Podcasts about code school

In this episode of Time Hacks, join host Jacques as he interviews Gregg Pollack, a successful entrepreneur turned psychology enthusiast and professional cuddlist.Gregg founded several companies, helping to launch the startup community in Orlando and leading into his journey into psychology. Code School which was acquired by Pluralsight for $36 million, Envy which builds web applications, and Starter Studio which is Orlando's first tech business accelerator.Gregg shares his story of personal growth and self-discovery, from building companies to delving into the world of psychology and unlearning societal conditioning.Throughout the conversation, Gregg emphasizes the importance of attending workshops and therapy sessions to facilitate personal growth. Gregg also shares his insights on healing childhood trauma, understanding the brain's mechanisms, and building loving relationships by acknowledging and expressing emotions authentically.

In this month's catchup, Aaron and Peter discuss their thoughts on the tech market, delegation, and transparency behind coding school statistics. Plus, get updates on Peter's indie hacker project as well as Aaron's new company launch!Shameless PlugsJunior to SeniorParsitydev30Peter's YouTube channel

The executive director of a local charter high school, the American Leadership Academy, speaks out in response to a protest against the school's alleged discrimination against certain girls' body types at the homecoming dance. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Three friends and Turing Alum talk about the Turing School, their experience as students and now software developers, the Turing community, and the future of the Hello Turing World Podcast Reading Recommendations: Marshall: Range by David Epstein Jesse: Mutual Aid by Dean Spade Mark: Riverside, a software for recording podcasts  

In today's episode we're going to be talking with Andre Elmoznino Laufer who currently works as a Lead Software Engineer in Stockholm, Sweden. Andre was a student at the very first bootcamp Aaron launched in 2016 and since then has worked his way to where he is now but taking risks and being confident.As you'll hear, Andre is full of out the box advice on landing your first job after a bootcamp and advancing your career for years after. Enjoy!Links Andre's LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreelmoznino/Shameless Plugs: dev30 (starts July 25!): https://www.dev30.xyz/ Aaron's Code School: https://parsity.io/ Peter's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/peterelbaum

Building your own projects is the single best way to improve and reinforce your development skills. But, often, it's hard to know what to build or where to even start. In this episode, we talk about how to generate ideas for side projects, and how to find the motivation to complete them. We'll talk about why projects are important, why not to do projects, and Peter's simple framework for finding ideas. Referenced EpisodesThe Best Strategy for Learning to CodeShameless PlugsAaron's Code School: https://parsity.io/Peter's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/peterelbaum

3.5 years ago, Justin had never written on LinkedIn, but since then his 1-person business has done nearly $1.5M in revenue, with 98% margins, and he's done this primarily based off his 230k+ LinkedIn followers.What's his secret? Creating LinkedIn content with systems he's developed.In this episode, Justin will walk us through how to build on LinkedIn and create a following with minimal time commitment and 0 prior writing experience, even as a beginner!Justin's LinkedIn Coursehttps://www.justinwelsh.me/a/2147505019/e9trWtpkThe Saturday Solopreneur https://www.justinwelsh.me/Shameless PlugsAaron's Code School: https://parsity.io/Peter's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/peterelbaum

In this episode we speak with Lynne Tye. After pivoting away from a neuroscience PhD, Lynne held a variety of jobs before teaching herself to code and becoming a freelance developer. She eventually founded Key Values, which helps match engineers to engineering teams that share their values.In this conversation, Lynne and I talk about how she learned to code and find freelance development work, how the pandemic affected Key Values, and the nature of running a lifestyle business. Enjoy!LinksLynne's Twitter: https://twitter.com/lynnetye Key Values: keyvalues.comShameless PlugsAaron's Code School: https://parsity.io/Peter's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/peterelbaum

In this episode, we speak with Sara Oros, who JUST graduated from a coding bootcamp and is seeking advice. We help troubleshoot her journey and talk through what the next several phases of his transition will look like. Links Sara's LinkedIn:linkedin.com/in/sara-oros1018Shameless Plugs: Aaron's Code School: https://parsity.io/ Aaron's JavaScript Program: https://dev30.xyz/ Peter's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/peterelbaum

In this episode we speak with Johnny Dallas. Johnny started coding in middle school, got a paid internship and eventually ended up dropping out of high school to be a software engineer full-time. The company Johnny worked for was eventually acquired. He became one of the youngest engineers at Amazon and recently left to start his own company. In our conversation, Johnny and I discussed the best ways to learn, strategies for pursuing jobs and mentors, and the needs behind his new startup. Enjoy!LinksJohnny's thread about his journey: https://twitter.com/_johnnydallas_/status/1519011035478315008?cxt=HHwWgMCquaOfzpQqAAAAJohnny's Twitter: https://twitter.com/_johnnydallas_ Johnny's startup Zeet: https://zeet.co/Shameless PlugsAaron's Code School: https://parsity.io/Peter's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/peterelbaum

In this episode, Aaron shares his own story of battling depression and how becoming a Software Engineer has helped his mental health and changed his life. Enjoy! Links Lost Connections Book: https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Connections-Uncovering-Depression-Unexpected/dp/1632868318/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= Shameless Plugs Aaron's Code School: https://parsity.io/ Peter's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/peterelbaum

In this episode, we speak with Namanh Kapur. Namanh is a Rice University CS graduate, a software engineer at Bolt – a fast-growing  fintech startup – and a YouTuber with over 30,000 subscribers. In this conversation, Namanh and I talk about growing up abroad, why and how Namanh started coding in middle school, strategies for applying for developer internships and jobs, and Namanh's aspirations for his YouTube channel.  Enjoy!LinksNamanh's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/namanhkapur Namanh's Website: https://namanhkapur.comBolt: https://www.bolt.com/ Shameless PlugsAaron's Code School: https://parsity.io/Peter's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/peterelbaum

Each month, Develop Yourself's co-hosts (Aaron and Peter) will be checking in with each other, in part to talk through how they've each quit their Software Engineering jobs to pursue entrepreneurship, indie-hacking, self-employment, etc.This episode is an update on what each of us is doing.Shameless PlugsPeter's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/peterelbaumAaron's Code School: https://parsity.io/Aaron's JavaScript Course: https://dev30.xyz/

In this episode, we speak with Stephen Wise. Stephen is a freelance web designer and Webflow developer and founder of WiseStudio.In this conversation, Stephen and I talk about why Stephen chose to stop pursuing traditional education, how to learn new skills, and Stephen's story behind applying for (and getting) a dream gig with a well-known YouTube creator. Enjoy!LinksStephen's Website: https://www.stephenwise.com/ Stephen's Twitter: https://twitter.com/stephen_wise_ Stephen's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCApawlrqXlZ2FXBOLnKxT5Q Shameless PlugsAaron's Code School: https://parsity.io/Peter's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/peterelbaum

In this episode, we speak with Michael Garcia, who is currently learning to code in hopes of landing his first job as a Software Engineer.Michael graduated from a Fintech Bootcamp, but as he had no luck in the job search, he's recently switched his learning path to Fullstack Web Development.In this episode, we help troubleshoot his journey and talk through what the next several phases of his transition will look like. LinksMichael's LinkedIn Twitter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/micheal-garcia-3345a11b6/Shameless PlugsAaron's Code School: https://parsity.io/Aaron's JavaScript Program: https://dev30.xyz/Peter's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/peterelbaum

Jon talks with Dan McGaw, CEO of McGaw.io, analytics, and marketing technology consultancy. Using a data-driven approach, he will build and oversee your new marketing program so that it creates sustainable growth. Dan, one of the original growth hackers, currently serves as a part-time CMO at multiple companies and comes with years of experience you can't find anywhere else. He knows what needs to be done to grow your business and how to manage a team to get it done quickly. Dan McGaw is an award-winning entrepreneur and speaker. He is also the Founder and CEO of McGaw.io, analytics, and marketing technology consultancy. Coined as one of the original growth hackers, he has led the teams at Kissmetrics.com, CodeSchool.com, UTM.io, and more. In 2015, Dan was selected to be a United States Ambassador of Entrepreneurship by the United States Department of State, where he had the privilege to advise the government, universities, and private corporations on how to build entrepreneur ecosystems. Connect with Jon Dwoskin: Twitter: @jdwoskin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.dwoskin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejondwoskinexperience/ Website: https://jondwoskin.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondwoskin/ Email: jon@jondwoskin.com Get Jon's Book: The Think Big Movement: Grow your business big. Very Big!   Connect with Dan McGaw: Website: https://mcgaw.io/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mcgawio Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/McGaw.io LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mcgaw-io

With the Holidaze just around the corner, we bring you this happy hybrid strain that is perfect to sit around with some friends and elevate. This blend of more calm than focus is great for those wanting something less foggy than a strait indica. Learn why this strain can be great for those who love both indica and sativa. For Questions or to submit feedback please email cannabisschoolpodcast@gmail.com A Flow Media Production www.cannabisschool.us https://www.patreon.com/CannabisSchool https://trythefoxyflower.com  use Code "School" for free shipping Canabis , Limoncello , Executive Level , Headband , Cabbabis , Cannavist , cannabuild , cannabiz , Sativa , Extracts , THC , CBD , MMJ , cannabid, cannabuild , cannabidol, cannabiz , cannabot , Canna , extracto , khush , kush , carts , pax8 , botanicals , alternative health , alternative medicine , marijuana , hemp , delta8 , plant medicine , 420 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/cannabisschool/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cannabisschool/support

In this episode, we speak with Jake Dohm. Jake is a web developer and serves as Development Lead at Steadfast Design Firm. Jake also runs local meetups, works on open source projects and is actively involved with speaking at and organizing conferences. In this episode, Jake and I talk about how he got into web development at 14, his learning journey, how to become a code craftsman, the benefits of public speaking, the advantages of homeschooling, and more. Enjoy!LinksJake's Twitter: https://twitter.com/JakeDohmJake's Personal Site: https://jakedohm.com/ Steadfast Design Firm: https://steadfastdesignfirm.comKeystone JS: https://keystonejs.comShameless PlugsAaron's Code School: https://parsity.io/Peter's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/peterelbaum

In this episode, Aaron walks through what it means to work on your "mind/mindset" as a budding Software Engineer. As we summarize, it ultimately comes down to your ability to change the way you think or respond to a difficult situation.Then we'll talk about 3 methods you can adopt to work on your own mindset as a developer, daily.LinksMorning FormulaHero On a Missiondev30Shameless PlugsPeter's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/peterelbaumAaron's Code School: https://parsity.io/

In this episode, we speak with Pete Codes. Pete is the founder of the website NoCSDegree.com, which tells the stories of people who have broken into the tech industry without the traditional credentials. Pete has several other projects he's currently working on, including a paid community and several courses. In this conversation, Pete and I get into common characteristics he's noticed among people who have successfully transitioned to tech, how he handles personal productivity with so many projects, and how Pete thinks about his vision for the future with the No CS Degree brand, among other topics. Enjoy!LinksNo CS Degree: https://www.nocsdegree.com/Pete's Twitter: https://twitter.com/petecodesPete's courses: https://petecodes.gumroad.com Pete's website: https://www.petecodes.io Pete's community: https://highsignal.io Shameless PlugsAaron's Free JavaScript Course: https://dev30.xyz/Peter's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/peterelbaumAaron's Code School: https://parsity.io/

Obviously, you've heard of  "crypto" and "web3", but can you define them?Do you know what "blockchain" is?Did you know that as a beginner, you can and should get involved in coding on web3 projects?Today crypto expert Brian Schuster is going to break all of this down for us and explain how you can take action to get involved, right now.LinksBrian's Twitter: https://twitter.com/_SchusterDevBrian's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/schuster/Shameless PlugsAaron's Code School: https://parsity.io/Aaron's Free JavaScript Course: https://dev30.xyz/Peter's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/peterelbaumAaron/Brian's Web3 Code School: https://devmint.xyz/

In this episode, we speak with Louie Bacaj. Louie joined Jet.com when it had fewer than 20 engineers, stayed through its acquisition by Walmart, and rose to become Director of Engineering for Walmart Pharmacy. But despite the promotions, learning, and excellent pay, Louie recently made the decision to walk away from it all and bet on himself. In our conversation, Louie and I get into the engineering career ladder, being a partner to the business side of an organization, building an audience, and what he's up to now. You're sure to learn a ton from this chat. Enjoy!LinksLouie's Twitter: https://twitter.com/LBacaj Louie's website: https://louiebacaj.com/Shameless PlugsPeter's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/peterelbaumAaron's Code School: https://parsity.io/Aaron's Free JavaScript Course: https://dev30.xyz/

