Any task performed identically three times should be automated or converted into a template to...
Any task performed identically three times should be automated or converted into a template to boost efficiency.
True productivity is about making meaningful progress on priorities
not just being busy with low-impact activities.
Leaders should resist the 'hero' mentality of swooping in to solve problems and instead focus on...
Leaders should resist the 'hero' mentality of swooping in to solve problems and instead focus on empowering their teams through effective delegation.
Understanding and leveraging the different ways people think (neurodiversity) can create a more...
Understanding and leveraging the different ways people think (neurodiversity) can create a more balanced and effective team.
Creating psychological safety in the workplace allows for open communication about individual work...
Creating psychological safety in the workplace allows for open communication about individual work styles and needs, reducing friction and improving collaboration.
Developing a 'user guide' for yourself—an instruction manual on how to work with you—can...
Developing a 'user guide' for yourself—an instruction manual on how to work with you—can significantly improve team dynamics and mutual understanding.
The human element, particularly through social engineering
remains the single greatest vulnerability in cybersecurity.
To achieve significant progress
focus on completing one task at a time (mono-tasking) to build momentum and avoid the inefficiencies of multitasking.
Episode Summary
In this episode of the Med Device Cyber Podcast, host Christian Espinosa, CEO of Blue Goat Cyber, welcomes Sarah Ohanesian and Jeff Gibbard, the co-founders of Super Productive. Their company is dedicated to helping individuals and teams enhance their productivity through optimized systems, tools, and processes, ultimately fostering a healthier work-life balance. Sarah and Jeff explain that their mission is to enable people to do great work during the day so they can go home and enjoy their personal lives. They detail their own business partnership as a prime example of leveraging neurodiversity, combining Sarah's strength in scheduling and project management with Jeff's expertise in systems thinking and design. This synergy allows them to approach productivity holistically, balancing the human element with technology and process.
The conversation delves into several core concepts for improving workplace efficiency and team dynamics. A central theme is the critical distinction between being merely "busy" and being truly "productive." The guests define productivity as making meaningful progress on high-priority tasks, rather than just filling time with activity. They introduce a simple but powerful rule: any task performed the same way three times should either be automated or turned into a template. This principle is designed to eliminate repetitive manual work and free up cognitive resources for more important initiatives. The discussion also highlights the common workplace pitfall of the "hero" archetype—the individual who resists delegating tasks and instead prefers to swoop in to "save the day." Sarah explains that this behavior often stems from a person's identity being tied to their work and the validation they receive from being needed, which ultimately hinders team growth and creates bottlenecks.
To counter these inefficiencies, the guests advocate for creating an environment of psychological safety where team members can communicate openly and honestly about their work styles and needs. One innovative tool they use is the "User Guide Workshop," where individuals create a personal manual outlining their strengths, weaknesses, communication preferences, and triggers. This fosters mutual understanding and drastically reduces interpersonal friction. Christian Espinosa connects these human-centric concepts to his field of cybersecurity, noting that social engineering—exploiting human psychology—is the most effective way to breach a system, reinforcing that people are often the biggest vulnerability. The episode concludes by touching on the rising impact of AI, which is expected to both increase the sophistication of cyber threats and provide powerful new tools for enhancing productivity and automating complex workflows, making it essential for everyone to adapt.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers drawn from this episode.
In this episode of the Med Device Cyber Podcast, host Christian Espinosa, CEO of Blue Goat Cyber, welcomes Sarah Ohanesian and Jeff Gibbard, the co-founders of Super Productive.
Any task performed identically three times should be automated or converted into a template to boost efficiency. True productivity is about making meaningful progress on priorities, not just being busy with low-impact activities. Leaders should resist the 'hero' mentality of swooping in to solve problems and instead focus on empowering their teams through...
Sarah and Jeff explain that their mission is to enable people to do great work during the day so they can go home and enjoy their personal lives. It's most useful for medical device manufacturers, cybersecurity engineers, regulatory affairs professionals, and MedTech founders preparing for FDA review.
Any task performed identically three times should be automated or converted into a template to boost efficiency.
True productivity is about making meaningful progress on priorities, not just being busy with low-impact activities.
