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Play Episode Listen Later Mar 23, 2022 52:55

01:47 - Nyota's Superpower: To hear and pull out people's ideas to make them more clear, actionable, and profitable! * Acknowledging The Unspoken * Getting Checked 07:15 - Boundaries and Harmony 10:35 - News & Social Media * Addiction * Filtering * Bias 18:54 - The Impact of AI 23:00 - Anyone Can Be A Freelance Journalist; How Change Happens * Chelsea Cirruzzo's Guide to Freelance Journalism (https://docs.google.com/document/d/18rwpMH_VpK8LUcO61czV2SzzXPVmcVhmUigf1_a7xbc/edit) * Casey's GGWash Article About Ranked Choice Voting (https://ggwash.org/view/79582/what-exactly-is-ranked-choice-voting-anyway) * First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy | Derek Sivers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ) 40:13 - The Intersection of Cybersecurity and Employee Wellness: Resiliency * @selfcare_tech (https://twitter.com/selfcare_tech) Reflections: Casey & John: “A big part of resilience is being able to take more breaths.” – Nyota Damien: You can be the expert. You can be the journalist. You can be the first mover/leader. Applying that conscientiously. Nyota: Leaving breadcrumbs. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: PRE-ROLL: Software is broken, but it can be fixed. Test Double's superpower is improving how the world builds software by building both great software and great teams. And you can help! Test Double is hiring empathetic senior software engineers and DevOps engineers. We work in Ruby, JavaScript, Elixir and a lot more. Test Double trusts developers with autonomy and flexibility at a remote, 100% employee-owned software consulting agency. Looking for more challenges? Enjoy lots of variety while working with the best teams in tech as a developer consultant at Test Double. Find out more and check out remote openings at link.testdouble.com/greater. That's link.testdouble.com/greater. DAMIEN: Welcome to Episode 275 of Greater Than Code. I'm Damien Burke and I'm here with John Sawers. JOHN: Thanks, Damien. And I'm here with Casey Watts. CASEY: Hi, I'm Casey! And we're all here with our guest today, Nyota Gordon. Nyota is a technologist in cybersecurity and Army retiree with over 22 years of Active Federal Leadership Service. She is the founder, developer, and all-around do-gooder at Transition365 a Cyber Resiliency Training Firm that thrives at the intersection of cybersecurity and employee wellness. Welcome, Nyota! So glad to have you. NYOTA: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you. CASEY: Yay! All right. Our first question—we warned you about this—what is your superpower and how did you acquire it? NYOTA: My superpower is to hear, pull out people's ideas, and make them more clear, more actionable, and more profitable. DAMIEN: Ooh. NYOTA: Yeah, that's one of my friends told me that. And how did I get it? I'm a words person. So I listen to what people say, but I also listen to what they don't say. CASEY: What they don't say. NYOTA: Yeah. CASEY: Can you think of an example? NYOTA: Like that. Like when you did that quiet thing you just did, I saw that mind blown emoji because there's a lot in unspoken. There's a lot in body language. There's a lot in silence. When the silence happens, there's a lot when someone changes the topic, like that stuff is a lot. [chuckles] So I listen and I acknowledge all of that. Maybe we all hear it, or don't hear it depending on how you're processing what I'm saying, but we don't always acknowledge it and respect it in other people, DAMIEN: You have to listen to the notes he's not playing. [laughter] Do you ever have an experience where things that are not said do not want to be heard? NYOTA: Absolutely. But that's part of acknowledging and so, you can tell when people are like, “I do not want to talk about that.” So then I would do a gentle topic change and not a hard left all the time, because you don't want to make it all the way weird, but it may be like, “Oh, okay so you were talking about your hair, like you were saying something about your hair there.” I try to be very mindful because I will get in your business. Like, I will ask you a million questions. I'm very inquisitive and maybe that's one of my superpowers too, but I'm also aware and I feel like I'm respectful of people's space most times. CASEY: I really like that in people when people notice a lot about me and they can call it out. When I was a kid, my family would call me blunt, not necessarily in a bad way, but I would just say whatever I'm thinking and not everyone likes it right away. But I really appreciate that kind of transparency, honesty, especially if I trust the person. That helps a lot, too. NYOTA: I was just saying that to my mom, actually, I was like, “You know, mom, I feel like I need a different quality of friend,” and what I mean by that is my friends just let me wild out. Like I ask them anything, I say anything, but they don't kind of check me. They're like, “Well, is that right, Nyota?” Like, Tell me, why are you saying it like that?” But they just let me be like ah and I'm like, “Mom, I need to be checked.” Like I need a hard check sometimes. So now you're just letting me run wild so now I'm just seeing how wild I can get. Sometime I just want maybe like a little check, a little body check every now and then, but I try to be mindful when it comes to other people, though. It's the check I want is not always the check that other people want. CASEY: Right, right. DAMIEN: What is it like when you're being checked? What happens? NYOTA: It's hard to come by these days so I'm not really sure [chuckles] when I'm getting my own, but I'll ask a question. I'll just kind of ask a question like, “Well, is that true?” people are like, “This world is falling apart,” and you know how people are because we are in a shaky space right now and I'm like, “But is that absolutely true for your life?” How is everything really infecting, impacting what have you being exposed to in your own life? So as we have the conversation about COVID. COVID was one of my best years as far as learning about myself, connecting with people better and more intimately than I ever really have before and we're talking virtually. So things are going on in the world, but is it going on personally, or are you just watching the news and repeating what other people are saying? JOHN: That's such a fascinating thing to do to interrupt that cycle of someone who's just riding along with something they've heard, or they're just getting caught up in the of that everything's going to hell and the world is in a terrible place. Certainly, there are terrible things going on, but that's such a great question to ask because it's not saying there's nothing bad going on. You're not trying to be toxically positive, but you're saying, “Let's get a clear view of that and look at what's actually in your life right now.” NYOTA: That part, that part because people are like, nobody's looking for crazy Pollyanna, but sometimes people do need to kind of get back to are we talking about you, or are we talking about someone else? DAMIEN: That's such a great way of framing it: are we talking about you, or are we talking about someone else? NYOTA: Yeah. CASEY: It reminds me of boundaries. The boundary, literally the definition of who I am and who I care about. It might include my family, my partner, me. It's may be a gradient even. [chuckles] We can draw the boundary somewhere on that. NYOTA: Yeah, and I think we also get to speak even more than boundaries about is it in harmony? Because I feel like there are going to be some levels that are big, like my feelings are heard, or I'm feeling like I just need to be by myself. But then there are these little supporting roles of what that is. I think it's as you see, some parts are up and some parts are down because sometimes when it comes to boundaries, it's a little challenging because sometimes there has to be this give and take, and your boundaries get to be a little bit more fluid when they have to engage with other people. It's those darn other people. [chuckles] DAMIEN: But being conscientious and aware of how you do that. It's a big planet with a lot of people on it and if you go looking for tragedy, we're very well connected, we can find it all and you can internalize as much of it as you can take and that's bad. That is an unpleasant experience. NYOTA: Yeah. DAMIEN: And that's not to say that it's not happening out there and that's not to say that it's not tragic, but you get to decide if it's happening to you, or not. NYOTA: Right. DAMIEN: And that's separate from things that are directly in our physical space, our locus of control, or inside of the boundaries that we set with ourselves and loved ones, et cetera. NYOTA: Because it's so easy to – I say this sometimes, guilt is a hell of a drug because sometimes people are addicted to guilt, addicted to trauma, addicted to a good time and not even thinking of all the things that come with those different levels of addiction. So I think we get fed into this news and this narrative, like we were speaking of earlier a of everything's bad, this is a terrible place, everyone's going to hell. Whatever the narrative is the flavor of the moment and there's so many other things. It's a whole world, like you said. It's a whole world and I think the world is kind of exactly what we're looking for. When I was in the military, every town is exactly what you need it to be. [laughter] Because if you're looking for the club, you're looking for the party people in little small towns. But I could tell you where every library was. Don't call me nerdy because I am, but I don't care. All right. I could tell you where every library was. I could tell you where every place to eat. I could tell you all of those things, but then you'll ask me like, “Where's the club?” And I was like, “There's a club here?” Because that's not what I'm looking for. That's not the experience that I'm looking for. So I would dare say every place is exactly what you're looking for, what you want it, what you need it to be. CASEY: We're talking about the news a little bit here and it reminds me of social media, like the addiction to news, the addiction to social media. In a way, it is an addiction. Like you keep going to it when you're bored, you just reach for it. That's the stimulus, that's your dopamine. I think of both of those, news and social media, as a cheap form of being connected to other humans. A bad, low quality, not a deep connection kind of thing. But what we all would thrive if we had more of is more connections to others, which like community, authentic relationships with people. But that's harder. Even if you know that and you say that's your goal, it takes more work to do that than to pick up Facebook app on your phone. I deleted it from my phone six months ago and I've been happier for it. [laughter] NYOTA: Like delete, delete? Like delete? CASEY: Well, it is on my iPad in case I have to post a shirt design into a Facebook group. I'm not gone gone, but I'm basically gone and I know that I don't interact on it and it's boring. I don't post anything. I don't get any likes. I don't even want to like anyone's post and they'll say, “Oh, you're on.” I don't do anything. Like once every three months, I'll post a design. NYOTA: Is that for every social media channel? CASEY: I'm still on Twitter. NYOTA: Twitter. CASEY: I'm still on Twitter and LinkedIn kind of for business reasons. But if I could drop them, I think I would, too. NYOTA: Did you say if you could? CASEY: If I could drop them and not have business repercussions. NYOTA: Mm. DAMIEN: This sounds like a great idea to make more profitable. NYOTA: [laughs] I'm thinking does a lot of your business come from –? I feel like LinkedIn is social, but. CASEY: I wouldn't say that I get new business from these necessarily, but I do end up with clients and potential clients and people I've talked to before saying, “Ph, I saw that thing and now that I saw you wrote a blog post about doing surveys for an engineering org, now I want to talk to you.” NYOTA: Mm, okay. CASEY: Like that is pretty valuable and when I'm writing something like a blog post, I want to put that somewhere. But anyway, I am happier that I'm off of Facebook and Instagram, which I wasn't getting as much value out of. Other than connection to people, the shallow connection to people and instead I switched to messaging people. I have text message threads and group chats and those are much more intimate, much more stuff being shared, more connection to those individuals. NYOTA: I agree with that. What about you John? Like what is your relationship with social media right now? JOHN: So I've always been sort of arm's length with Facebook. So it's been just like eh, I check in every week, maybe just sort of see. I scroll until I lose interest, which is 10 minutes the most and then those are my updates. That's all I see and then occasionally, I'll post a meme, or something. I don't really do a lot there. Usually, I keep it around just for the people that I'm in touch with that are only on Facebook and I only have connection to them. But you bring up an interesting point about there's a positive and a negative to being able to filter your social media. For example, with Reddit and Twitter, you only see the stuff for people you're following and/or the subreddits that you're subscribed to. So you can very much customize that experience into something that isn't full of most of the crap people experience on Twitter, or Reddit. So there's that positive there because you can craft a world that's maybe it's all kitten pictures, maybe whatever, and post about programming, whatever it is. But you do have the problem of filter bubbles so that if you are in something that's a little bit more controversial, you do end up with that echo chamber effect and lots of people jumping in, or if you're in a sub that's interesting to you, that's also very contentious and the threads go off the rails all the time, but you can control that. You can see like, “Well, no, get it out of here. I don't need to deal with that static.” I rely on that a lot to sort of focus in on what I'm using it for, whether it's keeping up with specific friends, or specific topics and then trying to filter out as much of the things I don't want as possible. NYOTA: Is Facebook's your only social media channel? JOHN: No, I'm on Twitter. I don't usually post a lot, usually just retweet stuff and read it. NYOTA: That's kind of lame a little bit. I'm not saying, I'm just saying that your social media choices – [laughter] DAMIEN: Wow. NYOTA: But I think you're are right, though. I'm a lot better off for it because I did find myself going down a social media rabbit. It was easy for me to cut off the news. I actually stopped watching the news in 2007 when I became an officer. They were like, “As an officer, you have to watch the news. You have to be aware of what's going on in the world,” and I was like, “Oh, okay,” and then I walked away from that lady and I was like, “I'm not watching the news anymore.” DAMIEN: Hmm. NYOTA: Because I felt like she was trying to trick me in some kind of a way, but you get what you need. If it's something that I need to know, it comes to me it. It comes to me like. Believe me, it'll come to you. She was a little bit too adamant about what I needed and how the news was a part of it. It just felt a little not right and so, I actually stopped. DAMIEN: The news is a very specific thing like that word, the news [chuckles] Is anything new about it? [chuckles] The news is a group of organizations, a group of media organizations that are all very much alike. The Economist, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The L.A. Times, The Chicago Tribune, NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC. These are all organizations that operate the same, they cover the same things, and they do them in largely the same way along of course, some political partisan differences. But it's not new and for most people, it does not serve them, or inform them. NYOTA: Yeah. It's very divisive. DAMIEN: I used to get my news from Jay Leno. [laughter] That was better than CNN more and funnier, too. NYOTA: That part. [laughs] I think it's just interesting how it's such a whole world with a whole bunch of people with various levels of experiencing, bumping into each other, and like you're saying, this is what everyone's reporting on. Nothing else happens? Nothing good happens anywhere else? CASEY: Yeah. NYOTA: Nothing? See, that's not true. [laughter] Like that can't be real for me and so, I'm not going to be able to include that in where I spend my time. JOHN: Yeah. I used to have NPR on in the car whenever I was in the car, I was like, “Oh, it'll keep me inform,” blah, blah, blah. But eventually, I was like, “You know what? They still talk about the same crap. They're just from a perspective I agree with slightly more.” But even when they do human interest stuff, or stuff that isn't about a war, or some sort of crisis in Washington, it's still so negatively biased. Even the stuff that's theoretically positive, it still has this weird you should be concerned about this vibe to it and eventually, I was realizing that there's no room for that in my life. DAMIEN: Yeah. We talk about how harmed full Facebook is to society and individuals. But this is not again, new. [chuckles] Facebook optimizes for engagement, which causes harm as a byproduct. It's the AI-fication of what media has been doing ever since there has been mass media. NYOTA: Yeah. It's interesting because there was a moment in there. So I even got on social media because I was always gone. I lived wherever I lived while I was in the military and so, it was a way to let my family know, “Okay, I'm here. Look, I ate this.” [chuckles] All of those things. So there was a part where Facebook made a drastic turn on my feed and I was like, “Ohm this is so bad!” And then I was like, “Okay, wait, wait. Who's bad? Who is this coming from?” So I cleaned up my whole Facebook feed and then it became a happy place again and then now where it is, it's a place where it's only seven people out of the thousand Facebook friends I have. I was like, “Okay, well that's not it either. That's not it.” So it's just interesting how AI has such a impact of what we listen to, or what we talk about. So now it's these days I'm like new shoes, new shoes, new shoes. Because I want that to come up on my – I don't even – you know what I'm saying? Because I know that you're listening, so I'll get it later. So now I almost treat it like an administrative assistant so I can look it up later. [laughter] CASEY: Hilarious. NYOTA: Yeah. JOHN: Please target some ads around shoes to me. NYOTA: I did. Yeah, because they're listening. CASEY: And it works, doesn't it? I know. NYOTA: Yes. CASEY: I know it works. NYOTA: Yes. CASEY: That still blows some people's minds. If you could say the name of a product and you'll see it the next day. If you have your ads on, it's listening and your phone is listening. Everyone's phone is listening. NYOTA: Yes, yes. Because you're looking at something like – I don't even really listen to the music. What is it? Spotify! And then it's like, you're listening to Spotify, but why is my mic on? You want to hear me sing the song? Why does my mic have to be on? I don't understand that part. Like why? They'll be like, “Oh, she has a great voice on her.” Is that why you're listening? [laughter] Why are you listening? I don't understand that part. So I don't know. DAMIEN: There's a deal coming your way. NYOTA: [laughs] Come on. Let's go. JOHN: I assume the public reason for it is so that you can do voice searches and like, “Hey, play me some more Rebecca Black,” or whatever. But who knows what else they're doing with it once you've got it turned on, right? It could be whatever. DAMIEN: Actually listening in on people is not the technically most effective way of getting those results. If you say the brand name of a shoe, it's probably because the people around you are talking about it and what do they search on Google? What ads have they seen? It's easier to say, “Oh, you're in the room with these people who are interested in these things,” or “You're in conversation with these people who are interested in these things. Let me show you these things without honing through massive amounts of audio data.” CASEY: Yeah. Both are possible and that one's easier. I'm sure they both happen and at what frequency, that's hard to study from beyond outside, but we know it's all possible and we know it's happening. If this is news to anyone listening, you can look this up. There are a million articles about it and they explain why and how, and some people did some empirical tests and I don't have any handy, but I've read it over and over and over on the internet and the internet's always right. NYOTA: That's what I heard [laughs] and not from the news. CASEY: I have these Google Home Minis in my house and all of them, the mics are off. So if ever the power cable gets jingled, it says, ‘Just so you know, the mic's off and I have to say it for a really long time. This is a very long recorded message. So that you'll want to turn your mic back on,” and it says that. Can you believe it? [laughter] DAMIEN: That's not the actual text of the message, right? I have to check. NYOTA: These little home speakers are cool in all the worst ways, but the best ways, too. So my Alexa, I'll be asking her whatever and then I'll say, “Thank you, Alexa,” and she'll say, “You're very, very, very, very welcome,” like she's singing, yes. [laughs] DAMIEN: Wow. You people have corporate spying devices in your homes. It's unbelievable. NYOTA: But you have one, too. It's just your phone. So we all have them. DAMIEN: Yeah. She promises me she doesn't listen unless I ask. NYOTA: That's what mine said! CASEY: Mine said it! [laughter] I don't trust them either. I don't even trust that the mic off necessarily works. Part of me is tempted to go in and solder the mic off. I never want the speakers to have the mic. I will not use that feature at my house. But I do want speakers in every room enough that I'm willing to take the risk of the switch not working. NYOTA: Yeah. At this point, I think I've just big brothers watching, or at least listening, [chuckles] Big brother really like, “Oh, I need to turn that off. She's talking about the big brother. We'll blush over here.” [laughs] CASEY: I want to go back to something I was thinking on the news. Sometimes I hear, or I know about things in the world because I'm someone who's in the world sometimes and the topics I want to hear in the news don't always come up. Like, DC Rank the Vote is happening and there was eventually an article about it and another article. I wrote one, eventually. Anyone can be a freelance journalist. So if the news isn't covering stuff you want it to. NYOTA: I like that. CASEY: You can literally write the news, too. NYOTA: Mm. CASEY: They might even pay you for it. DAMIEN: [chuckles] You can write the news, too. Say it again, Casey. CASEY: You can write the news, too. There's a really cool freelance journalism guide, that I'll put in the show notes, by someone in D.C. Chelsea Cirruzzo, I think. I didn't pronounce check that, but she wrote an awesome guide and it led me to getting an article published in Greater Greater Washington, a D.C. publication about ranked choice voting. I was like, “Why is no one talking about this? It's happening here. It's a big problem.” So I wrote about it. Other people write about it, too and they have since then, but you can be the change you want in the world. You can. Journalism is not as guarded and gated as it might seem. NYOTA: That's so interesting because I think what's interesting is we know that. We know that we can contribute, we know that we can write, but then you're like, “Wait, I can contribute! I can write!” CASEY: Mm. NYOTA: So I think that's, thank you for that reminder. CASEY: Yeah. But the how is hard and without a guide like Chelsea's, I'm not sure I would have broken in to do it. I needed her to go through it and tell me this is the process, here's the person in the org, what they do, what they expect and how you can make it easy for them, and you need the pitch to have this and that, has to be timely and like –. All that made sense. I'm like, “Oh sure, sure, sure.” But I couldn't have come up with that on my own, no way. NYOTA: But she bundled it together like that. CASEY: Yeah. DAMIEN: I would have never imagined that's a thing you can do because that's an entire degree program. That's a post-graduate degree program, if you'd like, and I see people who've been doing this for 20 years and do it poorly and they seem like smart people. [chuckles] So what makes me think I could do it? NYOTA: Because we can do whatever we want. CASEY: I mean, these publications do have editors and it's their job to help make the quality, at least meet the low bar at minimum that the publication expects. But if you are really nerded out on ranked choice voting, or something, you might be the local expert. If you're thinking about writing an article, you might be the best person to do it actually. NYOTA: Mm, that's good. That's the quota right there. CASEY: So what are you nerding out about lately? Anyone listening to this, think about that to yourself and is there an article about it you can just share? I like that. I don't have to write every article ever. If not, you can think about writing it. NYOTA: I like that. DAMIEN: And what strikes me is like where the bar is for local expert. Like I believe a 100% that you're the local expert on ranked choice voting because I know enough about ranked choice voting to know that people don't understand it. [chuckles] CASEY: Yeah. And after I wrote the article, I found a group of people and so, now there's like 10 of us at this level where we get it and we're advocating for it. But I'm one of the top 10 at that point still, sure. And there are details of it that I know, details other people know that I don't know, and we're all specialists in different nuanced details and together we're stronger and that's a community, too. It's been a lot of fun advocating for that in D.C. JOHN: That's awesome. NYOTA: It's interesting the visual that I'm getting in my head, like you're over here dancing by yourself and then you back up and they're like, “Oh shoot. Other people are dancing to this same song,” and then you look and you'd be like, “Look, y'all, we're all dancing,” but you're still the lead dancer and they're the backup. [laughter] I don't know why I got that visual. CASEY: I like this image. NYOTA: Yeah. CASEY: I want to give the other organizers some credit. I think they're the lead. But I found them eventually. I couldn't have found them if I didn't write the article probably. I looked it up. I Googled it once, or twice. They have a website, but I don't know, it didn't come up for me right away, or it did, but I didn't know how to contact them and getting into breaking into that community is its own barrier. NYOTA: That's unfortunate. But you're the lead to me. I mean, you're Casey. I mean [laughter] they're okay. CASEY: Thank you. NYOTA: I mean they're okay for what they're doing, but they're not you, so. No shade on what they're doing. CASEY: Sure. JOHN: I just posted a link to a talk by Derek Sivers about how the first followers are actually more important than the first leader and it's a fantastic talk. It's pretty short, but really amusing and it makes such a fantastic point. Like Casey, you were out there, you posted the article and then all these other people show up. So now I've got this like group of 10 and then those people – you and they are all doing outreach and they are expanding that group of people that are up to speed on this stuff and are advocating for it. So there's this nucleus and it's expanding and expanding. CASEY: Yeah, and each person we get, then they can bring in more people, too and it's a movement, it's growing. I think we'll have it soon. There's literally already a bill passed in D.C. It's passed a committee and now it's gone to the bigger committee, the whole process, but there's a real bill that's been passed some steps. NYOTA: You might as well do a TEDx. I mean, you might as well. JOHN: Yeah. CASEY: Good idea. Yeah, yeah. NYOTA: But they just let anybody do them. I have one. They just give them out. They're like, “Let Nyota do it.” “Okay. I'll just – let me do it.” You can do it. You have something to talk about, it's the same. It's like the news. Why not you? CASEY: Yeah. NYOTA: You're already talking about it. CASEY: True. NYOTA: I mean, you get a TEDx, you get a TEDx. [laughter] CASEY: Look at this, Nyota inspiring us. DAMIEN: I'm inspired. Why not me? NYOTA: No, really. DAMIEN: I'm serious. That is not sarcasm. I mean that very sincerely. I'm thinking about all the things I want. I'm going to call Casey later on and go, “Okay. You know how to bring ranked choice voting to a government. How are we going to bring it to another one?” And I think about all the other – CASEY: Yeah. DAMIEN: I'm actually trying to bring ranked choice voting to my neighborhood council. I pushed to an amendment to our bylaws, which has to be approved by another organization, which I can't seem to get ahold of. [laughs] But we're doing it and why shouldn't we be doing it? Why not us? NYOTA: Why not? CASEY: Yeah. Oh, I've got resources to share with you. We'll talk later, Damien. JOHN: Well, that's also great because that again, is going to spread. Once the local organization is doing it, people start getting experience with it. They're like, “Oh yeah, we did it for this thing and it worked out great. Now I sort of understand how it works in practice. Why the heck aren't we doing it for the city council and for the governor?” And like, boom, boom, boom. DAMIEN: Yeah. Ranked choice voting is interesting because as much as people don't understand it, it's really simple [chuckles] and I think overwhelmingly, people need experience with something to understand it. CASEY: Yeah. Yeah. DAMIEN: And we have a lot of experience with plurality voting in this country, in my country at least. We have almost none with ranked choice voting. NYOTA: I think it's interesting how people get so excited about presidential elections and that sort of thing, but your life really happens at your local elections. CASEY: So true. NYOTA: Your quality of life is your local elections, like you're talking about these roads being trashed. Well, that's at the local. Biden and Kamala, they have nothing to do with those potholes all along this road. I think so people miss that. You're like, “Those elections are great. Presidential election, awesome.” But your local elections? Those are what matter for where you live and I'm like, “Why are people missing that?” CASEY: Yeah. DAMIEN: I think it goes back to the news. CASEY: Sure. That's a part. NYOTA: Darn you, news. [laughs] DAMIEN: Right, because national news is leveraged. NYOTA: Mm. DAMIEN: The national broadcast is made once and broadcast to 300 million people in the country. Local news does not have that leverage. CASEY: True. NYOTA: Mm. They need to get their social media presence together then because people are listening to Instagram. CASEY: I'm thinking about everyone's mental model of how change happens, too and I don't think a lot of people have a very developed mental model of what it takes to make change happen. I do a workshop on this actually and one of the examples I use is for gay marriage in the US. You can see the graph; you can look it up. We'll include in the show notes, a picture of gay marriage over time and it's like one's place, one's at another place, like very small amount. Just maybe not even states like counties, or some lower level, a little bit of traction, a little bit of traction, a little traction. Eventually, it's so popular that it just spikes and it's a national thing. But along the way, you might look here from the news that when it became a national thing, that's the first time, that's the first thing you heard about it. But along the way, there was all these little steps. So many little steps, so many groups advocating for it, and the change happened over time. I also think about the curve of adoption. It's a bell curve. For the iPhone, for example, some people got it really early and they were really into this thing. Like PalmPilots were really the earlier edge of smart devices. Some people had that; they're really nerdy. Some people are still holding out on the other end of the bell curve. Like my mom's best friend, she still has a flip phone and she doesn't have any interest in a smartphone. I don't blame her. She doesn't need it. But she's the lagger, the very far end lagger of on this model and to get change to happen, you've got to start on whoever is going to adopt it sooner and actually like get them involved. Like the smaller states, the smaller counties that are going to support gay marriage or whatever the issue is, get them to do it and then over time you can get more of the bell curve. But a lot of people think change happens when you get the national change all of a sudden, but there's so much earlier than that. So, so, so much. Like years. 30, 40, 50, a 100 years sometimes. [chuckles] NYOTA: Yeah. This is the dance that John was talking about that he posted about this. CASEY: The first follower, yeah. NYOTA: Yeah, first followers. But you get to be the first leader if you allow it. If you really want change like you're saying. Instead of looking for someone to follow, [chuckles] we get to decide how we want to live. DAMIEN: Yeah. This seems true at work. If there's a cultural norm you don't like, you can change it by getting your allies on board and aware of it, socializing it and more and more people and gradually over time and eventually, that thing's not happening anymore. Like, I don't know. An example is eating at your desk over lunch. Not the best social norm. I don't want that at places I work. I want people to take a break, rest, and be better off afterwards. But you can get it to happen gradually by getting more people to go to lunch room, or go out of the office and you can change the culture in the office with enough dedication and time if you put your mind it. NYOTA: Yeah. But what we don't get to do is complain about it. Right? [chuckles] CASEY: Mm. Whenever I have some kind of conflict, I think about do I want to accept it and stop complaining, or do something about it? NYOTA: Mm. CASEY: Or I guess the third option is neither and then I'm just frustrated. I don't like to choose that one if I can ever avoid it. [chuckles] Do something, figure out that I can do something like work on it, or accept it, which is kind of giving up. But you can't do every change you ever think of. NYOTA: No. CASEY: It's not really giving up. Acceptance does not mean giving up, but it does mean you can put your mind down and focus on other stuff. NYOTA: Yeah. That's triage. That's what that is. [laughs] CASEY: Triage. Yeah, yeah. [laughter] DAMIEN: That third option is really important because I choose that a lot. It's important to know that and acknowledge it. [chuckles] It's like, oh no, I've chosen to be frustrated. Okay. NYOTA: Yeah. Good. CASEY: And you can, yeah. Sometimes when I choose to be frustrated, it's that I'm still working on it. I'm working on figuring out if I can do anything, or not. I don't know yet. DAMIEN: For me, it's I'm not willing to do, or figure out what it is to do, but I'm also not yet willing to accept it so I just shouldn't to be frustrated. CASEY: Sure, yeah, yeah. DAMIEN: And the frustration. If I acknowledge that and recognize that, the frustration can better lead me to go, “Okay, no.” Making the change stinks. But [chuckles] the frustration is worse and lasts longer, so. NYOTA: And then you start speaking from your frustration, which is even worse [laughs] and then it bleeds over. CASEY: Not effective. NYOTA: Yeah, it bleeds over into other things and because now you're saying stuff like, “See, this is what I'm talking about.” [laughter] No, I don't. No, I don't see what you're – no. Are we talking about the same thing? Because now you're just frustrated all over the place. CASEY: Yeah. [laughter] NYOTA: What are you talking about again? Are you talking about work? CASEY: When someone's in that situation, I have to ask them, “Would you like to be effective at this?” DAMIEN: Ooh. [laughter] NYOTA: Oh, that's a shank. [laughter] CASEY: They might not want to be. They might just want to vent. That's fine. It helps me set my standards, too. Like, do they want support, or do they want to vent? NYOTA: I'm going to write that down. CASEY: I mean, it sounds pointy. Here's my blunt side showing. I meant it. You can answer yes, or no. It's why it's a question. I'm not going to give you obvious answer question. I expect one. NYOTA: Yeah. That's good right there because I'm just getting to the part where I'm like, “Do you want me to help, or you just want me to listen?” Because I'll be like, “Oh, I know the answer to this!” And they'll be like, “Oh, I don't. You always trying to help!” First of all, stop talking to me then. [laughter] DAMIEN: Can you tell my friends that? NYOTA: Right? CASEY: Yeah. NYOTA: Like don't come to me because I just want to help. I've got a solution and if you don't want a solution, don't talk to me. CASEY: Sure, sure. That's the kind of support you're offering. NYOTA: Yeah. CASEY: You're offering that support and if they want it, great. If they don't, sounds like you're setting the boundary. Good. NYOTA: Right, right. Oh, I don't have a – no, I have no problems setting a boundary. Yeah, no problems because the thing is this is your third time. Like at some point, you need to either want to do something, or quit talking to me about this. CASEY: Yeah. NYOTA: Like that part. CASEY: I'm pretty patient supporting friends like that, but there is a limit to the patience. Yeah, three. That sounds like pretty good. I might even go to six for some people before I start telling them no. NYOTA: Mm. CASEY: [laughs] I mean, “You have to do something, or complain to someone else.” NYOTA: Yeah. Like, are you going to do something – are we still talking about this like? CASEY: Yeah. Some people need the support, but it's not necessarily me they're going to get it from because I don't have that much energy and time to put toward that. NYOTA: Yeah. I just think that's important to, but my friends know that already. Like, don't talk to me about your allergies, or don't talk to me about your fitness, or you can't fit your clothes. For me, I don't buy new clothes because I can't fit them. I won't allow myself to do that. CASEY: Some people do. NYOTA: Yeah, so – [overtalk] DAMIEN: I'm sorry. Buy clothes you can't fit? NYOTA: No, I don't buy new clothes because I can't fit my old ones. DAMIEN: Ah, okay. NYOTA: Right. DAMIEN: I know that one. NYOTA: I only buy new clothes because I want new clothes. DAMIEN: Mm. NYOTA: I put that around myself like, it's not because I don't want to go outside and walk, or you know. But then I don't allow myself to get too thin in the other direction either, because that means I'm doing something that's probably not that healthy, like not eating real food. I will just eat potato chips and that's it. [chuckles] So I have to – like, if it's too far to the left, or to the right, then I know that I'm doing something that's not healthy. I've got to reel myself in. I don't have any other checkers. I'm my own self-checker. I don't have a spouse that's going to be like, “Hmm, those jeans look a little snug.” [chuckles] I don't have it. [laughs] It's just – [overtalk] DAMIEN: Well, what I'm hearing, though is it's going to be, you set a high bar for checking people. So for somebody to check you, they're going to have to be really insightful and not candy-coated. NYOTA: I don't like candy. CASEY: Yeah. [laughter] NYOTA: Yeah. CASEY: Like direct. NYOTA: Yeah, because I don't need a bunch of like, “Oh, Nyota. How are you today?!” You don't really have to be like, “Oh, so I heard what you said about that.” I don't think that – that's not right, or however the check comes, like however it comes. CASEY: Yeah. NYOTA: But I want that because I know I'm not right about everything. I know that and I don't pretend to be all-knowing. I just want somebody to kind of reel me in sometimes like reel me in. Please reel me in. [laughter] Because I'll just keep – I'm a habitual line stepper. You know what I'm saying because now I'm just going to keep on seeing what you're going to let me slide with. Even as a kid, my mom was like, “You're always everywhere.” Like, “You're always – like, “We could never find –” I was the kid that why they came out with those harnesses for kids. [laughter] That's – CASEY: What an image. NYOTA: Yeah. I'm that kid because I just want to see, I want to go look, I want to go what's over here. Like what's around. Are you going to let me slide? Are you going to let me say that one? What else you're going to let me slide with? It's that so that's why they created those harnesses for kids like me. [chuckles] DAMIEN: Your bio says your firm thrives at the intersection of cybersecurity and employee wellness. What's the intersection of cybersecurity and employee wellness? JOHN: I was just going to ask that. I want to know! NYOTA: I think it's resiliency. DAMIEN: Mm? NYOTA: Yeah. So cybersecurity is that resiliency within organizations and then that wellness of people is that resiliency that's within humans. When those two come together, it's a healthier—I can't say fully healthy. It's a healthier work environment because when we get to show up to work healthy, resilient, drinking water, getting rest, being able to have emotional intelligence, social intelligence; all of those things are what I count as being resilient. And then when you can show up to work that way, then you're not showing up to negatively impact the network because you're not focused. You're not paying attention. You're clicking on every link because it looked like it – it seemed fine. But had you been like you had one moment of awareness to pause, you would see oh, this is not right. When I put my mouse over that, I see that the link at the bottom is not where I'm supposed to be going. So that place is resiliency at work. DAMIEN: That is an extremely advanced view of security, maybe it's from your time as an officer, but the general view of security is it's this wall you put up and you make the wall really secure, you make the wall really strong and really tall, and that way you keep everything out. It's like, well, no. Anybody who has gone to office training school knows about defense in depth. NYOTA: Right. DAMIEN: Knows you can't maintain any particular perimeter indefinitely. The French found that out to much of their chagrin. [laughs] NYOTA: Oopsie. DAMIEN: That's a Emmanuel line reference. That's not news. [laughter] To go all the way to like – and I see where you're going with this. Phishing emails don't work on people who are calm and relaxed when nothing's urgent. NYOTA: Yes. DAMIEN: Where they can go, where they can stop and think, and have that wherewithal and that energy and that reserve. NYOTA: Right, even at home. Especially how all of these scams are on the rise, Navy, federal, IRS, all kinds of people. If you're just one moment aware, you'd be like, “Wait, have I ever engaged my bank in this way?” DAMIEN: Hm mm. NYOTA: Like ever? Have they ever called me and asked me for my six digit? They called me and I didn't call them? Like, I just think if you just take a breath and then think part of being resilient is being able to take more breaths. DAMIEN: Wow. Yeah. Wow. CASEY: Ooh, I like that line. NYOTA: Yeah. We know that one of the biggest vulnerability to cybersecurity posture of anything that happens is people because we are normally that vulnerability, we're normally that weakness in the network because we are human. So anything that we get to do to reinforce ourselves, guard ourselves up, it's always going to have a positive second, third, fourth order of effects. DAMIEN: How does upper management react to that when you come in and say, “We're going to improve your cybersecurity, give your employees more days off”? NYOTA: So I'm actually new having this conversation within leadership, but they already have leadership corporations, they already have this structure in place. Just haven't heard anyone tie it together specifically to their cybersecurity posture. So there's already a lot of wellness initiatives, you can talk to counselors. I think we already have these initiatives in place, but they're just kind of ethereal, they're kind of out here, but to say, “Now tie that not just to our bottom line, because employees are less willing to have turnover, but let's tie it to the security of the network because our employees are aware and they're more vigilant.” So it's just kind of helping them to see the work that we're already doing within corporations. We get to laser focus that into a place. CASEY: Hmm. I like it that this gives way to measuring the outcome of those programs, too. You can correlate it, too. NYOTA: Yeah, instead of like, “Oh, we're happy at work. We're skipping and holding hands down the hallway.” Well, that may not necessarily be what you want, but you do want less infractions on the network. More opportunities to be successful but not having to spend so many manhours undoing cybersecurity risk. CASEY: I want to zoom out. I want to go meta with you. You're helping them become more resilient. How do you make sure your changes there are resilient? When you leave, they persist? You can Mary Poppins out and they're still the way they were before you arrive. NYOTA: Mm, that's a good question. So during the time that we work together, they also buy a bundle of coaching. They have opportunity to come back for where I can do, like, “Hey, y'all it's time for the refresh,” and not in a lame way. I'm actually creating on workshops now and it involves coloring books. Because when we were in Afghanistan, Iraq, and all the places we colored, and I just feel like coloring saves lives and when I'm saying people, I'm talking about mine, because it is very calming and not those crazy ones that are really small and you have to have a pen. So I'm talking about a 5th-grade coloring book with big pictures where it's relaxing and you're talking amongst your peers. It involves that. Setting them up with skills to be able to well, if you do nothing else, make sure you're playing the gratitude game in the mornings. What is the gratitude game? I play this game with myself. Every morning when I wake up, I say three things that I'm grateful for, but it can't be anything that I've ever said ever before. DAMIEN: Mm hm. NYOTA: I play this game. It's always making you search for the gratitude, always looking for that shiny light. There's always a better today, a better tomorrow, and so, even if there's something as that and drink water, because there's a lot of things that happens when you're dehydrated. There's a lot of clarity that doesn't happen when you're thirsty and so, even if it's just those two things and reminding people, just those two things have even had an impact on my life. Do you see my skin popping? Do you? [laughter] I'm just saying. Water is your friend. [laughs] So just those, just kind of even a pop in, a retraining. Hey, remember. Remember sleep, remember relaxing, remember get up and walk around your cube, and the filter water is so much better. It tastes so much better than bottled water. I'm just, it's better. I'm holding up my filtered water. Picture here, I keep it at my desk while I work if I'm on a lot of calls in a row. NYOTA: Yeah. CASEY: I can go through water. NYOTA: And that's why you're alert. I don't think people understand that being dehydrated really makes you lethargic and you're like, “Are they talking? I see their mouth moving. I can't pay attention. What is happening. What is that?” And being dehydrated is not good. Don't do that. Just take a little sip of water. We're talking about water, just take a little sip of your water. Go get some water. [chuckles] If you're listening, get some water. [laughs] CASEY: Reminders help. I'm going to post one of my favorite Twitter accounts, @selfcare_tech. NYOTA: Ooh. Please. CASEY: And they do a water reminder probably every day. Something like that. So I'll just be on Twitter and I'm like, “Oh yeah. Thanks.” DAMIEN: [laughs] See, we can turn social media even to our good. CASEY: Yeah. We can find some benefit. NYOTA: But we get to decide and I think that's another thing that people don't. Like, they negate the fact that you get to decide. You get to decide where your life is, or isn't. You get to decide where you're going to accept, or not accept. You're going to decide if I work at this job, it's for my greater good, or not. We get to decide that. You've already created your life up to this point. So what does it look like later? We've created this life that we have and people take responsibility for that. Who do you get to be tomorrow? Who do you get to be today? The thing is we always get what we ask for. So I've been asking for a bold community, I've been asking for a community that pushes and pulls me and here comes Casey, here comes Andrea, here comes you guys and I'm like, “I think that's so interesting.” We do get what we ask for you. CASEY: It sounds like you're manifesting the world around you. I like that word. NYOTA: Yeah. CASEY: I don't even mean it in a metaphysical spiritual sense, but even just saying. Back when I was an engineering manager and I wanted to become a PM, I told people I wanted to be a product manager and by telling a lot of people, I got a lot more opportunities than I would have. NYOTA: Yes. CASEY: Telling people was very powerful for that. NYOTA: And in my Christian Nyota way, that's what happens. Miracles come through people. So give people an opportunity to be your miracle. JOHN: So we've come to the time on our show where we do reflections, which is each of us is going to talk about the things that struck us about this conversation, maybe the things will be thinking about afterwards, or the ideas we're going to take forward. Casey, do you want to start us off? CASEY: Yeah. I wrote down a quote from Nyota. She said earlier in this episode, “A big part of resilience is being able to take more breaths,” and I just think that applies anywhere the word resilience applies and I want to meditate on that for over the week. JOHN: I'm right there with you. That is really sinking in and applicable in so many ways. I love it. DAMIEN: Yeah, and involving taking some breaths while you do that, huh? [laughter] I am really inspired by this conversation. The ideas of you can be the expert, you can be the journalist, you can be the first mover, the first leader. Realizing that in my life, I'm going to be looking for ways I want to apply that conscientiously. How to make sure not to try apply it everywhere. [laughs] But I get to decide. I get to decide who I am and who I'm going to be in this world and what this world is going to be like for me, so that's awesome. NYOTA: That is good. I like that one, too. And along those lines for me, it's like when Casey's like, “I mean, I knew this, I knew this, I knew this, I knew this, but when someone had created this bundle for you to be able to follow, I really heard when we do things, leave breadcrumbs so someone can come behind us and also be able to support. Because if you don't – leave some breadcrumbs. So I thought that was – she was like, “I knew these things but she had created this framework for you to be able to do it, too,” and I heard leave some breadcrumbs. So I really like that. DAMIEN: Yeah. John, do you have a reflection for us? JOHN: No, I mean, really, it's the same as Casey's. [laughs] Yeah, that statement is really going to sit with me for a while. I like it a lot. CASEY: I'm going to make a t-shirt of it. NYOTA: [laughs] I love a good t-shirt. DAMIEN: Well, Nyota. Thank you so much for joining us today. NYOTA: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so honored to be amongst such caring, intelligent, thoughtful people and so, I appreciate you all for having me. Special Guest: Nyota Gordon.

covid-19 spotify ai google washington guide water news french new york times joe biden local army mom iphone impact vote abc afghanistan boundaries cnn nbc llc cbs miracles navy picture reddit washington post iraq tedx npr journalism acceptance ipads presidential fox news cybersecurity irs economists slack intersection msnbc kamala ranked chicago tribune mary poppins jay leno devops javascript phishing making changes elixir rebecca black derek sivers ohm johnno making change happen john yeah john well john so test double greater greater washington freelance journalism john thanks greater than code damien burke devreps

Justin Searls: How to Grow Your Engineering Team Tenfold in a Year and Keep Test Suites Healthy

Semaphore Uncut

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 22, 2022 31:35

When your engineering team grows from 10 to 100 engineers in the course of a year, there are so many things that you need to focus on, from operations and developer tooling to testing. Maintaining the health of the application is perhaps the most difficult part of all. Where exactly do you start?We sat down with Justin Searls, the co-founder and CTO of the Test Double agency. For many years, Justin has been consulting organizations on how to best tackle team's growth and ensure that good practices are in place when teams grow. We talked about how to grow engineering teams without losing sanity, how to divide work without stepping on one's toes, and keep your test suite maintainable.You can also get Semaphore Uncut on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review on the podcast player of your choice and share it with your friends.

Episode #87: NWA-TNA PPV #86 - 3/17/04: Chris Harris' Final Test, Double J!

TNA Cross The Line Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 18, 2022 152:41

Bob Colling Jr. & Dallas Gridley continue their journey with the eighty-sixth NWA-TNA Pay-Per-View from March 17, 2004 at the TNA Asylum in Nashville, Tennessee. NWA World Heavyweight Champion Jeff Jarrett defends against Chris Harris in the main event, but is he ready for his shot at the gold? Also, AJ Styles and Abyss battle in a Ladder Match to determine the next #1 Contender for the NWA Championship and a Tag Team Rankings Battle Royal with all of your favorite teams! Plus, Frankie Kazarian, Shane Douglas, Monty Brown returns to the ring, and so much more! Listen now to find out what goes down in the TNA Asylum this week! Follow us on Twitter @CrossTheLineTNA Follow us on Facebook @TNACrossTheLinePod Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

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272: People First – Self-Awareness and Being Excellent To Each Other with Ashleigh Wilson

