Podcasts about lesbians who tech

Back from NY with Lesbians Who Tech, Actor Tricks and Foot Doctors. It's pretty Neat! Pre-Order Our Book Now: SoGayForYou.com   PANTS with Kate Moennig and Leisha Hailey is produced by Valerie Hurt Video Editing by Ana Rezende     Sound Mixing and Editing by Jaime Sickora  Executive Produced by Katie Rhodes and Peg Donegan  Our music is by Carol Parr @csssuxxxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Back from NY with Lesbians Who Tech, Actor Tricks and Foot Doctors. It's pretty Neat! Pre-Order Our Book Now: SoGayForYou.com   PANTS with Kate Moennig and Leisha Hailey is produced by Valerie Hurt Video Editing by Ana Rezende     Sound Mixing and Editing by Jaime Sickora  Executive Produced by Katie Rhodes and Peg Donegan  Our music is by Carol Parr @csssuxxxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Will AI “agents” soon be personalized teachers, doctors, companions and even check items off your to-do list on their own? “Agentic” is the latest buzzword in AI and Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman says moving beyond the text chatbot to a "smart friend” is the goal. The former co-founder of DeepMind, Suleyman helped grow Google's AI division before launching another start-up, InflectionAI. Earlier this year, Microsoft paid $650 million for the licensing rights to Inflection, and brought Suleyman and most of his staff on board. Kara spoke to him at this year's Lesbians Who Tech conference about his strategy for integrating Copilot into Microsoft's existing product suite; why he views OpenAI more like a sibling than a competitor; and why renewable energies (and a lot of cash) will be vital in meeting AI's massive energy needs. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Threads/Instagram @karaswisher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week on the Queer News podcast Anna DeShawn shares her top stories, a 3 month update on Taylor Casey missing in the Bahamas and Queer News winning best LGBTQ podcast at the Black Podcasting Awards. In politics Kentucky bans conversion therapy and Biden makes history appointing the 12th LGBTQ+ judge. Then of course she has your election update as well. In culture & entertainment,  we got a queer news tip on the Lesbians Who Tech summit, Sasheer Zamata comes out, and the Will & Harper documentary drops this week on Netflix. Let's go!  

In this Pride Month episode, host Leah celebrates her 20th anniversary of coming out, sharing her journey of self-discovery, the importance of community, and the reality of being queer and a business owner. Leah reflects on the continuous process of coming out, the joys and challenges faced by LGBTQ individuals, and her professional ventures, including co-founding "Lesbians Who Tech." Tune in for an inspiring tale of visibility, representation, and finding true happiness. Connect with Leah on LinkedIn → Get Higher-Paying Consulting Clients: If you're a woman running a consulting business, learn how you can get paid more for your consulting contracts and attract more of the right kinds of clients at smartgetspaid.com.

The guest in this episode is Dr. Andrea McBeth, the CEO of Thaena , who talks about postbiotics and their role in addressing health imbalances. The podcast emphasizes the importance of consulting with a healthcare provider before making any changes to one's health routine. Dr. McBeth has dedicated this episode to Lesbians Who Tech https://lesbianswhotech.org/about/ and if we reach 300 plays in the first 30 days of launch a donation will be made in honor of Dr. McBeth to Lesbians Who tech. http://www.lesbianswhotech.org In this episode we discuss: -

A new year is always a good time to reflect on the state of your current relationships. As I considered which past guests could bring the most value to you as you kick off 2024, I immediately thought of Kat Vellos, who specializes in helping people develop meaningful friendships in adulthood. Sometimes it can feel like a dirty little secret in adulthood, “I don't have many friends.” So, we keep it to ourselves. This Best Of conversation is an invitation to openly and proudly pursue the friendships you have long been craving in 2024.  Kat Vellos is a trusted expert on the power of cultivating healthy teams and meaningful friendships in adulthood. Formerly a UX designer at Slack, Pandora, and multiple startups, her work today focuses on helping people design belonging into their lives and workplaces. She is the author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, TED Talks, Forbes, Real Simple, Communication Arts, SF Design Week, Lesbians Who Tech, and many more. Listen in to hear Kat share: The difference between meeting people and actually making friends The 4 reasons it gets harder to make friends as we age The specific challenges for moms in making friends How our relationships evolve (for better or worse) as our various identities evolve The significance of reciprocity in healthy adult friendships The important role of curiosity in friendship How to maintain strong friendships even when you're on separate life paths Steps to take to invest in a new friendship Specific steps we can take to invest in the relationships we want to grow and preserve Links mentioned: Connect with Kat: weshouldgettogether.com Get Kat's Book: We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships Kat on IG Kat on Twitter We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: https://shamelessmom.com/sponsor Interested in becoming a sponsor of the Shameless Mom Academy? Email our sales team at sales@adalystmedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Laura, Kevin and Shelby talk about the The Lesbians Who Tech Summit that Laura and Shelby attended in San Francisco last week. The 10th Annual Lesbians Who Tech & Allies Summit takes place virtually and in front of the Castro Theatre and surrounding city blocks. The show attracts over 15K+ LGBTQ Women, Women of Color, Non-Binary, Trans techies & our Allies to attend from all over the world.Lesbians Who Tech & Allies is the largest LGBTQ professional community in the world — committed to visibility, intersectionality, and changing the face of technology and most importantly, the only organization that centers on LGBTQ Women, Women of color, and Non-binary leaders. This event supports the work helping our leaders learn how to code and get the crucial support they need as they face systemic barriers at work.

Uber: hard to live with it, or without it. In this episode Kara grills CEO Dara Khosrowshahi on the company's sky-high prices, high take rate, treatment of drivers/couriers, policies around safety and why oh why he is kind to his predecessor, Travis Kalanick.  Before and after the interview, Kara and Nayeema make sense of the power and problems of Uber, and discuss Lesbians Who Tech (a conference — not in general).  Note: Khosrowshahi discusses a 15% “take rate” in the United States, exclusive of commercial insurance expenses. Globally, the company reported a 29.3% “take rate” in Q2 of 2023 inclusive of these costs.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Shanae is the founder of Nerdy Diva and also serves as the strategic project partner for clients working with the Nerdy Diva team. At Nerdy Diva, Shanae supports SaaS companies with their toughest challenges and helps them grow into mature, community-focused businesses. She leads the areas of business strategy, user research, design, content creation, and training on client projects.   Shanae is a graduate of Northeastern University with a Master's in Informatics.   She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication, Emphasis in Communication Technology, and a Certificate in African American Studies from Saint Louis University, a Web Design Certificate from Webster University, and a Leadership Certificate from MIT. She is an Adjunct Lecturer at Northeastern University and Lesley University, and a highly rated international speaker, including such notable locations and events as Harvard University Extension School, SaaStr, Lesbians Who Tech, National Society of Black Engineers, UXPA International, and more. Shanae is the author of chapters in the 2021 O'Reilly UX guide, 97 Things Every UX Practitioner Should Know (Create a UX Portfolio that Gets Results), and the 2018 leadership guide, On the Rise Vol 3 (The Power of Creativity).   Links: www.nerdydiva.com    www.linkedin.com/in/nerdydivashanae   If you're enjoying the content and finding it valuable, we would appreciate it if you could take a moment to leave us a review. Your feedback is important to us and helps us reach a wider audience.   If you leave us a 5-star review, it would mean the world to us. Not only does it help us improve the podcast, but it also helps us attract more sponsors and grow our community.   Thank you again for your support and listening to the Productivity Smarts Podcast.   Sponsors:   A Symphony of Choices: https://amzn.to/3Keq3zx   Growth Strategies: https://productivityintelligenceinstitute.com/mastermind/   KIVA: It's a loan, not a donation Kiva is a loan, not a donation, allowing you to cycle your money and create a personal impact worldwide. https://www.kiva.org/invitedby/topmindshelpingtopminds?utm_campaign=invitedby_portfolio&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=topmindshelpingtopminds&utm_source=mobile_ios   Connect with Gerald: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geraldjleonard   Free Productivity Smarts Weekly Evaluation Worksheet https://go.productivityintelligenceinstitute.com/productivity-smarts-worksheet   Every Goal Is A Project, and Everyone Is A Project Manager worksheet https://go.productivityintelligenceinstitute.com/every-goal-is-a-project     Discover How To Set Goals, Build A High-Performing Team, & Increase Productivity... Starting Today!” https://workshop.productivityintelligenceinstitute.com/optin1666905303826?_ga=2.21012029.741858075.1668537790-242233139.1659493194     Learn more at www.productivitysmartspodcast.com