Listeners also asked
Quick answers pulled from related episodes.
What does Episode 23 cover about "Integrating Project Management to Strengthen Cybersecurity Outcomes with Steve Curry"?
In this episode of the Med Device Cyber Podcast, host Christian Espinosa, a Project Management Professional (PMP) himself, interviews Steve Curry, the founder of Mustard Seed, a firm dedicated to improving project management within the life sciences. The central theme of the...
What does Episode 11 cover about "Collaboration is Key: Bridging the Gap Between Developers and Cybersecurity Experts"?
In this episode of The Med Device Cyber Podcast, hosts Trevor Slattery and Christian Espinosa from Blue Goat Cyber delve into the often-contentious relationship between software developers and cybersecurity professionals. They frame the discussion around the fundamental problem...
What does Episode 6 cover about "AI in Healthcare: Why Humans Still Matter with Brandon Fertig, Senior Manager at Philips"?
In this episode of the MedDevice Cyber Podcast, hosts Trevor Slattery and Christian Espinosa are joined by Brandon Fertig, Senior Manager at Philips, to discuss the intersection of military experience, healthcare cybersecurity, and the evolving role of artificial intelligence....
Why do some teams remain overwhelmed even after introducing new productivity tools?
In this episode of the Med Device Cyber Podcast, Christian Espinosa speaks with Sarah Ohanesian and Jeff Gibbard, co-founders of Super Productive, about the systems, communication habits and workplace dynamics that determine whether people can perform at their best.
Sarah and Jeff explain why productivity depends on meaningful progress rather than constant activity.
They share practical strategies for capturing tasks, prioritising important work, automating repetitive processes and removing the everyday friction that slows organisations down.
The conversation also explores the workplace “hero” who repeatedly steps in to save the day. While that behaviour can appear valuable, it may prevent effective delegation, documentation and repeatable processes from developing. Sarah and Jeff discuss how recognition, identity and job security can influence these behaviours and why psychological safety is essential for addressing them.
The episode examines neurodiversity at work, including why labels often fail to explain what an individual actually needs. Jeff describes how personal user guides can help employees communicate their preferences, working styles and potential sources of misunderstanding without being placed into a fixed category.
In this episode:
* Productivity versus busyness
* Focusing on the work that matters
* Automating repetitive processes
* Removing friction from teams
* The workplace hero problem
* Delegation and psychological safety
* Neurodiversity and neurodivergence
* Personal user guides for employees
* Improving communication between different working styles
* Productivity in pharma and biotechnology
* AI agents and the future of work
* Social engineering in healthcare
* AI-powered phishing attacks
* Cybersecurity in an AI-driven world
Learn more about Sarah Ohanesian, Jeff Gibbard and Super Productive at: https://getsuperproductive.com/
The Med Device Cyber Podcast is brought to you by Blue Goat Cyber, cybersecurity experts providing essential security solutions for the medical device industry. Learn more by visiting https://bluegoatcyber.com.
If you’re interested in our services or partnering with us, schedule a Discovery Session:
Christian Espinosa is the CEO and founder of Blue Goat Cyber.
Christian Espinosa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianespinosa/
Blue Goat Cyber on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blue-goat-cyber/
Blue Goat Cyber on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bluegoatcyber/
Blue Goat Cyber on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bluegoatcyber/
Blue Goat Cyber on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BlueGoatCyber/?sub_confirmation=1
Christian: We've been able to get into every single hospital or environment we've ever tested, we do hacking or penetration testing. If we are allowed to use social engineering, we've gotten into every single one of them.
Jeff: Anything that is done the same way three times should either be automated or a template. If you start to do that over and over, you notice, "Oh, hey, this is the third time we've done it just like this," automate or template.
Sarah: that person who just can't effectively delegate because they want to come in and be the hero and they want to come in and save the day. Why do I feel the need to be the hero when really I should just let my team handle it. They're very capable.
Christian: Hi, welcome back to another episode of the Med Device Cyber Podcast. Today, we have a couple of super productive people. We have Sarah and Jeff, both from Super Productive. I got that right? Super Productive, is that right?
Guest: Yep.
