‘TBR Talks’ Retrospective: What We Learned in 2025

As we close out 2025, “TBR Talks” host Patrick Heffernan and producer and TBR Marketing Coordinator & Account Executive Haley Demers sit down for a candid, end-of-year retrospective and a sneak peek at what listeners can expect in the new year. Additionally, the pair unpack the podcast’s growth, with nearly half of this season’s conversations featuring voices from outside TBR, and share a behind-the-scenes view of the show. They also discuss how those external perspectives have broadened the scope of the dialogue; how the show has evolved as listeners began to proactively reach out, asking to participate; and the unexpected value that emerged when technology-focused discussions turned personal.

Episode highlights:

• Memorable conversations about the intersection of humanity and technology

• Surprising conversations about career paths and entry points

• Bringing new ideas and ways of thinking to the table

• Bringing in more generational views and company-centric views in 2026

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TBR Talks is produced by Technology Business Research, Inc.

Edited by Haley Demers

Music by Burty Sounds via Pixabay

Art by Amanda Hamilton Sy

‘TBR Talks’ Retrospective: What We Learned in 2025

Haley Demers, Marketing Coordinator and TBR Talks Producer: Hello, Patrick.

Patrick: Hello Haley.

Haley: It’s fun to be on this side of the computer, of the podcast today. We’re sitting here because as you know, we’re approaching the end of the year. It’s time for planning and reflecting and we’re not exempt from that here at TBR Talks.

Patrick: Absolutely, yeah. We’ve spent a lot of time doing predictions and stuff, and now it’s time to do a little retrospective, a little thinking back.

Haley: Yes, for sure. So, you know, cut to us being here today, looking back, reflecting on the past few years, specifically a really cool aspect of our most recent season. We’ve had a lot of guests over the four seasons we’ve been doing TBR Talks, and we’ve had the most guests in an individual season this season, season four. So thought it’d be fun to sit down and talk with you about what that’s really been like.

Patrick: I also think on the subject of the guests that we’ve had, my math is probably wrong because math is hard, but I think we’ve had at least as many, if not more, folks from outside of TBR on than we have from inside of TBR. And I’m not counting like Angela twice, you know, she counts as once, for example, or Boz, but I think we’ve had more people from outside the firm, which is kind of cool.

Haley: Yeah, so on that track, I’ve got some data for you.

Patrick: Great

Haley: Since we are an analyst firm. So, since the start of 2024, we’ve produced 56 full episodes so far, four4onus episodes. This is going to be our 57th episode. And we’ve had 30 different guests total on the podcast.

Patrick: Wow, alright.

Haley: Eleven of those have been from outside of TBR. And do you want to guess how many have been this season?

Patrick: At least six, I think.

Haley: Six, yeah, you’re right on the money there. Did you expect it to be that many?

Patrick: No, and I think we’ve been lucky because people have been listening to it and then coming to us and saying, hey, we’d love to be on the podcast. And that’s been a surprise for me. And it’s been fantastic because the conversations we had this season four have been certainly more far-reaching, broader, wider than we’ve had in the past three seasons, I think.

Haley: Yeah, it’s been extremely cool to see folks who we talk with in our everyday, day-to-day, as well as folks who are listeners who come in and say, hey, I’ve got something to say, I think we’d be a good fit. Can we have a conversation and see where it takes us? That’s been a- it’s been a really cool feature of this past season.

Patrick: It’s been really fun. *laughs*

Memorable conversations about humanity and technology intersections

Haley: *laughs* So, I guess to kind of bring the retrospective here, I’ve got some, kind of, superlative questions for you.

Patrick: Sure.

Haley: So, in your role as Principal Analyst here at TBR, you talk to a lot of people. I’d say talking and writing are the two main features of your role.

Patrick: *laughs* Yes.

Haley: And you’re excellent at both of them. And here on TBR Talks, you’re talking to a lot of folks as well. So, I want to start with asking you what conversation was the most memorable from this batch of conversations this season?

Patrick: Yeah, I think one that we did midway through, and it was memorable for a couple of reasons. It was two people. It was Batia and Chris from EY’s Mobility Practice. I met them in the spring in Barcelona and spent time with them there and really got to know what EY was doing around people advisory services even deeper than I did before I got to Barcelona and had such a connection with them that I said, come on the podcast, let’s have a chat.