Soccer superstar Lionel Messi is coming to the United States. His arrival comes despite massive offers from Saudi Arabia, as the country tries to divert attention through sports from its human rights abuses. Roger Bennett, co-host of the "Men in Blazers" podcast, discusses Messi's decision.For award-winning cellist Yo-Yo Ma, music is the compass taking him on a new journey around the country as part of his "Our Common Nature" program. CBS News senior national correspondent Mark Strassman visited Great Smoky Mountains National Park with Ma to get a first look at his project that's transforming the great outdoors into concert venues to help people better connect with nature through music.Comedian Fortune Feimster has been making audiences laugh for more than a decade with her appearances on "Chelsea Lately," "The Mindy Project," and her two Netflix comedy specials. She discusses her new series "Fubar" and acting alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger.For our "Changing the Game" series, we are highlighting Leanne Pittsford, the CEO and founder of Lesbians Who Tech & Allies. She discusses creating a tech company to help promote visibility and inclusion for LGBTQ+ people.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Kat Vellos is a trusted expert on the power of cultivating healthy teams and meaningful friendships in adulthood. Formerly a UX designer at Slack, Pandora, and multiple startups, her work today focuses on helping people design belonging into their lives and workplaces. She is the author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, TED Talks, Forbes, Real Simple, Communication Arts, SF Design Week, Lesbians Who Tech, and many more. The hard truth is that it's hard to make new friends as an adult. Sometimes it's even hard keeping the friends we have. Friendship is just not as easy as it was when we had time to play with each other at recess everyday in our school days. But hope is not lost. Friendships are essential for our health and well being and there are some simple things you can do to establish and grow incredible friendships right now!   Listen in to hear Kat share: The difference between meeting people and actually making friends The 4 reasons it gets harder to make friends as we age The specific challenges for moms in making friends How our relationships evolve (for better or worse) as our various identities evolve The significance of reciprocity in healthy adult friendships The important role of curiosity in friendship How to maintain strong friendships even when you're on separate life paths Steps to take to invest in a new friendship Specific steps we can take to invest in the relationships we want to grow and preserve Links mentioned: Connect with Kat: weshouldgettogether.com Get Kat's Book: We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships Kat on IG Kat on Twitter Sponsor info and promo codes: Please find our sponsor information here: shamelessmom.com/sponsor/ Interested in becoming a sponsor of the Shameless Mom Academy? Email our sales team at sales@adalystmedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Geronda Wollack-Spiller is the DEI Program Manager at thoughtbot. Chad talks with Geronda about implementing a successful Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion program at the company by providing a culture of belonging, the challenges, in particular, the tech industry faces, and acknowledging that many of us work in spaces where when we're bringing someone onto a team who has underrepresented identities, they might be the only one. How do we create a space that's as inclusive as possible? Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at thoughtbot (https://thoughtbot.com/playbook/our-company/diversity-equity-and-inclusion) Follow Geronda on Twitter (https://twitter.com/gerondaws) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerondawollack/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. And with me today is Geronda Wollack-Spiller, the DEI Program Manager at thoughtbot. Geronda, thank you so much for joining me. GERONDA: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. CHAD: In honor of Pride Month, we're doing something extra special for this episode in addition to just having you as an extra special guest. We're recording live in front of thoughtbot remotely. We've got a whole bunch of people watching. I can hear them cheering off in the distance for you as you make your debut on the podcast. GERONDA: [laughs] CHAD: Thanks for joining me. GERONDA: Thank you. Nice. [laughs] CHAD: So you joined thoughtbot as our first ever DEI program manager back...when was it? GERONDA: Oh, April, yeah, April fourth. CHAD: It's been a whirlwind few months. Thank you already for all of the contributions that you've made to the company already. GERONDA: Oh, thank you. No problem. CHAD: Tell us a little bit about your role. And then I can provide some fill-in terms of what we were thinking when we added this. But let's start with sharing a little bit about your role. GERONDA: A lot of my role is about...so it's a lot of understanding the processes that we have, people operations processes, and really thinking about how do we provide more of a...or improve our ability to provide a culture of belonging. And so a lot of what I do is I will partner across with people operations, and I'll look at things like promotions, and who are we promoting? Who are we hiring? Improvements to performance management processes. How are we giving feedback? Who are our managers? And a lot of what I'll do, too, is execute against the goals that were set by our DEI Council before I had joined, which the council is great. And I'll look to see are there different ways that we should be looking at goals? So one of the things that I'm doing right now is I'm building out a multi-year roadmap for DEI. And I'm incorporating a lot of the goals that the council has already put together, which has been super great. And I want to create a space that feels like a safer or brave space for anyone to come to me with concerns, questions, suggestions. And I partner a lot with different groups to be able to understand their needs and make sure that we are voicing and amplifying historically marginalized groups but also providing a lot of the education around what DEI means and how we can do that in our everyday jobs. So I am co-chair of the DEI Council. I support that council to take on different projects, build out task force, work with everyone across the company to contribute, and infuse diversity, equity, and inclusion within the company. So that's a lot of what I do. [laughs] Other things involved, but that gives you kind of a high level of my role. CHAD: Yeah, that's great. I've talked before on the show about the DEI Council in a few different episodes, mostly in passing. And overall, when we started on...the concept of a council came from some consultants that we had worked with previously to do an audit. They provided us with a few different suggestions about how we could continue on from that audit and take action. And one of the things, especially with our geographic studios, the way that we used to be organized the idea of one person from each of those studios coming together on a council to work together and then bring the work back to their studios for action really resonated with us as a structure that could work pretty well for us given the structure. We've obviously since gone completely remote. And the council is no longer specifically tied to those individual teams or those offices that we no longer have. But the council is still that, a group of people from a wide array across the company who come together and focus on and organize our work around diversity, equity, and inclusion. And we saw the opportunity in your role to have someone provide continuity and organization and experience to the council to help make it even more effective at thoughtbot. And I think we're just getting started with that. But I think it's been very positive overall, your addition, and like I said at the top of the show, thank you again for your contribution so far. GERONDA: [laughs] No problem. Thank you for hiring me. Thanks. CHAD: [laughs] Well, speaking of hiring, you've done a few different things over the years. And I'm curious; you started in more general human resources roles. Was it a goal from the beginning of your career to move into a DEI role, or did that evolve along the way? GERONDA: Ooh, interesting question. Yeah, it actually evolved along the way. I thought I would be an HR project manager and I would be leading projects across global companies. And when I started in my career, I was an HR operations analyst, and I was doing a lot of the HR product management. But what I discovered is every single time that I would be in a role, I kept looking at things from a DEI lens without realizing that I was. And then, as I started continuing to do that, I fell in love with it. And I was like, okay, this is my place of where I want to be. So even though I was doing projects related to HR, if I would do recruiting operations, I would look at okay, well, who are we actually targeting, and who are we hiring? And what are the opportunities and gaps? Then I worked in the education space, and I would look at, well, how are we actually...like, what types of demographics are we bringing to the schools? So I would do things in my role that were very diversity, equity, inclusion-focused even though I was an HR product manager or in operations. And I started realizing I really loved more of the diversity, equity, and inclusion side of things. So instead of continuing to get roles in HR, I was like, I have to get a role in DEI because that's where my passion lended itself more so. I made that decision from my last company that the next role I have, I will not take it unless it's DEI-focused. So it developed and evolved over time. CHAD: Some people might have the thought...I have to confess sometimes I've also had this thought as like, why can't just DEI be weaved through everything HR does or through everything everybody thinks about all of the time? Why do you need a specific DEI person at a company? And I've come to understand that it's hard to do that. [laughter] But I'm curious if you have any thoughts on that. GERONDA: It is challenging because you also have to think of it as everybody is in a different place with diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But there are some people who are incredibly passionate about it. And then there are others that are aware of it, but they may want to just kind of focus on their job. Or they might think, well, we just need to treat everybody the same. Like, why is that so hard? So because everyone's in different places in their level of understanding and the importance of it, it does get tricky to think of things in that lens, especially in your day-to-day job. Your priorities change consistently. So you might be working on a project here. But then you're now shifting to a new team, and you're shifting to all these different places. And it does become challenging to keep it top of mind for a lot of people in the company. And so I think that the overall almost resolution to that is the more that you start to continue to talk about it, the more that you have accountability. And you're training people like leadership and managers and everyone to be aware of what it means, and what the language is, and how you can think of these things. It takes time, but then it slowly starts to get easier. Sometimes there is an understandable fear of I don't know where to begin, and I don't know what I don't know. I don't want to make a mistake. I don't know how to look at this. And should I be looking at this? But I think that when there is a lot of the understanding from the leadership level, and it goes down to managers, and you start to infuse it across different spaces, it does come a little bit easier. So I'll say what I like a lot of what thoughtbot does is there's a lot of open communication and transparency around things like goals, around hiring, and trainings that we maybe want to offer. So I do think it can be hard. I don't think that you can also get every single person involved in an expertise level. And you shouldn't expect anyone to be an expert, but starting to think about their job and how this could impact themselves or others, it does take some time. CHAD: And I already alluded to this earlier, but I think we have an additional challenge which is because the majority of us are all on client work all the time and consultants, that through-line, that continuity of when we identify something, really having someone who can be that continuous force, an organization as people rotate through the council or as people's workload with client work or attention ebbs and flows. I think that that is one of the additional challenges that we have that you help with. GERONDA: Yeah. And the rotations on the council are super helpful as well and then creating a space for anyone to come to you with questions. I like that we have this anonymous forum where you can submit a question if you're not comfortable asking it publicly, whether it's you want to learn more or something's going on that you want to talk through. I think that's also very, very helpful. And just continuously educating and giving the space for the practical implementation of what you're trying and what you're doing will also give you a little bit more of that comfortability rather than learning about something and then hoping that you're doing it well. So it's challenging, but we'll get there, and it's worth it. [laughs] And every company has these types of challenges, so it's not unique. CHAD: So you didn't originally start off working in the tech space. And so I'm curious what you've learned or seen that either is good or bad about the tech space in particular, what challenges this industry has. And it is Pride Month, so I guess there's a lens, particularly of LGBTQ+ challenges. Is tech particularly challenging? GERONDA: Yeah, I think as an industry, it's particularly challenging. So I worked in education, as I mentioned. I worked in the optometry industry, which I will say has very significant challenges just for the industry itself. But tech is challenging. I think there are moves that are being made in tech. But what I'm starting to notice in terms of challenges for the LGBTQ+ community is a lot of things where there is this sometimes perception, depending on how visible you may be, that you are qualified and not qualified. And what I mean by that is for the trans community or the transgender community, in particular, it can be very challenging because you may not what they call pass as the gender that you are looking to reassign yourself to. So if you are male, and I hear this a lot from other people, is if I'm male and I want to transition to female, I may still be going through the process. So when somebody looks at me, I might still present masculine features. And there is this misconception or this uncomfortability that I may not be qualified to do a job. So in the tech space as well, it's really hard during the hiring process sometimes to be taken seriously because of how you might look or how you might present yourself. I will say that in a lot of spaces, the culture in a company in tech what I've noticed is it has this generally casual feeling to it and a sense of you can come in, and you'll be taken seriously. And you can meet with different groups. But I think what I've noticed is when you're trying to get into tech, there are not a lot of people that are similar to you. And it's really hard to find those types of people because not everyone's going to be out. There are assumptions that are made that if a woman's hair is short, she must be lesbian. So we misgender people. And when going into the tech space, I think that there's a hesitation because you don't necessarily see a customer base similar to you or other team members similar to you. There could be those things like mental health challenges because you don't know if you can come out in a space, or you don't know if you're going to come out, and that could affect your role. So a lot of times, you'll hear and what I've been hearing in the tech space, is those who are transgender are usually the only ones on a team that are transgender. If you look at also for the LGBTQ+ community, you have to also consider the varying identities that come with a person. So an experience for a Black woman who is queer could be very different than a white male who is gay. So there are those different identities. So the vulnerability piece, and in the hiring process, and going into tech, you already hear what's going on and the challenges that are happening for the community. So you may be hesitant or might be a little bit fearful of what that would look like. I think in the tech space as well, a lot of executive leaders or managers are predominantly cis-gendered white males. So when you see that, and there's not as much representation at the top, you kind of have that sense, and you wonder, is this a place that I feel like I can belong and have a generally safe experience? And then the skill set, too, I think what I've been hearing, and what I've been reading and just researching, and what I've been noticing just speaking to other people is the promotion opportunity for those in the community feels like you have to work much harder to get known and be visible because a lot of times, you may want to promote people that are similar to you. So if you have teams that are more cisgendered White males, you may find that those teams are not as diverse. And the industry itself, I do feel like it is becoming more diverse. I think Lesbians Who Tech, for example, was a conference that I'm so glad that you let me attend because -- [laughter] CHAD: I didn't let you. That's not permission, or rather I encouraged you to attend. [laughter] GERONDA: Better wording. Thank you, Chad. You encouraged me to attend, and you're encouraging me to attend the one in October. But just seeing in my experience and looking at the tech space, I wasn't sure what the demographic would look like. But going to that conference and then going to the one...I'm in Seattle, Washington, and there was a local one in Seattle, Washington. There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of gay men, lesbians, transgender, and I didn't even realize that there were so many of us in the community in that space. And it was fantastic and amazing to see. But I think visibility is another piece that we're struggling with because you want to be able to amplify those voices and give those opportunities. So that's what I'm seeing a lot in the tech space. I do think that we're improving in those areas. But those are the challenges that I see in that space. CHAD: To go back to one thing that you said, this idea of being the only one puts people in a difficult position. And I think because tech as an industry is not that diverse, to begin with, you end up with that in a lot of different identities, not just LGBTQ+. If you are historically underrepresented or have historically underrepresented identities, it's really likely that you're going to be the only one and especially the intersection of your identities. If you have multiple underrepresented identities, then it's very likely that you might be the only one. Mid-Roll Ad: Are you an entrepreneur or start-up founder looking to gain confidence in the way forward for your idea? At thoughtbot, we know you're tight on time and investment, which is why we've created targeted 1-hour remote workshops to help you develop a concrete plan for your product's next steps. Over four interactive sessions, we work with you on research, product design sprint, critical path, and presentation prep so that you and your team are better equipped with the skills and knowledge for success. Find out how we can help you move the needle at: tbot.io/entrepreneurs CHAD: As leaders, as companies, as a community that wants to do better, let's solve it all right now, Geronda. GERONDA: [laughs] CHAD: No, we're not going to solve it all now. But what are some ways...like acknowledging that many of us work in spaces where we might not have...or when we're bringing someone onto the team who has underrepresented identities, they might be the only one. How do we make a space that's as inclusive as possible for that person? GERONDA: The big thing that I always like to say is try not to put all of the work on that person to solve it for themselves. And when they come in, I think what's really great and what I've seen work well is having that initial conversation with that person who's joining, get to know them first, and give them an opportunity to say, "If there's anything that you would love to have here or anything that you find challenging, I want you to feel that you can come to me. You can go to HR or DEI program manager, whoever." So it's providing that space to say if you need support in feeling comfortable, whether it's in your job or just you as an individual, I want to offer that. And so please be as open as you can with me. And it's providing those different spaces to amplify the voice of that person. So, in meetings, if you're noticing maybe that they are more reserved or hesitant to speak, ask for their opinion if they're okay with that. Recognizing the great work that they've done, giving a lot of that recognition, and then also offering different ways that they can get the community that they want. So what I love is that we have Slack, and we've started ERGs. And so that gives you a lot of opportunity. We have a Slack channel for the LGBTQ+ ERG. But we also have a private channel for LGBTQ so that we can talk about things that are working, not working, working well. And definitely getting their experience and looking for ways that you can involve them and recognize them and continuing to check in with them. So regular one-on-one checking could just be how are things going? How are you feeling being a part of this team? What are some things that we can do differently to make you feel welcome? And that's a question that you can ask everybody so that it's not feeling like you're just targeting that one person. So asking those questions and checking in with that person is really helpful. And then, considering the people that are coming in, how are things like benefits being provided? So things like if somebody who's transgender comes in or an employee decides they want to transition, are we providing gender-affirming care as part of benefits? So those are different ways that we can have them be included and offering up the things that we provide that could potentially be a community like Slack, like the DEI Council, like having those different conversations. And when you start to do things like this, like us doing this pride event, that is pretty significant. We didn't just slap a logo on LinkedIn and just say, "Oh, okay, Happy Pride." We had lightning talks. We get education. We learned about the community. You're having me on here to talk more about it. We're doing a big celebration. And so that in itself is a pretty critical step. But it is checking in and learning about the person and asking pretty frequently their experience, how they're feeling, their needs, and then looking to increase that diversity over time on that team so that you're not feeling tokenized as that person and always being the only. So those are things that I would suggest. CHAD: One maybe misconception or feeling that people might have...and I think it starts in the hiring process because you're not supposed to talk about these things in the hiring process. You're not allowed, at least in the United States, to ask someone their sexual orientation during the hiring process. Or if someone was transgender and you're interviewing them, it certainly should be a topic that you as a hiring manager don't bring up during the interview. So my sense is, and speaking personally but also broadly, it can then feel like you're not supposed to talk about those things once the person joins either. Why is that wrong? [laughter] GERONDA: So a couple of things I'll say about that is so if somebody brings it up, that can open up the conversation. I'm very open at the fact that I have a wife and that I'm lesbian. And I purposely do that, personally, to see what the reaction is going to be and what the company is going to offer. So I can determine if I feel like this is going to be a good space for me. I think that when you're having an interview, it's just like for anyone who may not be in the community. You don't really necessarily ask someone if they're married or "Are you having children?" You don't necessarily ask like, "Do you fall in this community?" or "Talk about transgender." Because a lot of times, there is this feeling of I have no idea what this space is going to feel like for me. I'm not going to out myself, and you may even out somebody who may not be out in their professional or their personal life yet. And you want to provide that comfortable space. But you don't want to do that either because then that person and across other interviewing spectrums bias can amplify a lot. And you can mislabel someone's gender. You might use the wrong pronouns, and pronouns are always optional. So I always say look at the person for their experience and what you want to learn more about relating to the job. Of course, you want to learn about them a little bit more personally as well. But it is more harm to try to identify their identity because that could lead to bias and could ultimately lead to discrimination because you don't know what that person's view is in the interview process either. CHAD: But once someone joins your team and assuming that they're open about their identities, and this applies to all identities, I think, then quote, unquote "treating everybody the same or ignoring people's identities actually does the reverse of what people intend." It makes an environment where people feel like they don't belong, that the identities that they have or what are important to them aren't recognized. And so you're not recognizing the person's full self, and you're not accommodating it and trying to build an inclusive environment. It could actually backfire if you intentionally ignore people's identities, right? GERONDA: Yes. So it can backfire if you ignore the identities, especially the identities that have been shared openly. So if I'm going to fill out a survey, let's say where identify myself as part of our hiring process, as a manager, I may not say, "Hey, I noticed that you checked off that you're transgender. How can I support you?" But it is going through the onboarding process and other areas to say here's what we offer from ERGs to benefits, to how we work, how we work as a team. And if that person does disclose that they're transgender, or they're in the LGBTQ+ community, or they mention their culture or what have you, you can then direct them in the right places to say, "Oh, we actually do have this LGBTQ+ ERG if you're interested. I know you may be talked about it in the onboarding process. If you're open to it, you can definitely join us, and here's how." And then, over time, it is really thinking about you may not know the identities of your team but taking time to do things in practice that would touch upon all identities. So when you're thinking about having team conversations, there may be somebody on your team who is neurodiverse. They might have autism, or they might have ADHD. And how you're communicating...then you start to think about meetings. Do you just do Google Meet meetings? Do you just do Typeform meetings? You have to think about different learning styles and for different identities. Like it's Pride Month right now, just saying Happy Pride Month to everybody. And they may then be open to sharing more about their identity and sharing the activities that are happening in Pride Month, and encouraging them to do things on the council. So you want to make decisions that could think about different identities, even if you may not know what those identities are. And I also think it's being proactive and being ready that you might have those identities. So things like I had mentioned where you might be providing gender-affirming care, or you might look at your parental leave policies and other things that you have available for that. So I would say without knowing the identity, I think over time, as you build trust that [inaudible 28:24] start to develop and come out. But it's also if somebody's coming to you in confidence with something, really taking that very, very seriously. If I, God forbid, came to you, Chad, and was like, "Chad, I'm coming out to you. I am lesbian, but I'm not comfortable with sharing with everybody else." I would trust that you wouldn't share that amongst other people. So that's another piece to that as well. CHAD: Yeah, that's a really good point. I think as people in that position, in management positions, we need proper training around those kinds of situations to ensure that we handle them well. I think training is an important part of being a manager but also just DEI in general training and equipping everybody. GERONDA: Yes. Having a common language across the board and a common understanding across the board is very important. Because when you think of diversity, equity, and inclusion, everybody may have varying understandings of what those mean. Some people may not know what those mean, and so having that common language across the board and understanding. And then yes, training, of course, and opportunities for you to then practice that training in spaces and getting feedback along the way. CHAD: So I imagine that there are a lot of people listening who this is really important to them. It's an important topic or a place where they want to make improvement for themselves or their company. They might not have a lot of support or resources at their company. There might not be a DEI Council already. And I know every company is different. Every team is different. But are there some things that individuals or leaders might start thinking about or doing specifically if they're just getting started with this? GERONDA: So if you're just getting started, I always say there are a lot of great resources out there for you to consider. So whether that's a book...LinkedIn has really great training on just understanding DEI and how to be an inclusive leader or work in an inclusive environment. But I would say a really great place to start is if you don't have this already, think about what your demographic looks like. And what are some things that other companies may be doing? So joining different channels and saying, "We're at the beginning stages. What are some things that we can do?" But I think what's most helpful to start is you have to gauge where you are as a company and understand your people and the demographic and do something that allows for an open discussion and open forum to get perspectives from other people. So I know things like listening tours where you might talk to different departments or different teams. Or if a company is small enough like our company, you can meet with each person and then think about what are some common themes that you're seeing? That can also create a great space for that. I'd also say you can put out a survey to see what the experience is. So if you are doing things like engagement surveys, you can absolutely include things in there about what do you think we're missing? What would you hope to see? But I think a lot of it is you have to understand your people and what you have available to you at the company and provide an opportunity for everyone to share their ideas and perspectives to that. So what I've seen work really well is one, when you start to understand there has to also be this communication and this accountability at the leadership level to say, "This is why we're focusing on this. This is why we think it's important. We want to hear from you." And something that I thought was really unique and helpful is if your company is small enough or even if it's big enough, a lot of companies what they'll do is they'll have the CEO, or they'll have managers host these kinds of forums where you can meet with them, and you can share. You can ask them a ton of questions. You can share your ideas. You can share what you hope to achieve from this and just starting to get perspectives first. And that may, over time, start to evolve into a council or people wanting to do an ERG. But really get as much as you can from people and then learn a lot from that as well. CHAD: That's great. I asked that question, and then it turns out it was one of the ones that someone submitted in the chat from a thoughtbot person. GERONDA: [laughs] CHAD: So I wanted to acknowledge that even though we overlapped the question, that question technically comes from Amy Wall, a developer at thoughtbot. Another question from Fernando is how can other employees support DEI people like you from a daily perspective? GERONDA: Just take over my job. [laughter] No, I'm just kidding. So it's always helpful for me to have transparent conversations of where you are. If you want to help me, it's helpful to learn about your experience and come to me with things that you're seeing or ask me questions. Also, don't be afraid either to say, "I really don't know what this means or what this is. Can you help me?" And it's also bringing learning as well because I'm not a developer, and I'm not a designer. [chuckles] I think that the work that our team does is fantastic. And they're super smart. And when I look at a lot of the things that are happening, like coding and conversations, although I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, it's really amazing to see. But from your perspective, there may be things that I am suggesting, like, oh, maybe we need to increase accessibility, and we do need to do these things. But be okay to challenge me and say, "I actually don't know that that's going to work well or not." But I think to support me in my role, the more that I know of the challenges, and the more that I know about you individually, and the more that you continue to bring these things up from a DEI perspective is super helpful. So what I've noticed and what I've really loved about working here is we have those opportunities to have those very open, transparent conversations. And we can post about issues, and we can post about things that we want to change in our handbook. And sometimes people come to me with questions. And I love that people come to me and say, "This is what I want to work on more. Do you have any suggestions?" That really helps me in my role because as much as I would love to know everything that's happening with every single person, it can be challenging. So be honest with me and just share what's going on and be willing to learn and share resources with me too. Yes, I'm a DEI practitioner, but that doesn't mean I know everything. I know it's very surprising to a lot of people right now that I don't know everything. CHAD: [laughs] GERONDA: But share things you're reading. Share things that you've noticed. That helps me a ton. So that's how I say you can help me. And thank you for that question, Fernando. I appreciate that. CHAD: A thing I would add is recognizing that there are, especially at thoughtbot, multiple levels of ways that you can support and contribute to our efforts. So we try to identify on the council okay, this is the thing we want to work on. The council isn't intended to do everything. But so what we'll often do is we'll say, okay, we're going to gather a group of people in a task force, and we're going to work on this. I think that's another level of contribution. So showing up for those participating in them when they arrive, and frankly, not signing on to too much because you spread yourself too thin and then can't do a good job doing everything that you want to do. So yeah, those are some tips that I would add. Geronda, thank you so much for joining me on the show. I really appreciate it. GERONDA: Thank you for having me. I appreciate that. CHAD: Happy Pride. [laughs] GERONDA: Yes. Happy Pride. I'm so excited. I feel like I'm a little biased, but this is like my favorite month of the year. [laughter] Lots of fun celebrations. And of course, I recognize other holidays, and I think they are very important. But this one is generally very close to my heart. So thank you. CHAD: Well, if folks want to follow along with you, get in touch with you, find out more, where are all the places that they can do that? GERONDA: Yes. Follow me on LinkedIn, Geronda Wollack-Spiller. I'm on Twitter at @gerondaws. And I think those are the two best places to follow me. I'm most active on LinkedIn. And I usually respond there pretty heavily. CHAD: We'll include those links in the show notes, which you can find attached to this episode. And you can subscribe to the show, find all those notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. You can find me on Twitter @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. And thanks to all the thoughtbot people who were in the chat, and with the questions, and paid attention and listened to this episode. And see you next time. GERONDA: Yes. [laughs] ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success. Special Guest: Geronda Wollack-Spiller.