Christian: Yeah, cause I know you're both super productive and I I like the name of Super Productive. And you're both coming to us from the East Coast. So maybe you could tell us a little bit about what Super Productive does and a little bit about your background and then we'll jump into, uh, MedTech and cybersecurity and I think we can talk about a little bit about neurodivergence as well, which is a very interesting topic for me cuz I I wrote a book about teaching geeks uh that are typically on the spectrum how to develop emotional intelligence. So I'm very familiar with neurodivergence and we'll, it'll be a fun conversation, I think. Maybe a little bit controversial, if that's okay.
Jeff: We'll, we'll try and steer you away from that. Sarah's good at keeping, keeping me in the safe lane. Sarah, I'll let you kick it off.
Sarah: All right. Well, Jeff and I are business partners in a company called Super Productive, and we are just on a mission to help people do really great work during the day, uh, be very super productive during the day so that really they can go home at night and be with the people that they love doing the things that they love. We spend so much time at work. So one of the things that we do is help build tools and systems and processes for people so that they can be really productive and do that amazing work, but not be working around the clock. And so we're really very passionate about helping people be productive in a way that makes sense for them. And this is where this neuro- neurodiversity piece comes into play. Um, and just making work better for people. We spend so much time working and we want it to be better, easier, faster for people. Um, and so Jeff, I'll, I'll let you, you add from there, but that's really what we're all about.
Jeff: Yeah, and so Sarah and I, uh, really exemplify this in the way we work together. We have two very different types of brains, different strengths and weaknesses. And that's actually how our company kind of came together, uh, is that we realized that there was a a really good balance there. So Sarah keeps the trains running on time. I'm the systems thinker and, uh, kind of designer of systems. Uh, but together, we look at productivity from a holistic standpoint of there's the person, there's the technology, there's the processes, and we bring those into balance. Um, and we think a lot about how different people need to use technology in different ways. And that's just from our own experience. Um, so we'll let you kind of dig into that wherever you want to take it, Christian.
Christian: Well I'm pretty obsessed with productivity cuz uh running a company, uh a founder, CEO of a company of about 30 people now and trying to be the market leader, I have to be very productive. And I I like to be productive and not busy. A lot of people confuse business with productivity, which I'm sure you're well aware of this. And we try to use AI, we try to have a sauna, we try to have systems and processes and train people the right way. But it's always a challenge because even me if my calendar, like today I started to work at four, and I use time box. And I have blocks of time where I'm gonna work on this and this and this, where it's focus time, where I don't do anything else, I just monotask on that one thing, but I got off track a little bit, but not that much.
Like, what are some other tips, like if you steal it down to like, what are some of the main tips people should know about productivity so they could be super productive. Because in my industry, it's all innovators trying to bring like things to market, brand new in inventions that can really change humanity. So we all have to be productive and time is always ticking because funds are always running out. So what are some of the top strategies would you think to be productive like, we can implement today, not like six months down the road. I know there's a long term and a short term as well.
Sarah: Totally. Uh, I'll I'll kick us off with, I love what you said about the monotask and working on one thing at a time. And I know that's hard, especially for creatives and visionaries and people who are at the forefront of this innovation. But the ability for us to actually get something across the finish line is so critical. So we run into a lot of clients who are starting again, or let's do another new tool, let's try it differently this time. But I really believe so strongly in working on something, focusing on something, honing in on that, making progress on that so that the progress from that work session really creates some momentum.
And that ability to propel us forward. So one work session leads to the next, and now at the end of the week, we can look back and say, I actually really accomplished something this week, instead of feeling like we're starting over. Um, I talk a lot about what you touched on earlier Christian, about the difference between being busy. It's very easy to be busy all week. Not as easy to be productive. And so that's what we're really talking about is what is productivity? And my definition of that is meaningful movement in the direction of what really matters, making progress towards a priority that really matters to you. And so we can hone in, focus on one thing at a time, actually make progress on that. We're going to feel productive instead of just feeling like we're we're busy and cycling, you know, our wheels and spinning our wheels. So that's that's mine for me. Focus, one thing at a time, and actually make progress, get it across the finish line.
