Podcasts about Cisco Systems

In this episode Jennifer Didier interviews Jennifer Murray. Jennifer Murray shares her journey from graduating college with a Marketing degree, navigating it through a technical job she received.  From there she found her purpose and started her own company.   She discovered that small and medium businesses could create the same industry-leading employee programs by leveraging proven principles and program frameworks to increase employee engagement for the long-term. She earned her BBA in Marketing from The College of William and Mary and attended the Poole School of Management at NCSU to earn her MBA. She is actively involved in RMSHRM as VP of Membership, mentors, and volunteers with Dress for Success and St. Mary Magdalene Church in Apex, NC. Jennifer adopted a servant leadership style while leading and developing a team of sales professionals at Cisco Systems and working cross-functionally to launch Channel Partner training programs to hundreds of team members at both Cisco Systems and AT&T. She launched the first college hire sales program at Cisco Systems – immersing over one hundred recent college graduates in a multi-year training program in preparation for independent field sales positions. She and her partners believe that organizations of all sizes can create a strategic advantage to win and retain top talent. You can reach Jennifer Murray on her website www.onboardwithus.com  Or by email: Jennifer@onboardwithus.com 

Valerie Singer, GM of Global Education at AWS, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss the vast array of cloud computing education programs AWS offers to people of all skill levels and backgrounds. Valerie explains how she manages such a large undertaking, and also sheds light on what AWS is doing to ensure their programs are truly valuable both to learners and to the broader market. Corey and Valerie discuss how generative AI is applicable to education, and Valerie explains how AWS's education programs fit into a K-12 curriculum as well as job seekers looking to up-skill. About ValerieAs General Manager for AWS's Global Education team, Valerie is responsible forleading strategy and initiatives for higher education, K-12, EdTechs, and outcome-based education worldwide. Her Skills to Jobs team enables governments, educationsystems, and collaborating organizations to deliver skills-based pathways to meetthe acute needs of employers around the globe, match skilled job seekers to goodpaying jobs, and advance the adoption of cloud-based technology.In her ten-year tenure at AWS, Valerie has held numerous leadership positions,including driving strategic customer engagement within AWS's Worldwide PublicSector and Industries. Valerie established and led the AWS's public sector globalpartner team, AWS's North American commercial partner team, was the leader forteams managing AWS's largest worldwide partnerships, and incubated AWS'sAerospace & Satellite Business Group. Valerie established AWS's national systemsintegrator program and promoted partner competency development and practiceexpansion to migrate enterprise-class, large-scale workloads to AWS.Valerie currently serves on the board of AFCEA DC where, as the Vice President ofEducation, she oversees a yearly grant of $250,000 in annual STEM scholarships tohigh school students with acute financial need.Prior to joining AWS, Valerie held senior positions at Quest Software, AdobeSystems, Oracle Corporation, BEA Systems, and Cisco Systems. She holds a B.S. inMicrobiology from the University of Maryland and a Master in Public Administrationfrom the George Washington University.Links Referenced: AWS: https://aws.amazon.com/ GetIT: https://aws.amazon.com/education/aws-getit/ Spark: https://aws.amazon.com/education/aws-spark/ Future Engineers: https://www.amazonfutureengineer.com/ code.org: https://code.org Academy: https://aws.amazon.com/training/awsacademy/ Educate: https://aws.amazon.com/education/awseducate/ Skill Builder: https://skillbuilder.aws/ Labs: https://aws.amazon.com/training/digital/aws-builder-labs/ re/Start: https://aws.amazon.com/training/restart/ AWS training and certification programs: https://www.aws.training/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. A recurring theme of this show in the, what is it, 500 some-odd episodes since we started doing this many years ago, has been around where does the next generation come from. And ‘next generation' doesn't always mean young folks graduating school or whatnot. It's people transitioning in, it's career changers, it's folks whose existing jobs evolve into embracing the cloud industry a lot more readily than they have in previous years. My guest today arguably knows that better than most. Valerie Singer is the GM of Global Education at AWS. Valerie, thank you for agreeing to suffer my slings and arrows. I appreciate it.Valerie: And thank you for having me, Corey. I'm looking forward to the conversation.Corey: So, let's begin. GM, General Manager is generally a term of art which means you are, to my understanding, the buck-stops-here person for a particular division within AWS. And Global Education sounds like one of those, quite frankly, impossibly large-scoped type of organizations. What do you folks do? Where do you start? Where do you stop?Valerie: So, my organization actually focuses on five key areas, and it really does take a look at the global strategy for Amazon Web Services in higher education, research, our K through 12 community, our community of ed-tech providers, which are software providers that are specifically focused on the education sector, and the last plinth of the Global Education Team is around skills to jobs. And we care about that a lot because as we're talking to education providers about how they can innovate in the cloud, we also want to make sure that they're thinking about the outcomes of their students, and as their students become more digitally skilled, that there is placement for them and opportunities for them with employers so that they can continue to grow in their careers.Corey: Early on, when I was starting out my career, I had an absolutely massive chip on my shoulder when it came to formal education. I was never a great student for many of the same reasons I was never a great employee. And I always found that learning for me took the form of doing something and kicking the tires on it, and I had to care. And doing rote assignments in a ritualized way never really worked out. So, I never fit in in academia. On paper, I still have an eighth-grade education. One of these days, I might get the GED.But I really had problems with degree requirements in jobs. And it's humorous because my first tech job that was a breakthrough was as a network administrator at Chapman University. And that honestly didn't necessarily help improve my opinion of academia for a while, when you're basically the final tier escalation for support desk for a bunch of PhDs who are troubled with some of the things that they're working on because they're very smart in one particular area, but have challenges with broad tech. So, all of which is to say that I've had problems with the way that education historically maps to me personally, and it took a little bit of growth for me to realize that I might not be the common, typical case that represents everyone. So, I've really come around on that. What is the current state of how AWS views educating folks? You talk about working with higher ed; you also talk about K through 12. Where does this, I guess, pipeline start for you folks?Valerie: So, Amazon Web Services offers a host of education programs at the K-12 level where we can start to capture learners and capture their imagination for digital skills and cloud-based learning early on, programs like GetIT and Spark make sure that our learners have a trajectory forward and continue to stay engaged.Amazon Future Engineers also provides experiential learning and data center-based experiences for K through 12 learners, too, so that we can start to gravitate these learners towards skills that they can use later in life and that they'll be able to leverage. That said—and going back to what you said—we want to capture learners where they learn and how they learn. And so, that often happens not in a K through 12 environment and not in a higher education environment. It can happen organically, it can happen through online learning, it can happen through mentoring, and through other types of sponsorship.And so, we want to make sure that our learners have the opportunities to micro-badge, to credential, and to experience learning in the cloud particularly, and also develop digital skills wherever and however they learn, not just in a prescriptive environment like a higher education environment.Corey: During the Great Recession, I found that as a systems administrator—which is what we called ourselves in the style of the time—I was relatively weak when it came to networking. So, I took a class at the local community college where they built the entire curriculum around getting some Cisco certifications by the time that the year ended. And half of that class was awesome. It was effectively networking fundamentals in an approachable, constructive way, and that was great. The other half of the class—at least at the time—felt like it was extraordinarily beholden to, effectively—there's no nice way to say this—Cisco marketing.It envisioned a world where all networking equipment was Cisco-driven, using proprietary Cisco protocols, and it left a bad smell for a number of students in the class. Now, I've talked to an awful lot of folks who have gone through the various AWS educational programs in a variety of different ways and I've yet to hear significant volume of complaint around, “Oh, it's all vendor captured and it just feels like we're being indoctrinated into the cult of AWS.” Which honestly is to your credit. How did you avoid that?Valerie: It's a great question, and how we avoid it is by starting with the skills that are needed for jobs. And so, we actually went back to employers and said, “What are your, you know, biggest and most urgent needs to fill in early-career talent?” And we categorized 12 different job categories, the four that were most predominant were cloud support engineer, software development engineer, cyber analyst, and data analyst. And we took that mapping and developed the skills behind those four different job categories that we know are saleable and that our learners can get employed in, and then made modifications as our employers took a look at what the skills maps needed to be. We then took the skills maps—in one case—into City University of New York and into their computer science department, and mapped those skills back to the curriculum that the computer science teams have been providing to students.And so, what you have is, your half-awesome becomes full-awesome because we're providing them the materials through AWS Academy to be able to proffer the right set of curriculum and right set of training that gets provided to the students, and provides them with the opportunity to then become AWS Certified. But we do it in a way that isn't all marketecture; it's really pragmatic. It's how do I automate a sequence? How do I do things that are really saleable and marketable and really point towards the skills that our employers need? And so, when you have this book-end of employers telling the educational teams what they need in terms of skills, and you have the education teams willing to pull in that curriculum that we provide—that is, by the way, current and it maintains its currency—we have a better throughway for early-career talent to find the jobs that they need, and the guarantee that the employers are getting the skills that they've asked for. And so, you're not getting that half of the beholden that you had in your experience; you're getting a full-on awesome experience for a learner who can then go and excite himself and herself or theirself into a new position and career opportunity.Corey: One thing that caught me a little bit by surprise, and I think this is an industry-wide phenomenon is, whenever folks who are working with educational programs—as you are—talk about, effectively, public education and the grade school system, you refer to it as ‘K through 12.' Well, last year, my eldest daughter started kindergarten and it turns out that when you start asking questions about cloud computing curricula to a kindergarten teacher, they look at you like you are deranged and possibly unsafe. And yeah, it turns out that for almost any reasonable measure, exposing—in my case—a now six-year-old to cloud computing concepts feels like it's close cousins to child abuse. So—Valerie: [laugh].Corey: So far, I'm mostly keeping the kids away from that for now. When does that start? You mentioned middle school a few minutes ago. I'm curious as to—is that the real entry point or are there other ways that you find people starting to engage at earlier and earlier ages?Valerie: We are seeing people engage it earlier and earlier ages with programs like Spark, as I mentioned, which is more of a gamified approach to K through 12 learning around digital skills in the cloud. code.org also has a tremendous body of work that they offer K through 12 learners. That's more modularized and building block-based so that you're not asking a six-year-old to master the art of cloud computing, but you're providing young learners with the foundations to understand how the building blocks of technology sit on top of each other to actually do something meaningful.And so, gears and pulleys and all kinds of different artifacts that learners can play with to understand how the inner workings of a computer program come together, for instance, are really experientially important and foundationally important so that they understand the concepts on which that's built later. So, we can introduce these concepts very early, Corey, and kids really enjoy playing with those models because they can make things happen, right? They can make things turn and they can make things—they can actually, you know, modify behaviors of different programming elements and really have a great experience working in those different programs and environments like code.org and Spark.Corey: There are, of course, always exceptions to this. I remember the, I think, it's the 2019 public sector summit that you folks put on, you had a speaker, Karthick Arun, who at the time was ten years old and have the youngest person to pass the certification test to become a cloud practitioner. I mean, power to him. Obviously, that is the sort of thing that happens when a kid has passion and is excited about a particular direction. I have not inflicted that on my kids.I'm not trying to basically raise whatever the cloud computing sad version is of an Olympian by getting them into whatever it is that I want them to focus on before they have any agency in the matter. But I definitely remember when I was a kid, I was always frustrated by the fact that it felt like there were guardrails keeping me from working with any of these things that I found interesting and wanted to get exposure to. It feels like in many ways the barriers are coming down.Valerie: They are. In that particular example, actually, Andy Jassy interceded because we did have age requirements at that time for taking the exam.Corey: You still do, by the way. It's even to attend summits and whatnot. So, you have to be 18, but at some point, I will be looking into what exceptions have to happen for that because I'm not there to basically sign them up for the bar crawl or have them get exposure to, like, all the marketing stuff, but if they're interested in this, it seems like the sort of thing that should be made more accessible.Valerie: We do bring learners on, you know, into re:Invent and into our summits. We definitely invite our learners in. I mean I think you mentioned, there are a lot of other places our learners are not going to go, like bar crawls, but our learners under the age of 18 can definitely take advantage of the programs that we have on offer. AWS Academy is available to 16 and up.And again, you know, GetIT and Spark and Educate is all available to learners as well. We also have programs like Skill Builder, with an enormous free tier of learning modules that teams can take advantage of as well. And then Labs for subscription and fee-based access. But there's over 500 courses in that free tier currently, and so there's plenty of places for our, you know, early learners to play and to experiment and to learn.Corey: This is a great microcosm of some career advice I recently had caused to revisit, which is, make friends in different parts of the organization you work within and get to know people in other companies who do different things because you can't reason with policy; you can have conversations productively with human beings. And I was basing my entire, “You must be 18 or you're not allowed in, full stop,” based solely on a sign that I saw when I was attending a summit at the entrance: “You must be 18 to enter.” Ah. Clearly, there's no wiggle room here, and no—it's across the board, absolute hard-and-fast rule. Very few things are. This is a perfect example of that. So today, I learned. Thank you.Valerie: Yeah. You're very welcome. We want to make sure that we get the information, we get materials, we get experiences out to as many people as possible. One thing I would also note, and I had the opportunity to spend time in our skill centers, and these are really great places, too, for early learners to get experience and exposure to different models. And so earlier, when we were talking, you held up a DeepRacer car, which is a very, very cool, smaller-scale car that learners can use AI tools to help to drive.And learners can go into the skill centers in Seattle and in the DC area, now in Cape Town and in other places where they're going to be opening, and really have that, like, direct-line experience with AWS technology and see the value of it tangibly, and what happens when you for instance, model to move a car faster or in the right direction or not hitting the side of a wall. So, there's lots of ways that early learners can get exposure in just a few ways and those centers are actually a really great way for learners to just walk in and just have an experience.Corey: Switching gears a little bit, one of my personal favorite hobby horses is to go on Twitter—you know, back when that was more of a thing—and mock companies for saying things that I perceived to be patently ridiculous. I was gentle about it because I think it's a noble cause, but one of the more ridiculous things that I've heard from Amazon was in 2020, you folks announced a plan to help 29 million people around the world grow their tech skills by 2025. And the reason that I thought that was ridiculous is because it sounded like it was such an over-the-top, grandiose vision, I didn't see a way that you could possibly get anywhere even close. But again, I was gentle about this because even if you're half-wrong, it means that you're going to be putting significant energy, resourcing, et cetera, into educating people about how this stuff works to help lowering bar to entry, about lowering gates that get kept. I have to ask, though, now that we are, at the time of this recording, coming up in the second half of 2023, how closely are you tracking to