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In today's episode of the IC-DISC show, I chat with Jane Howze, founder and managing director of executive search firm Alexander Group. Jane shares her remarkable transition from commercial lending and law into this male-dominated industry. Her insight into culture, growth, and talent acquisition provided invaluable counsel for aspiring leaders. We explore nuanced career shifts and hiring new teams, emphasizing integrity's strategic importance. Jane highlights fact-checking credentials for ethics and vetting, referencing a shocking case of credential fabrication. Our conversation sheds light on work evolutions, from mentorship changes to communication innovations over the years.   SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Jane Howze shares her career transition from a commercial lending officer and lawyer to the founder and managing director of the Alexander Group, a top retained executive search firm. We discuss the early challenges Jane faced in a male-dominated industry and her experiences at Korn Ferry, emphasizing her success in executive search. Jane and I reminisce about shared history at Korn Ferry, including nostalgic and entertaining stories from the early days of our careers. li>Jane emphasizes the importance of integrity during career transitions, particularly when handling professional references and avoiding misrepresentation. We touch on the strategic advantages of honesty and the repercussions of fabricating qualifications, as highlighted by a CEO's false claim of a computer science degree. The episode covers the evolution of workplace dynamics, mentorship, and the practical advice Jane offers for aspiring paid board members. Crazy industry tales are recounted, such as an adventure with a $700 car in LA and setting realistic client expectations in executive search scenarios. Jane provides insights into networking and career strategy, especially relevant during the Great Resignation and for those aiming for public company board positions. We explore Dave's innovative client communication strategies and the impact of networking, as well as the significance of crafting a board-specific resume. The episode concludes with a light-hearted exchange about "tours of duty" within a firm, comparing it to conscription, and reflects on the demanding but rewarding nature of our work experiences. Contact Details Email (jhowze@thealexandergroup.com) LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jhowze1950/) LINKSShow Notes Be a Guest About IC-DISC Alliance About The Alexander Group GUEST Jane HowzeAbout Jane TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dave: Hi, this is David Spray and welcome to another episode of the IC Disc Show. My guest today was a very special guest. Jane Howes is the founder and managing director of one of the world's top retained executive search firms, the Alexander Group. Jane was actually my boss two different times about 25 years ago. As we talked about on the episode, she was both the greatest boss I'd ever had and my least favorite boss I ever had, sometimes in the same day. Jane has a wealth of knowledge on all aspects of culture building all aspects of culture building, firm building, growing a firm, picking the right people. We also took some stories down memory lane back from the days we worked together and when the firm was very young. This episode has a lot of great information for any executive or business owner who has any hiring responsibilities. Finally, if you've ever considered becoming a board member, jane has some great insights and tips on how to start your career as a paid board member. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. Jane, welcome to the podcast. Jane: Well, Dave, it's wonderful to be with you. Dave: This is so. I was so excited for this, so I think I've told you this before. Jane, you were my all-time favorite boss and my least favorite boss, sometimes in the same day. Jane: And probably sometimes within 10 minutes of each other right. Dave: Perhaps, but you're the only boss I ever had twice. So I had left. I was gone a couple of years and then I was in a spot where I needed some contract work. This was before Uber, so I couldn't just go start driving my car around and you all were gracious enough to have me come back and it was wonderful. But I just want to thank you for all the opportunities you've given me, all that you've taught me. I've learned. I learned so much about business, communication, ethics, client service, so that served me the rest of my career. So thank you, jane. Jane: Dave, when you came back the second time, I was like our ship has come in. Dave Spray is back for more punishment, more reward, and I just feel really honored that our paths have crossed, because you could have been a great, you were a great recruiter, could have and still could. Dave, You're the best. Dave: Well, that's very nice of you to say so. Yeah, I enjoyed a lot of my time at the firm, so where are you calling in from today? Jane: I am in our Houston office today. As you know, we have offices in California, new York and DC. As you know, we have offices in California, new York and DC, but I will work out of Houston until it gets too impossibly hot to work out of Houston, as you know, and we'll head west. Excellent, well, that sounds great. Dave: Now, are you a native Houstonian? Are you one of those rare people born here that lives here? Jane: No, what's the saying? I got here as soon as I could, but I am from Birmingham Alabama and went to college in Memphis, tennessee, and my roommate from college was Houstonian and back in the day, you know, the Galleria had just been built and Houston was just this huge boomtown and I was glad to come here back in the infancy almost. Dave: Wow, and what did you do for work when you got here? Jane: I worked as. Are your listeners mainly in Houston, or are they scattered all over? They're all over the country in Houston or are they scattered all over? They're all over the country. Yeah Well, I worked for the largest bank in Houston and I was a commercial lending officer and attended law school at night. And then the story goes I practiced law and I left Houston and went to California and practiced law and then came back. So you know, kind of roads lead back to Houston. Dave: Ultimately, Okay, and then what? Did you just like have a dream or a vision or something that you needed to leave the law business and get into executive search? What prompted that? Jane: Well, a lot of practicing law, as I'm sure your listeners know, a lot of it is very compliance oriented, very regulatory oriented, and I'm not a regulatory kind of person. And I had gone from being a commercial loan officer, where my job was to deal with people all day, to being stuck in a law library reading compliance regulations. Oh my goodness, this is not good, this is not my personality. And read an article in Fortune magazine about Korn Ferry, the largest executive search firm in the world, and it was like the proverbial bolt of lightning went off. Dave and I was oh my gosh, I would be fabulous at this. I need to go work for Korn Ferry. And they had an opening back in Houston. So I left the practice of law in California and joined Korn Ferry in Houston. Dave: Wow, and you were, and I'm guessing that you were one of many women at the firm. I'm sure, right, this was the 80s executive search. Jane: Let's see there were 200 partners and two women, and the minorities were all in the Hong Kong office. Dave: Okay, I mean diversity was achieved, but there were like six men in the Hong Kong office. Jane: Okay, I mean diversity was achieved, but there were like six men in the Hong Kong office and that is not a knock on Korn Ferry that the executive search business was oh, we want to give a CEO search to somebody we've served in the military with, or somebody that we go hunting with, or somebody on our bowling, you know that kind of thing, and women just weren't in that place then. So it was definitely an early time and a good time to get into executive search. In retrospect at the time it seemed a little challenging. Dave: And you. So how did it go, did you? Was it all you hoped it would be? Jane: You know, the minute I started recruiting I was happy I knew I had found my calling. Before I got into search, I had always been one of the people that said I'd love to introduce you to this person, I'd love to fix you up with this person, and so I finally got in a position that you got paid for it which is great by two partners from KPMG who wanted to do recruiting of C-suite positions for their KP clients, and K wouldn't let them do it. So they formed Korn Ferry, and so I was lucky. It was kind of the early days of Korn Ferry they were maybe 15 years old by the time I joined them and global, so it was a really great move to learn the search business. Dave: You weren't there too long, right Before you felt the need to unfurl your own wings. Jane: Yes, that is true. I was wow. There are not many women partners here and I know I'm good at this and I know I can be successful at this. So, dave, I hooked up with another woman at Corn Ferry and the other big search firm is Russell Reynolds and we were like, well, let's start our own search firm, and I don't know that I would have done it by myself. But we started, really got going in 19, which is 40 years ago now. I feel like I'm the oldest living person alive still doing it. But we started and back then you didn't have the internet to do research and our first client was Grant Thornton the public accounting firm and the number two person at Grant met us and we went walking in their offices and there were no women audit partners then, or tax partners, and we went strolling in and he goes. Well, I believe in you all and I want you to help me build the firm. I'm going to do acquisitions, I'm going to do partner searches, I'm going to do campus recruiting, and we rode along for over 50 searches and practice acquisitions in our first years, which made it really a great foundation upon which to build. Dave: Oh, that's awesome. That is awesome, and that's been 40 years ago. Jane: Yeah, Dave, I probably tried to recruit you back in the days you were at Arthur Anderson. You were probably one of my recruits, even not knowing it. Dave: Yeah, you never know, you never know. And one of the is that when you started, the billing by the hour approach, or did that come later. Did you do that from the beginning? Jane: We started because, having been with a law firm where you're basically selling your time, we thought, well, we're going to be a different kind of search firm, we're going to bill by the hour. And it proved to be a great thing. And, dave, we were so cheap that people would go, you'll do, you'll take over all our campus recruiting for $50 an hour. And we were like, oh great, well, here's 10 colleges we don't want to go. You guys go, just do our recruiting for probably 10, 12, 13 years, which made it challenging because not everybody wants to fill out timesheets to the 10th of an hour, which we were. Dave: Yeah, no, but I remember when we would talk to potential clients, that was part of the pitch and the fact that they could do we could do all a card search for them. It's wrong as the source candidates, you know, we would just do that. And the other thing I loved was the independence that gave, because I know there were times that right late in the search we had three finalists and they would say, hey, we identified somebody on our own, can we throw them into the mix? And of course we were very receptive because we were just paid by the hour, like we didn't care. Whereas I think a lot of other firms, especially if there was a success fee component you know, would be very resistant to that, so I always thought that was great. What caused you to move away from that? Jane: Just the cumbers of it or just the greater tendency to do fixed. But you know, we started out doing lower level positions and as we built our reputation we were, frankly, we were leaving. Frankly we were leaving. We weren't great timekeepers and we kind of thought, well, let's still provide a win for our clients Because the big search firms you are obligated to pay the fee. Even if they find their own candidate, you're obligated to pay the fee. So what we decided was we will do a fixed fee. We will tell the client at the beginning of the search this is what your fee is. So it's not really tied to the compensation but the complexity of the search. So, for example, if we were doing a search in Fargo, north Dakota, in December, that might be a harder search. You know, with the pain in the bottom 10% of compensation ranges, that might be a harder search than doing a search in December in Florida, for example, or with the time. So we just pivoted I think it was in 2001 that we'll give you a fixed fee for the search, but it will be less usually than a third of total comp. So even if you put your own candidate into the process, you're still paying for it, but you're paying for a process, not a candidate. So we still had a competitive advantage. And it's interesting. Here we are today, in 2024, and some of the other search firms are now doing what we do. Some of our biggest competitors are going. Well, we'll give you a fixed fee if the Alexander Group's giving you a fixed fee. So it's interesting how it's turned out. Dave: But you were a disruptor in a number of ways in the industry. Jane: I mean it didn't seem like it at the time but now that I see other firms doing the same thing to try and compete effectively, they don't want to. They'd rather just get a third. But one of the things we tell our clients when they retain us is for your budgeting purposes, you're going to know how much the fee is and we'll have no reason to present the most expensive candidates because our fee is already in your budget and we're just going to be on your side of the table trying to find the best person at the most cost-effective salary compensation package. So I think it's a win and it's something that has worked for the clients. And you know the thing that and I know you know this we said it when you were there and we still say it 85% of our business every year is the same people and we're really proud of that because most search firms their repeat business is 6%. And why is that? And you know we laugh and say, well, we have an unstable product. You know and you know there's so many things that can go wrong when you're dealing with people, but we try and provide very I want to say a really strong relationship focus. I mean I tell clients. I don't want to just see you one time. We want a long-term relationship with you and that's really important to us and I think it makes a difference and I think the clients feel like we really care about being part of their team and that's really important to us. Dave: Yeah, that's great and I did experience that, and life's just more fun when you have happy repeat customers and clients Instead of people you try to squeeze for every last dollar for one time transaction. Jane: And you're well. I hope we don't have to see each other again. Right, you know it's like no, we want to be around for the long haul and I know you know this because but our first client from Grant Thornton, who's now 88 years old, is still a friend and a client and a mentor of the firm and we wouldn't really have it any other way. That means a lot to us. Dave: You know, one of the most valuable lessons you taught me was when I went into your office after I worked there about a year and a half and I just said, jane, I don't think this is for me and I don't know what I'm going to do, but I just want to set expectations. And you said hey, as long as you continue to do good work, you can stay. You know, as long as you want, right, I mean, just keep doing good work. And then the other thing you told me do you remember what you told me? You said, and it was very, it was good advice, but it was also clever on your end too. What did you tell me? Jane: I told you, no one will remember the job that you did, but everyone will remember how you leave. Dave: Yep, yep, that's so true and it's such simple advice, right? Because you work someplace for years and then all you really have to do to even make up for mistakes you made is just end on a really high note, right, you could have been a average employee, but just end on a high note and they'll all say, oh yeah, that change, she was great. She was great. We loved having her around. Jane: No, I remember that Because I mean I tell people I was not the best lawyer in the world, but I left, left. Like how do I transition my clients? How do I help train the new person? Can I be available after I'm gone? If I need to come in on a Saturday to help out? And I tell people when I make speeches no one will. You could be really bad at your job, but you can be a good, a great departing employee if you aren't a current employee. And that is just so true. And you know today, you never know when you're going to need a reference. Today, with everything so transparent, even if you don't give somebody as a reference, people will look on LinkedIn and say, oh well, I'm going to call this person and see how Betty was as an employee. So you're going to be found out, good or bad. So you might as well