Christian: We hit, you hit a important distinction. It's there's a lot of things you can be productive on, but how do you figure out the right thing that's gonna move the needle? Like what is, what's the strategy behind that? Because that's the challenge, right? Like me, I think there's these 15 main things that need to get done today, but of these 15, which one matters the most?
Sarah: Exactly. And, and, so so much of what we try to do with clients is think about what are your priorities? Like, what are the real priorities of this organization? And then does the team know what those priorities actually are, so that we can all be working towards that same goal. So for me, and and so much of the work we do, like productivity is really about progress towards those priorities and seeing that we're making progress toward those goals. But Jeff, I'll let you uh, chime in from there.
Jeff: Oh, so much to to play with here. Um, let's start with the priorities piece and then I want to go back Christian and and you did ask for some some quick tips you can implement immediately. I'm going to throw those in at the end and they'll just be like real straightforward. But just touching on the priorities piece, there's kind of two sides of it, and Sarah can talk a great length about what it means to have clarity in your business. Uh that is really what Sarah's specialty is, um but making sure that everyone is on the same page, absolutely critical in in being able to get the right things moving forward. But I'm going to approach it from my angle, which is that I'm a systems person. So I always think about, well, how can we build a system to support whatever that is. So assuming you get clarity and you're someone like me, you have a lot of irons in the fire. Uh you have a lot of things you want to work on. I developed a scoring system for all of my work so that I could actually, and this was actually part of a challenge that Sarah and I had as business partners.
So Sarah thinks about what is most important based upon a due date. I think about what is most important based upon what is most important. And what I mean by that is what is the most urgent priority thing that can move the business forward. And sometimes those things overlap, but sometimes they don't. And so I would look at my task list and sort by priority, and Sarah would sort by due date, and she'd be like, why isn't, why aren't we working on this thing? And I'm like, well why aren't we working on this thing? And so what I did is I built a scoring system into our Asana. Uh I also use other tools and I've built it into that, and I call it the hyperfocus system. And it's a modified Eisenhower matrix. And the way it works is that instead of having the standard quadrant of, um, an Eisenhower matrix, there's also a scoring layer on it. So within your like things to do, you rank it one through four, essentially. And so that's based upon something that's overdue, and that's in and that's your top priority. That's going to be a higher score than something that's due in four days but is a top priority. So, systematically, I built into the tools that we use a way of actually scoring all of our work. And then it's just incumbent upon us um, to put in the due dates and the priority metrics in there so that the system can do its work. And then when we move things around, it it kind of reshuffles itself.
Christian: You said the user guides...
Jeff: The user guide workshops.
Christian: User guide workshops.
Jeff: So we help people build their own instruction manuals for themselves and then we give the team the tools to be able to like exchange that. And we'll build like an AI system so you can talk to the AI and say, hey, check out Sarah's user guide. I have to have a conversation with her about this thing and I'm worried about the conversation because I'm afraid of conflict let's say.
Christian: Oh, it's sort of like a, a personality cuz I remember before I did the um, I think it was the uh, predictive index survey where it told, told you how you work, but it told you how other people perceive you, and it told you how to communicate with somebody else too if you've read their results.
Jeff: Yeah. So I've, I'm a junkie for all of the different personality and behavior tests. What we've done differently in the user guide, the thing that truly sets it apart and that makes it different is that so many of these other types of um, analysis tools put you in a box. They say, this is who you are. You are this. You are an ENFP, Jeff. That's who you are and that's how you'll communicate. And as a DISK, you're a high D, high I, low S, low C. That's who you are, right? And what we do with the user guide is we we don't put people in a box. We say, what do you think is important for someone else to know in working with you? Things that you feel, things that you need other people to know. We ask questions like, what do you do that's really annoying to people? That's really useful to know that someone knows that they do something super annoying for other people, right?
Christian: Do people actually say that? Say what they do that's annoying?
Jeff: Yeah.
Sarah: Yes! Yes.
Christian: Oh, of course if you go first and somebody else will feel like, oh I should go too, right?