Each month, Develop Yourself's co-hosts (Aaron and Peter) will be checking in with each other, in part to talk through how they've each quit their Software Engineering jobs to pursue entrepreneurship, indie-hacking, self-employment, etc.This episode is the backstory on how and when we quit and how we got the guts to pull the trigger.ResourcesThe Tail End: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.htmlDaniel Vassallo: https://twitter.com/dvassalloShameless PlugsPeter's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/peterelbaumAaron's Code School: https://parsity.io/Aaron's Free JavaScript Course: https://dev30.xyz/

If you're listening to this episode, you probably want to learn to code. But, you might be overwhelmed and wondering how to learn or where to start. Thankfully, the best-articulated strategy I've come across for learning anything is dead simple: do the real thing. In this episode, we talk through the core tenets of this idea as well as approaches for applying it when learning to code. LinksDo the Real Thing: https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2020/05/04/do-the-real-thing/Pieter Levels: https://twitter.com/levelsio/Shameless Plugs Peter's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/peterelbaumAaron's Code School: https://parsity.io/Aaron's Free JavaScript Course: https://dev30.xyz/

In this episode, Liz sat down with Linda to discuss her journey from being in academia to having a career in Law Enforcement and to her current role as a Senior Incident Response Analyst. Linda highlights the similarities between her time as a detective specializing in digital forensics and her current role within the private sector. She also shares advice for those who are considering a career within the Technology space whether they are fresh out of college or for those considering a career switch. Do enjoy!Guest: Linda Smith My name is Linda Smith and I like to break hacker's hearts. I am also the Founder of Codify Zone a Tech-Education company where children learn programming, logical and critical thinking skills. I am an ex-cop with extensive experience in the field of Digital Forensics.Currently I am a Senior Incident Response Analyst with one of the best companies in the field of cyber security, Sophos. I am a mom of 2 beautiful children and a wife, in my spare time I run to support local and international charities.  I am a workout freak, and I can't sit still. I love to travel, boxing and I absolutely could not live without caffeine.I love what I doI do what I loveI do what I do to protect business and humans.Host: Liz JaluagueLiz Jaluague is a Cyber Testing Associate at RSM Canada where she performs penetration tests for clients in a wide span of industries. Her previous work experience includes full-stack development, cloud automation, and security governance consulting at a Big Four firm. She earned a BSc in Biochemistry and a postgraduate certificate in Computer Security and Digital Forensics.Liz serves as a mentor in several organizations for people who are in their first cybersecurity role or looking to enter the field. She also co-leads the EWF's Podcast Action Team.Support the show (https://www.ewf-usa.com/)

Too many mid-to-large businesses still handle marketing like small business. If that's you, it's restricting your growth. The technology is there to help, but few businesses devote the bandwidth and expertise to leveraging it to their full potential. It takes intentionality and a strong knowledge of industry tools to implement it correctly. Enter our guest today: Dan McGaw of McGaw.io. Dan is a specialist in helping mid-market and large enterprises integrate and take advantage of all the marketing technologies available today. There are software and cloud-based applications that help engage your clients more deeply, have better relationships with them by increasing contact with them, and do it in a way that adds value to clients. Dan is an award-winning entrepreneur and speaker with 20+ years of experience in marketing technology and analytics. Dan was formerly the head of marketing at Kissmetrics and was head of growth at CodeSchool.com which was acquired by Pluralsight. Coined as one of the original growth hackers, and one of the godfathers of marketing technology, he has helped thousands of companies over his career. After listening to today's episode, check out Dan's book, Build Cool Sh*t, if you would like to improve your marketing efforts and create a powerful, flexible marketing technology stack.

In this episode of The Next CMO podcast, I speak to Dan McGaw, the founder and CEO of McGaw dot IO, an analytics and marketing technology company.Dan has spent 20 years as a marketing leader and one of the original growth hackers.He was previously the head of marketing at KissMetrics and VP of Growth at Code School.Dan has been called a living MarTech encyclopedia and he recently released a book called, build cool (stuff…), which is a blueprint to creating a marketing technology stack.Dan and I discuss the importance of a data taxonomy for marketing, his contrarian view on the idea of a single source of truth for data, we bust some myths about attribution modeling, and even gives our listeners the opportunity to get a free copy of his book.If you are listening at home in front of the kids, you might consider using your headphones for this one - Dan's vocabulary is a little spicier than mine.More about Dan McGaw hereMore about McGaw.io hereMore about Plannuh hereMore about The Next CMO podcast here  Produced by PodForte

Ep #108 - This week on the podcast, I'm joined by Dan McGaw, an award winning-speaker and entrepreneur. Dan is the founder of several companies including McGaw.io, UTM.io, and The National Association of Marketing Technology. He presently serves as CEO to McGaw.io, an analytics and marketing technology consultancy. Deemed one of the original "growth hackers," Dan has led teams for KissMetrics.com, CodeSchool.com, UTM.io, and more on his entrepreneurial journey. In 2015, Dan was selected to be a United States Ambassador of Entrepreneurship by the United States Department of State, where he had the privilege of advising government, universities, and private corporations on how to build entrepreneur ecosystems. Learn More About Dan McGaw, McGaw.io, & UTM.io: Visit the McGaw.io website: https://mcgaw.io/ Visit the UTM.io website: https://web.utm.io/ Follow Dan McGaw on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielmcgaw/ Also, please remember to subscribe, rate, and leave a written review for the show if you find value in it. Your reviews help this show to reach a wider audience and I appreciate everyone that has been leaving them. FOLLOW CHARLES GAUDET ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Follow Charles Gaudet on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/charlesgaudet Follow Charles Gaudet on Facebook: https://facebook.com/charlesgaudet Follow Charles Gaudet on Twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesgaudet   VISIT THE PREDICTABLE PROFITS WEBSITE: https://PredictableProfits.com

