• 1 hour 1 minute
    293 – 💻 Remote Work & Top Talent With Zack Gottlieb

    We talk with Zack Gottlieb, VP Head of Design platform at Atlassian. We discuss Zack’s career journey and what it takes to make it to Atlassian.

    Our main topic of discussion is the Great Resignation in the tech industry. We start the conversation by asking why so many people are leaving in the first place. Then we explore why companies want their employees back in the office. Additionally, we examine what companies are doing to retain their top talent.

    🔗 Episode Links

    13 May 2022, 5:50 pm
  • 59 minutes 15 seconds
    292 – 🎯 Paid Media Strategies with Michelle Morgan

    In this episode, we talk with Michelle Morgan: International Paid Media Consultant, Writer, and Speaker. We explore the realm of advertising on the most popular social platforms and investigate the unforeseen opportunities in others. Additionally, we discuss Michelle’s organization, Paid Media Pros, which provides PPC videos for advertisers with any level of experience.

    🔗 Episode Links

    1 April 2022, 10:39 pm
  • 57 minutes 49 seconds
    291 – 💾 JavaScript, Switching Careers, & ADHD with Chris Ferdinandi

    In this episode, we talk with Chris Ferdinandi, #JavaScript Educator, The Vanilla JS Guy. 🍦We discuss how Chris became the “Vanilla #JS Guy” as he shares his thoughts about JavaScript, the modern web, switching careers, #ADHD, and more!

    🔗 Episode Links

    12 March 2022, 6:56 pm
  • 57 minutes 29 seconds
    290 – 🎵 Little Music Boxes with Travis Neilson

    In this episode, we talk with designer, musician, Travis Neilson. We discuss Travis’s career at YouTube Music. We dive into his day-to-day and what it’s like to work at YouTube. Then we explore Travis’s music, specifically his channel Little Music Boxes.

    🔗 Episode Links

    13 February 2022, 1:26 am
  • 1 hour 1 minute
    289 – ⚱️ The Digitization of Deathcare with Faisal Abid

    In this episode, we talk with Faisal Abid: Speaker, Entrepreneur, Google Developer Expert, and co-founder of Eirene cremations. Eirene provides high-quality, affordable cremation services. Eirene allows families to plan an affordable cremation entirely online or over the phone. Leveraging technology to help provide a better funeral experience to families. Additionally, Faisal walks us through the unique business and technology challenges he faced at the beginning of Eirene.

    ✨ Episode Sponsor

    🔗 Episode Links

    📜 Transcript

    [00:00:40] Brian Hinton: Welcome to Thunder Nerds, I’m Brian Hinton.

    [00:00:42] Frederick Weiss: And I am Frederick Weiss. And thank you so much for consuming the Thunder Nerds. A conversation with the people behind the technology that love what they do,

    [00:00:53] Brian Hinton: and do tech, good.

    [00:00:59] Frederick Weiss: And our sponsor Auth0 is helping us do tech good all year long.

    [00:01:07] Brian Hinton: Yeah. We'd like to thank them again for sponsoring this season.

    [00:01:10] Brian Hinton: They make it easy for developers to build a custom secure and standards based unified login by providing authentication and authorization as a service to try it out, go to Auth0.com. Auth0 is also on both YouTube and at the twitches under a username Auth0 and with some great developer resources and streams.

    [00:01:35] Brian Hinton: Also, make sure to check out the avocado labs who doesn't love avocados? It's an online destination that their developer advocates run, organizing some great meetup events. And again, remember to check out Auth0.com.

    [00:01:51] Frederick Weiss: Love it. Thank you so much, Brian. Really appreciate it. Yeah. And go ahead and start live chatting with us.

    [00:01:56] Frederick Weiss: Now we'll answer your questions in the order they are received. Additionally, make sure that you subscribe to the show go to youtube.com/ThunderNerds. Click that notification bell for alerts on new videos. And we also have an exclusive subscriber giveaway. So please check that out. So yeah, please just do it.

    [00:02:21] Frederick Weiss: So now with that being said, and without any ados being furthered, let's go ahead and welcome our guests. We have an amazing human being on the show. Joining us again for the, I don't know, the third, fifth, eighth time we have: speaker, entrepreneur, Google developer expert, Faisal Abid. Welcome to the show.

    [00:02:48] Faisal Abid: Hello

    [00:02:52] Faisal Abid: I think it is my fourth time?

    [00:02:57] Frederick Weiss: Yeah. Maybe even more than that. I could think of when you first were on or show way back when you had shorter hair. And I don't think it took that long to grow about way back in 2018. Maybe we were at DevFest. 

    [00:03:11] Faisal Abid: Yep, exactly. Yeah

    [00:03:15] Frederick Weiss: Yeah. And we really appreciate you coming on the show and providing your insight and your knowledge every time it's it's always super fun and entertaining and we we love having you on with that being said, let's let's get to know you a little bit for the people that might not know you, can you just tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do in general and in your own words?

    [00:03:38] Faisal Abid: Yeah. I'm Faisal. What do I do? So I'm an engineer, entrepreneur. What I really do is I try to solve really hard problems. Sounds pretty vague, but right now, the problem that I'm solving is in the space of death which is Eirene cremations. And that's what I'm working on. Aside from that, I do Google cloud consulting AI machine learning, all sorts of stuff.

    [00:04:02] Faisal Abid: So just have my hands in everything with a big focus on solving hard problems. Let me

    [00:04:08] Frederick Weiss: ask you then, where are you where are you currently working? What's your actual maybe I shouldn't employ the word actual, huh? Employ a lot of connections there. What is your actual day job?

    [00:04:20] Frederick Weiss: Your nine to five and what do you do there? What's your, what's your day to day? I guess my data would be I'm a juggler because what I really do most of my time is spent on Eirene. And that is. Understanding the product and like user UI, UX, product development, customer service, sales, marketing, like whatever.

    [00:04:44] Faisal Abid: I am involved in that. And then outside of that I am now VP of engineering. So I'm shifted my role to focus internally at bootstraps. And that's where we do a lot of Google cloud consulting and working with clients, building out machine learning and ML ops and stuff.

    [00:05:02] Frederick Weiss: So the people that know you probably think of you as more someone in a traditional sense of tech technology.

    [00:05:10] Frederick Weiss: Now you're in this company, maybe you co-founded, it I'll let you explain in your own words, Eirene, which I believe is the Roman goddess of peace. Is that right?

    [00:05:24] Faisal Abid: Yeah. It's the Greek goddess of peace. I believe. Yeah. Okay.

    [00:05:29] Frederick Weiss: Let's close. I think, I hope I'm not offending anybody.

    [00:05:31] Frederick Weiss: Excuse my geography. So let's first dive into this. So when, why, whom when you tell us about it, let's get the

    [00:05:41] Faisal Abid: It is funny. You have a good point that a lot of people do know me. It's just like this tech person, but Eirene is far from a tech company inherently. It is a tech company it's using tech to solve a problem.

    [00:05:51] Faisal Abid: My I'm going to give a long winded answer to this. So I think when I got into tech my history has been very interesting. I dropped out of school and just started this business when Andrew came out and I was trying to build like a Netflix for games, for Android. And so as I was going through.

    [00:06:15] Faisal Abid: I just started to as well as I did that up and that didn't work out. I said, okay I guess I'm not for startups or whatever, I'm going to try something else. But I need to make money. So I went and joined a company called Kobo and Kobo was great because that really helped me understand how businesses work.

    [00:06:35] Faisal Abid: I was 21 at that time. And so throughout my twenties, I worked at a lot of very interesting startups and something that started to change in my way of looking at it was at first, in my early twenties, I saw tech as a problem that needs to be solved. As I went through my twenties, I realized that there are a lot bigger problems than building image filters or random apps.

    [00:07:04] Faisal Abid: There are a lot of bigger problems that aren't, that need to be solved, but they need to be solved using. But tech is not the solution, right? If that makes any sense. In the case of Eirene the problem for irenas families are when someone passes away, families are grieving, they're frustrated, they confused or scared.

    [00:07:27] Faisal Abid: They don't know what's going on and they don't know what to do. Next. The solution isn't Eirene has a website, right? That is not solving the problem. It's the process that we take technology and the process that we put them through and the, how we enable technology to help solve their problem. That's the solution.

    [00:07:48] Faisal Abid: And so for me, I like looking and finding problems and Eirene is this problem that came about. And it's funny because my co-founder and I both were thinking about Eirene at different, and we didn't even know each other at this point. Actually I was in Japan. I was trying to look at. Business ideas.

    [00:08:06] Faisal Abid: And I saw that in Japan, they were handling death in a very interesting way. And it was very, again, they were using technology to help families in this very awful time in their lives. And so I said, this is really cool. I haven't seen anything like this in north America. So how do I bring how do I do this in north America?

    [00:08:26] Faisal Abid: Because by this time I think I was around 27, 28, and I was not jaded of the tech world, but I was wanting to do more than just work at a company doing scrums every day and filling fishing Assano tickets and just like fixing bugs, or solving like pubsub or Google cloud problems, stuff like that.

    [00:08:49] Faisal Abid: It's not really changing anyone's life. It's just improving the bottom line. And so for me, I said, we're in a very, or I'm in a very interesting sector where I can make a lot of. But why don't I make a lot of money doing something that's helping people and that's going to improve people's lives. And so I said, all right, I'm starting.

    [00:09:09] Faisal Abid: I started looking at problems and I looked into crypto and seeing, is there something in crypto I can do. Bunch of different stuff eventually went to Japan, saw this problem. And I came back and one of the things I learned while doing multiple businesses, some of them which have worked out fairly well, some of them haven't is that the businesses that worked well or businesses that I have really good market knowledge on and really good deep insights on, or I'm working with someone that has those insights.

    [00:09:39] Faisal Abid: And I'm able to compliment that. And I have no insights on the world of death. Like sure people die. Everyone knows that. But what happens after I have no idea other than looking at these Japanese companies do very interesting things. The idea was just settling in back of my head. And one day by chance, I met my co-founder Mallory and she wanted to chat with me about some ideas that she had about businesses he wanted to do.

    [00:10:05] Faisal Abid: Anyways, we chatted and nothing really stuck out as something that was doable. And then just funny enough as the conversation was ending, we probably an hour long conversation, we spent 50 minutes brainstorming random businesses. Nothing was really sticking. Nothing seemed fun. And then the last, just before going where we've paid the coffee bill, I asked.

    [00:10:27] Faisal Abid: What are some other things you're interested in that are just like wild and out there? And she said this is funny because I don't really tell people this. It just people it's just so strange in the tech role is that I am very interested in deaths because my family's been in that space.

    [00:10:43] Faisal Abid: Her family owns a funeral home. And I remember going into my backpack and pulling out this pitch deck that I got from this random Japanese company as I was there and I pulled it out and I put it on the table. And I said, look at this company in Japan, this is very similar to what you're saying and what I've been thinking of.

    [00:11:02] Faisal Abid: Let's start brainstorming on an idea in depth. And so 2018 is when we started brainstorming on Eirene and funny enough, we thought we would be able to launch this within a couple of months in 2018. And so what happened was I was leaving a tech company that I was working. And she was working at another tech company.

    [00:11:26] Faisal Abid: And so we paused a bit because tech companies, they go up and down how they are. And so eventually she finally left and I had finally left, but this was like probably early 20, 19 now. And so at this point, she said, are you still interested? I said, yeah I never, I still have the domain and everything let's do this.

    [00:11:47] Faisal Abid: So we started working on Eirene and the idea was let's build a simple prototype of Eirene. And what I mean is it helps families. It's Canada's first virtual funeral home. You can come on and you can get a cremation or acclimation all online without ever leaving your safe space. Your home, wherever you are.

    [00:12:08] Faisal Abid: You can do it online twenty four seven, or you can call us. And we have someone available 24 7, and the whole process has done for you. When I talk about technology solving problems. You can press a, you can fill out information and then that's, it will automatically fill out all the forms you need to fill out.

    [00:12:25] Faisal Abid: You never need to leave your house. We'll have someone go to where your loved one is, pick them up, take them to the crematorium, handle all that for you. All you have to do is either give us a call or just for lots of information. So this was the idea and we built out the prototype not even a prototype.

    [00:12:42] Faisal Abid: We built out the entire business talk to our partners and stuff. And in Canada, the funeral space is very regulated. The naive 2019 version of me thought regulation, that's fine. Less. We just need to apply for a license and we'll get it little. Did we know that when we applied for a license?

    [00:13:03] Faisal Abid: The Breman authority of Ontario, the regulation in Ontario is really designed for traditional funeral home. No, one's really thought about what does a digital funeral home look like? You can draw parallels to this when you talk about as much as I dislike it, but like cryptocurrency, right where there's a new form of monetary finance and people don't understand that the bench and understanding it's the same form, right?

    [00:13:28] Faisal Abid: Everything is built to protect the consumer. And then you have an industry that is so old and has designed a certain way for physical access. And now you have two young people coming to them and saying, Hey, government, give us a license. We're going to make this all digital. It's pretty scary to the government.

    [00:13:47] Faisal Abid: And so I don't blame them. And so they started to basically say, Hey, do you know this doesn't work. The regulation. There's nothing in the regulation that allows you guys to do. And so we did funny enough, like this is, we spent 2019 kind of discussing this back and forth. We didn't get the license yet.

    [00:14:09] Faisal Abid: And then COVID happened in 2020. And so we spend the rest of 2020 in a lot of ways, lobbying the government and talking to them and finding people in the government that are a lot more future focused and thinking about what's right for the consumer in 20, 20, 20, 21 and on. And so we found a lot of good partners.

    [00:14:30] Faisal Abid: The government was very helpful. Once we started to talk to them, it it's funny, like both Mallory and I became lobbyists in a weird way. During COVID. So it's just like us sitting at our desks lobbying virtually. But luckily we were able to convince the government they understood our business model.

    [00:14:49] Faisal Abid: They changed some parts of the regulation and made exceptions and they said, all right, you guys can get this license. So December, 2020 is when we were able to launch this. And so it sounds like it's such a like not an easy business, but we're just filling out forms and we're helping families.

    [00:15:10] Faisal Abid: It's nothing like we're not doing AI, ML, blockchain, all sorts of things. But there's a lot of work that went into just getting to a point where we can launch. And then the amount of thinking that goes behind Eirene is very interesting. It's unlike any other product that I've worked on because every other product that I've worked on, whether it's.

    [00:15:29] Faisal Abid: Kobo where I was doing eBooks lead, where I was doing health insurance, zoom, that AI, I was doing art AI, NLP engines. None of them had the user in their most vulnerable states. And so when you have a user in their most vulnerable state, you cannot, you need to make sure your experience is solid.

    [00:15:50] Faisal Abid: And you need to make sure that your experience as well thought about because you can't have random, constantly, no JavaScript bugs, or like weird popups popping up all sorts of like random things that sometimes are acceptable and you're building these other things. Cause you're like, whatever, that's an edge case.

    [00:16:06] Faisal Abid: You can't really have edge cases here because if a family has that edge case, you've already made a really bad time, worse by not giving them the help they need. And such a sensitive experience, it's extremely sensitive. And so it's been really fun to build that thinking about. How to build a backend, how to build the front end, how to design and the design language and the illustrations, everything.

    [00:16:30] Faisal Abid: So that in a nutshell is just like Eirene and everything that I do there. And now it's mostly, my role at Eirene is really around how do we get in front of families? How do we have the right content available to them and what tools can we get them so that when they do come to our site we're empowering them and making them feel comfortable and not feeling like they're lost and

    [00:16:55] Brian Hinton: visiting the site too.

    [00:16:57] Brian Hinton: It is. And I don't know. It's amazing that you all managed to establish an aesthetic that's visually pleasing, but also not. Like calm as well. It's really a nice experience that you all have built there.

    [00:17:11] Frederick Weiss: Then you look up, sorry. Yeah.

    [00:17:15] Brian Hinton: I looked up Eirene. Its personification of peace is what Eirene is.

    [00:17:23] Brian Hinton: Yeah, according to the Google's

    [00:17:27] Faisal Abid: and then the name is interesting, right? Like when we were thinking of a name, the name was the hardest thing, what do we call this? Like cremation online, getting how weird and tacky that sounds. And I always, the first thing I do whenever I think about product names and I'm like, let's find like a clue code and the code name ended up being the main name here because I just searched up Greek God names and stumping and Eirene came I'm like, this is such a good meaning, like lecture stick with it.

    [00:17:56] Faisal Abid: And so I was just

    [00:17:58] Brian Hinton: stuck. That's perfect. Yeah. And I loved how you, like when she came back here, like I already have the domain. It's like the common thing I bought the domain. We're ready. Let's

    [00:18:08] Faisal Abid: go. Exactly. We have not a single line of code when I went and bought that domain. In fact, I bought a bunch of domains, Eirene criminations, blah, blah, blah.

    [00:18:16] Faisal Abid: So my domain portfolio is wild. Like I have some pretty interesting. I'm

    [00:18:21] Brian Hinton: curious if you can share, was there another name that you all were like, but it was the other possible big one.

    [00:18:30] Faisal Abid: I am sure there are, but I don't remember. There were probably garbage, right? Peace, personification, peace.

    [00:18:36] Brian Hinton: How have you beat that? So I actually don't remember what the other names were. Let

    [00:18:43] Frederick Weiss: me, let me ask you a question. Cause you, you talked about this several times, maybe more you said you found some inspiration from your travels in Japan. I wonder if you could communicate like what those are because for me, and probably a lot of people that haven't been to Japan and know what that experience is like.

    [00:19:02] Frederick Weiss: And specifically this one. Yeah, experience that we're talking about. Could you tell us a little bit of what that is and how how families are dealing with that over there and what the translation really of that looks like, that you brought over to Canada?

    [00:19:20] Faisal Abid: I think the, my reading of Japan and the Japanese people are that they're very pragmatic and they're very they're very well, first of all, they're extremely nice.

    [00:19:31] Faisal Abid: They're pragmatic and they're very down to earth. And so everything that they do when they're architecture and just like when you talk to people and like the reasoning, how even got exposed to like funeral that I was on a vacation it's that I met an old mentor of mine. He, you, he ended up becoming CEO of Kobo and then I left COBA, but I stayed on good terms with them.

    [00:19:52] Faisal Abid: And so when I went to Japan, I said, oh yeah. Talk a works at Tokyo. Let's like, let me reach out to Taka and see what he's doing. And I saw that he was working at a place called common fruition. And I was like, and when I Googled it, I guess it was like Google translate or whatever. I was like, what is this paper company?

    [00:20:09] Faisal Abid: What is this tech guy that like ran Kobo and then we'll see you a Viber, what is he doing at like a random paper company? Did he burn out? And so I went there and he called me in and that's when I got that presentation from that I pulled out for a Mallory and he said to me this is what I'm doing here.

    [00:20:30] Faisal Abid: And this is what calmer commission. So is, and as he told me about it, a light bulb went out where I'm like, wow, this is. Elegantly explains. What I've been trying to figure out is how I can use tech to solve hard problems and real world problems, not like little simple make a, how to deploy better, how to deploy your code better problem.

    [00:20:53] Faisal Abid: Not that those are any less challenging, but like something that brings me a lot of happiness is if I can make a big difference in someone's life. And so when you started to explain this to me, I was like, wow, this is amazing. And I remember saying, I'm probably going to go to Canada and just figure out how to do this in Canada, because you can't translate exactly what Japan is doing in Canada.

    [00:21:16] Faisal Abid: There's different cultures. There's different ways of, we deal with death the way common, Caribbean. So it worked is that it was more, at least back when I was there. It was more like a. Expedia for Buddhist funerals, where you can call them up and you have an operator, like they had an entire operators center and someone will pick up the phone and they would go through all the different providers in Japan and your area and tell you the lowest price with package deals and all that stuff right.

    [00:21:48] Faisal Abid: Where they can be like if you want and I'm sure I'm getting this wrong, but it's if you want a prayer plus like a visitation, then this is what you can do. This is the service to go to. And so you can't really copy that here, nor did I. I thought I could do something a bit better.

    [00:22:04] Faisal Abid: But I could do it something for the Canadian audience, the north American audience in general. And so that's where Mallory brought her insights because she knew exactly how families, because she grew up watching her dad take care of these families and the funeral home that they own. So that's, that was putting two together where it's like, there's how, that's what I can do with technology.

    [00:22:27] Faisal Abid: And that's the problem to solve.

    [00:22:29] Frederick Weiss: That's an interesting point. Let me ask these questions since you said that then, so let me ask you about your customers. You say geographically, you you keep saying Canada, but I want to know geographically. Does that mean one, all of Canada what are the demographics and.

    [00:22:48] Frederick Weiss: If there are any competitors at all in this space where you're located, where you're doing business, if there are any kind of differentiators if there's any kind of competition. So w I'll go back to the first part and re restate that, where exactly are these services located in what's that radius?

    [00:23:09] Frederick Weiss: Do you also say provide in, in the top part of the United States, Alaska whatnot.

    [00:23:17] Faisal Abid: Okay. We'll probably get into the United States and United States a whole different beast. I can talk about after, but right now we operate in Ontario. One of Canada's largest provinces and we operate anywhere in Ontario.

    [00:23:31] Faisal Abid: And so this is how I read works from the backend aspect. We don't have our own crematorium. That is an asset that is. Too much to maintain. We don't want to carry that asset around. So what we've done is we've connected with funeral we've connected with crematoriums or Pross the province.

    [00:23:51] Faisal Abid: So wherever you are, if you're in thunder bay and messages to Eirene the way actually to even explain it better, the way it works is there is a funeral home, then there's a crematorium, right? And sometimes they're the same. Sometimes there are different as a consumer, you just cannot go to a crematorium.

    [00:24:11] Faisal Abid: You need to go through a funeral home. And so we are that virtual funeral. The advantage we have over a physical funeral home is that if you go to apple funeral home across the streets, apple funeral home only serves a radius of say 15 kilometers, right? Because we're virtual. We can serve all over the world, but right now we serve Ontario only.

    [00:24:34] Faisal Abid: And then when a family reaches out to. They're dealing with Eirene and Eirene only in the backend. We have a funeral partner, a crematorium partner in thunder bay. And so they'll reach out to us. We'll send it, we'll get collected information online, and then we'll fill out all the forms digitally pick up their loved ones.

    [00:24:54] Faisal Abid: So the picking up the loved one again in the tech world, it's like using API APIs. We have a transfer service that is automatically dispatch, and this is a government regulated transfer service. So the end user is getting the exact same experience in turn, not the exact same experience. They're getting the exact same quality as any other funeral home, because we're S we're all using the same transfer service and perhaps even the same crematorium and a lot of places, what they're, what the differentiator is.

    [00:25:25] Faisal Abid: They're getting it at a much lower rate because we're on Ontario on average, we're 50% to. Purely because we don't have the physical cost of maintaining a physical funeral, home, a physical crematorium, and we have a better experience because you can do it in your safe space. Huge. All you have to do is just go to Eirene or you can just call that number.

    [00:25:48] Faisal Abid: You can call us at 4:00 AM in the morning and someone will pick up within a minute or even 30 seconds. Someone will pick up our funeral directors are amazing. They will pick up the phone and they will talk to you. They will comfort you and they will take care of everything you need at 3:30 AM. It doesn't matter.

    [00:26:07] Faisal Abid: And so that is our differentiator. And that's how technology enables us to make that differentiation, because I'm able to build that tech, I'm able to utilize tech that makes all this happen.

    [00:26:19] Brian Hinton: This all reminds me a lot of Daniel burka, like his resolve to save lives and the civil project and health, and just how we're taking tech and partnering you're partnering too with not with non-tech and pulling them into the tech era, so to speak.

    [00:26:35] Brian Hinton: It doesn't mean you're just, you're talking earlier about how there wasn't even regulation for this. And it's definitely an industry, especially for everyone. When you're, you've lost someone and you're dealing with all that, having to go into a location where other people have are there two maybe, and maybe a funeral is going on?

    [00:26:54] Brian Hinton: And like that's just so hard and yeah. So I applaud this a great deal.

    [00:27:03] Faisal Abid: Yeah. And the thing is you are right. The partners we work with, they aren't they're not, they don't, some partners have just a typewriter, we're dealing with partners like this, but they're extremely good at what they do.

    [00:27:17] Faisal Abid: And so we're helping them in a lot of ways come to the 21st century because they're on typewriters sometimes because they're amazing at what they do. They're great. They run a great crematorium. They have a beautiful place, like a scattering garden and stuff, and we're helping them increase customers, because we're able to reach out to a lot more people.

    [00:27:39] Faisal Abid: We're able to enable a lot more people to come through our service. Then some like a local funeral home, a local funeral home really has a maximum capacity that they can do because of the geographic radius that they're in the and the amount of people that they can serve at any one.

    [00:27:57] Faisal Abid: This is a tech company. I can serve a million people that go through our service on one day, it's all serverless, right? So there's no like need for more humans, other than funeral directors that we can just employ very quickly and scale up. Because again, this is all technology based.

    [00:28:16] Faisal Abid: They can be working remotely. They just have to have.

    [00:28:19] Frederick Weiss: Yeah, I love that because as Brian said I'll append to this a little bit. When people lose a family member it's probably the last thing you think of what do I do? Where do I go? Who do I speak to?

    [00:28:37] Frederick Weiss: Am I going to get my iPhone out and look through websites all day and find like exactly what I need. I I don't even know if the price is right or whatever. I might not even care or I might be in a position where I go I can't even afford most of these things and it's great to have that transparency and someone either to talk to, or someone that to not talk to and just do this in the privacy of my own home where I'm already feeling vulnerable.

    [00:29:08] Frederick Weiss: I I don't know. Want to share my my experience with somebody right now, because I might not be in the state to share my experience, but look, let me ask you this question. Cause I'm so curious. Obviously you said you, you did a lot of lobbying both of you to get this going right.

    [00:29:30] Frederick Weiss: You are seeing results, you're seeing positive results, your your company's growing. What are those people saying to you now? Or have you had any contact with them? Do you need to provide any kind of measurements or proof of this is going well, or Hey, after X amount of time, you need to regain a license or some things such as that, do you mind showing us?

    [00:29:57] Frederick Weiss: So

    [00:29:57] Faisal Abid: There is I guess it's an audit, right? Like they audit us their regulators often. One of the beauties about the businesses that we really made sure everything was there was a time when I thought about putting stuff on it, internal blockchain, but like really everything needs to be auditable.

    [00:30:17] Faisal Abid: And the idea was I'm going to make sure that everything is transparent. And so when the auditors come and they say, Hey, can you tell us your last 10 customers, all the files, all I really have to do is like select star and CQL. And here. And so that's really what happens right now. It happens often.

    [00:30:39] Faisal Abid: And that's just the industry we're in and that's just the uncomfortable nature. A tech company playing in this space where there's no tech companies in Canada are doing this. And so the regulators, they want to make sure that the consumer is being protected. So we're, I'm totally fine that they audit us often.

    [00:30:57] Faisal Abid: And it's totally okay with me. And it's not a lot of work for me because it is a select star statements. So that is what happens. We're getting in terms of customer feedback, it's been amazing. And to your part about transparency, one of the big things that I wanted to make sure was we're transparent, not even jot in just terms of our price and customer quality and stuff, but we're actually transparent as a technology after you go through us, you shouldn't have to hear from us till.

    [00:31:28] Faisal Abid: Unless we need to ask you a question or you need to, or we're coming in delivering, we handle already earns. That's it right? I don't want to be sending of like push notifications and all sorts of stuff that typical companies do because that's how they get engagement for me. The less engagement, the better once you come out and you fill it out, we want you would, you just want to go back to your family and commemorate your lost, loved one and do whatever you need to do without having to worry about Eirene.

    [00:31:58] Faisal Abid: And then there's a tech company it's sending me emails. I've had to read it and all that. You

    [00:32:04] Brian Hinton: know, one thing I'm curious about, like why do you think that we're not seeing more cases of tech really making change in various segments? Like this? Not just this, but it seems like we're just getting the another image app, another chat app, and oh, now we're going to do audio.

    [00:32:23] Brian Hinton: Is it the difficulty of getting in this space or what? No.

    [00:32:28] Faisal Abid: So there's two things. I'm sure these spaces are different. But there isn't a lot of VC money nor there is a lot of angel money. It's just not, it's funny because angel money

    [00:32:42] Brian Hinton: would fund to invest in something

    [00:32:46] Frederick Weiss: sexy enough.

    [00:32:47] Faisal Abid: Yes. So that's the thing it's not sexy.

    [00:32:49] Faisal Abid: I'll tell you this. We are profitable. As of two, three months ago, we've been profitable despite having, we have eight engineers. We have eight employees, two engineers we're growing rapidly. We're starting to move across Canada. We're in the process of applying and starting to get those licenses, but we're profitable.

    [00:33:10] Faisal Abid: Not a lot of tech companies can say that. And this is one of the oxymorons of this industry, I guess the paradoxes where it's just a. The investor money. Isn't, it's hard to actually talk to the investors because the investors are looking for the unicorns and the moonshots. And that's because that's how that business is structured.

    [00:33:30] Faisal Abid: It's not that the investor, is

    [00:33:32] Brian Hinton: this a moonshot though? Cause you're like, like that's why I don't get there's so many of these here's so

    [00:33:37] Faisal Abid: many, it's not sexy. Fundamentally. Fundamentally you have a VC firm where even if the investor personally likes it, the investor needs to justify that.

    [00:33:51] Faisal Abid: If say Anderson Horwitz raises a hundred million dollars, they need to write 10 checks of $10 million. If they write one check, say they gave a check to Eirene for $10 million, they need to justify that Eirene might give them a $10 billion, right? And so can I give him a $10 billion exit? Probably in 10, 15 years, perhaps there, the funeral industry has companies that have gone public, but it is not a company that will give them a $10 million exit in three years on like a crazy valuation.

    [00:34:23] Faisal Abid: And so that is the, the hard part about the industry. Luckily, we are profitable. So right now we are raising again, it is another friends and family round. And so our, what I did and what Mallory did was when we first raised money we raised 250 K and we say, Let's reach out to entrepreneurs.

    [00:34:46] Faisal Abid: We know, because what I found is angels like Brian, you said angels are willing to give the money, but it depends a type of angel. There's a lot of angels that still are trying to on the upper level, nearing VC level, that aren't ready to give money because they're still looking for MRR, SAS type businesses, because those are very predictable.

    [00:35:10] Faisal Abid: And if you want to put money in a very predictable business, great MRI and SAS, you show that that this company is going to survive unless there's like a crazy scandal or some big competitor comes and kills you. We don't have MRR. I hope I don't get MRR. I don't know. Family coming to us every week, every month.

    [00:35:26] Faisal Abid: And losing someone. So that'd be terrible. Exactly. That's terrible. So what one time experience? And so there, what we Maori and I did was we reached out to all the tech entrepreneurs in Toronto, everyone that we knew and they're very supportive. And so we have some of the smartest entrepreneurs who said, great you're raising to advocate, here's 10 K here's five K, like we'll help you.

    [00:35:56] Faisal Abid: And so now that we're profitable, I'm in a very interesting spot because if I was a SAS company, profitable SAS company, I'd be able to raise so much money just going to any Silicon valley investor, but I'm a profitable, non. Non-sexy company. And so for us, it's okay, let's raise another 250 K we're raising again.

    [00:36:19] Faisal Abid: Let's our angels are completely on board, but let's try to diversify the pool and add some new angels with a different perspective because our angels have all been helpful in providing their perspective on end of life, providing their help in terms of business lobbying, politics, whatever.

    [00:36:38] Faisal Abid: So that's what we're doing now, but it's very hard for business for entrepreneurs to do. Maybe this is just in Toronto also. I don't know if it's different in Silicon valley, but it's hard for entrepreneurs to do non-sexy businesses and get the same level of hype and money thrown at them as if I started an NFT company that sold monkeys.

    [00:37:03] Faisal Abid: Like I would get so much money around. Oh, yeah.

    [00:37:10] Faisal Abid: Like I'd be on a yacht right now with drawing stupid monkey. That's the difference. And I think that will change. I strongly because what I, what my belief is, what ends up happening is these tech cycles, their bubbles go away. You saw this bubble back in 2012 to 2014, right? With mobile, you built a fart app.

    [00:37:34] Faisal Abid: You built your money. That wouldn't be news science through money, and then the bubble burst. And now it's almost impossible to raise money if you're a mobile app, unless you have a solid business. So now it's all about SAS and all that stuff. It's not about the technology and the business model, but I think there's, this idea will go away because now you have crypto and all these other businesses.

    [00:37:59] Faisal Abid: Business models, which are most of the time Ponzi schemes that makes zero sense. But you have these different types of business models that don't, that this bubble will explode soon enough. And when does bubble does explode? Investors will start to think about we've made a lot of money because most people will make money.

    [00:38:20] Faisal Abid: Anyways, we'll make a lot of money. How do we take this money and invested in really solid business models? And so probably in five years, this will happen and then there'll be another bubble with something else, probably VR or something crazy. And we'll continue with. I just saw

    [00:38:36] Brian Hinton: that in Silicon valley.

    [00:38:38] Brian Hinton: I just hope all the artists that for like years have been essentially living paycheck to paycheck, hoping they sell a painting, get so much money and cash it all out. Cause they, they totally deserve. Yeah. Listen,

    [00:38:52] Faisal Abid: if you can make money off NFTs and crypto do it because that money isn't going to be there next year.

    [00:38:59] Faisal Abid: If you can make money, who cares? It's a scam. Anyways, there's the biggest scam like I can go on and on about NFT. I actually was a, still am a big believer in crypto. I'm not a believer in the use case right now because the youth case right now is just about it's funny, I read tweets about how crypto is going to enable the 99% and empower them and all sorts of bullshit.

    [00:39:26] Faisal Abid: But all it's doing is just making rich people richer and we're all we're doing is just playing Pokemon. Tons of money, right? So it's not really adding value to the world. All it's doing is just rich. People are going cool. I bought this like monkey or this thing would laser eyes and I'm making more money off it.

    [00:39:46] Faisal Abid: And that's it. So one day I hope there's good applications for crypto. I would love to see those, but right now it's not the right

    [00:39:53] Brian Hinton: time. We need to get you on the show to talk about crypto and NFTs. And that's,

    [00:40:00] Frederick Weiss: who knows where that goes here

    [00:40:01] Faisal Abid: I, 2017, I built a, not, it wasn't a company. It was a fun project in crypto.

    [00:40:10] Faisal Abid: This was during the first initial hype and I built a gaming call, arcade block. You could bet money and all that stuff. And that was fun. And then it didn't really work out at night. And then I held onto all my crypto and I said, cool, the next, thankfully, this bubble's gone this era of exuberance has gone.

    [00:40:30] Faisal Abid: And the next in the next couple of years we'll see actual applications for crypto. And then the next couple of years came into the era of exuberance came back, but now amped up because all the tech people have nothing better to do than just sit home on their computer. And so we just these guys went crazy.

    [00:40:49] Faisal Abid: These people went crazy. And then, yeah. And then I'm like, forget it. I'm selling all my crypto. Cause it doesn't make sense anymore.

    [00:40:57] Frederick Weiss: Let me ask you I have two questions before we start winding down the first question Faisal. Do you have any kind of competitors in the continental United States that are doing something such as this or doing exactly this and what are their challenges and how are they different from what you are doing now, if they exist at all?

    [00:41:23] Faisal Abid: So there's, there might be a bit more, but altogether in this entire planet earth, there's probably six companies that do what Eirene does. There is two companies in America in California and Los Angeles. And California area Portland, Oregon and stuff. One is called solace and another is called tulip.

    [00:41:46] Faisal Abid: And then there is one in the UK. I don't remember the name. There's one in Australia. And then there's Eirene in Canada. And I believe there's one more. I can't remember. I think there's two in the UK and all of us do similar things. The closest thing to Eirene is probably two lip. Yeah, I guess to lip or solace to lip is found a tulip got acquired a couple of years ago by a bigger funeral home solace.

    [00:42:16] Faisal Abid: It started by X, Nike via VPs or something, some smart guys there. So we're all trying to solve the same problem. There. We're all in different markets and these markets are really tough. So the reason America is very tough, specially California is that there is almost a race to the bottom where there's not a lot of margins.

    [00:42:41] Faisal Abid: Because in California, you have to basically own not. You have to buy you pretty much have to own your own crematorium. So now you're suddenly dealing with Latin expansion. If I want to expand to I dunno, LA, I need to go and build a crematorium near LA where I need to be able to transfer funds, real estate. The Eirene business model, really, no one has, and that's a by-product of just the regulation in Canada where I just go and build the crematoriums they're extremely regulated because of environment and all that stuff. And so we've taken a totally different business model approach where we're like, let's just in a lot of ways, it's like Uber, where we're in a, we don't own like Uber doesn't own any of these taxi cars. They just partnered with absolutely everyone. So we're partnering with. Everyone then we want, and the beauty about us is because it's a regulated space. Uber got into a non-regulated space and then they got regulated because we were already in a regulated space.

    [00:43:42] Faisal Abid: We already play by the rules. And so we can't tell a crematorium, sorry, we're only going to pay you like a hundred bucks. No, the law says the crematorium must be paid X. So we pay them X. We can make our margin there. And then we're able to just partner with as many criminal terms as possible.

    [00:44:02] Frederick Weiss: Yeah. It's a very interesting how all this works. It's actually fascinating to me. The technology in this business model My entire philosophy behind the Eirene is to build the most transparent and ethical business possible. This is something I learned with one of my mentors. He had sold a funny enough, a dating company for a lot of money backing in Canada, back in the nineties.

    [00:44:32] Faisal Abid: And one of the things he told me and he's massively wealthy. He told me that there's no point in trying to do dark patterns and like little tiny scams and like hurting people because that will eventually bite you in the ass later on. Try to always build the most ethical and transparent product, because if you actually have a good business, people will pay for it and people will recommend you.

    [00:44:55] Faisal Abid: So that's always stuck with me. And so whenever we're building something, it's like, how do I make this as transparent, as simple as possible. So users always feel like there's trust both ways.

    [00:45:07] Frederick Weiss: I love that. That's very admirable. Very needed service. Speaking of the services one of the things that I read on the blog, that my last question, before we get through a few things here where we close is acclamation and correct me if I'm wrong.

    [00:45:22] Frederick Weiss: If I'm saying that pronouncing it incorrectly, but acclimation has no direct emission of harmful greenhouse gases or mercury, and requires no burning of fossil fuels. So how long does this this process take two. Like it's supposed to be like a alkaline hydraulics or something like that.

    [00:45:45] Frederick Weiss: Is this is there the same? I hate to use the phrase here, but turned around if I want to get the service done. And is there like a, obviously this sounds like a much better way to go I'll just let you explain it different.

    [00:46:00] Faisal Abid: It is, it's a very eco-friendly environmentally friendly way because there's no harmful emissions being put into the environment and I think it is the future that this is what's going to happen.

    [00:46:12] Faisal Abid: The way it works is I don't know the science, but yes, you all right. The technical term is alkaline hydrolysis or acclamation. And what it does is it's 95% water, 5% alkali, and the water molecules and the alkali, everything mixed in with temperature breakdown. It's in this really cool looking occupation machine.

    [00:46:33] Faisal Abid: And so when someone passes away and it's really not that even that expensive, it's 2,500 for a cremation $3,000 for an acclimation. And so just 500 more. And I'm sure the price will go down as more people use it. And so the body, it gets put inside this awful machine and it takes around it.

    [00:46:55] Faisal Abid: It's not like cremation where it's so fast. But it takes, I think, and I could be really wrong here, but six hours or so to fully Aqua mate a body. But when it's done, what's really nice is the Ash that you get, like the remains, you get a lot more of it because the body dissolves in a very graceful way.

    [00:47:18] Faisal Abid: And then the bones are left and the bones are essentially. Broken down. And so you get a lot more of your loved one. And so you have an earn, so families are starting to prefer it because they go, okay. My loved one was very environmentally conscious. So I think they would have appreciated affirmation.

    [00:47:39] Frederick Weiss: Yeah. It's amazing all these different services. And I appreciate it. I'm sure others appreciate it as well. And so Faisal we're getting to the end of the show and we'll try to end with a little bit of levity, but at first off, I, if you look outside of your window, is it lightning out there?

    [00:48:02] Brian Hinton: I love that

    [00:48:09] Brian Hinton: lightning round. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. So you're, you might be familiar with the lightening round. We each ask you a question. I'll go first. You answer it in rapid succession. Let's see how many we can get through a lot. The record is a hundred. Let's try and beat that. Do you actually want pineapple on your pizza?

    [00:48:28] Faisal Abid: No.

    [00:48:32] Frederick Weiss: Hold on my pizza. What is your honestly what is your favorite thing about yourself? About you?

    [00:48:41] Faisal Abid: I can figure it out problems pretty quick. Love it.

    [00:48:46] Brian Hinton: What current fact about your life now would absolutely impress your five-year-old.

    [00:48:53] Faisal Abid: That I'm actually doing what I love.

    [00:48:58] Frederick Weiss: Faisal. If you could not be around a computer for the rest of your life, what would you be doing professionally?

    [00:49:06] Faisal Abid: I would make movies. Okay. You're in the circus. Would you rather be the person that sticks their head inside the lion's mouth or shot out of a cannon?

    [00:49:16] Faisal Abid: Probably shout out of the candidate?

    [00:49:18] Brian Hinton: No one likes the lion.

    [00:49:21] Frederick Weiss: Oh, what was your favorite cartoon as a kid?

    [00:49:24] Faisal Abid: Probably citizens.

    [00:49:27] Brian Hinton: Nice. Nice. Would you rather be able to run at a hundred miles per hour or fly at 10?

    [00:49:37] Faisal Abid: Probably. Flashers one. I don't know. Probably fly

    [00:49:45] Frederick Weiss: Faisal. What podcasts are you listening to recently for? Just to

    [00:49:49] Faisal Abid: relax. Oh, man. I was listening to Lex Friedman, which is a pretty cool podcast. I try to go for the scientists he brings on and it's really interesting.

    [00:50:05] Brian Hinton: What chore do you absolutely hate doing

    [00:50:10] Faisal Abid: Putting, loading up the dishwasher.

    [00:50:13] Faisal Abid: I wish I, someone makes a roadblock for this. Every time I load it on like this needs to be automated

    [00:50:21] Frederick Weiss: next year. Musk might bring it out, but Faisal, let me get back to this. What would you tell your 18 year old self? If you could go back in time?

    [00:50:30] Faisal Abid: Don't stress about. As I get older, I start to stress less and less.

    [00:50:37] Brian Hinton: Okay. You have 30 minutes of completely free time. No obligations. How do you pass it?

    [00:50:43] Faisal Abid: I will either play halo or I will lie on the couch and just watch YouTube videos. Love it.

    [00:50:50] Frederick Weiss: What are you reading for educational purposes?

    [00:50:55] Faisal Abid: I bought this book called crafting interpreters. It is by a Robert and ice storm.

    [00:51:01] Faisal Abid: It's a really cool book on building interpreters and stuff. That's been interesting. It's right here. Actually I'll plug the book, please.