be the best ex-employee you can possibly be. Dave: I love it. Yeah, I know one of the things we did when I was with the team was we would do reference checks, and I think we would oftentimes do them even before the offer was extended. I forget. I think we did it both ways. Sometimes we did it subject to reference checks, sometimes we did the references first and I was always surprised. Every so often you'd find out people lied on their resume or exaggerated. But I imagine with social media and such, that's probably all gone away, right, nobody tries to get away with that anymore, I suppose do they? Jane: You know, dave, it's really interesting. Somebody asked me the other day what surprises you the most. That happens today, that happened 20 years ago. And the answer is exactly as you say. People still try and fudge. They'll say, well, I received an MBA when they did the coursework but didn't write the final paper. Or they'll be credit short of a college degree. Just last month we weren't at the final stages. But we try and check educational background and someone had on their resume they had on their LinkedIn received a bachelor's degree. And we check and there's no bachelor's degree. And they say, oh well, but I was only four hours short and I go. But four hours short does not a degree make, and I'm always surprised that. And people will have maybe a year gap where they're unemployed. And it's okay with COVID and all the changes that we have all gone through as a country, as a business community, it's okay that you have gaps, but it's not okay to misrepresent the gaps and sometimes you'll have people go. Oh well, you know, it was during COVID, I'll just kind of fudge it a little bit. And you're always going to be found out almost every single time, and I'm always surprised that people still do it, though, but even at the highest levels, dave, they still do it Like even like at the C-suite level, you mean. Yeah, at the C-suite level. You know, I wrote an article as a commentator for MSNBC 10 years ago because the CEO of, I think, hp said he had a degree in computer science, but it was a degree in history, you know, which is a pretty big difference. And I wrote an article saying and this was even before the proliferation of social media 10 years ago and I said you will be found out. This guy did, and it was very public and it was he got fired from H. It was a big deal and I was like do not let it stand. If you fudged, go fix it, fess up. Dave: The irony was, if he was, you know, at that level, he probably had graduated at least 25 years earlier. So the irony was his degree had no nothing to do with his current level. Yeah, nobody cared, except that he lied about it. If somebody lies about something that can be checked. What are they lying about that can't be checked, right? Jane: Exactly Well. And the other thing is, when you think about somebody's personal branding, wouldn't it make a great story? Hey guys, I don't know. I had a history degree and look how good I am. I'm running HP now and I had to leave the hospital. But to say he had a computer science degree. I mean it made no sense. But people do that still and I always tell people I know some of your listeners are small businesses where they don't have huge departments but one of the most important things you can do is do background checks and reference checks, unofficial and official, because people they never will stop doing it and no matter how many commentators tell them don't do it, they do it. Dave: Well, you know, I guess it's time for me to go update my LinkedIn. For all these years, jane, I've been telling the world that I was the CEO of the Alexander Group and you worked for me, so I think I'd better go fix that before it backfires. Jane: Well, you know, people always say how did you get the name the Alexander Group? And we, truly the name Alexander kind of has a masculine kind of connotation and you know, even when you were with us, dave, we would get calls once a week going Mr Alexander, please, yeah, and so so. So I think you just, I think not only did you say you were CEO, I think your name you've been passing off your name is David Alexander, right. Dave: That could very well be and I learned so much about presentation because, you know, when I was there, a lot of the the recruiters were young, you know, fresh out of college. The recruiters were young, you know, fresh out of college, and you know you and John did a great job of mentoring these folks and developing them. But it was always so interesting that, you know, we had a pretty casual environment and back then you would leave a message for a candidate and they would call back the main switchboard. I don't know we've, I don't think we even had direct dial numbers back then and they'd call back and switchboard. I don't know, I don't think we even had direct dial numbers back then. And they'd call back and here's this scruffy 23-year-old unshaven guy wearing, you know, birkenstocks to work, named you know Tom, let's say. And when the person would call back and they'd say, yeah, tom Smith, please you train the receptionist to say, oh, hold on. May I ask Mr Smith, you know who's calling you? know, just to I mean there's no harm in saying Mr Smith because that is his name, but why say, oh yeah, let me see if Tommy Boy's you know done, you know done having his afternoon tequila shot, right, I mean there's no use in. Jane: No, it was all about. It was all about the, you know, because we were so small in Scruffy and the other thing we would do would be to say I'd train the receptionist to go never say Mr Smith is not at his desk. Dave: Right, he is not at his desk. Jane: Right, he is not in his office and I will have one of his assistants call you back. Dave: Nice, nice, one of them. I like that. Jane: I know, I mean, you know, I just am blushing, thinking about what we did to make ourselves sound substantial. And there's Tommy Smith back in the back office, sound asleep at his desk, you know. Dave: Exactly. Jane: And sometimes I go, oh well, and sometimes you know candidates would call back. Well, is Tommy Smith calling me? And if I happen to be at the office late at night, you know some of it is the smoke and mirrors of making yourself sound like you're Well, I remember when I would like when you or John would be like traveling. Dave: I would try to book the mother BD. Right, you're interviewing folks in Kansas City, what other companies are headquartered in Kansas City or just other things. And one of the things that the things I did that I learned a lot about this is that even though you and John were based in Houston, if I was trying to set up Houston appointments, I would act as if you and John were based in San Francisco, like I'd say oh, you know Miss Howes will be in, you know she'll be in Houston for two days next week. You know she'll. she won't be in the San Francisco office, she'll be in the Houston office for two days Now the reality is you were going to be there for two weeks, but you were going to be there for those two days and it was what's the biblical saying you can't be a prophet in your own homeland. And I think it's still true to this day that expert from out of town and they rearrange their schedule for the person from out of town. Jane: Well, you know, there's a Buddhist saying that says the visitor from afar brings knowledge and I like that. Dave: I like that. Jane: And you know, sometimes I get asked to talk to college students about how our young people, about how do you find jobs, and my clients, kids, want to know how do we find a job. And I don't I'm not a career counselor but what I tell them is the further like if you went to NYU, say you're going to have more success calling NYU alums in Houston trying to get them to help you than you will in New York City. If you're a University of Houston graduate and you're in San Francisco, there's probably only 20 of you in the whole town and all people are hardwired to help people who come from afar. If there's a limited population and it goes kind of with that thing of being unique, like you know how many people come from Houston to San Francisco for a meeting. 20 years ago I mean it happened, but it wasn't every day that a head of human resources got that phone call right. Dave: In my business that it's easier for me to get an appointment in Syracuse, New York, if I'm going to be up there for business anyway. It's easier to get that appointment than it is with somebody in Houston, Because in Houston they're just like I'm busy this week, you know. Call me next month, you know, because you're so available. It's just like it seems like if you're meeting somebody for dinner, the closer the restaurant, the more likely you are. The closer the restaurant, the more likely you are to be late, or the more likely I am to be late, because if I'm driving 30 minutes I'm going to allow 45 for traffic and stuff, but if it's three minutes away, I'm going to leave two minutes before the dinner and then exactly a stoplight pot ad and then the parking lot's full and yeah no, it is, but it is something about the further something is away. Jane: And I remember one of the ways I built up our and some of our first clients. Most of our first clients were California companies because California had more. They were more used to women in doing C-suite searches. But you know, I was in California every two weeks for probably 30 years and I would call and go well, I'm from Houston, I'm a woman-owned search firm, I'm going to be in LA, can I come see you? And we got a lot of great clients like Wells Fargo, warner Brothers, yeah, a lot of McKesson company, because they were like oh, the visitor from afar they're coming to, they're coming from Houston and they're women in the search business Great, they're coming from Houston and they're women in the search business Great, you know. And I I spent a lot of time where people would go well, I have time tomorrow morning at 11 o'clock and I'm going to be there. And I quickly hung up the phone and called United and called Continental Airlines and started booking that airline ticket as fast as I could. Dave: Yeah, I do remember my listeners love stories. What are some stories of just interesting or amusing or candidate screw up things that come to mind where, yeah, I don't know a candidate showed up intoxicated or a candidate showed up and forgot to put pants on that day, you know. I don't know a candidate showed up intoxicated, or a candidate showed up and forgot to put pants on that day. Jane: You know, I remember way back in the early days one of my first big searches was a senior lending officer for a regional bank here and the candidate was great and it was. I was so excited and so I called the CEO of the bank after the interview and I said Rex, how did the interview go? He goes, jane, he didn't come. I said he didn't come. What the hell? Why didn't he come? He said, oh, it was okay. He drove through the teller window and passed a note to the teller to pass to me that he wouldn't. He changed his mind, you know, and you just go, who drives through the go in for the interview but drives through and says will you give this note, handwritten note on a scrap of paper I'm not coming. And so that was kind of the early days. A second story, and I mean it's crazy what we did back in the early days but one client wanted us to live in LA and take over all their staffing for it. This is when we were hourly billing and we were pretty cheap and they said, yeah, we'll get your room at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown LA. We want you there for a month and we're trying to figure out how to save money, because back then, you know, we just wanted to be and so we bought Dave a $700 car so we wouldn't have rental car charges, and we called it the gray ghost. It was a delta 80 and we drove this car and I am embarrassed to tell you, and I hope your listeners will think we were really creative rather than really cheesy but when we were done with the car, when we finished the search and the client actually is still a client in other iterations we just left the car at a Friday's Marina Del Rey and that was it, because it was on its last legs, you know, and we just that was it. We just left the keys in the car and that was it. Dave: That was it. We just left the keys in the car and that was it. You know you reminded me of something. A good friend of mine owes you his job because you just reminded me of something and I know I learned this from you. So it's really good friend of mine. Cpa, a classic, stereotypical CPA, introverted, not very outgoing but very technically sound, and he was working at a public accounting firm and he was kind of stuck at the senior level. He couldn't get promoted to manager, which usually happens after like five years. And there's a firm in town that I knew a guy there and they were looking for like a first year audit manager. So he was perfect for it. Looking for like a first year audit manager, so he was perfect for it. And so the three of us met for a drink at Papa Do's on Westheimer, over in the Galleria. But I told him ahead of time. I said Pete, he is. I'm just going to tell you right now, he's not Mr Personality. If you're looking for a glad handing, you know, outgoing salesman type, he's not the right guy for you. And so, of course, what did he say? No, we're not looking for a salesman, we're looking for a manager, right, somebody technically solid. So we met and afterwards we had a good time. And afterwards I said so what'd you think? And he said I'm glad you told me that he wasn't Mr Personality, because I was kind of prepared for it. And he did the same thing when they met with the people at the firm. He told them on the front end hey, this guy's not Mr Personality, but he's really smart. I think he can do the job. And 30 years later he's a senior partner at this Houston CPA firm and I know I learned that line from you. Now let me just tell you this person's not Mr Personality. Does that sound like something you might've said for? Jane: Yeah, well, you know what I mean. Part of what I look at a recruiter's job, an executive search person's job, is you tell the client what's wrong or what's missing, because they're smart and they're going to get it themselves. And if you tell them, you are adding value, you're being a consultant and you've managed expectations. So when we do a search, we write a paper, basically a report. These are the things that might not exactly fit, but these are the things that overcome what you are looking for. And which reminds me of one more story. I remember doing a audit partner search, for I think it was Grant Thornton up in St Louis and it was in Chicago actually, and so, as you recall, we would fly to the cities, park ourselves at a hotel restaurant and just sit there and make that our office. It was pretty soon, and so I got to O'Hare sitting down and my 3 o'clock appointment comes up at one o'clock and I go buddy, you're here a little bit early. He said, oh, yeah, yeah, I've heard great things about the Alexander group and I'm just going to sit at this next table and watch you in action. And I'm like, well, buddy, that's just not going, not gonna. And mentally I'm thinking well, buddy is no longer a candidate, but he wanted to sit and listen in on every other interview so he could get some good tips of how to interview himself, and anyway not a bad idea if he had just simply kept that information to himself. Right and not done it when I'd already started the interview. You know, I mean, I kind of lost two candidates right in one sitting. You know, you can't make this stuff up. Dave: That is something. I got a question somewhat related to search. Some of this conversation is about executive search. Right, we probably should have at least maybe a third of it about search. What about board members? So you know, I've got clients who ran, built, ran, sold $50 million revenue successful privately held companies, sold $50 million revenue, successful privately held companies. And they maybe think, yeah, I might like to be serve on a board. Now for somebody to be on a public company board do they need public company experience? Jane: You know, Dave, I think the question as I'm kind of rounding third base in my career and a lot of my peers are in their 60s and they're finishing, They've sold their private company, they retired from a public company. They, for whatever reason, they say well, you know, I'm going to retire, I'm going to, I want to be on a board. Can I get on a board? My answer is always this yes. However, it's a question of how much time do you want to spend to get on your first board? Once you get on one board, even if you're a private company executive, can you get on a public board, Asterisk, if you're willing to really work hard on at that. The average board tenure is 10 years. Board positions don't really turn over that much of a healthy company. So people get on a board and especially if it's a public board, there's incentive comp, there's options. It's not a hard gig for a lot of companies. So the answer is yes. And then what do you do if you want to get on a board? If you want to get on a board? Probably 70 percent of all board positions are not gotten through search firms. Does that surprise you? Dave: Maybe, yeah, maybe some. It's the