01:17 - Danielle's Superpower: Empathy & Communication 01:56 - Going From the Hospitality Industry => Tech * @CodeSchoolQA (https://twitter.com/codeschoolqa) / twitch.tv/thejonanshow (https://www.twitch.tv/thejonanshow) 04:58 - Education Technology (https://tech.ed.gov/) (EdTech) * Disruption = Reinvention 07:18 - Anthropology + Tech / Working With People * Anticipating Needs 10:25 - Making Education Fun + Inclusive * Cultural Relevance * Revamping Outdated Curriculum * Connecting With Kids 16:18 - Transitioning Into Tech 27:57 - Resources * Learnhowtoprogram.com (https://www.learnhowtoprogram.com/introduction-to-programming/getting-started-at-epicodus/learn-how-to-program) * Documentation * YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/) * Community * #TechTwitter (https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TechTwitter&src=typed_query&f=live) * Virtual Coffee (https://virtualcoffee.io/) * Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/) 32:39 - @CodeSchoolQA (https://twitter.com/codeschoolqa) / twitch.tv/thejonanshow (https://www.twitch.tv/thejonanshow) 34:08 - The Streaming Revolution * New Opportunities For Connection * Hybrid Events * Introvert Inclusive * Accessibility * Reaching New Markets 39:45 - Making Tech Safe, Secure, and Protected * Greater Than Code Episode 252: Designing For Safety with Eva PenzeyMoog (https://www.greaterthancode.com/designing-for-safety) 44:03 - Advice For New Devs: Work on Technical Things Sooner Reflections: Mandy: The secret in tech is that nobody knows what they're doing! Danielle: Ask questions and lean into community. Tech needs you. Arty: Don't be afraid to reach out to community members for help. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: ARTY: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Episode 254 of Greater Than Code. I am Arty Starr and I'm here with my fabulous co-host, Mandy Moore. MANDY: Hey, everyone! It's Mandy Moore and I'm here with our guest today, Danielle Thompson. Danielle is a newly minted software engineer working in the education technology sphere of the nonprofit world, after making a major career change from working in hospitality and events for many years. As a code school graduate herself, she loves to help demystify tech for others with non-traditional backgrounds and works to open doors into tech with her friends at Code School Q&A, weekly on Wednesday nights at around 7:00 PM Pacific at twitch.tv/thejonanshow. Outside of work, she can typically be found with a nose buried in a book, hanging out with her doggo, and making delicious craft beverages. Welcome to the show, Danielle! DANIELLE: Thanks so much for having me, Mandy and Arty! MANDY: Awesome. It's great for you to be here. So before we get into the meat of our conversation, we always ask our guests the standard question of what is your superpower and how did you acquire it? DANIELLE: Totally. I think that my superpower is a combination of empathy and communication. I think I came by both pretty naturally—popped right out of my mom having both, I'm assuming. But both have definitely been amplified over the years by all sorts of experiences and hardships and just keep working to make them even more of a superpower. MANDY: That's really great. So I want to know about before we dive into your experiences as a new developer, I wanted to know about how you came into technology from your career change in hospitality, because I did the same thing. I was a waitress when my daughter was born 10 years ago and I was working for about a year before I was able to walk out. It was Mother's Day, my boss was being a complete jerk to me, and I was making enough money at that point that I just said, “You know what? I don't need this. I quit,” and I started my career in tech full-time. So I'm curious about your journey as well. DANIELLE: Yeah. Obviously, COVID has happened in the last couple of years and that was one of the major factors in me getting to this point of leaving hospitality and getting into tech. But I had already kind of been thinking about what comes next. I've been a manager for a few years and was trying to figure out how else I could grow and what new things I can learn and challenge myself with. And outside of ownership, which is a major headache, there wasn't really much that I could push further into, within hospitality. So when COVID happened and I lost my job because I was working as an events and bar manager for a local catering company, it was pretty obvious that things were not going to be coming back for the hospitality industry anytime soon and I needed to figure something else out then. And so, I started looking into different returning to education opportunities because I actually have an anthropology degree, of all helpful things that I could have gotten a degree in. But I found a code school in Portland, Oregon and jumped on that within a few months of COVID hitting to the full-time track and connected with a number of my cohort mates that we started doing the Code School Q&A on Twitch with the director of developer relations at New Relic and have been doing that for almost a year now and have officially made it in the industry as a software developer, too in the last few months. So you can do it, you can get into tech. [laughs] It's pretty funny, too because the type of job that I ended up getting is in education and technology sphere and I actually had a job in ed tech about a decade ago when I was still in college and had a remote job working with some family friends that got me hooked up with their company. And here I am doing something a little bit more in-depth technically than I was doing a decade ago, but it's funny how things come full circle. ARTY: Well, education in particular is something that also really needs some reinvention and innovation and with all the disruption, where do you see that area going? Just curious. DANIELLE: Yeah, absolutely. I feel that a lot of the changes that we've seen in COVID with remote work being such a prominent thing now and people wanting more balanced, more time with their family, more time with their critters, more time just not being miserable and commutes and stuff. I think that that's going to have a really long-term effect on how education happens and trying to make education more quality as well. I think it's really rad what the company I do works for. Our whole mission is to work to make education in America more equitable. So we do that by working very hard to work with experts in the curriculum sphere that ensure that our curriculum materials are as inclusive and culturally relevant as possible, that they are representative of a large and diverse group of people, and they even do a ton of anti-racism work as well and work to embed that within our internal and external culture, as well as the products that we create. So I hope that our company will continue to grow and make changes in the education world in America in general, because I think what we're doing is really, really, really important. ARTY: Definitely important and with all the change and stuff happening, I'm expecting some new and cool and exciting things that do make things better. One of the upsides of lots of disruption is it's an opportunity for us to sit back and rethink how things could be. DANIELLE: Yeah. ARTY: And one of the benefits of not being entrenched in the existing fields of the way things have been is it's also an opportunity to look at all the stuff we're doing with a fresh set of eyes from outside of that existing world and bring some new fresh insights to tech. Maybe my anthropology degree will come in handy in some different sorts of ways. I imagine some of those skills that you learned in that have some applicability in tech as well. Have you found your degree helpful in other ways? DANIELLE: It's funny. I think I ended up using my anthropology degree as a bartender far more than I ever would have as an actual anthropologist. That whole study of humans thing is something that is directly translatable to working with people no matter what field you're in. I feel that both my anthropology degree and my many years of hospitality experience have all led to a specific skillset that is very different from a lot of people that come into tech with more traditional backgrounds especially folks that go to college and get computer science degrees, and then they go to the tech industry and that's all they've ever known. I've known so many other experiences outside of that and my ability to think about what other people need and want, to be able to respond to that, and embed that in all of the work that I do as an engineer to really be thinking about the user and the people that are interacting with whatever I'm building and even just thinking about working on a team and how I have so many communication skills built up from what I've been doing for work in hospitality for many years. I think that it definitely gives me a very specific and unique way of moving through the world and way of being an engineer as well. That anthropologist hat definitely comes into play sometimes thinking about like, “Oh, like how do all of these dots connect?” and like, “How does this change over time and how do you see people like doing things differently now?” It's a definitely a fun lens to carry with me. MANDY: Yeah. Having been done hospitality, I'm just shaking my head because – [laughter] I know I've brought so many skills from being in that world for 10, 15 years at one point. DANIELLE: Yeah. MANDY: Just the way you talk to people and interact with teams and anticipate what other people need before they even know what they need, that's definitely a skill. DANIELLE: Yeah, definitely. I think that whole anticipating needs thing, too, it's like it can be both an internal and external benefit where you can think both about who you're building products for and also who you're building products with, and how best to communicate within teams, especially having management experience. That is definitely at the forefront of my brain a lot of the time, but then also thinking about like, “How can I make the best experience for somebody else that's actually going to be using this? How can I make this easy and intuitive and fun?” Especially within education, have to make sure that things are fun and interesting targeting kids that are K-12; it has to be meaningful, impactful, interesting, and engaging. MANDY: So how do you do that? What are some ways that you and your company make education fun for young kids? DANIELLE: I think I'm still figuring that out. We have many curriculum products that I'm still just touching for the first time, or haven't even looked at it yet and so, there's lots of fun, new things to discover. But I think the types of people that we bring on to work at my company, they're all experts in their field and renowned for the work that they do and so, I think that the quality of people that we bring into work with us and the kind of commitment that they have to work towards making education better and more inclusive, that is incredibly important. And how they also do an immense amount of work to make not just inclusivity a part of the major formula, but also that they work to make things culturally relevant. So like, thinking about how to tell stories to kids that actually means something to them today. I don't know, a weird example is thinking about some outdated curriculum that's talking about using a landline for a phone, or something. Kids are like, ‘What's that?” Actually integrating modern things like cell phones and things like that into the curriculum where kids actually touch that and use that every single day so it means something to them. Whereas, outdated curriculum that is just some story to them. It doesn't have tangible meaning. Being able to bring that into materials is really important to keeping things engaging and also, relevant and fun. MANDY: So the time when little Tommy was walking to the Xerox machine. DANIELLE: [chuckles] Yes, yes. MANDY: Somebody brought up a Xerox machine the other day. DANIELLE: Oh wow. MANDY: My goodness. DANIELLE: [laughs] Yeah, definitely. But I think it's just a constant looking at how we do things, and making improvements and making real connection with the people that are actually using our products to use. That both means working with teachers and getting a better understanding of what is helpful to them, what makes things easier for them, what helps them bring better quality curriculum to their classrooms? But then I think it's also connecting more directly with those kids that are engaging with our curriculum, too and figuring out what works and doesn't work for as many parties as possible. I think that's the anthropologist hat coming on again like, how can we bring as many people to the table as possible on the expert side, on the academic side, on the teacher side, on the student side? And even working to bring families to the table, too and looking at how families interact and not just parents, because it's really important to know that kids don't have just parents that are taking care of them—sometimes it's grandparents, sometimes it's foster families. And really thinking about a wider range of who is around these kids, and how to get them onboard and make things easy for them to interact. ARTY: It seems like getting into tech and these new tech skills that you've learned are also relevant in figuring out how to teach kids tech because we've got this new generation of kids coming into the world and learning how to code becomes more like learning how to read and write is fundamental skills move forward in the future. Are there ways that some of the things that you've learned through your own tech experiences you can see application for in education? DANIELLE: Absolutely. From what I've been seeing, I feel like there are a lot more resources out there for teaching kids how to code and teaching them more things about technology. I think that's amazing and should totally keep happening. I think having been a bit more focused on adults in my own outreach for helping people find their ways into tech I might be a bit more acquainted with reaching out to those folks. But I'm sure that that intersection of being in education for K-12 students and this passion that I have of helping to find their way into tech, or build more technical skills because they are skills that are so transferable in many industries. I'm in education, but I have a technical job. So there's lots of ways that those technical skills can be incredibly valuable and frankly, life-changing. The amount of opportunity and even just financial stability that can be found within tech is one of the main reasons that brought me to this industry and has really been a life-changing opportunity. It has opened so many doors already and I'm just like three months into my first developer job. Even before I was ever actually officially an engineer, I was able to find community and able to find an outlet for helping others and outreach to immediately turn around and hold a handout to try to help others make their way into tech as well. I hope to continue doing that work in more meaningful and impactful ways over time, and have wider and wider reach as well. ARTY: You had mentioned earlier about some of the difficulties of getting into tech and some of the challenges with finding resources and things that you were specifically missing when you actually showed up on the job. I'm curious, what was your experience like going through coding bootcamp and what were some of the gaps that you experienced that once you got on the job, you were like, “Oh, I didn't learn that.” DANIELLE: Yeah, definitely. Coding bootcamp was an incredibly grueling experience for me personally. I was on a full-time track six-month program and [chuckles] not having much technical experience whatsoever outside of editing my Myspace profile back when that was a thing and having [laughs] about a decade ago doing some basic HTML, CSS editing and maintenance for the company that I worked for an ed tech originally. That was what I was working with when I started coding bootcamp. So it was a real hard learning curve and a very fast-paced program for me to just dive into headfirst. My poor partner was like, “I basically didn't see you for six months. You were just a basement dweller at your computer constantly.” I would literally get out of bed, roll myself downstairs, get to my computer with a cup of tea in hand, and I would stay there until easily 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, 1:00 every night just trying to keep my head above water. But a few months in, things started to click and I wasn't fighting with all of these computer puzzles [chuckles] trying to do this. Like, I always feel like learning coding languages is a combination of algebra and a foreign language. So at a certain point, my brain just started getting into that better and things started making sense. That was a very exciting moment where I got much less miserable [chuckles] in my code school experience and in the pace at which I had to move to keep my grades up and everything. But the gap in between finishing code school and actually getting that first job is also another often-grueling process. There's so many jobs open in the tech industry, but basically, it's mid-level and above. It's like, I think two-thirds of the industry positions that are available are for mid to senior roles versus one-third of roles that are for junior associates. That is a big struggle, especially if you're not able to lean into community and building real connections, just sending applications out to the ether and never even hearing a peep back from companies. I think that whole experience, it's really hard for yourself esteem, especially having put in many months around the clock of work towards this new career that you've been told that you can get, that you can achieve. It's almost as much as a process getting that first developer job as it is to actually build those tech skills. I think one thing that is so important to stress in that in-between time is to lean into community, to connect with as many people as you can that are already in tech, even if they don't exactly have a developer job. Like, talk to anybody that will let you talk to them—talk to people in QA, talk to developers, talk to managers, talk to project managers. That was one of the things that I felt I needed to do early on in my coding experience to really have a better understanding of what was even an option for me of getting into tech and what could all these different jobs look like, and then making that transition to actually getting the first job. Yay, hooray for first jobs and being employed again. But I think one of the things that has been most striking in that change for me is going from this incredibly grueling pace. 8:00 in the morning, or so until 10:00 plus at night, non-stop coding for the most part, and then going to a 9:00 to 5:00 job where I can also make my own hours and I can take appointments as I need to. Like, I can go and get a haircut if that's something on my schedule and it's cool. As long as I'm getting my work done and showing up and contributing to my team, things are fine. So that transition of like, “Wait, I don't have to be at my computer a 1,000% of the time?” [laughs] and the pace at which you learn things, too is just much slower because you can have balance. That transition of feeling like you're not doing enough because you're so used to this hefty schedule, that's been a major transition for me. I think also coming from hospitality, too where you have to be there in person and oftentimes, somebody is going to call out sick at least every other week, or so. So you might be working like a shift and a half, or a double. There isn't a lot of balance in the service industry, especially now with COVID adding so many extra layers of complication to how that job works. Being able to just be like, “I need to go make a doctor's appointment,” and can just do that. It's like, “Okay, cool. Just put it on the calendar. You don't really need to tell me. As long as it's on the calendar, that's great.” [laughs] That transition has also been very strange. And I think maybe just the trauma of [chuckles] working in hospitality and not being able to just be a human sometimes and now all of a sudden, I'm like, “Oh, I'm a human and that's allowed? Okay.” Still have to check in with my boss frequently about like, “You sure it's okay? You sure it's okay that I'm a human, right? Yeah.” [laughs] MANDY: [chuckles] That was one of the things that I really loved coming into tech was the scheduling, open schedule, making my own hours. DANIELLE: Yeah. MANDY: And you're right, it was very strange at first. When I was waitressing, it was just always a go, go, go kind of thing and you had to be there, you had to be on, and if you didn't have tables, if you had time to lean, you had time to clean. DANIELLE: [chuckles] Yeah. Always be closing. You know, ABCs. [laughs] MANDY: So yeah, sometimes I still find myself on a random Thursday. I'll have my work done and I'll just be sitting here and I'm like, “Why are you sitting at your computer? Go do something, then check it and if there's stuff there –” Like, you don't have to have your ass in the seat from 9:00 to 5:00, or 8:00 to 4:00. You don't have to sit here for 8 hours and just stare at your inbox waiting for work. It's totally asynchronous and it's totally okay. I find myself having to give myself permission to leave my desk and just go and do something and work that asynchronous schedule. So tech is a really big blessing when it comes to that. DANIELLE: I totally agree. I think also, not being neurotypical myself, I have ADHD, and so, being able to actually allow my brain to work in the way that is best for how my brain just naturally operates. Like, I can sit at my desk and fidget constantly, and it's not going to bother anybody because I work from home, [chuckles] or I can shift between sitting and standing and sitting on my bed, or sitting on my stool and just move at my desk as much as I need to. I can also step away and go clean some dishes if that's what's making noise in my brain. I can go and take my dog on a walk and get some fresh air. That whole shift of having balance and being able to be empowered to advocate for what I need and how I learn and people are like, “Yeah, cool. Let's do that.” I think that's also very much a part of the company that I work for and the ethos that we have, which is all about making education better. So why wouldn't that also translate to the staff and how can we help you learn? It's such a wonderful thing to be a part of a team that's super invested in how I learn and helping me learn. I think another thing that was a big, strange thing about my transition into tech was I ended up getting a junior engineer role in a tech stack that I hadn't worked with, which is pretty common from what I've heard from mid engineer on. Because once you have some of the foundational building blocks of a handful of programming languages and some of those computer science foundations, you can pick up most programming languages. But it's not so common as a junior engineer to get that opportunity to work with a full tech stack that you haven't really worked with before. So that was another big transition like, “All right, you trust me time to figure this out.” ARTY: So it sounds like you walked into another big learning curve with your new job, too. It sounds like you were also in a much more supportive culture environment with respect to learning and things, too. What was the ramp-up experience like at your new company? DANIELLE: In some ways, I still kind of feel like I'm in ramp-up mode. I'm about three months in. But because we have so much of our product that is built around very specific curriculum components, that has very specific contextual knowledge, it's just going to be a process to figure out which projects have what information and have certain numbers of records, and are tied to certain standards that are required in different states and for common core versus for some of the states that we work with, what that looks like. But figuring out a whole new tech stack was and continues to be a very interesting challenge. I have to remind myself when I have gaps in my knowledge that it's actually to switch gears back into learning mode, that that is a thing that's supported and encouraged even. I even have little sticky notes on my desk that say, “Start with what you know, not what you don't know,” and that tension of when I reached the end of what I know and then going and finding maybe not necessarily the right, or correct resources, because there's so much out there that's good. That can be helpful. I think it's more about finding something that does work with how my brain learns things and being cognizant of how I learn. But also, remembering to dig into that fate that is being a developer, which is constant learning and ever-growing evolution of how we do things, and what things we do within the sphere of the developer. So I've signed up for perpetual learning and that's pretty great. MANDY: What are your favorite resources that you used and continue to use as you're still learning, and finding community, and things like that? DANIELLE: Yeah. I have certainly continued to lean on the curriculum for my school. It's online and it's free and that's rad. It's learnhowtoprogram.com. It's all put on online from Epicodus in the Portland area. Anybody can access it and that's wonderful. I'm a big fan of really great resources being available for free and making that more accessible. So continuing to use platforms that have that kind of ethos in mind is pretty great in my opinion. Reading the documentation is another great way to keep learning what you need to learn and sometimes documentation can be kind of dry, especially as a new developer, you don't always know what exactly it is that you're looking for. So being able to parse through documentation and figure out what's most important, but then also filling in the gaps of some of the things that you don't yet know, or understand with YouTube videos, or deeper dives into like, what does this one specific term mean? I don't know, let's go find out and plugging in some of those gaps is really helpful. I think figuring out how you learn, too whether that be very hands-on, whether that be visually, whether that be with audio, getting lots of repetition in; it's super helpful to lean into whatever works best for your brain for learning. I think perhaps even more important than digging into resources that are online is lean into community. I really can't say it enough, build community. If you work with Ruby, like I work with Ruby, build community within the Ruby community. Connect to people online, get on Twitter, connect to tech Twitter, follow different people that work with the languages and the tech stack that you work with, and join places like The Virtual Coffee and other really rad developer spaces that are meant to help you find the answers that you need and to maybe do it in a way that's a little less arduous because you're with people that are like, “Yes, happy helper.” Like, “How can I make things easier for you?” It seems like a much easier way to go through tech when you can do it with others and remember, that there are human resources out there for you, too. MANDY: You also had mentioned that you were connecting with folks over Twitch. DANIELLE: Yeah. MANDY: Can you tell us a little more about that? DANIELLE: Absolutely. So a friend of mine in my Epicodus cohort, she reached out to the director of developer relations that had done a lunchtime chat with us at one point and she was like, “I don't know what I'm doing. I am so stressed out. I don't know if I can actually finish this school and let alone finish school, but actually make it as a developer and I have questions. Do you have some time for some answers?” And he was like, “Yeah, do you want to actually do this online on Twitch? And how about you bring a couple of friends and let's just ask lots of questions and I'm going to record it?” She reached out to me and another friend of mine and here we are many months later still answering questions online about how to get into tech and what even are some of these things that we're talking about technically, or let's look at other roles outside of just developer, or engineer, that you can get into. So that has been an ongoing theme of how can I help others? How can I help provide community for people that might not have been as lucky as I have been to already have a preexisting community with many of my friends and my partner that were in tech? How can I help create that advantage for others and how can I help reach more people and help them understand what their options are and connect them to the people that need to know to get jobs? I think Code School Q&A, we are super, super excited about open doors for people to whether that be better knowledge, whether that be real human connection; what's most important to us is just supporting people as they are making transitions into the industry like we've been doing over this last year and a half. MANDY: So what is the Code School Q&A look like when you join? Walk me through it if I were to show up, what would I get? DANIELLE: Absolutely. So there's generally four of us on the stream and we ask a handful of questions, whether that be from our own experiences of like, “Okay, I'm a developer now and I've got some questions about some of these transitions that I am experiencing.” But we also lean into the audience as well and see what kind of questions they have, whether that be folks that are still in code school, or folks that are thinking about maybe potentially going back to school, whether that be computer science in a university setting, or bootcamp, or even self-taught people. We even have a number of folks that are already in their careers, too that are there to reach out and chat and provide additional feedback and support. So I really feel like it's a bunch of friends just getting together on Wednesdays and that group of friends just keeps building and expanding. It is very much like a support group, but it's also fun. Like, our first question of the day is what are you drinking and how are you doing? Because we all hang out and chat, and drink while we're talking about how to get into tech and definitely try to make it as fun as we can and crack jokes and interrupt one another and it's a good fun time, but helping people is what's most important. MANDY: And this is all live? Unedited? DANIELLE: All live. Unedited. Yes, yes, and 7:00 PM-ish AV is a whole beast in and of itself. I just had to set up a Twitch stream for the first time in this whole time of streaming over the last year. I've been writing my princess pass and just shown up [chuckles] for every Twitch stream and now I know how much goes into that. I still had probably another few hours of set up to get past just a minimum viable product of we need to be online on the interwebs and you need to be able to hear and see me. Got there, but it's a whole thing. MANDY: Twitch is certainly interrupting the industry, I believe. DANIELLE: [inaudible]. MANDY: Especially since the pandemic. All of a sudden everyone's on Twitch. We're doing conferences live, we're doing like – how do you feel about the whole Twitch revolution and how is it different from how people traditionally came and connected in tech? DANIELLE: Yeah. Having been in events myself—that was part of what my role was within hospitality—I personally really love that there's now this whole new opportunity for connection. I think it also makes connection way more accessible because folks that were already living some kind of quarantine life because of autoimmune disorders, or disabilities, or whatever that looks like, they couldn't easily make it to those conferences and now they have a way to connect with those conferences because of hybrid events. I think it's a really rad innovation that we're seeing and it's a really wonderful way to even just as an introvert. I'm like, “I don't have to leave my house to be able to see my friends and have a good time? Yes! I am super interested in this.” I can – [overtalk] MANDY: [inaudible]. DANIELLE: Yeah. I can hang out with my dog and give him scritches whenever I want, and still see my friends and build community within tech. Heck yes. Very interested in this. I think that accessibility feature that it provides is just, it's really wonderful to know that more people can become a part of tech communities because there's now this whole online outlet for folks that couldn't otherwise afford a flight to get halfway across the country to make it to this conference, or couldn't afford to get in the conference. There's lots of ways that just makes things more accessible. MANDY: Do you think it's going to continue much beyond the pandemic? Like, do you think when it's all over, we're just going to be like, “Oh, we're back to conferences,” or do you think this is going to continue to the streaming and the slack chats and the live Q&As and things like that. Do you think that's going to continue? DANIELLE: I hope so and I think so. I think that even just from a business sense, you can tap into whole new markets by having this addition of hybrid events. You can reach a whole new subset of markets and I think quite frankly, it'd be kind of foolish to not take advantage of the new ways that we've figured out that we can still have meaningful and authentic community. [chuckles] There's definitely a way to monetize that and I'm sure plenty of people out there doing it, but I think it's also given voice to people that couldn't previously access those spaces and now they're like, “Don't take this away. This is community. This is this is what I've built,” and I think people are going to be willing to fight for that and I think that companies will see the business benefit of continuing to do both. ARTY: So anthropology question then. [laughs] DANIELLE: Great. ARTY: How do you think this will affect us as a society of connecting more virtually instead of in-person in that we're significantly more isolated now than we were before, too in terms of in-person connection? How do you think that's going to affect us? DANIELLE: One of the first things that comes to mind is infrastructure has to change. I think that support for higher speed internet across the states across the world has become much more of a priority that is striking to people, especially thinking about kids having to figure out how to do online school. All of a sudden, when COVID first hit, some kids didn't have access to the internet, let alone a computer, or a tablet, or a phone that they could go to class and do their homework on. So I think that we're going to be forced to make technology and the internet more accessible by building better infrastructure to support those things and I think it's only a matter of time before there is better social support for getting technology in the hands of kids, especially, but getting them devices. Like, I know there are a number of initiatives out there that are giving small grants and stuff for people to be able to get computers, or tablets, or whatever and I think that we're going to just keep seeing more of that. Hopefully, fingers crossed because it's super important to be able to keep connection moving and I think keep moving our society in the right direction. ARTY: So do you have any concerns about that as well as how –? We all get plugged in and are affected and in not so good ways, too. On the flip side of that, where do you see things going? DANIELLE: My partner is in InfoSec. He is a security person. So that's definitely my first thought like, how do we keep the things that are most important to us and that are now online? How do we keep those things secure and safe and protected? Figuring out how to fill the gaps that are inherent within the security industry right now of there's just not enough bodies to fill all the jobs and build all of the security that needs to be built and maintain those things. That's going to be a whole new ball game that tech has to figure out and it's going to take a lot of manpower to make sure that we can protect people and protect the things that are most important to them, and even just protect those communities, too. Make sure that those communities can continue to thrive and also, be carefully moderated and curated so that there is safety for people to interact; that there is less bullying happening online, that there is less hate crimes that are being perpetuated online. Creating safe spaces for people and providing agency for them online is a whole new ball game when we're not even really that great at doing so in real life, in-person. There are a lot of groups that are going to have to fight harder to be heard, to be seen, to feel safe, and I think that's just an ongoing thing that we need to work at being better at. ARTY: So we need ways to improve the connectivity community stuff and then also, need ways as we do those things to create safety in our communities. DANIELLE: Absolutely. MANDY: Yeah, we just had a really great discussion with Eva PenzeyMoog about two episodes ago. She wrote the book Design for Safety and it was an excellent, excellent conversation about ways that as designers and engineers, we should be building our infrastructure safe from the beginning and not just going back – [overtalk] DANIELLE: Yeah. MANDY: And doing it after the fact, but realizing who the most vulnerable people are and protecting them from the get-go. DANIELLE: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's actually something that my company works really hard to do while we're designing our curriculum products is designing from the most vulnerable within our communities and using that as a starting point for how we build things and how we continue to maintain them. Because if you can keep the folks that are most vulnerable in mind, more people are actually going to be allowed to be safe, allowed to have agency, and allowed to grow. It's a far more inclusive space when we can think about the folks that don't always have access, or don't always have safety, or don't always have agency and designing with those people in mind first. MANDY: And that's how we'll end up filling all these empty seats right now that are available in tech – [overtalk] DANIELLE: Exactly. MANDY: Is by not eliminating these people, designing a safe environment from the start, and attracting different kinds of people into tech because tech needs more diversity. DANIELLE: Tech needs more diversity. Yeah, absolutely and I think that's one of the reasons why I keep doing Code School Q&A is because I want to see more people that look like me in tech. I want to see more people that don't look like me in tech. I'm very excited to bring as many people to the table as possible because I think that's when we also get the most creative and innovative. When more tool sets are brought to the table, more diverse experiences are brought to the table, we build far more robust systems, products, and things just get better when we have more differences from which to pull and more experiences from which to learn. MANDY: As we said in the beginning, you're a fairly new developer. So I wanted to ask you the question: what was one thing you wish you knew, that you know now, that you would have known back then? If you could give Danielle advice a year ago, what advice would that have been? DANIELLE: I think that advice would have been to start actually working on technical things sooner; to start digging into the educational materials that were provided for me for free before I ever started school. I think that actually digging into those materials and having the courage to not just wait until I was in a classroom setting to be able to interact with coding languages and learning how to program, I would have had such a less fraught time getting through school and giving myself the opportunity to get a bit of a head start and more of a foundation before just diving in head first and hoping that I kept my head above water. But I think also, again, leaning into community and not being afraid to ask for help, not being afraid to advocate for myself because it took me a good 2 and a half months before a really felt like I could speak up and say what I needed. That's 2 months of time that I could have been getting more of what I needed, getting more help learning faster and more efficiently, and just being less miserable in the early stages of learning and entirely new skillsets. So don't be afraid to ask for help. Don't be afraid to advocate for yourself. I think especially as a woman coming into a technical space, there is some extra fears of not looking like I could do this, or not feeling like I belonged not knowing what I was doing. But the thing to remember was that nobody knew what they were doing; we were all figuring it out together in that school program. Being the one to be like, “Hold up, this is not making any sense to me. Can we start this over again? Can we dig into what's happening here?” Often times, other people were like, “Oh, I'm so grateful you said something because I also don't know what's going on.” MANDY: Well, with that, I think that's an amazing thing to end on and we can move over to reflections, which I can go and start off with right away is that's the secret. Like, nobody knows what we're doing in tech. DANIELLE: [laughs] Nobody knows, no. [laughs] MANDY: Nobody knows. DANIELLE: Nobody knows yet. MANDY: That's the secret. Ask questions. Lean on your community. There are so many people out there. I know you mentioned tech Twitter, #techTwitter. There are so many nice amazing people that will have your back if you just put those questions out there and even say, “Hey, tech twitter, anybody free? Do you want to pair?” They'll be like, “Yeah, let's hop on for an hour, or two,” and especially right now is when people aren't really doing much again. [chuckles] People are out there. So again, it's a secret. Nobody knows. DANIELLE: [laughs] Yeah. I think I am totally on board with your reflections for the day lean into community and don't be afraid to ask questions. I think it's so important to know that tech needs you. Whoever you are, tech needs you and whatever valuable skillset you bring to the table, whatever diverse experiences you bring to the table, it's needed. You need more people that aren't traditional and whatever that looks like. There is space and there is need for you. I think come and ask your questions at Code School on Wednesdays. We need generally every Wednesday, 7:00 PM Pacific time. We are happy to answer your questions and help connect you to the people if we don't know answers because none of us totally know the right answer most of the time. MANDY: And how can people do that work? What's the URL? DANIELLE: Yeah. Come visit us at twitch.tv/thejonanshow. We also have Code School Q&A is participating in Oktoberfest, too. So you can find us on GitHub by looking up the Oktoberfest hashtag tag and you can find us on Twitter at Code School Q&A as well. MANDY: Awesome. ARTY: I just wanted to add that a little bit with lean into community, I was thinking about Mandy, when you were mentioning your story, when I was learning electron new technology I didn't know. I had this code base that I had to learn. I didn't know what was going on, I was frustrated, I couldn't get anything working, and then I tweeted and asked for someone to pair with me. Lo and behold, some random person from the internet was like, “Sure! I'd be happy to help! Let's meet up air on this,” and I managed to get over the major hurdles I had with getting my environment to set up and getting unstuck, figured out how to run the debugging tools, and all those things really happened as a consequence of nothing afraid to reach out. Even when you might feel like you're struggling with these things alone, there really is a community out there and people that are willing to jump in and help and I think that's really great cool thing. MANDY: All right, well with that, I think we're pretty set to wrap up. If you want to join us you are in Slack. Danielle will receive an invitation to join us as well in our Slack community. It is a Patreon where you can fudge to support us monetarily on a monthly basis. However, if you're not comfortable with that, or do not want to, you can DM anyone of the panelists and we will get you in there for free. So with that, I want to thank you, Danielle, for coming on the show. DANIELLE: Thanks so much for having me for a great conversation. MANDY: Awesome, and we'll see everyone next week. Special Guest: Danielle Thompson.