What I didn’t sort of realize was how what they’re doing at EY, and it came out during the podcast, it’s so personal. Like we talk about technology so much, and even in services, which is a people business, we talk about technology nonstop. And sometimes we forget that it’s the people part of it that actually is the hardest part, but it’s also probably the most rewarding part. And so to me, I sort of went back, listened to that conversation again and realized like, okay, part of why I think they were such a great two people to have on and also why I connected with them when we met in person was just how much they bring the personal experience into what they’re doing. And it’s beyond just the technology, it’s actually the people that they’re focused on. And mobility in particular and sort of living overseas, being assigned overseas and immigration and all that, were issues that I, you know, go back 30 plus years for me professionally. So, to be talking about immigration issues and to be talking about being assigned overseas and stuff like that. I can’t even do the math from 1995, when I was first posted overseas, to come back to that in 2025, that math actually should be pretty easy. But anyway, it was really, really cool. It was memorable for that because it was a really personal kind of discussion and it went beyond just technology, which was great.

Haley: Yeah, that was a great conversation to listen through and it was really, really cool how they were able to articulate the humanity parts of their role and how the technology intersects with the humanity, and how the humanity intersects with the technology. And neither of those parts would exist without the other.

Patrick: Right. And I’m glad you said the word humanity, that’s a better way to put it than just people. But yeah, absolutely.

Surprising conversations about career paths and entry points

Haley: Yeah. Wonderful. So what conversation was the most surprising for you?

Patrick: One that jumps out and there’s a few that were surprising, definitely. There’s one in my mind that I definitely want to get to by the end, but really surprising was talking to Kelly See. from Ericsson. And what was surprising about it was how she came into her role where she is now as a librarian. And that was her actual background, which she studied library sciences. Sort of, I don’t want to say she found the job in the newspaper or something, but it almost sounded a bit like that. She just sort of came into Ericsson as a librarian and grew up inside of that, had her professional career develop inside of that company. And I don’t think about the companies that we cover needing library skills, and yet she’s done so much at being there.

And Elizabeth too, and so her colleague Elizabeth Roberts at Ericsson as well, we had a conversation with her. And what was surprising there was, here’s somebody I’ve known since I got to TBR in 2013. So, I’ve known her over a decade. And there were just things about her background and things about what she’s doing now and how much her role has changed that I didn’t anticipate when we- because I met with them in Texas, and we said, hey, come on the podcast, it’ll be fun. And I had no idea what Kelly’s background was. And I had no idea how much Elizabeth’s job had changed in the, just in the last couple of years, really. So that was surprising.

Haley: Yeah, it’s fascinating listening to all of the conversations that we have, both with folks inside TBR who come on the show and folks outside of TBR, hearing about their paths, hearing about the way that they got to the role that they’re at, hearing about the different roles they’ve had in their organizations and in the various organizations to bring them to the point in their careers where we get to talk with them here is fascinating. I’m a few years out of school and something that I was always ravenous for was how people progressed through their careers, what twists and turns people took. And so, whenever we would have the chance to have a guest speaker be able to really dig into somebody’s career path and how they got to where they are, that was something that I always really valued, having the chance to connect with folks on. So that’s been a really cool aspect of being here and being able to do this show.

Patrick: Yeah, and it’s great, because it’s sort of, in a way, it’s aspirational that you can say, okay, things- people can do things you don’t expect, and people can have careers you don’t expect. And for you, just a couple of years out of college, it’s a chance to say, okay, there’s a lot of opportunity there. You’re not locked into one thing. And for me, it’s just fascinating to hear the stories.

Haley: For sure. Especially when you know and you interact with somebody in a day-to-day way, in the ways that your two roles intersect, and you don’t really get to see a bird’s eye view of what the rest of their world looks like when they’re at work. That’s been really fascinating.

Patrick: It has been. It’s been a lot of fun.

Bringing new ideas and new ways of thinking to the table

Haley: My next question is, what conversation brought the most new ideas to the table for you?

