Thunder Nerds

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 Auth0: https://auth0.comAuth0 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/auth0Auth0 on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/auth0Auth0 Avocado Labs online meetup events: https://avocadolabs.dev/ 🔗 Episode Links Preston’s new book – Voice Content And Usability: https://abookapart.com/products/voice-content-and-usabilityPublisher: https://abookapart.com/Preston on Twitter: https://twitter.com/prestonsoPreston’s Website: https://preston.so/Preston on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prestonso/Oracle: https://www.oracle.com/Previous episode – 🪓 Headless CMS, Decoupling Drupal with Gatsby, & Conversational Design with Preston So https://www.thundernerds.io/2020/06/headless-cms-decoupling-drupal-w-gatsby-conversational-design-w-preston-so/Ask GeorgiaGov: https://georgia.gov/chatGoogle Cloud Dialogflow: https://cloud.google.com/dialogflowDiglossia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DiglossiaWord by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries: https://www.amazon.com/Word-Secret-Life-Dictionaries/dp/110187094XConversations with Things: UX Design for Chat and Voice: https://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Things-Design-Chat-Voice/dp/1933820268/ref=sr_1_1Invisible Man: https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Man-Ralph-Ellison/dp/0679732764Gatsby: The Definitive Guide: https://preston.so/books/gatsby/Hosts: Frederick Weiss: https://twitter.com/FrederickWeissBrian Hinton: https://twitter.com/mrbrianhinton 📜 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 connect@thundernerds.io

In this episode, we get to speak with Maggie Appleton, Art Director & UX Designer at egghead.io. We discuss the ethos of Digital Gardening and the value of cultivating ideas in public. We also dive into Maggie’s digital anthropology work and discuss how visual metaphors better shape our understanding of technology. ✨ Episode Sponsor Auth0: https://auth0.comAuth0 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/auth0Auth0 on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/auth0Auth0 Avocado Labs online meetup events: https://avocadolabs.dev/ 🔗 Episode Links Website:  https://maggieappleton.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/mappletons/Github: https://github.com/maggieappleton/Dribbble: https://dribbble.com/mappletonInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/maggieappleton/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maggieappleton/Sketching and Logo Creation (with Maggie Appleton) — Learn With Jason: https://youtu.be/4mrrNAjiTvkA Brief Introduction to Digital Anthropology: https://maggieappleton.com/digital-anthropologyDigital Gardener: https://github.com/MaggieAppleton/digital-gardenersDigital Gardening for Non-Technical Folks: https://maggieappleton.com/nontechnical-gardeningObsidian: https://obsidian.mdKeychron: https://www.keychron.comIf Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future – by Jill Lepore: https://www.amazon.com/If-Then-Simulmatics-Corporation-Invented/dp/1631496107Bret Victor: http://worrydream.comHosts: Frederick Weiss: https://twitter.com/FrederickWeissBrian Hinton: https://twitter.com/mrbrianhinton 📜 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. Remember every time you click the notification bell, Brian Hinton gets his wings. Brian, who do we have for our sponsor? [00:01:15] 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. [00:02:00] we have an amazing guest today. We have Art Director. Writer, Designer, Developer, Anthropologist, chimera. I think I’m saying chimera correctly… and UX designer, Maggie Appleton. Welcome to the show. Maggie really appreciate you being here with us. [00:02:21] Maggie Appleton: [00:02:21] Thanks. Thanks. [00:02:22] Thanks for having me on. I’ll also say I’m a mediocre version of all of those things are listed, so don’t expect on next book. [00:02:31] Frederick Weiss: [00:02:31] You are a chimera, so I imagine you have some kind of an understanding of these things. Hey, how have things been for you? How’s the COVID situation going on in your side of the world? [00:02:43] Maggie Appleton: It’s not too bad. So I’m here in London. And we got out of the area more stringently, locked down two weeks ago. And the weather aligned perfectly. So it’s been like 24 degrees which I can’t translate. Someone will have to. Like 80 in Fahrenheit, I think ever since locked down, lifted about two weeks ago. [00:03:04] So we’re still, you can’t go out in groups of like more than 30 or more than six inside, but the fact cafes are open is an enormous change for us. And we have restaurants again. Like it’s been really wonderful. Were [00:03:16] Brian Hinton: [00:03:16] you on, oh, go ahead, Brian. Yeah. Were you on full lockdown yourself? The past year or like what, was your situation like? [00:03:24] Maggie Appleton: [00:03:24] Yeah. We went in even within an hour of being locked down a bit, but they got pretty strict around. It feels like a couple of weeks before Christmas. Maybe it was like mid November. We went into a pretty hard lockdown. The sort were like nothing’s open, but grocery stores and pharmacies and we’ve been in hardware. [00:03:41] Yeah. But vaccinations are rolling out. So like I got my first one last week, they’re starting to vaccinate people in their thirties and twenties right now. So yeah, it’s [00:03:49] Brian Hinton: [00:03:49] happening? What were you like? What did you have the sore arm [00:03:54] Frederick Weiss: [00:03:54] and what vaccination did you actually get? [00:03:56] Maggie Appleton: [00:03:56] So curious Pfizer. So everyone under 40 here, they’re not giving them AstraZeneca and Pfizer I’m to Pfizer [00:04:03] Brian Hinton: [00:04:03] too. [00:04:04] Frederick Weiss: [00:04:04] Yeah, same. I know this actually affects your life and affects your work. At, your company and maybe other things that you’re doing too. [00:04:16] Maggie Appleton: [00:04:16] Yeah. I was, I got, honestly, I’m very privileged and lucky in that the company I work for , we’ve been remote first since day one. So I started working for them five years ago and everyone else is based in the U S. they’re mostly in Washington state. [00:04:29] We have some people in Portland. And yet we’ve always just worked remotely. I’ve moved countries about five times since starting to work for them. But finally settled back down in London. So yeah when, COVID happened it sucked, I had to give up my coworking space and move into my small London flat, which is now my bedroom and the office and hang out and everything all in one. [00:04:54] But work-wise, I was very fortunate. They didn’t change much in my day-to-day work. Yeah. I [00:04:59] Brian Hinton: [00:04:59] I think the tech industry, we’re pretty lucky in that regard to have the ability and blessed to not have to worry about those sorts of things. A lot of people do. Yeah. [00:05:10] Frederick Weiss: [00:05:10] Yeah. So what, let’s talk a little bit about what you do, Maggie let’s talk about your day to day. [00:05:17] What exactly do you do at egghead? [00:05:20] Maggie Appleton: [00:05:20] I definitely we’re a small team, so we’re the kind where you do whatever needs to be done. But I’m vaguely in charge of anything that is to do with art direction, visual design design fairly generally. So I have one of the designer works in the team. [00:05:37] Who’s, an incredible unicorn who knows everything from react to front end UI, and really covers that brown really well. And I work more on art direction, visual design, and then I helped do UX design too. So thinking more through user flows and experiences and what someone needs to see in a certain context and copywriting considerations. [00:05:55] So I’m on the two ends of the spectrum, right? If you usually have UX on one end and then UI stuff in the middle and then like illustration visual design on the other, I hit the two ends and skipped the middle. [00:06:05] Frederick Weiss: [00:06:05] You’re a little bit of a developer as well, too. [00:06:09] Maggie Appleton: [00:06:09] Yeah, I, again, I call myself a very mediocre developer, but almost like a hobby. [00:06:14] The company I work for teaches front end web development. So we teach JavaScript, react, view, angulate and all kinds of the classic node, hot new JavaScript frameworks as a video platform. So by web now I just started playing around with it, to play around with JavaScript. I knew basic HTML and CSS from. [00:06:36] Being a teenager on the internet and customizing my Neopets page and my MySpace, that CSS profile. Yeah. But never took it seriously. And didn’t think I was terrible at math. So went, oh, I can’t do programming cause I’m crap at math. But then yeah. Started picking it up and playing around with it. [00:06:54] And of course I love the animations and, what would be database, but without the data. So playing around with SPD sheets and , but without anything to do with Excel spreadsheets. So yeah, I really love fun web development. It’s much more just about the frivolous, like visuals. [00:07:13] Brian Hinton: [00:07:13] Yeah. I’m curious too about the anthropology side. Do you have a background in that? What’s yours? Yeah [00:07:24] Maggie Appleton: [00:07:24] That’s, maybe, the weird bit that anthropology is. [00:07:28] Brian Hinton: [00:07:28] Yeah. Developer designer. I think it’s through college. [00:07:33] Maggie Appleton: [00:07:33] I studied cultural anthropology for my undergraduate degree. [00:07:37] I did a, liberal arts school in the U S which was great. And I found out the apology and immediately was like, oh, I’ve been waiting for this. This is exactly the kind of stuff I love. It’s all just cultural analysis and trying to understand the variation in ways cultures can express themselves all across the world and why we develop certain traditions or written rituals or beliefs and what, like purposes, those stuff, people. [00:08:02] So yeah, so I majored in that as an undergraduate. And then of course graduated and was like, cool. I have an anthropology degree and would like to hire me. [00:08:12] Brian Hinton: [00:08:12] So has that helped you at all in any of your life? Either the code or design side, like what does it contribute? [00:08:20] Maggie Appleton: [00:08:20] Yeah, for, I’ll say right after I graduated, I I went into web design and graphic design cause that was employable. [00:08:27] Brian Hinton: [00:08:27] And for apology [00:08:28] Frederick Weiss: [00:08:28] to design, it’s actually very natural. It seems that obviously what you’re doing with digital Andrew anthropology, but it seems. Almost like a very natural transition for maybe almost anybody to go down that route. Because it empowers your work so much. And with, metaphor design and being able to explain these concepts, it’s a very [00:08:52] Maggie Appleton: [00:08:52] advantageous. [00:08:53] Yeah. I, and it’s funny too, that it came back around with UX design right now. It’s very similar to anthropology. It’s come full circle. But up until three or four years ago, I had never really had a UX designer. It’s fairly new in the Spanish human history. Let’s say it’s been around, I think for three or four decades at this point, like any kind of official industry. [00:09:16] So yeah, so once I realized that UX designers were just like anthropologists and in disguise, I started being like, oh, I think I’m going to hang out with you people more because it seems like you’re reading all the same theorists that I read. And you’re like, Pulling in all the same material. [00:09:29] So yeah, so I’m very much kind of leaning back into my aunt’s psychological roots. Now that UX design is a thing [00:09:35] Frederick Weiss: [00:09:35] maybe it would help the audience. If you just describe what for the people that might not understand this concept, what digital anthropology is and how how you employ it every day at your work and use it with [00:09:49] Maggie Appleton: [00:09:49] your work. [00:09:50] Sure. Yeah, That’s definitely not an obvious thing. Because anthropology can, a lot of people will even think oh, that is like digging up old human bones. Analyzing, which is absolutely a part of the field, these archeologists fall under the umbrella of anthropology, because we have physical, biological, linguistic and cultural, the full, main disciplines or branches of the discipline. [00:10:13] So I started cultural, which is, yeah. Again, the way people behave on cultures and digital anthropology is specifically just looking at anything that involves digital objects. So anything that is mediated, we would say by. Things that run on binary code and computational logic. So that includes the entire internet. [00:10:31] So it gives you a broad span. But digital anthropologists tend to study cultural elements of that. How do people socialize in, in online spaces and, how do we understand computational objects as partners in our rituals or how they mediate the way that we decide to structure our life. [00:10:52] What is valuable to us? It’s a broad range of things. You’ll study AI. Machine learning is like a big topic at the moment. I can’t say I officially use it in any direct way, like on a day-to-day basis at work. It’s very much like I spend a lot of time in the JavaScript world and looking at them being like, huh, you guys are being like tribal people your whole life. [00:11:12] Alignment [00:11:17] like what stickers are shirts and how you’re signaling to the other tribal members. Hey, I’m with a view [00:11:23] Brian Hinton: [00:11:23] does matter, stickers matter. [00:11:26] Frederick Weiss: [00:11:26] Yeah. [00:11:28] Maggie Appleton: [00:11:28] Yeah. I’m very much like a sideline anthropologist at the moment. It’s analyzing things from. Twitter threads, all that sort of stuff, but nothing that’s on a day-to-day level that intense. [00:11:43] Brian Hinton: [00:11:43] I’m curious too about how when you went into that, did you have maybe a mental picture where you would actually end up when you started the degree? What you were thinking of doing. [00:11:55] Maggie Appleton: [00:11:55] No, I was the most naive 19, 20 year old. I just was like, I took my first anthropology class and kind of fell in love and had that thing of this is great. [00:12:06] I’ll just start reading Elise theorists and love it. And it was only, in the senior year where we all looked off professors like, so what do we genuinely? They went well, the U S army hired a lot of anthropologists. That’s good. The best way to I guess beat your enemy is to really understand the deep details of the culture. [00:12:32] Like what is shameful for them and what are their weaknesses and what do they value and really love. If you can understand that you can really get inside their head and mess with them. [00:12:45] Frederick Weiss: [00:12:45] Just like with Facebook or Twitter, it’s the same kind of Platform right. Attacking people’s psyche. [00:12:53] Maggie Appleton: [00:12:53] Yes. Yeah. And there are anthropologists working at places like Facebook and Twitter too, but yeah the U S army hires a lot of them and we also, and so it was that or, graduate school, we were all like, I think I’m going to go look for jobs somewhere else. [00:13:09] Brian Hinton: [00:13:09] That’s funny. [00:13:11] Frederick Weiss: [00:13:11] I really enjoy your website and I dunno if I could call it a blog, your digital garden and your digital essays. It’s really inspiring the way that you create these illustrated metaphors. Do you mind just brushing up on those, like a little bit, just like. [00:13:28] Telling us what, that’s about and what, you do with those and why, you put those up there and then we’ll, maybe we’ll dive into a little bit more what a digital garden is and how it’s been around since the late nineties and how, you’re using it. [00:13:45] Maggie Appleton: [00:13:45] Sure. Yeah, so I’m, known as like a visual metaphor nerd is the way I would best describe it [00:13:56] With my work at egg head when I first got started there, most of what I was doing was we released courses about rape. Yeah, essentially print and web development. So are things like cool backs in JavaScript, right? Or like state management and react. These are the topics we cover. [00:14:11] And I came on as the illustrator and it’s the coolest we put out, I started making illustrated books that go on top of it. My job from the beginning was how do you represent really abstract programming concepts and something that someone can see and it’s meaningful it’s not just not holding a react logo or like a bunch of gears and some other frameworks logo. [00:14:34] I really was like, okay, how do you come up with a metaphor? That actually means something and communicates what is essentially just like abstract concepts and syntax. Which was a really wonderful challenge and got me to really get to explore really deeply, how you design a metaphor, how metaphors work you can see something there in really how you come up with meaningful visual symbols for, otherwise abstract concepts. [00:15:03] Yeah, so and so, some of the weapons yet, these cool illustrations I’ve made for egghead, and then that eventually turned into doing a lot more. What I call illustrated essays, where I get I’m taking concepts that are difficult, or at least complex. If you’re not a developer, like I, I did one on what API are. [00:15:19] Which, everyone, what do you mean by API? What do you mean? It’s one program talking to another, it’s just like a, is this like an interface I can click on? Is this like a thing I send as a link in an email? What are you talking about API? So I did this illustrated essay that explains API soup, metaphor of robot waiters, who like to bring you data. [00:15:38] And you can only say certain things. You can ask them for certain things that are on the menu. So I learned about this, the idea of Metaphors will be what we say. They hide and highlight certain things. So you have a thing you want to represent, which is like an API. And the metaphor is like the lens you’re going to view them through. [00:15:56] So that’s like robot weight and robot weight, as we can say, will have certain qualities, right? Like they’ll bring you something, they give you a menu of Selected options and there’s nothing you can’t order off the menu. And then we map right, the qualities of that onto the API and go, okay, I get it now, API spring, new things. [00:16:14] And you can only be awesome for a limited set of things. So, the highlights, the things that those two things have in common and the hides, all the things they don’t. So there’s tons of details about API. So you’re not going to get from that essay because it’s like, The details of, rest of us is soap professed as graft throughout life and should be it, don’t go into that. [00:16:31] And there’s tons of qualities about a hypothetical robot Weta that aren’t included in the essay, because those two things don’t share those qualities. So like the robot way, they might like it. Wear a bow tie. Okay. That isn’t that essay? All that, like to get paid a salary that has nothing to do with API. [00:16:46] So like those qualities are hidden and only the two things, the qualities that you think share the overlap or highlighted, and those are the things you draw attention to. So it’s how [00:16:56] Brian Hinton: [00:16:56] metaphors in the anthropology side coming into play there. Yeah. I also want to point out one thing I love so much about all of your, at least all of my I’ve looked at as a source code, a browser, you put wonderful all texts with all of your images or are most of them that I’ve seen anyway, which is great because accessibility having an image and a fancy graphic is great, but it’s like people can’t. [00:17:23] See it can’t understand it, then we don’t get a lot of that or enough. Yeah. It’s great. It’s especially hard with, I know, complex illustrations to put the right text in there. [00:17:33] Maggie Appleton: [00:17:33] Yeah. Yeah. I do try to make sure, like you’re with me to get, I swear there are a couple of times [00:17:45] we’ll have the audience do that. Okay. Yeah. If you find one, like really PE my my sights on get please log an issue. We’ll PR fix it. Like it’s totally fine. [00:17:55] Brian Hinton: [00:17:55] Yeah. I like the meat planet. One of them a