Dan McGaw is Founder and CEO of marketing tech consulting firm McGaw.Io. and UTM.io, a market leading analytics software service. Dan is an award-winning entrepreneur with decades of marketing tech, analytics and data experience, having started at the tender age of 4! He was formerly the head of marketing at Kissmetrics where he succeeded Neil Patel, and head of growth at CodeSchool.com, a tech skills education platform, which was then acquired by Pluralsight. Coined as one of the original growth hackers, Dan is one of the godfathers of marketing technology, and in this role has helped thousands of businesses succeed and scale over the course of his stellar career. Are you passionate about the power of automation? If so, this interview is a real treat. ABOUT THE HOST: Jane Bayler is a serial entrepreneur, investor, speaker, event host and business scale up expert. She had a 20 year history in global media and advertising, before becoming a serial entrepreneur herself, with multiple businesses in real estate, marketing and education. Having grown and sold a £6M brand identity business to US communications group Interpublic, today she is most passionate about and committed to serving other entrepreneurs – helping them grow their businesses and achieve their best lives.  Enquire about working 1:1 with Jane, book a call here: https://bit.ly/2Z07DML Join Jane's free Masterclass to discover her Triple C HyperGrowth system - to scale up your business and attract your ideal clients, here: https://idealclientsuccess.com/masterclass