that?Valerie: We're tracking. So, as of October, which is the last time I saw the tracking on this data, we had already provided skills-based learning to 13-and-a-half million learners worldwide and are very much on track to exceed the 2025 goal of 29 million. But I got to tell you, like, there's a couple of things in there that I'm sure you're going to ask as a follow-up, so I'll go ahead and talk about it practically, and that is, what are people doing with the learning? And then how are they using that learning and applying it to get jobs? And so, you know, 29 million is a big number, but what does it mean in terms of what they're doing with that information and what they're doing to apply it?So, we do have on my team an employer engagement team that actually goes out and works with local employers around the world, builds virtual job fairs and on-prem job fairs, sponsors things like DeepRacer League and Cloud Quests and Jam days so that early-career learners can come in and get hands-on and employers can look at what the potential employees are doing so that they can make sure that they have the experience that they actually say they have. And so, since the beginning of this year, we have already now recruited 323 what we call talent shapers, which are the employer community who are actually consuming the talent that we are proffering to them and that we're bringing into these job fairs. We have 35,000 learners who have come through our job fairs since the beginning of the year. And then we also rely—as you know, like, we're very security conscious, so we rely on self-reported data, but we have over 3500 employed early-career talent self-reported job hires. And so, for us, the 29 million is important, but how it then portrays itself into AWS-focused employment—that's not just to AWS; these are by the way those 3500 learners who are employed went to other companies outside of AWS—but we want to make sure that the 29 million actually results in something. It's not just, you know, kind of an academic exercise. And so, that's what we're doing on our site to make sure that employers are actually engaged in this process as well.Corey: I want to bring up a topic that has been top-of-mind in relation to this, where there has been an awful lot of hue and cry about generative AI lately, and to the point where I'm a believer in this. I think it is awesome, I think it is fantastic. And even for me, the hype is getting to be a little over the top. When everyone's talking about it transforming every business and that entire industries seem to be pivoting hard to rebrand themselves with the generative AI brush, it is of some concern. But I'm still excited by the magic inherent to aspects of what this is.It is, on some level—at least the way I see it—a way of solving the cloud education problem that I see, which is that, today if I want to start a company and maybe I just got out of business school, maybe I dropped out of high school, doesn't really matter. If it involves software, as most businesses seem to these days, I would have to do a whole lot of groundwork first. I have to go and take a boot camp class somewhere for six months and learn just enough code to build something horrible enough to get funding so that then I can hire actual professional engineers who will make fun of what I've written behind my back and then tear it all out and replace it. On some level, it really feels like the way to teach people cloud skills is to lower the bar for those cloud skills themselves, to help reduce the you must be at least this smart to ride this amusement park ride style of metering stick.And generative AI seems like it has strong potential for doing some of these things. I've used it that way myself, if we can get past some of the hallucination problems where it's very confident and also wrong—just like, you know, many of the white engineers I've worked with who are of course, men, in the course of my career—it will be even better. But I feel like this is the interface to an awful lot of cloud, if it's done right. How are you folks thinking about generative AI in the context of education, given the that field seems to be changing every day?Valerie: It's an interesting question and I see a lot of forward movement and positive movement in education. I'll give you an example. One company in the Bay Area, Khan Academy is using Khanmigo, which is one of their ChatGPT and generative AI-based products to be able to tutor students in a way that's directive without giving them the answers. And so, you know, when you look at the Bloom's sigma problem, which is if you have an intervention with a student who's kind of on the fence, you can move them one standard deviation to the right by giving them, sort of, community support. You can move them two standard deviations to the right if you give them one-to-one mentoring.And so, the idea is that these interventions through generative AI are actually moving that Bloom's sigma model for students to the right, right? So, you're getting students who might fall through the cracks not falling through the cracks anymore. Groups like Houston Community College are using generative AI to make sure that they are tracking their students in a way that they're going into the classes that they need to go into and they're using the prerequisites so that they can then benefit themselves through the community college system and have the most efficient path towards graduation. There's other models that we're using generative AI for to be able to do better data analysis in educational institutions, not just for outcomes, but also for, you know, funding mechanisms and for ways in which educational institutions [even operationalized 00:21:21]. And so, I think there's a huge power in generative AI that is being used at all levels within education.Now, there's a couple of other things, too, that I think that you touched on, and one is how do we train on generative AI, right? It goes so fast. And how are we doing? So, I'll tell you one thing that I think is super interesting, and that's that generative AI does hold the promise of actually offering us greater diversity, equity, and inclusion of the people who are studying generative AI. And what we're seeing early on is that the distribution in the mix of men and women is far better for studying of generative AI and AI-based learning modules for that particular outcome than we have seen in computer science in the past.And so, that's super encouraging, that we're going to have more people from more diverse backgrounds participating with skills for generative AI. And what that will also mean, of course, is that models will likely be less biased, we'll be able to have better fidelity in generative AI models, and more applicability in different areas when we have more diverse learners with that experience. So, the second piece is, what is AWS doing to make sure that these modules are being integrated into curriculum? And that's something that our training and certification team is launching as we speak, both through our AWS Academy modules, but also through Skill Builder so those can be accessed by people today. So, I'm with you. I think there's more promise than hue and cry and this is going to be a super interesting way that our early-career learners are going to be able to interact with new learning models and new ways of just thinking about how to apply it.Corey: My excitement is almost entirely on the user side of this as opposed to the machine-learning side of it. It feels like an implementation detail from the things that I care about. I asked the magic robot in a box how to do a thing and it tells me, or ideally does it for me. One of the moments in which I felt the dumbest in recent memory has been when I first started down the DeepRacer, “Oh, you just got one. Now, here's how to do it. Step one, open up this console. Good. Nice job. Step two”—and it was, basically get a PhD in machine learning concepts from Berkeley and then come back. Which is a slight exaggeration, but not by much.It feels it is, on some level—it's a daunting field, where there's an awful lot of terms of art being bandied around, there's a lot that needs to be explained in particular ways, and it's very different—at least from my perspective—on virtually any other cloud service offering. And that might very well be a result of my own background. But using the magic thing, like, CodeWhisperer that suggests code that I want to complete is great. Build something like CodeWhisperer, I'm tapping out by the end of that sentence.Valerie: Yeah. I mean, the question in there is, you know, how do we make sure that our learners know how to leverage CodeWhisperer, how to leverage Bedrock, how to leverage SageMaker, and how to leverage Greengrass, right, to build models that I think are going to be really experientially sound but also super innovative? And so, us getting that learning into education early and making sure that learners who are being educated, whether they are currently in jobs and are being re-skilled or they're coming up through traditional or non-traditional educational institutions, have access to all of these services that can help them do innovative things is something that we're really committed to doing. And we've been doing it for a long time. I may think you know that, right?So, Greengrass and SageMaker and all of the AI and ML tools have been around for a long period of time. Bedrock, CodeWhisperer, other services that AWS will continue to launch to support generative AI models, of course, are going to be completely available not just to users, but also for learners who want to re-skill, up-skill, and to skill on generative AI models.Corey: One last area I want to get into is a criticism, or at least an observation I've been making for a while about Kubernetes, but it could easily be extended to cloud in general, which is that, at least today, as things stand—this is starting to change, finally—running Kubernetes in production is challenging and fraught and requires a variety of skills and a fair bit of experience having done this previously. Before the last year or so of weird market behavior, if you had Kubernetes in production experience, you could relatively easily command a couple $100,000 a year in terms of salary. Now, as companies are embracing modern technologies and the rest, I'm wondering how they're approaching the problem of up-leveling their existing staff from two sides. The first is that no matter how much training and how much you wind up giving a lot of those folks, some of them either will not be capable or will not have the desire to learn the new thing. And secondly, once you get those people there, how do you keep them from effectively going down the street with that brand new shiny skill set for, effectively, three times what they were making previously, now that they have those skills that are in wild demand across the board?Because that's simply not sustainable for a huge swath of companies out there for whom they're not technology companies, they just use technology to do the thing that their business does. It feels like everything is becoming very expensive in a personnel perspective if you're not careful. You obviously talk to governments who are famously not known for paying absolute top-of-market figures for basically any sort of talent—for obvious reasons—but also companies for whom the bottom line matters incredibly. How do you square that circle?Valerie: There's a lot in that circle, so I'll talk about a specific, and then I'll talk about what we're also doing to help learners get that experience. So, you talked specifically about Kubernetes, but that could be extracted, as you said, to a lot of other different areas, including cyber, right? So, when we talk about somebody with an expertise in cybersecurity, it's very unlikely that a new learner coming out of university is going to be as appealing to an employer than somebody who has two to three years of experience. And so, how do we close that gap of experience—in either of those two examples—to make sure that learners have an on-ramp to new positions and new career opportunities? So, the first answer I'll give you is with some of our largest systems integrators, one of which is Tata Consulting Services, who is actually using AWS education programs to upskill its employees internally and has upskilled 19,000 of its employees using education programs including AWS Educate, to make sure that their group of consultants has absolutely the latest set of skills.And so, we're seeing that across the board; most of our, if not all of our customers, are looking at training to make sure that they can train not only their internal tech teams and their early-career talent coming in, but they can also train back office to understand what the next generation of technology is going to mean. And so, for instance, one of our largest customers, a telco provider, has asked us to provide modules for their HR teams because without understanding what AI and ML is, what it does, and what how to look for it, they might not be able to then, you know, extract the right sets of talent that they need to bring into the organization. So, we're seeing this training requirement across the business and not just in technical requirements. But you know, bridging that gap with early-career learners, I think is really important too. And so, we are experimenting, especially at places like Miami Dade College and City University of New York with virtual internships so that we can provide early-career learners with experiential learning that then they can bring to employers as proof that they have actually done the thing that they've said that they can demonstrate that they can do.And so, companies like Parker Dewey and Riipen and Forage and virtual internships are offering those experiences online so that our learners have the opportunity to then prove what they say that they can do. So, there's lots of ways that we can go about making sure learners have that broad base of learning and that they can apply it. And I'll tell you one more thing, and that's retention. And we find that when learners approach their employer with an internship or an apprenticeship, that their stickiness with that employer because they understand the culture, they understand the project work, they've been mentored, they've been sponsored, that they're stickiness within those employers it's actually far greater than if they came and went. And so, it's important and incumbent on employers, I think, to build that strong connective tissue with their early-skilled learners—and their upskilled learners—to make sure that the skills don't leave the house, right? And that is all about making sure that the culture aligns with the skills aligns, with the project work, and that it continues to be interesting, whether you're a new learner or you're a re-skilled learner, to stay in-house.Corey: My last question for you—and I understand that this might be fairly loaded—but I can't even come up with a partial list that does it any justice to encapsulate the sheer number of educational programs that you have in flight for a variety of different folks. The details and nuances of these are not something that I store in RAM, so I find that it's very easy to talk about one of these things and wind up bleeding into another. How do you folks keep it all straight? And how should people think about it? Not to say that you are not people. How should people who do not work for AWS? There we go. We are all humans here. Please, go [laugh] ahead.Valerie: It's a good question. So, the way that I break it down—and by the way, you know, AWS is also part of Amazon, so you know, I understand the question. And we have a lot of offerings across Amazon and AWS. AWS education programs specifically, are five. And those five programs, I've mentioned a few today: AWS Academy, AWS Educate, AWS re/Start, GetIT, and Spark are free, no-fee programs that we offer both the community and our education providers to build curriculum to offer digitally, and cloud-based skills curriculum to learners.We have another product that I'm a huge fan of called Skill Builder. And Skill Builder is, as I mentioned before, an online educational platform that anybody can take advantage of the over 500 classes in the free tier. There's learning plans for a lot of different things, and some I think you'd be interested in, like cost optimization and, you know, financial modeling for cloud, and all kinds of other more technically-oriented free courses. And then if learners want to get more experience in a lab environment, or more detailed learning that would lead to, for instance a, you know, certification in solutions architecture, they can use the subscription model, which is very affordable and provides learners an opportunity to work within that platform. So, if I'm breaking it down, it really is, am I being educated and in a way that is more formalized or am I going to go and take these courses when I want them and when I need them, both in the free tier and the subscription tier.So, that's basically the differences between education programs and Skill Builder. But I would say that if people are working with AWS teams, they can also ask teams where is the best place to be able to avail themselves of education curriculum. And we're all passionate about this topic and all of us can point users in the right direction as well.Corey: I really want to thank you for taking the time to go through all the things that you folks are up to these days. If people want to learn more, where should they go?Valerie: So, the first destination, if they want cloud-based learning, is really to take a look at AWS training and certification programs, and so, easily to find on aws.com. I would also point our teams—if they're interested in the tech alliances and how we're formulating the tech alliances—towards a recent announcement between City University of New York, the New York Jobs CEO Council, and the New York Mayor's Office for more details about how we can help teams in the US and outside the US—we also have tech alliances underway in Egypt and Spain and other countries coming on board as well—to really, you know, earmark how government and educational institutions and employers can work together.And then lastly, if employers are listening to this, the one output to all of this is that you pointed out, and that's that our learners need hands-on learning and they need the on-ramp to internships, to apprenticeships, and jobs that really are promotional for, like, career talent. And so, it's incumbent, I think, on all of us to start looking at the next generation of learners, whether they come out of traditional or non-traditional means, and recognize that talent can live in a lot of different places. And we're very happy to help and happy to do that matchup. But I encourage employers to dig deeper there too.Corey: And we will, of course, put links to that in the show notes. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to speak with me about all this. I really appreciate it.Valerie: Thank you, Corey. It's always fun to talk to you.Corey: [laugh]. Valerie Singer, GM of Global Education at AWS. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with a comment telling me exactly which AWS service I should make my six-year-old learn about as my next step in punishing her.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.