    [00:51:17] Brian Hinton: What general fact just amazes you

    [00:51:22] Faisal Abid: that we are. So tiny in the universe, like I'm fascinated about galaxies and stuff, and just understanding of the scale that we existing, even in the span of time where we're insignificant, it's amazing.

    [00:51:38] Frederick Weiss: Faisal. Do you play an instrument? And if you do, what is it? And can you show us?

    [00:51:44] Faisal Abid: No, I don't play

    [00:51:45] Brian Hinton: an instrument. Good. Try there. I know. You know what he's trying to do there.

    [00:51:49] Frederick Weiss: Shh. Don't ruin it for everybody. You're trying to go.

    [00:51:53] Brian Hinton: Where do you mind not waiting? You're perfectly fine. Just waiting

    [00:51:57] Faisal Abid: In a line to a movie. I have waited like six, seven hours for, to watch a movie.

    [00:52:05] Frederick Weiss: What movie?

    [00:52:06] Frederick Weiss: That's going to be? My question

    [00:52:08] Brian Hinton: three.

    [00:52:10] Frederick Weiss: Okay.

    [00:52:10] Brian Hinton: Brian, that makes sense.

    [00:52:12] Brian Hinton: What do you miss most about being a kid?

    [00:52:15] Faisal Abid: I guess like recess and stuff was always fun. There was always drama. And it was always like a reality show happening. So that was fun.

    [00:52:25] Frederick Weiss: Th this will be my last question. Faisal, if you could solve just one world problem, what would it be? What would it be?

    [00:52:36] Faisal Abid: Ooh energy, probably something to do with energy storage or energy production.

    [00:52:44] Faisal Abid: I think just having a lot of energy and being able to store it really well. Just empower so many people in parts of the world where they don't have energy and climate change.

    [00:52:57] Frederick Weiss: Nope. No face a hold onto your hat. If you don't have a hat on what you don't for our audio listeners, I said just getting one and putting one on and holding on tight because I believe Brian's going to tell a joke.

    [00:53:07] Brian Hinton: No, I, before I go with my last one, I think you should ask the traditional one. You've always asked. It's hot Faisal.

    [00:53:17] Frederick Weiss: Faisal. Yeah. That's very well put Brian, thank you so much. Faisal. You come home. It is late. 2 37 in the morning, it is raining cats and dogs like literally. And you're like, ah, you're like, I just need to get in the house you get in your keys, you get in the house, you close it.

    [00:53:36] Frederick Weiss: You turn around you look and there's a ghost.

    [00:53:42] Faisal Abid: I run prob most likely run.

    [00:53:46] Brian Hinton: Well done. Alright. Fair enough.

    [00:53:49] Frederick Weiss: Okay. Here's where you should have had that hat on.

    [00:53:54] Brian Hinton: You can do the buildup. Why wouldn't the skeleton go trick or treating?

    [00:54:00] Faisal Abid: Because it had, I don't know. I don't know because he didn't have any

    [00:54:04] Brian Hinton: guts.

    [00:54:11] Frederick Weiss: I got one for ya. You ready? Brian? What does a vamp hire? Never order at a restaurant stick.

    [00:54:24] Faisal Abid: where are you saying? Speaking of vampire. I hope you guys want, watch what we do in the shadows. I love it. Every

    [00:54:31] Frederick Weiss: single episode and the movie. It's so good. I want my witch hat. I love that show. My theory

    [00:54:41] Faisal Abid: is going on too oh yeah. And I love Matt Barry. He is just amazed. Oh wait. Yeah. Such a

    [00:54:48] Brian Hinton: good show.

    [00:54:48] Brian Hinton: I watched a recent vampire one only lovers left alive. Highly recommend that movie so long ago. Yes. I don't believe

    [00:54:59] Frederick Weiss: I did. I told you I can't. I saw on Twitter, you said you just watched it. And I was like, Brian, I told you about that forever ago. Go good.

    [00:55:07] Brian Hinton: It is really good.

    [00:55:09] Frederick Weiss: Yeah. Anyway, Faisal, we're right about at the end.

    [00:55:12] Frederick Weiss: Two last things first. What's the best way people could find out about you and Eirene 

    [00:55:18] Faisal Abid: Are what you have on the screen. You can add me on Twitter. You can add me on LinkedIn or you can go to Eirene.ca directly.

    [00:55:27] Frederick Weiss: Excellent. All right, great. And for our last segment,

    [00:55:34] Frederick Weiss: thank you for the dancing Brian audio listeners. I suggest you go back and take a look, words of wisdom Faisal. We like to provide our guests with a closing opportunity to provide words of wisdom to our audience, Faisal. The stage is yours.

    [00:55:51] Faisal Abid: It's what I did is just work your ass off to try to get to a point where you can do exactly what you want to do how you want to do it.

    [00:56:02] Faisal Abid: You'll have to grind for a while. I'm sure many years but grind with the thing with the goal in mind that you're saving for some amount of money for some type of life that you want, and then just do it as soon as you hit that number.

    [00:56:20] Frederick Weiss: I love it. Excellent. Thank you so much. Yeah. W Faisal man, we're at the end of the show and I can't thank you enough for sharing your story and talking about Eirene and the amazing product and service that you're putting out there, which I helps out a ton of families.

    [00:56:37] Frederick Weiss: In a way that is appropriate especially in this day and age. So it's amazing. And thank you. Thank you so much, Brian. Thank

    [00:56:46] Brian Hinton: you. Yeah, thank you. We're spending another bit of your time with us. Time is valuable. Yeah, and you shared it with us and we appreciate that

    [00:56:55] Frederick Weiss: now. I really appreciate it.

    [00:56:57] Frederick Weiss: So that being said, thank you, everybody really appreciate you watching the show and we'll catch you next time. Take care!

    10 October 2021, 7:59 pm
  • 1 hour 5 minutes
    288 – ⚖️ Digital Ethics, Rights & Responsibilities with Ali Rizvi

    In this episode, we talk with Ali Rizvi, Vice President of Product Management at Star2Star, a Sangoma company. We discuss digital ethics, rights & responsibilities of technology companies such as Facebook. There are many aspects to how these entities influence our political climate and unnaturally distort social behavior. Some of the social media algorithms are presented to make our lives better, but do they? Are these types of technologies a fundamental threat to the whole of humanity, or just misunderstood?

    ✨ Episode Sponsor

    🔗 Episode Links

    📜 Transcript

    [00:00:00] Frederick Weiss: Welcome to the Thunder Nerds. I'm Frederick Weiss, and you’re consuming a show with the people behind the technology that love what they do, and do tech good. And our sponsor Auth0 is helping us do tech good all year long.

    [00:00:13] Frederick Weiss: Auth0 it makes it easy for developers to build a custom. Standard-based unified login by providing authentication and authorization as a service.

    [00:00:25] Frederick Weiss: Try them out now by going to Auth0.com. Also, check them out at YouTube.com/Auth0, Twitch.tv/Auth0, and Andavocadolabs.dev for their online meetup events. Thanks again Auth0.

    [00:00:45] Frederick Weiss: Let's go ahead and first welcome our guest co-host.

    [00:00:57] Frederick Weiss: We have Nick Sollecito, Nick, thank you so much for joining us. we're very honored and happy to have you, and I guess without any, ados being furthered, let's go ahead and welcome our guests. We have Musician, Martial artist, and Vice President of product management at Star2Star, a Sangoma company… Ali Rizvi.

    [00:01:26] Frederick Weiss: Welcome to the show.

    [00:01:32] Ali Rizvi: Hello everybody. Yeah, this is cool. I like the Thundercats so,

    [00:01:38] Frederick Weiss: so you appreciate the theme?

    [00:01:39] Ali Rizvi: Yeah.

    [00:01:42] Frederick Weiss: Let me ask you, who's your favorite Thundercat then?

    [00:01:45] Ali Rizvi: Cheetara.

    [00:01:49] Frederick Weiss: Yeah, I think mine was Mumm-Ra, because I always vote for the villain.

    [00:01:54] Frederick Weiss: I think that says a lot about me.

    [00:02:29] Frederick Weiss: So Ali, let's, go ahead and talk a little bit about you first before we jump into your role and exactly what you do. So first off, let me ask you, how have you been with everything going on with the COVID?

    [00:02:42] Frederick Weiss: you know, a lot of people are worried about the Delta and the Mu and there's a Lambda, I guess, coming up,  how are you doing? And how's your family and everybody?

    [00:02:55] Ali Rizvi: Everybody's good. I mean, vaccinated. So, and,  really proud to be vaccinated. And I guess the way of putting it,  aside from that, I mean, you know, It's just,  the overflow digitization is like the main sort of one that really kind of,  hurts, I suppose, on top of the challenge of having a deadly virus, you've got a, at least deadly virus in a, in a biological sense.

    [00:03:24] Ali Rizvi: We've got a deadly virus in a, in a psychological sense going on at the same time. and,  and so, you know, we've got,  two deadly viruses to contend with. and they all like any organic, organic matter or sides, psychological matter. Maybe I just invented something,  grabs, you know, they, they change, they evolve, they,  they find new hosts and they find,  you know, new target audiences,  all day long.

    [00:03:59] Ali Rizvi: yeah, there's

    [00:04:00] Frederick Weiss: definitely certain variants of. You know, low-key going around and each one is different depending on your, your mental capacity or, you know, to be fair to where you get your news. But I, I wanna, I wanna really ask you about, you made a big move and I like to dive into that, and I'm wondering if this move was,  you know, if, if the, the COVID was the catalyst for this big move politically and physically

    [00:04:29] Ali Rizvi: partially.

    [00:04:29] Ali Rizvi: Yeah. I mean, I'm a big reason for my move was actually more for my daughter. you know, she kind of grew up,  and I'm, I'm not gonna, I'm not judging anything here with, she grew up in a small sort of,  suburban New Jersey town. And,  as we've seen, in, in our sort of current history and current psychological states of, of the Americas, That, you know, those kinds of small towns create echo chambers, and those echo chambers become,  you know, a rash, so to speak that doesn't go away necessarily.

    [00:05:15] Ali Rizvi: That takes a lot of time to kind of, and I'm speaking a little bit a territory, but,  for me, it was really taking her out of that echo chamber and exposing her to a wider reality. that exists outside of the United States up, unfortunately, that wider reality. and so, I w I made it kind of a mission for myself to go seek out a country where, people live more, people live more organically, I think, as a way of putting it, and have, and have some old-style values about a deeper connection, about,  less judgment.

    [00:06:00] Ali Rizvi: I'm more open, I'm more willing to connect emotionally and not just the, not just physically and sort of in a work situation. And,  we've certainly found that in Mexico. so I live in a small town called San Miguel de Allende and, it's a old colonial-style town and it could be anywhere in Europe to be, to be honest, you know, you've got a, a world heritage site here.

    [00:06:30] Ali Rizvi:  that's a cathedral in the center of town and there are always parties going on center of town,  lots of tequila, which I'm a big fan of. I also

    [00:06:44] Ali Rizvi: of course, and,  mariachi bands and,  people really,  generally getting along and partying and I've yet to see a fight and break out and in the center of town and the. the garden. and so,  and, and people have disagreements and don't,  don't necessarily get into,  confrontational situations.

    [00:07:07] Ali Rizvi: so that kind of genteel lifestyle,  people, and we, I mean, you know, in America, in America, yesteryear, we have that as well. Uh we've we've just let it degrade. And,  so for me, it was really that wider exposure.  and,  and on top of that, the COVID thing was very interesting because I actually moved here.

    [00:07:29] Ali Rizvi: I actually came and sought out this place in, in,  November. Oh, wait, November last year, 2020. And like the. You know,  

    [00:07:39] Frederick Weiss: before the election, right after the election,

    [00:07:42] Ali Rizvi: I guess, right after the elections. That's right. and it was kind of timed with the elections in case something went wrong.

    [00:07:51] Frederick Weiss: Like an Insurrection?

    [00:07:53] Ali Rizvi: Yeah.

    [00:07:54] Ali Rizvi: so, you know, something went wrong. I had a, I had a really good plan B already in place, which became plan a, yeah. And,  I'm very, very happy about it.

    [00:08:05] Frederick Weiss: love that. I think it goes along with, a theme of our current working situation. Now with our quote-unquote new normal, if, if that's still a phrase people use where, you know, you can work anywhere in the world and you should, because it's so advantageous for companies one to, you know,  kind of, bring down some of that brick and mortar that they're paying for all that overhead.

    [00:08:33] Frederick Weiss: And to just to be able to,  pull talent from anywhere in the world, there are so many amazing individuals out there that, you know, might not be acquitted, Quint incidentally in your backyard. Right. You know, they might not be within a 50-mile radius.

    [00:08:52] Ali Rizvi: Hey, you know, I'm, I'm looking for,  three or four product managers right now.

    [00:08:59] Ali Rizvi: Anybody comes on and listens to this, later on, you know,  look me up. So,  the, yeah, from a talent standpoint, You know, my,   I worked for a really good company in the sense of there, there were conscientious there, their consciousness around,  around talent and, and,  that they were so flexible with me to, to make this move.

    [00:09:24] Ali Rizvi: and,   and what's funny is that, you know, my, the, the, the, the town that I live in, they've got fiber here. And so, yeah, my internet actually here is better than my internet in Jersey. so that's all, that's interesting.

    [00:09:44] Frederick Weiss: I can say a lot of things about things being better from Jersey cause I'm from Jersey and yes, you definitely don't want to be in Jersey.

    [00:09:51] Frederick Weiss: Trust me.

    [00:09:53] Ali Rizvi: Oh yeah. I've got so much family there. It's really kind of interesting. and now there are people interested in moving here and that, you know, I wonder, I wonder,  If I'm likely not the only one.  and if there are certainly some, some trends where, where people are engaging in this kind of flexible work, and flexible lifestyle, I'm sure there are.

    [00:10:19] Ali Rizvi: And,  and,   hopefully, you know, that as an industry, as a, as a,  employer, employee culture, we would even further evolved,  you know, even, even,  more globally. and I think, you know,  I think those trends are certainly going in that direction. Although at the same time, we have a lot to get into politics too much, but we have a global sort of nationalism going on at the same time.

    [00:10:51] Ali Rizvi: And I'm really curious how those two play where, certainly I would seek out,  I mean, we currently hire people from,  from Russia and from Ukraine. and, but at the end, at the same time we have these, you know,  political,  silos being created. And I wonder how that's gonna play out, for hiring talent across the world.

    [00:11:23] Nick Sollecito: What do you think about that? I mean, I think one question I had was, like how has the change in the time zone to like, did you, did you find any challenges not being in the same time as the rest of your team that you're working with? Or, you know, just, just trying to coordinate work across,  different, different parts of the county.

    [00:11:45] Ali Rizvi: Sure. That was kind of part of my analysis. when I first was looking at different places in the world to live in my first choice was, Sorento, Italy.

    [00:12:00] Ali Rizvi: the Amalfi coast was my first choice, but,  so that didn't work out because of time zones. I would have been working from 2:00 PM or whatever, you know? and so I sought out and I love that kind of Mediterranean landscape that,  that mixture of, of green and sort of deserty climate. It's just, I love that.

    [00:12:27] Ali Rizvi: And so, I sought that out in our time zone and, and so this city is in the same time zone as Mexico city,  which is,  central, so central. So one hour, one hour off from,   Eastern. Oh, so it actually worked, worked out and I, you know, working with teams and in India teams in Russia teams and,  parts of the cell, California, and so many different time zones Dallas at the same time zone to me.

    [00:13:00] Ali Rizvi: so, you know, after a while it just becomes like, eh, time zone, what does it really mean? right. And it'd be, I think it's beginning to mean less. and I said seems to be the trend. Yeah.

    [00:13:19] Ali Rizvi: But, but, but I will say that. A lot easier being at least somewhat close. I really, I wouldn't want to be working nights, you know,  from an India office, you know what I mean? Oh

    [00:13:31] Frederick Weiss: yeah. I've had conversations with people that have been working from like, well, I had a meeting the other day with a gentleman that was like, oh yeah.

    [00:13:41] Frederick Weiss: It's like one 30 in the morning here. I'm like, oh, I want to call, oh my God. I feel horrible.

    [00:13:46] Ali Rizvi: Yeah. Yeah. and that's an interesting thing that you mentioned I've had that same thing happen to me where. You know, they made a decision to work in that time zone and, and to kind of take the hit, right. I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to do this, but what's weird is like, I feel bad about it. Like, oh shit, I'm gonna, you know, sorry, dude. You know, you're not sleeping at a normal time.  but you know, so it's kind of interesting, and this is a topic that I kind of wanted to touch on.  it's kinda near, near right now for me, it gave some of the transformational changes that are, that are, that is going through is the emotional part of work, you know? And, we're all under a lot of duress. we are, feeling unsafe in the world, not just because of COVID, but because of climate change,   the amount of violence in the world has skyrocketed. and, you know, the, sort of the siloed,  nationalism, and then, you know, the extent the, actually the real manifestation of imperialism, all of these things, and feudalism coming back at, you know, raging back, and.

    [00:15:13] Ali Rizvi: Not really, not a monarchy, but certainly a whole lot of all their Garcon bolt patterns showing, showing up. Yeah. We definitely have

    [00:15:21] Frederick Weiss: these two, two different tribes for the most part,  within the United States, you know, you could say there's, you know, the far right. And the far left and you know, the, the people in between, but those two tribes are really at each other's throats where, you know, a lot of times,  in holidays, you can't, you, you know, you don't go to someone's house just because of that.

    [00:15:42] Frederick Weiss: One reason alone, like, oh, you voted for so-and-so. Oh, or you're not wearing a mask or you are wearing a mask. These are, very polarizing topics. And a lot of it it's a P people blame each other and say that, oh, this person's stupid. Or that person's stupid. Or everybody's saying that each other is stupid, but it's really that people get their news from two.

    [00:16:05] Frederick Weiss: main rivers, right? They drink from two different rivers and they, they, they communicate back and forth to each other. Let's say, Hey, don't drink out of that river. That, that water is poison, but really it's, you know, there's, there's some in-between if,  we could get back to a place of civility.

    [00:16:24] Ali Rizvi: Yeah.

    [00:16:24] Ali Rizvi: But I think that what I was kind of getting at is that I don't think that's possible anymore. in the sense that there's a lot of these type of patterns happening, plus not being a product person on like, you know, into patterns. and,  and you know, there's a lot of these very, what are becoming very deep-rooted patterns, especially the oligarchical patterns.

    [00:16:53] Ali Rizvi: yes, becoming very deep-rooted whether it's a corporate oligarchy or, or actually political,  or systemic oligarchy anyway, but, but I was kind of getting back to, I want to get back to the, the, the work part of it and the, the human part of it, where there's so much, there's so much conflict and so much stress because of all of these things.

    [00:17:15] Ali Rizvi: And we know all about them because we can get them in our social feeds, get them in our, you know, in YouTube, we get them from the news network news or news networks or whatever echo chamber of news that we decide to participate in. that’s, that stress, is actually the beginning to me, as I can see it in the world beginning to, erode,  productivity,  productivity in a creative sense.

    [00:17:45] Ali Rizvi: People certainly go to work and get a paycheck. but when you don't feel safe in the world, you know, our brain is, is,  negativity has a negativity bias. And when, when there's so much negativity happening, our brain is preoccupied by that bias and less and less of our brain share on Mindshare is occupied in creative work, unless we can really like, you know, I really applaud people, these, these great masters that show up on YouTube, just guitar genius or, or whatnot.

    [00:18:25] Ali Rizvi:  but they're all, they're almost like savant because they live in a bubble and that's how they're able to kind of, you know, continue to operate at that creative, creative space. But if you're in a work environment,  so I've started those exceptions. If you're in a general your general employee,

    [00:18:48] Ali Rizvi: I find like how, how is everyone really.

    [00:18:52] Ali Rizvi: Really dealing with this. I think I said interesting, you know,  at least interesting question for me. How are you, how are,  you know, people being creative,  within the context of being an employee? because that's different from me sitting at my house and playing guitar and kind of be expressing their creativity.

    [00:19:12] Ali Rizvi:  so as a musician and as, you know, someone working in technology as a business person or technologist, it's a really interesting curiosity because I can find myself too distracted, for my creative juices to easily flow. And that's been my experience. I have to literally silo myself from all the shit that's happening, all the, you know, through the news media and all that jazz.

    [00:19:42] Ali Rizvi: So, that's and I just wonder, like how that's really impacting, In fact, people. and I haven't burned any studies on, this particular thing, but I'd be curious about that.

    [00:19:57] Frederick Weiss: Yeah, because it's interesting. It's one of those,  basic,  I'm not sure the term, maybe it's the pyramid, something such as that, of a, of safety,  you know, where yeah.

    [00:20:09] Frederick Weiss: Shelter, food, water, et cetera. Right. and if you don't have those things, you're not running at an optimal capacity, you don't have the ability to put out the things that you may need to,  be,  to fully be productive.

    [00:20:28] Ali Rizvi: Yeah. I mean, we're in us, experiencing. We used to, we used to look at the outside world, like, you know, someone in Afghanistan as an example in the hinterland of, of Gunnison where there's a lot of military conflict and they don't have food on their table.

    [00:20:51] Ali Rizvi: they're sick, they're poor, they're starving. they don't have time for any higher level thinking. Right. Because they're surviving. Yeah. And,  and we would always look out and, you know, as, as, as Americans and look out and say, oh man, look how sad that is. But to me what's interesting is while it's not in the same way,  happening it's, but it is happening in the inbox.

    [00:21:19] Ali Rizvi: we are, there are definitely places where people are starving quite literally within the United States. That's right. And how, you know, for, for a. a country born of the Protestant ethic, right. and across the manifesto, which is such a part of our work culture, and how we call it productive. And in this country, is that playing out?

    [00:21:47] Ali Rizvi: it's just, it's a degradation of all of those values completely. but it is what's happening by default, right? And that's, that's where I get into product management where, the beauty of I'm going to segue to, the beauty of product management is that it,  products are done by design. and not by default.

    [00:22:15] Ali Rizvi: A big believer in that.  I hate products that are created by default. I got hate is a strong word, I guess, but I think I do hate products that I've created by default, versus by design. and I, you know, saying, I feel like product management is a, especially in our kind of world where we've productized the hell out of everything, right?

    [00:22:38] Ali Rizvi:  your Instagram, identity as a product. you're, you know, we've, we've created this concept of personal brands, which essentially means, or productizing yourself.

    [00:22:53] Frederick Weiss:  Everyone's a product, everyone's an influencer, right? 

    [00:22:56] Ali Rizvi: That's right. That's right. And so,  but what's interesting is that a lot of the way people end up creating products, even themselves is by default, versus.

    [00:23:10] Ali Rizvi: You know, and then they find out and they discover, well, why am I in so much pain? Well, because it's by default, people are operating from, you know, their fears and their traumas and,  or their external environment. and,  they become expressions of that versus, you know, pulling back and taking the time,  to really, make a decision about what matters to you.

    [00:23:43] Ali Rizvi: And do you have a set of principles? that's one of the things I always teach other product managers is having a set of principles for your product, a guideline that's, unbreakable, as much as you can. Right. but you will never.

    [00:24:03] Frederick Weiss: Do you mind if I, I don't mean to interject, but that, that, that certainly brings up something that I did want to talk to you.

    [00:24:10] Frederick Weiss: And I want to get back to that point, but you know, when you're talking about, ethics and honesty and responsibility and, you know, to extent governance of, of these products,  I would love to talk about something that's,  very,  topical,  of, of recent, which is the whole, the thing with Facebook and how they went down.

    [00:24:33] Frederick Weiss: And,  one of the things that I found very, McCobb was,  one, a part of the algorithm that they discussed was how, when you could make people angry, you could get more engagement. So they would try to get people angry about a subject, and then they would be able to, to hook them in.  to, to get more, you know, you know, obviously if they get more engagement on their platform, they sell more ads would be to do everything's wonderful for them.

    [00:25:06] Frederick Weiss: How does that reflect on a company like Facebook? kind of,  I don't want to say taking advantage of humanity to make a dollar, but maybe I am.

    [00:25:20] Ali Rizvi: What do you think? Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, guys like Asimov, grape, you know, science fiction writers, I was in law, a timeline,  you know, Scott Carr, they, they all predicted these type of things and,  you know, many, many years ago.

    [00:25:36] Ali Rizvi: and,  so, I, I'm going to kind of take the conversation a little bit higher.  we call these things called, we call these things social networks. All right. But if you, you know, one of the things I'd love to do is break down language. if you break down the words,

    [00:26:00] Nick Sollecito: social network,

    [00:26:04] Ali Rizvi: in net is something that you use.

    [00:26:08] Ali Rizvi: for two purposes, one, a net helps you quantify

    [00:26:15] Nick Sollecito: an object,   quantified and bits and bytes of an object. You can surround it with a

    [00:26:21] Ali Rizvi: net and you can see every part of the net and kind of say, oh, this is 25 pieces based on the net that I, but it's really, then the second part is to design, to, control or your net.

    [00:26:33] Ali Rizvi: You control thing, throw a net on it, on the animal.

    [00:26:37] Nick Sollecito: you know,

    [00:26:38] Ali Rizvi: it's designed for control and, and you know, and so it's very easy. I mean, social net, I mean, it's a net around society at the end of.  and so I don't think anyone should be surprised, that a piece of technology that was designed to be a net around societies is doing nefarious things.

    [00:27:06] Ali Rizvi: and we should be surprised.  I mean, if you go back to the history of Silicon Valley, and the early writings of, you know, the gurus of Silicon Valley,  who eventually became very wealthy venture capitalists,  because they not only built the technologies, but they, you know, told everybody,  through various forms of propaganda,  what people wanted.

    [00:27:36] Ali Rizvi: and when you can, when you know, there's a great book,  we're kind of going deep here. It was a great book called manufactured consent by non-Chomsky, either one, you guys have read that book,  but it's a great treatise on how to manufacture consent.

    [00:27:53] Ali Rizvi: so you don't have to force someone to do something you just manufactured their consent to do it.

    [00:27:59] Ali Rizvi: And the social networks were great at that. they manufactured our consent, our consent to give up our data consent, to give up our entire lives. you know, everything about us into a platform that,  then hired neuroscientists and, you know, all kinds of specialists and built monster AI as is, and, and,  to analyze all of this data and then, and then double down on the concept of the net.

    [00:28:33] Ali Rizvi: and in fact that the internet is, is, has another net. and it's military technology, right? So you can also go directly to the yesteryears, know why does a military, why do military create technologies? That basic question? Why do you guys think militaries create technologies?

    [00:28:56] Frederick Weiss: I would venture a guess.

    [00:28:59] Frederick Weiss: That is very obvious, but I'm going to assume it's not. So I'm going to defer to your answer, which is

    [00:29:06] Ali Rizvi: okay, which is its warfare

    [00:29:13] Ali Rizvi: war and war is about either taking something from someone or subjugating them. Right. Okay. So, so if, you know, you know, going back again to yesteryear's,  DARPA, you know, financing most of the early Silicon valley products, and DARPA the defense agency that,  is involved with, you know, acquisition of technologies through funding startups.

    [00:29:46] Ali Rizvi: Uh it's, it becomes really obvious once you look at the history of it. And so I'm certainly not surprised,  by, at Facebook. and,  and the other thing to really look at for me is, to even get more basic and get more human, most of, most of the, to me, most of these technology companies, when I want to invest in them,   I do invest with them.

    [00:30:15] Ali Rizvi: I look at the CTO, I really analyze the CTO, and. Because the CEO and a lot of these companies represent the company, represents the ethics of the company, or represents the mindset, the value. Yeah. I mean, well, the culture from the founder, right? Just the word founder, right? Again, you dissect that word.

    [00:30:42] Ali Rizvi:  we say a founder of a religion, a founder of this and a founder of that. so this is a mythological, you know, model, and,  we are, humans are mythological printers. We, we, you know,  no matter how much you try to cut it out, you're the religion that you were born. Good has a mythological influence on you and how you see the world.

    [00:31:09] Ali Rizvi: And so,  we kind of touched a lot of different things, but that's how I see it. So when you, when you,  when you see, Zuckerberg, in an action. You know, either in a Senate hearing or wherever, it's, a person that, for, for whatever reason, no judgment in terms of perhaps they're, you know, naturally born psychological challenges potentially, but someone that doesn't have any,  true,  doesn't have a broad connection to feeling compassion or empathy.

    [00:31:52] Ali Rizvi: Right. It becomes very obvious, or the lack of empathy,  not only, you know, and if you have a lack of empathy in general, that's gonna, that's gonna permeate in your organization.

    [00:32:06] Frederick Weiss: Let me, let me ask you a question then. Cause that, that brings up a very, very interesting point. So as, a medical professional, such as a doctor, For example, let's say they have to disconnect themselves every day at a, at a certain extent from what they're doing.

    [00:32:24] Frederick Weiss: They, they see a lot of different things.  there could be multiple,  scenarios with a loss of life through just their, you know,  nine to 10,  through the day, right. Nine in the morning through 10 of the night. So, you know,

    [00:32:42] Ali Rizvi: as a physician. So definitely.

    [00:32:44] Frederick Weiss: Yeah. So you, so you got the idea. So I just want to play devil's advocate and see what you think.

    [00:32:49] Frederick Weiss: So hypothetically, and I'm not defending anybody devil's advocate. You could see my horns they're there naturally, but to play devil's advocate, this gentleman, mark Zuckerberg, ease. Oh, let's approach it this way. He's developing a process. He's finding these behaviors that, you know, as I cited earlier, oh,  making people angry and aggressive helps, get engagement to a higher performance rate, which sells more ads.

    [00:33:22] Frederick Weiss: That's my business model. That's what I'm doing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Right now that being said. and, and also let me append to that where I also read things about how, young people are going to Instagram and they're finding all these things like, such as being, uh and going down those roads where they normally wouldn't have,  prior to, you know,  you know, technology and all these things being so accessible, you know, tech content being available, information being available is great, but is it being misused?

    [00:34:01] Frederick Weiss: So. To all that being said, let me put this into a question. Mark Zuckerberg is putting out a product. He sees the different things. That, make his product more performance. And to a certain extent, people are quote-unquote,  enjoying them. They're using them. They're getting more engagement. So obviously these are things that people want now, is that a fair statement or is it more than not, this guy is obviously a dirtbag?

    [00:34:36] Ali Rizvi: well, I think you can't isolate it into one person. Right? We've got a systemic issue. and, and you know, while I certainly look,  as a product person, I love to create great products that someone wants to be. and,  and enjoy, you know, I'm in, I'm in the business,  you know, in the business,  an enterprise product business, that's, that's different than commercial products,  but, or consumer products at the same time, you know, similar, similar sets of patterns apply.

    [00:35:16] Ali Rizvi:  but,  the systemic problem is, is deeper, right? look, we've known all this since the beginning of, the beginning of that, this kind of,  fast-moving technological advancement, you know, no surprises, there are no surprises, no one should be surprised. And on top of that, we've created a cult of capitalism, that you know, that we'll constantly subvert any, any questions.

    [00:35:52] Ali Rizvi: Of, that,  something is morally or ethically incorrect if it's in the name of money and business

    [00:36:02] Frederick Weiss: MSG.

    [00:36:04] Ali Rizvi: Right. And, and so,  yeah, I mean,   you know, DDT,  right. I mean, we, or, or messing with genes and,  we know that we have no freaking clue what actually is going to happen as a result of that. Right? We have no freaking clue.  we pretend to,  we even pretend to make decisions based on data. And for the most part, we do a lot of nice data crunching, and then we make a, you know, just a decision, which is why most businesses fail. right. Because you always know what the right thing is to do.

    [00:36:50] Ali Rizvi: But the question is whether you going to do it or not. and so when you know, we've set this up, you know, this whole Facebook thing is a symptom. It's a symptom of, it's not, it's a sin. Look, if you, as a, if you were a good example is,  maybe clothing, right? Look, it's great to make good quotes.  and you, if you'd love to make clothing,  and you make this clothing and you,  and you love, people, love your clothing and they buy your clothing and you made clothes for the sake of the love for making clothes.

    [00:37:32] Ali Rizvi: but if you make clothes for money, then you're not making clothes anymore.

    [00:37:42] Ali Rizvi: that's not what you're doing anymore. You're making money. And if money is the objective, then you're going to cheat on the clothes.

    [00:37:49] Frederick Weiss: That's right. Yeah. It's, it's funny. It makes me think of this. A quote, which I think is very apropos from,  Silicon Valley, which I'm sure everyone here has seen nice necklace by the way.

    [00:38:02] Frederick Weiss: from, oh, I forget his boss at the time the CEO, he asks, what's his name? Richard. He asked Richard, what do you think our product is? Richard? And Richard of course said, well, you know, the, the algorithm that's, that's the product. And he said wrong, Richard it's stock.

    [00:38:23] Ali Rizvi: Yes. and it's even more insidious, right?

    [00:38:28] Ali Rizvi: Because a lot of these startup guys and gals initially had a, had a value-based purpose there. It was, you know, there was a sense of, you know, rightness about these early days of the valley and early days of techno. I think, you know, and based on the works I've read, I believe it was there, but what's insidious is that once you move away from just the backs of the close example, once you move away from making good clones to making money, and you start cheating on the clothes, you export your labor to a really cheap country, where there's labor is really cheap,  where you Chan obfuscate the fact that you're using slave labor to make the great stuff that you have and sell it for ridiculous amounts of profit.

    [00:39:26] Ali Rizvi: and,  and hence, you know, really co you know, act like a colonial power again, through the lens of a corporate entity. and,  you know, you can do that if you're that, if you, your greed as operating begins to operate at that level,  imagine where else, this, this thing, this sort of virus and this greed begins to permeate your value systems, your, you know, look at all the people that hung out with Epstein.

    [00:40:02] Frederick Weiss: Oh, Jesus. Right. There's a photo of so many high profile individuals like bill Clinton,  Donald Trump, gays. I think

    [00:40:13] Ali Rizvi: your mission around gates, you know, has his, does, does the dissolution of his marriage is linked to his, his,  relationship with Epstein and whatever the fuck he did over there. We don't know.

    [00:40:29] Frederick Weiss: Good idea. Good idea. Good idea. There's some FDF stuff going on there. And when they say F I mean, fucked up,

    [00:40:36] Ali Rizvi: really fucked up, but most awful of awful. Awful, awful, awful, awful. But it all comes down to. A,  a society that is not willing to fold certain things sacred anymore. All right. I'm going to kind of go into a little bit of metaphysics.

    [00:40:56] Ali Rizvi: here is that, if you can't, if you lose that, sense of sacredness about things, like you, like just your ethical, your value system, if that becomes fungible because the operating system that the society is beginning to move towards is, is complete, you know,   opposite of, of that. And slowly but surely, right?

    [00:41:28] Ali Rizvi: You become more and more influenced, you know, and these technologies have to create incredible acceleration of. Really moving people's psychological and value systems along towards, you know, wherever they want to move it. and so, yeah, it's interesting that we've gone down this rabbit hole. but, but you know, it, it, it goes back to,  from a product management standpoint.

    [00:41:58] Ali Rizvi: I remember this,  this book that came out, fall hooked by NIR Eyal. yeah,

    [00:42:04] Frederick Weiss: love that book.

    [00:42:06] Ali Rizvi: I love that book too, but I completely disagreed with him. I said, Tom said, this shit is fucked up, dude. You are, you are doing, you are, you are,  creating a product out of, manufacturing people's consent, you know, and you're selling this book.

    [00:42:33] Ali Rizvi: Making millions of bucks dollars on this book that is teaching people how to fool people at the end of the day. At least for me, that's my opinion, right? I'm creating a product that is going to hook you, and I'm going to look a, the word hook has been around for a long time. I mean,  you know, musicians use that as well.

    [00:42:56] Ali Rizvi: You know, you create a riff, you create a hook, it's a Griff, it's a, it's a, it's a verse. you know, in song learns, there's a hook. it's a great time time.  I'm a big fan of seven, eight says Russia's man speak brush fan.  but,   but you know, that, that I disagree with the flack that, that he made a text.

    [00:43:30] Ali Rizvi: Really at the end of the day, about how to create more products like Instagram. there's this book that I've read, that was reviled by the, you know, especially all you see is called the internet is not the answer. and,  you know, it had a bit of influence on me. at that time, I didn't agree with everything that this,  this, I forgot the official name.

    [00:43:58] Ali Rizvi: but I did agree with him that, we know that if we go headlong down this path, and if you've seen the matrix, you guys seen the matrix, right? There's a part in the majors where Trinity opens up the door of the car and she points out and she says, you know, you know where that's going to leave. and I think we always know where that, where things live.

    [00:44:31] Ali Rizvi: but, whether, you know, you call it human nature or, or whatever you call it,  just the movement of the cosmos may be, that,  that, that, you know, we go down this path knowing, I mean, we know, and, and that's where I really disagreed with him because he, he, he,  productize,  taking people out and convincing them to do things that maybe they really didn't want to do.

    [00:45:00] Ali Rizvi: And as a technologist, you know, it's kind of an as an, as an anathema, the right word,  in essence, you know,  but, but I want to, I believe in the value of creating a great product that people want to use, and sure we got to make money off of it. Absolutely. Yeah. We need to make money. We need to make, to survive.

    [00:45:20] Ali Rizvi: We need to make money for our shareholders, but if your point becomes to make money and not about providing value. Through to your customers through great product, then you've got problems.

    [00:45:33] Frederick Weiss: Yeah. Well, if you have to use these, anti-patterns to get people to do the things that you want them to do, is that the, you know, there are, there comes a question up from that, you know, is your, is your product questionable?

    [00:45:50] Frederick Weiss:  is your product actually a good product or is it just something that, you know, somebody, you know,  a few levels above, you said, oh, that's great MVP, ship it. And you know, you have to do whatever you can to provide your users. Some dopamine hits an order to,  you know, make sure that you're around next quarter.

    [00:46:14] Ali Rizvi: Well, that's it right? I mean, you, you said something really interesting here, the duke, you mean heads, it's obvious that Facebook can afford the, scientific research, but they need to understand how to control people. Get them to do what they want. Right. And, or to provide a technology that allows others to control people, to get them to do what they want.

    [00:46:37] Ali Rizvi: my daughter actually just wrote, an article on media bias for her class. and,  you know, and, and, and, and she's, you know, she's at this generation she's 16 and, and she's, you know, it was an interesting learning experience for her because she got to actually pull the veil off of all of these, you know, apps.

    [00:47:03] Ali Rizvi: She regularly uses, you know, Instagram and WhatsApp. you know, a lot of WhatsApp here because Mexico is a big WhatsApp,  country.  in fact,  what's really interesting in Mexico. Facebook has an agreement with Mexico.  so when you buy a,  the mobile sign here,  all the WhatsApp. Yeah, what's that all of all the apps, Facebook apps, messenger, WhatsApp, they don't count against your data.

    [00:47:33] Ali Rizvi: I

    [00:47:34] Frederick Weiss: actually had a lot of conversations with many, many people,  all over the globe and WhatsApp. That's the way they,  have these conversations with their family all around the world is, is yeah. It's they leverage it in the exact same way without having to use their data. WhatsApp is a great,

    [00:47:52] Ali Rizvi: yeah. great technology and look, I think that's an incredibly valuable technology.

    [00:47:59] Ali Rizvi: but do I find the echo chamber of these Facebook forums valuable? a lot less. So,  they've created they've,  you know, made a lot of trouble,  going back to the Facebook, you know, outing of them, by the name? I forgot her name. yeah. It's oh, the whistleblower, the whistleblower, right,

    [00:48:27] Frederick Weiss: right.

    [00:48:28] Frederick Weiss: I don't recall her name off the top of my head. It would have to

    [00:48:34] Ali Rizvi: know that is, I mean, it's, it's gone to the lack of trust is the other thing. the lack of trust now, and amongst the people of the world, the lack of trust in institutions, the lack of trust, and I think basic humanity,

    [00:49:00] Ali Rizvi: is really interesting because right now, the way I feel is, I don't know if she's a whistleblower and meaning, meaning that I'm wondering if she's just simply part of the great distractions.

    [00:49:13] Frederick Weiss: Ah, yes. If that was an intentional, whistleblower, if you will, like, it was more of a ruse to cover something up because we all know,  you know, the following day there was,  some kind of hollow blue, which took the platform down for hours and hours and hours, the building was locked. What kind of coverup did they do?

    [00:49:34] Frederick Weiss: And so was that all part of some kind of,  I don't want to go all conspiracy theory on everybody, but you know, maybe it was some part of a,  a planned kind of thing done by the,  by,

    [00:49:50] Ali Rizvi: by, the people in Facebook, the nefarious evil Cadray and say,

    [00:49:59] Frederick Weiss: yes, I was trying to not say like the robot people from Venus, but yes, you get my point,

    [00:50:03] Ali Rizvi: you know?

    [00:50:03] Ali Rizvi: but, but, but think about, you know, controlling the narrative as part of manufactured consent, um,

    [00:50:12] Frederick Weiss: Yeah, I think early yesterday, I mean, right. Like right away on Twitter when Facebook was down for maybe an hour,  I think those conspiracy theories started that, oh, you know, there's this big Senate hearing, that's coming up with a whistleblower. So Facebook's just trying to control the narrative. There were, there was those, ideas kind of being floated out there almost immediately,  that I saw.

    [00:50:34] Nick Sollecito: So it's, so it's interesting that you bring that up too because I think it's just very common that we're, you know, as a society, so skeptical these days that, you know, we're so quick to think,  you know, this is something that far is going on. It's not, you know, it's not just black and white. There's definitely nuance in there.

    [00:50:50] Nick Sollecito: And, you know, we're trying to find like, what's the real answer and we may never know, you know, that's, that's, that's kind of what too, right?

    [00:51:00] Nick Sollecito: we may never know like it could have been just like a, you know, a major outage incident,  that was completely unrelated to the news, or it could have been.

    [00:51:09] Ali Rizvi: Yeah. I mean, it almost doesn't matter anymore. It

    [00:51:13] Nick Sollecito: doesn't,

    [00:51:16] Ali Rizvi: it's actually deeper. Right? I say I would say it's deeper than noise because, it, it reflects on the systemic problem. a breakdown and, and, common value systems. You know, we used to all believe that there was a thing called a

    [00:51:40] Nick Sollecito: fact.

    [00:51:42] Frederick Weiss: Yeah. And now we have fake news

    [00:51:46] Ali Rizvi: and now the fact is a fact is debatable.

    [00:51:50] Frederick Weiss: Yeah. Facts are debatable fact awaits. People still believe that there's a lot of people that believe that the earth is flat. Like legitimately believe intimately, believe that the earth is, you know,  stood upon four elephants that stand on a turtle,

    [00:52:09] Ali Rizvi: and then we can walk up to the edge, like a crystal at the end that you can go and touch

    [00:52:16] Frederick Weiss: again.

    [00:52:17] Frederick Weiss: I, again, though, this goes back to my previous point, I don't think, and I'm going to, I think I might be,  being generous. but I don't believe that these people are stupid. I think again, it goes back to there's people that get their news from over here and people that get their news from over there. I bet if you measure their IQs, there's probably a lot of, equal,  intelligent and less intelligent individuals, but it all comes to where certain people get their news and who,  is in charge and possibly controlling either in a negative, positive or neutral sense.