Dan McGaw, CEO of McGaw.io, is an award-winning entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in marketing technology and marketing analytics. Dan was formerly the head of marketing at Kissmetrics and was head of growth at CodeSchool.com which was acquired by Pluralsight. He's also a 500 Startups Mentor. Dan has been called one of the original growth hackers and godfathers of marketing technology. He has helped thousands of companies over his career, and in today's episode he helps to demystify marketing tech. His company helps customers choose their tools, integrate and operate them, and then leverage their tech stack to grow their business.  Check out the notes below as Dan is giving listeners a free download of his latest book, Build Cool Sh*t. Think of it as a short executive guide on how to use your tech stack to grow your business. Highlights of our conversation include: ·        Being an entrepreneur is tough, but you get to Build Cool Sh*t. ·        An entrepreneurial ecosystem requires building a culture that allows for failure. ·        Your brand value must be clear on the customer journey. Make things easy for the customer. ·        Design marketing systems and funnels to measure and track. ·        Dan's practice of being an avid reader and how that can help you grow. Enjoy the show! Connect with Dan: Free Book Offer: Build Cool Sh*t. Text Martech to 1.415.915.9011 Website: https://mcgaw.io/ Website: https://web.utm.io/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielmcgaw/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/danielmcgaw   Connect with Allison: Website: allisonksummers.com #tech #SAAS # business #designthinking #AI #creativesociety #teambuilding #CEO #startup #startupstory #founder #futureofwork  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode features guest Dan McGaw. Dan is an award-winning entrepreneur and speaker. He is the Founder and CEO of McGaw.io, an analytics and marketing technology consultancy. Coined as one of the original growth hackers, Dan has led the teams at Kissmetrics.com, CodeSchool.com and UTM.io. His skills include the ability to build and oversee new marketing programs that can create sustainable growth. Discover the levers that you can pull that will help your company achieve expodential growth and why automation is the key to growth. Ever wonder what UTM tags are and why they are important? Listen as Dan describes the origin of UTM tags and why they are important in properly tracking your website data. Sending cart abandonment emails? Did you know you can also send emails for journey abandonment emails? Don't leave your retargeting just to the display network, use email. In this episode, you will find out how that is possible. Episode Action Items: You can find more information regarding Dan McGaw by visiting his agency, McGaw.io. Also, stay tuned to the end of the episode to discover how you can receive a free copy of Dan's book, Build Cool Sh#t ABOUT THE HOST: Andy Splichal, who was recently named to the Best of Los Angeles Awards' 2021 Fascinating 100 List, is the founder and managing partner of True Online Presence, author of the Make Each Click Count book series and founder of Make Each Click Count University. He is a certified online marketing strategist with twenty plus years of experience and counting helping companies increase their online presence and profitable revenues. To find more information on Andy Splichal, visit www.trueonlinepresence.com or read The Full Story on his blog, blog.trueonlinepresence.com. New episodes of the Make Each Click Count Podcast, are released each Friday and can be found on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Apple Podcast and Make Each Click Count Podcast.

Marketing automation has made marketers' lives a whole lot easier. Regardless of the size of your business, you can use automation tools to automate a plethora of marketing activities — from email marketing to social media management to internal tasks — to drive more leads and revenue for your business. In this episode, I'm joined by Dan McGaw, founder and CEO of McGaw.io, an analytics and marketing technology consultancy, and UTM.io, a Google Analytics URL Builder. Coined as one of the original growth hackers, Dan previously served as Head of Marketing at Kissmetrics and VP of Growth at CodeSchool. Dan's all about simple yet powerful marketing strategies. He believes that although MarTech concepts like automation, personalization, and multi-touch attribution can seem overwhelming and even intimidating, they are actually pretty accessible for businesses of all sizes. Our conversation in this episode will revolve around marketing automation and how it can help you save time and make you money. If you've ever had questions about marketing automation or the kind of automation tools you should include in your marketing stack, this is the episode for you. -=-=-=-=- Tools and resources discussed in the episode: Autopilot - https://autopilotapp.com/ Mailchimp - https://mailchimp.com/ Hotjar - https://www.hotjar.com/ Freshworks CRM - https://www.freshworks.com/crm/lp/sales-crm-software/ Agile CRM - https://www.agilecrm.com/ ConvertKit - https://99signals.com/go/convertkit Dan McGaw's book: Build Cool Sh*t (Get a free copy here: https://mcgaw.io/build-cool-shit-book/) Follow Dan McGaw on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielmcgaw/ -=-=-=-=- BONUS RESOURCES + FREE DOWNLOADS If you're a fan of the podcast, here are some FREE online marketing resources from my blog, 99signals, to help you level up your marketing skills: The Ultimate Guide to Link Building (https://resources.99signals.com/link-building-ebook) - Learn 25 powerful strategies to build high quality backlinks, improve search engine rankings, and drive targeted traffic to your site. Top-rated articles at 99signals (https://www.99signals.com/best/) - This page contains a list of all the top-rated articles on my blog. It's a great place to get started if you're visiting 99signals for the first time. -=-=-=-=- Visit https://www.99signals.com for more insights on SEO, blogging, and marketing. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/sandeep-mallya/message

What's in Your Marketing Technology Stack Dan McGaw, McGaw.io   – The Sharkpreneur podcast with Seth Greene Episode 671 Dan McGaw Dan McGaw is an award-winning entrepreneur and speaker. He is also the Founder and CEO of and McGaw.io orginally Effing Amazing. Coined as one of the original growth hackers, he has led the teams at Kissmetrics.com and CodeSchool.com. In 2015, Dan was selected to be a United States Ambassador of Entrepreneurship by the United States State Department, where he had the privilege to advise universities, governments and private corporations on how to build entrepreneur ecosystems.   Listen to this illuminating Sharkpreneur episode with Dan McGaw about the importance of knowing your marketing technology stack. Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week's show: ●    How McGaw.io uses technology to help better market their clients. ●    Why connecting everything to SalesForce helps businesses have better insight. ●    Why having a marketing technology stack is an important part of any business. ●    How most of your business is happening with technology software. ●    Why having an integrated marketing technology stack to effectively grow your business.   Connect with Dan: Guest Contact Info Twitter @mcgawio Facebook facebook.com/McGaw.io LinkedIn linkedin.com/company/mcgaw-io Links Mentioned: McGaw.io   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest for this episode is, Dan McGaw, CEO & Founder @ McGaw.io. Dan is an award-winning entrepreneur and speaker. Coined as one of the original growth hackers, he has led the teams at Kissmetrics.com and CodeSchool.com. In 2015, Dan was selected to be a United States Ambassador of Entrepreneurship by the United State State Department, where he had the privilege to advise universities, governments and private corporations on how to build entrepreneur ecosystems.https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielmcgaw/ Free book - https://mcgaw.io/build-cool-shit-book/#gs.8rib4p ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Bulletproof your business so that you can…∙ Spend less time working in the business and more time working on the business.∙ Scale your business to create a lasting legacy.∙ Get your business investment ready.∙ Grow it in a way that is robust & scalable.∙ Get your business to a place where you can pass it on to someone else.Learn more - https://www.ie.sandler.com/we-serve/owners-presidents-ceos Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/scaling-your-business-wrian-lanigan. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dan McGaw is an award-winning entrepreneur and speaker. He is also the Founder and CEO of McGaw.io,a Marketing Technology and Marketing Analytics Agency. Coined as one of the original growth hackers, he has led the teams at Kissmetrics.com and CodeSchool.com. He is also author of the book, "Build Cool Sh*t". Free copy here: https://mcgaw.io/build-cool-shit-book

In episode 78, host Eric Dickmann interviews Dan McGaw. Dan is an award-winning entrepreneur, author, speaker, marketing specialist, growth hacker, and Founder and CEO of McGaw.io, an analytics and marketing technology consultancy firm. He has led the teams at Kissmetrics.com and CodeSchool.com, and served as CMO of Effin Amazing, an analytics and marketing consultancy.In 2015, Dan was selected to be a United States Ambassador of Entrepreneurship by the United States State Department, where he had the privilege to advise universities, governments, and private corporations on how to build entrepreneur ecosystems. McGaw authored his latest book- Build Cool Sh*t: A Blueprint to Creating a Marketing Technology Stack. His book aims to help your business survive the so-called- Stackapocalyspe,  and improve your marketing efforts by making use of the right marketing tools.  For show notes and a  list of resources mentioned in this episode, please visit: https://fiveechelon.com/using-analytics-business-intelligence-grow-businesss-s5e12/A fractional CMO can help build out a comprehensive marketing strategy and execute targeted campaigns designed to increase awareness and generate demand for your business...without the expense of a full-time hire. The Five Echelon Group - Fractional CMO and strategic marketing advisory services designed for SMBs looking to grow. Learn more at: https://fiveechelon.com

On today's episode, Kunle is joined by Dan McGaw, Founder and CEO of McGaw.io, an analytics and marketing technology consultancy. Dan is considered one of the original growth hackers, having led teams at Kissmetrics.com, CodeSchool.com, UTM.io and more.We are currently living in a “gold rush” period of Martech. There are new tools popping up almost everyday. Many of these are great standalone tools, and almost all of them are super cool. It's no surprise that many marketers fall for the shiny object syndrome. We buy tools without fully understanding how best to use them and more importantly, how to make them work with other tools we use. Sound familiar?What we're left with is a bunch of systems that don't talk to each other. The result? We miss out on the golden nuggets that unified data can provide. That being said, just being deliberate about the tools we use is not enough. The ever shifting marketing landscape must also be accounted for. Stricter privacy laws, and the shift to 1st party data are going to have a massive impact on how you market. This is where expects like Dan come into the picture.In this episode, Kunle and Dan talk about building a future-ready Martech Stack that utilises 1st party data. You will get to hear about why everything is moving towards 1st party data, how you can do it and which tools work best. This is a great episode for marketers and business owners alike!-----------SPONSORS:This episode is brought to you by:MESAThis episode is brought to you by MESA Workflow Automation. Mesa is THE only automation platform that enables all Shopify merchants to create workflows that automatically carry out repetitive tasks and focus on their business.  TRY MESA FOR FREE OVER 14 DAYS on GetMesa.com or search for MESA on the Shopify App Store.Klaviyo This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo.Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper's first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments.Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.  RewindThis episode is brought to you by Rewind - the #1 Backup and Recovery App for Shopify and BigCommerce stores that powers over 80,000 online businesses.Direct-to-Consumer brands like Gymshark and MVMT Watches rely on Rewind.Cloud based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce do not have automatic backup features. Rewind protects your store against human error, misbehaving apps, or collaborators gone bad with Automatic backups!For a free 30-day trial, Go to Rewind Backups, reach out to the Rewind team via chat or email and mention '2x ecommerce'FamousThis episode is brought to you by Famous.Famous enables brands on Shopify to easily build beautiful landing pages and product pages that include custom video, animations, and more. All pages built on famous are optimized for storytelling and selling on desktop and mobile. Famous' software allows you to build your pages in minutes without code, so you don't need a developer. You just need to want to build a better experience for your customers. Famous has worked in the past with many leading online retailers including Honest, Justfab and more. You can try it for free at famous.co/2x. ShipBob This episode is brought to you by ShipBob. ShipBob is an end-to-end global fulfilment provider trusted by thousands of DTC brands. With the recent launch of their first UK fulfilment centre, in London, merchants that work with ShipBob now have access to ecommerce markets in Europe as well as North America. ShipBob was ranked the #1 Fulfilment Tech Platform by AdWeek's Retail Award and enables affordable 2-day shipping. Get your products picked, packed, and shipped. Go to Shipbob.com/2x to get $500 in free shipping credits today.