Jennie Lopez is the author of the Intentional Unicorn, and she embodies fully the idea of bringing your whole self to work. She shares with us in this episode about why it's important to bring your authentic self to work, and she gives us real examples about how to do so. About the Guest: Jennie López embodies "Bring Yourself to Work" in everything she does. She empowers diversity and engages employees and organizations to achieve new highs. Her superpower? Her authenticity! She realized that her strengths are a combination of her Latinx heritage, passions, and learnings from being a mom. Jennie is originally from Puerto Rico and moved to the US to complete her Master's Degree in Chemical Engineering. Her engineering career includes roles in Manufacturing & Quality and in the executive suite as Chief Operating Officer. Jennie is also an executive board member for the Organization of Latinx focusing on developing and accelerating Latinx talent at her company.In parallel she has also found success in her dancing and fitness careers. Her experiences include: Back up dancer for artists like Julio Iglesias and Ednita Nazario, Superbowl Winning NFL Cheerleader, and Zumba Master Trainer.After many years of working hard to hide her unicorn horn she realized that's where magic takes place. She is now proud of being an intentional unicorn and empowers others to do the same.Instagram: www.instagram.com/intentionalunicornLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/intentionalunicornYouTube: www.youtube.com/@intentionalunicornTikTok: www.tiktok.com/@intentionalunicornWebsite: www.intentionalunicorn.comAbout the Host: Amy L. Riley is an internationally renowned speaker, author and consultant. She has over 2 decades of experience developing leaders at all levels. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Deloitte and Barclays.As a trusted leadership coach and consultant, Amy has worked with hundreds of leaders one-on-one, and thousands more as part of a group, to fully step into their leadership, create amazing teams and achieve extraordinary results. Amy's most popular keynote speeches are:The Courage of a Leader: The Power of a Leadership LegacyThe Courage of a Leader: Create a Competitive Advantage with Sustainable, Results-Producing Cross-System CollaborationThe Courage of a Leader: Accelerate Trust with Your Team, Customers and CommunityThe Courage of a Leader: How to Build a Happy and Successful Hybrid Team Her new book is a #1 international best-seller and is entitled, The Courage of a Leader: How to Inspire, Engage and Get Extraordinary Results. www.courageofaleader.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/amyshoopriley/ Link mentioned in the podcastHow to Use What We Know About Neuroscience to Be Exponentially More Influential (podcast episode):

Laura Stack of The Productivity Pro tells you to stop trying to be on time Episode 1090: Stop Trying to Be on Time! by Laura Stack of The Productivity Pro on Preparing For Tasks Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE is an award-winning keynote speaker, bestselling author, and noted authority on employee and team productivity. She is the president of The Productivity Pro, Inc., a company dedicated to helping leaders increase workplace performance in high-stress environments. Stack has authored eight books, including FASTER TOGETHER: Accelerating Your Team's Productivity (Berrett-Koehler 2018). She is a past president of the National Speakers Association, and a member of its exclusive Speaker Hall of Fame (with fewer than 175 members worldwide.) Stack's clients include Cisco Systems, Wal-Mart, and Bank of America, and she has been featured on the CBS Early Show and CNN, and in the New York Times. The original post is located here: https://theproductivitypro.com/blog/2008/08/stop-trying-to-be-on-time/  Visit Me Online at OLDPodcast.com Interested in advertising on the show? Visit https://www.advertisecast.com/OptimalStartUpDaily Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

(9/22/23) - In today's Federal Newscast: A State Department contractor has been arrested for allegedly sharing classified information with a foreign government. Cisco Systems is buying cybersecurity and data firm Splunk for $28 billion, in a cash deal. And the Air Force abruptly cancels a huge cybersecurity solicitation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a thought-provoking conversation with Gregg Braden, we delve into the transformative concept of "Connecting Heart and Mind." Braden emphasises the heart's unique neural network, enabling us to transcend judgments and polarities. He shares personal experiences highlighting the heart's healing power and introduces heart-brain coherence through simple practices that enhance well-being and resilience. The Beauty Prayer, inspired by Navajo tradition, encourages us to embrace beauty as a guiding force in our lives. Braden also calls on us to acknowledge our innate divinity, offering a path to overcome external fears. Amidst global challenges, he urges us to focus on personal growth and conscious choices, presenting a roadmap to navigate our ever-changing world. This podcast interview empowers us to approach life with grace and unwavering resilience, uniting heart, and mind for a brighter future. About Gregg Braden Gregg Braden is a five-time New York Times best-selling author, scientist, international educator and renowned as a pioneer in the emerging paradigm based in science, social policy and human potential. From 1979 to 1991 Gregg worked as a problem solver during times of crisis for Fortune 500 companies, including Cisco Systems, where he became the first Technical Operations Manager in 1991. He continues problem-solving today as his work reveals deep insights into the new human story, and how the discoveries inform the policies of everyday life and the emerging world. To date his research has led to 15 film credits and 12 award-winning books now published in over 40 languages. Gregg is the proud recipient of numerous awards including The Walden Award for New Thought, The Illuminate Award for Conscious Visionaries and he is listed in the United Kingdom's Watkins Journal among the top 100 of “the world's most spiritually influential living people” for the 7th consecutive year. He is a nominee for the prestigious Templeton Award, established to honor “outstanding living individuals who have devoted their talents to expanding our vision of human purpose and ultimate reality.” Gregg is actively involved in visionary organizations and think tanks including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), The Evolutionary Leadership Organization, The Laszlo Institute of New Paradigm Research and The Arlington Institute. He has presented his discoveries in over 30 countries on six continents and has been invited to speak to The United Nations, Fortune 500 companies and the U. S. military. You can watch the video of the interview on YouTube Videos on Heart Coherence by Gregg Braden These Powerful Methods Will Build the Bridge Between the Heart & the Brain Two Powerful Methods to Awaken Hear & Brain Connection Three Keys to Heart - Brain - Earth - Harmony Find Out More About Gregg Braden Visit Gregg Braden's Website Connect with Gregg Braden on Facebook Follow Gregg Braden on Instagram @Gregg.Braden Watch Gregg's Amazing YouTube Channel

Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Technology Analyst Woo Jin Ho reports on Cisco Systems agreeing to buy Splunk in a deal valued at about $28 billion, representing its biggest acquisition yet and a massive push into software and artificial intelligence-powered data analysis. Frank Sorrentino, CEO at ConnectOne Bank, discusses what Fed policy means for banks and small businesses. Dr. William Moss, Professor of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, shares his thoughts on the recent roll out of Pfizer and Moderna booster vaccines. Tara Nathan, Founder and Leader of Mastercard Community Pass, talks about transforming the delivery of social services in remote communities in Africa and South Asia. Bloomberg Businessweek Editor Joel Weber and Bloomberg News Global Economy Reporter Enda Curran share the details of Enda's Businessweek Magazine story The Fed's Dream of a Soft Landing Is Facing a Triple Threat. And we Drive to the Close with Hilary Kramer, CIO at Kramer Capital Research. Hosts: Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec. Producer: Paul Brennan. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jann Wenner made racist and sexist comments regarding his new book, Maren Morris is taking a step back from Country Music, Britney is dating the housekeeper, Snoop Dogg is afraid of horses, Cisco Systems are going to be doing layoffs, Kouri Richins is being accused of witness tampering, cereal sales are on the decline, the hot new term is screen apnea, the ideal nap time, and Vinnie reads your texts!