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 23, 2022 54:52

02:14 - Ashleigh's Superpower: Ability To See “The Vision” * The Queen's Gambit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Queen%27s_Gambit_(miniseries)) 03:35 - Intentionality: “People First” * Call Me Out: Intention vs Impact * “This Doesn't Make Sense” Log * Emotional Fitness Surveys * “Dare To Lead” Book Club 10:55 - Listen * Digging in to Defensiveness / Uncomfortableness * Little Things Add Up * Building Connections and Relationships 15:10 - Building Trust – Why is vulnerability not professional? * Alleviating Fear * North Star: Being Excellent To Each Other * Self Awareness & Emotional Intelligence * Discernment * Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs) 21:02 - Personal Growth and Development * Brené Brown (https://brenebrown.com/) * Glennon Doyle (https://momastery.com/) * Morning Pages (https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/) * The Holistic Psychologist: Future Self Journaling (https://theholisticpsychologist.com/future-self-journaling/) 27:24 - Intersexuality and Identity: How do you show up? * Privilege * Gender * Somatics * Safety * Solidarity 36:37 - Making and Dealing With Mistakes * Taking Feedback * Lead With Gratitude * Ego Checks 40:05 - Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) * Visibility and Understanding * Health and Wellness Benefits * Sacred vs Safe Spaces / Safe vs Brave Spaces * Dan Price 45:52 - Fundraising & Venture Capital (VC) * The House of Who (https://www.houseofwho.com/) Reflections: Mandy: Eating a shame sandwich in order to learn and grow. Chanté: North Star = Being excellent to each other. Ashleigh: Celebrating intersections of identity. Aaron: The “This Doesn't Make Sense” log. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: PRE-ROLL: Software is broken, but it can be fixed. Test Double's superpower is improving how the world builds software by building both great software and great teams. And you can help! Test Double is hiring empathetic senior software engineers and DevOps engineers. We work in Ruby, JavaScript, Elixir and a lot more. Test Double trusts developers with autonomy and flexibility at a remote, 100% employee-owned software consulting agency. Looking for more challenges? Enjoy lots of variety while working with the best teams in tech as a developer consultant at Test Double. Find out more and check out remote openings at link.testdouble.com/greater. That's link.testdouble.com/greater. MANDY: Hello, everybody and welcome to Episode 272 of Greater Than Code. My name is Mandy Moore, I use she/her pronouns, and I'm here with our new panelist, Aaron Aldrich. Welcome, Aaron! AARON: Thanks! And hey, I'm Aaron. I use they/them pronouns and I am also here with Chanté Martínez Thurmond. CHANTÉ: Hey, everyone, Chanté here. I use she/her/ella pronouns and I am so glad to introduce our guest today, Ashleigh Wilson. Welcome, Ashleigh. AARON: Thank you for having me! Hello, Ashleigh here and I use she/her pronouns. CHANTÉ: Ashleigh is the Founder and CEO of Auditmate, the world's first elevator and escalator auditing system. After discovering that customers were an afterthought to most companies, Ashleigh left the corporate world and founded Auditmate under a "people first" mentality. Ashleigh knows discrimination first-hand as a queer woman working in the tech industry and she aims to create a space where everyone has permission to be human. What a great bio. ASHLEIGH: Thank you. Thanks for having me. CHANTÉ: It's a pleasure. Ashleigh, the first question we ask our is what is your superpower and how did you acquire it? ASHLEIGH: My superpower is my ability to see the vision and it's a bit of a witchy. I don't know where it comes from, but the best visual representation I've ever seen of it as if anyone has seen The Queen's Gambit and when she can move the chess pieces on the ceiling? When I'm in the zone, and it's often when I'm half sleep, it just connects and I'm like, “Oh, this is how it works,” and I can just see the path forward. I can't force it. [chuckles] I don't get to choose when it happens. It just happens, or it doesn't. But when I get those deep downloads on the vision and the path forward, and then I think the skill that's been learned to couple with that is then how to make a plan to execute it because the vision can be one, but that execution does not work alone. [chuckles] AARON: That's awesome. I like that and I like that you mentioned the skill that gets paired with that. I can relate to a superpower can't exist in a vacuum; it needs some way to be harness and used. [chuckles] ASHLEIGH: Absolutely. CHANTÉ: I love that, too. Aaron, where you're going with that, because what it makes me think about Ashleigh, just reading your bio and kind of getting a preview of some of the things you care about, how have you been intentional about building a people first organization, or a startup in this space and using that superpower and maybe either finding people who compliment you there, or who are distinctly different? But I'd love to hear how you've been intentional about that. ASHLEIGH: Yeah. I think it starts with first of all, when you feel othered in any organization, like coming in and being able to set the culture is like, “Oh, I'm going to do all of these things.” But as Aaron mentioned earlier, it's not in a vacuum and so, I think the intentionality has been, what is the mission? What is the north star? How do we treat each other? And then at every new hire at every new customer acquisition, it then iterates, iterates, iterates, and iterates. You have to be willing to learn, to take feedback, and to eat a shame sandwich every once in a while, when you screw it all up and you have to admit it [chuckles] because it happens every single time. I've been called to the carpet. I think one of the biggest ways that I've been intentional is being communicative about call me out, call me out. I'm never going to know all of the things all the time and I think that my team knows me well enough to know my intentions, but it comes in intentions versus impact conversation. I can only know my intentions unless you tell me how this impacts you. I can't know and so, creating a culture of my team being able to call me out and be like, “Hey, your intention was good. The impact sucked. Let's talk about it.” [chuckles] AARON: What's that like practically to get folks like on that side and able to call you out because I know for – I'm thinking about it and I know I can to jump into any corporate culture, even startup and be like, “Yeah, I feel comfortable calling out my boss on this.” [chuckles] ASHLEIGH: Yeah. I don't think we feel like we have a corporate culture at least yet. AARON: Yeah. ASHLEIGH: But that also took time in creating. So one way that we did it was we have something called that this doesn't make sense log so that people can just document either things in the system, or things in the culture, or things in policies that just are kind of dumb. Like why do we do this this way? This doesn't make sense. This makes my job harder than it should be. The we need to get X done, but you're making us do Y and Z that don't go toward the greater mission. And then also we created an emotional fitness survey for every employee so that each person – and it's left in one place so each person says, “I want to receive praise publicly, or privately,” or “If I need to get feedback, I want to receive it like this,” or these just different questions on how people to be communicated to. I think setting up those conversations as people log in and it's okay to speak up, it's okay to push back, I expect you to push back on me makes people feel more comfortable, but it takes a while. It does. CHANTÉ: I love that. I use something very similar to that for my own consulting business in my firm and it's been something that we really lean into helpful to just make sure that it's transparent and it's a nice reminder as a leader that your answers to questions can change. Giving people permission to say, “You know what, how I'm showing up today is different than how I showed up yesterday, because life.” [chuckles] ASHLEIGH: Totally. CHANTÉ: So I really love that. The other sort of burning thing that I have for you is, because I read that you had been in this business so I'm guessing that you had learned from people and maybe it was a family business. I might have missed that part. I'm curious how doing it your way this time with these sort of principles is different than the way maybe you were mentored to do it, or what you've seen in the past and why that's important. ASHLEIGH: Yeah. I don't know that I had ever seen it modeled before. I was raised in the elevator industry and before that, my stepdad was in the elevator industry and my dad was salesman of any type, door-to-door salesman selling vacuums to cleaners, to cars, to whatever the case may be and I've never fallen in line. I was always the kid in school that was like, “Why do you do it that way? When you can do it this way? Why are we doing this? That doesn't make sense and that doesn't feel good?” And people are like, “Well, we don't really care how you feel,” and I'm like, “But why it doesn't feel good?” Like why do people want to work where it doesn't feel good? This doesn't make sense to me.” That feeling in my tummy has always been so wrong that it's either a hard yes, or a hard no and I'm like, “How do you operate in a hard no all the time?” Why do we expect people to operate in these visceral responses to this? Just watching how teams have responded and how you almost want to beat the individuality out of people to get performance to a certain standard, or something, like that somehow makes it better for everybody to be like that whole homogeny equals happiness saying? It was never true to me and so, I think I always had this if I feel like this, there has to be someone else that feels like this. I cannot be the only one that wants to show up as my true self and talk about feelings in business meetings! I cannot be the only one. This has to exist. I started a Dare to Lead book club at the Elevator office, which [chuckles] I'm sure you can imagine how that went over. Everybody showed up and I was like, “Oh, so y'all want to act like this is okay and that everyone seems okay. But then look at all of these white cis men in my Dare to Lead book club. Huh.” So it just kind of gave me the affirmation that I needed to say, “People do want to feel good. People do want to talk about and this does actually help the bottom line.” CHANTÉ: I personally love it. What I do for my day-to-day is focus on culture and focus on diversity, equity, inclusion accessibility, and organizations, whether it's on teams, products, services, and offerings. I think that people underestimate what it takes to build something that's special, especially there's not a culture budget. There's a budget for recruiting. There's a budget for performance stuff and for growth. But I'm like, “But what is the fascia? What is the stuff that keeps it together?” And it is the culture. I often like to say, as we're thinking about the future of work and building the next iteration of what work should be in decentralized teams working from home, we do need to lean into the sort of the soft skills that are actually aren't that soft, but they're those emotional intelligence stuff. That makes a huge difference. So is there any advice you might have to leaders like you who are like, “Okay, I guess I might read a Dare to Lead book,” or “I might start to prioritize this”? Where can they start, or what are practical things that you've learned along the way in leading your company in this fashion? ASHLEIGH: Listen. Listen is the first one. Listen when you get defensive, because those moments when your team says something to you that seems so small, insignificant, and annoying because you have all of these big things to do and all of the – you're pushing the company forward and there's this little voice that someone was brave enough to say this little thing that you're like, “Ugh.” That defensiveness, that feeling, whatever that small thing is, is probably a big thing, or will become a big thing and being able to own up to whatever it is that's making you defensive, or uncomfortable and truly listening in and digging into what is the root cause of that? Because it's generally, I don't know if you know the saying like something about the wrapper, it's never the wrapper. You get into a fight about the wrapper on the counter, that's never the wrapper. It's not throwing away the wrapper. It's the underlining way of how we are making people feel and for me, it's been about being able to truly dig into those things. The doesn't make sense log came from one of those experiences. My team, we were in these meetings and they would bring up these little things and be like, “Hey Ashleigh, well, what about this?” And I'm like, “It's not the time for that. We're talking about Z. Why are you bringing up A? We're in this super deep meeting about Z and you're talking about A,” and then they were like, “You're not listening to us. You say that you are people first, but you're not hearing us,” which is like a dagger to the heart. It's gutting and I had to sit with it for days because I was like, “I know I'm people first. I know my intention is right. How am I not translating it? How are my actions not matching my intentions?” When I boiled down to it, it was people didn't have an easy way to bring up little things to me and so, those little things would start to get bigger and then they would bring them up in big meetings because my schedule is booked. We don't have water cooler talk. We don't have walking by someone's desk and being like, “Hey, what's happening with blah, blah, blah?” That stuff doesn't exist and so, these little things were starting to get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger because there wasn't an easy place to just discuss them. So creating one log alleviated so much pain and made people feel heard about, “Hey, this one email has a misspelling and no one's paid attention to it.” Just little stuff. And then the second thing is that we've been starting is more personal time. We started what I call an AuditMate lounge, which is on Fridays and it's just meant to be logging on and just hanging out with each other. It's water cooler time. You can be working, you can be doing other things, but this is not a business meeting. This is not meant to get things done. It's meant to just hang out. AARON: I like that. I just started working at a new company this month and similar to the team I'm on at least, the DevRel has similar like, “Oh, we're just going to hang out for a bit because I'm around,” [chuckles] and whatever. I've really appreciated it because it's something that I feel like when you're in an office, it's easy to lose track of all the time that you spend just being around those people and building those relationships because it's just rolled into, “Oh, I was getting a coffee,” or “Oh, we went to get lunch,” or “Oh, we went to do this,” and “Oh, I walked by a desk and said ‘Hey' for a few minutes.” But especially with COVID with everyone remote and at home, or remote companies, it's so easy to forget about that stuff and forget about building those connections that are more than just, “Hey, we work on this thing together.” It's like, “Oh yeah, also, we're people. We should hang out and talk about what people do,” [chuckles] which is sometimes just nothing. ASHLEIGH: Absolutely and it's how we build trust! AARON: Hmm. Yeah. I think that's a big thing, too. MANDY: What are your favorite ways to build trust? ASHLEIGH: Oh, well, I never really thought about it like that. I'm a Scorpio moon and rising so I like all of the deep things like, “Hi, I'm Ashleigh. Tell me about your trauma.” So I think the biggest way [chuckles] that I like to build trust is just in deep conversation, really getting to know each other, being vulnerable, and being able to just take the mask off. MANDY: Do you think you can do that too much, though with coworkers? Where do you find that balance? Because I struggle with that myself. Like how do you be open and completely vulnerable, but professional at the same time? ASHLEIGH: Why is vulnerability not professional? MANDY: That's a great question. ASHLEIGH: I think that's where – and I don't have an answer to it. It's kind of what I'm rambling. But why is vulnerability pegged with femininity and why is vulnerability loaded into being unprofessional, or too much, or too whatever? I think that the vulnerability that I don't want to expose too much is if it's loaded with fear because feelings aren't facts and I don't want to unload fear onto my team if there's something that I'm nervous about. I feel like it's my responsibility to hold those things and to alleviate some fear. But I think unpacking with my team that we can be vulnerable and that is actually more professional because it does make us more efficient. It does make us more trusting, I guess, would be the proper word there. The personal things that I don't share as far as vulnerability is there's some personal life stuff that I don't share, but not because it's not professional, but because it's sacred more. AARON: I think you mentioned something interesting about fear that gets at an interesting balance. From a leadership perspective, you have some responsibility about the vulnerability that you share and what you're able to be vulnerable with your team that maybe different than you want from an individual contributor on that team. You probably want to hear the fears of your team like, “Tell me what you're worried about so I can either alleviate those, or we can work to be in a good place.” But at the same time, sounds like you have some responsibility that I can't unload that on you because I'm the one who's supposed to be [laughs] taking care of that. How does that play out me besides just that one generic scenario? Are there ways you find that balance difficult to walk, or? ASHLEIGH: Yeah, like fundraising. My team needs to trust that I'm going to pay the bills. I don't want them to be worried about having money for payroll, or that we're going to be set up for our next raise, or that, right? There's some basic survival stuff that can be so linked to trauma of if we don't feel like we're going to have food on our tables for our family, if we don't feel like we're going to have continual pay, if we don't – those sort of things that are just human nature. We can't think and we can't perform because it is my duty to take care of my family and if I can't take care of my family with this company, I need to go do what I need to go do. So that's where it's my responsibility to those fears – especially when you are rational, if I'm having imposter syndrome about raising money as a queer woman and it's irrational because, maybe not irrational but loaded because of statistics, I shouldn't unload that on them, or I need to have someone, a mentor, someone that I can go to because they need to be expressed, but that could get bigger and bigger and bigger when shared with my team. So I really think about our north star is being excellent to each other. When my vulnerability is serving to them is when I share and not just when it's serving to me, because it'll make me feel better to express that I'm scared about funding, but it will not make my team feel better. It will, in fact, make them feel worse. CHANTÉ: What I hear is this dance we have to do as folks who have founded companies, or leaders of those companies to have what I consider again, that emotional intelligence. It's like – [overtalk] ASHLEIGH: Totally. CHANTÉ: Because self-awareness is huge and when you get a chance to – when you know your traps, or the traumas and the triggers that keep you stuck, or actually help to get you to another place, you can notice them in others and then the regulation is really important as well to really build relationships that are trusting and then discern it. It's like timing is everything to be like, you have to be able to read the room. You have to be able to be perceptive, read people's faces, and understand that they may have disassociation. They might be smiling, but they actually might be scared shitless [laughs] as you're like, “Oh, we're raising around.” I love how you how you kind of introduce this thought around Maslow's hierarchies of needs. People want to be able to put food on the table and be able to take care of their responsibilities whether that's a family, or a spouse, significant other, friend, or community and that is why we work. [chuckles] We need the money because we're in this capitalistic system. So I just love how you're doing that and where my mind takes me is how did you have the wisdom to do that? Who has been either an example that you admire, do you have a coach, do you have a community? Where are you learning these awesome things? Because I feel like you're so in touch with this emotional intelligence piece that so many people are missing. ASHLEIGH: Thank you. I appreciate that. I did not used to be, [chuckles] to be quite honest and I learned about emotions getting freshly sober at like 24 from Brené Brown. I had no idea. I had no idea. I quit drinking and remember starting to read one of her books and saying that an emotionally intelligent person knew 30 emotions and I was like, “Wait, there's more than happy and sad? You're telling me there's 30? That I should be able to name 30 and know what they feel like in my body?” CHANTÉ: Right, and according to her new book, she has even more stuff. ASHLEIGH: [laughs] Yeah. CHANTÉ: I think there's like 80 plus. ASHLEIGH: I'm like, “Wait, what?” [laughter] “This is a thing?” And that's when it kind of dawned on me, when people would say to me, “You don't get it. You don't get it,” and I'm like, “I don't get what?” And then I was like, “Oh, I'm not going to be able to know what you're feeling until I know what I'm feeling. Cool, great. I have a lot of work to do.” [chuckles] So that's when I think I started unpacking and learning. I was raised by an alcoholic and then became one and then getting sober at a young age was like, “Oh, this is mine and that's yours and I didn't know that I ended and you started.” So really learning and starting to place those things for me and then just reading a lot, a lot of Eastern spirituality, I read a lot of Buddhism books, a lot of yoga books, a lot of Brené Brown vulnerability, shame, rumbling type books. And then I think it's just kind of been like I'll take this from that and really, it just leads from what feels good and what doesn't. MANDY: Personal growth is essential. I'm in the same boat almost. I, too, am sober and it has changed my life. Over the past 2 years, I have done so much work on myself that sometimes I'm doing too much, but I learned – [overtalk] ASHLEIGH: Totally. That's a thing. [overtalk] MANDY: Brené Brown is one of my heroes, Glennon Doyle, too. ASHLEIGH: I was just going to mention her. Yes, oh my God! MANDY: I love Glennon. Yeah. So personal growth is, I mean, journaling. Every day, I make it a habit and a practice to sit down and just write out my thoughts and my feelings. I highly, highly suggest to anybody who will listen to me to do the same thing. ASHLEIGH: Same. [chuckles] MANDY: Morning Pages are a wonderful thing. If you can do it in the morning, just get everything out of your head. Even the dumbest little thoughts, “dumbest little thoughts.” I mean, there are no dumb thoughts, but just getting all the, I call it taking the trash out. ASHLEIGH: Oh, I like that. MANDY: And just even snippets of any weird dreams, or just little nagging thoughts that are in the back of my head. Getting all those things out is just so essential. ASHLEIGH: Yeah, absolutely. And do you know The Holistic Psychologist? MANDY: I do. ASHLEIGH: Yeah, and her future self-journaling has also been really helpful at times, like sitting down in the morning and saying, “My future self will feel like this and this is how my future self will take care of me today” has also been really powerful along those same lines. CHANTÉ: Mandy, I loved your question earlier when you were like, “How do you know? Some people are not comfortable in doing that.” So I feel like what's also really true about organizations and teams is just you can have somebody who's kind of the sage, or most wise elder on the team who's like, “I've been through this, I've walked this path,” and then there's people who are like, “Huh, vulnerability.” And then the magic of that leader in the room is finding, or recognizing the spectrum of that and being all these things are actually welcomed and everybody's experience matters. So how do you do that for your team? I'm imagining you have people who are newbies on this journey with you, or people who are like, “This is the best.” Maybe they gravitated and wanted to join you because they recognize parts of themselves in you, but how do you manage that part for your team and kind of carry and make room for the full spectrum of folk? ASHLEIGH: Yeah. I think I'm still learning that one. I think we're always learning that one as our teams constantly change and evolve. The emotional fitness survey helps. I definitely call people out and I'm like, “Okay, how does this feel to everyone? Everyone has to talk, I'm waiting and I will for you to talk,” which I know can be jarring for folks that don't want to share in a group. So really making sure to get everyone's input, that everyone gets used to speaking up in front of the group, and that it is just around Robin mentality, but then also developing those one-on-one relationships so people feel kind being like, “Hey, I'd rather share with you my idea after the call,” or whatever the case may be. But I think it's my job to hold space, it's my job to shut up sometimes and pass the mic, and it's my job to push and to pull. So to really, really look at those levers of who's ready for more and who has the potential to and wants to develop that potential. Maybe it's fear, or maybe it's something that's blocking them that I can help them see. And then for other folks they're like, “Hey, I'm good. I'm chilling. I want to be right here. I don't want to be the big boss. I want to be your right-hand human and let me stay where I'm at.” I'm in my lane. Go away.” So I think it's just really listening to folks and then also help to see what may blocking our views. CHANTÉ: I think I shared that the work I do is diversity, equity, and inclusion accessibility stuff and I often lead a lot and facilitate a lot of conversation around helping leaders and their teams recognize their identities, or intersectionality and recognizing social location and how that plays out with power privilege. One of the things we read about you is that you are a member of the LGBTQ+ community, and I'm guessing that that's a very prominent identity for you because you shared it online openly. Thank you. But I know there's other parts to you. So what are the identities that you lead with? We could start with the most obvious and kind of learn more about you from there. ASHLEIGH: Yeah. So I lead with queer always. Queer is through and through who I am. I realize the privilege I have with the way that I present to the world. In most instances, I will always be safe and I think that it's my responsibility as a VC-backed founder to take that space and I don't really own that for me. I have the privilege of being safe and so, let's make this known and let's make room for more folks while I'm here. I can elbow folks out of the way so that we can keep some more space. But the other parts of me. Gender, I don't really know right now, I'm kind of at the point that I think it's really garbage shit right now. So I don't really know. [laughs] I struggle. I've been in the dance with gender for a while and it's like, I feel like I would be taking up too much space to come out as non-binary and I know that non-binary, you don't have to look a certain way. I realize I have a lot of cis presenting privilege and it's not about that for me. I finally have landed on the conclusion that I don't give a crap about gender at all. It's more genderless and even non-binary feels too boxy for me. I don't know, I'm kind of ambiguous on that right now. [chuckles] AARON: Actually, I'm just generally agnostic you. ASHLEIGH: Yeah. I feel that. [laughter] CHANTÉ: Yeah. And I loved your response. I'm really into somatics and noticing bodies because bodies show up in space. [chuckles] ASHLEIGH: Yeah. CHANTÉ: People are triggered by bodies sometimes and recognizing it could be that your race, your ethnicity, it could be your age, or your ability, or where you grew up and accent. Are there any other parts of you that you feel like are prominent, or that you lead with, or maybe don't lead with? I'm curious just to hear more about it. ASHLEIGH: I'm pretty heavily tattooed and I also dress kind of funky in most instances. You can't tell right now, but half my hair is orange and half my hair is red. I'm loud, I'm vocal, and I'm very little, but I'm big in spaces. [laughs] I think that makes me different because most of the spaces that I operate in, I've been in this. Oh, the elevator world, it is 98% white men and I'm joking kind of about the industry, but I'm not going to shrink myself anymore. You will be uncomfortable by me. Don't let the crop top fool you. I am a CEO [chuckles] and I'm not going to change my crop top. Like, sorry. CHANTÉ: Yes. See, this is why I'm asking. I mean, I love it. You just naturally went to like, “Okay.” So those are the things that that's how you're showing up. ASHLEIGH: Mm hm. CHANTÉ: Right, and what's true for the industry and what you're in and you kind of already went there, I think it's dope and I think the context matters because you're like, “Yeah. Am I in a room with other queer people who are leading tech companies, or am I in a predominantly male, cis, able-bodied, privileged, born and educated in United States industry where I'm blending elevator technology,” whatever? So thank you for that. ASHLEIGH: Yeah, absolutely. [chuckles] A lot of times I walk into the room and it's like, either I'm uncomfortable, or they're uncomfortable. So I'm like, “You're going to be uncomfortable today. I'm sorry. I'm going to make you feel things and I'm going to make you recognize your privilege because guess what, we all must be painfully aware of our privilege and if I am in a room all full of white people, all of able-bodied people, all of privileged people in some sense, let's talk about this. Why are we not? Why are we not talking about the humans that are impacted by the work that we're doing? Hello.” AARON: It sounds like that was a big influence for your people-centric company, too. ASHLEIGH: Mm hm. AARON: I don't want to put that experience on you, [chuckles] but – [overtalk] ASHLEIGH: Totally. AARON: I don't want to ask it from a place of naivety and say like, “Oh, did this affect it?” It sounds very obviously your identity and being counterculture to the elevator and escalator world has influenced your company and where you want to go with that and how you want to show up. ASHLEIGH: Absolutely, a 100% being in that space and being different and just being like, “You know what, if I don't own this, I'm going to feel terrible forever and I don't want to because that's great.” It's great and I can walk into the sun in San Francisco and feel fantastic and so, why do I not feel that same confidence level in this boardroom? AARON: Right. ASHLEIGH: You're not going to make me feel small. I'm sorry, you're not. AARON: I think that's a big – I don't know if I'm seeing so much of a shift. It's a big portion of… I don't know I want to go with that, but I really like that. You're not going to make me feel small. I like the idea of showing up and you know what, this is me and just because you are uncomfortable, I'm not going to diminish myself. ASHLEIGH: Absolutely and the reason that I do that is me doing that shows other people that it's safe. At least if I'm in the room, you're safe to be who you are if I'm here. AARON: Mm. ASHLEIGH: And so that's why I put queer on my LinkedIn, that's why I lead with that because I know I'm safe and so, if I have – I feel responsible to it. AARON: I know you mentioned you can show up and be safe and create that safety in that environment. Has that been something you had, or had modeled for you, or is that something you had to go out and create this space where you could be that beacon of safety? ASHLEIGH: I think it's been modeled in my queer community. I don't think it had been modeled in corporate culture. I'm also not lost on how privileged I am to be safe and I'm not the bearer of safety and realize that there's many more intersections that go into that and that I'm here to listen and to learn and I don't know everything. [chuckles] Absolutely not. So it's important to just be really vulnerable about what we don't know and to say, “Hey, I'm going to fuck it up and there's going to be ways that I am not aware of my unconscious bias yet. So please teach me and if you don't have emotional capacity to teach me, I'm not saying that it's your responsibility, but if you can call me out, please do.” CHANTÉ: Yeah. That's a really important thing. I feel like being in solidarity with others who are othered. For me, it's like oh shit, we have Black history month coming up around the corner and I have some friends who are Black and queer, or Black, queer, and disabled and they're just like, “Oh, which one should I lead with first?” And I'm like, “All of them.” You shouldn't have to choose any of them over the other parts of yourself, because they're all valid and they all inform your lived experience in this particular body that you're in. I want people to see the complexity and the wholeness of others and just be like, “That is dope.” I love how you said when people have the capacity to teach you, you invite it, but you're not demanding it because so many times we've – I think we all can speak to this on this call. We're all in community. But it is, some of us have more resource and more ability to show up for each other at other points in time because we're going through something [chuckles] that the whole world doesn't know. It is likely because of our identity, our social location, our privilege, and the unique things we're kind of going through as we navigate life. It's really important to just constantly communicate that as well, that you're inviting this kind of calling out, or calling in and that people don't have to educate you. But I hear the willingness to want to show up and learn, which I think is literally a key. [laughs] The willingness. Yeah, awesome. AARON: It's at least half of the battle, right? CHANTÉ: Yes. ASHLEIGH: Totally. My friends and I were having a discussion about community here and it was like, you cannot have a community space that never once is going to screw up, or have an issue, or be called out, or called in. How you move through that, or what, I don't know. If you continue to be a safe space, it's not in not getting called out. It's how you deal with it. It's how you take that feedback from someone, or the community group and say, “One, thank you for telling me, let's be grateful that someone had the bravery to even speak up and two, then you get to say, is this mine, or not?” Don't lead with the buts, or the whys I did it, or the here's my intent. Don't lead with that. Lead with gratitude that someone felt safe enough to come forward. Someone felt that you were worth getting their feedback, because guess what, if they didn't believe that you would change, they probably wouldn't even tell you. They would just leave. They would just deem the space as unsafe and go. So that in itself, how you take feedback will determine how your community and your company thrives, both. MANDY: And then apologize and move on. ASHLEIGH: Bingo. Yes. AARON: And make material changes to show that you've learned. [laughter] ASHLEIGH: Oh, yeah. [laughter] ASHLEIGH: Good pointer. And then act also important. But [laughs] yes. AARON: That lesson of taking feedback, I think and understanding the value of that is so huge and it's a hard lesson. This is probably the hardest lesson I'm dealing with my kids for instance, is like, “Hey, that first call out, I wasn't really upset with you, but then when you acted super defensive and flipped out, that's the problem that I have. That's not okay.” ASHLEIGH: Totally. AARON: The initial action was just like, “Hey, we need to change this. Let's alter our behavior. Move on. But all the other stuff, that was not good that. That, we need to work on.” ASHLEIGH: Absolutely. AARON: Yeah. It's a tough lesson. I think it requires an ego check. Like decentering and recognizing oh, this call, it's not about me. [laughs] ASHLEIGH: Absolutely. Yes, and it's not easy work. You've got to eat it. It's not fun. AARON: Right. MANDY: Yeah. I've had to learn not everything's about me. [laughter] MID-ROLL: And now a quick word from our sponsor. I hear people say the VPNs have a reputation for slowing down your internet speed, but not with NordVPN, because it's the fastest VPN in the world. I don't have to sacrifice internet speed for better security. With NordVPN, my internet traffic is routed through a secure encrypted tunnel, which protects my data and privacy. I can also have it on up to six devices like my laptop, phone, TV, iPad—all my devices are protected. Grab your exclusive NordVPN deal by going to nordvpn.com/gtc, or use the code GTC to get a huge discount on your NordVPN plan plus one additional month for free. Plus, a bonus gift! It's completely risk-free with Nord's 30-day money back guarantee. AARON: A thing I wanted to get back to a little bit. I loved when Chanté was talking about folks who said that were Black, queer, and disabled and this multiple identities and leading with all of them. I think especially industry wise, or big corp wise anyway, we create these interest groups of this is the Black community interest group. This is the pride interest group. This is the disabled workers' interest group. I feel like it misses so much of the you of intersectionality. I'm wondering if you've seen that both, in your space and your identity and being able to create that space of vulnerability yourself, if you've noticed a benefit of that. ASHLEIGH: No, I think that's interesting and I like the note here that employee resources groups can be really great and really crappy. I totally agree. AARON: Yeah. ASHLEIGH: Often, it feels to me that the goal is visibility and understanding at the end of the day. We get great visibility in employee resource groups. We feel seen with people that are like us in some way, or another. But really, we want to have this intersectionality so how do we get both? My gosh. How do we have the representation, which is so important? How do we have the understanding, which is so important? And then how do we move past the feelings of not feeling seen so that we can see others? Because if we don't think it's possible to be seen, we're probably not able to see others and we need an on-staff therapist, really. Let's just be honest. [laughter] CHANTÉ: Yes. ASHLEIGH: Put them on payroll. [laughter] CHANTÉ: I've got to get that idea. Now you're talking my language. I'm telling you, I'm telling you if I had it my way, all organizations would offer that as their employee health and wellness benefit is to have somebody who's like on-site and depending on the ratio of people, if you have too many, you got to get several organizational psychologists and folks who are well-versed in trauma. ASHLEIGH: Totally. Yeah. CHANTÉ: But it makes me think of the conversation I often talk about, which is the difference between sacred space and safe space. AARON: Ooh. CHANTÉ: The sacred space is like those ERGs. It's like, yeah, we're going to have our unique identities where we can show up, talk to each other, see each other, and be like, “Oh my God, that really sucked,” or “That was really good. Good job in there.” The places where we're like – the safe spaces are harder because we have to make sure that everyone, when we say psychological safety, they're like, “Yes, I know what that means,” and that people are committed to doing some kind of work, which is why I'm like, “Organizations need to focus more on culture.” ASHLEIGH: Yeah. CHANTÉ: And this is where the like magic can happen, or where it can all fall apart. The sacred versus space is so huge. So, so huge because we can't have enough of people like you, Ashleigh. The world needs so many CEOs like you, then the world would be better and different and I wouldn't mind going to corporate work. [chuckles] But the reality is that you are few and far between. It's based on your identities, based on your lived experience, which is why it is so important to talk about it and to spend time with this episode getting into it. ASHLEIGH: Yeah. No, I completely agree. I also really like the idea of what's the difference between a safe space and a brave space, which plays into that a bit, too. I think in order to be safe, we have to be brave and it's kind of like what comes first vulnerability, or the courage? All the nuance in that, that ends up being this mushy gushy and I completely agree, we need it all and it's possible and I'm a firm believer in it's possible. The people that keep telling me that people first companies can't be profitable. I think it's bullshit. I think it's absolute bullshit. When we focus on people, the profits will come. If we're all safe, if we all believe in the mission, if we're all there because we want to be there, guess what? It will happen in and it will continue to happen and the foundation will be more sturdy and we'll be able to pivot easier because guess what? We move as a pack and I don't know, I guess, I'm just here to prove them all wrong. CHANTÉ: I feel like I love that and I'm also really sad that we have to work really hard to prove that people matter over productivity, [chuckles] that people matter over profits. ASHLEIGH: Yeah. CHANTÉ: My favorite, well, one of my favorite people to follow is Dan Price. He's the CEO of Gravity Payments and he's the guy who went viral when he basically gave up parts of his salary and paid everyone a livable wage. He tweets every day and of brings attention to this. It's just like you're right, Ashleigh that people first companies are rare and I can't believe that that's still happening in 2022, but the ones who are, stick out. There are definitely folks who people fall in line to submit their resume and want to work for you and you have no issue with hiring great talent and probably keeping it. It's the organizations and corporations that are literally extracting people's best parts of themselves in hope of getting a profit for their shareholders. ASHLEIGH: That just sounds so icky, doesn't it? [chuckles] CHANTÉ: Yeah. Yeah. It does. I haven't looked to see who your community is in terms of being venture backed, but when you went out, fundraised, started your company, and you said you were going to be people first, what were the reactions? Did it take you many tries to find folks to fill your cap table who believed in that, too? ASHLEIGH: So our first funding round, it was mostly retired elevator people that want to see the industry turn around, that believe in the industry and feel really crummy about where it's at now and how lost it is. Our entire first round was completely private and then after that, the next round was mostly those people coming in again. I wanted to go non-VC for as long as possible because I know I'm niche, I know I'm different, and if you don't get the vision, I don't want to waste my time trying to explain to you what we're doing, because we're too different. So if you're not with me, I don't have the time to sit here and convince you. The industry is a $100 plus billion a year industry and if you don't see that and don't get it, then bye. But then we ended up taking on some VC funding this round because I got tagged in a LinkedIn post that someone was like, “Where are all the PropTech women?” 98% of the people pitching this VC were all men. We ended up getting a meeting because I've always turned down any VC meeting. We just hit it off and then we went out to lunch and we were very similar. He was a founder himself and so, he understood what I was doing. I was like, “Hey, I'm not building this company to report to venture capitalists and so, if you're someone that expects me to work for you and not to work for my employees, we're not the right fit.” He was like, “No, that's what I expect you to do. Call me if you need me. Otherwise, I'm out of your hair.” I was like, “Great, okay! We can do this.” And then we ended up getting a couple more folks. I think it was really because I got on the phone with them and I was like, “I'm not taking your money,” and they were like, “Excuse me?” I was like, “I'm not taking your money. My round is full. I'll talk to you only because Zane wants me to talk to you. Otherwise, I don't have a conversation with you,” and they were like, “Please extend your round,” and I was like, “Okay, I guess.” So how could this happen? CHANTÉ: Wow, that's – [overtalk] ASHLEIGH: Is it because I'm being a jerk? [laughs] CHANTÉ: No, it sounds like it happened because you were more aware of who you were and you were sticking to your values and principles, actually. That's what it sounds like from my seat. So speaking of that, are your values of the company reflections of your personal values, or are they collective –? [overtalk] ASHLEIGH: Oh, a 100%. CHANTÉ: To the folks who work with you? ASHLEIGH: Yeah, I think both and we found each other. But building out the values and the mission and the vision was something that I spent a lot of money doing with The House of Who, who is a great organization and the East Bay. They're a branding company and they really helped me articulate the vision, the values, and the mission in a really eloquent way right in the beginning. I think everyone probably looked at me like I was bonkers for spending money on branding before I had any sort of software, or [chuckles] any sort of anything. But for me, it was so important that we had a way to articulate this to the team in an eloquent way that got people on board and really said, “This is who we are and this is who we're going to be.” How do we know what we do before we know who we are? It's not possible. So at that point, the people that align and that gravitate to what our values and vision are, I think we just kind of find each other. MANDY: That's awesome. I loved hearing a little bit about your journey, especially when it comes to venture capital, because I think lot of us just get a weird icky feeling from even hearing about venture capital. So it's always good to hear the good stories. ASHLEIGH: Yeah. MANDY: But since we are coming up on the hour, I was hoping that we could go into reflections and this is where we talk about something that stood out to us, maybe a call-to-action for ourselves, or the listeners. I can start. There was something at the beginning of the show that you said, that I had to write down, was just eating a shame sandwich once in a while. I'm not going to try to say that ten times fast. [laughter] You invited people to call you out and I love that. That's something I always try to do and model. It's the best way to learn, when invited, saying, “If we're talking, I'm going to ask you this. If I'm wrong, can you please let me know? Because I want to learn. I want to grow.” I think that's something that's super important and something that I try to do, especially with children that I'm around. My child, other children that are friends with her, just be like, “I was wrong. I was wrong. I'm sorry and it's just such a good thing to do, just to be humble in that ability to say I was wrong and I learned.” Thank you for that. CHANTÉ: The thing I really love that you said, and I haven't really heard this often, is you said your north star is being excellent to each other and I feel like most people have a north star of growing, or making an X number of profit, or whatever. I just love that. It is because it really does, I think eliminate your value of being people first and demonstrates that that's where you're going to put your time and money. Not only if I had the money, I'd be like, “Okay, Ashleigh, when you're having your next route, I want to invest in you.” But I feel like leading with that and saying that often tells people who might be interested in a job what you're about, tells your clients what you're about, and obviously, the communities in what you're serving. I just love that. So thank you for sharing it. ASHLEIGH: Yeah, absolutely. Chanté, my favorite part of today was you talking about the intersections and celebrating the intersections of identity and I've had so many conversations with friends about the different lanes into the intersection, but I really like that you focused on the intersection. So that intersection as a whole was very cool to me. AARON: I think one of the things I'm going to take with me was your this doesn't make sense log. I love this concept. This speaks to me on so many different levels. One is the way to raise all these little things that get missed without having to work up all of the energy to try and give someone feedback in a one-on-one meeting, or whatever else. But also, as someone who deals with ADHD and from an engineering mindset, just this place to be like, “Hey, I ran across this and it makes no sense. Can we revisit this?” Because the answer might be, “Oh, here's this explanation for why we do it that way,” and you're like, “Oh, now it makes sense to me,” or it might be like, “You're right. Let's figure out a different way to do that.” I just love that there's just this running place that anyone can just dump these thoughts as they run across them is really cool. MANDY: Awesome. Well, Chanté, Aaron, Ashleigh, it's been such a great conversation and thank you all so much for showing up and being vulnerable and having this discussion. It's been great. So with that, I just want to thank you again, thank the audience, and we'll see next week. Special Guest: Ashleigh Wilson.

covid-19 united states god tv ceo founders black house giving san francisco lgbtq gender adhd llc ceos dare ipads queer personal growth self awareness future of work organizations excuse vc buddhism slack fundraising nord make sense elevators hierarchy gambit scorpio bren brown vpn maslow chant devops javascript elixir people first glennon doyle east bay vpns mandy moore nordvpn proptech morning pages glennon gtc ergs devrel holistic psychologist dan price thurmond gravity payments test double aaron it aaron yeah auditmate greater than code aaron thank devreps

270: Trust Building and Authenticity with Justin Searls

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 9, 2022 63:25

How to Trust Again – Justin Searls (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu8KmhPa5Oc) Why has trust become so rare in the software industry? Developers don't trust their own ability to program, teammates don't trust each other to write quality code, and organizations don't trust that people are working hard enough to deliver on time. This talk by Justin Searls is a reflection on the far-reaching consequences distrust can have for individuals, teams, and organizations and an exploration of what we stand to gain by adopting a more trustful orientation towards ourselves and each other. 01:57 - Justin's Superpower: Having Bad Luck and Exposing Software Problems 04:05 - Breaking Down Software & Teams * Shared Values * Picking Up on Smells to Ask Pointed Questions * Beginner's Mindset * RailsBridge (https://www.bridgetroll.org/) 12:49 - Trust Building * Incremental Improvement * What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How successful people become even more successful by Marshall Goldsmith (https://www.amazon.com/What-Got-Here-Wont-There/dp/1846681375/ref=asc_df_1846681375/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312118059795&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6049806314701265278&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9006718&hvtargid=pla-525029467829&psc=1) * Credibility * Reliability * Intimacy * Selfless Motivation * Authenticity * Detecting Authenticity * Laziness Does Not Exist (https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e312d01) 29:14 - Power Politics & Privilege * Leadership Empathy * Safety * Exposure; “Don't Cross The Net” * Masking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masking_(personality)) 42:06 - Personal Growth & “Bring Your Whole/True Self” * RubyConf 2019 - Keynote: Lucky You by Sandi Metz (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5WWTvHB_sA) How to Trust Again – Justin Searls (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu8KmhPa5Oc) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: PRE-ROLL: Software is broken, but it can be fixed. Test Double's superpower is improving how the world builds software by building both great software and great teams. And you can help! Test Double is hiring empathetic senior software engineers and DevOps engineers based in the United States and Canada. We work in Ruby, JavaScript, Elixir and a lot more. Test Double trusts developers with autonomy and flexibility at a remote, 100% employee-owned software consulting agency. Looking for more challenges? Enjoy lots of variety while working with the best teams in tech as a developer consultant at Test Double. Find out more and check out remote openings at link.testdouble.com/greater. That's link.testdouble.com/greater. JACOB: Hello and welcome to Episode 270 of the Greater Than Code podcast. My name is Jacob Stoebel and I'm joined with my co-panelist, Mae Beale. MAE: And I'm joined with another panelist, Chelsea Troy. CHELSEA: Hi, I'm Chelsea and I'm here with our guest, Justin Searls. He's a co-founder and CTO at Test Double, a consulting agency on a mission to improve how the work writes software. His life's work is figuring out why so many apps are buggy and hard to use, why teams struggle to foster collaboration and trust, and why it's so hard for organizations to get traction building great software. The Test Double Agents work with clients to improve in all of these ways and more. Hi, Justin! How are you today? JUSTIN: Hello. I'm great. Thank you so much for having me. CHELSEA: Of course. So we like to kick off our sessions by asking you, what is your superpower and how did you acquire it? JUSTIN: Well, one superpower might be that I like to give counterintuitive answers to questions and [laughs] my answer to this would be that I have really, really bad luck software and hardware. My entire life has just fallen over for me left and right. Bugs come and seek me out. In college, I was in the computer science program and so, I was around a lot of computers, like Linux data centers and stuff, and I think I went through either personally, or in the labs that I used 20 hard drive failure years in 4 years. People started joking that I had an EMP around me. So I started to just decide to lean into that not so much as an identity necessarily, but as a specialty of root cause analysis of like, why do things fail? When I see a bug, what does that mean? And to dig in to how to improve quality in software and that then extended to later in my career, when I was working on delivery teams, like building software for companies and institutions. That meant identifying more root causes about what's leading to project failure, or for teams to break down. Now I'm kind of moving, I guess, popping the stack another layer further. I'm starting to ask what are the second and third order consequences of software failing for people having for others? I see this in my family who are non-software industry family members, when they encounter a bug and I'm watching them encounter a bug, their reaction is usually to think that they're the ones who screwed up, that they're stupid, that they just can't figure it out. I'm literally watching software that somebody else wrote far away just fail and that's just no good, right? So I think that the fact that I just so easily expose problems with software and sometimes the teams that make it almost effortlessly, it's really given me a passion and a purpose to improve and find opportunities to just make it a little bit better. MAE: When you talk about software and/or teams breaking down and you're mentioning bugs. So I'm assuming that that's mostly what you mean by breaking down? I'm curious if you have kind of a mental model of software always breaks down these four ways. Teams always break down these three ways. I don't know if you have any reference texts, or things that you've come across as far as like a mental model for what is the world of breaking down? How do we characterize it? JUSTIN: That's a great question and I feel like having been basically doing this for 15 years now, I should be prepared with a better answer. I've always resisted building I guess, the communicative version of an abstraction, or a framework for categorizing, simplifying, and compartmentalizing the sort of stuff that I experience. In some ways, my approach [laughs] is the human version of machine learning where I have been so fortunate, because I've been a consultant my entire career, to be exposed to so many companies and so many teams that that has developed in me a pattern recognition system that even I don't necessarily understand—it's kind of a black box to me—where I will pick up on little smells and seemingly incidental cues and it'll prompt me to develop a concern, or ask a pointed question about something seemingly unrelated, but that I've come to see as being associated with that kind of failure. I think your question's great. I should probably spend some time coming up with quadrants, or a system that distills down some of this. But really, when I talk about bugs, that is a lagging indicator of so many things upstream that are not necessarily code related. One of the reasons I want to be on the show here and talk to you all the day is because I've been thinking a lot about trust and interpersonal relationships starting with us as individuals and whether we trust the work that we're doing ourselves, or trust ourselves to really dive in and truly understand the stuff that we're building versus feel like we need to go and follow some other pattern, or instructions that are handed to us. To kind of try to answer your question more directly, when I see teams fail, it usually comes down to a lack of authentic, empathetic, and logical targeted relationships where you have strong alignment about like, why are we in this room? Why are we working together? How do we best normalize on an approach so that when any person in any role is operating that is consistent with if somebody else on the team had been taking the same action that they would operate in the same way so that we're all marching in the same direction? That requires shared values and that requires so many foundational things that are so often lacking in teams as software is developed today, where companies grow really fast. The pay right now is really, really high, which is great, but it results in, I think a little bit of a gold rush mentality to just always be shipping, always be hustling, always be pushing. As there's less time for the kind of slack that we need to think about—baking in quality, or coming back to something that we built a couple weeks ago and that maybe we've got second considerations about. Because there's that kind of time, there's even less time sometimes for the care and feeding that goes into just healthy relationships that build trust between people who are going to be spending a third of their life working together. CHELSEA: You mentioned picking up on little smells that then lead you to ask pointed questions. I think that's really interesting because that kind of intuition, I've found is really essential to being a consultant and figuring out how to ask those questions as well. Can you provide some examples of situations like that? JUSTIN: Yeah. I'll try to think of a few. I had a client once that was undergoing—this is 10 years ago now—what we called at the time, an agile transformation. They were going from a Waterfall process of procuring 2 year, $2 million contracts and teams to build big design upfront systems that are just thrown over a fence, then a team would go and work on it, and then it would go through a proper user acceptance testing onto something more agile, I guess. Adopting Scrum and extreme programming, interpersonal process, and engineering practices. That was just meant to be more, I guess, iterative of course, innovative, collaborative, more dynamic, and able to let the team drive its own destiny. All that sounds great and you walk into the team room and they just invested millions of dollars into this beautiful newly restored historic building. I sit down with everyone and I look at them and they've got the cool desks at the time and cool open office because those were still considered cool. I sat down and I couldn't help, but—[chuckles] this is real silly. I couldn't help but notice that there was a pretty strong smell, [laughs] body odor throughout the whole room and it wasn't one person. I'm not picking on somebody here. It was that the interpersonal relationships were so afraid, the fear of failure was so strong, and the deadline pressure that had been exerted from on high was so overwhelming that there was no safety in the room. People were just scared at their job all day long and it was having a material impact that only an outsider who's walking in at 2:00 PM on a Friday detect because everyone else had acclimated. So I walked in and I was like, “Well, what do I –?” [laughs] Obviously, I'm not going to be like, “Hey, it stinks in here.” I've got to figure out a way to understand why do people feel unsafe and maybe I didn't have that sentence go through the voice in my head, but it definitely put me on a path towards to maybe the less privileged people in the room, the people who are not the managers to understand what's really going on, what pressures are they under? MAE: I love that the example includes legit real smell. So many times, especially in our industry and part of what this podcast is counteracting, is getting in touch with the fact that we are people and humans. Anyway, I love that you brought [chuckles] that home that way. Also, I wanted to say from earlier, I wasn't trying to corner you into expecting to have a philosophy. I thought you might and it was worth asking. But I recently got asked a similar question about my management philosophy and which authors do I appreciate most, or something. I've been a manager for 25 years and I'm like, “Uh. I don't know. I figure out what is needed and then I deal with that.” I don't understand how to answer. So I just want to give some – pay you back and apologize. I didn't mean to get you – [overtalk] JUSTIN: Not at all and it becomes one of those you know it when you see it. I struggle with this a lot because somebody introduced the concept years ago of beginner's mindset to me where sometimes if I'm a beginner at something, the best person to help me is not the expert—the person who's been doing it for 20 years. It's somebody who's just a few hours, or a few days, or a year, or two ahead of me because they can still remember what it felt like to be where I am right now. Because I talk a lot, because I tweet a lot, because I show up in a lot of places, and I have an outward facing sales role to potential clients and candidates, I meet a lot of people who come to me and they're like, “How do I learn how to code?” And I'm like, “I can tell you the 15-year version of this story, but it's probably going to be really depressing.” I've taken as a responsibility to like try to—and I need to do a much better job of this—be armed with either resources, or people that I trust, that I can refer folks to so that I'm not totally leaving them hanging. MAE: I love that and yes. Speaking of teaching people how to code and what you said, there's a name for it that I'm forgetting about being a teacher. If you are closer to the student, you actually are a more effective teacher. So there's just two comments. The first one is I'm a part of RailsBridge I helped found the Southeast regional chapter. So if anybody, any listeners out there still want to learn how to code, or are having that same, I don't know how to tell you about my [chuckles] zigzag story and ideally, they wouldn't all be depressing, [laughs] but I'm sure they all include some real low moments. But RailsBridge, which is bridgetroll.org, has recurring events where people can go all over the country and obviously, in pandemic times it's not as much in person, but yeah. And on the comment about teaching and when you mention talking to the people with the least privilege in the room, I'm just really sensitive and appreciative of your sensitivity to power politics and how much they impact so much of what is happening and trust. So for anybody out there who's being asked to help new people and you feel like you're still the new person, you're probably in a better position to help. So just want to offer some encouragement there. I have personally found a lot more confidence in helping people who are just behind me and that anytime you're teaching, you're learning. So just want to put those in. I love that actually your answer, instead of a quadrant, is really just the one word of trust and I appreciated the ways in which you were mentioning trust can be different things. Trust in what you're building. Trust in who's asking you to do it. Chelsea asked for a couple examples and I interrupted. So I apologize, but what are some trust building exercises that you have encouraged, or examples? Maybe even continuing that same story. Six months later, was it a fresher air in there and what are some things they did to make that happen? JUSTIN: Yeah, that story, like so many teams and companies in our industry, didn't undertake the redemption arc that I wish I could convey. I think in fact, to see a big picture problem and the desire to connect that with a big picture tidy solution, a future state where it's all rainbows and unicorns and everyone really getting along well. Sometimes that sets, for me personally and when I see consultants who are less experienced, who can see that end state in mind and they know maybe the top three hit list of stuff that needs to happen to help that organization get to where they need to be. We can sometimes set the bar so high for ourselves in terms of expectations of like, what does it mean to help them become better, that we can't help, but lose sight of the value of just incremental improvement. If I can just help restore relationship between two people on a team. I had one client years and years ago, [laughs] they were also undergoing a pretty big transition and they brought me in a – I think that what they thought they were hiring me for was to be a test-driven development coach to teach them that particular practice of TDD. They got, instead on day one, there was a room of 30 interdisciplinary cross-functional teams—some developers, some non-developers, and stuff—and I could just tell that they were like, it was a big epic rewrite from a Perl codebase that, I think they were moving to no JS and Angular as well as a chewing of cloud infrastructure at the same time, as well as Agile software practices at the same time. They were overwhelmed, they've seen this fail before, they felt a ton of pressure from the business, and they didn't even really understand, I don't think, the future business model. Even if they were successful, it wasn't clear this was going to solve systemic problems for the company. And I'm like, “Well, I can teach you all TDD. [laughs] But instead what my commitment to you all will be is that six months from now, you'll either have been successful and learned all of these things and built the thing as the business has asked you to do and then the business takes off, or I will have helped equip you with skills and ways of thinking about this industry and our work that will set you up to get much better jobs next time.” Again, the company didn't totally come together. It didn't take off like a rocket ship. The team was successful in the rewrite, which doesn't happen very often. But then you saw almost a diaspora of dozens of highly skilled people—and this was in Central Ohio—who then went to venture backed startups, some went to big, established enterprise-y kind of companies, some left the region and went elsewhere. That turned into, if I had to count, probably eight, nine additional Test Double clients [laughs] down the road where they came in and they could spot in a minute, this is a way that an outside perspective, who is here to help us at a moment of tremendous need, can move the needle just a little bit. By setting expectations realistically, being humane about it, and focused on what's best for the people involved because at the end of the day, all companies are is collections of humans. That was, I guess, more my orientation. CHELSEA: So Justin, I'm interested in your thoughts on this. I appreciate what you just shared. I worked at Pivotal Labs for a while—original labs when it was sort of a generalist's enablement. JUSTIN: Sure. CHELSEA: Very heavy on that kind of thing. One of the things that we ran into relatively frequently was similar to what you've just described wherein one of two things would happen. Either the clients were successful and there was a vastly improved, I guess, software delivery culture among the people that we were working with, or if that didn't work out, then there were individuals who took to it very well and had gained variety of skills that allowed them to go elsewhere. It happened enough times that then we would have to establish trust with potential new clients around this whole additional access, which was effectively, is this going to cause a diaspora of all of these engineers, designers, and PMs that I've managed to scrape together for this project? Do you find Test Double ever facing that, or how do you address either beforehand if product owners are aware of it, or after it happens, how do you address that with clients? JUSTIN: That's a fantastic question. Pivotal Labs was one of the companies that we looked at. We started Test Double 10 years ago. I was at the time, just starting to speak at user groups and conferences and I spent a lot of time with the people at the Boulder office at Pivotal Labs. Great people. I really appreciated the focus and the rigor and in fact, made to answer a question earlier about process, or abstraction about like, “Hey, boil it down for me.” Pivotal Labs sold a very branded, very discreet process for like, this is the way to build software and, in a sense, some of the decisions that we made when we started Test Double were a response against that. Just to say we trust the people closest to the work to make the right decisions based on tremendous experience and skills. Frankly, as we get bigger and more successful, having some somebody like me at the top of an organization who only talks at the beginning of a client relationship, which is the moment that we know the least and I've got the least amount of context, for me to go and say, “Well, this is the way that we got a test,” or whatever it is would just be ineffective and inappropriate. So to answer your question, Chelsea. Fortunately, our brand power, isn't nearly as strong as Pivotal Labs so no client has ever come to us in advance with that as a question to say, “Hey, I'm worried that you're going to train our people in this particular methodology and then they're going to leave for higher paying jobs,” or something. That's never come up in advance. In fact, one of the things that we talk a lot about is that because our consultants join client engineering teams to work with them inside of their own process, using their own tools, and their own system is we just try to be model citizens of somebody on that team. We trust our clients like, “Whatever your process is, it's apparently working for you. So let's just try it and if we have ideas for how to make that better, we will listen, we'll write them down.” But then only once we've built trust and rapport with the people on that team, will we start to share, “Hey, I've got a rainy-day list of a few things that you might want to try.” What that's actually done is has a detoxifying effect where from a context of high trust, the incongruity, the distrust, the kind of backchannel frustrations that our people pick up on because we're kind of “in the trenches” with our client folks, we're able to have multiple pathways into that client organization to help make it a better place to work. We got one of the best poll quotes that I've ever seen on our website recently. One of our clients is Betterment. They're a great financial management firm in New York where it's kind of an autopilot savings vehicle. The director of engineering, Katelyn, there said that she saw on the teams where testable people were deployed, attrition actually went down and I think it's because we help those teams to perform better. An old friend of mine named Leon Gersing, he used to have a thing he'd say. He'd said, “You can either change where you work, or you can change where you work.” Meaning you can either make the place that you're at better, or you can go find gainful employment elsewhere and we're in the make the place where people work better business, wherever possible as a first avenue. MAE: You're reminding me of a book that I'm reading right now called What Got You Here Isn't Going to Get You There. Are you all familiar with it? JUSTIN: I was so proud of my wife, because she asked for that on Audible earlier this week because I'm the person with the Audible credit and I'm like, “Oh, this is quoted in business leadership contexts left and right and all over the place. So it'll give us a touchstone to talk about.” MAE: Yeah. Well, the TLDR is so much of especially management focused and leadership focused thought is about things that you should do and this book is probably along your lines, Justin of giving the counterintuitive answer. This is here's 20 things that you might want to consider not doing and then replace it with the good behavior because that is such a stretch in real life to actually do that. It's how about you just pick a couple of these that you're a repeat offender and just stop. Just try to not do it. That's the main first thing and I've found that, a refreshing take on how to think about how to guide in ways that are building more trust and offering more safety. So definitely recommend that book. I don't know that it came out of this book, but the person who recommended it to me, my VP Scott Turnquist, who is amazing, shared that there are really four categories of things that can help build trust and it's definitely all done incrementally. So picking up on that word you said earlier, Justin, too. But the four kind of axes are credibility, reliability, intimacy, and selfless motivation. If you can demonstrate those recurringly, that is how to establish and/or course correct into a state of increased trust. So anyway, that was partly why my original statement was like, do you have this down? Because I've heard some things lately that I've been thinking about. JUSTIN: I really appreciate your perspective there and it makes me feel better because one of my commitments in life is to never write a book. But if I were to write a book, I'd probably have to come up with a tidy quadrant, a Harvard Business Review two by two, or something like that to I guess, support the good work at the people at CliffsNotes and Blinkist to boil down years' worth of work into a 13-minute podcast. I think that the advice as you expressed, it is completely valid and there's one thing that I think is a core ingredient to trust. Trust of ourselves, trust of people that we work with directly, and then trust of leadership and the people who run the organizations that we're a part of. The hardest, in my opinion, is authenticity. If you're not, I think you said credible. If you combine credible, intimacy, vulnerability, those are really useful words to prompt what I mean when I say authenticity. If I'm talking to somebody and I can lock eyes with them and I believe that what they're saying is what they actually feel and it's their true self and they believe it, then all sorts of other background processes in my head of trying to read the tea leaves of what's going on here, all the passive analysis I might do to try to understand what's the subtext that this person's operating from. That's just the form of kind of armor, or a guard that it depletes my cognitive ability to talk to the person. Authenticity is a signal that we pick up on as humans and this is why it's a miracle that we have video chat in this era and it's why I really relish one-on-one in-person interactions when I can have them. Authenticity is a signal that I can drop that guard a little bit. It's that I can really look and really listen to what the person's saying and take it at face value. The problem with just saying, “Oh, okay, well just be authentic. Just be your true self,” is that that is useless advice and way more likely to trigger somebody's defenses, or their self-doubt. When I think about authenticity in the context of a team, or an organization is that the people who are maybe not in a position of power, people who report up the chain, if they don't come across as authentic to their leaders, the leaders should not look at that as a failing of the person, but as a failure of their ability to figure out how to promote and draw out authenticity from the people who report to them. Maybe they don't have safety in the room to speak their true mind. Maybe they feel like the things that make them different from the other people that they work with are a liability, or a risk and so, they can't really bring their true self to work. It's the leader's job, when they spot inauthenticity, rather than go on a hunt like a political backchannels to try to figure out why is this person lying. What's under here? Figuring out what is it about the person's context, the environment, kind of the system that they are operating in. What could possibly be an explanation for why I can't develop an authentic connection with this person? And until you run out of every single possible explanation in that investigation, including self-reflection of what is it that I'm individually doing and how I communicate to this person that's getting in the way. Only then is it really useful to start thinking about maybe this person's not a good actor, maybe they're being duplicitous, or something. Because once you've hit that button, it is really hard to go back. So when we talk about authenticity, we often talk about the individual's responsibility to present it, to be it. If you can fake authenticity, then you can do anything, right? That is advice. It's fine. I hope that everyone feels the safety. Like I'm a cishet white dude who's pretty powerful in my little corner of the small pond. I have no problem just spouting off and being my true self and so, I should just tell other people to do that too. That's not fair. I think that what is better advice for people who are maybe not in positions of power is to be really good at detecting authenticity. When you detect authenticity and people are making their true selves known to you and you're feeling a connection with them, whether they're peers, or managers, spend more time with them, invest into those relationships, and use those people as anchors of trust. So that when you're failing to make that connection elsewhere, when you have doubts about others in the organization, you can have more points of perspective on how to best address it. MAE: I read an article yesterday that says, “Laziness Doesn't Exist.” That's the title of it and it essentially says that that same thing of what's the context in which this is happening. People don't procrastinate for fun. In fact, it usually takes more work and starting from a place of what shoes are you in, but I especially love the in what way am I impacting that person's ability to be themselves? Also, I must have said the word authenticity, because this list is credibility, reliability, intimacy, selfless motivation, but authenticity and credibility in all of these things do also have to do with the thing that I loved you bringing up about identity, power politics, and what happens and your environment is not allowing you to be credible. So another way in which people can as good peers, mentors, managers, and above can do is in what way am I bolstering these people's credibility? So always flipping it back to how are we the perp [laughs] and that's very similar to social justice, racial justice. The more we see how we are perpetuating and disenfranchising, regardless of our identity, that's where there's some hope for the humans in my mind. CHELSEA: Yeah. One of the things that I appreciate that you've both brought up, Justin and Mae, is the degree to which power gradients play a role in the way that we deal with these things. There are demographic power gradients with regard to race, with regard to gender. There are also power gradients with regards to our position in the company, with regard to technical privilege, with regard to our level of skill, with regard to the size of our network. We also, I think live in this individualist culture that has a tendency to place the responsibility on individuals to do what they can to resolve. For example, what you were saying, Justin, about how we effectively coach people to just be authentic. Maybe that coaching works fine in some context, but that's a subset of the context in which we're asking people to apply it and asking individuals to resolve this from the bottom up sometimes as opposed to looking for the systemic reasons why this is a thing that has to be solved in the first place. I'm curious as to whether you have thoughts on what a person can do, who finds themselves in a position of power, in a position of leadership in a company, for example, to address those sorts of questions with other folks who are working there. JUSTIN: I think one thing that can be helpful – and I realize your question is about what can a leader do. One thing that can be helpful is for those leaders to empathize and put themselves in the shoes of people who might not have the same privileges as you described and what would it take to—I'm waiting outside my area of expertise here—would be to think about what are the things that are in a given person's sphere of direct control, what isn't, what am I setting up, and what am I communicating in terms of expectations that I have of them? An example that came up a lot in our industry was the number of drink up events in tech in the early 2010s where there was sort of an assumption that everyone likes alcohol and when people in public drink alcohol, good things happen, which turns out isn't true, but it can also be the case. There are invisible expectations that we communicate because I'm a big fan of granting people autonomy to solve problems in their own way, to approach work the way that they feel is best. Our company has been remote from day one and a big part of that was we want people in control of everything from where they work to their home network, to the computers that they use. Because when I had that control pulled away from me in the role as developer, it just sapped my motivation, my drive, my engagement, my sense of control over the stuff that's right in front of me. When I now in a role of influence over other people, whenever I speak, I have to think about the negative space of what are the expectations that I might be conveying that are not explicit. I need to be careful of even expressing something like hobbies, or shows that I like, or stuff – especially in this remote world, we want to develop connectedness. But a challenge that I keep running into is that our ability to find mutual connection with people about stuff other than work, it rides the line really closely of communicating some other allegiance, or affiliation whether that's we talk about sports a lot because that's an obvious one, but even just interest in hobbies. So I find myself – and I realize Chelsea, I'm doing a really poor job, I think of answering the question as you asked it. I find myself only really able to even grapple with like what can leaders do to set the tone for the kind of environment that's going to be inclusive and safe for other people by really digging in, empathizing with, calling up, and dredging up what their own experience was when they were not in a position of power. If I have a secondary superpower, is I had a real rough start to my career. I was in really, really, really rough client environments that were super hostile. I had a C-level executive at a Fortune 500 company scream at me until his face was red in a room one-on-one with a closed door on a regular basis. The sorts of stuff that developed callus on me, that I look back at a lot of those experiences and I'm like, “I learned a bunch.” It's supercharged my career as an individual because it strengthened me. So the challenge that I have is what can I take from those really, really harsh experiences and translate them for people who are coming up in a way that they don't have to go through the same trials and tribulations, but that they can take away from it the lessons that I learned. And for me, it's all about not just safety for the sake of safety, but safety by which myself and others can convey the useful growth that people want to see in themselves, their skills, and their abilities that isn't diluted. That can convey the truth, the difficulty, and the challenge and how hard – Programming is really, really hard for me and I've been doing it for a long time. A lot of stuff about this is just not easy. The relationships are not easy. Like you're going to run into situations where there's massive differences between where people stand on stuff and what those perspectives look like. Navigating that is hard enough without adding a whole layer of toxicity and hostile work environment. So what's a way to promote that learning environment without just totally insulating somebody from reality. That's been, I think a challenge and attention that I see a lot of other like-minded leaders in tech trying to figure out how to create. MAE: You reminded me of a meme that someone shared with me that says, “What doesn't kill you can just regulate your nervous system, trap itself in your body, steal your sense of self, make you wish it did.” I don't know what makes you stronger means, but let's stop glorifying trauma as a life lesson we've been blessed with. [chuckles] Definitely along the same lines. JUSTIN: Yeah. Relatable. MAE: There's a thing, too about putting oneself in another's shoes and this is a place where I'm someone that can read people really well, but that makes that tricky. Because I start to trust my sense of it and I have a similar architecture going if I don't feel like I'm getting the whole story. So what's the read between the lines thing. But without a lot of exposure to a lot of very different people, and most people have not had a lot of exposure to a lot of different people, when they put themselves in the other person's shoes, they come up with a different conclusion. So I will feel hurt by people who do things that were I to put myself in their shoes would not have done that to me, or if they did, it's because of X, Y, Z about who they are, or what they think, or what is their whole context and environment. All of that is there's a tactic that we use at True Link Financial called “don't cross the net.” So you say and claim the story I tell myself about that is dot, dot. When leaders, who haven't had a lot of exposure to a lot of different people and a lot of different ideas, try to empathize and find themselves limited in that, there are other options which include one of the things you said earlier. Making it so that people can say the things on their mind so whether, or not that's persons being their authentic self this is a whole another level, but creating a place where we expect that we're all messing up and that it's okay to talk about uncomfortable things is one of my real soapboxes. It's totally okay. Yes, we are all racist. We are all sexist. We are all homophobic. There is no way to not be as a result of being in the culture we're in. We could do things to mitigate it. We can do things to name it. But if we just start from yes, we're all failing. This for me, it lowers the stakes because so many people feel that if someone brings up, “Hey, that's kind of sexist,” or “This is not supporting me in this way,” or “My credibility is not being seen because of this.” In the absence of already, yo, we're going to talk about some negative stuff sometimes, that's an introduction of negativity to the “positive, happy rainbow unicorn workplace” that you were talking about before. So one of my hopes and dreams is that we get some clouds to rain on the land to allow things to actually grow [chuckles] and this includes, yo, we are not perfect. And we are definitely doing things we don't intend all the time. JACOB: That made me think about authenticity again, because sopen about imperfection. I'm a neurodiverse person so I probably am autistic. If someone were to say to me at work, “We really want you to bring your authentic self,” probably the thing I would think is you don't want that person, [laughs] or at least without getting to know me a lot better. There's a concept called masking where it's basically, there are behaviors and traits that are exhibited by neurotypical people that just come naturally to them. By learning the hard way, I've sort of learned to do them, even if they don't feel natural at all like making eye contact, smiling at people when talking, things like that. So I think that complicates authenticity for me, which is that I'm intentionally not hiding, but choosing what parts of myself to show and what parts I just don't want to bring to work. [laughs] I don't have a clean answer for that, or a solution to that, but I think that just complicates things for me. JUSTIN: I thank you so much for sharing that and I think it's a really important perspective to bring, which is I talked earlier about sure, plenty of people's true, authentic selves, even if they were to bring them, they might be in a job, or in a space, or in a team where that wouldn't be understood as such, or appreciated, or literally safe. It's hard to tell people, “Hey, you should feel safe” when the truth when spoken would be an unsafe thing. That would be setting people up for risk, for danger, and it would be a seed of distrust, which is what we're all here to talk about avoiding. So I really appreciate you sharing that. When I talked about empathy earlier, Mae, in my brain, all that really comes through it is the E-M part of that word, like the root for emotion. I never really have been able to assume that I can get somebody's context, their perspective, and the moment that they're in into my brain well enough to role play and do a re-dramatization in black and white, sepia tones and slow motion, like this is what Justin would do if he was here. That's one reason why we trust people at our company to just do the work, because we know that they're going to have such a richer amount of data and context than we'll ever have. But one thing that I'm grateful for is that I've been able to experience what I feel like is a pretty broad range of emotion. [laughs] I'm a real emotionally volatile person. I go super high highs, super low lows and I'm just like, it's how I've been. I can't help it. So when I'm empathizing with people, I'm just trying to get in the mindset of how do they likely feel right now so that I can understand and try to do a better job, meeting them where they are. A big part of that is learning there are differences and so Jacob, of course, it's like if I worked with you, I understand that it might not be productive to bring all of yourself to work all the time. But I would hope to develop a trusting relationship with you where you can share enough so that I can know what are the boundaries that are going to be productive for you, productive for me so that we can make a connection and it's something – To make this a little bit more personal. I don't know where my career is going to go next. I founded Test Double with my partner, Todd. I was only 26 years old and we've been doing this for 10 years now. 2 years ago, we embarked on a journey of transferring a 100% of the equity of the company to our employees. So we're on an employee stock ownership plan now, it's ESOP, or any of the stuff, it is complicated because it's well regulated. We have to have outside auditors, a valuation firm, we have a third-party trustee to make sure that our people and the value of the company is transferred appropriately, treated right, and managed well. So it's naturally raised, especially in my circle of friends and family who realize that, this means that there's not an end date, but there's a moment at which I can start thinking about what my life is going to be next. The people who knew me when I was 25, 26, who look at me now, it's not that I've changed radically, or my identities are radically different, or anything. It's like, I am a very different kind of person than I was at 26, than I was at 20 before I got into this industry. I have changed in healthy ways and in maladaptive ones and in response to maybe drama and stress such that the ideal retirement that I would've imagined earlier in my life looks a lot different now where I've just kind of become habituated. I'm a really, really different person than I used to be and I'm grateful for that in almost every way. I feel like I've grown a lot as a person, but the thing about me that I really look at as an area of change is that I just work too much. [chuckles] I'm online all the time. I'm very focused on – I've optimized productivity so much that it's become ingrained in me. I understand that whatever I do next, or even if it's just changing my role inside my company, I need to find a way to create more space for slower paced asynchronous thought and learning how to, in the context of a career, not just bring your true self – I'm kind of curious Chelsea, Mae, and Jacob's perspectives. That true self might be changing [laughs] intentionally. There's a directionality and the growth isn't just learning new skills necessarily, but it might be changing core things about ourselves that will alter the dynamic of the relationships that we bring to work. CHELSEA: Yeah. I have two thoughts on that, that I can share. The first is the extent to which bringing my true self is a productive thing to do at work. So for example, my career prior to tech, I did a variety of different things to make ends meet, really a wide variety of things. I graduated directly into one of the bigger recessions. I won't tell you the exact one, because I don't feel like being aged right now, but [chuckles] it wouldn't take too much research to figure it out. I was trained to do a government job that was not hiring for the next 18 months at a minimum. I needed to figure out what to do and was trying to make ends meet. In my first year of employment, I got laid off/my job ended/something like that on four separate occasions in my first year of work and that resulted in, I do not trust when managers tell me that everything is fine. I have not ever effectively and that is something that I don't foreground that in work discussions for a variety of reasons. I don't want to scare other people. I don't want them to think I know something that they don't know about what's going to happen because I don't usually. When managers tell me, “Oh, everything's great, we're doing great,” all that kind of stuff, I just don't listen. I don't. My decisions do not take that's statement into account and I find that that's the kind of thing that I think about when I'm asked to bring my whole self, my authentic self to a place is that there are things that just sort of similar to what Jacob is saying. I'm like, “Trust me, trust me on this you don't want that.” So that's kind of the first thought in that realm. The second thought that I have around this is the degree to which work should really encompass enough of our lives to require, or demand our authenticity. So I had a variety of full-time jobs in tech and then I quit one of those full-time jobs and I was an independent consultant for a while bolstered chiefly, and I was lucky for this, by folks who had read my blog and then folks who had worked with me when I was at Pivotal. So the consulting effect of people knowing what it's like to work with you is real. That experience felt very different from a full-time position insofar as at the external validation of my work was naturally distributed in a way that it's not in a full-time position and I found that distribution is extremely comforting. Such that even though I now have a full-time job, I also continue client work, I continue teaching, and I continue writing and doing workshops and those kinds of things. This is not the chief reason that I do that, but one of the nice things about it is the diversification of investment in the feedback that I'm receiving and validation that I'm receiving. In order to do that, I have an amount of energy that I put to each of the things in my life and part of it is work, of course. But another reason that I think it works for me is that I no longer have to expect all of my career fulfillment from any one position, from any one employer, from any one place, which has worked out very well because I think that we pedal this notion implicitly that you bring your whole self to work and in return, work provides for your whole career fulfillment. But most places really kind of can't and it's not because they're terrible places to work. It's just because the goals of a company are not actually to fulfill the employees, they're just not. That's not the way that that works. So it has allowed me and I think would allow others to approach the role that a given employment situation plays in their life, from what I think is a more realistic perspective that ends up helping keep me more satisfied in any given work relationship. But it doesn't necessitate that I – I guess, for lack of a better term, it limits the degree of emotional investment that I have in any one thing, because I'm not expecting all of my fulfillment out of any one thing. But I think that to say that explicitly sometimes runs at best, orthogonal and at worst, maybe contraindicates a lot of what we talk about when we talk about bringing our whole selves to work and looking for those personal connections at work. I think there is pragmatic limit past which we maybe impose more guilt than we need to on ourselves for not doing that. JUSTIN: Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that. I think Mae used the phrase “lower the stakes” earlier and I think that one of the problems with authenticity, the phrase “bring your whole self-trust” is that the stakes are super high because it seems like these are bullion contracts between parties. For example, you said that you don't trust managers. If I was filling out a form, like a personality inventory, or something, it's like, “Do you trust managers?” I'd say no and I think 90% of people would say no. It's sort of the economy right now. I think the economy approval rating of is the economy good, or bad is at 23%. But individuals are saying at roughly 60% levels, that they are individually doing okay in this economy. I would say the same. Like, do I trust my manager? Oh, hell yeah. I completely trust my manager right now. And to lower the stakes even further, when I've been talking about trust, it's not so much about where do I find fulfillment, or who what's my identity, or who am I being, it's about a snap orientation. It's the most immediate sphere. “Oh man, this PostgreSQL query is really slow and I can't figure it out.” Is my snap reaction, or my orientation to think, “I believe in myself enough to dig into this to figure it out”, or is it doubt myself and just kind of get lost in a sea of a thousand Stack Overflow tabs and just slowly lose my whole evening? When in a team, maybe working with them and we were in planning, or something, or maybe we're in a higher stake, let's say, a code review session and somebody makes a comment about something that I did. Is my snap reaction to doubt their motivations and think “Ah, they're just trying to passive aggressively shoehorn in their favorite architecture here,” or this is politics and gamesmanship, or is my snap reaction is to be like, “Nope, let's try to interpret the words that they're saying as literal words and take it on its face”? Like I said, I'm a highly emotionally volatile person, the weather vane shifts with me all the time and sometimes I can control it and sometimes I can just merely observe it. But the awareness of the out has been really helpful to understand [chuckles] when I hear a leader say something about the company, my reaction is I think that they've got ulterior motives and that they are probably not speaking in literal truth. If that's my snap reaction, I'm just trying to communicate that as that's a potential blind spot. Because I have a long rut of past companies that I worked for that had mission statements and vision statements that were kind of bullshit and that no one really believed in, that were just in a bronze plaque on a wall, or whatever. That's baggage that I carry. I just have to acknowledge that baggage and try to move forward. The best I can do is just be present in every moment that I'm in and to understand when I have a snap reaction, am I oriented towards what might lead me to a good outcome, or a bad one? MAE: Holy moly, so many amazing things have been shared today and Jacob, especially kudos to you for walking us into a deeper level of authenticity. Love it. Thank you. I'm, to answer some of your questions, Justin very similar to Chelsea in that tech was not my first rodeo. I didn't become a programmer until I was 37 years old and I am now 45. I'm totally fine with aging myself. Prior to tech, I did put a lot more of my identity in my job and I would usually do that job pretty much all of the hours possible and I've always worked for mission driven organizations. A lot of the things that we're talking about as far as job fulfillment and whether, or not it's a good environment, or if it's a toxic environment, there's a lot of privilege in what we're talking. My parents were paper mill workers and it was not pretty. They had me when they were 19, so they didn't have another option. That was the highest paying gig in our region and they had no education. So it was never an option to even change that. So I am someone who wants to put my whole self into what I do. It's a very working-class mode and gaining identity through what it is I'm able to do. It's also a pretty capitalist [laughs] mentality that I work to move around. But as a manager, when I am a manager, or in management, or managing managers, I'm never encouraging this everybody needs to bring their whole self to work. Although, I had this really instructive experience where one person truly did not want to have any of their self at work, that they truly only wanted to talk about work at work. We're not a family, nicely nice. I don't want to crochet together, or whatever. That is the most challenged I've ever been as a manager because my natural things are always to figure out what people need and want, and then amalgamate that across the group and see how we can do some utilitarian math and get it so that people are being encouraged in ways they would like, they are not being disadvantaged, and they have space to say when that's happening. But even still, I'm always going with the let's be buddies plan and it's not for everyone. So figuring out how to not have all of your eggs in any basket, no matter how many hours the job is, is definitely a tactic that has been successful for me. But what happens is I then am involved in so many things [chuckles] in all of the moments of life. So I still do that, but I do it by working more, which isn't necessarily the best option. The thing about the mission that I just wanted to pivot for a second and say is, we are no longer in a world where we allow failure. This is a little bit back to my earlier soapbox. The energetic reality is whatever anybody's mission statement is, that is the thing they are going to fail at, like the seamstress never has the best hemmed clothes. So when we write off anyone, or any company based their flawed attempt at the mission, we're discounting that flaws exist, [chuckles] contradictions exist. It's about where are we orienting and are we incrementally moving toward that, or away from it and not in this moment, are we this thing that we have declared because it's more of a path is how I see it than the declaration of success. JUSTIN: Yeah. Thank you so much for that, too. Because I think that one thing we didn't touch on is the universe – and we're talking a Greater Than Code podcast so it's software industry adjacent at least. The universe of people who got to stay home during this whole pandemic. The universe of people who are “knowledge workers”, or “white collar”, especially if you look at the population of the world, is vanishingly small. There was a season in my life where I was the person that you just described managing, where I just viewed myself as I was burnt out. I always wanted to be a mercenary. I had this mindset of I show up at work. “You want some great code? I'll sling you some great code.” Like I was a short-order cook for story points and feature development and that was the terms, right? I didn't want to bring my feelings to work. I didn't want to make friends with people because then God forbid, it would be harder to leave. I didn't have that available to me as a capacity at that time, but I went long enough and I realized it's not that I was missing something, or not being fed in some way by not having this emotional need filled at work. It was that I was failing to acknowledge when you say privilege, the literal privilege, that I get to wake up in the morning and think for a job [laughs] and the impact that I can have when I apply all of the skills, capabilities, and background asynchronous thoughts that are not literally in my job description. When I can bring those things to bear, I'm going to have a much, much bigger impact because what am I except for one person thinking and staring at a matted piece of glass all day, but somebody who is in a small community, or a group of a bunch of people who are in the same mode. So when I'm in a meeting, I can just be the mercenary jerk who's just like, “Hey, I'm just doing this,” and feeling like that's an emotionally neutral thing. When in fact, that negativity can be in an emotional contagion that could affect other work negatively, or and I'm not exactly – My friends who know me, I'm a stick in a mud, I'm a curmudgeon, I'm super negative. I complain constantly and I have taken it upon myself to strive to be a net increase in joy in the people that I talk to and that I interact with at work. Because it is a resource that is draining all of us all day long on its own and it needs to be filled up somehow. I have the capacity right now to take it upon myself to try to fill that tank up for the people that I interact with. So I want to touch on that because I just think it's super lucky that I get to work on a computer and talk out of a screen all day long. If I didn't have that, we wouldn't be having this conversation, I suppose, but I'm just here to make the most of it, I guess. MAE: I love that. And you reminded me of Sandi Metz's closer, Lucky You. JACOB: Tell us about it. MAE: She gave the closing talk a couple years ago and it's called Lucky You and it goes through how did we all come to be sitting in this room right now and what about redlining? What about the districting? What about all of these things that led to us to experience being here as lucky? I know you weren't saying it in that way, Justin, but it reminded me of that piece, too, which is relevant, but the talk is completely amazing and I definitely recommend it. JUSTIN: I think I mentioned it once before. The thing that brought me and our marketing director, Cathy, to think that this would be a great forum to talk a little bit about trust at work is that we're about out to – and I think that actually the day that this podcast publishes is the day that we're going to publish a new conference talk that I've prepared called How to Trust Again and we're going to post it to Test Double's YouTube channel. So we might not have a direct link for the show notes necessarily, but it'll probably be at the top of that as well as the top of our blog when the show goes live. I hope that anyone [laughs] who enjoyed this conversation will also enjoy the kind of high paced, frenetic, lots of keynote slide style that I bring to communicating about a lot of these topics while still understanding that it's just like n equals one. I'm sharing my experience and hopefully, as food for thought to maybe help you look back at your own experience and understand what connects from my experiences, my perspectives, and my context that might be useful and I hope that you'll find something. Special Guest: Justin Searls.