    [00:53:03] Ali Rizvi:  I, I would take it further. I think that I think we in the us, got really lazy, in the sense that we believe that,  we had evolved as humans for living. We actually have. And, you know, and, and,  evolution is a very long. Long-winded, you know, pattern, you know, for, fruit flies to grow, you know, little spiny things on it's on this legs, it takes, you know, a million years.

    [00:53:46] Ali Rizvi: well,

    [00:53:47] Nick Sollecito: what happened,

    [00:53:47] Ali Rizvi: you know, very long time,  and, and humans had been around in the great evolutionary chain. and you know, just not only are just an organic matter, forget about this geological matter,  for a very short period of time, but,   kind of moving to,   a couple of other topics, I think we got really lazy cause we thought we were more, and, and technology kind of fooled us.

    [00:54:17] Ali Rizvi: All right. It did look, we create these amazing

    [00:54:22] Frederick Weiss: things. this iPhone, oh my God. It could make me a cheese pizza, but yeah, we're, we're, we're just, we're just people.  and these things aren't might not be as great as we imagine them to be. We are, we're not even a type one civilization.

    [00:54:40] Ali Rizvi: No. I mean, you know,  I love the work of,  what's his name?

    [00:54:45] Ali Rizvi:  no. Yeah. I love his work too.  no, there's a guy who, who was actually tossed at a Ted Conference. and then. Yeah, they'd bend his TedTalk.  can't don't remember his name, but he did this interesting. He found this interesting, this is going to sound wacky, but, in this day and age where, you know, where the stuff that was supposed to be believable is less believable.

    [00:55:19] Ali Rizvi: I tend towards thinking that the stuff that was less believable maybe is more believable. You know, the stuff that we, you know, through propaganda and the right set of, you know,   marketing messages, I'm always supposed to push aside, which is that,  it could very well be that there were much more advanced societies before the society.

    [00:55:42] Ali Rizvi: Absolutely. and, we don't know for sure.  but we have some good ideas. and, there are some really good,  studies in scientific research on this, but the reason why we wouldn't explore that,  or wouldn't allow that to come within our psychological frame. Is because it is that it would begin to diminish our ego, you know, and that sound of the powers that be, that's just something that we can allow.

    [00:56:12] Ali Rizvi: And so in our, in our country,  in us, we can simply not allow ourselves to be involved. That's something that's pretty prevalent.

    [00:56:25] Nick Sollecito: 

    [00:56:26] Ali Rizvi: and to the point that, you know, we've never been removed any form of competition, you know, real competition in our schools and forget about the educations that, oh my God, we could go off on that big time as well.

    [00:56:39] Ali Rizvi: Right. that's another hour, that's another hour. But, but the, but the, what I was getting at is that we got really lazy and, and also we, we lost our ability to self-reflect and really take a stoic approach of, of, you know, self-criticism. and having lost that, we let this complete, just let this thing go, just fly on its own.

    [00:57:11] Ali Rizvi: And this thing is carrying us the technological part is it's just a symptom of the greater, you know, movement of, I guess because we don't curb it. the cult of narcism, I guess the best way I could put it.

    [00:57:36] Frederick Weiss: Absolutely because we're projecting our own, our own egos out there.  look at me.

    [00:57:44] Frederick Weiss: How many followers do I have? Did everybody like my photo of the dog? If the man, I'm having a bad day. Oh, I got three more likes or that made my afternoon. Is that real emotional currency and how. Healthy are those patterns on a day to day for a grown human being and how, how, how devastating could those be for a child using this technology?

    [00:58:14] Frederick Weiss: You know, it's some of, it's just, it's, it's, it's really out there, but,  let me, let, let, let me,  communicate here that we're, we're right at the end of the show. And I know probably

    [00:58:26] Ali Rizvi: talk a lot of different directions then talk about a product so much. No, but, but

    [00:58:31] Frederick Weiss: we did talk about the ethics of products and I think that's a really, really important conversation to have.

    [00:58:39] Frederick Weiss: So, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm deeply, deeply appreciative of,  both of you for, for sharing your time and talking about this today, but I have two last questions for you, Ali, that, that I like to always ask my guests first off, obviously, where can people find out more about.

    [00:58:57] Ali Rizvi: Yeah. So, I mean, I've got a LinkedIn presence.

    [00:58:59] Ali Rizvi: certainly,  I have a very, at this point, a little news,  Twitter presence, you know,  but, you know, I know products and,  and products built an ethical way,  with the intent of solving, solving real, real problems for, for customers, for, for users. and then,  you know, certainly, hopefully, the money is as simply a by-product of, of really helping, helping to provide a great service.

    [00:59:34] Ali Rizvi:  so that's kind of the way I look at it.  the other thing is that, you know,  the LinkedIn presence there, but,  I am big sort of slowly beginning to,   actually work on a book,  product management book, kind of centered around, Kind of centered around this, this particular topic that we kind of, we went deep and, you know, I've spent a lot of my, my, my,  I've had a lot of experience in Senate, spent a lot of time studying metaphysics,  and you know, some, a lot of esoteric, literature.

    [01:00:11] Ali Rizvi:  and I have this idea of combining metaphysics with,  with product and mainly about this notion of coming back to, ethical patterns that, you know, that was really loved for the world to begin to embrace again, and feel like there is a thing, that we all share,   and it's called truth, and it may be different for all of us.

    [01:00:40] Ali Rizvi: but we all share it. and,  and we can, we can certainly learn from each other and appreciate each other's version of what is true at the heart of it. It's all one. And,  and you know, I feel like when I was a product person, I, I put that same sort of heart and soul into the way I dealt products.

    [01:01:01] Frederick Weiss: I love that. Well, the last question I have for you, Ali is, we always provide our guests an opportunity to say a few words of wisdom at the end. So the stage is yours, any words of wisdom for our audience, departing the parting words of wisdom,

    [01:01:21] Ali Rizvi:  get into the Headspace of non-judgment, recognize that at the heart of,  all of us is a certain truth about our humanity.

    [01:01:37] Ali Rizvi: And, expose yourself to literature or that it and con and content and literature and thinking and philosophy that is outside of your echo chamber. do it in a way that's that's that you can actually allow yourself to learn from it. And in that, expand your horizons and, begun to begin to have a level of compassion and empathy for the person next to you that may, that you may think that it looks different, talks, different things, different, but at the heart of it all,  we share a common humanity and let's focus on that.

    [01:02:24] Frederick Weiss: Love it. Thank you so much, Ali we'll we'll say yeah, really appreciate it. Well, that's it for a show. I want to thank,  first our guest co-host Nick Sollecito. Nick. Thank you so much for joining.

    [01:02:38] Ali Rizvi: Thank

    [01:02:39] Frederick Weiss: you and Ali, thank you so much for sharing your time with us.

    [01:02:57] Frederick Weiss: And I'm really glad that we had it.

    [01:03:01] Ali Rizvi: Thank you for your time.

    [01:03:14] Frederick Weiss: Absolutely. Thank you all. And thanks to everybody for watching. Really appreciate it. And we'll catch you next time.

    10 October 2021, 6:45 pm
  • 1 hour 1 minute
    287 – 🧠 Learning in Public with SWYX

    In this episode, we talk with SWYX, author, speaker, podcaster, and learning in public evangelist. We dive into his career history in finance and how he transitioned into development. We also discuss the challenges of Developer Experience, the advantages of learning in public, and lessons learned from podcasting. Additionally, we get a musical performance from SWYX himself.

    Bonus: We have Software Engineer, Arit Amana as a guest co-host.

    ✨ Episode Sponsor

    🔗 Episode Links

    📜 Transcript

    [00:00:00] Frederick Weiss: Welcome, I’m Frederick Weiss. And, thank you for consuming the Thunder Nerds. A conversation with the people behind the technology that love what they do, and do tech good. And our sponsor Auth0 is helping us do that all year long. Auth0 makes it easy for developers to build a custom secure and standard-based unified log-in by providing authentication and authorization as a service.

    [00:01:08] Frederick Weiss: Try them out now by going to Auth0.com. Also, check them out at youtube.com/Auth0,  Twitch.tv/Auth0, and Avocadolabs.dev for their online meetup events. Thanks again, Auth0. And let's go ahead and welcome our guests, you know, speaking of the guests, we actually have a co-host on the show today, which I'm so grateful to have.

    [00:01:44] Frederick Weiss: We have Arit Amana. Thank you so much for a guest hosting!

    [00:01:48] Arit Amana: Thanks for having me. It's great to be back.

    [00:01:52] Frederick Weiss: Yeah, absolutely. Appreciate it. And with that being said, and no ados being further, let's get to our guests for today. Learning in public evangelist, speaker, author, teacher writer, programmer podcaster.

    [00:02:08] Frederick Weiss: SWYX himself. Welcome to the show.

    [00:02:13] SWYX: Thanks. Yeah.

    [00:02:16] Frederick Weiss: Thanks. I feel really lucky to have both of you on the show today. So thanks both of you, I guess, at the start for, for sharing your time. I know it's always, um, a little challenging on a Saturday, so, you know, thanks again. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, um, you know, I know you were having some issues SWYX with, uh, with traveling.

    [00:02:39] Frederick Weiss: Uh, do you mind talking a little bit about that? I think, uh, you got caught up. Uh, Trump travel ban. And now you're back in Washington.

    [00:02:47] SWYX: Yes, sir. Seattle. Um, yeah, I went to Croatia for a conference. They shift conferences as amazing as my first in-person conference in a long, long time. Uh, and it's always amazing to have like an all-expenses paid, uh, conference travel trip.

    [00:03:05] SWYX: And so I, I went with it with all my friends who were also speakers and had a really good time there and give a, give a talk and met a lot of interesting people, came back to the immigration gates and got turned around by the customs and border patrol because they said that I came from a restricted country.

    [00:03:25] SWYX: So, uh, it turns out that, uh, I mean, I knew in concept about the chunk travel ban, but like that was imposed. Early in the pandemic. And I had the vaccine and I had a negative COVID test. I just assumed that I'd be fine. Uh, cause like it's like I have American vaccine in me. Uh, but no, it just as a, as a, as a rule of law by executive proclamation, uh, I am a higher COVID risk because I have the wrong piece of paper.

    [00:03:53] SWYX: Uh, so I had to go quarantine in Mexico for, for 14 days. Uh, don't really speak the language. Didn't have a place to stay. Didn't have any cash on me, uh, and just had to figure it out. Wow.

    [00:04:05] Frederick Weiss: So what did, did you, did you not have a, like your COVID registration card or did that just

    [00:04:11] SWYX: not count the matter? Yeah.

    [00:04:13] SWYX: It didn't

    [00:04:13] Frederick Weiss: matter. It didn't matter. That is so crazy. Well, you know, speaking of your travels then I, I know you said you had got caught up in Mexico. Um, you know, w within these travels, how, how was everything did you feel safe with, with the, uh, with the vid going around? Like, was everybody mask app is a little bit better than, than here?

    [00:04:34] SWYX: Um, everyone's, everyone's fairly actually, I think, yeah. I would say, I'll say that Europe is actually more uptight or strict about having a mask on properly and at all times. So, uh, yeah, that's, that's even the ironically surprising bit that the US is enforcing Europe travel ban when, uh, okay. Quite honestly, Europe is doing a better job of keeping them.

    [00:04:56] Frederick Weiss: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It's, it's, it's interesting how that, that all works and hopefully within, um, I don't know, maybe I'm being optimistic in six months. We'll get to a place that's a little bit better. It seems that those Delta variances are kind of slowing down in certain locations in the United States and the same thing with, what is it?

    [00:05:15] Frederick Weiss: I don't know how you pronounce it.

    [00:05:19] SWYX: Lambda.

    [00:05:20] Arit Amana: There's a new one. Yeah. Lambdas picking up.

    [00:05:26] SWYX: Oh, is

    [00:05:26] Frederick Weiss: that the one that's supposed to be like resistant to the vaccine or something such as that, um, maybe we'll get back to, uh, feeling safe again, you know, going to conferences and seeing people and all that, but, uh, yeah.

    [00:05:41] Frederick Weiss: Yeah. I, think we have to, uh, it's, there are too many smart people out there to not get us through, uh, the situation.

    [00:05:55] Frederick Weiss: So switch, tell me a little bit about yourself and your own words. I know X is from your, your name, Sean, and it's the initials within Chinese of your English and American name. Um, would you mind just giving our audience a brief, uh, context about

    [00:06:12] SWYX: yourself? Yeah, I'm born and raised in Singapore and came to the states for college.

    [00:06:16] SWYX: Uh, and I spent my first career in finance where I did, uh, investment banking and hedge funds mostly learn to code on the job, but I never had the title of a software engineer. So I made my own tools, but I didn't, I wasn't, I didn't do any software engineering best practices, no testing. Haha no version control.

    [00:06:36] SWYX: Ha. It was fantastic. Uh, I had, I came out of investment banking with a 4,000 line, uh, uh, VBA script that I copied and emailed to myself every single time. Chemo with a new version. So that was my version control.

    [00:06:55] SWYX: Uh, yeah. It's, it's on, it's on, they get up just actually, cause I, I lost it for a while and then I was like, wait, hang on. Like, that was the most significant program I ever made America years. I better figure it out. So if you search my Twitter and look for VBA, you'll see it. Um, and yeah, eventually I burned out at the finance bit.

    [00:07:13] SWYX: Uh, it was very stressful, and uh, I think it's not very good for, um, just like fundamentally it's very closed. Uh, ecosystem very zero-sum like, I win you lose. And I realized that, uh, it wasn't actually compounding. That was the main thing I was okay with. Zero-sum actually because like somethings have to be, but, uh, it wasn't compounding.

    [00:07:34] SWYX: So whatever trade I made, whether or not it made money, the next trade, uh, would have to top it. And if I lost money, I would have to make up what I lost. Um, and it was just like a black hole of, of ideas and, and energy. And after two years of day-to-day stress, you know, some days, uh, just sleeping under the table, cause I was just too tired to go home.

    [00:07:55] SWYX: Um, I just, I had enough, I just burned out. Um, and it wasn't, it wasn't like, I think it was like a 50 50, like me and them thing. Like, uh, I think that, uh, you know, there are some people who are just really insanely talented at it. Uh, but I put in my all for two years and I there's a, there's like a company wide ranking of like analysts and I came in in the middle, um, and I looked at the people who are at the top and I was like, I'm not.

    [00:08:19] SWYX: You know, so, uh, but there was one thing I was good at, which is coding, uh, which was like making my own tools. And I realized that, um, I was doing a lot of number crunching. So I did, uh, Python and Haskell uh number-crunching for my derivatives trades and for my portfolio risk management. Um, and I was often the script monkey whenever people wanted to make any changes to calculations or like, Hey, like, can you rerun the analysis?

    [00:08:42] SWYX: Like in this different way, I would have to go back and punch those numbers in and get the numbers out and then like send it back to them. Um, if I could remove myself from that equation, then, uh, people would get. Use out of my, my work without me there. Uh, and that's what led me to front end development and JavaScript.

    [00:08:59] SWYX: Um, I think actually front end developers, don't under, don't appreciate sometimes the power that they have in creating applications that standalone without them. And they can scale basically infinitely without any resources whatsoever, apart from the browser. That's just an amazing tool. So, uh, yeah, I, I, and, you know, even despite all the language that I learned Java was the hardest.

    [00:09:23] SWYX: So I tried six months of self-learning with free code camp and I didn't feel it was enough. So I enrolled in a bootcamp and that got me my first job. Uh, so I did, uh, so just to wrap up, I did, uh, I did a year and two Sigma and then joined Netlify, that's kind of my claim to fame where I, I joined fairly, fairly early on and then, uh, grew with them and, uh, and then joined AWS, uh, to do.

    [00:09:46] SWYX: More like basically five-plus plus, because like, it was a Netlify competitor to plus storage plus, you know, uh, AWS often stuff like that. Um, and then year early this year I joined Tim portal as had a developer experience. Yeah, that's it. Well,

    [00:10:02] Frederick Weiss: let me ask you this question. I want to jump back to what you're doing now, but there's a lot of us that we, we, we start off in these careers that we believe are, um, you know, the best path for us or, you know, I went to school for this, or my family told me to do this, or I, I feel like I'll be able to make the most money in this.

    [00:10:21] Frederick Weiss: What, what exactly got you into finance? And, um, what, what, yeah, I mean, you, you went into the turning point, but w was there an actual love or a passion for finance, and then you kind of discovered your actual

    [00:10:36] SWYX: passion. I think there was a, there was passion, otherwise, I wouldn't have stuck with it for so long.

    [00:10:42] SWYX: Um, I w what got me into it was honestly the 1997 and 2001 financial crisis. So 1997 is not such a big deal for Americans, but, uh, in Asia it was a big deal. Uh, there was an Asian financial crisis currency crisis, uh, entire governments collapse because of mismanagement of their, uh, economy. So, um, and also hedge funds.

    [00:11:07] SWYX: But, but, uh, I realized that basically every other job, every other industry is inherently tied to the economy, except if you deal in finance, and if you can short the market when everything is going to hell, and I kind of saw that again, during college. Because I already decided on Korean finance, but during college, uh, I went through the great financial crisis of 2007, 2008.

    [00:11:35] SWYX: And again like everyone, you know, out of a job or like overextended in your loans or whatever, but if you're a hedge fund, you were managed, you managed to be able to short the market. So it seemed like the only career where, uh, if you could call bullshit on those. I'm sorry. I don't know if I can swear. I think I'll be S on, on, on, uh, sometimes central bankers who are quite frankly, you know, they, they view their confidence, men, confidence, women.

    [00:12:02] SWYX: Like they, the, they say things that are, may not actually be true. And if, if you, if you cash them out doing it, you can actually make a lot of money. But at the bare minimum, you can at least look after yourself. If everything is going to, you know, too, to hell in a handbasket, as you can actually, you know, move yourself to cash or like you are.

    [00:12:21] SWYX: In the center of the financial transformation of assets. And I think that's a very powerful position to be in. And I thought if I could understand that and get good at it, then, um, it would be, it would be a really great position to be in. Um, I think I, I got there in understanding, but I wasn't good at it.

    [00:12:42] SWYX: That's kind of the summary of it. Um, I also didn't like the people I would say like, yeah, there were a lot of, um, um, I think money, money is money is an interesting thing. And when you deal with other people's money and you deal in very large sums of it, like we were three, we're a three person team running a billion dollars in, uh, gross notional value.

    [00:13:05] SWYX: Why say was a notional. Uh, it's not actually, we didn't have a billion dollars sitting around, uh, that was including the shorts that we had. So we were a market-neutral, long, short funds. So we had to buy $500 million worth of shares, but then also shorts, uh, 500 million of other shares that which will hopefully go down and make profit on a difference.

    [00:13:26] SWYX: And yeah. I mean, I thought that that was my deal position. I spent 10 years getting there and I got there and I realized I didn't like it. Um, so, uh, was, that was the second part of the question

    [00:13:39] Arit Amana: I'll go ahead. No, no, no, please. No, I had, that's an, that's an incredible story suite I have to say. And I guess a follow-up question.

    [00:13:47] Arit Amana: I know we need to get to the rest of our talking points, but I'm curious to hear you speak about how you, cause it takes a lot of courage. I feel like you can know that something isn't working for you and you can know that I'm not happy here and I'm not as fulfilled as I thought that I was going to be, but I still think it takes a certain level of courage to walk away from the familiar.

    [00:14:08] Arit Amana: So can you talk about like how, how you. More. So the, the mental and the emotional side, I mean, we know you transitioned out of that job, but if you could speak to maybe any challenges you faced either mentally or emotionally, or in terms of, yeah. Right.

    [00:14:25] SWYX: I speak to a lot of, uh, finance refugees who are like me, they heard my story and then, and then they want to do it, but then they're kind of like, but I have a really comfortable life, you know, I get paid well in finance.

    [00:14:36] SWYX: Like, do you want me to walk away from this? Uh, and yeah. You know, and changing careers, like, you know, I,  unfortunately, I don't have like a kids or anything, so it was a little bit easier for me, but changing careers, uh, at the, you know, at the age of 30. Is still something that's intimidating. I think it's like, you feel like you should have, you should be hitting your stride.

    [00:14:56] SWYX: You should be, uh, it should be well-known in your industry by now. And to say like, ah, screw it. I'm going to start over is you have to be in certain point of like, uh, understanding that there's a lot of life left and it's life is too short to, um, to spend doing something that you don't enjoy or are not good at.

    [00:15:15] SWYX: Um,

    [00:15:15] Frederick Weiss: it reminds me of a tweet. You just put out the other day where, and I'm going to read this verbatim, so I get it right. There's a lot of quick quote, unquote, quit your job, indie hack your way to freedom on social media. I want to articulate a middle path, a work at a company on interesting problems, but also maintain side projects, reputation as backup and longterm game.

    [00:15:40] Frederick Weiss: AKA have a job while not being your job. That kind of.

    [00:15:47] SWYX: Is that fair? Um, that was that's a slightly tangential thing. Uh, but I was definitely my job, uh, went during finance. Like there was nothing else about me apart from my job. Um, and I think, but it also applies to a lot of devs who are their job and that's their whole identity and they're kind of banking on their job, treating them well to take care of them.

    [00:16:07] SWYX: Long-term, uh, I don't think it serves them very well sometimes because I find that basically, you know, jobs don't have your long-term best interest at heart. They, they wants to slot you in to, um, somewhere within the hierarchy, uh, to, for you to perform according to the letters and career metrics that they've defined.

    [00:16:25] SWYX: Um, but sometimes they don't know what your interests are and if your interest diverged at all from the company, then you're kind of screwed. If you don't have a network outside of your job, um, and to build a network, you probably should do something interesting to others that are interesting to them beyond the company that you work at.

    [00:16:42] SWYX: So. Yeah. Th this tweet is a more recent realization, nothing to do with the finance bit. Um, but it, I guess it's related.

    [00:16:52] Frederick Weiss: Yeah. I was just thinking it, thinking as a way of a, more of like advice for people that, you know, you, you don't, don't, don't, you know, if you're looking to do something, you don't have to jump off a bridge to get to a shift.

    [00:17:03] Frederick Weiss: You know, you, you know, you, you can work at where you're at and kind of build up and then find that. Or, you know, some, sometimes it makes sense to just drop what you're doing and go,

    [00:17:14] SWYX: go, go forward for anyone who's considering a career change or anyone who knows a friend who's considering a career change.

    [00:17:20] SWYX: This is exactly what I did. I took a year to do it. Um, I left my hedge fund. I joined a startup that was serving my hedge funds. Um, so I went from customer to employee. Uh, and so I was tech adjacent, right? I was tech and Jason and still using my finance knowledge, but, uh, trying out a, uh, a startup role, I was a non-technical product manage.

    [00:17:43] SWYX: And, uh, while I was there, I learned to code on decide, uh, F using free code camp. I'm a massive supporter of them. I've donated to them every year since I graduated. Um, and, uh, they really, they're really helpful in trying this on and seeing if you can hack it as a, as a developer.

    [00:18:02] Frederick Weiss: Yeah. Sorry.

    [00:18:02] Frederick Weiss: Yeah,

    [00:18:04] Arit Amana: I do. Yes. Yes, I do. I love free code camp as well. You're so right. This is just a really robust platform. And I feel anyone, anyone who's heard my story and reaches out to me asking that they want to do the same thing. I always point them to free code camp. I'm like, if you can gain all those certificates and have fun doing free code camp, then you, you could probably, you know, um, make it as a Dell, as a developer and enjoy it, which is also important.

    [00:18:32] SWYX: Yeah. Yeah. How long did you take to go through this whole thing?

    [00:18:36] Arit Amana: Uh, my journey was 11 months, 11 months from. My first line of code to my first job was 11 months. Yeah.

    [00:18:46] SWYX: That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Yeah.

    [00:18:48] Arit Amana: Yeah. But I had a lot of privilege working for me, so I don't want to make it sound like it was, you know, yeah.

    [00:18:55] Arit Amana: I had, I had a lot of perks like I didn't have to work. And so that was a huge, you know, like burden not to have is, you know, not worry about bringing a paycheck. Yeah. I would say that was the biggest part of my privilege was not having to work, but it wasn't easy. I had, an infant daughter and a son, so it wasn't easy by, by any means.

    [00:19:16] Arit Amana: Um, I would like to segue if it's okay with you switch into your current work as a developer experience, I feel like there should be a third word. I should be singing. Right.

    [00:19:29] SWYX: The title is head of developer experience. It's kind of

    [00:19:31] Arit Amana: head of developer experience. Thank you. At temporal.io. Uh, talk to us about what developer experience is, um, and what your day-to-day is like in that.

    [00:19:42] SWYX: Sure. I, I, I've been asked to, uh, various versions of this car for quite recently, and there's a lot of interest around this. I don't really know why. Um, so I segment developer expert into a kind of two, two large segment sections, and then I'll focus on the section that I part I focus on. Uh, so internal developer experience, uh, is often formed by companies and teams that have a lot of developers internally and they want to improve their productivity.

    [00:20:11] SWYX: So you see developer experience teams that like Spotify or slack or, um, Netflix, uh, their customers are not developers, but internally they have a lot of developers. And, uh, if you can improve the productivity of 1% of them, then you just gained the equivalent of like a hundred developers for free. Right?

    [00:20:30] SWYX: So, uh, for those people, the way that I split it up is kind of. You there the three main buckets. And I think the Netflix model was really interesting. If you listen to their podcast, they talk a little bit about it. Uh, it was just essentially, uh, getting people started really quickly. So boots, the bootstrap phase.

    [00:20:48] SWYX: That's the first bit, the second bit is, uh, getting from code to deploy really, really quickly. So that's kind of deployment, I guess, or CIC D and then the last bit is getting from production back to deployment. So getting data logs, errors, all that, uh, feeding that into the dev environment so that they can respond to incidents or outages or errors very quickly.

    [00:21:11] SWYX: So, uh, that's kind of like the full software development life cycle that I really like in internal developer experience. And I think when development and developer tools companies like the one I work at or Netlify, or AWS, we try to market to developers, then that becomes external developer experience.

    [00:21:28] SWYX: So, um, what we are trying to do is we're trying to serve these internal developer experience teams or the VP of edge or. Whoever, uh, is trying to make their own life more productive because obviously suffered development is as cool as it is. It's still very unproductive in some elements and we could do better with better tooling.

    [00:21:47] SWYX: So external developer experience, uh, Kind of mostly right now developer relations, which is, Hey, we have an awesome, we have an awesome product. Uh, let me tell you about it. Right. Um, but, but that's a lot of content marketing. So, you know, you see people writing blog posts, giving talks and doing workshops and stuff like that.

    [00:22:05] SWYX: Um, but also I think it's starting to evolve a little bit more into community management. So instead of me telling you what to do, or, uh, uh, me traveling out to, uh, you know, travel the world and do conference talks, um, let's actually have a community where people talk to each other, people hire each other people, uh, build libraries that help, uh, an open source for each other.

    [00:22:27] SWYX: And they realized that a more vibrant community actually is, uh, is a more sustainable moat than turning out content day after day after. Right. So, uh, there's the concept piece, there's the community piece. And then the last piece, which in my mind is that forms of external facing developer experience is the product piece.

    [00:22:46] SWYX: Uh, what I mean by products is that, um, that no amount of advocacy you can do in the content, no amount of community, user generated content or a forum support or. Uh, or conferences or what have you no mana that can fix a broken product. And if you could just give really good feedback to your engineers and PMs about, Hey, I talked to a lot of users as part of my job.

    [00:23:10] SWYX: Uh, here's all, here's what, here's the pain points and here's how, what they struggle with when they go through our product right now. And if you build that into the product that people don't have to docs, they don't have to read blog posts. They don't have to read, they don't have to talk to any other humans.

    [00:23:22] SWYX: It just use your thing. And it just.

    [00:23:26] Arit Amana: Awesome. You know, I hear you speak about, um, just with the descriptions that you gave and thank you so much for that was very helpful for me. What's the delineation between developer experience and developer relations, which is another term that I'm hearing more and more.

    [00:23:40] Arit Amana: Um, could you speak, uh, can you speak to how you manage the flow of information as head of developer experience? Because from what I hear you describe, there's like a lot of feedback, feedback loops happening either between the DX people and the developers, whether internal, external, how do you, um, handle all that flow of information and even from the applications and the technology itself, and how do you handle that and almost, um, um, like manage that information in a way that it, it becomes usable and actionable for the, for, for other.

    [00:24:20] SWYX: We don't handle it very well.

    [00:24:25] SWYX: Let's just be honest, right? Like we're still figuring this out. Like, um, I, I don't want to say, you know, I want to sit here in front of you and say like, I have this all on. I figure it out. Um, what we do is we hire really capable people. And then we talk a lot and we talk about the things that we've come across and we have a, what we call a CRM, a customer relationship management tool.

    [00:24:47] SWYX: That's the notion essentially like we take notes, uh, when we interact with customers and potential customers. But also we, when you run an open-source tool, custom portal.io is open source. Um, there's just sometimes too many anonymous customers who, who you never really talked to again. So, uh, it's hard to take notes on everyone and it's unrealistic.

    [00:25:07] SWYX: So we don't do that. Uh, we do that for, you know, large names and prospective customers that we expect to have along dealing with. Um, and then. Surfacing issues in a holistic manner. So we love the word holistic internally within temporal. To me, what that means is like, okay, where does this slot within a developer's journey through temporal, right?

    [00:25:31] SWYX: Like, uh, from the landing page to onto the first page of the docs to the hello world. Um, do we throw the book at them or do we, uh, I realized though the book is an idiom. So a book at them, like, do we, like how much information do we overload you with and how much is above the fold? Cause that's quite realistically all you're going to read on your first encounter.

    [00:25:53] SWYX: Um, and so what can we squeeze in there that will get you interested in and get you to come back? And then maybe the next level is after your interest, like, how do you get you to a hello world that is not only productive but also like it's insincerely is something that you cannot. Uh, on your own or something that you would take a lot longer to do with other tools.

    [00:26:16] SWYX: Um, and then once you've decided to use the tool, how do we get you to production with all the best practices that we found so far, uh, deploying on your own cloud or on ours and, and then once you've deployed it, like, what are the practices for optimization and scaling? No. So, so there's a whole journey that we've been mapping out and I'm using that essentially to coordinate, um, how we structured the docs, how we do developer relations, like, uh, workshops and our content and all that.

    [00:26:44] SWYX: Uh, and then community-wise, I think it's really helpful when people give you feedback, where does it slot in that, in, in that journey. So, um, and then hopefully you've you build it out, but, um, I don't mean to say it's a, any, by any means scientific, um, you know, we're a small team, um, that is serving a fairly large user base, uh, and it's a very complex product.

    [00:27:07] SWYX: So a lot of things get dropped. Maybe we could do a better job of it, but also I would just need someone full-time taking notes.

    [00:27:17] Arit Amana: Thank you so much. Um, and, uh, just rounding up, I guess, this section, um, it sounds like interesting work, um, very involved work, but as a developer, it doesn't sound like there's a lot of coding involved in developer experience work. And so how do you handle that as a developer individually? And how do you keep your coding skills sharp?

    [00:27:38] Arit Amana: If your day job is wrapped up in that kind of.

    [00:27:43] SWYX: Yeah. Um, to some extent I've already given up and being like a full-time developer. So you just have to make a piece with that. Um, and, but, uh, you know, we do we do code, uh, so I'll give you examples. Um, and Netlify where I used to work. Uh, our developer relations program formerly had a rotation onto an edge team for one quarter of the year.

    [00:28:05] SWYX: So three months out of the 12 months of a year, you are on the edge team. You do not have any different responsibilities and you take tickets, you execute on them, you understand architecture, your document, you write tests, uh, all the other engineering stuff. So you keep sharp, you work on the products and then you go evangelize the product.

    [00:28:20] SWYX: I think that's a really nice thing to do. Unfortunately, three months is actually quite a short time. So onboard and offboard. So people can give you long-running tasks and stuff like that. So, uh, I, on some level you're still not a real engineer, right? You're not maintaining something day in and day out.

    [00:28:37] SWYX: You're not on call for the thing that you wrote nine months ago. Like, uh, there are a lot of nuances that, uh, you just don't get if you're a tourist, uh, and in that space. Whereas, um, we do write a lot of, uh, example code, so demos workshops, stuff like that. And for me, so for example, we're building out a TypeScript SDK, um, I'm engaged in API design and that's some of the heaviest technical challenges I've ever faced.

    [00:29:02] SWYX: Uh, even though I'm not writing. Production code. I am determining the design of production code for years to come, which is a fairly high-stress job. Um, so I mean, it's not high stress. I mean, I'm, uh, I'm enjoying it. I'm just saying like, uh, to say that that is not technical as a joke like we're discussing, we're discussing, uh, API design and like implementation details and stuff like that.

    [00:29:27] SWYX: Um, there's, there are a thousand more ways to be technical than like hands-on keyboard committing code. So, uh, I don't know. I think that's, I'm enjoying it and it's, I'm not scared if I ever have to go full-time coding again.

    [00:29:47] Frederick Weiss: Well, speaking of coding, I'd love to talk about our next subject, which is the, uh, coding, a coding career handbook.

    [00:29:56] Frederick Weiss: Um, so first off, when did you write this?

    [00:30:01] SWYX: a few years ago. No, this is April to May, uh, April to June 2020. There was last year. Yeah.

    [00:30:07] Frederick Weiss: Yeah. Sorry. That's what I meant by if your time is going by quickly. Uh, so what was the, what was the catalyst? What, what made you write this book?

    [00:30:16] SWYX: I had two months off between uh Netlify and, and, uh, Amazon. So I, uh, I decided that I wanted to do it in India. Everyone was like launching their own books and like running your own courses. I was like, okay, okay, I'll get into this. And, you know, uh, I looked around for what's, which of my blog posts have had the most readers.

    [00:30:35] SWYX: And my blog was on learning and public has had over a million. And constantly get shoutouts there, bots that like are written because of it there are translations. I think there are like 10 different translations now of, of that essay. And so it really resonated. And I was, and I was like, okay, probably people want this as a book.

    [00:30:54] SWYX: So I expanded upon it. I was like, okay, I'll, I'll try to make this like a two-week project because Daniel Vassallo and Twitter-like encouraged me, like, you know, just to get started to get it out there. I ended up planning on 50 chapters, uh, and having to cut it down because I, I, there's no way I was gonna ship 50 chapters and, and then just wrote and wrote and wrote for two months and, uh, wrote everything that I thought was true.

    [00:31:21] SWYX: What's what, there's a little bit of imposter syndrome giving out career advice because everyone's journey is different. Everyone starts from a different place, you know, depending on your privilege and, uh, your, you know, just your circumstances. Right? So, um, how do you get around that is you collect advice from other people?

    [00:31:37] SWYX: So, um, it's, this is not advice, not just advice from me, this advice from 1400 other resources that I collected and put in the bibliography of the book. So it's very much a starting point for like, okay, you just graduated from your Bootcamp or your free code camp. Um, here's every, let's say you just got your first job as a.

    [00:31:55] SWYX: Um, I, I try not to address the like first job hunts thing because a lot of other resources do that. So I think that's overcrowded, but, um, it's very important by the way, you don't have a job. You don't, you're not starting on the rest of the journey, but once you get in the job, um, the people stop learning and they're not reading.

    [00:32:12] SWYX: They're not resources to get you from junior to senior. And guess what? Like, most people want to hire senior engineers, not juniors. Uh, so my focus was to level you up from junior to senior. And that was the entire messaging entire focus of like, okay, here's everything that they don't tell you when you start the job.

    [00:32:27] SWYX: Uh, I think it's the equivalent of having a good mentor, um, at work. And sometimes you don't get to choose your mentor, you just show up and they assign you someone and they may or may not be that great. And I'm finding that so many people are mistreated by the employee or just like under-resourced by their employer.

    [00:32:44] SWYX: So they come to me and, uh, I try to help them as best as I can.

    [00:32:48] Frederick Weiss: Yeah. I love too that you have like a full-on, like, it's very interactive too. Like you can obviously buy the book, but you also have all this other material. Do you mind kind of touching on like the, uh, the advanced options of, of the purchase?

    [00:33:02] SWYX: Yeah, I've actually simplified. I used to have three tiers and that was just like, okay. Let's like trying to make the most money out of this thing. And I realized like, I, you know, I have a, I have a good job. Uh, I don't need, I don't need to maximize the money. I just need to charge for my time. And also, I don't want to like add on another monthly charge to people's bills and stuff like that.

    [00:33:21] SWYX: It's just super stressful. I'm, I'm sick of all the subscriptions I'm paying. So I made it a one-time fee if you want the book, get the book, but it's already like, you know, pirated too, to oblivion. Um, what, what really, what really matters is the community, like read the book together with other people, reading the book and me and ask me questions as you go along.

    [00:33:42] SWYX: It's a one-time fee of like, I don't know, like 40, 50. Uh, 40 bucks and, and yeah, and I have a discord and I have a circled forum and we chat about the book we meet up. Uh, I show you how I wrote the book cause I have, um, you know, recorded lectures and stuff like that. Um, and I give you extra commentary. So, um, it's everything I think, uh, I think it's, I think it's just, uh, uh, steel of my time, but, uh, I love, I love running the community and like, I love the the chats that we have.

    [00:34:10] SWYX: I have people showing up and saying, they asked me questions, and then you go away and come back seven months later and they go like, Hey, by the way, you know, uh, I, uh, I haven't, I've been pretty quiet, but like, this is what I've done in my, in my job. And, um, I had, I had a couple of people. Go from actually go from junior to senior.

    [00:34:25] SWYX: And one of them doubled their pay, um, going from junior to senior. And, uh, I was just, you know, I mean, I can't take credit for all of it, but I can, I can at least say I helped them, uh, with allowed their questions and their interviewing and stuff like that. And it's just really cool to run a community on the side where people have a trusted place.

    [00:34:42] SWYX: They can talk about career stuff apart from their friend network who may not be developers apart from the people at work who may, you know, you can't be 100% honest with them. Uh, but here you can, because we're all, we're all interested in growing ourselves and in our careers,

    [00:34:59] Frederick Weiss: speaking of, uh, trusting people, uh, I wanted to talk a little bit about the whole learn in public thing.

    [00:35:05] Frederick Weiss: If you don't mind, like, uh, I, I'm going to read a little bit from one of the PDFs that you had for free on here. Uh, one of the chapters, which you communicate that, you know, uh, you've been trained your entire life to learn and practice. And keep what you learned to yourself. Success is doing things better than everyone else around you.

    [00:35:25] Frederick Weiss: And of course, I'm going to just, just with brevity to just kind of, I'm just reading some things here, but, and of course you don't share your secrets with competitors, uh, which I found super interesting. And then you have here a point about Eagle, this programming, where, uh, you could learn so much on the internet for the low, low price of your ego.

    [00:35:46] Frederick Weiss: Do you mind just kind of speaking about this whole, um, learn in public. Y, uh, it's, it's important to let go of that feeling of, oh, you know, I don't want to put my ideas out there because, you know, I might get, um, you know, shamed for it or something such as this. And you know, one of the things that I did see, um, you talked a little bit about, you know, you don't want to build a brand of, you know, somebody not knowing things, but it's also really.

    [00:36:13] Frederick Weiss: Put yourself out there and get some eyeballs and, and kind of share your learning experience with everybody, right?

    [00:36:20] SWYX: Yeah, that's true. Um, I think it basically takes advantage of the fact that tech is a fundamentally open and positive industry. Uh, we are encouraged to go on stage and share our lessons and our failures and that's, what gets voted on hacker news.

    [00:36:37] SWYX: You know, we open-source our code that we, we wrote, uh, in a, in an attempt mostly to hire more engineers, but also to spread good ideas. And, you know, partially the company I work at is, is a benefactor of that. Uh, you know, temper, uh, Uber had no reason to allow open-sourcing temporal, but like, uh, it got a lot of traction and externally you got a lot of contributions and then eventually the whole community benefited as a, as a result of that.

    [00:37:03] SWYX: Um, and so I think if, I think if you do that for your own learning, you actually learn much faster than you. Um, by yourself. And there's a, there's a few reasons why, so the first reason that I, I, I think I list like nine reasons. So I'm not going to go through all of them. This is way too long. But, um, the, the most important reason to me is the feedback loop.

    [00:37:22] SWYX: Um, because when you start off learning, it's a, it's always a burst of inspiration and motivation, like, okay, today's going to be the day I change my life. I will get good at whatever it is I'm trying to get good at. Uh, and then you get into it, and then you're like, oh, okay, this is actually hard. And then you give up, um, so what the learning public does is actually it gives you a feedback loop of like, okay, when you share what you learned and people respond to you, you have some impetus and external expectations to go.

    [00:37:47] SWYX: Like actually, you know, other people are in the same boat with me or they're mentoring me, or they're looking up to me. I gotta keep. Um, and, and that feedback loop actually turns, it turns it into a positive cycle of like, okay, I'll, I'll share what I learn, get feedback on what I learned and then go fill in the gaps on what, I didn't know that I thought I, that I thought I knew.

    [00:38:09] SWYX: Um, and that's just a fundamental thing. Like I've done it for maybe four to five years now. Um, and I've already had amazing success. And I just can't imagine that. What if, what happens when I do it for 40 years or 50 years? And I think a life of life lives where you learn together with others, uh, that you learned in public.

    [00:38:29] SWYX: Uh, such a more fulfilling one than something where you keep everything to yourself. Um, and people have no, uh, it's just, it's just like, it's, it's just inherently better. Uh, I even have the math to prove it. So I call this a big L notation. So it's comparable to the big O notation. The algorithm for big L notation is a log of N which N be the number of years.

    [00:38:51] SWYX: And it's always the question of like, how do you grow better than the average by a number of years, we all know that years of experience is not a very good metric. Um, but we still do it right. I, I, my company does it and we don't have any other better objective number to gauge the amount of experience or knowledge or skills that a person has just off of a one-line judgment.

    [00:39:13] SWYX: Um, but as an, as an engineer or as a. With the, with the knowledge was it was a knowledge worker. How do you grow your skills disproportionately to your career? Um, to your years of experience? Like you need a different algorithm. Is this the same as big O right? Like if you're on the algorithm, no matter how hard you try it, you're, you're just going to grow by the big O of your algorithm that you picked.

    [00:39:34] SWYX: So if the different algorithm is instead of learning private learning public, and we learn in public, you. Uh, another factor, which is P so, uh, the number of people that you learn with. Um, and so, uh, L L N times P uh, that's, that's kind of like the the mathematical improvement on that, uh, because, um, you grow by essentially the number of important questions that you are the answer.

    [00:39:57] SWYX: And sometimes you answer when people ask questions of you, um, they ask they're asking something that you never know. That you didn't know. And so you, you, you should try it. You tend to uncover things a lot faster. Um, and also when, whenever you get anything wrong, um, you will just remember a lot faster. So, and people, people will crawl over broken glass to remind you of something that you got wrong.