network, the network of the other board members. Jane: Yeah, yeah, because people will say, oh well, I know somebody I'm going to, I'll go back to my UT alum group and see if they, you know, kind of knows around there. Or I'll see if, oh, I know a guy that works at Goldman Sachs, Maybe he knows somebody. I know a friend that's a part retiring from Ernst Young and I'll ask her. And so there's a lot of you know, with the call for diversity, search firms are becoming more involved but and doing more and 30% is still a lot to be putting out to search. But so the things that if any of your listeners are interested, I tell people, If any of your listeners are interested, I tell people, do a board resume. A board resume is different than a job resume. It's talking about your experience assessing risk, building a company, governance compliance, things that a board member would look at, governance compliance things that a board member would look at and the board members not looking at the details of you know, do you get two weeks or three weeks for vacation? They're looking at what's our strategic plan, the being the boss of the ceo, representing shareholders. So you want a board, one page board resume that talks about what you've done. That would be analogous to that. And then you really want to get on. A not-for-profit board Helps because, especially if it's big enough, there will be other corporate people there and you will make contacts. But it's really about making contacts. A lot of investment banks they don't use search firms when they take a company public. They have databases, they go through their contacts. Bankers know people. It's all about the three sources. I would say. If any of your listeners are saying I want to be on a board one day, do you know anybody in investment banking, private equity, public accounting, M&A law firms anybody like that and tell everybody you're looking for those recommendations. And then the last thing is a lot of your listeners are successful people who've had roles in companies that are entrepreneurial in nature, and a lot of them I know people that have taught an entrepreneurship class or a lecturer at Rice University here. And there's a lot of smart kids who are starting businesses. Let's not forget Google, Facebook, some of these companies that started from college kids, and I think that's a great avenue to think about when, if you're thinking about ways to get on a board. Dave: I like it. That's really cool. Well, speaking of rounding third base, I can't believe how the time has flown by. I have just a couple other questions for you. One is I've heard about this great resignation. For you One is I've heard about this great resignation. What has been your experience? Is this trickled up to the C-suite and the board level, or is this a problem that those people are having to deal with? People lower in the organization? Tell me about the great resignation from your perspective. Jane: Well, one thing hasn't changed. If you look at CEOs of Fortune 500 companies that are recruited from the outside, I would say they have a 50% chance of being there two to three years out. And why is that? Culture fit so the top. You will always have CEO changes, especially if they come from outside and they don't fit with the culture. What I think we are seeing and we see from our clients is post-COVID. There's been so many obvious changes but a lot of things that aren't obvious. People don't want to relocate as much as they might have pre-COVID. Why is that? Well, covid scared people in terms of my parents I've got to take care of my parents, I may have to have my kids at home for high school, and do I want to go to someplace new and have something like that happen? So I think you're having that we're coming out of. But you're also having middle range employees who aren't as loyal, and you know I always tease that a lot of the younger people today. If they have a bad Monday, they may be somebody someplace else by Friday. So I think there's not quite that dickiness of what you grew up with and I grew up with. Hey, you know we want to. You know we don't want to be a quote job hopper and I think people today don't care if they're job hoppers quite as much. And there's not that people are more willing. I think in COVID accentuated that where they're more willing to take risk. And, you know, maybe I'll be without a job for a month, two months, and yeah, I think we're seeing that. And what I tell small businesses that you know be focusing on long how do you make a culture that will keep people invested long term? And there've been a lot written on that and it's different for every company depending on where your location is and what your employee mix. But I think that's a really important thing that everybody's got to do in a bigger way. And also, lastly, dave, the emphasis on mental health, something that has changed dramatically in the last three years, where you know we've got to take care of people financially. And also, how are they doing? Because so many people were isolated during COVID and had mental health issues and people talk about that more, which we never did back in the day. You just bucked it up and, you know, kept making those source calls, dave, you know. Dave: For every six you made, you got to check off a tenth of an hour of work. Jane: Exactly. You had to make a left message with 10 people to get that six. I had it backwards. Dave: It was even harder than I remembered. That's why you get so excited if somebody answered the phone because that, even if you only talk 30 seconds, you got to put them down as a yeah, no, that's right they go no, I'm not interested and you go, that's OK. Jane: Awesome, ten minutes ahead here. Dave: That is great. So so I think the two questions left, so one. Is there anything that I did not ask you that you wish I had? Is there anything we did not talk about that you think we should have? Jane: No, you're a really good interviewer, Dave, which? Dave: I learned it from you. I learned it starts with interviewing candidates and it translates to other things. Jane: Well, I'm, you know, I'm really honored to be here, dave, because the people that you serve and that you do work for. I think it is much harder to run a smaller private company than it is a big company, because you've got to have employees who are multifaceted, You've got to have employees who have an entrepreneurial mindset, you've got to have employees who have an entrepreneurial mindset. So my hat is off to the work you do the clients that you serve, because it is a hard business. Dave: Well, I appreciate that. I love serving entrepreneurs, that is for sure. So here's the last question. This is a curveball one you may remember. When you asked if you need to do any preparation, I said no, we're just going to talk about your life story and you don't need any prep. But I promise you one curveball, and here it is. Are you ready? If you could go back in time and give advice to your 25 or 28 year old self, what advice might you give yourself? Jane: Yeah, oh, that is a great. That is a great question. Don't sweat the small stuff and it's all small stuff. Dave: Okay. Jane: And the things that you worry about about 90% of them do not materialize. Dave: Was that? Was it Mark Twain or Will Rogers? I always get their two quotes conflated. But one of them said I'm an old man, man, and in my life I've known a great many. I've known a great many difficulties, most of which never came to pass, or something to that effect yes, that's right. Jane: And Mark Twain, as you will recall from our time together, said I didn't have time to write a short story, so I wrote a long story, right? Dave: Exactly. Yeah, I learned a lot about incise writing and just I'm always amazed that people that just the simplest stuff that I never picked up in English class. Like you know, bob is a person who does XYZ, he's not. It's not Bob that does something, it's Bob. Bob's not a that, he's a who. Jane: That's, that's right and word choice, and. But you know I, you know I sound like a geezer, but you know stuff like that is. I mean a lot of people today really don't know that. I mean even you know I see at the executive ranks a lot of people who, who just, and you know, I think one of the things when I talk to people early in their career is learn to write, learn business writing out there. I mean especially now with Zoom and you can do business with people by email A lot of people. And if I get a resume from somebody that doesn't spell check or anything else. Dave, one final story, and it's so good and it reminds me. It does remind me of you for obvious reasons, but I don't know if you remember that we sent a letter out one time when you joined, maybe when you rejoined us, and we said Dave is from you know, arthur Anderson, a leading public accounting firm, but we left out the L of public. Do you remember that? Dave: I remember that does sound familiar. I remember somebody saying well, I don't know what it is, but we want some right, that's funny because, yeah, when you send out as many, as much written correspondence as the firm has for so long, it can't try as you might, it can't all be perfect. Just like I'm amazed when I read, like a bestselling book that sold 20 million copies and you find a typo. You're like but you know, when I talked to an author about that they said, yeah, there's, you know, 100,000 words in here, like you, just sometimes they slip through the cracks. Jane: Well, Dave, I the thing I remember about you and I always feel like I can learn something from everybody, even though there's an you're younger than I am. But even back when you were really young and with us, you were so effective at client communication and getting business. And do you remember that? You are the ones that taught us that people are hardwired to want to help, but you have to give them a way to help you. And you would come up with a list, Like, do you know people from any of these five companies? And people would look at and go, oh yeah, I can help you, I do know somebody from here. And what a great way to teach someone how to develop their own clients as to teach the client how to help the potential client or source how to help them. Dave: Well, that's one of the benefits of being a bad employee who changed jobs every year is I was exposed to a lot of things. I learned that in the financial services business and what made it so powerful was because in the financial services business you're always trying to get you know referrals to folks and if you just say, hey, jane, you know who, do you know who's looking to buy life insurance, probably nobody comes to mind. Nobody, because nobody's come up and said hey, I need life insurance. Do you know anyone? But what I learned in that is still helpful today. But instead, if you give somebody a list of 10 people and you say, jane, I'm going to be calling these 10 people next week, I'm just curious, can you tell me, is there anyone on this list you think's particularly great or you think really highly of? And they'd say, oh sure, let me borrow your pen. They check off the before names, you're like great. And then I would say, hey, by chance, if you happen to talk to them before next week, will you tell them I'm going to call them and they, of course, would say, sure, I haven't talked to this guy. I went to law school in five years. It's unlikely I'm going to talk to him this week, but sure, I'll tell him, okay. And then, finally, jane, when I talked to John Lamar, is it appropriate to mention that you know that we had a conversation? You know that he came up in conversation? Sure, yeah, no problem. So then, when I would call the person, it was so easy. Hey, john Lamar, by chance did Jane Howes tell you I'd be calling? No, how's Jane doing? I haven't seen her since law school. Boy, she's really wonderful, I like Jane. And so, yeah, you know Jane. Huh, yeah, I haven't known her a long time. I haven't known her as long as I've known you. Meaning I've met her for 10 minutes, but all of my dealings with her were first rate, all of them. And then just say, hey, you know, jane had some nice things to say about you and she thought we might benefit from knowing meeting one another. You know, know, when are you? It was amazing how well that. But it all started with just having a list to start with, because there's a difference between if somebody like, let's say, that conversation went poorly and john lamar called you back and said, hey, why'd you have? that dave spray guy call me. Well, if you can say, I didn't tell him to call you. He already had your name. He was going to call you anyway he just asked me. Jane: Anyway, great guy, yeah right. Dave: He just wanted to know if you were a jerk or not. And apparently I was wrong because you're gonna give me a hard time. All I did was say you were a nice guy and and now you're giving me a hard time, but yeah and and dave. Jane: What I remember the funny thing was john lamar are my 30 year partner. He went to a meeting with you and he said jane, dave pulled out the list. And I said he pulled out the list. And he said yes, and it worked and we just like we were so nervous about the list. But, Dave, it really worked. Dave: It is funny. And the irony is, the time you pull the list out is when the meeting doesn't go well. You know, like it's a brief meeting and they're like no, my best man at my wedding is a partner at Horn Fairy. That's where all of our search goes. We'll never give it to anyone else. Well, now you have nothing to lose by pulling out the list. I mean, if they on the spot want to sign you up for some searches, well, just keep the list in your pocket. But and the irony was the worse the meeting goes, the more helpful. Jane: They would seem to be right because they kind of feel bad that you flew away from houston. Dave: You flew all the way from houston out to see them and they can't help you. So now, sure, I'll look at your list. I'll give you some. Jane: But it's true, the list, dave, I mean that is a course in business development and we were like God, that list is not going to work. But it works, it absolutely does. Dave: Well, and you know when I first used that this shows what how I approach business development when I was in the financial services business right at Arthur Anderson attorneys were my best prospects. So this was like 1990, excel hadn't even been invented, they were using Lotus one, two, three. And I bought the Martindale Hubble legal director. You remember this thing? The blue, yeah. Maybe it was an yeah, but it was a blue thing and what I did that I was so proud of myself. I went through that and I created a spreadsheet and I knew one attorney in Houston and he was like a second year attorney at some place and he went to U of H and I played basketball with him and I went and I had lunch with him and I pulled out the graduates from like the top 20 law firms in Houston and I'm sorted by year in college. So the first list I gave him was all of the people who graduated from law school, the ones in his start class. And then I gave him a list of all the other U of H grads who were like a couple of years older to a year younger Same thing, who do you know? And then I made the call to them and then, jane, it got to be so crazy. I would go to like V&E and I would be there like I'd have like 12 meetings in a row, like, and they would literally walk me from one office to the next and they'd be like, hey, so who's next on your list? Oh, bob. Oh, he's a hoot, yeah, you'll enjoy meeting him. And so they would escort me into the office. It was like it was this introduction from one stranger to another one, but then the new person I would meet with. So you know, lauren introduced me to a guy who started with him that went to UT, so I would have all the other UT guys at his firm and at the other firms in town and it just exploded. Like in three or four months I was like the guy for all the third year attorneys at Baker Botts and V&E and Fulbright, but anyway, that is so fun, but it works, dave, and it's something you know. Jane: 15, 20 years later I still remember. Quote the list. Dave: Yeah, yeah, some great times. So, jane, thank you so much for not only inviting me to the 40th anniversary party that was just spectacular. Seeing some of my former colleagues, that was just great and just having the ability to be friends with you and your husband and John Lamar all these years is very special. I like to say there's only one ex-girlfriend I keep in touch with and there's only one ex-employer I keep in touch with, and that's you all when you are a VIP favored status. Jane: you work for us twice and we keep hoping that phone will ring the third time, dave, and it'll be the charm. Dave: Yeah, you never know. And I would jokingly say I did two tours of duty which you know doesn't really sound very complimentary to the firm. I must say, tour of duty has a certain negativity to it in a way, you know, conscription drafted. Jane: Yes, it's. At least it's not like prison sentence. You know I'll give you that. Dave: That is awesome. Well, Jane, I could talk all day to you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate everything. Jane: Oh, my pleasure, Dave. How much fun this has been. Dave: It has been have a great day. Jane: Thanks, Dave Bye. Special Guest: Jane Howze.