268: LGBTQA+ Inclusion

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 26, 2022 48:47

01:56 - Episode Intro: Who is Casey Watts (https://twitter.com/heycaseywattsup)? * Happy and Effective (https://www.happyandeffective.com/) 02:25 - “Gay” vs “Queer” * Cultural vs Sexual * Black vs black * Deaf vs deaf 06:11 - Pronoun Usage & Normalization * Greater Than Code Episode 266: Words Carry Power – Approaching Inclusive Language with Kate Marshall (https://www.greaterthancode.com/words-carry-power-approaching-inclusive-language) * Spectrum of Allyship (https://aninjusticemag.com/the-differences-between-allies-accomplices-co-conspirators-may-surprise-you-d3fc7fe29c?gi=decb57b48447) * Ambiguous “They/Them” 16:36 - Asking Questions & Sharing * Ring Theory (https://www.everhomehealthcare.com/post/ring-theory-and-saying-the-right-thing-in-2020) * Don't Assume * Take Workshops * Find Support * Set Boundaries * Overgeneralization * Do Your Own Research – Google Incognito (https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95464?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop) 28:16 - Effective Allyship * Reactive vs Proactive * Parenting * Calling Out Rude Behavior – “Rude!” * Overcoming Discomfort; Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable * Recognizing Past Mistakes: Being Reflective * Stratejoy (https://stratejoy.com/) * Celebrate Progress * Apologize and Move On * Microaggressions: Prevention & Recovery (https://www.happyandeffective.com/workshops/list/avoiding-microaggressions) * happyandeffective.com/updates (https://www.happyandeffective.com/updates) Reflections: Mannah: The people on this show are all willing to start and have conversations. Casey: I will make mistakes. I will find more support. Mandy: Reflection is always a work in progress. It's never done. Keep doing the work. People are always evolving and changing. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: PRE-ROLL: Software is broken, but it can be fixed. Test Double's superpower is improving how the world builds software by building both great software and great teams. And you can help! Test Double is hiring empathetic senior software engineers and DevOps engineers. We work in Ruby, JavaScript, Elixir and a lot more. Test Double trusts developers with autonomy and flexibility at a remote, 100% employee-owned software consulting agency. Looking for more challenges? Enjoy lots of variety while working with the best teams in tech as a developer consultant at Test Double. Find out more and check out remote openings at link.testdouble.com/greater. That's link.testdouble.com/greater. CASEY: Hello, and welcome to Greater Than Code, Episode 268. I'm Casey, and I'm here with co-host, Mannah. MANNAH: How's it going? I'm Mannah and I'm here with Mandy Moore. MANDY: Hey, everybody. It's Mandy and today, I'm excited because we are doing a panelist only episode. So our host and panelist, beloved Casey Watts, is going to take us through Casey did a LGBTQ panel for Women Who Code Philly a couple weeks ago and it went really great. He offered to do a show to talk about the subject in more depth on the show. So we're here to do that today. So without further ado, why don't you give us a little intro, Casey? CASEY: Sure. I'm going to start by talking about who I am a little bit and why I'm comfortable talking about this kind of stuff. My name's Casey, I'm a gay man, or a queer man. We can get into the difference between gay and queer [chuckles] in the episode. I live in D.C. and I really like my community groups that I'm in to be super inclusive, inclusive of people of all kinds of backgrounds and all the letters in LGBTQIA especially. MANDY: That's awesome. So right there, you just gave us an in. Can we get into the difference between gay and queer? CASEY: Yeah. I love it. People lately use the term “queer” as an umbrella term that represents all the letters in LGBTQIA especially younger people are comfortable with that term, but it is reclaimed. Older people, it used to be a slur and so, like my cousin, for example, who's older than me hesitates to use the word queer on me because she knows that it used to be used to hurt people. But queer people like this as an umbrella term now because it is just saying we're not the norm in gender identity, or sexual, romantic orientation, that kind of stuff. We're not the norm. We're something else. Don't assume that we're the norm and then it's not describing all the little nuances of it. It's just like the umbrella term. So I'm definitely queer and I'm gay. Another distinction that I really like to make and that's cultural versus specifically what the term means. So I'm gay and that I'm attracted to other men, but I don't hang out at gay bars and watch RuPaul's Drag Race like the mainstream gay man does in media and in life. I know a lot of people who love that I'm not comfortable there. I don't like it. I think drag queens are fun I guess, but they're also really catty and mean and I don't like that, and I don't want that to rub off on me personally. Instead, I hang out in groups like the queer marching band which has a ton of lesbian women, bisexual, biromantic people, asexual people, intersex people, and trans people and has all the letters in LGBTQIA and I love that inclusive community. That's the kind of group I like to be in. Some of the gay men there talk about RuPaul's Drag Race, but it's like a minority of that large group. I love being in the super inclusive cultures. So I'm culturally queer, but I'm sexually romantically gay. So depending on what we're talking about, the one is more important than the other. I have a story for this. Before the pandemic, I got a haircut at a gay barber shop. It's gay because D.C. has a lot of gay people and there's a gym above the barber shop that's pretty explicitly gay. They cater to gay people. They have rainbows everywhere. I got my hair cut and this woman just kept making RuPaul's Drag Race references to me that I didn't get, I don't get it. I don't know what she's saying, but I know the shape of it and I told her I don't like that and I'm not interested in it. Please stop. She didn't because she was assuming I'm culturally gay, like most of her clientele and it was really annoying and she wasn't seeing me, or listening to what I was saying and I was not seen. But she's right I was gay, but I'm not gay culturally in that way. Does that make sense? That's kind of a complex idea to throw out at the beginning of the episode here. A lot of people take some time to get your head around the cultural versus sexual terms. MANNAH: Yeah. That is interesting especially because with so many identities, I guess that's true for every identity where there's a cultural element and then there's some other thing. For instance, I'm a Black man and no matter where I hang out, or what I'm interested in, I'll always be a Black man, but there is associated with both masculinity and specifically, Black masculinity. CASEY: Yeah, and I like the – lately, I've been seeing lowercase B black to mean a description of your skin color and uppercase B Black to mean a description of the culture and I like that distinction a lot. It's visual. Deaf people have been using that for years. My aunt's deaf so my family has a deaf culture. I'm a little bit deaf culture myself just by proxy, but I'm not deaf. I'm capital D Deaf culturally in amount. Her daughter, who she raised, my deaf aunt, is culturally Deaf way, way more than the average person, but not fully because she's not deaf herself. So there's all spectrum here of cultural to experiencing the phenomenon and I was happy to see, on Twitter at least, a lot of people are reclaiming capital B black. And for me, it's capital Q Queer and lowercase G gay. That's how I distinguish into my head—culturally queer and I'm sexually gay. MANNAH: So one of the things, I've been thinking about this since our intro and for those of you listening, our intro is scripted and as simple as it was like, “Hey, my name is Mannah,” and passing it off to Mandy. Generally, when I introduce myself – I just started a new job. I introduced myself with my pronouns, he/him, because I think it's more inclusive and I want to model that behavior and make sure that people around me are comfortable if they want to share their pronouns. I do think that this is championed by the queer community and as a member of that community, I'd just love to hear your take on people being more explicit with that aspect of their identity. CASEY: I love the segment. Pronouns is a huge, huge topic in this space lately especially. I like to start from here, especially with older audiences that we used to have mister and miss in our signatures and in the way we address letters and emails, and that's gone away. So including pronouns is a lot like just saying mister, or miss, but we've dropped the formality. I'm glad to be gone with the formality, but we still need to know which pronouns to use and it's nice to have that upfront. I like and appreciate it. I try to include pronouns when I remember it and when I'm in spaces where that's a norm. I like to follow that for sure every time there. But I'm not always the first person to introduce it. Like if I was giving a talk and there were 30 older white men in the audience who've never heard of this idea, I might not start with he/him because I want to meet them where they're at and bring them to the point where they get it. So I'm not always a frontrunner of this idea, but I love to support it, I love to push it forward, and help people understand it and get on board. It's like there's different stages of allyship, I guess you could say and I really like helping people get from a further backstage to a middle stage because I don't think enough people are in that space and there are plenty of people getting people who are in the middle stage to the more proactive stage. Like, “We should use pronouns!” You hear that all the time in spaces I'm in. It's possible I can get pushback for that kind of thing, like even meeting people where they're at, and that frustrates because I want to be effective. I don't want to just signal that I'm very progressive and doing the right things. I want to actually be effective. I give workshops on this kind of thing, too. That's where we're coming from for the today's talk. MANDY: I think on the last show, it might have been Kate Marshall who said that normalizing pronouns is really important to do, but not just when there's an obvious person in the room who you're not sure. Maybe we even started off on the wrong foot on the show by not saying, “Hi, I'm Mandy, my pronouns are she and her.” Just adding that in to normalize it would be a really good step, I think. CASEY: Yeah, love it. Here's where I like to come with my role. Say, “Plus one, I love that idea. Let's do it now.” I like to activate the idea once it's in the room, but it takes someone brave to bring it up in the first place and it's a different amount of social energy, maybe in a different head space you have to be in to be that first person. But being the second is also very important and I like to help people understand that, too. If you're the second person, that's still being helpful. Maybe you can become the first person in some groups, but I want to celebrate that you're the second person even. That's great. Yeah, I think that's a good change we could do. MANNAH: You mentioned allyship and I think that that is why am so proactive in introducing myself with pronouns because I do present as a traditional man. Well, maybe not traditional, but I present as a man and I have the ability to deal with some of that pushback. We talk about superpowers on the show. I feel like one of my superpowers is I am willing to engage in those conversations, even if they are difficult. CASEY: Mm hm. MANNAH: So I can use my powers for good by starting that conversation perhaps, or starting to build that norm. Whether, or not I am doing it for anyone in particular, it is important for me to do it wherever we are. So I think that just wherever we can make spaces more inclusive with the way we can conduct ourselves and our language, it's important. CASEY: I have a framework to share that's kind of related to that. So there's a spectrum of allyship—that's my title for it anyway—that goes from an active detractor all the way over to an active supporter of an idea. In this case, the active supporter would be getting pronouns to happen in a space where they're not happening. And then in the middle, maybe you're neutral, not doing anything. In the middle on either side, there's a passive – like you're not doing anything, but you kind of support the idea. You're kind of against the idea, but you're not taking any action. And then on the active part, there's even a split between and being proactive and reactive. So for pronouns, I guess the way I'm self-describing here is I'm a reactive pronoun person. For better, or worse, that's where I'm at on that spectrum and that's where I like to help move things along. So I can talk to people who are more maybe passively against the idea because I'm not so far on the right. I like to use the spectrum for another purpose, which is moving people from one space to the next is valuable and often invisible. If you can get someone to be loudly against pronouns to just be quiet, that's a step forward. You've persuaded them a little bit to go in that direction, or if they're there to neutral, or neutral to passively supportive, but quiet about it. A lot of this kind of progress with people who aren't active supporters is invisible and that can be really frustrating for people; it feels like you're not making any progress. So for people who are allies and want to be allies, there's a step forward you can do for yourself, which is getting yourself from being reactive to being proactive. But you're not just helping the people in the room, but helping people who could be in the room, or might be in the future. Reactive to proactive. MANDY: I've been doing that a lot with just actually referring to everybody as they/them no matter if I already know how they present, or not. That, to me, is just the most inclusive way to refer to people in general. CASEY: Yeah, that's generally a safe practice, but there are people who don't want to be called they/them. MANDY: Hmm. CASEY: For example, I have some friends who… Let's imagine a trans man who wants to be considered he/him, they are very invested in this and they want the – If you keep calling them, they/them, even if they correct you, “He/him is my pronouns,” then they're going to be upset about that, pf course. But it is a safe, starting point because the ambiguous they is just generally, it's good grammar, the APA endorses it even. You're allowed to use they when it's ambiguous by grammar rules. But if you know someone's pronouns and it isn't they/them, it's generally better to use those because they prefer it. MANDY: Yeah. That's what I meant. If somebody says to me, “I would prefer you call me she/her, he/him.: But when I'm first, like if I'm even talking to say my dad and I'm talking about work, I would be like, “I have a friend, they did this.” CASEY: Yeah. That's ambiguous day and that's perfectly appropriate there. MANDY: Yeah. But as far as like addressing somebody on a regular basis who wants to be referred to as one, or the other, I have no problem doing that. I've just been training myself to use ambiguous terms because I see and I think it's wonderful. My daughter's 12 and almost all of her friends are non-binary. So when I meet them, or I'm talking about her friends for me, it's just more, I don't want to say easy. I don't want to make it sound like I'm doing it, like taking the easy way out, but I'll just be like, do the they/them stuff to have the conversation and then once I find out more, we can transfer over to the he/him, she/her as I'm corrected, or being asked to do one, or the other. CASEY: Right, right. It's definitely safer to assume you don't know than to assume someone's gender based on how they looked, for sure and the ambiguous they is perfect for that. Even for people who use they/them as pronouns, there's a switch in my head at least—you probably feel it, too—from ambiguous to specific. Like now I know they/them is their pronouns. MANDY: Yeah. I've had no problem. When my daughter has brought new people over, who I know are non-binary, I will say to them even if I already know, because she's told me, I'll be like, “What pronouns do you prefer?” And every single time these are 12-year-olds, 13-year-olds, they're like, “Thank you for asking.” CASEY: Yeah. MANDY: Because a lot of times, I feel it's not very accepted yet. So when I hear, or when they hear me say, “How would you like me to refer to you?” They smile so big. CASEY: Yeah, you're treating them like the individual person they are. MANDY: Exactly, and they're like, “Thank you,” and now I'm known as the cool mom. [laughs] CASEY: Ah. Great. [laughs] Yeah. If I could snap my fingers and change a behavior of mine, that would be one. I would consider everyone's pronouns unknown until they tell me and it also varies by context. I don't even want to trust secondhand. Like if Mandy, you said he for Mannah before I met him, I wouldn't assume that's his pronouns. If maybe you are assuming, or maybe you heard it from someone and they were assuming, or maybe based on context, it's different. I want to hear it from the person, ideally. MANDY: Yes. CASEY: I also don't necessarily want to go around asking for pronouns actively all the time. I'd rather us offer them upfront, or have them in our usernames, or something so it's less verbiage in the air about it. I like it to be normalized. We don't have to think about it. That's a dream state. But for now, I'd rather ask people directly than assume anything. But it's a hard habit because I've been trained from school and everything, since a young age, to assume someone's gender and not to use they at first. That's what we've been trained and I love this trend of untraining that. Ambiguous they is accepted and we should start with that. MANDY: I love seeing people proactively put pronouns in their Zoom profiles, or their Zoom names and at conferences, I love the conferences having badges, or stickers. CASEY: Yeah. MANDY: I love that. CASEY: It's helpful. MANNAH: I want to change directions slightly and go back to something you said about the spectrum and how we move people – I don't remember the exact words you used, the two polar opposites. CASEY: Yeah. MANNAH: But how to move people towards a more inclusive mindset, let's say and wherever you are on that spectrum, you might not know how to move forward and the way to kind of deal with that, you might have questions. I just want to hear from you how you would like to be approached with questions around how do you feel about pronouns, or whatever it might be relating to your culture, or your, I guess, I'm going to say sexual identity. CASEY: Yeah. MANNAH: People are unsure how can they approach you with questions in a way that's respectful and a way that will allow them to learn more about you? CASEY: Good question. I feel like you're reading my mind a bit here. I want to start with another framework that you might have heard of. It's the circles of grief Ring Theory. Like if someone just lost their parent, then you need to pour support into that person who's closest to them and if you're outside like a more distant family member, or a friend, pour support in and then the grief gets stumped out. That's the framework, generally. So there's a lot of rings. People who are closer to it are affected more directly and people who are outside are affected more indirectly. That applies to asking people personal things, too. So I'm directly affected by being queer and I've been discriminated against and people have said bad things to me before. To ask me about it and to bring up those feelings could harm me in some way so you can't just assume everybody's comfortable talking about their experience. Like, “Tell me about how you feel about your dead mother.” It wouldn't be sensitive either because they're experiencing the pain directly, but sometimes people do want to talk about that and they're comfortable, they processed it, and they want to help spread the word. So I'm one of those people; you can ask me anything. Even if you don't know me, you can DM me on Twitter. Anyone listening, ask me a question about queer things. I'll point you to a resource, or answer it myself. I'm offering because I'm comfortable at this point. But a lot of people aren't and, in that case, you could ask if someone's comfortable, that's not a bad idea, or you could ask people who are in further circles out. Like you don't need to ask a queer person about queer experiences if you can read about it in an article online, or watch a documentary, or talk to friends who have other queer friends and they know some things about it. It's not as good as secondhand experience hearing from someone with firsthand experience, but you're causing less harm by making the ideas come up again. So you have a range of ways you can find out more about what it's like to be queer and I encourage you to think about all the different ways you can learn about a thing. You don't have to depend on the person who has [chuckles] this negative experience to do it. Another way you can learn more is by doing workshops, like the ones that I facilitate. So I was thrilled to have a good audience at Women Who Code Philly, actively asking question and learning things, and that's a space where you're supposed to ask questions and learn. I've heard of some people have peers they can talk to like peer support; people you can go to, to ask questions like that. Like my cousin asks me questions sometimes about her kids and that's like peers. Some companies actually have support groups like a weekly, or monthly meeting for people in the company to ask these questions that they have [laughs] and they don't know where to ask them and they can all learn from it. I've seen in some Slacks, there's a Diversity 101 channel in one of the Slacks I'm in people can ask questions like when would you, or would you not use this word? That's a space dedicated to asking questions like that and if someone like me wants to go in and contribute, I can answer questions there, but I don't have to. I know I'm welcome to, and I know I'm not pressured to, and that's a great middle ground and that's a lot of options. You've got to figure out what works for you, who you have around, who you can offer the support to, and who you can ask for the support from. Both directions. MANDY: It's great to have someone like you offering to do that and take on because it is of emotional labor and sometimes when people are curious, I know for me as being bisexual, some people are just like trying to – they're asking out of curiosity, but it's more like, “Give me the dirty details,” or something like that. CASEY: Yeah. MANDY: Sometimes it's like, “We just want to know because I don't – so I want to know what it's like for you,” and I'm like, “I'm not going to share just because –” right now, I am in a monogamous heterosexual relationship. Normally, if I was in a single state, a lot of people just try to ask questions that sometimes can be, I find it more inappropriate and they want to know because they're interested in the salacious details, or something like that. CASEY: Right. MANDY: That rubs me the wrong way and I can usually tell when somebody is asking, because they're genuine, or not. CASEY: There's a big difference between asking to get to know you as a person in the context you're in with the background you have versus asking for salacious gossip. [laughs] MANDY: Yeah. CASEY: And the one is much more kind than the other. It sounds like you've done a good job setting boundaries in these situations saying, “That's not appropriate. I'm not answering that. Sorry about it,” or something like that. MANNAH: Not sorry. CASEY: Not sorry. MANDY: Well, in the same token, it's something that bothers me, too because I feel like a lot of times, I just don't even tell people that I'm bisexual. CASEY: Yeah. MANDY: Because it's easier to not answer the questions because once you open that can of worms, then everybody comes at you and wants to know this and wants to know details. “Have you ever done this?” Or, “Have you ever done that?” It rubs me the wrong way again. CASEY: Right. MANDY: So sometimes I feel almost resentful. I feel resentful that I can't be my full self because it causes people to just ask and the whole conversation, or the whole time I spend with them is focused on this one thing and it's like for me, it's just not a big deal. CASEY: Right, right, right. Like on my Twitter profile—I like to use this as an example—I list out like 10, 15 things about myself on my Twitter profile and there is one little rainbow flag emoji in there at the end and I'd rather you talk about any of the other things probably. I'm willing to share that I'm queer and rainbow I affiliate with, but so much more to me, [chuckles] I'd rather you learn about me before that. MANDY: Yeah. CASEY: But it's the newest, novelist thing to those people who don't otherwise get exposed to it. They fixate on it sometimes and that, they might not realize, can be harmful. It can hurt people like you. It does hurt people. [chuckles] MANDY: It absolutely does. It makes me uncomfortable. So it's not an aspect that I talk about much, especially living in rural/suburban Pennsylvania. It's something that I just kind of, aside from my internet friends and tech community, that a lot of people still don't know about me. CASEY: Right. I can imagine not wanting to share. I used to not share my sexuality either in a lot of contexts and still when I go somewhere like the south, if I go to a place that has more bigotry around, I'm not holding my partner's hand there. I might get attacked even, that happens still in certain environments, they don't get it. Okay, I want to acknowledge that people asking these questions might have good intentions and they're making a mistake and I want to explain what I think the mistake is. MANDY: Yes. CASEY: People want to be treated as individuals, but you can go too far in that extreme and treat someone like an individual and ignore their background. Like it doesn't matter that you've been queer. It doesn't matter that you're Black. It doesn't matter, I'm just going to treat you like an individual. Ignoring all this background is its own kind of overgeneralization in a way is ignoring that background and context. And then there's another way you can do an exaggeration, which is only focusing on that background in context and ignoring the person's individual traits and their individual experiences. The best thing to do is to treat them like an individual who has this context and background putting them both together. So maybe these people are trying to understand you better by understanding this context. Maybe—I'm being very generous— [chuckles] some of these people are probably not this, but some people honestly want to know more about your context to understand you and that's thoughtful. They're just going about it in a way that's not the most helpful, or kind to you and I appreciate those people. But then there are other people who want to use the background and context to overgeneralize and just treat you as a member of this group, a token member, and that is a problem, too. So it's like two ingredients and if you put them together, that's the best and a lot of people focus on one, or the other too much. The individual experience versus the group background context experience. MANNAH: Yeah. That was really well put. I do think that as I said earlier, I'm someone who is very willing to have these. However, the downside of that is that becomes who you're and instead of the entire human being and the other – to take it a step further, some people are uncomfortable with that identity, or uncomfortable thinking about those things. Think about the discrimination that you might face and rather than confront it, or address it, they would rather just not deal with you, or limit their interact. CASEY: Right, yeah. MANNAH: So this is not a question for Casey, this is just something to the group. How can we navigate that and wanting to being willing to share of ourselves, but recognizing that there is some social backlash that can come from that? CASEY: I think my number one thing I want allies to understand is they can support each other in being allies and it can take work to be comfortable talking to each other, to support each other. You don't have to just depend on the queer people to learn queer about things. If one of you learns and one ally learns, they can teach another ally the concept, or the idea, or share how to navigate it. I did a Twitter poll for this, actually. Not a huge sample size, but still. A lot of people only have 1 to 3 people they can talk to about things like this. That's very few and they might not cover all the different situations. So that's my number one thing to help people navigate it is get so support, find support, be support for other people and you'll get support in return for that, too. That's your homework. Everyone, write this down. Find 10 people you can talk to about inclusivity related topics, 10 people. MANDY: And Google exists for a reason. So always, when things come up, I like to Google and I've gotten push back about that several times. “Well, I don't want to put that stuff into my search engine because then all of a sudden, I start getting gay targeted ads,” or something. CASEY: That's true. That's a real concern. [overtalk] MANDY: And I'm, “It's not –” Well, hello, incognito mode. CASEY: Right. MANDY: Thank you, everyone. That's a thing. Use it. [laughs] CASEY: Yeah, and you don't have to feel icky using incognito mode. You can use it because you don't want to ads tracking you. MANDY: Exactly. CASEY: Some people use it for everything. They never use the regular browser mode because they don't want the tracking. It's work to learn things about other people and so, that's why I like to focus on the support part. If you get support from people, maybe you can both be looking up stuff and sharing articles with each other, and that's really multiplying the effects here. MANDY: Absolutely. MANNAH: So we started homework for allies. I think now it might be a good time to talk about what makes good ally. We talked a little bit about how it can feel voyeuristic. Mandy, you talked about how people asking questions can sometimes feel a little picky and we talked about some better ways to asking questions. But are there any other ways that either both, all of us would like to see people be more effective ally? CASEY: Yeah. I want to call back to an earlier point. I want to see more people switch from being reactive to being proactive. To being the first voice. Me included, honestly. Whenever you can get away with it and whatever helps you be proactive, do those things, which might be the support thing I keep talking about. Getting support to be more proactive, becoming accountable to people. If you're already an ally, I'm assuming you're being reactively supportive some of the times. A lot of the people I talk to, who consider themselves allies, would agree, but taking that next step. And there's a different spectrum for each issue, like pronouns is one. Pronouns being shared in meetings. How proactive, or reactive are you for that? I don't even know. There are thousands of things [chuckles] that you can do to become more proactive. MANDY: I would like to say for allies, teaching our children love and not hate. I see a lot of nastiness coming from children and that comes from parents. It's really sad to see sometimes the amount of people who don't – they just spew hate and they're like, “I'm not referring to this person as a pronoun.” Like, “They/them, no. They're a this, or they're –” It saddens me to no end when you are around children to model nasty behavior and I think if you are not the person doing that yourself and you're around it, and you see somebody say something and say, “That's not okay, don't. Do you understand how you sound? Do you understand what you're saying? Do you understand that you're having an effect on everyone around you by giving your nasty opinions and that kind of thing?” CASEY: Yeah. I've got a one word, one liner thing that I like to pull out and I'm proud every time I say it. “Rude,” and I can walk away. It can happen in the grocery store. Someone can say something. It doesn't matter the nuance, what's going on and how I might explain it to them in fuller language. I can at least pull that one word out, rude, and walk away and they are called out for it. I'm proud whenever I can call someone out. MANDY: Yeah. CASEY: I don't always do it, though. The stakes can seem high and it takes practice. So this is homework, too. If you see someone and saying something hurtful to another person, it's your responsibility if you dare claim this to defend the other person and call the person rude, or however you would say the same thing. Say something. MANDY: Yeah, say something. MANNAH: I think that that can be really hard for allies. CASEY: Yeah. MANNAH: And if I had one piece of advice for allies, it would be that sometimes allyship is uncomfortable and that is something that you have to navigate. You can't pick and choose when you're going to… Well, that's not true. There's some discretion, but recognize that being a part-time ally, or a tourist in that space has an effect on people and not confronting your own insecurities, or your own feelings limits your effectiveness in allyship. CASEY: Yeah. It can be a deep question to ask yourself what made me hesitate that one time and what can I do to not hesitate helping next time? You can journal about it. You can talk to friends about it. You can think about it. Doing something more than thinking is definitely more helpful, though. Thinking alone is not the most powerful tool you have to change your own behavior. Yeah, it is uncomfortable. One thing that helps me speak up is instead of focusing on my discomfort, which is natural and I do it, for sure, I try to focus on the discomfort of the other person, or the person directly affected by this and I really want to help that person feel seen, protected, heard, defended. If you think about how they're feeling even more, that's very motivating for me and honestly, it helps in some ways that I am a queer man, that I have been discriminated against and people have been hateful toward me that I can relate when other people get similar experiences. If you haven't had experiences like that, it might be hard to rally up the empathy for it. But I'm sure you have something like that in your background, or if not, you know people who've been affected and that can be fuel for you, too. People you care about telling you stories like this and it is uncomfortable. [chuckles] Getting comfortable with that discomfort is critical here. MANNAH: One of the things that is very uncomfortable is, I think that as we go through life, we all grow is being reflective on the times when maybe we're not inclusive, or maybe were insensitive. At least being able to those situations, I feel like is a great first step. CASEY: Mm hm. MANNAH: Saying, “Hey, I said this about this group of people,” or “I use this word.” Maybe you didn't fully know what it meant and recognized the impact at the time, but being able to go back and be reflective about your behavior, I feel like is a very important skill to help become a more well-rounded individual. CASEY: Yeah. Agreed. And it's a practice. You have to do it. The more you do it, the easier it gets to process these and learn from them. It's a habit also, so any of the books that talk about learning habits, you can apply to this kind of problem, too. Like a weekly calendar event, or talking to a friend once a month and this is a topic that comes up. I don't know, there are a ton of ways you can try to make this habit, grow and stick for yourself, and it varies by person what's effective. But if you don't put it into your schedule, if you don't make room and space for it, it's really easy to skip doing it, too. MANDY: Yeah. It's amazing to look back. Even myself, I'm not the same person. I was 10, 15 years ago. I'm sure. Even as being a bisexual person that back in high school, I called something gay at one point just referring to, “Oh, that's gay.” CASEY: Yeah. MANDY: I'm sure I – [overtalk] CASEY: I'm sure I did it, too. MANDY: I'm sure I've said that. Knowing that I'm not that person anymore, recognizing that, and looking back at how much I've grown really helps me to come to terms with the fact that I wasn't always woke on this subject. We do a lot of growing over our lives. I'm in my 30s now and I've done so much growing and to look back on the person who I used to be versus the person I am now, I get very proud of how far I've come. Even though it can suck to look back at maybe a specific instance that you always remember and you're like, “Oh my God, that's so cringy. I can't believe I did that.” Having those moments to be like, “Well, you know what, that might have happened in 2003, but this is 2022 and look how far you've come.” CASEY: Love it! Yeah, growth. MANDY: Like that just makes me feel so good. CASEY: Yeah. We need the growth mindset. MANDY: And having discussions like this is what has gotten me to this place. Entering tech. I entered tech 12 years ago. I know this because my daughter's 12 and I always like, I'm like, “Okay so when my daughter was born, I got into tech. That's when I started actually becoming a decent person.” [laughs] So I measure a lot of my timeline by my daughter's age and it's just amazing to go back and see how much you've grown. Honestly, you should – another piece of homework, if you can just sit back and think about who you were before and who you are now and reflect on that a bit. MANNAH: We talked about normalizing pronouns, but I think it's also important to normalize sharing that story that you just told. I know I had a similar story where wherever I am on the wokeness scale, I was definitely much less so a couple years ago. I just did not have the same – I did not have enough experiences. I did not think about things in the same way. I did not challenge myself to be empathetic as much as I do now. It is a process and we're all somewhere on that journey. Who you are, like you said, 10 years ago is not necessarily who you are now. If it is, I don't know. I hope I'm not the same person in 10 years. I hope I'm always growing. So to make sure to share with others that it is a process and you don't wake up one day being woke. It is something that takes work and a skill that is developed. MANDY: Oh, you definitely have to do the work. Every year, I do a program. It's an actually a wonderful program. It's called Stratejoy. I can put the link in the show notes. But every year there's this woman who you sit down, you take stock of the last year and she asks a lot of deep questions. You journal them, you write them down, and then you think about what do I want to see? What can I improve? What do I want to do? How can I do so? And then we have quarterly calls throughout the year and really sit down, write it down, talk about it, and reflect on it because it is work. A lot of people make fun of people who read self-help books and I love fiction books just as much as the next person, I want to get away and read before bed at the end of the night, too. But it's really important for me to read books that make me feel uncomfortable, or make me learn, or make me think. I read a lot of books on race. So You Want to Talk About Race was one I read and it had a profound effect on me to read that book and take stock of myself and my own actions. It can be hard sometimes and it can cause anxiety. But I think in order to grow as a person, that's where you need to be vulnerable and you need to say, “No, I'm not perfect. I've done this thing wrong in the past and I don't know this, so I'm going to do what I can to educate myself.” CASEY: Another thing I hear a lot is some people say, “You should not celebrate any progress you make. You should always just feel bad and work harder forever.” Do you ever hear that kind of sentiment? Not in those words. MANDY: Yeah. CASEY: But if you ever say, “I learned a thing and I'm proud of it, here's what I learned,” there's someone on the internet who's going to tell you, “You are terrible and wrong and should do even better. Forget any progress you've made. You're not perfect yet,” and that is so frustrating to me. So here's something I'd like to see from more woke allies is less language policing, more celebrating of people who make progress. A lot of it's invisible, like we talked about on the spectrum. I do like when people get called out for making mistakes, like there's an opportunity for learning and growth, but you don't have to shame people in public, make them feel really bad about it, and embarrassed in front of the whole company. You could maybe do it privately and send a message to the companies talking about the policy in general like, “Don't use this word, don't do this thing.” You can do it very tactfully and you can be very effective. You don't have to just be PC police to the extreme. But if you are PC police to the extreme, I'm glad you're doing something. That's good. But you can be more effective. Please think about how you can be really effective, that's my request for all my woke friends. It can go overboard. It can definitely go overboard, being a language police. MANDY: Yeah, and it can make people who are trying to quit. CASEY: Right. That's a huge risk. I want to give all this a caveat, though, because if – here's an example from a friend's company. There was a presentation and there ended up being a slide with Blackface on it, which if you don't know is a terrible, awful thing that makes Black people feel really bad and it makes the person showing it seem like they are malicious, or oblivious and it shouldn't happen. And then we were wondering like, “What should someone have done in that situation?” Call it out, for sure and move on publicly is a good call there to protect any Black people in the room feel like they're being protected and heard, but not necessarily shaming the person and giving them a 5-minute lecture during that. You can be effective at getting the person not to do it again in private later calling it out to defend the people in the room. Protecting is goal number one for me, but what can you do to change the company culture effectively is a piece that I see a lot of people skipping. If you are just 5 minutes yelling at a person that might make them shut down, you're not being your most effective. So it's a hard walk to balance protecting people, calling people out, and changing the culture. But it's possible and it's work. I guess, it's really two things you're balancing, protecting the person, making them feel part of the group included and cared for versus changing the culture of the group and of the individual. We want both outcomes, ideally. But if I had to pick one, I'm going to pick protecting the person first and then the larger change can happen afterwards. MANDY: Yeah. And if you do mess up, which I've done. I've accidentally misgendered somebody and I felt terrible. All night, I kept apologizing to this person and finally, this person took me aside and said, “You're making it worse by keeping apologizing. Let it go.” CASEY: Yeah. MANDY: So also, not rehashing and banging your head against the wall multiple, multiple times. Apologize and move on. MANNAH: Yeah. If your apology is sincere, then you shouldn't need to repeat it multiple times. Make sure that the person you're apologizing to hears it and make whatever amend need be made. But I do think if you over apologizing, it's more for you so you feel better than it is more for the person that you potentially offended. CASEY: Right and I don't expect you to know that without having thought about it like you are right now. Take this moment and think about it deeper. This is intriguing to you. It is natural to want to apologize forever, but it is also harmful and you can do better than that. I offer a lot of workshops in this vein. Like there's one called Bystander to Upstander. There's another LGBTQIA inclusion where I go through a whole bunch of charts and graphs. There's one called preventing and recovering from microaggressions where you can practice making a mistake and recovering from it in a group. The practice is the key here, like really making a mistake and recovering from it, getting that the muscles, the reactions, the things you say to people, it does take work to get that to be a practice. Even if you already agree you want to, it's hard to put it into practice a lot of the time. I give workshops, including these, for community groups a couple times a month and if you want to get updates on that, that's at happyandeffective.com/updates. Also, I do these for companies so if you think your company would benefit from having these kinds of discussions, feel free to reach out to Happy and Effective, too. That's my company. MANNAH: Well, with that, I think it'd be a great time to move to reflections. What do y'all think? I think this whole episode has been one big reflection to be quite honest, but does anybody want to share anything in particular that has stood out to them throughout the hour we've just spent together? MANNAH: I'm happy to kick it off. I think that we've made some really good suggestions around how people can create more through their own actions. Create more inclusive environments. I do want to say that these are not things that are kind of stone. There are a lot of ways. Everybody's an individual, every situation is different, and I don't want to be prescriptive in saying you have to do certain things. I do want to say that when I'm speaking, this is my experience and these are things that I think can help. So please don't take what I say to be gospel. They are suggestions and if you disagree with them, then I'm happy to have that conversation. But recognize that the people speaking on this panel don't necessarily have the answers, but they are people who are willing to start this conversation. CASEY: The thing I want people to take away is—and you can repeat after me, everyone—I will make mistakes. Good, good. I heard it. I will find more support. Awesome. You're great. Okay. You're on the right path for this now. Mandy, over to you. MANDY: This is not something that you do once and you're done. This kind of reflection and this kind of work is always going to be a work in progress until the day you're no longer here. It's not something you can read a book and be like, “Okay, I did that. I'm good now. I know things.” It's constantly changing and evolving and you need to do the work. You need to have empathy for others and realize that everybody is constantly changing and just because somebody isn't one ting one day, they might be something the other day. I tell my daughter all the time because she's very unsure about who is she and I'm like, “You don't have to know right now. Just because you think you're this, or you're this right now, in 2 years, you might feel differently and you might be this.” So people are always evolving, always changing, and that doesn't just go for how you present either your gender identity, or sexual identity but it also just goes for who you are. I always try to grow as a person and the work is never done. CASEY: No one has all the answers, no one knows everything, and anyone who says they do is lying because it's going to change. It will change. MANDY: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Mannah and Casey for having this conversation today. I know it's uncomfortable, I know it's a hard thing to talk about, and I'm so grateful that you both showed up to have it. If we want to continue these conversations, I invite anybody who's listening to reach out to us. If you'd like to come on the show to talk about it, reach out to us. We have a Slack channel that we can have private conversations in. You can find that at Patreon.com/greaterthancode and donate as little as a dollar to get in. We do that so we keep the trolls out and if you cannot afford a dollar, please DM any one of us and we will get you in there for free. So with that, thank you again for listening and we will see you all next week.

266: Words Carry Power – Approaching Inclusive Language with Kate Marshall

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 12, 2022 58:04

01:48 - Kate's Superpower: Empathy * Absorbing Energy * Setting Healthy Energetic Boundaries * Authenticity * Intent vs Impact 10:46 - Words and Narratives Carry Power; Approaching Inclusive Language * Taking Action After Causing Harm * Get Specific, But Don't Overthink * Practice Makes Progress * Normalize Sharing Pronouns * No-CodeConf (https://webflow.com/nocodeconf) * No-CodeSchool (https://nocodeschool.co/) * Gender Expresion Does Not Always Equal Gender Identity 21:27 - Approaching Inclusive Language in the Written Word * Webflow Accessibility Checklist (https://webflow.com/accessibility/checklist) * Asking For Advice * Do Your Own Research/Work 29:18 - Creating Safe Places, Communities, and Environments * Absorbing and Asking * Authenticity (Cont'd) * Adaptation to Spaces * Shifting Energy 42:34 - Building Kula (https://kulayogadenver.com/) While Working in Tech * Community Care, Mutual Aid-Centered Model * Using Privilege to Pave the Way For More People * Alignment Reflections: John: The dichotomy between perfectionism and authenticity. Arty: Words carry power. Kate: Having an open heart is how you can put any of this into action. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: PRE-ROLL: Software is broken, but it can be fixed. Test Double's superpower is improving how the world builds software by building both great software and great teams. And you can help! Test Double is hiring empathetic senior software engineers and DevOps engineers. We work in Ruby, JavaScript, Elixir and a lot more. Test Double trusts developers with autonomy and flexibility at a remote, 100% employee-owned software consulting agency. Looking for more challenges? Enjoy lots of variety while working with the best teams in tech as a developer consultant at Test Double. Find out more and check out remote openings at link.testdouble.com/greater. That's link.testdouble.com/greater. JOHN: Welcome to Greater Than Code. I'm John Sawers and I'm here with Arty Starr. ARTY: Thanks, John. And I'm here with our guest today, Kate Marshall. Kate is a copywriter and inclusivity activist living in Denver. Since entering tech 4 years ago, she's toured the marketing org from paid efforts to podcast host, eventually falling in love with the world of copy. With this work, she hopes to make the web a more welcoming place using the power of words. Outside of Webflow, you'll find Kate opening Kula, a donation-based yoga studio, and bopping around the Mile High City with her partner, Leah. Welcome to the show, Kate. KATE: Hi, thank you so much! ARTY: So we always start our shows with our famous first question. What is your superpower and how did you acquire it? KATE: My superpower, I've been thinking about this. My superpower is empathy. It can also be one of my biggest downfalls [laughs], which I actually think happens more often than not with any superpower. I once heard from a child, actually, they always seem to know best that too much of the good, good is bad, bad. [laughter] So it turns out sometimes too much empathy can be too overwhelming for my system, but it has really driven everything that I've done in my career and my personal life. As for how I acquired it, I don't know that you can really acquire empathy. I think it's just something you have, or you don't. I've always been extremely intuitive and if you're going through something, it's likely that I can feel it. So I think I'm just [laughs] I hate to steal Maybelline's line, but I think I was born with it. JOHN: You talked about having a downside there and I've heard – and I'm curious, because most people talk about empathy as a positive thing and wanting more people to develop more empathy, but I'd to love hear you talk a little bit more about what you see the downsides are. KATE: Yeah. As someone who struggles with her own mental health issues, it can be really overwhelming for me to really take on whatever it is you're going through. Especially if it's a loved one, you tend to care more about what they're feeling, or what they're going through and an empath truly does absorb the energy of what's happening around them. So although, it does influence a lot of the work that I do, both in my full-time career and opening my yoga studio and everything in between, it's also hard sometimes to set those boundaries, to set healthy, really energetic boundaries. It's hard enough to voice your boundaries to people, but setting energetic boundaries is a whole other ballgame. So it can tend to feel overwhelming at times and bring you down if the energy around you is lower than what you want it to be. ARTY: So what kind of things do you do to try and set healthy, energetic boundaries? KATE: Ah. I do a lot of what some people would call, including myself, woo-woo practices. [chuckles] Obviously, I practice yoga. I teach yoga. I'm super passionate about holistic, or energetic healing so I go to Reiki regularly. I'm in therapy, talk therapy. All of those things combined help me build this essentially an energetic shield that I can psych myself up to use any time I'm leaving the apartment. If it feels a high energy day, or if I'm meeting up with a friend who I know is going through something, I really have to set those boundaries is. Same thing kind of at work, too. So much of the time that we spend in our lives is spent at work, or interacting with coworkers or colleagues and same thing. Everyone's going through their own journey and battles, and you have to carry that energetic shield around you wherever you go. JOHN: One way I've often thought about having those sort of boundaries is the more I know who I am, the more what the limits of me are and the barrier between me and the universe is. So the work that I do, which includes therapy and other things, to understand myself better and to feel like I know what's me and what's not me, helps me have those boundaries. Because then I know if there's something going on with someone else and I can relate to it, but not get swept up by it. KATE: Yeah. It's so funny you say that because I was actually just having a conversation with a friend a couple weeks ago that has really stuck with me. I was kind of feeling like I was messing up, essentially. Like I was not fully able to honor, or notice all of the triggers of the people around me. I think especially at the end of the year and as a queer person who is surrounded by queer community, it can be really tough around the holidays. So that energy can just be generally more charged and I was finding it difficult to reconcile with my idea of perfection in that I really want to honor every person around me who has triggers, who has boundaries that maybe haven't been communicated, and it almost feels like you're almost always crossing some sort of line, especially when you're putting those perfectionism expectations on yourself. My friend was like, “I don't think it's as much about being perfect at it as much as it is feeling like you're being authentically yourself and really authentically interacting with those people.” I don't know if I can really voice what the connection is between being able to honor triggers and boundaries of the people around you and feeling like your authentic self, but there's something about it that feels really connected to me. As long as you're trying your best and feeling like you're coming from a place of love, or connection, or compassion, or empathy whatever feels most to you, that's really all we can do, right? JOHN: Yeah. I feel like that authenticity is such a tricky concept because the thoughts that you're having about wanting to be perfect and take care of everyone and make sure you're not triggering anybody and not stepping on any of your own things, that's also part of you that is authentically you. You may not want it to be that way, but it still is. [laughs]. ARTY: Yeah. JOHN: So I still don't have a really clear sense in my mind what authenticity really is. I think probably it settles down to being a little bit more in the moment, rather than up in the thinking, the judging, the worrying, and being able to be present rather than – [overtalk] ARTY: Totally. JOHN: Those other things, but it is tricky. KATE: Yeah. It can be tricky. Humans, man. [laughter] It really is like being a human and part of the human experience is going to be triggering other people. It's going to be causing harm. It's going to be causing trauma to other humans. That's just part of it. I think the more you can get comfy with that idea and then also just really feeling like you're doing everything you can to stay connected to your core, which usually is in humans is a place of love. You're rooted in love for the people around you. How could you criticize yourself too much when you know that you're coming from that place? ARTY: I feel like things change, too as you get feedback. In the context of any intimate relationship where you've got emotionally connected relationship with another person where you are more unguarded and you're having conversations about things that are more personal, that have at least the potential to hurt and cause harm. Like sometimes we do things not meaning to and we end up hurting someone else accidentally, but once that happens—and hopefully, you have an open dialogue where you have a conversation about these things and learn about these things and adapt—then I think the thing to do is honor each person as an individual of we're all peoples and then figure out well, what can we do to adapt how we operate in this relationship and look out for both people's best interests and strive for a win-win. If we don't try and do that, like if we do things that we know we're harming someone else and we're just like, “Well, you should just put up with that,” [laughs], or whatever. I think that's where it becomes problematic is at the same time, we all have our own limitations and sometimes, the best thing to do is this relationship doesn't work. The way that we interact causes mutual harm and we can't this a win-win relationship and the best thing to do sometimes is to separate, even though it hurts because it's not working. KATE: Yeah. I feel like sometimes it's a classic case of intent versus impact, too. Like what's your intention going into a conversation and then how does that end up actually impacting that person and how can you honor that and learn from that? That's actually one thing that I love so much about being a writer is that words do carry so much power—written word, spoken word, whatever it is. They hold so much power and they can cause harm whether we want them to, or not. Part of being an empath is caring a lot about people's lived experiences and I really see it as more than putting – being a writer and doing this every day, I see it so much more than just putting words on a page and hoping signs up for the beta, or watches the thing registers, or the conference. It's words can foster connection, words can build worlds for people; they can make people feel like they belong and I believe that I'm on this planet to foster that connection with each other and with ourselves. So it all connects for me. It all comes back around whether we're talking about being in a romantic relationship, or our relationship with our parents, or our caregivers, or the work that I do every day it all comes back to that connection and really wanting to make people feel more connected to themselves, to each other, and like they have a place with words. ARTY: Yeah. It's very powerful. Words and narratives, I would say too, just thinking about the stories that we tell ourselves, the stories that we tell one another that become foundational in our culture. It's all built upon were words. Words shape the ideas in our head. They shape our thoughts. They shape how we reflect on things, how we feel about things, and then when people give us their words, we absorb those and then those become part of our own reflections. KATE: Yeah. ARTY: We affect one another a lot. I think that's one of the things I'm just seeing and talking to you is just thinking about how much we affect one another through our everyday interactions. KATE: Yeah, and I think a lot of this comes down to – there's something you said earlier that resonated in that it's really about the action you take after you cause the harm, or after you say the thing that hurts the other person and it's less about – and that's what made me say intent versus impact because you see the impact, you acknowledge it, and you make a decision to lessen that next time, or to be aware, more aware next time. This is really at the core of all the work I do for inclusive language as well. It's just the core principle of the words we use carry a lot of power. And I was actually just chatting with someone in the No-Code space. We connected through Webflow a couple weeks ago and he said, “I think people are so scared to get it wrong when it comes to inclusive language,” and I experience this all the time. People freeze in their tracks because they don't know how address someone and then they're so scared to get it wrong and they're like, “Oh, so sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,” and they're so apologetic. And then that makes it worse and it's just a whole thing. In this conversation, we were talking specifically about misgendering people. My partner is non-binary. They're misgendered every single day when we go to restaurants, when we are just out and about. So this is something that is a part of my life every day. I told him that fear is so real and I carry that fear, too because I don't want to hurt people because I want to like get it right. It comes back to that perfectionism, that expectation that I put on myself, especially as a queer person to get it right all the time. But so much of the good stuff lies in how you approach it and then how you fix it when you mess it up. Like, it's not so much about the thing, it's about the way that you approach it. If you approach inclusive language with an open mind, an open heart, and a real willingness, like true willingness to learn, that's what's important going into it and then you're already doing the work. You're already an ally. You're already however you want to put it. And then when you use an ableist word, or you use a racist word, or you misgender someone, your actions for following that speak volumes. I think we can really get caught up in the action itself and it's more about how you go into it and then how you try to fix it. ARTY: So I'm thinking for listeners that might identify with being in a situation of being in the headlights and not knowing how to respond, or what to do. Other than what you were just talking about with coming at it with an open heart, are there any specific recommendations you might have for how to approach inclusive language? KATE: Yeah. Yeah, I have a couple really, really good ones. So often, the way to speak more inclusively, or to write more inclusively is just to get more specific about what you're trying to say. So instead of saying, “Oh, that's so crazy,” which is ableist, you can say, “Oh, that's so unheard of.” That's a good example. Or instead of unnecessarily gendering something you're saying like, “Oh, I'm out of wine, call the waitress over.” It's server instead of waiter, or waitress. You kind of start to essentially practice replacing these words and these concepts that are so ingrained into who we are, into society at large, and really starting to disrupt those systems within us with challenging the way that we've described things in the past. So just essentially getting more specific when we're speaking. When it comes to misgendering people specifically, it's really important to not be overly apologetic when you misgender someone. I can give an example. If a server, for example, comes up to me and my partner and says, “Can I get you ladies anything else?” And I say, “Oh, actually my partner uses they/them pronouns. They are not a lady,” and they say, “Oh my God, I'm so sorry. Oh shit!” And then that makes my partner feel bad [chuckles] for putting them in that position and then it's kind of this like ping pong back and forth of just bad feelings. The ideal scenario, the server would say, “Oh, excuse me, can I get you all anything else?” Or, “Can I get you folks anything else?” Or just, if you're speaking about someone who uses they/them pronouns and you say, “Yeah, and I heard she, I mean, they did this thing.” You just quickly correct it and move on. Don't make it into a production. It's okay. We get it. Moving on. Just try not to overthink it, basically. [laughs] Get more specific, but don't overthink it. Isn't that like, what a dichotomy. [laughter] JOHN: That ties back to what you were saying about perfectionism also, right? Like you said, you freeze up if you try and be perfect about it all the time, because you can't always know what someone's pronouns are and so, you have to make a guess at some point and maybe you're going to guess wrong. But it's how you deal with it by not making everybody uncomfortable with the situation. [laughs] KATE: Yeah. JOHN: And like you said, ping pong of bad feelings just amplifies, the whole thing blows out of proportion. You can just be like, “Oh, my apologies.” Her, they, whatever it is and then very quickly move on and then it's forgotten the next minute. Everything moves on from that, but you're not weeping and gnashing and – [laughter] KATE: Yeah. JOHN: Well, it means you don't have to keep feeling bad about it for the next 3 days either, like everyone can move on from that point. KATE: Right. Yeah, and just doing your best to not do it again. JOHN: Yeah. KATE: Once you learn, it's important to really let that try to stick. If you're having trouble, I have a friend who really has trouble with they/them pronouns and they practice with their dog. They talk to their dog about this person and they use they/them pronouns in that. Practice really does make perfect in this – not perfect, okay. Practice really does make progress in this kind of scenario and also, normalize sharing pronouns. JOHN: Yeah. KATE: It's more than just putting it in your Zoom name. It's more than just putting it in your Instagram bio. A good example of really starting this conversation was during Webflow's No-Code Conf, our yearly conference. It was mostly online and we had a live portion of it and every single time we introduced someone new, or introduced ourselves, we said, “My name is Kate Marshall, my pronouns are she/her, and I'm so happy to be here with you today.” Or just asking if you don't know, or if you're in a space with someone new, you say, “What are your pronouns?” It's really is that easy. Webflow made some year-round pride mech that we launched over the summer and we have a cute beanie that says “Ask me my pronouns.” It's like, it's cool to ask. It's fine to ask and that's so much better than unintentionally misgendering someone. It's going to take some time to get there, but normalize it. JOHN: Yeah, and I think there's one key to that that has always stuck out of my mind, which is don't ask pronouns just for the people you think might have different pronouns than you would expect. KATE: Yes. JOHN: Make it part of all the conversations so it's not just singling somebody out of a group and saying, “I want to know your pronouns because they're probably different.” That's not good. KATE: Right, because gender expression does not always equal gender identity. JOHN: Yeah. KATE: You can't know someone's gender identity from the way that they express their gender and that's also another huge misconception that I think it's time we talk more about. JOHN: So we've been talking a lot about conversations and person-to-person interactions and inclusive language there. But a lot of what you do is it on the writing level and I imagine there's some differences there. So I'm curious as to what you see as far as the things that you do to work on that in the written form. KATE: Yeah. So this is actually a really great resource that I was planning on sharing with whoever's listening, or whoever's following along this podcast. There is a really wonderful inclusive language guidelines that we have published externally at Webflow and I own it, I update it regularly as different things come in and inclusive language is constantly evolving. It will never be at a final resting point and that's also part of why I love it so much because you truly are always growing. I'm always learning something new about inclusive language, or to make someone feel more included with the words that I'm writing. This table has, or this resource has ableist language, racist language, and sexist language tables with words to avoid, why to avoid them, and some alternatives and just some general principles. I reference it constantly. Like I said, it's always evolving. I actually don't know how many words are on there, but it's a good amount and it's a lot of things have been surfaced to me that I had no idea were racist. For instance, the word gypped. Like if you say, “Oh, they gypped me” is actually racist. It's rooted in the belief that gypsy people are thieves. [chuckles] So it's things like that we really kind of go deep in there and I reference this constantly. Also, ALS language is a really big consideration, especially in the tech space. So instead of – and this can be avoided most of the time, not all of the time. We do work with a really wonderful accessibility consultant who I run things by constantly. Shout out to Michele. Oh, she was actually on the podcast at one point. Michele Williams, shout out. Lovely human. So a good example is instead of “watch now,” or “listen now,” it's “explore this thing,” “browse this thing,” “learn more”. Just try not to get so specific about the way that someone might be consuming the information that I'm putting down on the page. Stuff like that. It truly does come down to just getting more specific as just a general principle. JOHN: So it sounds to me some of the first steps you take are obviously being aware that you have to mold your language to be more accessible and inclusive, then it's informing yourself of what the common pitfalls are. As you said, you have consultants, you've got guides, you've got places where you can gather this information and then once you have that, then you build that into your mental process for writing what you're writing. KATE: Yeah, and truly just asking questions and this goes for everyone. No one would ever – if I reached out to our head of DEI, Mariah, and said, “Mariah, is this thing offensive?” Or, “How should I phrase this thing to feel more inclusive to more people?” She would never come back at me and say, “Why are you asking me this? You should already know this,” and that is the attitude across the board. I would never fault someone for coming to me and asking me how to phrase something, or how to write something to make it feel better for more people. So it's really a humbling experience [laughs] to be in this position. Again, words carry so much power and I just never take for granted, the power essentially that I have, even if it is just for a tech company. A lot of people are consuming that and I want to make them feel included. JOHN: Yeah. The written face of a company is going to tell readers a lot about the culture of the company, the culture of the community around the product. KATE: Yeah. JOHN: Whether they're going to be welcome there, like what their experience is going to be like if they invest their time to learn about it. So it's really important to have that language there and woven into everything that's written, not just off the corner on the DEI page. KATE: Yeah. That's what I was just about to say is especially if you're a company that claims to prioritize DEI, you better be paying close attention to the words that you're using in your product, on your homepage, whatever it is, your customer support. I've worked with the customer support team at Webflow to make sure that the phrasing feels good for people. It truly does trickle into every single asset of a business and it's ongoing work that does not just end at, like you said, putting it on a DEI page. Like, “We care about this,” and then not actually caring about it. That sucks. [laughs] JOHN: Oh, the other thing before we move too far on from last topic, you're talking about asking for advice. I think one of the keys there, a, being humble and just saying, “I would like to know,” and you're very unlikely to get criticized for simply asking how something can be better. But I feel like one of the keys to doing that well is also not arguing with the person you've asked after they give you an answer. KATE: Right. Yes. Especially if that person is a part of the community that your words are affecting, or that your question is affecting. It's such a tricky balance because it's really not the queer community's job to educate people who are not queer about inclusive language. But when that person is willing to share their knowledge with the you, or willing to share their experience with you, you've got to listen. Your opinions about their lived experience don't come into that conversation, or shouldn't come into that conversation. It's not questioning the information that you're given, but then it's also taking that and doing your own research and asking more people and having conversations with your friends and family trying to widen this breadth of information and knowledge as a community. Like I said, kind of dismantling the things that we're taught growing up by capitalism, by society, everything that kind of unnecessarily separates and then doing better next time. I've actually had conversations with people who are very curious, who come to me with questions and then the next time I interact with them, they're just back to factory settings. That's so disappointing and just makes me feel like my energy could have been better spent having that conversation with someone who is more receptive. So I think it really is just about being open to hearing someone's experience, not questioning it, and then really taking that in and doing the work on your own. JOHN: Yeah, and part of that doing the work is also for the things that you can Google for the things where you can look at it from the guide, do that first before asking for someone's time. KATE: Yeah. JOHN: So that they're not answering the same 101 questions every time that are just written in 15 different blog posts. KATE: Yes. Especially if you're asking a marginalized person to do the work for you. JOHN: Yeah. KATE: Intersectionality matters and putting more work on the shoulders of people who are already weighed down by so much ain't it. [laughs] ARTY: Well, I was wanting to go back to your original superpower that you talked about with empathy. We talked a lot about some of these factors that make empathy of a difficult thing of over empathizing and what kind of factors make that hard. But as a superpower, what kind of superpowers does that give you? KATE: Ah, just being able to really connect to a lot of different people. I mentioned earlier that I believe it's my purpose, it's my life's work on this planet at this time to connect people to themselves and to each other. The more asking I can do and the more absorbing I can do of other people's experiences, the better I am at being able to connect with them and being able to make them feel like they belong in whatever space I'm in. I can't connect with someone if I don't try and get it. Try and get what they're going through, or what their experiences are. That's why I do so much time just talking to people, and that's why I love yoga and why I want to start this studio and open this space. Because we live in a world where we don't have a lot of spaces, especially marginalized communities don't have a lot of spaces that feel like they're being understood, or they're truly being heard, or seen. Me being an empath, I'm able to access that in people more and therefore, bringing them closer to safer spaces, or safer people, safer communities where they really feel like they can exist and be their full, whole, and complete selves. It's really special. ARTY: We also touched this concept of authenticity and it seems like that also comes up in this context of creating these safe spaces and safe communities where people can be their whole selves. So when you think about authenticity, we talked about this being a difficult and fuzzy word, but at the same time, it does have some meaning as to what that means, and these challenges with regards to boundaries and things. But I'm curious, what does authenticity mean to you? How does that come into play with this idea of safety and creating these safe spaces for others as well? KATE: Yeah. I feel like there's so much in there. I think one of the biggest things to accept about the word authenticity, or the concept of authenticity is that it's always changing and it means something different to everyone. We are all authentic to ourselves in different ways and at different times in our lives and I think it's so important to honor the real evolution of feeling authentic. There are times and days where I'm like who even am. It's like what even, but there's always this sort of core, root part of me that I don't lose, which is what we've been talking about. This ability to connect, this feeling of empathy, of compassion, of wanting to really be a part of the human experience. That, to me, kind of always stays and I feel like that's the authentic, like the real, real, authentic parts of me. There are layers to it that are always changing and as people, we are also always evolving and always changing. So those different parts of authenticity could be what you wear that make you feel like your most authentic self. It can be how you interact with your friends, or how you interact with the person, getting your popcorn at the movies, or whatever it is. Those can all feel like parts of your authentic self. That means something different to everyone. But I think that's such a beautiful part about it and about just being human is just how often these things are changing for us and how important it is to honor someone's authenticity, whatever that means for them at that time. Even if it's completely different from what you knew about them, or how you knew them before. It's this constant curiosity of yourself and of others, really getting deeply curious about what feels like you. ARTY: I was wondering about safety because you were talking about the importance of creating these safe communities and safe environments where people could be their whole, complete selves, which sounds a lot like the authenticity thing, but you trying to create space for that for others. KATE: Yeah. Well, the reality of safety is that there's no one space that will ever be a “safe space for everyone,” and that's why I like to say safer spaces, or a safer space for people because you can never – I feel like it's all coming full circle where you can never meet every single person exactly where they need to be met in any given moment. You can just do your best to create spaces that feel safer to them and you do that with authentic connection, with getting curious about who they are and what they love, and just making sure that your heart's really in it. [chuckles] Same with inclusive language. It's all about the way you approach it to make someone feel safer. But I do think it's an I distinction to remember. You're never going to be safe for everyone. A space you create is never going to be safe for everyone. The best you can do is just make it safer for more people. ARTY: When I think about just the opposite of that, of times that I've gone into a group where I haven't felt safe being myself and then when you talk of about being your complete whole self, it's like bringing a whole another level of yourself to a space that may not really fit that space and that seems like it's okay, too. Like we don't necessarily have to bring our full self to all these different spaces, but whatever space we're a part of, we kind of sync up and adapt to it. So if I'm in one space and I feel the kind of vibe, energy, context of what's going on, how people are interacting, the energy they put forth when they speak with whatever sorts of words that they use. I'm going to feel that and adapt to that context of what feels safe and then as more people start adapting to that, it creates a norm that other people that then come and see what's going on in this group come to an understanding about what the energy in the room is like. KATE: Yeah. ARTY: And all it takes is one person to bring a different energy into that to shift the whole dynamic of things. KATE: Yeah. The reality is you'll never be able to change every space and I think that's such a good point. It makes me feel like saying you have to be protective of your energy. If you go into a space and it just doesn't feel right, or there's someone who is in the room that doesn't feel safe to you, or that doesn't feel like they're on the same page as you, it's okay to not feel like you need to change the world in that space. Like you don't always have to go into a space and say, “I'm going to change it.” That is how change is made when you feel safe enough. That's why it's so important to foster that energy from the jump. That's just a foundational thing at a company in a yoga studio, in a home, at a restaurant. It can be changed, but it really should be part of the foundation of making a safer space, or a more inclusive space. Because otherwise, you're asking the people who don't feel safe, who are usually marginalized people, or intersectionally marginalized in some way. You're asking them essentially to put in the work to change what you should have done as the foundation of your space. So it's a such a delicate balance of being protective of your energy and really being able to feel out the places where you feel okay saying something, or making a change, or just saying, “No, this isn't worth it for me. I'm going to go find a space that actually feels a little bit better, or that I feel more community in.” ARTY: And it seems like the other people that are in the group, how those people respond to you. If you shift your energy, a lot of times the people that are in the group will shift their energy in kind. Other times, in a different space, you might try to shift energy and then there's a lot of resistance to that where people are going a different way and so, you get pushed out of the group energy wise. These sorts of dynamics, you can feel this stuff going on of just, I just got outcast out of this group. Those are the kinds of things, though that you need to protect your own energy of even if I'm not included in this group, I can still have a good relationship with me and I can still like me and I can think I'm still pretty awesome and I can find other groups of folks that like me. It definitely, at least for me, I tend to be someone who's like, I don't know, I get out grouped a lot. [laughs] But at the same time, I've gotten used to that and then I find other places where I've got friends that love me and care about me and stuff. So those are recharge places where I can go and get back to a place where I feel solid and okay with myself, and then I'm much more resilient then going into these other spaces and stuff where I might not be accepted, where I might have to be kind of shielded and guarded and just put up a front, and operate in a way that makes everyone else feel more comfortable. KATE: Yeah, and isn't it so powerful to feel cared for? ARTY: I love that. KATE: Like just to feel cared for by the people around you is everything. It's everything. That's it. Just to feel like you are wanted, or you belong. To feel cared for. It can exist everywhere is the thing. In your Slack group, or whatever, you can make people feel cared for. I have never regretted reaching out to a coworker, or a friend, or whoever an acquaintance and saying, “Hey, I love this thing about you,” or “Congratulations on this rad thing you just launched,” or whatever. It's the care that's so powerful. ARTY: I feel like this is one of those things where we can learn things from our own pain and these social interactions and stuff. One of the things that I've experienced is you're in a group and you say something and nobody responds. [laughs] KATE: Yeah. ARTY: And after doing that for a while, you feel like you're just shouting into the void and nobody hears you and it's just this feeling of like invisibility. In feeling that way myself, one of the things I go out of my way to do is if somebody says something, I at least try and respond, acknowledge them, let them know that they're heard, they're cared about, and that there's somebody there on the other side [chuckles] and they're not shouting into the wind because I hate that feeling. It's an awful feeling to feel invisible like that. KATE: Awful, yeah. ARTY: But we can learn from those experiences and then we can use those as opportunities to understand how we can give in ways that are subtle, that are often little things that are kind of ignored, but they're little things that actually make a really big difference. KATE: Yeah, the little things. It really is the little things, isn't it? [laughs] Like and it's just, you can learn from your experiences, but you can also say, “I'm not doing this right now.” You can also check out. If you are giving and giving. and find that you're in the void essentially, more often than not, you can decide that that's no longer are worth your time, your energy, your care, and you can redirect that care to somewhere else that's going to reciprocate, or that's going to give you back that same care and that's so important, too. JOHN: Yeah, and it sounds like starting a yoga studio is not a trivial undertaking and obviously, you're highly motivated to create this kind of an environment in the world. So is there anything more you'd like to say about that because that ties in very closely with what we're talking about? KATE: Yeah. It's so weird to work full-time and be so passionate about my tech job and then turn around and be like, “I'm opening a yoga studio.” It's such a weird, but again, it's all connected at the root, at the core of what I'm trying to do in this world. The thing about Kula is that it's really built on this foundational mutual aid model. So being donation-based, it's really pay what you can, if you can. And what you pay, if you're able to give an extra $10 for the class that you take, that's going to pay for someone else's experience, who is unable to financially contribute to take that class. That's the basis of community care, of mutual aid and it's really this heart-based business model that is really tricky. I'm trying to get a loan right now and [chuckles] it's really hard to prove business financials when you have a donation-based model and you say, “Well, I'm going to guess what people might donate per class on average.” So it's been a real journey, [laughs] especially with today's famous supply chain issues that you hear about constantly in every single industry. I have an empty space right now. It needs to be completely built out. Construction costs are about triple what they should be. Again, coming from this real mutual aid community care centered model, it's really hard, but I have to keep coming back. I was just telling my partner about this the other day, I have to keep coming back to this core idea, or this real feeling that I don't need to have a beautifully designed space to create what I'm trying to create. When I started this, I envisioned just a literal empty room [chuckles] with some people in it and a bathroom and that's it. So of course, once I saw the designs, I was like, “Oh, I love this can lighting that's shining down in front of the bathroom door.” It's like so whatever, stereotypical. Not stereotypical, but surface level stuff. I really have had to time and time again, return to this longing almost for a space that feels safer for me, for my community, for Black people, for disabled people, for trans people, for Asian people; we don't have a lot of spaces that feel that way and that's just the reality. So it's a real delicate balance of how do I like – this is a business and I need money, [laughs] but then I really want this to be rooted in mutual aid and community care. It comes back to that car and that inclusivity, creating authentic connections. It's tricky out there for a queer woman entrepreneur with no collateral. [laughs] It's a tricky world out there, but I think we'll flip it someday. I really think pioneering this idea, or this business model at least where I'm at in Denver, I think it's going to start the conversation in more communities and with more people who want to do similar things and my hope is that that will foster those conversations and make it more accessible to more people. JOHN: Yeah, and I think every time someone manages to muster up the energy, the capital, and the community effort to put something like this together, it makes it just slightly easier for someone else a, they can learn the lessons and b, they're more examples of this thing operating in the world. So it becomes more possible in people's minds and you can build some of that momentum there. KATE: Yeah. And of course, it's really important to note and to remember that I come from a place of immense privilege. I have a great job in tech. I'm white. I am upper middle class. Technically, I'm “straight passing,” which is a whole other concept, but it is a thing and this is the way that I'm choosing to use my privilege to hopefully pave the way for more people. I do not take for granted the opportunity that I'm given and like I said, intersectionality matters and all of that, but I still have a lot of privilege going into this that I hope turns into something good for more people. ARTY: It also takes a special kind of person to be an entrepreneur because you really have to just keep on going. No matter any obstacle that's in your way, you've just got to keep on going and have that drive, desire, and dream to go and build something and make it happen and your superpowers probably going to help you out with that, too. It sounds like we've got multiple superpowers because I think you got to have superpowers to be an entrepreneur in itself. KATE: Yeah. I don't know, man. It's such a weird feeling to have because it just feels like it's what I'm supposed to be doing. That's it. It doesn't feel like I'm like – yes, it's a calling and all of that, but it just feels like the path and that, it feels more, more natural than anything I guess, is what I'm trying to say. The more people follow that feeling, the more authentic of a world, the more connected of a world we're going to have. I see a lot of people doing this work, similar things, and it makes me so happy to see. The words of one of my therapists, one of my past therapists told me, “Always stick with me,” and it was right around the time I was kind of – so I'd started planning before COVID hit and then COVID hit and I had to pause for about a year, a little bit less than a year. It was right around the time I was filing my LLC and really starting to move forward. It was actually December 17th of last year that I filed my LLC paperwork. So it's been a little over a year now. He told me, “How much longer are you willing to wait to give the community this thing that you want to give them? How much are you willing to make them wait for this space?” And I was like, “Yesterday. Yesterday.” Like, “I want to give people this space immediately,” and that has truly carried me through. This supply chain stuff is no joke. [laughs] and it has really carried me through some of the more doubtful moments in this journey. Yeah, and I feel like, man, what powerful words. Like, I just want to keep saying them because they are such powerful words to me. How much longer are you willing to make them wait? And it's like, I don't want to. [chuckles] So I guess I'm going to go do it. [laughter] Throw caution to the wind. [laughs] JOHN: Well, I think that ties back into what you were talking about is as you were thinking about designing the space and what kind of buildout you're going to need, and that can be a guide star for what actually needs to be there. What's the actual MVP for this space? Does it need a perfect coat of paint, or is what's there good enough? Does it need all the things arranged just so in the perfect lighting, or does it just need to exist and have people in the room and you can really focus in on what's going to get you there? And then of course, you iterate like everything else, you improve over time, but. KATE: Right. JOHN: I love that concept of just cut out everything that's in the way of this happening right now as much as possible. KATE: Yeah, and what a concept, I think that can be applied to so many things. Who am I trying to serve with this thing and what do I need to do to get there? It doesn't have to be this shiny, beautiful well-designed creation. It just needs to serve people. The people that you want to serve in the best way possible, and for me, that's getting this space open and actually having it in action. ARTY: I think once you find something that feels in alignment with you, you seem to have lots of clarity around just your sense of purpose, of what you want to move toward of a deep connection with yourself. One thing I found with that is no matter how much you get rejected by various groups in the world, if you can be congruent and authentic with yourself and follow that arrow, that once you start doing that, you find other people that are in resonance with you. They're out there, but you don't find them until you align with yourself. KATE: Yeah. Community. Community is so powerful and I love that you just said alignment because that really is truly what it is. It's finding the thing that makes you feel like you're doing something good and that feels authentic to your core, to those core principles of you that never really change. The things that are rooted in love, the things that are rooted in compassion, or whatever it is you care about. Community, that alignment is absolutely key. It's also, when I say I was born with my superpower of being an empath, this desire to create this space feels, it feels like I was also born with this desire, or born with this alignment. So I feel like so many times it's just going back to the basics of who you are. ARTY: Like you're actualizing who you are. KATE: Yeah. Like full alignment, enlightenment, that all kind of falls into place when you're really making the effort to be connected to your core. ARTY: It seems like a good place to do reflections. So at the end of the show, we usually go around and do final reflections and takeaways, final thoughts that you have and you get to go last, Kate. JOHN: There are a whole lot of different things that I've been thinking about here, but I think one of the ones that's sticking with me is the dichotomy between perfectionism and authenticity, and how I feel like they really are pulling against one another and that, which isn't to say things can't be perfect and authentic at the same time. But I think perfectionism is usually a negative feeling. Like you should do something, you're putting a lot of pressure, there's a lot of anxiety around perfectionism and that is pretty much an opposition to being authentically yourself. It's hard to be in touch with yourself when you're wrapped up in all those anxieties and so, thinking about the two of them together, I hadn't made that connection before, but I think that's something that's interesting that I'll be thinking about for a while. ARTY: I think the thing that's going to stick with me, Kate is you said, “Our words carry so much power,” and I think about our conversation today out just vibes in the room and how that shifts with the energy that we bring to the room, all of these subtle undercurrent conversations that we're having, and then how a sort of energy vibe becomes established. And how powerful even these really little tiny things we do are. We had this conversation around inclusive language and you gave so many great details and specifics around what that means and how we can make little, small alterations to some of these things that are just baked into us because of our culture and the words that we hear, phrasing and things that we hear, that we're just unaware of the impact of things. Just by paying attention and those little subtle details of things and coming at things with an open heart, regardless of how we might stumble, or mess things up, how much of a difference that can make because our words, though carry so much power. KATE: Yeah. And the thing you just said about having an open heart is truly how you can put any of this into action, how you can remain open to learning about authenticity, or what it feels like to not fall into a trap of perfectionism, or how to speak, or write, or interact more inclusively with other human beings. I feel like being open, being openminded, being open-hearted, whatever it is, is just really a superpower on its own. Remaining open and vulnerable in today's world is hard work. It does not come naturally to so many people, especially when you're dealing with your own traumas and your own individual interactions and maybe being forced into spaces where you don't feel safe. To remain open is such a tool for making other people feel cared for. So if that's the goal, I would say just being open is truly your superpower. JOHN: I think that's the quote I'm going to take with me: being open is the key to making people feel cared for. KATE: Yes. I love that. ARTY: Well, thank you for joining us on the show, Kate. It's been a pleasure to have you here. KATE: Thank you so much. This has been just the energy boost I needed. Special Guest: Kate Marshall.