“The great thing about AI is that it is not human.” -Michael GibbsCustomer facing roles. Architects. Engineers who have irreplaceable communication. Sales reps. Business development leaders. Cloud security professionals. The goal is to evaluate your current job and truly recognize if AI could do it – or if it requires that human touch.The Security Clearance Careers Podcast hosts Cloud Computing and IT Security Expert Michael Gibbs, who is the CEO of Go Cloud Careers. In 2013, after a successful career with Cisco Systems, he founded Go Cloud Careers, an educational organization focused on helping individuals achieve their dream technology career. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

All your data, all your teams—in one place. What am I? If you said Microsoft Fabric, you win! When I interned with Cisco Systems in 2000, I supported a platform called Unified Messaging. At that time, we were talking about getting your email, voice mail, and faxes all in one place. My, how the times have changed. To a certain extent, the Microsoft Fabric is an extension, or wrapper, of some of the tools we have talked about in other episodes. The central idea is the ability to store your information in a data lake, and then having multiple tools at your disposal to use that data as required by the business. Power BI is the cherry on top - providing the visualizations and access to the source data that the business users like to get their hands on. In this episode we talk through the architecture and then discuss when organizations might want to adopt Microsoft Fabric. Would you like to hear more about this in a future episode? Let us know and we'll look to circle back with long time friend of the podcast Jonathan Stewart. The show notes for today's episode can be found at Episode 267: Microsoft Fabric. Have fun on the SQL Trail!

Courtney Wright has made bold business moves throughout her career. In this episode, we discuss how she does it. How does she courageously and continuously take action that leads to impressive business results? You'll learn that her secret to success is much more about what she believes and thinks, than what she does. About the Guest:Courtney Wright values helping people and believes in "the grind." An entrepreneur, podcast host, innovator, problem solver, wife, and mother, Wright wears many hats - the first of which goes on in the wee hours of the morning.Wright founded CDW Merchants, the leading 3D visual retail displays and E-commerce gift packaging provider for the nation's top retailers including Kate Spade, Victoria's Secret, and Club Monaco. In 2016, Courtney packaged CDW for the last time and sold it to Bunzl PLC (traded on the FTSE 100). That same year, Wright bought Gemini Builds It! and Showcase Acrylics, a leader in the framing, moulding, and custom display industry. As CEO, Wright quickly expanded their offerings to become a well-known name in E-commerce, Design, Corporations, Museums and Institutions, PPE and Healthcare, as well as the Hospitality and Events industries. She continues to look for organic growth opportunities through additional acquisitions. With her solid mix of entrepreneurial foresight, creativity, and hustle mentality, it was only natural that Wright would develop a platform to share her highly sought-after business advice.The Ladyboss Podcast by Courtney Wright is a modern-day guide to business, offering listeners real conversations with other successful leaders and entrepreneurs to discuss failures, successes, and strategies.https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpfF7CdCQ7qoxIElkWSpiRQYou can contact her at Courtney@geminibuildsit.com or 847-417-5980. About the Host:Amy L. Riley is an internationally renowned speaker, author and consultant. She has over 2 decades of experience developing leaders at all levels. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Deloitte and Barclays.As a trusted leadership coach and consultant, Amy has worked with hundreds of leaders one-on-one, and thousands more as part of a group, to fully step into their leadership, create amazing teams and achieve extraordinary results. Amy's most popular keynote speeches are:The Courage of a Leader: The Power of a Leadership LegacyThe Courage of a Leader: Create a Competitive Advantage with Sustainable, Results-Producing Cross-System CollaborationThe Courage of a Leader: Accelerate Trust with Your Team, Customers and CommunityThe Courage of a Leader: How to Build a Happy and Successful Hybrid Team Her new book is a #1 international best-seller and is entitled, The Courage of a Leader: How to Inspire, Engage and Get Extraordinary Results. www.courageofaleader.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/amyshoopriley/ Link mentioned in the podcastThe Inspire Your Team assessment (the courage assessment): https://courageofaleader.com/inspireyourteam/ Thanks for listening!Thanks so much for listening to The Courage of a Leader podcast! If you got inspired and/or got valuable leadership techniques you can use from this episode and think that...

Laura Stack of The Productivity Pro shares five hints that you could be an underperformer Episode 1064: Five Hints You Could Be an Underperformer. Even When No One Says Anything by Laura Stack of The Productivity Pro Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE is an award-winning keynote speaker, bestselling author, and noted authority on employee and team productivity. She is the president of The Productivity Pro, Inc., a company dedicated to helping leaders increase workplace performance in high-stress environments. Stack has authored eight books, including FASTER TOGETHER: Accelerating Your Team's Productivity (Berrett-Koehler 2018). She is a past president of the National Speakers Association, and a member of its exclusive Speaker Hall of Fame (with fewer than 175 members worldwide.) Stack's clients include Cisco Systems, Wal-Mart, and Bank of America, and she has been featured on the CBS Early Show and CNN, and in the New York Times. The original post is located here: https://theproductivitypro.com/blog/2017/04/five-hints-you-could-be-an-underperformer-even-when-no-one-says-anything/  Visit Me Online at OLDPodcast.com Interested in advertising on the show? Visit https://www.advertisecast.com/OptimalStartUpDaily Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nanxi Liu is the co-CEO of Blaze.tech, one of the fastest growing platforms to build software tools without writing code. The mission is to enable more people to create technical tools and make building technology more accessible. She previously founded and served as CEO of one of the largest global digital signage software companies, Enplug, which was acquired by Spectrio in 2021. Enplug was consistently named as one of the Top 10 leaders in the digital signage industry alongside Cisco Systems, Samsung and LG by independent research companies. (LA Times)Elevate Your Brand is the #1 marketing podcast for entrepreneurs and “wantreprenuers” looking for insider tips and secrets from the most exciting new and growing brands in Los Angeles and the US at large. Each week, entrepreneurial special guests join Laurel Mintz, founder and CEO of award-winning marketing agency Elevate My Brand, to discuss the marketing failures and successes that have brought their brands to the next level. Learn from real-life experiences and be inspired by leaders in your industry about how smart digital and experiential marketing can elevate your brand.

Today my guest is John Lanier, CEO of Middle Market Methods. You'll immediately hear his passion for efficiency, effectiveness and creating value. I'm glad you're here for our discussion on how to execute extremely well on true priorities. I know you'll walk away with actionable ideas! About the Guest:John Lanier is CEO of Middle Market Methods (“M3”). He began his career in asset-based lending, to which he attributes valuable lessons in cash flow and working capital integrity. In the most recent 21 years, he has supported lower middle market portfolio companies of private equity sponsors.M3 focuses on value-creating solutions covering strategy, growth, productivity, and people. The “resultancy” practice has logged over 500 deliverables for more than 170 portfolio companies for at least 65 private equity firms. John memorialized his methodology in a book entitled Value-Creation in Middle Market Private Equity. He also writes quarterly value-creation articles. John has a BBA in Finance from Georgia, an MBA from St. Leo, and a Doctorate in Strategic Leadership from Regent.John and his wife of 43 years are proud parents of two awesomely accomplished daughters and their respective sons-in-law. The Lanier family avidly supports rescue dogs.https://middlemarketmethods.com/About the Host:Amy L. Riley is an internationally renowned speaker, author and consultant. She has over 2 decades of experience developing leaders at all levels. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Deloitte and Barclays.As a trusted leadership coach and consultant, Amy has worked with hundreds of leaders one-on-one, and thousands more as part of a group, to fully step into their leadership, create amazing teams and achieve extraordinary results. Amy's most popular keynote speeches are:The Courage of a Leader: The Power of a Leadership LegacyThe Courage of a Leader: Create a Competitive Advantage with Sustainable, Results-Producing Cross-System CollaborationThe Courage of a Leader: Accelerate Trust with Your Team, Customers and CommunityThe Courage of a Leader: How to Build a Happy and Successful Hybrid Team Her new book is a #1 international best-seller and is entitled, The Courage of a Leader: How to Inspire, Engage and Get Extraordinary Results. www.courageofaleader.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/amyshoopriley/ Link mentioned in the podcastThe Inspire Your Team assessment (the courage assessment): https://courageofaleader.com/inspireyourteam/ Start with Why by Simon Sinekhttps://www.amazon.com/Start-Why-Leaders-Inspire-Everyone/dp/1591846447 Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Ram Charan and Larry Bossidyhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/0609610570 How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything In Betweenhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/0593239512 Thanks for listening!Thanks so much for listening to The Courage of a Leader podcast! If you got inspired and/or got valuable leadership techniques you can use from this episode and think that others could benefit from...

In this episode, we continue exploring what it means to bring humanity into the workplace. Our guest, Sharna Fey, co-founder of Pono Coaching and Consulting, shares her expertise as an executive coach, trainer, and consultant. With over two decades of experience, Sharna helps individuals and corporations identify their core values, reach their goals, and lead authentically. She works with Fortune 500 companies and has a highly collaborative and interactive approach to producing meaningful outcomes. Tune in to learn how to infuse humanity into your professional life.In this episode:The Power of Inner Work: Sharna emphasized the importance of doing the inner work to make a real difference in the world. She reminded us that personal growth is an ongoing journey, and we should never stop striving to become the best version of ourselves. It's not about arriving at a destination but embracing our humanity's continuous growth and evolution.Bringing Your Full Self: Sharna challenged the notion of compartmentalizing our lives, urging us to bring our whole selves to every aspect of our lives, including the workplace. She highlighted the incredible possibilities that arise when organizations create an environment where individuals feel empowered to be authentic and true to themselves. Not only does this foster efficiency and effectiveness, but it also leads to increased profitability. Talk about a win-win!Embracing Vulnerability and Connection: Sharna and Christie discussed the value of creating spaces where people can be vulnerable and share what's important to them and how they like to receive feedback and coaching. By fostering open and non-hierarchical conversations, organizations can build deeper connections and tap into the true potential of their teams. About Sharna:Sharna is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC) and Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with more than two decades of experience working with individuals, corporations, and non-profits as an executive coach, trainer, educator, speaker, and consultant.​As co-founder of Pono Coaching & Consulting, Sharna helps executive clients identify and lead toward their core values, define and reach their goals, and discover and pursue their most authentic and best lives. She works with corporations looking to invest in emerging or established leaders, improve overall communications, increase team effectiveness, and bring the key elements of coaching to their organizations.​Sharna is sought out for her experience, her highly collaborative approach, and the affable and interactive learning style she uses to produce deeply meaningful outcomes. Her corporate clients include Fortune 500 companies like Google, Autodesk, Cisco Systems, IBM, Genentech, Marriott International, and Lululemon.​For the past decade, Sharna has been on faculty at the Co-Active Training Institute, where she received her own training. She has trained thousands of adults across the United States and internationally in the co-active coaching model she employs and relishes the opportunity to mentor new coaches.A proud alumnus of Washington State University, Sharna is a member of the International Coach Federation. A native Coloradan, Sharna made her home in San Francisco for more than 25 years and now chases summer by home-basing on Maui and traveling to other warm spots globally. https://www.ponocoach.comwww.uplevelproductions.comhttps://www.instagram.com/uplevelproductions/https://www.linkedin.com/company/uplevelproductionscompanyhttps://www.facebook.com/uplevelproductionscompany