Many of the most impactful products in the sextech space have grown up in direct response to an unmet need. As we learn on this episode of Busine$$ of the V, Melanie Cristol brainstormed her unique patented underwear technology because she wanted to enable more people to say “yes” to oral sex. You'll learn how and why the CEO & Founder of Lorals stepped out of a successful partner-track legal career in order to launch an international venture that promotes not only more oral sex but more orgasms, sensual fun and exploration of all kinds.   This episode also features big news: While Lorals has been growing exponentially based on the comfort and utility of its underwear alone, a whole new horizon will be opening up as the result of impending FDA approval. In addition to encouraging great sex, Lorals will also at last be able to promote safer sex. Rigorous design and testing make this product (which is available in a range of styles and sizes) a highly effective barrier to STIs and invitation to increased intimacy. You'll be fascinated to hear about Melanie's journey, her experiences securing federal approval and lessons learned about the world of venture capital.   So say hello to a smart, sexy, innovative product in a fast-growing niche market – and say goodbye to the old dental dam solution. With women three times more likely to orgasm through oral sex as compared with intercourse, the target market is clearly there! Click here to learn more about Lorals and check out their blog, Lorotica.   You can subscribe or listen to previous episodes of the Busine$$ of the V podcast by clicking here. About Melanie Cristol Melanie Cristol is the Founder & CEO of Lorals, the new standard for oral sexual wellness. As inventor and CEO of Lorals, Melanie holds four patents, has been nominated by XBIZ as Entrepreneur of the Year and has been featured in the NYTimes, Fast Company, and Cosmopolitan. Melanie has also been a featured speaker at SXSW, Lesbians Who Tech, the Brooklyn Sex Expo, and at colleges and universities across the country. Prior to creating Lorals, Melanie studied Sociology at Columbia University and received her JD from Columbia Law School. She worked as a healthcare and consumer products attorney and was part of the legal team that secured gay marriage rights for the western United States. Melanie also fought for LGBTQ rights in California and Ohio as a field organizer with the National LGBTQ Task Force.  

Takin' Care of Lady Business with Jennifer Justice Episode 030: Women in Web3 and Crypto: Web3 101 Ariel is the VP, Communications at Ledger, the world's most secure platform for digital assets and Web3. She served as a Senior Advisor with LionTree, focused on content development and advising businesses on developing a frictionless consumer future, and Co-Founded arfa, Inc. a platform for the creation of new beauty, wellness, and personal care brands like HIKI (genderless sweat brand) and State Of (Menopause beauty brand), recognized by GQ, Self, WSJ and more. Her most recent film Sitara: Let Girls Dream, premiered on Netflix Spring 2020 and was Top 10 in Asia. At VICE Media, she was an Executive Producer of the Emmy nominated VICELAND show WOMAN with Gloria Steinem, where at 26 she became the youngest person to be nominated as Executive Producer in the Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series category. Ariel turned WOMAN into a course at USC Annenberg, helped develop the syllabus and was a guest lecturer. She served as Publisher of Broadly, VICE's women and LGBTQ+ identity channel, where Ariel established Broadly as an internationally recognized brand. As Chief of Staff at VICE, Ariel worked on interviews with President Obama, President George W. Bush, Vice President Biden, Gloria Steinem, Malala, and many more. She is on the 2020 Crain's Notable LGBTQ Leaders and Executives List, 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 Media list and currently serves on the board of the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), Sad Girls Club, Lesbians Who Tech, VICE's Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Board, and is a former commissioner on the Vermont Commission on Women and former member on the Vermont Board of Libraries. She is currently a Founding member of BFF and ClubCPG. Her work is centered on using storytelling as a medium to connect with and uplift forgotten stories around the world.  Listen to this Takin' Care of Lady Business episode where Ariel breaks down everything you need to know about the many opportunities that the coming Web3 revolution will present. Here is what to expect on this week's show: What a “ledger” is, and how it pertains to crypto and Web3 Why it's important to educate yourself about crypto, NFTs, Web3, and more before they become a mainstream method of transaction Critical differences between Web2 and Web3 Exciting financial opportunities for women in new, decentralized Web3 spaces What a “hardware wallet” is, and why it's an essential tool for managing your finances in crypto, NFTs, and more   Connect with Ariel and Ledger: VICE CONTRIBUTOR PROFILE: https://www.vice.com/en/contributor/ariel-wengroff INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/awengroff/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/AWengroff LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ariel-wengroff-24522343/   LEDGER LINKS: WEBSITE: https://www.ledger.com/ REDDIT: https://www.reddit.com/r/ledgerwallet/ FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Ledger/ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/ledger/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/Ledger YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/Ledger LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ledgerhq TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@ledger Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Melanie Cristol is the founder and CEO of Lorals, which makes ultra-thin, silky latex underwear that helps more people say yes to oral sex & pleasure! She studied Sociology at Columbia University and received her JD from Columbia Law School. Prior to creating and patenting Lorals, Melanie was a healthcare and consumer products attorney, and she was part of the legal team that secured gay marriage rights for the western United States. Melanie also fought for LGBTQ rights in California and Ohio as a field organizer with the National LGBTQ Task Force. As inventor and CEO of Lorals, Melanie holds 4 patents, and has been featured in the NYTimes, Fast Company, and Cosmopolitan, and has been a speaker at SXSW, Lesbians Who Tech, and the Sex Expo.In this episode, we dive into:Melanie's work with Lorals revolutionizing and enhancing access to oral sexWhat holds folks back from oral sex beyond STI prevention Breaking down stigma, myths and misconceptions around oral sexThe ways that cis-heteronormative reproductive values of sex are still woven into the modern world of advertisingOral sex as an avenue for embodied presence, trauma-informed intimacy and shifting out of dissociationDiversity in pleasure and reasons barriers during oral sex can feel important and empowering (navigating trauma, genital shame, menstruation and boundaries, and gender dysphoria) The balance between transforming sexual shame and being patient/gentle with ourselves & our limits Queering sex, letting go of sexual scripts and how unlearning compulsory heterosexuality can shift everyones sex life Navigating censorship around sexual wellness on social mediaLinks/Resources:-Check out Lorals here: https://mylorals.com/-Follow Lorals on IG @mylorals and @marleeliss-Get the details or join the F*ck Comphet Support Club here: https://www.patreon.com/fckcomphetsupportclub-Get the details for the Sensual Wholeness Academy and/or book your free 1-1 consult call with Marlee here: https://www.marleeliss.com/SWA-Book/inquire about Marlee's speaking for Sexual Assault Awareness Month: https://www.marleeliss.com/speaking

Today's show marks our 36th and final episode of the Design To Be Conversation podcast before we come back in February 2022. Before we dive into our episode for today, I want to take a moment to say thank you. Thank you for listening and supporting Design To Be Conversation and thank you to each of our incredible guests who have made each episode so insightful and impactful. I'm extremely excited for the future of Design To Be Conversation. We have an incredible lineup of guests planned for next year, so be sure to follow us along on social at design_tobe or head to designtobeconversation.com to be the first to know when we return. Now, let's get into today's episode.Today, we are wrapping up our show with Raquel Breternitz. Raquel is an award-winning design leader and strategist with a resume spanning years of purpose-driven work experience from serving as Design Director for US Senator Elizabeth Warren to private sector credits at the New York Times, Pivotal Labs, and IBM. Raquel is a public speaker with works and topics connected by a passion for accessibility and inclusion, research-driven design thinking, and a hunger for tackling complex and challenging problems. She has spoken at Lesbians Who Tech, PluralSightLIVE, Wonder Women in Tech, and O'Reilly Design.We dive into what it means to connect with your passions and ideals in design, the importance of prioritizing rest and well-being to manage burnout, and intentional ways to practice self-care that provides purpose and joy.  