covid-19 god community black google moving zoom practice language asian llc humans mvp als communities falling in love throw construction congratulations inclusive dei reiki slack remaining adaptation lovely technically devops javascript denver colorado elixir no code pave kula maybelline webflow john you michele williams john yeah john one john well john so john there kate marshall test double john oh kate it kate yeah kate you greater than code devreps

263: Security Education, Awareness, Behavior, and Culture with Kat Sweet

Ship It! DevOps, Infra, Cloud Native

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 15, 2021 46:51

02:01 - Kat's Superpower: Terrible Puns! * Puns & ADHD; Divergent Thinking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divergent_thinking) * Punching Down (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=punching%20down) * Idioms (https://www.ef.edu/english-resources/english-idioms/) 08:07 - Security Awareness Education & Accessibility * Phishing * Unconscious Bias Training That Works (https://hbr.org/2021/09/unconscious-bias-training-that-works) * Psychological Safety * 239: Accessibility and Sexuality with Eli Holderness (https://www.greaterthancode.com/accessibility-and-sexuality) * Management Theory of Frederick Taylor (https://www.business.com/articles/management-theory-of-frederick-taylor/) * Building a Security Culture For Oh Sh*t Moments | Human Layer Security Summit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=21&v=d2girBtrbCQ&feature=emb_logo) * Decision Fatigue 20:58 - Making the Safe Thing Easy * (in)Secure Development - Why some product teams are great and others aren't… (https://tldrsec.com/blog/insecure-development-why-some-product-teams-are-great-and-others-arent/) * The Swiss Cheese Model of Error Prevention (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1298298/) 22:43 - Awareness; Security Motivation; Behavior and Culture (ABC) * AIDA: Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDA_(marketing)) * Inbound Marketing (https://www.hubspot.com/inbound-marketing) 33:34 - Dietary Accessibility; Harm Reduction and Threat Monitoring * Celiac Disease (https://celiac.org/about-celiac-disease/what-is-celiac-disease/) * A Beginner's Guide to a Low FODMAP Diet (https://www.benefiber.com/fiber-in-your-life/fiber-and-wellness/beginners-guide-to-low-fodmap-diet/?gclsrc=aw.ds&gclid=Cj0KCQiAnuGNBhCPARIsACbnLzqJkfl2XxxUQVSAGU96cmdVl5S7gn6GXnOQAHf-Sn0zEHvBBKINObUaAlOvEALw_wcB) * Casin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casein) * DisInfoSec 2021: Kat Sweet - Dietary Accessibility in Tech Workplaces (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG1DApAlcK4&feature=youtu.be) Reflections: John: Internal teams relating to other internal teams as a marketing issue. Casey: Phishing emails cause harm. Kat: AIDA: Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDA_(marketing)) Unconscious Bias Training That Works (https://hbr.org/2021/09/unconscious-bias-training-that-works) The Responsible Communication Style Guide (https://rcstyleguide.com/) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: PRE-ROLL: Software is broken, but it can be fixed. Test Double's superpower is improving how the world builds software by building both great software and great teams. And you can help! Test Double is hiring empathetic senior software engineers and DevOps engineers. We work in Ruby, JavaScript, Elixir and a lot more. Test Double trusts developers with autonomy and flexibility at a remote, 100% employee-owned software consulting agency. Looking for more challenges? Enjoy lots of variety while working with the best teams in tech as a developer consultant at Test Double. Find out more and check out remote openings at link.testdouble.com/greater. That's link.testdouble.com/greater. JOHN: Welcome to Episode 263 of Greater Than Code. I'm John Sawers and I'm here with Casey Watts. CASEY: Hi, I'm Casey! And we're both here with our guest today, Kat Sweet. Hi, Kat. KAT: Hi, John! Hi, Casey! CASEY: Well, Kat Sweet is a security professional who specializes in security education and engagement. She currently works at HubSpot building out their employee security awareness program, and is also active in their disability ERG, Employee Resource Group. Since 2017, she has served on the staff of the security conference BSides Las Vegas, co-leading their lockpick village. Her other superpower is terrible puns, or, if they're printed on paper—she gave me this one—tearable puns. [laughter] KAT: Like written paper. CASEY: Anyway. Welcome, Kat. So glad to have you. KAT: Thanks! I'm happy to be here. CASEY: Let's kick it off with our question. What is your superpower and how did you acquire it? KAT: [chuckles] Well, as I was saying to both of y'all before this show started, I was thinking I'm going to do a really serious skillful superpower that makes me sound smart because that's what a lot of other people did in theirs. I don't know, something like I'm a connector, or I am good at crosspollination. Then I realized no, [chuckles] like it, or not, terrible puns are my actual superpower. [laughter] Might as well just embrace it. I think as far as where I acquired it, probably a mix of forces. Having a dad who was the king of dad puns certainly helped and actually, my dad's whole extended family is really into terrible puns as well. We have biweekly Zoom calls and they just turn into everyone telling bad jokes sometimes. [laughter] But I think it also probably helps that, I don't know, having ADHD, my brain hops around a lot and so, sometimes makes connections in weird places. Sometimes that happens with language and there were probably also some amount of influences just growing up, I don't know, listening to Weird Al, gets puns in his parodies. Oh, and Carlos from The Magic School Bus. CASEY: Mm hmm. Role models. I agree. Me too. [laughter] KAT: Indeed. So now I'm a pundit. CASEY: I got a pun counter going in my head. It just went ding! KAT: Ding! [laughter] CASEY: I never got – [overtalk] KAT: They've only gotten worse during the pandemic. CASEY: Oh! Ding! [laughter] Maybe we'll keep it up. We'll see. I never thought of the overlap of puns and ADHD. I wonder if there's any study showing if it does correlate. It sounds right. It sounds right to me. KAT: Yeah, that sounds like a thing. I have absolutely no idea, but I don't know, something to do with divergent thinking. CASEY: Yeah. JOHN: Yeah. I'm on board with that. CASEY: Sometimes I hang out in the channels on Slack that are like #puns, or #dadjokes. Are you in any of those? What's the first one that comes to mind for you, your pun community online? KAT: Oh yeah. So actually at work, I joined my current role in August and during the first week, aside from my regular team channels, I had three orders of business. I found the queer ERG Slack channel, I found the disability ERG Slack channel, and I found the dad jokes channel. [laughter] That was a couple of jobs ago when I worked at Duo Security. I've been told that some of them who are still there are still talking about my puns because we would get [laughs] pretty bad pun threads going in the Slack channels there. CASEY: What a good reputation. KAT: Good, bad, whatever. [laughs] CASEY: Yeah. KAT: I don't know. Decent as a form of humor that's safe for work goes, too because it's generally hard to, I guess, punch down with them other than the fact that everyone's getting punched with a really bad pun, but they're generally an equalizing force. [chuckles] CASEY: Yeah. I love that concept. Can you explain to our listeners, punching down? KAT: So this is now the Great British Bake Off and we're talking about bread. No, just kidding. [laughter] No, I think in humor a lot of times, sometimes people talk about punching up versus punching down in terms of who is actually in on the joke. When you're trying to be funny, are you poking fun at people who are more marginalized than you, or are you poking at the people with a ton of privilege? And I know it's not always an even concept because obviously, intersectionality is a thing and it's not just a – privilege isn't a linear thing. But generally, what comes to mind a lot is, I don't know, white comedians making fun of how Black people talk, or men comedians making rape jokes at women's expense, or something like that. Like who's actually being punched? [chuckles] CASEY: Yeah. KAT: Obviously, ideally, you don't want to punch anyone, but that whole concept of where's the humor directed and is it contributing to marginalization? CASEY: Right, right. And I guess puns aren't really punching at all. KAT: Yeah. CASEY: Ding! KAT: Ding! There goes the pun counter. Yeah, the only thing I have to mindful of, too is not over relying on them in my – my current role is in a very global company so even though all employees speak English to some extent, English isn't everyone's first language and there are going to be some things that fly over people's heads. So I don't want to use that exclusively as a way to connect with people. CASEY: Right, right. JOHN: Yeah. It is so specific to culture even, right. Because I would imagine even UK English would have a whole gray area where the puns may not land and vice versa. KAT: Oh, totally. Just humor in general is so different in every single culture. Yeah, it's really interesting. JOHN: Yeah, that reminds me. Actually, just today, I started becoming weirdly aware as I was typing something to one of my Indian colleagues and I'm not sure what triggered it, but I started being aware of all the idioms that I was using and what I was typing. I was like, “Well, this is what I would normally say to an American,” and I'm just like, “Wait, is this all going to come through?” I think that way might lead to madness, though if you start trying to analyze every idiom you use as you're speaking. But it was something that just suddenly popped into my mind that I'm going to try and keep being a little bit more aware of because there's so many ways to miss with communication when you rely on obscure idioms, or certain ways of saying things that aren't nearly as clear as they could be. [chuckles] KAT: Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure that's definitely a thing in all the corporate speak about doubling down, circling back, parking lots, and just all the clicking, all of those things. [laughter] But yeah, that's actually something that was on my run recently, too with revamping one of the general security awareness courses that everyone gets is that in the way we talk about how to look for a phishing – spot a phishing email. First of all, one of the things that at least they didn't do was say, “Oh, look for poor grammar, or misspelled words,” because that's automatically really exclusive to people whose first language isn't English, or people who have dyslexia. But I was also thinking we talk about things like subtle language cues in suspicious emails around a sense of urgency, like a request being made trying to prey on your emotion and I'm like, “How accessible is that, I guess, for people whose first language is English to try and spot a phishing email based on those kind of things?” Like how much – [chuckles] how much is too much to ask of…? Like opinions about phishing emails, or the phishing training anyway being too much to ask of people to some degree, but I don't know. There's so much subtlety in it that just is really easy for people to lose. JOHN: Yeah. I mean, I would imagine that even American English speakers – [overtalk] KAT: Yeah. JOHN: With a lot of experience still have trouble. Like actually, [chuckles] I just got apparently caught by one of them, the test phishing emails, but they notified me by sending me an email and saying, “You were phished, click here to go to the training.” And I'm like, “I'm not going to click on that!” [laughter] I just got phished! KAT: Yeah. JOHN: But I think my larger point is again, you're talking about so many subtleties of language and interpretations to try and tease these things out. I'm sure there are a lot of people with a range of non-typical neurologies where that sort of thing isn't going to be obvious, even if they are native English speakers. KAT: Exactly. Myself included having ADHD. [laughs] JOHN: Yeah. KAT: Yeah. It's been interesting trying to think through building out security awareness stuff in my current role and in past roles, and having ADHD and just thinking about how ADHD unfriendly a lot of the [laughs] traditional approaches are to all this. Even like you were just saying, “You got phished, take this training.” It seems like the wrong sequence of events because if you're trying to teach someone a concept, you need to not really delay the amount of time in between presenting somebody with a piece of information and giving them a chance to commit it to memory. ADHD-ers have less working memory than neurotypical people to begin with, but that concept goes for everyone. So when you're giving someone training that they might not actually use in practice for several more months until they potentially get phished again, then it becomes just information overload. So that's something that I think about. Another way that I see this playing out in phishing training in particular, but other security awareness stuff is motivation and reward because we have a less amount of intrinsic motivation. Something like, I don't know, motivation and reward system just works differently with people who have trouble hanging onto dopamine. ADHD-ers and other people's various executive dysfunction stuff. So when you're sitting through security training that's not engaging, that's not particular lead novel, or challenging, or of personal interest, or is going to have a very delayed sense of reward rather than something that immediately gratifying, there's going to be a limitation to how much people will actually learn, be engaged, and can actually be detrimental. So I definitely think about stuff like that. CASEY: That reminds me of a paper I read recently about—I said this on a previous episode, too. I guess, maybe I should find the paper, dig it up, and share. KAT: Cool. [laughter] CASEY: Oh, but it said, “Implicit bias awareness training doesn't work at all ever” was an original paper. No, that's not what it said of course, but that's how people read it and then a follow-up said, “No, boring! PowerPoint slide presentations that aren't interactive aren't interactive.” [laughter] “But the interactive ones are.” Surprise! KAT: Right. That's the thing. That's the thing. Yeah, and I think there's also just, I don't know. I remember when I was first getting into security, people were in offices more and security awareness posters were a big thing. Who is going to remember that? Who's going to need to know that they need to email security at when they're in the bathroom? [laughs] Stuff like that that's not particularly engaging nor particularly useful in the moment. But that DEI paper is an interesting one, too. I'll have to read that. CASEY: Do you have experience making some of these trainings more interactive and getting the quicker reward that's not delayed and what does that look like for something like phishing, or another example? KAT: It's a mixed bag and it's something that I'm still kind of – there's something that I'm figuring out just as we're scaling up because in past roles, mostly been in smaller companies. But one thing that I think people, who are building security awareness and security education content for employees, miss is the fact that there's a certain amount of baseline level of interaction and context that you can't really automate a way, especially for new hires. I know having just gone through process that onboarding weeks are always kind of information overload. But people are going to at least remember more, or be more engaged if they're getting some kind of actual human contact with somebody who they're going to be working with; they've got the face, they've got some context for who their security team is, what they do, and they won't just be clicking through a training that's got canned information that is no context to where they're working and really no narrative and nowhere for them to ask questions. Because I always get really interesting questions every time I give some kind of live security education stuff; people are curious. I think it's important that security education and engagement is really an enhancer to a security program. It can't be carrying all the weight of relationships between the security team and the rest of the company. You're going to get dividends by having ongoing positive relationships with your colleagues that aren't just contact the security team once a year during training. CASEY: And even John's email, like the sample test email, which I think is better than not doing it for sure. But that's like a ha ha got you. That's not really [chuckles] relationship building. Barely. You've got to already have the relationship for it to – [overtalk] KAT: No, it's not and that's – yeah. And that's why I think phishing campaigns are so tricky. I think they're required by some compliance frameworks and by cyber insurance frameworks. So some places just have to have them. You can't just say we're not going to run internal phishing campaigns, unfortunately, regardless of whether that's actually the right thing for businesses. But I think the angle should always be familiarizing people with how to report email like that to the security team and reinforcing psychological safety. Not making people feel judged, not making people feel bad, and also not making them sit through training if they get caught because that's not psychological safety either and it really doesn't pay attention to results. It's very interesting, I remember I listened to your episode with Eli Holderness and at some point, one of the hosts mentioned something about human factors and safety science on the evolving nature of how people management happens in the workplace. How there was this old model of humans being a problem to be managed, supervised, and well, just controlled and how the new view of organizational psychology and people management is more humans are your source of success so you need to enable their growth and build them up. I think a lot of security education approaches are kind of still stuck in that old model, almost. I've seen progress, but I think a lot of them have a lot of work to do in still being, even if they're not necessarily as antagonistic, or punitive, they still feel sometimes paternalistic. Humans are like, “If I hear the phrase, ‘Humans are the weakest link one more time,' I'm going to table flip.” First of all, humans are all the links, but also – [overtalk] JOHN: Yeah. KAT: It's saying like, we need to save humans, which are somehow the security team is not humans. We need to save humans from themselves because they're too incompetent to know what to do. So we need, yeah – which is a terrible attitude. CASEY: Yeah. KAT: And I think it misses the point that first of all, not everyone is going to become a security expert, or hypervigilant all the time and that's okay. But what we can do is focus on the good relationships, focus on making the training we have and need to do somewhat interactive and personal and contextual, and let go of the things you can't control. [chuckles] JOHN: Yeah, I think Taylorism is the name for that management style. I think it came around in the 40s and – [overtalk] KAT: Really? JOHN: Yeah, ruined a lot of lives. [laughs] Yeah, and I think your point about actually accepting the individual humanity of the people you're trying to influence and work with rather than as some sort of big amorphous group of fuckups, [laughs] for lack of a better word. Giving them some credit, giving them, like you said, something that's not punitive, somewhere where they don't get punished for their security lapses, or forgetting a thing, or clicking the link is going to be a lot more rewarding than, like you said, just making someone sit through training. Like for me, the training I want from whatever it was I clicked on is show me the email I clicked on, I will figure out how it tricked me and then I will learn. I don't need a whole – [overtalk] KAT: Yes. JOHN: 3 hours of video courses, or whatever. I will see the video, [chuckles] I will see the email, and that is a much more organic thing than here's the training for you. KAT: Exactly. Yeah, you have to again, give some people a way to actually commit it to memory. Get it out of RAM and into SSD. JOHN: Yeah. [laughter] KAT: But yeah, I love that and fortunately, I think some other places are starting to do interesting, innovative approaches. My former colleague, Kim Burton, who was the Security Education Lead at Duo when I was there and just moved to Texas, gave a webinar recently on doing the annuals security training as a choose your own adventure so that it could be replicated among a wide group of people, but that people could take various security education stuff that was specific to their own role and to their own threat model. I really liked that. I like being able to give people some amount of personalization and get them actually thinking about what they're specifically interacting with. JOHN: Yeah, yeah. That's great and it also makes me think about there are undoubtedly things I'm pretty well informed in security and other things that I'm completely ignorant about. I'd rather not sit through a training that covers both of those things. Like if there's a way for me to choose my own adventure through it so that I go to the parts where I'm actually learning useful things. Again, a, it saves everybody time and b, it means I'm not fast forwarding through the video, hoping it'll just end, and then possibly missing things that are actually useful to me. CASEY: I'm thinking of a concrete example, I always remember and think of and that's links and emails. I always hover and look at the URL except when I'm on my phone and you can't do that. Oh, I don't know. It has never come up in a training I've seen. KAT: Yeah, you can click and hold, but it's harder and I think that speaks to the fact that security teams should lead into putting protections around email security more so than relying entirely on their user base to hover every single link, or click and hold on their phone, or just do nothing when it comes to reporting suspicious emails. There's a lot of decision fatigue that, I think security teams still put on people whose job is not security and I hope that that continues to shift over time. JOHN: Yeah. I mean, you're bringing up the talking about management and safety theory that probably came from Rein Henrichs, who is one of our other hosts. But one of the things he also has talked about on, I think probably multiple shows is about setting the environment for the people that makes the safe thing easy. KAT: Right. JOHN: So that all the defaults roll downhill into safety and security rather than well, here's a level playing field you have to navigate yourself through and there's some potholes and da, da, da, and you have to be aware of them and constantly on alert and all those things. Whereas, if you tilt the field a little bit, you make sure everything runs in the right direction, then the right thing becomes the easy thing and then you win. KAT: Exactly, exactly. I think it's important to put that not only in the technical defaults – [overtalk] JOHN: Yeah, yeah. KAT: But also process defaults to some degree. One of my colleagues just showed me a talk that was, I think from perhaps at AppSec Cali. I'll have to dig it up. But there was somebody talking about making I guess, threat modeling and anti-abuse mindsets more of a default in product development teams and how they added one single line to their sprint planning—how could this feature potentially be misused by a user—and that alone just got people thinking just that little process change. JOHN: Yeah. That's beautiful. But such a small thing, but constantly repeated at a low level. It's not yelling at anyone to… KAT: Yeah. JOHN: Yeah. KAT: Yeah. And even if the developers and product designers themselves weren't security experts, or anti-abuse experts, it would just get them thinking, “Oh hey, we should reach out to the trust and safety team.” CASEY: Yeah. I'm thinking about so many steps and so many of these steps could be hard. The next one here is the security team responsive and that has a lot to do with are they well-staffed and is this a priority for them? Oh my goodness. KAT: Yeah. [laughs] So many things. CASEY: It's layers. But I'm sure you've heard of this, Kat. The Swiss cheese model of error prevention? KAT: Yeah. Defense in depth. CASEY: Yeah. [chuckles] I like to bring it up on the podcast, too because a lot of engineers and a lot of non-security people don't know about it. KAT: Hmm. CASEY: Do you want to explain it? I don't mind. I can. KAT: Oh, yeah. Basically that there are going to be holes in every step of the process, or the tech and so, that's why it's important to have this layered approach. Because over time, even if something gets through the first set of holes, it may not get through a second set where the holes are in different spots. So you end up with a giant stack of Swiss cheese, which is delicious, and you come out with something that's hopefully pretty same. [laughter] CASEY: Yeah, and it's the layers that are – the mind-blowing thing here is that there can be more than one layer. We don't just need one layer of Swiss cheese on this sandwich, which is everybody pay attention and don't ever get phished, or it's your fault. You can have so many layers than that. It can be like a grilled cheese, really, really thick, grilled cheese. [laughter] KAT: Yes. A grilled cheese where the bread is also cheese. CASEY: Yes! [laughs] MID-ROLL: This episode is supported by Compiler, an original podcast from Red Hat discussing tech topics big, small, and strange. Compiler unravels industry topics, trends, and the things you've always wanted to know about tech, through interviews with the people who know it best. On their show, you will hear a chorus of perspectives from the diverse communities behind the code. Compiler brings together a curious team of Red Hatters to tackle big questions in tech like, what is technical debt? What are tech hiring managers actually looking for? And do you have to know how to code to get started in open source? I checked out the “Should Managers Code?” episode of Compiler, and I thought it was interesting how the hosts spoke with Red Hatters who are vocal about what role, if any, that managers should have in code bases—and why they often fight to keep their hands on keys for as long as they can. Listen to Compiler on Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. We'll also include a link in the show notes. Our thanks to Compiler for their support. CASEY: Earlier, you mentioned awareness, Kat as something interesting. You want to talk about awareness more as a term and how it relates to this? KAT: Oh, yeah. So I – and technically, my job title has security awareness in it, but the more I've worked in the security space doing employee security education stuff as part of all my job. I know language isn't perfect, but I'm kind of the mindset that awareness isn't a good capture of what a role like mine actually should be doing because awareness without behavior change, or action is just noise. It's just we're all very aware of things, but if we don't have an environment that's friendly to us putting that awareness into some kind of action, or engagement, or response, we are just aware and scared. [laughs] CASEY: Yeah, awareness alone just makes us feel bad. We need more than that. KAT: Yeah. So I think security awareness is sometimes just a product of a term that got standardized over several years as it's in all of the compliance control frameworks, security awareness is a part of it. I don't know it's the best practice thing. I hope over time it will continue to evolve. CASEY: Yeah. KAT: As with any other kind of domains. JOHN: Yeah. I think that maybe security motivation might be a better term for it. KAT: I've seen a bunch of different ones used. So I end up speaking in terms of, I don't know, security education and engagement is what I'm working on. Security culture is my vision. I've seen things like security awareness, behavior, and culture, ABC, things like that. But all this to say security awareness not being in a vacuum. CASEY: I like those. This reminds me of a framework I've been thinking about a lot and I use in some of my DEI workshops. AIDA is an acronym. A-I-D-A. The first one's Awareness, the last one is Action, and in the middle is Interest and Desire. KAT: Nice. CASEY: So the questions I use to frame is like, are they aware of, for example, if they're misgendering someone? That's the context I'm using this in a lot. Are they aware of this person's pronouns in the first place? Are they interested in caring about this person and do they want to do anything about it and did they do it? Did they use their proper pronouns? Did they correct their actions? It's like 4 stages – [overtalk] KAT: I like that. CASEY: AIDA. It's used in marketing a lot for like a sales funnel, but I apply it to all sorts of how do you get someone from aware to action? KAT: I like that a lot. It's been interesting working at a place that makes a product that's more in the sales and marketing space. Definitely learned a lot because a couple of previous roles I've had been with security vendors. I think one of the interesting ideas that was a new concept to me when I started was this idea of inbound marketing, where instead of just cold contacting people and telling them, “Be interested in us, be interested in us, buy our stuff,” you generate this reputation as being of good service by putting out useful free nuggets of content, like blog posts, webinars, and things. Then you get people who are interested based on them knowing that you've got this, that you offer a good perspective, and then they all their friend. They are satisfied customers, and they go promote it to people. I think about this as it applies to security teams and the services they provide, because even though corporate security teams are internal, they've still got internal customers. They've still got services that they provide for people. So by making sure that the security team is visible, accessible, and that the good services that they provide are known and you've got satisfied customers, they become promoters to the rest of their teams. Think about like security can definitely learn a lot from [chuckles] these sales and marketing models. CASEY: I can totally imagine the security team being the fun team, the one you want to go work with and do workshops with because they make it so engaging and you want to. You can afford to spend your time on this thing. [laughter] KAT: Oh yes. CASEY: You might do it. [laughter] JOHN: Yeah, and I think marketing's a great model for that. Marketing sort of has a bad reputation, I think amongst a lot of people because it's done badly and evilly by a lot of people. But it's certainly possible and I think inbound market is one of those ways that you're engaging, you're spreading awareness, you're letting people select themselves into your service, and bring their interest to you. If you can develop that kind of rapport with the employees at your company as a security team, everybody wins. KAT: Yeah, absolutely, and it can absolutely be done. When I was working at Duo a couple jobs ago, I was on their security operations team and we were responsible, among other things, for both, the employee security education and being the point of intake; being the people that our colleagues would reach out to with security concerns to security and it definitely could see those relationships pay off by being visible and being of good service. CASEY: So now I'm getting my product manager hat on, like team management. KAT: Yeah. CASEY: I will want to choose the right metrics for a security team that incentivizes letting this marketing kind of approach happen and being the fun team people want to reach out to have the bigger impact and probably the highest metric is like nobody gets a security breach. But that can't be the only one because maybe you'll have a lucky year and maybe you'll have an unlucky that's not the best one. What other metrics are you thinking of? KAT: That's the thing, there's a lot more that goes into not getting pwned than how aware of security people are. There's just way too many factors to that. But – [overtalk] CASEY: Yeah. I guess, I'm especially interested in the human ones, like how come – [overtalk] KAT: Oh, yeah. And I mean like – [overtalk] CASEY: The department allowed to do the things that would be effective, like incentivized and measured in a sense. KAT: Yeah, and I think a lot of security education metrics often have a bit of a longer tail, but I think about not – I don't really care so much about the click rates for internal phishing campaigns, because again, anyone can fall for a phish if it's crafted correctly enough. If it's subtle enough, or if just somebody's distracted, or having a bad day, which we never have. It's not like there's a pandemic, or anything. But for things that are sort of numbers wise, I think about how much are people engaging with security teams not just in terms of reporting suspicious emails, but how often are they reporting ones that aren't a phishing simulation? How much are they working with security teams when they're building new features and what's the impact of that baseline level before there's, I don't know, formal process for security reviews, code reviews, threat modeling stuff in place? What does that story look like over time for the product and for product security? So I think there's quite a bit of narrative data involved in security education metrics. JOHN: Yeah. I mean you could look at inbound interests, like how often are you consulted out of the blue by another team, or even of the materials you've produced, what's the engagement rates on that? I think that's a lower quality one, but I think inbound interest would be fantastic. CASEY: Yeah. KAT: Yeah, exactly. I was thinking to some degree about well, what kinds of vulnerabilities are you shipping in your code? Because I think there's never 100% secure code. But I think if you catch some of the low-hanging fruits earlier on, then sometimes you get an interesting picture of like, okay, security is being infused into the SDLC at all of these various Swiss cheese checkpoints. So think about that to some degree and that's often more of a process thing than a purely an education thing, but getting an education is an enhancer to all of these other parts of the security programs. JOHN: So in the topics for the show that you had suggested to us, one of the things that stood out to me was something you called dietary accessibility. So can you tell me a little bit more about what that means? KAT: So earlier in this year, in the middle of all of this pandemic ridiculousness, I got diagnosed with celiac disease. Fortunately, I guess, if there was a time to be diagnosed with that, it's I'm working remotely and nobody's going out to eat really. Oh, I should back up. I think a lot of people know what it is, but just in case, it's an autoimmune disorder where my body attacks itself when I eat gluten. I've described it in the past as my body thinks that gluten is a nation state adversary named fancy beer. [laughter] Ding, one more for the pun counter. I don't know how many we're up to now. [laughs] CASEY: I have a random story about a diet I had to do for a while for my health. I have irritable bowel syndrome in my family and that means we have to follow over really strict diet called the low FODMAP diet. If your tummy hurts a lot, it's something you might look into because it's underdiagnosed. That meant I couldn't have wheat, but not because I had celiac disease; I was not allergic to the protein in wheat flour. I was intolerant to the starch and wheat flour. So it would bother me a lot. People said, “Do you have celiac, or?” And I was like, “No, but I cannot have wheat because the doctor told me so, but no, it's not an allergy.” I don't know, my logical brain did not like that question. [laughter] That was an invalid question. No, it's not a preference. I prefer to eat bread, but I cannot, or it hurts my body according to my doctor. KAT: [chuckles] So you can't have the starch and I can't have the protein. So together, we can just – [overtalk] CASEY: Separate it! KAT: Split all of the wheat molecules in the world and eat that. [laughs] CASEY: That's fair. I literally made gluten-free bread with gluten. [laughs] I got all the gluten-free starches and then the gluten from the wheat and I didn't have the starch in the wheat and it did not upset my stomach. KAT: Oh man. JOHN: Yeah. I've got a dairy sensitivity, but it's not lactose. It's casein so it's the protein in the dairy. CASEY: Protein, uh huh. KAT: Oh, interesting. CASEY: I apologize on behalf of all the Casey. [laughter] Casey in. KAT: Who let Casey in? CASEY: Ding! KAT: Ding! No, but it's made me think a lot about as I was – first of all, it's just I didn't fully appreciate until I was going through it firsthand, the amount of cognitive overload that just goes into living with it every day. [laughs] Speaking of constant state of hypervigilance, it took a while for that to make it through – I don't know, me to operationalize to my new life that's going to be my reality for the [laughs] rest of my life now because it was just like, “Oh, can I eat this? Can I eat that?” All of that. Something that at least helped ease me out of this initial overwhelm and grieving period was tying some of the stuff that I was dealing with back to how would I do this in my – how would I approach this if this were a security education and security awareness kind of thing? CASEY: Oh, yeah. KAT: Because it's a new concept and it's a thing that is unfamiliar and not everyone is an expert in it. so I'm like, “How would I treat myself as the person who's not an expert in it yet?” I, again, tried to get myself back to some of those same concepts of okay, let's not get stuck in thud mode, let's think about what are some of the actual facts versus what's scaremongering. I don't need to know how much my risk of colon cancer is increased, because that's not how helpful for me to actually be able to go about my day. I need to know what are the gluten-free brands of chips? That's critical infrastructure. CASEY: I love this parallel. This is so cool. KAT: And so I thought about to – I've mentioned earlier, decision fatigue as a security issue. I thought about how can I reduce the decision fatigue and not get stuck just reading all the labels on foods and stuff? What are the shortcuts I can take? Some of those were like okay, let me learn to recognize the labels of what the labels mean of a certified gluten-free logo and also just eat a lot of things that would never have touch gluten to begin with, like plain and raw meat, plain potatoes, plain vegetables, things like that. So just anything to take the cognitive load down a little bit, because it was never going to be zero. It's interesting. Sometimes, I don't know, I have tons of different interests and I've always interested in people's perspective outside of security. A lot of that stuff influences the way I think about security, but sometimes the way I think about security also ends up influencing other stuff in my life, so. CASEY: Yeah. I think that's brilliant. Use – [overtalk] KAT: And interesting to connect with those. CASEY: The patterns and you're comfortable with, and apply them. KAT: Exactly. CASEY: A lot of really cool ideas come from technology. KAT: Yeah, and go for harm reduction, not nothing because we don't live in a gluten-free world. It's like I can try to make myself as safe as possible, but at some point, my gut may suffer a data breach and [laughs] when I do, should be blameless and just work on getting myself recovered and trying – [overtalk] JOHN: Yeah. I mean, thinking about it as a threat model. There's this gluten out there and some of it's obvious, some of it's not obvious. What am I putting in place so that I get that 95th percentile, or whatever it is that you can think of it that way? I like that. KAT: Exactly. It's an interesting tie to threat modeling how the same people – even if people have the same thing that they can't eat, they may still have a different threat model. They may, like how we both had to avoid wheat, but for different reasons and with different side effects, if we eat it and things like that. CASEY: I love these parallels. I imagine you went into some of these in that talk at DisInfoSec. Is that right? KAT: Yeah. A little bit. So DisInfoSec, it's a virtual conference in its second year of existence, specifically highlighting disabled speakers in the InfoSec community run by Kim Crawley, who's a blogger for Hack the Box. There was a really interesting lineup of talks this year. Some people, I think about half of them touched on neurodiversity and various aspects of security through lenses of being autistic and ADHD, which is really cool. For mine, I focused on those of us who have disability-related dietary restrictions and how that affects our life in the tech workplace, where compared to a lot of other places I've worked, there's a lot of free food on the company dime hanging around and there's a lot of use of food as a way to build connection and build community. CASEY: Yeah, and a lot of stuff, a lot of people can't eat. I'm with you, uh huh. KAT: Yeah. I just took stock of all of the times that I would take people up for lunch interviews, go out to dinner with colleagues when they're in town, all of these things. Like snacks in the office. Just there not being a bathroom on the same floor as me for multiple jobs where I worked. [laughs] Things like that. So I really wanted to – the thing that I wanted to highlight in that talk in general was systemic level accommodations to be made for people with be they celiac IBS, food allergies, diabetes rather than relying on people individually requesting accommodations. This universal design model where you've got to make sure that your workplace is by default set up to accommodate people with a wide range of disabilities including dietary needs and a lot of times it doesn't come down to even feeding them. It comes down to making sure their health insurance is good, making sure people can work remotely, making sure that – [overtalk] CASEY: Higher levels of Swiss cheese on that. They are various levels. KAT: Yeah, the levels of Swiss cheese. A lot of stuff cascades from lunch interviews, making sure that if you do them at all, that you're really flexible about them. JOHN: Yeah. I can definitely relate to the being able to work from home, which I've done for the last decade, or more, has been huge for being able to have a solid control of my diet. Because it's really easy to have all the right things around for lunch rather than oh, I've only got half an hour, I can run out to the sub shop and I'll just deal with the consequences. Because that's what's nearby versus, or trying to bring food into the office and keep it in the fridge, or the free – that's a whole mess. So just like you said, good health insurance, working from home, these are things that allow for all sorts of different disabilities to be taken care of so well that you don't – that's the base, that's table stakes to formatting kind of inclusion. KAT: Exactly, exactly. CASEY: Yeah. KAT: Exactly. Yeah, and I think what sometimes gets missed is that even there are other things that I need to – the ability to just sometimes lay down, the ability to be close to a bathroom, and things that are not food related, but definitely are my reality. [laughs] CASEY: And companies went out, too. By accommodating you, they get all of your expertise and skills and puns. In exchange for flexibility, they get puns. KAT: [laughs] And I still make puns about gluten, wheat, rye, and barley even though I can I eat them anymore. That will never go away. CASEY: They just keep rising. KAT: Wheat for it. Wait for it. [laughter] CASEY: Ding! KAT: That's just my wry sense of humor. CASEY: All right. We're getting near end of time for today. This point, let's talk about reflections and plugs. JOHN: I can go first. I think the thing that's definitely sticking with me is thinking about the internal teams relating to other internal teams at a company as a marketing issue. Security is obviously one where you need to have that relationship with pretty much every team. But I'm thinking all sorts of all the way around development, DevOps, tech QA. Everyone can think this way and probably gain something from it as a what are we presenting to the rest of the company, what is our interface, and how do we bring more things to it such that people like working with our interface a lot so that we have great relationships with the rest of the team? I think I'm going to keep thinking about that for a while. CASEY: I'll share a reflection. I liked noticing that those phish emails can cause harm to people—they can feel bad and then make them less receptive. I've always been a fan of them overall. But thinking about that impact, I might have even been the one to say that, but it was still surprising to me when that came out of my mouth. Say, oh yeah, it hurts people in a way, too. We don't have to have that painful experience to teach people. It can be done in a safer environment. I wonder what else we can do for training of things like that to make it more positive and less negative. I'm going to be thinking on that. KAT: Yeah. And I wrote down AIDA. Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action. Did I get that right? CASEY: Yeah. KAT: I'm definitely going to look into that. I think that's a great model for education of all kinds. CASEY: Yeah. If you want to go even deeper, there's like 6 and 7 tier models on the Wikipedia page links to a bunch of them. That's just the most common. KAT: Awesome. CASEY: For plugs, I just want to plug some homework for you all. Everyone listening, there's this Unconscious Bias Training That Works article that I've mentioned twice now. I hope you get to read that. And I guess, the AIDA – It'll be in the show notes for sure. And then the Wikipedia page for AIDA marketing just so you have a spot to look it up, if you forget about it. Try to apply that to situations, that's your homework. KAT: I think something I plugged on Twitter quite a bit over the years and a lot when we were talking about the language that we use earlier, I'm a huge fan of the Responsible Communication Style Guide, which was put out by the Recompiler, which is a feminist activist hacker publication. So they've got guides on words to avoid, words to use instead for when talking about race, gender, class, health, disability status. It's written for a tech audience and I really like that as a resource for using inclusive language. JOHN: Yeah. It's great stuff. CASEY: I love it. All right, thanks so much for are coming on our show today, Kat. Special Guest: Kat Sweet.

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Episode 391: Announcing Mocktail with Justin Searls

Ruby on Rails Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 10, 2021 33:10

Justin Searls helped start Test Double—a software agency of experienced developers who work with clients to build great software together, as a team. He gave Brittany the scoop on Mocktail, an opinionated alternative to minitest's mocks, rr, mocha, and rspec-mocks. As a bonus: he offers his insights and advice on being a confident speaker. Show Notes & Links: testdouble/mocktail (https://github.com/testdouble/mocktail) Test Double | An Agency Improving the World's Software (https://testdouble.com/) Mockito framework site (https://site.mockito.org/) Jim Weirich's Tweet (https://twitter.com/jimweirich/status/77124604602228737) searls/gimme (https://github.com/searls/gimme) jimweirich/flexmock (https://github.com/jimweirich/flexmock) Please don't mock me - Justin Searls - JSConf US 2018 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8sKpJwq6lY) VCR - GitHub (https://github.com/vcr/vcr) How to Make a Gem of a Gem | Rubyconf 2021 (https://rubyconf.org/program/sessions#session-1203) Justin Searls (@searls) · Twitter (https://twitter.com/searls) Sponsored By: Honeybadger (https://www.honeybadger.io/) Honeybadger makes you a DevOps hero by combining error monitoring, uptime monitoring and check-in monitoring into a single, easy to use platform. Go to Honeybadger.io (https://www.honeybadger.io/) and discover how Starr, Josh, and Ben created a 100% bootstrapped monitoring solution. Scout APM (http://scoutapm.com/rubyonrails) Try their error monitoring and APM free for 14-days, no credit card needed! And as an added bonus for Ruby on Rails listeners: Scout will donate $5 to the open-source project of your choice when you deploy. Learn more at http://scoutapm.com/rubyonrails (http://scoutapm.com/rubyonrails).

world software gem devops honey badger mocktails ruby on rails apm test double justin searls jim weirich

Optimize for smoothness not speed

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 25, 2021 58:35 Transcription Available

This week Gerhard is joined by Justin Searls, Test Double co-founder and CTO. Also a

speed operations cloud infrastructure cto optimize devops kubernetes gerhard sre devsecops cloud native cncf changelog smoothness test double justin searls

Optimize for smoothness not speed (Ship It! #16)

Changelog Master Feed

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 25, 2021 58:35 Transcription Available

This week Gerhard is joined by Justin Searls, Test Double co-founder and CTO. Also a

speed operations cloud ship infrastructure cto optimize devops kubernetes gerhard sre devsecops cloud native cncf changelog smoothness test double justin searls

