Compliance Unfiltered is TCT’s tell-it-like-it is podcast, dedicated to making compliance suck less. It’s a fresh, raw, uncut alternative for anyone who needs honest, reliable, compliance expertise with a sprinkling of personality.
Show Notes: We’re Back From Ft. Worth! PCI North American Community Meeting Wrap Up
Quick Take
On this week’s episode of Compliance Unfiltered, the CU Guys dive into their enriching experience at the PCI North American Community Meeting in Fort Worth, Texas.
Discover how the conference exceeded expectations with improved organization and engaging interactions, and learn about the exciting new features like EasyCert that were unveiled. From exploring the immaculate public transportation to savoring local culinary delights, they share personal anecdotes and insights.
Whether you’re a compliance professional or just curious, this episode offers a unique glimpse into the vibrant world of PCI compliance.
All on this week’s Compliance Unfiltered.
Read the Transcript
So let’s face it, managing compliance sucks. It’s complicated. It’s so hard to keep organized and it requires a ton of expertise in order to survive the entire process. Welcome to Compliance Unfiltered, a podcast dedicated to making compliance suck less. Now here’s your host, Todd Coshow with Adam Goslin.
Well, welcome in to another edition of Compliance Unfiltered. I’m Todd Coshow alongside the cilantro to your guacamole. Mr. Adam Goslin, how the heck are you, sir?
I am doing just fantabulous after we’ve had some fun.
No doubt about it. You got to see the better part of the western half of the United States in addition to a variety of other things, but today we’re going to talk a little bit more about the aftermath of the PCI North American Community Meeting this year held in Fort Worth, Texas. What was your favorite part, maybe?
So, I mean, let’s start with, like, you know, not stuff about the conference and just talk about, like, the area, things that we were doing and whatnot. I mean, you know, you know, you were chatting a little bit ago and, you know, saying, hey, we got to throw a shout out to Fort Worth. Honestly, we’ve done, like, public transportation and we tend to kind of ingratiate ourselves into the various places that we have the benefit of going to.
Great way to get a feel the place.
Well, yeah, you know, whatever, you know, we’ll go and we’ll get on the trains. Why not? I mean, when they had, what was the name of that train in Dublin? I always forget the name of it, but it was so dang it, and we came up with it and. Anyway.
At some point in the game, one of the two of us is going to remember it. It was some weird, it was an odd name, but we were always mispronouncing it. We were the damn Americans that couldn’t produce the, couldn’t say the name of the place properly. So anyway, long story real short is that Lewis, do you have that right?
Yeah, yes, the Luas, yep.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we were calling it the Luas. And finally, some of the really nice people in Ireland, you know, kind of set us straight. And it’s, no, it’s not the Luas, you American, you know, it’s the Lewis. And so we’re like, ooh, okay. But yeah, we like doing stuff like that. And so in Fort Worth, the cool part was that they had, they had a train that basically ran from the airport all the way to downtown. And, you know, man, I’ll tell you what, we’ve been on a lot of public transportation in the cities that we’ve had the opportunity to go to. It was literally the, I think the cleanest kind of train subway that we’ve ever seen.
It was truly immaculate. I guess is the easiest way to put it is it absolutely was public transportation. Uh, we got to meet the color for folks at a few of the stations. Don’t get me wrong, but the train itself was spotless. The conductors were all super nice and, and very, you know, uh, gracious that you were on their train. I mean, it was honestly very, very cool. And these were no short distances either. Yeah. Well, they’re moving a smile.
Well, I got in before you and John did, and oh my God, the first lady conductor that was kind of coming through, I basically said, hey, can I ask you a whole bunch of really dumb questions? And she’s like, sure. And she sat there and answered all my questions. How does the train work? And blah, blah, blah, give me a couple of pointers. I’ll have fun stuff. At one point in the game, the conductors were going through and with cleaning supplies, kind of cleaning the train while they’re in the middle of their ride. Honestly, I was very, very, very impressed. That was very cool. I live ostensibly in the Motor City area in Detroit, just north of Detroit. And yeah, we don’t have anything like that around here. So that was super, super cool. We got to go get some good eats while we were there. Usually we kind of cap off our conference experience by hitting a decent meal. Why don’t you tell the folks a little bit more about what we decided to do?
Well, yeah, I mean, when you’re in downtown Fort Worth, there’s all of the different, you know, steakhouses that you can go to, the largest stockyard in the country and all of that. But we actually found ourselves, you know, closer to the DFW airport in a little area called Grapevine, Texas. It’s actually an adorable little town, but they had a great spot down there for an end of the conference meal called Max on Main. And, yes, the steaks were fantastic as you would expect them to be, but, man, did we have one of the best jumbo scallop appetizers that you could ever ask for? And yeah, I know, scallops 700 miles from a coast, I thought the same thing. Don’t be fooled. They were fantastic. Max did a heck of a job. They were so good as an appetizer, John ordered another order for his main. So take that for what it is.