Dr. Wayne Dyer, the “Father of Motivation” once said, “In all misfortune there is fortune. With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.” Our guest, Dr. Emily Drabant Conley, shares how she chose to leverage her struggles growing up in the Midwest as a gay teenager in a conversative town to become the leader she is today. And, how her lived experiences led her to embrace her authentic self in life and in work. Dr. Emily Drabant Conley is the CEO of Federation Bio. Previously, Dr. Conley spent over a decade at 23andMe, where she helped scale the company from 30 employees into the world's leading platform for genetic-driven drug discovery. As Vice President of Business Development at 23andMe, she architected visionary partnerships across pharma and biotech. ​Dr. Conley currently serves on the boards of Federation Bio, TMRW, Medrio and formerly served on the boards of Lesbians Who Tech and the UCSF Alliance Health Project. In this episode, Dr. Conley shares how to move forward through fear, why it's important to believe in yourself as a leader and why you should always hire people smarter than you. Visit https://www.iambeyondbarriers.com where you will find show notes and links to all the resources in this episode, including the best way to get in touch with Dr. Conley. Highlights: [03:01] Dr. Conley's career journey [07:40] You can be anything you want to be [10:29] Moving forward through fear [12:59] Making the decision to leave academia [16:02] Get comfortable with learning on the job [18:53] Hire people smarter than you [22:52] Cultivating instrumental relationships [26:21] Learning from failure [29:44] How genetic testing created dialogue around DEI [32:55] How to get in touch with Dr. Conley [33:15] Final words of wisdom from Dr. Conley Quotes: “Leaders who hire people smarter than them will have a thriving group who can achieve great things.” – Dr. Emily Drabant Conley “You can learn from others just by watching them, how they run meetings, how they communicate.” – Dr. Emily Drabant Conley “Doing the work on yourself personally is essential to being a good leader.” - Dr. Emily Drabant Conley About Dr. Emily Drabant Conley: Dr. Emily Drabant Conley is Chief Executive Officer of Federation Bio. Previously, Dr. Conley spent over a decade at 23andMe, where she helped scale the company from 30 employees into the world's leading platform for genetic-driven drug discovery. As Vice President of Business Development at 23andMe, she architected visionary partnerships across pharma and biotech. ​Dr. Conley currently serves on the boards of Federation Bio, TMRW and Medrio and formerly served on the boards of Lesbians Who Tech and the UCSF Alliance Health Project. In 2019, Dr. Conley was named one of Business Insider's 30 Leaders Under 40 who are transforming U.S. healthcare and in 2020 she was honored by Google Ventures as one of the 25 women shaping the future of technology. Dr. Conley spent 10 years in academia conducting genetics research. She was a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health and is co-author on more than 35 academic publications. She received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Stanford University School of Medicine, where she held fellowships from the National Science Foundation and Department of Defense. She graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University with a B.A. Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-drabant-conley/ Website: https://www.federation.bio/

Our season two premiere guest is none other than the amazing Lisa Borders, who has held extraordinary positions such as President of the WNBA, CEO of TIMES UP, and Vice Mayor of the City of Atlanta. Now Lisa is compounding her knowledge and experience into her very own company, Golden Glow Media. With three decades of leadership experience, Lisa is a fountain of knowledge when it comes to staying grounded as an agent of change. Listen in as Lisa Borders and Lisa Mae Brunson - Host of the Podcast and Founder of Wonder Women Tech - discuss what Lisa's childhood was like in Atlanta during the Civil Rights Era, continuing the bright legacy of her community and family, and why failure is never fatal. You are somebody! Today's pioneering woman is Leanne Pittsford, CEO and Founder of Lesbians Who Tech, the largest LGBTQ community of technologists in the world — committed to visibility, intersectionality, and changing the face of technology. In 2017 Leanne launched include.io, a mentoring and recruiting platform for underrepresented technologists and recruiters. Thank you for your pioneering contributions, Leanne Pittsford. You can connect with @wonderwomentech on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin! Learn more about our story and mission at https://wonderwomentech.com/ (wonderwomentech.com) Sound Engineering and Music by Carleigh Strange Art Work By Jessenia Hernandez - @sen.i.a on Instagram

Patrick and Alex talk to the incredible author and human being, SAY Yang! SAY is an engaging speaker on creativity, diversity, and storytelling. Their journey to coming out as non-binary and Queer in their late 30s is nothing short of captivating and inspiring. They’ve delivered talks to global audiences at Grace Hopper Celebration, Cisco, Oracle, Lesbians Who Tech, and Women Who Code. SAY lives in Oakland, California and loves drumming, karaoke, and performing standup comedy. In their own words... “I love that my pronouns are both singular and plural because it reminds me every time I hear it that I am never alone. The Divine is with me wherever I go, whoever I’m with, whatever I do. I appreciate the constant reminder. And, just like Mattie (the main character in my book, The Spineless Porcupine), I now find myself in the wilderness, rediscovering who I truly am and finding community there. I hope you’ll join me on the journey of reclaiming our true selves. The best gift we can give this world is to unapologetically be ourselves and to inhabit the fullness of who we are. See you in the wilderness…” --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Angelica Coleman is the Senior Community Manager at Snowflake, a cloud platform that helps companies mobilize their data. There, she's leading the technical community and creating a community engagement program filled with organic brand ambassadors. Previously, Angelica was the Director of Community at Lesbians Who Tech. Along her career journey, she's also worked at Dropbox where she created and led the Black Dropboxers Employee Resource Group. Angelica and Marsha chat about how to scale community programs, improve user retention, and delight customers. Angelica also shares her honest advice for new community professionals who are looking to grow within the industry and for companies that previously slept on community.  Episode Notes: https://www.createcommunitypod.com/episodes/angelica-coleman

If your efforts to find clients looks something like a hail mary and throwing spaghetti on the wall, you'll want to listen to this episode. Entrepreneur and self-taught sales coach Leah Neaderthal shares her personal journey of going from employee to successful entrepreneur. Specifically, she talks about: Why LinkedIn is a great place to find B2B clients How to charge more for your work based on the value, not hours, you produce Practical advice on balancing business development and sales with client work. About Leah Neaderthal: Leah Neaderthal teaches women entrepreneurs how to get the clients they want, and get paid bigger numbers, without feeling salesy. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Neaderthal started her career at advertising agencies DDB and Leo Burnett. After leaving her corporate job, she went on to build and sell three ventures, including The Chainlink, a Chicago-based cycling organization that grew to over 10,000 members in three years; Lean Impact, which helps nonprofits use Lean Startup principles to increase their impact and run their businesses more efficiently; Lesbians Who Tech, a global organization to foster more LGBT women in technology. Each has been an important step in her journey to where she is today -- helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses. Say hi to her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leahtn/ Visit her at: https://www.smartgetspaid.com/ Genevieve's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/genevievekim

In this episode, the Lyrical Ones interview SAY Yang (they/them) about diversity, equity, inclusion, society, community, belonging, love, self-discovery, allyship, in addition to being one of the featured artists for the Tribute to Asian American Stories: Storytelling Showcase on August 14th, at 7pm PST. ⁠ As a professional drummer, filmmaker, poet, and comedian, SAY Yang is a magnetic and animated speaker on creativity, diversity, and storytelling. They've delivered talks to global audiences at Grace Hopper Celebration, Cisco, Oracle, Lesbians Who Tech, Women Who Code, and Oak Life Church. SAY is based in Oakland, California and loves collecting passport stamps. Keep a look out for their highly-anticipated book, The Spineless Porcupine, about a porcupine born without any spines, that will be published in December 2020.⁠ Thank you to everyone who came to our first two workshops these past few days. They have been powerful times of healing, sharing, and intergenerational storytelling. We are so thankful for all the folks who have decided to engage in the space with us!⁠ ⁠ This Friday, August 14th at 7pm PST is the storytelling showcase, where we will feature some stories that people have crafted throughout our workshops. We will also have @nicoletraciiwrites @yiann.sounds and @love_n_cr8ivity perform!⁠ ⁠ Hosted by Lacy Nguyen and Bailey Fan #poetry #spokenword #storytelling #asianamericanresistance #lyricalopposition #lyricalacademy #lyricalassembly #activism #asianamerican⁠

Former Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the company's history of activism, the Facebook ad boycott that Patagonia helped start, and what she hopes it will accomplish. Marcario explains how Patagonia chooses which battles to fight, what she thinks of other business leaders who take public stands — such as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos — and why we need more "good actors" in the corporate world. Plus: Is "compassionate capitalism" a real thing? This interview was recorded as part of the Lesbians Who Tech virtual Pride Summit. Featuring: Rose Marcario, former CEO, Patagonia Host: Kara Swisher (@karaswisher), Recode co-founder and editor-at-large More to explore: On Reset, Arielle Duhaime-Ross explores why — and how — tech is changing everything. On Recode Media, Peter Kafka interviews business titans, journalists, comedians and podcasters about the collision of tech and media. On Pivot, Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway talk about the big tech news stories of the week, who's winning, who's failing, and what comes next. And on Season 1 of Land of the Giants, Jason Del Rey chronicled the rise of Amazon — and now, on Season 2, Peter Kafka and Rani Molla are examining "the Netflix effect." About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us. Follow Us: Newsletter: Recode Daily Twitter: @Recode and @voxdotcom Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some Themes discussed:UX/UI career differencesCareer TrajectoryAccessibility & DesignLGBTQ spaces & ResourcesHelpful Advice Resources mentioned:Hour of Code: https://code.org/Built in Chicago : https://www.builtinchicago.org/Lesbians Who Tech: https://lesbianswhotech.org/Out in Tech: https://outintech.com/ Connect with Tori: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriameschino/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vic____a/ Connect with Ceci:Twitter: https://twitter.com/CeciBenitez13LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cfischerbenitez Follow the podcast:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChicagoTechiesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/chicagotechies/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chicagotechiesLinkedIn: Chicago Techies PodcastMusic composed by Anna Eichenauer, checkout her work here. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast! If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please leave a rating and a review on iTunes. Use the hashtag #ChicagoTechiesPod for any shoutouts and comments on our episodes.

In 2012, Leanne Pittsford created a Facebook event for lesbians working in the San Francisco tech industry. Now, Lesbians Who Tech has hosted six summits in addition to dozens of other events around the world. And in 2020, they will host the first virtual Pride Summit. It’s the largest LGBTQ community of technologists in the world. But it’s not just for lesbians – everyone is invited to support and attend the events! Leanne and I chat about why our community needs this, how she provides value to businesses, and the importance of reclaiming the word lesbian. Did you enjoy the episode? Leave me a message at: https://anchor.fm/yfm/message Highlights 7:17 Leanne talks about how working with the No on Prop 8 campaign inspired the concept for Lesbians Who Tech 10:38 She describes what the first meetups were like at bars 16:11 I ask about her branding choice, how intentional it was, and how it’s helped (or hurt) her mission 20:30 I ask Leanne about taking the leap from small gatherings to a large summit 26:04 Leanne tells me about reaching $1 million and how Lesbians Who Tech reinvests in the community 28:41 She talks about how the business still serves the community in light of the pandemic 33:00 Leanne reflects on what gives her optimism about the near future 35:02 I ask her why she brings politicians to speak at events, and whether she sees herself running for office Music by Jeff Kaale (1, 2, 3, 4) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/yfm/message

We recorded this in summer, but it got pushed back by some of our other episodes, and we’re thrilled to finally get it out! Jenny Lachs from Digital Nomad Girls thinks nomads have a responsibility to be politically and socially active Activist burnout is a real thing and we need to have strategies for coping with it We discuss integrating activism into your work like the Australian play Kill Climate Deniers Audrey from The F School wants you to give money to causes you’re passionate about  Check out Lesbians Who Tech! Who wouldn’t love cuddling kittens at Coco’s Animal Welfare in Playa del Carmen? Vianessa Castaños reminds us that we need to be aware of the politics in the places we want to visit Ambar Januel encourages us to be consistent with a cause!  Phonebanking and textbanking are ways you can help get out the vote no matter where you are! RAICES Texas is a great organization supporting immigrant rights in the US Go to the Nomad + Spice Facebook Page to raise money for _________ Women on Waves gets abortions to women via boat - support them! - and check out their map of reproductive rights These Come From Trees stickers! Sami Gardner gives free career coaching to underrepresented women and prioritizes women, queer people, and minorities in the hiring process for her clients Here’s the article on making what you do explicitly political   Support this podcast on Patreon! Email us! hello@nomadandspice.com. Join our FB Group! Nomad + Spice. Tweet us! @nomadandspice. Theme music: Yellow Sea by the super-activist Madame Gandhi.

Entepreneur Leanne Pittsford sits down with Cameron to discuss founding and running Lesbians Who Tech.     This episode is sponsored by Penguin Random House.

Kara and Scott talk at the annual Lesbians Who Tech Summit in New York City. Scott is dubbed a #LezBro. They discuss 48 state AG's putting forth an antitrust probe into Google. They love it. Kara comes with her new augmented reality glasses -- she thinks they're the future, Scott disagrees. WeWork's biggest investor encouraged them not to go forward with their IPO -- it's either because Pivot has gone so hard after them or because their S-1 is utter nonsense. Kara's win is Chrissy Teigen taking on Trump on Twitter. Scott's win is California's new law protecting gig workers. And they answer audience questions about how tech can be a better place for the LGBTQ community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kara and Scott talk at the annual Lesbians Who Tech Summit in New York City. Scott is dubbed a #LezBro. They discuss 48 state AG's putting forth an antitrust probe into Google. They love it. Kara comes with her new augmented reality glasses -- she thinks they're the future, Scott disagrees. WeWork's biggest investor encouraged them not to go forward with their IPO -- it's either because Pivot has gone so hard after them or because their S-1 is utter nonsense. Kara's win is Chrissy Teigen taking on Trump on Twitter. Scott's win is California's new law protecting gig workers. And they answer audience questions about how tech can be a better place for the LGBTQ community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kara and Scott talk at the annual Lesbians Who Tech Summit in New York City. Scott is dubbed a #LezBro. They discuss 48 state AG's putting forth an antitrust probe into Google. They love it. Kara comes with her new augmented reality glasses -- she thinks they're the future, Scott disagrees. WeWork's biggest investor encouraged them not to go forward with their IPO -- it's either because Pivot has gone so hard after them or because their S-1 is utter nonsense. Kara's win is Chrissy Teigen taking on Trump on Twitter. Scott's win is California's new law protecting gig workers. And they answer audience questions about how tech can be a better place for the LGBTQ community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kara and Scott talk at the annual Lesbians Who Tech Summit in New York City. Scott is dubbed a #LezBro. They discuss 48 state AG's putting forth an antitrust probe into Google. They love it. Kara comes with her new augmented reality glasses -- she thinks they're the future, Scott disagrees. WeWork's biggest investor encouraged them not to go forward with their IPO -- it's either because Pivot has gone so hard after them or because their S-1 is utter nonsense. Kara's win is Chrissy Teigen taking on Trump on Twitter. Scott's win is California's new law protecting gig workers. And they answer audience questions about how tech can be a better place for the LGBTQ community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Perry is a passionate champion for underrepresented minorities in tech, who uses they/he pronouns. Born in the UK, they are a passionate champion for underrepresented minorities in tech. Before joining Netlify, Perry was a student and afterwards, an instructor at Epicodus, a coding bootcamp. They’ve been an active member of several communities that support underrepresented identities in tech, including Lesbians Who Tech, Out in Tech, and PDXWIT.