247: Approaching Learning and Content Creation with Sy Brand

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 25, 2021 54:23

02:01 - Sy's Superpower: Making Complex Topics Digestible * Sy on YouTube: "Computer Science Explained with my Cats" (https://www.youtube.com/SyBrandPlusCats) 06:28 - Approaching Learning to Code: Do Something That Motivates You * Greater Than Code Episode 246: Digital Democracy and Indigenous Storytelling with Rudo Kemper (https://www.greaterthancode.com/digital-democracy-and-indigenous-storytelling) * Ruby For Good (https://rubyforgood.org/) * Terrastories (https://terrastories.io/) 11:25 - Computers Can Hurt Our Bodies! * Logitech M570 Max (https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-M570-Wireless-Trackball-Mouse/dp/B0043T7FXE) * Dvorak Keyboard (https://www.dvorak-keyboard.com/) 13:57 - Motivation (Cont'd) * Weekend Game Jams * The I Do, We Do, You Do Pattern (https://theowlteacher.com/examples-of-i-do-you-do-we-do/) 22:15 - Sy's Content (Cont'd) * Sy on YouTube: "Computer Science Explained with my Cats" (https://www.youtube.com/SyBrandPlusCats) * Content Creation and Choosing Topics 33:58 - Code As Art * code:art (https://code-art.xyz/) / @codeart_journal (https://twitter.com/codeart_journal) * trashheap (https://trashheap.party/) / @trashheapzine (https://twitter.com/trashheapzine) * Submission Guidelines (https://trashheap.party/submit/) * Casey's Viral TikTok! (https://www.tiktok.com/@heycaseywattsup/video/6988571925811367173?lang=en&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1) 41:34 - #include ＜C++＞ (https://www.includecpp.org/) * Lessons learned creating an inclusive space in a decades old community (Sy's Talk) (https://developerrelations.com/community/lessons-learned-creating-an-inclusive-space-in-a-decades-old-community) * QueerJS (https://queerjs.com/) * Emscripten (https://emscripten.org/) * Graphiz it! (http://graphviz.it/#/gallery) Reflections: Mandy: Digging into Sy's videos. Casey: Working within content creation constraints. Sy: Make a video on register allocation. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: Software is broken, but it can be fixed. Test Double's superpower is improving how the world builds software by building both great software and great teams and you can help. Test Double is looking for empathetic senior software engineers and dev ops engineers. We work in JavaScript, Ruby, Elixir, and a lot more. Test Double trusts developers with autonomy and flexibility at a 100% remote employee-owned software consulting agency. Are you trying to grow? Looking for more challenges? Enjoy lots of variety in projects working with the best teams in tech as a developer consultant at Test Double. Find out more and check out remote openings at link.testdouble.com/join. That's link.testdouble.com/join. MANDY: Hello and welcome to Greater Than Code, Episode 247. My name is Mandy Moore and I'm here with my friend, Casey Watts. CASEY: Hi, I'm Casey, and we're both here with our guest today, Sy Brand. SY: Hey, everyone! CASEY: Sy is Microsoft's C++ Developer Advocate. Their background is in compilers and debuggers for embedded accelerators. They're particularly interested in generic library design, making complex concepts understandable, and making our communities more welcoming and inclusive. They can usually be found on Twitter, playing with their three cats, writing, or watching experimental movies. Hi, Sy! Good to have you. SY: Hey, thanks for having me on. CASEY: The first question we like to ask, I think you're prepared for it, is what is your superpower and how did you acquire it? SY: Yeah, so very topically, I think one of my superpowers is forgetting what topics I want to talk about when recording podcasts and that, I acquired through having ADHD and forgetting to write things down. But I did write things down this time so maybe that won't be too much of a problem. But I think one of my other ones is making complex topics digestible, trying to take computer science topics and distill them down into things which are understandable without necessarily having a lot of the background knowledge, the resources you'd expect. I gained that mostly through my background in computer science and then my interest in public speaking and communication and performance poetry, trying to blend those together to make things easier to understand, lower the barrier for entry. CASEY: I love it. Making complex topics digestible. That's definitely a skill we need more of in the world. MANDY: Absolutely. So Casey told me you are a bit of a teacher and you do a lot of teaching on, is it YouTube? So making things easier to digest. Like I said, during the preshow, I've been trying to learn to code on and off for 12 years, as long as I've had this career, and I've started and stopped, gotten frustrated and stopped, and I've tried different things. I've had mentors and I feel like I've let my mentors down and I've tried this and that. I've tried the code academy and I don't know. So how do you do it? Can you tell us a little bit about how you do that? SY: Sure. So most of the topics that I am interested in teaching is, because I come from a background of compilers and debuggers and very low-level systems, those are the things that I want people to get excited about because I think people look at compilers, or C++, or low-level programming and think, “Oh, this is not very interesting,” or new, or it's too complex, or it requires too much of a degree, or whatever. But none of that is true. You can write a compiler without having to have a lot of the background knowledge you might expect and you can learn C++ without having to – it can be a lot easier than people make art. So I want to make these concepts seem interesting and understandable because they're deeply interesting to me and they've been working on them for a large part of my life and I still love it and find them fascinating. So I want to share that with people. CASEY: What's your motivation when you're working on these? Is it to understand things that are complex, or are you solving problems you have, or other people have, or maybe a blend, or other motivations? I'm wondering what gets you so pumped about it. SY: Yeah, so I think it's a few different things. I make videos on Twitter, or YouTube, things like that of explaining concepts that I'm already familiar with and it's pretty much stuff that I could write an entire video off the top of my head without having to do any research. So I've done videos on explaining what a compiler is and all the stages of compilation, or a video on higher cash performance works, or [in audible 05:48] cash configurancy, garbage collection. These are all things I could just sit down and write something on and don't have to do a lot of research. Then there's the more exploratory stuff. I've been live streaming the development of a Ranges library for C++, which is being able to compose operations, building up a pipeline of operations for your data and then declarative manner so that you don't have to deal with a lot of memory allocations and moving data, or a range yourself. You just say, “Here's all the steps that I want to occur,” and then someone who has written all of these pipeline operations deals with how that actually happens. I've been developing that library live and trying to teach myself hired to do all of these things as while also teaching other people at the same time. MANDY: So is it right to assume that maybe I've been going about learning to code in all the wrong ways and that I've just picked a language and tried to dive in, or did I miss some of the conceptual stuff? And if so, as I suspect, a lot of the conceptual stuff has gone over my head. So where do you suggest, if you were giving me advice, which yes, you are giving me advice. [laughter] Where would you suggest, as a brand-new beginner coder, what kind of software concepts I need to research and understand before actually diving into an actual programming language? SY: Honestly, I don't think that there's a single answer there and I don't think there's a lot of wrong answers there. From my perspective, the best way to learn how to code is doing something that motivates you and that gets you excited because coding is hard and when you hit those bumps and things are going wrong, if you don't have that motivation to keep going, then it's very easy to stop. I know I've done it in trying to learn certain concepts and things like that before, because I felt like, “Oh, I should learn this thing, but I wasn't really interested in it,” and then I find out it was hard and stopped. The best way that I learn is finding something where I'm like, “Hey, I want to build this thing,” or “I want to understand this because I want to solve this problem,” or “because I want to dove on that knowledge with something else.” It's always the motivation, but then I'm coming from if you're someone with ADHD, or something like me, then it's pretty much impossible to do anything without [chuckles] having a strong motivation behind it. So that kind of comes into my way of learning as well. MANDY: That's super interesting. Actually, the last episode we did was with Rudo Kemper and he did a project with Ruby for Good. I went to that and I actually got really excited, intrigued, and wanted to get involved and learn how to code because I was really interested and passionate about the project that he presented, which was Terrastories, which was handing down indigenous knowledge technologically so that stories aren't lost in just having oral traditions, that these stories are actually being recorded and are living somewhere on the internet. So that's really interesting. I went to that and then of course, pandemic happened. It didn't happen again last year, but I'm thinking about going back this year. I'm hoping maybe I can be on a team with somebody that could just shadow and sit there and maybe Casey would let me be that person because rumor has it, Casey is going to be there. Ruby for Good on the East Coast in the fall. CASEY: Yeah, I'll be there. I'd be happy to have you shadow me. Also, my role lately has been a higher level. Last time I was a product manager for the team not coding and this year I'm going to be helping the teams be happy and effective across the board because there's always a team, or two that need some alignment work so that they can be productive the whole weekend. MANDY: That's interesting. Okay. Well, I'm sure I'll find somebody who wouldn't mind me doing a kind of shadow. CASEY: For sure. MANDY: Yeah, cool. CASEY: That's the kind of environment it is. MANDY: Absolutely. CASEY: Yeah. SY: That definitely sounds like the right kind of thing like something where you hear about something, or you look at this project and you think, “Hey, I want to get involved. I want to contribute to this.” That's what can drive a positive learning experience, I think it's that motivation and that motivation could just be, “Hey, I want to get into the tech industry because it pays well and we need money to live because capitalism.” That's like totally legit as well. Whatever you find motivates you to work. MANDY: Yeah, that's why I'm here. I had to find a way for my daughter and I to live. SY: Yeah. MANDY: So I got into tech and podcasts and then I'm working for all these people who I always considered so much smarter than me. I was like, “I could never learn that. I'm not good enough.” But now since joining the podcast as a host and coming on here, I'm feeling more and more like I am smart enough, I could do the thing and so, I'm actually really getting into it more. But it's just that being on the computer for so many hours doing the work stuff makes it hard to also break into the wanting to do the learning outside of my work hours – [overtalk] SY: Right, yeah. MANDY: Because it's so much computering. SY: Yeah, or just split the good screen from bad screen. CASEY: I've been computering so much, I have a tendonitis in my right pinky now from using the arrow keys on the keyboard too much, I think and bad posture, which I've been working on for years. Computers can hurt our bodies. SY: Yeah, definitely. I use the Logitech M570 mouse, which I switched to a number of years ago and was one of the best changes I ever made for using the computer and also, switching to Dvorak for keyboard layout. CASEY: Okay. I use that, too. SY: Nice! CASEY: Dvorak. It's not better, but I learned it. [laughter] It might be more better for my health maybe, but I'm not faster. That's what people always ask. SY: I'm definitely – [overtalk] CASEY: Instead of ASDF, it's a AOEU under your fingers; the common letters right at your fingertips. You don't need the semicolon under your right pinky. [laughter] Why is that there? SY: Yeah. MANDY: Yeah. I was going to ask for us what you were even talking about there. So it's just basically reconfiguring your keyboard to not be QWERTY thing? SY: Yeah, exactly. MANDY: Okay. SY: That means you have to completely relearn how to type, which can take a while. Like when I completely stopped using QWERTY at all and just switched to Dvorak, I didn't even buy a Dvorak keyboard, I just printed out the keyboard layout and stuck it to my monitor and just learned. For the first while, it's excruciating because you're trying to type an email and you're typing 15 words per minute, or something. That's bad. I did definitely did get faster shifting to Dvorak. Before I think I used to type at like 70, 80; I type around a 100 words per minute so it changed my speed a bit. But to be fair, I don't think I typed properly on QWERTY. I switched 10 years ago, though so I can't even remember a whole lot. [chuckles] MANDY: That's interesting, though. That gives me something I want to play around with right there and it's not even really coding. [laughter] It's just I'll be just trying to teach myself to type in a different way. That's really interesting. Thank you. [chuckles] CASEY: Yeah. It was fun for when I learned it, too. I think I learned in middle school and I was I practiced on AIM, AOL Instant Messenger, and RuneScape. SY: Nice. CASEY: I didn't dare practice while I had essays due and I had to write those up. That was too stressful. [laughter] CASEY: Summer was better for me. SY: Yeah, I switched during a summer break at university. CASEY: Low stakes. I needed the low stakes for that to succeed. SY: [laughs] Yeah. CASEY: We were talking about what motivates you to learn programming and I wrote up a story about that for me actually recently. SY: Okay. CASEY: At the highest level, my first programming class, we modeled buoys and boats and it was so boring. I don't know why we were doing it. It didn't have a purpose. There was no end goal, no user, nobody was ever going to use the code. It was fine for learning concepts, I guess, but it wasn't motivated and I hated it and I stopped doing CS for years until I had the opportunity to work on an app that I actually used every day. I was like, “Yeah, I want to edit that.” I just want to add this little checkbox there. Finally, I'll learn programming for that and relearn programming to do useful things for people. Motivation is key. SY: Yeah. I think because I started doing programming when I was quite young, I knew it was definitely the classic video games, wanting to learn how to make video games and then by the time I actually got to university, then I was like, “Yeah, don't want go into the games industry.” So didn't end up doing that. But I still enjoy game jams and things like that. If you're not again. CASEY: That's another thing you might like, Mandy. It's a weekend game jam. MANDY: Hm. CASEY: I don't know how into gaming you are, but it's also fun, lower stakes. People are just partying. Not unlike Ruby for Good. They happen more often and I like how it feels at a game jam, a little better than a hackathon because you're building something fun and creative instead of using a company's API because they told you to. SY: [laughs] Yeah. MANDY: Yeah, I was honestly never exposed to video games as a child. They were a no-no in my household and that's one of the things that I always cursed my parents for is the fact that I am the worst gamer. [laughs] My daughter makes fun of me. I'll sit down and like try to – she's 12 and I'll try to do something. She'll be like, “Wow, this is hurting me to watch you, Mom,” [laughs] and I'm like – [overtalk] CASEY: Ouch. MANDY: No, she called me a try hard and I was like, “Yeah, I'm trying really hard to just go forward.” Like I'm trying really hard to just jump over this object, [chuckles] I was like, “If that makes me a try hard well, then yes, I'm trying very hard. Thank you.” SY: Yeah. My 6-year-old has now got to the point where he can beat me at Super Smash Brothers so I'm not feeling too good about that. [laughs] CASEY: Yeah. My 6-year-old nephew beat us all in Mario Kart a couple weeks. SY: Yeah. [laughs] I can still beat in the Mario Kart. That, I could do. [laughs] MANDY: Yeah. A lot of the games she does looks fun, though so it's something I would be interested in, it's just something that I haven't been exposed to. I'm really excited now that—I don't want to say the pandemic is nearing an end because it seems to be not happening, but I'm excited – [overtalk] CASEY: True. Things are opening up. MANDY: Right now. Until they start closing down again. CASEY: Yeah. MANDY: Because I'm so excited for things like Ruby for Good, driving down to D.C. and seeing some of my friends, and I would be interested in going to one of those game things, as long as people are just like, “Oh yeah, we can be patient with her because she's never done a game before.” [laughs] CASEY: Yeah. My last game jam had eight people on the team and zero had ever done game development before. We figured something out. SY: [chuckles] Yeah. MANDY: Oh, that's fun. SY: Like muddle along. CASEY: Yeah. Somebody did like level design. They did a title map. Someone did sprites. They were like, “I'm going to do a sprite tutorial now.” Sprite is moving like a walking character. We had learned all the terms for it. We didn't know the terms either, but it was a good environment to learn. MANDY: It seems it. It seems like if you have a happy, healthy environment. For me, it was just, I was becoming stressed out. I had a standing meeting once a week with a really, really awesome person and it felt like it was more of like, I was like, “Oh my gosh, I have to work this into my already busy workweek and if I don't, then I'm completely wasting their time,” and I started to feel guilty to the point it brought me down. I was just like, “I don't think this is good for either one of us right now” because I'm feeling too much pressure, especially with the once-a-week thing and it's like to get through this chapter and then get through this chapter, and then I'd have a question and I'm not good at writing things down and then I'd forget. It seems like that might be more of a strategy to learn for me. I think a lot of people, there's different strategies like you have your visual learners, or you have your audio learners and I think for me, it would be cool just like I said, shadowing somebody. Like, if I just like sat there and it wasn't weird for me just to watch it over somebody's shoulder while they're doing this thing, that would a more conducive environment to the way I learn. CASEY: Yeah. I like the pattern, You do, We do, I do. Have you heard of that one? MANDY: No. CASEY: Or I do, We do, You do depending on the perspective. So it's like shadowing first and then doing it together where you're both involved and then you can do it on your own. It's a three-step process to make it a little bit easier to learn things from other people. SY: Yeah, that makes sense. MANDY: Yeah, that sounds like how kids learn. It's how we teach our children like I do, now we're going to do it together, now you do it. Yeah, I definitely have used that with my kid. [chuckles] CASEY: And it's just completely reasonable to do that as adults. That's how human brains work. MANDY: Yeah. No, I don't feel – that's the thing I would have to not almost get over, but just be like, “Oh my gosh, I'm 2 years old. I'm learning like I'm a toddler and that's so embarrassing.” But I think that that is a great way to learn and a great way to approach learning in general. I just started a book on learning more about crystals and it's the beginner's guide and she said, “You read this book and then you can move on to reading this other 700-page book that I've authored, but you should probably read this concise guide first.” I think a lot of people feel the pressure to dive into the super smart, or what they perceive as being the super smart way of diving in like, picking up the Ruby book, or the books that everyone talks about when there's so many other great resources exist that break it into smaller, bite-sized, digestible chunks. I think there's no shame in learning like that and I think a lot of people think that they just need to dive right in and be like, “Oh, this is the hard book, I'm going to go for the hard book first.” Like no, start with the easiest, start small. SY: Yeah. I think as you say, it definitely depends on how you learn what kind of resources you find interesting and engaging. CASEY: I've heard a similar story from a lot of friends, Mandy, where they really want to learn something, maybe programming in general, or a language, and then they psych themselves out, or they don't have the bandwidth in the first place, but they don't realize it and they struggle through that and the guilt because they want to, but they don't have time, or energy, which you also need. It's really common. A lot of people that I know are really motivated to do a lot of stuff; they want to do everything. I know some people who are fine not doing everything and that's great because they're probably more grounded. [chuckles] [laughter] But a lot of people I know really want to learn at all and it's a tension; you don't have infinite time and energy. SY: Yeah. I definitely fall into wanting to learn absolutely everything and right now. MANDY: So what kind of things are you teaching right now, Sy? What kind of content are you putting out there? SY: Yeah. So like I said, a lot of it's to do with low-level programming, like how memory actually works on a computer and how it affects how we program things. Because for a lot of people, if you come from a higher-level programming background, you're used to memory being abstracted away from what you do. You deal with variables, you deal with objects, and the implementation of the programming language deals with how that actually maps onto the underlying hardware. But if you really need to get the most performance you possibly can out of your system and you're using a little bit lower-level language like C, or C++, or Rust, or Swift, or something, then you need to understand how your processor is actually handling the instructions and that is actually handling your memory accesses in order for your performance to actually be good. Some of it is not obvious as well and does not match with how you might think memory works because the processors which we're using today are based in so much history and legacy. A lot of the time, they're essentially trying to mimic behavior of older processors in order to give us a programming model, which we can understand and work with, but then that means that they have to work in certain ways in order to actually get performance for the high-performance modern systems we need. So having an understanding of how our caches work, how instruction pipelines work, and things like that can actually make a really big difference down with the low-level programming. MANDY: Okay. So I'm looking at your Twitter and then looking at your pinned tweet, it says, “I made a YouTube channel for my ‘Computer Science Explained with my Cats' videos.” How do you explain computer science with your cats? Because that's something I could probably get into. SY: Yeah. So I have three cats and – [overtalk] MANDY: I've got you beat by one. SY: Nice. What were your cats called? MANDY: I have four. I have Nicks after Stevie Nicks. I have Sphinx because he looks so regal and I have Chessy and I have Jolie. SY: Cool. Mine are Milkshake, Marshmallow, and Lexical Analysis cat. MANDY: [laughs] Cool. SY: [chuckles] Yeah. So the things explained with my cats, it's mostly I wanted to explain things with my cats and random things, which I find around my house. So I remember I have a Discord server, which I help to moderate called #include , which is a welcoming inclusive organization for the C++ community. We were talking about hash maps and how hash maps are actually implemented, and I realized that there's a lot of different design areas in hash maps, which can be difficult to understand. I wanted to try and explain it using boxes and teddies and my cats so I set up a bunch of boxes. These are all of the buckets, which your items could go into it and then there's some way to map a given teddy to a given box. Let's say, it could be how cute it is. So if it's super cute and it goes in the west most box, and if it's kind of cute, then it goes into the box after that and so on and so forth. That's kind of how hash maps work. They have a bunch of memory, which is allocated somewhere, a bunch of boxes, and they have some way of mapping given items to a given box, which is called a hash function. In this case, it was how cute they are and then you have some way of what happens if two teddies happened to be as cute as each other, how do you deal with that? There's a bunch of different ways that you could handle that and that's called hash collision. Like, what do you do with collisions? Do you stick them in the same box and have a way of dealing with that, or do you just put them in the next box up, or a few boxes up, or something like that? There's whole decades worth of research and designing, which go into these things, but the concepts map quite nicely onto boxes and teddies and how cute they are. [chuckles] MANDY: I love that. SY: They are also explaining how caching works with chocolate, like the intuition with memory access is you ask for some chunk of memory and you get that chunks. You ask for a single chunk of chocolate and you get that chunk of chocolate, but in reality, that's not what happens in most cases. In most cases, you're actually going to get back a whole row of chocolate because it's most likely that if you're going to get a bit of chocolate, you're probably going to be accessing the bits which are right next to it. Like, if you have an array and you're processing all of the elements in that array, then you're just going to be stepping along all of those elements. So it's much faster to bring all of those elements would be right into memory at once. That's what happens in modern processors. Without you having to ask for it, they just bring in that whole row of chocolate. So I tried to – [overtalk] CASEY: That's so polite. [laughs] When your friend asks for a single chip, or a single piece of chocolate, you know what they want more. SY: [laughs] Yeah. CASEY: How generous of you to give them the whole bag. [laughs] Whether they want it, or not though. SY: Yeah. MANDY: So are these videos relatively short, or are they more long-form videos? SY: Yeah, they are 2 minutes long. MANDY: Oh, cool. SY: I try and keep them within the video limit for Twitter videos, which is 2 minutes, 20 seconds. MANDY: Okay, cool. See, that's something I could probably commit to is watching one of those videos not even maybe once a day because sometimes that's a little bit, much pressure every day. So maybe I try to work out three to four times a week. So saying I'm going to do this three to four times a week and I'm going to not stress on I'm going to do this every Monday. Generally three to four times a week, I think that's something I could, could commit to. SY: Yeah. Trying to get them within 2 minutes, 20 seconds can be really tough sometimes. Like it's quite – [overtalk] MANDY: Do you do a lot of editing? SY: Yeah. I would sit down and I'll write the whole episode, or video, or whatever and just get in all of the content that I want, just put it onto a text document and then I'll start filming it in whatever order I want, and then I start editing and then quite often, I realized that I've got 2 minutes, 40 seconds worth of content, or something and I can't quite cut it down and I have to reshoot something and then reedit it. I try to get it all done within a single day because if I don't get it done in a single day, then it ends up taking even longer because I get distracted and things like that. I need to focus just getting this one thing done. MANDY: So you're doing these within hours? SY: Yeah. MANDY: From start to finish, how many hours would you say you invest in these videos? SY: Start to finish, about 5, 6 hours, something like that. Like I said, I don't really have to do a lot of research for them because they're things I know very well, so I can pretty much sit down and just write something and then most of the time is spent in editing and then captioning as well. MANDY: Very cool. CASEY: I've been doing a bit of video editing lately and it takes so long. SY: Yeah, it really does. CASEY: I'm not surprised it takes 5, or 6 hours. [laughter] MANDY: No, I'm not either. I do all the podcasts editing. For those of you listening, who do not know, I edit all these podcasts and it takes roughly even 5 to 6 hours for audio, because I also put other work into that, like doing the show notes and getting the transcripts. Now I have those outsourced because I don't have enough hours in the day, but there's a lot of different parts to editing, podcasting, screen casting, and stuff that I don't think a lot of people know that these 2-minute videos that you do really do take 5 to 6 hours and you're putting these out there for free? SY: Yeah. MANDY: Wow. That's amazing. I assume you have a full-time job on top of that. SY: Yeah. Because my position is a developer advocate, I can count that as is doing work so I don't have to do that in my own time. MANDY: Very cool. Yeah, that's cool. I love DevRel so working in DevRel, I do that, too. I'm a Renaissance woman, basically. Podcast editing, DevRel conference organizing, it's a lot. SY: Yeah. MANDY: So I give you mad props for putting stuff out there and just giving a shout out to people who might not be aware that content creation is not easy and it does take time. So thank you. Thank you for that. Because this seems like the kind of stuff I would be able to ingest. SY: Yeah, thanks. MANDY: And that's cool. CASEY: I'm especially impressed, Sy that you have these interests that are complex would expand and you can explain the well and you find the overlap with what people want to know about. [chuckle] I think maybe in part from the Discord, you hear people asking questions. Can you tell us a little bit about what that's like? How do you decide what's interesting? SY: Yeah. I ask people on Twitter what they would find it interesting, but I also, because right now I'm not really going to conferences, but previously I'd go to a lot of conferences and people would come up to me and if I give a talk on compilers, for example, come and say like, “Oh hey, I never knew how register allocation worked. It was super interesting to know.” So I don't think I've done a video on register allocation yet actually. I should do one of those. MANDY: Write that down. SY: [laughs] Yeah. That's the kind of thing. Just because I spent a lot of time in communities, conferences, Discords, on Twitter, you get a feel for the kind of topics which people find interesting and maybe want to know how they work under the covers and just haven't found a good topic. Even function calls like, how does a function call work in C at the hardware level? If you call a function, what's actually happening? I did a video on that because it feels like such a fundamental thing, calling a function, but there's a lot of magic which goes into it, or it can seem like a lot of magic. It's actually, I want to say very well-defined, sometimes less so, but [laughs] they are real so there is random reason. MANDY: Very cool. I want to talk about the other content creation that you do. So code art journal and trashheap zine, do you want to talk about those a minute? SY: Sure. So code art was an idea that I had. It's a journal of code as art. I'd hear a lot of people saying, “Oh, coding is an art form.” I'd be like, “Okay. Yes. Sometimes, maybe. When is it an art form? When is it not? What's the difference between these?” Like, I spent a lot of time thinking about art because I'm a poet and I spend most of my free time researching and watching movies. Code as art is something which really interested me so I made this journal, which is a collection of things which people send in of code which they think is art and sometimes, it's something you might immediately see and look at it and think, “Okay, right, this is code and it's fulfilling some functional purpose,” and maybe that functional purpose gives it some artistic qualities just by how it achieved something, or if it does something in a very performant manner, or a very interesting manner. Other times, you might look at it and say, “Okay, well, this is code, but it's more aesthetic than functional.” And sometimes it's things which you might look at and think, “Okay, is this even code?” Like there was someone sent in a program written in a language called Folders, which is a esoteric programming language entirely programmed using empty folders on your hard drive, which I absolutely love. I'm super into esoteric programming languages so I absolutely loved that one. [chuckles] But yeah, so the – [overtalk] CASEY: That sounds so cool. Where can people find it? Is it online also? SY: Yes, it's in print and there's also, you can get the issues online for free in PDF form. There is a third issue, which is pretty much fully put together on my machine, I just haven't done the finishing touches and it's been one of those things that's just sat, not doing anything for months and I need to get finished. [chuckles] And then trashheap zine is another thing that I co-edit, which is just utter trash, because as much as I love more explicitly artistic films and writing and things like that, I also have a deep love of utter, utter trash. So this is the trashiest stuff that we could possibly find, even the submission guidelines that I wrote for that is essentially a trash pond, but random submission guidelines. So if you have trash, please send our way. MANDY: Yeah. I was going to say, what you consider trash? What trashiest [laughs] enough to be in these zines? SY: I can read out, where's my submission guidelines? The URL for the zine is trashyheap.party, which I was very, very pleased with and the website looks awful. I spent a lot of time making it as awful as I possibly could. Things like any kind of – [overtalk] CASEY: I love the sparkles. SY: Yes! CASEY: When the mouse moves, it sparkles. SY: Isn't it the best, seriously? Yeah. CASEY: Every website should have that. SY: Yeah, totally. Like texts you sent your crush at 4:00 AM while drunk where you misspelled their name and they never spoke to you again, or draft tweets which you thought better of sending, purely Photoshop pictures of our website. [laughter] A medically inaccurate explanation of the digestive system of raccoon dogs. All good stuff. MANDY: That's amazing. CASEY: I know a lot of people who would be cracking up reading this together. [laughter] CASEY: That sounds great. There's so much treasure in this trash heap. MANDY: Yeah. Don't worry, folks, we'll put links in the show notes. CASEY: Oh, yeah. SY: Yeah. One of my favorite things with it was when we'd get all of the submissions, we would get together and just project them up on a wall and read them together and so much so bad, it's hilarious in the most wonderful way. CASEY: That sounds like a party itself. SY: It is, yes. CASEY: The be trashheap party. SY: Absolutely. CASEY: It's kind of taking me back to early pre-YouTube internet when we watch flash cartoons all the time and a lot of those were terrible, but we loved them. SY: Yes. I made some as well, they were so bad. [laughter] I remember getting a very non legal version of flash and making the worst stick flash renovations I possibly could. CASEY: Oh, speaking of content creation, I've been learning some animation and 3D modeling animation lately. I had my first ever viral TikTok; it had over 9,000 views. SY: Wow! Nice. CASEY: And so when I look at my phone, if it's not the notifications muted, it's annoying. I have to turn it off. [laughter] SY: Yeah – [overtalk] MANDY: Congratulations! [laughs] CASEY: Thank you. So the video is a USB thumb drive that won't insert, even though you flip it over. That's been done before, but what I added was misheard lyrics by the band Maroon 5. Sugar! USB! That's what I hear every time. Mandy, have you done any art? MANDY: Have I done any art? CASEY: Lately? MANDY: Oh. Yeah. Well, actually – [overtalk] CASEY: You've been doing some home stuff, I know. MANDY: Yeah. I've been doing plant stuff, gardening, but this weekend, I actually took my daughter to a workshop. It was called working with resin—epoxy. SY: Oh, cool. MANDY: And we got to make coasters. The teacher brought stickers, feathers, and crystals and it was like a 3-hour workshop and I think my daughter had extra resin. Her birthday is on Thursday this week and I noticed she was making kind of the same ones and I said, “What are you doing?” And she said, “I'm making gifts for my friends that come to my birthday party.” I just thought it was so sweet that I was like – [overtalk] SY: Oh, so sweet. MANDY: Usually birthday parties, you receive gifts, or whatever and she's like, “No, I would like to give them gifts for my birthday,” and I was like, “Oh, that's adorable.” So I've been trying to do more things with my hands and get off the screens more, which has been the major thing keeping me back from being on code. I've made a strict weekend policy where I do not touch my computer from Friday evening to Monday morning, unless it's an absolute dumpster fire, I need to do something, or if a takeout menu looks better on my computer than it does on my phone. [laughter] Then I'll pop it open, but I won't read the email, or do the Slack. And then this Saturday I'm taking a course in astrology. It's all-day workshop so I'm excited to kind of dive into that stuff a little bit more. CASEY: So cool. It's hard to believe we can do these in person again. I'm not over it. MANDY: I know. I'm so afraid to get excited over it and then have it be taken away again. CASEY: Yeah. Sy, tell us a little more about #includes . I've actually heard of it. It's a little bit famous online. It's an inclusive community, I know from the name. SY: Yes. CASEY: Tell us more about it. SY: So it actually started off on Twitter as a half joke; Guy Davidson tweeted being like, “Hey, so why isn't there a diversity and inclusion organization for C++ called #include?” Because #include is it's like a language concept in C and C++ and people were like, “Hahaha yeah, you're right,” and then Kate Gregory was like, “You're right. We should make one.” So we did [chuckles] and we started off with like six of us in a Slack channel and then ended up moving to Discord and starting our own server there and now we are a few thousand members. Back when we had in-person conferences, we would have a booth at pretty much every major C++ conference, we had scholarships, which we would send people on, we got conferences to improve by having live captioning and wheelchair accessible stages and gender-neutral bathrooms instituting and upholding code of conduct, things like that. We started off thinking, “Hey, if we could get some conferences to have a code of conduct or something that would be great,” and then it ended up being way, way, way bigger than any of us thought it would become, which is amazing to see. CASEY: That's so cool. What a success story. SY: Yeah. CASEY: How long has it been going on now? SY: I guess about 3, or 4 years. Yeah, probably closer to 4 years. My sense of time is not good the best of times, but something around 4 years. CASEY: I'm curious if another language community wanted to do something similar if they're inspired. Is there a writeup about what y'all have done?  SY: I've given talks. CASEY: That we can point people to. We can put that in the show notes. SY: Yeah. I've given a couple of talks, as I said. CASEY: Talks, that would be good. SY: Other people have given talks as well. I gave a slightly longer form talk DevRelCon, London in 2019, I think, which was on the lessons which we learned through trying to build a welcoming and inclusive community. Community which has already been around for decades because C++ was first standardized in 1998 so it's been around for quite a long time and has a lot of history. CASEY: That sounds great. I can't wait to watch it. SY: Yeah. I know that there's other languages. You have JavaScript, QueerJS, which is a really cool community and I'm sure there are other languages which have similar things going as well. CASEY: I had never heard of QueerJS. I'm queer and JS. SY: Yeah. CASEY: I'm glad I had this moment just now. SY: It's cool. They have a Discord and I can't remember how active the Discord is, but they would have meetups across the world, they have one in London and in Berlin and bunch of other places, and talks and community. It seems really cool. CASEY: That's awesome. SY: I wanted to give a talk about C++ and JavaScript because you could link target JavaScript with C++ these days, which is kind of cool. CASEY: I've used Emscripten before. SY: Yeah. CASEY: I didn't use it directly, other people did. It turned Graphviz into a JavaScript. A program that runs in JavaScript instead of normally, it's just CSS. So I could draw circles pointing to other circles in the browser, which is what I always wanted to do. Graphviz.it, that “it” is my favorite Graphviz editor. It's online. SY: Cool. I like Graphviz a lot. Emscripten is really cool, though. Basically a way of compiling C++ plus to JavaScript and then having the interoperation with the browser and the ecosystem that you might want to be able to call JS functions from C++, or other way around, and do things which seem operating systems E, but have to be mapped inside the browser environment. CASEY: That's powerful. I'm also glad I've never had to use it directly. Other people made libraries doing it what I needed. Thank goodness. [chuckles] Abstraction! SY: Yeah. I've not used a whole lot, but I did find it fairly nice to work with when I did. I made a silly esoteric programming language called Enjamb, which is a language where the programs are cones and it runs on a stack-based abstract machine and the interpreter for it is written in C++. I wrote a command line driver for it and also, a version which runs in the browser and that compiles using Emscripten. It was really cool and I picked it all up with CMake, which is the main C++ build systems that you could just say, “Hey, I want to build the combine line version for my platform” like Windows, or Mac, or Linux, or whatever, or “Hey, I want to build it for the web,” and it would build the JavaScript version in HTML page and things like that. It's pretty cool. I recently made another esoteric programming language, which you program using MS Paint. You literally make shapes with MS Paint and you give the compiler an image file, and then it uses OCR and computer vision in order to parse your code and then generate C from that. [laughs] It's pretty ridiculous, but I had so much fun with it. CASEY: OCR is Optical Character Recognition? SY: Yes, exactly. CASEY: So I'm picturing if I wrote a program on a napkin and a computer could maybe OCR that into software. SY: Yeah. So it uses OCR for things like function names because it supports function calls and then uses shapes for most things. It has things like a plus sign, which means increment what it's currently being pointed to, or right, or left, or up, or down arrow is for moving things around. You would actually make an image file with those symbols and then I used OpenCV for working out what the shapes were. It was the first time I've ever done any kind of image recognition stuff. It was a lot easier than I expected it to be; I thought we'd have to write a lot of code in order to get things up and running and to do image detection. But most of the simple things like recognizing hey, this is a triangle, or this is a plus sign, or this is a square, and things like that were pretty, you don't need a lot of code in order to do them. That was mostly when you had to say like, “Okay, this is a triangle, but which direction is it pointing in?” It got a little bit more complicated; I had to do some maths and things like that and I'm terrible at maths. [chuckles] So that was a little bit more difficult, but it was a lot fun to get started with and I had a much lower barrier to entry than I expected. CASEY: Now I want to play with OCR and image recognition. I haven't done that for 10 years. It was not easy when I tried it last time with whatever tool that was. SY: [chuckles] Yeah, I did it – [overtalk] CASEY: For the future! SY: [laughs] Definitely. Yeah. I did it with Python and Python has fairly nice OpenCV bindings and there's a ton of resources out there for predicting most of the basic stuff that you would expect. So there's a lot of learning resources and decent library solutions out there now. CASEY: Cool. All right. We're getting near the end of time. At the end, we like to go through reflections, which is what's something interesting that stood out to you, something you'll take with you going forward from our conversations today. MANDY: I really am excited to dig into Sy's videos. They seem, like I said earlier in the show, something I could commit to a few times a week to watching these videos especially when they are concepts that seem so much fun, like cats, teddy bears, cuteness levels, and things like that. I think that would be a great start for me just to in the morning while I'm still drinking tea just before I even dive into my email, check out one of those videos. So I think I'll do that. SY: Thanks. CASEY: Sy, I liked hearing about your process side with your constraints like 2 minutes, 20 seconds on Twitter, that's such a helpful constraint to make sure it's really polished and dense. It takes you 5 to 6 hours and you make things that people ask about, that they're interested in. That whole process is fascinating to me as I try to make more viral TikToks. [laughter] Or whatever I'm making at the time. SY: Yeah. CASEY: I always wondered how you made such good stuff that got retweeted so often. Cool things of insight. SY: Yeah. Mostly just time. [laughs] I guess, it makes me remember that I definitely want to make a video on register allocation because I love register allocation. It's such a cool thing. For those who don't know, it's like if you have a compiler which takes your code and maps it onto the hardware, your hardware only has a certain number of resources so how do you work out how to use those resources in the best manner? It maps onto some quite nice computer science algorithms like graph coloring, which means it maps quite nicely visually, I could probably make a pretty cool graph coloring visualization with some random things I have strewn around my room. CASEY: I can't imagine this yet, but I will understand that clearly soon I bet. MANDY: That's awesome. Well, I just want to wrap up by saying thank you so much for joining us today, Sy. This has been a really awesome conversation. And to folks who have been listening, thank a content creator. It takes time. It takes energy. It's a lot of work that I don't think a lot of people, unless you've done it, really understand how long and in-depth of a process it is. So thank one of us content creators, especially when we're putting this content out for you for free. To do that for us Greater Than Code, we do a Patreon page and we will invite Sy to join us and we would like you to join us as well. If you are able to donate on a monthly basis, it's awesome. It's patreon.com/greaterthancode. All episodes have show notes and transcripts, and we do a lot of audio editing. So join us if you're able. If you are still a person who is greater than code and cannot afford a monthly commitment, you are still welcome to join us in our Slack community. Simply send a DM to one of the panelists and we will let you in for free. So with that, thank you so much, Casey. Thank you again, Sy. And we'll see you all next week. Special Guest: Sy Brand.

community tiktok learning lessons talk motivation brand microsoft dm mom berlin 3d code adhd llc cats discord mine mac computers sugar windows renaissance east coast swift paint slack content creation rust api generally aim cs usb python mario kart photoshop linux maroon javascript html marshmallows stevie nicks css milkshake hahaha sprite elixir sphinx nicks js ocr sy mandy moore abstraction dvorak ranges runescape qwerty folders super smash brothers devrel aol instant messenger digital democracy discords chessy opencv test double optical character recognition indigenous storytelling asdf cmake emscripten greater than code ruby for good devreps

245: Hacking Reality with Rony Abovitz

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 11, 2021 80:18

03:03 - Rony's Superpower: Being a Space Cadet: Free-Willing Imagination, Insight, and Intuition 06:54 - Becoming Interested in Technology * Science + Art * Star Wars (https://www.starwars.com/) * Solar Power 10:30 - Unstructured Play and Maintaining a Sense of Wonder and Free-Spiritedness * Geoffrey West on Scaling, Open-Ended Growth, and Accelerating Crisis/Innovation Cycles: Transcenden (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnxpqecbpOU) 15:15 - Power Structures and Hierarchies * Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66354.Flow) * Order vs. Disorder * Greater Than Code Episode 125: Everything is Communication with Sam Aaron (https://www.greaterthancode.com/everything-is-communication) 35:04 - Using Technology to Decentralize Social Structures: Is it possible? * Hacking Reality * Enlightenment and Transcendence * Somatics (https://www.healthline.com/health/somatics) * Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis by Stanislav Grof (https://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Emergency-Personal-Transformation-Consciousness/dp/0874775388) 01:05:19 - The Game of Capitalism * What It Means To Win; Mimicking Desires * Reorienting Around Joy, Creation, Learning, and Experiences * Self-Actualization & Community 01:09:39 - Are We Technology? * Survival of the Fittest Reflections: Tim: We as a global community, need to bring our drums to the drum circle. Chanté: How do we build decentralized guilds? Arty: 1) Breaking out of nets and creating opportunities to innovate, invent, rethink, and enable new things to happen. 2) How do we create more entrepreneurship and enable more entrepreneurial innovation to happen? Rony: Empathy, Compassion, Imagination, Freedom, Courage. BONUS: The lost classic "Fire" (from one of Rony's early bands) (https://www.dropbox.com/s/5575o58xzm2kh28/fire.wav?dl=0) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: Software is broken, but it can be fixed. Test Double's superpower is improving how the world builds software by building both great software and great teams and you can help. Test Double is looking for empathetic senior software engineers and dev ops engineers. We work in JavaScript, Ruby, Elixir, and a lot more. Test Double trusts developers with autonomy and flexibility at a 100% remote employee-owned software consulting agency. Are you trying to grow? Looking for more challenges? Enjoy lots of variety in projects working with the best teams in tech as a developer consultant at Test Double. Find out more and check out remote openings at link.testdouble.com/join. That's link.testdouble.com/join. CHANTÉ: Hey, everyone. Welcome to Greater Than Code, Episode 245. My name is Chanté Martinez Thurmond, and I am here with my friend, Tim Banks. TIM: Hey, everybody! I'm Tim Banks, and I am here with my friend, Damian Burke. DAMIEN: Hi, I'm Damian Burke and I'm here with my friend, Arty Starr. ARTY: Thank you, Damien, and I'm here with our guest today, Rony Abovitz. This is actually the second time Rony has been with us on the show. The first time we unfortunately had some problems with our audio recording. We had a really great conversation so, disappointing, but I'm sure we will have an even better conversation the second time around. Rony is a technology founder, pioneer inventor, visionary leader, and strategic advisor with a diverse background in computer-assisted surgery, surgical robots, AI, computer graphics, and visualization sensing advanced systems, media animations, spatial audio, and spatial computing XR. Rony has a strong history of creating new technology fields in businesses from the startup garage onward, including Magic Leap, the world's leading spatial computing company founded back in 2011. His new still start at Sun & Thunder he plans to launch in 2021 and prior to Magic Leap, he also founded MAKO Surgical, a medical software and robotics company specialized in manufacturing surgical robotic arm assistance technology. He is deeply into film, art, animation, music recording, AI, robotics, ethics, and philosophy. He is also a senior advisor at the Boston Consulting Group advising a small group of deeptech startups and a few Fortune 50 companies, a member of the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society, and a two-time World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer. Welcome to the show, Rony. RONY: Thank you for having me again. ARTY: It's a pleasure. So our first question we always ask on this show is what is your superpower and how did you acquire it? RONY: I think my superpower is not being able to do a podcast the first time correctly. Actually, I think I had a really good response last time, but I think the main one is I'm just like a space cadet and you could translate that into just, I have a very freewheeling imagination so I think that's always been my superpower. I could always imagine, or have a creative idea around a problem and really imagine things that don't exist, that aren't there yet. I think that's been always really helpful in anything I've done. So that's probably my main superpower. I don't know what that would look like as a superhero outfit. I think I gained a second achievement level, which is some level of insight, or intuition into knowing things, which I think it's really hard to explain, but I feel like I didn't have that. And then in college, it was a really interesting experience, which I probably won't get into a lot of detail here, but I think I gained that achievement level. I feel like I have both of those now. I feel like I leveled up and gained this insight intuition kind of thing that I didn't have before and I think those two together have been helpful. So there's probably many more achievements to unlock, but I think I got those two so far in the game. DAMIEN: You leveled up on intuition as a result of an experience in college. RONY: Yes. It was an interesting experience. I had a transcendent experience. DAMIEN: [chuckles] Well, that sounds exciting. ARTY: I think before my question was, how did you develop that? Tell us a little bit about your background. What kind of family did you come from? Was this something that you think was cultivated in childhood, or was this something that happened as you got to adolescence and then to into college? RONY: My mom's a painter. So she's an artist and she was pregnant with me walking around the campus at Kent State during the Kent State shootings and had to run away to not be shot. That was kind of there, but not there. She was an art student at Kent State at the time. I think she said to me at some point, there was difficulty in the pregnancy such they had to give her some morphine, or something. It probably got into my brain [chuckles] so probably scrambled it a little bit. I'm not sure if I had all that, but who knows what they did back then. So there's a little bit of that, but my mom's a freewheeling artist so I grew up that way. Dad passed away a couple of years ago, but always entrepreneurial, also artistic. So had this freewheeling imaginative household where no one told you, you couldn't do anything. I think that actually helped a lot. Nobody was born with a silver spoon. Both my parents were born but I was dirt poor as you could imagine. My Dad grew up in a house that had no windows so when we'd visit, my grandmother's chickens would literally fly through the window [laughs] and knock your head. When you're a kid, you think it's the greatest thing in the world. I think I swam in a bathtub that also served as the place to cheat fish. I think my Dad's mom would bring fish to the market and sell them, like a carp, or something and I thought they were my friends and didn't realize they were turning into dinner. I think that's why I became a vegetarian. So we grew up really poor on both sides. Everyone was self-made, freewheeling, and imaginative so that probably did help. CHANTÉ: Yeah. I think for myself, too. Just growing up poor helped with my imagination; I just dreamed of all these amazing things I would one day have as an adult. So I happen to think it's a superpower, too. It's pretty cool. Thanks for sharing all that. TIM: So I guess, what I'd like to know is when you're coming from that kind of background, what first was your jumpstart into using technology, or being interested in technology? RONY: I think I was always simultaneously interested in science and art at the exact same time, which is odd, which makes for a good misfit because either you're the art damaged kid in school and you hang out with the art crowd, or you're the science nerd and you hang out with – but I liked both so there's not really a good place where if you're both to hang out. Probably just being really curious about how everything works and what's going on behind the scenes. Like, why are things the way they are, trying to imagine them, but I'm not totally sure. I just sort of always was into both. That is a very good question. It's kind of asking if you're a fish, how did you get fins? I'm like, “I guess, they grew?” But I don't know, I just seem to be equally into that. Probably Star Wars, if you really get down to it. I saw Star Wars as a kid and suddenly, that's what you want to do. You want to build an X-wing, fly an X-wing, blow up the Death Star. That probably had a lot to do with it. Actually got to meet George Lucas, which was super awesome and I'm like, “You're responsible for my entire path in my life. Science and engineering, wanting to do all these crazy things. It's all your fault.” He was like, “Oh my God, don't blame me for this.” [chuckles] CHANTÉ: Wow. RONY: But no, it was in a funny way. CHANTÉ: That's funny because the last time the conversation we had, Rony, we talked about all these cool people that you've met that have influenced you and I asked you like, “Is this a SIM? How are you meeting all these amazing people?” [laughs] RONY: I'm pretty damn sure it's a SIM at this point. [laughter] Definitely a SIM. I'm very close to that. [overtalk] CHANTÉ: Become convinced now, for sure. RONY: We can get into that later, if you want. I think it's a SIM. I'm not sure who's running it right now, but it's a SIM. [overtalk] CHANTÉ: [inaudible] wanting to do that. ARTY: So with all this creativity, what were some of the first things you started dreaming about building? RONY: I think as a kid, I wanted to make a solar-powered airplane, which sounds like an odd thing, but I was weirdly into solar power. Like, I wanted solar-powered cars, I started to get solar cells from Radio Shack and soldered them up in stuff and spin motors. I'm like, “That's so cool, it's free, there's no battery needed,” and then of course, you need batteries to store it if there's clouds. But I was thinking that was really neat. It was just like this magic of sun on this thing, on this chip and suddenly, you get electricity out of it. It was like, whoa. I think my uncle gave me some Radio Shack science kit when I was really small. I started messing with it. I had a solar cell and I figured that was magical and I got really into it. I don't know why I didn't pursue that because it seems like that'd be a good thing to do today. But I was like really into in the very beginning, solar-powered, building solar-powered everything, especially solar-powered airplanes. I wanted to build some perpetually flying. Actually, I designed something that won a state science fair award that pretty much looks like later on and after that, it was a plane that I think flew across the United States, a solar-powered plane, and it was very similar design. So I was actually kind of happy I was a little bit in front of all of that, maybe 5 years or 10 years ahead of that one. ARTY: Just thinking about there's so many things like that that are magical. Just you've got this conversion of sun energy to electricity and there's so many things now we take for granted that are just kind of there like, “Oh, I have the internet in my pocket.” I feel like we've lost some bit of that wonder with taking some of these things for granted. I was talking with Chanté a little bit earlier about how dreaming gets stifled, how creativity gets stifled, and we ended up in this mode where we're doing things the way the world expects us to. We've got jobs in this path of life that we're supposed to follow and these rules, or the ways that things are supposed to be versus that passion of creativity, of discovery, of wonder, of wow, isn't this amazing that sun energy can be converted to electricity? I wonder what I could do with that. I wonder what I could build. I wonder what I could create that doesn't already exist. Where do you think that spirit comes from and is there a way that we can create more of that in our culture? RONY: It's a great question because I think there are still kids who have this experience, but I think less kids. I think it was just totally unstructured imagination, unstructured play. All my friends when we were kids – I didn't let my daughter do this, but we were like 8, 9, 10 years old, we'd grab a garbage can lid, make a sword out of a branch, and then we'd run around in the woods fighting dragons. There's no adults around, dozens of kids having some kind of like full on whatever we wanted. Like, we're just running about till almost nighttime deep in the woods like the kids from Stand By Me, the movie, or something. We got our bikes; we're riding miles away. We'd do whatever adventures we wanted. I remember a couple of friends of mine and I, we'd walk along the highway, which was incredibly stupid, collecting beer cans because we thought, “Wow, look at that, we can collect beer cans.” I don't know why. We're like 9 years old, we thought that would be a cool thing to do and we would figure it and then we'd cut them and make airplanes out of them and just craft stuff. That's probably dangerous. I won't recommend kids do that right now. But the idea of unstructured play; there's not a game, there's not something someone designed, you're not watching television. You're just running around in the world, doing stuff and your brain and your imagination have to fill in the gaps, I think that's what people really should be doing. Whereas, I think a lot of kids do this now, here's a tablet. It forces you to think in patterns; you're thinking in a certain way and that's actually scary because everyone's copy pasting the same device and running on the same popular app, or whatever and that's patterning your brain to be caught in a certain way of thinking versus this unstructured thinking, which is more rare right now, I think. DAMIEN: So that sounds like something that would be lovely to get back as an adult. Do you have any techniques? Is this something you do? Do you have ways of structuring that? [chuckles] Of getting to that unstructured play as an adult? RONY: I'm an anomaly because I don't think I ever got structured, which is, I think unfortunate. Not unfortunate, I think it's fortunate that I never got structured. So trying to think if you got caught and how would you break free. But I think I really never got caught in that net. I think I've always been like a wild fish in the ocean, but – [overtalk] DAMIEN: How do you stay out of the net? That's also something I'd like to hear. RONY: That's an interesting, I never had a job, like an actual job job. College, I started my first company and never really worked for anybody. I figured I'm unmanageable so I can't work for anybody, I might as well start my own companies. That was a saving grace because I think it would have been difficult to work for somebody. To conform and work in somebody else's system rather than to build something and try to make that a place people want to be at. But then it's weird, it's like you become the man and you're like, “Oh my God, what am I doing?” That's a whole another topic I won't get into this second. DAMIEN: But do you provide that sort of structure and patterns for people who work for you? RONY: In the beginning of all the companies I started—and I'm doing this again with a new one—it's always been freewheeling, awesome – I think the people that are beginning, that was the greatest time ever. But then as you get bigger, once you get to pass 20, 30 people, even 30 people unstructured, big, crazy, some folks start to come in and crave that structure. This is chaos, like what's going on and then you're like, “Okay, we've got to order this and we've got to processes and operating plans and all these other things,” and then next thing you know, there's 2,000 people working for you. I'm still trying to figure out how do you maintain that wonderful, free-spirited, freewheeling environment at bigger scale because at bigger scale, it feels like you've got to create all this framework and all these boxes for people to be in and processes. People are demanding it like, sometimes employees get upset that it's not there because they're so used to being in that cage for somebody else that they're not used to being free and they want to run around and go back to that cage and I'm like, “Be free,” and they're like, “No.” People who worked for me in the past will tell you that. They'll basically say it was this odd thing that I was pushing them to be more free than they wanted and then the ones who really liked it, got shunned as the things got bigger because what's that person not conforming? They're supposed to follow the procedures and why are you spending all your time with them because they're the ones that don't follow the rules. I'm like, “I don't like following the rules.” So I guess, what is a good technique? I have a recording studio, so I think playing really loud guitar helps. It lets you feel like you can like do anything. Really loud guitar through a big amp, a lot of fuzz pedals, or things like that, or you go on a long hike. We would do ocean kayaking, go a whole day ocean kayaking where there's sharks and weird stuff and some of you are far away from a computer. There's the universe and wild animals and you're back to primal nature again; you feel like you're just a wild, free spirit. I try to do that as much as possible. I think those things help, but it's hard, though and then you've got to go back on a Monday morning and there are some office space type manager asking you for TPS reports. That's really difficult. I feel bad because as the companies I've built got bigger, I probably had someone who had someone who made someone do a TPS report and it always bothered me. But it's like, you can't run at a certain size without the TPS report even though nobody knows what a TPS report is. If you don't know what it is, watch the movie but it's like why at some point you'd have someone two, or three levels below you make someone else do a TPS report? ARTY: Yeah. That's a great question. It's like who created this damn report? And why are we so coming to the demand of a report, or empirical data to move forward and work it in our life? As you were sitting there talking and everything, it brought me back to that comment I had again of Geoffrey West from the Santa Fe Institute who talked about his concept of scaling, how that happens in all things that exist in the universe. There's a ratio of scale that we can't really escape and it's an interesting phenomenon that I'm still trying to understand, but I think, Rony where I feel really kindred spirited to you is I hate to be tamed and then once I feel like we have to scale, or tame, I'm like, “Oh, this I want out of this.” Get me out of this game, get me to the new game where I get to germinate something and start it, and there's no form and I love that. I wonder, though. Somebody like you who's created all this amazing technology, aren't you the guy who could maybe make this a reality where we can create those experiences [chuckles] using technology to help us get in and out of these dreams, dates in and out of these waking and normal states that the society has locked into? RONY: Well, here's a couple things to think about from what you're saying. One of them, I have a notion of can you build a gigantic decentralized—I won't even call it a company, but a guild—of free people who are connected through blockchains? And it does not look the pyramid of structure of a company, but it's some kind of guild of artisans and we blockchain to each other and emerge and do things together? Like orcas will form packs because it's the right thing to do but there's no – well, there actually is an alpha orca so you do have a small pyramid. So it's the alpha orca have fights and then you become the ronin orca. There's a little bit of that. But is there a decentralized guild blockchain thing that could have hundreds of thousands of people that could build totally new tech platforms that are not the central power tech companies? I've always been pondering that and wondering how is that possible and every time I've thought about it, it seems like people collapse back into the same structure of the pyramid. Like they want a king, you try to create something that doesn't have a king, or a queen, and they want the king again. Why do we keep doing that? But somehow, I believe that there is a way to do that to have that democratic free-spirited thing. I think that's what the United States was founded on. Let's not have a king. Let's just have someone who's kicked out every 4 years. They're nothing special. Don't make a big deal about them. But now, 200 years later, we made that person more into a king. We give them special powers; they can do things and they don't get – they're above normal citizens. How did that fall apart? But I just keep wondering, is that possible? Because I think big tech companies reflect more of a monarchy. There is a central figure that have massive power, there's the inner court that have massive power, and then there's the serfs who all work for the central authority. It's basically, we fought against that to free ourselves of monarchies, but our companies and tech companies look more like monarchies. They could be benevolent, or not benevolent, but we still have not been able to get past that king over people thing. It perplexes me and why we keep repeating that. TIM: Well, I think there's a few things with that. You mentioned scale, like as you get bigger and as you add more people, you add more ideas and you add more notions on what the right thing to do is, or what the right way to go is. Obviously, as you do that, more folks are going to agree, or disagree on it. You're going to have various ways of opinions; you end up getting factions, or tribes, or whatever it is. Certainly, this is where people think that way, this group of people think that way, and then you introduce politics because you have to find some way to get all these folks with different ideals to agree on a common purpose, or a common goal. When you do that, once you introduce politics, then you start to introduce the notion of leadership like that. But I think it's interesting when we look at it in the guise of big tech companies and how we have these regions, a lot of this ends up coming is because of the people that ended up profiting the most off of the tech company are the ones that get to make all the decisions. It would be an interesting thing if there was a truly democratic company where everybody from top to bottom made the same amount of money, had the same amount of equity, have the same amount of say in the company. And then if you are a leadership role, it's more like maybe a strategic vision, but your CEO is going to make the same amount of money as your junior developer. Because unless you do that, you don't have a democratic, you don't function; you have a hierarchy by definition. DAMIEN: What we're talking about is power structures and every time there's a power differential, there's going to be a power structure that supports that. The reason why you said earlier when you were about talking how you were having to be like, “No, be free. There are no rules here. It's not a cage.” People resist that because they've been lied to. They say, “You don't have to stick to my rules.” All that really means is I'm not going to tell you what the rules are, which is horribly traumatizing. So until you have that equally distributed power, you're going to have that hierarchy and that structure and somebody is going to want a TPS report before they can go forward on something. RONY: Are there any examples where that's existed for some period of time, even in a small form? Like the equally distributed power, anything? DAMIEN: I've seen it in co-ops. It requires a lot of trust and the more people you involve, the more differentials you're going to find. [overtalk] CHANTÉ: And I think there are some [inaudible] in this communities. ARTY: I think scale. [overtalk] RONY: Like a small co-op. CHANTÉ: We can definitely do this. RONY: A small co-op. ARTY: Yeah. There's definitely people that are trying to do the sorts of things that you're talking about from an organizational structure standpoint, but as you've also pointed out, there's dynamics of resistance to it of it not necessarily being what people want. I mentioned this book before, Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book and the thought that comes to mind as we're talking about this dynamic of being pulled toward wanting order and structure is a big part of his thesis in the book is that we have a desire for order in our consciousness and we have a gravity toward wanting order in that chaos and disorder is uncomfortable. So when we're in that uncomfortable situation, we can learn skills to create our own order out of the disorder, to be creative, to think about ways to construct new ideas and stuff in our head and make new games. But our brain wants some kind of game to play, wants some kind of order to build around, and I feel like, we were talking about these nets that we get caught in and the way that our education system is structured, the way that we learn in school is a net in itself. We learn how to play the game of school and teach people how to follow the rules and be really good at following the rules and in playing the game that's given to you. I feel like if we want to teach people how to create order out of disorder from their own consciousness, through creative play, that we need a learning environment that is oriented toward those things so that we can get practiced at it. Being in a situation of being uncomfortable, being around people that are good at those kinds of things that we can learn how to mimic perhaps and shift those shifts, those things around that way. An acquaintance of mine, we had on the show a while back, Sam Aaron, he does Sonic Pi and he teaches little kids how to code, learn how to be a music DJ and it's the coolest thing. I was reading this post about a little 6-year-old, who was super excited about DJing it at her next birthday party coming up and she was going to get really good at DJing and mixing her own beats. She's 6 years old and I'm just looking at this how beautiful it is and that seeing that fire, that inspiration to create light up in someone, once that fire's lit, it keeps fueling itself. It keeps fueling that desire. I feel like there's something very powerful about music, because you've got some basic rules of how things work, but this huge space to create in, and almost everything we can relate in various ways to music. What if we changed the way that we educated to focus on some of those musical principles and this could be something that's adult learning, too is how can we learn to riff together in a musical context and learn how to do jazz? RONY: That's very cool. DAMIEN: What I heard is that we should all start jazz bands. TIM: Yeah, same. RONY: That's all good with me. TIM: Let's see if they get too big, then you have to have a conductor. [laughter] DAMIEN: Like a quartet, big band at most. No orchestra. [overtalk] TIM: You see, big band has to have a conductor, right? That's one of the things. DAMIEN: I have played in a big band without a conductor. TIM: I was in a couple of myself. We'll talk about that one later. RONY: Well, actually that's a good thing because if you have a trio, or a quartet, everyone can go and it somehow works. You all have to pay attention, but if you try to do that with 10 people, 20, 50, a 100, it turns into noise. DAMIEN: I also think it depends on what kind of music you're making. A symphonic orchestra generally needs a conductor, at the very least a concert master who can wave the bow and get people on time. But I've been in drum circles of 300 people that made beautiful music with absolutely no leadership, or any sort of control like that. TIM: Well, I think the difference is that in the drum circle, I don't think there's a preconceived plan that's being executed. It's all improv, right? It's all made on the fly and then you pick a direction. I think it's different when you have a set task, or a thing you're going to accomplish. In the case of a symphony, or any other thing where we have we're not making up music on the point on the spot, we have a set score. We know what notes they're going to be and we're going to be done. I think there's space for both of those. There's space to say that we're just going to see what comes out of this and then there's another bullet that says, “Okay, well we have to do this.” One is very much creative and I love that. The other part is executive. You don't want, for example, surgeons to just go in there willy nilly and just saying, “We're just going to see what we find and just do whatever.” There has to be a plan. There has to be something that gets executed. Any kind of engineering feat, it has to be done with a plan and structure and different things that have to be done at certain times. So I think there's a place for both in any healthy culture and society where people that create and people who design certainly should not be encumbered by definitions of structure. But if you're going to create, or design something that's going to withstand a hurricane, there obviously needs to be some concerns about a structure and how things are put together. RONY: But let me give you guys a comment on power structure and I'm a bit of anomaly because I've always been super uncomfortable being in that alpha power spot, but I've always had to be there to build a company. Some of them got quite big and the bigger they got, the more uncomfortable I was because I didn't think a human being should have that power. By the way, the question about smart people and billionaires, I've met a bunch of those billionaires that you've mentioned, I've also met some incredibly smart people; they're not always directly correlated. There may be a smart billionaire, but it's not one-to-one—a billionaire who's someone who's highly optimized at a certain function. Some of those brilliant people I know are super poor and they have built-in things in their mind that they don't want to do the things that they might see oppress others to get to a certain place. They just don't. So they're more happy in their lot making $25,000 a year, or whatever they're doing. But I think what's interesting about trying to not have a power structure is how people just default go into this algorithm in people's brains. I'll give an example. When one of my companies was small, I had a largely empty office and a couple cool collectible vinyl toy things. I love weird, those kind of animate vinyl toys and then just Star Wars thing. I just have a couple of my shelves. When people would visit, like new employees, or partners, they would bring something and put it on the shelf like an homage offering. I'm like, “That's weird,” and then the more that people thought now it was required to bring one of those and make an offering and leave it on my shelf. So a few years later, my shelves are covered the hundreds of these offerings and I'm like, “What in the heck is going on here?” I didn't ask anyone to do it, but people felt like if you're going to go see the alpha wolf, you have to bring them a dead rabbit and leave it as an offering and it was just amazing. It's like all this stuff and I would give most of it away, but it was really weird how everyone has this algorithm that they feel like if you're going to go visit the alpha leader, you've got to bring a gift, an offering, a moose, whatever you happen to have caught. Even when we dealt with people from outside the US, it was even more extreme like you'd have this whole formal exchange; you had to bring them a gift and they would bring you this gift. I was like, “What is going on here?” This is thousands of years of evolutionary biology wired into people's brains making them do things. I'm like, “I don't want to be that!” Like, that's not what we're doing. We're totally building a different social order, no one's paying attention to me at all, and everyone is just like, “Nope, we have this code built into our brain and we're just going to do that.” I found that to be really strange to the point where I build two decent sized companies and each time, I felt like I had to throw the ring into the volcano like in The Hobbit, or Lord of the Rings, because if you don't, it just kind of gets to you. I felt like if it started to get to me, I just need to throw it into the volcano and start over again. Hand the ring to someone else and go back to base camp and try it again, which I'm doing now. But I found that both times I built successful tech, but not the nonhierarchical culture I had in mind at the beginning, which I'm trying to do now again. I'm not sure how do you fight human biology? I'm like, “Don't do that. Stop bringing the moose and the rabbits by! What on earth are you people doing?” and they just keep doing it. I don't know what it ism or why, but it's like, we are hard wired as humans to follow an alpha wolf. In fact, the alpha two and threes feel like they actually have to challenge you in a tribal fight and if you don't put them down and show the rest of the wolf pack that you're the alpha, then they'll try to eat you. It's like what is going on? But that is what happens at every company, in every country, in every government, and it's so weird that we have not evolved past the way we were thousands and thousands of years ago. CHANTÉ: Is it possible, Rony the endeavor that you're working on now to use technology, to dream of new futures and realities that does decentralize social structures in the sense – because my feeling is the collective consciousness is why we're doing this. Like, we can't escape ourselves. So if we give ourselves new experiences and we know what it feels like to have decentralized collectivism, then we may choose to build new cities, families, and companies in a decentralized structure. Because that power and oppression, it feels like a human instinct that we can't escape it. but I'm just not convinced that that's real. I think it's been something, a story, a narrative that we've been stuck in. So I think we have to build a new story, or create a new story and a new reality and I think technology can allow us to do that and people like you and everyone on this call, we can do that together. ARTY: Yeah. I was thinking about that, too of software gives us this ability of reality construction and if we've learned certain ways of doing things, if we operate in a certain net in a certain rails playing certain games and we don't have a template for anything else so that outside of that is just disorder and unstructured and unknown, then we're going to cling to the familiar structure. We're going to cling to what feels safe and known and predictable, and that we know how to operate. I feel like the way to escape that is to create an alternative that offers structure of a system that gives you a set of rails that reorients things and creates opportunities for creativity, for entrepreneurship, for ideation, but creates new structures where those things can thrive. I don't think we're going to get away from technology, but we can reinvent our interface with technology. We can reinvent the shape of our social software infrastructure and how we relate to one another through technology. I feel like to overcome that gap, what needs to happen is a vision, really, is the putting together a vision of what that might look like such that we can build it. RONY: I spent the last decade going really deep into that, about as deep as you could possibly imagine, and it started out actually a few years earlier, 2008, 2009, working on this call it a Miyazaki film world project with my friends at Weta and we spent a few years on that. And then one of the things I felt was if you're going to – I won't get into the details of the project is actually something Sun & Thunder will hopefully be releasing. But if I was going to go into this idea of hacking into reality, what is that? I actually needed to go do that in order to be credible about making a story about it, or making a film about it, or film world. So I'm like, “Okay, I'm going to go on a tangent.” So I started a tech company with the idea that we're going to be reality hackers. Like, we're going to figure that out and we're just going to go all the way. We're going to hack into the visual cortex, we're going to go full on, and it was amazing because all these people, like people who created The Matrix and Neal Stephenson from Snow Crash, all these people started showing up. And then some of the very early stuff we did, we started to go really there, like really deep. That's stuff that you can productize, but we're starting to unlock things about how the human brain works in our connection to this weird connection between the physics and how our brain constructs reality. What does that mean and how do you actually get in there and actually hack it? We did some stuff that freaked me out so much. Everyone in the early days was like, ‘Whoa, maybe we need to take a step back.” I think that's actually what happened. We had those whoa moments. “Let's take a step back and let's not unlock full atomic fusion right now. Let's do something that you can actually maybe ship,” but we're going to places that were not ready for as a species. We really had those moments where we would see over the horizon. That was intense. One of the things that made me walk back and I think a couple of early folks that we just felt like human software, our human biology is totally unprepared for this. Like, we're not prepared to hack reality. We are not equipped. We're not ready as a species. We would screw things up beyond all belief. Look how badly we're doing on social media, which is so thin and almost nothing. When I think of digital realities, whether it's AR, spatial computing, VR, those are simulation training grounds for the real thing. It scares me when people are talking about neural implants in the brain like, no, no, no, we are not ready for that. In our SIM testing on social media and digital reality, we're not doing a good job. We're creating fairly awful places with occasional cool places. I thought, “Okay, we're going to unleash this like Renaissance of art and imagination.” It's like, no, that's not what's going on. It's going on in little pockets. But for every art and Renaissance thing, you've got like nine, or ten horrible things. Some things I can't even mention. I used to tell our investors, “Someone's going to make trillions of dollars doing the things we refuse to do” because the level of control and weird stuff you can pump into someone's brain. There are companies I'm not naming; you could imagine why they're spending $6 to $8 to $10 billion a year trying to conquer digital reality. Why they have reality labs. You should be really frightened about why they're doing it. L ARTY: Right. RONY: I started out with a notion of can there be this real creative imagination Renaissance and I actually believe there can. But at the same time, it's like every time you have a superhero, there's something else like the super villain appears. It's a law of the universe and I feel like the more we were trying to do good in hacking reality, you would have bad equally emerging and equal strength, maybe sometimes even larger. I don't know what's going on, but it did get me to take a step back and wonder. The human software is totally unprepared and so backwards. Like we're running Dos 1972 right now, or even worse than that. Our software is like Middle Ages and it's so easily manipulatable and triggerable and all kinds of horrible – the human, we have not transcended. We are not where we need to be collectively. That doesn't mean there's not individuals, or groups who are transcending and becoming more enlightened and evolving in a good way. But the net human condition seems to be quite in the bad place right now. It actually scares the crap out of me. So I did take a step back from the notion of I don't know we're ready and maybe we just need to take a breath and figure out our social system, our human biology, like what's going on because we are evolving at so much slower pace than the rapid accelerating pace of our tech capabilities. We're building insane tech. AI will pass us all in this decade, like, what the heck are we doing to ourselves? We're unleashing things in the world we have no idea and society is not capable of predicting. The nonlinear event impact is really scary and we just keep doing it. I don't mean to be all pessimistic, but I think the hope of this creative Renaissance is something that's a beacon—it should be a beacon for some—where you're free, you're decentralized, you're not controlled by this monarchal power. But too much of the other side is actually winning right now, too much of the other side is dominating everything because they're playing the game that I think our brain is wired to. We're wired to a pyramid structure. The people who realize that manipulate it, they take advantage. They do all the things; they've figured out the social psychology, they've hacked the code of the human brain, and they're making tons of money doing it because they know how we are. I don't know if that's just how it will be forever, or is there going to be an actual enlightenment for people. That made me take a step back from hoping that everyone will just have this inner artist wake up and now, I'm not so sure. CHANTÉ: I love that question now. I think it makes me go back to something I continue to say, it's just like, do we get off of our technologies, or get off of the things that we believe connect us? Because we are ourselves technologies so, do we need to be constantly manipulating something else? There's a lot of power in just being together in real time, in real life together and I think if we can go back to some of that, we can remind ourselves because—and this is coming from somebody who spent a lot of time and money in meditation and self-transcendence. Now I'm at this place where I'm like, “Do I need to transcend, or should I just be right where I am because the past, the present, and the future are actually all one and should I pay attention to who I am and what I am and where I am a little bit more versus constantly thinking in the future? This is so hard for me because I'm a futurist. I love to think and imagine new possibilities. But I just wonder. That's kind of one of the mantras I've been sitting with in the last six months, or so. RONY: Thinking of what you're saying, we had a pretty high-level of Tibetan Buddhist who built one of the great temples in Tibet where monks meditate and they built it from memory. There's no architectural plans and he was one of the leaders that he came by and I showed him some stuff we were doing. It was maybe 5, 6 years ago. He's like, “That's amazing and you're cheating.” He goes, “We take years to learn how to do that, but we could do more than what you're doing. You're just level jumping.” I get what you're doing, I understand it but you're taking the elevator, the sky tram up the mountain, and there's something about – but you're not equipping people to know,” or. I didn't really understand what he was talking about at the time. I think I have a better grasp now, but we're not spiritually ready for what we can do and they spent a lot of time doing this. They have their own virtual reality. In fact, it was interesting was I said, “We're not really building technology. We're simply trying to unlock what's in the human brain, which is an amazing computer, best GP in the world is the visual cortex. Best display is our brain. That's all there, we're just trying to tap into it.” He's like, “We do the same thing using different tech, but you're kind of cheating.” I thought that was interesting. It's like you don't really have the satisfaction of climbing up to mid base camp on Everest; you just took the elevator and suddenly, you're there. But your lungs aren't ready. You didn't climb the mountain. You're not fit. I feel like technology is doing that for us. Spiritually, we're just not ready. CHANTÉ: Yeah. I spend a lot of time in somatics. I'm in a couple of somatic communities and we talk a lot about those somatic reps. There's a lot of wisdom in experiencing something firsthand and witnessing somebody else do it alongside you in that community because we learn that way, too. If you're picking up on other people's energetic vibes and feel, you collectively whoever's in that space, in that room, It is something that cellularly somatically, you will become a little bit wiser from. I can't describe it. It's only when I'm in a collective with my yogis who we're doing deep breathing together, or we're doing POS in a practice together and there's just this thing that I experience that I've never had on any drug, or any kind of tech, using technology, what do I put on a headset, or something? I can't describe it. It feels out of this world and it's almost like only those of us in that room would ever be able to describe it and maybe indescribable, but it's powerful. So I keep going back to that. RONY: One of the things he told me was, “Okay, you'll help people realize that reality is just an illusion, but are they equipped to understand that?” That will just freak them out, they're going to break down, and now what? When you actually really get that, when you really understand like how reality is constructed, if you go deep and get into that, which we had to do to build some of the things we were doing, it does weigh heavily on you because you're like, “What the heck is actually going on?” A lot of things you were taught growing up that your parents, or grandparents might believe and then you're – where you might read in a book and you're suddenly facing that the reality you know is not stable; it's liquid, it's hackable, it's editable. You're like, “What is going on?” That kind of opening up of your mind is an interesting place, but no one's equipped to really go there. You almost got to step back and say, “I'm going to forget I saw that. Let me just go back and watch a football game,” and it's way easier to go back and play X-Box right now. [laughs] DAMIEN: Those sorts of discoveries have been happening for all of recorded history and I think farther. People get there via gyms, they get there via sitting on a mountain in the modus pose and sometimes, they come back and go, “Okay, I'm just going to pretend that it's real. [laughter] And sometimes, they don't and die under a Bodhi tree, whatever. But these are things that these are not new realizations, or discoveries. RONY: No, they're not. But what weird is that the vast majority of people have not had that. CHANTÉ: Right. RONY: Vast majority like, think about how many people in this country are not even on the first step of any form of enlightenment. The actions they take, the things they believe, the people they vote for, you're like, “They're so orthogonal and distant from that.” So you do have pockets of people who've had enlightenment and transcendence over the last thousands years, but it's a fractional minority and that's what's like why are the rest stuck? Where is everybody's stuck on and why? DAMIEN: Because they want to be. CHANTÉ: Well, I don't know. [overtalk] DAMIEN: Ego death is death. Nobody wants death. CHANTÉ: We're programmed to be. I think we're conditioned and makes me think, too also Stanislav Grof, I'm not sure if you all know him, a famous transcendent, or transpersonal kind of. RONY: What's his last name? CHANTÉ: Stanislav Grof talks about the spiritual emergency. I'll drop the link here. Really interesting, too and did a lot of holotropic breathwork to get people through transcendence and used a lot of other, I think drugs and synthetics to have those transcendental experiences. But talks a lot about the spiritual emergency and I think you're right, Rony talking about when we have this realization that oh my God, what is reality? [chuckles] Because reality is something that we all can define differently and even this is something that I think quite a bit about what the future of work and technology and all of us coming together, this convergence of who am I without that role, without that title? Who am I without my computer and without my phone with the internet in my pocket? I don't know that we've spent enough time examining who we are going in. We're always looking out and I think we have to come back into ourselves to be home and I'd like to see and I am trying to do more of that, trying to cultivate those experiences with the communities that I run circles with, or the things that I have influence on is just, let's go back into ourselves because there's so much power there. DAMIEN: I talk about this as the high school basketball version of reality. If you've ever been to a high school basketball game, championship, league championship, whatever, and you got the crowds yelling and screaming and everybody's enthused and excited about what's going on. If you were to go down to center court and wave your hands and go, “Hey, hey, hey! Hey everybody, everybody, whoa, whoa, none of this matters.” That's really rude. You're right it doesn't matter. It's high school basketball, but we have chosen to make it matter because that's what makes the game. If you don't care about the rules, you don't have a game. If you don't care about the characters, you don't have a movie. If you don't care about the desk and the computer, you don't have a job. So we make these decisions. We can see through it, if we choose to and see that it's an illusion, it doesn't really matter. But if that's what you're here for, go for it. Have fun. If that's not – RONY: Here's a question, just because it's an illusion, does it mean it doesn't matter? DAMIEN: Exactly. RONY: Actually, just a hint at that. We made this digital person, her name was Micah, and people's reactions to her were unbelievable. They began to have relationships and we had to change behavior code around Micah and if you actually broke her personal space, she would leave. She'd walk away and actually open up a door in a wall and disappear. If you behave badly around her, you would lose access. We had to create this social code of conduct because people were – it was odd. I won't get into all of it. But then we fixed that and it was just interesting that people would want to be with her because she would gaze into your eye and pay attention to you. Looked amazingly real, but almost hyper real, like the most real person who was totally focused on you and that attention level from this illusion made people feel good. Even though she is an illusion, that feeling was real and reality is illusion anyway so is she just as real as anything else, or was something going on? It was kind of odd, like is what you feel, or what you carry with you actually that thing anyway, even if it's all an illusion? DAMIEN: And you get to decide that for yourself with and among your culture and your peers, your group. ARTY: Well, I think joy matters for its own sake. Connecting with one another, having fun, experiencing joy, it's a reason to live, it's a reason to be. And if we're playing a basketball game together, it's fun. The people that are in the crowd, enjoying the game and getting involved with it emotionally, too, it's fun and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with having fun and enjoying those experiences and then being meaningful for their own sake. If we have an experience with a digital person and figure out ways to have some feeling of connection, of being paid attention to, of being listened to, there's definitely some risks with regards to dynamics of attachment and just messing with us as humans that I think are definitely of concern. There's just risks with creating emotional love attachments to digitalness that I think is unexplored, unpredictable riskiness because heartbreak is a real phenomenon experience that can be devastating. That aside, I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with experiencing good feelings from those things happening in our lives. TIM: I just wonder, though what does it say about the human condition when with 7 and a half billion people on the earth that we need to be with, we would think that we need to create a digital person with which to interact? There are so many of us out there with which we could be interacting and probably should be interacting. We've gotten this far as a species without needing to have an artificial person. [overtalk] DAMIEN: Well, we have our emotional people. We have our pet canines, we have the robot people, people make friends with Roombas. Before that, people made friends with stars in the sky. They'll look back to Orion and that's Ra, Ra loves me and so on. TIM: Sure. DAMIEN: It's the same relationship we have with other human beings. TIM: To some extent, but we were still, the person who was having that relationship was the one who actually defined what that person is, who that was, was essentially the imagination. With an artificial person, or artificial intelligence, you don't have that; someone else is deciding that. So would you want to have that type of interaction? I feel like we could probably, as a society, do way better of devoting our resources to improving the human condition among each other by interacting with each other and understanding each other's hopes and dreams and heartbreaks and struggles than if we were going to spend the resources and the time to develop an artificial person with which to interact. If I think of what we want to do to help people, we want to help everyone to help the human condition, to help and just improve lives and create joy around people? I feel like spending toil creating an artificial person is a fool's errand to that end. DAMIEN: Well, what you're describing would be more effective, but it's outside of our skillset. [chuckles] We need George Lucas for that. RONY: Let me agree, but disagree on one thing, I'll give you a couple examples. Imagine your family has, let's call it an artificial person who's with your family for hundreds of years and is the keeper of the cumulative wisdom of your great, great, great grandparents and is that wise uncle, or aunt, or grandparent that just has the whole history of your family all the way through and can be pulled up and is that kind of totem with the family all the way. It's just an example, something a human being can't do, but could be interesting. It's like we keep photo albums. Now we have video albums of family. What if you had almost like a shaman of the family who you could talk to and it could give you the accumulated wisdom of all your ancestors? Wouldn't that be kind of interesting? TIM: We've had that accumulated wisdom passed down without having the demonstrable technological privilege of being able to afford to purchase not only an artificial person, but the means with which to property to keep that artificial person going. They've had books and scrolls, they had cultural passed downs, they've had just word of mouth passing down these stories that have been great and rich stories for those of us who are descendants of slaves. I know who my family members were not because they were written down anywhere, not because of any technology preserved, but when they were preserved through word of mouth. Linnaeus was written in Bibles somewhere. So we have that and we have the stories behind that, that to me, it speaks to why carrying those things forward is important, but it also speaks to that even if such technology existed back then, it would still be only to the very, very privileged. I think that we need to acknowledge that with a lot of the things we're talking about, talking about why people haven't become enlightened, it is definitely, almost certainly an essential clue that you have the time and the ability to be able to spend time enlightening yourself versus trying to survive. I think if we spend the time to improve everyone's conditioned to where survival is not a struggle, then we will see much more enlightenment. We would actually see, I think, a dramatic leap forward in what we're capable of as a culture and as humanity. But we spend time shooting billionaires in the space instead. RONY: When you say moving people from survival not being a struggle, what is that level that you think everyone is beyond the day-to-day struggle and is in that place? What does that mean you think across our collective country, or countries? TIM: I know for me, I have been in a place where I didn't know where my next meal was coming from and I haven't had that worry in decades. I don't think any of us here probably have worried about really, are we going to eat today? Are we going to have a place to live today? Maybe we've had those struggles before, but right now, we're five of us sitting around here talking on the internet. Those are probably not our struggles. But there are people in this world that we can all imagine, we have folks that don't have that they are wondering, like, am I going to have the lights one day in the country we are on that only has the power on for 4 hours a day as our food going to spoil? There are various conditions under which people struggle, I think if we could get a baseline and just have a baseline opportunities where people have power, they have access to clean water, they have access to healthcare, they have access to what we define the basic needs of food, health, power, access to the rest of the world via the internet as a baseline so that when they're not concerned with what we take for granted as the basic things. Like, I know if I get sick, there's a hospital I can go to. I don't know how much could it cost, but I can go right now and I can ask the hospital. To have those kinds of things handled allows people the privilege to be able to really then look beyond the essence of struggle, taking care of the animal brain, and we can now look beyond those things. We can now say, “Hey, what does it mean now?” They can examine the condition a lot better when they're not hungry. I feel like for us, these things are all great to talk about, but I think if there's a place where I'm going to turn my attention, if I can, beyond the basics of feeding my family, I would love to do that and then see what the world becomes in 50 years, or a 100 years when so many more people are freed from having the struggle of survival and we have now the point where we talked about before, where now we're all equal people in this society of the globe and now we all have our equal ideas that we can contribute to moving us forward instead of so many of us just trying to stay alive. RONY: I'll tell you what's interesting. I agree with you. The thing that I wonder about first of all, I think it would be great if there is a way – by the way, I think technologically, there is a way to get everyone on the planet out of their survival mode. I really think we have the smarts, the capabilities, the resources to actually do that. Why we can't organize to do that, I'm not sure, but I totally believe we can. There's zero reason. In fact, I was at this thing in 2005, it was the World Economic Forum where it's just the biggest billionaires and people that run the countries, the world, they get together. I was there as a technology pioneer. So every year, they'll pick a number of startup people and they want you to co-mingle with the people that run the biggest things on the planet. It was a very weird experience. But one of the things they were talking about was this issue, how do we solve that and I'm just sitting there going, “All of you in this effing room could actually solve this today. Right now. You really could.” There's meetings, there's dinners, people are talking about it. I'm like, “That's good that you're doing, but you literally can. All of you have the means to do it.” Like, where is the – but they didn't. They didn't do it, but they were talking about doing it. I'm like, “Do you like talking about doing it more than doing it?” So that was one thing. I don't know why we haven't able to organize, but the other piece is my grandparents, my great-grandparents, everyone was as dirt poor as you can imagine. But they were more spiritual and transcendent and enlightened and that as we got up, I look at my cousins, everyone's struggled and then my parents did a little better and we did a little better. People seem to be less concerned about becoming enlightened and improving and more concerned about what's the next car they're going to buy and we do need to bring everyone to that baseline, I totally agree. But I haven't seen it make people get spiritually better, get themselves together more. It's more of they go down a different path of just wanting more cars, more things, and less enlightened. It's kind of weird. I don't know why. In fact, the more money, maybe the inverse proportion that the whole enlightenment, it's a weird phenomenon. Not that you want people to be impoverished like, we want to pull people out of that. I think that's important. But as you go to the other side, you almost zap that part of your brain away. You have too much money, it makes you not sensitive anymore to what's happening in the world. ARTY: There's this game of capitalism that is this game of business of how much money can we make and you see different folks at different tiers of playing these various games, whether you're in the workforce and you're thinking about how do I get the highest paying job and be able to buy a nice house and there's a set of rules and thinking of how to excel in that. Then you've got this world of investment and just playing at another level of abstraction. But in both of those dynamics, there's this game and these rules and this idea of what it means to win that seems to anchor people's thinking and drive. And then as we learn from others, what it means to win and we see other people being successful in that and they go and buy a new fancy car and then we're like, “Whoa, they want a fancy car. Well, I want a fancy car, too.” So we mimic these desires from other folks in our culture at whatever game we're fascinated by and I feel like some of those things are some of the fundamental things that need to shift is these game mechanics that we're incurring around. One of the things from the Flow book is Csikszentmihalyi talks about how symbols are deceptive and they have a way of distracting us from the realities they're supposed to represent. So there's these symbols of things that we chase—a better job, a bigger house, more money, et cetera—and these symbols are things that are supposed to make us happy and then we end up chasing the symbol. Often, people that have all kinds of money playing these games, doing all this stuff, they still haven't found a way, even with all these things, to find happiness, to find joy in their lives. I feel like if we can learn and reorient around the experience of joy, the experience of creation, of creating with other people, of learning how to have and how to experience these really cool highs in life and turn those kinds of experiences into the goals that we have, that maybe we can break free of the chains of things that we play of what it means to win, what it means to win at life. This is effectively what we're talking about here. CHANTÉ: I was going to say, as you were describing that, it's like okay, then how do we rebuild – maybe not rebuild as a word – it's how do we cultivate a culture amongst those of us who are interested