    [00:40:18] SWYX: So, uh, it's just a funny way that the internet works, but I just really like it because, um, you know, the only thing that you lose is some sense of ego that you got everything right on the first try. And if you can let go of that, you can learn so much.

    [00:40:33] Arit Amana: Do you feel like, uh, what would you say to someone who may be saying, what if I put, you know, I'm learning in public and I put my mistakes, quote, unquote, out on the internet.

    [00:40:45] Arit Amana: Um, what if they come back to bite me or what if they come back to, you know, like how, if I put my mistakes out, how do I then convince people that these mistakes that I made, or it may not even be a mistake? It might just be like substandard code, for example, or substandard. Um, Um, convention, you know, it could be, it doesn't have to be like a wrong thing, but it might just be maybe not as optimized, for example, how do I then convince people that I've grown past that level?

    [00:41:16] SWYX: Ooh. Um, sometimes yeah, just a track record of putting up increasingly better stuff. Um, I don't think there's any shortcut to it. Uh, so by the way, uh, there are definitely repercussions for this and you do have to be careful. Um, I have lost friends over it. I have, I have, uh, put out some stuff I should not have put out because it was in private conversation or a not public yet or something like some stuff like that.

    [00:41:41] SWYX: Um, and you have to recognize that there's a certain journalistic responsibility that you have when it comes to affecting other people. Like if it's yourself, you can be as public as you want. And nobody cares. But if, if it involves other people, other people may have a different preference level. Uh, sharing that they do online and you need to need to take care of not to hurt them.

    [00:42:00] SWYX: Right. Um, and that's on, that's on you, that's on me. Um, and all that. Um, but uh, specifically people judging you because of bad stuff that you put out. Uh, I don't mind, I don't mind, again, that's part of the ego, right? Like, uh, it's part of the journey of like, you had to put out the bad thing in order to get good.

    [00:42:18] SWYX: Um, and guess what, like a year from now, two years from now, you should look back on what you put out and you should, you should think of that. It's terrible because that's that, that way, you know, that you've grown. So, um, if you try to only put out, you know, the best perfect quality every time you might find yourself less productive than you would if you just put out the incremental steps along the way.

    [00:42:38] SWYX: And I think people, um, there's a certain amount of like you can't please everybody. Um, and so the people who get it, get it, and we'll support you along the way. And the people who judge you based on your first impression of you, you don't need them in your life.

    [00:42:55] Frederick Weiss: And it's also, you're going to be, uh, people are going to more appreciate that kind of level of granularity. If you're if you're putting out those details, right. It, it, it provides an opportunity for others to learn. Like if you're, I dunno if you're a designer and you go to dribble and you see all these, like, you know, beautiful designs, but you don't seem like the actual, like pen and paper sketches of how somebody got to that idea.

    [00:43:17] Frederick Weiss: Like, that's, that's the good meaty stuff that really helps people learn. Right. Wouldn't you agree?

    [00:43:23] SWYX: Yeah. Oh, okay. I'll say, I'll say this. Some people want, uh, different levels of signals versus noise, right? Like some people, they have more time to follow your journey. So they don't mind putting up with more noise, more work in progress, more drafts.

    [00:43:37] SWYX: Uh, but some people just want the quick hits of like, give me your top three accomplishments, you know, and just give me the, uh, the best image of you then. That's quite honestly all you're evaluated on. When people look at your resume or look at your portfolio or your site to see if they want work. Um, so I do think that different mediums should have different levels of effort.

    [00:43:57] SWYX: Um, and, and so if you set the expectations clearly, like this is my work in progress, uh, the channel where I share everything I go in progress and here's my finished product channel, where if you only want my finished product, um, go here, right. And have a very clear channel. Uh, and that's consistent communication across all your, all your social media and your, your personal channels.

    [00:44:19] SWYX: Um, I think that that works really well. So, um, I do like having a space to experiment and to fail and to, uh, just complain and that's essentially Twitter. Uh, but then I do have more sort of professional channels, which is my blog, uh, where we're putting a lot more hours. Its kind of like the hours is the ratio of hours.

    [00:44:40] SWYX: Spent in creation to the hours spent consuming. So you want higher ratios on the media that you own versus a lower ratio in a borrowed media borrowed platforms and borrow platforms are literally like YouTube. Like anything that can be taken away from you eventually like Twitter or YouTube or whatever.

    [00:45:00] SWYX: Um, yeah, so, so that's kind of how I think about it. Like, um, there's, there's a, uh, I spent 600 hours writing my book. Um, you probably will not get better writing that out of me than in that book, because that's the one I, I wrote for under my own name for, for money. Um, so, uh, but everything else, like my, my tweets, like you get it for free.

    [00:45:20] SWYX: Uh, I don't put a lot of thought into them. Uh, it's fine. But also, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's weird cause like it's also a semi-professional channel, but, um, I do think that people sign up for the work in progress on, on Twitter in, in, in a way that's kind of different on, then on YouTube or on a blog post.

    [00:45:36] SWYX: So I like that.

    [00:45:39] Frederick Weiss: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You know, we're getting short on time and I do want to just quickly touch a little bit on your podcast, which I find just super fascinating. I am I'm hooked now, which is the six myths mixtape and it really is a mixed tape. I mean, you talk about things like from the six principles of influence to Pokemon jazz, like it's, it's anything and everything and you, and the mixtape part is you, you know, you bring in a lot of these pieces of media into the podcast.

    [00:46:11] Frederick Weiss: And I, at first, I just want to ask you, how did you come up with the idea and, uh, what, what are people's responses to the show?

    [00:46:20] SWYX: Um, how did I come up with the ideas I wanted? So I had a dabble in. Professionally or more highly produced podcasts. I love podcasts. I listened to, I subscribed to over 250 podcasts and I listened to podcasts maybe like three to four hours a day, thunder nurses on there, by the way, uh, love the show.

    [00:46:40] SWYX: Uh, so, so it's an honor to be on. Um, but also I think that podcast is a very lonely experience and, um, I'm doing all this listening and I wish I had a way to take notes on the stuff that I listened to. And also, I wish I had a way to share it, share the joy and, uh, with others. So, uh, when I decided to start my own podcast, I thought that something that was that wasn't, that was kind of missing in the world was, uh, audio notes just to friends of like, Hey, um, there's nothing in common with all these topics, except that I'm interested in.

    [00:47:16] SWYX: And if you're, if you're along for the ride, if you like, what I like, uh, here's a way to subscribe to it. Um, I will never make any money on this. It's actually mostly for me. Um, but if you, but you know, I'm kind of working with the garage door open is, is the ND two shock phase phrase of, of, of this. Um, but like, if you like this stuff, I like, and if you like my recommendations, then here's a daily feed of them.

    [00:47:39] SWYX: I love them that people, people, people really, I mean, the audience is pretty small, it's in the hundreds. Um, but uh, people still give me good shoutouts, um, every week or so I'd say, um, and I don't really know how to grow a podcast. I, I don't think it's like the most productive hour of my day, but also, um, it makes me, I think get much more out of my own listening and honestly like that's a win in itself.

    [00:48:04] SWYX: Like, um, and I love these, uh, basically what I call single-player games, uh, where that can they have the option to turn multiplayer, right? Like, um, As much as you learn in public, like you might get discouraged if you never get feedback. Right. Like if you're like, okay, I worked so hard on his blog post and I put it out there and I get one, like, which, uh, is very demoralizing.

    [00:48:26] SWYX: Um, if your entire goal was to get likes and views. So if you try not to measure yourself on those things and you, you just, you, all, you say you flip the switch and you're going, okay, I'm doing this for. But I'm even open to the opportunity for others to get through, join along. That's much more authentic because you're not performing anymore.

    [00:48:43] SWYX: You're literally fulfilling your own needs. Um, and you win no matter how much people respond, whether or not it's a hit. I still, I get hits and I get misses. Even today. I have over a million visitors a year to my blog. Um, I get hits, I get misses. And, uh, it doesn't matter. I still win because I wrote. And it expresses something or in notes down something that I've been researching and studying for a while.

    [00:49:05] SWYX: Uh, so that's kind of how I approach my, my mixtape as well. Like I still win because I w had the chance to go over a passage within a podcast that I really liked. Um, and so, yeah, and then the eclectic mix is it's inspired by a few things. Um, I think, uh, the technique right home is like a very short daily news podcast.

    [00:49:24] SWYX: Uh, the, the breakdown is, is a crypto podcast. There's also daily it with, uh, with extended pieces on the weekends. And then, uh, so what I do is, uh, on Monday Mondays, Thursdays, I do clips of other podcasts on Fridays. I do music because music is another interest of mine, and I like to share my musical pixel.

    [00:49:42] SWYX: And then on weekends, I'll do long-form audio sometimes of others, but most of me, so my appearances on other podcasts or resyndicate it onto my own feed. So if people like what I do, they'll find it on my feed eventually. So, uh, I like, I like that. All those, all those things, just, just so that. It makes it easier for people to find me.

    [00:50:02] SWYX: And also it makes it, uh, it preserves it in case the other podcast goes away.

    [00:50:10] Frederick Weiss: Well, I'm looking forward to us being on a, on the mixed tape. No, I know what you're what you mean because I have the same thing, at least for me is where I'm like, like, I, I take a lot of notes. Like are well contested, this use all, like, I take a lot of notes.

    [00:50:26] Frederick Weiss: I do a lot of research on every guest. And for me, like I, if even if we don't like ask like 10% of the questions, I still feel justified because I got to internally learn from all these things and I got to learn from you. Uh, and it's, it's very fulfilling for me. So, uh, everybody else getting a little bit of the podcast out there, like that's just a bonus, you know, for me, I do it for me.

    [00:50:52] SWYX: Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think people also like a commentary on podcasts, like meta-commentary. So that's what I try to do, on most episodes. Like, why should you listen to this? What did I learn from it? What is my personal connection with this 10 minutes of audio that you're about to hear? Um, and it's basically friend, like, like you would, if you're talking in-person to a friend and saying, I heard a really good podcast yesterday, let me tell you about it.

    [00:51:14] SWYX: Right. Like, um, and so I think it's great. So I don't, I don't know where to go. I don't know where to go with it because like, um, I also want to grow on YouTube. And so like there's only so many hours in a day and, uh, I

    [00:51:29] Frederick Weiss: would love to see it as, as a, as a YouTube thing. I think you would do great with that.

    [00:51:37] Arit Amana: I have a YouTube channel and it's, there are some crickets there now. Cause it's been a minute since I put anything on there. Video is hard when I started putting things on YouTube. Respect for video content creators just skyrocketed because it's just, I'm just speaking for myself, but it's a different level entirely from writing audio, which is more my comfort zone.

    [00:52:04] Arit Amana: Yeah. But video it's another level.

    [00:52:07] Frederick Weiss: Yeah. I agree.

    [00:52:09] SWYX: Well, we're getting. Oh, sorry. So I have lunch, I have lunch, a YouTube version of my podcast and that's mostly interviews. So I want to do it native to the format, of each medium. Uh, so my, the first like interview a podcast interview that I did went super well.

    [00:52:26] SWYX: Um, it was with Sunil PI, who is the, who is former react core team member. And just the general thought lowered on all things JavaScript. And we just went from one and a half hours talking about everything. And when you touch on every company's products, uh, they listen and then they spread and their newsletter, their, their, their followers.

    [00:52:45] SWYX: And, uh, I just got a notification that we were on the react newsletter. So that's going out to like 300,000 people. So that's going to be, that's going to be pretty interesting. Um, and I don't think I can keep it up, but at least I think YouTube, the easiest format is the interview format. So I'm probably going to do that.

    [00:53:01] SWYX: Yeah.

    [00:53:02] Frederick Weiss: Nice. I'd love to, I'd love to see that, please. Well, we're getting to the end of the show. And I like to ask two questions a year first way. What's the, uh, what's the best way for people to get a hold of you? Obviously, we'll put all this in the show notes,

    [00:53:17] SWYX: but, um, yeah. Uh, my, my side is six that I owe my Twitter is at six.

    [00:53:23] SWYX: And then, um, I guess if you want to email me six at six, that I, oh, everything's available on my website anyway. So just go there. Um, that's it.

    [00:53:32] Frederick Weiss: Perfect. And the last thing is if you could provide our audience with some parting words of wisdom

    [00:53:39] SWYX: learning public, I think it changed my life has changed the lives of many, many, many, many, many others before me and after me.

    [00:53:46] SWYX: Uh, and don't need, you don't need to credit me at all because, uh, you just take it and run with it. It's uh, and I hope it changes yours.

    [00:53:56] Frederick Weiss: Yeah. So the last thing I wanted to ask you, I see that guitar in the background and it's just itching out my brain. Are you going to sing us off?

    [00:54:05] SWYX: I know. I, I, I'm still learning.

    [00:54:08] SWYX: I still

    [00:54:12] Arit Amana: learn,

    [00:54:14] SWYX: but it sounds, it sounds terrible.

    [00:54:16] Frederick Weiss: Let's hear it. Come on. We've heard worse. Come on. Let's hear it. Really? Yeah, absolutely.

    [00:54:23] SWYX: Okay. If you, it says I insist,

    [00:54:35] SWYX: um, what am I playing?

    [00:54:38] Frederick Weiss: Whatever you are comfortable playing.

    [00:54:50] SWYX: Its attitude. It's. Okay. It's amazing how you can speak and it's the GSI just way out. No, no.

    [00:55:05] Frederick Weiss: To stop doing that, you're sounding great. Your voice is

    [00:55:08] SWYX: awesome. Um, but it really bothers me as a musician. No, no. Keep going. I can appreciate that.

    [00:55:19] SWYX: Um,

    [00:55:21] Frederick Weiss: don't let perfection get in the way of progress.

    [00:55:30] SWYX: it's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing how you can speak to my heart.

    [00:55:49] SWYX: I'm still learning.

    [00:55:51] Arit Amana: Amazing.

    [00:55:57] SWYX: um, so I actually, uh, I've been advised that should not do finger-picking these finger pickings harder and I should do chords. Um, and so I, I know it's just that I like things, I like the sound, the thing of picking and I'm trying to do that. Um, and, uh, what I really should do is, is memorized some chords because I can change chords much quicker.

    [00:56:20] SWYX: So I used to be a singer and a much more of a singer than I am a guitarist.

    [00:56:25] Frederick Weiss: Gotcha. Yeah, you have a great voice. Thank you. Is there anywhere where people could go to, to hear some stuff?

    [00:56:32] SWYX: Um, uh, I have a song called nobody knows about, um, Sure. Uh, I'll look up the SoundCloud of God. You see, you made me, you made me frustrated now.

    [00:56:44] SWYX: Cause like I am not learning in public. Yes, exactly. Wow. Okay. It's in here. So soundcloud.com/twix is very on-brand. Awesome.

    [00:56:55] Frederick Weiss: Oh, perfect. Nice.

    [00:56:59] SWYX: Uh, so yeah, that's my acapella stuff. Um, I would like to do multiple instruments, but um, uh, that's beyond my reach right now.

    [00:57:09] Frederick Weiss: Do you mind if we put that in the show notes?

    [00:57:11] Frederick Weiss: Yeah,

    [00:57:12] SWYX: go ahead. Go ahead. It's not active, but um, oh man, you, you flustered me you’re, uh, this is like one of my most insecure things. Cause I don't practice enough in a really.

    [00:57:29] Frederick Weiss: Well, that's it for our show. Do you have any more?

    [00:57:36] Arit Amana: have thoroughly enjoyed myself.

    [00:57:39] Arit Amana: Thank you so much for coming on. Good. Learned a lot. And just so encouraging things.

    [00:57:45] Frederick Weiss: Yeah, same. Thank you Arit for co-hosting today.

    [00:57:49] Arit Amana: Absolutely. It's it's fun.

    [00:57:51] Frederick Weiss: Yeah. You

    [00:57:52] SWYX: got some more. I found I found my chords. You want to, do you want me to try it again? Do you have time?

    [00:57:58] Frederick Weiss: Yes. Yes we do. Please.

    [00:58:05] SWYX: And, uh, it didn't even put up a fight. Didn't even bake. So I found a way to let you in, but I've never really had it standing in the middle outta your hand. Gum. My angel now

    [00:58:23] Arit Amana: I kept being awake. Every room I had your break.

    [00:58:28] SWYX: It's the rest. I don't take it. I ain't never going to

    [00:58:32] Arit Amana: shut you out.

    [00:58:39] Arit Amana: I'm

    [00:58:39] SWYX: surrounded by every, I can see. You know, you're my saving grey, everything in

    [00:58:51] Arit Amana: over

    [00:58:52] SWYX: me. I can feel you. Hello? Hey, won't fade away. There we go. That was awesome. Thank you so much

    [00:59:05] Frederick Weiss: for sharing that. That was beautiful.

    [00:59:08] SWYX: Give me a second shot. Cause like the person sucks so bad. I was just like, I'm not ready at all.

    [00:59:13] SWYX: Like I haven't warmed up. I can play it while singing. That was my achievements. But um,

    [00:59:18] Frederick Weiss: I think I put you on the spot. I apologize.

    [00:59:21] Arit Amana: And I said, no, you handled it excellently slicks.

    [00:59:27] Frederick Weiss: Well, thank you again for being on the show and thanks to everybody for watching. Really appreciate it. And we'll catch you next time.

    [00:59:33] Frederick Weiss: Thanks all

    3 October 2021, 7:38 pm
  • 56 minutes 12 seconds
    286 – 🌩️ Effective Conflict Resolution with Joshua Mauldin

    In this episode, we get to talk with design director and conflict resolution expert Joshua Mauldin. We discuss the most effective techniques for conflict resolution, how to establish trust, and employ empathy. Joshua explains when we should use a third-party mediator, start a conversation with safety checks and lead a talk with facts. Additionally, we dive into disaster recovery. The approach of creating a shared purpose in building alignment.

    ✨ Episode Sponsor

    🔗 Episode Links

    📜 Transcript

    [00:00:37] Brian Hinton: Welcome to Thunder Nerds, I am Brian Hinton

    [00:00:39] Frederick Weiss: … And I am Frederick Weiss. Thank you so much for consuming the Thunder Nerds. A conversation with the people behind the technology that love what they do. And. Good. And speaking of doing tech good, our sponsor Auth0 is helping us do just that.

    [00:01:01] Brian Hinton: Yes they are.

    [00:01:02] And we’d like to think Auth0 is this season’s sponsor. They make it easy for developers to build a custom secure and standards-based unified. By providing it as a service to try it, go to Auth0.com today. Also, they have both a YouTube and Twitch channel under the username Auth0 with some great developer resources and streams.

    [00:01:27] And lastly avocado labs. It’s an online destination that their developer advocates run, where they organize some super great meetup events. And remember to check out Auth0.com.

    [00:01:40] Frederick Weiss: Thank you so much, Brian, I really appreciate it. And let’s welcome our amazing guest today. We have speaker director of design and author, Joshua Mauldin.

    [00:01:53] Welcome to the show Joshua, really appreciate you joining us today.

    [00:01:56] Joshua Mauldin: Thanks. Uh, I am pumped to be here, especially after that opening theme.

    [00:02:07] Frederick Weiss: a lot of people say that you’re not the first, probably the third, but yes, that’s, that’s what we’re going for. Right on the money

    [00:02:13] Joshua Mauldin: you hit it.

    [00:02:13] All right.

    [00:02:15] Frederick Weiss: So, Josh, hi. How have you been first off? Uh, you doing good? A family. Okay. Friends. Okay. Everything going all right with the, uh, with the vid hitting, hitting home.

    [00:02:26] Joshua Mauldin: Yeah, so the folks are doing well. Uh, they’re, they’re fully vaccinated trying to just stay healthy. They both work in a hospital, so we’re just very happy that they’re fine.

    [00:02:37] Uh, I’m doing good. Picked up some odd hobbies that don’t involve screens like restoring watches and clocks, which is kind of a fun thing. A nice, yeah.

    [00:02:48] Frederick Weiss: That’s cool. Well, why don’t we start off with a little bit of context about you for the people that might not know Joshua, so you a director of design?

    [00:02:57] What does that mean? And what is your day to day like and what do you do at

    [00:03:01] Joshua Mauldin: atrium? Uh, it’s Artium actually, the last one I said the first

    [00:03:06] Frederick Weiss: the time I became a survey. You’re

    [00:03:09] Joshua Mauldin: right. You’re right. Uh, instantly my parents work at atrium, so. That’s what was, that’s what I

    [00:03:14] Frederick Weiss: was. That’s what I meant because I was talking to your point

    [00:03:16] Joshua Mauldin: earlier.

    [00:03:19] Oh, rad. Okay. Yeah. So the day-to-day of me at Artium is. I run a team of designers. We work with clients to help, uh, build software, try to add a little bit more humanity into it and just help them build better software. So we’ve, I’ve got folks all across the country that, um, I’m working with and, you know, some days it’s me making prototypes another day.

    [00:03:53] Frederick Weiss: Nice. I think we’ve all been there. Right? Brian.

    [00:03:57] Brian Hinton: Absolutely. Why?

    [00:04:00] Frederick Weiss: Oh, nothing, no worries. I sense a little, a little conflict there and which, which brings us to our main top. I guess we could jump into

    [00:04:13] Joshua. We’re here to talk to you about conflict resolution. I think first off you could tell us what exactly is a, what does conflict

    [00:04:21] Joshua Mauldin: mean to. So really it’s about a disagreement in viewpoints. It’s like when I think the thing a and you think thing B and neither one of us want to go to the other thing and, you know, there’s the unhealthy kind of conflict where you have like, you know, verbal abuse and harassment and stuff like that, which is not the kind of conflict that I’m into.

    [00:04:46] Uh, Actually, that’s a funny statement who would be, um,

    [00:04:52] Frederick Weiss: well I think Brian, probably this

    [00:04:54] Brian Hinton: guy, definitely. Yeah,

    [00:04:56] Joshua Mauldin: yeah. Yeah. It’s just people, people trying to work out differences of opinion. And it’s really about not necessarily the things that you say or the viewpoints that you hold it’s really about managing the space in between those words.

    [00:05:10] If that makes. Yeah,

    [00:05:12] Frederick Weiss: absolutely. So it’s not so much about, I think what comes up in a lot of people’s minds right away is, um, uh, the negative points of view, right? It has, uh, a certain connotation to it, like, like backstabbing, um, gossip behind one’s back. And then people tend to avoid conflict because they bring their personal emotions to the table.

    [00:05:36] With with conflict, but a lot of it is that, uh, finding a common ground and that resolution to that answer. Would that be

    [00:05:44] Joshua Mauldin: fair? That’s entirely fair. Probably put better than I could. So I’m going to steal it.

    [00:05:50] Frederick Weiss: All right. I like that. Do you mind providing us maybe some examples? Uh, just to start everything off of what, uh, what conflict looks like and how people could use some basic basic

    [00:06:03] tools.

    [00:06:05] Joshua Mauldin: So there, there are several examples. One being, you been working with someone who has a particularly malicious body odor that you really, uh, oh, all right. So it looks like I’m going to be mediating some conflict. Um, yeah. So it’s, you know, you’ve got some, some personal hygiene issues that you want to discuss.

    [00:06:29] You’ve got someone who is constantly talking over someone else in a meeting or interrupting them for even interrupting. You know, this is just him

    [00:06:39] Frederick Weiss: for our audio listeners. Brian is pointing at me.

    [00:06:44] Joshua Mauldin: Uh, also listeners, I’m pretty sure that Frederick is pointing at himself through a mirror. That is offstring right.

    [00:06:50] And hypothetically, if you

    [00:06:52] Frederick Weiss: look at that in an existential way, that is, it goes back to Brian. So I get it well said, but keep

    [00:06:59] Joshua Mauldin: going. Yeah. So really it’s, it’s just about like, Hey, I’m, I’m getting interrupted a lot in meetings or I can’t come to an agreement with someone. With this user, flow or user journey should look like, and we’re just butting heads.

    [00:07:16] Well,

    [00:07:17] Frederick Weiss: you talked about a mediator. When do we, when do we actually need a mediator? Is that something to when, uh, you know, HR gets involved and we need, you know, like for example, I, I could say, and again, hypothetical, oh, Brian’s talking over me in that Monday meeting? Um, and I had enough, like, do I, do I see.

    [00:07:39] To, uh, address him and resolve this conflict or do a w w when is there, uh, the opportunity that arises when I should get that third party,

    [00:07:51] Brian Hinton: I’ll say I prefer that you, uh, come to me directly and let me know. I had no idea. It was interrupting you, Frederick

    [00:07:57] Frederick Weiss: every Monday morning meeting, which is completely fictional because we do not work together, but Josh.

    [00:08:04] Joshua Mauldin: Sure. I actually lost the question, uh, in the, in the banter, I was like, kids, I’m going to turn this car around. Um, once you get a mediator. Yeah.

    [00:08:13] Frederick Weiss: When is it appropriate? And when should someone not think about doing that?

    [00:08:16] Joshua Mauldin: So if, if you don’t feel safe having this conversation yourself, it’s always a good idea to get a mediator, but also a mediator can just be someone else in a group setting, jumping in and.

    [00:08:28] Hey, this is the fourth time you’ve talked over. Stephanie, if you do it again, we’re kicking out of the meeting. Joking, not joking. Um, for more serious things, you, you may need to like grab a, grab a manager, grab HR. But really the preferences for people to be able to resolve these things, uh, between themselves.

    [00:08:49] I think back to an episode of Ted lasso when there were, there are a couple of players, right. That show, I will fight anyone. Um, so there, there are two players who were having an issue with one another. And when the coach asks Ted, like, aren’t you going to do anything about this? Now we’re going to let them work it out.

    [00:09:10] Um, and the, the reasoning behind that is, you know, if, if you get a director or HR involved, the magnitude of it increases and the severity of it will increase just by necessity, bringing in someone. Yeah, that

    [00:09:23] Frederick Weiss: makes a lot of sense. I have the same experience with the Gilmore girls where Ari was the photographer and then Paris really didn’t want her on the newspaper.

    [00:09:32] So they worked it out. They didn’t need a mediator. And they came to a common goal, which is they want to make the paper better, uh, within the school of the fictional story, the Gilmore girls, and they worked it out and they, the conflict was successfully resolved.

    [00:09:49] Brian Hinton: It’s not, it’s also not about, uh, Like the conflict between people at that at the level we’re discussing, it could be conflict with, you know, when you mentioned design, like the two different people have two different opposing views.

    [00:10:03] Uh, how do you mediate that without stifling the creativity?

    [00:10:08] Joshua Mauldin: I can approach this in two ways. One is the person talking to person and then also. This is when an adult has to step in. Um, so person to person it’s, you really need to figure out before you have this conversation, what is the goal that you’re trying to achieve?

    [00:10:26] Like, what is it that you want in this? Always keep focused on that and always trying to understand what the other person’s goal is. Um, a lot of times we have the same goals, but we end up inadvertently stepping on each other’s toes. Um, sometimes that can cause a little ego bruising. Sometimes it can, you know, if you hadn’t slept well the night before it can, it can cause a little unnecessary tension.

    [00:10:48] So figuring out what it is that both of you need to succeed is the way to resolve this between each. Now there’s another situation in which you might need to get a mediator involved. Uh, you, you’ve got, let’s say design and engineering, uh, engineering doesn’t want to do the thing that the customer wanted.

    [00:11:12] You validated through your testing and, and all those things. Uh, and if the two of them can’t work it out between one another, sometimes it’s both of them make their cases to the mediator, but ultimately the mediator’s goal is going to be to ask those questions that were really hard for those people to ask each other.

    [00:11:29] What, what do you really need? What are you trying to accomplish here? What’s your end goal? And let’s find a way forward.

    [00:11:34] Frederick Weiss: That makes a lot of sense. I think this goes to the, um, one of the things that I saw you talk about in your, uh, YouTube videos is the pyramid of how to construct effective conversations.

    [00:11:45] So. Others input conclusions, facts, real, not opinions and psychological safety. And I think, uh, psychological safety plays a big part of this. Yes.

    [00:11:59] Joshua Mauldin: Yeah. It’s that’s, that’s why it’s the, the base of, of this. Like it underpins every conversation that we’re going to have with one another. And if you really want this to be a success, then psychological safety is definitely a thing you have to have for everyone involved.

    [00:12:15] You can have these conversations without psychological safety, but the risks and tension are probably going to be much higher than they normally would be. Um, there will be situations where you have to do this. Uh, it’s not ideal, but really if you can let the other person know that you’re here, just to try to find a way forward together.

    [00:12:36] It’s, you’re, you’re not there to, to steamroll them or things like that. That can go along with. And there’s some really small, subtle ways that you can start to build this as well. Such as if I come to you, Brian, and I ask you like, Hey, is this a, is this a bad time? Are, are you super busy? And you have the option.

    [00:12:59] Yeah. Come back later. Uh, yeah. So you, you, as the other person have the ability to opt into this conversation or opt out of it and ask. The question that prompts a no response around, like, are you busy? Is this a bad time respectfully of the person’s agency, which is really great. Um, and it goes a long way towards building psychological safety because they’re bought into the conversation.

    [00:13:25] And a lot of folks can just begrudgingly, you know, if you ask like, Hey, do you have a sec? Uh, most people are going to begrudgingly say yes, but they probably have a billion other things. They’d rather be.

    [00:13:37] Frederick Weiss: Well, can you provide a example of say the wrong thing to say something, somebody might say, you know what, I’m having problems talking to hypothetically, uh, some, you know, hypothetical name like Brian, I’m having problems talking to Brian.

    [00:13:52] Whenever I approach him, you know, it seems like there’s some kind of weird tension or he gets angry. Like what, what are the, the, maybe the, the wrong things that I might be.

    [00:14:02] Joshua Mauldin: Uh, one is leading with your opinions and conclusions. Like, Hey, you, you were a total jerk back then just by speaking over me all these times, uh, I really want you to stop, like your brain is going to stop immediately after I called you a jerk.

    [00:14:19] And you’re going to go in to defensive mode and try to try to just get this conversation over with and stop me from. Um, another thing that you really want to avoid is starting with things like Y um, because that triggers our defensive mechanisms. Um, you, we have a lot of chemistry that is going on in our brains, uh, that really, while society has evolved over the last several millennia, uh, our brains are a little slower.

    [00:14:47] So like we tend to perceive these conflicts between one another, the same way that we would a stranger coming from. Another tribe to steal arm or food. Uh, these are definitely not the same things, but according to our brains, it’s about the same. So if you, if you ask someone, I’m sorry.

    [00:15:07] Brian Hinton: No, I was just going to say, not to mention when you go in aggressive like that with emote, leading with emotions rather than logic.

    [00:15:14] Um, you’re not doing yourself

    [00:15:17] Joshua Mauldin: any favors too, right? Right, right. And sometimes that’s going to happen. Like I’ve done it a few times and I teach this stuff to people. So it’s, it’s pretty natural. But if, uh, if you can go in and ask someone, what led you to this? How did we get here asking those kinds of questions keeps that very logical part of your brain engaged so that you can have this conversation.

    [00:15:40] Whereas if I asked you, why were you such a jerk back then? Uh, that is the least veiled jab I can think of. And the conversation’s not going to go well as a result,

    [00:15:53] Brian Hinton: have you ever failed at meditating?

    [00:15:57] Joshua Mauldin: Uh, let’s see. Most of my, most of my conflicts happen one-on-one um, but I have been in a couple of situations where I got outward agreement on something.

    [00:16:11] And then the moment that this conversation ended, things went right back to, to where. So I kind of count that as a failure because the outcome wasn’t really achieved. It was just tacitly agreed to, and then definitely ignored. What, uh, what happened

    [00:16:28] Brian Hinton: after that? Like how do you, if you fail initially, what’s the vet

    [00:16:32] Joshua Mauldin: steps.

    [00:16:34] So I tend to look at these kinds of things like gardening. Uh, you want to make sure that the soil is fertile. You keep it watered and. You’re not going to be able to have every conflict get resolved. You’re not going to be able to have everything go smoothly, but it’s really about playing the long game and being open to these conversations.

    [00:16:55] So temporary setbacks, you know, sometimes that means you just try again another day. Um, there’s some times when you have to take a more aggressive stance to these kinds of things, you know, if you were a director or you’re leading something, Sometimes it’s got to be all right. I understand where both of you are coming from.

    [00:17:14] I, I understand what the trade-offs are. We’re going to do thing a and I realize that doesn’t please everyone, but I can be transparent about my reasoning, but the decision is final. I

    [00:17:27] Frederick Weiss: think I read in Forbes sometime at the beginning of this year, if people are, um, three times less likely to. Imagine the perspective of the other party, if they feel like they’re in a situation where they’re in power of the other person, uh, like, like if they’re a supervisor, a manager, et cetera, they don’t tend to feel obligated enough to have that empathy.

    [00:17:58] And it’s, it’s all about empathy. When you say.

    [00:18:01] Joshua Mauldin: I would certainly agree with that. And this, this kind of healthy back and forth between supervisors and people who report to them. It’s, it’s really, it’s really modeled by the leaders. So if you really want both sides to see other people as humans, then you as a director are obligated to ask people for feedback.

    [00:18:23] I’ve started to build this culture of feedback at, at the company I’m at now, I’ve done it at places I’ve been at previously. And it’s really like, you give your director feedback, like, Hey, what could I have done better here? And this is kind of tricky because the power dynamics do come into play. But if you, as a director are modeling that it is okay to give feedback and that it’s safe to give feedback.

    [00:18:48] Then the whole organization. Not to mention your relationship with this other person is going to be much. It

    [00:18:55] Frederick Weiss: makes sense. Another thing that, uh, I wanted to talk about is you have this whole thing about preparing for conversations. Uh, so conflict resolution for people who hate conflict resolution. So you have these four points, which are.

    [00:19:11] Checking yourself. Don’t assume that intense, uh, use empathy as we just discussed. Don’t demonize people. Um, so getting your facts in line, uh, forming conclusions, how, how did something make you feel? Um, how did it impact you or your team and then setting goals? So writing down. What you want to get from a conversation before you have that interaction might help the outcome be beneficial for both parties,

    [00:19:42] Joshua Mauldin: right?

    [00:19:43] Yeah. I th I find that, you know, this reflects how conflicts have gone for me. And I’m very much a, a planner. Like I want to think out things, I want to explore potential ripple effects of my decisions. And so this more contemplated approach before having a conversation is definitely beneficial. And I’ve seen it work very well for other people.

    [00:20:09] It’s not always going to be like that. You don’t always have a chance to, to plan everything out in advance, but just thinking about like, okay, am I going off like kind of half cocked here? It just, you know, shooting my mouth off. Like, did I have anything to do with this? Like, these are really good questions to start asking yourself, and there’s this great Alvarez.

    [00:20:32] That I really like to keep in mind, that’s called Hanlon’s razor and they’re different variations of it. But the theme is don’t attribute to malice what you can attribute to an oversight. So yeah, someone may have crossed a line, maybe they didn’t mean to, uh, it’s probably more that they just missed something.

    [00:20:56] There is a chance that someone is actually malicious and just manipulative, but more often than. It’s someone just didn’t see the impact of what they did. And on that note, it is really important that we separate both the intent and the impact from each other. Because like, one of the things that I say a lot is like, I can make a really terrible joke.

    [00:21:18] And like, if we’re in a room together, I feel such shame about this terrible joke that I made, that I run out. And then as I’m running out, I step on your toes. Um, I didn’t mean to, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. You know? So like these are, these are things that you still have to deal with. W what about

    [00:21:36] Brian Hinton: on your, on your end from you?

    [00:21:38] I mean, we’re talking about resolving other people’s issues. Um, what about you being the mediator and the emotions and the stress and all of that that you have to deal with? How, how do you cope with that in yourself?

    [00:21:50] Joshua Mauldin: That really, he took a little bit of training, but way less than you might think. Um, one it’s, it’s a lot easier to have that third party involved because you’re a little more new.

    [00:22:02] Um, you’re not experiencing the personalization of this, this disagreement. So it’s much easier for you to say, okay, you’re trying to do things. They’re trying to do thing B let’s figure it out. Um, but sometimes. Conflicts do get really tense. I’ve I’ve had, uh, I’ve, I’ve been involved in really hard conversations between, uh, other directors and people that report to me.

    [00:22:29] And I was obviously very invested in, in this conversation going well. So there was a little stress on my end for that, but it’s really where mindfulness and focusing on your breathing and focusing on the outcome that you want. Is probably the best way to go. And I’m toying with this idea and I haven’t worked it out yet around like ways to just really remove your emotion from the mediator situation and position.

    [00:23:00] I haven’t really worked it out fully, but the idea is just to try and be as you know, logical, if then statement as you possibly can. Um, We’ll see where that goes.

    [00:23:14] Frederick Weiss: Do you mind diving into that a little bit more? Uh, could you explain that?

    [00:23:18] Joshua Mauldin: Sure. So I think a lot about like, I can be very invested in getting one outcome and by me being invested in that outcome, I tend to, I would probably get a little tense if things seem to not go my way.

    [00:23:36] So if you can remove the emotion from it, like, okay, we’re thinking. About this outcome that we’re trying to get, which is, for example, we want to build this thing that our client has paid us for. And we need to stop these, these two parties from bickering and being at loggerheads with one another. Um, if you just think like, okay, what is going to get us to this goal?

    [00:24:04] Let’s go do that. Or in, in more personal situations, like, okay person A’s problem is they feel like they’re not getting the same amount of respect as person B’s friends, because person B doesn’t talk over them or interrupt them. And so. You try to find a way of making sure that you don’t have person a feeling really unsafe.

    [00:24:34] And it’s not really about having a compromise with each other because that’s kind of like a recipe for both people being equally miserable, um, in situations like where someone’s safety feels, uh, threatened or just general respect. Like it’s, it’s pretty clear which way you need to go, like person. You just need to sit down and we are going to start like raising our hands when, when we want to talk in meetings or something.

    [00:25:04] Frederick Weiss: Well, isn’t a lot of it just about emotions. Things are emotionally charged and there’s misunderstandings. And sometimes people have a bad day kind of like, um, and there’s things that are just not, um, not intentional, like, like the example you provided, where you walked out and you stepped on someone’s toe, you know, it was not intentional.

    [00:25:26] These are just. Very simple miscommunications of random events. And, and if we could just sit down and have a civil conversation, everyone would see things clearly. Right?

    [00:25:41] Joshua Mauldin: Usually. So there’s a little bit of calculus involved in like, do I want to have this conversation right now? So you have to think about yourself.

    [00:25:50] Like, am I really hungry that I get enough sleep last night? Is it the end of a long day or a long. Um, are things okay at home with me or the other person, if that’s the case, like maybe let it cool off a little bit, unless it’s absolutely critical for the success of everyone involved. Um, so you tend to be a little more calculating about exactly when you would want to have this, just so that you time it so that you can have the best possible outcome.

    [00:26:19] Um, and that’s part of the reason why I’ve constructed this framework so that we can. Just try and make it as safe as possible, where like I’m not coming at you Friday at six o’clock when everyone else is going out for happy hour or things like that. Um, and you know, there, there’s so many other things to consider.

    [00:26:40] Like I could go on for days about this kind of stuff. Know, can we start with some political safety? Okay. Here we go. We have days it’s a, it’s a weekend experience. Thunder nerds. Right? Okay. So, and, and that’s really why you want to lead with facts after psychological safety, because like, if you can recount to someone else, what, uh, what a security camera would have seen in this situation like this very detached, factual.

    [00:27:10] Oh, I saw that you did, you, you didn’t raise your hand or like I saw that you spoke over this person a few times. Um, then you talk about the impact. It’s much easier to have this conversation, I guess it, it, doesn’t presuppose that you have reached your conclusions in a, I really want to focus on like, Hey, this is what I saw.

    [00:27:33] This is how it made me feel. Am I missing something? Th this depends on the situation. Like some are pretty clear cut and you don’t need to be so hand wringing about it, but I’m talking about normal situations where you have conflict. Um, I, I hope that that kind of starts to answer that question a little bit.

    [00:27:56] Like you start with safety, you talk about the facts, you talk about how you interpreted them and see what you might be missing or how you can get to where you need to.

    [00:28:05] Frederick Weiss: No, th I think that’s, that’s really, really helpful because a lot of times we’ll, um, we’ll project our own insecurities onto people, you know, like, oh, you know, Brian thinks I’m stupid because I made this comment about, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

    [00:28:20] But in fact, that’s fine. Doesn’t care. It’s not even in his head that has nothing to do with the conversation we were having. Brian was just having a bad day because he didn’t get his morning. Right. It’s a lot of these things are about, like you said, the appropriate time to have these conversations and have these, um, the safety checks, which brings me to the next part of the conversation I’d like to discuss is disaster recovery.

    [00:28:45] So you talk about, you know, the safety check, um, add contrast, uh, I’m not saying, uh, correctly or misunderstanding, uh, things, et cetera, et cetera, or creating a shared purpose. Uh, the pullback. Um, I love this fact that I read in one of the things that you, uh, you put out there where you said, like, if, if you’re, uh, if you have some kind of thing in your mind, before you go into one of these conversations where things might get heated, you could say something such as, I can’t talk to you until you lower your voice, and that will allow you the opportunity to leave a room or exit the zoom conversation.

    [00:29:28] What have you.

    [00:29:30] Joshua Mauldin: Yeah. So this, this whole idea of doing safety checks is like, okay, things are getting really weird. Do I want to try and write this situation? Who do I want to get out of it? And so we’re really good at perceiving emotions, especially when we’re in real life with one another. It’s a little harder over zoom, even more difficult when it’s just audio and the most difficult one that’s over.

    [00:29:57] But if you can pick up on tone on body language and things like that, you can really start to tell things are getting weird. And a lot of times I’ve seen that if you can’t like a lot of these things happen just because of misunderstandings, like we’re just missing each other. And so that’s where the contrast comes in.

    [00:30:14] You know, I’m not saying you’re bad at your job. I’m saying that I need you to consult with the team before making a decision that affects. That has helped in the like highest number of conversations that I’ve had in coach people through. Um, so yeah, there, there are lots of other aspects to talking about safety, recovering things.

    [00:30:42] And a lot of this has really framed in what’s called nonviolent communication. And this, this was by an author a few years ago. Um, I got to give me a second to get his name because I do want to get it right, because it was so important. Um, Marshall Rosenberg was, uh, it was, this is a psychologist who coined this framework, but basically it’s framing things in terms of how you saw it, how it impacted you.

    [00:31:13] And so it’s very clearly articulated. What the impact is on you and you still get to keep your, your agency in this and it’s less accusatory. And so that’s when you’re able to start to have strong conversations, have easier conversations, even when it’s kind of difficult, but, um, that’s, that’s where, like, I can’t talk to you until you lower, your voice comes in.

    [00:31:39] And like, I, I don’t no one likes to be yelled at, um, But if you tell someone why are like, why are you yelling at me? Stop yelling at me? Um, that’s th that’s, that’s still like, it’s not trying to lower the temperature. Um, but if you’re

    [00:31:59] Frederick Weiss: return, right?