lot too. You somehow made something that’s gross, which is grip. Now. It is gross and generally, I don’t know what we’re doing. [00:18:05] We made it not that gross to [00:18:08] Maggie Appleton: [00:18:08] look at, which is good. That one is funny. Like I’ve been, yeah. Vegetarian for, well over, maybe it’s like over a decade. I forget when I first really went it was like a decade. Yeah. Anyway, that essay is about cultivated meats, right? Growing meat in labs. [00:18:26] Won’t really have to kill animals with this idea. We’re just gonna grow it through in, in bioreactors and fermentation tanks, which is really cool. I’m following the cultivation. Meat industry as a fan. But to make that essay, which is all about that, I had to just download the most grotesque photo. [00:18:42] So I have a reference folder. It’s just like butcher shops and blood, and it’s just like guts everywhere. [00:18:50] Frederick Weiss: [00:18:50] It looks at your computer [00:18:55] Maggie Appleton: [00:18:55] or your anthropologists. Yeah. So as a vegetarian, I have an extensive collection of, very meaty reference images. [00:19:06] Frederick Weiss: [00:19:06] That’s a great quote of extension, a very meeting that reminds me about one of the things I saw on what it was learning with Jason, where you were there and you were drawing. [00:19:17] I think you guys were coming up with ideas for. Some sandwiches and you had such amazing just to see your process of going through this and thinking about everything and then the finished results. It was really cool to see that. We’ll put a link in the show notes. [00:19:34] Maggie Appleton: [00:19:34] Yeah. That one was fun. [00:19:35] Jason’s wonderful. And he’s incredible at running that show. I think almost every single day he’s got someone else on and they’re like exploring some wild, new idea. Anyway, it’s a great show. If anyone is interested in web dev. [00:19:46] Frederick Weiss: [00:19:46] Yes, absolutely. We’ll put a link to that. Yeah. Watch the station show. [00:19:49] Yeah, we had him on a few months ago. Great guy. [00:19:52] Brian Hinton: [00:19:52] It looks as if we have circled back to what is a digital guardian. Yeah. What is that? [00:20:00] Maggie Appleton: [00:20:00] So digital gardening is the hot new buzzword of 2021 or maybe 2020. Yeah. It’s funny. Cause yeah, so the term first came up in the 1990s as part of it was right in the beginning when they were trying to figure out what hypertext was, the web’s exploding. How do you get people to navigate the space? How do you teach them that blue, underlying text means you should click on it? That’s a thing you could teach people. So it was figuring out how to get people to navigate through hyper tech space. [00:20:30] And people were using this metaphor of gardening, right? So you are going to have God and links and they’re going to be like Wiki, God knows it was the beginning of wikis and becoming a really popular thing that was like very early on. There was all this kind of noise about it, and it didn’t really become like digital gardening as a concept until 2015 was this point where Mike Caulfield there’s way at pat Hopkins on, Twitter, who’s like an incredible thinker in, terms of what is the web and how do we relate to it and trying to advocate for, wikis and personal websites and people really building their own space online. [00:21:06] And he now works in disinformation studies. Anyway, he wrote this long essay called the garden and the stream, which was about this idea that the web used to be. Would you say topographical? So like geographical space, like early Geocity sites were very much about like sites in relation to each other. [00:21:23] And everyone built their own weird little website and they linked to all their friends and what brings. And you knew what things were, they stayed stable. You could go to someone’s website and it would be that they might have updated it, but you knew where it was. [00:21:36] And like you know if anyone else went to that website, you saw the same thing. And then. I forget what year they like to cite this too. It was whatever year that Facebook bought in the news feed. Was it like 20 2006? I’m going to try and remember my history. Anyway, we got this new concept of the street, right? [00:21:54] When you sit back and a stream of content is delivered to you and your stream is different to everyone else’s stream and you can’t see each of the streets. So you’re like all having a different experience of the web and it’s constantly moving. So you can’t, oh, Chris Aldrich is great. He knows a ton about this too. [00:22:11] So actually we listened to him more than my feet, a little bit, but things come to you and everyone gets a different stream and you suddenly now have a web that’s constantly moving and is chronologically based. [00:22:25] The New York Times actually just made a film. Was it? Last week, or this week with the same concept, they didn’t necessarily reference my coal fields, but they probably should. And other people will be working in this space, but they were really the ones advocating this idea way back in 2015. [00:22:40] And so this is a long way of saying gardening is this idea of getting back to the spatial topographical web. Okay. Where we are building our own personal spaces online that are not on the surface of companies like Twitter and Facebook. There’s not, there’s anything inherently wrong with them, but it’s just, you don’t know the content and they’re in charge of what and algorithms are running, who sees what, and it’s really hard to find joy back to content or to verify who’s seen. [00:23:06] What if you can’t tell? But coming back to this idea of you have your own space, you control it and it’s your own space to put up. What we would call personal knowledge. So it’s, less posting you can post blog posts about what you really want, but a lot of it is people are posting ideas that are in progress and half finished things. [00:23:26] And you’re just trying to cultivate your own personal Wiki on the web. Yeah, avoidable gods and they’re still graphic of it. So I do a little illustration for kind of the six, what I call design patterns of gardening in that. [00:23:37] Brian Hinton: [00:23:37] Yeah. That’s a perfect visual metaphor for the walled gardens. [00:23:41] Like you, you can’t your plants can’t spread and grow and. Span, because you’re stuck in this like box, which yeah, it’s perfect. [00:23:50] Frederick Weiss: [00:23:50] And that’s the thing about people. We, change, we grow it’s not about, oh, I’m going to put out a post that’s evergreen it’s, just, we are a term, if you want to say evergreen we, have ideas and those ideas evolve, not only do they change or sometimes pivot, but sometimes they just get better. [00:24:10] And why do we need to have these? Things that are stuck on on medium, forever, that don’t evolve. We can revise it, but our, do we need to be held to something that we said 20 years ago when you know, the technology change or some other pattern changes, [00:24:31] Maggie Appleton: [00:24:31] yeah. Yes, it’s very much about two year updating your ideas because gardening’s ideas like you’re constantly tending your digital garden. [00:24:38] So yeah, you can put up an idea and it might not be perfect. You’re putting up what you know so far and you have to be transparent about that. So a lot of people will put tags on their posts. Half finished or just an idea. Or like I use the categorization of, I’ll say I have seedlings, I have budding and I have evergreen and evergreen means like, really thought it through, I’ve edited this thing. [00:25:01] I’ve revised it a ton. It’s really like solid boarding as it’s getting there, but given a fast path, like it’s still not perfect. And seedling is what I’ve just. I like chucking up notes that they’re half finished sentences. This is just I’ve just had this idea and I’m trying to figure out what it is. [00:25:17] So people have different levels of this and another puzzle says, who does this really well? And he’s like internet famous, right? Squad and.net is like a really old school blogger who’s been around for ages. And he puts everything from like his certainty level on a scale of one to 10, how important he thinks the thing is when he started that, when he finished a whole log of what it’s changed, he’s like all this wonderful metadata. [00:25:39] Giving you yeah, like visibility into how the post came to be and what stage it’s at and where he thinks it’s going. And it’s just this idea of us all wanting more metadata about information on the internet, we’re not just like looking at something and being like, oh, this is just like someone. [00:25:54] Finished things someone’s thought through, but having spaces for imperfect things and things that will be revised to be able to live on the web too. Yeah. [00:26:02] Brian Hinton: [00:26:02] It reminds me a lot. There was a, I wish I could remember the quote verbatim, but essentially someone talked about planting a garden. How you plant your different plants throughout your whole garden bed and you have this like vision of how old looks, but then as it grows chaos, Turns it into something that was much more beautiful than you originally intended. [00:26:21] And with removing the walled gardens, you spread it out. So I may take some of your concepts and do something of my own and it just keeps spreading. And then we ended up something much better than if it was just on Facebook. Yeah. [00:26:35] Maggie Appleton: [00:26:35] Yeah And it is also in the, in building these, on the open web, in HTML, CSS, a little, maybe a little bit of JavaScript that’s debatable. [00:26:46] It gives us space to play. I like the idea of playing with different kinds of links with different kinds of categories and ways of organizing things and really that sort of creativity and interfaces that people had in the early web. Because then if you have a Facebook profile you fit into that category. [00:27:01] So right. You put your photo here and you put your hometown here on your agenda here, right? Like you don’t have to fit into the cookie cutter and digital Goggins part of the philosophy, at least in the way that I understand it and think is important. It’s That you get to just play with it does assume that you have some fluency with HTML and, like the native tech of the web, but just actually play with the medium and to be like, okay, I can put images anywhere I can. [00:27:25] I arrange things anywhere and I can decide how I want to present these posts and link them together. So it feels to me like an opportunity to have a playground and to arrange things so that they fit your mind, the things you’re exploring and the things you want to. To be researching and who you want to connect to, rather than just like the same format everyone puts up on, on social media. [00:27:47] Frederick Weiss: [00:27:47] Do you have any examples of something that you’ve done with this recently? For example, anything, they were like I think this definitely couldn’t have been a blog statement that I put out there and it’s there forever. I’ve been working on X, Y, and Z. And here’s the value of it. [00:28:05] If you could explain that to somebody like in a real example [00:28:10] Maggie Appleton: [00:28:10] So wait, do you mean a post I’ve made that went through a number of revisions on the goddess? Exactly. Yeah. Sure. Actually, honestly this is very meta, but right. That post on the history and ethos of the digital garden, which I started writing. [00:28:25] A year ago. And I started writing. I put up a page that said the history and ethos of the digital garden and chopped up some vague sentences and links to some gardens. And it was just like a haphazard thing. Let it sit dormant for six months, people would stumble across it. [00:28:39] They’re like, oh, you should finish this. And I also put ’em in a little box. I’ll put some of my posts that say coming soon, if you want me to finish this, bug me on Twitter to finish writing it. And I mostly pay attention to the posts that people tweet at me saying, Hey, you should finish this. Then I actually go, I actually should finish that. [00:28:55] But that post, I just, I kept working on it and it would get revised and I would add different things to it. And I really only cleaned it up properly over the last two months, which is like a year after, like all this sort of hype had originally happened, but honestly it took me that long to be sure that I. [00:29:11] Totally understood what digital gardening was and was watching the trends of how people were trying to apply it. What people really thought it was. And I just, I didn’t feel I could write that post until I had watched the community, discussed it for that long and heard all the different takes and knew who to link to and who should be credited for things. [00:29:31] So I built it really slowly 20 minutes, every two weeks or something working on it. It depends on what kind of writing you do. Awesome. People really can just sit down and write, but I’m a very slow writer. I just, it takes me a long time to figure out what I’m saying and say it. [00:29:48] So gardening appeals to those people. [00:29:50] Brian Hinton: [00:29:50] Yeah. And hearing you explain it and talk through it a little bit more than just reading, it really makes it just I don’t know. It makes me happy to look at it now, too. Cause I’m looking at your, one of your most recent ones on your site anyway, it’s highlighting the pattern language or project. [00:30:08] Zen Zana, dude, I love the draft in progress and then there’s a coming soon. And then you outline that so you have the different sections below. Yeah, it’s just so nice. It does really remind me of a Wiki too, for sure. When you think about it, like how wikis tend to be very much always in progress where you’re adding those individual pieces and chunks and outlining, and then coming back and expanding on it. [00:30:34] It’s almost like your own. Docs. [00:30:39] Frederick Weiss: [00:30:39] And I like this, a full history of digital gardening. And you talk about where it comes from the origins and the nineties, and you go into everything and you highlight here, all those things from the tweet as well. A lot more in detail here with what it is. [00:30:57] You have all your illustrations down here. It’s a long article, but like these are great. It’s very much worth the read to carefully read it too. I might add there’s a lot of great information in here. [00:31:11] Maggie Appleton: [00:31:11] I’ll say the community around us is really wonderful. I’ve been on Twitter for a while, and I just found incredible friends and communities on there and just ran into the most wonderful people and had great professional connections. But, the people who are around digital gardening and tools for thought and Rome research is, other big tools that like people congregating around. [00:31:35] And I wish there was more of a name I could give to this community, but it’s just great. That’s just these people doing tweet threads on their understanding of gardening and Linking you to really interesting papers from the ACM for 1994 and like hypertext explorations. [00:31:50] And you’re just, it’s just like community knowledge coming together. So I’ll say everything I’ve written in there is really that other people pointed me to it, or they had insights and I tried to cite as many people as I could, but I, I do the idea of the best I can do is be. Cultural anthropologist. [00:32:05] Who’s like helping a community tell their story. Like I would love it if that was my role in this whole weird mini historical trend in which the passengers help congregate it together. Yeah. [00:32:17] Frederick Weiss: [00:32:17] Hey, here’s a great comment. Maybe you want to take this one, [00:32:19] Brian Hinton: [00:32:19] Brian? Yeah, Nikki, if I say this wrong, sorry. [00:32:23] Nikki Dix says I was originally inspired by Maggie’s website. I’ve never enjoyed blogging, but I’m really excited to have a go at a digital garden learning as I go even more so after hearing this. So thank you. Oh, that’s great. [00:32:38] Frederick Weiss: [00:32:38] She goes on to write as a. Complete noncoding just started using Rome. [00:32:45] How much HTML do I need to learn and where should I start? Maggie? I’ll let you take that one. [00:32:51] Maggie Appleton: [00:32:51] Sure. Also say this there’s another post of mine garden called digital gardening for non-technical folks. So that’s if you aren’t interested in learning code and you don’t want to get into the HTML bed, there’s a bunch of really great services and things coming up that you can use. [00:33:07] And roam research is one way you can use it as a source for your notes. And there’s a service called Rome God. And I think it’s Rome dot God. And it’s the URL that will source your own notes and turn it into a more presentational website format, digital garden. But I’ve put in the post that you can also do it with the notion that it is really becoming a really popular way for people who don’t want to touch code to be able to build models. [00:33:29] And obsidian is another tool that’s doing this. I’ll be getting a lot of great DMS for people who right now are building digital gardening platforms and systems and There’s some really exciting ones coming out that I’m hoping will, come to fruition, that it may be an alpha or beta at the moment, but I’ll say over the next two years, it’s going to be a lot more options to people who don’t want to dig into the code side. [00:33:54] Frederick Weiss: [00:33:54] Yeah. I think there was a really good interview with you. And I forget what the gentleman’s name was that you were on his show, where you talk all about Rome and, that went into the details of that. What we’ll put up. I’ll find that again. I’ll put a link in the show notes. Who was that? I don’t remember Maggie. [00:34:12] Maggie Appleton: [00:34:12] I’m trying to think of who it might’ve been because there are a few I think it was a reason. One. Cause Rome, FM I think is what was like a room specific podcast. And then I was on Robert has fields and runs a number of Rome tools on YouTube, which I did. And I’m trying to think of what a recent one would have been. [00:34:30] I don’t have room. [00:34:33] Frederick Weiss: [00:34:33] Gotcha. Yeah. We’ll put a link in the show notes. Maybe you can tell us what, some of the biggest challenges that somebody might face when they. Start this is it just a thing where it’s just super hard to get your head around it? Or maybe there’s something else that I’m not thinking about? [00:34:52] Like what, are some of the biggest challenges to overcome this start? [00:34:57] Maggie Appleton: [00:34:57] I think people, I think justifiably do get a little caught up on what tool to use or what platform because.  