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The low-code/no-code movement means business users who aren’t programmers can create software. This capability might make these citizen coders m...
HS081: What’s Your Strategic Plan for AI Infrastructure?
27 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
AI seems to be changing everything, including your IT infrastructure. Do you have a strategic plan for your AI infrastructure? Today we discuss the me...
HS080: Top Mistakes In Developing and Executing Technology Strategies
13 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
To borrow a phrase first used in a military context, no tech strategy survives its first contact with real users. Today’s Heavy Strategy explore...
HS079: Big Rock, Best-in-Breed, or Ecosystem: What’s the Best Vendor Procurement Strategy?
30 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When choosing vendors, what strategy should you employ: big rock, best-in-breed, or ecosystem? The big rock approach consolidates vendor relationships...
HS078: Is It Time To Dump Microsoft?
23 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Should enterprises ditch Microsoft because of security concerns? Microsoft’s numerous vulnerabilities and questionable responses make it a signi...
HS077: Should IT Lead or Follow?
02 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The evolving role of IT in business is the topic of lively discussion between co-hosts Johna Johnson and John Burke. Johna argues that IT should ali...
HS076: Greg’s Finale
25 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is Greg’s last Heavy Strategy episode before he heads off to retirement. He gives us his final pieces of career and life advice, opinions on pr...
HS075: How to Ask Questions
18 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Asking questions is a critical skill whether you’re an outside consultant or on an internal IT team. In today’s episode, Greg and Johna review wha...
HS074: Geek Speak to Biz Talk
04 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
To be an effective technologist in a corporation, your efforts need to be aligned with the business strategy of your organization. In today’s episod...
HS073: Failure and Resilience
28 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Firing the wrong person, mistakenly rebooting core switches in a massive network, not passing the CCIE exam– today we talk all about failure. For th...
HS072: Making Distributed Work Successful
21 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Don’t call it remote work. Today Johna and Greg dive into distributed work– the future where there is no office vs. remote, there are just asynchr...
HS071: The Real Numbers Behind the Return To Office Myths
07 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why are some executives still insisting on Return to Office policies? Does it improve culture and productivity like they swear? Or is it more about th...
HS070: Living on the Edge: The Present Future of Edge Architecture
23 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Right now we’re in the first generation of edge architecture. We won’t even really know how to define it until we’re past it. Greg and Johna dis...
Day Two Cloud: The Duality of Enterprise AI
18 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to a crossover episode with the Day Two Cloud podcast! AI has been around forever; AI is emergent. AI is just data analytics; AI hallucinates....
HS069: Regulating AI
09 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s episode Greg and Johna spar over how, when, and why to regulate AI. Does early regulation lead to bad regulation? Does late regulation le...
HS068: What’s the Point of Having a Tech Strategy?
19 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What does having a tech strategy actually do for an organization? In today’s episode, Greg and Johna highlight how a good tech strategy benefits a c...
HS067: The Right People to Have on Your Tech Strategy Team
05 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Exactly who should be on your technology strategy team? From inside your organization, who should represent the areas that come into play: Business, d...
HS066: The Holy Grail: A Functioning Tech Strategy
23 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It’s rare for strategists, executives, and technologists to all get on the same page in order to create, execute, and adjust an organization’s tec...
HS065: Calculating the Value of Telco AIOps (Sponsored)
13 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
AI and automation are hot topics in telco, but not all projects are created equal in terms of the bottom-line value. We dive into how to calculate tot...
HS064: Mastering the Art of Strategy and Architecture with Pocket Change
06 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome, trailblazers and visionaries! Today, I’m thrilled to unpack a treasure trove of wisdom that zooms into the exhilarating realm of strate...
HS063: What’s On Our Minds
23 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hosts Greg Ferro and Johna Till Johnson reflect on the technological advancements of 2023 and discuss the trends for 2024. In this wide-ranging conver...
HS062: Questions On Being Service-Oriented
11 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Johna and Greg discuss service-oriented networking and the challenges of defining and delivering network services. They explore the negative impact of...
HS061: What is IT Training or Education
19 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The difference between training and education is signficant and technology industry often conflates these terms. They are vastly different ways to pro...
HS060: Power Micro-Generation for Data Center
05 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Powering data centres is big deal in current decade. Massive increases in consumption and scaling of off-prem clouds has exceeded the capacity of civi...
HS059: Cognitive Load and Platforms
28 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Our conversation begins with an exploration of the concept of cognitive load in relation to platforms. David, despite being an IT professional and not...
HS058: Are We Pausing The Technology Cycle?
26 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today we debate its technoloyg is reaching a stable phase. Greg argues that we are in a period of stability, citing resistance to change and a slowdow...