    [00:32:00] Joshua Mauldin: Yeah. Yeah. It’s just, it’s just a thing that escalates. And so saying like, okay, look, we can’t have this conversation until.

    [00:32:08] Your voice lowers. It’s not until you calm down or until you stop yelling at me because those are, those are a lot more concrete

    [00:32:18] Brian Hinton: triggers. Yeah. Triggers. I like what, uh, the, like the description of nonviolent communication. Uh, I just looked up when I looked up the book, not a technique to end disagreements, but rather a method.

    [00:32:32] Designed to increase empathy and improve the quality of life for those who utilize the method. That’s nice.

    [00:32:39] Joshua Mauldin: Yeah. Yeah. It’s adopting those things has been extremely beneficial for both my professional and personal life.

    [00:32:49] Frederick Weiss: I also really appreciate what you, uh, discussed. I think I heard you talking about it on user for fenders, with Jason Ogle about.

    [00:32:59] Uh, right now with all the video conferencing that we’re having it it’s, it’s sometimes it, it presents a challenge to read, uh, the other person with these low fidelity conversations. Right. A lot of times we, you know, we turn off our camera because we have to zoom. Um, or, or even just literally like, sure.

    [00:33:20] We could see each other, but it’s not the same thing. Um, it’s not that same, uh, rich level of conversation. Right,

    [00:33:28] Joshua Mauldin: right. Yeah. And you know, when you’re, and that’s why I mentioned earlier, like these things are best handled in person, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have these kinds of conflicts. Like we’ve all had like tense exchanges over texts with people or over slack.

    [00:33:43] Um, you just need to communicate. You just need to basically over-communicate like preemptively adding contrast to things because you have like, I have no control over how you read a message for me. You know, if you hadn’t had coffee, if it didn’t sleep well the night before, if things aren’t going well for you, you’re going to interpret this kind of stuff.

    [00:34:06] Way more negatively. Um, in fact, our survival circuits, uh, how the us just by default filling in these gaps of communication. With negative interpretations because that’s what leads to our survival. And so the natural thing for humans is when something is kind of unclear, you basically just assume that the other person’s being a jerk.

    [00:34:29] So correct that by using. Emoji sparingly, uh, don’t don’t send me like 10 poop emojis or something like, I’ll get it. Um, but you know, use emojis, uh, add contrast, um, you know, try to get ahead of like things that you might see as potential issues. Like, you know, you’re going to think, I’m saying that this is a terrible idea.

    [00:34:54] What I’m actually saying is that I think this has a really big impact on, on the product. And it’s

    [00:35:00] Frederick Weiss: interesting. You bring that up because I think I also heard you say on, on user defenders that people interpret emojis, just like, like if they see a smile emoji they’ll end their minds they’ll have the same emotional connection to a, like, as an actual human smiling.

    [00:35:17] Yeah,

    [00:35:18] Joshua Mauldin: it’s just powerful. That’s a fascinating thing that I read about. And it was actually initially written to discuss emoticons, you know, before we had emojis, like, you know, just the colon and right. Parentheses, like, yeah, we, we, we get it. We kind of understand where the other person’s coming from. Um, and emojis just really increase that level of fidelity in communication.

    [00:35:42] It’s a nice.

    [00:35:44] Frederick Weiss: Why don’t we actually talk about it? Cause we, we, you touched on it briefly, but you, you developed a framework for conflict resolution. What does that look like? What does this framework? And I, I believe you also have a book on the way about this.

    [00:35:57] Joshua Mauldin: Yeah. So working on the book, um, taking it slow with the publisher, just making sure that we get all the bits, right.

    [00:36:04] Um, so no, no release date as of yet for that one, but it’s, it’s gonna come out one way or the other singer later, um, So as far as the framework itself, um, I, I really just wanted to see what the common parts of really solid conversations are. And I stepped back and I thought about, you know, the things that I needed in conversation, the things I’ve seen, other people need in conversation.

    [00:36:34] And so that’s, that’s where this framework came from. Um, safety. First, you talk about the facts you talk about. The impact of those things. And then you open it up to the person. I think there might’ve been another question in there that I, I didn’t process.

    [00:36:52] Frederick Weiss: I was talking about your, um, uh, the framework you actually built for conflict resolution.

    [00:36:58] And, uh, you know, you go out and you speak about this all over the world. Um, what, what actually made you get into this? Like why, why this subject, how, how did you get onto this point? Obviously we’ve all had conflicts, but. I guess one, how did you get into this? And what was that conflict that, that lit that fire for you to go?

    [00:37:21] You know what, um, I’m, I’m in all of this, this is what I’m going to really talk about.

    [00:37:26] Joshua Mauldin: Yeah. So I grew up in the south and we’re all super nice down there. We don’t want to rock the boat. And so my parents were also very clear on like, we. We don’t want to fight in front of our kids. So really I didn’t, I didn’t have like a really good model of going and having conflict with people.

    [00:37:51] And so it was more of a lifelong study. Um, And really the thing that just like galvanized my desire to do this was like I was dropped into some wild situations when I started consulting. And I noticed that I was just getting wrecked. Like my stomach was a massive eye. There were muscles in my body that I didn’t know to Twitch that were twitching.

    [00:38:17] Uh, it was just, it was not a good situation. And so I realized. You know, this is really hurting me and I need to figure this out. What is behind all of this stuff. And so that, that led me to do a ton of research, get a lot of mentoring, uh, go through some training. And then that’s, that’s where the framework came from.

    [00:38:40] Um, I think specifically there is an incident when I was at a consulting gig where we had a PM who was doing their own. Uh, we’re on the same project. We had an engineer who treated the designs that the client had approved, that we tested, that we validated, uh, they were like, she’s just kind of suggestions.

    [00:39:04] I’m just kind of go do it my way. Um, and you know, we’re also having to work with a client who was changing their mind from time to time. So. I, it, it felt so chaotic. And I was like, how can we write this? What can we do to get on well together? And so that’s, that’s the thing where I was like, okay, I gotta figure this out.

    [00:39:29] I gotta get some training. And then I came back and we got it figured out. It was, it was kinda magical.

    [00:39:39] Frederick Weiss: I love that, you know, I was thinking about, um, doing an actual live conflict resolution with you as the mediator between Brian and I, do you mind trying that out? I

    [00:39:50] Joshua Mauldin: let’s go and see.

    [00:39:52] Frederick Weiss: Okay, here we go. So real situation, Brian, how come whenever I text you, you take forever to write me back.

    [00:40:01] It’s like, I feel like you’re ignoring me. You don’t appreciate what I say. And I’m just trying to have a conversation with you and it makes me want to text you less because I don’t feel like you value my opinion. Now you go, Brian.

    [00:40:17] Brian Hinton: My phone is muted most of the time. That’s why

    [00:40:22] pretty much the only answer I have.

    [00:40:25] Frederick Weiss: So what do you do with that, Josh?

    [00:40:28] Joshua Mauldin: Uh, I would dig in and say, okay. Fredrik it seems like you have an expectation that Brian respond immediately to your texts. Am I, am I missing anything here? Is there something you want to add to this? I would

    [00:40:46] Frederick Weiss: like him to respond within three days.

    [00:40:50] Joshua Mauldin: Okay. So I would ask Brian, how often do you check your messages? How, how important is this to you? Do you have another method that you are more reachable by, or that you prefer.

    [00:41:07] Frederick Weiss: Nice. Okay. So, so immediately Brian’s not wrong here and that’s not what I was expecting or thinking of, but I like where you’re going with

    [00:41:17] Brian Hinton: Twitter.

    [00:41:18] Twitter’s the way Frederick, I don’t pay, I have badges hidden on my mat on my messages, so I don’t even see them most of the time.

    [00:41:27] Joshua Mauldin: Okay. So

    [00:41:29] Frederick Weiss: pretty like conflict.

    [00:41:30] Joshua Mauldin: Yeah. It’s pretty easy for the two of you to see like, okay. He needs quicker responses to urgent matters. And Brian doesn’t care about his phone.

    [00:41:42] So you two just found a way to get in touch with each other quicker, with a better response rate. And neither of you are wrong. Neither of you were jerks. And in fact, Ryan I’m with you I’ve needed all my notifications on my phone. Even text messages.

    [00:42:01] Frederick Weiss: I love it. That’s perfect. I think that that conflict was resolved.

    [00:42:05] Joshua Mauldin: Good job, gentlemen.

    [00:42:07] Frederick Weiss: Thank you so much, Joshua. Well, why don’t we, uh, why don’t we go into the lightning round, Brian? You good with that? Yeah,

    [00:42:14] Joshua Mauldin: absolutely. Let’s do. All right.

    [00:42:20] Brian Hinton: Yeah. So the light lightening round is where we ask you a question, uh, in succession. Uh, you answer it. Fredrick asks the question, uh, fast paced, fast paced. So, um, my first. Is do you actually want to have pineapple on pizza?

    [00:42:37] Joshua Mauldin: Oh my God. No, get out.

    [00:42:41] Frederick Weiss: I love that. Joshua. Why do, uh, why did people call you a Gumby in school?

    [00:42:49] Joshua Mauldin: I was double jointed and so I could jump rope with my arms. I was, uh, it was a very stretchy.

    [00:42:58] Brian Hinton: Okay. You’re in the circus. Would you rather be the person with their head inside the lion’s mouth or shot out of a cannon?

    [00:43:07] Joshua Mauldin: We got shut out of a candidate. That’s amazing. You get a lion’s mouth is just gonna be like real kind of like wet, nasty and Gingervitis in there.

    [00:43:18] Yeah, dude, not into it. Like just let me, let me help you. Let me get you some floss. Let me get you some dental.

    [00:43:25] Frederick Weiss: Josh. Who is your mentor when it comes to this subject of conflict resolution?

    [00:43:32] Joshua Mauldin: I do not have a quick answer for that. Um, I have a whole stack of. That I read, um, there’s one called culture organizations, which really helps me understand like power dynamics in different cultures.

    [00:43:47] Um, and I’ve read a lot about how to have conflict with people in different cultures. And most of those things are extremely stereotypical, which is something you want to avoid. Um, cultures and organizations is really more of a holistic approach and it’s more of a prototyping approach. Like these things might happen.

    [00:44:05] So keep them in mind. Um, but yeah, that’s, that’s probably the most recent one that I’ve, I’ve been into

    [00:44:14] Brian Hinton: please. What’s one pet peeve of yours that hampers your whole life to such an extent that if you could get rid of it, it would just increase your enjoyment of life, exponentially,

    [00:44:26] Joshua Mauldin: uh, algorithms in my social media.

    [00:44:31] Frederick Weiss: Well said, Josh, what is your favorite thing about yourself?

    [00:44:38] Joshua Mauldin: Ah, I I’ve really been working for a few years on cultivating resilience and it’s just, that’s just, I feel like I’ve gotten to a much better place about it. And so, you know, situations change, I can roll better with the punches. I’m a little less brittle when it comes to, uh, addressing.

    [00:45:02] Brian Hinton: What chore do

    [00:45:04] Joshua Mauldin: you hate doing? Oh, cleaning my shower. Just like the legitimate, like it’s like, it is the most intense cardio that I will do. And like, I’ve done like the like cardio strength, workouts, where you like have a hammer and you just like hit it on a tire for awhile. Like I could do that longer than I could, like intensely scrub.

    [00:45:26] Frederick Weiss: Just got to spray the scrubbing bubbles. They take care of it. I saw the animation. Oh,

    [00:45:31] Joshua Mauldin: right, right. Yeah. That’s for next. I’ve been, I’ve been knowing it this whole time.

    [00:45:37] Frederick Weiss: Yeah. Hey, you know, live and learn. Right. Josh, what is your, um, rather if, if you couldn’t do what you’re doing now, uh, what, what else would you be doing for a career for the rest of your life?

    [00:45:52] Joshua Mauldin: I think it’d be a therapy. Or a coach or a counselor or something. Um, I get, I enjoy listening to folks and like poking through things with them and helping them explore things. And so like, you know, that’s not that different from what I do with conflict resolution, you know, we’re working through hard things together to make real progress on ourselves and our teams and our products.

    [00:46:17] They’re not

    [00:46:17] Frederick Weiss: that different. No.

    [00:46:21] Brian Hinton: So would you rather live where it snows all the time never stops or where the temperature never falls below a hundred degrees.

    [00:46:33] Joshua Mauldin: So do I want to keep living in Los Angeles is the question. Um, I would, I would love to go and live where it’s nose all the time. It’s very cozy.

    [00:46:44] You get your scarves, you get your cocoa, uh, you get your snowman. I think you’re up, you’re in the right place. We all agree with that. Good,

    [00:46:55] Frederick Weiss: good gut. Josh, what are you, what are you reading for fun these days?

    [00:46:59] Joshua Mauldin: Um, I just picked up this book called the French art of not trying too hard and it just, it really.

    [00:47:08] It vibes with named man. Like we’re just a lot of times we try and force ourselves through a process or like, you know, if we want to get this outcome, we have to do all of these other things. And it’s just, it’s very intensive. And so this book is really espousing the idea of ease and grace and intuition.

    [00:47:29] And I think that it’s really important for people who make things, because yeah, we can use this framework all the time. And we can make things very formulaic. Sometimes they work. Sometimes it has a little issue, but you know, we spend our whole lives cultivating this intuition, and it’s a shame that we discard it in favor of a prescribed number of steps.

    [00:47:58] Brian Hinton: So don’t answer this if it gets you in trouble, but what, if anything, have you.

    [00:48:07] Joshua Mauldin: Uh, okay. So when I was young, uh, I ended up getting a gift from my youth group and it was just a, a bucket of popcorn, caramel cheese, and regular. Why would you require six? Well, dude, I was like seven, so I was like, I have to figure out something to give my dad for Christmas.

    [00:48:31] And so. I didn’t even change the, like, I didn’t put a different bow on it. I just, after I had been inside it and like opened one of the packages and I was like, Merry Christmas dad. And they were like, did you get this from youth group? And I was like, no, no, no. I went out and bought it myself. Uh, I was just doubling down on my bullshit and yeah, that’s that one.

    [00:49:02] That’s a good one.

    [00:49:03] Frederick Weiss: Well, Hey, you were seven. It’s all good. But yeah, that’s how

    [00:49:07] Joshua Mauldin: I met 27. My bad,

    [00:49:09] Frederick Weiss: no 27. Gotcha. Yeah, either way. It’s very difficult to give away popcorn. So, uh, I guess you, Josh, what, uh, what podcasts are you listening to lately for? Um, not just entertainment or for, uh, for learning purposes.

    [00:49:25] Joshua Mauldin: So I enjoy, Adobe’s also nerds.

    [00:49:30] Uh, obviously, um, I, I tend to keep my podcast listening a little more on the like entertainment side. So my, uh, I actually, I hear a lot of podcasts because my wife is listening to them all the time. Um, Smartlist has really hilarious. With Jason Bateman and will Arnett and some other guy. And I’m not quite remembering, sorry, other guy.

    [00:49:53] Um, yeah, like mostly my brain hears people talk all day. And so it’s very exhausting to process a lot of like canned conversation. So I tend to prefer music or things that like song Exploder. I don’t know. I do a lot of reading these days rather than.

    [00:50:14] Brian Hinton: So no one really that I’ve ever met enjoys waiting anywhere, but where’s one place that you don’t mind waiting till you’re like it’s okay.

    [00:50:29] Joshua Mauldin: Like, Hey,

    [00:50:30] Brian Hinton: let’s help this guy.

    [00:50:32] Joshua Mauldin: Okay. So here it is. Here’s why, because like we talked earlier about, you know, this hypothetical conflict where you turned off all your notifications. Um, I am making my phone as dumb as humanly possible while still being able to live in the modern world. And so, like, I don’t have notifications, I don’t have social, I don’t have email on my phone.

    [00:50:53] And so it’s like, I’m able to just like, hang out and be. Uninterruptible. So waiting is pretty much good. I love that. I just wrecked your question.

    [00:51:09] Brian Hinton: Yeah, you did. Yeah,

    [00:51:12] Frederick Weiss: I think we’re, we’re probably, we’re getting, uh, we’re getting at the end here, Brian. I’m sorry. Do you have one last one of these

    [00:51:18] Brian Hinton: one, one last one. So why is count Dracula? A terrible project.

    [00:51:25] Joshua Mauldin: I don’t know. I’ve always been able to count on him. No,

    [00:51:30] Brian Hinton: that’s good. But it’s because he always avoids the stakeholders.

    [00:51:34] Joshua Mauldin: Oh man. This guy, like, he just, he does it by the number. Like he’s the most reliable person out. That’s true. I love it, Josh.

    [00:51:45] Frederick Weiss: We’re right at the end here. I want to ask you two things first. Uh, where would you like people to find out more about.

    [00:51:53] Joshua Mauldin: I come join me on Twitter. Uh, I’ve also got some things on my personal site, uh, before warrant, if you follow me on Twitter, there is a lot of dumb jokes.

    [00:52:04] Frederick Weiss: Gotcha. Love it. And the last question,

    [00:52:11] words of wisdom. Uh, do you have any parting words of wisdom for our audience?

    [00:52:19] Joshua Mauldin: Yeah. I would say that if you can see conflict as something that you can embrace and learn from and have the discovery mindset, things are going to go much better for you, for your team, for your company, for your product. Um, it’s, it’s, it’s the thing that keeps me going this discovery mindset.

    [00:52:42] So look at cultivating that you won’t. I

    [00:52:46] Frederick Weiss: love it. And I think the last thing that we agreed on before we started the show was you were going to play us out. I see your guitar back there.

    [00:52:54] Joshua Mauldin: Wait, what we agreed

    [00:52:55] Frederick Weiss: on this? Yeah. So go ahead and grab it. And same whatever song you want. We’ll wait for a second.

    [00:53:03] Joshua Mauldin: Um, well, here we go.

    [00:53:07] I I’ve got my, I’ve got my air guitar right

    [00:53:10] Frederick Weiss: here. Oh, you’re going to do an air

    [00:53:11] Joshua Mauldin: guitar. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess we’re going to go with, uh, what are we going to go with? Reluctantly crouched at the starting line engines pumping and something in time, the green light flashes the crowds, something, something, and this guy goes to the distance.

    [00:53:30] We did it boys. We did it.

    [00:53:32] Frederick Weiss: Nice, well done. Beautiful performance by Joshua Malden. Joshua, thank you so much for being part of the show and joining us.

    [00:53:43] Brian Hinton: Yeah, thank you for spending Saturday with us. A time is valuable. So thanks for joining us. And I apologize for Frederick.

    [00:53:54] Joshua Mauldin: I

    [00:53:54] Frederick Weiss: apologize for Brian. Apparently

    [00:53:57] Joshua Mauldin: I apologize that my bad karaoke skills. So I’m going to go work on that. I

    [00:54:01] Frederick Weiss: think you karaoke was on point in your air guitar for audio listeners. You got to go back and watch because he was hitting him. He was hitting the courts. That’s

    [00:54:09] Brian Hinton: right. Flying all over the place. It was amazing.

    [00:54:13] Frederick Weiss: What was that? That was Kate, right?

    [00:54:15] Joshua Mauldin: Yeah, it definitely was.

    [00:54:17] Frederick Weiss: Yeah. Nice. Nice. Thank you everybody for joining. Really appreciate it. And we’ll catch you next time. Thanks all

    19 September 2021, 5:47 pm
  • 1 hour 2 minutes
    285 – 🎯 Essential Marketing Strategies with David Portnowitz

    In this episode, we get to talk with David Portnowitz, Chief Marketing Officer at Star2Star, a Sangoma company. We discuss Star2Star, their solutions, and how they’re providing services that address the challenges of our new normal. We also delve into Marketing in the 20s and leverage the lessons learned from 2020 to ready business for the future. Additionally, we evaluate the current marketing trends and hypothesize which opportunities hold the most value.

    ✨ Episode Sponsor

    🔗 Episode Links

    📜 Transcript

    Frederick Weiss: welcome. I am Frederick Philip von Weiss, and you are consuming the Thunder Nerds! a conversation with the people behind the technology that love what they do, and do tech good!  Welcome to the show everybody. Go ahead and start live chatting with us.

    [00:01:38] We'll answer your questions in the order they are received. Additionally, make sure you subscribe to the show at YouTube.com/ThunderNerds and click on that notification bell to get alerts for new videos. And we also have exclusive subscriber giveaways. Now with that being said, and without any ados being furthered, let's go ahead and welcome our guests.

    [00:02:03] We have: speaker, host, bourbon connoisseur, and chief marketing officer at Star2Star, a Sangoma company. David Portnowitz! David, welcome to the show. Appreciate you coming.

    [00:02:17] David Portnowitz: [00:02:17] Thanks so much for having me, Frederick, it  is so good to be here with you. I know this has been something we've been trying to schedule for a while.

    [00:02:24] And I got to ask you about avocado labs. I'm getting hungry now.

    [00:02:28] Frederick Weiss: [00:02:28] yeah, I hear what you mean. I do enjoy the avocado  in the guacamole. It's one of my favorite treats, but yeah, man, I really appreciate you being on the show. We've worked together in some capacity now for  a pretty long time, and I'm very grateful to have you on the show my friend.

    [00:02:44] And, just thank you so much for sharing your time with us!

    [00:02:47] David Portnowitz: [00:02:47] Yeah. We have a long history, right? I guess we could go back to just trying to think about 2007, 2008? I guess it would have been 2008 maybe. Was that, does that sound about?

    [00:02:59] Frederick Weiss: [00:02:59] That does sound about right.  Which sounds like a lifetime ago, really.

    [00:03:04] Especially the way the world is changing. Excuse me. Just quick, disclaimer,  I've been very sick, so you might hear some coughing, sneezing and other mysterious noises. So forgive me for that.  Just putting that out there.  But David let's  build up a little bit of context about you for our audience first off.

    [00:03:23] So you are the CMO at Star2Star communications, a Sangoma company. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about that. And so we could get a more idea about what you do, who you are.

    [00:03:33] David Portnowitz: [00:03:33] Absolutely. So I have been at Star2Star now for going on, I guess this will be my eighth year there. I started in 2013 as head of digital and have worked my way up to the CMO role.

    [00:03:47] I've been in that role now for about three years.  And previous to that, I worked at IMG Academy, which is, if you're familiar with the sports world, the largest youth training facility in the world based here in Bradenton, Florida.  And I started there right out of college and that was my first job.

    [00:04:03] I, and I've spent seven or eight years there doing that. And that's where I met Fredrick when he was working at an agency  nearby. And so  we actually were using the agency and. I crossed paths first, and then I left IMG and I guess it would have been October of 2013 and started at Star2Star a month later about, I don't know, maybe a year later.

    [00:04:24] When did you start there? I started to start,

    [00:04:27] Frederick Weiss: [00:04:27] I think I started there maybe  like nine months after you, because every time I see the career history on LinkedIn, you're like just a few months ahead of me on the thing.   I think I'm set. I just got my seven years, your eight

    [00:04:41] David Portnowitz: [00:04:41] years. Maybe I'll be eight in November, I think, because I think that makes sense, right?

    [00:04:46] 20. Yeah, let me do it fast.  And Star2Star.  Just for all intents and purposes is a UCaaS company around. For 15 or 16 years and was recently acquired by a company called Sangoma that's based in Toronto, Canada.  And we are really excited about this merger and coming together with the single-mode folks and joining forces.

    [00:05:10] They've got an entire suite of communication as a service products.  Obviously we are a full service UCaaS company and kind of put our products together. We think we have the largest sort of  portfolio in the industry now. It was a very exciting time. We're going through all those integration pains.

    [00:05:27] If you've been on, I'm sure many of you have probably experienced  merging with another company and integrating.  It's tough.  There's a lot to  Wade through it's nerve wracking. It's exciting. It's all of those things put together.  So you know, we're going through that right now and  yeah, that's kinda where we are.

    [00:05:45]  Frederick Weiss:  Let me ask you a question. So as a CMO, what exactly do you do?  What is your day to day like for people that might not understand that concept or are interested in maybe having aspirations to become a CMO?

    [00:05:58] David Portnowitz: [00:05:58] Yeah, I think it's a lot. I spent a lot of time talking to  the product side to the sales side, to  customer service, trying to understand  where we want to position ourselves in the market, how we want to talk to our customers and our partners  where we want to put the focus where sales is  where, what kind of leads we want to drive  all of those things that.

    [00:06:22] That we're focused on driving revenue essentially.  And then executing from there, right?  Like I then go down to my team and say, look, where's your, here's what we want to focus on. Here's the kind of campaign we want to run.  Here are the priorities we have and I like to run my department in a couple of ways.

    [00:06:42] One I'm not. I'm not a very, I'm not a micromanager. I think  maybe Frederick will correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't try to be a micromanager, not if I know there are times when I don't have to be a little bit more hands-on and try to push things through.

    [00:07:00] I am impatient. I will tell you that. But I also like to run the group as more of an agency that kind of approach.  And we help our partners out. We help our salespeople out. We help the company out. Those are  our three main customers. If we were to look at the agency model  and  we are a lean to yes organization.

    [00:07:20] We want to do what we can do to help.  We will go out of our way to be responsive.  I do think it's really important if someone sends us an email or someone sends us a note. Let's respond to them, let's make sure we hear  they're, they feel like they're heard.  And that goes a long way.

    [00:07:35] And I think marketing for us, there has been a bit of a differentiator.  When space, the UCaaS space has been commoditized, prices have been driving down partners.  Their choices have been dwindling as companies merge together.  Marketing is an area where we think we can differentiate ourselves in this and the level of service we provide and the quality of things we do and the content we create.

    [00:07:56] All of those things  are things I focus  on a daily basis. And you're also managing people. So   that's something you have to be comfortable with.  If you want to get into the CMO role. I It is  you're dealing with people and you're dealing with their issues and you're making sure that they're taken care of.

    [00:08:11] And all of those things are a balancing act. And   that's  what being a manager is in general. You've got people on top of you, you've got people below you and you've got to  balance in between. It definitely makes for interesting days.

    [00:08:25] Frederick Weiss: [00:08:25] Yes. And also you're responsible for your customers as well. And for your partners,

    [00:08:32] David Portnowitz: [00:08:32] Yeah.    For us, we're a partner led business.  And  we don't sell anything directly. We sell everything through a reseller or through an IT professional who is going to resell our product to an end-user, to a customer.

    [00:08:46] Think about it like  a car dealership, right? So when you go to buy a Subaru  you don't go right to Subaru corporate to buy that car,  there are, there's a Subaru dealer in your area. You go to them, they get, they buy the car from Subaru. They resell it to you at a higher price. There's a markup in there and they're making that money probably upfront  whatever that difference is.

    [00:09:07] There's probably some money in there recurring too. And once you're paying  on a car payment  so those are the kinds of   that's the model that we  say, so we've got partners that are local, if you needed. Voice service. If you needed security, if you needed a virtual desktop, if you needed  those kinds of things, you would go to your local IT guy  and say, Hey, look, I don't have an IT department.

    [00:09:28] Or maybe my IT department can't handle this kind of thing.  I need help.    An MSP or which is a managed service provider will come in and say, okay, we recommend star to star. They can help solve these problems for you and  et cetera, et cetera.

    [00:09:41] Frederick Weiss: [00:09:41] Excellent. Yeah. So go ahead. Yeah. I wouldn't be the person  or you wouldn't be the person I would go to then to say, Hey, my tires are, or I'm low on my Subaru.

    [00:09:51] I would be going to my a Subaru dealer.

    [00:09:55] David Portnowitz: [00:09:55] Yeah. And   then the Subaru dealer is going to go back to Subaru and say, Hey Subaru, can you help us market these cars? Can you run ads? Can you give us money?  Do you have money so that we can run local advertisements here? Do you have  collateral on these cars that we can put in our dealerships?

    [00:10:11] Do you have a portal we can go to and download all the assets that we need? That's the same kind of thing we do for our partners, right? Our partners are in the field they're selling, but they need the support, right? They need financial support. They need collateral support, they need content. They need to understand how the products work.

    [00:10:28] They need to have, they need to be trained on what to say and how to sell the products. Is very similar to that. You could think about it like the real estate model as well.    That  if you're a real estate agent for  Coldwell banker or something like that, or Coldwell banker is this massive corporate company, but you're going to  you're a local agent.

    [00:10:47] They're going to provide you with tons of material, tons of content, training, financial support, all of those things. So very similar to those kinds of models. And then. For us from a marketing standpoint  we're charged with helping those partners sell. We're charged with making sure that they have the right materials, that they have the right people to help them.

    [00:11:06] So all of those things are part of what we do on a daily basis. Yes.

    [00:11:10] Frederick Weiss: [00:11:10] And for full transparency, this episode is sponsored by Subaru. They provide a little bit of cash for the analogies. Thank you. Subaru. Just want to get that out there. It's just in case  all the cards are on the table. So

    [00:11:22] David Portnowitz: [00:11:22] did you own a Subaru?

    [00:11:24] I wish they were sponsoring. Cause then maybe my Subaru, but yeah.

    [00:11:28] Frederick Weiss: [00:11:28] Do you like

    [00:11:28] David Portnowitz: [00:11:28] your Subaru? I love my Subaru, so no, you're not

    [00:11:32] Frederick Weiss: [00:11:32] You're not going to go the Tesla route.

    [00:11:33]   David Portnowitz: [00:11:35] I think I need a few more dollars to get into the Tesla route. So what do you think?

    [00:11:41] Frederick Weiss: [00:11:42] I saw that  I don't know if the Musk is, and has put in some jokes out there talking about how a cyber truck might cost a million dollars.

    [00:11:50] Are there any, yeah. Is there any

    [00:11:52]   David Portnowitz: [00:11:54] I don't love the look of the cyber truck. I'm not going to be on it. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm sure I can do my thing.  I do  listen, I do  the a, what is it? The why? I think, why is it worn out?  I would definitely get a Y. My wife would love it if I got a Y she would love the idea of getting an electric car.

    [00:12:11] So they're safe, two very safe cars. Yeah. They're just  just a little bit out of my price range and  just more money that I want to spend on a car. I should say  I guess I'm not that kind of guy.  I, it's not that important to me, I guess I would say,

    [00:12:26] Frederick Weiss: [00:12:26] I think if you balance the  if you look at a few different factors, like how much it costs like gas per month, and you factor that into your monthly payments, et cetera, et cetera.

    [00:12:36] It had my balance out in some scenarios because of course your insurance goes up a little bit, depending on who your agency is.  Yeah, but I

    [00:12:44] David Portnowitz: [00:12:44] digress. I would love to get it. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm like, I would love to get my love. I love the fact that it's just one big computer screen. It's very minimal.

    [00:12:52] I love all that.

    [00:12:52] Frederick Weiss: [00:12:52] So I'm in, yeah. I'd love to get the cyber tracker. That's definitely my style.

    [00:12:57] David Portnowitz: [00:12:57] I need a cyber truck.

    [00:12:59] Frederick Weiss: [00:12:59] I would love the cyber truck. That is me all day meat all

    [00:13:02] David Portnowitz: [00:13:02] day. It looks like a, yeah. I don't know about that. I don't know about that. Look, it looks so weird

    [00:13:09] Frederick Weiss: [00:13:09] again. Not you, I'm the target.

    [00:13:13] David Portnowitz: [00:13:13] Okay. It looks very long. I don't think it would fit in a garage.

    [00:13:18] Frederick Weiss: [00:13:18] I would make it fit. My garage is pretty long. I like it. I guess I would golf it all out. I totally would love that.

    [00:13:24] David Portnowitz: [00:13:24] All right.  I hope you will one day. Get it.

    [00:13:28] Frederick Weiss: [00:13:28] Me too. That's my plan

    [00:13:29] David Portnowitz: [00:13:29] right now. There's one, I think right now there's one of them.

    [00:13:31] So I don't know.

    [00:13:33] Frederick Weiss: [00:13:33] Just that one that Jalen was driving around. Yeah, exactly. I'm sure he has that in his thing.  Let's go ahead and get to our main topic.

    [00:13:45] So David, our main topic is marketing in the roaring twenties. Ooh. What's some of the dances in the twenties, the chocolate

    [00:13:54] David Portnowitz: [00:13:54] Charleston

    [00:13:55] Frederick Weiss: [00:13:55] has

    [00:13:57] David Portnowitz: [00:13:57] the arms in your legs  like together, like

    [00:13:59] Frederick Weiss: [00:13:59] a cross. I just see  Amy Poehler in somebody doing that  yeah.

    [00:14:07] David Portnowitz: [00:14:07] I think icebergs had a moment there.

    [00:14:10] Icebergs

    [00:14:10] Frederick Weiss: [00:14:10] didn't have a moment. Maybe that was before then all that stuff could come back.  I do love the cold.    One of the things that I go to in my head right away with the roaring twenties. It's a product of the COVID is everything to do  with coffee and the industrial revolution, really.

    [00:14:32] And I promise I'm going somewhere where people used to drink alcohol all the time, because it was safer than water. And then people started drinking coffee because it was a different kind of beverage that allowed us  to  not be governed by the sun and the moon.   We could work linked to the day.

    [00:14:49] We could be more productive and frankly, we weren't drunk as we were trying to get things accomplished. And then  in the late 17 hundreds  coffee became very popular, industrial revolution, et cetera, et cetera. Then we started having the coffee breaks and I think in Wisconsin, in the late fifties, maybe early fifties, 51 ish  somewhere back to the future with Marnie, the coffee break became law, right?

    [00:15:16] What happened with the coffee break is people started to become more productive. They had a coffee break in the morning and then the afternoon. And I think there's a lot of  similarities here. Some parallels  if you think about it with remote work and flexible work, and we're seeing that people  started    with remote work and flexible work or rather remote work at the beginning of the pandemic, that people would work a lot more.

    [00:15:42] They wouldn't take a lot of breaks, so they would work way into the night.  I think a lot of people have done that.  I know I did that. I subscribed to that kind of lifestyle, but they were also happier and more productive and got a lot more done.  Do you see any kind of similarities to this?

    [00:15:59] David Portnowitz: [00:16:00] Yeah, first off, I don't know what you're talking about. So  excuse me.

    [00:16:04] Frederick Weiss: [00:16:04] How did you not catch

    [00:16:05] David Portnowitz: [00:16:05] that? No, I didn't know. I didn't know where you're going with the coffee thing, but now it makes sense.  No, I think, look, when you, when we were home last year, there was less of a, there was  you didn't have  that sort of difference between work    in your home,  you were working from your house all the time. There was no break. When you left work, you could  stop thinking about it or you could put it behind you and you could go home and you could be with your family.  There was less of that and it spilled over into 1, 1, 1   big blob of  work and home and kids  and your significant other was that   it was just, it was chaos.

    [00:16:44]   And. As we are getting back into the office a little bit  there's definitely going to be this idea of a hybrid environment  where  there is  you're home for a little bit, you're at work for a little bit, you're in the office  there, and I think we're all going to have to get used to that.

    [00:17:02] What does that look like? For example, one of the things that I just was like  I'm so tired of  carrying my monitor and my key  in my mouse and this back and forth. So I was like, I'm just gonna order a second one for my home. And second, the idea of needing this and then not having a setup every time you move back and forth  that wasn't something we had to deal with  18 months ago.

    [00:17:24]   I think there's going to be a. Yeah. A learning curve for a lot of companies. So how to do this.    I think the technology side is going to be very interesting. Cause I think  everyone was like, oh, we gotta get everyone set up to work from home. They did that now, how do you deal with getting everyone working from home and also working from the office at the same time and balancing that  and dealing with COVID and dealing with  someone in the office getting sick and then  people going back home for all of this is going to happen.

    [00:17:53]   We were fortunate enough in our. World where we didn't have to go into the office last year  there  and there are a lot of people who, that, that wasn't the case, the majority of people.      We're a little bit, but you and I are a little bit behind that curve, so we're going to have to figure out what it's going to be, it's going to be interesting to see what else.

    [00:18:12] There's

    [00:18:13] Frederick Weiss: [00:18:13] a thing I want to read here from Apollo technical.com?  I'm going to read this quote, Upwork estimates that one in four Americans and over 26% of the American workforce will be working remotely through 2021. And they continue to say, they also estimate that 22% of the workforce, 36.2 million Americans will work remotely by 2025.

    [00:18:45] So that being said, how do we take advantage of that from a marketing perspective? What do we think?

    [00:18:53] David Portnowitz: [00:18:53] I think  I think it's probably pretty accurate. As we see  companies have plans to send people back to the office just this month and had to push those back because of COVID.

    [00:19:03]   I think  it's a rolling kind of calendar. No one knows exactly when that's going to be. How do we take advantage of it as one  we have to be more personal, right? We have to understand that people are at home.  We have to understand  how they're spending their time.

    [00:19:18] If you look at Gartner, they put out a digital distraction document that I thought was fascinating.  That  the sort of the top distractions impacting employees, ability to concentrate, and you had this sort of work distractions like emails, unscheduled work-related calls, and some messaging mixed with digital distractions, like your personal emails, your text messages, your social media alerts mixed with personal distractions, like housekeeping responsibilities, caretaking deliveries, mail.

    [00:19:44] Yeah. Picking up your kids, all those kinds of things. And there's sort of a point where at least things overlap  we have to be cognizant of that.  You have to be able to  if you're trying to get a customer that's working from home, you need to be able to speak to them in their language.

    [00:19:58] What are the things they're dealing with?  How do we help them get through the Workday when their kids are at school and their significant other is here. And they've got, they're dealing with  trying to do laundry and clean all of these things at the same time.    I think it's important  that marketers understand  those kinds of things.

    [00:20:18] And  if you're going to send something to them, if you're going to send them a package, don't send it to their work address, find out their home address, little things like that make a big difference. And    I've seen some companies do that well and some companies still struggle with it.

    [00:20:30]   Yeah. Yeah. I I think it's all about understanding  the mindset or what the customer is dealing with  at the time.

    [00:20:40] Frederick Weiss: [00:20:40] It's interesting. You bring that up.  What is besides that? What are some other  lessons  we've learned  from the lack of face to face    that we didn't have, this deficiency  in business that we could  and empower ourselves to use  going into 2020.

    [00:21:02] David Portnowitz: [00:21:02] Wow.

    [00:21:02] Frederick Weiss: [00:21:04] Like some best practices, the future. Yeah.

    [00:21:05] David Portnowitz: [00:21:05]  I think one, it is  if you're  if you're managing people, I think it's being flexible. I think you have to be flexible.  I think you have to understand that people are going to work from home. Sometimes they're going to come into the office.

    [00:21:18] You can't have this  Idea that everyone's just going to be there every day.  I think you have to have that. I think you need to be  realistic with people.  People have been working from home and  they like the idea  that they can do that. And I think you need to be realistic  about what's going to happen sometimes.

    [00:21:34] And   to me, those are the kinds of things I think about  from  from the customer standpoint   w what's going to drive them is  they're going to be looking for technology that makes it easier for them to go back and forth, to work from anywhere  to have one seamless application that they can do all these things in  they don't want to have to drag a big computer back and forth.

    [00:21:55] They want to be able to boot up quickly. They want to be able to  get their stuff right away.  You want to make their life as simple as possible. It's going to help increase their productivity.  It's going to make them. No technology stack is easier.  These are the things that we're hearing from our customers.

    [00:22:11] They want one vendor for these things. They want to be able to go to one place and get all this stuff. That's what's important to our customers.

    [00:22:19] Frederick Weiss: [00:22:19] Yeah.  I hear you  when you talk about that kind of stuff, that makes me think about  things like desktop as a service to where people could utilize some kind of central source for their     for that kind of  technology and then to distribute basically machines and all that stuff is going to cover  you don't have to worry about the security of what happens if that laptop gets stolen or    you don't have to worry about    having somebody come to your location and loading a bunch of things on their machine.

    [00:22:52] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Do you mind just maybe  I know I just put out  a statement like that. Do you mind  just briefly with some brevity's just going over, what that  Daws solution might be.

    [00:23:04] David Portnowitz: [00:23:04] Yeah.   You think about it, you want to boot up your computer and you want to be able to have the applications that you use every day.

    [00:23:11] So  let's say you're in Salesforce every day.  You use Adobe and you use your email. Those are really the only applications you use. So you have a virtual desktop, so you boot booted up, it looks like a regular computer, but those applications are in the cloud. And  you're not taking up your computer hard drive space.

    [00:23:26] You could use a thin client.  If you could use a Chromebook or a lightweight tablet or something like that. And the applications are in the cloud, they're secure.   If you lose it, like you mentioned,  you can just erase it  from wherever you are and then  get a new one.

    [00:23:42] Inexpensive piece of hardware    and global applications. And again, be  you left off in someplace, you were doing emails  you were using office 365 or whatever the case is, and you want to pick right back up. You can do those things because it's all stored in the cloud. Yeah. And  from a corporate standpoint, it's really nice because I can control what's on the machine  they're on, they can't download their own personal email.

    [00:24:05] They can't be checking Facebook.  You can  monitor those things  and it reduces your costs, right? You don't have to buy everybody a $1,500 Macbook. Although we like our nice Macbooks  or you can get a Chromebook. Yeah. But you can spend two or $300 on a Chromebook  and you can get the same kind of functionality or  you can, a lot of times you can, you might even just build this with  a raspberry PI  40, 50 bucks  monitor and be good to go.

    [00:24:29]   Those are the kinds of things you can do   in a virtual desktop experience. And  we work closely with Citrix and they're the leader in this space on the virtual desktop side. And  there are. Multi-billion dollar, large enterprises using virtual desktops.

    [00:24:46] It's a it's and it became more popular during the pandemic because you had people working from home and you wanted companies to be able to control the applications  on the computer. And they wanted to make sure it was secure and that  and they want to make it so that  you don't have to VPN in, it slows you down.

    [00:25:02] This takes all that away. So  it's just  it's a very elegant solution for that problem.

    [00:25:08] Frederick Weiss: [00:25:08] Yeah. I would say if anybody wants to learn more about that, they could go to Star2Star.com/DaaS, and we'll put a link to that, obviously in the show notes.

    [00:25:24] Frederick Weiss: [00:25:24] Let's go to our next kind of topic here.

    [00:25:28] It is Virtual Event Marketing. One of the things that I know you very much enjoy  for these virtual events without  these  events and  These kinds of things in 2020 it's what did businesses do? And more importantly what are the takeaways for empowering the future?

    [00:25:48]  We're gonna start to get back to the way things look a little bit  we're going to have some of these events, but    w we've learned that a lot of times these virtual events people are either  they're halfway there halfway, not they're either eating Chinese food or yeah.

    [00:26:07] Really not even that I'm being gracious.

    [00:26:09] David Portnowitz: [00:26:09] Yeah. I think you're being very gracious.

    [00:26:10]   Frederick Weiss: [00:26:11] Tell me about that.  What do you think the results were and what can we do better moving forward? Obviously people are starting to get out a little bit. We don't know what the fursuit foreseeable future holds, but we'll not jump into

    [00:26:24] David Portnowitz: [00:26:24] that.

    [00:26:24] Yeah. So I think last year, the virtual events were really, really difficult. I think people were overwhelmed with them.  It's very hard to do a virtual event while also being. Checking your email and doing work.  I think when you're at an event, you can  be there. You can  monitor your email on a phone.