Feel like you’ve thrown money at marketing and have no idea what the ROI was on it? How many times have you felt like you were spinning your wheels and like your marketing dollars weren’t going as far as they could? Today’s guest knows how to spend your marketing dollars wisely to get the results you’re looking for. Dan McGaw is an award-winning entrepreneur and speaker. He is also the Founder and CEO of McGaw.Io, an analytics and marketing technology consultancy firm. In 2015, Dan was selected to be a United States Ambassador of Entrepreneurship by the United States Department of State, where he had the privilege to advise the government, universities, and private corporations on how to build entrepreneur ecosystems. Dan has been an entrepreneur since he was 13 years old. He makes a good employee too, but not a lot of CEOs like him too much because he’s always trying to take their jobs or make the process better. Entrepreneurship is all Dan knows and he has worked with companies like Kissmetrics and CodeSchool in the marketing department. It’s incredibly important to try and reduce the barrier to entry in whatever product you’re working on. However, in today’s day in age, you can find a wide array of tools that can help simplify this process down and get your customers going from point A to point B in a seamless way. It might sound complicated, but it really isn’t! You can actually hire a web developer online, either through Upwork or Fiverr, and they can go in on the backend and connect the tools you need to keep tracking all within one dashboard. The most important thing is as long as your marketing automation tool knows who has visited a page, you can take that URL and show it to that same visitor within an email campaign. This means that whenever someone goes to your site, you can send them more customized emails based on their unique preferences.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Sweetprocess.com McGaw.io Dan on LinkedIn Utm.io Autopilothq.com   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube  

In this episode of The Fika Sessions, host Petter Mårtensson sits down with Ólafur Waage, senior programmer at Massive Entertainment, to discuss programming and how to get started with it. In the games industry, there are not only game developers – there is also a support structure to make sure that the games end up in your hands. Ólafur will not only give you an opportunity to learn about programming and his journey to the industry, but also give you insights into what this aspect of the games industry looks like. Also, what does that tasty, oblong fika bread taste like? Learn more: https://www.massive.se/the-fika-sessions/ Follow Ólafur on Twitter: https://twitter.com/olafurw Tools and links: Code{}School, season 1: https://www.massive.se/blog/games-technology/codeschool/ Beyond FPS playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSamxtiCIyM&list=PLcKpytGyWm9o6SHKuag4Rj-J_0yQxJ4PV Tom Scott's The Basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CINVwWHlzTY&list=PL5ZXG50fTM7oZBZmFhJygA2419Hsg6v8H Richard Feynman's Computer Heuristics Lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKWGGDXe5MA Pluralsight: https://www.pluralsight.com/ Include C++ Community: https://www.includecpp.org/

Windows (desktop vs server), printing cost (inkjet printer vs print service), WiFi (5 GHz vs 2.4 GHz bands), learning code online (treehouse, Khan Academy, Code School, EDX, Coursea, Udacity), Profiles in IT (Mary Allen Wilkes, creator of OS for first PC), cord cutting accelerates (cable bundles are doomed), consumer IoT security standard (issued by European Telecommunications Standards Institute), Russia bans smartphones for soldiers (citing security risk), Facebooks bait and switch policy (leaves privacy in the dust), VFEmail suffers massive cyber attack (wipes out servers and backup, lessons learned), why Zebras have stripes (mystery revealed), mechanism behind patterns in nature (proposed by Turing, elegantly simple), Microsoft help retailers compete with Amazon, and Ethereum at a crossroads (block validation must be modified to scale, expect a fork). This show originally aired on Saturday, February 23, 2019, at 9:00 AM EST on WFED (1500 AM).

If you wanted to know one of the biggest missed opportunities for small businesses it's Webinars and Remarketing.  Our Guest today, Dan McGaw, should know, he's one of the orginal Growth Hackers from "back in the day."  His time with Kissmetrics, Codeschool and the United States state department has brought with it the experience of just making it plain simple for him to explain these otherwise complicated lead generation techniques.

Since 2008, Dan Denney has worked closely with designers and writing HTML, CSS and JavaScript. He also founded the Front End Design Conference in St. Petersburg, FL. After working as a front-end developer at Code School, Dan is currently unemployed so as to focus on building up his skills as a front-end engineer and find the right team.