which one’s right for me. Do I want to get into building this? If a little bit, maybe HTML, CSS, and you’re Ooh, do I want to like, start like a good sort of gap mine’s built on Gatsby, which is a JavaScript I wouldn’t say framework, but a thing where you can build a blog with it. [00:35:23] Yeah. Static site generator. That is the official tent. Next JS is a similar one that has a lot of people in Jekyll. Like these are all sorts of website builders that have people who have built God, God unfriendly themes that have kind of things like bi-directional linking and maybe they’ll have a graph overview of all your notes, so people can browse around the minimal visual way. [00:35:45] So there’s lots of really interesting things. Themes being built if you’re willing to go use code. So even just that is deciding, am I going to go the more technical route? Or am I happy with just using roam or obsidian or the notion that they’re not old private companies and I don’t think there’s too much risk really in putting your notes in, one of those, as long as you have your own backup for displaying locked down notes. [00:36:09] Cause you know, you do say we will see long-term in the web companies fold and platforms go down and as long as you have your own backup, it’s okay. Just to not put all your eggs in someone else’s basket is the principle. So yeah, I’d say picking the right platform. [00:36:25] And then after that Yeah, it depends on if people are really clear on what their sort of niche or field is. I think of when people would say I don’t know what to write about with blogging. They go I don’t know what I would write about. I think actually gardening helps make that easier because you just look at whatever you’re reading at the moment and what you’re consuming. [00:36:45] And it’s easier to put small notes okay, this is one thing I’ve noticed from something I’ve written, it’s not a whole blog post, like a fully formed opinion where I know what I think is just this is interesting, I’ll just post this podcast and some notes below it, or I’ll just post this article it’s notes below it. [00:37:01] And it takes the pressure off you to create something that is an opinion. [00:37:06] Brian Hinton: [00:37:06] Yeah. I liked what you mentioned about tools. Simply because I know that a lot of people get fixated on that and they bounce around from tool to tool and then never actually do anything. Just pick one thing. Do it and see. I think once you establish yourself and have a pattern, then you can explore other tools, but keep going with that one and be like, oh, this one actually may work better for me. [00:37:31] Move forward. I love that. I love it, I just like clicking through and browsing your site because it’s just interesting. The fetishism, and mechanical keyboards a lot. Love that. That’s great. Did you get one? Did you get a key? [00:37:46] Maggie Appleton: [00:37:46] So I guys. You can’t really see it. I’m bad at arranging. [00:37:50] Let me zoom in. [00:37:51] Brian Hinton: [00:37:51] Here we go. Now we can see it. Yeah. [00:37:54] Maggie Appleton: [00:37:54] I forget what brand it is. I should know, but it’s great. It is one of those where I went down the rabbit hole of researching mechanical keyboards and then very clearly it was like, this is so much like fetishism is a break, like cultural anthropology concept of, when you. [00:38:09] Project human light qualities on to physical objects or you mistake the object for a social connection. You’re like, okay, if I get this keyboard, I’m going to be like a more socially competent person or like I’m going to be more effective and it’s you’re trying to project human quality on the object. [00:38:28] So I actually have to write more on that piece. I’ve just only written an introduction, like a comeback. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. [00:38:37] Brian Hinton: [00:38:37] Yeah. Yeah [00:38:40] Maggie Appleton: [00:38:40] Yeah, I had the same one as you then. Cause I recognized that orange escape key. [00:38:45] Brian Hinton: [00:38:45] Oh, Nick said something else. I’m willing to learn to code. In fact, I’d love to, I just never have. I’m about to start a M C MSC. [00:38:54] So I was thinking of creating a digital garden for my learning. Yeah, [00:38:59] Maggie Appleton: [00:38:59] definitely. That’s great. Now I want to ask follow up questions. What’s the MSC about yeah. Yeah. What is the MSC about? That’s great. Cause I love the idea of people open sourcing. What’s usually held behind academic walls and not where you’re putting up, I don’t know what really is more copyrighted than an academic degree, but this thing of otherwise people have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to get access to this knowledge. And if you can just take parts of it and put it up on an open with you and just give people entryways into your field of knowledge. I’m really, I think that’s really wonderful, [00:39:34] Brian Hinton: [00:39:34] Chris Aldrick Aldrick Holdridge I have, I’m probably butchering that said something nice too about taking a season or two of thanks, Frederick, for using a tool before moving on to other fields. [00:39:46] Yeah. That’s nice. Yeah. Advice. Good advice. Yeah. [00:39:50] Maggie Appleton: [00:39:50] Yeah. Like it’s like a test God, and right. You could put up like 10 or 15 posts on something. And then if you find you don’t like the platforms, which is something else [00:39:58] Brian Hinton: [00:39:58] applied positive psychology and coaching psychology. [00:40:03] Maggie Appleton: [00:40:03] Nice. Nice. Yeah, there you go. [00:40:09] Frederick Weiss: [00:40:09] All that being said there it’s, not like your saying blogs are the devil, right? It’s just something very different, but I’m just making, just communicating that you’re not stating that there’s a line, you shouldn’t blog, but it’s just a different thing and it makes a little bit more sense. [00:40:30] I don’t know if it’s fair to say in certain fields, like in our field where you could build up your technology and build up your ideas on these things. And you’re not just putting something out and then it’s supposed to be evergreen. [00:40:44] Maggie Appleton: [00:40:44] Yeah. Yeah. Now you’re making me wonder exactly what the technical definition of a blog is, other than. [00:40:51] It’s a web log. Cause, the thing, the difference that we would say between a garden and a blog, it’s mostly about the blogs are usually chronologically ordered, right? So most recently, try this in the past and you browse in a very linear form. So it just, doesn’t, it’s harder to find all the information that is connected by relationships with gardens. [00:41:11] You want to arrange them by topics and you want to make sure notes that are related to each other are linked together. So you can. Between topics and it doesn’t really matter when they were written as not, you’re more interested in the content and how they relate versus the blog is time is the only thing that matters here, like uptown [00:41:29] Frederick Weiss: [00:41:29] Just like Mickey has here. [00:41:30] It’s blogs assume that they have to be perfect and perfect. Again is the enemy of good, right? It’s you’re going to be just halted from doing anything. So just, get out there and. And seating notes, show my learning out loud. Yeah, exactly. Show you, show your learning out loud. People want to see how you think and you should just get it out there. [00:41:52] Don’t be afraid to put something out there in the world and show your process and your progress. [00:41:59] Maggie Appleton: [00:41:59] Yeah. Business. I’ll mention, I’m showing you wine is the champion of this ethos. I don’t know if you guys have had him on yet, but he’s really into learning in public and has some really wonderful posts about the ethos of learning in public and different kinds of learning in public and different phases of learning in public. [00:42:15] And he’s also really into digital gardening and is cool. So like he’s a good one to look at. If you’re interested in the idea of learning in public and how to go about that. [00:42:24] Frederick Weiss: [00:42:24] Okay. Yeah, I will reach out to this person. We will get them on the show. That sounds great. So Brian, we think it is a, is it time? [00:42:32] Brian Hinton: [00:42:32] One, I do want to mention one thing about your tech stack and your website. Fantastic. I love you, even though it’s also like your living code digital garden. I’m curious how to search, what mentions and nested note folders are going. [00:42:49] Frederick Weiss: [00:42:49] Oh sorry, Before you say that Nikki didn’t catch that. [00:42:53] Who was that? What we just mentioned? [00:42:55] Maggie Appleton: [00:42:55] Oh, Shaun Wang I think it is his Monaco that he goes by, but Sean Wang. Yeah. He’s in the web dev community. If you search learning and public, I’m fairly sure he’s one of the first Google search results. He’s been on this for a while. [00:43:10] Frederick Weiss: [00:43:10] Thank you very much. [00:43:11] Maggie, Brian. [00:43:13] Brian Hinton: [00:43:13] Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was asking how that, how your new updates are coming in and how’s that’s progressing. I’d love to see how you do web mentions. Cause I’ve seen a few people do it. And I’m curious, [00:43:26] Maggie Appleton: [00:43:26] I definitely need to implement those. This is where being a mediocre developer really makes you slow development too. [00:43:30] And so he likes to stare at the problem for a while and then you’re like asking people about it or like how. Let’s mention luckily, the people who are involved in the indie web, which I’m Chris Eldridge, who is his wonderful advocate for the indie web. And they’ve really great dogs about how to put web mentions in. [00:43:47] So I know I’ve bookmarked a bunch of those and I need to just set aside a Saturday and read through them and figure out how to put it in. Are you gonna [00:43:54] Brian Hinton: [00:43:54] write a little essay about it? [00:43:58] Maggie Appleton: [00:43:58] Yeah. I’ll put up notes like how I’m doing it. I don’t think it will be too hard. Part of me is a little worried about myself. [00:44:04] I have to make my website more spatial and it’s still pretty linear in the posts. And so at the end you get like my references and then you get notes that are linked to this note. And then I’ll ask myself, I’ll put like web mentions below that and just stop stacking everything, which is fine. [00:44:18] But I’d say I’m trying to think of ways to put sidebars in or move the metadata somewhere else. So we played with ideas. Cool. [00:44:27] Brian Hinton: [00:44:27] So yeah, as Frederick was saying, we’re at, towards the end of the show and what we do is a lightning round. [00:44:38] Where we ask you questions and it’s like one after another, I go, Frederick goes and you just answer through them. Lightning is just like that. I’ll go first. Would you rather be able to copy and paste in real life or undo? [00:44:59] Maggie Appleton: [00:44:59] Okay. [00:45:00] Frederick Weiss: [00:45:00] That’s fair. Maggie, what is your favorite thing about yourself? [00:45:10] Maggie Appleton: [00:45:10] I’m British. And I’m unqualified to answer that question where legally not allowed to, [00:45:18] Brian Hinton: [00:45:18] Well, what’s one pet peeve of yours that you wish you could just get rid of that you have that because it hampers your quality. [00:45:27] Maggie Appleton: [00:45:27] I feel like I make too many cups of tea throughout the day. I don’t know if that’s a pet peeve where no pet peeve is something’s annoying, right? Yeah. Bad cups of tea. [00:45:39] Maybe I can’t tolerate too high of a standard. Okay. [00:45:45] Frederick Weiss: [00:45:45] Earl gray or what’s your T [00:45:48] Maggie Appleton: [00:45:48] Oh, just like English breakfast. I can’t stand out. Like English breakfast like milk, sugar, like a very similar standard. [00:45:55] Frederick Weiss: [00:45:55] Oh. So you’re not getting down there. The London fog. Gotcha. All right. [00:45:59] Brian Hinton: [00:45:59] Okay. You’re waiting somewhere. [00:46:02] Where we were somewhere where you’re okay. Waiting. You don’t mind waiting [00:46:07] Maggie Appleton: [00:46:07] anywhere that I have a book, which is anywhere I go. [00:46:10] Brian Hinton: [00:46:10] Oh, nice. [00:46:12] Frederick Weiss: [00:46:12] Nice. What are you currently reading? [00:46:16] Maggie Appleton: [00:46:16] This is, it’s a really good book for me to get if Jill the pool, which is so it’s, the history of the very first company to try to do data collection in the 1950s. [00:46:29] And, trying to Matt human behavior and put it into computers and then try to predict how people are going to behave based on that. And they were doing it in the context of U S elections and it lays the foundation for everything that has now become Facebook and Google and Amazon. [00:46:44] Interesting. Yeah, it’s really good. [00:46:47] Brian Hinton: [00:46:47] I’m to add that one to my list. Okay. You’re in the circus. Would you rather be the person with their head inside the lion’s mouth or be shot out of it? [00:46:59] Maggie Appleton: [00:46:59] Shot out of a cannon. Oh, nice. Okay. Yeah. Which smell that [00:47:04] Frederick Weiss: [00:47:04] is possible. You never know. Yeah. The lion could have some Bianca or something. [00:47:09] What is your podcast that you’ve been going to lately? Just for entertainment. [00:47:15] Maggie Appleton: [00:47:15] Oh, I love the Postlight podcast, which is pulled forward and I’m gonna forget his co-host name, but they run a digital agency in New York, but Paul forward is like an incredible tech writer. Who’s just. Everything you write, so just die over. [00:47:28] But he’s really funny as is his co-host and they just comment on the tech world, but in a way where they’re both very experienced and have been around forever. And I just appreciate it. [00:47:37] Brian Hinton: [00:47:37] I love that. What’s the one chore that you absolutely hate to do? [00:47:45] Maggie Appleton: [00:47:45] In the UK, we have limescale and allow water, which just covers any surface you have and just like weird white flaky stuff. [00:47:52] And you just have to spend like all weekends, just scrubbing it off. It just builds up and destroys your flat. So I spend an inordinate amount of time scrubbing, limescale off everything. I just hate it all the time. [00:48:03] Frederick Weiss: [00:48:03] Maggie’s favorite cartoon as a kid. [00:48:08] Maggie Appleton: [00:48:08] Since who didn’t grow up with television is the problem we grew up in. [00:48:13] Frederick Weiss: [00:48:13] Let me revert. What’s your favorite cartoon now? [00:48:19] Maggie Appleton: [00:48:19] I’m not fine. I don’t watch cartoons. [00:48:25] Frederick Weiss: [00:48:25] It’s [00:48:25] Maggie Appleton: [00:48:25] all right. Which is not a TV show, but a comic. [00:48:33] Brian Hinton: [00:48:33] Yeah. I have so many of their books. I love them a lot. So Mars is livable, but it’s a one way trip. Would you go to Mars? [00:48:43] Maggie Appleton: [00:48:43] Now I really I’m really here for the earth. Like I’m really, [00:48:49] Frederick Weiss: [00:48:49] it’s your thing. Yeah. We all have our plans. [00:48:57] Maggie I’m home. It’s one in the morning. You’re just trying to get the key in the door. It’s pouring out. You’re like, just get me in the house you get in the house. There’s a ghost. [00:49:07] Brian Hinton: [00:49:07] It’s looking right at you. What do you do? [00:49:11] Maggie Appleton: [00:49:11] Try to take a photo with my iPhone now. [00:49:15] Frederick Weiss: [00:49:15] All right. You can get your choice. [00:49:24] Maggie Appleton: [00:49:24] I was thinking of evidence. I just went to the land of deep, fake videos. I don’t know what an iPhone photo would have done for me there, but like [00:49:33] Brian Hinton: [00:49:33] What’s one thing you miss a lot about being a kid. [00:49:45] Maggie Appleton: [00:49:45] Oh, God, I’m really bad. I don’t know. Sorry. I’m thinking of too many things. Maybe it was just like, I get really lost in, just doing. Maybe it was pre-internet days. I don’t know. I’ve just got really lost in doing things like organizing my entire beanie baby collection, like categories or something, or just cutting and pasting a thousand strips of paper together. [00:50:04] Like it was, yeah, very much just like spending hours, getting lost in very simplistic tasks and times before we, I was on the screen all the time. [00:50:11] Frederick Weiss: [00:50:11] I hear ya. This is my last question. Maggie, what do you do that brings you joy? What do you do for fun? Any disconnect? [00:50:22] Maggie Appleton: [00:50:22] It’s definitely still drawing, even though it’s, part of my career or professional, whatever it is with doing over there working it’s, still if I need to decompress for the day I’ll put on like a YouTube lecture of someone I really like, but then I’m doodling and I’m not, it’s not for, to show anyone or to do. [00:50:41] It’s just sort of me trying to think with my hand and my body really satisfying. [00:50:46] Frederick Weiss: [00:50:46] I do have a follow-up question, but I’ll let Brandon first. [00:50:52] Brian Hinton: [00:50:52] What kind of drink can be bitter and sweet [00:50:58] Realty? [00:51:03] Frederick Weiss: [00:51:03] Anyway Maggie, this might not be a lightning round question, but for the people that want to do it. What you do. Where do you find that you’re the most creative and you get the most done in which medium? So when I say that is it when you put pen to paper, when you put a pencil to your iPad pencil, or when you’re in illustrator or Figma or something like that where, do you feel like you’re the most creative and, why. [00:51:36] Maggie Appleton: [00:51:36] Yeah, I definitely use an iPad with procreate on an iPad pro is my medium for the moment, just because it has the most flexibility. It feels, it doesn’t feel just like paper, but it’s getting there. It does what you need to and that space it’s just being able to use your hands and think spatially and. [00:51:56] Look at what you’re drawing and respond to it in a constant feedback loop, right? It’s not like you create the image in your head and then you draw it. But this relationship between you and what you’re creating in this constant loop is like where the thinking happens. I know that’s like a famous Richard Fineman quote that someone else wrote. [00:52:12] Like how did you come up with the ideas of when he drew like Adams and stuff? And he’s now I felt like it was part of the process for me in the paper. It wasn’t like I came up with them and then threw them down. Like it didn’t know what they were before I drew them. That loop is really magical. [00:52:26] Process to be in. And that kind of thing, I’m always addicted to. It’s just like you, you don’t know what you’re doing until you see on paper and then you respond to what you’ve made and it just becomes this infinite game. [00:52:37] Brian Hinton: [00:52:37] Nice. I love that. Yeah. Okay. I’m going to try it one more time. Why is Peter Pan always flying? [00:52:44] Because he never lands. [00:52:48] Frederick Weiss: [00:52:48] Oh, [00:52:50] Maggie Appleton: [00:52:50] that is good. Now, you’re making me think there’s more layers to Peter pan than I originally perceived. [00:52:58] Brian Hinton: [00:52:58] Yeah, it’s deeper than we all thought. [00:53:01] Frederick Weiss: [00:53:01] W we’re right at the end, we want to make sure that we put up all the places where people could find you at Maggie. So I’m Twitter’s LinkedIn here. [00:53:11] And then, your website, of course, Maggie appleton.com dribbbles with your first initial, your last name. Is there anywhere that I might be missing here that you want people to look up to find more about you. [00:53:24] Maggie Appleton: [00:53:24] No, they can see, I think that’s pretty good. My, my website tends to, I try to make it at least the hub that it will link to anywhere else that needs to be [00:53:32] Brian Hinton: [00:53:32] yeah. [00:53:32] For our audio listeners. Can you put that back up? Like a reference? [00:53:36] Frederick Weiss: [00:53:36] Yeah. [00:53:36] Brian Hinton: [00:53:36] Yeah, sure. Yeah. It’s maple tons. It’s spelled M a P L E T O N S for her Twitter and Maggie, M a G I E. appleton.com for website and yeah, [00:53:51] Frederick Weiss: [00:53:51] I want to say. Yeah. Before we get to that before, the last thing we’d like to do is offer a, an opportunity for [00:54:03] Maggie is here. Do you have anything to say to the audience chairs, yours? [00:54:11] Maggie Appleton: [00:54:11] Ooh. The only thing I can think of to recommend that, I just want to say if anyone doesn’t know who Brett Victor is yet, and hasn’t read his work worry, dream.com, go do that. That’s just like a life changing experience if you’ve never experienced before and you work in tech. [00:54:26] So that’s the only thing I’d recommend. [00:54:28] Frederick Weiss: [00:54:28] Awesome. Thanks. And Nikki had a good time. Thanks, Nikki. You guys. [00:54:32] Brian Hinton: [00:54:32] Thank you, Nicola. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. And appreciate you joining us. I always say it is the most valuable thing we have and for you to spend just some time with us. Thank you so much. [00:54:44] Frederick Weiss: [00:54:44] Especially on a Saturday. Yeah [00:54:47] Maggie Appleton: [00:54:47] That’s fine. Thank you for all the great questions too. This was, it was this incredibly easy you always, where are you going to come on and say stupid things or just have, no content. And then you guys are just great questions. Made it super easy. [00:54:58] Frederick Weiss: [00:54:58] Thank you. Really appreciate it. No, this was excellent. Thank you. Thank you so much, Maggie. And then thanks everybody out there for watching. Really appreciate it. And we’ll catch you next time. Thanks everybody. See ya.