Now, I’ll tell you, have I ever told you what the best Chinese food restaurant is that I’ve ever found? No. Please do. Okay. So, this is one of my road trips back in the day. I landed in, of all places, believe it or not, Columbia, Missouri. Okay. And, go figure, right? I just go, I look up, I’m looking at reviews and everything. It’s just, it was a family. I hate viewing, like, chain restaurants when I’m on the road. Sure. I’d much rather support the mom and pops and smaller places and whatnot. So, it was a family-owned Chinese restaurant. And I’m going to tell you what, it literally is the best Chinese I’ve ever had. Don’t even ask me what the hell the name is, I’d have to go back and look it up. I’m sure they’re still around because they were awesome. But, yeah, Columbia, Missouri, best Chinese food I’ve ever had. It was absolutely insane.
I love it. Well, let’s dive in actually to the conference itself, Adam. Tell us some of the things that stick out in your mind about the 2025 PCI North American Community Meeting.
Well, I mean, to start out, you know, we’ve been attending the, you know, the PCI community meetings for many years at this point in the game. You know, went through all of the, you know, the no conference COVID year, the virtual year after that, you know, we were participating before all the, you know, all the COVID fit hit the shan, you know, type of a deal and, you know, what I will say is this, is that this year being in Texas, oh my God, was it a substantial improvement over our experience last year. We had, you know, and I really want to express sincere appreciation from TCT. You know, the, you know, kind of the council for putting on a great conference, you know, the council for organizing a great event. The council for being smart enough to go put freaking Gina back in the driver’s seat on handling the event. That lady is an absolute rock star. Love Gina. You know, last year we gave the team over there a lot of, you know, very direct feedback. And I can tell you that they took every ounce of what we gave them and then some, and really just a remarkable improvement over last year. I have, from a personal perspective, I have an astounding amount of appreciation for the people that do that job like Gina does, where you’re coordinating an entire event. Because my wife spent better part of two decades being the event coordinator for a company she worked for, and they were doing like eight to 12 events a year type of a thing. So I have watched those, I have, I have firsthand, you know, kind of viewing experience of seeing somebody going through it and, and all of the pain, all of the juggling, all of the late days, nights, weekends, all that fun stuff that goes into these things. And man, I’ll tell you what, I just, 2025, 2025 was a great experience. It was really, really nice being able to, you know, kind of get, get, get over there, enjoy the conference, all that fun stuff. So, you know, it was, it’s always fun. We say this year after year, it’s always fun seeing people at the conference. So the cool part about TCT, and I think it’s a lot different than a kind of a lot of people that either attend or, you know, that have, you know, kind of a booth in the vendor showcase, TCT is one of those rare companies where we can have a, literally have a great conversation with anybody that walks up to, you know, up to us. Uh, whether they’re subject to compliance, whether they’re assessing compliance, whether a service provider to compliant organizations, whether they’re doing consulting to help, you know, do gap assessments, et cetera, like literally everybody we can go and have a great, you know, a great discussion with. So, you know, it was, you know, it was fun. Why don’t you, uh, what, what, what were your thoughts about kind of, uh, you know, attendees and, you know, and the attendance.
Yeah, I thought it was very well attended. It was very cool to see a lot of new faces and meeting a lot of new friends. It was great, obviously, to see the familiar faces and the folks that we love to connect with. Every one of these conferences that we get to go to, be it in North America or in Europe for some of them, had a great event, obviously, during the week itself at West in Stone over there at the Sheridan. Shout out to those guys, it was a very nice spot. Got to see a lot of neat folks there and continue some excellent conversations. Shout out to Harry and Perminder as well. Had it all the way around a really enjoyable kind of conference in general from the areas that we got to be able to kind of, I don’t want to say network in, I guess for lack of a better term, to the actual events that they had going on there. It was all the way around, and it was a great opportunity to connect with other conference goers, whereas in other years, that’s been a little bit more of a challenge.