    [00:26:42] If you need to jump on a quick call, you can do that, but you're not really in the office. Your staff  knows you're not there. There's not an expectation that you're going to be able to return this email in two seconds or that you're going to be able to jump on this project right away  but when you're at a virtual event, I think some of those barriers are not as clear.

    [00:27:03] There is  an expectation that you're doing the virtual event and you're still  working at the same time.  And it's hard to schedule around. I You really needed to pretend like you're at an event and then clear your calendar and then do that all day. And I think that's hard.

    [00:27:16] It was hard for me  because  some other people may have been more successful with it. It was not  for me and for the events that we tried to do  and do recruiting in and things like that, they were just not super successful. I am looking forward to getting back to in-person events when it's safe.

    [00:27:32] I'm hoping that we can do that  this year. And  I think that they're not going to be as, as well attended as they have been in the past. I think that's going to be  part of the new normal all over the next, I don't know, 12, 24 months.  But I think people were also excited to get back out.

    [00:27:50] You look at, I know you look at places like Las Vegas   and  Florida, which we do a lot of.  There's a lot of people who come to Orlando for events  big, and center.  Those places have been pretty crowded.  Yeah, no. So I think people, they want to go, they want to be able to travel again.

    [00:28:06] I know if you have,  if you have done any traveling and had in the past six months, you know how hard it is. Flights are expensive. Rental cars are hard to get. Hotel rooms are expensive. And again so people are, people want to get out of the house. Virtual goal of going back to virtual events is to  not for me.

    [00:28:26] I didn't find anything that really worked.

    [00:28:29] Frederick Weiss: [00:28:29] Yeah. I hear a lot of people talking about things like incentivizing  with games, contests, quizzes, but I, it seems like everybody had that same kind of experience where  they tried so many different things, but again  it's one of those video fatigues.

    [00:28:45] Like you don't want to sit in front of the camera or the computer for some kind of events such as this    or such as that rather for a five hour time period. It's just, it's

    [00:28:57] David Portnowitz: [00:28:57] too much. It is absolutely too much. It's there, it's exhausting.  You just can't do it all day.  The video fatigue was real, it was a real thing.

    [00:29:05] People experienced it all across the world really.  And it's just, it's a lot to sit there and  listen  just to listen to sessions and listen, and that's hard to do and  it's hard to not get distracted and go back to that digital distraction thing that I talked about  it's hard to not do laundry at the same time, or  you're checking Twitter or you're texting with your friend, or you're also doing email  those things all come up  when you're just  sitting there  you're like  I'm just sitting here listening.

    [00:29:34] I could do this at the same time. When you start doing those things, you're not really listening anymore.  You're  like half listening, half doing this, a third, doing that so    it's becomes  very difficult to  keep anybody's attention for any period of time.

    [00:29:47] Frederick Weiss: [00:29:47] Yeah. And it makes a lot of sense speaking of that then  Jumping into my next question which blends into what we were just talking about.

    [00:29:55] I wanted to ask you about how you re-imagined marketing through all this. And what did you find successful?  If we think about demand generation being  the top of the funnel, the marketing qualified leads and the bottom of the funnel being sales, qualified leads, like how,  w what exactly did you do in the response once?

    [00:30:15] Once we got a little bit down the line of 20, 21, and    maybe  w what kind of takeaways can we  apply  that's applicable to next year?

    [00:30:27] David Portnowitz: [00:30:27] Yeah, good question. So I think for us, it was important to double down on digital, wherever we could this was the case for a lot of companies now, you were looking for ways to drive new leads. People were spending a lot of time online.  How could you engage with them through SEM, through SEO? How could you engage with them where they are, what the platforms they're using and how do you reach them at home?

    [00:30:49] We did several things where we mailed something to someone's house. That was not something we used to do.  We would send somebody to the office  courtesy of their name. And those kinds of things were important to us and we all, so we were  cognizant that people were.

    [00:31:05]    They were, it was a time of  unease, right? So people didn't know what to expect. They didn't know where we were, so we tried to be very comforting to them. We tried to be there for them to support them  both financially. And when you did, we tried to make sure that  their needs were taken care of  if they needed something  someone got sick  God forbid we, you just tried to  be a good partner.

    [00:31:26] And    from my  driving lead standpoint, I think you really needed to focus on digital.  You need to be  socially  socially there, you need to have a presence there. You need to be tapping into that.  You needed to be.  When people were looking for you online  you needed to be there.

    [00:31:41] You needed to look at  review sites  and be, have a presence there you needed to do no marketing, which I think God got we've. We  certainly jumped the shark there. If we hadn't already five years ago, we certainly did last year with the amount of emails that we, you would get from companies trying to be a little bit pitchy about, oh yeah, you're at home     so look, everyone  we all have    we all dealt with that.

    [00:32:10] Yeah.  But there are only so many levers you can pull  and you just have to be, you have to pull the right one at the right time and that's  it's more  sometimes a little bit marketing is a little bit more of an art. That's balancing that art with that side.

    [00:32:27] Frederick Weiss: [00:32:27] Yeah, that's fair.  It's definitely numbers and numbers and all that.  Yeah so do, would you then think that COVID has  has changed the practice of business as a whole forever?  Will marketing ever be the same or are we just  full on focusing on these digital experiences?

    [00:32:45] David Portnowitz: [00:32:45] No  I think that there have been some areas where it's, we're, you're never going to go back.

    [00:32:50] It's never like we talked about events. They're never going to be as big as they were before.  Just because people are  there, they don't have to travel. They don't feel that need. I think, like I said, there may be, there's going to be a boom. People wanna get out of the house.

    [00:33:06] But then they'll probably slowly trend back down.  When people get tired of traveling again  when they get in the airport and they're stuck there overnight and they're flames, plane's been delayed for no reason  people are going to remember why they didn't want to travel to begin with  quick, quickly get reminded when you go to an airport and you're like, oh God.

    [00:33:21] Now I know I didn't want to do it because I think there are some things that will change. I think  digitally    the main thing that I think we're going to see going forward is people want to be able to get access to the information as quickly. This is already the case, but I think it was doubled down on because people don't want to spend a lot of time  on your site looking for a million different things.

    [00:33:45] They come there  for a specific reason. They've most likely already done the research, as you'll hear  that they've already talked to somebody about your company. They've already looked you up online. They've thought they've read a review, they come to your site, they want to be able to buy or download or, and when they want to go  they don't want to spend a lot of time.

    [00:34:03] So I think you have to do a good job of trying to capture their attention right away.  You want to provide the right content to them that they're happy and they don't feel like you're attacking them, or they don't feel like  your  Dropping in on them  and  pouncing on them.

    [00:34:17] That was one thing that you saw a lot of, I, I didn't even bring this up, but like this whole, like LinkedIn pouncing thing where you would, I don't know, I got so many LinkedIn invites and you would get in time, you get an, all the time, you get an, a, you get an accept and then three seconds later, they're pouncing on you with it, with a message.

    [00:34:34] And you're like, dude, I don't even know who you are.

    [00:34:36]   Frederick Weiss: [00:34:37] 10 paragraphs  Hey good buddy. And you instantly regret, like I, why did I?

    [00:34:45] David Portnowitz: [00:34:45] Yeah, I have been like, I have definitely found myself being way more discerning around    LinkedIn invites. I'm like, if I don't know you, or if I don't have  a lot in common with you, I'm definitely not accepting you.

    [00:34:58] And    it is a cesspool right now to me and I have no offense to LinkedIn, but it's hard to navigate. It's hard to know when things were posted, like the time  it's really good for me to be in interacting, but  as a, as someone who just goes on there to see what others are talking about, as someone who  you might be using it for job searching or things like that, it's  it is overwhelming  the amount of pitches you get and yeah.

    [00:35:26] People trying to sell you something.  It's just, it is tough. It's tough to break through there. And  it's very hard. The pouncing is really annoying. Like it's very annoying. I

    [00:35:36] Frederick Weiss: [00:35:36] think it goes back to the  the old 80 20 rule, which is  you want to make sure that your  take 80% of your time       and use that to provide value, give things back  like podcasts or  courses, live streams or special links that you find will be usable  for your audience.

    [00:35:57] Things that they find value in, and then take that other 20% and then actually promote your business and talk about the things  that you're doing. Otherwise, you just become  like a small piece in the mosaic of a spam on the wall, and nobody hears you. It's there, there is no value in it.

    [00:36:18] David Portnowitz: [00:36:18] Yeah.

    [00:36:18] Or you just become a Nat,

    [00:36:22] Frederick Weiss: [00:36:22] just go

    [00:36:22] David Portnowitz: [00:36:23] Go away.  I hope LinkedIn, I'm sure LinkedIn has obviously seen them, probably their open rates are very low in those kinds of I'm sure that they're working on things to help improve that.  But they also will probably like it,  people are on their site. More people are connecting more.  Those are all things LinkedIn wants you to do. It does not make for a real grading experience  in my mind.   I have a hard time with it.  Yeah, even if you're, even if you're getting, sorry to interject, but even if you're getting  like those meet those quick span things like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

    [00:37:00] Frederick Weiss: [00:37:00] If you read it for an extra 10 seconds, while you stayed on the site a little bit longer, he stayed there.

    [00:37:07] David Portnowitz: [00:37:07] I think LinkedIn has served its purpose  with job searching with some networking and people in your community with being able to reach out to potential partners or customers.

    [00:37:22]  But understanding  that it's just one medium for that, that it's not going to be the be all end all like you can't just say, oh  we're just gonna do all of our things here on LinkedIn, which I think a lot of companies do. They just rely on LinkedIn for finding new customers all the time.

    [00:37:36] And I think you have to just understand how it should be. And understand that people do not want to spend hours reading your 10 paragraph LinkedIn mail  about your company. It's  just pointless,  be quick, be direct, be connected with them on something.    Mention that you mentioned the university that you both went to, or  connect    try to bring something to the conversation other than just being annoying.

    [00:38:02] Frederick Weiss: [00:38:02] I love that. Yeah.  Speaking of LinkedIn, what about some other platforms? There's a lot of buzz about these audio  only platforms. There's things like clubhouse  Twitter spaces, discord, and now  Spotify has Spotify greenroom, which I've downloaded about.

    [00:38:21] I haven't had a chance to actually try it out yet.  What do you think about these?  These are going to be the future.  They're definitely the answer to video fatigue.  And there are certainly a great way for a lot of people to just open up without having to quote unquote, to be on camera for people that don't care for that.

    [00:38:39] David Portnowitz: [00:38:39] Yeah. I was following the clubhouse pretty closely. And if you notice their trends last year, they added a ton of users. They were  in beta.  For a long time. And then their numbers went  plateaued, right? People were interested in it. They thought it was CMO. And then the numbers kind of plateaued.

    [00:38:56] They just recently opened it up to  open up any, anybody, their numbers went up again, I think last week, but they're not  they were not adding the same number of users that they were back in the middle of the pandemic last year. So I think there's a little bit of interest there.

    [00:39:10] I am keen to see where it goes.  You obviously see companies like Spotify and Twitter  putting money into this. So  there's something there for them.  I saw Twitter spaces  are allowing  their content creators  to Mo  monetize those things. So you could create a Twitter space  you can charge for that exclusive content, which is very CMO.

    [00:39:30] I think that's an awesome thing  for Twitter to do. I think Apple's

    [00:39:34] Frederick Weiss: [00:39:34] doing that now, too. Apple. Yeah, they're going to start doing some  exclusive  paid podcasts. I believe in podcasts.

    [00:39:42] David Portnowitz: [00:39:42] Yeah, I did.  I did see that too. I think. And Spotify does that as well.  So I think  any time these companies are giving their creators opportunities to make  to monetize what they're doing.

    [00:39:53] I think that's great. I'm all for that. The gig economy, I think, is still roaring with people who may disagree with me there, but I think people are still doing a lot of freelance work  and creating content on the side.  And if Apple and Twitter and Spotify or giving are providing opportunities for them to monetize that in any way to do that and make that easier, I think that's great.

    [00:40:11]     I'm absolutely all for that now.  I think there will come a time when those platforms are.  Maybe hit their limit. I don't know. We haven't seen it yet. Obviously.   I don't know.  But  I am, I think there's a limit to the sort of audio only spaces. I don't know. We'll see.  We're not there yet.

    [00:40:33] But    I do think at some point there's going to be just too many applications. Look at TikTok, there's a lot of people that are making money with TikTok. It's really easy to do that.    You don't have to do overproduced content because   it's more about  just being authentic, being yourself and getting things out there.

    [00:41:01] Frederick Weiss: [00:41:01] Look at the ocean spray guy, right? A guy riding the skateboard, ocean spray  C singing, Stevie Nicks or something like that.  Look how much  interest that generated for the ocean.  And that, that came out of nowhere and then ocean spray, like just banked on that. And that guy became  a pseudo famous on his own.

    [00:41:22]   In, in that 15 minutes, but  there's so many opportunities and these  in these  emerging communities and platforms, that's  you'd be crazy not to try to take advantage

    [00:41:33] David Portnowitz: [00:41:33] oh yeah. I agree.  I think right now you want to strike while the iron's hot.  So I think you want to  be there.

    [00:41:40] And      I'm getting some funny comments here.  I think there's an opportunity  to try to monopolize, to  try to take advantage of those while they're, while people are using them.  But again, now there's Twitter space and  there is a Spotify green room and there is a clubhouse  where people actually  like it. It's hard  you just, there's one after another, and you're trying to reach those people.

    [00:42:06] Frederick Weiss: [00:42:06] Sorry to chuckle. I'm just looking at Jeremy's comment here about how for the record, ocean spray is nasty. Thank you  for your clever insight there. Jeremy much appreciated. I don't think

    [00:42:17] David Portnowitz: [00:42:17] I've ever had ocean spray, to be honest with you. I

    [00:42:20] Frederick Weiss: [00:42:20] think I had ocean spray quite a while ago, and yes  you might have to add some simple syrup to that.

    [00:42:26] I'm not a fan of cranberry juice in general. So    that's not my thing  I

    [00:42:31] David Portnowitz: [00:42:31] prefer  two things in that, from that video, I prefer Fleetwood Mac over oceans.

    [00:42:36] Frederick Weiss: [00:42:36] Yes, I would. I would definitely lean into the Fleetwood Mac over the ocean spray. It's just  nasty. They got a lot of hits.

    [00:42:43] They did.   I'm sure people went out and tried their nasty drink    and said, oh  it's good enough for that guy. I don't know how that worked out for them, but apparently well,

    [00:42:54] David Portnowitz: [00:42:54] Now that you've ruined your opportunity to ever get ocean spray is fun. I,

    [00:42:59] Frederick Weiss: [00:42:59] you know what I think I'm okay with that.

    [00:43:01] Sorry, but   speaking of those audio platforms    like we were talking about discussing  clubhouse, et cetera, et cetera, audio  format and video content are really becoming more of a big thing.  Because, and you see that trend a lot now because nobody wants to Google things like how to tie a tie for example, and see  a 1500 word article on it and read it and go, okay, CMO.

    [00:43:31] They want things that are easily digestible    and they could consume it, get it like that and get on with their day.  So things like short form videos and audio  it's so powerful.  If you create like a little three minute video, and again    talking about that ocean spray guy, that was a three minute video and look at the power that, that  Yeah.

    [00:43:54] Yeah. I know people getting more into that.

    [00:43:57] David Portnowitz: [00:43:57] Yeah, I think  I think that's right.  I think that's only going to continue. I'll give you a good example.    I had, I bought during the pandemic, I got a Peloton bike and I started in the first day I get it. I get it.    I clip in with my shoes and on, and then  the clique, I didn't have it screwed in all the way.

    [00:44:14] And it got stuck in the thing.  So I'm like, gosh, Nike's first day I have this thing and I've already broken it, but  I go, I Google it.  I search for what would happen and then boom, Peloton. Literally a one minute video on if this happened to you, here's how you, here's, how you get to clean out.

    [00:44:30] Th did. It was like that, so I didn't have to read anything. I watched the video. It was very, it was quick, it was informative. It showed me exactly what to do and how to get the cleat out. And boom, I was back, I was riding like, so it was really nice to have them answer my question right away.

    [00:44:45] And  that kind of thing I think is going to become it. Isn't  it already more, it's already pervasive  to be able to  serve up that kind of content  for your customers is super helpful. I think that right there  a customer has a problem. Doesn't need contact support.

    [00:45:03] Isn't tying up your people  isn't driving up    your wait times on your support line. You created this video, which probably took you  about  20 minutes to create an edit and boom, you fixed it,  so like it's super, super common as only going to become more.

    [00:45:19] Frederick Weiss: [00:45:19] It's interesting here.

    [00:45:20] Here's an interesting comment from Jeremy again. Thank you so much, Jeremy talking about going back to the ocean spray just a little bit and how this affects Spotify. That's very interesting. Do you have any response to this?

    [00:45:32] David Portnowitz: [00:45:33] Yeah.  The  tick tock has a huge draw  on what songs are popular.

    [00:45:37]   I am not the guy you want to talk to about what's popular on TikTok. That is not an app I have on my phone. I've only recently discovered Instagram stories, Instagram reels and  oh  yeah, that was fascinating to me. That was like a bad rabbit hole  for  two weeks.

    [00:45:55] But    I have not delved into the Tik talk. I feel like I need to spend less time on my phone. Not more so  I don't think, I don't think that would be healthy for me. I think my dog has started watching TikTok videos nonstop. Am I already spending too much time on Twitter as well? But

    [00:46:11] Frederick Weiss: [00:46:11] maybe you could be more of a content creator mindset, maybe  it could be a thing where   we may need to start looking at TikTok and more of a serious kind of fun way to help  get things out.

    [00:46:24]  It's definitely about putting out things like marketing tips or sales tips. They're there, there's an endless amount of different things you could do depending on who your audience is. That would  very much enjoy a little things like that, that you put out    one of the things that I do want to  hold on, hold

    [00:46:42] David Portnowitz: [00:46:42] on. Do I have to dance? Do I have to like, do a little dance while I'm like, where you like point to something and then like pops up and then like you point to over here. And then it pops, like if I have to do like one of

    [00:46:51] Frederick Weiss: [00:46:51] They do recommend using a song,, a very popular song and the filters to get your views up.

    [00:46:57] So yeah, I'm going to say that's mandatory.

    [00:47:00] David Portnowitz: [00:47:00] All right.  I  I can dance.

    [00:47:02] Frederick Weiss: [00:47:02] I recommend the Macarena.

    [00:47:03] David Portnowitz: [00:47:03] Oh  okay. We'll see what we can.

    [00:47:07] Frederick Weiss: [00:47:07] I know why, but I do, you know what, one of the things that I wanted to get to quickly  we don't have to touch on the too fast, but Google localization  I think a lot of people don't understand the  the power here  of having things like a local phone number or a local website  and showing up in the SERPs  for things  that are very local.

    [00:47:28] For example  if you are in Washington, DC  and you're in Atlanta, Georgia, and you search for a lawn company, you're going to get very different results. Obviously, but do you mind  touching on that  and   just with some brevity about the power of that and exactly how people could take advantage of Google.

    [00:47:48] Okay.

    [00:47:49] David Portnowitz: [00:47:49] You have to think of Google maps as a social network. That's the way I would say it is Google maps. And Google maps and Google localization  tie right there.  They're there, they're basically two sides of a coin, right? So you're gonna, you're going to   if you're a co a company that is promoting some kind of product in your area and you want people to find you, you've got to be localized to that area and you've got to be on Google maps.

    [00:48:16] If you're, if you've got a retail  if you've got a retail side of your business,  you know why there are more people spending time on Google maps and they're probably spending time on anything else.    And Google maps makes it super easy to localize your business  to add in descriptors, to add keywords, to add in videos, to answer reviews, to post pictures.

    [00:48:35] It has all the things that you would think about  in a social network, but you just don't think about it like that. To me  it's as crucial as anything else, especially if you've got a retail side of your business. If you're not on Google maps and you don't show up there, you don't exist.

    [00:48:51]     And  from a local SEM standpoint  you need to. Be optimized for the area you're in.  You've got to have keywords that are local to your area  that you use. If you're in Atlanta, like Jeremy is, you've got to be able to say  if  Atlanta something or other Atlanta, this  this, isn't it like, you have to put that in on your website.

    [00:49:12] You've got to put videos out, that talk about that. You've got to have  customer testimonials that Google wants to see all of these things. You can't just stuff your page with the word. You have to have other stuff up there. You've got to have video. You have to have social skills. All of those things   are super, super important.

    [00:49:27]  To me, if you're a small business, that's local  there is nothing more important than being optimized on Google.  It is if you're not you're dead.

    [00:49:41] Frederick Weiss: [00:49:41] Well said if you're not, but yeah I totally get your point in that.  It's super valuable and definitely worth investing.

    [00:49:49] We're getting  really short on time here. So I want to get to the two last segments. The first one being

    [00:50:01] David Portnowitz: [00:50:01] while I was dancing,

    [00:50:02] Frederick Weiss: [00:50:02] I was a good dancer. I think we got that on camera. So  I'm  really happy about that. Yeah. So the lightning round, just that it's exactly how it sounds. I'm going to ask you some questions. We'll do some quick Q and a here.  David, what is your favorite thing about yourself?

    [00:50:19] David Portnowitz: [00:50:19] My favorite thing about myself. Gosh, just about yourself is a lightning round question.

    [00:50:26] Frederick Weiss: [00:50:26] You should have answered already. It's a

    [00:50:28] David Portnowitz: [00:50:28] lightning round.  My favorite thing about myself  honestly, I guess it would be my, my sense of humor.

    [00:50:37] Frederick Weiss: [00:50:37] I wouldn't go with that, but, okay. That's good. I'm just joking.

    [00:50:42] That is my humor. Just being funny. What book are you reading right now for enjoyment?

    [00:50:49] David Portnowitz: [00:50:49] I just picked up the new Andy Weir book. The guy who wrote the mat was that Matt Damon movie. That was about Mars.  I'm talking about the Marshall, the Martian Marshall. Yeah. I read that book, Martian, and he just wrote a new book.

    [00:51:03] And I just got that and I, I got that  two days ago, so I'm really excited to, to break that open and start reading that,

    [00:51:10] Frederick Weiss: [00:51:10] that sounds great. You'll have to send me a link so I can put that in the show notes.

    [00:51:13] David Portnowitz: [00:51:13] Hold on. I'm going to tell you the name of it. I'm going to Google it cause I'm on  cause you can do those kinds of things.

    [00:51:18] It's called a project.

    [00:51:22] Frederick Weiss: [00:51:22] Ooh. Okay, CMO. Yeah. Yeah. Shoot me a link if you can please. So I have it in the show notes.  David, if you can not be around computers for the rest of your life, what would you play? Golf and golf. Oh, are

    [00:51:34] David Portnowitz: [00:51:34] Are you good at golf?  I did too, I define your definition of good.

    [00:51:36] I can, I

    [00:51:39] Frederick Weiss: [00:51:39] I'll take that as a note. Next question, David, just get

    [00:51:43] David Portnowitz: [00:51:43] it. I enjoy playing golf. I, it's my favorite thing to do outside of work  and that, and collect bourbon. I need a computer for that project.  But the golf thing I can do with that,

    [00:51:57] Frederick Weiss: [00:51:57] I think my last lightning question here is tell me about being a bourbon kind of store.

    [00:52:03] Tell me a little bit about your bourbon collector.

    [00:52:05] David Portnowitz: [00:52:05] What do you want to know?  I've got an, I know I have a spreadsheet. I spent one Saturday morning, about two weeks ago, creating a spreadsheet where I categorized all my bourbons that I have.  I've got about another 105 bottles or so and it makes a good bourbon.

    [00:52:19] Frederick Weiss: [00:52:19] Then  tell me that

    [00:52:21] David Portnowitz: [00:52:21] I like a weeded bourbon  that's something that's been aged probably at least four to six years. Something that's got a little wheat flavor to it, maybe a little bit of spice. I like something that you can sip  very easily, a little bit.

    [00:52:36] Maybe it has a little bit of that vanilla or nutmeg and/or cherry flavor.   They're just, it's just a nice way to end the evening, I would say. So  I gotta tell you the best, the most fun thing about the whole bourbon thing is collecting. It's just finding the CMO, finding different bottles that you would, you could  it, it is  that to me is the most fun part, right?

    [00:53:00] You're trying to find new bottles that are not  you can't buy in every store that  maybe you're behind the counter or you have to build a relationship with someone to  get it.  There is, there's just  there's a whole it's basically  it's the same if you're collecting baseball cards   it's the same kind of concept.  I'll tell you a quick, funny story. So please, my son is super into Pokemon and has this big Pokemon card collection. And one day he got, we picked, I picked him up from school and I was with  my daughter in the car and she had a couple of his Pokemon cards in her hand and she was playing with them and she, and he was like, give him back to me and give them back to me.

    [00:53:39] And I was like, are you, it's fine. Just let her hold him. And he was like, what would you say if I was taking your bourbon bottles, you feel

    [00:53:48] Frederick Weiss: [00:53:48] got you. That's awesome.

    [00:53:50] David Portnowitz: [00:53:50] So I was kinda like, oh, I guess you're right. So I was like, all right, so I'll give them back.

    [00:53:57] Frederick Weiss: [00:53:57] I love that. That's so CMO.  Could you mix bourbon with ocean spray? You think that would

    [00:54:02] David Portnowitz: [00:54:02] improved.  Like cranberry juice and bourbon.  I'm sure you could come up with something.

    [00:54:07] I see there's a tic-tac right there. Yeah. I guess ocean spray. If they want to sponsor my tick talk, if I could, you know what I'm like  I don't care about the ocean spray sponsorship, but if Buffalo trace wants to come in and send me free bourbon to try  and then I make I'm in for that.

    [00:54:23] Frederick Weiss: [00:54:23] I love it.

    [00:54:24] All right, David, let's get to our very last segment here

    [00:54:31] again. Excellent dancing applause. By the way, you look very dapper today looking good. I like your outfit as always a very dapper man, David.  This is our part where we like to provide an opportunity for a parting words of wisdom for our audience. All you, my friend

    [00:54:47] David Portnowitz: [00:54:47] Parting words of wisdom. Get vaccinated and wear a

    [00:54:52] Frederick Weiss: [00:54:52] mask.

    [00:54:53] Excellent. Any kind of marketing stuff.

    [00:54:56] David Portnowitz: [00:54:56] That's not what you expected me to say, right?

    [00:54:59] Frederick Weiss: [00:54:59] Maybe not.

    [00:55:00] David Portnowitz: [00:55:00] No, I think from a marketing standpoint be agile, be flexible, be authentic. Don't be too pushy. Customers will find you if you have the right content in place.  And  it's, it is a matter of.

    [00:55:19] Making sure you're ready for them to come to you  and making sure that you have the right process in place to take advantage when they do come. Be prepared, all of those things are going to happen. And lastly, the last thing I'll say is  if you're running an organization or if you have people take care of your people too.

    [00:55:38] They're the lifeblood of what you're doing and  make sure that they're happy and they're healthy.  Those are my, I guess my parting thoughts.

    [00:55:47] Frederick Weiss: [00:55:47] Those are great. No, that's excellent. Thank you so much, David. And for people that want to find out more about David Portman, which you can find them at Twitter, De port no.

    [00:55:56] And  the website for Star2Star.com. You can find him on LinkedIn and saying goma.com.  We'll have all those links in the show notes, David Portnowitz. Thank you so much for being on the show. Super appreciate it. And you are sharing your time with us. And  again, my friend, I'm very grateful and honored for you  to come on the show.

    [00:56:17] Thank you

    [00:56:17] David Portnowitz: [00:56:17] so much. It was great being here. I just wish that we could have had Brian on too, but it was great talking to your friends.

    [00:56:23] Frederick Weiss: [00:56:23] Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. And thanks everybody for watching. We'll catch you next time. Take care!

    30 July 2021, 5:36 pm
  • 1 hour 5 minutes
    284 – 2021 ❤️ Conf-amigues 4 Life

    In this episode, we get to talk with Baskar Rao Dandlamudi, Santosh Hari, Super Di, Faisal Abid, Sivamuthu Kumar, Todd Libby, Vincent Tang, Tessa, Jared Rhodes, and Stacy Devino. It all began with a tweet; we should do a show where we connect with some of our best conference friends and have a virtual conference… So we did, check it out ❤️

    We also discuss COVID: Going to events, work-life balance, and should/can we go back to the office.

    ✨ Episode Sponsor

    🔗 Episode Links

    📜 Transcript

    Brian Hinton: [00:00:00] I’m Brian Hinton.

    Frederick Weiss: and I’m Frederick Philip von Weiss. And thank you so much for consuming the Thunder Nerds, a conversation with the people behind the technology that love what they do

    [00:00:46] Brian Hinton: [00:00:46] and do tech good.

    [00:00:52] Frederick Weiss: Yeah, thanks everybody for watching the show. If you can please go to the notification bell and subscribe.

    Brian Hinton: We’d like to thank Auth0, Auth0 is this season’s sponsor. They make it easy for developers to build a custom secure and standards-based login, a unified login and authentication as a service, to try them out, go to Auth0.com today. Also check out their YouTube and Twitch under the username, Auth0 with some great developer resources and streams, and last but not least is our avocado labs.

    [00:01:52] Frederick Weiss: [00:01:52] Yes. Thanks Auth0! Let’s go ahead and welcome our guests. We have a, uh, a lot of guests today. We got, Baskar Rao Dandlamudi, Santosh Hari, Super Di, Faisal Abid, Sivamuthu Kumar, Todd Libby, Vincent Tang, Tessa, Jared Rhodes, and Stacy Devino. Welcome!!!

    [00:02:19] Frederick Weiss: [00:02:19] So many people today. We got a full house, so Hey everybody. Thank you so much for being here. It's part of the show. Here we go. So we're doing this just for context for everybody. We did this last year, having the conflict, uh, meet you guys. And we basically had a, uh, What have you, uh, talking about how during the really hard days of COVID out, none of us could, you know, go out, go see your family and go to conferences.

    [00:02:45] And, uh, these are the people that we see at the conferences. These are our good friends and we're so happy to have them. And, uh, I think Shiva started the thread and then we said, let's do it. And now we're doing year number two. So Shiva, maybe you could start to tell us what's going on. Yeah.

    [00:03:01] Sivamuthu Kumar: [00:03:01] So not a problem we are seeing like, uh, for the last few years, right?

    [00:03:05] Yes. Um, so last year, like, uh, I just missed, um, seeing people saved my friends in the conferences. So I just started that week. Like, Hey, I'm missing. Some of my prints are usually seen at a conference. Those people they're not under nets jumped in and we set up this, uh, meetup. Um, and we shared like, uh, what are the things we faced while we are in COVID and, uh, how that new normal life is looking for us.

    [00:03:35] So it's good. It's good to see you again. Um, after like one year and things got changed, I believe, I think most of us are like vaccinated, fully vaccinated. Right? So hopefully your things will go back to normal and we will be able to see each other again. Um, so yeah, I think it cost this year. Uh, hopefully I will see most of the people.

    [00:03:57] Frederick Weiss: [00:03:57] Right. Well, now that we have, uh, two shots in her arm, um, how is everybody doing? Is everybody going back out and do we, do we feel comfortable seeing people or going to events and, uh, live human to human action? Anybody?

    [00:04:13] Super Di: [00:04:13] I don't know. I'm going to jump in and I know they see we'll follow where sisters.

    [00:04:20] Hello everybody. I'm Diana Rodriguez. You all know me as a cotufa. That means popcorn in Venezuelans. I am from Venezuela, but anyway. Yeah. Um, but I know I'm fully vaccinated, but I'm in a risk group. I am a, um, a cancer patient and also type one diabetic. And I love seeing people who are fully vaccinated. I want Conway to hug my friends, but I don't feel comfortable being in enclosed spaces.

    [00:04:54] And I know this is going to bring up a lot of, um, commentary and polemic, but there are people who are not vaccinated and these people actually cause viruses to mutate. So that's my take. I, um, I can't wait to see people, but I've been taking care of myself for a whole year. Like I don't wanna, I don't want to spoil that, but yeah, this is me.

    [00:05:23] Brian Hinton: [00:05:23] Yeah, I do want to say too, that with this discussion we're vaccinating everything. Um, I w we all understand it's still going on in the rest of the world and our hearts go out to everyone who is still experiencing it, just because we're a vaccine and talking about going out. Doesn't mean we don't understand that and care about everyone else.

    [00:05:40] So I just want to put that out there.

    [00:05:42] Frederick Weiss: [00:05:42] Yeah, very well said. There are a lot more hard hit locations in the world. And even if we're talking about the United States, even some parts of the United States too, but, um, you know, let me ask everybody this, since we're talking about, you know, we have, we're lucky enough in, in some of our locations to get these shots, especially in the United States being possibly one of the most safest places now for COVID, uh, depending on where you get your news from, uh, how does everybody feel?

    [00:06:10] Going back to an office environment, there's been a lot of studies and surveys talking about how half of the people really, really want to get back. And another half of the people don't ever want to go back and then there's people in between that want that flex work. But for me, I'm scared of the Delta.

    [00:06:30] Plus, uh, variant. So, um, speaking of low-key, uh, we'll get to that, but, uh, that variant scares the crap out of me. Uh, anybody have any thoughts on that?

    [00:06:40] Santosh Hari: [00:06:40] Yeah, so I, I, you know, I can kind of chime in, so, you know, I rent this, uh, news story, uh, I think it's, uh, Hillsborough county or someplace like that, where the entire it department got sick.

    [00:06:52] So if I entertained any ideas of going back to any office, until then after that, I was like, heck no. So, you know, uh, the problem is not that, you know, people are, uh, many people are vaccinated. The problem is also that many people are not vaccinated. So, you know, um, you don't, you cannot tell by looking at someone.

    [00:07:14] So, you know, it's, uh, it's gonna take a while for me to go to any kind of confinement.

    [00:07:27] Stacy Devino: [00:07:27] Uh, yeah, I thought I might bring a couple of little points in, so, uh, I'm also gonna preface this by saying I am 28 weeks pregnant. So I am in a different category, I guess, than most people. Um, I got my shot as early as I could. And, uh, I guess that's a little different than some other people who were in similar situations, but I was like, Hm, I see that you are like a hundred times more likely to end up in the hospital.

    [00:07:58] So, um, I think I need to live for my baby to live. So I'm going to go ahead and get that for myself just as a safety precaution, if nothing else. Um, And, uh, you know, personally, I think that, you know, the lives of the mothers are more important than the children, but Hey, you know, I live in a different society.

    [00:08:19] Uh, not everybody shares that same opinion. It's okay. Um, but when it comes to going out, my husband is fully vaccinated. Um, we have an 18 month old kid, um, who, you know, uh, was, you know, got some residual stuff, but that's about it. Uh, and we're just not doing anything. That's crazy unreasonable, like going to a local restaurant, but, you know, a lot of places are still doing a pretty good job of not putting tables right next to each other in groups right next to each other.

    [00:08:56] Um, and of course, visiting with family now comfortably, we waited until, um, even visited with family until, uh, especially older family members were all. Uh, fully vaccinated. And even then we never, uh, congregated more than like four or five people at a time, um, close family only for over a year. Uh, and I will tell you that I am fully remote.

    [00:09:22] I have been fully writing for the last three years. So, um, I'm not going back to any office, uh, sorry. But my husband was an office worker prior to this and now he is like converted and sometimes like, he was just like going, well, if we want to meet, you know, everybody loves coming over to our house.

    [00:09:45] Cause we got all these pinball machines and arcades and I made a lot of cookies. So they just like going, yeah, we'll just meet over it's Steven's house because they've got the space and all the fun stuff. Um, more so than there was in the office anyway. So, um, They're not even looking at ever going back. And that's actually what I hear from a lot of engineering and engineering circles companies aren't, uh, are hiring people fully remote.

    [00:10:12] And to that effect, we've seen that the prices that people are able to command for their skill sets, especially in tech, have gone up. So, uh, you know, if that works out for you, Stay at home. Like it's, it's not bad. I make lunch every

    [00:10:31] Frederick Weiss: [00:10:31] day. It's great. Widespread. It, it, I've seen at least for me in my location of Florida, there are a lot of companies.

    [00:10:39] Um, uh, maybe anybody else here that also, uh, lives in Florida. There's a lot of companies that are demanding people in the next month to go back full time, not, you know, flex work, not part-time, but full time and amount. I'm talking about just any kind of job. I mean, I'm seeing this in a lot of different industries, you know, our industry too, where people are saying you have to put butts in seats where the conversation seemed very different just a few months ago, and it's kind of.

    [00:11:08] Uh, there's some kind of duplicity going on here. I don't, I don't know what the messaging is, is, is coming from and how it's changing, but what, what, what do we say to those people that have to go back and, um, where offices possibly are not enforcing masks? They're not like saying, you know, Hey, show me your vaccination card.

    [00:11:28] What do people do in that case?

    [00:11:29] Brian Hinton: [00:11:29] Well, I can say we're hiring at my company and we're fully remote. So if that's what your current job says, that's my opinion on that. But what does everyone else say?

    [00:11:41] Frederick Weiss: [00:11:41] Yeah. Anybody else?

    [00:11:44] Faisal Abid: [00:11:44] So fully remote. It's the best because you know, I've been, I've been remote now for, you know, I mean, obviously all year, but, um, I'm able to do more, but I'm also able to do it in a vastly different frame of time.

    [00:12:00] I don't have to go from like nine to five or 10 to six, you know, I do some work till like 11, then I'll go out for a walk and I'll come back to like one, I have my phone with me, so Slack's always running. But aside from that, it's up to me when I should work. And Stacy's right. You know, you can command a higher salary.

    [00:12:18] Uh, you can actually get a lot more done. I do find myself doing a lot more being at home versus being in the office because of office 10, you know, so you go to work at 10 and then like 45 minutes later, your friend comes over. It's like, let's go get coffee and then you go get coffee and then you'd go ahead and get a vending machine.

    [00:12:36] And then it's lunchtime. So you go on an hour lunch, right? Because all your friends are going. And so the whole thing just ends up being a waste of time. And then you got to, you know, do the whole commute. Um, and so it was just a colossal waste of time. I'd much rather just work from home and, you know, go to the office like a WeWork or something and meet for a meeting.

    [00:12:58] But even so, you have a good webcam, good microphone. You can have good work from home.

    [00:13:06] Frederick Weiss: [00:13:06] That's fine. What about anybody else? Thank you so much, basal. I mean, that, that makes sense. Like, um, it, it seems like there's, there's, there's really not a lot of reasons, depending on your, your role or at your company to why you need to be there.

    [00:13:21] If it, uh, allows for you to work remotely, if you were a developer or designer, et cetera, et cetera. Um, but, um, I don't know what everybody else has experienced.

    [00:13:32] Brian Hinton: [00:13:32] I do want to also point out in a, in a private chat that we're all talking. We're admiring Faisel's background. If you're on the audio on audio listener right now, go watch the video.

    [00:13:41] His background is amazing. I don't know, like

    [00:13:45] Faisal Abid: [00:13:45] working remotely.

    [00:13:47] Brian Hinton: [00:13:47] I can understand that.

    [00:13:50] Stacy Devino: [00:13:50] Yeah.

    [00:13:51] Tessa: [00:13:51] I like, I guess I would just say that I, I feel your pain. Like it's not so easy for me to just feel like, oh, I'll go find a new job. Cause we all know how fun it is. To look for a new job and how little work that is, especially if you're already working, but, uh, yeah, just, uh, I

    [00:14:08] Stacy Devino: [00:14:08] will commiserate with you.

    [00:14:11] Frederick Weiss: [00:14:11] Well, does anybody have any jobs where they're asking them that you have to come back in the office full time or is it

    [00:14:22] Super Di: [00:14:22] special case? Cause I worked for pitch and one of the things they said to me was that I was a special case cause I'm in North Carolina and that they are more into, um, office works, which in AWS, but given the circumstances, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm going to continue to remote.

    [00:14:43] Um, and I've been working remotely since 2015. So I've seen the benefit of it. I don't think I would go to an office at all. I know only the commute, I just get distracted, you know, I'd probably just do social with people and never getting anything accomplished, you know,

    [00:15:08] Brian Hinton: [00:15:08] that's me.

    [00:15:11] Baskar Rao Dandlamudi: [00:15:11] Yeah. To me, I think, uh, we had seen here, uh, people, at least in Columbus region, like, uh, that is, uh, pushed towards, uh, having, uh, uh, at least once in a week, uh, to be in an office and, uh, staying remote. That's what I'm hearing from friends over here. Uh, I have been currently working remotely, uh, but, uh, thanks to my, uh, company, uh, which is allowing me to do that.

    [00:15:41] Uh, but over here, uh, it is a general sentiment that at least once in a week, uh, people.

    [00:15:46] Jared Rhodes: [00:15:46] Uh, expecting

    [00:15:48] Baskar Rao Dandlamudi: [00:15:48] a team to be in office so that way they can have all those, uh, interactions. Uh, so

    [00:15:55] Jared Rhodes: [00:15:55] that's what I'm seeing in

    [00:15:57] Frederick Weiss: [00:15:57] my circle. Yeah. Wonder if a lot of these companies, maybe smaller companies are looking at the higher end enterprise.

    [00:16:05] Like if they're looking to see like what, I don't know, like, uh, like Tim cook is doing, like, I, I think I read something like apple is, wants to bring everybody back full time in September or something like that in September. Isn't that far away, but it's, it's at least it's far enough away for us to see if there's any kind of, uh, uh, ramifications of this Delta plus variance going on.

    [00:16:28] Um, I don't know. Well,

    [00:16:30] Faisal Abid: [00:16:30] now, now they're talking about Lambda. Um, I, I wanna add one, one thing, um, to remote working. So one of the things that, one of the things I could do, because I'm, we're, we're working with multiple things. And so out of these multiple things that I do during the day, one of the things I'm part of is a consulting agency, uh, that, you know, I joined just before COVID and when COVID hits, we were trying to expand the team.

    [00:16:56] But what I found was that, you know, it was very hard to hire anyone during COVID like the first one, March, April, and we're a Google cloud consulting company. So we were getting tons of clients, uh, through Google cloud. And so what I started to do was I started to look outside of North America. One of my thesis is not to pay people based on location, but pay people based on their value.

    [00:17:20] And so what I started to do was find this, I tapped into this massive, amazing talent pool in Africa, specifically in Nigeria, in India, in Bangladesh, where you have. Kids I'm saying kids because they're like 21, 22 were extremely talented, but they're working for really bullshit weight, which is like $300 a month, which is garbage.

    [00:17:43] And, you know, cloud consulting is very lucrative. And so what I started to do was I started to hire, uh, these kids based on what you

    [00:17:51] Jared Rhodes: [00:17:51] would pay a junior intermediate

    [00:17:53] Faisal Abid: [00:17:53] in Canada. And my entire idea is let's pay them really well. And because of COVID, it's, you know, we're all remote anyway. So if we're building this, we're actually forced to learn how to work remotely.