In this episode, we get to speak with Arit Amana: Software Engineer, Founder, Writer, Mentor, and Conference Speaker. We discuss Arit’s day-to-day as a Software Engineer and her career journey. We also dive into Arit’s organization OurTimeForTech.org, a nonprofit online program that empowers early-career & career-changing Women in Tech! ✨ Episode Sponsor Auth0: https://auth0.comAuth0 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/auth0Auth0 on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/auth0Auth0 Avocado Labs online meetup events: https://avocadolabs.dev/ 🔗 Episode Links Twitter: https://twitter.com/AritAmanaWebsite: https://arit.dev/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aritamana/Founder: https://ourtimefortech.org/Github: https://github.com/msaritYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/AritDeveloperCodeNewbie Podcast – What it’s like to break into tech as a mother Arit Amana: https://www.codenewbie.org/podcast/what-it-s-like-to-break-into-tech-as-a-motherVirtual Career Talk with Arit Amana: https://youtu.be/c-njpDjJOy0Firehose Project: http://thefirehoseproject.com/Forem: https://www.forem.com/Host: Frederick Weiss: https://twitter.com/frederickweissWatch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/i74Swu8Us-A 📜 Transcript: Frederick Weiss: [00:00:00] I am Frederick Philip von Weiss. Thank you for consuming the Thunder Nerds, a conversation with the people behind the technology that love what they do, and do tech good. Let’s go ahead and get to our guests. We have a super special guest today. I’m really excited to have her. We have  Software Engineer, founder, writer, mentor, conference speaker, Arit Amana. [00:01:14] Welcome to the show. [00:01:16] Arit Amana: [00:01:16] Thank you so much. Frederick. That was great. You, I think you’ve covered it all. Thank you for having me. [00:01:23] Frederick Weiss: [00:01:23] I try it’s a lot right at the beginning, but anyway, thank you so much for spending a Saturday with us. I know Saturday morning is not the easiest thing to negotiate with a family and everything going on. [00:01:36] Everybody’s yeah, it’s Saturday. And then Oh wait, I gotta do this thing. So thank you so much. How’s your Saturday morning going by the way. [00:01:44] Arit Amana: [00:01:44] It’s going really good. The weather is beautiful. And yeah, I’m excited to be here. I’ve been looking forward to it. Thank you for having me. [00:01:52] Frederick Weiss: [00:01:52] Yeah, our pleasure. Absolutely. Hey, yo, let me ask you something topical. We got this really great notification, if you will, from Joe Biden’s this week. So excited, no masks for vaccinated people. What do you think? And do you have your vaccine? Are you willing to go out in public without the mask? [00:02:14] Are you, do you [00:02:15] Arit Amana: [00:02:15] feel safe? That’s a good question. So I am fully vaccinated, so I’ve gotten the two shots. But on the other hand it’s weird, right? Like I think, I’ve grown accustomed to wearing to be honest. And I think where I’m coming from will be just. And out of an abundance of caution, I think I’m still gonna wear my mask. [00:02:40] Not so much necessarily for me, but just to still send that message that I care about my community. I care about maybe people who haven’t been vaccinated and are still at risk. I’m comfortable with that. I don’t necessarily feel like I need to start wearing my mask. Some kind of indication that it’s over or we’re getting through it. [00:03:05] At the end of the day we have different types of people with different sensibilities. And I don’t know, I, it’s not a big deal for me, so I’m fully vaccinated, but I will keep wearing my mask probably for the foreseeable future. [00:03:18] Frederick Weiss: [00:03:18] Yeah. Yeah. I might do the same thing. I’m, just, I’m slightly cautious. [00:03:23] I got a little bit of trepidation. I also have my I’m fully vaccinated on just no one. I see the science out there, but I don’t know If I go out, is there any way for me to, bring it home to for my son’s only six he’s not, in that 12 and up, so a space to get the Pfizer. [00:03:42] So I’m just a little scared, but I want to see what happens. A month, two months from now. And at that point, that’s when I’m going to go. Okay. I’ll take the mask [00:03:51] Arit Amana: [00:03:51] off. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think for me, it’s just giving it a little longer runway. I think for me, good with let’s see what it looks like in the fall. [00:04:02] Like I think for me, that’s my mindset, let the fall come around and let’s see where we’re at, but no rush necessarily to quote unquote, go massless. Yeah. [00:04:13] Frederick Weiss: [00:04:13] Yeah, I totally agree with that. I’m just a little, I’m just still a little scared and we’ll see what happens then. [00:04:19] And at that point I’ll be very excited. I’m optimistic by the end of the year. We’ll see times square filled up again and everybody’s going to be good, but that will be [00:04:28] Arit Amana: [00:04:28] nice. Yeah, [00:04:31] Frederick Weiss: [00:04:31] Everything crossed. Yeah. [00:04:33] Arit Amana: [00:04:33] I think we will. Yeah. [00:04:36] Frederick Weiss: [00:04:36] Yeah. Exactly. Hey let’s, talk about, first of all, we’ll do a little bit of a communicating presence and go backwards a little bit. [00:04:45] Let’s talk about what you do. You are currently a Software Engineer for a forum. I imagine I’m saying that, right? So forum, I assume the technology is exactly what I think it is. Do you mind communicating one, what exactly the forum is? And then two what you do [00:05:04] Arit Amana: [00:05:04] at forum? Yes. So forum is an open source company. [00:05:10] And what that means is our code is completely a hundred percent open source. And so there’s no obesity when it comes to what we’re building and how we’re building it. And we have just a very vibrant, supportive open-source community around what we do. And as far as our product, we are building software too. [00:05:31] How are online communities that value data privacy and basically just empowering creators online to connect with people and to lead respectful communities that value that data privacy. So that’s what we do in a nutshell. And so as an engineer at forum, my day-to-day consists mostly. [00:05:58] So one of the, one of the tools in our store software are our moderation tools and administrative administration and moderation tools. And so that’s typically where I do most of my work. And so right now we’re building out a more UX centered. Admin experience in the backend and also beefing up our moderation tools and that empowers the administrators of these communities to keep their community safe and supportive. [00:06:28] Yeah. So that’s day-to-day what I do. [00:06:31] Frederick Weiss: [00:06:31] But now, when you say communities, is the audience pretty much anybody like hypothetically? I could pull up a scenario, but I dunno if that’s gonna work, but I own a pizza shop and I want to open up a community to have, Hey on Friday nights we have pizza. [00:06:48] Bingo. That’s a great example, but let’s roll with a pizza. Bingo. The little bingo pieces or pepperoni. I want to start a forum. I want to get people involved. I want to have a community. Is this for me? Or is this for small? Is it for small businesses? Is what I’m getting at a medium, not enterprise. [00:07:07] Arit Amana: [00:07:07] Excellent question. So we actually are going to have two offerings, so we have, yes. So we have, I have the self hosted option and that’s for literally anyone. Now we’re rolling that out slowly. So it’s I could maybe say we’re in a pre beta phase right now, but the end goal is to have anyone literally able to spin up a forum, for their community needs and self hosted. And so that’s one option and then we have the more enterprise offering. And so that’s where we’re going to offer more enterprise level solutions for that level of company or that level of business. Yeah. But we are really excited about literally getting this into the hands of anyone that wants to have a forum for their community or their needs. [00:07:57] And have it be self hosted. We are going to make it very modular. And so you can have the bare bones forum, or you can have these modules, you can have a chat component, you can have maybe a listings component and we’re monitoring like modularizing a lot of the functionality. And so you can build your custom forum, basically. [00:08:18] Frederick Weiss: [00:08:18] Oh, I love that. That’s so cool. All right. Yeah we’ll put some links in the show notes for everybody to check it out. It sounds like an amazing tool. We’re very interested and by the way, if you’re watching a go ahead and live chat with us, we’ll put your questions up and we’ll answer them right on the show. [00:08:34] So yeah. Let’s talk about your career journey. You didn’t start off as a Software Engineer. You started off in a little bit of a different path, but it seems that it does make sense along the way. Just like all of us, a lot of us are second career devs. For me, I went to school for graphic design and photography and was making flyers for my band, et cetera, et cetera. [00:08:56] And it just blossomed. And it went down that path. I know for you, at a young age you were introduced to technology. Your father was an engineer. Am I right? So you always had technology [00:09:08] Arit Amana: [00:09:08] in the house. Exactly. Yes, my father was a sales engineer and so he always had access to the latest tech, right? [00:09:15] Like part of his job was outfitting companies, banks and the like with technology, computers, printing, like literally the whole nine. And so he, always, we had I’m dating myself here, but we had the desktop computers and the video game console. [00:09:37] Soles and the printers and we were always surrounded with technology. And so I, at a very early age, gained an appreciation for the power of technology to make life easier or to make life better. Yeah. So I’ve always been surrounded by technology, but as a young girl, I wanted to be a doctor. [00:09:59] And so that was yeah. That was my MD for all my Teddy bears and my dolls and things like that. Yeah. So on the science track and. I did. Yes. Duke is my Alma mater. Yeah, my bachelor’s. Yeah. And [00:10:18] Frederick Weiss: [00:10:18] So, you were going there for biology, is [00:10:21] Arit Amana: [00:10:21] that right? Yes. So I was a pre-med major. [00:10:25] And for the most part, most of my life science came easy to me yet. I talk about this a lot. Like my schoolwork came easy to me for the most part. Until I got to college more specifically my third year I had delayed declaring a major. And so by the time I was in my junior year, I had all these pre-reqs for pre-med that I had to complete. [00:10:48] And so I’m taking all the Oracle and the microbiology and the physical chemistry, like everything just in one semester. And so of course I couldn’t Excel in all of them. And instead of me, and I, say this because a lot of times we think that. Things maybe are always inevitable, but I’m very clear to say that even though my path ended up the way it was, I see where I made mistakes. [00:11:21] And so that was one of my early earliest mistakes. Career-wise was assuming that just because I had a hard semester medicine wasn’t for me. And that was the wrong conclusion. And I’m very clear about that. Yeah. And so that was how I chose to interpret that really difficult year, really my junior year. [00:11:39] And so I took it to me and, Oh, I don’t have what it takes to become a doctor, which wasn’t true. I could have just. Repeated a semester or graduated in five years as opposed to four. But that was the conclusion that I made. And so for me that was like, okay, I’m not going to do that. So that’s when I pivoted into public health. [00:11:57] Cause I figured it’s still healthy, not as intense as medicine. I don’t get to feel like I’ve wasted all my education. So that’s what made me pivot into public health. Yeah. [00:12:08] Frederick Weiss: [00:12:08] That’s interesting. I think there’s a really good lesson that I’d like to highlight here that we could talk to people about what you brought up, which is don’t just because things are hard doesn’t mean that you should give up on them. [00:12:22] You could still make it through a lot of the things, what is it? The old adage or whatever is anything that’s. Worth It is going to be difficult. Obviously I’m not articulating that correctly but, you get the vibe it’s you got to put in the hard work and you’ll get really the more hard work you put in the greater the reward. [00:12:43] So you, could have finished that in a degree in three years, you could have had a giant turnaround, [00:12:49] Arit Amana: [00:12:49] right? Go ahead. No, please. It was my youth I was naive and I was arrogant as well. There’s an arrogance that you have when you’re younger than I think you begin to shed when you get older. [00:13:04] No, it’s the reality. I think I was, I felt like I had this all or nothing mentality, and so I think it was a casualty of being as young as I was. And I recognize that now, when I say it now, just to help others out there. You’re exactly right. Just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it’s not for you or you still can’t put in the effort and get there. [00:13:26] Yeah. It’s, [00:13:27] Frederick Weiss: [00:13:27] amazing how we trust each year olds with the career path. Of somebody that is in their 60 seventies. Like it, it was us at 18 that made a lot of these life decisions that kind of worked in all these different directions. And it’s, that’s why it’s so important as a young person to get mentors or to be part of a. [00:13:54] Some kind of a mentorship relationship, you’re getting that input or a mastermind of some type of community. So you can have a soundboard to bounce [00:14:04] Arit Amana: [00:14:04] things. Yes, absolutely. You’re exactly right. Yeah. [00:14:08] Frederick Weiss: [00:14:08] So, then you went and you were a health analyst. Am [00:14:11] Arit Amana: [00:14:11] I’m saying that right? Okay. Yes. [00:14:12] So I got my master’s in public health and I worked as a public health analyst. And typically what I did for that job was just generate evidence-based reports. We were a contract company and we had contracts with different government and nonprofit agencies. And so if they want it. I’d say maybe for example, I’m just giving an example, the department of transportation, they wanted to make some policy changes around truckers with diabetes, just as an example. [00:14:43] So we would scour the literature, the scientific literature, and come up with the evidence either to support that proposed policy change or refute it. So in general, that’s what my job was. Yeah. [00:14:58] Frederick Weiss: [00:14:58] Wow. Okay. Yeah. So you’re still doing like, you said, you’re still in the health industry you’re, using the education that you obtained and you’re going down that path. [00:15:08] And then there was I dunno if there was a pivot, but maybe there was a corner, the, something to do with the company where they were they, let you go. And then you started doing WordPress sites for friends and small businesses. [00:15:22] Arit Amana: [00:15:22] Exactly. So around that time, yes. So the company let me go. [00:15:25] And I had just had my son. Son, my son was one plus and I had gotten into WordPress back in college, but it was really just a hobby. It was just to have blogs and the clubs that I belong to in college, I would create simple, either blogs for them, or like just a single one just to have a presence on the web. [00:15:46] And that was something that I. Still dead on the side as I was a public health analyst. And so when I lost that job I was getting to the point where people started to know what I was doing, and then they would ask me, Oh, can you do this simple site? Like I had a friend who was a photographer and he was like, Oh, it would be nice to feature my work online. [00:16:08] Can you help me with that? And I had other friends who started asking me to build an online presence for them. And at first it was. It was like, Oh, you can pay me whatever you want. Or like it was very informal, but then it started, I started realizing that I could actually do this and make a pretty coin. [00:16:29] And it dovetailed quite nicely with also my desire to be home with my son. So that was a hard part for me. Like during the first year of his life balancing a full-time job and being a new mother, I really felt like I wanted to be there more consistently for my son. And so doing the WordPress thing, I could do that from home. [00:16:50] So that was my first taste of work from home. In a sense. And so everything worked out. And then my partner at the time he was taking care of quote unquote, the big bills. And then I was generating some income from my WordPress hustle and then I was there for my son. [00:17:07] So it was a win-win. Yeah. [00:17:09] Frederick Weiss: [00:17:09] It’s super important to, have that, time at home with, your kids when they’re, when you’re that young. It’s, I know a lot of people do the daycare because they have to, and we certainly did some of that a little bit as well. And if you can, if you can’t there’s all kinds of financial things that we could do or not do. [00:17:33] But yeah, if you can and you have that opportunity, that’s amazing. It’s great for the kids. Child, development. But so from that point, you, you, started coming into roadblocks to say that which, most of us do when we start learning about this technology we’re, building these WordPress websites and then we go, how do I change this? [00:17:54] How do I choose that? That the clients are coming to me. I don’t, I might not know HTML, CSS, JavaScript like, the three basics. And then on top of that, you have all these theming things where you started using a server language PHP. So you’re having to make a change in a lot of people at that point, stop, they go, you know what? [00:18:15] Th. This is too much for me. I can’t make it. I’m going to do something else or they just keep, continue to do what they were originally doing. You took the initiative and you went forward. So what did that look like for you? And, how did you actually one find the time to implement what you were learning and move ahead? [00:18:37] Arit Amana: [00:18:37] Yeah. So for me, the passion to keep going, or to move ahead, as you said, came from. I loved empowering the businesses, whether it was a solo entrepreneur or like a small business, or like a small offer. I’m like, whatever it was, the payoff for me was empowering their business processes. So I remember one of my earliest clients, she was a massage therapist and she had a mobile massage therapy business and she was doing the paper and pen thing. [00:19:08] Literally like she had a date book and it was paper and pen and everything was quite, I guess you could say analog And so just because of the lack of a system and no leveraging of technology, she had a lot of potential clients falling through the cracks. And so she had the interest, but she couldn’t translate them to clientele. [00:19:29] And so she was leaving a lot of money on the table. And so I was able to set up one with a website. A booking form of payment processing solution. I took her contract online and so she wasn’t chasing people with printed out copies and getting them to sign it. And literally, she’ll tell you this within a couple of weeks, her clientele tripled and she didn’t feel the strain of it. [00:19:54] It was just she wasn’t, they weren’t falling through the cracks. And so that’s just an example of how I was empowering people and empowering businesses. And so that was it for me. I didn’t want to give that up. And so for me, it wasn’t an option of, Oh, I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing or I’m going to stop this. [00:20:10] It was, I see the value of what I’m doing. The money is good, but I see the value of what I’m doing. And so how can I get better at what I do? And like you said I got to the point where plugins were beginning to be duplicate like plugins. This plugin does ABC, but what I need is AC like it got to the point where the sites were getting bloated. [00:20:34] And I. Couldn’t find those perfect combos of plugins and themes to do what my clients needed. And that’s when I felt like if I knew how to code, I could probably either build this or I could tweak it in the plugin and get the plugin, like I could do something. So that was where I decided. Okay. It’s probably time to get into the code and. [00:20:59] And see how this works under the hood. [00:21:01] Frederick Weiss: [00:21:01] Yeah. Now you, use one of these code camps, and one of these boot camps to, to get you, to help, get your career going. And in one of the videos I watched, it sounded like you were taking care of your baby and you were working though. [00:21:18] Like you, you would go from seven to 11 at night. That was your time to start learning. Yeah. That’s yeah, I, can you just tell us a little bit about that journey and what that was like? Because for me, I I, understand I’m a father. I have a child. I know it’s hard to find the time just to do anything, but like at that young of age with a baby and trying to learn. [00:21:44] Whoo. So yeah. Love to hear some of your insights on that. [00:21:48] Arit Amana: [00:21:48] Absolutely. The process that I took, I first. I used free resources online which were great. But I think at this time I had my daughter, so my son’s older now and I have my infant daughter and I think. Any mother will tell you any new mother, just the frazzle your mental state is frazzled, you’re sleep deprived. [00:22:10] And so even though the free resources were great, I didn’t feel like I was making progress. I felt like I needed more structure and I needed a community. I needed people to check off. On me and like people to check in with and get the sense that I’m, making progress and I’m working towards something. [00:22:28] And so that’s when I looked into boot camps. And so I took a couple of free mini bootcamps from different companies before deciding on them. Bootcamp that I chose. And so the bootcamp that I chose, the firehose project they’ve since been acquired. But what I liked about the firehose project was first of all, they were one of the cheapest that I found at $6,000. [00:22:48] And so they didn’t have this IAS. I S a thing, which is like all the rage. Now you either paid upfront or you got a traditional loan. And so what I did was I got a traditional loan. And then another thing I liked about them was all the content was already loaded into the website. By, and it was like a drip format. [00:23:06] And so you complete a module and module two opens up and you complete that as the next module. And that was important to me because I didn’t want to, I turned down the boot camps that were cohort based. And like you were learning within you. Going along with someone because I was afraid that what if I fall behind? [00:23:24] What if at mybaby’s teasing and I’m not sleeping, and so