Amy L. Riley is an internationally renowned speaker, author and leadership development consultant. She's worked with organizations such as Deloitte, Cisco Systems and Aon Hewitt and has over 20 years of experience working with leaders at all levels. In this episode, Amy shares effective ways of identifying your strengths, finding solutions to people's problems, and quantifying the results of your solutions. By doing so, you can accurately assess your ability to bring about transformation for your clients and determine your true worth.   What you will learn from this episode: Learn to know your strength and what value you bring so you know your worth Discover the benefits of receiving feedback to identify areas for improvement and areas to maintain to enhance your leadership skills Find out how to develop people skills so you become a more effective leader   "Encourage leaders to get feedback all the time." - Amy Riley   Topics Covered: 00:57 - What Amy is helping people with 02:09 - The value you bring--what's your worth? 04:22 - Best means to identify your strengths 06:49 - How does feedback benefit you as a leader and how to deal with self-delusion? 09:49 - Figure out your leadership legacy 10:52 - Fighting to be right versus fighting to be effective 11:49 - The thing with leaders admitting their mistakes 12:43 - What is a pivot and why pivot? 13:35 - The easy ways to find out where your strengths lie 14:50 - How to develop effective people skills 17:42 - Why the need to be open to feedback 20:00 - Amy sharing what her strengths and what problems she helps solve 24:22 -The potential outcome and its financial value that can be attained with Amy's expertise    Key Takeaways: “The value that we bring is inherent in our strengths." - Amy Riley "When we're looking to that leadership legacy for guidance, then we act bigger and bolder than any of our normal human considerations that might hold us back." - Amy Riley "If you do find yourself in those moments where you're fighting to be right instead of fighting to be effective, do give yourself some compassion, because we're human beings, and that's a human tendency.” - Amy Riley   People/Resources Mentioned: The Courage of a Leader®: How to Inspire, Engage and Get Extraordinary Results by Amy Riley: https://courageofaleader.com/products/   Connect with Amy Riley: Website: https://courageofaleader.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyshoopriley/   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com  

Mark Stiving is my guest today and he is a pricing expert. What does pricing have to do with The Courage of a Leader? It turns out, quite a lot!The secret to effectively pricing your products and services is the same one leaders can use to clearly define and communicate the value of their teams' work.Are you intrigued? I was!About the Guest:Mark Stiving, PhD, MBA, is a widely recognized pricing expert and marketing pro who teaches companies how to boost revenues and realize their true value. With 25+ years' experience in price segmentation, pricing product portfolios and visionary pricing, Mark's analytical skills provide specific direction and quantifiable results. Sought after as a trusted advisor, Mark has consulted, trained and/or coached hundreds of companies including Cisco, Procter and Gamble, Grimes Aerospace, Splunk, and Crowdstrike.Mark uses a creative but pragmatic approach to help large businesses and entrepreneurs untangle confusion about pricing. All businesses can benefit from Mark's value-based pricing strategies to capture their true worth, from start-ups to seasoned enterprises.Mark is an award-winning speaker and the author of Impact Pricing: Your Blueprint for Driving Profits and his latest book Win Keep Grow: How to Price and Package to Accelerate Your Subscription Business The best way to reach Mark is on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ or via email mark@impactpricing.com About the Host:Amy L. Riley is an internationally renowned speaker, author and consultant. She has over 2 decades of experience developing leaders at all levels. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Deloitte and Barclays.As a trusted leadership coach and consultant, Amy has worked with hundreds of leaders one-on-one, and thousands more as part of a group, to fully step into their leadership, create amazing teams and achieve extraordinary results. Amy's most popular keynote speeches are:The Courage of a Leader: The Power of a Leadership LegacyThe Courage of a Leader: Create a Competitive Advantage with Sustainable, Results-Producing Cross-System CollaborationThe Courage of a Leader: Accelerate Trust with Your Team, Customers and CommunityThe Courage of a Leader: How to Build a Happy and Successful Hybrid Team Her new book is a #1 international best-seller and is entitled, The Courage of a Leader: How to Inspire, Engage and Get Extraordinary Results.www.courageofaleader.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/amyshoopriley/ Resources mentioned in the episodeMade to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath - https://heathbrothers.com/books/made-to-stick/Selling Value, How to Win More Deals at Higher Prices - https://impactpricing.com/books/The Inspire Your Team assessment (the courage assessment): https://courageofaleader.com/inspireyourteam/ Thanks for listening!Thanks so much for listening to The Courage of a Leader podcast! If you got inspired and/or got valuable leadership techniques you can use from this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share using the social media buttons on this page.Do you have questions or feedback about this episode? Leave a comment in the section...

My guest on today's episode of The Courage of a Leader podcast is Megan Robinson, principal at E Leader Experience. Megan is talented at describing complex, nuanced, leadership concepts in accessible, simplified ways.In this episode we discuss how to be an agile leader, and how agility is most effective when built on the foundation of knowing who you authentically are as a leader. About the Guest:Megan Robinson is the principal at E Leader Experience and works with individuals and teams to develop self-leadership skills that grow companies. She started her career in marketing moving her way through the corporate ladder at advertising agencies and Fortune 500 companies before jumping into the entrepreneur pool. It was at that first company that Megan discovered that her true passion was the transformational process of coaching, and so she became a John Maxwell certified coach and DiSC Trainer.In addition, Megan is the Past President of ATDChi the leading learning and development organization in Chicagoland. Inspired by her own successful career in corporate and entrepreneurial environments, Megan makes leadership approachable for everyone, regardless of title, position, or experience.The best way for people to reach Megan is at megan@eleaderexperience.comLinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tritcak/https://www.eleaderexperience.com/ About the Host:Amy L. Riley is an internationally renowned speaker, author and consultant. She has over 2 decades of experience developing leaders at all levels. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Deloitte and Barclays.As a trusted leadership coach and consultant, Amy has worked with hundreds of leaders one-on-one, and thousands more as part of a group, to fully step into their leadership, create amazing teams and achieve extraordinary results. Amy's most popular keynote speeches are:The Courage of a Leader: The Power of a Leadership LegacyThe Courage of a Leader: Create a Competitive Advantage with Sustainable, Results-Producing Cross-System CollaborationThe Courage of a Leader: Accelerate Trust with Your Team, Customers and CommunityThe Courage of a Leader: How to Build a Happy and Successful Hybrid Team Her new book is a #1 international best-seller and is entitled, The Courage of a Leader: How to Inspire, Engage and Get Extraordinary Results. www.courageofaleader.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/amyshoopriley/ Link mentioned in the podcastHow to Use What We Know About Neuroscience to Be Exponentially More Influential (podcast episode): https://courageofaleader.com/captivate-podcast/how-to-use-what-we-know-about-neuroscience-to-be-exponentially-more-influential-with-laura-berger/ The Courage to Be An Inclusive Leader (podcast episode): https://courageofaleader.com/captivate-podcast/the-courage-to-be-an-inclusive-leader-with-ellen-burton/ Innovative Ways You Can

In this special episode Mat McDermott moderates a discussion between HAF Co-Founder Suhag Shukla and Managing Director Samir Kalra about the latest revelations in the case of alleged caste discrimination at the BAPS temple in Robbinsville, New Jersey, and how the connect to the similar allegations as Cisco Systems in California. Please note: The audio quality on this one isn't quite up to our usual standards as the That's So Hindu recording studio is in the midst of being moved to another location. But we felt like this one couldn't wait so proceeded anyway. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Laura Stack of The Productivity Pro talks about when perfection is counterproductive Episode 1028: When Good is Good Enough: Five Situations When Perfection Is Counterproductive by Laura Stack of The Productivity Pro Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE is an award-winning keynote speaker, bestselling author, and noted authority on employee and team productivity. She is the president of The Productivity Pro, Inc., a company dedicated to helping leaders increase workplace performance in high-stress environments. Stack has authored eight books, including FASTER TOGETHER: Accelerating Your Team's Productivity (Berrett-Koehler 2018). She is a past president of the National Speakers Association, and a member of its exclusive Speaker Hall of Fame (with fewer than 175 members worldwide.) Stack's clients include Cisco Systems, Wal-Mart, and Bank of America, and she has been featured on the CBS Early Show and CNN, and in the New York Times. The original post is located here: https://theproductivitypro.com/blog/2017/05/when-good-is-good-enough-five-situations-when-perfection-is-counterproductive/  Visit Me Online at OLDPodcast.com Interested in advertising on the show? Visit https://www.advertisecast.com/OptimalStartUpDaily Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you ready to journey back to the wild ride of the 90s tech bubble and its devastating aftermath, the dot-com crash? We reminisce about the titanic rise and fall of companies like pets.com and webvan, and analyze how giants like Amazon and Cisco Systems weathered the storm. We'll talk about how this era continues to shape today's digital world, and how these experiences have affected our relationships and interactions online. Strap in as we traverse this exciting period of tech history.But we're not stopping there. We also get real about our increasing addiction to our digital lives. We'll talk about how the power of online opinions can shape our connections, how our digital persona can be far removed from reality, and the trend of embellishing accomplishments online. We'll also share some personal anecdotes and experiences, helping us understand the truth behind the online façades. So tune in for a thought-provoking conversation about the realities and illusions of the digital world. https://linktr.ee/Thehassleofhair

Scott Wapner and the Investment Committee debate the next move for the markets as the Dow goes for an 8-day winning streak. We hit the IBM trade ahead of earnings as shares have underperformed the broader market this year. The Calls of the Day include Cisco Systems and Qualcomm. The panel also sets you up for earnings on SL Green Realty, J&J, Freeport-McMoRan, DR Horton and Las Vegas Sands. And the Chart of the Day is the transports, hitting a new 52-week high.Investment Committee Disclosures

Welcome to the first podcast episode in our new series, Inspiring Leadership Lessons of Top athletes.Our first guest in the series shares with us from the perspective of an athlete, she's a 2-time Olympian, and as a coach, she is a National Basketball Coach of the Year.Sherry Winn shares athlete mindsets and practices that can be translated to inspiring leadership the workplace. About the Guest:Sherry Winn is a Two-Time Olympian, National Basketball Coach of The Year, and Amazon Three-Time Best Selling Author. She is an in-demand internationally renowned speaker who frequently speaks for up to 14,000 people at a time including at companies such as StubHub, AnyTime Fitness, New York Life, Edward Jones, and Technicolor.Sherry is known as a leader of leaders and a visionary of visionaries who has written five books including her newest book titled, Winning Leadership: Seven Secrets for Employee Champions and Sales Superstars. About the Host:Amy L. Riley is an internationally renowned speaker, author and consultant. She has over 2 decades of experience developing leaders at all levels. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Deloitte and Barclays.As a trusted leadership coach and consultant, Amy has worked with hundreds of leaders one-on-one, and thousands more as part of a group, to fully step into their leadership, create amazing teams and achieve extraordinary results. Amy's most popular keynote speeches are:The Courage of a Leader: The Power of a Leadership LegacyThe Courage of a Leader: Create a Competitive Advantage with Sustainable, Results-Producing Cross-System CollaborationThe Courage of a Leader: Accelerate Trust with Your Team, Customers and CommunityThe Courage of a Leader: How to Build a Happy and Successful Hybrid Team Her new book is a #1 international best-seller and is entitled, The Courage of a Leader: How to Inspire, Engage and Get Extraordinary Results.www.courageofaleader.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/amyshoopriley/ Link mentioned in the podcastLife Is in the Transitions, Mastering Change at Any Age by Brian Feiler: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/life-is-in-the-transitions-bruce-feiler/1136403097 Winning Leadership, 7 Secrets to Being a Truly Powerful Leader by Sherry Winn:https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Leadership-Powerful-Building-Champions/dp/1506911064/ref=nodl_?dplnkId=90730ac7-80a0-4597-b0b2-d9ec12d2a80c The Inspire Your Team assessment (the courage assessment): https://courageofaleader.com/inspireyourteam/ Thanks for listening!Thanks so much for listening to The Courage of a Leader podcast! If you got inspired and/or got valuable leadership techniques you can use from this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have questions or feedback about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcastIf you would like to get automatic updates of new The Courage of a Leader podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an...

