Podcast appearances and mentions of val head

Val Head is a Principal Designer at Adobe, author, and web animation expert. She is the author of Designing Interface Animation on Rosenfeld Media and teaches CSS Animation on LinkedIn Learning.    Ramblings of a Designer podcast is a monthly design news and discussion podcast hosted by Laszlo Lazuer and Terri Rodriguez-Hong (@flaxenink, insta: flaxenink.design) (insta: @happiscribble.   LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ramblings-of-a-designer/ Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/Ramblings-of-a-Designer-Podcast-2347296798835079/ Send us feedback! ramblingsofadesignerpod@gmail.com Support us on Patreon! patreon.com/ramblingsofadesigner   We would love to hear from you!

In the second episode of the UX Wizards Podcast, Val Head takes us through her journey in UX. In the second episode of the UX Wizards Podcast, we chat with Val Head, speaker, author, and design advocate at Adobe specializing in UX and UI animation.Val takes us through her journey in UX, from setting up websites for her friends' bands to learning code languages at night and taking Flash animation workshops to apply to web design capabilities. She'll also give us the scoop on what a typical day at Adobe looks like and the variety of projects she is working on. Tune in for an interesting and insightful conversation!

This week, we get down to the business of being a badass woman in tech with Sarah Drasner, an engineer, author, award-winning speaker, and renowned expert on web animation. We hear about mentorship, using your profile to help others be seen, building a body of work, and so much more. > For the first little while I was trying to pull myself up by my bootstraps and just, like, work really hard to kind of get some place where I felt more comfortable—where I was not just taking any job that was offered me. And then the second part of that is to extend whatever privilege I might have to others…to promote the work of other people that are doing great work in the community that might not be seen. > —Sarah Drasner We talk with Sarah about: What it’s like to write a technical book like SVG Animations, Sarah’s book from O’Reilly last year Using machine learning to make images on the web more accessible for blind people The benefits of diverse teams The badassery of Arlan Hamilton and her company, Backstage Capital How to get over feeling overlooked in your career (and the secret benefits of being underestimated) Mentoring others, finding mentorship for yourself, and getting comfortable in a senior role Why the number of women in technical roles isn’t going up How visibility can lead to harassment Also in this episode, the three of us get real about the pros and cons of showing your age at work, and discuss all the anxieties and double-standards we face when it comes to how we look and what we wear. Katel becomes an unofficial spokesperson for Billie Razors (call us, Billie! We can make it official anytime) Sara talks about Linguist Deborah Tannen’s 1993 essay, “There is No Unmarked Woman” Michelle Wolf isn’t apologizing for her comedy set at the White House Correspondents Dinner Sponsors This episode of NYG is brought to you by: Shopify, a leading global commerce platform that’s building a world-class team to define the future of entrepreneurship. Visit shopify.com/careers to see what they’re talking about. CodePen—write code like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript directly in a browser and see the results as you build. CodePen is giving away three free PRO accounts to NYG listeners. Enter at codepen.io/nyg. WordPress—the place to build your personal blog, business site, or anything else you want on the web. WordPress helps others find you, remember you, and connect with you. _ _ Transcript Sara Wachter-Boettcher [Ad spot] If you have a great idea, you can build a successful business with Shopify. They’re leveling the playing field for entrepreneurs, and they’re looking for passionate problem solvers from around the world to help them do it. See how you can join their world-class team, and learn so much more about their history, their culture, and where they’re going next. Visit shopify.com/careers [music fades in]. [0:29] Jenn Lukas [Music fades out] Welcome to No You Go, the show about being ambitious—and sticking together. I’m Jenn Lukas. Katel LeDû I’m Katel LeDû. SWB And I’m Sara Wachter-Boettcher. We are so excited today to talk to one of our favorite people working in tech and that’s Sarah Drasner. She is perhaps best known for working in web animation, she’s known for being a speaker, but today you’re going to find out why she’s also just super awesome. We’re going to talk to her about a lot of things but one of the things that came up in our conversation is kind of being more senior in tech, and sort of getting comfortable as a woman in a senior role in technology, and I think that’s where we’re going to get started in our conversation today. KL Yeah, speaking of that, I [exhales sharply] have to share something with both of you. The other day I was like taking a shower, shaving my legs, doing, you know, whatever, and I noticed that there was like a rogue couple of hairs that creeped away from my bikini line, and like onto my thigh and on my stomach. And then I also saw one on my boob, and I shaved it off because I didn’t know what else to do. And it just made me sort of spiral into this thing of thinking about how I’m getting older, I turned 40 last year, and in my head I’m like, “I just turned 40.” But in reality, I’m like about to turn 41. And it’s just, time is moving on—which is totally fine. But I think I just like can’t help thinking about it a little bit more and I think that happens. Do you remember, either of you, when I declared I was going to just go grey and say, “Fuck it,” and I just be a greyed hair—grey-haired person. SWB I mean I remember [KL chuckles] and I thought that was a great idea. KL And then approximately five point nine weeks later I was like, “Never mind. I can’t do it.” SWB Ok and then I also thought that was a great idea. KL [Laughs] Well I’m very lucky to have supportive friends but I go back and forth between feeling like whatever, it’s fine. I’m going with it. I’m going, you know, gracefully and then I think I realize things are changing, and then I feel like I have to cope with it somehow. [2:36] JL Katel, I also think either choices of your hair is a good idea. KL [Laughs] Thank you. JL I will tell you, as your friend, I’m a little scared about a quick thinking razor near your boob. KL Yeah! Well— SWB That—I am more concerned about that than the grey hairs on your head. KL I—I hear you. JL Just the fastness of it. I just want you to be careful with a razor near your boob. KL I totally hear you, and this is not a plug, because the razor brand, Billie, is not sponsoring us. SWB Yet! KL But they’re wonderful and their razors are super great and very klutz-proof [laughs]. But yeah, I think that just kind of goes hand in hand with, you know, sort of figuring out how to feel attractive and sexy and sort of like as you are going through different parts of your life. SWB You know I remember this time when my mom was in her maybe like early to mid forties. And up until that point she had never worn makeup, and she had never really thought about wearing makeup, and she had become a professor a little later than some of her peers. So a lot of her peers were starting their professorships when they were in their like, let’s say, early to mid thirties, and she was starting almost ten years after that. But then they would like pause and have children a few years in and she had kids in college at that point. So, she had this moment where she was like feeling concerned that she was showing her age in comparison to people who were her peers at work. And I think it freaked her out a little bit and I think rightly so. I mean on the one hand everybody should do what they want but on the other hand what I think she—she realized and what I think was true for her and is, you know, true for a lot of us is that people were going to perceive differently if they knew how old she was, or she started showing her age more, and that making it seem like she was the same age as her peers or closer to their age was professionally valuable to her. And I think about those kinds of trade-offs all the time. Sort of like what are you saying about yourself if you allow yourself to be perceived in this way or that way because you stopped dying your hair or whatever. And like I think it’s tough, right? Because there’s no—there’s no like good answers. All the answers have trade offs to them it’s never simple, and I’ve been thinking about that a lot. I think particularly like I spend a lot of time feeling kind of public in my profile, right? Like I give a lot of talks, which means I’m on stage, I’m at conferences and I’m shaking hands with people, and I feel like people look at you and hopefully most of those people are not hanging out like critiquing [laughs] my looks or my body or whatever but there’s a piece of me that sort of like knows that some of that is happening. And like as a woman that’s always happening to some extent. And you kind of—it’s like I’m just—I find it like tiresome and also I don’t really know how to not care about it. And like not caring about it is a trade off too, right? Like you could choose to not care about it and then you may be treated more poorly because you don’t care about it, right? So like I—I feel like I spend a lot of energy on this, like kind of behind the scenes, and—and then I’m pissed about that because like I would rather spend my energy on like literally anything else. [5:44] KL I spend extra time thinking about do I need to be on a video call? Right? And so do I need to put [chuckles] a fucking coat of mascara on, at least, and some lip gloss. And usually I feel like yeah, I do. I need to like do something so that I don’t know, look a certain level or a certain way or whatever. And I know that, you know, when I have meetings with men, that’s not, they don’t think about that at all. They’re like hopping on a call and going—you know what I mean? They’re not—they don’t need like an extra 15 minutes to just kind of like figure out how they look, which— SWB I mean plug for our newsletter, which came out on Friday. So in Friday’s newsletter I actually talk a little bit about this, right? Like what are some of my tricks for making myself feel or look put together for the surprise video call. And it’s totally like can I slap some paint on this [chuckles] before I get on, right? Like it’s like ok, lipstick and a necklace. Or it’s like, I’m going to throw this little blazer cardigan over whatever I’m wearing and use this headband. And it’s like, the kind of smoke and mirrors to kind of like, “No. Look: I’m—I’m ready.” [Laughs] KL Cool. Which sucks because I—I think all of us here are kind of like, “We do fucking great work. We’re—people want to work with us. And like why is that not enough?” SWB Also we all look great. KL [Laughs] But you know just that like it’s—it’s bullshit that that’s [yeah], you know, that that’s a thing. JL I mean we’ve talked about this like I’m on the opposite side where like the days I do work from home now and when I did work from home I always get dressed in the morning. But for me, it’s not, even if I don’t have video calls because it’s not for other people. It’s for me. I need to mentally take the break from like here I was sleeping to now I’m like doing something else. And like that’s why people will tell me that they like don’t put bras on. And I’m like, “But a bra means I’m doing something now.” Like it is like like the physical thing I am putting on my body to say that like, “Ok. I’m now like ready to rock the day.” [7:45] KL There’s a transition. JL Yes. Yeah. And so I totally understand why people wouldn’t want to do that but for me I like I need to move from like one point here’s my like relaxing to now like here’s like my business time. SWB You know I do put a bra on but like pants are pretty optional but that’s like a personal preference thing. JL [Laughs] Yeah. You know I’ve been struggling recently with like, “Do I want people to think I’m older or younger?” Like I can’t—I can’t decide. Like there are some where I’m like, “Oh if like people think I’m younger, they relate with me more.” But like maybe people are like, “Well, why are you my manager?” Like, “Aren’t you my age?” And I’m like, “No, I’m actually older than you.” And like the other day I was at work and I was talking about the movie The Wizard with Fred Savage and Jenny Lewis [laughter]— SWB Uh huh! As you do [laughter]. JL And I was talking about how like I went to go see it in the movie theatre so I could go see a sneak preview of Super Mario Brothers 3 because it was in the movie before the game came out, and my coworker just turns and goes, “Wait! How old are you?! Like weren’t you like one when Super Mario Brothers 3 came out?” And I was like, “Yeah let’s go with that.” And then I was like, “Oh. I guess I just gave away my age at work.” Which like I don’t specifically try to hide but I don’t like necessarily flaunt either I suppose. It’s interesting like every year I get older I feel more confident about a lot of things in my life. It really—it frustrates me when I hear people say things like, “Oh I’m so old. Ah I’m so old.” Because there’s always someone older than you. And it’s like you’re—you risk insulting other people and their age and how they’re feeling about themselves and so I always try to be really cognizant of that but, you know, it’s hard, right? Because, you know, you do go through things where it’s like, “Well, I’m not—I’m not the same age as I was a year ago, or five years ago, or ten years ago, so how do I adjust if there are things that are like weirding me out about this?” KL Yeah. I think that’s the thing too. I have felt more confident and sort of myself, you know, in the last few years more than any other time. And then I think going through different physical changes caught me off guard which was like why I started feeling that way. But it’s funny that you’re talking about sort of like how you’re perceived because we had a comment in our iTunes ratings and reviews that talked about—about us being sort of like older sister figures which we really loved because we thought like how cool is that to you know have that kind of vibe? But I think there’s also something associated with that, with being like, “Oh.” Like, “But you still want to hang out, right?” [Laughter] [10:20] SWB Oh my god. My biggest fear. You know this also really has me thinking about, there’s this essay I read years ago now. It’s called “There is No Unmarked Woman.” And it’s by Deborah Tannen and she—what she writes about is she’s basically taking like a concept that exists in linguistics about marked languages which is like … there’s like a standard form and then there’s the marking in—in linguistics where that like changes the meaning, right? And she says basically when you’re a woman, the way you’re perceived in society, there is no unmarked existence. Meaning that, like, if you go into a room wearing makeup that says something about you. If you go into a room not wearing makeup, that says something about you. If you wear clothes that are revealing, if you wear clothes that are conservatives, et cetera, et cetera. And not in the same way that men go into rooms, right? Like when a man goes into a room he can wear an outfit that is, like, unremarkable, right? And so—it’s like perceived as a very neutral thing, right? But no matter how you go into the room as a woman there is something—it says something about you. And I think about that a lot about age as well, too. It’s like, oh, do you want to be perceived as older or younger? It’s like, well, it depends what that says about you. And like what are people perceiving from that. And I just feel like that’s a lot of like extra cognitive effort that you go through to decide like how might this perceived? How do I feel about it? How do I feel about the potential risks of doing it? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and like , you know, weighing it out and making those decisions about how you’re going to wear, and how you’re going to present. And I think it’s like worse for other people too, right? Like I’ve had trans friends who’ve said like, “You know, part of me wants to be able to pass as the—the gender that I am, and part of me doesn’t. Part of me wants to show up in a room and be noticeably trans and make people deal with and like vacillating between those feelings.” And I think that that’s, you know, it’s like an unresolvable tension, right? Like we’re never going to be a able to like find an answer to this [laughing] conversation, right? Because you’re always going to have to figure what do you—what do you want? What is expected of you? What are you trying to do in that scenario? What are other people thinking? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. KL I mean one of the perks that happens and comes along with, you know, getting older is that you get to share that, and I think that is one of the coolest things we heard from Sarah Drasner. So, I don’t know should we listen to that interview? SWB I’m super ready for it [music fades in]. JL [Ad spot] Not only is CodePen an awesome tool for designers and developers to write code directly in the browser, it’s also a great place to find a job. Are you a frontend developer or designer? They have a radical job board with opportunities all over the world: New York, California, Australia—those opportunities are all there. Check out codepen.io/jobs. Also, are you a company looking to hiring those folks? Hit up support@codepen.io and say you’d like to try the job board for free, and they’ll set you right up for that. CodePen also offers great functionality for helping you interview your candidates. With CodePen Collab Mode you don’t need to be in the same place for a whiteboarding session. You can join online and work together on a coding challenge. Check out the blog at codepen.io to find even more ways to make CodePen work for you. [13:35] SWB [Ad spot] We are also super excited to once again be supported by our friends at WordPress. You know about WordPress, right? You know, the company behind like 30 percent of all websites? We love WordPress because it’s flexible, it’s super customizable, and it’s extremely affordable. Plans starts at just four dollars a month which makes it easy for a growing podcast like ours. But WordPress can do so much more including manage your whole online store. And their customer support is there 24/7 to help. So if you haven’t checked WordPress out yet, you totally should. It’s the easiest way to make your site your own without doing all the coding and design. So start building your website today. Go to wordpress.com/noyougo for 15 percent off any new plan purchase. That’s 15 percent off your brand new website at wordpress.com/noyougo. KL [Ad spot] A Book Apart runs on Shopify, and that’s because we know we’ll be supported by a team of 3,000 folks around the globe who are focused on building products that help business owners every day. And they’re growing their team. I’m looking at their listings, and they’ve got 166 openings right now. SWB Woah, wait! 166? That’s, like, a lot. KL Yeah, like a Director of Production Security which sounds extremely important, and a Choose Your Own Data Adventure. So visit shopify.com/careers to find out what they’re all about [music fades in, plays for 3 seconds, fades out]. JL Sarah Drasner is an award winning speaker, Senior Developer Advocate at Microsoft, and staff writer at CSS Tricks. Sarah’s also the co-founder of the Web Animations Workshop with Val Head. She’s the author of SVG Animations from O’Reilly and has given frontend masters workshops on Vue.js and advanced SVG animations. She has worked for 15 years as a web developer and designer, and at points even worked as a scientific illustrator, and an undergraduate professor. That is awesome. Welcome to the show, Sarah! Sarah Drasner Thanks. Thanks for having me. JL It’s like such a pleasure to have you here. You know, as I mentioned before I had to cut some of your bio because there was so much [laughter] so I think it’s just so cool. You’re doing so many awesome things. So most recently you left consulting and you’re now at Microsoft as a Senior Developer Advocate. Can you tell us a little more about what that means exactly? [15:45] SD