I wanted a 100% self paced solution that I could control. So I can go fast if I can, and I can slow down if I need to. So that was another reason. And the whole seven to 10 thing. So my daughter, she didn’t, she wasn’t like, my son was a really good napper. [00:23:48] He would not for three hours straight, but my daughter was more active. And so she was pretty active during the day. And I could never find A real pocket of time to either take my lessons or code or work on my assignments. And so what I did was I said, okay, she’s not going to go down during the day. [00:24:07] I’m going to sleep, train her. So I know she sleeps well during the night. And so her bedtime was six 30 and I slept to train her. So she would sleep from six 30 till about 11. And so then I could, my son was older and the part owner could handle my son. And so what I did was I then designated 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM every single day for deep focus work, because I knew she’d be sleeping. [00:24:33] She’s not going to stir. My son was with his dad and so I could, so I felt better during the day, not really doing anything and just being there with my daughter, because I knew it would come in the evening. I would have this uninterrupted time to really go hard and deep focus work. Yeah. So that was my schedule. [00:24:51] 24 seven. Seven days a week, basically. [00:24:55] Frederick Weiss: [00:24:55] Yeah. It’s really difficult for people to find the time. And like you said you did the sleep training. You had a set time and I in life happens too. I’m sure there were multiple times where she woke up early or didn’t go to sleep at the right time, et cetera, et cetera. [00:25:13] You just have to roll with it. And a lot of these. Life happens. And a lot of these bootcamps they’re very much like you have to be there, it’s an 80 hour thing day or week it’s, crazy. You do come out on the other side, et cetera, et cetera with, all this opportunity, but. [00:25:35] On the same token, that’s not for everybody and not everybody could listen to somebody constantly teaching or, originally taking in and they need to sit down and read it. I know for my wife, she needs to sit down and read stuff. She can’t be, she doesn’t learn from a teacher. She learns by going through the book and reading the book. [00:25:53] So everybody’s different in that way, right? Yeah. [00:25:56] Arit Amana: [00:25:56] Yeah. I think so. I think, go ahead. No, please. Yeah, I think the more diversity we see, even in bootcamp tech, boot camp education, the better it will be for everyone. You’re exactly right. Like that option was just not available to me. Like really nine, 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM. [00:26:14] Like throughout the day. It just wasn’t an option for me. And I’m really grateful that I had the bootcamp that I found. I really, I don’t think I would be where I am if I didn’t have that option of being totally self-paced. Yeah. Option for myself and just going at my pace, unlocking the lessons as I went along we also had we’re also assigned a mentor that we met with for an hour a week and extremely instrumental. [00:26:42] I’m still in touch with Jeremy today. Shout out Jeremy. He was instrumental in really helping me believe that I could be an engineer. Yeah. I always credit him with that. Yeah. [00:26:57] Frederick Weiss: [00:26:57] I love that. So what would be your experience after you completed this course? From my understanding, it took you about six months on the market trying to find a position. [00:27:09] What, what, exactly was that like? And how did you land your first tech job? [00:27:13] Arit Amana: [00:27:13] It was, I always call it the most demoralizing part of my journey because it really wasn’t that my bootcamp, they had a career prep course and not to take anything away, but I don’t think I was really prepped, even though I took the course. [00:27:29] But I don’t think because you can’t, no one can really prepare you. I think, for the reality of looking for your first tech job, especially as a second career person in tech it was tough. I didn’t know I’m really into networking. And if I could do anything different, I would have started networking at the same time. [00:27:52] I started bootcamp, but I never really networked at any point in, even in my previous careers. And so when I, no, I never did. I just, I never. Like you’re in college and everyone’s there with you and then you get your first job, but then you have your coworkers never networked. I never realized the value of networking until I got into tech. [00:28:13] And even to find my first tech job, I had no network. I was just hitting up the job boards, like indeed.com monster. I just kept hitting up the job boards. And LinkedIn as well. And so woo. It was a lot, I applied to almost a hundred jobs and out of all those jobs, I got three on-site. And then one of them, actually, one of them rejected me and then five months later they had another role open up and they remembered me. [00:28:39] And so they got in touch. That’s how I got my first tech job. Yes. My first tech job was with a company that rejected me the first time around, but I got to the final round. It was between me and one other person. And so they gave it to the other persons. I was rejected. Yeah. But five months later they had a similar role open up. [00:28:57] And I think they remembered me from the last interview. And so they came back knocking and I will still love the job market. And so that’s when I got the job, but yeah. [00:29:06] Frederick Weiss: [00:29:06] Nice. And I know one of the things that you cited was the worry of ageism. I Believe we’re the same age and when I was going through my career, I also felt that, and a lot of people feel that. [00:29:20] I, I. I see that you wrote that you were, you completed this bootcamp and your late thirties, and you’re worried about applying to these companies like, a Facebook type of company that it’s, very they, have this image of all these young 20 somethings sipping mochaccinos while they’re. [00:29:41] Running on their golf carts, exercising on the moon, all this goofy stuff that you’ve seen, like Silicon Valley, but like some of that stuff is a little bit real, but ageism is just something that’s. In our head, isn’t there an obstacle that we have to overcome or is it a real obstacle out there for people seeking real positions? [00:30:03] Arit Amana: [00:30:03] I think it’s both. It’s definitely not just in our heads, but I think it’s more in the sense that if you look at age-ism as only something that the other people have to fix, I think you limit yourself. And so there is. There is a sense of doing everything that is in your power to progress in the field you’ve chosen, but we definitely also need to address ages of ageism on a more macro level. [00:30:28] I know for me I wouldn’t say that I didn’t feel fear about age-ism cause I was, I graduated bootcamp. I think I was 38. 38, between 37 and 38. And I landed my first job at 38. I landed, I started my first job five days before my 38th birthday, actually. Yes it was a nice birthday present. [00:30:54] But so I felt the disadvantage or I guess. I felt it, but I didn’t let myself feel it too deeply because in my mind I didn’t have that luxury. Like I felt what it was? You’ve spent all this money you’ve been through this process. Get a job. That’s why you did this. [00:31:15] And so I think that was my mindset. I didn’t let myself really sink into the worries, the fears about, Oh, am I too old? Or I’m a black woman. I am older. Like I’m a mother. I didn’t, I felt it, but I didn’t allow myself permission to really see, because in my mind, I was like, you need to get a job, just get a job. [00:31:43] And so I think that’s why I answered both. On the one hand, I don’t mean to dismiss the reality of ageism and other like barriers to diverse candidates out there. But I think on an individual level, there’s a real sense of you, just need to. Do what you need to do and forge ahead. [00:32:06] Or else you, end up being limited, I think by these systems. [00:32:12] Frederick Weiss: [00:32:12] Yeah. Yeah, a lot of times we have these things in our head, whether it’s imposter syndrome or we want people to tell us. That it’s okay for you to do that. I give you permission where no, one’s going to give us permission to do things or on the other side of the coin where we’re looking for people to tell us you can’t do that. [00:32:30] Okay. I won’t do that, but that doesn’t happen. It all begins and starts with you and your heart, your head. Did you actually have any any experiences at all with age-ism or was it like you said, just you, you wondering am I not getting this position at all these places that I applied for it because I’m not [00:32:50] Arit Amana: [00:32:50] 22. [00:32:51] Yeah. How do you know? I think it’s a great question. Yeah. That’s the thing, like, how do I, did I have anyone flat out telling me, Oh, you’re too old? No. Then I have any communication to the effect of, or if you were younger like, how do you really know? I think even if, even when these things are in operation, they are covered in their pouch sometimes, really well. [00:33:17] And so even if I felt. That way in my job hunt process, I didn’t really have any evidence. And then I always told myself, even if it’s true, does that mean you stop? I think that’s what it came down to for me. Even if it’s true, let’s say it’s true. Let’s say on paper, you look great, but then you have the zoom call and they’re like, Oh, okay. [00:33:40] She let’s just say it’s true. Does that mean I stopped? Does that mean? I conclude it’s not for me. Yeah. That’s what I did when I was younger. When I struggled in my junior year. And so I had to come to a place where, okay, this place may not be for me, if that’s what’s going on, then I probably don’t want to work there anyway. [00:34:01] But does that mean I don’t want to work? And so I think I just kept. Telling myself that this is a numbers game. So much of job hunting is a numbers game: put in the work, put in the numbers, learn what you can from previous failed interviews and just keep putting yourself out there. That’s what I just kept telling myself, right? [00:34:23] Frederick Weiss: [00:34:23] Yeah. Yeah. It all goes back to just it. All a lot of these things can be in your head. Like you said, it’s how do you measure if it actually is true or not? And there’s so many companies, the world is a really big place. I know it seems small because technology brings us together, but there’s so many different companies that could work. [00:34:45] Work with a partner to start your own. There are a lot of opportunities. There’s never a dead end. There’s always divorced all around You One of the things though, I [00:34:59] Arit Amana: [00:34:59] please go ahead. No. I was going to say that I was going to say that I think fatigue also plays a role. So I think job hunting is very tiring and when everyone starts job hunting, assuming that within a couple of weeks they’ll land the job, that’s the dream. [00:35:15] I applied for a position. I get it within a couple of weeks. I’m working. That’s everyone’s dream and it doesn’t always pan out that way. And a lot of times there’s a lot of fatigue.  and not to talk of imposter syndrome and just all the mental stuff that comes along with job hunting. A lot of times rejection can seem like an indictment on your ability. [00:35:37] And I think that’s another thing I had to learn. Maybe I’m not, I don’t have the skill set for this particular job, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have any skills. And I think those are the conclusions that we need to wrestle with in our own mind and decide. What am I going to interpret this rejection as, but job hunting is exhausting. [00:35:57] And I think privilege comes into it, right? Like I had the privilege of a partner who was taking care of me. Majority bills. And so I didn’t have the added pressure of all my savings running out. Where am I gonna, how am I gonna pay my next? There’s a lot of pressure. [00:36:18] I think that different people face. And yeah. On the one hand, like you have to keep going. It’s like the only way out is through. But I do have compassion for just different situations, different financial situations, different support situations. It’s a lot, it can be a lot. [00:36:38] Yeah, [00:36:40] Frederick Weiss: [00:36:40] absolutely. And one of the things that I heard on a podcast that you were on recently, a code newbie you, were talking about one of the things it’s, it could be age-ism but it’s, probably more of a parenting issue than young people or parents. I can’t, or don’t have the ability to understand what it’s like being a single parent. [00:37:04] And what, goes into that? You were talking about some experiences you had, where, you know you, brought your daughter to daycare for the first time. And what some people don’t realize is that when your child gets sick, you have to go and get your child out of daycare. They don’t want sick kids getting all the other kids sick. [00:37:24] So that’s when you have to go. Hey everybody, I gotta go. I gotta go get my daughter. Or Hey I, can’t be there for that weekend fun thing that you guys are doing as a team I do you mind speaking to a little bit about, that and how how you dealt with that experience? [00:37:42] Arit Amana: [00:37:42] Absolutely. So this was my first tech job. It was not, I have to say it now because of our reality, but it was in-person right. So this isn’t a remote job. And it was an hour from my home one way. And my daughter’s daycare was really close to my home, so I would drop her off and then I would drive into work. [00:38:03] And just like you said, Any child that starts daycare that first month they catch everything. They haven’t been exposed. And yeah, so my daughter was catching everything that just flew by. And just like you said, if your child is running a fever or they have a raging, snotty nose and coughing, they’re not going to keep the child in the daycare. [00:38:26] So you have to come and get your child. And so with my company it was an onsite job. We were not. Even though we had times when the engineers would work remotely, we were not designed for remote work. And so I’m brand new. I’m a brand new developer, I’m a brand new employee. I’m still learning. And I just started working, so I don’t have any time. [00:38:53] I don’t have any PTO saved, but my daughter’s sick and I need to work from home. And so it was very challenging. Just because our system wasn’t designed with remote first in mind, I was. Not intentionally, but just left out of a lot of things. I didn’t feel like it because I’m still building a connection with my teammates. [00:39:14] So I didn’t feel that connection of having to work from home with my sick daughter. And then I’m also a new developer. And so I’m learning a lot of the technology is new to me, not just even the technology, but the systems and the The, the way that they did things, right? Like the conventions, that’s the word I’m looking for. [00:39:33] A lot of the conventions were still very new to me, so it was really challenging. And, then just feeling the guilt as well. And that’s something that I’ve blogged about. And I talk about it sometimes as parents, when we have to be parents. While being professionals, we feel guilty. I would feel guilty for having to be home with my daughter who was sick. [00:39:59] And so that was just mentally. That was a challenge as well. So just waiting through all of that. And then I was the only mother in the engineering department. I was the only parent on my team. I was the only woman on my particular team. And so the added layer of. Not really feeling like my teammates got it. [00:40:16] It was rough. I have to say it was rough. I got through it. I tried to focus. I tried not to make conclusions that were not obvious, cause we do a lot of that where Oh this person called a meeting and didn’t remember I was remote. Oh, they must not want me there, always that opportunity to take things. [00:40:41] Or than what it really is. And so I just focused on just being the best developer you can, if you’re left out of a meeting, catch up with what they said I just mentally just chose, just focus on the job. Do the best you can. And once your daughter gets better, you’ll be back in the office. [00:40:59] Like things like that. Yeah. But it was rough. Yeah, [00:41:02] Frederick Weiss: [00:41:02] That stuff’s very real and very valid. You talked about guilt, it’s guilt about not being out of the office. There’s also a lot of guilt from the other way where you’re like, Oh, I need to be with my child or you get these sometimes we get calls or we get emails late at night and we have to jump on the machine and. [00:41:20] Break out and do things. And you’re like, sorry, I’ll be with you in a little bit and you got to do things because it’s work and you gotta you’ve got to take care of work, but also your child it’s I think it’s circling back with ageism and everything like that. [00:41:36] It’s hard for people to understand. And I think for me, sometimes I’m definitely a human being, I get frustrated and I do project my own emotions. Baggage, if you will, on people that may or may not be valid. And sometimes it can be frustrating and challenging, absolutely. But why don’t we, why don’t we jump into the next thing, which I’m super excited about is you were a founder of our time for tech.org. W what first off, what was the what was it, a Sega Genesis here? What w what made you what made you do this? Why did you start this? Let’s [00:42:16] Arit Amana: [00:42:16] hear it. We’re here to hear you say founder. [00:42:19] I’m still, it’s so funny. Everyone tells me are you’re a founder and I’m like, no I don’t feel like I fit in the mold. Like the traditional founder mode, but it’s okay. Okay. Our time for tech really came out of what I felt was needed in the tech. Or let me say I can say tech industry, but as an engineer, let me say also the Software Engineering industry. [00:42:46] I felt as though when I reflected over my journey and how I got to where I am, I realized that. I enjoyed a lot of privilege around having access to mentors, having access to people who had been there. Either, they’ve worked for many decades in the field. And so they have the benefit of that experience, or they’ve also transitioned from other careers into tech and are able to speak to that. [00:43:18] I felt like a lot of my confidence came from my connection to those people. And so I began thinking about how I could give back. So our time for tech really is giving back. And how can I either myself or leveraging my network, how can I make that same kind of support available to women who are making similar transitions, either coming from another career or mothers like myself wanting to transition a lot. [00:43:50] I hear from a lot of women who say, I want to get into tech because of the flexibility. Opportunity to work from home, the better pay. And so it really came from a desire to give back and to give what I was given. [00:44:10] Frederick Weiss: [00:44:10] Nice. Yeah. I want to read this piece that I pulled off the website and see what you say here. [00:44:17] So I founded. Our time for tech to give women what is often missing from bootcamps and other upskilling programs. So you say intimate, engaged and substain support. Do you mind diving into that and how that’s missing and how you’re providing that? [00:44:36] Arit Amana: [00:44:36] So you’re exactly right when I was conceiving our time for tech, I really did not want to just duplicate, duplicate what’s out there. [00:44:45] So bootcamps are great. I love the fact that boot camps are providing that opportunity to gain these skills in a relatively short period of time and get you job ready. That, that, wasn’t what I wanted to do. I know there’s career accelerators out there and their purposes through scientific means and tree training you with, for example, for Software Engineering, training you in algorithms, especially if you’re interested in the fan companies, they’re doing a fantastic job. [00:45:15] I wasn’t looking to duplicate that. And so for me, I want it to fill in the gaps. And so sometimes you can go through a bootcamp and you emerge with a great portfolio, but maybe you’re not really getting like that. Personalized and that targeted mentoring boot camps at the end of the day, they make money with higher enrollment. [00:45:41] And so at least for like in my bootcamp, we had one-on-one mentoring throughout. I know some boot camps it’s group based, and so the truth of the matter is yes, you’re getting the technical skills and you’re building the portfolio, but are you getting that personalized one on one target? [00:46:05] Support another gap that I discovered Frederick is a lot of times with boot camps, you are not doing a whole lot of group work. You’re not doing a whole lot of coding and building as a team. And so you are the judge, jury and executioner on all your projects, right? Like you decide scope. Like you’re, like a one man team and that’s good for learning, but I think another dimension of learning, especially as a Software Engineer, is learning how to build with a team. [00:46:34] And that was another gap that I was realizing, even with the bootcamp education and the self-taught, there weren’t that many opportunities to build software as a team. And so that’s another thing that we do in our time for tech. It’s okay, you have some coding skill, but like for example, we just got done with cycle two and we’re about to get done with cycle two. [00:46:57] I should say all our fellows, they never, they didn’t know how to use gifts. Or get a hub, pull requests. What is that? Cause you’re building a personal project and you just you just push to whatever branch you want. Like you ain’t come pull requests. And so I felt and at the end of the day, another thing I discovered Frederick is when you go in for those interviews and you’re able to demonstrate that you have that experience coding with the team you can speak to the nuances. [00:47:27] When you’re coding with a team, as opposed to just building your own personal thing, you end up exuding that confidence. And, so yes, you have the technical skill, but then you also convince the hiring manager that I can function as part of a team. So those are the gaps that I’m seeking to fill. I’m not really trying to copy what’s out there, which is, which has been done well and very well. [00:47:50] But I find that these are the gaps that are still persisting in the. In, the experience of women breaking into tech. And so that’s what we’re looking at. [00:48:03] Frederick Weiss: [00:48:03] That’s a lot of what you, you hear from HR departments, right? They’re always looking for people with experience. [00:48:10] Yeah. What, does experience mean? How do we quantify that? How can we define experiences? Experience just means, I I worked at someplace for two years. What does it mean? I have soft skills and I can work with the team. I’m not a crazy psychopath. I I, could talk to people and I could