Amazon is deep in counterfeit hot water, and it’s latest issue is knock-offs of baby products that could be dangerous. Inc.’s writers and editors share their recent reporting on the matter, plus: Google’s AI oversight flap, and an in-depth look at the woman radically rethinking tech-conferences, and building a diversity hiring tool for Silicon Valley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

-Rooster starts off talking about the college admission fraud scandal which leads into multiple tangents. -Table Topics ™ Include: How would you rank love, freedom, and spirituality in order of importance? Who was the best teacher you had? -Crow explores the Somali school fraud in Minnesota and the attempts to run cover by government officials and mainstream media. -A female tech writer, who interviewed the CEO of Youtube at a conference for Lesbians Who Tech, said that Ben Shapiro is four clicks away from neo-Nazi propaganda and must be deplatformed. -Crow and Rooster finish up by talking about how much fun it is to tell absurd lies to children. Email us: rooster@breadandcircusespodcast.com crow@breadandcircusespodcast.com Our Face book page: www.facebook.com/Bread-and-Circus…339352686829476/ Our surströmming challenge video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l2T6_DswW0&t=559s

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki talks with Recode's Kara Swisher in this live interview recorded at Lesbians Who Tech in San Francisco. In this episode: Why YouTube turned off comments for tens of millions of videos recently; its latest attempts to keep kids safe; the criteria it weighs when making a policy change; toxicity in YouTube's comments; what would it do if it lost section 230 immunity?; "the only way to solve this, at the end of the day, is going to be with a combination of human and machines"; diversity in YouTube's leadership; the Google walkout; should Google put a non-executive employee on its board?; contractors in tech; and do the leaders in Silicon Valley "get it?" Thanks to Microsoft Azure for sponsoring this episode. Get started with a free account and 12 months of popular free services at Azure.com/trial today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to Tech Forward, listeners! This week, I'm rebroadcasting an episode from May of last year, when I spoke with Angelica Coleman, tech aficionado and Director of Community at Lesbians Who Tech. A global community of over 35,000 queer technologists, Lesbians Who Tech connects talent with existing companies by hosting summits nationally as well as globally. They partner with hundreds of companies every year, and offer coding scholarships to queer and gender nonconforming women. As an advocate for diversity and inclusion, Angie is always finding new ways to use tech to build communities and bring people together. Black women face abundant challenges in their professional lives. Not only are they frequently offered lower wages, they’re often steered away from the positions they apply for, and towards administrative or other non-technical roles. As a result, black women in the tech sector regularly end up underpaid, overworked, and pigeonholed into low wage, low status career paths regardless of their experience. Here are two tips from Angie on avoiding that fate: Don’t market skills you don’t intend to use. A self-described generalist, Angie has worked at myriad companies and worn many hats during her tenure at each one. “There are skills [from previous jobs] that I never want to touch again. Don’t put it on your resume if you don’t want to do it! Remember you can tailor your resume for different roles.” Don’t be afraid to say no to companies. Turning down an offer can feel risky, especially if you have financial concerns. Staying in a role that doesn’t fit you, however, can negatively affect your career trajectory down the line: either you end up changing jobs too often, or your performance could suffer. Black, queer, and gender nonconforming professionals each face their own set of hurdles when advancing in companies, though there is plenty of overlap. So how can these underrepresented groups advocate for change without being labeled as someone who doesn’t fit in? Angie’s advice: play the game. “I’m always going to be myself, in a way that still complies with the job culture, until I can start changing that culture. If you show up as your best self, being all in and being a team player, you gain trust and responsibility. Then you can assert more of your views.” To companies who want to increase diversity of their staff, Angie offers this advice: “Think about where you’re looking. When you make ‘top 10 schools’ a qualification, you’re cutting out entire populations who might be just as qualified, if not more. Expand your search. You can keep the same criteria. You don’t have to lower the bar, you just have to look somewhere else.” Angie, thank you so much for coming onto the show to share your insights and advice. Thank you also to all of you out there listening, reviewing, and sharing the show. We'll see you next week with a brand new episode! Connect with us Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

In today’s podcast, we hear that Huawei’s CFO awaits her immediate fate in a Vancouver detention facility, where she faces possible extradition to the US on a sanctions-violation beef. Huawei itself receives hostile scrutiny from the Five Eyes, the EU, and Japan. US indictments are expected soon in other IP theft cases involving China. Upgrade Kubernetes. Russia and Ukraine swap cyberattacks in their ongoing hybrid war. An advance fee scam promises not only money, but maybe love, too. Emily Wilson from Terbium labs, on why she feels the Lesbians Who Tech conference gets diversity right.  For links to all of today's stories check our our CyberWire daily news brief: https://thecyberwire.com/issues/issues2018/November/CyberWire_2018_12_10.html Support our show

There are half a million open tech jobs, and yet, diversity in tech continues to be a problem. The key is in building relationships and connecting people with the right companies that need their skills the most. Leanne Pittsford is the founder of Lesbians Who Tech, the largest LGBTQ community of technologists in the world with over 40,000 members. She is also the founder of Tech Jobs Tour, connecting diverse, underrepresented, and nontraditional talent with companies across the country. Among other companies she has created are include.io, and Lean Impact. Fun fact about Leanne is when she’s not helping people find jobs she really loves to surf.

We decided to take a summer break. We’ll be back at the end of September with Episode 6. Be sure to listen in on our conversation with Kayti Sullivan, SVP at Yelp. We’ll follow with Leanne Pittsford, founder of Lesbians Who Tech on Episode 7 in October.

We attended the 2018 Lesbians Who Tech + Allies Summit back in March in San Francisco. The LWT organization supplied us with a press pass so we took our portable recorder and spoke to attendees at the summit. It was an awesome event and we had a blast. Take a listen to our guests Cat Wade , Tonda Case & Carolyne Vu. Thank you so much to the entire LWT team! Find out more at https://lesbianswhotech.org

Angie Coleman joins us on the show to tell us how to put the self back in self-care! The tech aficionado is the founder of Reboot America and the Director of Community at Lesbians Who Tech. She joins us on the show to talk about reaching health goals, disconnecting once in a while, and relying on your team to pick up extra work while you’re away on vacation. Angie also unpacks how she approaches self-care, particularly by way of creating challenges for herself. She argues that our fast-paced culture makes us feel bad for taking care of ourselves. Self-care then becomes a competition, not just with ourselves, but with our peers on social media. Want to hear more from Angie? You can connect with her on Instagram and Twitter. If you want to keep up with more of her projects, be sure to check out her website and follow the Lesbians Who Tech on Twitter and Instagram. As always, you can find this episode and much more on our Twitter and Instagram at @SelfCareSundays and on Facebook at @SelfCareSundaysPodcast. This episode can also be found on Spotify, GooglePlay and RadioPublic. The transcription for this episode is available here. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uJCj0_DLPYI9qa5tW2F6PYq0R0Od9O1B29sk4K33rT8/edit?usp=sharing

Welcome back to Tech Forward, listeners! This week, I spoke with Angelica Coleman, tech aficionado and Director of Community at Lesbians Who Tech. A global community of over 35,000 queer technologists, Lesbians Who Tech connects talent with existing companies by hosting summits nationally as well as globally. They partner with hundreds of companies every year, and offer coding scholarships to queer and gender nonconforming women. As an advocate for diversity and inclusion, Angie is always finding new ways to use tech to build communities and bring people together. Black women face abundant challenges in their professional lives. Not only are they frequently offered lower wages, they’re often steered away from the positions they apply for, and towards administrative or other non-technical roles. As a result, black women in the tech sector regularly end up underpaid, overworked, and pigeonholed into low wage, low status career paths regardless of their experience. Here are two tips from Angie on avoiding that fate: Don’t market skills you don’t intend to use. A self-described generalist, Angie has worked at myriad companies and worn many hats during her tenure at each one. “There are skills [from previous jobs] that I never want to touch again. Don’t put it on your resume if you don’t want to do it! Remember you can tailor your resume for different roles.” Don’t be afraid to say no to companies. Turning down an offer can feel risky, especially if you have financial concerns. Staying in a role that doesn’t fit you, however, can negatively affect your career trajectory down the line: either you end up changing jobs too often, or your performance could suffer. Black, queer, and gender nonconforming professionals each face their own set of hurdles when advancing in companies, though there is plenty of overlap. So how can these underrepresented groups advocate for change without being labeled as someone who doesn’t fit in? Angie’s advice: play the game. “I’m always going to be myself, in a way that still complies with the job culture, until I can start changing that culture. If you show up as your best self, being all in and being a team player, you gain trust and responsibility. Then you can assert more of your views.” To companies who want to increase diversity of their staff, Angie offers this advice: “Think about where you’re looking. When you make ‘top 10 schools’ a qualification, you’re cutting out entire populations who might be just as qualified, if not more. Expand your search. You can keep the same criteria. You don’t have to lower the bar, you just have to look somewhere else.” Angie, thank you so much for coming onto the show to share your insights and advice. I want my listeners to know that the next Lesbians Who Tech summit will be held in New York, September 12-14th, and is open to non-binary and LGBTQ women, as well as allies. As always, thank you for listening, and see you next week!

We’re joined in this episode by Leah Neaderthal, a serial entrepreneur who specializes in teaching other women how to become comfortable (and successful) with sales. Leah teaches her clients how to think of selling in these terms: Build the house. Furnish it. Move in. THEN, invite people over… How is the your sales process organized? Do you have a sales pipeline? According to Leah, the health of your pipeline is a good indicator of the health of your business. Leah didn’t learn to sell by being a commissioned salesperson; she learned it experientially through entrepreneurship. She taught herself everything she could about selling by reading over 60 books, which helped her overcome the natural “selling shyness” most entrepreneurs have. Prior to starting Smart Gets Paid, Leah built, grew, and sold multiple businesses. She co-founded Lesbians Who Tech, a global organization to foster more LGBT women in technology. She also co-founded Lean Impact, where she helped nonprofits use Lean Startup principles to increase their impact and run their businesses more efficiently. Leah’s best advice? Focus on articulating YOUR VALUE. When you can step into your value and really own it, the sales process becomes about offering that value instead of asking to be hired. Other Mentions: Smart Gets Paid Joy: sweater shaverHustle: CRM tool (Leah uses Nimble)

Leanne Pittsford, CEO & Founder, Lesbians Who Tech., include.io + Tech Jobs Tour, discusses her journey as a queer woman working in the tech industry and why she founded Lesbians Who Tech, the largest LGBTQ network of technologists in the world. She reveals the reasons why the tech industry represents a great opportunity for diverse talent and shares the work that she is doing to help create more diversity in the tech sector by scaling referrals outside of existing networks. Discover how leaders can support these efforts and the importance of creating safe spaces within organizations.

Dr. Fei-Fei Li, the Chief Scientist of AI/ML at Google joins Melanie and Mark this week to talk about how Google enables businesses to solve critical problems through AI solutions. We talk about the work she is doing at Google to help reduce AI barriers to entry for enterprise, her research with Stanford combining AI and health care, where AI research is going, and her efforts to overcome one of the key challenges in AI by driving for more diversity in the field. Dr. Fei-Fei Li Dr. Fei-Fei Li is the Chief Scientist of AI/ML at Google Cloud. She is also an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford, and the Director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab. Dr. Fei-Fei Li's main research areas are in machine learning, deep learning, computer vision and cognitive and computational neuroscience. She has published more than 150 scientific articles in top-tier journals and conferences, including Nature, PNAS, Journal of Neuroscience, CVPR, ICCV, NIPS, ECCV, IJCV, IEEE-PAMI, etc. Dr. Fei-Fei Li obtained her B.A. degree in physics from Princeton in 1999 with High Honors, and her PhD degree in electrical engineering from California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 2005. She joined Stanford in 2009 as an assistant professor, and was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2012. Prior to that, she was on faculty at Princeton University (2007-2009) and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (2005-2006). Dr. Li is the inventor of ImageNet and the ImageNet Challenge, a critical large-scale dataset and benchmarking effort that has contributed to the latest developments in deep learning and AI. In addition to her technical contributions, she is a national leading voice for advocating diversity in STEM and AI. She is co-founder of Stanford's renowned SAILORS outreach program for high school girls and the national non-profit AI4ALL. For her work in AI, Dr. Li is a speaker at the TED2015 main conference, a recipient of the IAPR 2016 J.K. Aggarwal Prize, the 2016 nVidia Pioneer in AI Award, 2014 IBM Faculty Fellow Award, 2011 Alfred Sloan Faculty Award, 2012 Yahoo Labs FREP award, 2009 NSF CAREER award, the 2006 Microsoft Research New Faculty Fellowship and a number of Google Research awards. Work from Dr. Li's lab have been featured in a variety of popular press magazines and newspapers including New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, Science, Wired Magazine, MIT Technology Review, Financial Times, and more. She was selected as a 2017 Women in Tech by the ELLE Magazine, a 2017 Awesome Women Award by Good Housekeeping, a Global Thinker of 2015 by Foreign Policy, and one of the “Great Immigrants: The Pride of America” in 2016 by the Carnegie Foundation, past winners include Albert Einstein, Yoyo Ma, Sergey Brin, et al. Cool things of the week Terah Lyons appointed founding executive director of Partnership on AI article & site Fully managed export and import with Cloud Datastore now generally available blog How Color uses the new Variant Transforms tool for breakthrough clinical data science with BigQuery blog & repo Google Cloud and NCAA team up for a unique March Madness copmetition hosted on Kaggle blog Interview AI4All site, they are hiring and how to become a mentor Cloud AI site Cloud AutoML site Cloud Vision API site and docs Cloud Speech API site and docs Cloud Natural Language API site and docs Cloud Translation API site and docs Cloud Machine Learning Engine docs TensorFlow site, github and Dev Summit waitlist ImageNet site & Kaggle ImageNet Competition site Stanford Medicine site & Stanford Children's Hospital site Additional sample resources on Dr. Fei-Fei Li: Citations site Stanford Vision Lab site Fei-Fei Li | 2018 MAKERS Conference video Google Cloud's Li Sees Transformative Time for Enterprise video Past, Present and Future of AI / Machine Learning Google I/O video Research Symposium 2017 - Morning Keynote Address at Harker School video How we're teaching computers to understand pictures video Melinda Gates and Fei-Fei Li Want to Liberate AI from “Guy with Hoodies” article Dr. Fei-Fei Li Question of the week Where can I learn more about machine learning? Listing of some of the many resources out there in no particular order: How Google does Machine Learning coursera Machine Learning with Andrew Ng coursera and Deep Learning Specialization coursera fast.ai site Machine Learning with John W. Paisley edx Machine Learning Columbia University edx International Women's Day March 8th International Women's Day site covers information on events in your area, and additional resources. Sample of recent women in tech events to keep on radar for next year: Women Techmakers site Lesbians Who Tech site Women in Data Science Conference site Where can you find us next? Mark will be at the Game Developer's Conference | GDC in March.

This week we talk to Leanne Pittsford, founder and CEO of Lesbians who Tech, and all around top notch badass. She tells us about the origins of her company, and how her work at Lesbians Who Tech has lead her to bringing even more members of marginalized communities in to tech jobs. We use the Golden Pantsuit to honor a young leader from Florida, and remind you that the DACA fight is ongoing.

This week we talk to Leanne Pittsford, founder and CEO of Lesbians who Tech, and all around top notch badass. She tells us about the origins of her company, and how her work at Lesbians Who Tech has lead her to bringing even more members of marginalized communities in to tech jobs. We use the Golden Pantsuit to honor a young leader from Florida, and remind you that the DACA fight is ongoing.