Patrick: Yeah, I was going to sort of save this one for the end, but it’s perfect now. So, we spoke with David Martínez at BCG’s Henderson Institute. That episode alone was perhaps my favorite of the whole season. I’ll go ahead and say that. And for a lot of reasons, one, it was one of those things where they reached out to us and said, hey, we want to be on the podcast. So that was kind of cool. The second, we covered just an incredible range, a tour de horizon of everything happening in consulting and technology and AI. I mean, it was just, it was the broadest conversation imaginable, in part because the guy is literally a PhD in political philosophy. He’s a philosopher. Never had a conversation with a philosopher and talking about technology at the same time. But the thing that, because your question was, what was the sort of the most, not surprising, what was it?

Haley: The most new ideas to the table.

Patrick: The most new ideas. This is- so the challenge, one of the challenges in this job as an analyst is you do the research, you do the thinking. Once you present, once you bring forth whatever it is, whether it’s through the writing or speaking with somebody, an idea, if it resonates, it tends to stick. So, you tend to- you get- I fall into the same habit of sort of repeating or saying the same ideas again and again because it resonates. So, like, okay, this must be true because when I say it, people nod and say, oh yeah, that makes complete sense or I hadn’t thought about it before. So, for years now, we’ve had a saying within the firm, or at least within my practice, that the technology is never the problem, it’s always the people. So, technology always works. Technology just does whatever you tell it to do. The people are always the reasons why technology isn’t adopted, why change management is harder, why things go off the rails, why expectations are met. And so, in some ways, that’s just been a mantra for us. The technology isn’t the problem, the people are. And when I mentioned that to David, he just took the philosopher’s view of that and sort of turned it around on me to say, you know, the technology itself, you can’t really even look at that as the yes, no, the problem, not the problem. That’s looking at the wrong way. It’s the intent that people put into the technology. So, it’s not that people are inherently the problem. It’s the intent that they’re bringing to the technology that is or isn’t the problem. So, for years, I’ve been thinking about this as very binary and very sort of black and white. And he was basically saying, you’re missing the gray. You’re not even thinking about the right way to think about this problem. And the problem is real. The problem is, you know, people eventually have to use technology, and if they don’t use it right, then that’s what causes the problem, and he was saying it’s all about intent, and I hadn’t thought of it that way. It was just such a better, cleaner, smarter, deeper way to think about this framework that we use all the time, and so I think going forward, if I catch myself saying, we say around here that technology isn’t the problem. I’m going to stop myself and say, nope, I’ve been corrected by a philosopher. That is not the right way to think about it. So that was just, it was a fun conversation. It was an amazing conversation. He dropped some Latin phrases in, which has only happened once so far. So set the bar very high for 2026.

Haley: Yeah, some challenges for some other Latin phrases to get dropped on the pod there. Yeah, the intent is such an interesting way of looking at human interaction and technology because you have the intent in creating the technology, and you also have the intent in using the technology. So that kind of disseminates the gray area even further than we perhaps originally were kind of considering.

Patrick: Yeah. Absolutely.

Bringing in more generational views and company-centric views in 2026

Haley: My last question for you today, Patrick, is what kind of guests or what kind of conversations would you love to have on the podcast for a season five? What are you kind of hoping we get in the studio, we get coming through the door? What are you excited to potentially talk about next season?

Patrick: Yeah, two things. And I’ll reflect on the people we spoke to this season as a way of sort of framing it. One, we spoke with Eric Müller from Work & Co. And he’s a guy who’s about as old as I am, or I hate to say this, perhaps older. He had a generational view of technology, of change, of marketing, of creativity, that I think sometimes I forget to tap into. It’s really easy to talk to people who are at the very cutting edge, that are new in their profession, or they’re new into technology, and sort of forget that. Because we used to, you remember Ezra used to be here, and even Ramunas before him, and Geoff Woollacott, we had people at the firm. I think I’m actually the oldest person at the firm now, which is a little frightening, but it’s also a reminder, like, look, the generational stuff is kind of important. So, I think next year it would be good to go out and find some people that can give us the longitudinal view of some of the changes that have happened in technology because there’s so much hype, there’s so much that seems to be changing all the time. And in fact, maybe things aren’t changing quite the way we think they are. So that’s probably terrible marketing for TBR Talks because I’m saying I don’t want to talk about the hype and the new stuff, but I do, I just want to put it in the context of generational changes across technology.

Haley: Yeah, and I think we have the ability to kind of dive into some of the nuance in all of the hype and big scary headlines that may be coming out. We have the opportunity here to sit and kind of dissect it a little bit more.