Simon Shares US inflation for June was 3.0%, expected was 3.1% and previous 4.0%. Next FOMC meeting is 25/26 July. I think they still do a 0.25% rate hike, but then maybe pause for good, well until cuts start next year. Nasdaq100 special rebalance to cut the 'Magnificent Seven' to "address over concentration in the index by redistributing the weights." Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla are the magnificent seven. They account for 55% of the index. Effective close 21 July Done twice previously; December 1998 and May 2011. The combined weight of the five stocks with the largest market caps will be set to 38.5%, currently it is 46.7%. Nasdaq100 is a modified market capitalisation index. So market capitalisation is not the only consideration, albeit is the biggest contributor. Overall this has already seen some selling in the big five, and buying in those that are expected to be weighted higher. Final weightings will be announced after close in Friday 14 July. The Four Horsemen of Big Tech A phrase coined in the late 1990s for Microsoft, Intel, Cisco Systems and Dell Computer as they stormed higher in the dot com craze. All had horrid collapses and took o a decade plus to recover their dot com levels and Cisco and Intel have been modest investments at best with Dell delisting. Are we seeing the same with the magnificent seven? Yes, no, maybe. It is different this time, they all have real tech and make real profits. But have they gone wild on the AI bonanza? Absolutely. Now sure, AI will only get better and all seven have a real chance of be the real leaders in the space (in different ways). But valuations are stretched and this current earnings season is important as are the next few as well. Simon Brown

Do you know what your main constraint is? What's holding your business performance back? Our guest this week is an optimisation expert, and he'll explain how to use the theory of constraints to double net profit without doubling sales, in a conversation that explores the power of identifying and managing constraints to achieve optimal business performance.This week we learned from Dr Alan Barnard. Alan is a thinker who wears many hats; a researcher, strategic advisor, app developer, and author who resides in the heart of Las Vegas. But what stands out about Alan is his lifelong love for learning and his unique speciality in the Theory of Constraints it's no surprise he's a driving force at Goldrat Research Labs, co-founded with the respected Dr Eli Goldrat.Alan's journey has seen him propel significant improvements in company performance, taking the likes of Cisco Systems, ABB, and Random House Publishing to new heights. A true advocate for system optimisation, Alan isn't one to shy away from a challenge—instead, he thrives through finding unorthodox solutions to complex problems, truly demonstrating his ability to help businesses optimise and maximise their potential.In this episode, Alan talks about how constraints can hinder and possibly fortify your business performance. He says that management attention is probably the only constraint in fast-growing, successful businesses. So, how do you apply it to the right things? Finally, he dives deep into the nuances of system optimization for maximising performance and profitability. Download and listen to learn more. On today's podcast: The power of the Theory of ConstraintsOptimising performance and profitabilityWhat is the ultimate constraint?Why do smart people make bad decisions? Follow Dr Alan Barnard:WebsiteLinkedInTwitterInstagram Book recommendations :The Goal10x is easier than 2xAntifragile Enjoyed the show? Leave a Review

Theresa Kushner's journey in the world of high technology serves as an inspiration to aspiring professionals. From her early days in the field of journalism to her influential roles in renowned companies she is a true data-vangelist. Theresa graduated from the Mayborn School of Journalism at the University of North Texas. Over the course of her career, Theresa has held prominent positions in several industry-leading companies. She has showcased her expertise and leadership abilities in organizations such as IBM, Cisco Systems, VMware, Dell/EMC, and NTT DATA,  helping these companies use the value they have in their data.  Today Theresa has co-founded the company Business Data Leadership with Maria Villar, focusing on leadership, advising, and consulting in the realm of data analytics. Theresa has made significant contributions to the literature on data and its application in business. She co-authored two notable books: "Managing Your Business Data: From Chaos to Confidence" in collaboration with Maria Villar, and "B2B Data-Driven Marketing: Sources, Uses, Results" co-authored with Ruth Stevens. These publications have been recognized for their valuable insights into leveraging data for improved business outcomes. https://www.linkedin.com/in/theresakushner?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2FIf you want better insights into challenges and decisions you or your business are facing, GARI's analytical services are of unmatched complexity and high accuracy - whether your questions are on the green energy transition, trade and supply chains, or political and security related - contact us for a free consultation and see how you can optimise your decision-making.www.globari.org@LinkedIn @GARInstitute) / Twitter

This episode features an interview with Marbue Brown, Founder of The Customer Obsession Advantage, a consulting firm helping companies accomplish business results through customer obsession. Marbue is a leader in customer experience and has dedicated his career to companies like JP Morgan Chase, Amazon, Microsoft, and Cisco Systems. He is also the author of Blueprint for Customer Obsession, which outlines the eight habits and practices that make customer-obsessed companies stand out from their counterparts.In this episode, Kailey and Marbue discuss the difference between being customer-driven and customer-obsessed, how AI is affecting customer experience, and anticipating customer needs.-------------------Key Takeaways:Getting your customer experience right starts with getting your employee experience right. Employees are interacting with your customers daily, they can't be bogged down with systems that are slow or difficult to navigate. If your employees can do their job seamlessly and happily, your customers will feel that in their experience.The hallmark of customer obsession is to engage personally and give customers what they want before they know they need it. By anticipating your customers' needs, they know that you understand them and they will become rabid fans of your business.If you're wanting to become customer-obsessed, start by looking at your policies. If you have policies that make you do a double take because they're so customer-friendly, you're headed in the right direction. On the flip side, if you have policies that are objectionable, figure out where you can adjust so your customers won't find a better alternative.-------------------“Customer-obsessed companies, they take actions. They adopt policies and they make investments in the customer's favor, even when they cannot immediately connect the dots to their own financial benefit because they know that, in the end, it always pans out. Their customers are not casual consumers, they're rabid fans. If nothing else, recognize that when you invest in that, you can save some money on the other end because you're going to have people who are out there evangelizing your message for you.” – Marbue Brown-------------------Episode Timestamps:‍*(02:50) - Marbue's career journey*(04:41) - Marbue digs into his book, Blueprint for Customer Obsession*(08:44) - Industry trends in customer experience*(15:21) - How AI will impact customer obsession*(22:46) - How Marbue defines “good data”*(25:58) - How data influences customer obsession*(37:16) - Changes in the next 6-12 months in customer obsession*(40:03) - Marbue's recommendations for upleveling customer obsession-------------------Links:Visit The Customer Obsession AdvantageConnect with Marbue on LinkedInBuy Marbue's book Blueprint for Customer ObsessionConnect with Kailey on LinkedInLearn more about Caspian Studios-------------------SponsorGood Data, Better Marketing is brought to you by Twilio Segment. In today's digital-first economy, being data-driven is no longer aspirational. It's necessary. Find out why over 20,000 businesses trust Segment to enable personalized, consistent, real-time customer experiences by visiting Segment.com

My guest today on The Courage of a Leader podcast is Kristen Crockett, a Coach, Consultant and Founder of Courageous Destiny. Her leadership legacy is supporting individuals to create their courageous destiny, a life they love that includes work they love.I'm glad you're here to learn how you can start creating your courageous destiny! About the Guest:Kristin Crockett's story began in corporate sales where she became one of the TOP level female sales executives earning a very nice 6-figure paycheck. She loved selling products and services she believed in 100%. Kristin is now on a mission to help over 10,000 women and beyond to discover their courageous self and purpose in life, increase wealth and health through her program "Courageous Destiny: Build a Business and Life You Love." Kristin is a transformer of people. Once she saw herself as a 'scardy cat' in life, and now she sees herself as 'unapologetically courageous' living her and helping others live their Courageous Destiny. Since launching Courageous Destiny(tm) Methodology, her business has thrived but more importantly the female executives, business owners and entrepreneurs she has served reach their wealth and health goals while falling head over heels in love with their business and lives.She is the founder and visionary of "Courageous Destiny" group and private coaching programs and the Courageous Destiny(tm) Podcast.The best way to contact her is via email at Kristin@courageousdestiny.com About the Host:Amy L. Riley is an internationally renowned speaker, author and consultant. She has over 2 decades of experience developing leaders at all levels. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Deloitte and Barclays. As a trusted leadership coach and consultant, Amy has worked with hundreds of leaders one-on-one, and thousands more as part of a group, to fully step into their leadership, create amazing teams and achieve extraordinary results. Amy's most popular keynote speeches are:The Courage of a Leader: The Power of a Leadership LegacyThe Courage of a Leader: Create a Competitive Advantage with Sustainable, Results-Producing Cross-System CollaborationThe Courage of a Leader: Accelerate Trust with Your Team, Customers and CommunityThe Courage of a Leader: How to Build a Happy and Successful Hybrid Team Her new book is a #1 international best-seller and is entitled, The Courage of a Leader: How to Inspire, Engage and Get Extraordinary Results.www.courageofaleader.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/amyshoopriley/ Links mentioned in the podcastYour Leadership Legacy: https://courageofaleader.com/your-leadership-legacy/The Inspire Your Team assessment (the courage assessment): https://courageofaleader.com/inspireyourteam/ Thanks for listening!Thanks so much for listening to The Courage of a Leader podcast! If you got inspired and/or got valuable leadership techniques you can use from this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have questions or feedback about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcastIf you would like to get automatic updates of new The Courage of a Leader podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast...

Laura Stack of The Productivity Pro talks about promoting a team culture that questions that status quo Episode 1001: Wait a Minute Here: Promoting a Team Culture That Questions the Status Quo by Laura Stack Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE is an award-winning keynote speaker, bestselling author, and noted authority on employee and team productivity. She is the president of The Productivity Pro, Inc., a company dedicated to helping leaders increase workplace performance in high-stress environments. Stack has authored eight books, including FASTER TOGETHER: Accelerating Your Team's Productivity (Berrett-Koehler 2018). She is a past president of the National Speakers Association, and a member of its exclusive Speaker Hall of Fame (with fewer than 175 members worldwide.) Stack's clients include Cisco Systems, Wal-Mart, and Bank of America, and she has been featured on the CBS Early Show and CNN, and in the New York Times. The original post is located here: https://theproductivitypro.com/blog/2015/11/wait-a-minute-here-promoting-a-team-culture-that-questions-the-status-quo/  Visit Me Online at OLDPodcast.com Interested in advertising on the show? Visit https://www.advertisecast.com/OptimalStartUpDaily Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Hunters and Unicorns: The Playbook Universe. We're here to showcase leaders within the Playbook Community and explore their formulas for success. We aim to uncover: · The Importance of value selling within the sales motion · How to focus more on real growth · The skills required to excel in the sales space Today we are joined by Pete Agresta, CRO at Nasuni. Pete is responsible for growing and scaling the revenue-generating organization for Nasuni including worldwide Sales and Solution Engineering, Channel Sales and Strategic Business Development. His notable achievements include being Vice President of Enterprise Sales, Americas for Pure Storage. Whilst there, Pete led a team that more than doubled the business to over $1B during his 4-year tenure. Prior to that, he was CRO for LookingGlass Cyber, where he helped recapitalize the company, acquired and commercialized a threat intel platform, and grew the business over 50%. In this Hunters and Unicorns episode, Pete shares with us his journey including the earlier stages where he spent a decade with Cisco Systems, which was pivotal in his career. He recalls fondly working closely with John Chambers and on some of the largest deals within the space at the time. As CEO of the company at the time, John's influence on Pete was hugely significant. Stemming from his inherent curiosity, Pete also shared his chapter whereby he embarked on a career in Wall Street and how he transferred his sales skills into this different domain. Upon his return to the GTM space, Pete thrived at LookingGlass and then transitioned to Pure Storage. Pete shares with us the enterprise and business solutions lessons learned along the way. In this exciting episode, Pete also discusses the fantastic opportunity which presented itself with Nasuni and how his role contributes to the company innovating and disrupting the market.