*THE 2 FILMS WE DISCUSS ON THIS EPISODE DEAL WITH SUICIDE. PLEASE LISTEN WITH CAUTION* It's been teased for a while now but it's time to finally give into our demons and unleash a barrage of violence! It is time for the Campaign of Action to begin! This week, Matt gives a general overview of how this Campaign of Action will be fought on the battlefield, dragging Dave with him kicking and screaming! As well versed as Dave is in movies, he's clearly missing a few gaps in his knowledge so we begin this week with Matt testing Dave on his prior action movie habits and perhaps plugging a few gaps of missing knowledge before taking the front! Listen in and find out! Like what you hear? Keep the conversation going over on Twitter/X @AnyonePodcast. Not into Twitter? We're on Facebook too! Just search for "Anyone For Seconds Podcast". We also stream on Twitch! Watch us at twitch.tv/anyonepodcast. Longer rants, rambles and considerations can be sent via e-mail to anyoneforseconds@gmail.com. All clips are used under fair use. Theme tune composed and played by Dave *For some reason, our mics didn't record properly and were left with audio solely from the laptop. Dave has cleaned it up to the best of his abilities and should not affect your enjoyment of this episode. The tech goblins have been subsequently beaten and better audio is to come in the following weeks!

Ask Austin Anything! In this episode Austin answers questions from listeners just like you. Get your question answered on a future Ask Austin Anything episode by submitting it to the link below.Time Stamped Show Notes:[0:30] - #AAA for November 2022[0:49] - Julie - Now that we're into the holiday season, what should I do about my job search? There are a lot of layoffs and it seems like companies don't really hire this time of year anyways.[6:29] - Dave - For someone recently let go, do you recommend that they jump right into a search or pause before diving in?[9:25] - Caleb - I've recently hit a plateau on my linkedin follower growth. Advice on how to revamp?[16:54] - Anthony - If you had to start your coaching business over and were on a budget, what platforms and tools (if any) would you use?[20:36] - Shea - What are some tools you use to manage your time?Ask Austin Anything (And Have Him Answer Live On The Podcast!)Click here to submit your question.Want To Level Up Your Job Search?Click here to learn more about 1:1 career coaching to help you land your dream job without applying online.Check out Austin's courses and, as a thank you for listening to the show, use the code PODCAST to get 5% off any digital course:The Interview Preparation System - Austin's proven, all-in-one process for turning your next job interview into a job offer.Value Validation Project Starter Kit - Everything you need to create a job-winning VVP that will blow hiring managers away and set you apart from the competition.No Experience, No Problem - Austin's proven framework for building the skills and experience you need to break into a new industry (even if you have *zero* experience right now).Try Austin's Job Search ToolsResyBuild.io - Build a beautiful, job-winning resume in minutes.ResyMatch.io - Score your resume vs. your target job description and get feedback.ResyBullet.io - Learn how to write attention grabbing resume bullets.Mailscoop.io - Find anyone's professional email in seconds.Connect with Austin for daily job search content:Cultivated CultureLinkedInTwitterThanks for listening!

00:54 - Emily's Superpower: Being a Good Teacher * Greater Than Code Episode 261: Celebrating Computer Science Education with Dave Bock (https://www.greaterthancode.com/celebrating-computer-science-education) * CyberPatriot (https://www.uscyberpatriot.org/) 06:24 - Online College Courses vs In-Person Learning / Emily's Community College Path * Network Engineering (https://www.fieldengineer.com/blogs/what-is-network-engineer-definition) * Virginia Tech (https://vt.edu/) * Guaranteed Transfer Programs (https://blog.collegevine.com/an-introduction-to-guaranteed-transfer-programs/) * Loudoun Codes (http://loudouncodes.org/) * Emily Haggard: My Path to Virginia Tech (http://loudouncodes.org/2020/09/23/path_to_va_tech.html) 11:58 - Computer Science Curriculums * Technical Depth * The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (https://missing.csail.mit.edu/) 19:28 - Being A Good Mentor / Mentor, Student Relationships * Using Intuition * Putting Yourself in Others' Mindsets * Diversity and Focusing On Commonalities * Addressing Gatekeeping in Tech * Celebrating Accomplishments * Bragging Loudly * Grace Hopper Conference (https://ghc.anitab.org/) * Cultural Dynamics Spread 38:24 - Dungeons & Dragons (https://dnd.wizards.com/) * Characters as an Extensions of Players Reflections: Dave: College is what you make of it, not where you went. Arty: Teaching people better who don't have a lot of experience yet. Mandy: “Empowered women, empower women.” Empowered men also empower women. Emily: Your mentor should have different skills from you and you should seek them out for that reason. 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: MANDY: Hey, everybody! Welcome to Episode 265 of Greater Than Code. My name is Mandy Moore and I'm here with our guest panelist, Dave Bock. DAVE: Hi, I'm David Bock and I am here with our usual co-host, Arty Starr. ARTY: Thank you, Dave. And I'm here today with our guest, Emily Haggard. Emily is graduating from Virginia Tech with a Bachelor's in Computer Science this past December so, congratulations. She has a wide variety of experience in technology from web development to kernel programming, and even network engineering and cybersecurity. She is an active member of her community, having founded a cybersecurity club for middle schoolers. In her free time, she enjoys playing Dungeons and Dragons and writing novels. Welcome to the show, Emily. EMILY: Thank you. ARTY: So our first question we always ask is what is your superpower and how did you acquire it? EMILY: So I spent some time thinking about this and I would say that my superpower is that I'm a good teacher and what that means is that the people who come to me with questions wanting to learn something number one, my goal is to help them understand and number two, I think it's very important to make sure that whatever gap we have in our experience doesn't matter and that they don't feel that. So that they could be my 6-year-old brother and I'm trying to teach him algebra, or something and he doesn't feel like he is the 6-year-old trying to learn algebra. DAVE: I'll echo that sentiment about being a good teacher actually on two fronts, Emily. First of all, I am teaching your brother now in high school and just the other day, he credited you towards giving him a lot of background knowledge about the course and the curriculum before we ever started the class. So he seconds that you're a good teacher. And then listeners might remember, I was on a few weeks ago talking about my nonprofit and Emily was there at the beginning of me starting to volunteer in high schools. In fact, the way I met Emily, it was the fall of 2014. The first time I was volunteering at Loudoun Valley High School and one morning prior to class, there was going to be a meeting of a cybersecurity club. There were a bunch to the students milling about and there was this sophomore girl sitting in front of a computer, looking at a PowerPoint presentation of networking IP addresses, how the /24 of an IP address resolves and just all that kind of detail. Like very low-level detail about networking stuff and I was like, “Oh, that's interesting.” I wouldn't have expected a sophomore girl to be so interested in the low-level type of details of IP. And then the club started and she got up and started giving that presentation. That was not a slide deck she was reading; it was a slide deck she was creating. EMILY: Thank you. I actually remember that. [laughs] ARTY: So how did you acquire that superpower? EMILY: I think it was out of necessity. So going back to the story that David mentioned in high school, there was a cybersecurity competition called CyberPatriot that I competed in with friends and one year, all of a sudden, they just introduced network engineering to the competition. We had to configure and troubleshoot a simulated network and no one knew how to do that. So I took it upon myself to just figure it out so that my team could be competitive and win, but then part of the way that I learn actually is being able to teach something like that's how I grasp. I know that I've understood something and I'm ready to move on to the next topic is like, if I could teach this thing. So actually, I started out building all of that as a way to kind of condense my notes and condense my knowledge so that it'd stick in my head for the competition and I just realized it's already here, I should share this. So that's how I started there. Teaching network engineering to high schoolers that don't have any background knowledge is really hard. It forced me to put it in terms that would make sense and take away the really technical aspects of it and I think that built the teaching skill. DAVE: That relates to the club you started at the middle school for a CyberPatriot. How did that start? EMILY: That was initially a desire to have a capstone project and get out of high school a few weeks early. But I was sitting there with my friend and thinking about, “Okay, well, we need to do something that actually helps people. What should we do?” Like some people are going out and they're painting murals in schools, or gardening. It was like, well, we don't really like being outside and we're not really artistic. [chuckles] But what we do have is a lot of technical knowledge from all this work with CyberPatriot and we know that CyberPatriot has a middle school competition. So we actually approached the middle school. We had a sit down with, I think the dean at our local middle school. We talked about what CyberPatriot was and what we wanted to do with the students, which was have them bust over to the high school so we could teach them as an afterschool program. I guess we convinced him and so, a couple months later they're busing students over for us to teach. DAVE: Wow. And did they ever participate in competitions as middle schoolers? EMILY: Yes, they did. DAVE: Very cool. EMILY: Yeah. DAVE: Can you go into what those competitions are like? I don't think most of the audience even knows that exists. EMILY: Yeah, sure. So CyberPatriot, it's a cybersecurity competition for predominantly high schoolers that's run by the Air Force and you have a couple rounds throughout the year, I think it's like five, or so, and at each round you have 6 hours and you're given some virtual machines, which you have to secure and remove viruses from and things, and you get points for doing all of that. They added on network simulation, which was with some Cisco proprietary software, which would simulate your routers, your firewalls, and everything. So you'd have to configure and troubleshoot that as well and you would get points for the same thing. It builds a lot of comradery with all of us having to sit there for 6 hours after school and like, we're getting tired. It's a Friday night, everyone's a little bit loopy and all we've eaten is pizza for 6 hours. [laughs] DAVE: Well, that's a good jumpstart to your career, I think. [laughs] EMILY: Yes, for sure. MANDY: So while in college, I'm guessing that – well, I'm assuming that you've been pretty impacted by COVID and doing in-person learning versus online learning. How's that been for you? EMILY: I've actually found it pushes me to challenge the status quo. Online college classes, for the most part, the lectures aren't that helpful. They're not that great. So I had to pick up a lot of skills, like learning to teach myself, reading books, and figuring out ways to discern if I needed to research something further, if I really understood it yet, or not. That's a really hard question to ask actually is if you don't have the knowledge, how do you know that you don't have that knowledge? That's something I kind of had – it's a skill that you have to work on. So that is something I developed over the time when we were online and I've actually also done – I worked time for a year after high school and I took mostly online classes at the community college. Those skills started there, too and then I just built on them when I came to Virginia Tech and we had COVID happen. DAVE: Actually, I'd like to ask about that community college time. I know you had an interesting path into Virginia Tech, one that I'm really interested in for my own kids as well. Can you talk about that? EMILY: Yeah. So I, out of high school, always thought I'm going to – I'm a first-generation student. My parents did not go to college. They went to the military and grandparents before them. So I had always had it in my head that I am going to go and get that 4-year degree. That's what I want for myself. At the end of high school, I applied to Virginia Tech. I had a dream school. I wanted to go to Georgia Tech. They rejected me. Oh, well, that dream shot. I need to find something new. So I applied to Virginia Tech thinking it was going to be a safe bet. It's an in-state school, I was a very good student; they would never reject me and so, I applied for the engineering program and I was rejected. They did admit me for the neuroscience program, but it wasn't going to be what I wanted and I was realizing that I did not like either chemistry, or biology, so that would never work. And then at the same time, because of my work with CyberPatriot, I was able to get an internship in network engineering at a college not too far from where I lived. After I graduated high school, they offered me a job as a network engineer, which I took because my team was fantastic, I really liked my manager, and I was comfortable there. I took this job and I said, “Okay, I'm going to keep working on the college thing because it's what I always wanted for myself.” So I just signed up for community college and that was pretty tough working a full-time and doing community college until 11 o'clock at night and getting up the next day and doing it all over again. And from there, I decided that Virginia Tech was going to be the best option for me, just from a very logical perspective. I kind of thought Virginia Tech was a bit cult-y. I was never really gung-ho about going, but it made the most sense being an in-state school that's very well-known. I worked through community college and I applied to Virginia Tech again after 1 year at community college and they rejected me again. so I was like, “Oh no, now what do I do I?” And I realized I needed to make use of the guaranteed transfer program. One of the really cool things in Virginia at least is that a lot of the state schools have agreements with the community college, where if you get an associates with a specific GPA, you can transfer into that program and the university and your transfer's guaranteed, they can't reject you. So I was like, “Aha, they can't get rid of me this time.” Yeah, I did it and it's kind of a messy process. I actually went into that in a blog post on David has a nonprofit called Loudoun Codes. I wrote a blog post for his website and detailed that entire – being a transfer student is hard because there's a lot of credits that may not get transferred over because Virginia Tech is a little bit – all 4-year colleges are a little bit elitist in their attitude towards community college and they didn't take some of the credits that I had, which put me behind quite far, even though I had that knowledge, they said I didn't. So that added on some extra time and some extra summer semesters while I was at Tech. ARTY: Yeah. I did something similar with doing community college and then what you're talking about with the whole elitist attitude with the transfer and having a whole bunch of your credits not transferring and I'm definitely familiar with that whole experience. DAVE: Yeah. EMILY: And even now that I think about it, I remember community college, too. It's built for one specific type of student, which is great. I think they're really good at helping people who just weren't present, or weren't able to do the work and make the progress in high school. They're really good at helping those types of students. But as someone who did a whole bunch of AP classes, had a crazy GPA, they just didn't really know how to handle me. They said, “Okay, you've tested out of pretty much all of our math classes, but you are still lacking some credits.” So I had to take multi-variable calculus in community college in order to get credit to replace the fact that I tested out of pre-cal and which was kind of silly, but in the long run, it was great because I hear multi-variable calculus at Tech is pretty hard. But definitely, there's a lot of bureaucratic nonsense about college. Education is important. It's great. I've learned a lot of things, but there's still all these old ways of thinking and people are just not ready for change in college a lot of the time. The people who make decisions that is. DAVE: Well, I'd like to ask a little bit about the computer science curriculum that you've had and the angle I'm asking from when I worked at LivingSocial, I worked with one of the first group of people that had graduated from our bootcamp program and had transferred from other careers, spent 12 weeks learning software engineering skills, and then were integrated with a group of software engineers at LivingSocial. We would occasionally get into conversations about, well, if I learned to be a software engineer in 12 weeks, what do you learn in 4 years of college? So we started to do these internal brown bags that were kind of the Discovery Channel version of computer science. A lot of that