In this episode, we talk with Leanne Pittsford founder and CEO of Lesbians Who Tech about how she has scaled her business from start up to over 25,000 queer women and allies strong. Lesbians Who Tech, which is increasing visibility and improving representation among LGBTQ women in the tech sector on a global scale. Leanne talks about how she has been able to make this all happen from a kernel of an idea to the White House and beyond. She shares all the steps she took along the way and offers valuable advice all fempreneurs should here. Launching Lesbians Who Tech Episode Highlights Gay men and gay women are at the opposite ends of the equity spectrum at work Lesbians Who Tech was built through hustling, but starting at first using lean startup principles. When you are scaling talk to the individuals who use your product and solve their problems. Recruitment of mid-level professionals is an untapped space that Lesbians Who Tech has taken over in tech industry Each day remember what are your “non-negotiables” but be open to the fact that they might change. “Don’t wait for things to be perfect.” “Trust your gut and check in with yourself often.” It’s likely you’ll be happier if you fail on something you tried to build than something you are building for someone else. Leanne Pittsford Leanne Pittsford is the CEO and Founder of Lesbians Who Tech, the largest LGBTQ network of technologists in the world. Now over 25,000 queer women and allies strong, Lesbians Who Tech is increasing visibility and improving representation among LGBTQ women in the tech sector on a global scale through annual tech Summits in New York, San Francisco, Mexico City, Paris, Singapore and programs like the Edie Windsor Coding Scholarship, a coding scholarship fund for LGBTQ to learn how to code, and Bring a Lesbian to Work Day, a one day shadow career program. You can learn more here at lesianswhotech.org. She recently launched include.io, a recruiting and retention platform that uses mini-mentoring sessions to validate diverse and non-traditional technical talent, allowing companies to be intentional about inclusion. On the platform companies can scale access to the direct referrals that matter most, their current employees, to build their best teams and hire individuals for who they really are. Check out the platform to learn more at include.io. In 2017, Leanne is partnering with TechHire, an initiative created by the Obama Administration, to launch a 50 city Tech Jobs Tour in 2017 with advisor Megan Smith, 3rd Chief Technology Officer of the United States. The Tour will stop in 50 cities across America to connect diverse and non-traditional talent to over 500,000 open tech jobs. See where it’s stopping next at techjobstour.com. Before her work with Lesbians Who Tech, Tech Jobs Tour and include.io, Leanne founded and led Start Somewhere, a design and technology agency focused on strengthening social good organizations. She built leanimpact.org, an organization that helped social good organizations and companies use lean startup principles to increase their impact, which officially became part of Lean Startup in 2016. From 2006 to 2010 Leanne served as the Senior Director at Equality California, the largest statewide LGBTQ organization behind the No on Prop 8 Campaign. She managed the data for the campaign and built online fundraising campaigns that raised millions to support No on Prop 8. Leanne lives San Francisco and Washington D.C with her partner Pia Carusone and their two dachshunds. You can find her on a plane or on Twitter at @lepitts. Follow Leanne online at: Website: lesianswhotech.org Twitter: @lepitts

Does the phrase “cold calling” terrify you? Are you a fempreneur that didn’t realize sales would be such a big part of running your own business? Leah Neaderthal teaches women entrepreneurs how to sign new clients. She is founder of Growthworks Solutions and joins us this week to talk sales and how selling doesn’t actually have to suck!   Episode Highlights The fear of sales and what’s really behind that (especially for women) and how to conquer it Learning how to sell for your own business Understanding the real value you provide your clients/customers The difference between marketing and sales The buyer’s journey Breaking down cold calling The power of referrals Pricing and avoiding undervaluing Breaking the time-for-money exchange Negotiating versus bargaining Growthworks Solutions’ newly launched SIGNED program   Quotes: “Conversations create clients.” -- Leah Neaderthal “Hourly pricing is the bad math of entrepreneurship.” -- Leah Neaderthal Leah Neaderthal Leah Neaderthal teaches women entrepreneurs how to sign new clients. An entrepreneur and three-time business owner, Leah didn't learn to sell by being a commissioned salesperson. She learned it by building her businesses. She taught herself everything she could about selling, and overcame the natural "selling shyness" most entrepreneurs have, to find the confidence to really go out and sell to new clients. The outcome is a comfortable selling approach that doesn't feel salesy -- and gets results. Now she shares the secrets she learned along the way, helping entrepreneurs and business owners build their client pipeline, and confidently guide prospects from the first contact to a successful close. Prior to starting Growthworks Solutions, Leah built, grew and sold three businesses. Most recently she co-founded Lesbians Who Tech, she created a global organization to foster more LGBT women in technology; and she co-founded Lean Impact, where she helped nonprofits use Lean Startup principles to increase their impact and run their businesses more efficiently. Follow Leah online at: Website:  http://www.growthworkssolutions.com and http://www.growthworkssolutions.com/signed LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leahtn   Other episodes you might dig: https://leanthef-ckout.com/episode-52-networking-success/ https://leanthef-ckout.com/episode-49-digital-media-kae-whitaker/ https://leanthef-ckout.com/episode-39-shark-tank-sara-moylan/ https://leanthef-ckout.com/episode-36-saying-no-brianne-huntsman/ Download the FREE Lean the F*ck Out Launch Kit If you are thinking about starting a business or side hustle, check out our Lean the F*ck Out Launch Kit. The kit gives you tools and inspiration to start thinking like a fempreneur and start designing the life you want! You’ll receive a guided meditation to help you figure out your vision, a budget worksheet to see what you need financially to make a go of it, daily practices including printable worksheets and daily affirmations to help you keep your head up when your confidence is waning. Again, it’s free and it’s available at http://leanthef-ckout.com/launchkit-hsf.

Arlan discusses her intent to fund more LGBTQ-founded startups, her adoration of Lesbians Who Tech, and Pride month. These bonus notes are raw clips with no editing of spontaneous thoughts from Arlan – an intimate, "fly on the wall" look into what's on her mind. These occasionally released bonus clips dive deeper into the dozens of FAQs Arlan receives regularly, peel apart her thesis, and get REAL about venture capital.

Today I sit down with Tracey Kaplan, Territory Sales Manager at Google who also is extremely passionate about all things LGBTQ+. She is involved with Lesbians Who Tech and often fundraises for many LGBT initiatives. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nakedinsideout/message