Jeff: Yeah! Yeah, because the thing is, people don't want to answer that. Everyone wants to be perfect, right? So the thing is that, so, I'm autistic and ADHD, right? And so I ask a lot of follow-up questions because I need to understand everything from the bottom up to understand and build a picture of something so that I can talk about it, right? And throughout my career, I've asked questions and sometimes been perceived as being rude or as being, um, like insubordinate or whatever, just because I'm trying to get clarity. And tools like the user guide are ways of showing this is what this person needs in order to function best in this environment. And it helps to take away some of that seeing people as we think they are versus seeing them as who they really are. Because we then as individuals get to say, here's who I am. And when I ask this, I know sometimes it may feel this way, but here's why I'm doing it because of what I need to understand.
Christian: So there's, they're they're changing, morphing into like the world around them to fit in.
Jeff: Yeah, exactly. So it's just about how easily you can adapt to whatever that standard is, right? And so if you shift that standard, all of a sudden, the people who right now would be seen as normal would be seen as different.
Christian: And so the point is that this whole normal versus not normal or typical versus diverted, that whole model doesn't really help us. What helps us is, tell me about you. Tell me about you. What do you, how do you work? How do you work best? What do you need? And then everybody gets to do that. And then when everybody does that and tries to accommodate one another and find a way that all their strengths and weaknesses can offset, you wind up getting this beautiful harmony rather than a situation where there are people who are right or wrong in an environment. Yeah, I've, I I don't know if I would label myself, cuz I don't like to label myself, but you said autistic and ADHD. I think those fall under the category of, I'm not an expert on this stuff, but neurodivergent. Would you say those are? Can you explain maybe what neurodivergent means and um, like what percentage of the population you might think are actually neurodivergent?
Jeff: Oh, this is perfect. Sarah and I do a keynote together and that's her part of the keynote.
Christian: Is it?
Jeff: Sarah, go. Yes. We do a keynote called Brains at Work. It's about neurodiversity at work, and we literally have a part in it because there's a lot of people have no idea about any of this. So we we break it down and clarify some important stuff. So, Sarah, take it away.
Sarah: We reali- so we realized that a definition is is actually important because people are throwing terms around right now and, you know, even sometimes making jokes about things. You know, we we talk in our keynote about how sometimes people say, "Oh, I'm being so OCD right now," or, "I'm I'm acting this way." And it's like comical on TikTok. And so we thought it was an appropriate one to level set and say, one, these these are official diagnoses as well. So, the way that we define it is neurodiversity is just different brains work differently. Like that is the simplest definition.
Christian: I guess it is, you think of a dive- diversity in neuro- that's really all it is, just by the description of the name, right? Yeah.
Sarah: Exactly. So different brains work differently. And Judy Singer was a a psychologist who coined that term, uh I think back in the '80s, and it really is just a such a simple definition. And then you asked a great question about the number, 20% of the population, so one in five people are neurodivergent.
Christian: I would have think it almost be 100%, because all of our brains work differently.
Sarah: Well, so...
Christian: Right?
Jeff: Yeah. Interesting about that. So like neurodivergent versus neurotypical and then there's neurodiversity, and then there's neuro-inclusivity. And there's all these different terms. Neurodiversity is 100% because we're all different. Neurodivergent is a term that's typically given to someone who's been diagnosed with a condition that's listed in the DSM-5 as a as a particular disorder of some sort. So, uh, Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, OCD, uh, and and neurodiversity can... dys... dyslexia, depending on who's defining it can mean a lot of different things.
But what we talk about in our in our talk is that these terms, neurodivergent, neurotypicality or neurotypical, tend to set us up about thinking about neurodiversity in like a linear spectrum, that there's like this normal and then like a deviation or a divergence from a normal. But that's not actually how it works. Neurodiversity is just everybody has kind of a uh it's it's in a circle more so than it is a line. And the way the example we give is think of it like an audio mixer. And like everybody's just got different levels on their mixer. There's like sensory uh experiences, uh how they think bottom up, bottom down, or top down, um, you know, how they relate to time, all these different things. And so what when it qualifies as in the neurodivergent category is usually when you get an official diagnosis. But it doesn't that's not necessarily helpful to have a diagnosis because it doesn't tell you anything. Because I can tell you I'm ADHD, and you can meet 10 other ADHD people, they're going to be different people. And I can tell you I'm autistic, you meet 10 other autistic people, they're going to be different because there's levels to all of these things.