HS057: Technical Debt
11 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this podcast episode, Johna and I discuss the concept of technical debt. We provide different definitions of technical debt, with me focusing on th...
Heavy Strategy 56: FU to the Followup
27 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Taking your feedback and followup and discussing the questions you bring us. Zero Trust Defintions, Out of Band in Zero Trust, Johna and/or Greg is/ar...
HS055: Cloud Is Not The Only Future
12 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A special guest today, Keith Townsend joins Johna Greg to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing compared to on-premises infrastr...
HS054: Matching IT and Corporate Culture
29 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Are you interested in learning more about aligning technology choices with organizational goals? Our podcast has got you covered! Listen now to explor...
HS053: IT Facilities in 2023
02 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The use of physical infrastructure has changed substantially in the last three years. Data centres are scaling down, offices and branches are being re...
HS052: Professional Liability and Qualified Design
18 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As technology becomes more critical and vital to companies business leaders are beginning to question the reliability and liability. Insurers now requ...
HS051: Things I Wish I’d Known Back When
11 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Oft-asked question that doesn't have a right answer. We discuss non-convential answers that career coaches or self-help twaddle won't give you.
HS050: The Tech Job Debacle
28 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Google, Microsoft, Twitter, META/FB and a few others laid off an estimated 200,000 tech and tech-adjacent folks in recent weeks. Other companies like ...
HS049 Evanescent vs Enduring IT
07 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
IT organisations tend towards two strategic approaches - enduring, permanent and susatined. Or short term, consumable and fungible IT.
HS048 Using Personal Product Branding To Be Better Paid Technology Engineer
23 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Many business executives are incompetent scumbags and yet they managed to get the job and get paid serious money. What can technology engineers learn ...
HS047: Architect/Engineers/Operations, Career Progression and Liability
02 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What are these roles and how do they fit into a strategy ? Who solves problems, designs solutions, and tests to make sure that’s workable ? How do w...
HS046 What Do We Do About China ?
18 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The new geopolitical reality means that China is part of IT Strategy. The supply chain is changing, joint ventures are limited and more.
HS045 Seize Opportunities for Modern IT Operations with VIA (Sponsored)
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
AIOps is been a buzzword but public generative AI and LLMs like ChatGPT mean there is a lot more awareness and demand. In todays sponsored show we are...
HS044 Is Digital Transformation Bollocks ?
03 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
So much wasted marketing on Digital Transformation. Was it all bollocks or was there something real underneath the bombast and hype ?
HS043 Is The IT Team In The Service, Project or Product Business
21 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Differences between project (disruption, replacement), service (smooth, continuous) and product (updates, changes) mean that process and people have v...
HS042 Is ChatGPT Coming For Your Job
08 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Short answer is yes. Long answer is long. CHatGPT is useful for demonstrating potential and getting more funding for AI. In terms of potential for rea...
HS041 Intelligent Network Automation With BackBox – Sponsored
01 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We talk a lot about automation and orchestration and how they can change your network strategy and smooth network workflows. But not everybody wants t...
HS040 Top Mistakes Technology Strategists Make
21 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It might be curmudgeon day. Johna and Greg ask what are mistakes that we have seen in technology strategies.
HS039 Operating an Enterprise Architecture Function
25 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After setting questions and perspectives on What is Enterprise Architecture, the natural sequence is How to Maintain and Operate an Architecture team.
HS038 What is Enterprise Architecture And How To Plan For It
07 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Some companies use formal Enterprise Architecture (EA) to maintan a consistent IT strategy. Its not often successful so we discuss possible ways to pr...
Heavy Strategy 037 – Metaversing The Office is More Than One Thing
22 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Are there angles on future metaverse that make sensee ? Johna and Greg dive into their perspectives on what is a metaverse and converge on the face th...
HS036 Cyberstupid – Can We Stop Doing Dumb IT Security
01 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
You can't make a profit from Cybersecurity, its a cost. How do we work with business to see IT risk management on the same level as accounting and hum...
HS035 Quiet Quitting Hustle Culture
18 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Whats the deal with Quiet Quitting ? Johna & Greg get into a heated debate about the nature of work. Johna wants people to ‘do your job̵...
HS033 Getting real about LEO Space Networking
05 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Should LEO space networks be part of your network ? Are there common questions about using and designing for them ? What should be expecting from your...
HS034 Introducing Graphiant Stateless Cloud WAN – Sponsored
27 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Graphiant Stateless Cloud WAN addresses the limitations of SDWAN - better scalability, more flexibility and service guarantees. Their stateless networ...