Actually, it’s kind of funny because Senior Developer Advocate in some ways means that I’m getting paid for some of the work that I was doing for free before [laughs] so— JL That’s amazing [laughs]. SD Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I was always doing kind of open source work on the side, and doing a lot of talks, and, you know, putting out a lot of resources, and doing consulting work at the same time. Microsoft is really like kind of steering the ship differently these days and it’s much more towards open source and, you know, giving back to the community but also like, you know, of course communicating some of the cool things that they’re building. So my job is a bit of all of those things. I’m still doing a lot of engineering work. I’m still, you know, speaking at conferences. I’m still writing articles and, you know, some of them are about Microsoft, some of them aren’t. And all of that is cool. So it’s a really good job for me. JL Was it hard for you to leave consulting? SD Yeah! It definitely was. I had a couple of contracts coming down the pipeline that I was super excited about. One of them was to work with Addy Osmani who I do hope I get to work with someday because he’s like one of my heros. So turning down contracts with people that I just like really wanted to take. So it was—I think, you know, it took me like a while to really decided because I just was sitting there like, “But on the one hand there’s this, and on the other—” So like, you know, which isn’t to say that either of them—like I think when people say that it was a hard thing for them to decide it means that either option was bad. It was quite the opposite where I was like, “Oh I’m like—this is really strange because previously in my career it had been very much like, ‘Take what you’re given, [laughs] I gotta, you know, support myself here [laughs]’.” So this was—this was a very different type of decision making process for me and my career. JL So you mentioned, you know, you had a couple of projects lined up, I feel like that’s something we constantly like we worry about disappointing people in order to maybe choose the choice that we really want to make. How did you balance that struggle? SD I try to be as transparent as possible about like, “Here’s what I’ve got coming down the pipeline, this person is talking to me, I’m not sure if I can do this.” You know? Even if it’s just like a chance that something could happen. So that there’s no surprises coming down the pipeline. So yeah, I think that that really helps. JL Yeah. SD Um people really need honesty. [18:14] JL So, Sarah, last year you wrote the book SVG Animations: From Common UX Implementations to Complex Responsive Animation. Can you talk us through the process of writing a technical book? SD Oh yeah! I mean I think actually like writing a book was on my bucket list, although that was another one where I’m not sure I would’ve done it unless O’Reilly had reached out to me. So thank Meg Foley, if you’re listening to this. I think I really thought that I was going to write it a lot quicker than I did. So I thought that I was going to write it in like, you know, nine months to a year and it ended up being like a two year process and I didn’t anticipate how long the editing process would take. Especially because they were like, “Oh name two technical reviewers,” and I named four because I was like, “Oh well that’s going to make the book better.” But the thing about four technical reviewers is you have to go through the book four times [laughing] like line by line. So I definitely was kicking myself for that decision. But I do think it made it a better book. But yeah I mean writing books is a lot of work. Like I know everyone says that and like it should be obvious by now but like that’s all I can say is like it’s a lot of work. KL I was just going to say those are so common to be like, “I thought this was going to take this amount of time but [chuckles] it took twice as long [SD laughs] or four times as long.” JL I mean but that’s great to hear, right? Because when people say a long time and nine to 12 months would be a long time to a lot of people [KL absolutely] and so I think it’s like—it’s really great to hear like two years because I don’t think we talk that much about timelines. Right? We say like, “Oh it takes a long time,” but like your definition of long might be different than someone else’s definition of long. SWB You know something I’ve thought a lot about when I’ve written books I have also had people come to me and—which is awesome and it kind of happened in a few different ways but I’ve never gone to a publisher cold and said, “I want to write a book.” And I have lots of thoughts about sort of like ways that’s good and bad, and all kinds of feelings, but I’m curious like, from your perspective, what do you think it was that you had done before you got to that point that made a publisher come to you? Because people ask me this a lot, like, “Well how do I get a publisher to come to me?” “I don’t—I don’t know! Keep doing stuff until people notice?” Which is like a really bad answer. SD Yeah, yeah, no. I think that’s a great question and, yeah, I get those kind of questions fairly frequently too. I mean I know actually because Meg told me that she found me because of talks. She had seen me give talks before and I was giving talks on SVG animation, and complex responsive animations. So that was what made them approach me. You know I’m actually starving to work on another book now which I’m just kind—like my fiance is like making fun of me because I said that I wasn’t going to write another one [laughter] I’m not sure if I’m supposed to talk about it yet but I’m going to write another one with Smashing and I mean certainly that one is because of my relationship with them for talks. So I think talks—I mean that’s probably not like a catch all for anybody but for me that’s been historically what happened. [21:24] JL Well one: that’s so exciting. I cannot wait to hear [SD chuckles] more about it. I think too like that makes total sense, you know, if you continually—if you continuously speak about the same subject, right? Then I think that you have more like chance of people noticing that, right? Would you say that that’s true? SD I think like if people think of X and they think of you. You know like if I think about like you know bias and algorithms I probably think of Sarah. You know like, not me [laughs]. So, you know, I think that that helps. JL You’ve been working a lot with machine learning lately too, right? SD Yeah, I’ve been working with machine learning quite a bit but not in like a very deep sense I would say. There are some APIs that Microsoft Azure exposes where you can just do like an API call. In other words, I can just like talk to this thing and say, “Here’s an image, can you please tell me something about this image?” And then it gives me data back. So I’m not building the thing from scratch like some other people are. I’m just like communication with it and making some projects with it. So like one project I made was I was mentoring a blind woman and she mentioned to me that a lot of the internet was not accessible to her. In other words, she was working with screen readers which like read out the content of a webpage. And there was no alt text for images. So if you have an image of something like a meme, or if you have an image of something like a news story, there’s no content there for her. It’s just completely empty. And so she felt left out of a lot of conversations and experiences. So I used these cognitive services which was this machine learning API and I made a call to this API and created dynamic alt text where people forgot to add them. So I’m making a Chrome extension so that blind people can use it on any site that they visit and kind of gather data. So it analyzes the image both for words and text. And, you know, it’s not perfect. It’s still learning. There’s, you know, definitely stuff that it could be better at but it’s really pretty good. Like very, very impressive. So I think that using some of the machine learning for good because there are like positive things that you can do with it is really exciting for me. So I’m not necessarily building the machine learning piece but I’m applying it. JL Yeah that sounds absolutely amazing. Could you explain a little bit more for some of our listeners who aren’t really familiar with machine learning? SD Basically machine learning is when you teach a computer to make assessments on its own. And this process has been started, you know, like this historically like invented in the sixties but hasn’t really reached maturity until lately where people can really use it, and have been using it very frequently because there’s so many of us online that we come into a point where we really need a system to build and tag and sort for us. Some of the way that it works is that like actually I’ll teach like kind of like a trained like there’s—there’s a few different ways of working with machine learning but like one of the simplest ways of discussing it is a genetic algorithm. So this isn’t every algorithm. There are like thousands of algorithms but this is probably the like lowest metaphor I can think of that’s like easy to understand. So let’s say you have this bot and you say, “Ok. Here is—you have these two—like a pug and kitten.” You say, “Here’s a picture of a pug and here’s a picture of a kitten. Now guess which one is pug or a kitten.” At first it’s going to be totally random, right? Like there—it’s going to be like, “I don’t know. That one?” And they’re going to fail. But if you keep selecting the algorithm that’s picking the one that is like “Pug, pug, pug, pug,” then taking those, throwing those away, like getting all of the ones that are correct, and then you do that a few thousand times, eventually you arrive at this very complex algorithm that actually knows a pug is a pug. [25:40] SD [Continued] The problem is that by the time we reach that level of maturity no one really knows how it works. Not even the person who [chuckles] originally was building the first algorithms. So they’re a bit of a black box and that’s true pretty much of every machine learning algorithm. They get to a point of complexity where the people who built it knows how it started but they don’t necessarily know what’s going on in the end. And they are effective. So we keep using them but there’s also some dangers there which are, you know, that it can be seeded with the wrong information. One is like that’s like a really huge one is like what if you’re giving it fake demographics data that’s built off of things that aren’t real? Like you could actually start building, and tagging, and sorting all—like huge amounts of people to see only a certain kind of information based off of information that’s not really true of them. SWB You know I think about this stuff obviously all the time and one of the things that I also think a lot about is like that there has often not been enough care going into what data we fed the things to start with. Right? So it’s one thing that if you’re like, “We showed it a bunch of pictures of pugs and kittens.” Ok fine. But when you start talking about people and like image recognition of people you get into a lot more difficult territory because there’s so many more bias get involved there. So like I’ve seen a lot of examples where the—the images the machine learning system has learned from was almost entirely pictures of white people and as a result [right] the system is really bad at identifying pictures of people who aren’t white. And so if you then apply a system like that to this tool you’re talking about which could have this huge benefit for blind people where you’re—you’re using, right? If you were using uh a machine learning system that had been trained off pictures of white people to then figure out what an image is and tell a reader what they were of and it did a worse job of—of figuring out when people were in the image if it was like people of color like then you’re also feeding bad information to the blind community that you’re trying to serve, right? So it’s like you create these problems by not looking at where that data’s coming from and whether it’s representative of the people that you need to represent. [27:38] SD Well totally and I think actually like so first of all like the—this is like a really old problem too. Like with even like the old cameras that we—you know the first film was just trained off of white people’s skin tones and then like didn’t actually pick up black people’s skin tones well. And we’ve done [chuckles] kind of a bad job of this historically in other areas. So now we’re doing it in machine learning. But I think if we—if we have diverse teams. This is another reason why having diverse teams is really important because you’re kind of more likely to think of those things or at least have someone on staff who’s like, “Hey, wait a minute.” [Laughs] When you have these kind of issues before it even gets shipped. I mean I worked at a company that I’m not going to the name of where they were going to ship a feature that would’ve actually been against the law. It was going to use machine learning to kind of train on data that wouldn’t have been legal. And I just had, by chance, read about that like a couple of weekends before that and raised my hand. And I was just a developer on the project. I wasn’t like a PM or even someone who was guiding the way the project was shaped and I just kind of raised my hand and was like, “Isn’t that illegal?” And, you know, kind of cited this thing that I had read and they looked into it, and they were like, “Oh my god that is illegal. We shouldn’t ship this product.” But here the thing is like I wasn’t like anyone super special. I just was a random person who said, “Hey, I don’t know so I think if you have you know more of a variety of people, and more of a variety of thought processes in a room—you know, towards anything in any given room, then you’re more likely to catch these edge cases that you know might be shipped like even before they happen.” JL So, Sarah, I mean talking more about this and getting more representation and you mentioned it before that you were mentoring someone who was blind. Last year you started mentoring people who were underrepresented, can you tell us more about that? SD Oh yeah I really feel like the first—you know, for the first little while I was trying to pull myself up by my bootstraps and just, like, work really hard to kind of get some place where I felt more comfortable, where I was not like just taking any job that was offered me. And then the second part of that is to extend whatever privilege I might have to others. So a big part of that was trying to figure out ways to mentor people, or to help other people grow, or to promote the work of other people that are doing great work in the community that might not be seen. And I decided to create this like piece of my time that would be devoted to mentoring underrepresented in tech, and so I made like a Google form and I just kind of like picked people off of that list and say, “Hey, like do you want to chat?” And, you know, in the form we—they check off like what—like some areas that I might be able to help them with. It ranges anywhere from like JavaScript and like Vue to like, “I just need someone to talk to.” Or [laughing] you know like, “I just feel alone right now.” Or you know something like that so we do through like a variety of topics and stuff and there’s just like a bunch of people that I try to mentor. Some people are like first time public speakers, even just like listening I think is helpful. So I think a big part of being a senior developer is not just like touting your own expertise and experience but actually like helping others. [31:23] JL So did you like tweet the form out and wait for people to fill it out? SD Yeah! I did. I tweeted out, I actually have like 500 [laughs] responses. JL That’s amazing! SD Which is more than I can [laughing] actually do. So I feel—there’s like a part of me that feels super guilty but I did see that there was a bunch of other people who took that and did their own version of it. So I think that it kinda spreads it out a little bit. And I feel—if anybody filled out that form and I didn’t get to you. It’s really nothing personal [laughing]. I’m like trying to get through as many people as I can, it’s just there’s a lot of people on that list. JL Yeah, how do you—I mean 500 is a lot. But I mean like ten is a lot. How are you finding the time? SD That’s always a challenge. I mean there’s definitely months where I’m not able to do it as much as I want to. There’s also people that I just know that I’m mentoring and some of the mentoring relationships are kind of casual like you know they’re friends of mine who ask a lot of questions about how to do this and that or like it ranges from that to like really formal meetings. So there are months where I can set aside the time to have a few mentoring sessions, and then there are times when I just, you know, am on the road a lot and so it comes more in the form of like people randomly wanting like one Skype meeting or like somebody just chatting me on Facebook for a while, asking me how to do deal with a certain situation. I’m also mentored. I think like one person who helps mentor me is Val. She was a consultant way before I was a consultant and so when I started working as a consultant I—she spent a lot of time with where I was just like asking a ton of questions like, “Is this normal? Should I set up a contract?” [Laughs] Like just kind of like I don’t know what I would’ve done without her actually. And also Darius Kazemi he is really super awesome and he actually even just like sent me a version of his contract for me to like understand what a good contract looks like. Which I super appreciated. Darius, if you’re listening, thank you. So I don’t make it sound like I’m only doing, you know, outward. Like I’ve also benefited from other people’s expertise as well. SWB You mean you’re not learning as a human person? [Laughter] SD Yeah [laughs] basically. SWB You know I”m really curious you talked a bit about wanting to make sure that there is, you know, a diverse group of people in the room making decisions in tech which is something I think, you know, all of us share that value. And you’ve talked about wanting to mentor and help answer questions for people who are earlier in their careers, and also I think something you said was like, “Sometimes people just need to not feel alone.” And I know that that’s something that often women in tech can feel is kind of alone. Do you feel as you’ve gone through your career and gotten to this place where you have you know you’re relatively well known, well connected, and well supported. Have things changed for you being a woman in this field has this—is this something that you think is like changing overall? Like what’ your take on sort of where things are at and what needs to happen? [34:27] SD I do feel like things have changed for me. I’m already privileged in some sense because I’m white and, you know, I was living in San Francisco which is like a tech hub. So that gives me that—like allowed me that point. I don’t live in San Francisco anymore but that allowed me some affordances that people in more remote areas don’t have for even being connected. I feel like I was ignored for a lot—to be totally honest, for a lot of the first part of my career and I, you know, I think when I first came up and like people were starting to recognize me, they thought I must be like a junior, or like I must have just like, you know, shot up—like as I just started making things. But the truth of the matter is I was working for a very long time. Like more than a decade just nobody knew of me and nobody really cared. To which I say to people listening: if you feel like you’ve been working for awhile and nobody’s paying attention to you, don’t give up. Like really don’t. Because it doesn’t mean the end of anything. Sometimes people just take a little bit to, you know, notice you. And also I would say if you haven’t been noticed, and you feel like you should’ve been, one thing that I think actually really helped me was by not being noticed for a long time, by the time people did notice me I already had a huge body of work, and people were like, “Woah! Where did all of this work come from?” [Laughing] I’m like, “I’ve been working for so long.” [Laughs] So I think that actually helped my career in some