So, to your point of saying like, you know, don't really like to do the labels, I think that's the best way for all of us to go. And it's one of the reasons we went with the user guide is that rather than having someone say, "Hi, I'm ADHD and autistic and here's all my stuff," they just get to say, hey, here's how I relate to time. Here's how I communicate most effectively. Here's what I need in an environment for me to be most effective. And then it just becomes a conversation around how do we be most effective in these environments rather than labels. And the whole neurotypicality thing just sets people up to think like, well, I'm the normal one and that's the different one. But what we've found in our work together, and in in all the people we've spoken to, is that neurotypicality is just about whether or not you can adhere to a dominant set of standards. And if you change the context, neurotypical people would be disabled in a neurodivergent context.
Christian: I've I don't know if I would label myself, but you said autistic and ADHD. I think those fall under the category of, I'm not an expert on neurodivergent. Would you say those are... yeah.
Jeff: Yeah. So, my take on it would be, anything's possible, but some things are just a lot harder. Right? And and these are things that are...Yeah, and so like, I guess the way that I would put it is this, is like, there are certain ways that I can think that my brain naturally thinks that every neurotypical person in my sphere, are they capable of it? Sure. Is it going to be extraordinarily harder for me to do that than it would be for someone who's 7 feet tall. And I think, while it's true, you can teach people and, and again, it's a spectrum, right? So there's going to be people who it's going to be like the the the incline of getting to it is going to be almost impossible. Not impossible, but it's going to be much closer to impossible. And then there's people who are closer to having a very, uh, you know, autism diagnosis level one maybe or ADHD that's very well controlled, or maybe they're medicated. That's going to be a lot easier. But it doesn't mean it's easy. And and just because someone can mask and learn to fit in, doesn't mean that they're going to be in their best environment. Um and so, I do believe that we can we can encourage people to develop these skills. The question is, do they want to? Um, will they feel comfortable? And would they be more effective if we didn't force them to do this? There are a lot of people I know that they're neurodivergent. Sure, you could teach them social skills and whatever. It's going to take every ounce of their energy to put on that mask and to be that person for the comfort of others, where you could just let them work at home and they'll crush their work. So, what's the move, right? So, I don't disagree with you. I fully believe in neuroplasticity. In fact, I might be one of the most, the biggest believers in neuroplasticity of people you've spoken to. Trust me, I'm on it. But I just think it's a much greater climb for some people.
Christian: And how did you two come about, uh, meeting and starting Super Productive together?
Sarah: Well, Jeff was, I always I'm like, was I a client or am I a vendor? I don't know, because, um, we ended up being business best friends, and that's what I call Jeff always. So technically I was the client and Jeff was the vendor, and we were doing marketing work together. This was back in the day when social media was just becoming a thing, and we were like, social media? What even is it? and how do we post? and what do we post about? So we hired Jeff to be our social media consultant many many years ago, probably 15 years ago at this point. But what I was realizing in working with Jeff was, yes, he's contracted to be our social media consultant, but this guy knows a lot of stuff. And I can talk to him about anything. And when I need to brainstorm something and I need a thought partner, Jeff can come in with a marker and a white board and like help me create a strategy for the entire next quarter. And so I just started calling him for random things. And over time, we, we joke now, but like Jeff was my, my business best friend and I would just call him for anything. So fast forward, uh, when we both then started our own businesses, it was really just, kind of a natural progression because exactly what we're talking about, Jeff's brain can fill in gaps that I have. My brain can fill in gaps that Jeff has, and so there's this natural synergy that really completes the puzzle. And so I was seeing a gap in some of the work that I was doing with clients. I was like, "Jeff, I really feel like this client would benefit from you." And over time, we just thought, why don't we just do this together? Like why do we even have some of our own clients anymore? Like let's just do these projects together.
Jeff: And we also didn't want to compete with each other. Like that was the other thing, is like we were getting some of the same leads at that time, and I'm just like really bad at certain things that Sarah is an absolute like superstar at. And there are a lot of things that I do really well that are amazingly valuable to the type of work that Sarah does. And we just decided on a few projects, like, "Hey, why don't we just go in together on this one?" And we did and it was awesome. And then we decided to like spin up a business to work together on these types of projects. We met at a WeWork over a weekend and built the website, the offers, like literally the whole business in a weekend cuz that's how I like to work is like, let's just blitz it. We built the whole business, and within three months, we hit six figures because we wanted up went landing a very large client. Um, and that just kind of set our business to to take off. We just, we had the right mix.