    [00:18:07] And so we've been able to do that for six, seven months. Uh, and now we've gotten really good at it. And so since like October, uh, we've started bringing on foreign developers and just integrated into the team. And one of the cool things about that is the company works 24 * 7. You know, you're sleeping.

    [00:18:25] A developer in Bangladesh working. And we're not, he's not having to grind anymore. Right. Because a lot of times the North American companies pay them like $200 a month and they grind for it because that's still pretty crappy wage even for them. Um, so he's not having to grind anymore. He's getting paid like 70 K, uh, and he's happy.

    [00:18:46] We're happy. We're getting good quality work. And then it also builds the brand of the company where he tells his friends. And so we have this incoming talent pool of very talented people, uh, from Nigeria, Bangladesh, and even India, we just have. Coming in. So that's what COVID enabled me to do, um, where it's just look outside of North America, look outside of Europe and just tap into a whole new talent pool that we haven't been able to.

    [00:19:12] It

    [00:19:12] Frederick Weiss: [00:19:12] makes a lot of sense because why waste, um, why limit yourself to just the people, like, as you said, Uh, just in your general, uh, facility, right? If you're just reaching out 20 miles in a diameter and that's who you're going to hire you miss out on so much talent all around the world. It's, it's just ridiculous.

    [00:19:33] And also if you're going to keep up with, with a giant office on, you know, the fourth floor of some really fancy Knights building that is great, good for you. But I mean, aren't you wasting a lot of money on that brick and mortar on those bills to keep that building running clean, et cetera, et cetera.

    [00:19:51] When you could be more focused on hiring talent, for sure.

    [00:19:55] Faisal Abid: [00:19:55] We were spending, uh, about $18,000 a month in office space. Right. All for what we were there. And we were on slack anyway. Right. And we were doing the same thing we're doing at home. And so, the one point I want to add about the remote work revolution, I guess, is with as much as I dislike Elon Musk, but something interesting that Elon Musk and stuff I've done through Starlink is bringing access to the rest of the world.

    [00:20:23] This high-speed internet access. If that promise can be lived, you know, in six, say five years from now, uh, then you'll have a whole different way of working where you can hire someone from like the most right now, the big restriction I have when I'm hiring in parts of Africa, actually, you know, that the person's extremely talented, but the internet is very poor.

    [00:20:45] So if we can't even have a basic video chat, then it gets really hard to collaborate. And so when you have an internet like Starlink, uh, being distributed across the world, I think you'll end up more and more companies will hire people. From the regions, uh, and be able to just, you know, bolt, it will be laterally right now.

    [00:21:06] A lot of North American developers compete with North America, Toronto competes with charter developers to get a job, but now we'll be competing globally. Cause you'll have kids who are extremely talented, like a hundred times smarter than I am, uh, because they're learning in like the wildest conditions.

    [00:21:21] So they just have grit. And I think it will be very interesting for the job market. I hope in like five years.

    [00:21:27] Brian Hinton: [00:21:27] I do. I do sympathize though, with all the people that are the exact opposite of, I feel like most of the people in Nichol that need that, that person to talk to. And yeah, the hardcore extroverts.

    [00:21:42] I mean, I feel like they could probably get it and like zoom calls, but, um, I feel like it's just like sipping through a straw when it's a zoom call.

    [00:21:51] Frederick Weiss: [00:21:51] Well, it's, it's, it's not the same thing. Yeah, you're absolutely right. It's not the same thing for them because when an extrovert they need to recharge in a group of people, not on a call, like we're having this, doesn't do it for them.

    [00:22:02] Um, I'm an introvert, that doesn't mean I'm shy. It means I recharge by myself. I need, I love people and I love to be around people, but after a little bit of time, please go away. So I can go home and lock myself in a room and watch, you know, a few episodes of Loki. And, uh, after that I will feel so much better.

    [00:22:23] I

    [00:22:23] Tessa: [00:22:23] means also when you're in a, in a real, like an in-person meeting, you're not just looking at everybody directly in their face and looking at your own face. Like I'm looking at my face on a huge screen right now. Like that never happens.

    [00:22:37] Faisal Abid: [00:22:37] One thing I would say is the downsides of remote work, I think will be for the junior engineers who are just joining the field.

    [00:22:45] I am very biased because I'm a senior. I've been in the industry in a physical aspect, but I think most of us here are seniors. But when you have a junior developer, I know as a junior developer, I found it very useful just in term two, this even deals with my, I guess like imposter syndrome to read someone's face if I screw up.

    [00:23:05] Cause I've screwed up so many times, uh, early on in my career. But like having, just being able to go and talk to that person physically, you get to read the person's emotions and feel better that, you know, you're not going to get fired tomorrow because you've messed up. So I think the juniors are going to have it the worst.

    [00:23:22] And I don't know what the solution is. If companies go remote.

    [00:23:28] Stacy Devino: [00:23:28] I think I have a little bit of an idea here, right? Like what it really does is it puts work and the impetus on your senior, your principal, your higher level people to actually become active advocates for their junior developers. And it means putting time on your calendar, you know, two, three times a week to spend time working through stuff and taking the time to actually do like work on a PR together, do those kinds of learning sessions have structure to what they're learning and how they're actually.

    [00:24:04] Um, and, and essentially you, as somebody who's higher up is kind of. A professor in a way, right. Whereas before we had this be a very informal relationship, we're adding some additional layers of formality and then we're starting to connect people. So I think there is a way to solve this. I think you just have to, uh, be willing to be more social and be more guiding and be more willing to be a true teacher, um, to those younger people.

    [00:24:40] I do

    [00:24:41] Brian Hinton: [00:24:41] think though, like, uh, I know a few, a few friends of mine have had issues because that's where as we all get older, Uh, we're not like there's no outlet to gain those personal relationships with friendships, so to speak, uh, other than work. So if you're not going into work and you're like, Hey, let's go out to lunch somewhere.

    [00:25:03] You're Kantz cause you're in Kentucky or, or New York or wherever. So, I mean, there's, that's definitely, I feel like a big issue for a lot of people too. I don't know the solution for that beyond like, you know, streaming, zoom, cocktail hour or something. But even that it's a little weird.

    [00:25:22] Frederick Weiss: [00:25:22] I had a friend today just tweet about how they were hallucinating because they.

    [00:25:27] Felt so isolated. They were walking by a fire hydrant and they heard it hiss or something like that. That was me this morning. Sorry. Oh,

    [00:25:40] well,

    [00:25:41] Brian Hinton: [00:25:41] two of them did it. It was like a weird, it sounded like water resistant any now I looked, there was nothing and it was like this, like

    [00:25:48] Frederick Weiss: [00:25:48] Brian is making my case. You know, you could go a little bit crazy if you're not seeing people. Sometimes even Brian. Exactly, there was another statistic I wanted to, uh, uh, ask you guys about which, uh, I read on a few different things.

    [00:26:04] It says, um, according to, um, well, a lot of recent studies that were based on the past several, several months, that one in four women are considering downsizing their career and leaving the workforce due, due to COVID because they, a lot of times, um, it seems that women been thrusted into the role of the primary caregiver.

    [00:26:28] Um, or sometimes they were the only ones to take care of the kid while, um, you know, their, their partner was working. Um, what do we, what do we think of that? Is, is that something that's, uh, gonna hold, uh, hold us back and progress.

    [00:26:43] Stacy Devino: [00:26:43] I think you've already seen that there was an impact in progress to some of that, right?

    [00:26:48] Like that was, that was already something that was brought up and I'll be perfectly honest. We were unable. Uh, with my kid, you know, being his age, uh, I went back to work at the end of March and it was right when everything was like super locked down and we had no childcare. And so I came back from maternity leave with no childcare and trying to reacclimate back into work.

    [00:27:18] And so, you know, uh, it became, and while I was still breastfeeding and all that other stuff, so it was, it was extra hard. My husband and I, uh, passed off who had mornings who had afternoons based off of our meeting schedule. We sync our calendars, you know, um, and because of just the nature of food and things like that, like I made it, my thing, like I make lunch every day.

    [00:27:47] I pretty much always do that now, um, for everybody, but then he also takes. Uh, take care of the kiddo while I'm making dinner and, you know, all that kind of thing. So, um, I think that not everyone has, uh, maybe a supportive partner because social norms, uh, in the past have been less gracious, uh, to women.

    [00:28:12] And there are a lot of undo, extra, I guess, extra responsibilities that even women can put on other women, like if something's messy in the house, uh, and whatever it is, it's, it always gets like the immediate look to be never to him and that's from other people. Uh, and that's unreasonable if we start to really think about the fact that like childcare is, uh, w you had two people to make a kid, so.

    [00:28:48] It seems like two, people's you shair the responsibility? Uh, a

    [00:28:52] Frederick Weiss: [00:28:52] little bit, right.

    [00:28:53] Brian Hinton: [00:28:53] I do also want to point out. It's not, I think, a big hit on that. Uh, I just looked it up cause I remember the statistic a little bit existing, but in October last year, 865,000 women were laid off in the workforce compared to 216,000.

    [00:29:11] So it's also women who are being disproportionately impacted by, you know, layoffs, which,

    [00:29:20] Faisal Abid: [00:29:20] uh, yeah.

    [00:29:22] Frederick Weiss: [00:29:22] I,

    [00:29:23] Brian Hinton: [00:29:23] other than being angry and sad.

    [00:29:25] Frederick Weiss: [00:29:25] Yeah.

    [00:29:26] Super Di: [00:29:26] What about, um, also the impact of, I mean, Coming out of the childcare situation, but the balance between work and life, because for me it happened, I've always worked remotely.

    [00:29:40] But with the coronavirus and being in lockdown, it became like home was work, homework and really spent 14 hours in front of a computer. And it wasn't healthy. And then heard of cases of, of companies that were time tracking in unreasonable ways. And we're having a conversation backstage with, um, Boscov saying that flexible schedules are a thing, and I've always believed that.

    [00:30:14] At the end of the day, the end result is what really matters versus you saying you have to put this many structured hours into work because some days, and I have no shame in saying this. Some days you get 2% of me because I might be exhausted because maybe I need to take more walks. Um, and some other days I'm at a hundred percent and it's grand and everything flows.

    [00:30:43] And I think this is a new, um, chance to rethink how we measure success and how we think of our matrix when talking about development. Is it, yeah, the end result, what are we measuring as effectiveness? Cause, cause I can see how this

    [00:31:08] Stacy Devino: [00:31:08] can be

    [00:31:09] Super Di: [00:31:09] toxic if. I mean, if it's not already toxic, um, I think it's, it's, it's a conversation that we should all have

    [00:31:18] Stacy Devino: [00:31:18] rhino.

    [00:31:21] Faisal Abid: [00:31:21] It's totally toxic. If you're measuring by how many hours you're putting in, I agree with you. Uh, it should be by the, you should just be accountable to your delivery. If you're agreeing on your juror or a sauna that you're going to get this done by Friday, but it doesn't matter if it, if you work at 6:00 PM and the whole day you're sleeping or you just needed a day off, as long as you can get stuff done on time and be able to communicate that with the stakeholders, your manager or PM, I think that's how it should be done.

    [00:31:50] Um, in, especially in a very remote, decentralized environment. I think it's unfair as always to ever measure, you know, okay. He coded like six hours grades, you know, someone coding six hours as a better developer than someone coding three hours. I think.

    [00:32:09] Frederick Weiss: [00:32:09] I often see people say things like don't confuse effort with results, but on the other side of the spectrum, right, where, where they talk about, you know, you're, you're doing this and don't confuse your, your efforts for the results you do.

    [00:32:25] But how about the other way around with the company don't confuse? Um, maybe if I need to take a day off as, you know, not putting in maybe the effort, but just look at my results that, that, that I have at the end of the project, as you said,

    [00:32:40] Faisal Abid: [00:32:40] ultimately engineering is a knowledge base. And so for knowledge base, you can be charged by time.

    [00:32:45] You have to charge by value, right? Um, because it's the value of bringing, I might know something, I mean, consulting, I've learned this actually in the past year where, you know, someone asks me a question and I CA if I can answer that question, then like 10 minutes, but doesn't mean that I should get paid $10 for.

    [00:33:06] Uh, I should be paying the Mac tire project fee because I have experienced knowing that that's the value that I bring. It's not how long I spend on the project. It's how much value I get. And so knowledge and workers should always charge by value and not time. There's

    [00:33:22] Vincent Tang: [00:33:22] actually a story where it's like G had like a factory, like GE like the organ company, refrigerators turbines, et cetera.

    [00:33:32] And they had an issue where it's like, oh, we have a systematic failure with our mechanical systems. And they only had one person that knew how to fix it. And that guy was one of the consultants and he just gets called in and literally spends five minutes drawing like one pencil mark on the device and then walks out and then does the bill.

    [00:33:55] And the bill is for 10 grand. And then the company is like, why are we, why are we getting built 10 grand for this? Okay. You literally just came in here for five minutes and just painted a pencil mark on the, on the, on the device. And then it's like, we need to, you know, itemized

    [00:34:11] Frederick Weiss: [00:34:11] line item for everything they used.

    [00:34:13] Vincent Tang: [00:34:13] And it just built, uh, like a pencil for $1 and then $9,999 for the experience and years that. So for him to understand that, um, I guess like value based propositions, like if you're able to get something done quicker, you shouldn't be penalized for it. Um, I've worked at companies where it's like, everything was style=”color:red”>Santosh Hari: [00:34:49] in three hours and then here's, you know, five more hours of work just because you finished telling you don't to get home early. You get to know more work.

    [00:35:01] So the other thing I think we should address is, uh, the, uh, you know, all the remote work and flexible work schedules, you guys feel like, you know, the 40 hour work week is pretty much a product of the pastor. Like, you know, people are going to be kind of in not during the daytime, I'm going to be going to the dentist and you know, doing other things.

    [00:35:22] And then I may catch up at night. So how do other people do that? Is that just me being

    [00:35:29] Faisal Abid: [00:35:29] crazy?

    [00:35:30] Vincent Tang: [00:35:30] Oh, I do that too sometimes. Like if there's like, cause like the nice part worker mode is you don't have to work like a nine to five schedule. Like we have four hours at work since we're a remote first company and everyone works in the U S and the west coast in the states.

    [00:35:46] And you know, as long as you're getting your meetings and like actually doing your work and getting stuff done and making sure things are operationally efficient, as well as getting your own tasks. It doesn't really matter, you know, in the grand scheme of things, like if you get it done at 8:00 PM or if you get it done at 8:00 AM, for instance, um, as long as it's done.

    [00:36:07] And I think that a lot really matters. And also another bonus of worker mode is, um, if you're not vital or like one of the main presenters of the meeting, you can just get other stuff done at the same time. Like, I'll just get my actual work done during the meeting or do house tours or, and still listen to like, and do everything else.

    [00:36:25] That's necessarily the meeting though, to facilitate what we're actually working on. So it's another side

    [00:36:31] Tessa: [00:36:31] bonus. I hate multitasking league. If I don't need to be at the meeting, I would rather just leave if I have to work on something else while paying attention to the meeting, like I'm not going to do either well.

    [00:36:42] And I think it becomes a problem when that's an expectation. Cause I do think there are places that expect you to work when you're not actively participating in the meeting. And I think that that's really

    [00:36:51] Stacy Devino: [00:36:51] unhealthy.

    [00:36:55] Brian Hinton: [00:36:55] Definitely

    [00:36:56] Santosh Hari: [00:36:56] act as if you are not actively participating in the meeting, uh, the chances are you should

    [00:37:02] Brian Hinton: [00:37:02] not be in that meeting. Right? Right. Yeah.

    [00:37:05] Frederick Weiss: [00:37:05] Yeah.

    [00:37:07] Vincent Tang: [00:37:07] Well, so like, you know, when you're sending like an email blast to a group of people and you have like a to feel great, and then you have like a CC field and a PCC, well, meetings are kind of the same way where it's like, there's a two fields, right.

    [00:37:21] And these are like the meet Jessica to the meeting, but you also have audience vendors, the CCS, and BCCs, um, they don't really contribute as much to the meeting, but they still need to be there to understand the grand scheme of things and sometimes just be available in case. Um, there's a question that comes up.

    [00:37:38] They need a product expert related to that specific topic. Um, you could think that it's like being on call at the meeting, but you're not actually needed most of the time.

    [00:37:48] Tessa: [00:37:48] Yeah, I think they should definitely try to have more meetings where it's considered normal to like come in when you're needed and then leave when you're not, instead of having to sit through the whole meeting, if like you just need to present like 10 minutes out of two hours.

    [00:38:03] Brian Hinton: [00:38:03] Yeah. And back to back meetings. I am so tired of back-to-back meetings. Oh my gosh. Like 15, if you see there's a meeting, you don't have to schedule the next meeting directly after the previous one, you can have a gap. It's okay.

    [00:38:19] Frederick Weiss: [00:38:19] No, no bathroom for you. Actually, I actually

    [00:38:23] Vincent Tang: [00:38:23] prefers having all my meetings, like all in one day.

    [00:38:26] And like, after that, like no meetings for like several days in a row. That's just me personally though. Or just like having minimal meetings after that. Like I think yesterday I had like seven hours of meetings. Like most times I actually don't feel it that much since, uh, more for lead developments and just like delegating tasks to different developers.

    [00:38:48] Um, so it's actually been a Wellston cheer in India.

    [00:38:52] Brian Hinton: [00:38:52] I really am in miring your cat in the background, by the

    [00:38:55] Frederick Weiss: [00:38:55] way, I was just going to say that cat.

    [00:39:00] Vincent Tang: [00:39:00] Oh. Since I last came on the call, um, yeah, I thought that a cat six months ago, his name was Mazzi

    [00:39:06] Frederick Weiss: [00:39:06] he's stupid. Oh, it's a cute cat. Let's talk to him. What do you think?

    [00:39:14] Yeah.

    [00:39:16] Vincent Tang: [00:39:16] Yeah. Well, he's got that. He's got the, he's got the floor, but he doesn't want to say anything

    [00:39:21] Frederick Weiss: [00:39:21] now that's cats. I tell ya. Yep.

    [00:39:25] Baskar Rao Dandlamudi: [00:39:25] Because, uh, coming to meetings, uh, since it's we are all remote and everyone gets all this zoom fatigue and all that stuff. So one good thing our company does is like we do, uh, No meeting days.

    [00:39:40] So one day a week is a no meeting day, uh, across the company. And, uh, we are also finding in understanding that it's not needed for everyone to switch on their camera and, uh, uh, keep the Evo, uh, Mike on drive every time. So if they are needed, there will be, we generally have all our meetings, no camera. So that way, uh, people we are just in listen mode.

    [00:40:09] Uh, so I don't want to, uh, concentrate on what people need to concentrate on, like what I'm doing, how I'm there, right. And being remote, uh, people regularly, I think, uh, most of them will try to, uh, check, uh, whether a person is online or offline and it should not. When in remote, as engineering managers, uh, We should not give that much concentration on those.

    [00:40:37] Like at what point of time you are looking green on your messenger or when you went away, it's not so good that I don't have any of those and like to have good managers. Uh, but I think most, um, there are companies where they will be, uh, focusing on those, like when a person is on cream or when he is, I'm right, like KB themes.

    [00:41:04] If you have teams on mobile, uh, I think, uh, some few days back before, sometimes it used to show online every time. Right. Even if you are at your desk or if it is on your mobile. So that's where I think, uh, people used to tweet like, okay, teams, I'm on my mobile, I'm away from my office. Why, why are they showing it as green?

    [00:41:26] Right.

    [00:41:27] Frederick Weiss: [00:41:27] So I've been in meetings where people give you guff for not having your camera. Uh, where we're like, Hey, everybody has their camera on. Come on, turn your camera on. Why, why do you need to see me? Uh, is it imperative for this conversation? I get to share my screen if we need to do that, but I don't, I don't need to turn my camera on for us to have a, have a, have a meeting.

    [00:41:51] Yeah. I just

    [00:41:51] Faisal Abid: [00:41:51] thought

    [00:41:51] Baskar Rao Dandlamudi: [00:41:51] also like, and also what

    [00:41:53] Sivamuthu Kumar: [00:41:53] about like the kids noise in the background, right nowadays, like, it's, it's also part of the life, uh, example for my company, everyone know like my kid and my kid know like overall, my coworker said, so you see just we'll come to the call and just make the time to them.

    [00:42:12] So it's more like a family. And also like, they, they just like, uh, um, although the kids to be paid the background, right. We should intellect stop the liveliness around our home. Since we are working from home. It's not like our office, it's still a home. Right. So we should download those kinds of. In like a meeting

    [00:42:33] Faisal Abid: [00:42:33] date.

    [00:42:35] Brian Hinton: [00:42:35] What I want to know about life's texture is definitely what I want to know. People like to change that, and while still on a zoom call or like to do all sorts of things that they should not be doing. It's like, it's really obvious that you're still on the call. Like I'm like super I'm like, okay, is the camera off?

    [00:42:56] Okay. Let's just turn the camera up, or put something over it. Like, like how do people not like thinking about this? It's so funny. It's human

    [00:43:05] Frederick Weiss: [00:43:05] nature,

    [00:43:06] Brian Hinton: [00:43:06] I think. Oh yeah. I know. It just surprises me that I think that they're just not used. Yeah.

    [00:43:11] Frederick Weiss: [00:43:11] If you're in

    [00:43:12] Jared Rhodes: [00:43:12] meetings for eight hours a day, you become so used to the meeting that you forget the meeting.

    [00:43:20] Frederick Weiss: [00:43:20] That's true.

    [00:43:22] Jared Rhodes: [00:43:22] When you create

    [00:43:24] Vincent Tang: [00:43:24] like steps and like any mishaps from happening, like. A camera shutter. You turn off your camera, you mute it, you disable your mic, et cetera. That way you don't accidentally leave your camera on and some embarrassing moment or leave your mic on, on some embarrassing moment, which, uh, I think I actually turned on my mic one time when I was shopping at the Hershey shore, but

    [00:43:53] Super Di: [00:43:53] that was so cute.

    [00:43:56] Stacy Devino: [00:43:56] He really likes that bus. I mean, he's all about that bus, but I mean the more meetings you're in, the better you get at it. And honestly like the higher up you go, the more meetings you're going to have in half my day, pretty much every day is meetings. If not more so, so, uh, and working with people, like if you count that, like just anytime you're going to be on a camera, um, invest in a quality microphone.

    [00:44:27] Uh, get a boom stand, put a decent camera up there. Um, you had a little bit of shaky noise in the background with me right now because of the lighting, but eh,

    [00:44:37] Brian Hinton: [00:44:37] Stacy, do you have, do you have nine microphones? I

    [00:44:40] Stacy Devino: [00:44:40] do not have nine microphones.

    [00:44:43] Frederick Weiss: [00:44:43] Nine headphones,

    [00:44:44] Stacy Devino: [00:44:44] nine headphones, nine keyboards, actually one. Oh, I, um, I think I may have forgotten 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, no 10 keyboards and keyboards.

    [00:44:57] Cause I forgot about my, uh, my IRS, uh, Alps, quite a click build.

    [00:45:03] Frederick Weiss: [00:45:03] Are they all on the keyboards?

    [00:45:05] Stacy Devino: [00:45:05] Are they all white emoji keyboards? No, they're not emoji keyboards. That's great. Although, I mean, would you, I mean, how RGB do you need your keyboard to be. This is one of my favorite ridiculous ones. Um, not the craziest thing you've seen in your life, other than it's just very, I, this is not even full brightness.

    [00:45:32] It would blind you. This is like half brightness

    [00:45:35] Frederick Weiss: [00:45:35] or I'm going to be blinded.

    [00:45:37] Brian Hinton: [00:45:37] Yeah. Audio listeners. It's a, what's the brand too. Or

    [00:45:42] Stacy Devino: [00:45:42] there's no brand. These are custom builds. Yeah.

    [00:45:46] Brian Hinton: [00:45:46] Can, you can highlight where you got the, got the stuff. So people who see it. Yeah.

    [00:45:51] Frederick Weiss: [00:45:51] Um,

    [00:45:52] Super Di: [00:45:52] does it pew brand custom built people, blinding lights

    [00:45:59] Stacy Devino: [00:45:59] and everything else

    [00:46:01] Super Di: [00:46:01] is the white good hub theme on vs code or

    [00:46:08] Stacy Devino: [00:46:08] like rolling through the. The RGB things at the moment I shoot, I have to look at my

    [00:46:20] Yeah. So I even, uh, everything is near

    [00:46:25] Frederick Weiss: [00:46:25] where you holding one,

    [00:46:26] Super Di: [00:46:26] find it when you're coding.

    [00:46:31] Brian Hinton: [00:46:31] Yeah. Mine's just a cute, cute Lance out of nowhere is fancy and secure. The key shrunk

    [00:46:40] Stacy Devino: [00:46:40] right. Like, Hey,

    [00:46:44] Brian Hinton: [00:46:44] I

    [00:46:45] Frederick Weiss: [00:46:45] backed up. I like that.

    [00:46:49] Stacy Devino: [00:46:49] I like my key

    [00:46:50] Super Di: [00:46:50] crone.

    [00:46:50] Frederick Weiss: [00:46:50] I'm showing it to hold on. Which one do you have? A little closer

    [00:46:55] Super Di: [00:46:55] six and I have a custom made Paul. Oh my God. Um, for, for the escapee it's

    [00:47:04] Frederick Weiss: [00:47:04] playing. Oh, I love

    [00:47:07] Stacy Devino: [00:47:07] it. I gotta send you a woman who codes keycaps. Yes. I tried

    [00:47:12] Super Di: [00:47:12] printing my own keycaps and I am a mess with resting printers.

    [00:47:17] It's so messy that I haven't done it in like six

    [00:47:21] Stacy Devino: [00:47:21] months. Yeah. So you can see like mine over there. Uh, I've got resin stuff and I, uh, you can actually look up. I have like nerd key caps I've made on Thingiverse and done a bunch of like open source profiles for everything. Okay.

    [00:47:36] Super Di: [00:47:36] Ms. Guilty, this woman is guilty of, uh, me getting into 3d printing and then getting into keyboards.

    [00:47:45] And I haven't bitten the beat for the

    [00:47:49] Frederick Weiss: [00:47:49] headphones.

    [00:47:55] I mean,

    [00:47:59] Super Di: [00:47:59] You just meant you each know how to make trends, Stacy, your trendsetter for nerdy things. The first thing I'm going to do, as soon as I can travel, is go and check her keyboards with all her headphones and with our game consoles. We're pinball machines. Cause, cause yeah, I see Stacy's house as like the holy grail, the place where I want to go and play with everything.

    [00:48:28] I mean, I'm going to play one, your Porsche dish with everything.

    [00:48:32] Frederick Weiss: [00:48:32] Show me your hover

    [00:48:33] Brian Hinton: [00:48:33] chair. Stacy just showed that to a split keyboard that she had for audio listeners. And why?

    [00:48:42] So

    [00:48:42] Stacy Devino: [00:48:42] you'd say it's an Iris, uh, keyboard with a rotary encoder, um, built without switches, not cherry compatible at all. So they have their own keycaps.

    [00:48:53] And I also designed and printed the key cap. For the top row. And you can find that completely open source, uh, stuff on Thingiverse. So, um, anybody else who needs it? Cause there's like a couple of people who have some other ones that they've posted, but they've put all kinds of rules on it and other things like that.

    [00:49:15] And I'm just like, um, if you need it, here you go. And here's a bunch of parts, including how to make space bars and all kinds of other things. So, um, you know, uh, it's not like I get paid to code and like I have a kid and I cook or anything, that kind of stuff. Right. But I have stupid, I have stupid, stupid collections of things.

    [00:49:38] Like why do I have, why do I have so many fountain pens? Why do I have so many fountain pens? I don't understand me. Why do I, why do I have this?

    [00:49:47] Brian Hinton: [00:49:47] Well, what if you need Ryan one doesn't have any, does anyone else? When one of them doesn't have ink put, put it back into it and grab another one

    [00:49:57] Frederick Weiss: [00:49:57] because I'm a crazy person.

    [00:49:59] I don't want to do that. And don't clean as you're cooking. Oh,

    [00:50:06] Brian Hinton: [00:50:06] um, yeah. I tend to not, yeah, just do that. Yeah,

    [00:50:12] Frederick Weiss: [00:50:12] no, no. You got to add your cooking. You got to clean as you're doing it. So you don't have a giant mess, but I liked

    [00:50:18] Brian Hinton: [00:50:18] the giant mess. It's like something to look forward to after eating. Well,

    [00:50:22] Frederick Weiss: [00:50:22] if you are a giant mess thoughtless, I get it.

    [00:50:26] Stop judging you. I love you. And I love the giant mess that you are. And I embrace it. Frederick,

    [00:50:34] Stacy Devino: [00:50:34] just explains the difference between seniors and leads and leads and principles. It's all about how you clean as you cook as you do a little something, you clean it off, you move through it once you're ready to push that thing up, you know, and present that food.

    [00:50:50] The kitchen is clean. Everything's ready to go. That sir. That's the difference between.

    [00:51:10] Frederick Weiss: [00:51:10] And the toys she

    [00:51:12] Brian Hinton: [00:51:12] made me feel more judged.

    [00:51:16] Stacy Devino: [00:51:16] I am just

    [00:51:19] Frederick Weiss: [00:51:19] we're we're, we're getting close to the end of the show. So, uh, does anybody want to talk about what they got going on? Any other, uh, subjects or projects they got? I

    [00:51:33] Super Di: [00:51:33] apologize, but I have to, this is so exciting. So I just leased a mobile application that can save lives.

    [00:51:40]  it's for diabetic patients, it's called Scouts X dash mobile on GitHub. Um, you know, I have a sensor and this goes to a mobile dashboard called Nightscout. And for diabetic patients, they can basically connect their nice Nightscout dashboards to this application and with a little bit of help.

    [00:52:03] They can actually forward location and blood sugar levels in case of emergency to their emergency contacts. In this case, if anything happens, I get a phone call because it wakes me up. Okay. People can disable it. And then if the levels are really bad, my mom will get a call informing her of my blood sugar levels, but she will also get a link to maps and can follow me in real time.

    [00:52:34] And this, I know as it, has saved my life and my ideas, you know, to make it available for everybody and see how many lives we can say with this. So I'm really excited. This,

    [00:52:47] Frederick Weiss: [00:52:47] I love that. Thank you for sharing that. Anybody else want to go next? I

    [00:52:52] Brian Hinton: [00:52:52] have

    [00:52:52] Faisal Abid: [00:52:52] an

    [00:52:53] Jared Rhodes: [00:52:53] article coming out tomorrow on smash and smashing magazine.com.

    [00:52:58] Frederick Weiss: [00:52:58] Nice. What is it about? It is about brevity.

    [00:53:02] Jared Rhodes: [00:53:02] It is about the importance of accessibility

    [00:53:08] Frederick Weiss: [00:53:08] right up your alley.

    [00:53:12] Brian Hinton: [00:53:12] Can you

    [00:53:12] Frederick Weiss: [00:53:12] read that

    [00:53:13] Brian Hinton: [00:53:13] out loud right now? Todd, go. What's that? Can you read it all out loud right now? Uh, I

    [00:53:20] Jared Rhodes: [00:53:20] just did.

    [00:53:21] Brian Hinton: [00:53:21] Oh yeah. Yeah. Come here.

    [00:53:27] Baskar Rao Dandlamudi: [00:53:27] Who's next? So I'm just working behind the scenes. Uh, I know that we are not, we are slowly moving towards in person events and, uh, we are trying to meet next month, uh, July, August, uh, for our conference.

    [00:53:44] So that's, uh, that stuff, which I'm working out, uh, currently after a regular  conference. And I'm hoping that, uh, things will go smoothly. So we need to see

    [00:53:58] Frederick Weiss: [00:53:58] like,

    [00:53:59] Santosh Hari: [00:53:59] So last month. Yeah, last month, at the beginning of June, I spoke at in-person at a conference. So that was really cool. Um, it's a really weird experience, you know, um, the conference in person event in, uh, people are wearing masks and it's like a room, so practically empty, you know, it's like half people in person have people who have the virtual.

    [00:54:27] So yeah. Interesting experience. Um, I think that's what we'll probably end up having for the next, uh, six to 12 months before we know. Yeah, we don't need holograms. That's true. That'd be awesome. Like a Tupac hologram would be something like that would be awesome. Oh my God. Yes. Yeah. But I'm looking forward to more in-person conferences.

    [00:54:53] Uh, as you know, they were well organized.

    [00:54:59] Stacy Devino: [00:54:59] Uh, I've got a talk I'm giving on July 15th to women who code mobile. Uh, you can actually look up, uh, the information directly on their Twitter. Uh, and it's all about career development. Uh, I kind of call the talk, uh, get happy, get known, get paid, uh, in that order. And it's really about kind of the real steps that you need to take as an individual to kind of get to your end game, whatever that means to you seen

    [00:55:36] Vincent Tang: [00:55:36] that

    [00:55:36] Brian Hinton: [00:55:36] Montse adopting

    [00:55:46] Vincent Tang: [00:55:46] is actually the first episode, the first shelter I went to. I didn't know what I wanted to think that actually, um, Then when I first went over there and then this is when I was between jobs. I got laid off from my previous job. And I was like, well, I got a lot of free time. I'll actually go cat searching now, soul searching for a bit.

    [00:56:07] And once like five or six different shelters. And they kind of got a feel for different cats. And I'm like, oh God, I have to start a new job like next week. So, um, I ended up postponing that and I found out that my entire team had cats. This was kind of telling me that I should probably get a cat. And, uh, Matsu was the first cat I saw at the shelter.

    [00:56:29] And I was like, if he's still there, this is the cat I wanna adopt. And sure enough, he was still there three weeks later. So I adopted him and have been happy ever since. Yeah, he eats a lot though. I'm like, anytime he wants to complain about something or. Like wanting attention. He just yells at me. Like sometimes like, it's like, even when I'm in a zoom call, like a lot of times we'll just Meow like a lot, but I'm kind of surprised he hasn't done that this time, but yeah.

    [00:57:00] Uh, other things that are new, I actually just did my first dance performance. I'm on a dance performance team and I learned how to do like land style, the insane a couple of months.

    [00:57:17] Frederick Weiss: [00:57:17] Yeah, let's see, I saw you doing this on Facebook and you're really good. All right.

    [00:57:26] Don't give us

    [00:57:30] video of me.

    [00:57:34] Grab

    [00:57:34] Jared Rhodes: [00:57:34] the cat,

    [00:57:38] Frederick Weiss: [00:57:38] put up Brian dance. I'm not wearing cancer.

    [00:57:47] Faisal Abid: [00:57:47] Although I did learn.

    [00:57:50] Vincent Tang: [00:57:50] I did learn how to play guitar though and sing at the same.

    [00:57:54] Frederick Weiss: [00:57:54] You're

    [00:57:54] Brian Hinton: [00:57:54] just digging a hole for yourself. Now he's going to ask you to play

    [00:57:57] Stacy Devino: [00:57:57] guitar.

    [00:58:00] Frederick Weiss: [00:58:00] Okay. Fine.

    [00:58:04] Vincent Tang: [00:58:04] I'm actually wearing pants by the

    [00:58:05] Frederick Weiss: [00:58:05] way.

    [00:58:06] Brian Hinton: [00:58:06] He lied.

    [00:58:10] Jared Rhodes: [00:58:10] He wasn't like that.

    [00:58:12] Brian Hinton: [00:58:12] heart and polka dot, uh, boxers

    [00:58:15] Tessa: [00:58:15] says, pass might be brighter than Stacy's keyboard.

    [00:58:18] That's

    [00:58:18] Vincent Tang: [00:58:18] true neon. Sorry. You know,

    [00:58:28] Frederick Weiss: [00:58:28] I need to get my

    [00:58:46] hotel, California?

    [00:58:51] Vincent Tang: [00:58:51] stairway

    [00:58:51] Frederick Weiss: [00:58:51] to heaven. We're all just putting out songs. You play what you want, buddy. I'm going to do

    [00:58:56] Vincent Tang: [00:58:56] the Beatles, let it be. And every time I do this in front of an audience, it's awkward. And this year's terrible. That actually did it on.

    [00:59:10] Tessa: [00:59:10] We had to play in front of

    [00:59:11] Vincent Tang: [00:59:11] you, right?

    [00:59:12] Yeah.

    [00:59:35] Self in times of stress.

    [00:59:43] Frederick Weiss: [00:59:43] Okay.

    [01:00:12] Brian Hinton: [01:00:12] Oh,

    [01:00:13] Vincent Tang: [01:00:13] that is

    [01:00:16] Frederick Weiss: [01:00:16] that it

    [01:00:25] Jared Rhodes: [01:00:25] was, um,

    [01:00:34] Faisal Abid: [01:00:34] can we do the whole thing?

    [01:00:42] Frederick Weiss: [01:00:42] How appropriate that song is and the serendipity of the situation, because, uh, words of wisdom. And that's what we have provided here, I believe through the last hour. And we'll let it be at that because we are at the end of the show unless anybody else has any final words before we sign off? Uh, well,

    [01:01:02] Stacy Devino: [01:01:02] I

    [01:01:02] Tessa: [01:01:02] don't have anything new to pitch, but if you're looking for a podcast about view or front end development, check out, enjoy the view,

    [01:01:09] Frederick Weiss: [01:01:09] That's enjoy the view.io IO.

    [01:01:13] Thank you. Anybody else?

    [01:01:15] Vincent Tang: [01:01:15] Oh,  I have a podcast

    [01:01:17] Vincent Tang: [01:01:17] too. It's a restaurant theme of podcasts . My best buddy talked about pretty much all tested development and how it got started into front end development and back in development, as well as civic topics on, for instance, how a TV device works or.

    [01:01:35] If you're versed in DevOps, we've got something for everybody. It's more like for people that are kind of in the mindset of trying to learn new things. So, um, I'll put them in the

    [01:01:45] Frederick Weiss: [01:01:45] show notes somewhere. I, I, we got a link. Don't worry about it. I, I listen to you. Thanks so much.

    [01:01:53] Brian Hinton: [01:01:53] Cool. Thank you. Hey everyone.

    [01:01:55] Thanks for joining us. It's always great to talk with you all. It's a joy.

    [01:02:00] Frederick Weiss: [01:02:00] Oh yeah. And before we jumped out, I just wanted to, if anybody else had a chance or wanted to say anything at the end here,

    [01:02:07] Jared Rhodes: [01:02:07] I got a podcast to

    [01:02:11] Frederick Weiss: [01:02:11] what you got.

    [01:02:13] Jared Rhodes: [01:02:13] It's called the front end nerdery podcast. It's also on YouTube and it's also on your, uh, your favorite podcast platform,

    [01:02:22] Faisal Abid: [01:02:22] device of choice.

    [01:02:24] Frederick Weiss: [01:02:24] Nice. Anybody else? Uh,

    [01:02:29] Jared Rhodes: [01:02:29] we're going to be having the Atlanta code camp this year, um, on October 9th. So if anyone's looking to speak or sponsor a, will we have any Atlanta code camp? So Atlanta code, camp.com.

    [01:02:42] Frederick Weiss: [01:02:42] Thank you very much, Jared. Hey, you know what? Speaking of friends and friends, the code bass card, you got on anything to promote,

    [01:02:49] Faisal Abid: [01:02:49] um, the apart

    [01:02:52] Baskar Rao Dandlamudi: [01:02:52] from our conference, uh, which is the Cooper friends.

    [01:02:56] Uh, so that's what we do. And, uh, we do monthly meetups and a annual

    [01:03:03] conference.

    [01:03:04] Frederick Weiss: [01:03:04] Nice. Anyone else? Anyone else eats more lobster, eats more, less. I think that is the perfect word to exit this show with. Remember everybody eating more lobster? Watch the thunder nerds. Thank every one of you for joining us. Um, it's been a pleasure and, uh, I hope you all join us again next year when we do this, my deepest of thanks.

    [01:03:30] Thank you so much, Brian. Do you have anything? Nope.

    [01:03:34] Brian Hinton: [01:03:34] Under nerds, subscribe.

    [01:03:35] Faisal Abid: [01:03:35] Subscribe.

    [01:03:37] Frederick Weiss: [01:03:37] Thanks everybody. Take care. Really appreciate it. We'll see you next time.

    If you have questions, or suggestions to modify the transcript, PLEASE let us know at [email protected]

    10 July 2021, 2:51 pm
  • 1 hour 1 minute
    283 – 🔊 Voice Content And Usability with Preston So

    In this episode, we get to talk with Preston So, Senior Director of Product Strategy at Oracle. We talk to Preston about his new book VOICE CONTENT AND USABILITY. We discuss the concepts of building conversational designs that are ethical, accessible, and usable.

    ✨ Episode Sponsor

    🔗 Episode Links

    📜 Transcript

    Brian Hinton: [00:00:00] I’m Brian Hinton.

    Frederick Weiss: and I’m Frederick Philip von Weiss. And thank you so much for consuming the Thunder Nerds, a conversation with the people behind the technology that love what they do

    [00:00:46] Brian Hinton: [00:00:46] and do tech good.

    [00:00:52] Frederick Weiss: Yeah, thanks everybody for watching the show. If you can please go to the notification bell and subscribe.

    Brian Hinton: We’d like to thank Auth0, Auth0 is this season’s sponsor. They make it easy for developers to build a custom secure and standards-based login, a unified login and authentication as a service, to try them out, go to Auth0.com today. Also check out their YouTube and Twitch under the username, Auth0 with some great developer resources and streams, and last but not least is our avocado labs.

    [00:01:43] I love that name. An online destination that their developer advocates run organizing some great meetups. Thank you Auth0.

    [00:01:52] Frederick Weiss: [00:01:52] Yes. Thanks Auth0! Let’s go ahead and welcome our guest.

    [00:01:50] Frederick Weiss: [00:01:50] Thanks so much, Brian. So with that being said, and  without any dues being further, let's go ahead and get to our guest and welcome him back. We have the author of the new book, VOICE CONTENT AND USABILITY, senior director product strategy at Oracle, speaker, Preston So. Preston, welcome back to the show!

    [00:02:17] Preston So: [00:02:17] Hey Frederick. Hey Brian. Thanks so much for having me back on Thunder Nerds. Might I say it’s a real pleasure to be back here one more time to talk about my new book. Thanks for having me.

    [00:02:26] Frederick Weiss: [00:02:26] I appreciate it. And we started a little late and you have an event that you were just doing. Do you mind telling us a little bit about that event?

    [00:02:32] Preston So: [00:02:32] What that. I will. And  my first and foremost dear apologies to everyone who was waiting for this live stream. I had the misfortune of forgetting getting, send out a confirmation email and an email that actually I had, let's say, Hey, this event is happening today. So we started a bit late and we ended a bit late.

    [00:02:51] It was my launch event for my new book, which is here, voice content and usability. And  we had a great time doing some discussion about the implications of voice interfaces for those of us who work with the web, which is, I think a lot of us in the funder nerds audience, as well as the implications of voice on our society.