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244: Making Peace and Creating Trust with Brianna McGowen

The Virtual Coffee Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 4, 2021 56:22

01:52 - Brianna's Superpower: Intense Empathy and Feeling Deeply * Octavia Butler: Parable of the Sower (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Sower_(novel)) 06:28 - Practicing Acceptance vs Resignation * Making Peace Without Giving Up * Problems/Tasks vs People * Providing Alternate Narratives * Delicious Democracy (https://www.deliciousdemocracy.com/): Making Things a Pleasurable Experience for All 12:04 - Delicious Democracy: A Creative Advocacy Lab (https://www.deliciousdemocracy.com/) * Biomimicry (https://biomimicry.org/what-is-biomimicry/) * Creative Ways to Form Grassroots Coalitions * Online Town (https://theonline.town/) * Door Knocking * Reinforcement 17:14 - Community-Owned AI * Merging Humans with Algorithms; Technology with Government * Platform Co-Op Conference (https://platform.coop/events/conference2021/) * What is Ownership? * Mastodon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon) * DisCO.coop (https://disco.coop/) 24:51 - Trust * Trustless = Antihuman * “Building Trust” by Robert C. Solomon & Fernando Flores (https://www.amazon.com/Building-Trust-Business-Politics-Relationships/dp/0195161114/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=%E2%80%9CBuilding+Trust%E2%80%9D+by+Robert+C.+Solomon+%26+Fernando+Flores&qid=1627492322&sr=8-1) * The Industrialization of Trust * Confidence Levels * Working Families Party (https://workingfamilies.org/) 40:41 - Outcomes > Outputs * Measurements of Success * Measurement Theory (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/measurement-theory) * Proxy Measures (https://centerforgov.gitbooks.io/benchmarking/content/Proxy.html): All Measures Are Proxy Measures 46:56 - Equitism (https://codetomove.com/manifesto.html) * User-Centered Design (https://www.usability.gov/what-and-why/user-centered-design.html) Reflections: John: Unique approaches to door knocking: Changing the script. Casey: 1) All measures are proxy measures. 2) Thinking about how growth mindset and outcomes not outputs relate. Damien: Being able to work with nonbinary is the only way to deal with things like trust and confidence levels. Brianna: 1) All measures are proxy measures. 2) Meandering conversations! This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: Software is broken, but it can be fixed. Test Double's superpower is improving how the world builds software by building both great software and great teams and you can help. Test Double is looking for empathetic senior software engineers and dev ops engineers. We work in JavaScript, Ruby, Elixir, and a lot more. Test Double trusts developers with autonomy and flexibility at a 100% remote employee-owned software consulting agency. Are you trying to grow? Looking for more challenges? Enjoy lots of variety in projects working with the best teams in tech as a developer consultant at Test Double. Find out more and check out remote openings at link.testdouble.com/join. That's link.testdouble.com/join. JOHN: Welcome to Greater Than Code, Episode 244. I'm John Sawers and I'm here with Damien Burke. DAMIEN: Hi, I'm Damien Burke and I'm here with Casey Watts. CASEY: Hi, I am Casey and we're all here with our guest today, Bri McGowen. Bri is the Chief Technology Officer of Delicious Democracy. She is a developer, poet, data scientist, advocate, and modern dancer passionate about intersecting worlds, developing community-owned AI, and building Equitism. Welcome, Bri! So glad we have you. BRIANNA: Hello! Happy to be here. CASEY: So Bri, our first question for guests is always the same. It's what is your superpower and how did you acquire it? BRIANNA: It's both, my superpower and my kryptonite. It's both, a strength and also the thing that will keep me up at night, but it's just the science fiction author, fantasy author, Octavia Butler wrote Parable of the Sower and the main character, Olamina, is what's called a sharer and a sharer is basically someone who can see someone's pain and experience it as if it's their own, which is a whole other level than empathy. But I think maybe my superpower is just intense empathy to the point where I will actually physically not be okay if I experience, or hear, or see someone in pain, or in need. And then I think it's the thing that is my Achille's heel, too because sometimes I'm feeling helpless, or I don't have a good path to help someone. It'll just keep me up at night, honestly. So it's both my superpower. I feel good that I have this ability to feel deeply, but also, it's hard to sometimes draw emotional boundaries. [laughs] CASEY: I love Octavia Butler, too. BRIANNA: Me too! CASEY: How did you get that power? When did you realize you had it maybe? BRIANNA: As a kid maybe? I don't know. I can't pinpoint it, but I know that maybe that's what drove me to do a lot of advocacy in my teen, early adult years is because I wanted to not feel helpless all the time. Yeah, I don't know the moment I realized I had that power, I guess. CASEY: Well, that's an interesting answer too. DAMIEN: I love the concept that your superpower is also a weakness; it feels so true to the superhero genre, which I'm a big fan of, or even the [inaudible]. That which makes you extraordinary is also what destroys you. BRIANNA: I don't know. I feel like I knew more about the superhero world in silos. [laughs] I feel like I get by. [laughs] JOHN: You feel like the opposite can also be true and if it's something that I like to think about when I'm thinking about adverse and traumatic events that happen to people, and then maybe you grew up in a terrible environment, that can really affect you through the rest of your life. But if you can take the coping skills that you have to learn in order to make it through, those coping skills can make you, for example, really empathetically, because you had to pay attention to what everyone was feeling around you in order to stay safe. But that does make it so that you can pay attention to other people to that degree to be really tuned into what they're feeling. So you can even take that burden and turn it into a superpower as well. BRIANNA: Yeah, totally. So I was helping co-lead a team a couple months ago and I think that's honestly what makes me a good leader, team leader, is because I'm very much attuned to – even like during scrums, I can just hear something in someone's voice and I'm like, “Hey, what was that?” Like, “What is the closed captioning of what you're trying to say there?” I sometimes find it maybe I'm overly checking in, but also, during the lockdown, I found that to be actually very helpful. So it's trying to balance that, but I think that's also why I feel good at leading things is because I can also use that burden sometimes to be persuasive and make arguments for people to also get them to feel and see things and have a paradigm shift of sorts. DAMIEN: I can definitely relate to that as a leadership skill. I'm the product lead for a product where I know the least about it and my opinion matters the least. [laughter] I know the least and my opinion matters at least, and that's what makes me a good leader. I'm forced to listen because I don't know anything and so, being able to have that naturally is where you're always listening and you're always aware of what's happening with people, that would be really powerful. BRIANNA: Yeah. I also just go back to the boundaries of, I said a little earlier, the input feed. When to be able to move forward, or practice acceptance. That's, I think the one thing I've been doing lately is trying to practice more acceptance of things without being resigned. CASEY: Oh, that's tricky. DAMIEN: Can you elaborate on that distinction between acceptance and resignation? BRIANNA: Yeah. Okay. So for me, it's between the finite and infinite games that are at play in the world. Finite being something that you play to win and infinite games being you play to continue play. I tend to think of resignation as a give up, as a place where you abandoned hope and it's a very finite way to experience, I think the world, because I always believe in change and new perspective and that's very easy to say. Sometimes, it's very painful, but acceptance is maybe accepting where things are in the moment without feeling strung-out and to keep pushing for an outcome, but maybe changing how you play the game, or changing what outcome you even want. Acceptance to me just feels like making peace without giving up. DAMIEN: I love that. To me, it dovetails with the connection, or the distinction between past and future. The past will not change; it will always have been what it was and so, that's something to accept. The future has not yet been written and so, we're not resigned to what we think it might be, or fear it might be. BRIANNA: Yeah. CASEY: That sounds just right to me and what you were saying, but I was picking up Bri. Acceptance is about accepting the past and resigning would be accepting the future such that you're not going to work on it any. I feel like you've got it more. I know it's not your many sentences, but I see this paradigm. BRIANNA: [laughs] I think there's also maybe nuance between problems, or tasks versus people. Sometimes practicing acceptance of where people are. Maybe there's a lot of misinformation around and you're maybe expanding a lot of energy trying to dispel, or refute when maybe you need to practice acceptance of understanding where people are versus instead of being resigned and instead of being like, “Oh, that's just where they are. They'll never change, blah, blah, blah,” practicing acceptance of where they are and being curious about what could be that thread, or narratives that might change someone's perspective. I see this all the time. So I'm saying this as if it's a thing that happens a lot, which I have no idea, but in my experiences of even in the workplace with coding, or in advocacy, to me, it's never like, “Oh, these people are forever this way.” It's like, “Okay, that's where they are now,” and it really is sometimes the right moment, the right person, the right dollar amounts even that might change someone's mind. So that's always interesting to me. I don't accept people not growing no matter how old you are. JOHN: Yeah. That reminds me of something. I think Arnold Caplan had a talk about where you were saying that if you're trying to refute maybe an idea you don't agree with, or misinformation, you can try and say, “Just stop believing that,” or “Stop thinking that spaces are better than tabs,” but they're probably not going to just stop doing it when you tell them to; they're probably going to dig in and argue against that. But if you can provide an alternate narrative that says, “Okay, that's your narrative right now, but there's this other one that is a path forward from where you currently are,” that you can just switch tracks and start believing that other narrative about how things are working, it's a much more effective than saying, “Just stop doing what you're doing” without providing the alternative to “Oh, in here is a way forward for you to think about how things are.” I always thought that was a really useful distinction and way of thinking about how to work with people. BRIANNA: Totally. The worst thing is someone entrenching further into their worldview and becoming a rigid. I think that's always and I notice in my body whenever I feel tight, that's when I'm also the most susceptible to arrogance and being dismissive. So I totally believe that because you don't want someone to be further entrenched and my philosophy is, I'm the co-director of Delicious Democracy, which is D.C.'s creative advocacy lab, and our fundamental philosophy is figuring out ways to make things a pleasurable and enjoyable experience for folks specifically merging culture and politics. So what is that point where people who might be apathetic to politics, who feel like things will never change, what would make them feel like it's an enjoyable, or even celebratory experience to participate? That's always rule number one, don't try and just refute off at the first go. DAMIEN: You described Delicious Democracy as a creative advocacy? BRIANNA: Creative advocacy lab, yeah. DAMIEN: What does that mean? BRIANNA: So it's more because of the pandemic. Before lockdown, when we were still gathering and not worrying about the coronavirus, we did a yearlong project where once a month we would gather and we would experiment in how we gathered in spaces. Even from showing up into a space and maybe the prompt is just see everything, notice everything without saying anything to anybody and what kind of conversations can you have with that. It'd be like 30 people in a room just nodding and noticing each other without saying anything. Or it'll be an event where we did biomimicry where we were inspired by nature. There is a turtle event where how turtle peeks its head out of its shell and goes back in? So we would start with what would that look like as an actual gathering event? We'd start with two people,1-on-1 pairs, and then 2-and-2. The one-on-ones form 2-on-2s and the 2-on-2s form 4-on-4s and then keep going until it's 32-on-32, and then you would go back down, then the groups would break apart and then you go back into your 1-on-1s. Why that's important is because you're changing how you approach a space so it's not just another political event where you're expecting a panel and people are experts talking to a group of folks to receive information. It's more like everyone's an active participant and your experience is your expertise. So I think it's just a different way to approach politics that's more ground up grassroots approach and it allows for everyone to feel like they can have ownership in a movement and so, Delicious Democracy is all about experimenting with creative ways we can form grassroots coalitions. DAMIEN: That's amazing. BRIANNA: It's fun! The pandemic, we went digital. What did our digital bodies look like? There is something called online town where you can see your digital body on the screen and you can virtually meet up with people and have conversations and the further you'd get to someone, the more in-focus their video is and the more clear you can hear them in the further away, the less you'd be out of focus. So everyone was just running around talking to each other online, it was really funny. And then now we have a project called Delicious Summer where we are door knocking in specific neighborhoods and Ward 5, which is the ward I live in, asking a question what is your top local concern? It's really interesting to hear people's and then we educate them on resources they might need like mutual aid, or programs they could tap into and also, the coalitions that exist in D.C. JOHN: I love that you start door knocking with a question about what the person's concern is, rather than “I want to give you all this information, you just have to sit there and take it, which is the typical, I feel like way of doing it. So that whole drawing them out into let's take your concerns seriously and then you can connect them to what they're interested in and what they care about as a way of bringing them to into ti. I love that. BRIANNA: Yeah. It's kind of tricky where you can listen and then take what someone says and then say, “Oh, if you care about that, there's this movement happening around just that,” or something like that. It's really fun. But I agree normally when people door knock, it's usually during campaign season and it's usually when people are like really asking for someone to contribute to something in a very again, I'll say finite way usually to an end of either electing someone, or whatever and sometimes it can just feel so predatory. So this is definitely a way to flip that script and have it be a pleasurable experience for both, the doorknocker and the resident. JOHN: Yeah. In fact, I've noticed that of the few emails that I've engaged with from my senator, who I love and I love all the stuff he talks about, but the only ones I really engage with are the ones where he was just like, “What are your priorities? What do you think I should be focusing on?” and I was like, “Oh, I'd love to do that. [laughs] I will fill in this survey, sure thing.” [laughter] So it was a very different interaction than the usual either fundraising, or this is an issue I'm like, “I know it's an issue.” BRIANNA: Yeah, and I think in between election cycles is the great time to listen. So for future because like Ward 5 is having a council member; there is going to be an election literally next year. So this is a great way to listen to what folks in Ward 5 actually have as concern and connect neighbors to each other so that they can also like build some sort of community power or groups to advocate for the issues that they care about in their ward. Because I think one of the things that I'm most afraid of, and this really keeps me up at night, is just reinforcement. In data science, there's this concept of reinforcement learning where your algorithm just learns on itself and one of the things that scares me is that with technology and I guess, the biases we have in our algorithms and the way in which we even go about our logic of creation scares me because it feels like there is a certain malleability to the human that may not in an algorithm in terms of how far it goes in its learning cycle and how much effort it might take to reverse some of the things it creates. What scares me is inequities and the trauma being systematically programmed in our systems and then that being the foundation for future artificial intelligence and things like that. So I really am trying to figure out a way to merge the human with the algorithm in a not so linear way and I think one of the biggest things that I think that can be achieved is by listening to people and making policy that makes sense for people and figuring out a way to maybe merge technology with a government that works for people. There's just a lot of non-linearity in that trying to figure out, but it's not so clear. DAMIEN: Is this connected with your work with community-owned AI? BRIANNA: Yes. DAMIEN: So how does that work? What does that even mean? BRIANNA: So when I say community-owned, I think cooperative and so, like a worker-owned business and it can mean a lot of different things. So I don't want to be so prescriptive with it because I say it as a thing that is meant to be explored. But the way I interpret that is building some sort of artificial intelligence tool that can help mediate maybe burdens that can exist in a community where the community owns it as a tool rather than a private company owning it and extracting the community's data, or whatever as profit, and then the community seeing none of those benefits coming back into the community. So anything from a door knocking app that's community0owned, that'd be cool where the community can literally learn from each other and then if they want to, as a community, sell that data to developers who would love to have that data, I'm sure about who's living in what and what they want and what kind of businesses they want and whatever. That would be really cool and the community seeing profits from that back into the community, I feel like it could also be just a platform co-op, too. Anything from a website to an app, or whatever that is community owned. CASEY: What's the closest thing you've seen to have something like what you're imagining here? Do you have anything like it yet? BRIANNA: Yeah. So there's this conference called Platform Co-op and I've never been, but it's something I've wanted to go to, but I'm sure that things like this are ideas other people have, I haven't seen it personally, but I'm pretty sure it's out there. CASEY: Cool. DAMIEN: It sounds like an excellent way to get worlds intersecting and preventing that reinforcement that happens when you have bias built into people building in tech, which generates bias in tech reinforces that way. By getting more people involved, more ownership more broadly distributed, you get that community benefit from the things being built. Am I getting this right? BRIANNA: Yeah. Think of a community-owned social media app where instead of all the profits going to this very small pool of owners of say, I don't know, Twitter, or Facebook. or whatever making it to where every user can either own their own data, or their digital body, or earn profits that that app makes. That's another way to look at it too, is maybe even a community-owned social media and then what kind of rules and regulations would you want for it? It just opens a whole world of how do you govern it then? What does it mean to have ownership? What does ownership even look like? I think there's so many alternative ways that you can think of what even ownership is. So when I say community-owned AI, there's a lot of layers of how to even go about it. CASEY: The closest thing I can think of that I've used is Mastodon. BRIANNA: Yes! CASEY: The open-source Twitter. I want that. BRIANNA: Yes, it's one of them. CASEY: Unfortunately, very few people I know are active on it. I try once in a while to double post Twitter and Mastodon for those few friends that I have there, but I haven't gotten to stick there yet because the power of social networks is annoying; the monopolies already got it. the couple of different forums of it have different monopolies, I guess, long form/short form, Facebook/Twitter. BRIANNA: Oh, is Twitter short form? CASEY: Yeah. BRIANNA: Yeah. Mastodon is cool. I'm not on it, but I love the idea of it [chuckles] and that's also a problem like, how do you make it desirable for people to want to own something together as a community because it just goes back to people. People sometimes don't always get along. We're messy, messy creatures at times. So there's also a level of how do I even go about building where those relationships and building that trust? I think also another thing that I have a frustration with is this trend to build trustless systems like blockchain and whatever and I'm like, “Okay, I get it.” I understand the desire to go that way, but there's something that doesn't sit right with me about wanting a trustless system. I think building better systems where trust means something and more points where if trust is broken, the whole thing isn't broken and so, making more resilient systems, I think is worth exploring and that also looks like a DisCO and that's a distributed cooperative. So instead of decentralized, it's distributed and—they actually have a cool website you should also check it out—but they propose ways in which you can build more trust in your systems. That it's an alternative way to think of what I think blockchain could be. But right now, it's all the rave about blockchain and cryptocurrency is like, oh, it's completely decentralized and you don't have to have trust in it and it feels counterintuitive at times. CASEY: The way you're describing it makes me think of how a lot of organizations say, “Oh, we'll just use Scrum the prescribed thing,” which it says not to do actually in Scrum, but they say, “We'll just do the thing as it's prescribed and that'll fix all of our problems. We don't need to trust our employees. That would be dumb,” and then that never works out because the core of any functioning team is trust. BRIANNA: It's also so fragile. CASEY: Any community needs trust. BRIANNA: Yeah. CASEY: These large things just aren't as good, they're not large trustless. The way you put it with trustless is just so vivid to me. I hate it. That sounds terrible. BRIANNA: Sounds anti-human a little bit. It's just like, what does that even mean? DAMIEN: It is anti-human, it's an industrialization of a very human thing, but there's an amazing book. Oh God, I think it's Francisco Ferdinand. One of the premises of the book is that trust is a verb. So when you trust somebody, there's a necessity that there's a possibility of betrayal. If there's no possibility of betrayal, that's not trust and so, authentic trust is where there is a possibility of betrayal and you've acknowledged that and accepted that. We all know that it stinks when that happens so we're looking for ways to make it not happen and that's where we get the industrialization of trust, which is the basis behind cryptocurrencies, blockchain, Airbnb, FICO, [chuckles] and so many other things. JOHN: Yeah, what strikes me is there was, sometime in the past 15 years, some concept of a web of trust where you can build out a network of like, “I trust you,” and then there's a transitive trust to the people that you trust. So it was built through those social connections rather than imposed by the network, or whatever it was. I don't think it ever went where everyone was hoping it was going to go; to turn into a way of connecting people, but I think you're right, that's so alienating to have trustless environments. DAMIEN: That was absolutely a fascinating shift. That was a way of distributing trustees in public key cryptography and creating that web of trust and in theory, it was absolutely amazing. I think where it fell down beyond the fact that public key cryptography is not something humans innately understand, but also, that the trust was very binary. So it was binary and it was transitive and that's not how humans trust and nor is it a practical way of dealing with trust. CASEY: I was just playing with some speech recognition tool, Amazon's Transcribe, and I like how it had a confidence level, 0 to a 100%, for every word in the entire transcript. So I think about that now, even when another person's talking to me, sometimes they say a sentence, or a phrase that just isn't quite right and I know it and I have like only 70% confidence in that part of their sentence. Getting very granular there, or the concept under it, if I can. JOHN: Yeah, that actually reminds me. I was reading an article about how when an algorithm, or a robotic system, or something that presents data, a decision is made, “I'm about to do this. I think you should do that,” most of the time, the UX around that is, “Here's what you should do,” or “Here's what's going to happen.” Not a, “I think this is the way to go and I'm 70% confident that this is the way to go.” Giving that confidence in the decision makes humans able to parse the interaction so much more rather than, “Oh, the computer says this is the 100% exactly the right thing to do,” and then when it fails, you're like, “Oh my God, these are terrible.” But if they had said, “I think this is what we should do, but I'm only 70% confident,” then you'd be like, “Oh, okay, well, we'll see how this goes. Oh, it didn't work out. Well.” We understand how things can go and with that confidence level, it's a much more human way of understanding an action, or a choice, or a recommendation to say, “I think this is going to work, but I'm only 40% sure.” That's a very different statement than “You're going to love these new shoes, no matter what.” BRIANNA: Oh my God, totally. So one of the biggest things that I would do if I were developing some sort of tool that where I had to use some algorithm that generates a probability of what someone should do, like an owner, whoever the end user is, I always put in the confidence level and I got in trouble once because they're like, “No, this is what you should do,” and you click a button and it allows you to do it, or whatever. But I just hated that. [laughs] It's just kind of funny, one time I had an app for my partner and it's just like, whenever I'm feeling XYZ, how I want to be treated. So it's like a Quizzlet almost where it goes through a series of questions like, is it late at night? Have I had a good night sleep? Blah, blah, blah. Have you asked these things yet? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Are we at a party, or is it a quiet social gathering? It literally just goes through a couple of – and it's just 10 solid questions where I know I'll probably feel like whatever, or have I had a couple drinks, or not. It's like, “Yes, a little bit. You're wasted.” [laughs] And it then generates a series of things, or a couple of suggestions of what I would like to receive, or questions I would like to be asked, maybe just like a, “Hey, checking in,” or maybe it's, “Ask me to just dance it out,” like ask if you want to dance with me because sometimes that totally throws me off. Especially if I'm in a heated argument, if someone's like, “Will you just dance with me?” It'll totally throw me off and makes things so ridiculous, absurd, and silly. So I think that's one of the things I felt was this series of questions and then I did the backend logic of if you answered this, this and this, but this and this, and it's probably going to be this outcome. And then it gives you four choices each time with a confidence level of what percentage I might want. Is it like, “Just leave me alone, I'll be okay, whatever”? Or is it like, “Hey, maybe the space isn't working, you could probably try asking again,” or “Maybe just dance it out.” So I just gave a series of possible things that he could do and he used it for six months solid straight and it was so fun because it wasn't just one thing to do. It was like a suggestion of many different things with percentages of how likely that is to maybe work in that instance, or whatever. I think applying that logic to even something a decision that needs to be made, say at an executive level, and then just giving options of what percentages things might work. And then also having fallback options of like, “Okay, you chose this answer. Here are the probable outcomes of what happens,” I think is a great way to test not only your blind spots, because hopefully, you're not working in a silo. Hopefully, you have other developers checking in on you and also having those meetings with what those outcomes could be. But also, it's a great way to show that it's problematic to feel 100% about anything, if that makes any sense. DAMIEN: Mm hm. JOHN: Yeah. But on a similar note, I was talking about how if expressing your own confidence and the position that you're expressing is also a great way to diffuse those testing arguments about a technical tricks, or whatever you can say. I definitely think we should use JWT for this, but definitely means 70%, it doesn't mean 99%. And then if everyone can give that confidence, then you can be like, “Oh, that's what we're working with” is different people confident in different ways about different things rather than, “Oh, well the senior developer thinks that we should use JWTs. I guess, we have to use JWTs even though, I'm not really comfortable with the it.” But it allows a much more fluid conversation than everyone just saying, “I think you should do X.” CASEY: Confidence level. It's like scale of 1 to 10. How much pain are you feeling that the doctor's offices have? It's like getting a number is so much clearer than just trying to say regular where it's like, “I'm fine. It's just a 9.” JOHN: Yeah, and the illustrated ones really give you different activities of how much does this hurt like, stumped toe, B. Bs! Like, my legs off, what you consider to be a 9? CASEY: Yeah. People are really good at relative like greater than, more than that, or less than that, worse than that. People good are that. People are not as good at absolute scales, but the numbers still help communicate it better than just hand-waving for sure. It's like for the vaccine, some people say they won't get the vaccine because it won't help more than it hurts them, maybe whatever. But if you put numbers to it, some people haven't thought about the numbers enough to put it into words yet and that's the step forward in that process of talking through it and some people maybe would accept the vaccine if they knew more about it, some people would accept the vaccine if the risk of COVID having a fatal outcome was worse. A lot of people aren't having this conversation on these terms, but you can talk about it and put numbers to all these things like, how bad would COVID have to be? How likely would you have to be to get it? Like, everyone you're around has it then what do you consider getting it? Or if you tweak all these variables, everyone probably has some point where they might consider the vaccine will be more worthwhile than not. BRIANNA: Earlier in the year, I door knocked for the vaccine campaign in D.C. to just let neighbors know that they could get the vaccine and I don't know if this happened with y'all, but in D.C. was a hot mess at first because the system was crashing and it was The Hunger Games for getting an appointment. When the digital divide is so real in D.C., a lot of folks who did not have access to internet, or fast internet were often left not being able to even secure an appointment and then I can't imagine folks who are not computer savvy having to deal with that system so. CASEY: It was terrible. BRIANNA: It was horrible. CASEY: It was really bad. BRIANNA: It was bad. [laughs] So there was a whole door-knocking campaign, just vocally. It wasn't a part of actually government led thing, but one of the questions I would ask folks, especially folks who are hesitant, or believing even some of the conspiracy theories, or Bill Gates going to track you, or whatever, I would say, “So what would be the thing that would convince you to get the vaccine? What would be that?” And just giving that wedge of doubt to there, I think firm believe was really interesting because then they would actually have to challenge themselves and be like, “Oh, if I –” like, it just seemed to change the conversation rather than saying, “I'm not going to get it.” It's like, “Okay, what would be that variable that would make you be more open to it?” And I think that's when the conversations were easier to have, but it's hard because that right there deals with a lot of layers of fear and then poor education around what even it was and then also really bad, I think education around prevention. It was just this individualistic protect you in your own mentality rather than wearing a mask isn't for you, it's for your neighbors. I don't know. I don't think there was ever a moment where there was an actual educational campaign around what it meant to be a part of this greater, I guess, cause not for yourself, but for other people. But with the vaccine specifically, I don't know, there was a huge level of fear around it that I encountered door-knocking and then having to dispel some of the myths was interesting. CASEY: I always want to know how effective communication is on things like that and apparently, it can be hard, or expensive to get the information you were getting by door-knocking on a wider scale, large enough to make estimates for the population in D.C. I don't see many groups doing that. Do you know of any that even ad hoc have ample sets of data that they use to extrapolate in D.C.? I'd like to see more of that. BRIANNA: I don't know specifically about the vaccine, but I know working families party has interesting datasets sometimes and I know even some campaigns have interesting datasets that may not be necessarily public. But communication around people who are hesitant to get the vaccine, sometimes it's not even going to be your conversation that does it so I can be like, “Okay, well, who do you trust? In this entire role, who is it that you go to?” Because if I'm realizing that I'm not getting across, I'll just switch it up to be like, “Okay, whoever you trust the most, talk with them and have that conversation and see what y'all come up with.” So it's always encouraging people not to be referring to a YouTube video conspiracy theory, but going to an actual person, hashing it out with a person is always my strategy. CASEY: There's more trust with literally the people you trust. Back to that theme. BRIANNA: Full circle. [laughs] DAMIEN: I love these strategies because they all start with meeting people where they are, accepting where they are and going, “Okay, well, what can we do from here?” JOHN: Yeah. Not only the reality of the situation, but also the humanity of the person you're dealing with. BRIANNA: Oh yeah, people will sometimes be just yelling, “Absolutely not! No! Forget that!” and it's just like, “Okay, well I'm not going to change your mind, but I bet I could get you to be curious about something.” So that's always a – CASEY: [inaudible]! [overtalk] BRIANNA: [laughs] Yeah. Then again, it's like maybe I didn't get the outcome I wanted going into it, but I still think it was a different game to be played. DAMIEN: And then back to the infinite versus a finite game. A finite game, there's a win, or a loss and in the infinite, you move in a direction and we can keep moving in a direction. JOHN: Yeah, I always feel like you've made a fantastic opening in this situation with that where you can get them to think what would me them roll with this, or who would I trust to actually talk this over with where they're changing the foundation on which they've made the decision and once that happens, more possibilities open up from there. And if you can get even just that little shift in the little interaction, then so many more possibilities are capable of down the line. Even convincing that day, or maybe they'll think about it for a couple weeks and maybe they'll notice some things that some friends are saying and then start to think, “Oh, well maybe it wouldn't be that bad,” and that's still totally a success. BRIANNA: Yeah. I think I'm always present to especially with people who have a completely different world view than me, it's never going to be just one conversation that does much, it's going to be forming that relationship. So it's always good to understand what even capacity I have sometimes for that relationship building. And then also, realizing what I think might be good for maybe trusted either elected official, or whatever, like what arguments they should be making, because I can take that to an elected official and say, “Hey, so-and-so, this person was like they're not getting the vaccine until you say that you got it and you liked it.” Blah, blah, blah. I'm always present to, it's not going to be just one conversation, but I am excited about putting that wedge of doubt in there. [chuckles] CASEY: There's a spectrum I'm building in my head just now during this conversation. In product management, we often say we want outcomes, not outputs. So if you do ship the project that doesn't help anyone in the end, but you shipped it, check done. That's not good enough. You need the outcome of helping them with their problem. But here, we're going a step further. It's not just the outcome that they are now changed their mind they're going to get the vaccine, but progress toward that goal, that really is what matters. It's the growth mindset kind of idea, throw it in there. So progress is better than outcomes is better than outputs. What do you think of that? DAMIEN: Oh. CASEY: You all are inspiring. BRIANNA: I think progress is interesting. I'm personally sometimes hesitant to say that word just because I think a lot of relationship, especially, I don't know, in America, the idea of exponential growth in progress can sometimes be very toxic, but I do like the way you used it. CASEY: [inaudible] better word for it. DAMIEN: I always feel like if things are getting better, then what more could I possibly ask for? My grandmother had a sign in her kitchen, “If you're well, there's nothing to worry about. If you're sick, there's only two things to worry about: I'm going to get better; I'm going to get worse. You're going to get better, there's nothing to worry about. You're going to get worse, there are only two things to worry about: you're going to die, or you're going to live. You're going to live, there's nothing to worry about. If you've got to die, [laughter] well, there's only two things to worry about: you're going to go to heaven; you're going to go to hell. And if you go to heaven, there's nothing to worry about. If you're going to hell, well, you can be so busy shaking hands with old friends, you'll have nothing to worry about.” [laughter] So going off the bottom into that little tree there. As long as things are getting better, things are getting better and what else could we possibly want? BRIANNA: I wish I were able to accept that. [laughs] I just feel like better for who and at what cost, but it's interesting that you memorized that on off your grandma. [laughs] Wow, you must've seen that a lot. DAMIEN: Oh, that was a good 30, or 40 years and better is doing a lot of words. A lot of work in that, in what I just said, because better for whom, like you said. Better how? BRIANNA: Yeah. I got into an argument the other day. It was a good argument, but it was about the term economic growth and it was with a friend and he was like, “Yeah, well, third world countries, they just need more economic development and that's how you improve their country,” and whatever. And I was like, “Well, one, where to begin,” [laughs] and two, it was just like, “Okay, well define economic development.” And then we just like kept on going down and down and it just, I don't know. She just said, “Well, making things more efficient and having good outcomes,” and I was like, “Uh, how do you define what is good and shouldn't they be defining what is good for them?” I don't know, I'm always really worried sometimes with layman terms like that of good and better because sometimes, the people who are deciding that are often the ones that may not be the ones that impact, or feel the impact of the consequences. So I'm always hesitant to say those things, but I totally hear what you said. I hear what you're saying. DAMIEN: We get to where our measurement is never of the thing we want, it's of the thing we can measure. GDP is an extraordinary example of that. If a parent stays home and takes care of the child, the contribution to GDP is 0. If they go and get a job, it's been 105% of that money on childcare. Well, that's massive contribution to GDP, but nobody's life's got better there. BRIANNA: Isn't that crazy how we have measurements that sometimes are totally meaningless? DAMIEN: It's inherent to measurement theory that you're never going to measure what you actually want to know and then people are sticky so they come up with a measurement that's useful in one context and they like it and they stick with it and they keep going. JOHN: Like BMI. DAMIEN: Oh. BRIANNA: Yeah. [laughs] DAMIEN: Yeah, that one hurt. BRIANNA: Let's just go around the table naming all these horrible measurements. [laughs] DAMIEN: Someone stop me from spending 20 minutes on BMI right now. BRIANNA: I know, right? It's like even in agricultural industry, some measurements of success are usually around yields rather than balancing. How much you're able to take out and put in to keep your land producing and healthy versus just creating this monocrops that are totally susceptible to pathogens and they're all alike. It's a very fragile system, but yet, you get more investments and loans even if you have higher yields, but higher yields often tend to mean really ravaging the land. So I always think about what measurements of success are and if they even make any sense. BMI, GDP, perfect examples. CASEY: This sounds like we shouldn't measure anything, which isn't what any of us are saying right now. [laughter] I like to use the phrase “proxy measure: a lot because I'm measuring something, but it's just a proxy. It's only ever a proxy for the thing that I really care about. So the health of the country, not GDP. GDP is a proxy measure. It's just the economic half of it, but maybe we could add another proxy measure, or two and get a little closer. All measures are proxy measures the way I use them, at least my models of the world and as a product manager. BRIANNA: Proxy measures. DAMIEN: I love that. All measures of proxy measures and so, knowing where they fall down and being aware of GDP went up, but everybody's more miserable. [chuckles] BRIANNA: Yeah, right. [laughs] Oh, you're the richest country in the world and you're also the most depressed. [laughs] But yeah, I like proxy measure because also, there is the foundation that it's limited and I always think that that is healthy. JOHN: Yeah. It helps you see that there's going to be an error percentage in there and that you should be looking for it to see is it still applicable in this situation? Is the measure actually useful, or accurate versus where it was originally? DAMIEN: So Bri, there's a word in your bio that I don't think I've heard before, but I wonder if you'd be willing to tell us what this is and what this means: equitism? BRIANNA: Oh, yes. That is a word I used to describe myself in the future that I believe in. So I call myself an equitist, which to me, means the fusion of soulful political movement where you are seeking balance and accepting change, staying curious, and believing in a world that can be nourishing for you and your community. It's the idea of empowering community and finding a role in a community that is meaningful for you. I think a lot of people experienced meaninglessness in jobs, or whatever. So finding roles where you can actually feel you have agency and the power to affect good—I use that word loosely—into the world. Being probiotic in your approach, and to me, it's very political, but it's also just a way of being. So that to me is what equitist is. It's like a balance. So it's not a conservative, or a moderate, or a liberal, or a progressive, or a socialist, or a democratic socialist. It's like it doesn't fall into the spectrum in terms of politics, it's just an alternative way to not necessarily reject the political spectrum, but add a Z measure to it. Does that make sense? Was that too [laughs] dilute to break that down a little bit, or is that too weird? [laughs] Let me know. CASEY: I think this is partly why we get along so well. I care a lot about having people feel included and things are being built by the people who need them more than building stuff for people, or at least in the middle of building with people. I think about that in the workplace a lot and in the community a lot. Like, with ranked choice voting we worked on together, that's a big part of that, too. I have family that are conservative and liberal and all different types and I talk to all of them and my big thing is I want everyone's voice to be heard and part of it. I support all these people; I just want them to be involved and it sounds like it gets pretty related to equitism. BRIANNA: Yeah. CASEY: I want to get the people involved in the stuff for the people. BRIANNA: Yeah. It's like saying that the way systems are set up sometimes just aren't very people-centric and even the way we think about the political spectrum to me is bullshit. It's just like, “Oh, you're conservative,” or “You're liberal, or progressive,” and it's just like, people are way too complex to box themselves in. The people who putting labels to themselves tend to be the more rigid politically. It's like rigid radicalism in a way and so, I just feel that okay, so you have a very strong view of what you would, you would like to see in what you think ought to be, but if your proposal is toxic, or unhealthy, I don't know. If you aren't able to bring people in and they feel good about the way they want the world to be with that idea. I don't know, it's just like rejecting dogma in a way. I feel like this itself is its own conversation. CASEY: [inaudible]. [overtalk] BRIANNA: Yeah. That's a lot to digest, I would say right there. CASEY: To pull it into tech a little bit, this reminds me of user-centered design where you're building stuff with the person in mind, you're incorporating them and ideally, they're even part of your team, the kinds of people who would use your application are on your team, that'll be the best. BRIANNA: Yeah. I personally am not on the UI/UX side of things, but I'm always wanting to know what users think about the things I build, because it means absolutely nothing if you build something that you think is so cool, but no one finds useful. So I always am very sensitive to that. I agree, working on a team with all men has been sometimes the most challenging thing in my life and it can be very, very alienating and isolating. It's just nice to have allies, but it's so nice to also feel in solidarity with someone, too. So yeah, I totally agree with that, Casey. JOHN: So now it's the time of the episode where we go into what we call reflections, which are the thoughts, or the ideas, or the things that we're going to take with us after this conversation and maybe keep seeking them out, or talking about with others. I think for me, the thing that's sticking with me is the changes that you made into the senior political script of not only the door-knocking, but also, the way you approached the space to break down the hierarchy and to bring relation at an even level. It's very dare I say, anarchist because if there isn't that hierarchy between the people who know and who are telling, and the people who are just being told. I really liked that because it's so inclusive and it's so welcoming and that is really what I want to keep thinking about [inaudible] new to my life. CASEY: I've got two things I want to share. One is I like, Damien, your quote of me that said all measures are proxy measures. I probably even said, I don't know, but that it's very succinct, the way you put it. I love it. And my second one, I need to work on this one a little more, but thinking about how growth mindset and outcomes not outputs relate. Progress, I'm not sold on that word either, but it seems like that should fit into that framework in my head someday. I hope it sits nicely. DAMIEN: Well, Casey, thank you for repeating that, all measures of proxy measures because I had already forgotten it. You said it first and I repeated it because it was so awesome and so, now I've heard it four times, I'm going to hold on to that. I would have used that as my reflection, but I was thinking how there seems to be so much – [laughs] this is a hilarious thing to say. In the computer software engineering, there's so much binary thinking—things either are, or they aren't—and being able to work with non-binary is the only way to deal with things like trust, it's the only way to deal with things like confidence levels. Nothing either is, or isn't, that's not how human cognition works, or how the world around us works. So it's important to know our limitations when we put things into binary and to avoid putting things into binary as much as possible, which is at odds with the entire science and theory. [laughs] So that's going to be something I'm going to think a lot about into the future. Thank you. BRIANNA: I just want to say, I do think there is space for having the binary in terms of having an advanced exploration, but I do think binary as something that is strictly to be followed can be toxic, might be the demise of our culture. But my reflections is, I love all measures are proxy measures. I think that's fantastic in terms of just thinking of something as you can use measures and try and have metrics for things, but with the grain of salt on what it is you're actually measuring and that whole quantum thinking of the more you try and measure and pin down, the more it's not there. I think there is that little magic in between trying to measure and also not have to confine something, or define something, I should say. I also enjoyed the fact that this conversation is kind of meandered. We had a lot of topics and I feel like there's a lot to unpack so I feel like I'll have a lot more reflections even two days after this. [laughs] I'm like, “Well, we talked about this one thing.” [laughs] I take a long time to process, so. JOHN: That's a good sign. BRIANNA: Yeah. JOHN: Good conversation. BRIANNA: Yeah. Thank you all for having me on. DAMIEN: Well, thank you for joining us. This has been wonderful. CASEY: Yeah, thank you. Special Guest: Brianna McGowen.

Kevin Truong - Tech Career Coaching

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 3, 2021 58:56 Transcription Available

In this episode of the podcast, Dan and Bekah talk to Kevin, a senior software consultant at Test Double and a coding career coach at his company Tap into Tech, about some of the most common challenges early-career developers face getting into tech and offers practical advice for working through those problems. We dive into visualization, personal support, and ways to change the interview process in tech. Kevin Truong is a senior software consultant at Test Double and a coding career coach at his company Tap into Tech. Previously a coding boot camp instructor and mentor, Kevin realized that boot camps were missing a lot of information when it came to the final steps of getting hired. With his years of experience, he has developed a program where he has coached dozens of early career devs on how to improve their results on getting a tech job.Links:Kevin's Twitter: @TheKevinTruongKevin's LinkedIn: thekevintruongTap into TechTest Doublethekevintruong.comLoomDustin McCaffree Upwork/Loom TweetVirtual Coffee: Virtual Coffee: virtualcoffee.io Podcast Contact: podcast@virtualcoffee.io Bekah: dev.to/bekahhw, Twitter: https://twitter.com/bekahhw, Instagram: bekahhw Dan: dtott.com, Twitter: @danieltott

tech tap career coaching bekah truong tech career test double

React Architecture with Tommy Groshong - RRU 146

React Round Up

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 7, 2021 55:11

In today's episode, we talk about state management, dependency injection, react hooks, API access best practices and more with Tommy Groshong a React UI architect. Panel Jack Herrington Paige Niedringhaus TJ VanToll Guest Tommy Groshong Sponsors Dev Influencers Accelerator Raygun | Click here to get started on your free 14-day trial Links React Context for Dependency Injection Not State Management Reduce State Management Footprint with React Query Reduce State Management Footprint with React Query Test Double TommyGroshong.com LinkedIn: Thomas Groshong Twitter: Tommy Groshong ( @tgroshon ) Picks Jack- Deno Deploy Paige- Ted Lasso Paige- GitHub | foambubble/foam TJ- Land of the Giants Tommy- The Courier Tommy- The Anarchist Handbook Contact Paige: The Home Depot Paige Niedringhaus Paige Niedringhaus – Medium Twitter: Paige Niedringhaus ( @pniedri ) GitHub: Paige Niedringhaus ( paigen11 ) Contact TJ: TJ VanToll's Blog Progress Software KendoReact Twitter: TJ VanToll ( @tjvantoll ) Contact Jack: Jack Herrington – YouTube Blue Collar Coder Twitter: Jack Herrington ( @jherr )

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React Architecture with Tommy Groshong - RRU 146

taxes delay pension earnings test double

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 7, 2021 55:11

In today's episode, we talk about state management, dependency injection, react hooks, API access best practices and more with Tommy Groshong a React UI architect. Panel Jack Herrington Paige Niedringhaus TJ VanToll Guest Tommy Groshong Sponsors Dev Influencers Accelerator Raygun | Click here to get started on your free 14-day trial Links React Context for Dependency Injection Not State Management Reduce State Management Footprint with React Query Reduce State Management Footprint with React Query Test Double TommyGroshong.com LinkedIn: Thomas Groshong Twitter: Tommy Groshong ( @tgroshon ) Picks Jack- Deno Deploy Paige- Ted Lasso Paige- GitHub | foambubble/foam TJ- Land of the Giants Tommy- The Courier Tommy- The Anarchist Handbook Contact Paige: The Home Depot Paige Niedringhaus Paige Niedringhaus – Medium Twitter: Paige Niedringhaus ( @pniedri ) GitHub: Paige Niedringhaus ( paigen11 ) Contact TJ: TJ VanToll's Blog Progress Software KendoReact Twitter: TJ VanToll ( @tjvantoll ) Contact Jack: Jack Herrington – YouTube Blue Collar Coder Twitter: Jack Herrington ( @jherr )

land blog giants medium panel architecture react api ted lasso home depot github courier progress software test double anarchist handbook tj vantoll dev influencers accelerator raygun click

Test-Driven Development in Swift with Gio Lodi

Empower Apps

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 14, 2021 58:20

Guest Gio Lodi - gio.codes Twitter @mokagio Blog at mokacoding.com Test-Driven Development in Swift with SwiftUI and Combine by GioApress Link Podcast Survey - https://brightdigit.typeform.com/to/yVZN2gITYoutube Video - https://youtu.be/OM9jbAbUXZ0Related Episodes Episode 15 - Test-Driven Development with Joshua Greene and Michael Katz Episode 24 - Continuous Integration with Kyle Newsome Episode 62 - Local Database Storage on iOS with Aaron Douglas Episode 72 - Functional Programming with Daniel Steinberg Episode 80 - A Tour of Software Testing with Christina Moulton Episode 81 - Awaiting for Async with Vincent Pradeilles Episode 92 - WWDC 2021 - Platforms State of the Union with Peter Witham Related Links How to test Swift async/await code with XCTest by Gio xUnit Test Patterns: Refactoring Test Code by Gerard Meszaros What's a Test Double? What's New in Testing talk by Gio from Melbourne CocoaHeads - June 10th 2021Slides from talk Dependency Inversion Principle CombineAsyncually dimsumthinking.com by Daniel Steinberg Leo Dion - Combine-ing the Old with the New from 360iDev 2019 (on creating Publisher Factories/Publicists) Xcode Cloud Beta Signup WWDC Sessions Embrace Expected Failures in XCTest Meet Xcode Cloud Explore Xcode Cloud workflows Customize your advanced Xcode Cloud workflows Diagnose unreliable code with test repetitions SponsorsAppFiguresThe tools you need to monitor, optimize, and get more downloads.There's a lot of demand for apps right now, so it's a really great time to give it a try. It's easier than you think.The guys who run it are indie devs who had a need and created a tool. 11 years later, it's an all-in-one platform for developers who want to get more downloads and make more money with their apps.The folks at Appfigures have easy step-by-step guides and intuitive tools to do that, which many indie developers are using to get more downloads:https://appfigures.com/resources/asoAlso check out our episode with CEO Ariel Michaeli:https://share.transistor.fm/s/15b7ff63Try Appfigures for free, and if you like it use the special link to get 30% off for the next 3 months:https://appfigures.com/account/upgrade?p=empower3030RevenueCatUsing RevenueCat to power your in-app purchase infrastructure solves: For edge cases you don't even know you have Protects from outages your team hasn't seen yet Saves you time on future maintenance As well as new features released by the app stores Empowers your marketing teams with clean, reliable IAP data All that to say, RevenueCat handles all the headaches of in-app purchases so you can get back to building your app. Try RevenueCat today at revenuecat.com.TDD Thoughts from WWDC 2021 Is Xcode Cloud Ready? Who's the target audience for Xcode Cloud? On Testing with Async/Await Combine vs Async/Await How to expect failures in Xcode 12.5 Testing Repetitions TDD, SwiftUI & Combine Why do TDD now in Swift? Difficulties adopting it later in project TDD in SwiftUI vs UIKit Isolating Systems with TDD What are the different types of Test Doubles? Social MediaEmailleo@brightdigit.comGitHub - @brightdigitTwitter BrightDigit - @brightdigitLeo - @leogdionRedditLeo - /u/leogdionLinkedInBrightDigitLeoInstagram - @brightdigitPatreon - empowerappshowCreditsMusic from https://filmmusic.io"Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

#44 - Pension Delay, Earnings Test, Double Taxes

FEDNOBABBLE

Play Episode Listen Later May 18, 2021 21:21

This episode covers: - Getting your check - Avoiding the Earnings Test - Double taxed on loans

1871: Turning Fear into Drive and Motivation and Energy to Make Your Business Successful with Todd Kaufman Co-Founder and Co-Owner of Test Double

The Entrepreneur Way

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 19, 2021 38:51

Todd Kaufman developed a lifelong passion for software, eventually leading him to co-founding Test Double in 2011, a consultancy focused on improving the broken industry of software development. Test Double has grown to over $14.7M in revenue in 2020, expanding its impact on the industry for 10 years. “Jimmy Iovine… had a quote ‘Make fear a tailwind not your headwind' and I think that's accurate… Turn that fear into drive and motivation and energy to make your business successful”…[Listen for More] Click Here for Show Notes To Listen or to Get the Show Notes go to https://wp.me/p6Tf4b-aL9

Ep 265 Todd Kaufman - How To Overcome Owner's Guilt

Built to Sell Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 10, 2020 57:46

Todd Kaufman and his partner Justin Searls started Test Double, a custom software development company, in 2011. The business was a success from the start and grew more than 25% a year. By 2019, Kaufman and Searls were generating more than $10 million in annual revenue and putting more than $3 million to the bottom line each year. An outside valuation consultant suggested if they ever wanted to sell, Kaufman and Searls could get around 6.5 times profit for their business or around $20 million.

business entrepreneur overcome guilt valuations kaufman selling a business john warrillow built to sell searls test double justin searls prescore

Double your testing trouble

JS Party

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 25, 2020 52:37 Transcription Available

Justin Searls from Test Double joins the party to talk about patterns he’s identified that lead to failure, minimalism, and of course, testing!

testing web programming animation robotics iot javascript html css node backend frontend changelog test double justin searls

Double your testing trouble (JS Party #145)

Changelog Master Feed

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 25, 2020 52:37 Transcription Available

Justin Searls from Test Double joins the party to talk about patterns he’s identified that lead to failure, minimalism, and of course, testing!

testing web programming animation robotics iot javascript html css node backend frontend changelog test double justin searls

039 - Talking Software Consulting with Justin Searls, Co-Founder of Test Double

Rails with Jason

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 7, 2020 65:58

In this conversation Justin and I talk about our respective experiences in software consulting, the different types of consulting/agency work, and how to get started in consulting.

co founders software consulting test double justin searls

Justin Searls: Learn To Understand The Runtime

Maintainable

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 14, 2019 51:13

Robby speaks with Justin Searls, Co-Founder at Test Double. Hear Justin's experience digging into technical debt, learn why software is like a sedimentary rock, and more.Helpful LinksFollow Justin on TwitterTest DoubleRuby gem: SutureJustin's Legacy Code talk at Ruby KaigiJustin on GithubConnect with Justin on LinkedIn[Book] Growing Object-Oriented Software Guided by TestsSubscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.

co founders runtime hear justin test double justin searls

RR 431: Building a Consulting Business with Todd Kaufman

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 24, 2019 68:29

Todd Kaufman is one of the cofounders of Test Double, a software development consultancy that was started 8 years ago. Todd talks about how he got started with Test Double and how it grew. He and Justin started Test Double because he felt that a lot of consultancies didn’t align with what they thought was important. Most consultancies then didn’t focus on good software development practices, and instead focused solely on the process. They decided that they would put the developers first and foremost so they could solve hard problems. Charles talks about his experience with a consultancy, where he was fired after his project finished, and asks how Test Double does things differently. Todd talks about the importance of financial stability in a consultancy, and one way that Test Double accomplishes this is by being a completely remote company to cut out the cost of having an office,Todd shares their approach to the projects they take on. Their contracts are open ended and they tend to work with clients for a longer duration. They discuss the differences in knowledge that comes from working with a product company versus a consultancy. A product company will typically give you depth, while a consultancy will give you variety. When deciding which you want to work for, you need to know if you want a steady approach to software development or do you want the challenge change up from time to time. Todd delves deeper into their policy of not doing fixed bids and how they uphold that policy when negotiating with companies. Test Double’s unique approach is to engender trust where if the client feels that they are not getting the results they want, they can terminate the contract and ask them to leave. This in turn makes the fixed scope go away. Their only requirement is that the client gives them a weeks notice before termination. When taking on a project, Test Double strives to quickly integrate with an existing team, help them, and leave them in a better place than we found them. They can help with testing, learning languages, meeting deadlines, and communication. The panel discusses some of the gotchas of building up a consulting company. Todd says that you always need someone looking for ne prospects and jobs, keep a consistent level of sales activity, and address issues in real time. He talks about what the company does to generate awareness, such as conference presentations, the website and blogs, networking, and how the company is organized to help manage sales. Todd and the panel discuss Test Double’s process for growing and shrinking the company ahd what drives their decisions. Test Double’s priority is to make sure that the size of the compan does not affect the work experience. He talks about their four step hiring process and their trend of hiring experienced programmers. The panel agrees that there is a commitment to hiring junior programmers. Though Test Double does not typically hire junior programmers, they help companies that do. Todd has found that there are companies that want to hire juniors, but they have no experience leveling them up, so his consultancy helps clients develop mentorship practices. Todd talks about some mistakes made and lessons learned in starting his company. One of his primary regrets is not focusing on diversity and inclusivity enough during the early days of the company. Their goal stated as a company is to improve the industry, and be an example for teams to follow on how to build healthy teams, but much of their early members were fairly homogenous. Todd believes that variety in a company leads to better problem identification and solutions. The panel discusses how to really identify diversity of background, because sometimes it can be proxied by diversity of physical appearance, but sometimes it can’t.It’s important to identify people that truly are diverse, and not just say ‘we want more women’ or ‘we want more people of color’. They discuss ways to increase diversity in hiring. Todd talks about what it was like to make the first hire for Test Double. Todd shares how he decided what Test Double’s values and mission is. They had to consider why they were putting so much energy into building Test Double, and it was because they wanted to help fix the industry and improve the way the world builds software. He talks about how he implements it within his company, especially since they do not have a physical office. One of Todd’s visions for the software industry is that software isn’t viewed as manufacturing and getting the commodity purchasing out of software development. He also hopes to help create more sustainable code and to fix the problems that caused unsustainable code, whether in the code or the team. Test Double doesn’t focus solely on code, but also on the work environment of the company. They do that by trying to act as an extension of their existing team. Todd talks about what it’s like running a primarily remote company and how it affects their clients. He talks about how the company builds camaraderie between its employees, including an automated tool to pair you up with somebody to have ‘coffee time’ with once a week. He talks about the tools they use, like Zoom and Slack, and the different leadership roles within Test Double. Listeners are encouraged to go to Test Double’s website to learn more about what they’re working on. Panelists Charles Max Wood David Kimura Nate Hopkins Andrew Mason With special guest: Todd Kaufman Sponsors Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan Cloud 66 - Pain Free Rails Deployments Try Cloud 66 Rails for FREE & get $66 free credits with promo code RubyRogues Adventures in Blockchain Links Test Double Fixed bid Pipedrive Zoom Slack Follow DevChatTV on Facebook and Twitter Picks David Kimura: Simply Heinz Ketchup Pyle Rackmount Distribution Conditioner Nate Hopkins: The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang Test Double Standard RB Library Charles Max Wood: Nikon D5600 Rode Newsshooter Andrew Mason: Remote Containers extension Todd Kaufman: Drive by Daniel Pink The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz

RR 431: Building a Consulting Business with Todd Kaufman

Ruby Rogues

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 24, 2019 68:29

Todd Kaufman is one of the cofounders of Test Double, a software development consultancy that was started 8 years ago. Todd talks about how he got started with Test Double and how it grew. He and Justin started Test Double because he felt that a lot of consultancies didn’t align with what they thought was important. Most consultancies then didn’t focus on good software development practices, and instead focused solely on the process. They decided that they would put the developers first and foremost so they could solve hard problems. Charles talks about his experience with a consultancy, where he was fired after his project finished, and asks how Test Double does things differently. Todd talks about the importance of financial stability in a consultancy, and one way that Test Double accomplishes this is by being a completely remote company to cut out the cost of having an office,Todd shares their approach to the projects they take on. Their contracts are open ended and they tend to work with clients for a longer duration. They discuss the differences in knowledge that comes from working with a product company versus a consultancy. A product company will typically give you depth, while a consultancy will give you variety. When deciding which you want to work for, you need to know if you want a steady approach to software development or do you want the challenge change up from time to time. Todd delves deeper into their policy of not doing fixed bids and how they uphold that policy when negotiating with companies. Test Double’s unique approach is to engender trust where if the client feels that they are not getting the results they want, they can terminate the contract and ask them to leave. This in turn makes the fixed scope go away. Their only requirement is that the client gives them a weeks notice before termination. When taking on a project, Test Double strives to quickly integrate with an existing team, help them, and leave them in a better place than we found them. They can help with testing, learning languages, meeting deadlines, and communication. The panel discusses some of the gotchas of building up a consulting company. Todd says that you always need someone looking for ne prospects and jobs, keep a consistent level of sales activity, and address issues in real time. He talks about what the company does to generate awareness, such as conference presentations, the website and blogs, networking, and how the company is organized to help manage sales. Todd and the panel discuss Test Double’s process for growing and shrinking the company ahd what drives their decisions. Test Double’s priority is to make sure that the size of the compan does not affect the work experience. He talks about their four step hiring process and their trend of hiring experienced programmers. The panel agrees that there is a commitment to hiring junior programmers. Though Test Double does not typically hire junior programmers, they help companies that do. Todd has found that there are companies that want to hire juniors, but they have no experience leveling them up, so his consultancy helps clients develop mentorship practices. Todd talks about some mistakes made and lessons learned in starting his company. One of his primary regrets is not focusing on diversity and inclusivity enough during the early days of the company. Their goal stated as a company is to improve the industry, and be an example for teams to follow on how to build healthy teams, but much of their early members were fairly homogenous. Todd believes that variety in a company leads to better problem identification and solutions. The panel discusses how to really identify diversity of background, because sometimes it can be proxied by diversity of physical appearance, but sometimes it can’t.It’s important to identify people that truly are diverse, and not just say ‘we want more women’ or ‘we want more people of color’. They discuss ways to increase diversity in hiring. Todd talks about what it was like to make the first hire for Test Double. Todd shares how he decided what Test Double’s values and mission is. They had to consider why they were putting so much energy into building Test Double, and it was because they wanted to help fix the industry and improve the way the world builds software. He talks about how he implements it within his company, especially since they do not have a physical office. One of Todd’s visions for the software industry is that software isn’t viewed as manufacturing and getting the commodity purchasing out of software development. He also hopes to help create more sustainable code and to fix the problems that caused unsustainable code, whether in the code or the team. Test Double doesn’t focus solely on code, but also on the work environment of the company. They do that by trying to act as an extension of their existing team. Todd talks about what it’s like running a primarily remote company and how it affects their clients. He talks about how the company builds camaraderie between its employees, including an automated tool to pair you up with somebody to have ‘coffee time’ with once a week. He talks about the tools they use, like Zoom and Slack, and the different leadership roles within Test Double. Listeners are encouraged to go to Test Double’s website to learn more about what they’re working on. Panelists Charles Max Wood David Kimura Nate Hopkins Andrew Mason With special guest: Todd Kaufman Sponsors Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan Cloud 66 - Pain Free Rails Deployments Try Cloud 66 Rails for FREE & get $66 free credits with promo code RubyRogues Adventures in Blockchain Links Test Double Fixed bid Pipedrive Zoom Slack Follow DevChatTV on Facebook and Twitter Picks David Kimura: Simply Heinz Ketchup Pyle Rackmount Distribution Conditioner Nate Hopkins: The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang Test Double Standard RB Library Charles Max Wood: Nikon D5600 Rode Newsshooter Andrew Mason: Remote Containers extension Todd Kaufman: Drive by Daniel Pink The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz

RR 431: Building a Consulting Business with Todd Kaufman

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 24, 2019 68:29

Todd Kaufman is one of the cofounders of Test Double, a software development consultancy that was started 8 years ago. Todd talks about how he got started with Test Double and how it grew. He and Justin started Test Double because he felt that a lot of consultancies didn’t align with what they thought was important. Most consultancies then didn’t focus on good software development practices, and instead focused solely on the process. They decided that they would put the developers first and foremost so they could solve hard problems. Charles talks about his experience with a consultancy, where he was fired after his project finished, and asks how Test Double does things differently. Todd talks about the importance of financial stability in a consultancy, and one way that Test Double accomplishes this is by being a completely remote company to cut out the cost of having an office,Todd shares their approach to the projects they take on. Their contracts are open ended and they tend to work with clients for a longer duration. They discuss the differences in knowledge that comes from working with a product company versus a consultancy. A product company will typically give you depth, while a consultancy will give you variety. When deciding which you want to work for, you need to know if you want a steady approach to software development or do you want the challenge change up from time to time. Todd delves deeper into their policy of not doing fixed bids and how they uphold that policy when negotiating with companies. Test Double’s unique approach is to engender trust where if the client feels that they are not getting the results they want, they can terminate the contract and ask them to leave. This in turn makes the fixed scope go away. Their only requirement is that the client gives them a weeks notice before termination. When taking on a project, Test Double strives to quickly integrate with an existing team, help them, and leave them in a better place than we found them. They can help with testing, learning languages, meeting deadlines, and communication. The panel discusses some of the gotchas of building up a consulting company. Todd says that you always need someone looking for ne prospects and jobs, keep a consistent level of sales activity, and address issues in real time. He talks about what the company does to generate awareness, such as conference presentations, the website and blogs, networking, and how the company is organized to help manage sales. Todd and the panel discuss Test Double’s process for growing and shrinking the company ahd what drives their decisions. Test Double’s priority is to make sure that the size of the compan does not affect the work experience. He talks about their four step hiring process and their trend of hiring experienced programmers. The panel agrees that there is a commitment to hiring junior programmers. Though Test Double does not typically hire junior programmers, they help companies that do. Todd has found that there are companies that want to hire juniors, but they have no experience leveling them up, so his consultancy helps clients develop mentorship practices. Todd talks about some mistakes made and lessons learned in starting his company. One of his primary regrets is not focusing on diversity and inclusivity enough during the early days of the company. Their goal stated as a company is to improve the industry, and be an example for teams to follow on how to build healthy teams, but much of their early members were fairly homogenous. Todd believes that variety in a company leads to better problem identification and solutions. The panel discusses how to really identify diversity of background, because sometimes it can be proxied by diversity of physical appearance, but sometimes it can’t.It’s important to identify people that truly are diverse, and not just say ‘we want more women’ or ‘we want more people of color’. They discuss ways to increase diversity in hiring. Todd talks about what it was like to make the first hire for Test Double. Todd shares how he decided what Test Double’s values and mission is. They had to consider why they were putting so much energy into building Test Double, and it was because they wanted to help fix the industry and improve the way the world builds software. He talks about how he implements it within his company, especially since they do not have a physical office. One of Todd’s visions for the software industry is that software isn’t viewed as manufacturing and getting the commodity purchasing out of software development. He also hopes to help create more sustainable code and to fix the problems that caused unsustainable code, whether in the code or the team. Test Double doesn’t focus solely on code, but also on the work environment of the company. They do that by trying to act as an extension of their existing team. Todd talks about what it’s like running a primarily remote company and how it affects their clients. He talks about how the company builds camaraderie between its employees, including an automated tool to pair you up with somebody to have ‘coffee time’ with once a week. He talks about the tools they use, like Zoom and Slack, and the different leadership roles within Test Double. Listeners are encouraged to go to Test Double’s website to learn more about what they’re working on. Panelists Charles Max Wood David Kimura Nate Hopkins Andrew Mason With special guest: Todd Kaufman Sponsors Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan Cloud 66 - Pain Free Rails Deployments Try Cloud 66 Rails for FREE & get $66 free credits with promo code RubyRogues Adventures in Blockchain Links Test Double Fixed bid Pipedrive Zoom Slack Follow DevChatTV on Facebook and Twitter Picks David Kimura: Simply Heinz Ketchup Pyle Rackmount Distribution Conditioner Nate Hopkins: The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang Test Double Standard RB Library Charles Max Wood: Nikon D5600 Rode Newsshooter Andrew Mason: Remote Containers extension Todd Kaufman: Drive by Daniel Pink The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz

MJS 116: Jeremy Fairbank

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 16, 2019 37:30

Sponsors Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan CacheFly Host: Charles Max Wood Joined By Special Guest: Jeremy Fairbank Episode Summary Jeremy is a Software Developer at Test Double and the author of Programming Elm book. Even though Jeremy majored in Chemistry in college, he was always interested in programming since middle school. After he graduated from college he went to work as a web developer at Plastic Industries and relied on blog posts and other online resources to teach himself how to code. Gradually as the company’s needs changed, Jeremy transitioned into an application developer. He taught himself JavaScript using the book Professional JavaScript for Web Developers . He then attented a Coursera classto learn on principles of functional programming and gained experience with many front end frameworks and libraries, including Elm, React, Redux, Backbone.js, and Marionette.js. Jeremy is based out of Hawaii and when he isn't coding, he spends his time playing his guitar and hiking and going to the beach with his family. Links JSJ 325: Practical functional programming in JavaScript and languages like Elm with Jeremy Fairbank Jeremy’s GitHub Jeremy's LinkedIn Jeremy’s Blog Professional JavaScript for Web Developers by Nicholas C. Zakas Professional JavaScript for Web Developers by Matt Frisbie https://knockoutjs.com/ https://marionettejs.com/ https://www.coursera.org/ https://www.coursera.org/learn/programming-languages elm-lang.org https://www.facebook.com/javascriptjabber https://twitter.com/JSJabber https://www.facebook.com/DevChattv Picks Jeremy Fairbank: Programming Elm The Umbrella Academy Beyond Burger Charles Max Wood: Orphan Black https://devchat.tv/ https://www.netlify.com/ https://www.11ty.io/ https://github.com/cmaxw/devchat-eleventy JavaScript Jabber - Devchat.tv

blog hawaii practical chemistry react redux github umbrella academy javascript backbone elm coursera software developers sentry orphan black web developers marionette beyond burgers cachefly charles max wood test double jsj devchattv zakas jsjabber nicholas c zakas jeremy fairbank

MJS 116: Jeremy Fairbank

My JavaScript Story

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 16, 2019 37:30

Sponsors Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan CacheFly Host: Charles Max Wood Joined By Special Guest: Jeremy Fairbank Episode Summary Jeremy is a Software Developer at Test Double and the author of Programming Elm book. Even though Jeremy majored in Chemistry in college, he was always interested in programming since middle school. After he graduated from college he went to work as a web developer at Plastic Industries and relied on blog posts and other online resources to teach himself how to code. Gradually as the company’s needs changed, Jeremy transitioned into an application developer. He taught himself JavaScript using the book Professional JavaScript for Web Developers . He then attented a Coursera classto learn on principles of functional programming and gained experience with many front end frameworks and libraries, including Elm, React, Redux, Backbone.js, and Marionette.js. Jeremy is based out of Hawaii and when he isn't coding, he spends his time playing his guitar and hiking and going to the beach with his family. Links JSJ 325: Practical functional programming in JavaScript and languages like Elm with Jeremy Fairbank Jeremy’s GitHub Jeremy's LinkedIn Jeremy’s Blog Professional JavaScript for Web Developers by Nicholas C. Zakas Professional JavaScript for Web Developers by Matt Frisbie https://knockoutjs.com/ https://marionettejs.com/ https://www.coursera.org/ https://www.coursera.org/learn/programming-languages elm-lang.org https://www.facebook.com/javascriptjabber https://twitter.com/JSJabber https://www.facebook.com/DevChattv Picks Jeremy Fairbank: Programming Elm The Umbrella Academy Beyond Burger Charles Max Wood: Orphan Black https://devchat.tv/ https://www.netlify.com/ https://www.11ty.io/ https://github.com/cmaxw/devchat-eleventy JavaScript Jabber - Devchat.tv

blog hawaii practical chemistry react redux github umbrella academy javascript backbone elm coursera software developers sentry orphan black web developers marionette beyond burgers cachefly charles max wood test double jsj devchattv zakas jsjabber nicholas c zakas jeremy fairbank

MJS 116: Jeremy Fairbank

ipads programming blockbuster coding software development ruby on rails railsconf test double justin searls

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 16, 2019 37:30

Sponsors Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan CacheFly Host: Charles Max Wood Joined By Special Guest: Jeremy Fairbank Episode Summary Jeremy is a Software Developer at Test Double and the author of Programming Elm book. Even though Jeremy majored in Chemistry in college, he was always interested in programming since middle school. After he graduated from college he went to work as a web developer at Plastic Industries and relied on blog posts and other online resources to teach himself how to code. Gradually as the company’s needs changed, Jeremy transitioned into an application developer. He taught himself JavaScript using the book Professional JavaScript for Web Developers . He then attented a Coursera classto learn on principles of functional programming and gained experience with many front end frameworks and libraries, including Elm, React, Redux, Backbone.js, and Marionette.js. Jeremy is based out of Hawaii and when he isn't coding, he spends his time playing his guitar and hiking and going to the beach with his family. Links JSJ 325: Practical functional programming in JavaScript and languages like Elm with Jeremy Fairbank Jeremy’s GitHub Jeremy's LinkedIn Jeremy’s Blog Professional JavaScript for Web Developers by Nicholas C. Zakas Professional JavaScript for Web Developers by Matt Frisbie https://knockoutjs.com/ https://marionettejs.com/ https://www.coursera.org/ https://www.coursera.org/learn/programming-languages elm-lang.org https://www.facebook.com/javascriptjabber https://twitter.com/JSJabber https://www.facebook.com/DevChattv Picks Jeremy Fairbank: Programming Elm The Umbrella Academy Beyond Burger Charles Max Wood: Orphan Black https://devchat.tv/ https://www.netlify.com/ https://www.11ty.io/ https://github.com/cmaxw/devchat-eleventy JavaScript Jabber - Devchat.tv

blog hawaii practical chemistry react redux github umbrella academy javascript backbone elm coursera software developers sentry orphan black web developers marionette beyond burgers cachefly charles max wood test double jsj devchattv zakas jsjabber nicholas c zakas jeremy fairbank

Be Curious and Identify What You Feel Passionate About with Jamie Phelps

IT Career Energizer

Play Episode Listen Later May 30, 2019 19:31

GUEST BIO: My guest on today’s show is a full-stack developer, having recently joined Test Double which is an agency of highly skilled developers on a mission to improve how the world writes software. Prior to Test Double, he spent a decade working for 1Password where he focused his efforts on browser extensions and web page filling features. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s IT Career Energizer podcast is Jamie Phelps. He is a full-stack developer at TestDouble. A firm that is working to improve the way the world writes software and wrangles code. Prior to that Jamie worked for Pier 1, 1Password and ran his own IT consultancy company. His areas of expertise include Ruby, Typescript, JavaScript, Go, Swift, Objective-C, and several other languages. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (1.06) – First, I want to ask you how you came to IT. You seem to have started your IT career a little later than average, so it would be interesting to hear how this transition happened. Jamie explains when he first attended university he studied music and religion. He went to graduate school to study the New Testament. When he went back to university to do his Ph.D. it dawned on him that he would probably be at school for another 3 to 5 years. During which time he would have to live very frugally, a realization that led to him switching to computer science. (2.12) – Can you please share a unique career tip with the I.T. career audience? Jamie’s most important piece of advice is to build a good network of people. Doing this stands you in good stead, especially later in your career. As you progress and become more senior the problems get bigger. So, it is always good to have people you can talk to. At some point, you will reach a stage where it is impossible to know absolutely everything. When that happens, you need a pool of experts you can trust and turn to for advice. (3.15) - How do you personally go about developing your network? Jamie mostly developed his network through Twitter. He also made a lot of connections while working at 1Password. Going to meetups and getting involved in IT communities have helped too. The people he met at these sorts of events shared his passion for the same tech. So, they were always there to back him up and help. Often, they had already faced and overcome the same or a very similar problem to the one he was facing. So, usually, he gets fast results when he consults with his trusted network. (4.53) – Can you tell us about your worst career moment? And what you learned from that experience. Fortunately, Jamie has not had a lot of bad career moments. But, he does remember one situation that made him feel bad. It happened when he was working for a firm that sold software. They realized that someone was using their website to see whether stolen credit cards were still active. Naturally, the moment the team realized they were being used in this way, they wanted to stop his activities. After a long weekend of time and effort, they finally managed to do so. But, it did not feel good to know that weaknesses in their system had played a role in helping someone to profit from his criminal activities. To make sure it did not happen again, they switched to a more robust payment provider. It taught Jamie that sometimes it is best to pay for an expert rather than always depend on your own abilities. (6.41) – So, in terms of what you learned from that, is it about making sure you select the right provider? What did you take away from that situation? Jamie explains that as well as looking for a good provider, in the first place, you need to periodically review your decisions. When they first set up their payment option it was the best that was available. But, eventually, they realized that the world had changed and that other providers now offered a far better option. You also need to be careful of the “not invented here” syndrome. It is all too easy to fall into the trap of thinking that something you write in-house is always going to be better than something an outside provider writes. In many cases, the opposite is true. (7.38) – What was your best career moment? For Jamie that was writing a Rails program that later evolved into the Watchtower element of the 1password system. This software oversees user’s websites and tells them the moment a security breach is spotted. Jamie is very proud of building the first iteration of the system in Rails. He did it in response to the Heartbleed Bug, which hit in April 2014. It was a large SSL vulnerability that caused lots of damage. In response to the bug, 1Password asked Jamie to build something that would enable their clients to identify if their site had been hit by the bug. He is understandably proud of the fact that he was able to come up with the necessary system in just 3 days. (9.06) – Can you tell us what excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? Jamie is really excited by the advancements in language compilers. They have given rise to a lot more robust programming languages. These advancements have provided us languages that are a lot safer to use. They have enabled programmers to be much more productive. Both of which have made it possible to achieve so much more. (10.18) - Do you think that's a trend that will continue? Jamie believes that advancements in computing power combined with further compiler enhancements mean that things will continue to improve. (10.59) – What drew you to a career in IT? Jamie had planned to pursue a career in academia and become a college professor. But, the statistics showed that actually becoming a professor was going to be very difficult. Not only that, getting the qualifications he needed to attempt to do so, would mean living on a meager salary, for many years. So, he switched to computing. (11.39) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? It was not advice that was given to Jamie directly. In fact, it was something he heard on a friend’s podcast. On one show his friend advised his audience to ask themselves if they wanted 10 times more of what was happening right now. If, when you are looking at what you are doing in your career, the answer is no, it is probably time to make a change. Jamie has followed that advice and it has helped his career. (12.20) - Conversely, what is the worst career advice you've ever received? At the time Jamie received his worst career advice he was working for a large firm with downtown offices. So, when he said he was going to leave and work for 1software, a Canadian startup, virtually nobody had heard of, people advised him not to do it. Fortunately, he did not listen and that is when his IT career took off. (13.37) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? Jamie found this question hard to answer. He said that he does not really know what he would have done differently. This is because the positive directions his career has gone in have been largely accidental. So, he feels that if he had been able to make more informed decisions things may not have necessarily turned out as well as they have. (14.10) – What are you currently focusing on in your career? Right now, Jamie is working at catching up with the world of Ruby on Rails. He is also developing his consulting and soft skills. (14.38) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? His ability to dig into documents, pull out the salient points and become productive quickly has really helped him in his IT career. Interestingly, these are the skills he learned while studying for the career in academia that he never pursued (15.16) - What do you do to keep your own IT career energized? Jamie finds that staying curious, keeps him interested, learning and moving forward. Sometimes the most mundane tasks lead to you learning about something really interesting and useful. For example, early in his career, he was working on a report that showed how many customers gave their phone number to the cashier. It was a pretty boring task. But, while doing it, he learned about The North American Numbering Plan (NANP). He was fascinated by how this organization that manages how the area codes and numbers for 24 North American countries works. (17.05) - What do you do in your spare time away from technology? Jamie enjoys playing Ultimate Frisbee. He also does a lot of camping, hiking, backpacking, and geocaching with his wife. (17.24) – Phil asks Jamie to share a final piece of career advice with the audience. Jamie’s advice is to find products or companies that you really believe in to work on and with. BEST MOMENTS: (2.58) JAMIE – "Make sure that you've built up that network of folks that you can rely on for their expertise." (3.21) JAMIE – "I developed a lot of my network through Twitter." (9.51) JAMIE – "The advancements in the compiler technology have given us languages that are safer to use, and also allow us to be more productive." (14.55) JAMIE – "Being able to dig into documentation, figure out what's salient, and be productive quickly, in an unfamiliar environment are skills that have helped my IT career." (17.52) JAMIE – "I would always choose the company or the product that I believe in more than maybe a salary or a title." CONTACT JAMIE: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jxpx777/ Website: http://www.jamiephelps.com

Live with Justin Searls

Remote Ruby

Play Episode Listen Later May 17, 2019 49:51

In this episode, Jason and Chris are joined by Justin Searls during RailsConf 2019. Justin is a co-founder of Test Double, an agency that's improving the world's software. They talked with Justin about his path to programming (it includes Blockbuster!), how Test Double got its start, public speaking, and using an iPad as a development machine.

Stop Chasing Shiny Things and Learn to Focus on Your Career with Dave Mosher

IT Career Energizer

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 28, 2019 26:01

GUEST BIO: Dave is a Software Developer who has been building web applications since using HTML tables for layout started to go out of style. A background in classical design and computer systems technology has enabled him to roam between the worlds of design and development. Dave hails from Ottawa, Canada where he works remotely for Test Double. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Dave Mosher. He has a background in classic design and computer systems technology. Today, he works remotely for Test Double as a Software Developer. Dave has also held this position at Shopify and Pillar Technology. For several years, he ran his own consulting company DAVEMO. He specializes in producing high-performance front-end web architecture and is currently working on getting more deeply involved in coaching and mentoring. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (1.04) – So Dave, can I ask you to expand on that intro and tell us a little bit more about yourself? Dave started his IT career working as a designer. He started out just working with HTML and CSS. At first, he did a lot of desktop publishing work. But, he soon moved on to development, working with databases. (2.27) - How did you get into Test Double? When did that come about? Dave spent a few years working at a start-up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, doing Python app development on Google App Engine. During that time, he grew a lot and learned to wear lots of hats. That role ended and Dave found himself at a loose end. Around the same time, Kevin Baribeau, a fellow test dabbler, was also under-occupied. He got a job at a consultancy called Pillar Technology. So, Dave applied for a role there too and was hired as a remote consultant. During much of his time with Pillar Technology he worked directly with the guy who hired him, Justin Searls. He also came across Ted Kaufmann while working there. Within about two years, Justin and Ted left Pillar Technology and set up Test Double. Dave ended up working for them as a consultant and later as a full-time employee. It was Justin that helped him to learn TDD, how to write tests and introduced him to the realm of Agile software development. Dave says he learned more in the nine months he worked directly with Justin than he had in the previous five years. (4.53) – Can you please share a unique career tip with the I.T. career audience? Dave’s advice is not to chase technology if you are not happy in your current role. In all likeliness a shiny new piece of technology is not going to solve your problems. If you start chasing after shiny tech it usually ends in disappointment. Ultimately, technology is not really the source of the challenge you are looking for. Solving people’s problems is what brings job satisfaction. You don’t need to be using the latest technology to do that. Phil asks if he is saying that you need to avoid the shiny penny syndrome. Dave confirms that is the case. Chasing after the latest tech is a trap that a lot of newcomers fall into. They tend to underestimate the human factors of software development. (7.09) – Can you tell us about your worst career moment? And what you learned from that experience. Before joining Double Test full time, Dave took a job with Shopify. He wanted to get away from using JavaScript and learn to use Ruby on Rails. Overall, it was a good move. He learned a lot while working there. But, it was also where his worst career moment took place. At the time, he was refactoring their asset pipeline. It was really slow, taking five minutes to run, so Dave re-tooled it. He did a good job and got the run time down to about 20 seconds. So, they rushed his enhancement out to production. That was a mistake, a big one. They ended up taking down the whole of Shopify for about 15 minutes. At the time, there were around 80,000 websites running on the platform, so it was a big deal. This incident taught Dave that if you are making a change to a big platform you need to be especially careful before proceeding. You have to slow things down a bit and vet everything in every possible environment. It is also important to keep your QA and production environments as closely aligned as possible. At the time, Shopify had not succeeded in doing that. Dave and the people he was working with had been lured into a false sense of security. When the enhancement test went green in the QA environment they, understandably, assumed it would work in production. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. (11.10) – What was your best career moment? For Dave, that was when he first started working for Double Test. At the time they were working on a contract for a very large firm. Like most large corporations, the work environment was incredibly restrictive and inflexible. They had lots of standards in place and hoops to jump through. It was impossible to work fast because Dave and his colleagues had virtually no autonomy. However, they did find a way around this. Working with one of the firm’s developers, who did a lot of API work, they were able to build a shim and their own tooling. This enabled them to work in isolation at the front end with the angular piece and JavaScript. That meant that they could work much faster. For everyone involved in coming up with this solution it was a great technical triumph. But, Dave took the most pleasure from the fact that they had been able to help the team lead they were working with to gain confidence and excel. They invested a lot of time and energy into coaching him and giving him personal encouragement. This included teaching him people skills, for example, how to avoid confrontations and not become defensive. By the end of their time together he was a completely different person. So much so that he actually said “you guys changed my life.” (13.50) – Can you tell us what excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? The fact that the barrier to entry has been lowered significantly really excites Dave. Code boot camps are making the field of IT a lot more accessible. In particular those boot camps that have structured their courses so that you do not necessarily have to pay your tuition fees up front. Dave has also been involved in producing educational resources. He took what he was doing at work and replicated the processes via screencasts so that he could help and educate other people. It was wildly successful and Dave found that putting together the lessons helped to solidify his knowledge. So, the benefits were twofold. Both parties benefited. He has noticed that a lot more people are starting to do share their knowledge, recently, something he is very pleased to see. (17.10) – What drew you to a career in IT? Dave drifted into IT through design. But, to get involved in the back end he had to go back to school and complete a Computer Systems Technology diploma. It was the only way he could go from being a starving artist, so to speak, to making some real money. (17.36) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? That advice came from Justin. He was struggling to convince Dave that test-driven development was the way to go. Dave, like most developers, was used to starting with the code first, then thinking about tests. Justin knew, from experience, that he was right. But, when Dave did not listen he did not continue to badger him. Instead, he let him go his own way and discover the painful way that he was wrong and Justin was right. Test-driven development did work best. This experience taught Dave the value of allowing yourself the freedom to fail. He learned how to use his pain as a motivator. He still remembers how going down the wrong path feels, so stops and thinks more before choosing a course of action. Dave is also more inclined to listen to others than he was when he first started his career. (18.54) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? Dave says that he would probably spend a lot more time working with relational databases. If you want to specialize, being a database admin, and understanding the nuts and bolts of PostgreSQL or Postgres is a great approach, right now. He would also get a better handle on data modeling. Developers have a tendency to start without the data. As a result, all too often, they end up painting themselves into a corner pretty quickly. (19.56) – What are you currently focusing on in your career? Right now, Dave wants to get more involved with mentoring. He wants to have more of an impact on people’s personal lives. Dave is currently figuring who the people in his community are so that he can make himself available to them and help others to level up. (20.39) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? For Dave, that is his musical abilities. He plays piano, drums, bass, and guitar. Dave finds playing to be a good creative outlet and has noticed that there is a lot of crossover between musicality and IT. While playing music, you learn to pick up on patterns and how to improvise. This skill set is useful for IT professionals as well as musicians. Playing music with others sharpens your ability to spot where they are going and follow them or add to what they are doing. These skills are also useful in the workplace. (22.18) – Phil asks Dave to share a final piece of career advice with the audience. Dave’s parting piece of advice is - When you feel it's time to move on, reconsider. Usually, if you are at the end of your rope there will still be something you can do to reframe the engagement in a way that is positive. Adversity provides you with the chance to rise to the challenge and learn. So, when you are struggling, stop, think and see if you can solve the problem without necessarily changing companies. Only move on when you have considered things carefully and determined there is no way to fix the problem. BEST MOMENTS: (1.45) DAVE – "I was drawn to the web via the power of design." (3.05) DAVE – "Don't chase technology would be my number one career tip." (7.08) PHIL – "It's the right technology for the right solution as opposed to a specific technology." (10.45) DAVE – " Take a little bit more time than you think you need and try to vet all of the things that you're working on in every environment possible" (18.33) DAVE – "Allow yourself the freedom to fail." (22.23) DAVE – “When you feel like it's time to move on, reconsider.” CONTACT DAVE: Twitter: https://twitter.com/dmosher LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmosher/ Website: https://blog.davemo.com

MRS 084: Justin Searls

My Ruby Story

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 3, 2019 55:16

Sponsors Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan .TECH– tech/MRS and use the coupon code “MRS.TECH” and get a 1 year .TECH Domain at $9.99 and 5 Year Domain at $49.99. Hurry! CacheFly Host: Charles Max Wood Special Guest: Justin Searls Episode Summary In this episode of My Ruby Story, Charles hosts Justin Searls, co-founder of Test Double, a software agency which helps developers improve their quality of the software. Listen to Justin on the podcast JavaScript Jabber on this episode and this episode. Justin got into programming playing with his Casio Calculator when he was 10 years old. He came up with little games such as guessing the number. Later on, he added features and soon created an ephemeral checkers game. He had no knowledge about the basics of programming and everything was self-directive. Justin majored in Computer Science in college.However, he soon learned that Computer Science does not equal Application Development. The things taught to him by his professors were not very practical for building applications. He had his first hands-on experience in programming when he worked at the campus library. He was asked to work on their flash base citation generator which was meant to help those who were doing research for their bibliography. Millions of people used it and its feedback led him to build web applications that could provide a free useful service to other people. Over time, he found out that JavaScript was a good way to solve problems for people. However, he did not have a lot of autonomy over the jobs. He recalls an experience where every single Java library he wanted to pull off had to get approved by a committee. He ended up building an earlier Ajax application which uses JavaScript for services. That was a path for him to record productivity. To hear the rest of My Ruby Story Justin Searls, download and listen to the entire episode. Links JavaScript Jabber: Test Doubles with Justin Searls JavaScript Jabber: Jasmine with Justin Searls Justin's Twitter test double.js (library) SCNA SCNA Talk - How to Scratch an Itch Teenytest Test Double blog archive Social Coding Contract Jasmine https://devchat.tv/my-ruby-story/ https://www.facebook.com/DevChattv Picks Justin Searls: USB-C Charles Max Wood: Electro-Voice RE 20 Battlestar Galactica 2003 series Stranger Things Arcanum Unbounded

tech influencers millions stranger things scratch computer science hurry java ajax javascript battlestar galactica itch usb c sentry application development cachefly charles max wood test double justin searls javascript jabber devchattv arcanum unbounded electro voice re

MRS 084: Justin Searls

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 3, 2019 55:16

Sponsors Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan .TECH– tech/MRS and use the coupon code “MRS.TECH” and get a 1 year .TECH Domain at $9.99 and 5 Year Domain at $49.99. Hurry! CacheFly Host: Charles Max Wood Special Guest: Justin Searls Episode Summary In this episode of My Ruby Story, Charles hosts Justin Searls, co-founder of Test Double, a software agency which helps developers improve their quality of the software. Listen to Justin on the podcast JavaScript Jabber on this episode and this episode. Justin got into programming playing with his Casio Calculator when he was 10 years old. He came up with little games such as guessing the number. Later on, he added features and soon created an ephemeral checkers game. He had no knowledge about the basics of programming and everything was self-directive. Justin majored in Computer Science in college.However, he soon learned that Computer Science does not equal Application Development. The things taught to him by his professors were not very practical for building applications. He had his first hands-on experience in programming when he worked at the campus library. He was asked to work on their flash base citation generator which was meant to help those who were doing research for their bibliography. Millions of people used it and its feedback led him to build web applications that could provide a free useful service to other people. Over time, he found out that JavaScript was a good way to solve problems for people. However, he did not have a lot of autonomy over the jobs. He recalls an experience where every single Java library he wanted to pull off had to get approved by a committee. He ended up building an earlier Ajax application which uses JavaScript for services. That was a path for him to record productivity. To hear the rest of My Ruby Story Justin Searls, download and listen to the entire episode. Links JavaScript Jabber: Test Doubles with Justin Searls JavaScript Jabber: Jasmine with Justin Searls Justin's Twitter test double.js (library) SCNA SCNA Talk - How to Scratch an Itch Teenytest Test Double blog archive Social Coding Contract Jasmine https://devchat.tv/my-ruby-story/ https://www.facebook.com/DevChattv Picks Justin Searls: USB-C Charles Max Wood: Electro-Voice RE 20 Battlestar Galactica 2003 series Stranger Things Arcanum Unbounded

tech influencers millions stranger things scratch computer science hurry java ajax javascript battlestar galactica itch usb c sentry application development cachefly charles max wood test double justin searls javascript jabber devchattv arcanum unbounded electro voice re

MRS 084: Justin Searls

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 3, 2019 55:16

Sponsors Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan .TECH– tech/MRS and use the coupon code “MRS.TECH” and get a 1 year .TECH Domain at $9.99 and 5 Year Domain at $49.99. Hurry! CacheFly Host: Charles Max Wood Special Guest: Justin Searls Episode Summary In this episode of My Ruby Story, Charles hosts Justin Searls, co-founder of Test Double, a software agency which helps developers improve their quality of the software. Listen to Justin on the podcast JavaScript Jabber on this episode and this episode. Justin got into programming playing with his Casio Calculator when he was 10 years old. He came up with little games such as guessing the number. Later on, he added features and soon created an ephemeral checkers game. He had no knowledge about the basics of programming and everything was self-directive. Justin majored in Computer Science in college.However, he soon learned that Computer Science does not equal Application Development. The things taught to him by his professors were not very practical for building applications. He had his first hands-on experience in programming when he worked at the campus library. He was asked to work on their flash base citation generator which was meant to help those who were doing research for their bibliography. Millions of people used it and its feedback led him to build web applications that could provide a free useful service to other people. Over time, he found out that JavaScript was a good way to solve problems for people. However, he did not have a lot of autonomy over the jobs. He recalls an experience where every single Java library he wanted to pull off had to get approved by a committee. He ended up building an earlier Ajax application which uses JavaScript for services. That was a path for him to record productivity. To hear the rest of My Ruby Story Justin Searls, download and listen to the entire episode. Links JavaScript Jabber: Test Doubles with Justin Searls JavaScript Jabber: Jasmine with Justin Searls Justin's Twitter test double.js (library) SCNA SCNA Talk - How to Scratch an Itch Teenytest Test Double blog archive Social Coding Contract Jasmine https://devchat.tv/my-ruby-story/ https://www.facebook.com/DevChattv Picks Justin Searls: USB-C Charles Max Wood: Electro-Voice RE 20 Battlestar Galactica 2003 series Stranger Things Arcanum Unbounded

tech influencers millions stranger things scratch computer science hurry java ajax javascript battlestar galactica itch usb c sentry application development cachefly charles max wood test double justin searls javascript jabber devchattv arcanum unbounded electro voice re

Episode 54: Code Style and Community with Sam Phippen and Justin Searls

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 30, 2019 47:16

Code Style and Community with Sam Phippen and Justin Searls TableXI is now offering training for developers and products teams! For more info, email workshops@tablexi.com or visit http://www.tablexi.com/workshops. Guests Sam Phippen (https://twitter.com/samphippen): Developer Advocate at Google and member of the RSpec (https://github.com/rspec) Core Team Justin Searls (https://twitter.com/searls): Cofounder of Test Double (http://testdouble.com/) Summary On this episode, we’ve got Sam Phippen and Justin Searls back for their third round on the show. Both of them have been working on new Ruby tools to better standardize your team’s style and code formatting. We talk about why they’ve decided these tools are important, what their philosophy of coding style is, how coding style relates to the Ruby community, and how they evaluate code when given a code sample to look at. We’d like to hear from you. How does your team handle differences of opinion in code style? Let us know at techdoneright.io/54 or on Twitter at @tech_done_right Notes 02:21 - Code Style Bikeshedding (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bikeshedding) Standard JS (https://standardjs.com/) standard Ruby Gem (https://rubygems.org/gems/standard) rubocop (https://github.com/rubocop-hq/rubocop) Hash Rockets are good actually (https://samphippen.com/hash-rockets-are-good-actually/) Sandi Metz: Why We Argue Style (https://www.sandimetz.com/blog/2017/6/1/why-we-argue-style) 09:46 - Choosing Ruby: Community Standards vs Style 14:59 - Evaluating Code Samples for Developer Positions - Gilded Rose Refactoring Kata (https://github.com/emilybache/GildedRose-Refactoring-Kata) 21:04 - Ruby Format 29:05 - Selecting Rules For Standard 35:38 - Discrepancies in Rails View Template Files - haml-lint (https://github.com/brigade/haml-lint) 39:10 - What happens if these projects aren’t successful? - Why's (poignant) Guide To Ruby (https://poignant.guide) Previous Justin/Sam Episodes: Part I: Episode 004: In The Testing Weeds (http://www.techdoneright.io/004-testing-with-sam-and-justin) Part II: Back in the Testing Weeds with Sam Phippen and Justin Searls (https://www.techdoneright.io/33) Special Guests: Justin Searls and Penelope Phippen.

community google co founders style code discrepancies developer advocate test double justin searls rspec ruby gem sam phippen

Discovering The True Value of Agile And The Team With Justin Searls

IT Career Energizer

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 11, 2018 29:29

GUEST BIO: Justin is co-founder of Test Double, an agency of highly skilled developers on a mission to fix what’s broken in software. As well as running Test Double, Justin is also an occasional conference speaker. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Today, Phil is talking to Justin Searls who is the co-founder of Test Double. An agency that embeds their developers into businesses to deliver the software they really need. Their approach includes refactoring legacy code, where appropriate, and mentoring the clients they work with. Justin is also an occasional public speaker. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (0.41) – Phil asked Justin to share a bit more information about himself. Justin responded by saying that he is a lifetime consultant, so has worked on many different projects. As a result, he deeply understands how software teams fail. This, in part, inspired him to start Test Double. He realized that he needed to hire developers who were passionate, positive. People who were happy to act as teachers and mentors while fixing company’s software issues. (2.37) – Phil asks Justin to share a unique career tip. Justin explains that following your passions all of the time was not necessarily a good idea, at least in the long-term. He explained that when speaking at universities most students say they want to be games developers. This is understandable, but the market is flooded with games developers. So, many of those who go ahead and follow what they love end up being paid relatively low wages. When Justin started out he resisted the temptation to just do things he liked. He focused on JavaScript testing. At the time only a few other people were doing that. So, they ended up with an almost unique, highly sought-after skill set. Justin focused on what people needed more than what he wanted, which led to a successful career. (5.39) – Justin is asked about his worst career moment. For Justin that happened when he was working for a major financial institution. Many of their transactions had to be confirmed and recorded in writing, so they received around 40,000 pieces of mail every day. It all had to be opened and processed manually. Justin was a key part of the team that put together an OCR style system that would capture all of that data and improve the efficiency of the mail system. On the night of the handover, all of the servers went down. Justin had no internet and because the phones were VOIP no way of communicating with anyone. It turns out a cleaner had knocked a fire extinguisher over in the server room, which pressed the cut out button. It took the firm days to get the old system back online. Then they still had to go through the process of moving to the new system. It was a disaster. That experience showed Justin how important continuous delivery is when switching to new systems. Taking an incremental approach when you can is far safer and more efficient in the long run. (8.56) – Phil asks Justin to share a career highlight. Justin explained that Double Test now employs 40 people all of whom work remotely. Most of them rarely meet each other. However, every now and again they get together at a mentor retreat with their plus ones. Seeing them all together like that, the first time, made him realize that he had played a role in creating a group of people who all respected and cared for each other and were able to pull together as an effective team. For Justin, that was a truly joyful moment, a career highlight. (10.55) – Phil wants to know what excites Justin about the future for the IT industry. Justin starts by saying if you were to ask a group of business leaders about who would be coding in 10 years you would get conflicting answers. Half would say everyone, while the rest would say nobody. He suspects that both sides are right to some extent. Some things will be done automatically, but everyone will end up at least tinkering with code. For example, the Siri shortcuts that have recently been released will allow users to create their own custom workflows. The future of coding is going to be different, which is exciting and brings all kinds of opportunities. (15.36) – Phil asked Justin what drew him to a career in IT. Justin got the bug at a young age. On a school vacation his luggage was lost, which meant that he did not have the clothing he needed to be able to spend time outside. So, he was stuck indoors with just what was in his backpack. That happened to be his homework and a graphing calculator. Using this tiny handheld computer he started to program simple games. That was it, Justin had the IT bug. At that point he realized that coding opened up untold (17.25) – What is the best career advice you have been given? Justin says he was advised to live below his means for as long as possible as a student and after qualifying. He did it for a long time and saved up a lot of money. Doing this gives you the financial freedom to move jobs whenever you want. There is no need to be stuck in a bad job or one where you are not growing your skills. Financial safety is liberating. It makes you a better developer, you are not timid and afraid to speak up or share an idea. He also said that it is important to work on as a consultant, so you can gain experience, expand your horizons and be a well-rounded developer. (19.53) – If you were to start your career now, what would you do differently? Justin said that he would probably have progressed his career at a slower pace. He also said he would network more with people who were not from the same race, background, sex or socioeconomic class as him. The fact that he did not make an extra effort to do this at the start of his career meant that he inadvertently ended up with a firm made up almost entirely of straight white men. It is important to attend more meet-ups that include people who are different from you and have a different view of the world. (21.54) – Phil asks Justin what career objectives he is currently focusing on. When Justin and Todd founded Test Double they had to take on roles they had never trained for. Gradually, they are recruiting people to take over some of those processes. Most of the marketing and sales responsibility fell to Justin. So, currently they are developing a marketing and sales funnel that can be handed over and run successfully by someone else. (23.25) – What non-technical skill has helped you in your career so far? Justin said his liberal arts education coursework exposed him to a wide range of subjects. Having to study world religion, philosophy, history, political science and other subjects, helped to make him a more rounded and curious person. It contributed to his being good at analyzing complex algorithms. Having to absorb such an eclectic mix of information, while studying, made it easier for him to look at things from many different perspectives at once. (24.51) – Phil asks Justin to share a few final words of career advice. For Justin taking time out to observe and really think is important. Being able to control your attention and stay focused is a tremendously marketable skill. He recommends that people read Deep Work by Cal Newport and Hyperfocus by Chris Bailey to learn more about why that is and learn how to build that skill. BEST MOMENTS: (1.22) Justin - "Humans are nothing if not pattern recognition machines. You know, before there was machine learning there was learning, learning." (8.57) Justin - Speaking about implementing new projects Justin said - "If you just like let all that fear uncertainty about pile up into this big two-year event, all you're going to end up with is like, you know, a gigantic pizza party and a lot of pain." (10.55) Justin - "We have, like, mobilized effectively, a very healthy team of people who are then able to go and make other teams more healthy." (16.53) - Justin - "I just saw this tremendous potential for magic for making a computer do what I wanted it to do by dint of just spending enough time in a very tight feedback loop." (19.00) Justin - "If you are financially independent paycheck to paycheck on that job, not just disappearing, you're going to act from a defensive crouch that is more conservative." CONTACT JUSTIN SEARLS: Twitter: https://twitter.com/searls @searls LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/searls/ Website: https://www.testdouble.com

Episode 17: Presentations, Vulnerability, and Solving Complex Problems with Justin Searls (Live at JSConf US)

TalkScript

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 5, 2018 35:33

The team continues the live-ish from JSConf US series with Test Double's Justin Searls. Listen in for a lively discussion on presentations, vulnerability, and solving complex problems. The post Episode 17: Presentations, Vulnerability, and Solving Complex Problems with Justin Searls (Live at JSConf US) appeared first on TalkScript.FM.

vulnerability complex presentations complex problems test double justin searls jsconf us

Episode 17: Presentations, Vulnerability, and Solving Complex Problems with Justin Searls (Live at JSConf US)

TalkScript

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 5, 2018 35:33

The team continues the live-ish from JSConf US series with Test Double's Justin Searls. Listen in for a lively discussion on presentations, vulnerability, and solving complex problems. The post Episode 17: Presentations, Vulnerability, and Solving Complex Problems with Justin Searls (Live at JSConf US) appeared first on SitePen.

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JSJ 325: Practical functional programming in JavaScript and languages like Elm with Jeremy Fairbank

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 7, 2018 53:47

Panel: Aimee Knight Joe Eames AJ ONeal Special Guests: Jeremy Fairbank In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panel talks to Jeremy Fairbank about his talk Practical Functional Programming. Jeremy is a remote software developer and consultant for Test Double. They talk about what Test Double is and what they do there and the 6 things he touched on in his talk, such as hard to follow code, function composition, and mutable vs immutable data. They also touch on the theory of unit testing, if functional programming is the solution, and more! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: Jeremy intro Works for Test Double What he means by “remote” What is Test Double? They believe software is broken and they are there to fix it His talk - Practical Functional Programming The 6 things he talked about in his talk Practical aspects that any software engineer is going to deal with Purity and the side effects of programming in general Hard to follow code Imperative VS declarative code Code breaking unexpectedly Mutable data VS immutable data The idea of too much code Combining multiple functions together to make more complex functions Function composition Elm, Elixir, and F# Pipe operator Scary to refactor code Static types The idea of null The theory of unit testing Is functional programming the solution? His approach from the talk And much, much more! Links: Test Double His talk - Practical Functional Programming Elm Elixir F# @elpapapollo jeremyfairbank.com Jeremy’s GitHub Jeremy’s YouTube Sponsors Kendo UI Sentry Digital Ocean Picks: Aimee American Dollar Force with lease AJ Superfight Joe The 2018 Web Developer Roadmap by Brandon Morelli Svelte Jeremy Programming Elm The Secrets of Consulting by Gerald M. Weinberg Connect.Tech

secrets tech code practical force scary panel consulting purity special guests function languages github pipe static javascript elixir elm weinberg sentry superfight digital ocean functional programming svelte mutable american dollar test double aimee knight javascript jabber kendo ui joe eames gerald m weinberg web developer roadmap aj oneal jeremy fairbank

JSJ 325: Practical functional programming in JavaScript and languages like Elm with Jeremy Fairbank

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 7, 2018 53:47

Panel: Aimee Knight Joe Eames AJ ONeal Special Guests: Jeremy Fairbank In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panel talks to Jeremy Fairbank about his talk Practical Functional Programming. Jeremy is a remote software developer and consultant for Test Double. They talk about what Test Double is and what they do there and the 6 things he touched on in his talk, such as hard to follow code, function composition, and mutable vs immutable data. They also touch on the theory of unit testing, if functional programming is the solution, and more! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: Jeremy intro Works for Test Double What he means by “remote” What is Test Double? They believe software is broken and they are there to fix it His talk - Practical Functional Programming The 6 things he talked about in his talk Practical aspects that any software engineer is going to deal with Purity and the side effects of programming in general Hard to follow code Imperative VS declarative code Code breaking unexpectedly Mutable data VS immutable data The idea of too much code Combining multiple functions together to make more complex functions Function composition Elm, Elixir, and F# Pipe operator Scary to refactor code Static types The idea of null The theory of unit testing Is functional programming the solution? His approach from the talk And much, much more! Links: Test Double His talk - Practical Functional Programming Elm Elixir F# @elpapapollo jeremyfairbank.com Jeremy’s GitHub Jeremy’s YouTube Sponsors Kendo UI Sentry Digital Ocean Picks: Aimee American Dollar Force with lease AJ Superfight Joe The 2018 Web Developer Roadmap by Brandon Morelli Svelte Jeremy Programming Elm The Secrets of Consulting by Gerald M. Weinberg Connect.Tech

secrets tech code practical force scary panel consulting purity special guests function languages github pipe static javascript elixir elm weinberg sentry superfight digital ocean functional programming svelte mutable american dollar test double aimee knight javascript jabber kendo ui joe eames gerald m weinberg web developer roadmap aj oneal jeremy fairbank

JSJ 325: Practical functional programming in JavaScript and languages like Elm with Jeremy Fairbank

JavaScript Jabber

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 7, 2018 53:47

Panel: Aimee Knight Joe Eames AJ ONeal Special Guests: Jeremy Fairbank In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panel talks to Jeremy Fairbank about his talk Practical Functional Programming. Jeremy is a remote software developer and consultant for Test Double. They talk about what Test Double is and what they do there and the 6 things he touched on in his talk, such as hard to follow code, function composition, and mutable vs immutable data. They also touch on the theory of unit testing, if functional programming is the solution, and more! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: Jeremy intro Works for Test Double What he means by “remote” What is Test Double? They believe software is broken and they are there to fix it His talk - Practical Functional Programming The 6 things he talked about in his talk Practical aspects that any software engineer is going to deal with Purity and the side effects of programming in general Hard to follow code Imperative VS declarative code Code breaking unexpectedly Mutable data VS immutable data The idea of too much code Combining multiple functions together to make more complex functions Function composition Elm, Elixir, and F# Pipe operator Scary to refactor code Static types The idea of null The theory of unit testing Is functional programming the solution? His approach from the talk And much, much more! Links: Test Double His talk - Practical Functional Programming Elm Elixir F# @elpapapollo jeremyfairbank.com Jeremy’s GitHub Jeremy’s YouTube Sponsors Kendo UI Sentry Digital Ocean Picks: Aimee American Dollar Force with lease AJ Superfight Joe The 2018 Web Developer Roadmap by Brandon Morelli Svelte Jeremy Programming Elm The Secrets of Consulting by Gerald M. Weinberg Connect.Tech

secrets tech code practical force scary panel consulting purity special guests function languages github pipe static javascript elixir elm weinberg sentry superfight digital ocean functional programming svelte mutable american dollar test double aimee knight javascript jabber kendo ui joe eames gerald m weinberg web developer roadmap aj oneal jeremy fairbank

MRS 042: Josh Greenwood

My Ruby Story

Play Episode Listen Later May 2, 2018 27:44

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Josh Greenwood This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Josh Greenwood. Josh was recently on Ruby Rogues and he works for a consulting company called Test Double, where he works remotely with clients all across the country. He first got into programming because he was always around computers because of his Dad, and he always loved playing video games. His first real exposure to programming was when he found an HTML book on his Dad’s bookshelf and he used it to build a website. They talk about what led him to Ruby, what made him fall in love with programming, and much more! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: Josh intro Ruby Rogues Episode 347 Test Double How did you first get into programming? Grew up around computers Built a website based off a HTML book Scripting for video games Geocities Exposure to the programming world International Business degree Didn’t always want to program as a career Apriss Ruby and Rails Freelancing job Learned Ruby at internships in college What made you find a love for programming? What drew you in to Ruby? Ruby’s general approachability Loved the Ruby community What are you proud of contributing to the community? What are you workn on now? Recent talk at Code PaLOUsa Learning Elm And much, much more! Links: Ruby Rogues Episode 347 Test Double Apriss Ruby Rails Code PaLOUsa Elm Josh’s GitHub @JoshTGreenwood Test Double blog Picks: Charles Ruby Hack Airbrake Rollbar DevChat.tv YouTube ScreenFlow Josh The Secrets of Consulting by Gerald M. Weinberg The Bullet Journal

learning secrets dad built fall in love loved panel consulting exposure default grew github greenwood freelancing html rails international business elm weinberg scripting bullet journal geocities screenflow devchat charles max wood test double rollbar ruby rogues gerald m weinberg ruby rogues episode code palousa

MRS 042: Josh Greenwood

Play Episode Listen Later May 2, 2018 27:44

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Josh Greenwood This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Josh Greenwood. Josh was recently on Ruby Rogues and he works for a consulting company called Test Double, where he works remotely with clients all across the country. He first got into programming because he was always around computers because of his Dad, and he always loved playing video games. His first real exposure to programming was when he found an HTML book on his Dad’s bookshelf and he used it to build a website. They talk about what led him to Ruby, what made him fall in love with programming, and much more! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: Josh intro Ruby Rogues Episode 347 Test Double How did you first get into programming? Grew up around computers Built a website based off a HTML book Scripting for video games Geocities Exposure to the programming world International Business degree Didn’t always want to program as a career Apriss Ruby and Rails Freelancing job Learned Ruby at internships in college What made you find a love for programming? What drew you in to Ruby? Ruby’s general approachability Loved the Ruby community What are you proud of contributing to the community? What are you workn on now? Recent talk at Code PaLOUsa Learning Elm And much, much more! Links: Ruby Rogues Episode 347 Test Double Apriss Ruby Rails Code PaLOUsa Elm Josh’s GitHub @JoshTGreenwood Test Double blog Picks: Charles Ruby Hack Airbrake Rollbar DevChat.tv YouTube ScreenFlow Josh The Secrets of Consulting by Gerald M. Weinberg The Bullet Journal

learning secrets dad built fall in love loved panel consulting exposure default grew github greenwood freelancing html rails international business elm weinberg scripting bullet journal geocities screenflow devchat charles max wood test double rollbar ruby rogues gerald m weinberg ruby rogues episode code palousa

MRS 042: Josh Greenwood

Play Episode Listen Later May 2, 2018 27:44

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Josh Greenwood This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Josh Greenwood. Josh was recently on Ruby Rogues and he works for a consulting company called Test Double, where he works remotely with clients all across the country. He first got into programming because he was always around computers because of his Dad, and he always loved playing video games. His first real exposure to programming was when he found an HTML book on his Dad’s bookshelf and he used it to build a website. They talk about what led him to Ruby, what made him fall in love with programming, and much more! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: Josh intro Ruby Rogues Episode 347 Test Double How did you first get into programming? Grew up around computers Built a website based off a HTML book Scripting for video games Geocities Exposure to the programming world International Business degree Didn’t always want to program as a career Apriss Ruby and Rails Freelancing job Learned Ruby at internships in college What made you find a love for programming? What drew you in to Ruby? Ruby’s general approachability Loved the Ruby community What are you proud of contributing to the community? What are you workn on now? Recent talk at Code PaLOUsa Learning Elm And much, much more! Links: Ruby Rogues Episode 347 Test Double Apriss Ruby Rails Code PaLOUsa Elm Josh’s GitHub @JoshTGreenwood Test Double blog Picks: Charles Ruby Hack Airbrake Rollbar DevChat.tv YouTube ScreenFlow Josh The Secrets of Consulting by Gerald M. Weinberg The Bullet Journal

learning secrets dad built fall in love loved panel consulting exposure default grew github greenwood freelancing html rails international business elm weinberg scripting bullet journal geocities screenflow devchat charles max wood test double rollbar ruby rogues gerald m weinberg ruby rogues episode code palousa

MRS 041: Marla Brizel

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 27, 2018 38:56

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Marla Brizel This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Marla Brizel. Marla works at Test Double and has been programming full time for the past four years. She first got into programming when she got a job at a startup where they helped her learn how to program for herself and she fell in love with it. They talk about her background as a project manager and the importance of empathy for the user. They then touch on how she got into Ruby and things that she is particularly proud of contributing to the Ruby community. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: Marla intro How did you first get into programming? Has been working in tech for the past decade Working at a startup What was it about coding made you want to make the switch? Likes that there are always more puzzles to solve You can always be learning new things in the programming world Get a Coder Job Course Code is the easy part of the job How programming has progressed over the years Test Double Project management background How did you wind up as a project manager? Building empathy for the user How did you get into Ruby? Girl Develop It Why Ruby? Ruby reads like English How did you wind up at Test Double? The value of conferences What have you done with Ruby that you are proud of? Denver Startup Week Ruby on Rails Elections And much, much more! Links: Test Double Get a Coder Job Course Ruby Girl Develop It Denver Startup Week @MarlaBrizel Marla’s GitHub MarlaBrizel.com Picks: Charles TripIt NG conf MicroConf RubyHack Microsoft Build Podcast Movement Get a Job Course “Ruby Rants” coming soon Marla Vokl Aura Skis dry-rb GitX Silvercar Denver Airport Train Denver Startup Week

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MRS 041: Marla Brizel

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 26, 2018 38:56

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Marla Brizel This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Marla Brizel. Marla works at Test Double and has been programming full time for the past four years. She first got into programming when she got a job at a startup where they helped her learn how to program for herself and she fell in love with it. They talk about her background as a project manager and the importance of empathy for the user. They then touch on how she got into Ruby and things that she is particularly proud of contributing to the Ruby community. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: Marla intro How did you first get into programming? Has been working in tech for the past decade Working at a startup What was it about coding made you want to make the switch? Likes that there are always more puzzles to solve You can always be learning new things in the programming world Get a Coder Job Course Code is the easy part of the job How programming has progressed over the years Test Double Project management background How did you wind up as a project manager? Building empathy for the user How did you get into Ruby? Girl Develop It Why Ruby? Ruby reads like English How did you wind up at Test Double? The value of conferences What have you done with Ruby that you are proud of? Denver Startup Week Ruby on Rails Elections And much, much more! Links: Test Double Get a Coder Job Course Ruby Girl Develop It Denver Startup Week @MarlaBrizel Marla’s GitHub MarlaBrizel.com Picks: Charles TripIt NG conf MicroConf RubyHack Microsoft Build Podcast Movement Get a Job Course “Ruby Rants” coming soon Marla Vokl Aura Skis dry-rb GitX Silvercar Denver Airport Train Denver Startup Week

english building project elections code panel likes github rails ng podcast movement ruby on rails microsoft build microconf tripit girl develop it charles max wood denver startup week test double silvercar coder job course gitx rubyhack

MRS 041: Marla Brizel

My Ruby Story

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 26, 2018 38:56

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Marla Brizel This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Marla Brizel. Marla works at Test Double and has been programming full time for the past four years. She first got into programming when she got a job at a startup where they helped her learn how to program for herself and she fell in love with it. They talk about her background as a project manager and the importance of empathy for the user. They then touch on how she got into Ruby and things that she is particularly proud of contributing to the Ruby community. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: Marla intro How did you first get into programming? Has been working in tech for the past decade Working at a startup What was it about coding made you want to make the switch? Likes that there are always more puzzles to solve You can always be learning new things in the programming world Get a Coder Job Course Code is the easy part of the job How programming has progressed over the years Test Double Project management background How did you wind up as a project manager? Building empathy for the user How did you get into Ruby? Girl Develop It Why Ruby? Ruby reads like English How did you wind up at Test Double? The value of conferences What have you done with Ruby that you are proud of? Denver Startup Week Ruby on Rails Elections And much, much more! Links: Test Double Get a Coder Job Course Ruby Girl Develop It Denver Startup Week @MarlaBrizel Marla’s GitHub MarlaBrizel.com Picks: Charles TripIt NG conf MicroConf RubyHack Microsoft Build Podcast Movement Get a Job Course “Ruby Rants” coming soon Marla Vokl Aura Skis dry-rb GitX Silvercar Denver Airport Train Denver Startup Week

english building project elections code panel likes github rails ng podcast movement ruby on rails microsoft build microconf tripit girl develop it charles max wood denver startup week test double silvercar coder job course gitx rubyhack

Episode 33: Back in the Testing Weeds with Sam Phippen and Justin Searls

All Angular Podcasts by Devchat.tv

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 28, 2018 41:27

Back in the Testing Weeds with Sam Phippen and Justin Searls TableXI is now offering training for developers and products teams! For more info, email workshops@tablexi.com. Get your FREE career growth strategy information and techniques! (https://stickynote.game) Rails 5 Test Prescriptions (https://pragprog.com/titles/nrtest3) is updated, available, and shipping! Guests Sam Phippen (https://twitter.com/samphippen): Tech Lead at DigitalOcean (https://www.digitalocean.com/) and member of the RSpec (https://github.com/rspec) Core Team Justin Searls (https://twitter.com/searls): Co-founder of Test Double (http://testdouble.com/) Summary I'm back in the testing weeds with Sam Phippen, lead maintainer for RSpec-Rails, and Justin Searls, co-founder of Test Double and author of testdouble.js. We talk about long-running test suites: are they bad, or just misunderstood? Does parallel CI solve all testing speed problems, or just some of them? Then we move to a wider view, what does it mean to test your library as part of a larger ecosystem. And, how can we leverage coverage or CI information to make for more useful testing tools over the lifetime of a project. Notes 02:32 - Dealing with Longer and Longer Test Suites - High Cost Tests and High Value Tests (http://confreaks.tv/videos/rubyconf2017-high-cost-tests-and-high-value-tests) 09:43 - What causes people to get into this trouble? - On Writing Software Well #5: Testing without test damage or excessive isolation (https://youtu.be/Tc5z64XIwIY) 12:46 - If you had a fast test suite, would you still parallelize it in the CI? 15:12 - What does it mean for your library to still be functional? - dont-break (https://www.npmjs.com/package/dont-break) 21:35 - Bugs found via the dont-break style of testing - GRPC (https://grpc.io) 24:06 - Inferring which tests are run from a production code diff 29:31 - Coverage, what's it good for? - RSpec (http://rspec.info/) 33:53 - What kind of features would you expect out of a CI-aware testing suite? Related Episodes Part I: Episode 004: In The Testing Weeds (http://www.techdoneright.io/004-testing-with-sam-and-justin) Special Guests: Justin Searls and Penelope Phippen.