material I've since recycled into the presentations I do at high school. But for your typical person who might have sidelined into this career from a different perspective, what's been your curriculum like? EMILY: I really like the parts of the curriculum that had technical depth because coming into it at my level, that's what I was lacking in certain areas. I had built the foundation really strong, but the details of it, I didn't have. The classes that Virginia Tech, like the notorious systems class and a cybersecurity class I have taken this semester, that have gone in detail with technology and pushed what I understood, those were my most valuable classes. There was a lot of it that I would've been happy without [laughs] because I'm not sure it will apply so much to my life going forward. I'm a very practical person. Engineer mindset; I don't want to worry about things that can actually be applied to the real world so much. So for me this semester, actually, it's been really challenging because I've taken a data structures and algorithms class where we're talking about NP complete versus NP hard, and what it would mean if we could solve an NP complete problem in polynomial time. It's really hard to care. It's really hard to see how that [laughs] helps. It's interesting from a pure math perspective, but coming into it as someone who was already in the adult world and very grounded, it feels like bloat. DAVE: Yeah. That stuff is interesting if you're are designing databases, but most of us are just using databases and that – [overtalk] EMILY: Right. DAVE: Stuff is all kind of baked in. EMILY: Yeah. DAVE: For the average person on a technical career path, we're far more interested in the business problems than the math problems. ARTY: I'm curious, too. There's also lots of stuff that seems like it's missing in college curriculum from just really fundamental things that you need to know as a software engineer. So did you have things like source control and continuous integration? I think back to my own college experience and I didn't learn about source control until I got out of college. [laughs] And why is that? Why is that? It seems so backwards because there's these fundamental things that we need to learn and within 4 years, can we not somehow get that in the curriculum? I'm wondering what your experience has been like. EMILY: So Virginia Tech, I think the CS department head is actually really good at being reflective because he requires every senior to take a seminar class as they exit. It's a one credit class; it's mostly just feedback for the school and I think it's really cool because he asks all of us to make a presentation, just record ourselves talking over some slides about our experience and the things we would change. That really impressed me that this guy who gets to make so many decisions is listening to the people who are just kind of peons of the system and what I said was that there are certain classes that they give background knowledge. Like there's one in particular where it's essentially the closest crossover we have with the electrical engineering department and it's really painful, as someone who works with software, to try and put myself in a hardware mindset working with AND gates, OR gates, and all that, and trying to deal with these simulated chips. It's awful and then it never comes back. We never talk about again in the curriculum and it's a prerequisite for the systems class, which has nothing at all to do with that, really. This segues into another thing. I've had an internship while I've been at Virginia Tech that's a web consultant role, or a development consultant role with a company called Acceleration. They run just a small office in Blacksburg and they have a really cool business model. They take students at Virginia Tech and at Radford, a neighboring school, and they have us work with clients on real software development projects. They pair us with mentors who have 5, 10 years of experiences, software consultants, and we get to learn all those things that school doesn't teach us. So that's actually how I learned Git, Scrum, and all that stuff that isn't taught in college even now and I went back to the CS department head and I said, “Replace that class with the class that teaches us Git, Scrum, Kanban, and even just a brief overview of Docker, AWS, and the concepts so that people have a foundation when they try to go to work and they're trying to read all this documentation, or they're asked to build a container image and they have no idea what it's talking about, or what it's for.” Yeah, going back to the original question, no, I didn't learn version control in college, but the weird thing is that I was expected to know it in my classes without ever being taught it because, especially in the upper level like 3,004 level, or 1,000 level classes, they have you work on group projects where Git is essential and some of them, especially the capstone project, are long-term projects and you really need to use Scrum, or use some sort of methodology rather than just the how you would treat a two-week project. Actually, it's interesting because David was my sponsor on my capstone project in college and he really helped my team with the whole project planning, sprint planning, and just understanding how Scrum and all that works and what it's for. DAVE: Yeah. I just shared a link that is a series of videos from MIT called The Missing Semester of Your Computer Science Education that talks about Git, version control and command line, using the back shell, stuff about using a database, how to use a debugger; just all that kind of stuff is stuff that you're expected to know, but never formally taught. ARTY: What about unit testing? EMILY: Okay. So that's an interesting exception to the rule, but I don't think they really carried it through, through my entire experience at Tech. So in the earlier classes, we were actually forced to write unit tests that was part of our assignments and they would look to see that we had – I think we had to have a 100% testing coverage, or very close to it. So that was good, but then it kind of dropped away as we went to the upper-level classes and you just had to be a good programmer and you had to know to test small chunks of your code because we'd have these massive projects and there would be a testing framework to see if the entire thing worked, but there was no unit testing, really. Whereas, at work in my internship, unit tests are paramount, like [laughs], we put a huge emphasis on that. ARTY: So earlier Emily, you had had mentioned teaching people that had no experience at all and the challenge of trying to be able to help and support people and learning to understand regardless of what their gap was in existing experience. So what are some of the ideas, principles, things that you've learned on how to do that effectively? EMILY: That's a really tough question because I've worked on building intuition rather than a set of rules. But I think a few of the major things probably are thinking about it long enough beforehand, because there's always a lot of background context that they need. Usually, you don't present a solution before you've presented the problem and so, it's important to spend time thinking about that and especially how you're going to order concepts. I've noticed, too with some of the best teachers I've had in college is they were very careful with the order in which they introduced topics to build the necessary context and that's something that's really important with complete beginners. The thing is sometimes you have to build that context very quickly, which the best trick I have for that is just to create an analogy that has nothing to do with technology at all, create it out of a shared experience that you have, or something that they've probably experienced. Like a lot of times analogies for IP addressing use the mailing service, houses on a street and things like that, things that are common to our experience. I guess, maybe that's the foundation of it is you're trying to figure out what you have in common with this person that can take them from where they are to where you are currently and that requires a lot of social skills, intuition, and practice, so. DAVE: That's a really good observation because one of the things I find teaching high school, and this has been a skill I've had to learn, is being able to put my mindset in the point of view of the student that I need to go to where they are and use a good metaphor analogy to bring them up a step. That's a real challenge to be able to strip away all the knowledge I have and be like, “Oh, this must be the understanding of the problem they have” and try to figure out how to walk them forward. EMILY: Yeah. DAVE: That's a valuable skill. EMILY: I think that's really rewarding, though because when I see in their eyes that they've understood it, or I watch them solve the problem, then I know that I did it well and that's really rewarding. It's like, okay, cool. I got them to where I wanted them to be. ARTY: Reminds me. I was helping out mentoring college students for a while and I hadn't really been involved with college for a really long time. I was working with folks that knew very, very little and it was just astounding to me one, just realizing how much I actually knew. That's easy to take for granted. But also, just that if you can dial back and be patient, it's really rewarding I found to just be able to help people, to see that little light go on where they start connecting the dots and they're able to make something appear on the screen for the first time. That experience of “I made that! I made that happen.” I feel like that's one of the most exciting things about software and in programming is that experience of being able to create and make something come to life in that way. Just mentoring as an experience is something, I think is valuable in a lot of ways beyond just the immediate being able to help someone things, like it's a cool experience being a mentor as well. EMILY: And I think it's really important, too as a mentor to have good mentors yourself. I was really lucky to have David just show up in my high school one day [laughs] and I've been really lucky consistently with the mentors in my life. In my internship that I mentioned, I worked with fantastic engineers who are really good teachers. It's difficult to figure out how to good teacher without having first had good teachers yourself and regardless of the level of experience I have, I think I will always want to have that mentor relationship so that I can keep learning. One of the things, too is a lot of my mentors are quite different from mine. Like I am a very quiet introvert person. I would not say I'm very charismatic. I would say David is the opposite of all those things. So wanting to build those skills myself, it's good to have a role model who has them. DAVE: Well, thank you for that compliment. EMILY: Yeah. MANDY: That's really interesting that you said to find mentor that's the opposite of yourself. I literally just heard the same thing said by a different person last week that was like, “Yeah, you should totally find someone who you want to be, or emulate,” and I thought that was really good advice. EMILY: I agree with that completely. There's a lot of conversation around diversity in computer science and that's definitely a problem. Women do not have the representation they should, like I've always gone through classes and been 1 of 3 women in the class. [chuckles] But I think one of the ways in which we can approach this, besides just increasing the enrollment number, is focusing on commonalities—kind of what I mentioned before— from the perspective of mentors who are different than their students. Maybe a male mentor trying to mentor a female student. Focusing on your commonalities rather than naturally gravitating towards people who are like you; trying to find commonalities with people who are different from you. I think that's important. From the student perspective, it's less about finding commonalities more about, like you said, finding the things you want to emulate. Looking at other groups of people and figuring out what they're good at and what things you would like to take from them. [laughs] So. DAVE: Yeah, that's been an interesting challenge I've noticed in the school system is that in the elementary school years, boys and girls are equally competent and interested in this material. By the time they get to high school, we have that 70/30 split of males versus females. In the middle school, the numbers are all over place, but in the formal classes, it seems to be at 70/30 split by 7th grade and I can't really find any single root cause that causes that. Unfortunately, I think I saw some stuff this week with Computer Science Education Week where students as young as first grade are working with small robots in small groups and there always seems to be the extrovert boy that is like, “It's a robot. I'm going to be the one that plays with it,” and he gatekeeps access to girls who are like, “It's my turn.” It's really discouraging to see that behavior ingrained at such a young age. Any attempt I try to address it at the high school level – well, not any attempt, but I feel like a lot of times I can come off as the creepy old guy trying to encourage high school age girls to be more interested in computer science. It's a hard place for me to be. EMILY: Yeah. I don't think you're the creepy old guy. [laughter] I think this is a larger topic in society right now is it's ingrained in women to be meek and to not be as confident, and that's really hard to overcome. That sounds terrible. I don't think people consciously do that all the time. I don't think men are consciously trying to speak over women all the time, but it it's definitely happened to me all over the place—it's happened at work, it's happened in interviews. I think getting over that is definitely really tough, but some of the things that have helped me are to see and celebrate women's accomplishments. Like every time I hear about Grace Hopper, it makes me so happy. I know one time in high school, David took a few other female students and I to a celebration of women's accomplishments and the whole thing, there were male allies there, but the topic of the night was women bragging loudly about the things that they've accomplished. Because that's not something that's encouraged for us to do, but it's something that it builds our confidence and also changes how other people see us. Because the thing is, it's easy to brag and it's saddening that people will just implicitly believe that the more you say you did. So the more frequently you brag about how smart you are, the more inclined people are to believe it because we're pretty suggestible as humans. When women don't do that, that subtly over time changes the perspective of us. We have to, very intently – I can't think of a word I'm trying to say, but be very intentional about bragging about ourselves regardless of how uncomfortable it is, regardless of whether we think we deserve it, or not. MANDY: I also think it's really important for women to also amplify other women, like empowered women empower women. So when we step up and say, “Look at this thing Emily did, isn't that cool?” EMILY: Yeah. MANDY: That's something that we should be doing to highlight and amplify others' accomplishments. EMILY: For sure. I've been to the Grace Hopper conference virtually because it was during COVID times, but that was a huge component of it was there would be these networking circles where women just talk about the amazing things that they've done and you just meet all these strangers who have done really cool things. It goes in both directions, like you said, you get to raise them up and also be encouraged yourself and have something to look forward to. ARTY: It sounds like just being exposed to that culture was a powerful experience for you. EMILY: For sure. ARTY: I was thinking about our conversation earlier about role models and finding someone to look up to that you're like, “You're a really cool person. I admire you.” Having strong women as role models makes it much easier for us to operate a certain way when we interact with other people, and stay solid within ourself and confident within ourself and not cave in. When all the examples around us of women are backing off, caving in, and just being submissive in the way that they interact with the world, those are the sort of patterns we pick up and learn. Likewise, the mixed gender conversations and things that happen. We pick up on those play of dynamics, the things that we see, and if we have strong role models, then it helps us shift those other conversations. So if we have exp more experience with these things, like the Grace Hopper conference and being able to go into these other that have a culture built around strong women and supporting being a strong woman, then you can take some of those things back with you in these other environments and then also be a role model for others. Because people see you being strong and standing up for yourself, being confident and they might have the same reaction to you of like, “Wow, I really admire her. She's really cool.” And then they start to emulate those things too. So these cultural dynamics, they spread and it's this subconscious spreading thing that happens. But maybe if we can get more experiences in these positive environments, we can iteratively take some of those things back with us and influence our other environments that, that maybe aren't so healthy. EMILY: Yeah. I agree. And I think also, it's important to be honest and open about where you started because it's easy, if you're a really confident woman walking into the room, for people to think you've always been that way. I think it's important