What's Up with Tech? cover art

What's Up with Tech?

What's Up with Tech?

By: Evan Kirstel
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Tech Transformation with Evan Kirstel: A podcast exploring the latest trends and innovations in the tech industry, and how businesses can leverage them for growth, diving into the world of B2B, discussing strategies, trends, and sharing insights from industry leaders!

With over three decades in telecom and IT, I've mastered the art of transforming social media into a dynamic platform for audience engagement, community building, and establishing thought leadership. My approach isn't about personal brand promotion but about delivering educational and informative content to cultivate a sustainable, long-term business presence. I am the leading content creator in areas like Enterprise AI, UCaaS, CPaaS, CCaaS, Cloud, Telecom, 5G and more!


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Episodes
  • From Guesswork To Answers: How People.ai Transforms Sales
    Dec 23 2025

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com

    Forecast calls shouldn’t feel like theater. We sat down with People got ai’s new CEO Jason Ambrose to unpack how turning raw activity—emails, meetings, call transcripts—into crisp answers can transform forecasting, end CRM fatigue, and give leaders the clarity they actually need. Instead of forcing reps to feed fields, the platform reads what is already happening and returns guidance you can use right now: which deals are at risk, which stakeholders are missing, and where to act to hit the number.

    We trace People ai’s path from early activity capture to training models on billions of interactions across years of market shocks. That history pays off when patterns shift; the system sees signals static dashboards miss. Jason explains why most forecasting rituals only assign accountability, not risk, and how a risk-first approach reframes the conversation: timing, probability, engagement, and next best actions. The result is a plan you can execute, not a spreadsheet you defend.

    We also dig into the CRM reality. Systems of record still matter, but the monolithic UI is giving way to flexible experiences, agents, and chat surfaces that pull answers into the tools your teams already use. Executives want to ask open questions—what’s happening in Japan, where a product stands—and get a directionally correct answer in minutes, not days. Agents are set to automate internal churn like account plans, win wires, and pricing checks, so sellers spend more time with customers and less time in tabs. Jason’s vision is simple and ambitious: make accurate, actionable answers available anywhere, integrate with the stack you have, and scale from pilot wins to trusted operations.

    If you’re ready to replace hunches with clarity, tune in, share with a teammate, and leave a review so we can keep bringing you conversations that cut through the noise.

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    More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

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    21 mins
  • How Gifting Pink Socks Sparked A Culture Of Human Connection Across Healthcare And Beyond
    Dec 22 2025

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com

    A bright pair of pink socks walked into HIMSS and walked out as a global symbol of connection. We sit down with Nick Adkins to unpack how a playful gesture turned into 300,000 gifts, a nonprofit rooted in kindness, and a book that invites all of us to love more and fear less.

    Nick takes us back to 2015, when he and cofounder Andrew Richards skipped the booth, packed a backpack with socks, and discovered the power of intentional gifting to break silos in healthcare. From viral photos and a TEDx talk to collaborations with hospitals, schools, and even astronauts, the Pink Socks movement shows how a small token can open big conversations. The new book, Pink Socks: How A Pair Of Socks Became A Symbol Of Love And Connection, weaves ten years of stories for three audiences: longtime community members, the Pink Socks-curious, and anyone craving a simple path back to empathy.

    We go inside the moment that changed everything: a raw, post-talk conversation at Stanford’s MedX with a lung transplant recipient whose story turned socks into a practice of holding space. Nick explains why connection, not just connectivity, heals teams and cultures, and how leaders can model empathy in ways that shift entire companies—sometimes starting with a poem. Practical ideas abound: put down the phone, introduce yourself to the person next to you, use a small, visible token to spark dialogue, and watch a tense room—say, a long post office line—soften into patience.

    If your heart is ready for a clear, human reset, this conversation offers a map. Explore pinksocks.life, discover how the nonprofit supports schools and community projects, and consider gifting the interactive hardcover with QR codes that bring stories to life. If this story resonates, share the episode with a friend, subscribe for more human-centered conversations, and leave a review to help others find us.

    Everyday AI: Your daily guide to grown with Generative AI
    Can't keep up with AI? We've got you. Everyday AI helps you keep up and get ahead.

    Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify

    Support the show

    More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

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    30 mins
  • Build Fast, Govern Faster: The Real Path To Agentic Success
    Dec 19 2025

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com

    What if the secret to scaling AI agents has nothing to do with better prompts and everything to do with smarter integration? We sit down with Rich Waldron Co-founder & CEO of Tray dot ai to unpack how an integration-first architecture turns agent hype into measurable business outcomes. From cloud-native orchestration to resilient API handling, Rich explains why the hardest part of agents isn’t connectivity—it’s everything behind it: concurrency, retries, governance, logging, and security.

    We dig into the real reasons enterprise pilots stall and the pattern he sees among programs that succeed: IT-led, department-partnered builds with clear ROI, tight scopes, and fast iteration cycles. Rich shares a standout customer story migrating hundreds of integrations off a legacy vendor while launching agentic workflows on a single governed platform—delivering 60% lower integration costs and three times faster builds. Along the way, we explore how engineering teams use AI coding tools to prototype faster and offload grunt work, freeing time for architecture and testing without threatening roles.

    If you’re choosing where to start, accelerators for ITSM, HR, support, and knowledge make time-to-value tangible and create a structure teams can adapt to proprietary data and processes. We also cover the growing priority of enterprise governance: controlling which tools agents can access, how data moves, and how identities map across systems. Rich outlines Tray’s Agent Gateway for MCP—adding authentication and permissioning and exposing Trey-built tools to other services in a controlled way—so CIOs can move quickly without giving away the keys to the kingdom.

    Ready to move from pilot to production with confidence? Follow, share, and leave a review to tell us where your organization is on the journey—and what’s blocking your next agent from going live.

    Support the show

    More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

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    17 mins
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