    [00:03:13] And of course, The vaunted and traditional book cake, which is something that everyone at a book apart, my publisher has to unveil  as part of the process of launching a new book. It was a  very interesting  process, but  very sorry to those who were waiting on this YouTube person.

    [00:03:33] Frederick Weiss: [00:03:33] Oh, sorry. Did you say a book cake?

    [00:03:35] Like

    [00:03:35] Preston So: [00:03:35] utterly a cake? Yeah. Book cake.  Maybe I'm saying too much. I don't know how, like it should be cake. Gotcha. Yeah.  If she, yeah.   Not like everything is cake,  oh, it's all cake that  yes. It's all cake as well, but a book cake, because basically  oh, you're supposed to have a cake that looks like your book and    represents your book.

    [00:03:55] Yeah.  So it was a great launch event and  it was a real pleasure to  share a little bit about the process. I went through writing the book and some of the really exciting things that  I taught. Love that.

    [00:04:09] Frederick Weiss: [00:04:09] And speaking of the book, we're going to be giving away three copies of the ebook courtesy of a book apart today.

    [00:04:16]     If you can just chat with us, ask us your questions. Maybe tell us you want a book we're going to randomly give away some books. So we'll be doing that as the show progresses on.  Preston first, let me talk to you a little bit about  you being with us last time, promoting your last book.

    [00:04:35] Decoupling Drupal. Am I saying that correct?

    [00:04:38] Preston So: [00:04:38] Yes. Decoupled Drupal in Practice.

    [00:04:42]    Frederick Weiss: [00:04:44] How was the success of that and how did that  prompt you to  start writing a new book?  You just wrote that book not too long ago and all of a sudden you have another book.

    [00:04:54] So I see a pattern every year, a new book,  I wish I could come out with a new book every year. Like someone    would say RL Stein of goosebumps or something like that. But  This has been a really interesting process because my books tend to be very focused on  really technical aspects of the ways in which we work with our content and the ways in which we work on the web.

    [00:05:19] Preston So: [00:05:19] The first book I wrote was back in 2018, a couple of Drupal and practice. And I think one question I get a lot  and  definitely happy to answer for some of those on the call or  those in the audience.  What's it, what is it like as a technologist to write a book?  Especially for those who are developers or designers.

    [00:05:38] So this book is actually my first book that is not a coding book, not a technical book. It doesn't have any code snippets in it. Couple of code formatted sections that are really tiny, but it doesn't really have any sort of tutorials as to how to spin up a command line interface or things like that.

    [00:05:58] It's really focused on the user experience and design audience and the accessibility audience, which is a very different audience from the audiences that I'm used to writing for. What's interesting is that decoupled, Drupal and practice is about the architectural underpinnings or the foundation of how you can deploy content.

    [00:06:16] That's oriented towards things like JavaScript applications or other sorts of environments, like voice interfaces.  But it really dives into the Navy. Voice content usability. However, is really unlike that because it really focuses on how we as designers, as user experience professionals who are working on usability testing or usability research  can really engage with this new field that is emerging around voice interface design, and specifically around things like voice content strategy and voice content design.

    [00:06:49] But the other thing I will say is that I actually made the mistake. I had the privilege, or some would say the misfortune of writing two books at the same time, over the past year and a half. And the other book that I've got coming out this fall is Gatsby, the definitive guide, which is about Gatsby JS, the static site framework.

    [00:07:08] So right back in the other direction.

    [00:07:10] Brian Hinton: [00:07:10] So you're going to write

    [00:07:12] Frederick Weiss: [00:07:12] every other year,

    [00:07:14] Brian Hinton: [00:07:14] three minutes a year

    [00:07:15] Preston So: [00:07:15] I was thinking of more Fibonacci sequence, actually, Brian  like I think I should write five and then eight and then 13  Yeah, they might get a little shorter and they might be filled with some more memes.

    [00:07:25] So why is voice content usability? Like, why did you're like, okay, now I really think I need to write this.

    [00:07:33] Yeah. Yeah. Specifically too, if I

    [00:07:34] Frederick Weiss: [00:07:34] could append to that point, Brian  Y   you said yourself, like you moved away from  like a coding kind of thing. Like why go that way into

    [00:07:42] Preston So: [00:07:42] the accessibility?

    [00:07:44] So I've always been  really into web development, but my real core interest and passion has always been for design and user experience. I started out as a web designer. I started out as a print designer. I actually also did computer programming back in the  back in those days and got into web development that way.

    [00:08:02] But it really wasn't necessarily something that was  an itch. I got to scratch very much this aspect of design and user experience that is beyond the web. And I've always been interested, not only in how we can serve some of the users who are interacting with some of the content that we produce or some of the experiences that we create in  terms of technology beyond the web.

    [00:08:27] I was also really interested in how we can actually best serve. Users that already exist and users that are already within the demographics of the audiences that we're trying to serve.  I've always been interested in web accessibility first and foremost, as well as some of the aspects of how accessible it really changes the ways that we think about other user interfaces that might not have gotten and so much attention from the standpoint of how they can better serve disabled users and those  who might be elderly and have a little bit more trouble  for example,  using a mouse or typing on a keyboard and those two audiences, specifically the elderly and  disabled communities around   the U S we're communities that we aim to serve with the first ever voice interface for residents of the state of Georgia.

    [00:09:15] I worked to ask Georgia gov, which had the specific goal of really focusing on. How we can serve residents of the state of Georgia who want to be able to find out things like registering the vote or how they can get a small business loan or how they can renew their fishing license without necessarily having to incur the cognitive costs of either interacting with a screen reader driven website or interacting with, let's say somebody in person at an agency office.

    [00:09:45] And I think one of the really interesting insights that we found is that  I think really unexpectedly is that a lot of the websites that we build, obviously we think. Nowadays because so many people use the web because disabled folks use screen readers because so many people now are used to the paradigm of the web.

    [00:10:04] The website is really  the gospel of how people should now consume content and how people do consume content. But I think one of the things that's been born out by this project is that the kinds of things that people would ask an Amazon Alexa sitting in their own home about the state of Georgia and the government capabilities that are available to them were completely different.

    [00:10:26] And in some cases, diametrically opposed to the sorts of queries and things that people would search for on the georgia.gov website, which is the ultimate source of all of the information that we used. And that really illuminates a little bit of this.  I would say a little bit of this hidden bias that we have.

    [00:10:43] Towards the website as the primary conduit for information, when in some ways it really should be just considered one facet of a wide variety of ways to access our content equitably. So then what do we

    [00:10:56] Frederick Weiss: [00:10:56] do?  Are we expected to  have multiple locations for our content, like specifically. I'm going to build content for voice, or I'm going to build content for a website, and I'm going to build content that goes into an application.

    [00:11:14] Or am I  or does it behoove us to write content that is a uniform and maybe in a specific way, and possibly you might answer in what way that, that might be as one source of truth.

    [00:11:31] Preston So: [00:11:31] That's a really challenging question. And obviously I shouldn't really go too far here without saying that some of those questions are answered in my book, voice, content, and usability as a book of parts.

    [00:11:42] Please don't give everything away just a little bit. Could you read the whole book out loud, please?  That'd  be here all day. Yeah.    Yeah, we do have, so what I will say is that  this is the perennial debate, right? I think one of the things that we as designers struggle with as we really deal with this exploding, Kind of menagerie of user experiences that we increasingly have to deal with is  what do we do with our data?

    [00:12:10] What do we do with all of these things that we've built that are in some ways, very much oriented towards, or very focused on the audiences that we've cultivated over time, namely our websites and mobile applications being for these very visually rooted experiences and demographics that are used to these visual experiences, the things that are really problematic about some of the approaches that were characteristic of the early days of voice content.

    [00:12:37] Let's say when people were experimenting with voice interfaces or chat bots, as a means to deliver a certain type of content, you would have a parallel version of the information that was already housed in your website. And  those of us who are content designers or content straps, Can really feel the pain that comes from the notion of having a set of content over here in one silo, that's destined for the website and another piece of content over here, that's destined for a voice interface.

    [00:13:04] How do you keep those two things in sync? And now that we have regulations like GDPR and HIPAA, for example, that are really obligatory, that content stays current, or that content stays up to date with what we need. How do we actually make sure that all of this content stays up to date without having it be in a single source of truth for content?

    [00:13:24] Now, my book definitely doesn't make any prescriptions about going in one direction or the other where, oh yeah, you must do it this way. Or you must do it that way because there are exceptions to everything and  nothing is ever cut and dry. However, I generally err on the side of saying that  look at the case of what we did with the state of Georgia, georgia.gov, they insisted actually that we use one single source of truth for content that was going to be an omni-channel or channel agnostic source of truth for content because ultimately a lot of us don't have the luxury to maintain multiple versions of content that are destined for multiple conduits of content.

    [00:14:00] So we ended up keeping it all in one source and we ended up maintaining it all in one. And  having both voice and web versions of the content pull from the exact same repository of content, which ends up being more scalable in the long run, especially now that Georgia has built an additional chat bot that is a written chat bot, a textual chat bot, but also pulls from the same content.

    [00:14:25] I'm curious, there

    [00:14:25] Brian Hinton: [00:14:25] was a course of your research and writing of this book. Was there anything that shocked you or surprised you that you didn't like?

    [00:14:33] Preston So: [00:14:33] Didn't immediately realize. Yeah.  It's a great question, Brian. I there's a    there's too many to list because I think one of the things that's really one of the things that's really  tough about voice interfaces is that up until recently, it's been really challenging for a lot of those who are not computational linguists or machine learning engineers or people who are really deeply involved in some of these very low level technologies to really get involved with voice.

    [00:15:08] However, one of the things I will share is that in some ways there's really interesting emergencies of some of the foibles in voice interface design. When you start working with this technology that is very reminiscent of back in the day  and  those of us who were listening to Thunderbirds.

    [00:15:27] Have worked in the web for a while, will recognize, for example, the things that we used to deal with in the early two thousands or mid two thousands, like quirks mode compatibility, or  some of the really odd browser hacks that we had to do with CSS. And there's weird things like that in voice interfaces.

    [00:15:46] One example of this that I'll share and I'll keep it just to one is when we build, ask Georgia gov, which of course is that voice interface for the residents of the state of Georgia. There was a situation where we  had a retrospective. And one of the things that we did for Georgia was they wanted to have the ability to administer and manage all this content in one single place.

    [00:16:08] And we had a parallel set of logs and reports that would sit right next to the logs and reports for the website. So whenever somebody would hit a 4 0 4 error on the website  they could compare and see. How many times did this piece of content also air out, for example, for  the voice interface for Alexa, were there situations where the search return, the results or where it triggered 4 0 4 errors on the content management system that we were using to serve both the website and the voice interface.

    [00:16:39] So we had this retrospective about eight months after the launch of the interface, which was  in 2017. And we had a discussion about some of the logs and we kind of leaf through them and said, okay, what are some of the errors that we're seeing? And what are some of the things that we can do to either adjust the content or maybe even do some debugging of the interface itself?

    [00:17:00] There was this one result that kept on coming up over and over again, this one error, this 404 error, basically a search that somebody conducted that returned no results, no content. And it was the word Lawson's L a w S O N apostrophe S. And this kept on popping up  over and over again. It was about 16 times.

    [00:17:20] If I remember correctly in the log and we thought. Who is searching, who wants to search for this, like proper now this brand name  this person named Lawson    did they get this confused with the different kind of application on their Alexa that they're trying to use? And we sat there and scratched our heads for a few minutes.

    [00:17:38] And one of the native Georgians in the room suddenly perked up and she said, you know what? I think it's somebody who is from Georgia, who has a Southern drawl, who is trying to say the word license as in driver's license or nursing license or fishing license, and sure enough.

    [00:17:57] That was exactly what happened. And this is one of those situations where, Hey  you can do the best designed application that adheres to the latest and greatest standards and specifications like we did back in those days with CSS and come within an inch of perfection when it comes to these voice interfaces that we build custom.

    [00:18:17] But ultimately it's in the hands of people like Amazon or Google, whether or not they can actually understand the kaleidoscope of American English dialects that we have in this country. And that we really should be able to understand. And I think it's a really good sign that yeah, these voice assistants are really good.

    [00:18:35] But they're not yet at that point where they can beat us at our own game of human conversation. Yeah.

    [00:18:40] Frederick Weiss: [00:18:40] This brings me  if you don't mind really quick, Brian, this is something that  Todd Libby wrote here, and he  he also appended to his question  where their edge and he wrote challenging where they're challenging edge cases with respect to a 11 Y that you ran into the Georgia project.

    [00:19:00]     Preston So: [00:19:01] Yeah. Great question, Todd.  And when it comes to the work that we did  on accessibility, on  Astoria gov    in terms of edge cases, I will share that. I think one of the big challenges, there were several challenges, right?   And one I think     is one of the  one of those challenges that's inherent to.

    [00:19:20] Voice interfaces  that are pure voice interfaces, which I, and others define as basically a voice interface that lacks a screen. So there's no visual component, no tactical  or physical cues on it.  Yeah  not a gooey. You're basically just interacting with somebody through the spoken word.

    [00:19:37] And I think this is not really an edge case  so I don't wanna say that this answers the question, but one of the things that I think a lot of people forget, and I think is really important to keep in mind when working with voice interfaces, when it comes to extending the accessibility of your content on a website or your web properties, is the fact that pure voice interfaces  that are  lacking   in a visual or physical component  are actually not accessible to certain disabled people, namely those who are deaf or those who are deaf blind.

    [00:20:10] And the notion that I think a lot of people have today, Is    voice interfaces can solve a lot of cases for accessibility, but that's really not the case because when it comes to  so many of the demographics that we need to serve in the disabled community, there are  certain solutions that only go part of the way there and we're going to do that.

    [00:20:34] Yup. And yeah, so that's  yep. Yeah.    That's exactly right.   How do we also make sure that we can serve content on a mobile? Consumable way to refreshable braille displays that are maybe not necessarily the same thing as the kind of  let's say screaming and experience.

    [00:20:52] That's very rooted in the visual structure of a webpage it's very early days still in    this, the sort of notion of multimodal accessibility or how to really make sure that a lot of the user interfaces that we have are not actually stepping on the toes of other folks who are accessing content in particular ways.

    [00:21:12] The edge case, however, that I will share is I think a lot of people also make the assumption that these voice interfaces and voice assistants can be.       The ultimate solution for a lot of folks who are blind or have low vision, but that's really a tough sell in some ways, because I think one of the things that's really important to recognize about these peer voice interfaces like Alexa, is that they have a learning curve too.

    [00:21:38] We know this web meter and  some of these  browsers or three meters like  ChromeVox  or Jaws have issues that require people to ascend a very steep learning curve to use them in an effective and efficient way. And voice interfaces are very much the same way. So one of the things that we encountered during our usability testing was.

    [00:22:01] Just  one of those things that we didn't necessarily expect, which is that a lot of people that we  had come in and  worked with and went through our usability study, really had very little experience with Alexa devices. And I think for  those who are looking at voice interfaces as a means to    be a compelling potential sidelong alternative to swim meters,  that might necessarily,  that might potentially be a little bit problematic and how they    efficiently guide users to their content as  as the voice interface designer, Chris Mari writes  it is something to think about, which is  there is still a learning curve.

    [00:22:41] And how do you actually address that learning curve in a way that makes sense to those users that you need to.

    [00:22:47] Brian Hinton: [00:22:47] Yeah, I'm curious in the sense of Georgia, where we're at my current role, we're working on a chat bot. And one thing that we've found most difficult is I think it's called semantic, parsing a word  converts that conversation into what logically makes sense.

    [00:23:03] What are they asking? And it's like the difference, like the capital of Georgia, someone's saying capital of Georgia and that's all they say, or what's the capital of Georgia or Georgia Capitol is like  did you encounter anything weird in that sense or any    cases.

    [00:23:19] Preston So: [00:23:19] Yeah.  I talk about this a lot in chapter three of my book, which is about writing those conversational dialogues that really are the lattice work of the voice interfaces that we produce.

    [00:23:32] And it's a really challenging kind of thing because a lot of these questions, Brian are really rooted in the technology that you're using.  Because some voice ecosystems or conversational ecosystems are better equipped to deal with. Let's say variations, like the ones that you mentioned just now, than others are.

    [00:23:49] But there is a lot of work being done to improve the situation. So back in the day  in 2016, when we worked on Astoria gov and in the grand scheme of voice interfaces and the history of conversation design five years ago is a long time ago.  We might as well be talking about clay tablets and abacuses at this point, because that was an era where a lot of those utterances that people would state  in order to do a process of what's.

    [00:24:17] Intent identification where the user interface is able to piece together a sense of what the user actually wants to achieve, which is much easier said than done.  That's a process that used to be very much a sort of manually driven process. For example, let's say that you're trying to identify  a yeah.

    [00:24:37] You're trying to identify a question like    what is the capital of Georgia? It has to be phrased like a question, let's say. And one of the things that I think is really challenging for a lot of people who are just getting started with voice interfaces is that in some of these ecosystems, some of these technologies obligate you to be very clear about defining how the user has to respond.

    [00:24:56] And as we know, as users. The ways that we actually respond to some of these questions and the ways in which we actually say some of these things can be phrased completely differently from the ways in which we've actually coded  the voice interfaces or conversational interfaces or chatbots to consider.

    [00:25:14] And whenever we have, what's called a, an out of domain error where the  chat bot or the conversational interface or voice interface, isn't able to actually understand what you're saying, because the way that you phrased it, even though it's a perfectly logical thing isn't accounted for within the context of what the voice interfaces in  is able to understand through its  programming  is a  very big problem.

    [00:25:39] So I'd talk about intent identification   and  the problems that occur when you have these  very dedicated slots or tokens or some of these  No, basically this teasing out process that you have to do with intern identification that really relies on some of these boilerplate templates that users have to use to say these things, but that's not how we speak.

    [00:26:00] That's not natural, right?  Nobody really wants to have to say things the same way. Over and over again, to be understood by a voice interface. Although there is usability research evidence that suggests that some users do prefer that. But there are some ecosystems now, like dialogue flow, for example  or    some of the major new  conversational  tools that are out there are getting better at  understanding, let's say all the different variations that you could possibly have and being able to intelligently parse through that and say, okay, this is the intent of what the user is trying to do.

    [00:26:36] Even though this person might have said something that's very remote from the, let's say a normal way or the default way that we would expect.

    [00:26:45] Brian Hinton: [00:26:45] Yeah. My favorite, like real life scenario of beating my brain, being the AI, trying to understand is when I, somewhere, I can't remember where it was, Midwest that they asked  what Coke do you want?

    [00:26:56] And I said, Coke. And they're like, I'm sorry. Is that okay? Yeah.

    [00:27:04] Preston So: [00:27:04] That's what they call it.

    [00:27:07] Brian Hinton: [00:27:07] I can't imagine dealing with that sort of a scenario, isn't it? AI type?    Yeah.  That's funny too, cause it could be something where  if you're trying to  communicate something out    to the bot or the voice technology, you got to think about the context of the personification of this voice   or  the overall brand.  If I'm interacting with a hospital, I don't want the voice to sound all silly and goofy. I  I want it to sound like a, just a normal, regular voice.  There are some kinds of situations   that you might want  or even languages for that matter.  If I'm somebody in Italy and I'm looking for.

    [00:27:48] Frederick Weiss: [00:27:48] A lasagna recipe and I'm in Italy and I'm looking for a lasagna recipe and I go to, and it sends me to the food network and it starts reading me like a M roll recipe in  in English. And I don't understand English.  There's all kinds of interesting  facets

    [00:28:01] Preston So: [00:28:01] to this,  yeah, this really brings up, I think a couple of interesting elements of the ways in which the conversation design or voice interface design landscape really requires us to think very differently about some of the things that we usually took for granted.

    [00:28:17] And one of those really  is the building blocks of language. And I'm very lucky in that. Working with voice interfaces over the past five or six years has really allowed me to scratch my itch when it comes to my academic background, which is actually in linguistics. I have a degree in linguistics. Not a lot of people know that.

    [00:28:34] But the biggest issue, I think a lot of us face is we're moving.  In several directions at the same time, the first is that we're moving a lot of the ways in which we use to write user interface, texts, or  content from the written word over into the spoken word, which is a very different realm from how we normally write UI texts.

    [00:28:56] Are we, how are we? Normally I actually write content. And  just one example to illustrate that is the fact that we don't really say the phrase to whom it may concern when we actually speak. And we also don't really write the word literally, as often as we say it in conversation. So a lot of these little nuances are things that can often be missed.

    [00:29:17] And there's two ways in which this really. Can be a problem. The first is that there are certain expectations that users will have that their voice interface reflects the kind of informal or colloquial conversation that they might have with a friend. And when it doesn't reflect that, and when the voice interface comes out with this very kind of stilted utterance or something, that's a very uncanny valley, like I can really interrupt or dislodge the user from what  is  called habitability  and a voice interface.

    [00:29:48] This is something that is  talked about quite a bit in voice interface literature, where the user has to feel like they're not gonna want to actually tear their hair out  or what little hair they have in terms of having a conversation with a voice interface. So that's number one, but I think number two is really interesting given that you alluded to some of the challenges around multilingualism.

    [00:30:09] Types of conversation. And this really comes to, I think, some of the elements of voice interface design that remain a largely unexplored area and also an area that is very challenging because of the fact that so much of our conversational technology and voice interface technology has so far been rooted in the English speaking world.

    [00:30:30] And one of those issues is when we think about the ways in which we want to serve multilingual audiences and international audiences on the web, we just have to provide translatable strings, right? We just have to provide like these versions of these different pieces of texts that we have or different pieces of content we have.

    [00:30:48] But that is a  very different kind of proposition when it comes to some of these other languages. And I think one of the biggest issues that we have to focus on. Is the fact that not all languages work like English, not all languages operate in the same kinds of systems and the same kinds of assumptions that a lot of us have about English.

    [00:31:08] And one of the things that is really interesting to me is that I'm noticing more and more some of this Anglophone privilege or Anglophone bias in a lot of the voice interfaces that are coming out that are meant to be multilingual are also direct translations of an English interface because fundamentally some languages simply do not work the same way as English.

    [00:31:28] There's a phenomenon in linguistics called Dyke Glossier. And this is something I talk about on my blog, Preston dot.  And this notion of glossy is actually a phenomenon. I studied also when I was in college where the written form of a language is so vastly different from the spoken form of a language that they might as well be considered two different dialects or two different vernaculars.

    [00:31:50] And in some cases. Like Brazilian Portuguese, for example, you really have to learn two different grammatical systems and two different  lexicons and two different approaches to the language in order to make yourself understood. Because if I went out on the street and I started speaking in the way that I write, I wouldn't actually be necessarily understood.

    [00:32:10] It I'd be understood because people would be able to understand, but it would be a very strange and off-putting conversation. What I find is very interesting with a lot of the work that conversation designers are doing today is that there's a lot of focus on efficiency and scalability, where we can build one single conversational agent or one single conversational interface that manifests as a chat bot as a slack bot, as a WhatsApp bot Facebook messenger bot, and as an Alexa skill and a Google.

    [00:32:36] But there's a big problem with that, because that assumes that the same kind of conversation you would have with a chatbot is going to be the kind of conversation you have with a voice interface. And one of the things that we see in linguistics and also in the kinds of conversations that we have on a daily basis through email and texts and at the delegate.

    [00:32:57] It isn't the case that our spoken conversations are word for word or even letter for letter. Exactly the same as our written conversations. And for those who don't speak English, for those who are operating in a realm where let's say that  the language  that they're writing for is not English.

    [00:33:16] A lot of those considerations and concerns become a lot more important than essential when it comes to some of the design that we have to do. And I think this means that we have a long way to go in the English speaking world to understand how some of these conversational interfaces  really are rooted in our ways of speaking in ways that might not be so appropriate for the rest of the world that we need to.

    [00:33:38] Brian Hinton: [00:33:38] Yeah, all of this made me think of a book. I recently read  word by word, the secret life of dictionaries.  And it's a fantastic book, but it's like the slang too, of how  you mentioned the different versions of Portuguese, the slang is different  like Mexican slang versus  Spanish, Mexican slang versus Spain.

    [00:34:00] Spanish slang, very different and English slang, different, like someone said, and also how people will say things like cool versus cool, like completely different.  And  how to interpret that    yeah, Johnny. Yeah. Tone.

    [00:34:15] Preston So: [00:34:15] Yeah. And I think this really illustrates a couple of different things.

    [00:34:18] You've got the subtext that is not something  in UI text or in web content or in any of the word mediums that we have.  And paralanguage sticks in this realm of, okay. How are you actually?  Really reflect back the fact that the user or the interface might be speaking in a sarcastic tone or in a more assigned tone or in a very stilted tone.

    [00:34:43] Like those three things can mean very different things, even though they all use the same single sentence. But the other thing that's really interesting too, Brian, and I think you raised a really good point there, which is  it's not just the fact that we have all these differences between languages  and the ways that they operate.

    [00:34:58] We also have very important differences. Like I mentioned earlier with that Lawson's example  around those of us who speak English. And one of the things that worries me a lot about some of these voice interfaces is first of all, the fact that  we hear fundamentally one single dialect represented oftentimes in this  realm of voice interfaces.

    [00:35:19] And it's very similar in some ways to the ways in which newscasters and weather forecasters used to have to be obligated. By their organizations to speak using a middle American or general American dialect. It was unacceptable in certain past decades, in the news media for somebody to speak with a Southern accent or somebody to speak with a different dialect of American English on the air.

    [00:35:43] And that's something that's represented now in voice interfaces, in both a very limiting and very pernicious way. Because as we know, from interacting with so many different people from so many different walks of life, not only do we have examples of people who  might be bilingual or who might be members of a  queer or trans communities who have to switch between different modes of speech or those who are bilingual  descendants of immigrant communities who have to be able to code switch between English and Spanish, why aren't those sorts of interesting toggles and those sorts of interesting nuances.

    [00:36:17] Representative voice interfaces too, because maybe the kind of conversation that I want to have is the kind of conversation that I would have at home in new Delhi, where I'm switching in between English and Hindi mid-sentence or I'm switching in between English and what I think mid sentence. So these sorts of considerations are not only important for those who are users of English in outside of America, which I think is  one example of the America centric approach that we often have with technology  all over the place.

    [00:36:46] But also the fact that we have been very marginalized and underrepresented.    Oppressed  groups of people in the United States who speak in certain ways that are not reflected in how we want voice interfaces to speak as well. And I think one very compelling example, two very compelling examples of this is  first of all, the fact that  the ways in which people use  AAV or African American vernacular English is very different from the sorts of voice interfaces that we interact with.

    [00:37:14] For example, why is it that  we can't hear those sorts of conversations represented in an Alexa device. It has something to do with the intrinsic bias that a lot of us have for a more middle American or general American approach to the conversations that we have. Of course, fundamentally and foundationally a white American form of speech.

    [00:37:33] And by the same token  we know  that those who identify as LGBTQ have very different approaches to using certain language.  There's certain code terms. There are certain colloquialisms that are really not understood by audiences that are outside of that community. And how do we make sure that voice interfaces can also represent those things?

    [00:37:54] And this ties back to one of the things I talked about. In the final chapter of my book, which really is focused on the problems that surface that we don't consider when we go Willy nilly into this realm of voice interfaces and serving people through conversation in ways that we don't expect. And one of those examples is  think about why organizations today and think about why it is that so many people want to get into voice interfaces and want to get into chat bots in the first place.

    [00:38:20] So many people are doing this because these airlines, hotels, large companies, corporations, they fundamentally want to be able to reduce the load on their customer service, frontline agents or those who are cost center staffers. But if you think about it, who are these call center staffers? Who are these people who answered your recall when you're calling them in the middle of the night from the airport, screaming about your lost luggage or screaming about your canceled flight.

    [00:38:44] It's somebody who might be in the Philippines or somebody who might be in India or somebody. Might be in the global south, it was a person of color who is from a lower middle of middle income country who doesn't have the resources necessary to speak in a general American dialect in the same way that you would expect somebody who's from your own community to speak.

    [00:39:03] And this really illustrates a very, I think, big concern in voice interfaces today, which is. When we begin to sterilize and flatten out all of these rich nuances that make our conversations with all of these different people and from all of these different lived experiences, so important to our worldview and to the ways in which we interact with the world.

    [00:39:26] What does that do to our future as users? What does that do to our level of trust in our user interfaces? What does that do to credibility and authority? Of those user interfaces and the information that they provide, because let me be honest. When I think about the fact that a voice interface might lead to a Filipino  center worker or somebody who is in Mumbai, who is  in a call center losing their jobs.

    [00:39:52] I'm not so sure that I want that replacement to be this uncanny valley voice that is very stilted and mechanical and might not necessarily reflect the world that we live in today. And I think this really ties into a lot of the issues that we face around  misinformation and automated racism and algorithmic oppression  that we see around machine vision and so on and so forth, voice interfaces and voice technology and conversational technology.

    [00:40:18] These are also domains that are not exempt from the issues that we have in society. Yeah,

    [00:40:24] Frederick Weiss: [00:40:24] we start losing the quality of humanity and what you Manatee is, but is there anything  I know you were talking a lot about in chapter six, about, about the future. Are there any brighter  notes that you could  no.

    [00:40:41] Frederick, there's not, yeah. I don't want to go down the matrix road, but  are there any like cool new things is that we could be looking forward to or  things that we could start thinking about now that would be advantageous for us to go, oh, you know what, let me next year start thinking about this so I could get my projects.

    [00:41:01] Preston So: [00:41:01] Yeah, absolutely.  There's so much to think about. And obviously I wouldn't have written this book if I thought it was going to be a dystopian nightmare and the next few years, or next few decades  because voice technology really does have a lot of  illuminating and very interesting    prospects that I think there's really important things to call out there.

    [00:41:19] Not just the facts. And this is not something I mentioned very much in my book, but I do mention it very briefly in my  Alyssa part, article usability testing for voice content, which is that there aren't a lot of people who I really appreciate waist interfaces for one unexposed. And that is that I think, as we all know, a lot of us, especially over the course of the last year and a half.

    [00:41:42] And  I do want to make sure to hold space for those who are  still  dealing with grief or suffering right now from the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. Especially of course in India and Australia currently going through a very severe lockdown  and the third wave ongoing in Africa  Voice interfaces have been shown to stave off loneliness for a lot of people.

    [00:42:05] There is research that suggests that having a voice interface that is there to have a conversation with  is something that could be very beneficial for mental health. And in the future, as these conversations become better and better as voice interfaces, get to the point where they can do much better, small talk than  these really simplistic, let's say gimmicky responses that they often issue.

    [00:42:28] I think we can really look forward to a lot of interesting, let's say social  benefits from voice interfaces. The other one though, I think is also the fact that  there is going to be more efficiency when it comes to content delivery and information delivery. There's a. Futurists named Mark Curtis, who refers to what's called the conversational singularity.

    [00:42:47] And we know about the kind of tech or AI singularity, the conversational singularity is along the same lines, which is this notion that as we move further and further into the future, there's going to be a point in time where conversational interfaces will be indistinguishable from other humans when it comes to the kind of conversation that we three are having right now.

    [00:43:09] And one of the things that I think is important to call out, of course, as well. Okay. That's a great kind of future, but conversational singularity is going to be indistinguishable, but for whom, right?  Whose conversations are going to be indistinguishable.  As I was just saying earlier, but I think one of the really interesting things about the conversational singularity and some of them.

    [00:43:27] Let's say conversations, centric, approaches that are coming out, which wash away some of the weird distortions that we have today, some of these arbitrary lines in the stand that we have, where you talk with a certain Alexa skill or a certain Google assistant, and they can only help you with this one, certain task.

    [00:43:43] They can only help you order a pizza, but they can't help you book a flight.  These sorts of interactions will soon become smoother because you know what, maybe I do want to go directly into just like I would with a hotel concierge.  Actually have a conversation that moves directly into ordering a pizza.

    [00:43:58] With extra pineapple as it should be. And then directly into booking a flight  over to    my favorite vacation destination. So a lot of these efficiencies are going to become very important in the future. And I think what's going to happen in the next few decades is we'll start to see ways in which, okay.

    [00:44:16] Yeah. Some of these  issues that we have with how conversational interfaces work or reflect the world that we live in back at us  are going to become better in terms of the efficiency and ultimately the performance of user interfaces in the same way as that websites and mobile applications have become much more efficient and much more able to get us over to the things that we want to do.

    [00:44:41] Frederick Weiss: [00:44:41] I remember at a Google IO, they had a, what was the one assistant that called to book a hair appointment for somebody. And they were like, oh yeah  it's completely indistinguishable from a person that's wrong.

    [00:44:53] Preston So: [00:44:53] I can totally tell I'm saying,

    [00:44:57] Frederick Weiss: [00:44:57] yeah, I, yeah, I think you could tell, but they said  and if you're on a phone call things  you have things in the background you're trying to get through things quickly and you're like, yeah, whatever.

    [00:45:09] Yeah. It could work. I'm sure.  One day, like you said, a person will get like that  that movie, her with Joaquin, Phoenix and Scarlett, Troy.

    [00:45:17] Preston So: [00:45:17] Yeah.  Who among us hasn't accidentally answered an    automated phone call. That sounds exactly like a conversation. What are those spam calls that were all besieged by lately and answered a question because it sounded so real or  perish the thought, and this is going to be very revealing.

    [00:45:32] I think we've all done this, you accidentally answer somebody's voicemail. Automated message saying, Hey, it's Preston. Oh, Hey  I'll leave a message at the tone. Oh wait. Okay.

    [00:45:43] But yeah, I think   it's a really exciting time and I do think that I think one of the things  that's important, and I think this book is very timely, right? Because one of the things I will admit is that when this book first was being    germinated as an idea, I thought  it might be a little early because this project that we did for Georgia  was very early in its time.

    [00:46:03] It's one of the first ever content driven information driven voice interfaces. It's also really one of the first, very few examples of state governments and local governments doing this kind of work at the time, too.  But now I think it's very timely because  one of the things that we've seen over the course of the past year and a half is smart speakers, smart home systems.

    [00:46:24] Everyone's buying them, they're flying off the shelves and increasingly here as we re-answer the world or  live with the virus as it continues to be a problem for so many of us in the world, Just start getting used to some of these other ways of interacting with content. Other ways of interacting with information, with use cases and applications that we need to actually go through.

    [00:46:48] And voice is just one of those. And  I think we're going to see a lot more investment and a lot more care from the user experience side, not just the developer side    in this realm of, okay, we've done this for the web and the web has served us really well for the last few decades, but how do we actually make sure that some of these more multimodal approaches, as we mentioned earlier on accessibility or some of these more interesting immersive or voiced an oral  and immersive approaches can be things that will be compelling for users and designers and practitioners in the future as well.

    [00:47:25] Frederick Weiss: [00:47:25] Makes sense? What do you think Brian? Or should we go to the lightning round? Yeah. Yeah.

    [00:47:31] We're

    [00:47:31] Brian Hinton: [00:47:31] getting close to the end here. So we're

    [00:47:33] Frederick Weiss: [00:47:33] flying rats on. I've got my gloves on. Let's go ahead.

    [00:47:37] Brian Hinton: [00:47:37] Yeah. So we're each gonna ask you a question, answer yours, and  one at a time.  And I'll go first. So would you rather be able to run at a hundred miles per hour or fly at 10?

    [00:47:49] Preston So: [00:47:49] I have to think about this one.  Probably fly and it's. Yeah. It's because you can see more. Yeah. That's fair.

    [00:47:59] Frederick Weiss: [00:47:59] Preston. What is your favorite thing about yourself?

    [00:48:04] Preston So: [00:48:04] Oh my gosh.   Oh my gosh. These are some questions y'all really, I don't remember the last lightning round being like this. I think my favorite aspect about myself is that I have learned a lot and I've had the privilege of living in many different countries, which not everybody has the privilege to say.

    [00:48:28] And that's given me a lot of good perspective. I'll say that.    Would you rather live where it snows all the time or where the temperature never falls below a hundred

    [00:48:39] degrees? Wow. This is like Snowpiercer versus thread 3d or something like that. Def. So  I'm somebody who needs, so right now I am in an air conditioned room, even though it's actually not that hard of a day here in New York city, I need the cold, I cannot deal with the heat.

    [00:48:57] And  so yeah, it's definitely snowing all the time. I could probably be okay. In, in, in Antarctica actually, I would say, okay,

    [00:49:06] Frederick Weiss: [00:49:06] Preston, what book are you yourself reading?  To  to learn from currently that you're

    [00:49:12] Preston So: [00:49:12] enjoying. All right.    I'm currently reading three different books.  Not really making much progress in either of those; it's  like the Fibonacci sequence of reading books  and increasing those every year.

    [00:49:28] One book that I'm reading, which I will share, which is a very  esoteric book right now is  Bosnian Croatian and Serbian a textbook because I'm learning Serbo Croatian at the moment as a language, but I'm also reading two other books that are really interesting.  The first is conversations with things which is a book written by Rebecca Ivanhoe.

    [00:49:49] And I forget the co authors name. I have it right here. I should look at it.  As well as  Margot Bloomstein book trustworthy, which is a book about  how brands can be more authentic in how they operate in terms of content strategy.

    [00:50:09] Cool.

    [00:50:09]   Brian Hinton: [00:50:11] What current fact about your life  would most impress your five-year-old self?

    [00:50:19] Preston So: [00:50:19] Oh my God. Wow. My five-year-old self. Got it. I thought that was an easy question. You answered it last time. Did I really? Oh my gosh.  Let me think.      The fact about myself, that people  I think the fact that my five-year-old self would most be impressed by is  the fact that, oh my gosh    after the fact.

    [00:50:48] Frederick Weiss: [00:50:48] I remember last time you said moving to New York and working in New York was one of your childhood dreams,

    [00:50:54] Preston So: [00:50:54] giving them the answers. That's really funny, cause that's not what I, that's not what I would say to myself actually. That's really interesting.    You know what I'll say is this actually I think this is an interesting one because  just to get a little personal here  when I was, and  a lot of us dealt with this when we were younger  a lot of us as children, as young toddlers are as young.

    [00:51:14] Kids, we deal with  speech impediments or other issues with  let's say  pronouncing words correctly, or  doing those sorts of things. And I grew up with a speech impediment, which makes also some of the voice technology kind of things, really poignant.  So what I would say is my five-year-old self would definitely be very proud of me for the fact that I  can basically go on stage in front of 3000 people and not break a sweat  or have this live stream with also 3000 people.

    [00:51:43] Of course, there's 3000 people listening to this right now.  And not break a sweat either.      Yeah.  With a personal note there.

    [00:51:52] Frederick Weiss: [00:51:52] Nice. What is the most interesting thing that you learned in the process of writing

    [00:51:58] Preston So: [00:51:58] this book? Most interesting thing that I learned in the process of writing this book, the most interesting thing I learned in the process of writing this book is probably the.

    [00:52:10] Unexpected applications of accessibility. And unexpected challenges around accessibility that occur with voice interfaces, especially given the fact that I think a lot of us are accessibility   efficient autos or those who are really  passionate about accessibility. I think we often forget that.

    [00:52:31] Not only are there    so many different types of interfaces that we need to consider  the interface that has  become the most important one today, which is that the screen reader for websites is actually not necessarily the most optimal or pleasant experience. And  I already did have a sense of this because I  do a lot of        and this is one thing I think everybody should do is you should always take.

    [00:52:57] Sort of user interface, you're building and using it from the perspective of somebody who's using a screen reader or somebody who's using  an assistive interface, because it is very important to understand  how  people work from that perspective.  But one of the things, so I already knew that  screen meters were really very tough, but I guess one of the things that I didn't necessarily realize is  just how much people actually really don't like the screen reader sometimes, and really see it as an obstacle to  getting to what they need.

    [00:53:28] That was a very long answer.

    [00:53:31] Frederick Weiss: [00:53:31] That's okay.

    [00:53:35] Brian Hinton: [00:53:35] What book  has made you cry?

    [00:53:41] Preston So: [00:53:41] What book has made me cry?  Gosh. Yeah, that's a really interesting question. Wow.      There's been, there's definitely been    many books that have made me cry. I would say  the book that both made me cry and made the deepest impact  on me is probably, oh my gosh. I'm just trying to think about this now because  yeah  the, what I will say is  the book that has definitely made the biggest impact on me and made me cry.

    [00:54:22] Both of those were probably invisible men.  Which is a book that I recommend everybody read.  It's one of those books that you read in high school   or college English class, but    it's a very important book and something that I think everybody should definitely read. Let me

    [00:54:40] Frederick Weiss: [00:54:40] I'm out of lightning round questions.

    [00:54:43] Brian, do you have anything else on that? Oh, no, I think we're good. Great.  Let's get to our final topic here at the end Preston. We like to ask our guests for parting words of wisdom, any kind of  things that you'd like to    tell our audience at the end.

    [00:55:01] Preston So: [00:55:01] Yeah.  Great question.  I think my biggest parting words of advice for everyone, and this is not just those who are in the design field or who are  in the technology world.

    [00:55:16] But I think one of the things that I would recommend for everyone who is watching this or listening to this, or will watch or listen to this  is that it's really important to really listen to. And uplift and amplify and also hear and take into account in your own day-to-day work and your own day-to-day life.

    [00:55:41] The lived experiences of those who are completely unlike you. And by completely unlike you  all of those people who face a multiple axes of marginalization or oppression, or who faced very deep obstacles in our world today, who might be disabled, might be women or femmes might be people who are queer or trans might be people who are of color, who are black or indigenous.

    [00:56:09] And I think one thing that is really important to me, and one thing that's very  important to the way I live my life is. So I really deeply understand where everyone is coming from in terms of their context and in terms of how they have come to be the person that they are today. Because ultimately as practitioners of technology, as those who work on technology, the ultimate reason we're doing this is to help everybody who is our audience, succeed with what they're doing.

    [00:56:42] And there's no way to do that unless you really deeply understand and take the time to learn about and  comprehend what it is that your audience goes through in any field that we work as people in this  world that we live in.

    [00:57:02] Frederick Weiss: [00:57:02] Very well said. Thank you, Preston.  Again all your social links we have at Preston So.

    [00:57:07] So on Twitter, your website is Preston So. Presence on LinkedIn. And of course the new book, Voice Content and Usability by Preston So. Get it there today. Preston again, thank you so much for being on the show. We  really appreciate it.

    [00:57:32] Brian Hinton: [00:57:32] No, thank you for taking the time.

    [00:57:35] Preston So: [00:57:35] Thank you both so much. It was such a pleasure to be here on Thunder Nerds again, and I'd love to come back sometime.  Maybe I'll rehearse some lightning talk or lightning question responses for next time, but thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. Yep.

    [00:57:47] Frederick Weiss: [00:57:47] Thank you!

    [00:57:48] Yeah, for the next book. We'll see you then. Thanks everybody. Oh, hold on. I got one last comment. Let's see.  Thank you for all. Todd- “Thank you for all the phenomenal conversation”. Thank you so much, Todd. Thank you everybody for watching. Really appreciate it. Take care everyone.

    If you have questions, or suggestions to modify the transcript, PLEASE let us know at [email protected]

    27 June 2021, 6:48 pm
  • More Episodes? Get the App