sense that people were just like, “Oh my god there’s so much—there’s so much here. It wasn’t just like a one off or something.” Recently I tweeted about an experience I had where I changed my hair color. I was like fake blonde before [chuckles] and then I dyed my hair back to my natural colour which is brown … and when I kind of had gotten used to like people at tech conference maybe knowing who I was a bit before going there and then I went to JSConf Iceland and I went to this party and everyone was like, “Oh, whose girlfriend are you?” [Laughter and disappointed ughs][Uh huh! Mmm] [Laughs] You know? I mean you know that’s like I remember that. I remember that experience from before I was well known. And I’m like, “Oh this is still here. I just stopped experiencing it because people knew who I was.” Like I just am not recognized at this event, you know? Like because—because I dyed my hair. So I think that that like that kind of was like this reminder and I tweeted that out and the entire responses to the thread were either guys like, “I can’t believe that happens,” and women just going, “Yup, that happened to me the other,” “Yes, that happens to me all the [laughing] time.” Like and I do think we have a long way to go in that sense. I try not to get saddened by the numbers that are actually going down for tech instead of up like for a lot of other industries the number of women goes up over time. And for ours it’s actually trending in the opposite direction which I also—which is why I think that mentoring is such a big deal. Like giving people a support system is really important. [37:44] SWB I started recently listening to this podcast, The Startup Podcast, and it’s from Gimlet and they’re—they’re featuring a VC named Arlan who she’s a, you know, like a black gay woman in Silicon Valley, trying to run a venture capital fund and she has decided to call the people that that she wants to invest in not underrepresented but underestimated and I think that’s really interesting to think about like the way in which so many of us have been underestimated in our fields, and sort of like you’re kind of flying under the radar as a result and that means that there’s like all this untapped potential which, you know, like it’s super problematic that—that we may have been underestimated but being able to kind of harness that potential is really exciting. SD Totally! First of all, Arlan is a hero of mine. I just like I mean she’s been doing stuff for forever, I only was aware of her recently and was like, “Holy crap.” [Laughs] She’s—she’s just super great. And yeah I think that that’s amazing. I’m going to actually try to like co-opt that term, giving her credit of course. Like that’s—that’s a really, really great term because there are so many people who—like I feel like I’m mentoring who I’m like, “Jesus Christ, you’re doing so many cool things,” and then people don’t really know about them. Or even just like people who are doing good work that like some people know about but then they still get talked down to like they’re not that valuable, like, you know, I think that there’s some people that like—like Lin Clark who does amazing, amazing work and then people like on a livestream are, you know, harassing her or whatever. And I just like, it’s like why?!? [Laughing] She’s incredible. She’s probably like benefitted, you know, React community more than anyone in terms of like understanding some of the things that are going on. So I just think it’s kind of like an important time to support people. SWB Yeah like how do you find sort of the balance for yourself between wanting to push for representation in tech and wanting to talk about some of these issues around the lack of diversity and the way that people have been underestimated but also just wanting to like do your fucking job as an engineer and be known for being awesome at your job? SD Yeah. I mean that’s a really good question I think that actually I try to lean towards showing not telling because I think that actually changes minds more than me telling people to, you know, it’s like on the one hand I could be like, “Ok you should respect women,” and like people who already respect women will be like, “Hell yeah!” And then the people who don’t respect woman will be like, “Why?” [Laughs] And, like, “Go away,” and like, “No.” But if I, you know, if I work really hard, and make work that they need, or make work that like, you know, people are using or people like find valuable then they kind of have to—I don’t have to say anything, they kind of have to reevaluate some biases on their own. So I kind of believe in putting my money where my mouth is and like, you know, sure, like I’m not always going to make like a perfect thing or anything but if people find the work that I do valuable, I think that that’s much more compelling and tends to move the bottom dollar a little bit more than—and I kind of know this because people have told me. Like I know a number of dudes who write to me and say like, “I, you know, I used to have bias against women and I saw some of the work that you were doing and I had to reevaluate what I was thinking about it.” And I think if I had just kind of gone forward and said, “Women, you know, respect them.” I don’t know that that—it would’ve been quite as effective and see that in the kind of ways that I promote women is also to just like really like highlight the work that they’re doing because that is important. That’s the important piece is, right? Is like all of the work that they’re doing is super valuable and then people can see that for themselves and it kind of like does the job of show not tell. But I’ll also say this on that subject matter: my mom is the first woman Chief of Neurology on the planet and she was physician and chief of UCSF, and is a very brilliant women, and she was really like a kind of pioneer in medicine. And she taught me a lot of this stuff. This isn’t born from my brain or something. She actually like I think a lot of other people’s moms taught them a lot of, you know, other really awesome things. My mom taught me like, “Ok. Like this is really important when you’re in a business meeting you can’t talk like this. You have to say this.” Or like, “When you’re presenting your work you have to make sure to do this.” Or, “You know, honey, you’re just going to have to work, you know, five times as hard, I’m sorry.” Like [laughs] which I think you know I think is unfortunate but also really super prepared me for tech. [42:56] SD [Continued] There’s no other way around it like what she did for me is, you know, what she did for medicine was really important, but what she did for me was also super important and she’s obviously my role model. JL I think that’s I mean that’s just incredible to hear, Sarah, and I think, you know, you are probably setting the same example as a role model now with your family. SD I mean I don’t know. I hope! You know my step-daughter is is super into code and she’s brilliant, she’s like kind of unbelievably brilliant. Like I give [chuckles] workshops to adults and she figures things out way [laughing] faster than we do. I think part of that is like kid’s brains just like they’re like super open to new ideas. And so that’s super exciting to see. But she also kind of takes after her dad where she’s super method—that’s just who she is. She’s like really methodical, she like really, you know, thinks through problems well. She has a really good memory for numbers and, you know, kind of computational ideas. So like we’ll like run through—like I’ll show her a JavaScript concept and she’ll have built like five things [chuckles in background]. So [chuckles] uh and the—the funny thing about it is like, you know, her dad is very humble. She is no—you know, Megan, if you hear this in the future, like know that I [chuckling] fully support you but she’s—she’s not super humble [yeah] but I think that’s great because she has a ton of confidence, and I’m just like, “Girl, you’re going to need it. [Laughs] So I’m not going to do anything to dissuade you from that because people are going to try to, you know, not let you have that. And so like go—go for it.” She’s like [laughter in background], “I’m really good at this.” I’m like, “You are!” [Laughs] [44:45] SWB You know what? Well we just had an author on the show, a fiction author, Carmen Maria Machado a few weeks ago. And, you know, one of the things that she said was getting comfortable with the idea that she is good at things and so how often women are taught to like not talk about the things that they’re good at, and to not own that. I—one of the things that I’m, you know, makes me so excited is thinking about how can we do work today. You know like people like you and people like us posting shows like this to make it so that there’s fewer of these double standards in the future and so that, you know, as girls like that grow up, they do have the opportunity to not have to work five times as hard but can just be awesome for being awesome. SD Totally. Totally. Yeah I mean it is kind of funny how like that stuff comes at a—like a really young age that you’re not supposed to—you’re not supposed to be proud of yourself, you’re not [chuckling] to like, be excited about the thing like, “I built this thing and it’s great!” Like there’s a certain age where people tell you not to—not to like that or not to feel like that, and yeah, it’s kind of important. It’s important to stay excited about the stuff that you’re making. JL Completely. So, before we get going, just one final question for you, Sarah. You have a really awesome end of your goal setting tradition and I was really hoping that you could tell us the story about that. SD Oh yeah so my best friends and my fiancé and I were like talking about how we have these goals and I was kind of talking about how like I make a list for myself, and she was saying that she has a list for herself, and you know he was saying that he has a list for himself. So we decided that we take these like either staycations where like one of us comes over to the other person’s house or like we—one year we went to Cancun and like did this. But we’d all like hang out together and drink champagne and talk about the things that we’re planning for the future, and the things that we want to get done. So every year we make a list of the things that we want to do and want to accomplish and we revisit last year’s goals. We like kind of look through them and, you know, for some of the goals we say like, “Oh, you know, that’s no longer important to me.” It’s like, “I never did it but I’ve changed my idea about whether or not that was important or vital to me.” And then, you know, on other ones we’re like, “Oh like I shoulda gotten more done on that.” Or like we’ll check in mid-year and see where we’re at. Um it’s nice to work with other people through those things. It makes me feel really accountable in a way that doing it on your own—plus like the champagne and the kind of like, you know, celebration of it makes it fun instead of arduous. Like instead of like, “Oh no I’ve got like things on my list.” So yeah it’s been like a really awesome thing I think for each of we’ve all gone a lot further in the last few years because of this kind of like bond we share like supporting each other. JL It’s so awesome. I think the to-do list is always something that a lot of us struggle with [laughs] and so I love this idea of a communal, celebratory to-do list and goal setting. [47:52] SD Yeah and it’s like long term goals too. I think to-do lists tend to be kind of short so it’s nice to kind of take a purview and be like, “What do I want to accomp—” Like kind of like align yourself like, I’m doing all these small things that are like, you know, tactical. But what’s my strategy here? Like what’s the long term here? JL Yeah, that’s a great point. I think often I’ve very micro-focused, and I think to stop every once in awhile and be like, “Wait. Where am I trying to get?” Is really valuable. KL Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. SD Yeah, thanks for having me! This has been a blast. It’s so nice to speak to like three women that I admire so much. SWB Oh I—we admire you too! JL And we cannot wait to keep seeing what you’re doing. SD Thanks, likewise. JL Because it just gets awesomer and awesomer. SD Bye! [Music fades in, plays for four seconds, fades out] KL It is time for one I think of our favorite segments: The Fuck Yeah of the Week. Sara, can you tell us what that is? SWB Yeah. The Fuck Yeah of the Week is someone or something we’re super hyped about and this week it is none other than Michelle Wolf. As you might’ve heard because it was freaking everywhere, Michelle Wolf did the comedy segment of the White House Correspondents Dinner last week, and it was pretty fucking great. I mean she really didn’t pull any punches. She was extremely direct about a number of problems with the current political climate and one of the things that she talked about directly was Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the lies that she tells. Now, she got a lot of flack for this, I don’t want to repeat the whole thing. It was a 19-minute segment so if you haven’t seen it, you should go watch it because it was great. But what really got everybody bothered was that, you know, she made this joke about how Sarah Huckabee Sanders burns facts and then uses the ash to create eyeliner to get the perfect smokey eye. Aaaand what she was accused of was having criticized Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ looks, which was not what she criticized. What she criticized was the fact that this woman tells lies all day and is supposed to be the White House Press Secretary. So, anyway, you should watch it, you should catch up on the controversy, but what I think is really important here and the reason I wanted to give her a big fuck yeah is that after all of this has happened, I think it’s really easy to kind of get pushed into apologizing and walking it back, and to be pushed into, like, being nice. And, instead, you know, she had an interview with NPR where she was like, “I stand by everything that I said,” and one of the things that she talked about was like, “You know when people invite a woman to do comedy, they’re often expecting her to be nice. And, in fact, that’s something I talk about in my comedy is the way in which people are expecting that I’m going to be nice and I’m not. I’m not there to be nice.” And she said she didn’t regret a word that she stood by it. And so, I say fuck yeah to telling it like it is and then also, you know, not being pressured into apologizing for something that you shouldn’t have to apologize for. And fuck yeah to not being a nice girl. [50:45] KL Uh yeah. I say fuck yeah as well. I just—I think it’s so important especially for someone in her position to have been invited to do that to, you know, to stand her ground and stand by what she did and said, because it wasn’t any—you know she didn’t say anything that was like, “Oh my gosh.” Like so controversial that it was detrimental. It was like she was calling people out for, you know, what was happening. And addressing a room full of people that [laughs] don’t want to hear that. SWB Super tough room to work. I wouldn’t want to have to give a talk in front of that room because the people there are just sort of like prepared to dislike you. KL Yeah, and! It’s also—it’s not a Comedy Cellar. It’s not—you’re not going on and like feeding off a group of people who are like there to laugh [laughs] and like there to support you, and like want to hear you roast them. I mean I think there’s been a historical, you know, underlying like that’s what it is, but if you don’t want that to be what happens there, then this isn’t the set up. SWB Why the fuck are you inviting Michelle Wolf then, right? KL Exactly. Right. SWB Like that’s on you. KL Yeah, exactly. So I think she did a great job. JL I think it’s going to be really interesting to watch stand up comedy as it like expands like a year or five years from now. I mean we talk about things—I mean we do vocab swaps on the show, right? Where we talk about like how to like tread on sensitive subjects whereas like stand up comedy throws all that out the window. So I think it’ll be really interesting to see if people stay true to what they believe in with that, especially with like a movement to sort of like be more sensitive to other people, and be more careful about the things we say. So I—I’d like to see where we are in five years from now, on this podcast, and we can look back and be like, “What’s Michelle Wolf doing now?” Because I have a feeling that she’ll still be like standing behind what she believes in. [52:33] SWB Yeah. And I think, you know, that’s one of the other reasons I really liked what she talked about is that she said, “You know? When I wrote my set, I specifically took care to make sure that I wasn’t going to be making jokes at the expense of other women’s looks.” That that was something that she didn’t want to do in the set. And so it’s sort of like—I think what it actually shows is that—you know there’s this talk in comedy where it’s like, “Oh if you’re sensitive, or if you’re worried about inclusivity, then you can’t focus on telling jokes. And it’s just going to kill all the fun.” And I think with somebody like her shows is like you—you can be more careful with what you say and how you say it, and you can be inclusive and also still be really fucking funny. And that doesn’t mean that everybody’s going to like your humor. It’s not that. But that you’re not going to make jokes at the expense of more marginalized groups and you can do that and still be like super fucking good at it. And I would like to see a lot more comics sort of stretch themselves in that way. Right? Because I feel like it’s kind of a lazy answer to be like, “Well if I can’t say literally anything without any ramifications at all then you’re like, you know, getting in the way of my creativity.” And I’m like, “Man, maybe you’re just not that creative then.” I don’t know. Sounds like a problem with you [chuckles]. JL But I think it’s also you know you brought up like I mean it’s choice—like I think you know I read that you know she had an abortion joke in there too which like is not my cup of tea but I’m not inviting her to my birthday party. You know? And so for me that’s like—that’s like research on a lot of things. And so, you know, she didn’t change what her style was because of where she was. SWB And I also think that you, you know, there’s differences between telling jokes that are not going to be like in good taste for everybody. Just like some people don’t like swearing which I’m fine if people don’t like swearing, fine and they also should not listen to this podcast [laughter and chatter]. I think that it’s one of these things where, you know, the way you choose to talk about a joke about abortion is really important to me. I mean you know it’s—people talk about the concept of punching up or punching down. Right? It’s like who’s the butt of the joke? And and I think that that makes a big difference. I’m not suggesting you should enjoy abortion jokes. But like the way that she was talking about it, you know one of the things that she said, is like, “Oh yeah, all you guys oppose abortions,” she’s speaking to like the conservative legislatures in the room, “Unless it’s the abortion you buy for your secret girlfriend.” But like [laughs] so in that—in that joke like the butt of the joke was the people who are being hypocritical, right? And so like that’s—to me, like that’s a different flavor than like there’s lots of other things that could’ve been said. KL It also used to not be televised. So, I think there’s something in that that, you know, it is now. And so now it’s in the public sphere and there’s room for appreciation and criticism and I’m glad that we can have this conversation, and I feel like even that’s a Fuck Yeah. [55:17] JL Totally. KL That’s it for this week’s episode of No, You Go, the show about being ambitious—and sticking together. NYG is recorded in our home city of Philadelphia, and produced by Steph Colbourn. Our theme music is my The Diaphone. Thanks to Sarah Drasner for being our guest today. If you like what you’ve been hearing, please make sure to subscribe and rate us on Apple podcasts. Your support helps us spread the word and means the world. We’ll be back next week with another great guest [music fades in, plays for 32 seconds, fades out to end]. Transcript by secondhandscribe.com.