to tell the stories about when you weren't, because that's how other people are going to connect with you and see a path forward for themselves. Definitely. I'll start by telling a story. I think it's just a million small experiences. I was a strong student in high school. I was very good at math. We had study halls where we'd sit in the auditorium and we'd all be doing homework, and students would often go to the guy in my math class who knew less than I did and ask for help. I would just sit there and listen to him poorly help the other students and mostly just brag about himself, and just be quiet and think about how angry it made me, but not really be able to speak up, or say anything. I'm very different now. Because of the exposure that I've had, I am much more quick to shut that down and to give a different perspective when someone's acting that way. MANDY: But how cool would it have been if that guy would've been like, “Don't ask me, ask Emily”? DAVE: That's a really important point because I hear women talk about this problem all the time and I don't think the solution is a 100% in the women's hands. I think that it's men in the room. My own personal experience, most of my career has been spent in government contracting space and, in that space, the percentage of women to men is much higher. It's still not great, but I think there's a better attempt at inclusion during recruiting. I think that there's a lot of just forces in that environment that are more amenable to that as a career path for women. And then when I started consultancy with my two business partners, Kim and Karen, that was an unheard-of thing that I had two women business partners and at the time we started it, I didn't think it was that big of a deal at all. But then we were suddenly in the commercial space and people thought it was some scam I was running to be a minority owned company and my partner was my wife, or I'd go into a meeting and somebody thought I brought a secretary and I was like, “No, she's an engineer and she's good, if not better than me.” It opened my eyes to the assumptions that people make about what the consulting rates even should be for men versus women and it's in that environment I learned that I had to speak up. I had to represent to be a solution to that problem. I think you can get in an argument with other guys where they aren't even convinced there's a problem to solve. They'll start talking about, “Oh, well, women just aren't as interested in this career path.” It's like, I've known plenty that are and end up leaving. EMILY: I think definitely having support from both sides has been really important because it is typically men in places of authority and to have them be encouraging and not necessarily forcing you into the spotlight, but definitely trying to raise you up and encourage you to speak out means a lot. ARTY: Yeah. I found most of the teams I've been on, I was the only woman on the team, or one of two maybe and early on, when nobody knows you, people make a lot of assumptions about things. The typical thing I've seen happen is when you've got a woman programmer is often, the bit is flipped pretty early on of that oh, she doesn't know what she's doing and stuff, we don't need to listen to what she says kind of thing and then it becomes those initial conversations and how things are framed, tend to affect a lot of how the relationships on the team are moving forward. One of the things that I learn as just an adaptive thing is I was really smart. So what I do, the first thing on the team I'd find out what the hardest problem was, that none of the guys could solve and figure it out, and then I would go after that one. My first thing on the team, I would go and tackle the hardest thing. I found that once you kick the ass of the biggest baddy on the yard, respect. [laughter] So I ended up not having problems moving forward and that the guys would be more submissive toward me, even as opposed to the other way around. But it's like you come into a culture that is dominated by certain ways of thinking in this masculine hierarchy, alpha male thing going on and if that's the dominant culture, you have to learn to play that game and stake yourself in that game. Generally speaking, in this engineering world, intelligence is fairly respected. So I've at least found that that's been a way for me to operate and be able to reset that playing field anyway. MID-ROLL: This episode is supported by Compiler, an original podcast from Red Hat discussing tech topics big, small, and strange. Compiler unravels industry topics, trends, and the things you've always wanted to know about tech, through interviews with the people who know it best. On their show, you will hear a chorus of perspectives from the diverse communities behind the code. Compiler brings together a curious team of Red Hatters to tackle big questions in tech like, what is technical debt? What are tech hiring managers actually looking for? And do you have to know how to code to get started in open source? I checked out the “Should Managers Code?” episode of Compiler, and I thought it was interesting how the hosts spoke with Red Hatters who are vocal about what role, if any, that managers should have in code bases—and why they often fight to keep their hands on keys for as long as they can. Listen to Compiler on Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. We'll also include a link in the show notes. Our thanks to Compiler for their support. ARTY: Well, speaking of games, Arty, one of the things that Emily mentions in her bio is playing Dungeons and Dragons and this is an area where as well as I know Emily from her high school years, this is not something I know much about Emily at all. So I'd like to talk about that. Play, or DM, Emily? EMILY: Both. But I really enjoy DMing because it's all about creating problems to solve, in my opinion, like you throw out a bunch of story threads. The way I approach things is I try actually, unlike a lot of DMs, I do not do a lot of world building for places my players haven't been. I pretty much, there are bright light at the center of the world and anything the light doesn't touch doesn't exist. I haven't written it and I don't really look at it that often. So I'm constantly throwing out story threads to try and see what they latch onto and I'll dive into their character backstory to see what they are more predisposed to be interested in. It's like writing a weekly web comic. You don't have necessarily a set beginning and end and you don't really know where you're going to end up in between, but you end up with all these cool threads and you can tie them together in new and interesting ways. Just seeing the connections between those and being able to change what you want something to be on the fly is really cool and just very stimulating mentally for me. So it's like a puzzle exercise the whole time and it is also an interesting social exercise because you're trying to balance the needs of each person. I feel like D&D allows you to know people on a really deep level, because a lot of times, our characters are just – that we're playing. I guess, I didn't really explain what D&D is; I just made an assumption that people would know. It's a tabletop role playing game where you make a character. You're usually heroic and you're going about on this adventure trying to help people solve problems and these characters tend to be just naturally an extension of ourselves. So you get to see all the things that subconsciously the person doesn't real about themselves, but that show up in their character. I think that's really cool. DAVE: So do you have a weekly game, or how often do you play? EMILY: I try to run a weekly game. College often gets in the way. [laughs] DAVE: How many players? EMILY: It ranges from 3 to 4, sometimes 5. It's really cool because it's also, most of them are people that I met during the pandemic. So we've played predominantly online and this is the way we've gotten to know each other. We've become really close in the year, or so since we started playing together through the game that I DM and through the game that one other person in the group DMs and it's cool. It's definitely a way to kind of transcend the boundaries of Zoom and of video calls in general. DAVE: Hmm. ARTY: How did you end up getting into that? EMILY: It was just a friend group in high school. Someone said, “Hey, I would like to run a Dungeon and Dragons game. Do you want to play?” And I said, “Oh, what's that?” I've always loved books and reading so it was kind of a natural progression to go from reading a story to making a story collaboratively with other people. So that just immediately, I had a connection with it and I loved the game and that's been a huge part of my hobbies and my outside of tech life ever since. DAVE: Yeah. I played D&D as a kid in the late 70s, early 80s, but my mom took all my stuff away from me when that Tom Hanks movie came out that started the whole Satan panic thing. So I didn't play for a long time until my own kids were interested after getting hooked on Magic. Seeing my own kids interested in D&D, the story building, the writing, the math that they had to do, like I don't know why any parent wouldn't encourage their kids to play this game. It's just phenomenal. The collaborative, creative, sharing, math; it's got everything. EMILY: Yeah. I'm an introverted person so it takes a lot to make me feel motivated to be in a group with other people consistently, but D&D does that and it does it in a way that's not, I guess, prohibitive to people who are naturally shy. Because you're pretending to be someone else and you're not necessarily having to totally be yourself and you're able to explore the world through a lens that you find comfortable. DAVE: That's really cool. EMILY: I guess, also, it kind of goes back to our conversation about teaching. Being a DM, a lot of my players are people who have not played before, or very, very new. Like, maybe they've read a lot about it, maybe they've watched them [43:18] shows, but they maybe haven't necessarily played. D&D does require a lot of math and there's a lot of optimization, like you can get very into the weeds with your character sheet trying to make the most efficient battle machine, whatever and that's not really always approachable. Especially when I started introducing my younger siblings to D&D, I used versions, D&D like games that were similar, but not quite D&D. Like less math, a very similar amplified character sheets so you're looking at fewer numbers, or fewer calculations involved just to kind of get the essence, because there's a few core concepts in D&D. You have six statistics about your character that they change a little bit between different types of role-playing games, but they're pretty universal, I think for the most part. It's constitution, strength, dexterity, wisdom, intelligence, and charisma. Once you kind of nail those concepts down and once a person understands what those skills are supposed to mean, that really opens the gates to understanding a lot more about the core mechanics of D&D outside of the spell casting stuff and all the other math that's involved. I think just simplifying the game down to that makes them fall in love with the narrative and collaborative aspect of the game, and then be more motivated to figure out the math, if they weren't already predisposed to that. DAVE: So if somebody were interested in picking up a game trying to figure it out, where would they start? EMILY: It really to depends on the age group. If you're going to play with high school students, I would definitely say if none of you have played before, then pick up a player's handbook, maybe a dungeon master's guide if you're going to DM, you've never DM before because it gives a lot of tips for just dealing with the problems that arise in a collaborative storytelling game. And then probably just a prewritten module so you don't have to worry about building your own story, because these modules are stories that are written by professional game developers and you can take pieces of them and iterate it on yourself so you don't have to start with nothing. But if you are going for a much younger audience, I can't remember off the top of my head what it was, but it's essentially an animal adventure game. It's very much D&D without using the word D&D because I think it's a different company, it's copyrighted, and whatnot. But you have these little cute dog characters and they're trying to defeat an evil animal overlord who wants to ruin the town festival. It's very family friendly, like there's no death like there is in regular D&D and it's just a chance to engage with the character creation aspect of it. MANDY: That's really cool. So we're about heading towards our time, but I really appreciate you coming on the show, Emily and I wanted to just ask you, if you could give any advice to young girls looking to get into tech, or software engineering, what advice would you give them? EMILY: I think don't be afraid to walk off the path. A lot of my life has been kind of bucking the prewritten path that a lot of people are told is the best one because it didn't work for me, or whatever reason, and I think it's important just to not be afraid of that and to be courageous in making your own path. MANDY: That's great advice. So should we head into reflections, everyone? Who wants to start us off? DAVE: I'll start with one. I mentioned that when asked Emily about her path into college, that I was interested in a similar path for my own kids. I had a really strange college path that I started out a music major, ended up a computer science major, and had a non-traditional path. I've always believed that college is what you make of it, not where you went. Where you went might help you get your first job, but from then on, it's networking, it's personality, it's how well you did the job. Talking to Emily about her path, just reinforces that to me and helps me plot a path for what I might have my own children do. I have triplet boys that are in 9th grade. So we're starting to think about that path and not only would a path through Virginia Community College save us a fortune, [laughs] it would also be a guaranteed admission into Virginia Tech, or one of the Virginia schools so it's definitely something worth to consider. So I appreciate that knowledge, Emily. ARTY: I've been thinking a lot about how we can better teach people that don't have a lot of experience yet. We've got so much stuff going on in this field of software engineering and it's really easy to not realize how far that this plateau of knowledge that we live in and work with every day to do our jobs, and how important it is to bring up new folks that are trying to learn. One of the things you said, Emily was about teaching is being able to find those shared things where we've got a common understanding about something—you used metaphor of male delivery to talk about IP addresses, for example. But to be thinking in those ways of how do we find something shared and be able to get more involved with mentoring, reaching back, and helping support people to learn because software is super cool. It really is! We can build amazing, amazing things. It'd be awesome if more of us were able to get involved and have that experience and having good mentors, having good role models, all of those things make a big difference. MANDY: I just love the conversation that we had about men and women in technology and for me, I love to reiterate the fact that empowered women empower women and I even want to take that a step further by saying especially right now in our field, empowered men also empower women. So I think that that's something that really needs to be said and heard and not perceived as like Dave said oh, he felt like the creepy guy encouraging girls, or women to get involved in tech. I think it's cool. Dave has personally, he's mentored me. He's gotten me more interested. I used to do assistant work and now I'm learning programming and it's because I've been encouraged to do so by a lot of different men in the industry that I've been lucky to know. DAVE: Well, thank you, Mandy. You certainly have a who's who of mentors. MANDY: I am very, very lucky to know the people I know. DAVE: I'm quite honored to even be named on that list of people you know. [laughter] EMILY: I think the thought I keep coming back to is one that I've mentioned, but didn't really crystallize in my head until this morning when I was preparing for this recording is, I listened to David's interview and I thought about like, “Oh wow, he did really well on the podcast, all these things that I wish I did.” It really crystallized the idea that your mentor should be different from you and should have skills you don't, and you should seek them out for that reason. Mentors tend to be the people that I run into and I haven't really thought about it that way before, but that gives me a different perspective to go out and intentionally seek out those people. That definitely gives some food for thought for me. [laughs] MANDY: I love intentionally seeking out people who are different from myself in general, just to learn and get perspectives that I might have never even thought of before. But with that, I guess we will wrap up. Emily, it's been so nice having you on the show. Congratulations and best of luck on your exams. I know being – [overtalk] DAVE: I can't believe you took the time to do this with your exams coming up. MANDY: I know! EMILY: I'm procrastinating as hard as I can. [laughter] MANDY: But it's been so nice to have you on the show. Dave, thank you for coming and being a guest panelist and Arty, it's always wonderful to host with you. So I just wish everybody a happy new year and we'll see you next week! Special Guests: Dave Bock and Emily Haggard.