Audrey Eschright: @ameschright | The Recompiler Show Notes: 00:50 - Background in Publishing and Open Source 06:53 - The Contributor Pool 12:37 - Open Source Bridge 15:29 - Mistakes Open Source Contributors Make 17:21 - Tools for Maintaining an Open Source Project 19:09 - Roles 23:33 - Open Source Bridge (Cont'd) 27:47 - Governance and Decision-Making 36:20 - Making Open Source Accessible, Safe, and Welcoming Resources: Free Geek Calagator PDX Activist Dreamwidth Safety First PDX Open Source Bridge: Enter the coupon code PODCAST to get $50 off a ticket! The conference will be held June 20-23, 2017 at The Eliot Center in downtown Portland, Oregon. Transcript: CHARLES: Hello, everybody and welcome to The Frontside Podcast, Episode #71. My name is Charles Lowell. I'm a developer here at The Frontside. With me also is Joe LaSala. JOE: Hello. CHARLES: Hey, Joe, another developer here at The Frontside. With us today is the publisher of The Recompiler Mag and a long-time open source contributor Audrey Eschright. Welcome Audrey. AUDREY: Hey! CHARLES: Thanks for being on the show. AUDREY: Oh, thank you. CHARLES: Today, we're going to be talking about open source and in particular, the labor that goes into open source and making that sustainable but before we get into that, I wanted to first talk about your background, both in terms of how you came to be publishing the magazine and also your background on open source, how we're arriving at the subject today. AUDREY: The magazine, in a lot of ways, I refer to it as a feminist hacker magazine. It holds together a lot of different things that I've worked on over the years so I'm going to jump all the way back to when I first encountered open source and then maybe that will fit together. When I was in high school, I first encountered the internet and the internet that was available to me at that time use things like Gopher. Gopher is a pretty web protocol and it was free software. I didn't really understand that it was free software at that point but I did understand that if I wanted to learn how to write code and the computer that I have access to were things like a bunch of really old PCs like 286's and an old Macintosh. Then there were commercial compilers for writing code and there were free compilers for writing code. There was a thing called GCC and I knew that it was on university computers and if I got access to those, then I could write code. Then I got to college and write about when open source really started to take off as this concept of how free software comes into business world. I've had that as a background of becoming a programmer and getting involved in things but after college I wasn't really sure that I want to work in technology so I took a break. When I came back, I needed a way to get myself up to date so I started volunteering with this local group called Free Geek that recycles computers. What they do is they take those computer parts and the ones that are usable, they build them into Linux boxes for people, like Linux desktop boxes. How I got back up and running was learning how to work and volunteering in an organization that was very open source based, like all of the tools that they used are just completely open source. CHARLES: Was that for budgetary reasons or they didn't want the people to burden the recipients of these computers with any licensing fees or obligations to third parties? AUDREY: It's budgetary but it's also ideological. The organization was started out of environmental interests. The original folks, they pointed to us this computer monitor that they [inaudible] as the reason that they do this, that the way computer waste is being handled was so unfriendly that you might as well just dump it in the river. They started from there but I think because those kinds of interests of creating something that was really accessible for people are really educational and accessible to lower income patrons has always been a really big part of it. I think that using Linux and using open source tools has been a big part of that. CHARLES: I think open source is so pervasive, a lot of people forget that in those days, there was a lot of radical thinking behind it, of radical accessibility like it's your basic right to be able to access every layer of your stack. It's a little bit unfortunate that you mentioned GCC that like the GNU, the Free Software Foundation isn't as much part of the conversation as they were back then. AUDREY: Yeah. I think that as more people come in to, we've shifted through these different generations basically in open source contribution and how it's formulated. The fact that I even default to open source is really interesting because a lot of the values that I referencing are those free software values. CHARLES: Fast forward to the present... AUDREY: Part of how I built my skills was by starting open source projects called Calagator. It's a community calendaring platform that makes it very easy to import things from other sources like Facebook. It's interesting, it wasn't our primary thing but it's so big now. We've been doing this for 10 years so a lot of recent change around us. We have a 10-year old [inaudible] app that is still up and running and is now in Rails engine. CHARLES: Wow. Is this an application that you can run yourself or when you say it's an engine, if I've got a Rails app, I can just drop it into any Rails app? AUDREY: Yeah, that was a direction we decided to go in a couple of years ago because my experience was that handing people in Rails app and saying, "Go fork it and then go sell it and use it in your community." That's a pretty big technical burden. At least, as an engine, it makes it a little bit more flexible for people to really come in and make some of those changes. We can bootstrap a little bit more for them. CHARLES: It's always funny to me know how some projects always run off the fork model, like there's a lot of HTML starters or editor starters where the thing is you fork it. I always hate that model because eventually, you ended up having to do this terrible dance with the upstream in order to jump around the changes that are coming through and stuff. AUDREY: Yeah and that was definitely one of the problems that we would run into. We would make changes to functionality and the frontend and the visual display of it. It was really difficult for people to pick and choose the parts that were useful for them. CHARLES: Yeah. Okay, so you've got a 10-year old Rails applications/engine, now you are actually running an instance of this engine yourself or just maintaining the open source? AUDREY: Yeah, there's actually two of them, that I'm in involved with right now. One of them is that Calagator.org. It's a Portland's techs events calendar. That was really our original site and the reason that we created this. The other one just as of a few months ago is PDXActivist.org and that is a way to get a lot of activism and political organizing off of Facebook, basically. That's really our primary target. It's just getting people an alternative to using Facebook for all of their events. CHARLES: I see. Now, having to maintain an open source project for 10 years, that's a really, really long time. AUDREY: Yeah. CHARLES: How big is the community now and how many different users have you seen as you developed this? AUDREY: Well, it's a little hard to tell. We deliberately don't do a lot of tracking, especially on PDX Activist side. I can tell you that there are a lot of events on both calendars. For the tech events, there are probably five things that you can do on any given day, maybe 10. During design week, they put all that on there too. This has been very consistent over the history of the project. I can also tell you that we've had dozens of contributors. CHARLES: Yeah, that's more what I meant when I said users. Not necessarily the consumers of the calendar but the consumers of the software that makes the calendar. AUDREY: It goes without saying that I think that those users are creating events, they are part of that because they help curate content. Like with the wiki, your user base isn't just the people who update MediaWiki. It's that people who really work on the content too. We've had dozens of people. There's a contributor's file that I didn't pull up but we can go and look at it. We made a point of crediting everybody who contributed at Code Sprint, whether or not they check in code. We have a really great documentation over the history of the project about how the different ways that people contributed and who they are. CHARLES: Yeah. I feel like that's something that often goes missing in projects, especially open source projects that you find on GitHub where there's so many people that are involved in creating software beyond just what you see in the commit history. It's kind of a poor showing of what it was all involved in the whole creative act. Sure, it's an accurate reflection if it's a one-person project who's hacking away on weekends but as your project scales, there's a lot of different stuff going on. AUDREY: Yeah, definitely. I think the other part that's really interesting for me about this is that I can point to that big contributor pool, people who have come to sprints so they've work on a project. They help define the shape of the project. Then I can tell you that we had a three-person core team for a very long time and then it was down to a two-person core team. Now, I'm not really sure which one of those is in charge. I don't look at GitHub often enough and a couple of the other computers. There isn't a lot of coaching happening anymore. We should have a wish list but there's nothing so urgent that we stop all other work and go back to making this our primary effort. CHARLES: Of the people on the core team, how many of them are developers? AUDREY: All of us. All three of us were. We come into with different cross skills. I've done a lot of documentation and mentorship. As of the others, I would say we have one person who were in design or one person who was more apps-oriented. We fill those different layers too. CHARLES: Of that group of the core contributors, outside that group of core contributors, you said you accumulate a list of all the people who contributed. What's the breakdown in the roles that those people are playing? AUDREY: You know, it has changed a lot over the course of the project. Early on, we had maybe half of the people were really doing development and the other half were helping. We took a very agile approach like index cards and users story. Maybe half of the people that show up at a given time, we just talk through the feature and do research. We were looking at a lot of integration so what needed to know what would be required to integrate it. We brainstorm a lot of things. We did in-person Code Sprints every two weeks from the year that we started, at late of January to the end of July. We had this whole set of in-person work that really shape in that. Also a lot of people who weren't necessarily contributing code that had disappeared. CHARLES: I see, so people who had a vested interest in a particular set of features could show up and voice that interest and be heard, as opposed to what you're having, it just be limited to the people who are writing the actual code. AUDREY: Yeah and we would ask people to spec it out. Just sit down with somebody and figure out how the feature could work and whether it fit with everything else to what we're doing. I do that research and investigation. Over the years, we've had this come and go in waves. Every so often, we need to go up a Rails version or make certain kinds of major updates so we get people together for that. We had some different pools of Codeschool students that have come in and really been interested in working on this to get a little bit more development experience, get some experience working with other people, have open source some resume to show off. I've been very enthusiastic about giving people that resume credit that if they need an open source of it so that they could say, "I know how to write with other people," then our projects is very happy to help them with that. CHARLES: What is the conference that you run? AUDREY: I am on the committee for Open Source Bridge. It's an annual conference for open source citizens, which is the same people who participate and benefit from open source. CHARLES: Which is pretty much the planet at this point. AUDREY: Yeah. It's funny because, I think it's just so interesting who does or doesn't identify themselves as part of that. Anybody using a computer these days is in some way benefiting from open source and could potentially contribute to it and be part of that. It's not just awareness, there are a lot of actual barriers so that, to everyone having a role in it. But the conference I co-founded it with Selena Deckelmann who's at Mozilla now. We do say over time to ask a lot of questions about how across technologies, open source comes together to build things? How projects work? What kinds of skills are involved? How we become better maintainers by being aware of our users, by communicating better, by being good moderators of online message boards and mailing lists and things like that? We've had a chance to really just look at broad swath of elements that come in. CHARLES: I think that literally every bullet point that you mentioned, I feel is something that we've come across and it has been a challenge for us, in our efforts to maintain our open source projects. Ours are mostly just libraries. There's very little by way of big, big frameworks or big, big applications. We've got it kind of easy, I would say and we still struggle with those things really understanding our users, understanding how your open source project should run and how it even fits into the bigger ecosystem. Is there a guide out there somewhere like how to how to open source? AUDREY: You know, I don't know that I've seen a single guide but there is really a lot of good writing and a lot of good conference talks on this topics. Like you said, it's just this broad set of skills and we focus so much on teaching people how to code and maybe teaching people how to code together, to be good contributors together but if you ever to maintain a project, there's leadership involved. There's communication involved. CHARLES: It seems to me that's the bulk of it, right? AUDREY: Yeah. I don't know, did you get training on that? [Laughter] AUDREY: I just decided to try things. I'm very lucky that I'm mostly made good guesses but there's some really bad ones too where later I look back at it and realized we could have done better. CHARLES: What are some of this mistakes that open source contributors often make, where they could save themselves a lot of trouble? AUDREY: I think a big one is thinking about it only in that technical framework. Even just by tools that we use, we tend to force people into contributing solely through GitHub, which means that you've got to understand somethings about the bug tracker and how tickets go and the workflow around that. CHARLES: Yeah. I've literally looking at a message in our Slack from yesterday where someone on our team who doesn't interact with GitHub said literally, "Someone is going to have to show me how because GitHub is the most confusing thing I have ever logged into." JOE: I thought about that message today too and yeah, I guess I'm wondering how do you attract those more non-technical skill sets to a project? AUDREY: It takes a lot of direct mentoring and coaching. You already has some people that are identifying themselves to you if you're having that conversation. I think I've really benefited from looking at who else is like them, who else do they know that might want to get involved and starting conversations that way. Because the biggest projects that I have worked on are these calendars, it does give us so many users that maybe are interested in having more technical involvement. If I can start looking at who's doing a lot of cleanup on there, who's paying a lot of attention to the content and the structure of the content and structuring information is also a technical skill. But people don't necessarily go from that to thinking, "I can write code," or, "I could submit a ticket and debug that thing and tell you what needs fixing now." But people can get there. We just have to be willing to talk to them about it and willing to look at it from their point of view. CHARLES: One thing that I dig out of there is that if you're running your open source project solely on GitHub, it's not going to be enough. You're going to be constrained in your growth just by the toolset and the implicit exclusivity of that toolset. What are some tools that you can bring in that are going to be more attractive? AUDREY: I think mailing list have turnout to be one of the most open-ended things that we've done. People who want to find out a little bit more, sometimes post there but also just having a good webpage, a good info pages or some sort, having your wiki actually talked about some of the less technical aspects of it. Even explaining what your project is for can be really good. You know, you start to make these assumptions like, "If they're going to go and install it, do they know?" Maybe not. I think just looking at it as a broader set of communications. CHARLES: Right. What seems self-evident to you and maybe someone who shares a lot of context to you is a mystery to someone else. It never hurts to state the obvious. It seems to me you have to be able to use tools that people are familiar with but also part of the leadership is giving people things to do, giving them a way to think about your project or giving them a way to act independently. How do you think about the different roles in an open source project so that you can then elucidate those roles so that someone coming, who is going to look at your website or who's going to be reading your e-mail list is going to be participating in your community in some way and particularly not in a code contribution way, how do you think about the different roles of your open source project so that you can kind of hand that to them? So that they can act independently like, "Here's this thing that you could do. Here's this thing that you could do. Here's this thing that you can do." What is that kind of core set of roles? CHARLES: We could think about it in terms of the actions that we take. If you go back to our lone weekend coder who put something on GitHub, you're already writing the code, making design decisions about the shape of the code, you are writing about it in some way, even if all you do is update the ReadMe to have two lines of something you're writing. You are managing any bug tickets that come in, any future request so you're doing some project management, some kind of general analysis of that. They don't necessarily have to be different roles. People implicitly take on the whole thought of that when they start a project. But they can also be split out. I hate to say like, "Give away your least favorite thing," because people sometimes do that, may dump it out there and it never gets handled well because they don't really understand what they're looking for. But it's okay to say, "I am really great at this one thing and I really struggle with this other thing." I bet there's somebody else who is just way better at organizing the stack communication and they can help me with that. If I can tell them what I need it for, maybe they can help with that. CHARLES: So you have to admit your weaknesses? AUDREY: Yeah. I think a lot of leadership is that kind of self-analysis: really seeing where you are helping the most, where you're strongest, what things absolutely have to be done with you. I don't know. I'd learned you to be really honest about that. Sometimes, the thing you enjoy doing is not the thing that you have to do because nobody else can. But often barred things that are really not fun for me, turned out to be the thing that nobody else can do. I just think that you have to spent some time thinking about that and thinking about what you can teach people too. You already have the knowledge of your project and what you're trying to do so I think what you can teach is what your mission is, what your goals are and maybe they can help you to communicate that too. CHARLES: Yeah, because it seems to me if you actually can very clearly communicate your target, then people can begin to walk towards it independently and that's almost more important than the actual taking the steps. Or the steps needed to be taken but that's something that you can provide. AUDREY: Yeah, you need that kind of definition regardless in order to make your decision and have your work actually function and the less conscious we are about, the more we tend to get a big pile of something and you go, "Now what? What do we do with that?" CHARLES: Right. I think it also flushes out if you have a clear target and you have a clear mission, by externalizing it, it makes you reflect on it more and hardens it, if that makes any sense. You have all these ideas bouncing around in your own head about the things that you might want to do or might like to do but once you actually try to express it to people and say, "You know what? We're going to do this." Then it takes on a reality of its own that is subject to more scrutiny but also subject to the constraints of the real world and that's a good thing. It means that whatever you're going to come up with is going to be more resilient. AUDREY: Yeah. I think we can be scared about putting that out there. They won't see what you see or they won't like it. Those who disagree with your goals there will go, "You really should have been building an eggplant slicer and not a tomato slicer." Yeah, I don't like tomatoes. But for more definition that we put out there, the clearer we are, the more that the people who want to [inaudible] they can find us. That's why it's so important to do it and not to dodge those kinds of questions. CHARLES: Yeah, absolutely. Now, I'm wondering so when is this conference that you're running? Is this the first one or is this the second, the third? AUDREY: Oh, no. We're on our ninth. CHARLES: You are on your ninth? Oh, my goodness. AUDREY: Yeah, it's actually just in a few weeks. It's in June, the week of the 20th, I want to say. Tickets are for sale. If you're in Portland, we had a great volunteer program where you put in eight hours over the course of the entire week. You can split out with everyone and you get a free ticket. CHARLES: Nice. This is the problem with the internet is I'm always finding out things that I wish I'd known 10 years ago. I wish I'd known about this before it actually tried to do any open source. This is the Open Source Bridge so what's a sample of what you guys are going to be talking about? AUDREY: The thing that we've added this year and it's really exciting is the activism track. We're having a lot more people to talk about what they do as code. In this other way, more of public facing way. We have Nicole Sanchez from GitHub. She's going to talk about diversity inclusion and some of the biggest [inaudible] there. We also had Emily Gorcenski doing another keynote and she talks a lot about data and ethics and has a lot of interesting things to say about how we collect and sort and process information and the impacts of that. We have a couple of workshops that are really great. One on technical interviewing and the personal skills that you need. There is a session on keyboard hacking. CHARLES: Keyboard hacking? This is in the activism track? AUDREY: No. This are across all the tracks. CHARLES: How many different tracks are there? AUDREY: There's five. CHARLES: This is a big conference. AUDREY: Yeah. It is such a great community for me to be a part of. Like I said, the different kinds of projects that people come from and bring into it and the different skills, we'll have people that are everywhere from kernel hackers to working in devops to people that kind of fit, I think what we think of it are more typical like web developer or mobile developer kind of skill set. People who run their projects, folks from Dreamwidth often come and participate and they have a lot of really great things to share because they have such an inclusive focus on how they do their project. CHARLES: Where was that? AUDREY: Dreamwidth. It's a LiveJournal spinoff. It's online community journaling website. It's in Perl, which is cool. There aren't as many outward facing things, hiring Perl programmer these days, I think. CHARLES: It's still a very active Perl project? AUDREY: Yeah. CHARLES: Wow. I did Perl a long, long time ago. AUDREY: I think it's really useful to remember that programming languages never actually die. There is always code. JOE: There's still plenty of COBOL positions out there. AUDREY: Yeah. Actually my uncle is a COBOL programmer. CHARLES: Yeah, I remember it was only some statistic where it was something like five years ago, Java, Eclipse, COBOL is the most popular programming language. The cycles are much larger than we tend to think. Surfing on the beach as we do, not realizing there's a whole ocean generating those waves. AUDREY: Yeah, I think if you're in a certain kind of technology startup plan, there's always this push to go for the nearest and shiniest on the number of JavaScript frameworks that we've gone through in the last five years. You kind of [inaudible] of all of these things that come before that are still in use. What I really loved about doing devops is that all of this pieces are still in play and there's something to learn from that. If they don't die, you don't get rid of them. You just try to build on them and keep them working usefully. CHARLES: Right. Man, that's exciting, so you have a very, very huge cross-section of the development community. It sounds like participating in here which is a quality in of itself. That must give you a pretty unique perspective being with that level of cross-discipline. Are there any insights that can only be gleaned by being able to perceive it from that high of a level? AUDREY: Well, a big one is that we all struggle with governance. We don't really talk outside of just a couple of forms for events that focus on open source maintainers. We don't talk about the governance of projects, like who was in charge and how decisions are made. But it turns out that that has just an enormous impact on what a project can actually do and how it survives. I think I might not have seen that as clearly without having people from so many different angles participating. CHARLES: I'm just trying to think of keeping it in the area of web frameworks because that's something that I'm familiar with. If we were to compare, say the governance model something like React, which is basically whatever Facebook wants, versus something in the middle like Angular, which is like an explicit governance model but also is heavily influenced by Google, versus something like... I don't know, well something like JavaScript itself, which has an open democratic model but heavily represented by major, major, major companies, versus something like Rust, which is I certainly get the feeling is a very explicit, very democratic model. All of those seem to have achieved a lot of success and this seemed like a very healthy projects but on the one hand of the spectrum like Rust, you have the super-transparent, super-democratic model and then on the React side, you've got this authoritarian model. That's opaque. How do you reconcile that those are both successful? AUDREY: I think a lot of what actually determines this stuff is who pays the developers. In both of those cases, meaning projects that present information and decision making differently but there are corporations that pay those developers and that's where the primary source of that code. Because of that, really who pays the developers determines what gets made, what code gets written. In a way, they're both doing some of the same things. They're just not giving you inside into that decision making, in some cases. CHARLES: The decision making apparatus is there, I guess the thing is this transparency to the user base matter. I would say that the user base of a thing like React dwarfs the actual corpus of decision makers. That doesn't seem to be that that decision making process is opaque. AUDREY: Well, I might be opening too much of a larger conversation by saying this but if you're familiar with the idea of algorithm transparency, decision making is encoded into things like algorithms and when we can't examine them, then we don't know how that decision was made so we don't know what biases are encoded into it. The same thing happens with code in general. You might say, "Let the outcome of this and this working really great," but there are still biases and preferences that are encoded into that that you don't have insight into. If they start to ship the project in a certain way, that include some users and excludes others. Even on just purely technical levels, you don't know what. You don't know how they got to that, you don't know if they're going to keep steering in that direction. If you're one of those people that is starting to be excluded, you don't know what you can do about it. I've seen these kinds of governance discussion even happen within Ruby in Rails. CHARLES: Yeah, it does seem like these political questions come up constantly. I remember an example that leaps to mind is a project that I was involved with was the Jenkins project, which originally was Hudson, which came out of Sun Microsystems. When Oracle bought Sun, they were basically trying to, I want to say there's always three sides to every story but from where I was sitting, they were essentially trying to subvert the project to their own needs and end up being in a fork of the project. Luckily, there was recourse there where because it was open source and because it was mostly maintained by the community and not by the company, they were able to fork it. They changed the name. They changed the logo and that was the end of the story. There was a question of which fork would survive but that was resolved within probably six months. But Jenkins lived and I think it's better off for it but I guess maybe then a question that you can one kind of stress test that you can put like, "Is it okay to put weight on this technology?" What would happen? Would my community be represented and would I be able to fork this, essentially? Maybe in that sense, React would pass that test. In the sense that it would be reasonable to fork it or something like that. I don't know. I'm just thinking of ways to try and validate if something safe to use. AUDREY: I think it's really interesting that you commented on the new change and the logo change because those kinds of trademarks are actually the most readily protected of all of the intellectual property in an open source projects. If things are going to go off and become a community project and it's being released under some open source model, often where the corporate control stays over those assets -- the name, the logo, the graphics -- maybe even some of the work [inaudible]. You have to ask if that code is still useful without that infrastructure that they provided. If you take the whole codebase and you walk off and you don't have the same developers and you don't have the same, even hosting resources or whatever, is that code still useful to you? What if you use a bug tracker? CHARLES: Right, now you own it. What's the cost now of maintaining? And are you going to get a return on that investment? AUDREY: Yeah. There's been some pretty big open source projects that have struggled with that, especially for end user facing software. Those turned out to be easy things for community to pick up. CHARLES: Can you provide any examples? AUDREY: I'm thinking of some of the stuff that happened with Open Office LibreOffice. CHARLES: Yeah, I remember that. AUDREY: There's still two different batches of people working on this and from what I understand, a whole lot of intellectual property complications. CHARLES: Yeah, it's funny how sometimes, it would be interesting to see a case study of all the major forks and the outcomes of what they were. Some I can think of, there was a fork of Ruby gems, for example I think back in 2009 that went off and was mainly, I think was a way of protest. I think some of those concerns were addressed in the main thing so that fork ended up dying, then you got the fork of io.js, which was ended up. There was a fork and then a rejoining with the Node community but I would say it was an effective tool so there was a fork but then it joined. It was a source code fork but it was a political fork. Then you have the Jenkins fork where the fork basically swallowed its ancestor and there's all these fascinating outcomes and then you've got this LibreOffice Open Office where the waters are very murky about what happened with that fork. AUDREY: I heard people say like, "If you don't like this decision, then just go fork the project." CHARLES: Because that's easy. AUDREY: And if one of your major developers does it, then maybe, like you said, they have some leverage and they can make the changes they want to see happen, [inaudible]. But in general, that's a really hard thing to pull off. You've got to be able to take your entire community with you. Part of this is have to be functional and I think people are very rarely actually make that happen. CHARLES: Right. I feel like that's a dishonest thing to say when people are like, "If you want to go fork it," because really forking the code is the easy part. It's forking the community. AUDREY: Well, if you do that, then you've got a lot of conflicts. You've got a lot of people's feelings to address. It's not a very simple thing to recover from. CHARLES: Yeah. Some people do it. We have some good examples of that happening but it doesn't always pan out for the best. How can we make open source more accessible and supportive of contributors? We've mentioned a lot of that stuff in terms of how you can support people who are contributing but there might be more to talk about that. AUDREY: Yeah, we haven't really talked about who gets to participate. We talked about what kinds of things you can do when you see that people are interested but we don't talk about how in order to be a week encoder, you've got to have those weekends free. Certainly, I am right now. CHARLES: Yeah, neither do I. AUDREY: You have to have access to a laptop if you want to go to Code Sprints or [inaudible]. Not everybody has that, even people who are programming or your own computer not owned by your employer. That can be really important. You have to have a knowledge of how open source works. I do see fairly often in conferences that focus on a lot in open source, there will be how to become an open source contributor kind of talk. That kind of cultural knowledge is really important because otherwise, you're going to GitHub and you look at it and you say, "What am I supposed to do here? What am I actually supposed to do with this?" It's just a wall of information. There's something about a project on GitHub that creates these entry points for somebody who doesn't know how open source projects work. CHARLES: Yeah and it's so hard to be able to perceive it from that person's perspective, especially if you're frog-boiled, so to speak in the community. You've been doing this for so long, these things seem self-evident that it takes a computer, it takes the time, it takes knowing where to establish a toehold. These are all non-problems for you but they're insurmountable for someone else. AUDREY: There's one other aspect of this that we haven't really talked about, which is the friendliness to the kinds of contributors that you have, the diversity of the project versus the homogeneity of the contributors, whether or not you have a code of conduct and you know how to do something with it so that people feel safe and welcome in your environment. There's a lot of people that stay away from open source projects because all they've ever seen is harassment and that behavior. You can have a counterexample but if you don't have some mechanism for showing that that won't happen in your projects, then there are folks that are never going to submit about. They're never going to make a commit. They're not going to put anything on the wiki. CHARLES: Why would voluntarily subject myself to, if the only thing on the other end of the phone is pain? AUDREY: There are plenty of people that decided just to opt out because of that. If open source projects want to see more contribution, you have to be very proactive in dealing with that. CHARLES: Yeah, I feel like it almost would be nice to have some sort of training. Even if you have a code of conduct on your open source project, I think as you grow it from something that's maybe just one or two people to where there's a larger community, the first time you have a bad actor who shows up and start slinging turds, it's shocking and you're taken aback. But just as the number of people grow in a community, that is going to happen. It's just an unfortunate fact of human nature so not having to react to it, but be prepared for it, I think is something that's extraordinarily valuable. I don't know if there's a guide for that on GitHub or guide for that on anywhere else but I think it would be very useful skill to have. AUDREY: It's just very funny that you say this because this is actually a training idea. CHARLES: Oh, really? I promise there was no payment under the table to ask that question. AUDREY: Yeah. There was some consulting around this and I started a program with a local non-profit called Safety First PDX and what we do is train user group leaders, conference organizers, open source project maintainers on exactly that: what to do with their code of conduct to enforce it and help people feel welcome in their community. I worked through a really specific examples with people about how you respond, how you have this conversations and what kinds of things you need to do to protect your contributors who are participants and be really firm about what is next in your space. CHARLES: Absolutely a critical skill for any open source project, for any open source community, for any large accumulation of people. AUDREY: And GitHub made it very easy to put a code of conduct on your project now but without these kinds of resources, I think what happens is that people get that first incident and they panic because it is scary to tell somebody that their behavior isn't okay. To tell them that they might have to step away from the project or stop doing that or even leave indefinitely, those are really hard things to get started doing. I really enjoy doing the training and getting to walkthrough that to people. CHARLES: Are you going to be offering that training anytime soon? AUDREY: We just had one here in Portland last week. We're doing it a quarterly thing but I'm also really open to bringing it elsewhere like a place to host and some sponsorship that they can throw at that and people that want to take this. CHARLES: That'll be awesome. Maybe we can have you in Austin. AUDREY: [inaudible]. CHARLES: Thank you, Joe. Thank you, Audrey for coming on the show. AUDREY: Thanks. CHARLES: It was really great to talk to you. It's great to talk about your history in open source and the things that you're doing in the community, especially the insights that you have around running sustainable open source projects. Also, thank you for talking to us about Open Source Bridge which is, I understand coming up right around the corner. If you want you can go to our podcast page and there will be a link to get $50 off if you enter in the discount code 'PODCAST.' That's $50 off of your open source bridge ticket. Be sure to go check it out. That's it for today, from The Frontside. If you're interested in hiring us, we do have availability starting in July so reach out to us. All right, everybody. Take care.