Christian: Cool, and what, uh, I know you have some connections with pharma and biotech, what, what are those connections? Are those some of your clients or what, what's that connection?
Jeff: Yeah, so that, the big client is really that was pharma and biotech. That was, that was back in 2021 was it?
Sarah: Yes. Yeah.
Jeff: Yeah. So shortly after we started our business.
Sarah: What, what has been really fun for us to work in that space in particular is recognizing inefficiencies. Um, and seeing how we could help them because at inefficiency at scale and at that kind of cost, at that level is so tremendous. And so what from a productivity standpoint, what we were seeing is people emailing each other. Uh certainly then you're talking about cybersecurity and compliance. And we thought, wow, these people need a very easy to use system, a productivity system that's easy, that is seamless, that is very strong with the workflow so they can they can get some of this very critical information out of their email. They can find it easily and they know exactly what to work on next. And so it was really about streamlining processes, streamlining communication, and setting them up for these these great workflows.
Christian: That's every industry these days.
Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, um, but to help people to really see the priorities, uh, in a visual way and to see workload in a visual way, so that's some of the work that we've done in that particular space.
Christian: For sure. Well, we're coming up on time here. Before we wrap it up here, I'll do a thing that, uh, before we came on live here, Jeff was talking about this reverse, um, what did you call it? A reverse what?
Jeff: Oh, the mic swap.
Christian: Mic swap, yeah. So let's do the mic swap here for a couple minutes and then we'll wrap up and get some key takeaways.
Jeff: So the mic swap, to to explain the concept for our listeners. I'm Jeff Gibbard, and this is my co-host Sarah Ohanesian. We are now the hosts of the Med Device Cyber Podcast and my guest today is Christian Espinosa. Thank you for coming on the show, Christian.
Christian: Thanks for having me.
Jeff: Yeah. So, uh, for those that have never heard our show before, the concept behind the mic swap is something that hearkens back to a brilliant man named Jeff Gibbard had a show called Shareable and he used to let his guests be the host of the show and the host become the guest. So now we get to pick your brain from a multitude of different angles. Sarah, would you like to take the first shot at asking a question or would you like me to take the first one?
Sarah: I'll take the first shot cause I've been Christian, I've been friends for a little while, but Christian, I'd love to hear with AI and everything going on, like, what excites you the most about what's happening right now with AI in relation to cybersecurity and certainly, uh, your business.
Christian: What excites me the most about AI is being able to basically outsource my entire organization to an AI CEO and a bunch of AI agents that report and talk to that CIO and some sort of structure where they all check each other. And then of course from a cybersecurity angle, it's making sure that nobody is infiltrating those agents and telling them bad instructions or anything. Because I feel like if you have the right orchestrator, the right agents, and the right org chart set up and the right disciplines for each of them with uh cohesion and everything, then you can really achieve a lot. It's just a matter of thinking through those processes.
Sarah: That's awesome. So I'm hearing Christian is using AI more than just saying, "Make this email sound nicer," which is pretty, pretty cool. Um, and, and really, I think the opportunity we all have right now is to just like take this to the next level. So very cool.
Jeff: Oh man, I would love to geek out with you about some of that stuff that I'm building behind the scenes with AI. Um, I have a whole platform I've built. I'd love to see what you're using and what tools you're using. But the question I got to ask you regarding cybersecurity, um, and and we'll come back to the AI side of it. My understanding is that the number one vulnerability when it comes to cybersecurity is not your actual tech, it's the people. So that the one of the easiest ways to infiltrate an organization, to get information out is through social engineering, is through getting someone to just give you access or to leave open, uh, some sort of a pathway inadvertently. I'm curious, one, am I even spot on or or way off with that because that's what I've heard. And if that is the case, how much do you think that that's changing in the world of AI?