have a conversation and I could collaborate. [00:48:32] So a lot of times people will hire different individuals just because they could work for a team. And they’re easy to talk to when we’re at the office or at home. However, we’re we, working with people. We collaborate all day. And if you have somebody that is providing a lot of friction it’s difficult. [00:48:55] You just want to be able to, get things done and have somebody that’s just cool to talk to. And sometimes you could just teach skills. Yeah, it’s even there, there was a great example that Jeffrey Zeldman provided on our show a few weeks back where he talked about where he was working at someplace and they were letting people go and he was one of the first people to get, let go in his career because. [00:49:20] He might’ve known a little bit more than some of the other people and had a certain respect for these certain projects he was working on, but he wasn’t the easiest person to deal with in his younger years which he took to heart and was a great lesson for him. A lot of those things I think aligned with what you’re talking about is, having that kind of experience and being able to have those conversations. [00:49:44] That’s wonderful. [00:49:46] Arit Amana: [00:49:46] Even technical communication. So when you think about it, like with our current cycle too, it’s one thing to be able to code a feature. It’s another thing to talk through it. So another thing to explain what you did and enter questions and answer questions along the lines. Like I’ve spoken with. [00:50:04] Some of my mentees will tell me, Oh, I’ve had job interviews and say, we were talking about a project of mine where I integrated a payment processing like Stripe, for example, and they get questions, like, why did you choose Stripe? Why didn’t you go with this? Or they get questions. Why did Stripe appeal to you? [00:50:24] And they freeze. Because they never thought about it. They only implemented Stripe because the tutorial said to implement Stripe. And so that’s what I’m talking about. Gaps. That’s what I mean by gaps is yes, you’re gaining right? These hard technical skills. You’re learning to code you’re following tutorials. [00:50:42] You’re completing boot camps, but are you really. Thinking about what you’re building. And do you have opportunities to communicate what you’re learning? Because it’s what you communicate in your interviews that gets you the job, not necessarily what you’ve done. And that’s what I learned. I think there’s a mindset out there that just because you have a portfolio of 10 kick-ass projects, that doesn’t mean you will get the job. [00:51:09] If they ask you questions about what you built and you don’t have that confidence or that sense of ownership. To talk confidently about what you built. They could conclude that. You really don’t know this stuff, but you do. And so that’s it huge gap that I see and that’s what I’m trying to meet through our time for tech is creating a space where women breaking into tech con can come and learn these soft skills, learn how to communicate technically about what they’re building participate in a stand up, participate in a sprint planning. [00:51:42] When your colleague makes a pull request, how do you review code? Not just write code, but how do you review other people’s code? Can you get to a point where you understand what this person was trying to do and, go in and either affirm it or come up with a different approach and suggest it, and then the communication piece as well. [00:52:07] And so I’m talking about the code collap track. We have better prep, which is for job seekers in particular. But, yeah, we’re just, we’re looking to fill the gap. Is, what we’re looking to do and be like augmenting all the resources out there that are available for people breaking into tech. [00:52:32] Yeah. [00:52:33] Frederick Weiss: [00:52:33] Yeah. W it’s just, like you said you, come out and have some of these camps and you don’t know how to talk to people, don’t know how to talk to them, or they don’t know how to sell their ideas. Like you said, You say why did you use this font here? Or why are you using view instead of, I don’t know. [00:52:55] Yeah, I dunno it doesn’t sell it to the C levels. You can have some kind of reason behind it, but Hey we’re getting really close to the end and I just want to make sure that I put up some links and. Promote all the places where people could find you. So you’re on Twitter with your name, LinkedIn. [00:53:15] Your website is art.dev. Obviously our time for tech.org. And if you go to art. Developer and get hub and you got some of your stuff. And I love this recent video that I brought up with GitHub about because you showed just recently how people could actually do it, set up a project, and bring it to your local cloning. [00:53:41] And I think a lot of people are just. Really afraid sometimes to one open a terminal or that they might not even know about tools. Like what, is it a tower, forget. Or some of those LaSeon thumbs from their tools like that, that you can do, [00:54:01] Arit Amana: [00:54:01] right? [00:54:02] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I started a YouTube channel. It’s so funny. I’m not. I appreciate everything but I’m not doing it for likes. I really started, my YouTube channel really is for representation because when I, YouTube is like a wonderful resource for people breaking into tech. [00:54:21] There’s just so many tutorials and videos. The more I got into it, the more I saw that there’s just not a whole lot of technical content being done by black. Older women. And so that’s one of the reasons why I decided to start putting out what I’m learning and how I’m growing technically on YouTube. [00:54:43] And really just, show that we’re out here doing this and you can too. [00:54:48] Frederick Weiss: [00:54:48] Yeah. Yeah. W we, all need to be out there. The more people that we could get out to, to communicate our voice it’s, hard being a if you don’t see people that are like, you like-minded look like you or, your age and what have you, all these things it’s, inspiring to be able to see that and say, yeah, you know what? [00:55:09] I could do that too. We, we all need role models and mentors and that, that, line of inspiration. What right at the end of the show. And I love to present our guests with an opportunity to leave us with some parting words of wisdom. And I’m sure people ask you all the time too, about things about Hey tricks and tips for moms, et cetera. [00:55:34] Which one of the things I know you said is. It’s taking your time and you definitely reiterated that early on in the beginning of the show about you’re finding a bootcamp that you were able to take your time with, but I’d love to provide you again with an opportunity for some parting words of wisdom. [00:55:51] Arit Amana: [00:55:51] Yeah. What I will say is if you are, so let’s look at it from what I was able to accomplish, right? If you are seeking to break into Software Engineering I think the best thing I can advise is. Approach it with an almost militant mindset, right? So there’s a lot of sexy stories out here there’s you, check on YouTube, how I broke into tech in three months, two months, five weeks, and these stories are sexy and they’re inspiring. [00:56:22] And they make you feel like I can do this. But I think you really do yourself a service to get over the emotional aspect of your decision and really Approach the the process with a disciplined and an almost militant mindset and really take stock of what you have available to you. [00:56:45] What privilege. Do you enjoy that you can leverage? And what I mean by that is whether it’s financial, whether it’s in terms of support, whether it’s in terms of what you have access to, who you have access to take a good inventory of what you have at your disposal, and really think about how making your journey will impact not just your life, but the lives of those in your your family or your community or whoever you’re connected to. [00:57:16] And I think when you slow down , you plan accordingly. I think when the roadblocks come up and when the challenges come up, you are prepared to push your way through them. Another thing I’ll also say is, do not wait to network. Networking is as easy as I use my Twitter. Yeah. Primarily for professional reasons. [00:57:41] And so it’s just as easy as following people. If their DMS is open, ask them questions, get yourself on the radar of people in the industry and start networking. Because it’s really invaluable to be able, I call it standing on the shoulders of benevolent giants. Okay, not the wicked ones. You have people who will never give you a leg up to save their life. [00:58:04] But for the most part, people are helpful. And so take advantage of that. Take advantage of people’s Goodwill and their desire to help, but be as deliberate as you can surround yourself with support, whatever time you think it will take you to complete your transition, triple it, manage your expectations. [00:58:23] Think if you manage your expectations, you will be better equipped to To push your way past the challenges that come up and you reach your goals. [00:58:34] Frederick Weiss: [00:58:34] I love that. And also, Jessica is also appreciating what you’re saying. Thank you, Jessica. Great interview and advice. Thank you so much, Jessica, for watching and really appreciate it. [00:58:44] Yeah. That’s that? That’s such great advice because if you don’t talk to people they might not know who you are or where you are or what you’re doing. Yeah that’s, awesome, Eric. Dang. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us and coming on again. I know it’s a Saturday. [00:59:03] It’s not the easiest thing for us, for everyone to do so really, [00:59:07] Arit Amana: [00:59:07] appreciate it. I really appreciate it, it’s an honor. It’s an honor. And I’m humbled to be asked. So that hasn’t been asked to be on your podcast, Frederick, and you all have been great, not just the actual session that we just had, but even the follow-up and the checking in you guys have been very compassionate and very cha you know, crossing all the T’s and dotting all the I’s. [00:59:30] So I want to recognize that you’re doing this and you’re doing it well, so thank you. Thank you [00:59:35] Frederick Weiss: [00:59:35] very much. I appreciate that. All right. Before I start crying. Thanks everybody for joining the show. Really appreciate it. And we’ll see you next time. Thanks [00:59:43] Arit Amana: [00:59:43] all. Thanks everyone. Thank you,

In this episode, we get to speak with Joey deVilla: Tech Evangelist, Author, Senior R&D Content Engineer, and rock and roll accordionist. We discuss Joey’s new job at Auth0, what it takes to be an R&D Content Engineer, and an array of super cool technologies. ✨ Episode Sponsor Auth0: https://auth0.comAuth0 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/auth0Auth0 on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/auth0Auth0 Avocado Labs online meetup events: https://avocadolabs.dev/ 🔗 Episode Links Twitter: https://twitter.com/accordionguyLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeydevilla/Global Nerdy: https://www.globalnerdy.com/Joey deVilla’s Personal Blog: https://www.joeydevilla.com/Previous episode – Jupyter Notebooks & Accordions with Joey deVilla: https://www.thundernerds.io/2019/02/jupyter-notebooks-accordions-w-joey-devilla/iOS Apprentice: https://www.raywenderlich.com/books/ios-apprentice/v8.3/Carole Baskin of Tiger King Launched a Cryptocurrency: https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/news/carole-baskin-makes-her-own-cryptocurrency-with-nftsHenry Petroski’s books: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=henry+petroski&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss_2“How to Solve It” by George Polya: https://www.amazon.com/How-Solve-Aspect-Mathematical-Method/dp/4871878309/ref=sr_1_3The developer world of Okta and Auth0: https://auth0.com/blog/developers-explore-okta-auth0/Korg i3 Music Workstation: https://www.korg.com/us/products/synthesizers/i3/Host: Frederick Weiss: https://twitter.com/frederickweiss 📜 Transcript Frederick Weiss: [00:00:00] I am Frederick Philip von Weiss, thank you so much for consuming the Thunder Nerds, a conversation with the people behind the technology that love what they do, and do tech good. And speaking of doing tech good, we have an amazing sponsor. We have Auth0. Let’s talk a little bit about them and we’ll get into why that’s a funny and a little bit, but Auth0, they make it easy for developers to build a custom secure and standard-based unified logins by providing authentication and authorization as a service, you can try them out now at Auth0.com. [00:01:25] Also, you could go to their sites that follow the same pattern on social media. We have YouTube.com/Auth0. Also, Twitch.tv/Auth0, and we have the developer playground and a cool, super cool events at the avocadolabs.dev. So check them out there. That’d be super cool of you. [00:01:49] And please, if you can go to the YouTubes and subscribe, subscribe to the show, click the notification bell and get seven years of good luck. We would really appreciate that. And let’s get to our guest. [00:02:09] We have a very special guest today. We have a tech evangelist, author, senior R&D content engineer, and rock and roll according player,  the rock and roll according guy himself. Joey deVilla. Welcome back to the show. Joey, super appreciate you being here with us today. [00:02:31] Joey deVilla: [00:02:31] Always glad to be here and you know what I do love. [00:02:34] I do love that show intro that you have. [00:02:38] Frederick Weiss: [00:02:38] Thanks, man. Really appreciate it. Yeah, we work hard at our intros. Yeah. [00:02:43] Joey deVilla: [00:02:43] It warms my eighties, child heart. Yeah. [00:02:48] Frederick Weiss: [00:02:48] The thunder cats were the best. And I don’t know if you’ve seen, but they actually have some alternative versions now. [00:02:54] Like they have a little kid version where it’s all funny, all new goofy, like stuff on Cartoon Network. Like you do all that. And it’s super cute too. It’s a lot [00:03:05] Joey deVilla: [00:03:05] of [00:03:05] Joey deVilla: [00:03:05] fun. I have not seen it. I’ll have to check. I’ll have to check it out. And of course, God loved the revenge of the nerds reference as well. [00:03:13] Always classic. Exactly. A [00:03:16] Frederick Weiss: [00:03:16] Great, movies. If you don’t know those, maybe don’t go back and watch them because the, probably not up to date and probably not, but they were funny for the time and there’s a lot of stuff that’s Oh, it’s cringy. But yet, anyways, if you grew up on a, you grew up Hey man, welcome back to the show. [00:03:33] I think you’ve been on the Thunder Nerds now for 333 times we first met at a dev Fest somewhere on the moon with a new Armstrong. I’m not sure either one is, probably right. What have you been up to? I love to know how things have been going and obviously with the vids, the COVID is going on, how has that affected your life? [00:03:58] You can’t travel. How’s business going? a big question. Go for it. [00:04:04] Joey deVilla: [00:04:04] Tricky. All right. COVID yeah, COVID presented a few challenges, not the least of which is that last April my job evaporated. So I was doing mobile app development and they had to cut the staff by quite a bit. [00:04:22] And does one of the newer people? Yeah I just got cut. What I did was I decided, okay. That did give me time to finish a book. For https://www.raywenderlich.com. I was in the middle of revising a book. In half of the book I have a book called iOS Apprentice and it is a beginner’s guide to the iOS program. [00:04:48] So I was taking care of the half of the book that covered Swift UI programming, which is the new framework for developing apps in general for Apple products. So unlike the old way, which was more like the visual basic visual nineties visual tool way where you drag controls into a window and then attached code to those controls you were now doing you are now doing it a little more declared. [00:05:19] You were declaring the actual UI in code and doing it declaratively. If you program in row react, you’re going to find it really familiar. So it’s a little more modern way of doing it because the way that you were doing it before you-I, can’t be that comes from the seventies. [00:05:43] There’s really, it’s not that STEM, okay. Yeah. It, yeah, it is that old it goes off that’s, that, that small talk stuff it was, cutting edge in the seventies, but it was, getting a bit old. And that’s why we do have these declarative reactive frameworks now where you’ve got you’ve got these user interfaces that keep track of a state. [00:06:07] And then if you wanna, if you want if I were Johnny Cochran, I would just say, if you want to update, change the state, that kind of thing. That would be my rapport. It, but yeah, that’s the thing is that now now we want reactive declarative UIs where. The user interface actually properly models the underlying data, whereas beforehand we always had to do it if we always have to check. [00:06:31] Oh yeah. Did I change that variable? Oh, I better update that thing on the screen. And you often forgot. [00:06:37] Frederick Weiss: [00:06:37] Is it easy for people to understand the value here, Joey, like a you’re explaining it and it sounds crystal clear, but is there somebody that’s picking this up and taking a look and going, ah, I really liked the old way. [00:06:53] I was doing things with less friction. I’m going to keep on the path that I’ve been taking. I know the roads. I know how to get there in five minutes. Like how does that work? You know what, that, that [00:07:04] Joey deVilla: [00:07:04] happens anyways, right? You’ve got people who you’ve got people who still say, you know what, I’d rather program in C very straightforward. [00:07:14] C has less than 40 keywords. Nice and simple. Like even the latest version of C unite. Actually it’s probably not C 99 anymore it doesn’t have that many keywords. It’s really straightforward. We figured out it does a lot. It runs on everything. Why would I need to learn one of these crazy new fangled programming languages, it does happen. [00:07:38] And if you can continue programming in a language from 1970, that’s where C’s from. And it works for you, especially if you’re in the world of embedded devices or you’re contributing to the Linux kernel or you’re writing video games and you can still do it. [00:08:00] Yeah. All the more, power can get all the good object oriented goodness that we have in modern languages in C. You’re creating strucks with function pointers. Those are your methods. And then you’ve got variables in those drugs. Those are your, those are your properties. [00:08:20] You can do it. If you’re programming in GTK, that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re just building all these strucks with function, pointers and variables. And you’re doing object oriented programming that way. [00:08:33] Frederick Weiss: [00:08:33] Yeah. There’s always some way to do a thing, a hundred different ways. I still know people that build design websites and Photoshop or whatever. [00:08:44] Hey, the results are the results and if they’re great, Good for you. How do you communicate the value then to, to people like when, you’re selling this what, do you talk about first? [00:08:58] Joey deVilla: [00:08:58] In that, in such a case, what I do is I end up talking with them about a real life problem they’ve occurred. [00:09:05] And I would say something like when you get the notification badge on an icon for, I know your email. And he goes, Oh, Hey, you’ve got two emails or you got two messages and you click on it. And it turns out that you didn’t have two messages. It’s just that the UI was really slow and updating that number. [00:09:26] And you were getting an update from minutes or hours ago. And I would point out there, see that is where a declarative reactive UI comes in really handy because the UI is always modeling. What’s what, the underlying data actually contains. You didn’t have to, you didn’t have to run some extra code, go, Oh yeah, I better check this variable. [00:09:52] And then display that value somewhere on the UI. That’s already been taken care of. That’s already been taken care of for you. It is less error prone. You guess what? You’re doing less, you’re doing less extra work now. You’re not doing as much yak shaving anymore. I don’t know. They used to use that term a lot. [00:10:14] Like the Eric Raymond’s hackers ditch, the jargon handbook, the hacker diction. Yeah. He used to use the term yak shaving all all the time that’s where Brennan’s, that’s a Renton Stimpy reference. One of the best shows ever. Oh yeah. [00:10:34] Frederick Weiss: [00:10:34] I never even heard of a place where you could buy rubber nipples until that show. [00:10:38] So yeah. [00:10:40] Joey deVilla: [00:10:40] Did you and your grandmother [00:10:41] Frederick Weiss: [00:10:41] how to suck eggs? Yeah. This is a funny show. Not appropriate for children. I [00:10:45] Joey deVilla: [00:10:45] don’t think probably not, but yeah. Anyways, I was working on that portion of the book, the new way to program a program, the iPhone. And then the other thing I did was I was also doing some teaching on behalf of the computer coach. [00:11:02] They were offering a lot of courses and I think there was some government stimulus money for it because some of these courses were really expensive and these people. I think the students were able to attend for free or greatly reduced rates and they wanted to pivot to learning some programming. [00:11:20] So I thought I taught two two Python courses and a JavaScript course. And also at the same time while it was still around, I also took a course and managed to get some funding as well. So I gotta take it at a greatly reduced rate. I took a security course six weeks and six weeks at the place that used to be called the undercroft. [00:11:45] They now go by the name neon temple. And it was security training from people who actually work in the security industry. [00:11:55] Frederick Weiss: [00:11:55] Oh, that must’ve been super cool. I’m sure you picked up a ton from that. [00:11:59] Joey deVilla: [00:11:59] Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I have, you know what? I knew how to do it, theoretically, I’ve never, I never actually performed a dictionary attack or a. [00:12:09] Or let’s see, no DDA. Yeah, Or just set up a DDoSs or just look yeah. All that stuff. [00:12:16] Frederick Weiss: [00:12:16] What was the coolest thing you learned from that? [00:12:19] Joey deVilla: [00:12:19] Ooh, that’s tricky actually. [00:12:23] Frederick Weiss: [00:12:23] Just one of them maybe, not the most, let’s not say the quintessential thing, but one of the really cool things. [00:12:29] It was a [00:12:29] Joey deVilla: [00:12:29] big [00:12:30] Joey deVilla: [00:12:30] pro it was a big burrito of cool. I guess some of the coolest stuff was, I got to see a, I got to see a pony Gotzsche in action. Are you