In this episode, Adam talks to Sarah Drasner about using animations and transitions to create more intuitive user interfaces, as well as technical tips, tricks and best practices for implementing them well. Topics include: Using animation to make interfaces easier to use The difference between animations and transitions When to use CSS animations vs. JavaScript animations Which CSS properties are safe to animate How to use techniques like FLIP to make sure your animations are performant Recommended libraries for building complex animations Strategies for keeping animation code maintainable Sponsors: Codeship, check out how they performed in Forrester's latest Continuous Integration Tools report Rollbar, sign up at https://rollbar.com/fullstackradio to try their Bootstrap Plan free for 90 days Links: Sarah's Personal Website Sarah on CodePen "SVG Animations", Sarah's book "Functional Animation", Sarah's talk on using animation to create spatial awareness and make interfaces easier to use GreenSock animation library "Animation in Design Systems", Sarah's article at 24 ways "FLIP Your Animations", using the FLIP technique to make animations more performant Transitions in Vue.js "Animating Vue", Sarahs' talk from VueConf 2017 Web Animation Workshops with Sarah and Val Head

Today’s show is all about getting started: taking the steps to turn new ideas into living, breathing (and sometimes even money-making) projects. Our guest this week is the totally rad Sara Chipps—the co-founder of Girl Develop It, and now the CEO of Jewelbots, which makes smart, open-source friendship bracelets that girls can code. (We want some for all our BFFs.) > Just start with those baby steps. It’s going to take a thousand baby steps. Everyone has a good idea, right? Everyone. Ideas are worthless unless it’s something that gets made. So you know, if it’s going to take a thousand baby steps, then if you start today, you only have 999 left. But if you don’t, then it’s never going to happen. > > —Sara Chipps, CEO of Jewelbots and co-founder of Girl Develop It Here’s what we covered (and as always, you can find the full transcript below). Show notes First up, we talk about all the URLs we’ve purchased—and how sometimes, spending $5 is just what you need to take your own idea seriously. Jenn shares her love for David Allen’s _Getting Things Do_ne method (and explains how it helped us GTD for our first episode). Katel tells us why “Write Book” is maybe not the best item to put on your to-do list. Sara recounts her love for Jenn’s web series, Cook Inside the Box—where Jenn and our friend Sequoia made recipes from the sides of boxes. Sara’s favorite episode? The one about hot dogs rolled in cornflakes. Mmm hmmm. Then, we fangirl out during our interview with Sara Chipps, who not only created Jewelbots, but also co-founded Girl Develop It. We talk about: Why Sara C. has made it her mission to get more girls and women into coding. The joy of friendship bracelets—no matter how old you are. How to bounce back (and learn something!) when a bunch of kids tell you your idea sucks. Highway1, the hardware accelerator that helped Sara prepare to launch Jewelbots. The importance of finding a co-founder who gets you—like Brooke Moreland, Sara C.’s cofounder at Jewelbots. Why you don’t actually need to be good at math to be a programmer—and how our industry has done newcomers a disservice by pretending otherwise. How Girl Develop It went from a single class in New York City in 2010 to a nonprofit operating in 58 cities and serving 55,000 members (and counting) nationwide. Also in this episode: Woohoo! It’s now light out till, uh, 5:15pm here in Philly, and we can’t be happier about that. We’re already dreaming about two of Philly’s best summertime hangouts: front stoops and beer gardens. Yes, please. Being, like, a totally cool adult. No, really. Ask the kids. Sponsors This episode of NYG is brought to you by: _CodePen—a social development environment for front-end designers and developers. Build and deploy a website, show off your work, build test cases, and find inspiration. _ _WordPress—the place to build your personal blog, business site, or anything else you want on the web. WordPress helps others find you, remember you, and connect with you. _   Transcript Sara Wachter-Boettcher Today’s show is brought to you by CodePen. Ever want a place where you can write and share front-end code with others? CodePen is that place. It’s full of awesome inspiration and projects with a great community. And speaking of community, the CodePen World’s Fair is happening in May. We’ll talk more about that in a bit, but be sure to sign up for an account at codepen.io. That’s [spells out codepen.io]. [Intro music] Jenn Lukas Hey! And welcome to No, You Go, the show about being ambitious and sticking together. I’m Jenn Lukas. Katel LeDû I’m Katel LeDû. SWB And I’m Sara Wachter-Boettcher. On today’s show we’re excited to talk about getting started. We’ll discuss how we come up with new ideas and then, once we’ve got ‘em, how do we actually take them to fruition? We’re totally pumped today to talk to Sara Chipps, who has taken two of her amazing ideas, Girl Develop It and Jewelbots, and made them into reality. But first on the agenda, let’s talk about how five bucks turned into a new podcast. Getting started with just $5 [1:20] KL So a couple of weeks after we started talking about the podcast, uhhh, got an email from info@noyougoshow.com and saying that we’re paying five dollars a month for the email address and now we really have to do the podcast. And at that moment I really think it became real and like this thing was really going to be real. So we kind of wanted to start there and talk about how that happened. JL Five dollars is all it takes. Five dollars and a dream. SWB [Laughs] yeah, so I was the one who sent that email and I was like, “Well, I got a credit card! I got five dollars a month. I spend five dollars a month on a lot more dumb shit than [others laugh] email accounts.” So for me it was a really low investment to also look at it and be like, “Dude, we are going to take this seriously. And I think that that’s how most anything I’ve ever done sort of came to be—by figuring out something that was small, but really concrete. And the concreteness is what helps it feel real and feel like something that you’re seriously going to do. KL And a little skin in the game. I mean, I know it’s not much, but you know when you kind of feel like you’re putting some actual cash to it, you’re like, “All right.” [Chuckles.] SWB That’s like a whole latte I can’t buy now. KL Absolutely. JL Yeah, I think that there’s definitely been a couple nights where, you know what? Maybe I’ve had a few glasses of wine and that helped make the appeal of certain domains sound good [laughs]. I’ve been known known to buy a domain or two. SWB I can’t relate to this at all. KL No, me either [all laughing]. JL After an exciting night out. But, you know, there’s one thing, you know, you’ll be at the bar with a friend, you’ll be at the coffee shop with a friend, you’ll be at the house with a friend, and you’ll be like, “Oh I have this idea,” and you’re sorta joking around and you’re like, “You know what? Lemme—lemme just pull that trigger and buy that URL,” and the next thing you know: you’ve got a URL and you’re on your way. SWB Yeah, I’m curious, Jenn, you had Cook Inside the Box a couple years ago, this web series little episodes where you and our friend, Sequoia, would cook recipes from the sides of boxes. I loved this series so much, everybody please go Google this right now if you haven’t seen it [laughter]. So I’m curious: how did that start? JL So I do remember how that happened. Oh my god, so many years ago at Converge in South Carolina, one of my favorite conferences. I think I was with Val Head and Chris Coyier and maybe a couple of other people and we were walking to go get some food. And I was telling them about how I was eating a box of Nilla Wafers and um you know those delicious cookies? And there was a recipe on the side of a box for Nilla Wafers which didn’t make any sense to me because a Nilla Wafer is just like a cookie. You just— KL You just eat it. JL You just open up the box and eat it, right? [KL chuckles] But they had this recipe and I was like, “This is amazing.” We talked about, like, what other boxes could possible have recipes on them and then I became a little bit obsessed with figuring out [laughter] that, and I thought it was really funny. And then one day a few weeks later I was telling Sequoia about this conversation and she was like, “I would totally do that with you.” And I was like, “Really?!?” I was like, someone else— KL This is a good idea. JL —someone else is in invested in this?! That’s amazing! And then that was it. We went to the grocery store and started our user research. SWB What was the first recipe you made? JL It was the Nilla Wafers’ Nilla Yogurt Freeze, which was a mix of strawberry yogurt, frozen with Nilla wafers, and the serving size was: one [laughter]. KL Was it as delicious as it sounds? JL It really actually was. It was just a little bit sad. SWB I think my favorite episode was the one where you rolled hot dogs in ketchup and then rolled them in— JL Cornflakes! Yes, cornflakes. [5:00] SWB Yes! And baked them for…not long enough? And that was a treat. Mm hmm. JL Yeah I heard that was quite—that was when I was a vegetarian so I had an easy out of not eating that, so I avoided that one. KL Yeah, you were like, “That’s all you.” JL Yeah. But yeah, you know, all of a sudden you take this thing that just happens in casual conversation, next thing you know you’ve got a YouTube web series [laughs]. SWB You know something I always think about is that one of the challenges is anything that feels big. Like there’s a lot of steps, there’s a lot of moving parts, there’s a lot of pieces to it. And so some of the biggest stuff that I’ve needed to take all the way from end to end is book stuff. And I don’t consider myself necessarily a like typical writer, just because I think everybody has a different process. But the way I do it tends to be, like, I need to have some kind of outline that’s enough structure, enough substance to it that I can imagine it coming together. And then I have all these weird tricks to actually getting it done where it’s like I pick off the easy chapters first, so then I feel like I have something of substance, all of these different things. But I don’t know a lot about techniques or process for getting something big like that done, just sort of what I’ve cobbled together and made up. Katel, running a publishing company, do you feel like you have developed some of those tools or techniques for people to kind of tackle big things? KL I was actually just talking to an author recently who had [chuckles] told me that for the past couple of months a “to do” on her list had been “write book.” And I was like, “No!” [Laughter] “Don’t do that.” I was like, “That’s too big. You’re never going to get to check it off and that’s going to feel terrible.” So along with looking at kind of how she could break things down and sort of structure them and, just like you said, pick off some things that were a little easier. You know, get a framing set up first and kind of plug in the meatier bits. One thing that we’ve started doing is just having check-ins during the writing process and I think that’s helped a lot because it’s a bit of accountability. So folks don’t feel like they’re just off in the ether writing and writing and not knowing whether they’re going in the right direction. So I think just having some tetheredness helps a lot. JL One of my favorite books of all time is Getting Things Done by David Allen, and he’s got a really, for me, approach that really resonated well, which is, you talk about what the next step is that you have to take. And you don’t worry about, like, what’s the 20-step-ahead step? It’s, what’s the next thing I want to do for this exact thing? So if it’s something like, you know, I want to write a book. Well, I was like, “Well, what’s my next step? Maybe it’s get in touch with someone who I know, like Katel, who publishes books. So my next step is to email Katel.” Just that. Not even, like, come up with an idea, not write it, not find a publisher, it’s just write someone I know. And then the other thing that I really liked about the getting things done approach is if it’s something that it’ll take less than two minutes, to do it right away. So if I can write you an email that just says, “Hey Katel, I want to talk to you about books. Let’s grab dinner sometime this week,” and that’ll take me less than two minutes, then I’d send that email. KL Yeah, I think breaking things down to as small as possible so that you can actually start checking things off your list is—it feels better than anything. SWB You know something that you just said, Jenn, about “if it takes two minutes, just do it.” I totally noticed that when we were working on starting this podcast. So you know one night we’re sitting, talking about lots of different things we needed to do, like all these macro to-do lists, right? Like, “we need to figure out microphones,” and like themes, and guests, and schedules, and like—you know it was very, very broad. And one of the things that we knew we needed to do was start recruiting a few people who could contribute to our first episode where we wanted to have these short snippets. And Katel and I, I think, both had kind of the same reaction, like, “Okay, let’s make a list of those people and assign each of us a list of those people to contact. And then, you know, we’ll do that after this meeting,” and meanwhile Jenn is literally over there like, “Okay, I sent all my emails to my people!” [Laughter] And you know that doesn’t obviously work for everything. It works for those short things though, and I think that that really gave us some momentum, and that momentum at that particular moment was really, really important and helpful, and got us all the way here where we are today! [Laughter] JL GTD, man! KL That’s right [music fades in]. Thanks to our sponsors SWB Hey Katel, do you know what I love getting done? KL Um, nails? Snacks? SWB I mean yes, and also yes. But more than anything, I love thanking our sponsors, because I’ve realized that starting a podcast is just a lot of work. There’s so many little details to take care of and so many pieces that have to fall into place. Getting some support from wonderful sponsors has made that so much easier. One of those great sponsors is wordpress.com! WordPress is the first place I went to create our site: noyougoshow.com. It’s also how I run my personal site, sarawb.com. [10:00] Whether you’d like to build a personal blog, a business site, or both, creating your website on wordpress.com helps others find you, remember you, and connect with you. I love WordPress because it’s easy. You don’t need any special skills to create an amazing site fast. You can just pick up a template and go. But it’s also super customizable. So if you’re working with an awesome developer like our co-host Jenn, you can turn your WordPress site into pretty much anything you want. Plus they have 24/7 support and plans that start at just four dollars a month. Go to wordpress.com/noyougo to get 15 percent off your website today. That’s wordpress.com/noyougo. KL We’re also so excited to have CodePen as our sponsor. CodePen is the place to write and share code with the front-end community. You can share your code with others and explore what they’ve created by browsing all sorts of Pens. And this spring, the CodePen community is coming together in real life for the first time ever with a CodePen World’s Fair, taking place May 30th through June 1st in Chicago. Three radical days of hanging out with people who love CodePen as much as you do. Day one is an expo with art exhibits and interactive installations, day two will be amazing conference talks about front-end dev, and day three will feature fantastic workshops! Sign up at codepenworldsfair.com to hear more. That’s codepenworldsfair.com. [Interstitial music fades in and out] Interview: Sara Chipps [11:15] JL So though I’ve had a slew of my own ideas, some better than others, I’ve also been fortunate enough to be part of other projects that were the creation of others. One of these was teaching for Girl Develop It, a non-profit organization that provides affordable programs for adult women interested in learning web and software development in a judgment-free environment. I met Sara Chipps over six years ago. She co-founded GDI in New York and was looking to expand it to Philadelphia. I can’t begin to explain how flattered I was when Sara had asked me to teach the first class here in Philly, which was an intro to HTML and CSS class and, to this day, I can say that it’s been one of my favorite parts of my career. She has since embarked on new feats in robotics and wearable technology, and is the CEO of Jewelbots. I am so, so excited to have Sara here today to talk about the opportunity that she has given people to join in some of these projects with her and hear more about her current adventures! So, welcome to No, You Go, Sara! Sara Chipps Thank you so much for having me! That was the best introduction I’ve ever gotten in my life! JL [Laughs] yay! I’m fangirling here a little bit to have my friend on the show. So I’m super pumped! So, Sara, tell us about Jewelbots. SC Yeah, so Jewelbots is a project that I’ve been working on for the past almost four years. You know, I polled a lot of my male peers about how they got started in programming and how old they were, and what I heard from them is often they were, like, middle school years was apparently the prime time for people to get started programming, and often it was because of gaming or something that is traditionally masculine, which might help explain why there is such a big gender gap. So we set out to make something that was more traditionally feminine and open source. And so we met with about 200 young girls in that demographic and we talked to them about what we could build for them, what would be exciting. And what we heard from them is that their friendships and their friends are the most important thing to them at this point in time. Do you guys remember being that age? JL Oof. Yes [laughter]. SC So, yeah, so what we did was we made smart friendship bracelets. And the way they work is they detect your friends when they’re nearby and they light up when you’re together, and you can use them to send secret messages and things, and they’re also open source. So girls can program them to do all kinds of things, like go rainbow colors when all their friends are in the same place, or one girl made a metronome. They can do all kinds of animations in really cool colors, they can make games, that kind of thing. So it’s been a lot of fun. JL That’s so neat. We did, like, a beach trip a couple of years ago and we made friendship bracelets on the beach and it was the best [laughter]. SC That’s so great! JL So I don’t think that joy of friendship bracelets has faded. SC That’s so awesome. JL Knowing you from Girl Develop It and knowing a bit about Jewelbots, I think that it’s quite obvious you want to encourage women in the STEM field. For this one, would you say that you were thinking more about wearables, like were you really into that? Or were you thinking, like, “Okay, well, I’ve worked with adults. How do I get into younger girls and women getting into this?” What was your inspiration for getting this project started? SC Really it was hearing from adult women things like, “I didn’t know what an engineer was until I got to college.” And just stuff like that made us say, “Okay, when are people learning about this stuff that are getting involved in this field, and how can we make sure that that is something that they know about?” And so that’s kind of how we settled on this age group, is, you know, it’s when a lot of men are typically