Episode 165 - Promising Young Woman Don Dave and Kelly watch Promising Young Woman this week! Reaction to the film moments before we watch and seconds after its over! Dave's Favorite movie of the year, does it hold up on second viewing?? Will Kelly and Don kill Dave For spending another Friday night in the Basement?? DOWNLOAD NOW!!! Fantastic artwork this and every week is from elbycreative.com #podcasting #movieaddict #cinemalovers #moviechatter #netflix #hometheater #podcasts #amazonprimevideo #netflix #hulu #hbomax #godzillavskong #sex #2021films #shudder #moviechatterpodcast Send all Questions to moviechatterpodcast@gmail.com #promisingyoungwoman --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/moviechatterpodcast/message

Deep down inside, don't you just wish someone would hear your cry for help? Big Boy Buddy Love was A DJ & Pro Wrestler. Also, a man struggling with severe depression for years. His life takes a giant turn, from a couch to a different stage and a life-changing ministry after he takes his cue from God. This is a story you don't want to miss, the everyday extraordinary, Dave Ebert.This verse was transforming for Dave: IJohn 5:13-"I write these things to yo who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life."Gifts for Glory Website:https://www.gifts4glory.com/ FB/IG/Twitter: @gifts4gloryWell Versed Comedy, Website:https://www.wellversedcomedy.com/FB/IG/Twitter: @wellversedcmdyGreat quote from Dave:"For many years, I used to use comedy to hide who I was, but now I use comedy to reveal who He is."to newbie improv people he would say:"Your job is not to be funny. You do not have to be funny. Take that burden off of you, because improv is built on being human. Humans are funny. I think God built us as much for love and compassion as he did for comic relief."Stories Dave shares:-Father with agent orange and how it affected him as a kid-A relative fallen from grace in the ministry-Rejection in his youth-severe depression-suicidal thoughts-unhelpful counselors-how God spoke to him, in a near death moment-Pro Wrestling-Big Boy Buddy Love's 3 signature moves-Being a DJ-his sister took him in-how the love of God has changed him-how Haha Men Ministry started and evolved-How Well Versed Comedy began-How Well Versed Comedy pivoted during Quarantine-online Improv Nights-HowGifts for Glory podcast came about-God lead him to help with human trafficking survivors-Seeing laughter change people-Improv tips-How he loves wearing Depends. ------------------------------------------For more inspiring stories:https://lettersfromhomepodcast.com/*FREE APP* Letters From Home Podcast has its own downloadable app., with all of our episodes in one easy place. Search our podcast name in the Apple APP store, and in the Google Play store. All free!To suggest a story that must be told, yours or someone else’s, let’s chat. Also, we would love to support you in prayer.lfhpodcast@gmail.comTo join our Facebook Group for bonus live stories and convos:https://www.facebook.com/groups/3475957805750898For one splashy bright monthly Letters From Home Newsletterhttps://lettersfromhomepodcast.com/newsletter/To check out our YouTube channel:https://youtube.com/channel/UC_SR3ltt5p1w-hzjvGX5vag?view_as=subscriber/Ways to help Letters From Home make better content & and reach more people: here are our prayer requests & a giving link:https://lettersfromhome.com/support/We r on Instagram, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon, Google, iHeartRadio and all of the places podcasts live :)... all you need to do is type in ‘Letters From Home Podcast’ and it should pop right up.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=32455563" data-patreon-widget-type="become-patron-button">Become a Patron!

Show from 7/26/19Jeff Weniger, Director of Asset Allocation at WisdomTree, steps in to host this special edition of Behind the Markets with Jeremy Schwartz and Jeremy Siegel! They talk to David Rosenberg about the European Central Bank, interest rates and the fed. They also review the flood of corporate earnings out this week and what they say about the U.S. economy. Plus a look at global markets from Japan to Switzerland.Guest:David Rosenberg, Chief Economist and Strategist at Gluskin Sheff, a Canadian-based wealth management firm. Dave was Chief North American Economist at Merrill Lynch in New York for seven years, during which he was consistently ranked in the Institutional Investor All-Star analyst rankings. He also writes a very popular daily newsletter called Breakfast with Dave. Breakfast with Dave: For a three month trial email drosenberg@gluskinsheff.com Check out his site: https://www.gluskinsheff.com/Thinking/ResearchFollow him on Twitter: @EconguyRosie See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Find Lesson Planning for Language TeachersPrinciples of Task Design (With Dave Weller) - TranscriptionRoss Thorburn: Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. Today, our favorite guest is with us, Dave Weller.Dave Weller: Hurrah!Ross: [laughs] Today, Dave and I are going to talk a bit about Task Design. Before we jump into that, why is Task Design useful or important, or worth thinking about?Dave: Good question. Mainly because when we first become teachers or, at least, I know when I did, I just ran with whatever activities were suggested to me, or games that other teachers have worked very well to get the students engaged and motivated.It was only later [laughs] that I started to question, "Hang on, are my students actually learning anything?" Then shamefully, I didn't think about that soon enough.Dave: That's when you start to realize that, is what I'm doing actually helping the learners, or is it just using time. That's where Task Design pops up, and I think, "OK, the way I run my activity, the way I've structured my activity, it can make a huge difference to what students think about, the language they use, and the practice they get."Ross: There's also maybe something about evaluating what you're already doing there, isn't there? That first step that you mentioned maybe is looking at, "What am I doing now? How good is it?" Maybe before I start designing anything else.Today, we're going to run through Dave's six top tips for ways to design tasks. We're going to look at aims, gaps, load, materials, thinking, and rehearsal. Tell us the first tip tasks should support aims.Dave: When you think about the task, think about what language is it likely to get students to produce. Is that the same as your target language? Often, especially if you're just looking for an activity or a game to fill time, you start running that activity, and the language that comes out of the student's mouth is very different.I'm using different grammar, different lexis, different from maybe that you were expecting. Sure, that is practice, but it might be something they already know really well. They default to something that they are confident using. It's not pushing to use things they're not comfortable with. Therefore, growing or getting better at the language doesn't really happen.Ross: I think as well this, it's maybe when you're lesson planning, it can also be worth thinking about changing your aim to reflect the task as opposed to just changing the task to reflect the aim. A lot of people maybe tend to start off with the aim and work forward from that. It's like forward planning, whereas, something I sometimes encourage people to do is reverse planning.Starting at the end of the class, what's a great task that you think is going to be useful for the students, and then trying to make sure that your aim, and everything you teach matches the task.Dave: If you have the luxury of doing that, that's almost the best way to do, but it depends where you're working and the context you're in. Some schools are quite strict about the syllabus they're using, or the course book you have to follow. You have to tick off certain grammar points or sets of vocabulary.If you would just let me free a context where maybe a class works, just like an English corner, then, sure, coming up with an activity you know will work well for that group and working backwards from that is freer.Ross: Again, maybe as well with that aim, it's easier practically to add things to it than to take things away from it. You're probably less likely to get a complaint if you've taught an extra few things that have gone beyond what's in the syllabus. The issue is usually when you cut things from it.Dave: Yes, totally.Ross: The next step is tasks need a gap. What's a gap, for those unfamiliar?Dave: [laughs] It doesn't mean you just stop half‑way through, and you freeze.[laughter]Dave: If there's no input for five minutes at all, you just have to take your little nap.[laughter]Ross: It's the same as a break.Dave: Yeah, I wish. Now, surprisingly, I don't see much written about this. There's an author, Prabhu, and he mentioned that in any type of communication, there are gaps. The three are the information gaps, where perhaps you and I have different information about subjects.Maybe, I want to get to the train station, and you know the way, and I don't. Then, there might be a reasoning gap. Perhaps we all have the same information, but we're trying how to use that information to achieve an objective.For example, planning a night out or choosing where to go on holiday. We're using our logic and our reason to pick the best option, and we can do that collaboratively.The last gap is an opinion gap, where students would agree or disagree with each other based on their personal preferences. Debates are a good example.Ross: I choose a new picture for the classroom or something like that, and here's a choice, which ones do you like, and justify it, why, that kind of thing.Dave: Yes. Exactly.Ross: I've also seen people add to this experience gaps or getting people to talk about what they personally have experienced in their own lives, and how that might be different between students and [inaudible 4:39] to that.Dave: For me, a lot of that could fall under the information gap because you're just talking about life experience, and I have that, and you don't. That's really good in more adult classes if you have a nice mix of students with different experience in the classroom.Ross: Do you want to talk about this for young learners for a second? Because I think with these, it's easier to think of examples for adults than for kids. For kids, we're talking about, for example, what might be a reasoning gap for young learners that would work?Dave: Sure. I'll start with the information gap. That could be, you give pairs different pictures. Student A has a picture of a toy or a character, and person B has a blank piece of paper. They're taking turns to describe that character to them, and then they got to draw it. Then I'll [inaudible 5:26] get, "Sky" and they've got a big head, they've got small eyes, or whatever it might be.Ross: [inaudible 5:31].[laughter]Dave: Yes. No hair.[laughter]Ross: It is something that is worth talking about is this classroom management aspect. When I see this going wrong, a lot of the time, someone's had this idea that student A will have this information, student B will not, and they have to talk, but what just ends up happening...Say, if it's a running dictation that the student whose gone outside to look at the picture, we detect just ends up writing the answer, or are going to find someone who activity...I've got my sheet with...Find someone who can speak more than two languages, and then I just give you the pen. Tell you to write your name in there.I've also seen one where students have to find a way from A to B on a map, but these students show each other the map, so there's no gap there. With that, it's really worth thinking about how it's actually going to play out in the reality of the classroom. How, as a teacher, are you going to make sure that students don't just take the short‑cut of showing the other person the information?Dave: Oh, absolutely. An example, just stay with the A and B describing pictures to each other, I might line mapping roads. We'll have them get one road to [inaudible 6:36] and face the other road, and fixed seats somewhere. They will have to visibly hold up their paper in front of them.As a teacher, you can immediately see if someone's not doing what you've asked them to do, and it's a point of frown on them, whatever your behavior management system is.Ross: Sure.Dave: Or even making a favorite toy, or you're going to have to design a new character when you've watched a very short clip of a monster movie, a cartoon monster, and they have to make you a monster. You give them a certain set of features.Like, you can choose from these body parts. There's a selection of ears and eyes, your legs and arms, and body types, and then they have to put them together to create the scariest monster they can.Ross: I love those. One of the problems you often get with that is that teachers assume that, because I've taught, say, body parts, that that type of task is going to work really well. What I think the actual language you get in a task like that is like, "No, I disagree. I want this one. This is better. I don't like that."I think often with those, that's something that's really worth thinking about. Like what is the language that's going to come up? Because, really probably a lot of time what you're doing is just pointing to something and say, "I want this one," or "I like that one."Dave: Sure. The trick is, again, that's just shouldn't be the main task. That should be the pre‑task almost. Actually, it's really nice. It's another one of the criteria for task design, which is, think about or consider what students are going to think about.Cognitive psychology does show us that what students think about, they will remember. There's a really nice quote that memories erases your thought. You probably heard that on here before.Ross: No, actually I think that will be the first time, but Daniel Willingham, right?Dave: Yes, from his book, "Why Don't Students Like School?" If students are over‑excited, if the task is too stimulating, I always revert to the first language, especially young learners, and start using first language to complete the task.Ross: Because almost with kids there's this maybe lack of being able to self‑regulate in both your own behavior, but I guess, also in what language you're going to use. If you've got them dialed up to 11 on the excitements scale, then the chance that you're going to be able to decide to use your second language to do this thing is pretty unlikely.Dave: Exactly. Yes.Ross: Taking that also links back to what you're saying at the very beginning, that, as a new teacher or as new teachers, I think a lot of us assume that if the students are smiling and having fun and they're excited, then it's a great class, but maybe sometimes dialing that back a bit is actually beneficial.Dave: Absolutely. The opposite is entirely true, as well. If they're bored, I'll be talking in the first language but probably off topic.Ross: It's some sweet spot in the middle [laughs] between utter boredom and complete excitement.Dave: Yeah, exactly. That thing, that example you gave of, if they are making or creating something, maybe drawing or making something out of Play‑Doh, or whatever they're doing, they won't be using the language to do that. They'd taken a product of that task and then using it to use the language that you want to. That's where the learning's going to happen.Ross: Sorry to start jumping around there, but I think this relates to your last point of mentally rehearsing the tasks and thinking about like, what is actually physically going to happen here? I think that's one example.Another one is maybe, we took the farm animals and then for the last hour people are going to make their own farm, but, of course, what language are you using there? You're probably saying things like, "Can I have a red pencil, please?" Or, "Please, pass me the scissors," which is completely unrelated to the farm animals. The students won't be thinking about that at all.Dave: Exactly. It's so simple to avoid that by very quickly putting yourself in the student's shoes and thinking, what language do I need to use to complete this task?Ross: To take us back maybe to a minute if we're teaching adults. I think if it's a very high stakes class, if you're being observed for something that's really, really important, and you've got a task. You can always just find maybe two or three students wandering around the school and trying to do the task within 15 minutes.Not the students that will be in your class later, but just to see how actually it pans out, or just turn around to the person next to you in the teacher's room and go, "Can you do this with me for two minutes?"Dave: Jump out from behind and photocopy it.[laughter]Dave: I need your help with a task.Ross: Yes, covering this farm.[laughter]Ross: How about going back to number three then, cognitive load? That's a term that certainly I was not familiar with until relatively recently. What's cognitive load?Dave: Cognitive load is the challenge of the task itself. How difficult will learners find it? If you are expecting to use language that is far above what they can do, they'll look at the task or start to think about, realize it's well beyond what they can do, and you'll see engagement just drop like a stone.Again, the idea of picking a sweet spot between something that they're able to do with help, and this is almost like scaffolding of all the idea of what they can do. [inaudible 11:20] what I can do with help today, they'll be able to do without help tomorrow.Ross: I guess, here, as well, we're not just talking about necessarily how difficult the language is, but we might be thinking about how cognitively tough the task is. Earlier, for example, we were talking about information gaps, reasoning gaps, and opinion gaps.Maybe a reasoning gap where you've got this much money, these are some different options, these are some different preferences of people in the groups. That sounds like there's going to be a lot more thinking going on there from the students than an information gap where you described...[crosstalk]Ross: Right. When that happens, maybe it's worth thinking about how the processing power and the student's brain is going to be used to be maybe more thinking about the problem rather than for producing language.You might get less accuracy and less fluency. Just like me on this podcast, I stumble over words when I'm trying to explain a difficult concept.[crosstalk]Dave: That happens to all of us, right? You can see when someone's very familiar with the topic because they're fluent, they're calm, they're confident. They're not using discourse markers like, "um," "uh," and so on. When we're trying to think about how best to explain it, we slow down, we stumble over our words.Another thing that is very worth mentioning is that this level of challenge can also apply to the incidental language in class, like teachers giving instructions. I've observed classes where the students are frazzled by the time they get to the task, because the teacher speaks very quickly, they're not creating their language appropriately for the level.The students are leaning forward, trying to follow the thread of the teacher, and then they finish, they have to clarify with their friends next to them. "Did she say this?" "Did she say that?" Then by the time they get to the task, "I've just spent five minutes of intensive listening practice," and now you can get a listening to do that.Ross: It's almost like what students will think about. It sounds like in your example there they were thinking about what on earth could the instructions be rather than what was in the lesson.[laughter]Ross: Well, Dave, thanks for joining us. All of those tips were from just one tiny part of one chapter in "Lesson Planning for Language Teachers ‑‑ Evidence‑Based Techniques for Busy Teachers" by our very own, Dave Weller. Dave, where can people get a hold of it?Dave: Thanks to the plug, Ross. This is a brand new book for me. You can find it on Amazon as an e‑book or a paperback. Planning should support learning. It should use evidence‑based best practices, and it shouldn't take long.[laughter]Dave: Yeah. I think that's the key point. With those principles in mind, I've created 9 or 10 chapters in the book using current research, tested techniques so teachers can end up planning better, faster, and with less stress.Ross: Great. All right. Dave, thanks for joining us.Dave: It's been a pleasure.