familiar with those, right? [00:12:42] Frederick Weiss: [00:12:42] No, I’m not. It [00:12:43] Joey deVilla: [00:12:43] is a raspberry PI zero that is specifically set up for all kinds of all kinds of hackery things, including wifi sniffing and incredibly cute. [00:13:02] If anybody’s listening to the podcast, go look it up. Pona Gotzsche with phone spelled as pwn and the Gotzsche part like Tamagotchi. [00:13:11] Frederick Weiss: [00:13:11] I love the Tamagotchi. I got my cat to leave. I trained it all the way and one day left the nest. It’s pretty cool. I cried a little bit when I was 19, but I still miss that calf, but man, that’s awesome. [00:13:23] Good for you. What, let me ask you, what was the what was it, what was the sake of Genesis a, that, that made you write this? What w why? [00:13:32] Joey deVilla: [00:13:32] The, a, which the book or the, yeah, the book. Sorry. Yeah, [00:13:35] Frederick Weiss: [00:13:35] I’m going back to the book. [00:13:36] Joey deVilla: [00:13:36] Oh, going back to the book. Okay. Actually the book, this is, this would have been the eighth edition of this book. [00:13:44] So it’s been published for a good long time. But the other thing is I actually feel fondness and loyalty for this book because it is the book. Where I used to learn iOS programming a much earlier edition. I’ve been writing articles every now and again for https://www.raywenderlich.com. And when the opportunity came up to be an author for the book, I said, look, I wanna do this. [00:14:12] Because well, one, it would be absolute fun, but two, I I want to pay it back. I learned from this book. So I would like to contribute to the latest edition of this book so that someone else will learn from this book. That’s so cool. [00:14:28] Frederick Weiss: [00:14:28] It must have felt like such a, such an honor and a joy [00:14:31] Joey deVilla: [00:14:31] to be able to do that. [00:14:32] Oh yeah, absolutely. And the other thing of course is that this is the flagship book that Ray Wender likes to publish. They have a whole bunch, but this was their first book, and I actually, in the interview, the land, the author shift job, because they did, they still did interviews. They wanted to make sure that they were picking the right person for it. [00:14:50] I basically said, look, if this. If all the books you publish are the Marvel cinematic universe. If all your books are the Ray winder, lik cinematic universe, this book is Iron man one. And, yeah. I feel very special about this book because it’s about a hired man. Oh, that’s so cool. [00:15:11] Frederick Weiss: [00:15:11] And again, for the audio listeners, we’ll put links in the show notes. [00:15:14] So where can somebody find out about the book? [00:15:16] Joey deVilla: [00:15:16] Okay. We can find out about the book@raywenderlick.com and it’s a tricky name to spell, so yeah, definitely check the show notes. Yeah. [00:15:26] Frederick Weiss: [00:15:26] We’ll put a link in there and and yeah, that’s so cool. So why don’t we, why don’t we talk a little bit really about the topic of the show, about the whole thing with, all zero, about how you got the job? [00:15:44] You did some research, maybe you, looked at some people on this. I [00:15:50] Joey deVilla: [00:15:50] did some research. Why didn’t I get that first? Okay. First of all, this job does not I owe you guys some beers that I like [00:16:01] Frederick Weiss: [00:16:01] the beers, [00:16:01] Joey deVilla: [00:16:01] because actually, yeah this, job does not exist with that, but under nerds. [00:16:07] Nice tip. Okay. And the reason for that is I used I use this for research when when I was it’s not auditioning, but when I was getting set up to talk to Auth0, I had a plan to land a job because they were advertising this content engineer job, which looked like it would fit me to a T. [00:16:29] So I figured I should do my research. I should find out who is the same, who in the same department works at all zero, what they do, what they’re like, that sort of thing. And you had to. Have you had two people from what is now the developer marketing department as guests. So you have, you had Sam Julene that’s right. [00:16:54] And Sam let’s see, he’s now head of developer relations. That’s right. Okay. And you also have James. Yeah. Yeah. Both of whom? Both of whom I work with now. So that was great. I listened to their interviews at least twice. I’m pretty sure. And took some notes and made sure that I and I internalized and figured out a few things from what they said so that I would know what to say when it was my turn to be interviewed. [00:17:26] So it was really handy. So yes big, debt of gratitude to the thunder nerves. If you want a job, listen to Thunder Nerds. That’s. [00:17:35] Frederick Weiss: [00:17:35] I tell a lot of people that all the time yeah. Thanks, Joe. I appreciate that. So, you, you interview for the job you go in, you get the job and now you are doing some R&D, which most people know what the term is a I’m sure some people think it stands for rivers and dams and something about streams, but maybe you could communicate what R&D is and the value of warranty w what you’re doing there. [00:18:03] Joey deVilla: [00:18:03] Okay. R&D means research and development, and it is what drives it is what drives the industry forward. But it’s interesting because of course it does mean all sorts of things. In this case, it just means that I am constantly researching and developing new ways to reach developers. [00:18:29] And talk to them about a couple of things. One of which is programming software programming, software development, whatever you want to call it in general. And then also if you’re interested in this sort of thing, let me tell you about this authentication and authorization service that I happen to be able to hook you up with. [00:18:53] Ah that’s that, that, that sort of thing. And it’s and it is both simultaneously and interesting and boring product at the same time. And that’s just simply because it’s interesting because it’s computers, computer security, this sort of thing is a vital component of most applications these days, but it’s boring because in the end you’re thinking what you mean logins. [00:19:28] That sort of thing, but it’s something that you don’t do under most circumstances, I would say 99.9, 9% of cases, it’s probably something that you don’t really want to build yourself anymore. Just why would you choose a service? I used to serve as that for everything. That’s it? Just as you don’t go to the woods to chop down a tree, so you can get the wood to make a door. [00:19:53] Instead you go to home Depot and you buy a standardized door. And ideally I ideally they’re constantly researching and improving doors all the time as well. I would hope, yeah. Especially here in Florida you’ve got these hurricane rated doors that sort of thing, and they’re standardized and it’s not, and they actually interface well with standard size door knobs and locks. [00:20:20] Yeah. That is the same day. That is the same deal with Auth0. We are using specific standards, like open ID connect and open off 2.0. And at the same time we’re putting these standards together in a way that makes it easy for you to use. So you don’t have to worry so much about the authentication part of your application. [00:20:47] You can worry about what the main thing your application does. Yeah. [00:20:55] Frederick Weiss: [00:20:55] Yeah, that the exam took the words out of my mouth. Yeah. Being able to delegate your time, as far as I’ll just use this, rather than spending X amount on that, I really need my application to do X, Y, and Z, or my website. What have you. [00:21:13] And, then being able to depend on that and even more validity to the, to be, to talk about how amazing office zero is. There’s a, new component to everything now that I believe you could talk about, there’s a, something that rhymes with the word  acquisition [00:21:35] Joey deVilla: [00:21:35] It’s like our acquisition Boom. [00:21:40] Frederick Weiss: [00:21:40] What Ryan’s what’s an acquisition. Tell me, Joey, what, what happened? [00:21:44] Joey deVilla: [00:21:44] Okay. Frederick went to companies like each other very much. [00:21:50] Frederick Weiss: [00:21:50] They, have a special hug and [00:21:53] Joey deVilla: [00:21:53] it’s formed [00:21:58] fast. The love. Okay both there is a company called Okta and they are a good deal, larger and a little bit older than we are. I believe Okta’s out. The origin story starts in about 2008, 2009, and they are also in the business of authentication and authorization, but in a slightly different area. [00:22:26] In fact they aren’t in. I mean they’re real bread and butter actually is employee authorization. So if you are a company and of course, you’ve got you, you’ve got all your standard company software and you want your employees to be able to log into those systems. You are using you’re basically using employee authorization and that is something that they Excel at. [00:22:56] So there are these large fortune 500 fortune, two 50 fortune 100 companies who do who, whose employees log in using Okta. So Okta’s particular market is the C-suite, the CTO chief technical officer and the CIO, the chief sci. So the chief information security officer. So that’s the market they target, but that’s, and that is a pretty big market. [00:23:25] Whereas OD zero on the other hand basically is going after milkers, who are building apps who want to provide, we need to provide some kind of login authentication service. So we’re going we’re yeah. Our target market. We’re actually directly talking to developers. We’re the yeah, We’re the t-shirts and hoodies and they’re the blazers, they’re the blazers and loafers and together, we are what we are forming the mullet of identity for the win for the net. I love that mullet of identity business in the front party, in the back. Ah, there we go. [00:24:09] Okay. Gotcha. [00:24:10] Frederick Weiss: [00:24:10] I was thinking about some kind of transformer, but I liked the mullet analogy, which I always do. Got it. [00:24:18] Joey deVilla: [00:24:18] That’s awesome. So yeah [00:24:20] Frederick Weiss: [00:24:20] you have a bright future I’m sure ahead. There must be some crazy exciting plans for the two to three year down the road and what that’s going to look like, being able to. [00:24:34] Serve all these different levels of clients from what you said with the programmers to enterprise, I’m sure. Yeah, that’s amazing. [00:24:46] Joey deVilla: [00:24:46] Yeah. And it’s going to be, it’s going to be really interesting and what’s going to happen at least in the very short term. In fact, actually, is that what customers, new customers may come up to one company or the other and go, I need this. [00:25:03] And our sales teams will take a look and go, you know what? Our buddy here is probably better suited to you and vice versa. So what’s going to happen is now, in certain cases, people are going to go up, to us and say, I need this. And then somebody is going to go no, you need employee authentication, go here. [00:25:25] Or on the other hand, somebody is going to go, you know what you need. You need application per user level application authentication. Yeah. You want, you, you want the office zero side of the company or often, or maybe a, in some cases an organization might need both, [00:25:44] Frederick Weiss: [00:25:44] but no, I was going to ask you that question, like what happens for your existing customers on both sides, right on the left and the right of the same body. [00:25:55] Is there very advantageous things that come along with this, where they go, Oh wow. Now I get this and now I get that on both sides, [00:26:07] Joey deVilla: [00:26:07] right? Yeah. If they were buying, if they were buying a specific service things continue, as normal. It’s just that the catalog got bigger. [00:26:18] It’s like going to Amazon and suddenly finding double the page, double the agents. Yeah. Sure. [00:26:24] Frederick Weiss: [00:26:24] Wow. That’s amazing. Does this change your role in any way or now, are you doing it for, are you doing R&D for both entities or obviously it’s going to be the same entity. I’m sure it’s like a plan down the road to a [00:26:42] Joey deVilla: [00:26:42] gather, looks like a short term, same entity, because a lot of it is still figuring out what the other half of the organization can do. [00:26:54] And a lot of that re a lot of that requires a lot of that just requires a lot of conversations between our counterpart, our counterparts on the other side. And that’s just going to take time planning a little bit of execution. Some of it has already happened. So we’ve had you mentioned earlier at the start of the show during the sponsor message yet the, zero Twitch channel. [00:27:23] Earlier today we had a joint show off your projects. Show off your personal projects? Twitch session. Oh, that’s fun. Some people, some people from Okta developer relations and some people from all zero developer relations and the included, and we were just, showing up for various projects. [00:27:46] Yeah. And we’re, just beginning, we’re just beginning to get to know each other by sheer coincidence. It turns out I knew someone from Okta dev REL because we both at one point worked at Microsoft, so it was nice and it was Joelle’s friend USAC back from it. [00:28:10] I knew him back from his Bismark days at Microsoft when I was a developer evangelist there and I was trying really hard to make Windows phone happen. I tried, I [00:28:20] Frederick Weiss: [00:28:20] did my part. Yeah, there you go. I like some of the windows technology. I still have a Zune. [00:28:26] Joey deVilla: [00:28:26] Oh, yeah. Okay. You know what, when I moved from Toronto, I had to get rid of a lot of stuff, but I did sell my Zunes to somebody who I know is taking very, good care of them. [00:28:38] And actually it was the last Zune, the Zune HD, the one with a windows phone, like interface. In fact they hadn’t told me about windows phone seven yet, but I remember playing with the Zune HD and I was going, why do, they not just wrap a phone around this? This could be something. [00:28:55] And it turns out it was already in the works. [00:28:58] Frederick Weiss: [00:28:58] Isn’t that funny? How that, happens [00:29:01] Joey deVilla: [00:29:01] That, that, happens a lot. And that’s what that’s what you get. That’s what you get used to it began to slowly Dawn on me that that of course, and this is just a natural consequence of acquisitions is that Okta knew about the plan long before even the highest level people at all zero did. [00:29:23] Sure, Yeah. That, that’s the way. Yeah. So yeah. So I am sure there are parts of the plate. There are parts of the plan that are not visible to me yet. And a good chunk of what’s going to make this year interesting. Aside from the constant acceleration of a post COVID, is that yeah. [00:29:48] Every, every day is going to be a little bit of a surprise. I don’t mind that it’s a lot of fun. And you know what after, sticking it home for about a year now. Yeah. I could use a couple of surprises. Good surprises. [00:30:04] Frederick Weiss: [00:30:04] Are you going crazy for the first off? Let me ask you, did you get your a.dot Cudi shots? [00:30:08] Did you get your Tuk two vaccines and what flavor did you get? You get a vanilla chocolate or [00:30:14] Joey deVilla: [00:30:14] Pfizer? Yes, I did. I got Pfizer. It was just down the street. Cause I live in Seminole Heights, hipster central. The Publix has Manbun Monday. Nice. Oh, I should go there. You should. But I am just down the street from the old Greyhound track and the old Greyhound track has been converted to a FEMA site, which means not only do I get a shot, but if you go there, you get a shot from the air force. [00:30:46] Bendix it’s the air force who are helping hustle people from from section to section. And they’re in uniform and they’re in full uniform because it’s a government because it’s a government. Yeah. Because it’s a government site. They figured they would get a government. Yeah. They would get government, crowd control people to shuffle you through it. [00:31:06] And they were quite efficient. If it weren’t for, yeah, like the actual getting processed and getting the shot and waiting. And waiting the 15 minutes after to make sure there weren’t any immediate adverse reactions was about 25 minutes also very efficiently run. They processed a lot of people. [00:31:27] The parking was a time-consuming thing. [00:31:31] Frederick Weiss: [00:31:31] Yeah. I bet everybody’s trying to get there and trying to get their shot. I went to the CVS and probably, I don’t even remember where it was like 45 minutes away from me. I just went anywhere. I was actually very lucky. [00:31:48] They were very professional. They got me in and out like that. It was the nicest experience as it could be. I’m pretty happy. Let me ask you, do you have, I know I do. I have a, I don’t know if I’m just paranoid if I just have meetup trepidation, but I’m still like I’m fully vaccinated. [00:32:07] I’m two weeks in. I’m still scared to go out in public, even though like they say Pfizer, it’s pretty good against the variants and et cetera, et cetera. I’m just, I I’m, I don’t know if I’m just shell shocked or I don’t want to see people anymore. I don’t [00:32:24] Joey deVilla: [00:32:24] know. Let’s put it this way. [00:32:28] You play D and D [00:32:30] Frederick Weiss: [00:32:30] I know of D and I have played it. I haven’t played it in a while. [00:32:34] Joey deVilla: [00:32:34] You have played D and D right? Yeah. Yeah. We used to [00:32:37] Frederick Weiss: [00:32:37] have a live D and D thing at my school Ringling school, the Ringling college of the arts, and then they would do like a D and D at midnight. [00:32:44] Joey deVilla: [00:32:44] Okay. So you’ve rolled the 20 sided die, right? Yes, sir. Okay. Here’s the thing, right? The Pfizer the Pfizer vaccine, 95% effective. It means 5% ineffective, just like miracle max from a princess bride mostly, Bodley alive. All Billy crystal. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. 95% effective means 5% ineffective. [00:33:10] That’s rolling. A one, any D and D player knows sooner or later that’s gonna happen. Yeah. That’s [00:33:17] Frederick Weiss: [00:33:17] why I’m, just, I’m spired is still [00:33:20] Joey deVilla: [00:33:20] 5%. So it’s still, a pretty good chance, still a pretty good chance. There’s also some vaccine hesitancy out there. I’m keeping an eye on how many people are getting their shots in the end at a certain point and I will listen to, and there are people I can listen to. [00:33:39] There is Dr. Fowchee and the rest of the CDC and I have an additional bonus and that is that my sister, Dr. Eileen Davila is the chief. She is the chief medical officer for health for the city of Toronto. Yeah. Cause [00:33:58] Frederick Weiss: [00:33:58] Your parents were both doctors and I forgot your sister went to the medical profession as well. [00:34:03] Joey deVilla: [00:34:03] So yeah. All municipal health issues are hers. Like I know what restaurants are not to be that nice in Toronto. So yeah, I yeah, I check up on her as well. So she’s got good recommendations. So in the meantime, yeah I’m I’m, still holding back. I have a couple of times I’ve gone to a restaurant to actually sit down, it was outdoors. [00:34:31] They were actually both in St. Pete. The new the new doc Ford’s the one it’s by St. Pete pier, the new St. Pete pier. It was really, yeah, actually both times they were restaurants. There, they were open air restaurants by Saint Pete beer. So outdoors I’ve had a couple of really small gatherings, like just two to three friends outdoors on my front lawn. [00:34:59] And that’s about it holding off until I’m holding off. But I don’t wanna. I’m hoping that let’s see how things go after. Say the 4th of July that they’re treating that as an arbitrary marker. Let’s see. Let’s see how things go, because one thing I want to bring back and maybe I can still do it. [00:35:19] Outdoors is a meetup where my wife and I run coders, creatives and craft beer. And it is just an excuse to get our geeky and creative friends together at seven, some brewery in Seminole Heights for beer and some food and conversation, and then run with that. Yeah. I greatly miss that and I would love to bring it back. [00:35:44] Frederick Weiss: [00:35:44] I, hope that happens very soon. That sounds great. I will definitely come, honestly, please invite me cause I will be there. Let me ask you a few more things. Cause I want to get to some, other things about music, but I really want to ask you for the people that that are interested in getting into R&D you I imagine you don’t you, don’t go to school for R&D you don’t come out of college and go, I’m going to do research and development. [00:36:15] You it’s, a thing, I guess it, it just progressively makes sense as you’re traveling through your career. So how does, one get into and get into that field and then how does one become successful for the people that are going out? This is the way I’m going. [00:36:36] Can you give me some tips, some ideas to help me improve my career journey and what when I’m thinking about how everything makes sense to me while I’m, going down this path. [00:36:49] Joey deVilla: [00:36:49] Okay. Let’s see. Now question loaded question. I can give you a dumb, short answer and then expand on it. [00:36:58] Frederick Weiss: [00:36:58] I love that. That sounds great. All [00:37:00] Joey deVilla: [00:37:00] right. And I guess the thing is what dumb short answer is, let’s say you find 20 bucks on the street. Would you buy doge going with it, just to see what happened and if your answer leans closer to yes. Then I would say maybe you do have that particular inclination towards R&D in this case that, that tendency to go let’s poke at it and see what happens. [00:37:28] Let’s let’s do a little bit of experimenting. Let’s see. What’s possible and it is and it is an interesting area to be in right now. Now, as far as R&D goes yet, that’s right. There is no there is no certificate program. There is no college major that is called R&D. [00:37:56] It comes, disguised in all sorts. It comes disguised as all sorts of things. Sometimes it comes disguised as engineering. Sometimes it comes disguised as computer science, but sometimes it comes disguised as philosophy. The idea is as long as you are expressing some kind of curiosity and willingness to experiment and put in the work You are you are cut out, you are cut out for R&D and if you want to play around, if you want to play around with things, especially new things, especially if you want to I’m a Canadian. [00:38:38] I’ve got to use the standard, or I’ve got to use the Canadian ism. You want to skate to where the puck is going now, where the puck is or has been. And one way in one way to think about it is let’s consider languages. Let’s consider what are considered the really popular languages right now. [00:39:01] Because you’re doing some development work, right? Yeah. All right. Which language? A little [00:39:07] Frederick Weiss: [00:39:07] bit of a JavaScript, CSS, HTML I play around with you, et [00:39:11] Joey deVilla: [00:39:11] cetera, et cetera. Okay. But JavaScript, right? Yeah. Okay. That’s a twenty-five year old language. Yeah. Okay. JavaScript 1995. If you are a.net developer, you are probably, you’re more than likely programming in C-sharp. [00:39:29] Yeah, 2000. It’s actually the newest of the mainstream languages, right? Damn Java, 1995 cold fusion actually here. It’s in use but cold fusion is either early nineties or late eighties. Can’t remember something like that. Yeah. I think it’s more nineties. Yeah. PHP 90, 1994 actually is still going. [00:39:58] Yeah, that’s right. Ruby 1995 and Python the super hot language. 