exposed to programming. JL Right, yeah, so you had this idea and you mentioned you know you got together with about 200 girls that gave you this feedback. How did you decide to sort of start with this? I mean it’s user research, right? How was that the next step you took? [15:00] SC So I started with an idea. So I knew I wanted to do a wearable. I knew it needed to be a bracelet just because you know if you’re doing notifications or anything like that and it’s around your neck you don’t see it, and if it’s on your—if it’s like a ring, it has to be a huge, huge ring. Yeah it’d just be like this monster. JL I would wear it probably—[laughter]. SC That’s great. So my idea was that we would make a bracelet and you could change the color based on your outfit, right? So like I wanted to wear blue today, I would make my bracelet blue. That would be like my look for the day. And I thought this was a great idea. I also thought I had remembered what it was like to be 12. So myself and a friend at ITP, which is a program here at NYU, made a prototype and brought it to schools to see what girls thought, and they were like, “That’s a dumb idea.” Well, they saw it and they’d be like, “This is cool! What is it?” And we’d tell them and they were like, “Oh, I’d never use that.” [laughs] like, “Okay, god!” [Laughter] I know, it was really rough. Because you think you remember, right? I found myself in front of classrooms, like, explaining that I was a cool adult [boisterous laughter]. Like, “I know most adults are lame, but I’m not.” And I was like, “Oh my god, I am, I really am.” [Laughter.] SWB So what did they tell you that they actually wanted to use? Like after they told you that your idea was lame, how did you get out of them some good ideas that would be things they would want to use? SC So instead of saying, like, “What’s your idea?” We asked them more about their lives and their day-to-day and the things that they enjoy using. And just every conversation went back to friendship. You know, like, they all still wear the friendship bracelets—like the ones that we used to make, either the thread ones or those like plastic lanyard type ones, and they still make those, they still wear them, sometimes they’ll wear ‘em like all the way up their arms. So one day when we had compiled some of this feedback and started talking about, “What if we made like a real friendship bracelet?” And we started talking to them about that. That’s when they started really freaking out. Like their whole faces would light up and they’d be like, “Oh my god! I would have to have that!” SWB It’s so refreshing to see people really take their user research seriously, because I think so often user research gets like straight up ignored. So I think that that’s such a huge difference and I think it also speaks to what makes this valuable for actually hitting that mission of encouraging girls to enter STEM because you know you didn’t like accept kind of a shallow answer to that and you really looked at what was going to make it meaningful and connect with them at that deeper level. SC Like we didn’t even think about this until we actually did a hardware accelerator in San Francisco called Highway1. This was my first foray into hardware and so it was a really big help getting into Highway1 where you know what they do is they kind of incubate your company and they have experts there that can help you and guide you through the design and development prototyping process. And our first I just heard some nightmare stories about like, “Here’s something that we built and we didn’t talk to anyone. And here’s how we wasted like millions of dollars for this company because we built this thing that either doesn’t work or there’s this huge error we didn’t foresee or the people just don’t want it.” And so after hearing those stories I was like, “You know what? Um we should probably go talk to some people.” That’s one thing about my job and what we do is that girls in this age group are so fun. They’re so fun. They’re so opinionated and like fierce and hilarious and independent. And so it’s definitely the best part of my job is just meeting these girls and hearing about their lives and just being so impressed. I’m like constantly impressed by girls in this age group and like the cool stuff that they’re doing. JL How did you break into that? Like, how did you get access to being able to talk to these girls and finding out what they wanted? Was it through one of the incubator programs? Was it through NYU? Was it through something else? SC So there’s a statistic like 94 percent of parents in the US want their kids to be exposed to more you know programming and programming resources. And not even 40 percent of schools have computer science programs, and what is called a computer science program in most schools is like not something that we would consider programming. One thing that this has really exposed me to is just what a huge gap there is. Like we tried to like visit the entire demographic of you know socioeconomic classes uh in this age group. So if you go to a private school they will have a computer science program taught by a programmer and if you go to most public schools they have like a typing program taught by a teacher that doesn’t know anything about programming and – if they even have that, you know, sometimes there’s like a computer for an entire classroom to share. [20:00] So what we did is we volunteered to teach some classes. We were like, “Hey, we’re programmers. We’ll teach, you know, some beginner programming classes to your students in exchange for them answering some of our questions.” So that was kind of how we got in there. And it was a pretty neat thing to be able to meet girls and talk to them. JL Yeah, that’s so smart! So you work with a co-founder, Brooke Moreland, on Jewelbots, right? How did you come together? How do you find that you’ve surrounded yourself with people to help make your vision come true? SC Brooke was—when I moved to New York—one of the first people I met. She had a company called Fashism with an ‘s-h’. It was kind of like Instagram before Instagram, where people would upload pictures of their outfits or like fashion and people would like rate their fashion. And it was really popular with teenagers. Like hugely popular. And so with her background, you know, her skillset is just really complementary to mine in the way that she has fashion and business in her background, and I’m more focused on the technology side of things. And so when I started working on this, I reached out to Brooke and was like, “What do you think?” And she’s like, “This sounds awesome.” JL And for me sometimes, I have the problem of like how do you hold an idea that’s like so precious to you and then like trust others? Or like even be brave enough to first mention the idea to someone else? SC Yeah, yeah, I had been working on it for a few months already. And it’s so funny like when you first start prototyping something, it looks like garbage. Right? Like you’re always like—and when I was first working on this I was using Arduino and things were, like, taped together and falling apart and all this stuff. And so I just kind of showed her this thing. And she’s like, “Oh this is cool!” And then you have to find people that I think are like…can see past the tape. KL [Laughs] yes. JL So once, you know, you showed Brooke the idea and she was like, “This is great.” Were you both like, “Okay, we’re going full-time on this”? How did you sort of build up to what Jewelbots is now? SC At the time it was just me and I was full-time on it. And going full-time on a side project is really hard. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without getting into Highway1, as they give you seed funding for your business. So I had already been full-time on it for a few months and then she had just left her job. So we kind of both just jumped in. JL Monetary blockers I think are tough when people have ideas. You know, do you have any advice for people that are sort of like, “Well, what do I do? I have this idea. I’m not sure how to take it to the next level.” SC Before that I had a full-time job and it took me – I had been working on it for maybe about eight months or so part-time before we got into Highway1, before I was able to quit my job, and I’ve definitely been there. You know, Girl Develop It, I always had a full-time job. And it’s really difficult and one thing I learned fairly early in is even if you make the smallest bit of progress at night—you know, like, you get home, you’re exhausted, you don’t feel like working on anything—and you just spend five minutes writing one email, right? If you can get that one email out, or do that one thing that will push things forward, you know you’ll just keep going. The place where you get lost is when there’s, like, three weeks and you didn’t work on it and you’re just procrastinating because you’re like, “I have hours and hours of work to do.” But if you just make sure to take a little time every day, or you know just a few times a week, making sure you’re spending 15 minutes, 20 minutes, you can make sure that things keep growing. JL I like that a lot. Because things can feel overwhelming. You know you take a break from something and all of a sudden there’s so much to do versus a little. So I think that makes total sense. So before Jewelbots, you know as I mentioned, I know you through GDI, Girl Develop It. Can you tell us a little bit about Girl Develop It and how that got started? SC Yeah! So we never set out to make the company that it is today which is a really awesome, big non-profit. So one thing that happens to female developers is you will meet—like someone will be like, “Oh it’s so cool that you’re like a female developer! I know another female developer. You guys should be friends.” [Laughter] And you’re always like, “I mean, thank you, but like [laughs] I have work, I have a job.” SWB And like there’s more than two of you out there. You know, like, “Oh gosh, you have to know this one other person who they happen to have the same job.” It’s like, do you say that every time you meet somebody who’s an accountant? [Laughter] “I also know an accountant!” No, you don’t. SC “Do you know them? Do you know this other accountant?” [Laughter] Yeah so when—so someone had done that to us, and it was actually fortunate because we were talking about how in our computer science classes often we felt like we were afraid to ask questions because we were afraid that, you know, sometimes you feel like you ask a stupid question, it’s something you should know. Like, people in the class are going to be like, “Oh god! Of course the girl doesn’t know this!” [Chuckles] and, like, start throwing batteries at you or something. I dunno [laughter]. JL Huh, Philadelphia style [laughter]. [25:00] SWB But that sounds frustrating, right? It’s like you feel like you can’t just hang out and focus on learning and getting the most out of your class because you have to sit down and be like, “Oh I’m also somehow like a representative for my gender here.” It’s like, that’s a lot of extra pressure and a lot of bullshit. SC It is. It is and so having both shared that experience, we were like, “Wouldn’t it be great if there was a place where you know like people could learn and they could ask every stupid question that they think of?,” you know, and not be afraid of having to know that? Because also learning as an adult…like, kids are so fine not knowing things, you know? Like, because kids: you’re not supposed to know. But as an adult, you know, it can be scary asking questions because, you know, you’re supposed to know. So we scheduled just one class, one HTML/CSS class. This is in 2010 when there wasn’t a lot of these boot camps and things like that teaching. And we didn’t know how people were going to come or if they would be into it or anything like that but it ended up selling out, you know, in the first day. And then we planned another class and another class and then people in other cities were like you know, “We want to do this. This sounds cool.” So finally you know it started growing and it kind of like grew like a weed. Like it just kind of—yeah, it was pretty wild. JL So in a lot of teaching for Girl Develop It, I know a lot of times the students they want to make a change in their career and they’re ready to try something new. Do you have advice for people that would want to start a new career, how they get started in doing that? SC Programming isn’t hard. Like, you know, we’ve done this disservice as a community to say that you have to be good at math to be a coder, or you have to be some kind of genius to be a coder, and it’s so not true unless—I mean, yeah, there are, like, people that work—there are like quants that work in finance, and they have very specialized degrees. But most, you know, development jobs where you’re doing web development, it’s not rocket science. You know, it’s not anything that the average person can’t understand if they put in the work. So I think that, first of all, don’t be daunted by it—don’t think it’s not for you or you’re not smart enough, because I promise I’ve yet to meet the person that can’t understand how to, like, do an HTML/CSS page after like you know sitting down for a bit and working to understand it. And also, you know, be ready to put in the work, because it’s definitely hard work. SWB That really brings me back around to thinking about Jewelbots and how powerful it is to bring that to girls who aren’t getting that message, right? Who are like getting far too many messages about technology being something complicated and foreign and sort of you know being kind of alienated from it already at a young age and not even knowing you know what an engineer does. I really like the idea that you’re making it feel accessible and relatable because you’re totally right, this isn’t something that normal people can’t do. It’s not just for special people. And so I’m curious, like, as Jewelbots has grown and developed like, where do you see that going? SC We’re on target.com, we’re on our own website, we’re in a lot of places and it’s grown a lot, which has been very cool. We also were in the Wired store, and I think that the way we see things going is a good question. We’re about to make some big announcements for Jewelbots and kind of ask our audience and our community what they want to see from us in the future. You know, this community has come together of young ladies and they’re building things and sharing with each other and the coolest thing I think is the tiny speaking careers that are launching because of these eight-year-olds—eight-, nine-, 10-, 11-year-olds—that are going out there giving conference talks about programming their Jewelbots, which is so adorable. Like, I cry every time. I really do. And that’s not a joke. I’m just like sitting there crying [laughs]. JL That’s so amazing! SC I know! SWB Yeah, that’s super cool. SC Yeah. But so we’ve shipped 10,000 of them now, and we’re working to figure out what’s next and what we should be working on next. So we’re about to announce some big stuff and then ask the community what they want to see from us. JL Oh I can’t wait to hear more about that. Speaking of speaking, I know that you cut back on speaking to make time for Jewelbots. How’d you come to that decision? SC I don’t know about you, but when I was younger I didn’t really travel. Like my family, like we went to Disney once and my family was very like we drove 20 hours to see family members and that was our vacations which I loved them for. Like [laughs] I’m not complaining. But getting older like being able to travel the world to give conference talks was such a cool experience because I got to see so many different places. But what I started realizing that even though it was fun and glamorous and things it was getting in the way of work, it was getting in the way of like getting things done. And so now when I do talks or when I get you know asked to do talks, I evaluate like, what will this do? Will this help the business? You know um or will this be you know a distraction? [30:00] JL That’s great and then, Sara, have you ever felt blocked or in a rut? And if so, how have you gotten out of it? SC Yeah. And that’s a really good question. Focus can be hard, because there’s just so much going on, and often you feel like you’re doing the same thing every day. I usually focus on my personal life then, or, like, what habits I can bring to my life in general that will be beneficial because often it’s not work, often it’s work affecting life, right? So if in work I need to be doing the same thing every day for a while, that means my other time I should try to do something fun. So I usually focus on adding a new habit or, you know, something in my life that can distract me from the the rut, the day-to-day. JL And then before we wrap up, do you have any final advice for anyone that’s got an idea and wants to get that idea to a product? SC What I say all the time is, just start with those baby steps. It’s going to take a thousand baby steps. Everyone has a good idea, right? Everyone. Ideas are worthless unless it’s something that gets made. So you know, if it’s going to take a thousand baby steps, then if you start today, you only have 999 left. But if you don’t, then it’s never going to happen. So it can be really daunting. You know, I look back and I can’t believe we have like a manufactured product. Like I never—it’s just insane. I never would imagine I could do something like this. But, it just took a thousand baby steps. JL I love it. Sara, thanks so much for joining us on No, You Go today. SC Yeah! [Music fades in] JL You’re so awesome! SC Thank you for having me. [Music fades out] Fuck Yeah of the Week [31:45] JL You know when you’re so excited about something that you just start going google wild and you have like one million tabs open and you can’t wait to read them all? That’s our next segment: the Fuck Yeah of the Week—where we get super excited about someone or something that we just want to google the shit out of. Katel, who’s our Fuck Yeah this week? KL I’m gonna go ahead and say it’s daylight, because this morning when I was making coffee I looked up and I realized that it’s now light out in the morning a little earlier, which is so awesome, because you know just a few weeks ago it was like dark when I was making coffee, which is just really depressing. So I’m just really excited that our days are getting a little longer and I feel like we can get a little bit more light and a little bit more time back into our lives. SWB And a little more energy, right? KL Yeah, definitely. JL I love that. I mean I know when I you know I work on sites so when I’m leaving work when it starts getting dark at four, I’m like, “Okay, well,” you know it’s hard to sort of keep in that mind set where like I’m still at work because then it feels like daytime is work— KL Yeah. JL —and nighttime is home. And so when like the day starts pushing more forward, then I’m like, “Okay, look, I still have this crossover.” It’s not such a hard line between like work and home. It’s just like, “Oh, here’s just my day.” Instead of like, “Here’s work. Here’s home.” It feels so versus each other— KL Yeah! You’re totally right. JL —when it’s day versus, you know? KL It feels like there’s a much crisper line. SWB Plus, every day is one step closer to it being summertime stoop beer season, and that is something that I look forward to saying, “Fuck yeah” to very soon. KL Me too. And beer garden weather. So, fuck yeah, daylight! [Music fades in.] SWB Fuck yeah, daylight! Outro [33:25] JL Well that’s it for this week’s episode [music fades out] of No, You Go, the show about being ambitious—and sticking together. No, You Go is recorded in our home city of Philadelphia, and our theme music is by The Diaphone. Thank you to Sara Chipps for being our guest today [music fades in]. We’ll be back next week with another episode [music ramps up to end].