#99: Are We Innately Driven to Serve Others With Matt Kidd Jenn T Grace:              You are listening to the Personal Branding for the LGBTQ Professional Podcast, episode 99.   Introduction:              Welcome to the Personal Branding for the LGBTQ Professional Podcast; the podcast dedicated to helping LGBTQ professionals and business owners grow their business and careers through the power of leveraging their LGBTQ identities in their personal brand. You'll learn how to market your products and services both broadly, and within the LGBTQ community. You'll hear from incredible guests who are leveraging the power of their identity for good, as well as those who haven't yet started, and everyone in between. And now your host. She teaches straight people how to market to gay people, and gay people how to market themselves. Your professional lesbian, Jenn - with two N's - T Grace.   Jenn T Grace:              Well hello and welcome to episode 99 of the Personal Branding for the LGBTQ Professional Podcast. I am your host, Jenn Grace, and I am almost stunned that we are at episode 99 and the next episode will obviously be 100, that will be the last one of 2016 and it's almost a big monumental time to be hitting this 99th episode before going into the triple digits.                                     So as I have been doing for the last couple of months, I have another interview to share with you and it's with Matt Kidd, and he is the Executive Director of Reaching Out MBA which is an organization that is focused on LGBTQ folks who are pursuing MBAs, and we really just had an amazing conversation that kind of went back and forth between LGBT culture and some of the challenges that we see, and personal brands, and how people can be change makers, and advocates, and really it was just a very fascinating conversation to be had. So per usual I will not dilly dally here with the introduction and we can just dive right into today's interview with Matt, and I will see you in episode 100, but for today please enjoy this interview with Matt Kidd, and if you would like to find information about this episode, see a transcript, any of that, you can do so at www.JennTGrace.com/99 for episode number 99. Thanks so much and enjoy the interview.                                     Okay so I want to start off with just having you give the listeners a little bit of a background about yourself, maybe what you've done in the past, what your current position is, and then we can just kind of dive into other interesting topics from there. So why don't you just kind of take it away.   Matt Kidd:                  Sure so my name is Matt Kidd. I'm currently the Executive Director of an LGBT organization called Reaching Out. A lot of people know us also as ROMBA, and the organization itself is effectively the now global organization for LGBT MBA both students and professionals. And it's something that I've been in this role now for a little over three years, but prior to that was on the board. So I've been involved with Reaching Out now probably for- gosh going on about eight years. But I would say for me being part of kind of the LGBT community is something that has gone on really since I was a teenager in some ways, which I can talk a little bit about later, and I have to say as I came to this role it really was because I was at a time in my life where I started really thinking about what difference can we make in the world? To be honest I'd gone through my own MBA business school experience, I was working at Tech Startup, and about two, three years after I'd been at that company I was number one kind of getting a little bit bored and I was thinking about what do I want to do next? But number two, I actually lost my mother and so at that point I'd lost both my parents. And when you go through something like that I think it forces a lot of self-reflection and kind of thinking about what is your purpose in the world? Why are you doing this? What really matters? And I think that was one of those moments. And so it was kind of probably about a year after that, that the organization was going through this big change where it went from what was effectively an all-volunteer model with a volunteer board, and using students to run basically one event to an organization that really wanted to have a larger scope, wanted to run year round, and [Inaudible 00:04:33]. And I vividly remember we were sitting in a room with some consultants that we were working with and one of them pulled me aside and said, "Hey would you consider raising your hand for this," and my gut reaction was, "No that's ridiculous." And then I think I went home and thought about it, and a couple weeks went by, and I just kept coming back to it. It was this really interesting part of me, 'What can we do with this? Like if I did this, why would it be interesting and why should I do this?' And it all kind of came back to in a weird way- I view my time at Reaching Out really in a weird way is working with some sort of startup or something entrepreneurial because I came in and it had been this established product which was this conference that's been going on now for nineteen years, but it really didn't do much else. And so it kind of gave me a blank slate to come and then say, 'Well what do we want to do? What impact do we want to do?' And as soon as I kind of had some of the conversations that made it clear that we really would be able to move forward quickly rather than kind of in the traditional slow nonprofit way, I threw my hat into the ring and lo and behold three years later we've built up a staff of three, we're doing probably close to twenty events a year, we have a scholarship program that's giving away over a million dollars a year to LGBTQ students in business school. So we've been able to accomplish a lot, but that's kind of how I got to where I am, and kind of a little bit about what's going on in my world.   Jenn T Grace:              Do you think with your kind of gut reaction of like, 'Oh hell no I don't want to go down this path,' and then somehow that being the path that you end up on, do you think that like if you look back it's just kind of really kind of changed the trajectory of your ability to make- create purpose and change kind of in your life?   Matt Kidd:                  Yeah I do. The reality is I probably won't be in this role forever. Some people do ask me, "What are you going to do next?" And I think in a weird way this role has made me really reflect on what would make me happy in life, and what would not? And I think some of that has to do with the type of organizations that you work for. I think there's something inherently nice about working- for me at least, for a small to mid-sized organization rather than kind of a giant corporation. I think it tells you a little bit about kind of the impact that you can have. I think particularly when you're talking about a nonprofit or a v-corp or something like that, then I think in those cases you're doing more than just having an impact on the business line, you're having an impact on kind of the greater community. I think at this point- and I think it's- I alluded to this before, I think it's been true really since I was much younger, but now I consciously think about what can I be doing to make somebody else's life better at the end of the day? And I think some of that comes from mission driven work, and where you work, but some of that just becomes frankly how you treat people, how you talk, how you position yourself, and I think being in a role like this makes me hyper conscious of that and that's something that regardless of what I'm doing next, I that's had just had a tremendous impact really on my life. And like I said it can be just something as simple as how are you talking to other people? Are you kind of taking into consideration their priorities, their needs, how can you help them, how might they be at a disadvantage to you? Every conversation now in some form, that goes through my thinking.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah and I know that you have kind of information from early back as we were talking before we hit record, do you think that for people to come to the realization that like their purpose in life is to really kind of serve others? Because that's really at the crux of what you're talking about, is serving others. Do you think that it requires some kind of pivotal moment to cause that? Or do you think that's innate to some people? Like what are your thoughts on that, and then of course how did you realize that about yourself?   Matt Kidd:                  Yeah I think it's ultimately at the end of the day in everyone. I think there probably are varying degrees of it, but I do think it takes something in somebody's life really to kind of recognize it. And so what we were talking about before we recorded today is October 12th and so it's the eighteenth anniversary of the murder of Matthew Shepard, and I really vividly remember an experience when I was probably a junior or so in high school, and this was in Memphis, Tennessee so fairly deep south in kind of the late nineties, and I remember this experience, and I apologize for my language here but there was a teacher who kind of came in and basically said, "That faggot deserved it. He probably had Aids anyway." And you know, at the time I was not really out at that point, I would say I was exploring my sexual identity in some capacity and I think some people probably suspected, but I just remember that just first of all making me feel so little, but then I think the more I reflected on it, it started to make me angry. And a couple years ago I had the pleasure of sitting down with Judy Shepard, and we were talking, and my comment to her was the murder is obviously horrible, and I think everybody would go back in time and change it if they could, but there is a silver lining that comes of horrible incidents like this, and that's I think it gets a lot of people to reflect on their own purpose and kind of have a reaction. And so I would say if you look at a lot of my peers, particularly in the LGBT social justice faith now, a lot of them would say a moment to them where they realized that this was something that was important to them, something that moved them that made them care, was Matthew Shepard’s death. And so for a lot of us, kind of my generation, so people who are in their mid-thirties, I think that was a moment that sparked this idea of, 'This is wrong and I want to change that.' Now how people went about doing that, I think it takes a lot of different paths. And sometimes you'll see have you multiple encounters, like for me a second spark really was my loss of both my parents, that a moment where for me it was like, 'Well why am I on this earth? Like what am I meant to do?' And so I think you do have those points, and I think it's what you decide to do with them that really matters.   Jenn T Grace:              So I have a friend of mine who's writing a book, and it's really about what you're talking about of really kind of taking that challenging situation and turning it into that silver lining. And there's a whole concept around it called post-traumatic growth, and it's really that we grow from those really traumatic experiences that we kind of face. Do you think- because I too am in my mid-thirties looking back at Matthew Shepard, and that being in 1998, and I was also a junior in high school. I remember it really vividly as I think most people our age do, and do you think that there- because I think that Judy Shepard really, really made it her life's mission to use that incident and her experience as a grieving mother to really be a catalyst in so many ways across the board for LGBT equality. Do you think that because it was 1998, if we look back Ellen had come out a couple of years before, LGBT was so not on the forefront as it is now. If we look at something like what happened in Orlando in June, do we look at that as possibly one of those pivotal moments for people now? Like because I know for us, like I definitely- of course we all had a reaction to Orlando, but do we think that that is actually one of those defining moments for maybe the youth? Especially as you- with reaching out working with students, I'm curious just kind of your perspective and hearing stories that you might have heard from any of the students that you work with.   Matt Kidd:                  Yeah you know I think at some level it did, I think that there are certainly differences kind of as you alluded to. In the nineties, LGBT- obviously being LGBT, being out, much less acceptable than it is now. And I think in many ways, Orlando in particular exposed people to this concept of we're still vulnerable. I think one of the things that I see in a lot of students, and it's a little bit horrifying for me to see some students who are kids now getting into the nineties, but some of them have never grown up in an age frankly without Internet, which I think for a lot of LGBT people kind of opened a community, opened kind of access to free communication that you might not otherwise have, and I think they've grown up in an environment thanks to people like Kevin Jennings where a lot of them have seen GSAs in their schools and stuff like that. And so they've always grown up in this environment where it's been acceptable, and I think that there's always this danger that people become a little bit complacent, and so I think it moved a lot of people to think, 'Okay there's still a lot of work to do.' Because I hate to say this, but let's be honest, the fact that not all states have workplace protection for example, it's actually not as sexy to at least a lot of my students because most of them are going to go work for corporations or multi-nationals who regardless of whether the state they're in has work protections or not, they're going to be protected by their companies. And so they're not really impacted by something like that so it's not as sexy. But this idea that there are people out there who want to do you harm, and it's like this in other places in the world, and that particularly is something that I think [Inaudible 00:14:00] people start to get with something like Orlando, I think it gets them to move, to act a little bit and it does spark something like that. I mean my true thought, and we saw this last week, we had our annual conference last weekend, and one of the speakers was this guy Darnell Moore, and Darnell Moore is kind of at the intersection of queer and Black Lives Matter as a lot of the Black Lives Matter are themselves. And he really talked about kind of the racial inequality within the LGBT movement and there were a lot of conversations following that, and I think that in a lot of ways Black Lives Matter is kind of the equivalent to some of the LGBT rights issues that we saw in the nineties, including the Matthew Shepard murder, and I think that's actually going to spark a lot of people towards just kind of general social justice movement. So it may not be precisely LGBT focused, but I think that there's a broad- if people are not being treated equally, that's a problem that people are starting to get in tune with, in part because of Black Lives Matter actually.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah I feel like it's a collision- there's definitely a colliding of the Black Lives Matter movement and the LGBTQ movement all kind of boiling to a point at the same time, which if we look back just from a historical context, obviously I think it goes without saying that the Black Lives Matter should not be where it's at right now, this should not even be a movement currently. And I think there's a lot of power in the two communities trying to kind of raise one another up. I'm sure there's plenty of problematic areas too of we're all trying to fight for the same thing, but I think more often than not there's definitely a synergy, and a harmony if you would even want to call it that, of it's just injustice across the board, equality across the board, and I think that seeing these two different vantage points is actually I think helping one another in some degree from a media standpoint, or at least what's kind of being talked about because I think maybe the first time in history that these two things are so on the forefront every single day in any media outlet that you look at.   Matt Kidd:                  I'd add gender equality to that as well, I mean if you look at what's going on with the whole Trump campaign kind of implosion if you will, a lot of that centers around gender equality. And I think that the fact that people are more attuned to this- you really can't talk about people like that, you really have to treat people equally. If that wasn't going on I feel like unfortunately this wouldn't be as big of an issue as it's turned into over the last week or so.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah I feel like there's just so much going on, the political landscape. By the time this airs I think we will be post-election, and who knows what exactly that will look like. Good God let's all hope here, and I'm sure anyone listening to this is on the same page, I can't imagine that I would have any listeners who were not, but who knows. In looking at just kind of maybe how even just the election cycle has kind of gone in terms of opening awareness to all of these mass amounts of issues. Because I really feel like there's a lot to attribute to the Trump campaign of just kind of raising the collective consciousness of, 'Wow there are so many problems.' Whether or not there's any kind of resolution to anything that's been brought up over the last year and a half, who knows? But it will be interesting to kind of see how this all plays out as it relates to any number of disenfranchised communities. Obviously LGBT being kind of the one that we're discussing.   Matt Kidd:                  Yeah the Trump campaign on LGBT has just been frankly very confusing, I mean to me as the whole Trump campaign has been. But I do think that it is kind of forcing people to really look at these issues, and the thing that at least is I guess slightly comforting to me is that this election cycle, LGBT has kind of taken a back seat in some ways. That to me means it's being used as less of a wedge issue, or kind of people view it as less of a wedge issue. I think that's promising. I think that there's also an inherent risk to that, which I alluded to in one of the last questions. I mean if you look at workplace equality, housing equality, transgender rights, look at what's going on in North Carolina; there's a lot that we really need to still accomplish. I think to the extent that people feel like, 'Okay we got marriage so we can move on,' which frankly is what a lot of people from the kind of straight- or to be more politically correct, non-LGBTQ population, that's how a lot of them view it is, 'Okay they got marriage last year so they're all set.' The reality is that's not true, but I also understand- kind of like you said the fact that we're still having some of these race inequality issues, essentially fifty years after we went through a whole racial equality movement, is just absolutely insane to me. And to me when people say, 'Well what do you think the importance of LGBT organizations-' like mine going forward are going to be. I think number one there's still stuff to accomplish, but number two, if we look at women's equality movement, and the black equality movement in particular, those are still ongoing, and to think that we're done and that we're going to politically at least get to a point where we're in the clear, we have nothing to worry about, I think it's naïve. I think the reality is we need to continue to be a pretty cohesive community, and I think that there are a lot of ways to do that, and the way that my organization kind of thinks about that is we want to bring these students together who are ultimately at the end of the day most likely to go onto jobs that are well-positioned within corporations, and pay well, and presumably they'll amass some sort of power, and I think one of the things we're really starting to focus on is how do we plant that seed that gets them to think about how they can number one, support each other, but more importantly, how can they support the rest of the LGBTQ community that may not have that same power, privilege and money? How can they essentially be giving back to their peers who are not as privileged as they are? And I think that's kind of the next wave of LGBT movement, is some of us are doing exceedingly well, particularly if you're a white, cisgender, gay male. Some people are not in as good a position, and how do we lift those people up?   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah I feel like you've kind of said so much because it's almost like you're helping enable an army that can kind of infiltrate from the inside of the corporate walls. And I think that with marriage equality, or even to some degree kind of the non-discrimination legislation that is still kind of in limbo, but the states that have adopted some kind of policies to protect their LGBT work force, so many of them have done so under the pressure of the corporations within those given states. So this seems like it's definitely the long term game strategy that you're kind of viewing, but it really- I think to some degree only takes one individual LGBT person, or even ally within an organization to really affect the type of change that's needed in order to continue to kind of propel things forward.   Matt Kidd:                  Yup absolutely, and I spent a day last week at the Out and Equal Workplace Summit, and a lot of the conversations that I was either part of or sat in, really kind of talked about how it's at the end of the day, particularly within corporations, getting stuff done, getting influence can come from two directions, it can come from kind of top down or bottom up, and it really takes passionate individuals to make that happen. The challenge that I think a lot of corporations right now face is that yes you're having these C-level folks, somebody like a Marc Benioff really step it up and taking some bold, bold actions. And you have some really passionate kind of lower level employees particularly amongst the millennials. But then you kind of have this layer of middle management, and frankly in my opinion to be middle management in a corporation sucks. You're getting a lot of pressure to perform from both ends, you can't take as many risks as you want, and so that is actually where I think a lot of kind of social justice movements within corporations kind of hit friction. It's not actually because of the C-suite, it's because of middle management, and it's essentially a fear, it's a fear for their own careers. And so I think as we think about who we want to influence and whom we should be talking to, I think those are kind of the key stakeholders. As we think about how we can leverage corporations in particular for this. I think yes, if you can get the attention of the CEO that's great, and it lets you make what I would essentially say are like headline plays. Something that you do that kind of is there for a day or two and then potentially goes away. To make something that's really long-lasting, you really need to build it into the culture, and a lot of that deals with middle management and influencing them. And so I think as we think about whom we should be talking to, and where we can make relationships personal, I think it's with those middle managers that really is key.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah and I had an experience this past year. So I have a corporate client that's a Fortune 100, and I've been helping them- I did an LGBT training for their staff, just kind of marketing wise how to get their salespeople communicating in the right ways. And it was kind of a really fun experience, and that was- I don't know, maybe two years ago, and earlier this year they reached out to me to say, 'Hey we recognize that our CEI score is atrocious, and we see that we're not able to attract the right type of talent because it's just so bad and we're really putting people off.' And it's not that they weren't practicing it internally, but the number on the page was- it was a ten. So I worked with them, and their HR department, and their marketing department, and they had top down buy-in. So I was expecting kind of a Herculean effort to be had of like this is going to be a slog, we're working with an all-white male board of directors who isn't really all about diversity, let alone LGBT, and I was beyond shocked with how easy it moved through because the top executives were saying, 'This is something that's important to us, this is what we have to do.' But it's what you were saying, it was the mid-level manager which is usually where things kind of go to die when- any type of initiative. Like somehow it just doesn't either get passed going upward, or doesn't get below going downward, and there's always- obviously I'm making a broad generalization, but in my experience anyway, this is what I've seen happen. And it was because that mid-level management was like, 'You know what? This is important. It's important to us from a how do we position our business as- how do we position ourselves as the employer of choice?' And it's amazing that they managed to get themselves up to a ninety with just working with me for six months to really just kind of get their internal stuff together, because again they were already doing it, they just weren't really getting the credit for it. So I think that there's a lot to be said because it was one marketing person in that organization of like 18,000 employees who was saying, 'Our CEI sucks. We have to do something about it.' And she's an ally to the community no less, not even part of the community and was like, 'We have to fix this.' So I think that that should give hope and inspiration to a lot of the young people that are students and going through Reaching Out because they really do have an impact to change so many people, it's just I think if you time the messaging right, you time the conversation at the right time, you talk to the right people eventually- and I'm sure my particular contact was having these conversations for quite some time before I was able to actually come in and deliver, but it took her to stand up to be like, 'This isn't right. We need to fix this.' And I think that anyone has that true potential, but in a lot of ways I feel like the stars have to kind of align to really kind of see that such quick progress. Because especially in corporate it does take a lot of time to do anything usually.   Matt Kidd:                  Yeah, you know I think that there is increasing pressure on some of these organizations to really look at diversity numbers, metrics. When I throw around the word diversity, generally speaking I'm really talking about recruiting. I think if that pressure continues, and I think the pressure on that will actually fall on middle management, that by default is going to start making this part of the culture because people will think about, 'Well what can we be doing to affect this?' So I think setting some metrics in the hopes of companies essentially to task for you know, 'Gosh you really have no women.' I think it's a really important thing to do and I think over time that will start to change the culture of these organizations inherently as well.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah and I think it's great that your focus is on MBA students because like you said, they are well-positioned by the time they hit the corporate workplace, so they automatically have an added layer perhaps credibility kind of bringing to the table, even if they are kind of in a very low position, you know that they're going to inevitably kind of succeed through the ranks based on what they're setting out to do.   Matt Kidd:                  Yeah absolutely.   Jenn T Grace:              So switching gears just a little bit and thinking about earlier on, you were talking about for you, Reaching Out is likely not going to be something that you're kind of tied to for life. Do you think about how- like right now is your name- I'm just going down a path of personal branding here. In looking at your name, are you finding that it's becoming synonymous with Reaching Out, or Executive Director of Reaching Out? And are you consciously trying to think about how to gradually- not disconnect because of course your name is everything and it certainly plays a huge factor into your role, but just kind of from a general standpoint of thinking of like, 'How would I actually unravel this down the road should I need to?'   Matt Kidd:                  Yeah, no I think that is top of mind for me lately. I think that actually if you look at a lot of LGBT organizations you have people who in a lot of ways, the person is interchangeable with the organization. So you look at like Out & Equal, and you think of Selisse Berry. You look at Out Leadership, you think of Todd Sears. And there are numerous cases like that, and unfortunately I think that there's a danger not only to the individual I think as they think about kind of their next chapter, although for some of these folks there may not be another chapter, they may decide to retire. But I think there's kind of a challenge for somebody like me where this certainly is- hopefully, knock on wood, not going to be the last chapter of my career, and so at one level you want to be associated with this but you don't want it to be your entire brand. I think there's also a danger for the organization because if it becomes so entrenched in kind of my personal brand, then the organization risks- if I'm not there and not present, people could say things like, 'Oh it was not the same as it was when Matt was there,' and I don't think that's good for the organization either. I increasingly as we do events and trying to do things to put a spotlight on our other stuff [Inaudible 00:2926] are students, because I think at the end of the day those are the people who are working equally as hard as I am, and maybe aren't always the face and voice but I think we should position them more to be in those kinds of situations. So there is a risk and I am thinking about how we slowly kind of unwind that a bit, and I think essentially lifting other people up is a huge component of that.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah and I partially asked the question because in- everything is always clearer in hindsight, but when I was running the Connecticut LGBT Chamber of Commerce which I did for quite a number of years, and I was the Executive Director I remember that when I left that position the organization essentially imploded, and it took awhile to kind of regain its legs, and it certainly- this was a number of years ago at this point, so everything is on the up and up now, but it definitely was a significant hit because- and it wasn't anything that I intentionally had done from the onset. I wasn't trying to build the organization the Jenn way, it just happened to be a very small organization, not a lot of people. I relied heavily on volunteers and our board, and it was just a matter of we've got to do what we've got to do to get these events going, to get our members happy, and it just happened to be me that was always in front of people. So I think that that's a risk generally for anybody in a position like you're in now.   Matt Kidd:                  I think it's a risk for any kind of small to mid-sized organization really to be honest, and part of why we built out our staff is certainly because if we continued on the trajectory that when it was essentially just me as a staff member with some contractors and volunteers, I was going to burn out which would not benefit anyone, and we wouldn't be able to expand and grow the way that we wanted to. But the second is like it essentially puts the institutional memory of an organization really in that one person, and if you lose that one person, back when we were kind of that staff of one plus some contractors, if I got hit by a bus not that the organization wouldn't continue on, but that would be really problematic. Today knock on wood that's not going to happen, but if it did I have full faith that between kind of the staff embers that we have and how we've kind of been able to lift them up and then have them kind of take over some things, I think that frankly things would go on without missing much of a beat.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah which is such a good sustainable place to be in, which is not always what is accessible to every organization because they're not really kind of thinking about secession planning and what lies ahead, or if this key person were to not be here for whatever number of reasons, how do we kind of carry on without skipping a beat. And I would imagine- my gut says, and based on people that I know in Executive Director positions for other nonprofits, I feel like most of them are not necessarily thinking that forward in terms of 'what would we do in the situation?' So rather it's a reactive versus proactive.   Matt Kidd:                  Yeah and you know I'll be honest, in the LGBT space in particular, I think we have a responsibility to start to think about secession planning, and the large reason actually is that if you look at the vast majority- not all, but the majority of LGBT social justice organizations, they're run by white cisgender gay men, and I don't think that that's the face of the movement going forward. And so I think we really need to kind of pause as a movement in general and think about how can we bring in the faces and the voices that maybe aren't heard as well right now, and put them into leadership roles? And I think we're really at an inflection point where it's time for those of us who- kind of going back to what I was saying before, are fairly privileged within the LGBTQ community, to lift up those who are not and make them heard, and I think that's one way that we can do that. And so I hope that as a lot of other LGBT organizations have [Inaudible 00:33:27] retire, or switch to something else, that that's something that they're starting to think about.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah and so I'm curious to hear your thoughts, and if you've been paying attention to this at all, but I had someone from BuzzFeed reach out to me last week- and again we're recording this on October 12th, so whenever this does come out, it's obviously all a little bit in the past. But I had somebody reach out for my comment on the After Ellen platform kind of disbanding. So what you're talking about I think really kind of goes into that entirely of the face of the community is really gay, white, cisgender men, and we know that that is by far not the reality of the community. But when we look at something like a website, like After Ellen which was kind of a flagship type of lesbian driven centric platform and content generator for so many years. So for that to kind of no longer exist in the capacity that it did, and the reason being is that there just wasn't enough advertiser interest, it's almost like how do we combat that from recognizing that it's not just what this kind of stereotypical highly sought after demographic is, when we ourselves are kind of continuing to perpetuate that that is all there is when we know that that's not.   Matt Kidd:                  Yeah, no I do know what you mean. The After Ellen thing is frankly a little surprising to me. I think some of what they struggled with is the business model issue, but some of it is- and also from firsthand experience, one of the things that I'm really focused on and the organization is, is really frankly trying to drive more LBTQ into business school and business in general. And so we started an initiative about probably three or four years ago now that we call Out Women in Business, and we hold a conference in New York, and it's a challenging audience to attract. I think each year it gets a little bit better, and there are some people like Leanne Pittsford with Lesbians Who Tech, who have something really special and magical there, but I mean Leanne will even tell you, like for her trying to attract an audience sometimes is a challenge as well. And so that's kind of a community thing, and I think it all starts with kind of visible leadership, and I think slowly but surely with folks like Megan Smith for example, we are carving out a space and leadership examples for the LBTQ community in particular, so I think that that's kind of a key component to it. But there aren't a lot of sources. After Ellen was one, there are what, maybe a couple- three or four others that are significant that are left, and that's pretty shocking. And then you get into other pretty gay-focused media sources; like to me, Towleroad or something like that is frankly pretty gay-focused. So that is a disturbing thing when you consider the fact that particularly bisexual women I think are the majority of the LGBTQ community. And so that's one of these moments where we should pause and say, 'Are we really reflecting what's out there, and is that part of why something like After Ellen isn't failing, it's because there's a representation issue.'   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah I feel like it's interesting because if you look at just kind of general demographic data, it shows that women are more likely to be the primary purchasers of households. So even in just looking at that as women as a more influential audience for buying whatever it happens to be, it seems like it just doesn't add up. And then I think about it, and I wonder if gay men, or any male within the LGBTQ community, is it because there is a bigger sense of community of like actually gathering that makes it easier to see them as a demographic to reach versus women are far more just kind of blending in with the individual cultures in which they live, whether that's geography, or whether it's different areas of interest. It's just really fascinating. When I was talking to the woman at BuzzFeed, I was just saying like, 'This is my lesbian perspective, but you should probably reach out to a cisgender gay male and get their point of view as well because there's got to be some underlying thing that's kind of here, and I do get the question quite often of how do I target lesbians, or how do I find lesbians to market to? And most often my advice is you just have to market to them as women first typically, and then go from there and be inclusive in that approach. But that's not necessarily what's going to be really kind of sexy to an advertiser to say, 'Oh this is a demographic I should invest in.'   Matt Kidd:                  Yeah and you know, I think it goes back beyond just media. So if you look at a given city, and you look at like a nightlife scene for example, generally speaking you'll probably find a handful, probably three or four of what you would consider kind of 'gay bars,' and you might find one bar that caters towards LBTQ women. And I think that's there- I think it goes back to your clusters of people, you see them more visibly, and again I think the more that we can think about how we bring communities together, who's representing them; I think these are all really, really important things for the movement as we go forward, particularly with social justice organizations.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah, absolutely. And do you see any kind of influence or impact on like the Reaching Out students? Because they are MBA focused, that obviously puts them in a different kind of track, but do you see that that's being another avenue for just kind of shedding light and awareness on all of this?   Matt Kidd:                  I think interestingly enough we're at the point where we even have cisgender men kind of saying, 'What can we do to be getting more women here?' So like it's becoming front of mind for people. I would say for us probably even as recently as five or six years ago, we were the white gay male conference. And you know, I looked at the metrics this year, it's getting better. It's still not there, I think we were slightly under 50% Caucasian, so that's in my mind kind of a good change, although I think a lot of that frankly is being driven by international students who are at business schools. But the number of women in these programs is picking up a little bit each year, but we're not talking- we're talking like a percent each year. So the difference between like 26% and 27% and we really need to be focusing on it. And for me, I mean this is one of my big passions, is how can we drive this and we're fortunate to have a board chair who is a lesbian identifying woman herself, and both of us feel very passionately about it so we've convinced everyone to really put some money behind our mouths on this. And I think we're slowly making progress, it's just not as fast as I think any of us would like, and to be honest we just haven't figured out the silver bullet. So I'll say if any of your listeners know, please feel free to reach out because this is something that- it's not that we don't want them in business school, we actually desperately want them and so frankly do the business schools. I think the challenge that we run into, number one is a little bit of marketing to them, which like you said I think it starts with just marketing to women in general, and I think it gets a little bit more specific. But the other thing is, as I talk to a lot of LBTQ women and say, 'Hey have you ever considered business school?' the responses are pretty much, 'No that's not something that's really top of mind,' and ultimately when you kind of keep pushing it comes down to they're not seeing a community like themselves so they feel like it's not a place for them to be. And so it's a little bit of chicken or egg, but we've got to tell them that, 'This is a place where you're wanted,' and frankly if we start talking about the trans community it gets even harder. I had a conversation with the Executive Director of Campus Pride probably about a month ago now, and he was saying when he talks to his trans students- so these are all undergrad students, he says, 'What do you want to do in the future?' He said it's maybe one in a hundred that's saying some form of business, and the rest of it is something that might be more in the social justice space, or arts space, or even legal, and the fact that this really isn't on their radar and they don't see it as a place for them is a big problem.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah and I think it's more of a systemic issue that is much broader than LGBTQ. It really kind of stems from what children are exposed to, and what classes they are exposed to in their elementary schools for example, and just kind of going through and in Connecticut we have a lot of stem type of schools that are popping up. So if either of my children who are in third and fourth grade, if they were interested or showed any inclination toward that stuff, then we could absolutely kind of push them in that direction. But I feel like school is so watered down now that there's just- it's focused on like the bare necessities and not really exposing children, and middle or high school to all of the things that they could be. And I feel like- and Lord knows that is going to be a fight that is not going to be won anytime soon. But I feel like it really- there's just such a systemic issue at play, and the LGBTQ community is really just a microcosm of a bigger- of the community of everyone. So I think we just see the issues because we are such a concentrated microcosm of the larger kind of landscape that we're all operating in.   Matt Kidd:                  I agree. Totally agree.   Jenn T Grace:              Well it's already- we've already been chatting for 45 minutes which seems crazy at this point. But I would love to kind of ask you a final question and then just give you kind of free reign to tell everyone how to go about finding you.   Matt Kidd:                  Sure.   Jenn T Grace:              But my question would be if we're thinking about people who are listening to this, who may be business owners, maybe they're in a professional sphere, they're LGBTQ, they're trying to kind of make a first step, or a first foray into identifying and really kind of honing in on what's meaningful to them, and how that might translate into their own personal brand, or the positioning of what they're doing. Do you have anything that maybe you've learned through your career that might be helpful that could kind of shortcut that process for them?   Matt Kidd:                  Yeah I think what I have found kind of throughout my career is that- and I know this sounds kind of cliché, particularly for kind of any LGBTQ folks, but authenticity sells. By talking about stories that I've really gone through, and that's why I'll use something like my experience around the day when Matthew Shepard died makes it more relatable and it makes people kind of understand you and what you're doing a little bit better. And so I'll say from kind of a personal brand point of view, I'm one of these people that for the most part I'm a pretty open book and keep it that way. I think even about like social media. If a student wants to add me on Facebook, go for it because frankly at this point I live pretty authentically and intentionally so because it makes me more human and it makes me more real and it makes people more willing to collaborate and to connect with you. And so I think don't be afraid of that, don't try to hide that because I think the reality is it probably opens more doors than it closes at this point. So never forget that, and always just kind of go back to your roots and kind of what you care about. At the end of the day, that is what it's all about, and if you don't care about something you probably shouldn't be doing it.   Jenn T Grace:              I feel like that's such good wisdom. Really being mindful of what you stand for and just being transparent from the onset. It certainly will save you a lot of headache later.   Matt Kidd:                  Absolutely.   Jenn T Grace:              So for anyone who was inspired by this conversation and interested in connecting with you, how would you go about directing them to do that?   Matt Kidd:                  Yeah please. So Reaching Out is online at www.ReachingOutMBA.org. Please visit our website. If you're an MBA yourself, we do have an online community that you can join. It's on that website and it's called Reaching Out Connect, so it's our individual member platform, so we certainly encourage you to do that. If you're part of the LBTQ community, we certainly would welcome and love to have you with us at the Out Women in Business Conference in New York which will be March 31st of 2017. So certainly join us because like I said, we do want to bring that community together, and that is open to non-MBAs so you don't need an MBA to be there, and I would say less than half of the folks who are there have an MBA, so you're certainly welcome for that. And then people can always find me online, LinkedIn, Twitter and if you search very carefully you can find me on Facebook. I'm usually pretty open to adding people on any of the platforms so you can hear what I have to say about things, because like I said I am my authentic self out there.   Jenn T Grace:              That's awesome. Well thank you so much for spending some time today, and I feel like there's a lot that can be gained for the listeners from our conversation, so thank you for that.   Matt Kidd:                  Absolutely, thank you Jenn.   Jenn T Grace:              Thank you for listening to today's podcast. If there are any links from today's show that you are interested in finding, save yourself a step and head on over to www.JennTGrace.com/thepodcast. And there you will find a backlog of all of the past podcast episodes including transcripts, links to articles, reviews, books, you name it. It is all there on the website for your convenience. Additionally if you would like to get in touch with me for any reason, you can head on over to the website and click the contact form, send me a message, you can find me on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter all at JennTGrace. And as always I really appreciate you as a listener, and I highly encourage you to reach out to me whenever you can. Have a great one, and I will talk to you in the next episode.