Patrick: Right, and I think, I mean, I just think about the people that are in this firm with us, most of them have been here a minimum of five years, and in some cases, 10 years or more. And so, we do have people in the building that we can tap into to give that generational view of technology.

The other thing I’ll bring up is I was recently with some friends of ours and a guy who’s in technology, and he said, hey, I was looking on LinkedIn, I saw you have a podcast. And so, I listened to it, and he said he listened to the NVIDIA episode and the Lenovo episode, both of those with Ben and Angela. And here’s a guy who’s in tech himself, and wanted to just hear a little bit more about those two companies. And he’s like, absolutely loved it. It was the right length, like 20 minutes.

Haley: Yeah.

Patrick: Like not too long. But it was coming at those two companies in a way that isn’t constantly reported in the news. It was a perspective that he wasn’t getting from his other news and information feeds. And so I think that’s something I want to really try to do more of in 2026 and season five, is find a way to look at the companies we cover, look at the technology and the issues that we cover in a way that really is separate from what’s out there in the news. It’s not enough to just reflect on what are the earnings. It’s not enough to reflect on what are the sort of big trends that are happening, but really bring that truly different TBR perspective to the companies that we’re looking at. And it was really encouraging to have somebody who really hadn’t listened to any of the episodes before immediately say, hey, you know, especially the NVIDIA one, he’s like, learned so much more about that company, things I hadn’t been hearing in the news. I’m like, that’s perfect. That’s what we’re trying to do here.

Haley: Yeah.

Patrick: So, it was really cool. So hopefully more longitudinal view in 2026 and more perspectives on the companies and the issues that we cover that folks don’t get from just the daily rush of information.

Haley: Yeah, love to hear it. That’s a great goal for next season.

Final thoughts

And I know you love adding in a kind of bonus question.

Patrick: *laughs* I can’t help it.

Haley: To our guests

Patrick: And I knew this was coming. I just don’t know what the question is.

Haley: Well, so you’ve been asking most guests for season four a similar question, and I don’t think you answered it. So, I’m going to turn it back around on you. So, the question is, in the age of AI, there’s a lot of thought of AI potentially taking jobs away, taking tasks away and so if you had your 10,000 hours to get really good at something specific, what would it be? What would be the skill that you would love to master, kind of at the drop of a hat?

Patrick: Well, at the drop of a hat or over 10,000 hours. 

Haley: *laughs* Take it or leave it, you know?

Patrick: From a very realistic, very personal perspective, I have a guitar from my father. I would love to actually learn how to play it.

Haley: Yeah.

Patrick: I played the bass guitar when I was in a band in high school. I played the drums through college. The whole rest of my family is very musical. I have that thing I need to learn how to play. I need to take the 10,000 hours and dedicate to that. But from a more work perspective, I do, the magical power I wish I could have is just to stop time long enough to think and to write down everything that I’m thinking. Because I find so many times, we say this in conversations and in calls with our clients, where we say, we can’t write down everything that we want to on paper. So, call us so we can talk. To some degree, what we’re saying there really is, if we had more time, we would have written this better, more concise, and more directly. And we would have been able to say what we’re really trying to say. And instead, we just, we put it out there and now we have to tell you what we really mean. I would love to just get better at saying what do we really mean.

Haley: Yeah.

Patrick: And saying it in a way so much different than this answer, which is concise and direct and people can understand right away and walk away with. So that would be my professional side. Personal side, 2026, I gotta learn how to play guitar. I got it. I gotta learn how to play it.

Haley: Love it. Can always add a little bit of music into your life.

Patrick: Yeah, well, I could record a- that should be the real goal is to record the intro and outro music for it.

Haley: That’d be really cool. Awesome. Thank you, Patrick.

Patrick: Thank you, Haley. This is a lot of fun. We’ll do it again at the end of season five.

Haley: This was great, see you then.

Patrick: Next week, I’ll be speaking with Chris Antlitz about his 2026 Telecom predictions.

Don’t forget to send us your key intelligence questions on business strategy, ecosystems, and management consulting through the form in the show notes below. Visit tbri.com to learn how we help tech companies, large and small, answer these questions with the research, data, and analysis that my guests bring to this conversation every week.

Once again, I’m your host, Patrick Heffernan, Principal Analyst at TBR. Thanks for joining us and see you next week.

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