Gregg Pollack is a software developer and serial entrepreneur. In 2011, he founded Code School, an online learning platform that teaches you programming and web design skills. And 5 years later, he sold that business for $36 million. The Show Notes Code School Envy Labs Starter Studio greggpollack.com Github Try Github Try jQuery Thrive Themes Shane Melaugh Gregg on Twitter Omer on Twitter Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to the podcast Leave a rating and review Follow Omer on Twitter Need help with your SaaS? Join SaaS Club Plus: our membership and community for new and early-stage SaaS founders. Join and get training & support. Join SaaS Club Launch: a 12-week group coaching program to help you get your SaaS from zero to your first $10K revenue. Apply for SaaS Club Accelerate: If you'd like to work directly with Omer 1:1, then request a free strategy session.

Around 2 years ago, Dylan Wolff made a decision to challenge himself and go after a completely new career as a remote web developer. An internal auditor for years, he decided that he wanted to learn a new skill and travel the world. Today, he works full-time as a location independent developer for distributed Ruby on Rails consultancy. I've previously featured Dylan's story on my website in my inspiring nomads blog series and most recently on my YouTube channel where we answered viewers questions on becoming a remote web developer. In this week's podcast, we go deep into Dylan's story, how he learned web development, how he scored his first job and how he now travels the world, working remotely. Talking Points [01:40] How Dylan came to the realisation that he wanted to work remotely and travel the world and the steps he took to make it happen [5:38] Starting from Square one and becoming inspired by Pieter Levels [11:16] Making the choice to pursue web development and finding a firm that supports remote workers [14:12] The resources Dylan used starting out and his top tips for finding the time to code while working full-time [23:49] Knowing when you're ready to look for work and his first experiences entering the workforce [34:49] The challenge of working solo [36:49] How Dylan managed to score a job that allowed him to work remotely from the get-go and what he would have done if it hadn't been that way. [42:59] Travel experiences as a digital nomad and plans moving forward [45:59] How Dylan balances work and travel and dealing with multiple time zones [51:18] He favourite locations in the world to work from Links Mentioned Pieter Levels Hastag Nomads NomadList.com Slack & Basecamp Treehouse, Code School, Code Academy Thinkful Michael Hartle - The Rails Tutorial Pimsleur My first public vlog - Moving Out to Travel the World Our video together - How to become a developer J Space - Jeju Island Nick's Blog Post on finding your own rhythm Dylanwolff.com

The first time I talked to Jason about being on the show was more than a year ago. But we finally made it happen and he has quite a story. There was a lot we didn't have time to get to, but I really enjoyed what we did discuss. Jason has been with Envy Labs since nearly the beginning. He helped build the company's product, Code School, which they recently sold for $36 million. I was interested to know what it was like moving into the role of CEO, how he handles the pressure and, honestly, if he really enjoys it. And Jason didn't disappoint. As always, I had a great time talking to Jason. Enjoy the show! Bits & Bytes Mentioned in the Show Jason's book - Three Pipe Problems Envy Code School Envy Labs sells Code School - Wired More About Jason @jasonvanluejasonvanlue.com

In this episode I invite Kyle Johnson to help me answer a listener's question about starting as a front-end or back-end developer. Links from the show CSS-Tricks http://css-tricks.com/ Laracasts https://laracasts.com/ Treehouse http://teamtreehouse.com/ Episode 8 of The Freelance Podcast Continued Education http://www.thefreelancepodcast.com/8 Codecademy http://www.codecademy.com/ CodeSchool https://www.codeschool.com/ Lynda http://www.lynda.com/default.aspx Kyle Johnson on Twitter https://twitter.com/kbjohnson90 Developd http://developd.io/ Follow & Subscribe Please subscribe via your podcast service of choice. Please send in your questions and comments at http://www.thefreelancepodcast.com You can follow The Freelance Podcast on Twitter at @freelancecast Rate The Freelance Podcast! You can help us reach other freelancers just like you and I by leaving a 5 star rating in iTunes for this podcast. If we have helped, or provided any useful information it would be awesome if you could leave us a rating. Thanks for listening.