KERI: Hey guys, it’s Keri TV, and we have a very special guest here today.  This is Dave White, who is a big real estate investor, and also happens to be my father.  So excited to have him here for our special episode.  We were talking about this when we were in Palm Desert last weekend, about proposition 10 and proposition 5 and what it means.  I said, hey dad, will you film an episode with me?  So here we are.  KERI: As you know, the mid-term elections are coming up on the sixth of November.  It’s really important to get out there and vote, of course, whatever your views are.  We thought it was important for us to share a little bit about what these propositions mean in regards to real estate.  For our clients, this is our PSA.  First of all, we have proposition 10, which is the repeal of the Costa-Hawkins rent control act.  That is one of the propositions among the ballot.  Dave, tell us a little bit about what that means and what that means to homeowners. DAVE: Well, Costa-Hawkins brought rent control in.  Rent control is not really what everybody thought it was supposed to be.  It’s supposed to help the housing prices.  It’s been proven that rent control doesn’t help that at all.  Now, with Costa-Hawkins, every property is now going to come under rent control.  Your single-family home, your condominium, and your townhome.  The other sad thing about this is, at the present time, with the current system we have, when you rent your property, if your property’s under rent control, you rent it out for 1200 a month, and the other units in the building might be renting out for 2000 a month, in the current system, if those people paying 1250 move out, we can now rent that unit for the 2200, or whatever. KERI: Market value. DAVE: Market value. KERI: Right. DAVE: When they get rid of Costa-Hawkins, they’re going to make it so that if those people move out of that unit paying 1250, the next person coming in only has to pay 1250 as well. KERI: What about people who can’t really afford to live in buildings like this?  They’d love to live in a place for 1250.  Wouldn’t that be considered a good thing? DAVE: Well, it would be a good thing if all the people who couldn’t afford it could get into those buildings.  What happens is the lucky few who do end up in one never move out of them.  Now, all of a sudden after ten, fifteen, or twenty years you show up and here’s the guy renting the unit or the girl pulling up in their nice Ferrari. KERI: [laugh] DAVE: It’s an actual fact.  It’s supposed to be for low-income people.  The system just doesn’t work as it is.  It’s sad.  The lack of housing is caused because of supply and demand.  When you’ve got more supply than demand, as in other states, where the vacancy factor’s fifteen percent, what happens there is the landlords are having to offer moving expenses or one month free to get people into their units.  But out here in California, where it’s probably four percent, there’s no need for landlords to offer anything and everybody’s squirming to get into the unit. KERI: What happens when there are people paying low rents the other units get pushed up even more in costs, because there’s nothing available to rent.  When these people stay in these units and they never move out, it stops the flow of inflation in society and values going up, because property owners don’t want to have buildings where people are paying low income, because it doesn’t increase their value.  They tend to become slum lords, because they want market value rates and market value renters in there. DAVE: The other thing that happens is if you can only get 1250 dollars a month for your unit, which should be getting 2200, then it’s not even worth leasing it out.  You’d probably take it off the market. KERI: That’s exactly what happens.  Yeah. DAVE: Values drop.  When the value drops, that means there’s less property tax coming in.  What happens to the streets and everything the city has to look after when there’s less money coming in? KERI: With these new laws going in, it’s actually going to cost the taxpayers more money because they’re paying for these new rules.  If property values are decreasing, the city’s going to lose money.  There’s actually less money going towards emergency services, schools, and it actually will not create the low-income housing that they’re saying that it will. DAVE: Back East, many years ago, they brought rent control in.  All the students decided they wanted to get low-income.  What happened?  All these students never moved out of the units.  All of a sudden, they decided, this doesn’t work.  They changed the rules and got rid of the rent control. Now all those people who have been there for years finally went and bought homes and moved out of the apartments. KERI: Yeah.  That’s another thing that’s so important.  It happens a lot here in Santa Monica.  Someone will be paying 800 or maybe 1200 for a one-bedroom or two-bedroom, or even 2200 for a two-bedroom near the beach, they don’t have motivation to move because they’re getting such a good deal.  Then what happens when ten, twenty, or thirty years go by, sure, they’ve been living with low-rent, they don’t own anything.  They haven’t built any equity.  They don’t have anything to show for themselves.  You could be in a place that has grown five hundred, seven fifty, in equity and have a great retirement or invest in other buildings that make you more money.  Isn’t the whole goal to one day be sipping margaritas on the beach?  Right dad? DAVE: Two years ago, I met a guy on a party on a boat. KERI: Oh. DAVE: That’s what you do, right, when you have real estate? KERI: That’s what you do. DAVE: Anyway, I talked to this guy and he said I’d like to buy something.  He was sixty-two years old.  I said to him, well, what do you own now?  He said, I don’t own anything.  Unfortunately, I got caught up by rent control. KERI: What did he say? DAVE: He said, I got tied up with rent control. KERI: Caught up with rent control, did you hear that?  Tell us more. DAVE: Because he thought he was on a great bargain because he was only paying a thousand dollars a month. KERI: Right. DAVE: For this unit in Santa Monica that everybody else was paying 3000 dollars a month for.  He said, I watched all my friends who couldn’t get into rent control go out and buy homes and he said, now, they’re all worth a lot more money than me because their homes have gone up in value. KERI: There’s nothing wrong with paying a low rent, of course.  But the long-term game is to make money, to invest, and to retire.  The short side of that vision is that rent control’s a good thing when in fact it decreases property values, it lessens the money going to the government, and it creates slum lords. DAVE: It creates a shortage. KERI: And a shortage. DAVE: Who is going to build more buildings when you can’t make money on them?  Because the other thing that we haven’t made a way yet, when or if Costa-Hawkins gets voted out, that means that now the government can come in and tell you how much you can rent your home out for, your unit.  They can decide what you get for it. KERI: So, you know how your relator tries to tell you what price you should rent one of your units or your houses?  Now, instead of listening to the advice, you’re going to get told.  Well, this is what you can rent it for and we don’t care what you think.  So, does that sound like a fun thing for anybody?  Probably not.  Of course, do your research, investigate everything you can about proposition 10, but when it comes to real estate and building equity and building wealth, which is what we’re proponents of, we’re saying vote no on proposition 10. DAVE: Hey, let’s imagine that prop 10 doesn’t pass, we’re going to go and buy another building! KERI: [cheer] Yay!  We’re going to buy a building.  To summarize, we vote no on proposition 10, because we want to keep our property values increasing, we want to keep the market stable with the right market value rents and we don’t want to increase our taxpayer dollars, do you?  Now, the other proposition we want to highlight that has to do with real estate and our clients, of course, is proposition 5.  This is super exciting because right now, as it exists, if you are 55 or older, you can take your tax basis with you one time for one move.  What this is going to do is allow people that are over 55, plus people who are disabled or victims of natural disasters to take their tax basis more than once and for any price point.  This is super exciting because of all the people that get stuck in their homes because they can’t afford another twenty grand a year on taxes.  Dave, tell us a little bit more about why you think we should vote yes on proposition 5. It’s yes, right?  Yes on 5? DAVE: Yes, it is. KERI: Okay, yes on 5. DAVE: Like 10 is bad for real estate, 5 is excellent for real estate. KERI: So good for real estate.  DAVE: It is. KERI: And old people. DAVE: Right. KERI: We like old people. DAVE: But remember one thing.  When you purchase your home for 200,000 and your property tax is below, they only go up one percent a year. KERI: I calculated a hundred grand.  1800. DAVE: Okay.  But the problem is when you go to buy a house that’s a million dollars, now your taxes are going to be way up there.  That’s what stops a lot of people from selling their homes.  Here’s the other thing that hurts the older people like me.  We can’t sell.  We’ve got this big house that’s got a pool and huge gardens, and we’re wasting all our money. KERI: Unused bedrooms. DAVE: Now, with prop 5, we can sell, move to a beautiful home on the beach, and only pay the low taxes.  The biggest change with this is, the way it is now, you can only do this once. KERI: Once. DAVE: You can move once and get the property tax saving.  The other big thing is, in the old way, if you sold your house for a million and you had to buy something, you could only go three percent above.  Now you can go and pay whatever you want for a house. KERI: Yeah. DAVE: You could pay two million, if you wanted to. KERI: Which is so great.  Yeah. DAVE: Well, the big thing is, most people, when they’re older, they’ve paid their houses off.  So, it’s all cash. KERI: All cash.  Cash, cash, money.  That’s the thing too.  They can take all that cash, buy something with cash, and then they only have a low property tax.  Say they bought their house for a hundred grand.  They’re selling it for a million or a million five.  They move into a cool condo on Ocean Avenue or a little house somewhere nearby.  They’re not paying anything monthly, which is the whole point, because they can’t afford it, and the property taxes don’t change.  Their lifestyle remains the same.  You get to have mom and dad around for raising the grandkids.  It’s also really great for people who are disabled, same thing.  They need to move into something that works for their disability, whether it’s one-level or smaller.  Then, the other factor is for people who are victims of natural disasters that happened this year.  Floods, fires. DAVE: Grandkids?  I’m excited to hear grandkids.  Grandkids, wow. KERI: Get excited dad. DAVE: Sounds great! KERI: Got to get married first.  Anyways.  Sh.  So, we know that proposition 5, a vote yes on proposition 5 will help even a lot of our clients who are trying to buy a property, and there’s more people that would sell if they could take their tax basis with them, and then these awesome young couples or young couples with babies could move into their houses, to their four and five bedrooms with pools.  So, overall, it will stimulate the economy, stimulate housing, open up inventory which we all know, we’ve had a shortage of inventory, right? DAVE: Right.  Let’s help these older people that worked all their lives to support the community they live in.  Let’s help them out, now that they’re old and retired and enjoy life. KERI: Yes!  And help the disabled and help the natural disaster victims.  Proposition 5!  Vote yes!  Again, if you have any questions about proposition 5 or proposition 10, do your research.  We always vote for real estate wealth and real estate economy and your wealth, and that is why we are giving these tips today on Keri TV. DAVE: Fantastic. KERI: Fantastic.  Thank you for joining me.