Sometimes GeekGirl likes two at a time - ooo-er! For the first time, GeekGirl sat down with not one, but TWO epic ladies to unpick their careers, as part of the digital team for the UK's Ministry of Justice. Meet Kylie Mulholland, Product Manager, and Kamala Hamilton-Brown, Delivery Manager, working hard and creatively to bring digital solutions and services to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). LOADS of inspiration in this interview - we cover everything from what they love about their jobs, the role models they have in women such as Jessica Ennis-Hill, and the initiatives they are a part of - big shout out for Lesbians Who Tech! The team at MoJ are hiring like crazy and you can find out more about their roles here: https://mojdigital.blog.gov.uk/working-at-moj-ds/ Oh - AND - there's a little GeekGirl announcement to be aware of, too.....

In this episode we discuss registering for Dreamforce 2015, Benioff winning the Celebrity Fitbit Challenge, issues with deploying large packages and metadata between sandbox and production, Benioff's stance against Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Drunk UX testing, and Benioff's interview at the Lesbians Who Tech conference.Dreamforce 2015So which billionaire CEO won the fitness challenge — #TeamDell or #TeamBenioff?Salesforce CEO Benioff Takes Stand Against Indiana Anti-Gay LawI Paid a UX Expert $100 to Get Drunk and Evaluate Gizmodo's DesignKara Swisher Interviews Marc Benioff at LWT 2015 at the Castro Theater, SFWhy America’s obsession with STEM education is dangerousHilarious TV Ads From The Dawn Of The Home Computer EraDevelopers! Developers! Developers! Developers! 

LGBT History Month continues with Courtney Eimerman-Wallace, a UI/UX engineer in Washington, D.C. What's most interesting about Courtney is her non-traditional path into technology. But it's clearly worked to her advantage! Aside from her work with BlueLabs, Courtney has also worked as a creative technologist for iStrategyLabs and is currently the City Director for Washington, D.C. for Lesbians Who Tech. Courtney's positive outlook and outlook on life can be attributed to her two B's: be there and be involved. Enjoy the interview, and thanks to Leanne Pittsford at Lesbians Who Tech for the introduction! Courtney Eimerman-Wallace's Website Courtney Eimerman-Wallace on Twitter

So we are talking to Leanne Pittsford today who is a woman of many titles - she is an entrepreneur, risk taker and a queer and women's rights leader. She is also the CEO & founder of Start Somewhere, which helps organizations with their online presences from design support, to database and CRM support to tech and communications support. Listen to the episode by clicking the play button below!   Thanks for being on the show, Leanne. So Leanne and I met through a mutual friend, Jennifer Brown, because of her upcoming Summit called "Lesbians Who Tech" (and the people who love them). We are going to get into more about the Summit later in the interview but I first want Leanne to share more of her story. Leanne, why don't you take a few minutes and tell us a little bit more about you and your story, and what your path looked like that lead you to where you are today as a lesbian in tech? So before we get into some of the more serious questions, share with us one fun fact about you that few people know or would expect? What was your "aha" moment when you realized this is what you should be doing in life? What inspires you and keeps you motivated to do what you do each and every day? What is the best piece of advice you were ever given? For listeners looking to market themselves to the LGBT community, what advice would you give them to be successful? How have you been able to leverage your status as an LGBT person? What is one book, program or tool that has transformed or streamlined the way you go about business? Now that we are at the end of the interview I always ask what is one thing with your business that is just really exciting for you right now - so I would love for you to tell us about the Lesbians Who Tech Summit. Could you explain what the Summit is, where it is and how people can get involved. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to talk with us. Why don't you give yourself a plug and let everyone know where they can find you? About.me/leannepittsford Follow Leanne on Twitter @lepitts www.startsomewhere.com   Other links mentioned in the show: Links to my revised service pages: Monthly Gay Marketing Accountability Coaching Gay Marketing Critique (review service) In-Person and Virtual Gay Workshops & Trainings Gay Marketing Peer Advisory Board Join the next webinar! RSVP HERE! Check out my new column on Chicago Spectrum! Follow Chicago Spectrum on Twitter @CHISpectrum Would you prefer to read the transcript than listen to the episode? No problem! Read the transcript below.  AUDIO TITLE:  Episode #28 – Leanne Pittsford Interview Jenn T Grace: You are listening to the Gay Business and Marketing Made Easy Podcast, Episode 28. Intro: Welcome to the Gay Business and Marketing Made Easy Podcast where you'll learn how to do business with and market to the LGBT community in an authentic and transparent way. We're talking about the $790 billion lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender community. We'll help you grow your business, gain market share and impact your bottom line. And now your host - she's an entrepreneur, a marketing maven and an advocate for the LGBT business community. Jenn, with two N's, T. Grace. Jenn T Grace: Well hello, hello, hello. It is February 6th of 2014, and I don't know about you, but I'm a little bit tired of the snow. Here in Connecticut we just got about six inches last night, and we're expecting another six to ten tomorrow, and then there's a whole other storm headed its way this weekend. So I'm sure in your area you are getting hit with a significant amount of snow as well, because it seems to be kind of blanketing the entire country. So it's a really interesting winter, although this morning's snowfall looked very pretty and I'm looking at it right now...