Managed Intelligence Providers and Job Imposters, Grow Your MSP and Your Career

👋 Welcome to the grind

I’m John Harden, and if you’ve seen me on LinkedIn, you know I’ve got a lot to say about life in the MSP trenches. This newsletter is where I bring it all together—my latest posts, no-BS takes on the industry, and highlights from webinars and livestreams. If you’re in the MSP industry looking to grow, sharpen your game, or just want to hear from someone who’s been in the thick of it, subscribe and come along for the ride.

Pour me a cup ☕

Be the Impostor You Want to Be

We dove into reinvention, risk-taking, and rising by failing with Esther Deutsch, Director at Net at Work. From law dreams to iced coffee and MSP leadership—this one was all about owning your own evolution. You don’t need permission to grow. You just need to start 👇

🔍 What we learned:

Esther’s unconventional journey—from social work to MSP leadership—underscores that you don’t need the title to lead. Her advice? Start acting like the version of yourself you’re aiming to become. Learn the business, not just the tech. And when it comes to failure? Lean in—because that’s where the growth lives.

💡 Biggest takeaways:

• Act Before You're Asked

  Don’t wait for a promotion: “take the job before it exists.” Start operating at the next level and leadership will follow.
  

• Learn the Business, Not Just the Tech

  Success in tech isn't only about fixing—it’s about understanding the context you’re operating in.
  

• Tactical Career Moves

  • Shadow leadership to learn how decisions are made.

  • Speak up more in meetings—ideas grow when they’re heard.

  • Fail. Then fail again. Then fail louder. Failure is a muscle; build it.

• Personal Brand = Career Currency

  Five relationship-oriented phone calls per day. Put five rocks, glass beads, or rubber ducks on your desk—don’t log off until they’re in the drawer.

✅ Recommendations:

• Start before you're ready

  Act like the person you want to be today. Titles will catch up.
  

• Fail Forward

  Make space to fail at work. The goal isn’t perfection, it’s momentum.
  

• Own Your Brand

  Launch that LinkedIn post. Use AI tools to clean it up if needed, but press publish. “Your personal brand is your elevator pitch but on autopilot.”

Huge thanks to Esther for a refreshing, high-energy chat full of real talk and tactical gems. Her mantra says it best: “Leadership is a stance in the world… not a job title.”

What’s one failure you’re willing to commit to this week in pursuit of growth?

PAX8 Beyond 2025: From MSPs to MIPs, and Everything AI

Just got back from PAX8 Beyond, and wow! What a whirlwind of conversations, demos, and big ideas flying around. The energy on the floor was electric, with a clear theme emerging: the future of MSPs is shifting fast, and it’s got a brand-new acronym to go with it.

MIP: The Buzzword of the Week

The phrase Managed Intelligence Provider (MIP) was on everyone’s lips. This isn’t just some throwaway term. It represents a huge transformation in how MSPs see their role. Moving beyond just keeping systems running to actively helping businesses navigate and manage the AI that’s now embedded in nearly every part of operations. We’re talking about MSPs managing the AIs that run other businesses, managing automations, workflows, and even the outputs of agentic AI. This is the next evolution. MSPs won’t just patch your servers: they’ll help you deploy, oversee, and optimize the AI agents working in your business.

AI 101: Practical Steps for Today

One of the sessions I sat in on, AI 101, reframed AI as more than automation. Instead, it’s a dynamic workflow… it’s fluid, adaptable, and capable of handling multi-step processes. This wasn’t just theory either. There were concrete, tactical takeaways MSPs could start using right now:

• Data hygiene is everything. Garbage in, garbage out. The most critical thing MSPs can do today is improve the quality of the data coming through their service desks. Think better classification, cleaner time entries, more accurate asset associations, and real resolution notes.

• Start with triage. Use AI to interpret ticket sentiment, apply NLP to voice interactions, and generate auto-suggested triage notes.

• Dig into PSA history. Download your ticket history, drop it into Copilot or another AI tool, and mine it for trends.

• Automate your knowledge base. Let AI help you build and maintain documentation from real-world ticket data.

• Phases of AI adoption. It starts with clean data, followed by human-in-the-loop validation, and only later does it evolve to real time-saving workflows. There was an emphasis on “reducing,” not removing effort.

And there were also the five “C’s” of deploying AI that stood out: Confidentiality, Compliance, Cost, Capacity, and Capability. Simple framework, but powerful.

AI 201: The Future is Now (and Python is the New Excel)

The AI 201 session kicked off with a bold claim: “API docs are dead.” The idea is that we’re entering the MSP 3.0 era, where low-code citizen automation, agentic AI, and MCP servers come together to reshape how businesses build and scale AI-powered solutions.

One of my favorite ideas? “Engineers are no longer creators… they’re curators.” AI isn’t just a developer tool anymore. It’s for every part of the business: marketing, sales, support, and ops. We’re stepping into the age of pair everything, not just pair programming.

They also hit hard on:

• Clean data again. Can’t emphasize that enough.

• AI-powered ad hoc apps that solve niche data-heavy problems quickly.

• Plug-and-play AI agents that discover, negotiate, and learn together.

• Ethics, audits, and access controls build guardrails before you build automations.

And here’s one that stuck with me: “Culture beats tech.” Encourage AI curiosity. Run hackathons. Reward internal AI tinkerers. And above all, don’t let shadow AI creep in without oversight, but recognize that it’s often the result of unmet needs.

The MIP Opportunity 

To wrap it all up: the shift to becoming a Managed Intelligence Provider isn’t optional. it’s already happening. The demand is here. MSPs who create space, set expectations, and guide their clients through this transformation are going to lead the charge. Now’s the time to get started. Clean your data. Encourage experimentation. Build your AI culture. And lean into the incredible opportunity that this new MIP model represents.

🎙️ I’m Live Next Week

Filter Your Focus, Measure the Magic (June 19, 9am ET)

In this highly caffeinated Coffee Chats episode, Auvik President Mark Ralls joins me for an unfiltered conversation about dialing in your strategic focus and measuring what actually moves the needle. From leadership-level clarity to team-level execution, this is a raw, insightful take on how focus and alignment can change everything.

What we’ll cover:

• Cutting Through the Noise: How does Mark filter his focus when everything’s a “priority”?

• The Real ROI of Focus: What’s the hidden cost of distraction—and how do you know when you’ve found your lane?

• Measurement vs. Meaning: Which metrics actually matter, and when does measurement become noise?

• The ‘Magic’ Factor: What happens when focus and alignment actually work—and how do you keep it human?

• Real Talk on Mistakes: When has Mark gotten it wrong, and what did it teach him?

🎧 Register here 

🔗 Stuff Worth Clicking

• Why SaaS Backup Isn't Optional in 2025 and How MSPs Can Lead the Charge

• How Will AI Impact E-Waste?

• How Tech Leaders Can Scale Culture Alongside Their Products

📬 Hit Me Back

So what now—are you the job impostor of your dreams and a future-ready MIP in the making? Or are you still waiting for a calendar invite from destiny? Whether you're brushing up your LinkedIn brand, data scrubbing like a sentient Roomba, or whispering sweet nothings to your PSA system, the takeaway is the same: leadership isn’t a title, and AI isn’t the future—it’s the coworker you didn’t onboard but who’s already replying to emails. So let’s hear it:

👉 What’s one way you’re “taking the job before it exists”?
🤖 What’s the first thing you’ll automate when you become a Managed Intelligence Provider?
😬 And what’s one glorious failure you’re willing to risk this week, just to see what happens?

Reply back and let me know your thoughts—because growth might be messy, but it’s way more fun with company.