In this episode, you will have the pleasure of hearing from Orvel Ray Wilson as we translate his lessons learned from leading a volunteer orchestra into valuable guidance for leaders who are working to influence across their organizations without direct authority.About the Guest:Today's guest is an award-winning professional speaker, executive coach, and best-selling author of 6 of the legendary Guerrilla Marketing business books, spanning 57 titles, translated into 62 languages, and with more than 26 million copies sold worldwide.Since 1980, he's been helping people just like you learn how to get the edge they need to win in today's competitive marketplace. He's presented keynotes, workshops and seminars in hundreds of cities, in 47 countries, and all around the world. He holds the highest level of certification recognized by the professional speaking industry, the “Certified Speaking Professional.” And he's been voted one of the world's “Top 5 Sales and Marketing Speakers” a record 5 years straight. After 40 years on the international speaking circuit, he now coaches experts into authorities into thought leaders who deliver their unique message to the world.You may reach at OrvelRay@gmail.com or 303-517-0866. About the Host:Amy L. Riley is an internationally renowned speaker, author and consultant. She has over 2 decades of experience developing leaders at all levels. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Deloitte and Barclays.As a trusted leadership coach and consultant, Amy has worked with hundreds of leaders one-on-one, and thousands more as part of a group, to fully step into their leadership, create amazing teams and achieve extraordinary results. Amy's most popular keynote speeches are:The Courage of a Leader: The Power of a Leadership LegacyThe Courage of a Leader: Create a Competitive Advantage with Sustainable, Results-Producing Cross-System CollaborationThe Courage of a Leader: Accelerate Trust with Your Team, Customers and CommunityThe Courage of a Leader: How to Build a Happy and Successful Hybrid Team Her new book is a #1 international best-seller and is entitled, The Courage of a Leader: How to Inspire, Engage and Get Extraordinary Results. www.courageofaleader.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/amyshoopriley/ Links mentioned in the episodehttps://flatironsjazzorchestra.com/https://www.youtube.com/@Flatironsjazzorchestra Thanks for listening!Thanks so much for listening to The Courage of a Leader podcast! If you got inspired and/or got valuable leadership techniques you can use from this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share using the social media buttons on this page.Do you have questions or feedback about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcastIf you would like to get automatic updates of new The Courage of a Leader podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts reviewRatings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast

Episode #9 wikipedia: MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. freedos: FreeDOS is a complete, free, DOS-compatible operating system. While we provide some utilities, you should be able to run any program intended for MS-DOS. wikipedia: Linux (/ˈliːnʊks/ (listen) LEE-nuuks or /ˈlɪnʊks/ LIN-uuks) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. wikipedia: Token Ring is a computer networking technology used to build local area networks. It was introduced by IBM in 1984, and standardized in 1989 as IEEE 802.5. wikipedia: The BNC connector (initialism of "Bayonet Neill–Concelman") is a miniature quick connect/disconnect radio frequency connector used for coaxial cable. wikipedia: GPRS core network. wikipedia: Novell, Inc. /noʊˈvɛl/ was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. wikipedia: BITNET. wikipedia: DECnet. wikipedia: 3Com. realtek: realtek. tp: TP-Link Vastly Expands Smart Home Lineup With Tapo Full Home Security Solutions, Tapo Robot Vacuums and Various Matter Compatible Products. cisco: Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. wikipedia: The International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American multinational technology corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, with operations in over 175 countries. It specializes in computer hardware, middleware and software and provides hosting and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. duckduckgo: Bootleg stuff search. wikipedia: VM (often: VM/CMS) is a family of IBM virtual machine operating systems used on IBM mainframes System/370, System/390, zSeries, System z and compatible systems, including the Hercules emulator for personal computers. wikipedia: Disk partitioning or disk slicing is the creation of one or more regions on secondary storage, so that each region can be managed separately. wikipedia: The IBM System/360 is a family of mainframe computer systems that was announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. wikipedia: The IBM System/370 (S/370) is a model range of IBM mainframe computers announced on June 30, 1970, as the successors to the System/360 family. cisco: What Is Routing? wikipedia: The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. wikipedia: The Open Systems Interconnection protocols are a family of information exchange standards developed jointly by the ISO and the ITU-T. The standardization process began in 1977. perl: Perl is a highly capable, feature-rich programming language with over 30 years of development. wikipedia: An FTP server is computer software consisting of one or more programs that can execute commands given by remote client(s) such as receiving, sending, deleting files, creating or removing directories, etc. wikipedia: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. wikipedia: The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. wikipedia: A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. wikipedia: Telnet (short for "teletype network") is a client/server application protocol that provides access to virtual terminals of remote systems on local area networks or the Internet. wikipedia: Remote Function Call is a proprietary SAP interface. icannwiki: BBN (Bolt, Beranek and Newman Inc.), now Raytheon BBN Technologies, is one of the leading Research and Development companies in the United States, dedicated to providing high-technology products and services to consumers. wikipedia: A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. wikipedia: Punched tape or perforated paper tape is a form of data storage that consists of a long strip of paper in which holes are punched. wikipedia: A teleprinter (teletypewriter, teletype or TTY) is an electromechanical device that can be used to send and receive typed messages through various communications channels, in both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations. wikipedia: Teletype Model 33. wikipedia: Teletype Model 37. wikipedia: Unix (/ˈjuːnɪks/; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and others. wikipedia: Wang Laboratories was a US computer company founded in 1951 by An Wang and G. Y. Chu. wikipedia: Library (computing). wikipedia: Magnetic-core memory was the predominant form of random-access computer memory for 20 years between about 1955 and 1975. BASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College in 1963. wikipedia: Microsoft BASIC is the foundation software product of the Microsoft company and evolved into a line of BASIC interpreters and compiler(s) adapted for many different microcomputers. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first version of BASIC published by Microsoft as well as the first high-level programming language available for the Altair 8800 microcomputer. wikipedia: A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a fabric that removes dust particles from the spinning disk. wikipedia: A tape drive is a data storage device that reads and writes data on a magnetic tape. wikipedia: In computer engineering, microarchitecture, also called computer organization and sometimes abbreviated as µarch or uarch, is the way a given instruction set architecture (ISA) is implemented in a particular processor. wikipedia: A microsleep is a sudden temporary episode of sleep or drowsiness which may last for a few seconds where an individual fails to respond to some arbitrary sensory input and becomes unconscious. clevo: We offer over 50 models from CLEVO. wikipedia: Clevo is a Taiwanese OEM/ODM computer manufacturer which produces laptop computers exclusively. wikipedia: Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT), also known as heavy rail or metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas. wikipedia: Cracker Jack is an American brand of snack food that consists of molasses-flavored, caramel-coated popcorn, and peanuts, well known for being packaged with a prize of trivial value inside. gov: UK Driver's Licence. gov: Legal obligations of drivers and riders. sheilaswheels: We keep our Sheilas happy by supplying fabulous 5 Star Defaqto rated car and home insurance, and that's helped us to become one of the UK's leading direct insurers. nestle: Yorkie was launched in 1976 by Rowntree's of York hence the name. wikipedia: Joyriding refers to driving or riding in a stolen vehicle, most commonly a car, with no particular goal other than the pleasure or thrill of doing so or to impress other people. oggcamp: OggCamp is an unconference celebrating Free Culture, Free and Open Source Software, hardware hacking, digital rights, and all manner of collaborative cultural activities and is committed to creating a conference that is as inclusive as possible. ubuntu: Ubuntu is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. wikipedia: Ubuntu. wikipedia: Mark Shuttleworth. ubuntu: Ubuntu tablet press pack. stallman: Richard Stallman's Personal Site. elementary: The thoughtful, capable, and ethical replacement for Windows and macOS. slackware: The Slackware Linux Project. wikipedia: identi.ca was a free and open-source social networking and blogging service based on the pump.io software, using the Activity Streams protocol. wikipedia: GNU social (previously known as StatusNet and once known as Laconica) is a free and open source software microblogging server written in PHP that implements the OStatus standard for interoperation between installations. wikipedia: Friendica (formerly Friendika, originally Mistpark) is a free and open-source software distributed social network. lugcast: We are an open Podcast/LUG that meets every first and third Friday of every month using mumble. toastmasters Toastmasters International is a nonprofit educational organization that teaches public speaking and leadership skills through a worldwide network of clubs. wikipedia: Motorola, Inc. (/ˌmoʊtəˈroʊlə/) was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. volla: Volla Phone. ubports: We are building a secure & private operating system for your smartphone. sailfishos: The mobile OS with built-in privacy. calyxos: CalyxOS is an operating system for smartphones based on Android with mostly free and open-source software. wikipedia: WhatsApp. IRC IRC is short for Internet Relay Chat. It is a popular chat service still in use today. zoom: Unified communication and collaboration platform. jitsi: Jitsi Free & Open Source Video Conferencing Projects. joinmastodon: Mastodon is free and open-source software for running self-hosted social networking services. wikipedia: Karen Sandler is the executive director of the Software Freedom Conservancy, former executive director of the GNOME Foundation, an attorney, and former general counsel of the Software Freedom Law Center. fosdem: FOSDEM is a free event for software developers to meet, share ideas and collaborate. southeastlinuxfest: The SouthEast LinuxFest is a community event for anyone who wants to learn more about Linux and Open Source Software. olfconference: OLF (formerly known as Ohio LinuxFest) is a grassroots conference for the GNU/Linux/Open Source Software/Free Software community that started in 2003 as a large inter-LUG (Linux User Group) meeting and has grown steadily since. linuxfests: A home for educational programs focused on free and open source software & culture. wikipedia: Notacon (pronounced "not-a-con") was an art and technology conference which took place annually in Cleveland, Ohio from 2003 to 2014. penpalworld: a place where you can meet over 3,000,000 pen pals from every country on the planet. redhat: Red Hat Enterprise Linux. openssl: The OpenSSL Project develops and maintains the OpenSSL software - a robust, commercial-grade, full-featured toolkit for general-purpose cryptography and secure communication. STEM wikipedia: Obsessive–compulsive disorder. cdc: Autism. wikipedia: Asperger syndrome. askubuntu: Manual partitioning during installation. wikipedia: Colon cancer staging. cdc: Get Vaccinated Before You Travel. sqlite: SQLite is a C-language library that implements a small, fast, self-contained, high-reliability, full-featured, SQL database engine. wikipedia: Facial recognition system. wikipedia: Tribalism is the state of being organized by, or advocating for, tribes or tribal lifestyles. wikipedia: Southern hospitality. wikipedia: The Kroger Company, or simply Kroger, is an American retail company that operates (either directly or through its subsidiaries) supermarkets and multi-department stores throughout the United States. wikipedia: Prosopagnosia, more commonly known as face blindness, is a cognitive disorder of face perception in which the ability to recognize familiar faces, including one's own face, is impaired, while other aspects of visual processing and intellectual functioning remain intact. wikipedia: T-Mobile is the brand name used by some of the mobile communications subsidiaries of the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG in the Czech Republic, Poland, the United States and by the former subsidiary in the Netherlands. stackexchange: Where did the phrase "batsh-t crazy" come from? wikipedia: A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy by powerful and sinister groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable. brigs: At Brigs, we want everyone to get exactly what they're craving! papajohns: Papa Johns. dominos: Domino's Pizza, Inc., trading as Domino's, is a Michigan-based multinational pizza restaurant chain founded in 1960 and led by CEO Russell Weiner. wikipedia: Loitering is the act of remaining in a particular public place for a prolonged amount of time without any apparent purpose. wikipedia: Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociative identity disorder, major depressive disorder and many others. wikipedia: Therapist is a person who offers any kinds of therapy. Thanks To: Mumble Server: Delwin HPR Site/VPS: Joshua Knapp - AnHonestHost.com Streams: Honkeymagoo EtherPad: HonkeyMagoo Shownotes by: Sgoti and hplovecraft