It’s the very first episode of No, You Go! Jenn, Katel, and Sara get together to talk about the itch to get out of a professional rut and start something new—whether that’s changing jobs, launching a company, building a side gig, or maybe even…idk….starting a podcast? > Fuck it, let’s just do it. Let’s be unapologetic women asking to do work, and to be paid fairly for it. > —Becca Gurney, co-founder, Design Choice Read on for more of what we covered, and read the full transcript for all the, like, verbatim quotes, you know? Show notes First, we tell the story of how No, You Go got started: Sara has an idea, but forgets that Austin Kleon already wrote a book called Show Your Work and narrowly avoids totally ripping him off. Jenn shares what it’s like to trade a thousand side projects for some stability—and, oh yeah, one super-cool baby. Katel opens up about how working at home alone can get, well, lonely—and asks us to join her “awesome after-school kickass club.” We all fully embrace the athleisure lifestyle. Next, we kick off the show—and 2018—by hearing how four women who made big changes last year knew it was time for something new: Becca Gurney, co-founder of Design Choice, tells us how the pay gap in the AIGA Design Census plus the 2016 election turned her from freelance designer to outspoken advocate for equality in design. Jenn Schiffer, community engineer for Fog Creek’s Glitch platform, shares how fear kept her stuck in a rut and not doing her best work—until an opportunity to build community for other engineers brought her life back. Lara Hogan, co-founder of Where With All, describes how meeting her now-business-partner led her away from managing engineering teams and toward building a consulting business. Mina Markham, senior front-end architect at Slack (and creator of the famed Pantsuit design system used by the Hillary Clinton campaign), describes trusting her gut to guide her through three new jobs and three cross-country moves in just three years. Also in this episode Archie’s hair, Cheryl Blossom’s lips, and why Riverdale is our favorite CW teen drama Shout outs to Call Your Girlfriend and Shine Theory Jenn’s rad formula for speaking fees post from the Nerdary California Style Sheets forever Lara Hogan’s Donut Manifesto Our endless devotion to Olivia Pope wine glasses Final tips from designer and educator Sam Kapila Many thanks to The Diaphone for the use of their song, Maths, in our theme music! _This episode is brought to you by Codepen—a social development environment for front-end designers and developers. Build and deploy a website, show off your work, build test cases, and find inspiration. _ Transcript JENN LUKAS: This episode of No, You Go is brought to you by CodePen: a social development environment for front-end designers and developers. It’s like a big virtual sandbox where you can build and deploy a website, show off your work, build test cases, and find inspiration. Your profile on CodePen is like your front-end development portfolio. Learn more and create your first Pen at codepen.io. That’s c-o-d-e-p-e-n dot i-o. JL: Welcome to No, You Go, the show about being ambitious—and sticking together. I’m Jenn Lukas. KATEL LEDÛ: I’m Katel LeDû. SARA WACHTER-BOETTCHER: And I’m Sara Wachter-Boettcher. KL: In today’s inaugural episode of No, You Go, we’re talking about the itch to get out of a rut and start something new. First up, we’ll talk about how No, You Go came to be. Then we’ll listen in as a bunch of badass women tell us how they knew it was time for a change in 2017—and how they made it happen. Also on the agenda: our favorite CW teen drama, the politics of donuts, and breaking out the Olivia Pope wine glasses. [Clink] [Musical intro] How it all began [1:10] SWB: One day, I was actually out for a run with Katel. We were up in this really pretty park and it was the middle of all and we were crunching through the leaves, kind of miserably running some—some 10K distance so that we could justify donuts. And I started telling Katel that I had this podcast idea that was all about: how do you go from kind of doing the work, whatever your job is, to being able to kind of like show your work. Like, speak about it or write about it, or something. Like, how do you go from being somebody who’s kind of more heads-down to being more of that like active or visible member of your professional community? JL: Yeah! KL: Yeah! SWB: And I was like, I had this working title, like “Show Your Work” or something like that. And we were like, that sounds like a fun idea. You know, I just had a book come out in the fall and I was really interested in kind of helping other people understand what that process looks like. A lot of people ask me questions because they don’t necessarily know. JL: Me included. KL: And me! SWB: Yeah! Well, and that’s one of the things that we started to want to talk about, is like: how does that whole thing work? And that’s, you know, just one example, right? I mean, it’s not just writing a book, it’s also like, how do you go from working in a field to like, teaching other people how to do it and leading classes. Those kinds of questions. So, I really wanted to start talking about that more, and Katel was the publisher of one of my books, and so I thought she would be like an ideal person to talk about that with. KL: And I thought that was a great idea. I think “Show Your Work” was actually an awesome name for a show—we should do that also. JL: Let’s get this one off the ground first! KL: All right, okay. So, yeah, I am the CEO of A Book Apart and published one of Sara’s books—it’s amazing. And I moved to Philly about two years ago after living in DC for most of my life, and Sara and I became besties really quickly because we had a lot in common. Namely, loving slash hating running and hating running to love donuts, even more. So, one night we were all sitting actually at Jenn’s house, and we were drinking wine and watching Riverdale as we do—we’d all gotten together and [that’s] another thing that we loved and had in common. And we brought it up to Jenn and she got really excited. JL: To be fair, Sara’s giving me that look like, “I’m not quite sure I’m sold on the Riverdale.” SWB: No! I was just thinking, can we have a sidebar about Archie’s hair for a second? JL: Mhmm, Archie’s hair. KL: And now, did you know Sara’s really into Riverdale? JL: Ooh! Did you catch up? SWB: I am super caught up. And Archie’s hair is still ridiculous. And I’m pretty sure that Cheryl Blossom’s lip liner gets bigger and bigger every single episode. JL: It’s awesome. SWB: It’s gonna be her entire face soon. KL: It’s so good. Maybe that’s what I need to do, is just go big with the liner. JL: I love it. You know, I forget, Katel, if you told me this—I always had a problem with Archie’s hair but then, you brought up that like, it helps if you remember that it’s a comic book and then it makes the extreme-ness of his hair a little bit more acceptable. KL: Right, it’s like, it makes the TV show juicy, or like, pulpy? I mean… “juicy” is maybe not the right word, but you know what I mean! SWB: No, no, no, let’s stick with juicy. JL: No, I do know what you mean! And you know, sometimes we just have to watch an episode of Riverdale after a long day. SWB: For professional reasons. JL: But for me, it was super awesome because I just had a child ten months ago, yes indeed. And so, with a child and I’m back working full time—I work as an engineering manager and UI architect down at Urban Outfitters. And sometimes, my lovely friends will come over after my child goes to sleep and we’ll watch Riverdale and talk shop. Which is awesome, ’cause you start to feel a little bit alienated to some extent, from your previous life and you have this awesome new life going one. But then you like, miss parts of your old, so it was really nice to have my friends come to me so that I could keep trying to figure out how to make this balance work. And maybe balance isn’t even the right word, but to like figure out how I can keep doing things that I love along with the new things I love. So, it was super awesome. [5:00] SWB: Yeah, something Jenn has not quite mentioned, is just how much stuff she used to do in terms of like, speaking and side projects, constantly. Like, when I first met Jenn, every other week, I swear it was like, “Oh, I just started this podcast called Ladies In Tech,” or “Oh, I’m working on this web series called Cook Inside the Box, where we make recipes off the back of boxes.” And it was so cool to see her doing all this stuff, and like a lot of people, it’s really hard to do all of that stuff when you have really little kids and a lot of kind of, responsibilities at work. But what we want to talk about, is, how do we make space for some of that and kind of integrate it into our lives no matter what other stuff is going on. JL: That’s what was so nice about talking with you two, is figuring out how that can work. And I know you’ve both been amazing soundbars for me. And I feel very lucky to have both of you in my life and I think that is a lot about what we’re basing this podcast on. It’s like, how we can be stronger together with people who support us and figuring out how to do these things. Even if you’re working with new—and I mean, using a stretch here of calling it a constraint—but, we’re used to like, how we work with constraints. And this is just a new, different part of my life, and it’s really nice to be able to talk to y’all about how that works. KL: This also feels like just a really awesome after school kick-ass club that I’m super excited about. And I feel like, sometimes, you know I don’t have kids and you know that’s a really tough thing to figure into your life when you’re going from, you know, not having them to having them and a career and everything. And I think even for someone who doesn’t have them, it’s like, you’re still trying to manage a bunch of different things and figure out how to like, stay excited, and go outside and like, meet with people and hang out not you know, become a total hermit like I like to do. JL: Oh my god, going outside is so hard sometimes. KL: Exactly! SWB: But I think, this really speaks to the way that I think the idea for the podcast evolved. When we started talking about it with Jenn, what we realized is that, for a lot of us who, you know, consider ourselves ambitious and sort of really interested in our careers but also kind of non-traditional about it. Like not necessarily interested in only ever working at one single company and a lot of us, you know, work in consulting or small companies or we take on side gigs. You can sometimes end up feeling like you don’t have colleagues. And I think that that’s something I’ve heard a lot from—particularly from women the past couple of years. That they were looking for places where they could connect with other people who got their work, even if they weren’t traditional colleagues. And I really look at that as a big piece of what we’re doing here, is kind of taking the place of having that sort of peer group that you maybe used to have at an office. But if you work in lots of non-traditional settings, you don’t have that anymore. JL: And even when you do work in that, sometimes its you know, you still have a variety of interests. So as you said, I used to do a lot of side projects and that’s totally different than my full time job. So, I think, as we were all sitting on the couch and we were getting more and more excited, that’s sort of where the name of this show came to be. Right? SWB: Yeah, I think one of the things that was really funny about that, was that—so, I was sitting there as Jenn and Katel were kind of going back and forth, like, getting more and more excited and hyped about the show. And all of a sudden, they’re talking over each other and Katel—always the gracious one—is like, “no, you go,” and waits for Jenn. And Jenn goes, “that should be the name of the podcast.” And she kind of laughs and I’m like, wait, stop, no that is the name of the podcast now. So, that’s how we named the podcast and started thinking a lot more about you know, what kind of things we’d cover and where we’d go with it. So, kind of getting outside of that, just the idea of showing your work—although that’s part of it—but more thinking about, what are all the different ways or paths that people take to satisfy their ambition or satisfy their need to, you know, create stuff in the world. And how could we go about highlighting those and helping other people see the different kinds of ways their lives might look. And giving people a little more support along the way as they figure out what that looks like for them. JL: I think also, you know, we’ll talk about challenges of being ambitious. I think there’s a lot of things that all people, but especially for us as women, that we always have to balance, right? Being too abrasive versus being too nice and how we manage that in this world—to achieve some of the things that we’re trying to set out to do. SWB: I was thinking about, one of the other podcasts I really like, Call Your Girlfriend—the hosts on that show talk about shine theory. And for them, shine theory is this idea, like, I don’t shine if you don’t. So, the idea is you’re going to have you know, like, you want the smartest and most accomplished women by your side because actually everybody’s better when your friends are successful, too. And I think about that a lot when I think about this show because I’ve got some like, pretty accomplished women by my side working on it. And I think that that is an incredible way to look at how do we, you know, how do we navigate our lives, and how do we think about ambition. [10:00] Because we’re always looking toward these other people that we totally respect and that we can learn so much from, and they’re looking right back at us. And I think it creates this environment where we can be really supportive of each other and also get a little bit more comfortable kind of like, celebrating that ambitious side of ourselves and not pretending it’s not there. Which I think is often what women are expected to do. KL: Yeah, this actually tied back to, Sara, what you were saying a little bit earlier, about you know, having colleagues and we all work in kind of, I think, different setups these days. It’s not necessarily like, Sara and I don’t even go into an office most days, and we have meetings sort of from wherever. And even though you know, we’re all friends and we have—our professions and our careers are kind of intertwined because we work in the same field or area— we don’t work together physically. But we talk and speak and write about similar things and I think we have passions about the same things. And especially in terms of trying to lift other folks up and finding ways to actually do that. We all work in different setups these days and you know, a lot of us—Sara and I included don’t even necessarily go into offices everyday, but I think it’s really important to feel like you have some kind of camaraderie. Some kind of network that you’re able to rely on in your work and obviously outside of that work. For me, it’s been so critical because I literally work by myself in my home and I have—I work with a lot of team members that are just distributed. So for me to have folks that I can see regularly and talk about things that are related to the work I do is so important. I think I was really missing that from going from a big company like National Geographic to a company that was a small startup. That was a huge shock, that was a big change. You know, working with fifty people a day and then all of a sudden being by myself. So this has been incredibly important. I think being able to extend that and hopefully share that and build a community around that is super exciting. JL: Totally. SWB: Yeah, like I remember when I quit my last real job, which was in 2011, I was working at an agency. And I went from an agency to freelancing and consulting in doing content strategy and UX work. And at first, I will tell you I did not have this kind of network. I was mostly feeling really kind of alone in my work. And I would work on a project and get in with the team on that project but they weren’t really ever my team. And so over the years I’ve certainly like built up this collection of you know, like, really cool people who get what I do and who are just there for me. And that network has made all the difference. I don’t think that I would still be consulting, much less speaking and writing books and stuff like that, if I had not built that kind of community. And that’s something I want more people to experience because I think that it’s one of the only things that can kind of help keep you sane and happy. KL: I feel like the dream used to be work from home, and like work for yourself and you know, be your own bossa and sort of be the master of your own time. And it’s great, it has so much—it gives you a lot of freedom and there’s a lot of flexibility but it’s also very lonely a lot of the time and you know, I think you need to find something that actually helps you get through those lonely times. JL: Yeah. SWB: Yeah, like I want the yoga pants, but I also want the like, deep personal friendships. KL: Right! SWB: That come with seeing people really regularly. And so, you know, it’s how do we make a life for ourselves that kind of can bring us both. JL: I got news for you: athleisure. Is my office wear. SWB: Trust me, I have gone full force into the athleisure lifestyle and I am not looking back. So one thing that I do think about, though, in this whole conversation about kind of finding that community and helping to help others, you know, figure out what their path is, is that Jenn, Katel, and I—we really come from relatively similar backgrounds. You know, like we’re similar age and we’re all based in Philly, and we’re all white ladies with professional jobs. Having a lot in common is really good, but we do know that that could be a pretty limited view of what it’s like to work as a woman. In fact, it would be incredibly limited. So one thing that’s really important to us and that we want to do on this show is make sure that we’re bringing in people with a lot of different experiences and different backgrounds. And make sure that we are getting things from perspectives that the three of us would never have. [Musical interlude] JL: You know, speaking of hearing from other voices, I think it’s time we get into our main segment. But before we do, we are so excited to tell you about the sponsor who’s making this very first episode of No, You Go possible: Codepen. CodePen is a powerful tool that allows designers and developers to write code—like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript—directly in a browser and see the results as you build. Whether you’re new to front-end code or been writing it for years, it’s the perfect place to learn front-end programming languages, show off what you create, build test cases, get help on tricky problems—and find inspiration. Whenever I have a new idea and I want to get right to making it happen, you know, I don’t want to have to deal with setting up the environment or setting up hosting or build tools, I just go right to CodePen and start building. I can share that code with others on my team and see what they think about it, and then we can go from there. CodePen has so many cool things to explore—like CodePen PRO and Projects, where you can explore tons of awesome Pens. Get inspired and learn from others, and share with them at the same time. Sign up and get started by visiting codepen.io/hello. [Musical interlude] We introduce the badass lady brigade [15:30] JL: So how do we know when it’s time for something new? SWB: That’s a question we asked a bunch of women who had made big changes in 2017—job changes, life changes, that kind of thing. To get us started, let’s hear from one of our favorites. BECCA GURNEY: This is Becca Gurney, half of Design Choice, a graphic design studio in Washington, DC, where we have the aim of empowering women to lead, to get paid, and to be awesome. Our central mission and idea is that we almost make the conscious choice to pay women fairly for the work that they do, and before you can pay them you have to choose them to do the work. So for the four years leading up to this one, I had been freelancing, and I had just fallen into freelancing. I didn’t choose it, I didn’t really go out and take a risk and say hey, this is what I want to do. It was there and I did it, and I just kept doing it. But I had been feeling really unfulfilled and pretty aimless in it. I wasn’t doing great work. I was just doing work, and there was no real point to it. It was awesome that I could make my own schedule and I could go home to make jam whenever I wanted, because I was feeling jammy. But I didn’t think of myself as successful or empowered. And then the election happened, and I didn’t feel successful or empowered. And I was looking around at the leaders in our industry, which is mostly dudes, and I didn’t feel successful or empowered. The AIGA Census data came out and women in my area at my level are being paid $20,000 less a year than men. And so hey, I don’t feel successful or empowered. And the moments that sparked any sort of a feeling that felt good were the moments that I was with women, talking about being fucking unapologetic women. And how could I do that through design and Stacey Maloney was in a bunch of those conversations, and we said, “Fuck it, let’s just do it; let’s be unapologetic women asking to do work and to be paid fairly for it.” And we started Design Choice. JL: How awesome. SWB: I love so much about this. Fucking unapologetic women. I think we qualify, right? JL: I hope so. KL: I think so. Let’s get there if not [laughs]. SWB: Katel, how do you know Becca? KL: We got to be friends when I was in DC. I started working at a coworking space to try to get a little more face time with other human beings when I started this solo thing. And she was just awesome. We became friends really quickly, and we sort of went through some growing pains at this particular coworking space because of management that was not empowering and didn’t make us feel confident about working there, and we moved to a different one. We shared an office. We just really became good friends and got to know each other. Becca is one of those people who, you know that if she says something, that she’s going to do something, she’s gonna do it. She just shows up and she’s such a rock star. I hate using that word, but she is, she absolutely is. She’s creative and amazing and when I listened to this recording that she sent, I almost teared up because I was thinking, oh my gosh, I have felt so similarly—that feeling of like, you’re doing all these things that you’re supposed to be doing, you’re making the money, you’re going to the meetups, you’re doing all the things, but you don’t feel empowered and you don’t feel successful. And like, what is that? And trying to pull all of that apart and get at the root of why, and figure out what you’re going to do to change that, is huge. It’s so huge. And the fact that she came out of that and created this agency, and it isn’t just helping her feel successful and empowered, but also doing really fucking amazing work for companies that should be employing women, is just so rad. SWB: Yeah, I love this idea of her saying that this company is explicitly about hiring women and paying women fairly. And that’s really built into the fabric of it, and she’s not afraid to talk about it that way. Because I think about it in terms of how I spent my own year. [20:00] I think something that I did in 2017 is get comfortable with the idea that my work simply was political—that I couldn’t really create an artificial boundary between the things that I care about professionally, talking about a user’s experience of a piece of software or a website, and the things that I care about personally, which is basically all social justice issues. And so that really came out when I wrote my most recent book. It’s called Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech, and essentially I am really taking a direct look at this tech industry that I have been part of for a long time, and highlighting some of the ways it’s gone really wrong for people who are often the most vulnerable or the most marginalized. You know, it was hard but I think I got to a place where I was no longer afraid of saying that out loud, and saying that in front of important people who, in the past, I would have been worried wouldn’t have wanted to hire me for consulting. And now, I’m thinking, okay, I need to find a way to make this an organic and natural part of what I do, because I can’t really live with myself otherwise. KL: Yeah, I think you’re totally right, and that whole unapologetic thing—I feel like there’s so much to unpack there, and something we’re grappling with it every day in everything we do. And I know for me it’s kind of like, you tear a little bit away and you’re like, okay, I made some progress. And then you’re like, but wait, is this fitting in in the right space? So I feel like hopefully, if we do enough of these, we’re really going to get in deep in terms of how people are doing that. JL: Becca wasn’t the only one feeling frustration. Let’s hear another story from Jenn Schiffer. JENN SCHIFFER: At the end of 2016, I was feeling really stuck in a rut. I wanted to do good work, but I didn’t feel like I was in a position to do that. I knew I was going to leave, but I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, and I was afraid to make any changes. But then I was very lucky and very fortunate because Fog Creek approached me about doing community engineering for their new product, Glitch.com. And so I’ve been there ever since, and it’s been great, and I feel like I’m doing my best work, and I’m making an impact. And so I’m hoping in 2018 to keep that momentum going. JL: Oh, Jenn Schiffer. She’s is constantly always saying such smart things, and I think that’s one of the reasons that I really just enjoy everything she does. I didn’t meet Jenn in person until a couple of years ago, but I started following Jenn a while ago because she was posting a lot of awesome humor-filled development posts, which was something quite unique, and she had a really great voice. SWB: You mean she trolled dev bros on Twitter? [Laughter] JL: It was the California Style Sheets post a couple of years ago, which is one of my favorites still, and I think it was awesome and it showed a lot of things, because, yes, being written by a woman, I think a lot of people thought, it must not be humor, it must be serious. And that was—ugh—sigh-worthy. But Jenn was awesome, and I followed that, and was lucky enough to have her on the podcast I used to run, with Val Head, Ladies In Tech, where we’d talk about public speaking and Jenn was a guest on our show. We were lucky to have her. She’s done a lot of awesome things. One of the things I love about Jenn is if there’s a gap or something that she wants, she makes it happen. She was living in North Jersey I believe, and working for the NBA at the time, and there was not a meetup and I think she went into the city for them. And so she decided to start her own North Jersey meetup. And so instead of saying, there’s nothing here around me, she started her own. And I think that’s such an important thing that we can do in this industry. And you can see it now, that she is starting something new again. And I think one of the things that she’s always done is helping people learn. A talk she gave recently she had this great quote: “We don’t learn alone.” And I think that’s true in this industry, but also in many industries where we are just better together and we learn more when we’re around each other. KL: You really feel like she’s bringing you along in the learning, when she’s speaking about—when she’s giving a talk or doing a demo or whatever. SWB: I think that’s one of the cool things about this new role that she has. She went from a role where she was doing a lot of programming to a role where she’s the community engineer. That means that she’s doing a lot more of that educational piece, and helping people make use of this tool Glitch, which is from Fog Creek. And what’s really great about it is that it’s a way to not just do the heads down work, but to be doing the showing your work and sharing of things, and making these things more accessible for people. And particularly making these kinds of tools in tech feel accessible to all kinds of folks, right? I think that’s a big piece of how Glitch has positioned itself on purpose, and that’s in no small part to people like Jenn, who are making it feel like a tool that anyone can pick up and use—and not a tool that only super elite programmers from one very particular background can pick up and use. [25:00] And so I love that about her, and I hope that continues to be a really good move for her, because that was an exciting “something new” that happened last year. Something Jenn talked about though, which I think is something that all of us can relate to, is that feeling of frustration, burnout, being bored, or just not feeling like you have space to do your best work. That’s something I’ve certainly felt. I’ve felt it at different points over my career, but certainly when I last quit my job, one of the big reasons is that I was working an ungodly number of hours. I was the last one in the office every night. I literally set the alarm leaving the office every day for like a year straight. And I simultaneously felt like I couldn’t get my head above water. I was trying to do so much, and it didn’t feel like I could go anywhere. One of the ways that I got out of that was quitting my job, but it wasn’t just quitting the job. It was also getting a new outlook to my work. One of the reasons that I quit my job was so that I could write my first book, which was like my first real effort to give my community some of my