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AiA 182: Brittany Moore's Path into Angular

Adventures in Angular

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 27, 2018 75:04

Panel: Charles Max Wood Alyssa Nicoll Ward Bell John Papa Special Guests: Brittany Moore In this episode of Adventures in Angular, the panel talks to Brittany Moore about her unique experience into Angular. Brittany has been working as a front-end developer for about four years and is currently a consultant for Test Double. She was first introduced to Angular at a talk that John Papa gave and was blown away by the sheer power of it. She really encourages people who are learning Angular to get out and attend talks, conferences and meetups so that they can build connections and get more information from people who are good at what they do. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: Brittany intro Angular Front-end background JavaScript and CSS Discovered Angular from a talk Angular JS and Angular 2.0 What made Angular appeal to you? CS graduate Before Angular, she used a lot of trial and error C# Had trouble getting stated without a JavaScript background Angular gave her a clear path forward and a framework that was understandable Got on as many online communities she could Learned Angular through help on the internet and community resources Encourages people to attend conferences and meetups Ruby Rogues Episode 255 How did you go to conferences when you didn’t know anyone? The importance of pushing yourself out of your comfort zone Her career is defined by the conferences she went to Emotional reaction to conferences ng Vikings Just going to the conferences are beneficial What were your biggest OMG moments at conferences? And much, much more! Links: JS Dev Summit Test Double Angular JavaScript RR Episode 255 ng Vikings @BAnnMoore Brittany’s GitHub Brittany’s Blog Picks: Charles Hogwarts Battle Board Game Pandemic Legacy JS Dev Summit React Dev Summit Using User Voice again on Website Alyssa Diversity Fundraiser Ward ngRx Data Brittany Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella Reigns Her Majesty

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AiA 182: Brittany Moore's Path into Angular

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 27, 2018 75:04

Panel: Charles Max Wood Alyssa Nicoll Ward Bell John Papa Special Guests: Brittany Moore In this episode of Adventures in Angular, the panel talks to Brittany Moore about her unique experience into Angular. Brittany has been working as a front-end developer for about four years and is currently a consultant for Test Double. She was first introduced to Angular at a talk that John Papa gave and was blown away by the sheer power of it. She really encourages people who are learning Angular to get out and attend talks, conferences and meetups so that they can build connections and get more information from people who are good at what they do. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: Brittany intro Angular Front-end background JavaScript and CSS Discovered Angular from a talk Angular JS and Angular 2.0 What made Angular appeal to you? CS graduate Before Angular, she used a lot of trial and error C# Had trouble getting stated without a JavaScript background Angular gave her a clear path forward and a framework that was understandable Got on as many online communities she could Learned Angular through help on the internet and community resources Encourages people to attend conferences and meetups Ruby Rogues Episode 255 How did you go to conferences when you didn’t know anyone? The importance of pushing yourself out of your comfort zone Her career is defined by the conferences she went to Emotional reaction to conferences ng Vikings Just going to the conferences are beneficial What were your biggest OMG moments at conferences? And much, much more! Links: JS Dev Summit Test Double Angular JavaScript RR Episode 255 ng Vikings @BAnnMoore Brittany’s GitHub Brittany’s Blog Picks: Charles Hogwarts Battle Board Game Pandemic Legacy JS Dev Summit React Dev Summit Using User Voice again on Website Alyssa Diversity Fundraiser Ward ngRx Data Brittany Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella Reigns Her Majesty

emotional blog adventures front panel vikings ward special guests omg cs github javascript encourages css satya nadella angular pandemic legacy angularjs pandemic legacy season hit refresh charles max wood john papa test double reigns her majesty brittany moore ward bell ruby rogues episode react dev summit alyssa nicoll rr episode js dev summit hogwarts battle board game ngrx data

AiA 182: Brittany Moore's Path into Angular

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 27, 2018 75:04

Panel: Charles Max Wood Alyssa Nicoll Ward Bell John Papa Special Guests: Brittany Moore In this episode of Adventures in Angular, the panel talks to Brittany Moore about her unique experience into Angular. Brittany has been working as a front-end developer for about four years and is currently a consultant for Test Double. She was first introduced to Angular at a talk that John Papa gave and was blown away by the sheer power of it. She really encourages people who are learning Angular to get out and attend talks, conferences and meetups so that they can build connections and get more information from people who are good at what they do. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: Brittany intro Angular Front-end background JavaScript and CSS Discovered Angular from a talk Angular JS and Angular 2.0 What made Angular appeal to you? CS graduate Before Angular, she used a lot of trial and error C# Had trouble getting stated without a JavaScript background Angular gave her a clear path forward and a framework that was understandable Got on as many online communities she could Learned Angular through help on the internet and community resources Encourages people to attend conferences and meetups Ruby Rogues Episode 255 How did you go to conferences when you didn’t know anyone? The importance of pushing yourself out of your comfort zone Her career is defined by the conferences she went to Emotional reaction to conferences ng Vikings Just going to the conferences are beneficial What were your biggest OMG moments at conferences? And much, much more! Links: JS Dev Summit Test Double Angular JavaScript RR Episode 255 ng Vikings @BAnnMoore Brittany’s GitHub Brittany’s Blog Picks: Charles Hogwarts Battle Board Game Pandemic Legacy JS Dev Summit React Dev Summit Using User Voice again on Website Alyssa Diversity Fundraiser Ward ngRx Data Brittany Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella Reigns Her Majesty

emotional blog adventures front panel vikings ward special guests omg cs github javascript encourages css satya nadella angular pandemic legacy angularjs pandemic legacy season hit refresh charles max wood john papa test double reigns her majesty brittany moore ward bell ruby rogues episode react dev summit alyssa nicoll rr episode js dev summit hogwarts battle board game ngrx data

RR 347: There's Nothing New Under the Sun with Justin Searls and Josh Greenwood

Ruby Rogues

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 30, 2018 67:04

Panel: Dave Kimura Eric Berry David Richards Special Guest: Justin Searls and Josh Greenwood In this episode, the Ruby Rogues speaks with Justin Searls and Josh Greenwood. Justin and Josh both work for a software agency called Test Double, who are a fully remote software agency. Both Josh and Justin are well versed in many technologies and platforms of development such as Ruby, Javascript and much more. Both Justin and Josh are on the show to talks about their recent presentation “There's Nothing New Under the Sun,” which was presented at conferences. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: History and the knowledge of the community Abandoning Gems Exploratory The rise of Rails How much of what you do is in Ruby and Rails? New contracts - How long do they last? Secrets to onboard members or developers? Overwhelmed with projects? Where do you see Ruby in the next few years? Slowing of processors - intel Working with other languages, then into Ruby Jim! Our industry’s obsession at placing novelty/newness above deeper truths and wisdoms. Once the shine has worn off we tend to ignore it, and even the timeline-style most information consumption software is designed with goes out of its way to bury anything “old” What important context new Ruby developers tend to lack (this was the motivation for the talk in the first place) and what can we do to make them more comfortable & capable Straight up nostalgia time. Folks who’ve been in Ruby for a while should find motivation and encouragement by celebrating our past more often to remind ourselves of why we love Ruby and much much more. Links: https://github.com/searls http://testdouble.com @searls @joshtgreenwood Picks: David Gilmore Girls Programming Language - Julia Eric Orville BoJack Horseman Dave A Good Snowman is hard to build Dos Strap Justin Ruby Warrior SkyrimVR Osaka Josh Elm Space Max text editor Mini Metro

RR 347: There's Nothing New Under the Sun with Justin Searls and Josh Greenwood

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 30, 2018 67:04

Panel: Dave Kimura Eric Berry David Richards Special Guest: Justin Searls and Josh Greenwood In this episode, the Ruby Rogues speaks with Justin Searls and Josh Greenwood. Justin and Josh both work for a software agency called Test Double, who are a fully remote software agency. Both Josh and Justin are well versed in many technologies and platforms of development such as Ruby, Javascript and much more. Both Justin and Josh are on the show to talks about their recent presentation “There's Nothing New Under the Sun,” which was presented at conferences. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: History and the knowledge of the community Abandoning Gems Exploratory The rise of Rails How much of what you do is in Ruby and Rails? New contracts - How long do they last? Secrets to onboard members or developers? Overwhelmed with projects? Where do you see Ruby in the next few years? Slowing of processors - intel Working with other languages, then into Ruby Jim! Our industry’s obsession at placing novelty/newness above deeper truths and wisdoms. Once the shine has worn off we tend to ignore it, and even the timeline-style most information consumption software is designed with goes out of its way to bury anything “old” What important context new Ruby developers tend to lack (this was the motivation for the talk in the first place) and what can we do to make them more comfortable & capable Straight up nostalgia time. Folks who’ve been in Ruby for a while should find motivation and encouragement by celebrating our past more often to remind ourselves of why we love Ruby and much much more. Links: https://github.com/searls http://testdouble.com @searls @joshtgreenwood Picks: David Gilmore Girls Programming Language - Julia Eric Orville BoJack Horseman Dave A Good Snowman is hard to build Dos Strap Justin Ruby Warrior SkyrimVR Osaka Josh Elm Space Max text editor Mini Metro

RR 347: There's Nothing New Under the Sun with Justin Searls and Josh Greenwood

internet deep work tdd deep work focused success distracted test double justin searls

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 29, 2018 67:04

Panel: Dave Kimura Eric Berry David Richards Special Guest: Justin Searls and Josh Greenwood In this episode, the Ruby Rogues speaks with Justin Searls and Josh Greenwood. Justin and Josh both work for a software agency called Test Double, who are a fully remote software agency. Both Josh and Justin are well versed in many technologies and platforms of development such as Ruby, Javascript and much more. Both Justin and Josh are on the show to talks about their recent presentation “There's Nothing New Under the Sun,” which was presented at conferences. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: History and the knowledge of the community Abandoning Gems Exploratory The rise of Rails How much of what you do is in Ruby and Rails? New contracts - How long do they last? Secrets to onboard members or developers? Overwhelmed with projects? Where do you see Ruby in the next few years? Slowing of processors - intel Working with other languages, then into Ruby Jim! Our industry’s obsession at placing novelty/newness above deeper truths and wisdoms. Once the shine has worn off we tend to ignore it, and even the timeline-style most information consumption software is designed with goes out of its way to bury anything “old” What important context new Ruby developers tend to lack (this was the motivation for the talk in the first place) and what can we do to make them more comfortable & capable Straight up nostalgia time. Folks who’ve been in Ruby for a while should find motivation and encouragement by celebrating our past more often to remind ourselves of why we love Ruby and much much more. Links: https://github.com/searls http://testdouble.com @searls @joshtgreenwood Picks: David Gilmore Girls Programming Language - Julia Eric Orville BoJack Horseman Dave A Good Snowman is hard to build Dos Strap Justin Ruby Warrior SkyrimVR Osaka Josh Elm Space Max text editor Mini Metro

224: The Bus Factor

BSD Now

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 13, 2017 100:25

We try to answer what happens to an open source project after a developers death, we tell you about the last bootstrapped tech company in Silicon Valley, we have an update to the NetBSD Thread sanitizer, and show how to use use cabal on OpenBSD This episode was brought to you by Headlines Life after death, for code (https://www.wired.com/story/giving-open-source-projects-life-after-a-developers-death/) YOU'VE PROBABLY NEVER heard of the late Jim Weirich or his software. But you've almost certainly used apps built on his work. Weirich helped create several key tools for Ruby, the popular programming language used to write the code for sites like Hulu, Kickstarter, Twitter, and countless others. His code was open source, meaning that anyone could use it and modify it. "He was a seminal member of the western world's Ruby community," says Justin Searls, a Ruby developer and co-founder of the software company Test Double. When Weirich died in 2014, Searls noticed that no one was maintaining one of Weirich's software-testing tools. That meant there would be no one to approve changes if other developers submitted bug fixes, security patches, or other improvements. Any tests that relied on the tool would eventually fail, as the code became outdated and incompatible with newer tech. The incident highlights a growing concern in the open-source software community. What happens to code after programmers pass away? Much has been written about what happens to social-media accounts after users die. But it's been less of an issue among programmers. In part, that's because most companies and governments relied on commercial software maintained by teams of people. But today, more programs rely on obscure but crucial software like Weirich's. Some open-source projects are well known, such as the Linux operating system or Google's artificial-intelligence framework TensorFlow. But each of these projects depend on smaller libraries of open-source code. And those libraries depend on other libraries. The result is a complex, but largely hidden, web of software dependencies. That can create big problems, as in 2014 when a security vulnerability known as "Heartbleed" was found in OpenSSL, an open-source program used by nearly every website that processes credit- or debit-card payments. The software comes bundled with most versions of Linux, but was maintained by a small team of volunteers who didn't have the time or resources to do extensive security audits. Shortly after the Heartbleed fiasco, a security issue was discovered in another common open-source application called Bash that left countless web servers and other devices vulnerable to attack. There are surely more undiscovered vulnerabilities. Libraries.io, a group that analyzes connections between software projects, has identified more than 2,400 open-source libraries that are used in at least 1,000 other programs but have received little attention from the open-source community. Security problems are only one part of the issue. If software libraries aren't kept up to date, they may stop working with newer software. That means an application that depends on an outdated library may not work after a user updates other software. When a developer dies or abandons a project, everyone who depends on that software can be affected. Last year when programmer Azer Koçulu deleted a tiny library called Leftpad from the internet, it created ripple effects that reportedly caused headaches at Facebook, Netflix, and elsewhere. The Bus Factor The fewer people with ownership of a piece of software, the greater the risk that it could be orphaned. Developers even have a morbid name for this: the bus factor, meaning the number of people who would have to be hit by a bus before there's no one left to maintain the project. Libraries.io has identified about 3,000 open-source libraries that are used in many other programs but have only a handful of contributors. Orphaned projects are a risk of using open-source software, though commercial software makers can leave users in a similar bind when they stop supporting or updating older programs. In some cases, motivated programmers adopt orphaned open-source code. That's what Searls did with one of Weirich's projects. Weirich's most-popular projects had co-managers by the time of his death. But Searls noticed one, the testing tool Rspec-Given, hadn't been handed off, and wanted to take responsibility for updating it. But he ran into a few snags along the way. Rspec-Given's code was hosted on the popular code-hosting and collaboration site GitHub, home to 67 million codebases. Weirich's Rspec-Given page on GitHub was the main place for people to report bugs or to volunteer to help improve the code. But GitHub wouldn't give Searls control of the page, because Weirich had not named him before he died. So Searls had to create a new copy of the code, and host it elsewhere. He also had to convince the operators of Ruby Gems, a “package-management system” for distributing code, to use his version of Rspec-Given, instead of Weirich's, so that all users would have access to Searls' changes. GitHub declined to discuss its policies around transferring control of projects. That solved potential problems related to Rspec-Given, but it opened Searls' eyes to the many things that could go wrong. “It's easy to see open source as a purely technical phenomenon,” Searls says. “But once something takes off and is depended on by hundreds of other people, it becomes a social phenomenon as well.” The maintainers of most package-management systems have at least an ad-hoc process for transferring control over a library, but that process usually depends on someone noticing that a project has been orphaned and then volunteering to adopt it. "We don't have an official policy mostly because it hasn't come up all that often," says Evan Phoenix of the Ruby Gems project. "We do have an adviser council that is used to decide these types of things case by case." Some package managers now monitor their libraries and flag widely used projects that haven't been updated in a long time. Neil Bowers, who helps maintain a package manager for the programming language Perl, says he sometimes seeks out volunteers to take over orphan projects. Bowers says his group vets claims that a project has been abandoned, and the people proposing to take it over. A 'Dead-Man's Switch' Taking over Rspec-Given inspired Searls, who was only 30 at the time, to make a will and a succession plan for his own open-source projects. There are other things developers can do to help future-proof their work. They can, for example, transfer the copyrights to a foundation, such as the Apache Foundation. But many open-source projects essentially start as hobbies, so programmers may not think to transfer ownership until it is too late. Searls suggests that GitHub and package managers such as Gems could add something like a "dead man's switch" to their platform, which would allow programmers to automatically transfer ownership of a project or an account to someone else if the creator doesn't log in or make changes after a set period of time. But a transition plan means more than just giving people access to the code. Michael Droettboom, who took over a popular mathematics library called Matplotlib after its creator John Hunter died in 2012, points out that successors also need to understand the code. "Sometimes there are parts of the code that only one person understands," he says. "The knowledge exists only in one person's head." That means getting people involved in a project earlier, ideally as soon as it is used by people other than the original developer. That has another advantage, Searls points out, in distributing the work of maintaining a project to help prevent developer burnout. The Last Bootstrapped Tech Company In Silicon Valley (https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/12/12/the-last-bootstrapped-tech-company-in-silicon-valley/2/#4d53d50f1e4d) My business partner, Matt Olander, and I were intimately familiar with the ups and downs of the Silicon Valley tech industry when we acquired the remnants of our then-employer BSDi's enterprise computer business in 2002 and assumed the roles of CEO and CTO. Fast-forward to today, and we still work in the same buildings where BSDi started in 1996, though you'd hardly recognize them today. As the business grew from a startup to a global brand, our success came from always ensuring we ran a profitable business. While that may sound obvious, keep in mind that we are in the heart of Silicon Valley where venture capitalists hunt for the unicorn company that will skyrocket to a billion-dollar valuation. Unicorns like Facebook and Twitter unquestionably exist, but they are the exception. Live By The VC, Die By The VC After careful consideration, Matt and I decided to bootstrap our company rather than seek funding. The first dot-com bubble had recently burst, and we were seeing close friends lose their jobs right and left at VC-funded companies based on dubious business plans. While we did not have much cash on hand, we did have a customer base and treasured those customers as our greatest asset. We concluded that meeting their needs was the surest path to meeting ours, and the rest would simply be details to address individually. This strategy ended up working so well that we have many of the same customers to this day. After deciding to bootstrap, we made a decision on a matter that has left egg on the face of many of our competitors: We seated sales next to support under one roof at our manufacturing facility in Silicon Valley. Dell's decision to outsource some of its support overseas in the early 2000s was the greatest gift it could have given us. Some of our sales and support staff have worked with the same clients for over a decade, and we concluded that no amount of funding could buy that mutual loyalty. While accepting venture capital or an acquisition may make you rich, it does not guarantee that your customers, employees or even business will be taken care of. Our motto is, “Treat your customers like friends and employees like family,” and we have an incredibly low employee turnover to show for it. Thanks to these principles, iXsystems has remained employee-owned, debt-free and profitable from the day we took it over -- all without VC funding, which is why we call ourselves the "last bootstrapped tech company in Silicon Valley." As a result, we now provide enterprise servers to thousands of customers, including top Fortune 500 companies, research and educational institutions, all branches of the military, and numerous government entities. Over time, however, we realized that we were selling more and more third-party data storage systems with every order. We saw this as a new opportunity. We had partnered with several storage vendors to meet our customers' needs, but every time we did, we opened a can of worms with regard to supporting our customers to our standards. Given a choice of risking being dragged down by our partners or outmaneuvered by competitors with their own storage portfolios, we made a conscious decision to develop a line of storage products that would not only complement our enterprise servers but tightly integrate with them. To accelerate this effort, we adopted the FreeNAS open-source software-defined storage project in 2009 and haven't looked back. The move enabled us to focus on storage, fully leveraging our experience with enterprise hardware and our open source heritage in equal measures. We saw many storage startups appear every quarter, struggling to establish their niche in a sea of competitors. We wondered how they'd instantly master hardware to avoid the partnering mistakes that we made years ago, given that storage hardware and software are truly inseparable at the enterprise level. We entered the storage market with the required hardware expertise, capacity and, most importantly, revenue, allowing us to develop our storage line at our own pace. Grow Up, But On Your Own Terms By not having the external pressure from VCs or shareholders that your competitors have, you're free to set your own priorities and charge fair prices for your products. Our customers consistently tell us how refreshing our sales and marketing approaches are. We consider honesty, transparency and responsible marketing the only viable strategy when you're bootstrapped. Your reputation with your customers and vendors should mean everything to you, and we can honestly say that the loyalty we have developed is priceless. So how can your startup venture down a similar path? Here's our advice for playing the long game: Relate your experiences to each fad: Our industry is a firehose of fads and buzzwords, and it can be difficult to distinguish the genuine trends from the flops. Analyze every new buzzword in terms of your own products, services and experiences, and monitor customer trends even more carefully. Some buzzwords will even formalize things you have been doing for years. Value personal relationships: Companies come and go, but you will maintain many clients and colleagues for decades, regardless of the hat they currently wear. Encourage relationship building at every level of your company because you may encounter someone again. Trust your instincts and your colleagues: No contractual terms or credit rating system can beat the instincts you will develop over time for judging the ability of individuals and companies to deliver. You know your business, employees and customers best. Looking back, I don't think I'd change a thing. We need to be in Silicon Valley for the prime customers, vendors and talent, and it's a point of pride that our customers recognize how different we are from the norm. Free of a venture capital “runway” and driven by these principles, we look forward to the next 20 years in this highly-competitive industry. Creating an AS for fun and profit (http://blog.thelifeofkenneth.com/2017/11/creating-autonomous-system-for-fun-and.html) At its core, the Internet is an interconnected fabric of separate networks. Each network which makes up the Internet is operated independently and only interconnects with other networks in clearly defined places. For smaller networks like your home, the interaction between your network and the rest of the Internet is usually pretty simple: you buy an Internet service plan from an ISP (Internet Service Provider), they give you some kind of hand-off through something like a DSL or cable modem, and give you access to "the entire Internet". Your router (which is likely also a WiFi access point and Ethernet switch) then only needs to know about two things; your local computers and devices are on one side, and the ENTIRE Internet is on the other side of that network link given to you by your ISP. For most people, that's the extent of what's needed to be understood about how the Internet works. Pick the best ISP, buy a connection from them, and attach computers needing access to the Internet. And that's fine, as long as you're happy with only having one Internet connection from one vendor, who will lend you some arbitrary IP address(es) for the extend of your service agreement, but that starts not being good enough when you don't want to be beholden to a single ISP or a single connection for your connectivity to the Internet. That also isn't good enough if you are an Internet Service Provider so you are literally a part of the Internet. You can't assume that the entire Internet is that way when half of the Internet is actually in the other direction. This is when you really have to start thinking about the Internet and treating the Internet as a very large mesh of independent connected organizations instead of an abstract cloud icon on the edge of your local network map. Which is pretty much never for most of us. Almost no one needs to consider the Internet at this level. The long flight of steps from DSL for your apartment up to needing to be an integral part of the Internet means that pretty much regardless of what level of Internet service you need for your projects, you can probably pay someone else to provide it and don't need to sit down and learn how BGP works and what an Autonomous System is. But let's ignore that for one second, and talk about how to become your own ISP. To become your own Internet Service Provider with customers who pay you to access the Internet, or be your own web hosting provider with customers who pay you to be accessible from the Internet, or your own transit provider who has customers who pay you to move their customer's packets to other people's customers, you need a few things: Your own public IP address space allocated to you by an Internet numbering organization Your own Autonomous System Number (ASN) to identify your network as separate from everyone else's networks At least one router connected to a different autonomous system speaking the Border Gateway Protocol to tell the rest of the Internet that your address space is accessible from your autonomous system. So... I recently set up my own autonomous system... and I don't really have a fantastic justification for it... My motivation was twofold: One of my friends and I sat down and figured it out that splitting the cost of a rack in Hurricane Electric's FMT2 data center marginally lowered our monthly hosting expenses vs all the paid services we're using scattered across the Internet which can all be condensed into this one rack. And this first reason on its own is a perfectly valid justification for paying for co-location space at a data center like Hurricane Electric's, but isn't actually a valid reason for running it as an autonomous system, because Hurricane Electric will gladly let you use their address space for your servers hosted in their building. That's usually part of the deal when you pay for space in a data center: power, cooling, Internet connectivity, and your own IP addresses. Another one of my friends challenged me to do it as an Autonomous System. So admittedly, my justification for going through the additional trouble to set up this single rack of servers as an AS is a little more tenuous. I will readily admit that, more than anything else, this was a "hold my beer" sort of engineering moment, and not something that is at all needed to achieve what we actually needed (a rack to park all our servers in). But what the hell; I've figured out how to do it, so I figured it would make an entertaining blog post. So here's how I set up a multi-homed autonomous system on a shoe-string budget: Step 1. Found a Company Step 2. Get Yourself Public Address Space Step 3. Find Yourself Multiple Other Autonomous Systems to Peer With Step 4. Apply for an Autonomous System Number Step 5. Source a Router Capable of Handling the Entire Internet Routing Table Step 6. Turn it All On and Pray And we're off to the races. At this point, Hurricane Electric is feeding us all ~700k routes for the Internet, we're feeding them our two routes for our local IPv4 and IPv6 subnets, and all that's left to do is order all our cross-connects to other ASes in the building willing to peer with us (mostly for fun) and load in all our servers to build our own personal corner of the Internet. The only major goof so far has been accidentally feeding the full IPv6 table to our first other peer that we turned on, but thankfully he has a much more powerful supervisor than the Sup720-BXL, so he just sent me an email to knock that off, a little fiddling with my BGP egress policies, and we were all set. In the end, setting up my own autonomous system wasn't exactly simple, it was definitely not justified, but some times in life you just need to take the more difficult path. And there's a certain amount of pride in being able to claim that I'm part of the actual Internet. That's pretty neat. And of course, thanks to all of my friends who variously contributed parts, pieces, resources, and know-how to this on-going project. I had to pull in a lot of favors to pull this off, and I appreciate it. News Roundup One year checkpoint and Thread Sanitizer update (https://blog.netbsd.org/tnf/entry/one_year_checkpoint_and_thread) The past year has been started with bugfixes and the development of regression tests for ptrace(2) and related kernel features, as well as the continuation of bringing LLDB support and LLVM sanitizers (ASan + UBsan and partial TSan + Msan) to NetBSD. My plan for the next year is to finish implementing TSan and MSan support, followed by a long run of bug fixes for LLDB, ptrace(2), and other related kernel subsystems TSan In the past month, I've developed Thread Sanitizer far enough to have a subset of its tests pass on NetBSD, started with addressing breakage related to the memory layout of processes. The reason for this breakage was narrowed down to the current implementation of ASLR, which was too aggressive and which didn't allow enough space to be mapped for Shadow memory. The fix for this was to either force the disabling of ASLR per-process, or globally on the system. The same will certainly happen for MSan executables. After some other corrections, I got TSan to work for the first time ever on October 14th. This was a big achievement, so I've made a snapshot available. Getting the snapshot of execution under GDB was pure hazard. ``` $ gdb ./a.out GNU gdb (GDB) 7.12 Copyright (C) 2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. Type "show copying" and "show warranty" for details. This GDB was configured as "x86_64--netbsd". Type "show configuration" for configuration details. For bug reporting instructions, please see: . Find the GDB manual and other documentation resources online at: . For help, type "help". Type "apropos word" to search for commands related to "word"... Reading symbols from ./a.out...done. (gdb) r Starting program: /public/llvm-build/a.out [New LWP 2] WARNING: ThreadSanitizer: data race (pid=1621) Write of size 4 at 0x000001475d70 by thread T1: #0 Thread1 /public/llvm-build/tsan.c:4:10 (a.out+0x46bf71) Previous write of size 4 at 0x000001475d70 by main thread: #0 main /public/llvm-build/tsan.c:10:10 (a.out+0x46bfe6) Location is global 'Global' of size 4 at 0x000001475d70 (a.out+0x000001475d70) Thread T1 (tid=2, running) created by main thread at: #0 pthreadcreate /public/llvm/projects/compiler-rt/lib/tsan/rtl/tsaninterceptors.cc:930:3 (a.out+0x412120) #1 main /public/llvm-build/tsan.c:9:3 (a.out+0x46bfd1) SUMMARY: ThreadSanitizer: data race /public/llvm-build/tsan.c:4:10 in Thread1 Thread 2 received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault. ``` I was able to get the above execution results around 10% of the time (being under a tracer had no positive effect on the frequency of successful executions). I've managed to hit the following final results for this month, with another set of bugfixes and improvements: check-tsan: Expected Passes : 248 Expected Failures : 1 Unsupported Tests : 83 Unexpected Failures: 44 At the end of the month, TSan can now reliably executabe the same (already-working) program every time. The majority of failures are in tests verifying sanitization of correct mutex locking usage. There are still problems with NetBSD-specific libc and libpthread bootstrap code that conflicts with TSan. Certain functions (pthreadcreate(3), pthreadkeycreate(3), _cxaatexit()) cannot be started early by TSan initialization, and must be deferred late enough for the sanitizer to work correctly. MSan I've prepared a scratch support for MSan on NetBSD to help in researching how far along it is. I've also cloned and adapted the existing FreeBSD bits; however, the code still needs more work and isn't functional yet. The number of passed tests (5) is negligible and most likely does not work at all. The conclusion after this research is that TSan shall be finished first, as it touches similar code. In the future, there will be likely another round of iterating the system structs and types and adding the missing ones for NetBSD. So far, this part has been done before executing the real MSan code. I've added one missing symbol that was missing and was detected when attempting to link a test program with MSan. Sanitizers The GCC team has merged the LLVM sanitizer code, which has resulted in almost-complete support for ASan and UBsan on NetBSD. It can be found in the latest GCC8 snapshot, located in pkgsrc-wip/gcc8snapshot. Though, do note that there is an issue with getting backtraces from libasan.so, which can be worked-around by backtracing ASan events in a debugger. UBsan also passes all GCC regression tests and appears to work fine. The code enabling sanitizers on the GCC/NetBSD frontend will be submitted upstream once the backtracing issue is fixed and I'm satisfied that there are no other problems. I've managed to upstream a large portion of generic+TSan+MSan code to compiler-rt and reduce local patches to only the ones that are in progress. This deals with any rebasing issues, and allows me to just focus on the delta that is being worked on. I've tried out the LLDB builds which have TSan/NetBSD enabled, and they built and started fine. However, there were some false positives related to the mutex locking/unlocking code. Plans for the next milestone The general goals are to finish TSan and MSan and switch back to LLDB debugging. I plan to verify the impact of the TSan bootstrap initialization on the observed crashes and research the remaining failures. This work was sponsored by The NetBSD Foundation. The NetBSD Foundation is a non-profit organization and welcomes any donations to help us continue funding projects and services to the open-source community. Please consider visiting the following URL, and chip in what you can: The scourge of systemd (https://blog.ungleich.ch/en-us/cms/blog/2017/12/10/the-importance-of-devuan/) While this article is actually couched in terms of promoting devuan, a de-systemd-ed version of debian, it would seem the same logic could be applied to all of the BSDs Let's say every car manufacturer recently discovered a new technology named "doord", which lets you open up car doors much faster than before. It only takes 0.05 seconds, instead of 1.2 seconds on average. So every time you open a door, you are much, much faster! Many of the manufacturers decide to implement doord, because the company providing doord makes it clear that it is beneficial for everyone. And additional to opening doors faster, it also standardises things. How to turn on your car? It is the same now everywhere, it is not necessarily to look for the keyhole anymore. Unfortunately though, sometimes doord does not stop the engine. Or if it is cold outside, it stops the ignition process, because it takes too long. Doord also changes the way your navigation system works, because that is totally related to opening doors, but leads to some users being unable to navigate, which is accepted as collateral damage. In the end, you at least have faster door opening and a standard way to turn on the car. Oh, and if you are in a traffic jam and have to restart the engine often, it will stop restarting it after several times, because that's not what you are supposed to do. You can open the engine hood and tune that setting though, but it will be reset once you buy a new car. Some of you might now ask themselves "Is systemd THAT bad?". And my answer to it is: No. It is even worse. Systemd developers split the community over a tiny detail that decreases stability significantly and increases complexity for not much real value. And this is not theoretical: We tried to build Data Center Light on Debian and Ubuntu, but servers that don't boot, that don't reboot or systemd-resolved that constantly interferes with our core network configuration made it too expensive to run Debian or Ubuntu. Yes, you read right: too expensive. While I am writing here in flowery words, the reason to use Devuan is hard calculated costs. We are a small team at ungleich and we simply don't have the time to fix problems caused by systemd on a daily basis. This is even without calculating the security risks that come with systemd. Using cabal on OpenBSD (https://deftly.net/posts/2017-10-12-using-cabal-on-openbsd.html) Since W^X became mandatory in OpenBSD (https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20160527203200), W^X'd binaries are only allowed to be executed from designated locations (mount points). If you used the auto partition layout during install, your /usr/local/ will be mounted with wxallowed. For example, here is the entry for my current machine: /dev/sd2g on /usr/local type ffs (local, nodev, wxallowed, softdep) This is a great feature, but if you build applications outside of the wxallowed partition, you are going to run into some issues, especially in the case of cabal (python as well). Here is an example of what you would see when attempting to do cabal install pandoc: qbit@slip[1]:~? cabal update Config file path source is default config file. Config file /home/qbit/.cabal/config not found. Writing default configuration to /home/qbit/.cabal/config Downloading the latest package list from hackage.haskell.org qbit@slip[0]:~? cabal install pandoc Resolving dependencies... ..... cabal: user error (Error: some packages failed to install: JuicyPixels-3.2.8.3 failed during the configure step. The exception was: /home/qbit/.cabal/setup-exe-cache/setup-Simple-Cabal-1.22.5.0-x86_64-openbsd-ghc-7.10.3: runProcess: runInteractiveProcess: exec: permission denied (Permission denied) The error isn't actually what it says. The untrained eye would assume permissions issue. A quick check of dmesg reveals what is really happening: /home/qbit/.cabal/setup-exe-cache/setup-Simple-Cabal-1.22.5.0-x86_64-openbsd-ghc-7.10.3(22924): W^X binary outside wxallowed mountpoint OpenBSD is killing the above binary because it is violating W^X and hasn't been safely kept in its /usr/local corral! We could solve this problem quickly by marking our /home as wxallowed, however, this would be heavy handed and reckless (we don't want to allow other potentially unsafe binaries to execute.. just the cabal stuff). Instead, we will build all our cabal stuff in /usr/local by using a symlink! doas mkdir -p /usr/local/{cabal,cabal/build} # make our cabal and build dirs doas chown -R user:wheel /usr/local/cabal # set perms rm -rf ~/.cabal # kill the old non-working cabal ln -s /usr/local/cabal ~/.cabal # link it! We are almost there! Some cabal packages build outside of ~/.cabal: cabal install hakyll ..... Building foundation-0.0.14... Preprocessing library foundation-0.0.14... hsc2hs: dist/build/Foundation/System/Bindings/Posix_hsc_make: runProcess: runInteractiveProcess: exec: permission denied (Permission denied) Downloading time-locale-compat-0.1.1.3... ..... Fortunately, all of the packages I have come across that do this all respect the TMPDIR environment variable! alias cabal='env TMPDIR=/usr/local/cabal/build/ cabal' With this alias, you should be able to cabal without issue (so far pandoc, shellcheck and hakyll have all built fine)! TL;DR # This assumes /usr/local/ is mounted as wxallowed. # doas mkdir -p /usr/local/{cabal,cabal/build} doas chown -R user:wheel /usr/local/cabal rm -rf ~/.cabal ln -s /usr/local/cabal ~/.cabal alias cabal='env TMPDIR=/usr/local/cabal/build/ cabal' cabal install pandoc FreeBSD and APRS, or "hm what happens when none of this is well documented.." (https://adrianchadd.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/freebsd-and-aprs-or-hm-what-happens.html) Here's another point along my quest for amateur radio on FreeBSD - bring up basic APRS support. Yes, someone else has done the work, but in the normal open source way it was .. inconsistently documented. First is figuring out the hardware platform. I chose the following: A Baofeng UV5R2, since they're cheap, plentiful, and do both VHF and UHF; A cable to do sound level conversion and isolation (and yes, I really should post a circuit diagram and picture..); A USB sound device, primarily so I can whack it into FreeBSD/Linux devices to get a separate sound card for doing radio work; FreeBSD laptop (it'll become a raspberry pi + GPS + sensor + LCD thingy later, but this'll do to start with.) The Baofeng is easy - set it to the right frequency (VHF APRS sits on 144.390MHz), turn on VOX so I don't have to make up a PTT cable, done/done. The PTT bit isn't that hard - one of the microphone jack pins is actually PTT (if you ground it, it engages PTT) so when you make the cable just ensure you expose a ground pin and PTT pin so you can upgrade it later. The cable itself isn't that hard either - I had a baofeng handmic lying around (they're like $5) so I pulled it apart for the cable. I'll try to remember to take pictures of that. Here's a picture I found on the internet that shows the pinout: image (https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-58HUyt-9SUw/Wdz6uMauWlI/AAAAAAAAVz8/e7OrnRzN3908UYGUIRI1EBYJ5UcnO0qRgCLcBGAs/s1600/aprs-cable.png) Now, I went a bit further. I bought a bunch of 600 ohm isolation transformers for audio work, so I wired it up as follows: From the audio output of the USB sound card, I wired up a little attenuator - input is 2k to ground, then 10k to the input side of the transformer; then the output side of the transformer has a 0.01uF greencap capacitor to the microphone input of the baofeng; From the baofeng I just wired it up to the transformer, then the output side of that went into a 0.01uF greencap capacitor in series to the microphone input of the sound card. In both instances those capacitors are there as DC blockers. Ok, so that bit is easy. Then on to the software side. The normal way people do this stuff is "direwolf" on Linux. So, "pkg install direwolf" installed it. That was easy. Configuring it up was a bit less easy. I found this guide to be helpful (https://andrewmemory.wordpress.com/tag/direwolf/) FreeBSD has the example direwolf config in /usr/local/share/doc/direwolf/examples/direwolf.conf . Now, direwolf will run as a normal user (there's no rc.d script for it yet!) and by default runs out of the current directory. So: $ cd ~ $ cp /usr/local/share/doc/direwolf/examples/direwolf.conf . $ (edit it) $ direwolf Editing it isn't that hard - you need to change your callsign and the audio device. OK, here is the main undocumented bit for FreeBSD - the sound device can just be /dev/dsp . It isn't an ALSA name! Don't waste time trying to use ALSA names. Instead, just find the device you want and reference it. For me the USB sound card shows up as /dev/dsp3 (which is very non specific as USB sound devices come and go, but that's a later problem!) but it's enough to bring it up. So yes, following the above guide, using the right sound device name resulted in a working APRS modem. Next up - something to talk to it. This is called 'xastir'. It's .. well, when you run it, you'll find exactly how old an X application it is. It's very nostalgically old. But, it is enough to get APRS positioning up and test both the TCP/IP side of APRS and the actual radio radio side. Here's the guide I followed: (https://andrewmemory.wordpress.com/2015/03/22/setting-up-direwolfxastir-on-a-raspberry-pi/) So, that was it! So far so good. It actually works well enough to decode and watch APRS traffic around me. I managed to get out position information to the APRS network over both TCP/IP and relayed via VHF radio. Beastie Bits Zebras All the Way Down - Bryan Cantrill (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE2KDzZaxvE) Your impact on FreeBSD (https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/blog/your-impact-on-freebsd/) The Secret to a good Gui (https://bsdmag.org/secret-good-gui/) containerd hits v1.0.0 (https://github.com/containerd/containerd/releases/tag/v1.0.0) FreeBSD 11.1 Custom Kernels Made Easy - Configuring And Installing A Custom Kernel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzdg_2bUh9Y&t=) Debugging (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DQgCNq6UEAEqa1W.jpg:large) *** Feedback/Questions Bostjan - Backup Tapes (http://dpaste.com/22ZVJ12#wrap) Philipp - A long time ago, there was a script (http://dpaste.com/13E8RGR#wrap) Adam - ZFS Pool Monitoring (http://dpaste.com/3BQXXPM#wrap) Damian - KnoxBug (http://dpaste.com/0ZZVM4R#wrap) ***

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117: S.A.L.T. (Justin Searls)

The Bike Shed

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 10, 2017 46:04

We chat with Justin Searls about testing, programmer personality types, programming communities, and putting spreadsheets on the Internet. Justin Searls Justin's RailsConf Keynote My Favorite Way to TDD by Justin Searls Searls-Briggs Type Indicator Test Double Deep Work

MJS #015: Justin Searls

My JavaScript Story

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 27, 2017 53:31

On this week's episode of My JS Story, Charles Max Wood interviews Justin Searls. Justin was on the show on episode 38 and 226 in the show. He co-founded Test Double, a software agency which helps developers improve the quality of the software they write. Want to know how he got into this career path? Stay tuned!

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MJS #015: Justin Searls

times new roman bitstream charter charles max wood test double justin searls

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 27, 2017 53:31

On this week's episode of My JS Story, Charles Max Wood interviews Justin Searls. Justin was on the show on episode 38 and 226 in the show. He co-founded Test Double, a software agency which helps developers improve the quality of the software they write. Want to know how he got into this career path? Stay tuned!

MJS #015: Justin Searls

times new roman bitstream charter charles max wood test double justin searls

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 27, 2017 53:31

On this week's episode of My JS Story, Charles Max Wood interviews Justin Searls. Justin was on the show on episode 38 and 226 in the show. He co-founded Test Double, a software agency which helps developers improve the quality of the software they write. Want to know how he got into this career path? Stay tuned!

JavaScript: Islands, Sprinkles, and Frameworks with Zach Briggs and David Copeland

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 8, 2017 42:52

Episode 005: JavaScript: Islands, Sprinkles, and Frameworks Follow us on Twitter! @techdoneright (http://www.twitter.com/tech_done_right) or leave us a review on iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-done-right/id1195695341)! Summary Dave Copleand (@davetron5000 (http://www.twitter.com/davetron5000)) and Zach Briggs (@theotherzach (http://www.twitter.com/theotherzach)) join Noel Rappin (@noelrap (http://www.twitter.com/noelrap)) for a Tech Done Right discussion of JavaScript practices. When does it makes sense to build single page JavaScript app? How can your JavaScript and Rails interact? Is it an island of interactivity or a sprinkle of JavaScript? Which frameworks are handling community management well (hint: not Angular)? And how do you test any of this? Guests Dave Copeland (https://twitter.com/davetron5000): Author of Rails, Angular, Postgres, and Bootstrap (https://pragprog.com/book/dcbang/rails-angular-postgres-and-bootstrap) Zach Briggs (https://twitter.com/TheOtherZach): JavaScript Practice Lead at Table XI (http://www.tablexi.com/) Show Notes 02:15 - Reasons to Build a Single-Page App (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-page_application) - Conway’s Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law) 09:37 - The Ease of Building Web Over Single-Page Apps 11:30 - Tooling; Navigating Good Choices vs Bad Choices 14:31 - Setup - Bower (https://bower.io/) - webpack (https://webpack.github.io/) - Browserify (http://browserify.org/) - Broccoli (http://broccolijs.com/) - Yarn (https://yarnpkg.com) - The Asset Pipeline (http://guides.rubyonrails.org/asset_pipeline.html) 16:30 - Combining a Rails App and a JavaScript App 18:34 - AngularJS; 1 vs 2 - Angular (https://angularjs.org) - React (https://facebook.github.io/react/) - Vue.js (https://vuejs.org/) 33:05 - Testing - jasmine-rails gem (https://github.com/searls/jasmine-rails) - Test Double (http://testdouble.com/) 35:35 - TypeScript (https://www.typescriptlang.org/) - Elm (http://elm-lang.org/) Tips & Resources: Dave: Check out Test Double (http://testdouble.com/). Zach: As a developer, don’t feel forced into choosing between a single-page app and a non-single-page app on the first day of development. There are infinite points in between when it comes to interactivity. Noel: Read about frameworkless JavaScript in Noel’s book Master Space and Time With JavaScript (http://www.noelrappin.com/mstwjs/). Special Guests: Dave Copeland and Zach Briggs.

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Episode 004: In The Testing Weeds With Sam Phippen and Justin Searls

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Play Episode Listen Later Feb 22, 2017 49:16

Episode 004: Testing Summary Sam Phippen, Justin Searls, and Noel Rappin spend this episode talking about the value of test-driven development (TDD) as well as its cost. They discuss the kinds of problems that developers are likely to have after they learn TDD and attempt to apply it to a large application. Learn why Rails is both great and terrible for automated testing, and how testing can influence the structure of your code. Guests Sam Phippen (https://twitter.com/samphippen): Engineer at Digital Ocean (https://www.digitalocean.com/) and member of the RSpec (https://github.com/rspec) Core Team Justin Searls (https://twitter.com/searls): Writes bad code effortlessly and cofounder of Test Double (http://testdouble.com/). Maintainer of several testing tools, and frequent speaker on test related topics. Show Notes 01:30 - Intermediate Level Problems in Testing 04:58 - The Value of Testing Boundaries by Gary Bernhardt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTkzNHF6rMs) 15:15 - Isolated Unit Tests 17:52 - Structuring Applications 23:13 - Test-Driven Development (TDD) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development) Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests (https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Object-Oriented-Software-Guided-Tests/dp/0321503627) 33:22 - TDD in a Smalltalk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk) Environment 35:00 - Isolating Tests in a Rails Environment Rake Without Rails (http://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2016-12-15-rake-without-rails.html) 36:54 - Test Tools minitest (https://github.com/seattlerb/minitest) Dan North: Introducing BDD (https://dannorth.net/introducing-bdd/) teenytest (https://github.com/testdouble/teenytest) RSpec (https://github.com/rspec) Tips & Resources: Sam: Sandi Metz: The Magic Tricks of Testing @ Rails Conf 2013 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URSWYvyc42M) Test Smells (https://github.com/testdouble/test-smells#test-smells) Justin Searls: How to Stop Hating Your Test Suite @ RubyConf 2015 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD51AkG8EZw) Justin: Find some little problem and instead of implementing it in a Rails app, type bundle.gem and then make up a name and then practice and invent your own way of organizing code and tests so you can break things down. Noel: JUnit Test Infected: Programmers Love Writing Tests (http://junit.sourceforge.net/doc/testinfected/testing.htm) As you’re trying to test stuff, really try to focus on going back and forth between the tests and the code more rapidly than you’re probably doing so right now. Special Guests: Justin Searls and Penelope Phippen.

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Episode 1.3.0 - Testing and Heavy Breathing

FuntimeException

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 3, 2016 69:37

Correction: 48:00 - Rather than Sinon mocks and spies as opposed to the funtionality provided by Jasmine. Reference Links Sinon.js - http://sinonjs.org/ Test Double - https://github.com/testdouble/testdouble.js Spock - http://docs.spockframework.org Spock: Up and Running - http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920038597.do Music Recommendations Tacocat - https://tacocat.bandcamp.com Every Time I Die - http://www.everytimeidie.net/ Major Lazer - http://majorlazer.com/ Santigold - http://tumblr.santigold.com/ Leaving Haven - http://leavinghaven.com/ Breaking Benjamin - http://breakingbenjamin.com/ Kate Jackson - http://www.katejackson.co.uk/home Alexandra Savior - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaeqiQezvX0 Follows us on Twitter! FuntimeException - twitter.com/funtimexception Danny Hyun - twitter.com/Lspacewalker Michael Cacek - twitter.com/threeistoomany Rob Fletcher - https://twitter.com/rfletcherEW Craig Atkinson - https://twitter.com/craigatk1

226 JSJ Test Doubles with Justin Searls

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 24, 2016 64:11

React Remote Conf and Angular Remote Conf 03:15 - Justin Searls Introduction Twitter GitHub Blog Test Double JavaScript Jabber Episode #038: Jasmine with Justin Searls 04:13 - Testing testdouble.js teenytest Sinon.JS 08:44 - Mocking Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests by Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce Jim Weirich 14:45 - Starting These Concepts as a Junior Developer Test-driven Development 17:55 - testdouble.js vs. sinon.js NIH = Not Invented Here 26:39 - Duck Typing, Monkey Patching, Duck Punching 32:22 - Node.js Negativity Design, Resources Martin Fowler’s Refactoring and Patterns Books Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software by Eric Evans 42:52 - Community 45:08 - The AAA Rule: Arrange, Act, Assert 51:19 - Error Messages Picks Unemployment (Jamison) React Rally (Jamison) Julia Evans' Tweet: how to be a wizard programmer (Jamison) See the good in people (Aimee) Sinon.JS (Joe) How to Stay Motivated: Developing the Qualities of Success by Zig Ziglar (Chuck) The Harry Potter Series (Chuck) RetroPie (Justin) How Elm can Make you a Better JavaScript Programer (Justin) NEJS Conf (Justin)

community success design heart development blog harry potter testing software act monkeys tests duck guided negativity qualities github doubles zig ziglar node mocking js sinon refactoring assert harry potter series martin fowler retropie junior developer eric evans error messages julia evans test double justin searls steve freeman react rally jim weirich duck typing nat pryce monkey patching javascript jabber episode angular remote conf stay motivated developing react remote conf nejs conf

226 JSJ Test Doubles with Justin Searls

technology innovation testing developers agile qa xp frontend cloud foundry infoq pivotal labs agile alliance test double justin searls agile testing lisa crispin

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 24, 2016 64:11

React Remote Conf and Angular Remote Conf 03:15 - Justin Searls Introduction Twitter GitHub Blog Test Double JavaScript Jabber Episode #038: Jasmine with Justin Searls 04:13 - Testing testdouble.js teenytest Sinon.JS 08:44 - Mocking Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests by Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce Jim Weirich 14:45 - Starting These Concepts as a Junior Developer Test-driven Development 17:55 - testdouble.js vs. sinon.js NIH = Not Invented Here 26:39 - Duck Typing, Monkey Patching, Duck Punching 32:22 - Node.js Negativity Design, Resources Martin Fowler’s Refactoring and Patterns Books Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software by Eric Evans 42:52 - Community 45:08 - The AAA Rule: Arrange, Act, Assert 51:19 - Error Messages Picks Unemployment (Jamison) React Rally (Jamison) Julia Evans' Tweet: how to be a wizard programmer (Jamison) See the good in people (Aimee) Sinon.JS (Joe) How to Stay Motivated: Developing the Qualities of Success by Zig Ziglar (Chuck) The Harry Potter Series (Chuck) RetroPie (Justin) How Elm can Make you a Better JavaScript Programer (Justin) NEJS Conf (Justin)

community success design heart development blog harry potter testing software act monkeys tests duck guided negativity qualities github doubles zig ziglar node mocking js sinon refactoring assert harry potter series martin fowler retropie junior developer eric evans error messages julia evans test double justin searls steve freeman react rally jim weirich duck typing nat pryce monkey patching javascript jabber episode angular remote conf stay motivated developing react remote conf nejs conf

226 JSJ Test Doubles with Justin Searls

JavaScript Jabber

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 24, 2016 64:11

React Remote Conf and Angular Remote Conf 03:15 - Justin Searls Introduction Twitter GitHub Blog Test Double JavaScript Jabber Episode #038: Jasmine with Justin Searls 04:13 - Testing testdouble.js teenytest Sinon.JS 08:44 - Mocking Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests by Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce Jim Weirich 14:45 - Starting These Concepts as a Junior Developer Test-driven Development 17:55 - testdouble.js vs. sinon.js NIH = Not Invented Here 26:39 - Duck Typing, Monkey Patching, Duck Punching 32:22 - Node.js Negativity Design, Resources Martin Fowler’s Refactoring and Patterns Books Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software by Eric Evans 42:52 - Community 45:08 - The AAA Rule: Arrange, Act, Assert 51:19 - Error Messages Picks Unemployment (Jamison) React Rally (Jamison) Julia Evans' Tweet: how to be a wizard programmer (Jamison) See the good in people (Aimee) Sinon.JS (Joe) How to Stay Motivated: Developing the Qualities of Success by Zig Ziglar (Chuck) The Harry Potter Series (Chuck) RetroPie (Justin) How Elm can Make you a Better JavaScript Programer (Justin) NEJS Conf (Justin)

community success design heart development blog harry potter testing software act monkeys tests duck guided negativity qualities github doubles zig ziglar node mocking js sinon refactoring assert harry potter series martin fowler retropie junior developer eric evans error messages julia evans test double justin searls steve freeman react rally jim weirich duck typing nat pryce monkey patching javascript jabber episode angular remote conf stay motivated developing react remote conf nejs conf

Lisa Crispin and Justin Searls on Testing and Innovation in Front End Technology

The InfoQ Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 27, 2016 29:02

In this week's podcast Richard Seroter talks to Lisa Crispin who works on the tracker team at Pivotal Labs, and is an organiser of the Agile Alliance Technical Conference. Lisa is the co-author of several books on Agile Testing, and is also the 2012 recipient of the Agile Testing Days award for Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Person. Richard also talks to Justin Searls, software craftsman, presenter of "How to Stop Hating Your Tests" and co-founder of Test Double, a company whose goal is to "improve how the world writes software." Why listen to this podcast: - Agile is mainstream, and being adopted by big enterprises, but there's a place to help small companies and startups. - Cloud Foundry pair testers to write production code with the programmers. - Developers have to be focused on right now, testers have freedom to look at more of the big picture - People know testing is good and there a lot of tools for it, but some tools are ill-conceived. - We need a better language for talking about good QA and full stack testing. Notes and links can be found on InfoQ: http://bit.ly/1U0ip8Q 2m:00s - The first XP universe conferences were mainly about XP practices, values and principles, and were attended by developers 2m:17s - Over time, topics moved towards processes and frameworks, and the number of developers who attend Agile conferences has gone down dramatically. 3m:51s - Now Agile is mainstream, it's being adopted by big enterprises, but there's a place to help small companies and startups. That's usually where the innovation comes from, and the Agile Alliance wants to encourage innovation. Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ. http://bit.ly/1U0ip8Q You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. http://bit.ly/24x3IVq

Justin Searls - The Problems with Open Source (and How to Fix Them)

Make Better Software

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 4, 2015 21:19

In this interview with Justin Searls, Co-Founder at development agency Test Double, we discuss issues in open source software and what we can do about them. Justin raises problems for both consumers and contributors - like managing hundreds of dependencies to security issues and burnt-out maintainers. We dive into the efforts being made to address these and what you can do too.

co founders open source test double justin searls

005 - Justin Searls Builds A Software Consultancy Based On Trust And Learning.

RubySteps Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 1, 2015 54:21

Justin Searls runs a software consultancy called Test Double out of Columbus, Ohio. Test Double has a unique model built on trust and learning. Justin talks to us about his consultancy, the layers of understanding that go into a complex software project, and things you should do to keep learning and advance your career as a software developer. http://www.rubysteps.com/podcast/005-justin-searls-runs-a-software-consultancy-based-on-trust-and-learning/

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Episode 203: 197 RR The Social Coding Contract with Justin Searls

Ruby Rogues

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 4, 2015 71:18

Check out RailsClips on Kickstarter!! 02:23 - Justin Searls Introduction Twitter GitHub Blog Test Double @testdouble 03:02 - Justin Searls: The Social Coding Contract Open Source GitHub 04:58 - Transitive Dependences and Understanding Technical Debt RailsConf 2014 - Keynote: 10 Years! by Yehuda Katz The CAP Theorem 15:21 - Learning Outside Work Hours Tracking Time Micromanagement 21:21 - Understanding Transitive Dependencies (Cont’d) Gary Bernhardt 23:00 - Use Someone Else’s Framework or Write Your Own? “It Depends.” “A dirty code base is the sign of a well-monetized application.” - Matt Scantland 31:25 - When Does it Hurt to Use Tools You Don’t Completely Understand? Elasticsearch 34:14 - Leaving Code Behind 36:26 - Be a Responsible Open Source User Pull Request Sample Amount of Investment Community Management Communication cancan => cancancan GitX Graphical User Interface (GUI) rowanj GitX 47:22 - Reacting to Change Process and Ceremony Deming’s Common Cause and Special Cause Pair Programming [YouTube] Justin Searls and Aaron Patterson: The act of using vim, tenderly. 54:16 - Just Blog It! Picks Royalty Free Music by Kevin MacLeod (David) Rebif (David) Ruby Rogues Episode #188: Community Building with Pieter Hintjens (Jessica) Commercial Users of Functional Programming 2015: Call for Presentations (Jessica) James Clear: Forget About Setting Goals. Focus on This Instead. (Jessica) Screw motivation, what you need is discipline. (Jessica) A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (Chuck) Conform: Exposing the Truth About Common Core and Public Education by Glenn Beck (Chuck) Sony NEX-5T Compact Interchangeable Lens Digital Camera (Justin) Justin’s Talk at RailsConf 2015: Boring Code (Sometimes a Controller is Just a Controller) (Justin) Alpine iLX-007 7-Inch In-Dash Receiver with Apple CarPlay (Justin) Special Guest: Justin Searls.

Episode 203: 197 RR The Social Coding Contract with Justin Searls

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 4, 2015 71:18

Check out RailsClips on Kickstarter!! 02:23 - Justin Searls Introduction Twitter GitHub Blog Test Double @testdouble 03:02 - Justin Searls: The Social Coding Contract Open Source GitHub 04:58 - Transitive Dependences and Understanding Technical Debt RailsConf 2014 - Keynote: 10 Years! by Yehuda Katz The CAP Theorem 15:21 - Learning Outside Work Hours Tracking Time Micromanagement 21:21 - Understanding Transitive Dependencies (Cont’d) Gary Bernhardt 23:00 - Use Someone Else’s Framework or Write Your Own? “It Depends.” “A dirty code base is the sign of a well-monetized application.” - Matt Scantland 31:25 - When Does it Hurt to Use Tools You Don’t Completely Understand? Elasticsearch 34:14 - Leaving Code Behind 36:26 - Be a Responsible Open Source User Pull Request Sample Amount of Investment Community Management Communication cancan => cancancan GitX Graphical User Interface (GUI) rowanj GitX 47:22 - Reacting to Change Process and Ceremony Deming’s Common Cause and Special Cause Pair Programming [YouTube] Justin Searls and Aaron Patterson: The act of using vim, tenderly. 54:16 - Just Blog It! Picks Royalty Free Music by Kevin MacLeod (David) Rebif (David) Ruby Rogues Episode #188: Community Building with Pieter Hintjens (Jessica) Commercial Users of Functional Programming 2015: Call for Presentations (Jessica) James Clear: Forget About Setting Goals. Focus on This Instead. (Jessica) Screw motivation, what you need is discipline. (Jessica) A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (Chuck) Conform: Exposing the Truth About Common Core and Public Education by Glenn Beck (Chuck) Sony NEX-5T Compact Interchangeable Lens Digital Camera (Justin) Justin’s Talk at RailsConf 2015: Boring Code (Sometimes a Controller is Just a Controller) (Justin) Alpine iLX-007 7-Inch In-Dash Receiver with Apple CarPlay (Justin)

038 JSJ Jasmine with Justin Searls

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 14, 2012 57:31

Panel Justin Searls (twitter github blog) Jamison Dance (twitter github blog) Joe Eames (twitter github blog) Merrick Christensen (twitter github) AJ O’Neal (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code) Discussion 01:33 - Justin Searls Test Double 02:14 - Jasmine Pivotal Labs 03:42 - Testing JavaScript 05:29 - CoffeeScript 07:22 - What Jasmine is Unit testing library RSpec DOM agnostic 10:16 - Testing the DOM 14:01 - Tragedy of the commons factory_girl 18:29 - Testing 23:53 - Syntax in Jasmine 26:23 - RSpec and Jasmine 28:07 - Async support in Jasmine 32:18 - Spies mockito Conditional stubbing jasmine-stealth jasmine-fixture 37:30 - jasmine-given Cucumber 43:19 - Running Jasmine jasminerice jasmine-rails jasmine-headless-webkit Testacular testem 49:17 - tryjasmine.com Picks Running MongoDB on AWS (Jamison) The Clean Coder by Robert C. Martin (Joe) Squire.js (Joe and Merrick) Rdio app (Merrick) Square (AJ) Allrecipes.com (AJ) Jenkins CI (Chuck) Apple’s Podcast app (Chuck) lineman (Justin) StarTalk Radio Show with Neil Degrasse Tyson (Justin) To The Moon PC Game (Justin) Transcript JAMISON: Holy cow! JOE: That was not annoying. CHUCK: What’s not annoying? MERRICK: He is punching a bag of Fritos? JOE: Yeah. [Laughter] CHUCK: Well, I was closing it up so they don’t get stale as fast. JOE: You’re very thorough. Those are going to be the least stale… MERRICK: Do you have like a Frito resealer or something? [Laughter] [Shrill sound] CHUCK: Okay, sealed. [This episode is sponsored by Component One, makers of Wijmo. If you need stunning UI elements or awesome graphs and charts, then go to Wijmo.com and check them out.] [Hosting and bandwidth provided by the Blue Box Group. Check them out at Bluebox.net.] CHUCK: Hey everybody, and welcome to Episode 38 of the JavaScript Jabber show. This week on our panel, we have Jamison Dance. JAMISON: Hi guys! CHUCK: Joe Eames. JOE: Howdy? CHUCK: Merrick Christensen. MERRICK: What’s up? CHUCK: AJ O’Neal is trying to join the call. He’s here. AJ: Yo! Yo! Yo! Coming at you live from the Rental Agreement sphere of Provo, Utah. MERRICK: He lives! CHUCK: I’m Charles Max Wood from DevChat.tv. And this week, we have a special guest. That’s Justin Searls. JUSTIN: Hello. CHUCK: So, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, Justin? JUSTIN: Okay. Well, now that I’m on the spot, my name is Justin. I’m a software developer. I live in Columbus, Ohio. About a year ago, me and a guy named Todd Kaufman started a new company called Test Double. Previously, he and I had been doing consulting for a long, long time. And we’re up to eight people now. And we have a good time building software with an emphasis on terrific interaction design which has resulted in us kind of developing a specialty for well-crafted frontend code, predominantly JavaScript. And I imagine that’s probably why I’m here today. CHUCK: Awesome. Alright. Well, we brought you on to talk about Jasmine. Jasmine was written by, was it Pivotal Labs? JUSTIN: Yeah, Pivotal Labs guys. A guy names Christian Williams who I think has since moved on to Square, and D.W. Frank who’s still at Pivotal. They wrote the core library and me and a whole bunch of other people in the community have piled on with different runners and add-ons and extensions in the sort of like little ecosystem of the 25 people who write unit tests for JavaScript. CHUCK: All 25 of you, huh? JUSTIN: Well, it’s not a lot, right? It’s been a fun journey of being one of the very few people who really, really got excited or chose to get excited about making it easier for folks to write tests in JavaScript or as easy as it would be for whatever servers and language they’d be using.

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038 JSJ Jasmine with Justin Searls