On June 10th, the Faith at Work Summit at Saddleback Church is hosting Fortune 500, Christian executives from Target, Disney, Cisco Systems, Metronic and Capital Group. Each of these speakers are passionate about the integration of faith and work. They are seeing God move in their companies, specifically through Christian fellowships and Small groups in the workplace that they are leading.Are you interested in workplace small groups or fellowship with business-minded Christians? Do you or any of your small group leaders lead a group at their workplace? Then join participants from across the US for this Faith at Work Summit, on Saturday, June 10th.If you're in Southern California you can join this event in-person. It's also simulcasted via zoom and you can watch it live online. You can register for this event at https://Saddleback.com/FaithAtWorkSteve Gladen, Global Small Groups Pastor at Saddleback Church, pulls from his 20+ years of small group ministry experience to encourage and equip listeners to lead healthier, growing and more effective small group ministries. In this episode, Steve is joined by co-host Derek and special guest Christina Dawson (Life Groups Director at the Woodlands Church in Texas to talk about 7 ways data can help you and your small group ministry. In this episode we discuss: How accurate data is critical How the number one rule with data is use it yourself  How do diligence with data isn't enough Sales commission structure & how it works How setting achievable exceptions is a must How group health & corporate training are essential What to do before you meet your people Christina Dawson Bio:Christina loves to serve people and has been doing so professionally for 19 years. Aftergraduating from high school she took on numerous sales roles in both restaurant andretail settings. It was here that she learned the necessities of user experience andcustomer engagement.In 2012, while working in a furniture store, one of her customers, who happened to bethe CEO of a Canadian manufacturing company, was so impressed with her service, hehired her as as his Executive Assistant. While taking on numerous roles within thecompany, Christina discovered a strong passion for workforce development.In the spring of 2014, she was selected to manage and develop a two-year pilotworkforce program by the Bowling Green Kentucky Area Chamber of Commerce.After completing her contract, she continued her mission for economic development bystarting her own workforce communications and marketing firm, Southern Kentucky Jobs.Worldly success in entrepreneurship left her exhausted and disappointed.In early 2020, the Lord miraculously gave Christina the opportunity to serve overseas.She sold everything she had and traveled across the globe where she would contributeto the growth and development of a children's hospital. After living, working, and sharingJesus with orphans in rural Africa, Christina has new eyes and a grateful heart.A Kentucky native, Christina currently resides in Houston, Texas, where she is serving theLife Groups Team at Woodlands Church. She continues to work as a company cultureconsultant in the manufacturing industry.CRM & UX Outline ★ Support this podcast ★

This month's Work, Love, Pray guest is Tracey Newell. Tracey has built a highly successful career in sales and leadership, working with companies like Juniper Networks, Webex, and Cisco Systems. She now serves on the boards of five high-growth software companies, and is passionate about helping companies and the teams that power them see and utilize their full potentials. As you will hear, the topic of influence and becoming a woman of influence is something that Tracey does not shy away from, and she is able to infuse this important conversation with many insights she has learned herself.

My guest today on The Courage of a Leader podcast is David Johnson. David has a 20-year track record of driving organizational change. He's a turnaround expert, and often turnarounds bring with them negative connotation - harsh realities, lost jobs, and cutthroat decision making.You'll, however, find that David is different, and I know you'll appreciate his unique perspectives and pragmatic advice for How to Go From Visionary to Change Agent to Triumphant.About the Guest:David Johnson, founder and managing partner of Abraxas Group, has a 20-year track record of driving organizational change. David has served as interim executive or financial advisor to dozens of middle market companies in transition.Throughout his career, David has demonstrated a commitment to thought leadership, with numerous speaking engagements and articles on the topics of change management, performance improvement, restructuring and turnaround to his credit.David received his MBA from the University of Chicago and completed his undergraduate studies at Fairleigh Dickinson University. About the Host:Amy L. Riley is an internationally renowned speaker, author and consultant. She has over 2 decades of experience developing leaders at all levels. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Deloitte and Barclays.As a trusted leadership coach and consultant, Amy has worked with hundreds of leaders one-on-one, and thousands more as part of a group, to fully step into their leadership, create amazing teams and achieve extraordinary results. Amy's most popular keynote speeches are:The Courage of a Leader: The Power of a Leadership LegacyThe Courage of a Leader: Create a Competitive Advantage with Sustainable, Results-Producing Cross-System CollaborationThe Courage of a Leader: Accelerate Trust with Your Team, Customers and CommunityThe Courage of a Leader: How to Build a Happy and Successful Hybrid Team Her new book is a #1 international best-seller and is entitled, The Courage of a Leader: How to Inspire, Engage and Get Extraordinary Results. www.courageofaleader.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/amyshoopriley/ Link mentioned in the podcastThe Inspire Your Team assessment (the courage assessment): https://courageofaleader.com/inspireyourteam/ Thanks for listening!Thanks so much for listening to The Courage of a Leader podcast! If you got inspired and/or got valuable leadership techniques you can use from this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share using the social media buttons on this page.Do you have questions or feedback about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcastIf you would like to get automatic updates of new The Courage of a Leader podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts reviewRatings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which helps us ignite The Courage of a Leader in more leaders! Please take a minute and leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Teaser for next episodeTune in next for Mastering the Art of Influence: How to Lead without Authority with my

On June 10th, the Faith at Work Summit at Saddleback Church is hosting Fortune 500, Christian executives from Target, Disney, Cisco Systems, Metronic and Capital Group. Each of these speakers are passionate about the integration of faith and work. They are seeing God move in their companies, specifically through Christian fellowships and Small groups in the workplace that they are leading.Are you interested in workplace small groups or fellowship with business-minded Christians? Do you or any of your small group leaders lead a group at their workplace? Then join participants from across the US for this Faith at Work Summit, on Saturday, June 10th.If you're in Southern California you can join this event in-person. It's also simulcasted via zoom and you can watch it live online. You can register for this event at https://Saddleback.com/FaithAtWorkSteve Gladen and James Browning look at the history of the small group network and what things that are currently happening that could make a big difference for you or your ministry. ★ Support this podcast ★

Laura Stack of The Productivity Pro talks about how to deal with office politics Episode 973: Ducking the Crosshairs: Five Ways to Deal with Office Politics by Laura Stack Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE is an award-winning keynote speaker, bestselling author, and noted authority on employee and team productivity. She is the president of The Productivity Pro, Inc., a company dedicated to helping leaders increase workplace performance in high-stress environments. Stack has authored eight books, including FASTER TOGETHER: Accelerating Your Team's Productivity (Berrett-Koehler 2018). She is a past president of the National Speakers Association, and a member of its exclusive Speaker Hall of Fame (with fewer than 175 members worldwide.) Stack's clients include Cisco Systems, Wal-Mart, and Bank of America, and she has been featured on the CBS Early Show and CNN, and in the New York Times. The original post is located here: https://theproductivitypro.com/blog/2017/08/ducking-the-crosshairs-five-ways-to-deal-with-office-politics/  Visit Me Online at OLDPodcast.com Interested in advertising on the show? Visit https://www.advertisecast.com/OptimalStartUpDaily Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On June 10th, the Faith at Work Summit at Saddleback Church is hosting Fortune 500, Christian executives from Target, Disney, Cisco Systems, Metronic and Capital Group. Each of these speakers are passionate about the integration of faith and work. They are seeing God move in their companies, specifically through Christian fellowships and Small groups in the workplace that they are leading.Are you interested in workplace small groups or fellowship with business-minded Christians? Do you or any of your small group leaders lead a group at their workplace? Then join participants from across the US for this Faith at Work Summit, on Saturday, June 10th.If you're in Southern California you can join this event in-person. It's also simulcasted via zoom and you can watch it live online. You can register for this event at https://Saddleback.com/FaithAtWorkSteve Gladen, Global Small Groups Pastor at Saddleback Church, pulls from his 20+ years of small group ministry experience to encourage and equip listeners to lead more effective small group ministry. In this episode, you will hear an audio recording of Rick Warren talking to the Saddleback church staff about his 10 Principles of Exponential Thinking. Steve Gladen will then breakdown how you can apply these 10 principles to your small group ministry. The following is what will specifically be covered in this show:First – exponential growth is possible.Second – exponential growth is the New Testament model.Third – exponential growth brings honor to God.Fourth – exponential growth captures the attention of the unbelieving world.Fifth – exponential growth is caused by God.Sixth – exponential growth is the result of God's blessing on your life.Seventh – exponential growth makes God smile…in fact, He rewards it.Eighth – the only barrier to exponential growth is our own unbelief.Ninth – the secret of exponential growth is believing God for big things.Finally, Tenth – exponential growth begins with exponential thinking.Choosing Growth over ControlThe Book of Acts is one of the best resources we have to understand the growth of the church during its formative years. A brief read through of this section of Scripture can quickly show us that the church preferred growth over control as they would preach to thousands and then baptize them shortly afterward. As witnessed throughout Acts, explosive growth was a good problem to have, for it established a foundation upon which its teachings could stand upon. Similarly, we too must be okay with the mess that new small groups may create. Instead of focusing primarily on if a new small group leader is maintaining sound theological discourse within their very first meeting, we are challenged to celebrate the fact that Jesus is being discussed at all and that members are coming together to form community. But doesn't bad theology and misinformed teaching create more complication for the kingdom of God? Yes, however just as we see in the Bible, doctrine and teaching was provided shortly after Acts through the writings of the Epistles. Just as how Paul conducted “on-the-job” training via letters to the churches he was mentoring, we too can choose growth first and then later practice the approach of surgically addressing any theological concerns through a consistent roll-out of bite-size trainings.A Culture of GroupsWhile we all wish our congregants would be fully devoted followers of Christ who are consistently serving, attending a small group, and in-the-know of the church calendar at all times, the reality is that many of our churchgoers only step foot onto church grounds for Sunday service (or online for virtual Sunday service). In other words, Sunday morning may in fact be the only shot we have to help promote small groups and/or explain the benefits of small groups. If our churches only mention small groups twice a year at the times when there are coordinated group launches, then this means that the typical church attendee only will hear about small groups 4% of the year (even less if they miss one or both of those two services!). If the church's leadership agrees that small groups are one of the most important ministries within the community, then we become challenged to display the fact that small groups are indeed a part of our church's DNA. To help execute this, some strategies can include: (1) head pastor buy-in (where the senior pastor becomes one of the most vocal proponents of small group ministry and even attends a group themselves); (2) Church calendar events that strategically funnel individuals into newly created groups (and/or church events that don't interfere with the weekdays on which small groups typically meet); or (3) Consistent small group promotion from the pulpit (Not every message needs to be a small group sermon, but every message can contain a shout-out or a 30 second tie-in to small groups).Lowering the BarriersIn a post-Covid world, small group ministries have found themselves challenged to embrace new methods in facilitating and nurturing community. While meeting in-person will always be the ideal method of meeting in groups, what we do know is that the concept of virtual groups is here to stay. During this time that we find ourselves in, what type of group is easy to duplicate, is able to meet both online and in-person, is easily sustainable, and also is easy to lead? As we arrive on the other side of the widespread disruption that Covid-19 had brought with it, sermon discussion groups may very well be the perfect type of “growth over control” group to launch within our church's small group ministry. A sermon discussion guide is not only able to empower anyone to host a group and facilitate engaging conversation, but it also allows what Steve and Dave encouraged us all to practice during last year's Lobby: rather than simply telling our groups what to do, we instead provide for our groups the destination we want them to reach while utilizing the values we want them to use in order to arrive there. Even though a model of sermon discussion groups chooses growth over control, it does so within a framework that provides its groups a set of guardrails within which to operate. In other words, groups are not grown without oversight, but instead are grown within a model that becomes quite appealing to a post-Covid world where both in-person and online groups are meeting on a regular basis. ★ Support this podcast ★