expertise and knowledge. And that was a really helpful reframe for me to get me out of that rut. And so I’m curious, have you guys had experiences where you feel like you’ve gotten burnt out or frustrated, and how did you move past them? JL: When I left my last full-time job to start consulting, I at the time was doing a lot of public speaking. I was away more than I was home, and I really loved it. That’s really what gave me the courage to quit my full-time job and start something new. There was something I really loved, I knew what I loved, and it was less being frustrated with anything I was currently doing, and more me seeing something that I really loved doing, and figuring out how I could make that happen. I really loved my job at the time, I was a development director at Happy Cog. But I had been doing it for six years. And it was definitely something I loved, but again, six years is a long time, especially in the tech field. And there was this new thing that I loved a lot. Being able to travel and meet people and teach was something that was super important to me, and for me to be able to full commit to that, it almost forced me—or gave me that boost that I needed—to quit my job at the time and go out consulting and have this freedom to do this thing. So, for me the driver was something I really loved and wanting to do, versus being burnt out or frustrated at a current job. SWB: Totally. I loved what you said about, it wasn’t that there was something wrong with what you were doing. Sometimes I think we get stuck in a rut because we’re like, well, I like the stuff that I’m currently doing. But for me at least, part of being happy does really come down to growth or evolution in what I’m doing. So it’s not a matter of me hating anything that came before necessarily, but I want to bring something new into the fold. New people and new experiences. I want something else to kind of keep it interesting. I want to keep it interesting, and if I’m feeling too steady all the time, then I think I’m bored. So I love this idea that it’s like, okay, is there something out there that you’re really excited about, or that you want to be good at that you’re not yet good at that can really drive us to change things up. KL: I’m gonna be real honest here and say that I’m currently burnt out, and I’ve been struggling with that I think for like the last year. SWB: Weird, how could 2017 burn someone out. How is that possible? [Laughter] KL: Yeah, exactly, It’s like, can you just be burnt out just from being burnt out? And I think I’ve worked through a lot of it, not that it’s something—I think at one point I thought, okay, like, this is something else I need to check off my list, getting through burnout. Which is not how it happens and not how you heal from it. It shocked me into realizing that I needed to make some changes in how I approached my scheduling and, you know, my work. But I think sort of related to what you’re talking about, not necessarily saying I need a different job or I need to change career paths. It’s like, before ABA, I would go to work, you do your job. That’s the thing, it’s this packaged thing. And now it’s not like that. A Book Apart is not like that. Granted I’ve been doing it for years, but it just—you start to think, okay, there’s nothing outside of it. Even though there’s lots of stuff outside of it, and I think I just needed to look for it. This is part of it. I think I’m starting to feel a lot less burnt out. I think I also got really confused—or not confused, I got worried, because I started to think that burnout is just fatigue, and it’s not necessarily just fatigue. It could just be you need a fresh take or a new project or whatever. [30:00] SWB: Yeah, and I think it definitely says a lot. The key to fixing burnout is not always necessarily career change, but sometimes it’s just like, perspective shift and remembering all the other things that you love. You know, people talk about work-life balance, and I always really struggle with that conversation, because work is really important to me, and it’s so intertwined with so many pieces of my life. So I don’t look at it as, work is over here and life is over there. But at the same time, I’ve lived the life where work was consuming me: “Oh, I’m writing this email at 11:30pm.” You know, when you stop seeing any distinction between those different parts of yourself, I think it can be really easy to get so sucked into work, that when things aren’t going well at work, it means that things are not going well for you. So it’s like, if work goes through a rough patch, your whole life sucks, because there’s nothing else there. KL: Right, it’s such a big part of what you do and who you are. And it’s something I never really paused to think about, moving from my twenties to thirties to forties, is that, like, that’s an ongoing thing. It’s an evolution. You don’t just figure it out and then it’s done. SWB: The kind of work that I do evolves all the time, so of course the relationship I have to my work has to evolve all the time to.. That’s only natural. KL: Right. SWB: I think it’s hard sometimes to remember that, because you think, “Oh, well, this used to work for me.” Well guess what, this doesn’t work for me anymore. I am in my mid-thirties now, and my needs are a little bit different. And there are things that I’m not willing to put up with anymore—thank god. JL: Yes. [Laughter] KL: Right. And you can be unapologetic about it. JL: Yeah, and along with being unapologetic, sometimes you really need to trust your gut. Let’s hear from Mina Markham about trusting her gut. MINA MARKHAM: To channel Olivia Pope, it all comes down to a gut feeling with me. When I’m presented with some new opportunity, I kind of do a gut check and see, is this something that I will regret not doing. And if the answer is yes, then I know what I have to do. I have to go ahead and make that change. That’s probably the only thing that can explain how I’ve had so much change in my life the past few years. I’ve had three jobs in three years, all of which required me to pack up my life and move to a new city and basically start over. Each time came with their own instances of doubt or of terror or sometimes just full-on panic, but none of which I have any regrets about doing. So I have learned to trust my gut, trust my instincts to know when it’s time for me to go ahead and make that leap. JL: Oh, Olivia Pope. Inspires me too, but I’ll get to that later. It just inspires me so much when people have the ability to follow their gut, especially when it involves moving. Sara, you’ve moved a ton. SWB: Yeah, I’ve moved a lot of times, and I’ve moved across the country, but I still don’t think I’ve moved as much as Mina Markham has. KL: Yeah, if you’re not familiar with her, Mina was at IBM in Austin at the beginning of those three years she talked about. Then she moved to Brooklyn to work on the Hillary campaign. Now she’s a senior front-end engineer at Slack. So that’s a lot of choices, and a lot of change. And I think trusting your gut becomes really vital in all that. I also think it’s how you get to a place where you actually know what it’s going to look like to have regrets or to not have regrets, and you become okay with it. You kind of can envision it a little bit more. It becomes a cycle that starts to repeat itself, which, that’s how you gain more and more trust in your gut. SWB: What she said reminded me of this column I read a couple of years ago. It’s an advice column called Dear Sugar that Cheryl Strayed used to run. She wrote a response to somebody who asked, like, I’m thinking about having kids, I’m in my late thirties or forty-ish or something like that, and I don’t know if I should, but I think I might regret it. And this person felt like having kids because they thought they might regret not having kids was a bad idea. Now, I don’t have kids. I’m not planning to have kids. But this column really stuck with me, because the way she responded to it, she was like, you know, thinking about your future self and what you might regret is one of the only ways that you can kind of make sense of choices. And she was like, this is actually a really healthy way to look at, like, is this something that I’m going to wish I had done later on? Once you do make a decision, then you have to think of it as other lives that you chose not to lead. I think she called it “the ghost ship that did not carry me.” So it’s like this other ship that you could have been on, but you didn’t take. [35:00] And that would have been this other thing, and you can wave at it from the shore, but it’s not yours. So I think about that a lot when it comes to choices, whether it’s those big life choices, or the smaller day-to-day work choices: what are the ships that I’m choosing to be on? And as long as I’m thinking about where my gut is, and I’m thinking about what is going to be a positive thing for future me, I usually feel pretty good about it. JL: I think this is another habit thing, where the more you get used to making these decisions and being okay with them, the stronger you probably feel being like, this is okay and I’m going to go for this. SWB: Yeah, totally. I think that it’s hard at first to know what does trusting your gut even mean, right? And so I think about, how do I know that I’m trusting my gut? You know, if I start doing something where it’s like, “Ugh, I should really take this project on,” or, “I should really speak at this conference,” and then every time I go to, like, write the email that would be the saying yes email, I get knotted up and I don’t do it, I’ve started to slow down and say, wait a second, why am I sort of hemming and hawing about saying yes to that email? And usually it’s because I have some kind of reservation or misgiving. Versus there are times when people ask me to do something or I am presented with opportunities, and my heart is immediately in it. Now, sometimes I have to say no to those things too, because they don’t fit for one reason or another, but knowing that immediate response of opening yourself up to whatever’s in front of you, versus pushing it away, that means something. And it’s worth taking the time to figure out what your body’s telling you, where that’s coming from. And I think that’s the very beginning of trusting your gut. JL: And sometimes it’s not just about making a decision by yourself. Sometimes you’re lucky enough to find someone else to help you decide what’s next in your life. SWB: Let’s hear from Lara Hogan. Lara is an engineering leader who some of you may have heard of, because it seems like she’s everywhere these days. She was a VP at Kickstarter, and before that she was a senior manager at Etsy, but she’s up to something new, too. Let’s hear about it. LARA HOGAN: How did I know it was time to start something new? In part, it was meeting Deepa, my business partner. She’s just incredible, and with her by my side, I feel like I can do anything. And I also knew that this was the time once I realized, working full-time at a company, I have to do a lot of things all of the time [laughs] that may of course just not be what I want to specialize in. But it occurred to me that as a consultant, I could do the things that I really, really love all of the time, and bring that help and support to a lot of different companies. And that’s just really intriguing to me. SWB: Okay, first of all, I want a Deepa. [Laughter] KL: Yes. SWB: So, Deepa Subramaniam is Lara’s business partner, and they founded this company called Wherewithall, that is doing consulting work on product teams and engineering teams. But most importantly, me and Katel actually had dinner with them a couple of weeks back. And watching them interact with each other and talk about their work, and the way their faces just light up. It’s so great to seem them coming together and creating this thing that they clearly are really passionate about on the work side, but also just as partners. They really make sense and they get one another. I thought that was so great to see. I’ve mostly worked in different kinds of consulting arrangements. Sometimes, me and somebody else will partner up on a project or teach a workshop together, but I’ve never had that kind of long-term, we-are-business-partners thing set up. And I think it goes back to what we said earlier, around how we sometimes have to make our own colleagues. It’s like they’ve literally created a business that allows them to have that kind of collegial relationship. And I think that that’s really powerful and something that’s kind of scary for a lot of us to do—to, you know, make such a firm commitment. But it’s great when it works, right? KL: Yeah, it’s like you wish, you know, and sort of dream about finding your soul mates in your life partner and your best friends. And I feel like it’s becoming a lot more, you know, that this happens with work now, and it’s just really cool. Like, you can work on projects where you’re like, these are the kind of people I want to work with all the time. And then you know what that looks like. JL: Yeah, and I think it’s amazing. But there’s also like, half- and quarter-way points, too, right? So, I think, as you mentioned before, we don’t necessarily traditionally work on the same types of things, but I love both of you, so having chances to work with you is great. And I just remember, like Sara and I, when we were both doing a lot of public speaking, we would go out to happy hour or we would go out to dinner and we would just talk about public speaking things. And even though Sara and I would be talking about completely different things, the business of public speaking was something that we could both talk to and learn from each other. And talk about how we were doing things, how we were organizing, how we were charging. How we were going to do logistics of things—and having someone I could talk to about that was, like, totally priceless for me. [40:00] SWB: Yes! You know, I think that there’s a lot of pressure in culture at large and definitely within the tech industry, to kind of not talk about some of this stuff. For example, don’t talk about how much you charge for things and how much you make off of things. And I know that that can be a touchy and sensitive discussion but I really think that only benefits the people who have the most power. And that’s so problematic. That tends to disproportionately affect women and it tends to disproportionately affect people of color, and particularly disproportionately affects people who are women of color. And so I’m really a big proponent of having as many open and honest conversations about topics like compensation as possible. Because I really think that the fact that we haven’t had enough of those is part of the reason that we hear things like Becca’s statement earlier on, where she talked about the AIGA survey. Which is a designer’s survey showing that women at her level were making $20,000 less than men. It’s certainly not the only reason, but part of the reason that continues to go on unchecked, is because we’re encouraged not to talk about it. So I’m gonna fuckin’ talk about it. JL: Yeah, I wrote a post in, I don’t know, 2015? 2014?—“A Formula for Charging Speaker Fees”—and it’s about… SWB: Oh yeah! KL: It was great! JL: And it’s still, I mean, it’s probably the most visited blog post on the Nerdery. And I mean, that site hasn’t been updated in over a year, but we still get traffic from that post especially. People looking for how to charge, how do I put numbers around something, and so I was thrilled that people are still finding value in that. Because, for me, it was really valuable to talk about it. SWB: So that’s the kind of thing, I think, if you feel sort of isolated—and it’s not just about money, really—but if you feel isolated in your field, or if you feel like you don’t know who you can trust, then you can never really get to a place where you have the confidence to then have that conversation with the people the really matter. KL: Or if you’re just starting out. SWB: Totally. KL: That’s a whole group of people who—like, I wouldn’t even know where to start if I was doing it for the first time and I just had no idea. If I had no idea what to base it off of. So if I found a resource that was helpful like that, it would be so valuable. SWB: Yeah and I think, you know, especially since things like money conversations—it’s like if you try to have one and you’re not that confident about it and you don’t really have any context. If you get pushback, it’s really easy to believe that you’re getting pushback because you were asking for too much. And you don’t have a frame of reference. So, anyway, I think building those relationships to give you more context and get more insight and feedback and, just like you have someone to bounce everything off of—it’s so valuable. I’m really happy to hear people like Deepa and Lara are teaming up because I think that the more of these kinds of powerful relationships between people that exist out there, the stronger any industry is going to be. JL: Completely, yeah. I think that finding advocates in your peers and finding that partnership is so important and valuable. SWB: A lot of the folks we talked to—they were kind of moving from working at a company to starting their own thing. Or otherwise kind of shifting gears in that more consultative way. Jenn, you went from consulting to going back in-house and then you had a baby, so you had kind of different sort of year with a lot of new stuff. But I’m curious: what did that look like for you and what made that work for you at this moment in your life? JL: You bring up a good point, Sara. I think a lot of times, we often say like, “oh i’m starting something new,” and it’s always about quitting your job. And I did that, as I mentioned before. SWB: Quitting your job can be great, let’s not lie about that. But it’s not always great. And it’s not always what you want. JL: And it was what I wanted for a really long time. And I think one of the hardest things for me, because of the vision that comes along with that—the freedom, the working from home, the yoga pants, the ability to do anything you want, essentially, is awesome. And then for me to recognize, you know, what was also awesome, was going back to a full time job. I started consulting for Anthropologie and I worked onsite a couple days a week and I was really enjoying it. I enjoyed the work I was doing, I enjoyed being in-house again, and I really enjoyed working on product as opposed—it was a different change from agency life. And I thought that that was such a nice change—and there was part of me that was really hesitant to go back full time. And, they’d offered the full time work, I still wasn’t sure, and I think part of it was just because I thought what I was supposed to do, was stay consulting. You know, I’d already quit my job—why would I ever go back!? [45:00] And then, I realized for me, that the full time job gave me a lot of stability, in that, in order to try new things such as: BABY. [Laughter] JL: For me, I always like to have at least one or two maybe, super stable things in my life when I try something new. When I first quit my job, I had a very stable relationship—now with my husband, also stable friendships, a lot of stable colleagues, that were really allowing me to try something new. Now I had again, this stability, that was like, ok, I feel pretty great—maybe I’ll go and try this new-fangled baby thing that I hear people talk about. And it was really great to have the support of the people that I work with, also, at the time, figuring out things like maternity leave, figuring out how to make the balance before I went on maternity leave. And so, going back for me, was like a little bit of a hard move but something that I knew was right for me at the time. And something that I really wanted to see through. Will I be full-time forever, I’m not sure! But for right now, I’m enjoying a lot about it. SWB: Yeah, I think that when people start a business or move to doing consulting or something like that, that’s often this sense of like, if they ever change course from that, I think it gets perceived—or there’s a fear that it’ll be perceived—as failure in some way. Or like taking a step backwards. And of course, life’s not really like that, right? There are times when something makes a lot of sense and times when it doesn’t. And I think that’s part of the thing I’m really interested in exploring more in this show. How do we figure out the next steps that are right for us, that allow us to continue to grow. And to try not to buy into some of those bullshit stories about what it means to be successful. For example, none of us have a goal of being tech company founders who go out and get a bunch of venture capital so that we can be the next unicorn company worth a billion dollars. I mean, I guess having a billion dollars sounds—no, I’m sorry, having a billion dollars actually sounds awful. It sounds truly terrible. Because I look at the people who are making that their kind of dream they’re chasing—and I think, would I be happier? I don’t think so. Would I be creating a better world? Probably not. What is really the draw of that except for the idea that it’s what a picture of what success looks like. And I think what I’m hoping we can do here is really talk about of different types of success. JL: Yeah, it’s like, when is the right time for you to do these options that we have. And you know, we’re so lucky that we have options, especially in the tech field where you have a lot of abilities to work agency, to work product, to go consulting. Lots of different options. So I think it’s as you said, not a one size fits all and not always a one size fits all for this time frame forever. SWB: So I know that having a baby was a big new thing, but I also know something that you told me when you were still kind of getting embedded in that job was that it was—and I think you mentioned it a little. You said it was a chance to work on product, which you hadn’t done before. And it you were telling me a lot about some of the challenges of working at scale at this big e-commerce company and all this stuff that was a little bit new. And I’m curious, do you feel like—not only did you create this stability for your but have you also been growing professionally in this new job? JL: Yeah, sure. I think one of the things that was really neat, as you mentioned—working not only at CSS architecture at scale, but also taking on management responsibilities. So consulting, I managed myself, and sometimes some other members of teams. But generally now I’m in a position where I have direct reports. I’m working more in the engineering team and helping people with their career paths again, is really interesting to me and definitely a new challenge. Managing is hard. SWB: People! You know? KL: People are wonderful, and hard, and wonderful, and hard. JL: Exactly. So it’s rewarding in a whole new way and challenging in a whole new way. I haven’t managed since before I was consulting, so it was fun to take that on again. But also just something completely new—it’s nice to see that at this point in my career, these different kind of challenges. But that said, focusing a lot on both the management and the architecture also sort of left this gap where I wasn’t doing as many of the things I was doing before with side projects. So trying to figure out—it’s again, facing this sort of similar thing as I had before, where I’m not burnt out on what I’m doing—there’s just something I love and I miss doing that also. So how do I also get this thing that I love in my life somehow. But not at the same scale as before. Because like I mentioned, it’s that balance. And it all comes down to scale again. Where, I don’t want to quit and got consulting and go travel all over the place again all of the time because I want to be home with some level of stability. But I want new projects also, so talking to both of you was really neat because then the idea of starting something new with this podcast came up. And this, for me, is so exciting, because it acts as an outlet to do a lot of things I loved doing in side projects while still maintaining a lot of this new stability that I found in my life. Fuck Yeah of the Week [50:15] SWB: You know when your friend gets an awesome new job, or publishes an amazing article, or finally pays off their student loans, and you’re so excited that you keep texting them in just like all caps and the fire emoji over and over again? Well, that’s the next segment here, it’s called the Fuck Yeah of the Week—and it’s where we share the people and the things that we think you all should be celebrating. Think of it as the podcast form of the 100 emoji. So Jenn, who is our very first Fuck Yeah of the Week? JL: Well, Sara, I’m gonna go ahead and say, it’s US! Fuck Yeah, Us! KL: Fuck Yeah, YES! JL: You know, I think sometimes you gotta take those moments and celebrate yourself, and I think we should be celebrating ourselves for getting this thing up and running! Here we are, we’ve talked about this idea, and now we are actually in the room recording it, ladies—we’re doing it! SWB: Yeah! JL: It’s awesome. SWB: You know, earlier we heard from Lara Hogan about her, you know, new business and all of that. But this reminds me so much of something that she started writing about years ago. She has a whole site about this—it’s Lara Hogan’s donut site, I don’t know what it’s called. But basically, what she does, is she celebrates every career achievement with a donut. And she started doing it because she realized that whenever something cool was happening, like she was getting a promotion, or she was accepted to give a talk somewhere, she would go, “ok, great,” and then move on to the next thing. And she wasn’t giving herself permission to celebrate that. So she started saying, “ok, every time something major happens, I’m gettin’ myself a donut.” And she takes a picture of it and she puts it on this website. And I think that that’s wonderful, because every time she has a new donut thing to celebrate, I’m like, “hell yeah, get that donut!” JL: Yeah! SWB: And I love that we’re able to do that for ourselves, too, because, yeah, I think we’re often taught to keep looking forward or don’t let yourself have too much of the limelight. And, I hope that anybody who’s listening to this can kind of give themselves a fuck yeah, too, for the things that they’re accomplishing. KL: Definitely, it’s so exciting to see how far Lara’s Tao of Donuts, essentially, has spread. Because you see other people taking photos, you know, of their donuts that they’ve gotten after speaking for the first time, or you know, doing a big demo. And that’s so cool, because you know it ties back to this thing that she, talked about, and that’s super cool. I hope that we see lots more photos of donuts, or your celebration. JL: Our second fuck yeah are these Olivia Pope wine glasses that we are drinking out of today. The Olivia Pope wine glass has always been, for me, my special donut moment. You know, on that show Scandal, when she drinks, and it just was like, “wow, where do I get a glass to just drown my sorrows or celebrate my joys.” Like, that is the glass that holds everything. They sell them at Crate & Barrel. Crate & Barrel is not one of our sponsors, but they could be. KL: They could be. [Laughter] SWB: Are you listening, Crate & Barrel? JL: But! I love these glasses because I take them out when I need to like, either, like, pause and be like, this is life right now, and this is just my moment to just like, take it all in. Be it good, be it bad. But like, here’s just a moment to pause and be like, “Fuck yeah, I got these glasses, and in this case, I got these friends, and I’ve got this wine, and I’ve got this podcast, so, it’s pretty good.” SWB: You know, if you haven’t seen an Olivia Pope wine glass, first off, it’s going to be in the show notes, but if you Google “Olivia Pope wine glass,” you know exactly—immediately—what we’re talking about. KL: It’ll be on our Instagram. SWB: But what’s really key about the Olivia Pope wine glass, is that it’s got a big glass, but it’s also on this long, really slender stem. It’s like a big-deal wine glass. It’s not just like, “Oh I’m having a quick glass of wine.” It’s very much like, “I am having wine now, period.” And, I like that because it does—it kind of creates that space, right? Like, you were saying, Jenn, it’s not just like that you’re going to pour yourself a quick glass. It’s that you’re pausing and taking a moment and you’re allowing yourself to have that bit of joy. And I think that that’s really important, even though, normally I don’t trust myself to use the Olivia Pope wine glass on the regular, but I want them to exist in the world. JL: That’s why I have six of them. [Laughter] KL: They’re great, because they have presence, yet they’re elegant. SWB: So, just like us? JL: Mhmm. SWB: That’s it for this week’s episode of No, You Go, the show about being ambitious—and sticking together. No, You Go is recorded in our home city of Philadelphia. Our theme music is by Philly’s own The Diaphone, from a song called Maths. In this episode, you heard Becca Gurney, Jenn Schiffer, Mina Markham and Lara Hogan. We’ll be back next week with Episode 2. [55:00] KL: Until then, we leave you with this advice from Sam Kapila, a designer and educator who’s always up to something new: SAM KAPILA: I know it’s time to start something new when I’m a little bit scared….the good sort of scared that inspires me to want to explore something new in a project, or in a job, or scared in a way that you might surprise yourself. It’s also important to start something new when you can’t stop thinking about a certain idea, and it keeps you up at night. It’s in your 3am journal on your bedside, and it’s something that you just can’t wait to start doing and be really proud of. And I think, any time you can be proud of something you are doing, that’s definitely time to start something new.