Yeah. Well, and one of the things that I love, I mean, you know, TCT has, you know, kind of been around, you know, we’ve had the portal up running live now for north of a decade. We have, you know, for the majority of that time participated with PCI with the conference. And, you know, it’s fun watching kind of the evolution, if you will. We get every year, we see more people that we know, we see it’s awesome because on the floor, we’ve got literally other vendor booths. We have clients, people that are attending the conference, a lot of clients, you know, type of a thing. And the interaction that happens at the conference, I got to tell you, one of the things that I’m most appreciative of is it is great when you can show up at the conference, you’re busy having a conversation with a person who’s like, well, I’m not really sure that, you know, do we want to go and use you, you got, you know, your product, et cetera. And meanwhile, we’ve got, you know, a number of existing clients that are like, yeah, we’ll go talk to them and, you know, we’ll tell them how it is and we’ll give them a good word. We had numerous of our existing organizations, you know, not just willing to, like we beg them, please, please, we go over and, no, offering, you know, hey, who are you talking about? Where are they at? I’ll go find them, I’ll tell them what’s up. It is just, it’s absolutely heartwarming to kind of see that style of interaction with the, you know, that we built with the folks that we work with. That part’s super cool.But we also had the opportunity because we literally had a functional release, like what, three days before we were sitting on the floor at BCI. Yes, sir. We had a functional release with honestly a piece of an element of functionality that I’ve been excited about to, you know, to get out there for a long time. And that’s a little something that we call EasyCert. And, you know, being able to, sorry, let me back it up a little bit for those that aren’t familiar. So what EasyCert is, is that it’s basically an element of the interface where we can go and dial it on for those control owners that you have on your engagements that they only have a handful of engagements or only coming in once a year. They don’t need all the bells and whistles and, you know, strength of the full featured TCT portal. They need to come in once a year. They’re probably not going to remember how it worked or what they did last year, you know, but they just need to come in once a year, get their items done and, you know, and move along, you know, type of a deal. I almost call it blinder mode, right? So we implement this EasyCert mode where we can go and dial it on for those periodic users or, you know, people that don’t need all of the full featured capabilities of the TCT portal. You know, it just gives them a nice, smooth, easy, streamlined interface to go in, get their stuff done and keep on trucking.
Absolutely. It’s an opportunity to connect with a lot of folks at the booth and throughout the show. John and I got to do a tech talk, and we’ll be doing more of an in-depth version in Europe as well, but got to do a tech talk that was very well attended. And the way that people’s eyes lit up at them when they saw the new dashboard and John walked through the workflow, it was, everybody took a, it was like a collective exhale, it was like, oh, this is possible, it was very cool to see.
Yeah, and the part that I enjoyed probably the most was, this is something that we’ve been talking with the existing client base about for some period of time. It’s common, it’s common, I promise, you know, that type of thing. And so kind of getting it out there, having it available, having existing clients swinging by the booth to say hi and whatnot and going, hey, come on over here, you’re going to want to see this. And the best part was, you know, from my experience kind of being in the booth and talking to our, especially our existing clients who, you know, they already know us and love us and use us and all that fun stuff, but their excitement about seeing the way that this interface is going to be able to help them on engagement, across the board, there was not one person that was like, yeah, it’s all right, you know, everybody, everybody was like, oh, this is awesome. This is going to really help us and, you know, and whatnot. And the fact that they can turn on Easy Cert for specific users, but leave other users with a traditional mode means that for the people on their client, you know, that are clients of theirs, that are kind of the point people, the centerpiece for compliance, whatever it may be, those people, you can leave with the full featured thing that they’re used to, da, da, da. But for the folks that are coming in, I don’t know, HR, the, you know, legal or sales, whatever, that’s just provisioning periodic evidence, it’s going to make it really, really streamlined for them and that’s what they were able to see and just a ton of them, very excited, you know, kind of about that, about that feature and about that capability. That was a lot of fun to get their live reaction because a lot of times, you know, we’ll go in and we’ll release functional, every single release that we do, it’s client requested functionality in some way, shape or form, but I don’t know, the vast majority of our releases, you know, we go and we do our job and we go and release it and, you know, John goes and lets them know about it, et cetera, but we don’t really get that, you know, live opportunity to kind of hear their reaction to, you know, to a feature. So it was awesome being able to have that, you know, have that experience face to face with, you know, with a lot of our existing clients.
No doubt. Parting shots and thoughts for the folks this week, Adam.
Well, uh, high level, um, North America, PCI, uh, you know, kicked ass. Uh, and so we were amazingly excited about that. Uh, we are just as excited about, uh, heading off to the, to, uh, Amsterdam here in, uh, I don’t know, two, three weeks, something like that. Um, you know, so we can go and do the Europe, uh, the Europe tour, uh, you know, type of a deal, but no, it was, um, it was very heartwarming to have our input from last year, be taken into account, seeing the changes and modifications, seeing the improvements for 2025. Um, you know, all of that was very, very heartwarming. You know, PCI has, has been near and dear to my heart, uh, ever since its origination, um, which I predate, uh, don’t tell anybody. Um, but, um, you know, it’s, uh, yeah, it’s, it was just, it was a really, really good time and, uh, you know, we love, we love the crew over at the, at the PCISSC and participating in the, uh, in the conferences. Um, you know, we had a great time, uh, you know, this year, uh, for anybody that has not that’s kind of even peripherally in the payment space, I would strongly suggest, I mean, if you have the opportunity to go and get over there and experience that yourself, um, then by all means, I would highly recommend it. There’s a, it’s a, it’s a tight group of people, um, that, that kind of conference, uh, you know, but once you start making friends and whatnot, man, there are some really, really awesome people that are, that are in the space.
And that right there, that’s the good stuff. Well, that’s all the time we have for this episode of Compliance Unfiltered. I’m Todd Coshow and I’m Adam Goslin, hope we helped to get you fired up to make your compliance suck less.