Christian: Uh, one, you're spot on. That is the number one way to get into an environment. Like we've been able to get into every single hospital or environment we've ever tested. We do hacking or penetration testing. If we are allowed to use social engineering, we've gotten into every single one of them. If the client says, "You can't use that," we get into like 60-70% of them, but not all of them. 100% if we can call people, fish people, send text messages, 100%, or if we can impersonate somebody in person. Uh, the second aspect is it's with AI, it's getting easier to do these things with deepfakes, with AI automated workflows, uh, it can be done at scale a lot faster. And the AI can also be used to harvest more information about you to personalize the attack in a much better manner. We're now we're way beyond the days of, you know, misspellings and and things you could easily figure out that it's a phishing email. AI can make those phishing emails very personalized, hyper-personalized based on its research about you so people are more likely to fall for it. And you can argue that well we have AI tools defending as well. But I think the malicious actors are more motivated than the defenders and they're always going to win.
Jeff: On on mythos, uh, Claude mythos, uh it's been reported that mythos has been able to basically infiltrate like everything from like your average company to the NSA. And I'm curious as a cybersecurity expert, you've been doing this, how long now?
Christian: 30 years.
Jeff: 30 years. Okay, so 30 years. Do you feel like we're heading into a fundamentally different period in cybersecurity than we ever have in the past, given the nature of the tools and their ability to essentially crack into and get into anything?
Christian: Yeah, it's a fundamental, uh, fundamentally different period altogether, not just cybersecurity, because it's a matter of AI versus AI. And the people that are going to make it are the people that can do the best AI prompt engineering and basically tell the AI what to do the best. Uh, and this this is from a cybersecurity offensive perspective and a defensive perspective, but also from a marketing, from a sales, from a business, from a communication perspective, it's really about all of it. So it's in your best interest today to get good at AI, period. You can't just say, "I don't like AI, it's going to go away." You got to learn it today or your job's going to be obsolete in the future is my opinion.
Jeff: God, sounds like all the people listening right now should probably give you a call especially if they're in the key industries that you serve because sounds like you're on the cutting edge and really know what they should be, uh, looking out at to protect themselves in the now and in the future.
Christian: I try to be, yeah.
Christian: So, do I like to go around and do some key takeaways or last minute words of wisdom from, uh, you. We'll start with you, Jeff.
Jeff: I mean, key takeaways, we we talked about a lot of different things. If I had one takeaway for people is, is I hope to to encourage people to just be more curious with those around them, uh to spend less time in judgment and more time in, uh, asking questions and getting to know people. Uh, I think that's, you know, whether it's productivity and effectiveness or whether it's, you know, team building or conflict resolution. Uh we don't get very far when we we think we know the answer. Um Sarah and I say that there's three assumptions that kind of lead the way on things. It's I think everybody's brain works just like mine. Uh, when we find somebody whose brain doesn't work, uh, or they they don't do it the way we want, uh, if I can do it, they can do it. Uh, and then if they can't do it, there must be something wrong with them and I need to fix them. And I think if we get rid of those three chains of assumptions, uh, we can start to see people for who they are instead of who we we, you know, characterize them to be. So that's the thing I hope people take away from this episode.
Sarah: I'm going to yes and it because that's certainly one of the core human elements to this. And ultimately, one of the themes I heard today was it's one way to remove friction. And that's really what we're trying to do. Remove that friction, make work better, make work easier, ultimately so that people can spend more time doing things they love with the people they love.
Christian: Cool. I think one of the key takeaways for me, and this is something I've, uh, thought about a lot, but it's come to light again on this, uh, discussion is to listen for insight rather than agreement. I think as humans, we tend to want to listen to agree or disagree. But if you listen with a curious and for that insight, it gives us an idea of how that person thinks and how they view the world, and then we can interact with them better versus agreeing or disagreeing. That would be my takeaway. Love it. Well, thanks so much for joining the Med Device Cyber Podcast and, uh, where can people find you if they want to become super productive?
Sarah: We, we like an action verb as as Jeff mentioned, so it's getsuperproductive.com.
Jeff: And that's get like GET, not get like GitHub. So getsuperproductive.com and you can find me and Sarah through that.
Christian: All right, perfect. Well, thanks so much and thanks everyone for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and see you on the next one.