Brenda and Dawn talk about early experiences with tech, CSS DevConf, code review, performance considerations around the world, and refactoring legacy sketch files. Keep Ruby Weird Elle Meredith KRW Keynote NeoPets CSS Dev Conf CSS Layout Club NYC Incomplete List of Mistakes in the Design of CSS The Ins and Outs of Easing- Val Head Cubic Bezier Curves - Under the Hood Slides and Resources from CSS Dev Conf 2017 New Orleans

Brands express themselves through web animation. Some brands can appear playful, while others more serious by using animation effectively. Val Head, Design Evangelist of UX Innovation at Adobe, explains how animation style guidelines can be used to have consistent animation at a company. We also talked about design tools, what she learned from clients as an independent consultant, and how she's building a community of designers.

Val Head launched into design when her rock band was in need of a website. Quickly, she realized how much she liked web design and that it paid the bills. From there she put her rocker past behind her and began her career in design.     In this episode, we discuss: Her origin story Adobe What makes a good client Being an author   You can download this episode and subscribe on iTunes.

In this episode, Val Head gives us an insight into the world of animation, and the ways she factors it into design systems.

Sarah Drasner is an award-winning speaker, consultant, and staff writer at CSS-Tricks. Sarah is also the co-founder of Web Animation Workshops, with Val Head. She's given a Frontend Masters Workshop on Advanced SVG Animations and is the author of SVG Animations. She's formerly Manager of UX Design & Engineering at Trulia (Zillow). Last year Sarah won CSS Dev Conf's “Best of Best of Award” as well as “Best Code Wrangler” from CSS Design Awards.

Sarah Drasner is an award-winning speaker, consultant, and staff writer at CSS-Tricks. Sarah is also the co-founder of Web Animation Workshops, with Val Head. She’s given a Frontend Masters Workshop on Advanced SVG Animations and is the author of SVG Animations. She’s formerly Manager of UX Design & Engineering at Trulia (Zillow). Last year Sarah won CSS Dev Conf’s “Best of Best of Award” as well as “Best Code Wrangler” from CSS Design Awards.

Sarah Drasner is an award-winning speaker, consultant, and staff writer at CSS-Tricks. Sarah is also the co-founder of Web Animation Workshops, with Val Head. She’s given a Frontend Masters Workshop on Advanced SVG Animations and is the author of SVG Animations. She’s formerly Manager of UX Design & Engineering at Trulia (Zillow). Last year Sarah won CSS Dev Conf’s “Best of Best of Award” as well as “Best Code Wrangler” from CSS Design Awards.

Val Head is pretty much all about animations. She’s written a book about animations, she talks about animations in workshops and conferences, she makes videos about animations, she has a newsletter about animations, and yes, she’s on podcasts talking about animations. You will learn a shit ton from this show. So listen carefully, and make sure you check out the show notes in the description! If you're into this, please support us at https://www.patreon.com/ftf! What we talk about: Living in Philly and Pittsburgh Why she’s usually leaving her house Why her car smelled so good when she drove back from Philly What she teaches teams about animation How she learns all things web What her routine is like What she did before she did animations Moving from Flash to Web Animations Thinking about context and your audience Why it’s the designer’s job to play with animations Canvas is fun and powerful Links: Stripe Greensock mo.js Anime.js http://dowefeelthebern.com/ p5.js Daniel Shiffman

This week we talk to independent web animation consultant Val Head, whose recent book Designing Interface Animation is a must-read. Read more »

Val Head is a web animation expert and author with a talent for getting designers and developers alike excited about the power of animation. She's the author of Designing Interface Animation and teaches CSS Animation on lynda.com.

Val Head is a web animation expert and author with a talent for getting designers and developers alike excited about the power of animation. She’s the author of *Designing Interface Animation* and teaches CSS Animation on lynda.com.

Val Head is a web animation expert and author with a talent for getting designers and developers alike excited about the power of animation. She’s the author of Designing Interface Animation and teaches CSS Animation on lynda.com.

Web Animation can have personality and character, just like Disney Animation. Val Head, UI Animation Pro, talks about applying Disney Animation principles to web animations. We talked about creating effective and immersive animations by using CSS and javascript. Val also explained what aspects of web animations can lead to poor performance. At the we had an interesting discussion about the future of web animation.

Zoom on over to uxpod.com to read the transcript.

For this episode, we have the Q&A panel after the world premiere of Matt Griffin's documentary, “What Comes Next is the Future.” The premiere took place at Code & Supply's Abstraction conference in Pittsburgh, PA on August 18th. Panelists included Matt Griffin, Jeffrey Zeldman, Mat “Wilto” Marquis, and Val Head.

For this episode, we have the Q&A panel after the world premiere of Matt Griffin’s documentary, “What Comes Next is the Future.” The premiere took place at Code & Supply’s Abstraction conference in Pittsburgh, PA on August 18th. Panelists included Matt Griffin, Jeffrey Zeldman, Mat “Wilto” Marquis, and Val Head.

For this episode, we have the Q&A panel after the world premiere of Matt Griffin’s documentary, “What Comes Next is the Future.” The premiere took place at Code & Supply’s Abstraction conference in Pittsburgh, PA on August 18th. Panelists included Matt Griffin, Jeffrey Zeldman, Mat “Wilto” Marquis, and Val Head.

Descripcion del programa ¿Es el Diseño de Interacción una moda pasajera o está para quedarse? ¿Se utiliza correctamente? ¿En qué casos es necesario y cuándo es superfluo? ¿Cómo afecta a la acesibilidad? ¿Qué herramientas son imprescindibles para este sector? La divertidísima UX/UI Senior Designer Izaskun Saez visita WeCodeSign y comenta cuál es la situación de un sector que aparentemente está viviendo su época dorada: El Diseño de Interacción. Decir que este programa nos ha quedado "animado" es poco. ¡¡No te lo pierdas!! Encuesta para pedir Feedback Posibles topics, entrevistados y duración del programa Recomendaciones Preguntas rápidas: Izaskun Saez Quién me ha inspirado: Los compañeros del trabajo Recomiéndanos un recurso: Medium Recomiéndanos un recurso: UXPin Recomiéndanos a un invitado: Roberto Garrido ¿Qué tema te gustaría que tratásemos?: Internet of Things Contacta con: Izaskun Saez Twitter Web Linkedin Links del programa Sketch Marvel Invision Axure High Performance Animations Recomendaciones de Nacho Val Head Designing Interface Animation (book) Motion and Meaning (podcast) Vimeo animation series CSS Animations Pocket Guide (book) UXigers UiUxGifs Contacta con nosotros Web de WeCodeSign Twitter de WeCodeSign eMail de WeCodeSign Web de Ignacio Villanueva Twitter de Ignacio Villanueva

Intercom Director of Product Design Emmet Connolly chats with web and UI animation specialist Val Head. Val discusses designing animation for web vs mobile, the importance of establishing motion guidelines for your brand, where designers can get started with animation, and more.

As a designer since the early days of Flash, Val Head knows first hand how animation design has evolved to become a powerful tool for creating better user experiences. Hear Val’s insights from her book Designing Interface Animation––for how using motion to enhance your brand, and mobile UX. Buy Val's book: rfld.me/scdiabook Follow Val on Twitter: https://twitter.com/vlh Follow Rosenfeld Media: https://twitter.com/rosenfeldmedia

At UXLx James and Per both attended Val Head’s workshop to learn more about animation in online interfaces. The workshop gave us some excellent examples and Val had us experiment with prototyping animation. In this interview we learn a bit more about animation best practices and how animation for example can help with spatial orientation, feedback...

Seb is joined by regular guest co-host Val Head at the Render Conference in Oxford. Val is our roving reporter for this episode, and she interviews two of the Render Conference speakers Mariko Kosaka, and Sara Soueidan. Mariko talks about … Continue reading →

After an 8 month hiatus, Iain and Seb are joined by co-host Val Head to discuss The Internet! Does it really live up to our expectations? Can we live without it? And find out what our favourite line of code … Continue reading →

AIGA Minnesota’s Design Camp was solid from start to finish (hopefully we do it even partial justice during these podcasts) – and a lot of it was just how diverse the speaker selection was. Our final (of 5 interviews we recorded while there)[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry... The post Val Head: The Reflex Blue Show #152 appeared first on 36 Point.

Why are Apple's product pages so heavy? When is the right time to choose aesthetic wins over performance wins? We explore these questions in today's preshow. We're also joined this week by web animation expert Val Head. We're taking a deep dive into web animations; how Val got started with animation, the benefits of animations in UI, why you should focus on the problem to be solved and not the tools, how to effectively communicate your animation ideas with your co-workers, and so much more. Links: Val Head Val on Twitter Designing Interface Animations Motion & Meaning Podcast 12 Classic Principles of Animation The Animator's Survival Guide by Richard Williams CSS4 Media Queries Cennydd on Twitter

Designer/developer Val Head (@vlh) is Jeffrey Zeldman's guest. Val is the co-founder of the Web Design Day conference, co-host with Cennydd Bowles of the Motion and Meaning podcast, and author of CSS Pocket Guide (5 Simple Steps) and the upcoming Designing Interface Animations (Rosenfeld Media). Val and Zeldman discuss how to create an animation style guide, the genius of user queries, the web animation API, frame by frame animation, animating with math in Flash, Disney animation and the illusion of life, animating for meaning, how to animate without triggering vestibular disorders, resources for accessible animations, and what to eat in Lawrenceville, PA. Links for this episode:Val Head - Designer & Interface Animation ConsultantVal Head (@vlh) | TwitterDesigning Interface Animations | Rosenfeld MediaMotion And Meaning: A podcast about motion design for digital designers with Val Head and Cennydd Bowles.Web Design Day, June 12th 2015 | Pittsburgh, PA Web Design & Development ConferenceDesigning Safer Web Animation For Motion Sensitivity · An A List Apart ArticleUI Animation and UX: A Not-So-Secret Friendship · An A List Apart ArticleMore Resources for Accessible Animations · An A List Apart Blog PostAnimation switchDisney Animation: The Illusion of Life: Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston: 9780896592339: Amazon.com: BooksCSS animations | Five Simple StepsBrought to you by Braintree (To learn more, and for your first $50,000 in transactions fee-free, go to BraintreePayments.com/BigWebShow), Backblaze (You make sites, protect them! Big Web Show listeners get a two week free trial by going to backblaze.com/bws), and DreamHost (Visit the link to sign up and make sure to use the code THEBIGWEBSHOW395 at checkout and you'll get top rated web hosting for just $3.95/month and a free domain name).

Designer/developer Val Head (@vlh) is Jeffrey Zeldman's guest. Val is the co-founder of the Web Design Day conference, co-host with Cennydd Bowles of the Motion and Meaning podcast, and author of CSS Pocket Guide (5 Simple Steps) and the upcoming Designing Interface Animations (Rosenfeld Media). Val and Zeldman discuss how to create an animation style guide, the genius of user queries, the web animation API, frame by frame animation, animating with math in Flash, Disney animation and the illusion of life, animating for meaning, how to animate without triggering vestibular disorders, resources for accessible animations, and what to eat in Lawrenceville, PA.

Val Head designer, speaker, author and co-author of the Motion and Meaning podcast discussing motion for digital designers joins Gary Rozanc to discuss the tools, training, and role of motion design and how to incorporate it into interactive design education. Val goes in depth on the motion design process from sketching to prototyping to final code. Val also discusses how she works with remote team members on an interactive design project.

Before scheduling this chat I'd always had an interest in learning more about web design and development but admittedly didn't know the difference between the two and felt entirely intimidated by the subject. A few days before my chat with Val and Jason took place, I decided that being scared of such things was completely ridiculous. In order to bring a new project to life, I needed to build a custom website with Wordpress. After talking with my dear friend Anastasia Lanz, (a self-taught developer), I firmed up plans to not only learn more web development but to expand beyond my basic needs and actually get good at it. Easier said than done but a plan, regardless. My hope in sharing this information is to explain my line of questioning and real enthusiasm when talking to Val and Jason. Not that I really need a reason... they are not only super smart but incredibly delightful with which to shoot the shit! I hope to obtain a fraction of their knowledge during my professional journey.  Enjoy this chat, come to Web Design Day, meet up at a Refresh Pittsburgh event! Val and G. Jason Head on the Internet WebDesignerDay.com  @WebDesignDay on Twitter Refresh Pittsburgh @RefreshPitt on Twitter jasonhead.com @gjhead on Twitter valhead.com @vlh on Twitter Girl Develop it (Pgh Chapter) Ancient Future on Facebook  @_ancientfuture on Twitter his chat post wins the award for most links. :)

This week we discuss the thorny issue of pricing. We cover working out what to charge, how to deal with push back from clients and times we’ve got it wrong. My ‘read’ of the week is episode 28 of the CTRL+CLICK CAST podcast, CSS animations with Val Head. Ben’s toolstar is FreeAgent, the accounting software package for freelancers. My jukebox track this week is Cirrus by Bonobo from the 2013 album The North Borders. Ben’s are Abandon Window and Sun Harmonics by John Hopkins, from the 2013 album Immunity. - Mark Subscribe and keep in touch iTunes - http://relativepaths.uk/it Stitcher - http://relativepaths.uk/st SoundCloud - http://relativepaths.uk/sc Twitter - http://twitter.com/relativepaths Facebook - http://facebook.com/relativepaths If you like the show, please leave a review or comment wherever you like to listen to us. We'd particularly love an iTunes review :)

Scott's at Blendconf and sits down with Val Head to talk about CSS Animations. Val is the author of "The CSS Animations Pocket Guide" and explains the essence of CSS Animations to Scott in this episode.

Designer/developer Val Head @vlh and host Jeffrey Zeldman discuss the writing of A Pocket Guide to CSS Animations; the Web Design Day conference; running freelance projects and working as a hired gun; JavaScript and CSS animation compared; tales of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Buffalo and Toronto; the profession and people of web design; working with editors; what it takes to run a workshop; and more.

Designer/developer Val Head @vlh and host Jeffrey Zeldman discuss the writing of A Pocket Guide to CSS Animations; the Web Design Day conference; running freelance projects and working as a hired gun; JavaScript and CSS animation compared; tales of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Buffalo and Toronto; the profession and people of web design; working with editors; what it takes to run a workshop; and more.

Our guest for this episode is Val Head who is a designer and consultant based in Pittsburgh where she works with agencies and small businesses to make fun and effective web sites.

Our guest for this episode is Val Head who is a designer and consultant based in Pittsburgh where she works with agencies and small businesses to make fun and effective web sites.

Our guest for this episode is Val Head who is a designer and consultant based in Pittsburgh where she works with agencies and small businesses to make fun and effective web sites.

CSS has three powerful specifications that can be used to animate things on the page: CSS Transitions, Transforms, and Animations. Designer and author Val Head joins Jen Simmons to explain how they work.

Software artist Jer Thorp (@blprnt) joins Seb and guest co-host Val Head to tell us all about his new studio, the Office of Creative Research, his thoughts on the future of Processing and the Eyeo Festival. Follow us on Twitter … Continue reading →

Seb is joined by guest host Val Head and maker and artist Brendan Dawes who tells us about his recent digital art project for EE and his experience designing and marketing his MoviePeg and Popa products. Follow us on Twitter … Continue reading →

Iain and Seb kick off the new format show talking about Windows 8, iOS development, the New Adventures conference and nerd comedy. Follow Iain on Twitter Follow Seb on Twitter Design by Val Head (valhead.com, twitter.com/vlh)

Our hosts interview Val Head freelancer, educator, and organizer of Web Design Day. Recorded on 09/07/12 at Carnegie Library – East Liberty Branch. Val’s Links: valhead.com Val’s Workshops @vlh on Twitter Val on Dribbble Web Design Day Things We Mentioned: cashcats.biz Firebelly U General Assembly article on Fast Company HackPittsburgh The LEDFlower Project Typecast Yarn Over […]

In which Iain airs his rather unpopular opinions on game cloning. Follow Iain Lobb on Twitter Follow Seb Lee-Delisle on Twitter Show edited by Jack Menhorn (jackmenhorn.com, twitter.com/KomradeJack) Design by Val Head (valhead.com, twitter.com/vlh) Music: Iain dragged some loops onto the timeline in … Continue reading →

Iain stalks the halls of the Flash Gaming Summit in San Francisco, grabbing interviews with a bucket-load of game developers. Follow Iain Lobb on Twitter Follow Seb Lee-Delisle on Twitter Design by Val Head (valhead.com, twitter.com/vlh) Music: Iain dragged some loops … Continue reading →

Web designer Val Head joins us to discuss the CSS box model, vendor prefixes, and more. Plus we ask: is writing HTML and CSS really coding? Follow Iain Lobb on Twitter Follow Seb Lee-Delisle on Twitter Follow Val Head on … Continue reading →