1991. Yeah, Can we do yeah. Greta van Rossum was, were yeah. W without the first version in 1991, when I started working with it in 1999. Python 1.8, you still have to import the string module to work with strings. It wasn’t built in. [00:40:26] Yeah, but no, that’s funny. Yeah. Talking about lately are these is 2010 w the languages of the 2010s we have been, we are working with yeah. The languages that we’re using right now are, generally from the nineties or generally from the nineties. And they and they carry in, they carry with them. [00:40:53] Lessons learned from programming in the eighties. And a lot of them are from a time when, you know, at least home computers could not run some form of Unix because they required something ridiculously large. Some ridiculously large amount of disc space, like five whole megabytes so they would put it. [00:41:23] Yeah. So then these nineties languages are carrying a lot of baggage of eighties design and they were meant to, they were meant to, they were meant to solve problems that people would come up with in the eighties. In fact, one of the selling points of Java, the programming language was, Oh yeah. [00:41:43] Simple. Yeah, simple C plus syntax. That is the only time you’re ever going to hear those words in the same sentence that sort of thing. But there’s this whole new wave of 2010s languages and they have a few things in common, including things like they. They embrace. [00:42:06] You can use the really well as object oriented programming languages or functional programming languages. No semicolon most of them, no semicolons they figured that their compilers were smart enough to know when the end you’ve actually hit the end of a line. [00:42:25] Let’s see. Now they provide some declarative interfaces. A lot of them know a lot of them have optionals. In other words they know how to handle null types because now for years professors, car horror calls, knelt, he invented the null pointer, but he also calls it a billion dollar mistake. [00:42:46] It causes lots of problems. That’s what optionals are there for. Yeah, just all kinds of lovely new language features. And some of them you’ve seen before, some of the names you should be familiar with, there’s dark, there’s rust. Swift Coplin [00:43:06] Frederick Weiss: [00:43:06] typescript that I was trying to figure that yeah. [00:43:08] Yeah, there you [00:43:09] Joey deVilla: [00:43:09] go. Some other ones like there’s some other interesting ones like crystal, which is what, if you, what if you had a language with C speed, but Ruby syntax or ballerina? What if, the concepts of networks and concurrency were already built into the language? [00:43:34] What, if you could treat the network as a data type and that and that’s interesting because nowadays a lot of these old programming languages were designed when computers were not connected to the internet. We’re not connected to the internet all the time. [00:43:50] You have to get to fire up the modem and make the modem sound like [00:43:54] Frederick Weiss: [00:43:54] you to put your phone to the thing, just like in science, [00:43:58] Joey deVilla: [00:43:58] Yeah. And in fact, actually I know that there’s at least one old show. I think it’s Stargate where at the end, after the credits run, they’re trying to brag visit us at our website and they play the modern sound. [00:44:10] Frederick Weiss: [00:44:10] That’s awesome. [00:44:12] Joey deVilla: [00:44:12] While they print the URL on the screen. It’s really funny. That’s [00:44:16] Frederick Weiss: [00:44:16] awesome. I I was wondering if you ever hear that thing with the captain crunch whistle guy? Was that like a true story? Yeah, no, [00:44:27] Joey deVilla: [00:44:27] I have stories about him. Yes. I have met him. [00:44:30] Frederick Weiss: [00:44:30] Oh, you have? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. For the people who don’t know, there was a thing, like you could blow like this captain crunch whistle that came in the cereal box and you were able to get like, free internet or something like that. You were [00:44:43] Joey deVilla: [00:44:43] able to, make free calls before hacking something. [00:44:46] Yeah. Before hacking, there was something called freaking P H R E a K I N G and freaking a freaking his phone hacking. And the idea was to try and make free phone calls all over the world and the way he could do it was the phone systems controlled by tones. One of the tones I believe it gives you operator level control or something like that is a tone of 2,600 Hertz, which a giveaway whistle in captain crunch cereal happened to emit when you blew into it. [00:45:20] So John Draper tries, he makes himself the operator gives himself all kinds of free phone calls and becomes known to the world as captain crutch. [00:45:32] Frederick Weiss: [00:45:32] That’s so funny, just the random things like people to try. And you should track captain crunch, Berries are delicious. I want to get to this user comment here. [00:45:44] Todd Willoughby is asking for any R&D books that you could recommend and I’ll extend that to any resources that you think people should go out and take a look at. But if you could first address Todd’s question here about [00:45:59] Joey deVilla: [00:45:59] books, let’s see R&D R&D books, actually in the end, I would have to the R&D book, I would end up going with just as an arm, as a kind of way to prepare your mind to research to do R&D type work is Kent rivers for, I think is Greggor. [00:46:21] But my last name is Paul. Yeah. P O L Y a. Okay. The classic book called how to solve it. And it’s a book full of mathematical problems and and it’s like how many. How many bottles of a certain radius can you fit into a box, but there are all these mathematical conundrums, and then they explain how to solve these problems. [00:46:47] At the very least what it does is it teaches you an approach to problem solving. Any book that walks through some kind of methodical problem solving process is probably really helpful. There’s another author, I believe his name was Petrosky and somebody please correct me if I’m wrong. [00:47:09] He’s written a whole bunch of stuff about the way engineers think, and that is the way to do it. One thing to remember of course, is that what we are doing is not quite is, not, actually, shouldn’t actually be considered as a close, to science, which is just pure research, but engineering, which is basically. [00:47:32] Taking what we know of science or what we generally know and finding a way to apply it, to solve specific problems. And yeah, that that’s what I can recommend off the top of my head, but yeah, I think Petroski and polio or ni yeah, those are the two names that popped up to me immediately. [00:47:52] Frederick Weiss: [00:47:52] All right. [00:47:52] We’ll find that we’ll put a link in the show notes then. Yeah. I wanted to ask you’re aware of so many different technologies and obviously that’s part of your thing, part of your career what, actually gets you out of bed in the morning? What is your thing where you’re like, you know what I need, to learn about this. [00:48:15] I’m so passionate about this, whether it’s a new technology or old technology, but this is something that w when you get up, you’re like, I gotta find out more about this. Do you have something such as that kind of inspiration? Oh, [00:48:29] Joey deVilla: [00:48:29] yeah. And what I try to do is I try and hang on. I try to keep one of those things active at any given time in this particular case, actually right now, it is making sure that I’ve got a better understanding of letters. [00:48:51] Just because you know what it is it works on all sorts of platforms. Like most, a lot of people do think of it as a cross platform, mobile development, but it is also, it also works for cross platform web application development. And it is part of my it’s, it belongs either in the 20% part or the 10% part of my technology knowledge portfolio. [00:49:21] What I mean by that is that generally what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to keep my knowledge portfolio in. Three buckets like the way an investor would do where 70% is in pretty sure things 20% is in strong maybes and 10% is just way out there. Maybe it’s a bit of a long shot, but maybe it’ll pay off, but I want to study it because I’m interested and I find it interesting and I find it interesting. [00:49:51] And it’s the same way where an investor would go, yes, 70% in mutual funds, 20% in maybe this fancy fund and 10% in Carol Baskins do a crypto coin. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that. No, I haven’t heard that one big cat rescued a lady from a tiger. Just about a coin. Of course she did. [00:50:15] Why not? 2021. Yeah, exactly. That was, not on my 20, 21 bingo card, but that’s the thing highly good for her highly unpredictable these days. That we got me. That’s funny. Yeah. I’ll send you the link as you put it in the notes. Oh yeah. Please send me [00:50:38] Frederick Weiss: [00:50:38] the link. I need that in the show notes. [00:50:40] Hey we’re getting close to the end and I want to get to our next segment, which is music. [00:50:51] You have been getting, obviously you’re the accordion guy, but now you’d be getting into some different hardware. Do you mind explaining the new way you’re going down and maybe you could play some some music for [00:51:03] Joey deVilla: [00:51:03] us actually. It’s the old way I started off as a, I started off as a As an Oregon player, actually, we had an organ, we had an organ at home and I went to Yamaha Oregon school and in a fit of rebellion when I was either 17 or 18, because the only way out of gray, the grade three of the accordion school, this was the Yamato court in school was to finish the very meta-level. [00:51:32] Oh, sorry. Yeah, it was terrible. I did one last performance and yeah. Managed to get myself injected from the school after it. And that’s because they wanted you to sing and play at the same time. And I sang with the voice of weirdly gruesome from the Flintstones, the creepy guy whose house always had the cloud over it. [00:51:55] They were Frankensteiny and yeah, they were the goth. Yeah. Yeah. They were gothy and yeah, he had a wife named Cree Pella and. He would say, Aw, padlock, you look so nauseatingly beautiful this evening. Yeah. That Peter Ward voice. So I sang it. It was Barry Manilow’s weekend in New England and I sang it using that voice. [00:52:17] And they, soon as they said, they basically said, here’s your certificate? Don’t come back. That’s awesome. Yeah. By joining some bands I played some synth and I got into the coordinator simply because I was complaining to a friend that I cannot drag us out on the street. And he said, look, I’ve got an accordion in my basement. [00:52:37] Take it, you play it. I said, okay. So that’s how I ended up taking it up. One of the things I want to do is do more programming videos and I would like to have one. I want to have my own music in many ways. So I picked up a cord and three keys. Not sure you can see it in the back. It’s right behind me here. [00:53:02] Oh, there we go. Beautiful. It’s right behind me. Here. It is an arranger keyboard. It is probably the best bang for the buck. It is shockingly cheap for what you get. I do the sound of core keyboards I actually have. I actually kept my 1990 1 cent here. It’s a cord wave station and it’s a bit of a collector’s item now. [00:53:25] And yeah, I do. And yeah, I am working on it. I am working on playing some stuff that will end up in my programming videos and there’ll be a lay and accordion track on top of them. And I’ve been noodling around with the one rhythm setting on this thing that is as close as court dares to get to a very popular song without getting sued. [00:53:49] Every keyboard manufacturer who makes an accord mace has an arranger kind of abandoned box feature, always tries to include one pop song that probably somebody at the store can demo and go, Oh, I can start I can sound like the head of the moment. Sure. Yeah. [00:54:06] Frederick Weiss: [00:54:06] Let me get that [00:54:07] Joey deVilla: [00:54:07] Taylor Swift going. [00:54:08] Yeah, exactly. So you’re all [00:54:11] Frederick Weiss: [00:54:11] let’s hear it. And you get to [00:54:12] Joey deVilla: [00:54:12] play, [00:54:13] something. A quickly playing the song of the moment or I’ll play the setting of the moment. [00:54:19] Frederick Weiss: [00:54:19] Yes, please. And thank you. [00:54:29] Joey deVilla: [00:54:29] Let’s see if I can get it. [00:54:41] Is that coming across? I don’t, yeah, we can hear it perfectly, but here’s the close to copyright breaking park. [00:54:54] Oh, nice. It’s close. There’s the real part is actually, [00:55:08] yeah. So I’ve been having fun with that. I’m going to have to write a song called bad eye about Python. [00:55:15] Frederick Weiss: [00:55:15] Yes, please. That’s awesome. Nice. Hey Joey, we’re getting to the end of the show and I just want to provide two things first. I want to ask or actually I want to ask you if there’s The, this seems to be all the locations that people could find you a, Twitter, according guy. [00:55:34] I see a pattern here. Then, Oh, LinkedIn, Joey Davila. The global nerdery your blog are we to Villa and obviously all zero. Do you mind just quickly talking about global nerdery and what that is global nerdy. [00:55:49] Joey deVilla: [00:55:49] Okay. Global nerdy is my personal tech . My personal tech site has been up since 2006. [00:55:56] The name was randomly determined by a program that I wrote and two cows who I used to work for as their domain name, reseller. They used to have an API called name spinner. You could provide him with a bunch of words and it would spit back all these available domains that you might want to buy based on the great service back then. [00:56:17] Yeah. And I tested my own app by going, I need a name for my tech site. I think I threw in a nerd and one of the suggestions it sped up was global nerdy. And I thought, wow, that is like a Japanese video game. That’s a Japanese video game name. That sounds like a bad guy from metal gear. [00:56:43] W doesn’t have characters like sniper Wolf and I was a global nerdy. He might be evil hackers. I’m like, okay, I’m going to go with chicken. Yeah, [00:56:52] Frederick Weiss: [00:56:52] that’s a great name. [00:56:53] Joey deVilla: [00:56:53] Yeah. So I went with that and since then, I’ve just been writing about tech topics that are interesting, but the also, the thing I’ve been doing is I post a weekly list of tech, entrepreneur and nerd events centered in and around the Tampa Bay area as a service just telling people, Oh yeah, here’s what’s going on. [00:57:17] Currently. The list is for online events that have some kind of online feature. Eventually, once things get better, I will list all the events, even the in-person events. So check that out. And I also do a fair bit of yeah, I do a fair bit of writing about programming. I like to think that the best description of the time and date classes in Swift appear on that blog, go check it out. [00:57:46] Yeah. So that’s basically, what that blog is about. It’s trying to serve the tech community one way or the other. [00:57:53] Frederick Weiss: [00:57:53] I love it. And if you’ve had that blog for, a long time, you’ve been writing since 2006 in there, [00:58:00] Joey deVilla: [00:58:00] 2006 and the according guide blog, Joey davila.com has its 20th birthday, this November, 2001. [00:58:07] Oh, that’s [00:58:08] Frederick Weiss: [00:58:08] awesome. Congratulations. That’s so cool, man. Yeah, you’ve been doing it for awhile. Hey, we’re right about at the end of the show, next segments. [00:58:19] Words of wisdom. Joey, I want to ask you at, the end here, if you could provide our audience any kind of parting words of wisdom, any advice out there, anything you want to say floor is [00:58:30] Joey deVilla: [00:58:30] yours. Okay. For one we know what you can learn from history. We are just coming out from under a pandemics, look at the things that happened after previous pandemics especially now because think of the great play, which coincided with the invention nearly with the invention of the printing press. [00:58:57] And now think of the current plate that we’re under and how it coincides with relatively recent developments. It’s not exactly the same time, but close enough for rock and roll. This relatively recent development of ubiquitous, constantly network computing and where that fits in beyond that, the other bit of advice I’m gonna totally, I’m totally stealing from I believe it’s the Sikorsky helicopter company and in something, it was something that they had posted to a bulletin board, something about basically going look, look at the bumblebee. [00:59:35] Its weight distribution is all wrong. It’s wing sizes, all wrong. There’s no way it should fly, but it doesn’t know that. And it does it anyway. Do the same thing, be the bumblebee. I love that. That’s [00:59:47] Frederick Weiss: [00:59:47] awesome. Joey, thank you so much again for being on the show, as we said for a 333rd time, and I’m sure we’ll do it again. [00:59:59] Hopefully, we’ll be able to see you in the future, in the flesh at the next conference. And I’ll, I’m definitely taking you up on, on St. Pete coming down and having a habit of beer with you and definitely. And your wife. Yeah, that sounds [01:00:13] Joey deVilla: [01:00:13] great. [01:00:14] Joey deVilla: [01:00:14] All right, let’s go. Yes, please. [01:00:17] Frederick Weiss: [01:00:17] Thank you. Hey again for the Thunder Nerds, I am Frederick Philip von Weiss. [01:00:23] Thank you so much, everybody for watching. Sincerely appreciate it. And we’ll see you next time. Oh, hold on. I’ve got one comment, one comment. Oh, Todd. Thanks all. Hey, thanks Todd. Appreciate it.

In this episode, we get to speak with Dan Mall : Co-founder and CEO of Arcade, and Founder & CEO of SuperFriendly. We discuss the origins of SuperFriendly, Arcade, the “Get It Out of Your System‬” podcast, and more. ✨ Episode Sponsor Auth0: https://auth0.comAuth0 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/auth0Auth0 on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/auth0Auth0 Avocado Labs online meetup events: https://avocadolabs.dev/ 🔗 Episode Links Twitter: https://twitter.com/danmallLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danmall/Website: https://danmall.me/Arcade: A Fun Way to Manage Design Tokens: https://usearcade.com/SuperFriendly: https://superfriendlydesign.systemsMake Design Systems People Want to Use: https://superfriendlydesign.systems/classes/make-design-systems-people-want-to-use/Get It Out of Your System‬ – Podcast: https://superfriendlydesign.systems/podcasts/get-it-out-of-your-system/Invisionapp: Build your design system like the pros: https://www.invisionapp.com/design-system-manager/expert-adviceDan Mall – An Event Apart Orlando 2018: https://youtu.be/bHjSSfUpOvcHost: Frederick Weiss: https://twitter.com/frederickweiss 📜 Transcript Frederick Weiss: [00:00:00] welcome to the Thunder Nerds… I’m Frederick Philip Von Weiss. Thank you for consuming the show. It’s a conversation about the people behind the technology that love what they do and do tech good. And speaking of doing tech good, we have an amazing sponsor for the show. This year we have Auth0, which makes it easy for developers to build a custom. A secure and standard-based unified login by providing authentication and authorization as a service. Try them out now go to Auth0.com  they’re also on YouTube.com/Auth0 on Twitch.tv/auth0.  And they also have a cool place for their developer events and stuff like that. [00:01:15] Check at avocadolabs.dev. So with that being said, let’s go ahead and get to our amazing guests. I’m really excited to have him back. We have lead designer, creative director, co-founder and CEO of UseArcade.com, and founder and CEO of SuperFriendly Dan mall. Welcome back Dan. [00:01:38] Dan Mall: [00:01:38] Yeah. Thanks very much. Thanks for having me. [00:01:39] I like this part two. [00:01:41] Frederick Weiss: [00:01:41] Yes… It’s great to talk to you again. I think when we had you on the show, it was in Orlando at An Event Apart. I think that was like 2017 or 18. I’m a little fuzzy on the details I thought we were talking about. Oh, okay. Is that right? Yeah. And we were talking about your cool talk and at there, and it was a lot of fun. [00:02:02] It was great to get to know you, I’m really excited to have you back on the show. [00:02:06] Dan Mall: [00:02:06] Yeah, me too. This is exciting for me, so thanks for that. Thanks for doing it. [00:02:10] Frederick Weiss: [00:02:10] Yeah, our pleasure. Why don’t we first jump into something that’s a little bit topical, which is the COVID? I certainly got my, a circle-circle-dot-dot Cudi shot in this arm right here. [00:02:20]Over my bat tattoo. Ironically, what about yourself? Did you have you gotten the COVID shot or are you planning to, do you have a certain one that you’re looking [00:02:28] Dan Mall: [00:02:28] forward to. Yeah, not yet. Haven’t gotten it yet, but I had my appointment scheduled for Saturday. So hopefully all things go well for a shot. [00:02:35] Number one on Saturday. [00:02:37] Frederick Weiss: [00:02:37] W what are you getting? Do you know if you’re getting the Pfizer, the Johnson and Johnson, what have you think? [00:02:42] Dan Mall: [00:02:42] It’s the Pfizer one. I’m not positive about that, but I think it’s the Pfizer. [00:02:46] Frederick Weiss: [00:02:46] Okay. Gotcha. Yeah, that’s what I got. I got the Pfizer. And I’m just, I’m really looking forward to the second shot and having some security, what that brings. [00:02:55] I don’t know, but hopefully, I believe it gets you to 90, 94% security in a way I keep using that word, but I don’t know what else to call it, but I’m just hoping that we move past these things and we get to some level of normalcy or start building up to that. [00:03:11] I’d like to ask you though, how has it affected you, your family, and your business. [00:03:16]Dan Mall: [00:03:16] In a lot of ways it’s been like business as usual. So like super friendly, which is the agency that I run. We’ve always been distributed since we opened in 2012. We’ve always worked remotely. So in terms of working from home and everybody doing that, it hasn’t really been much change. [00:03:30]The big difference is that everybody else is home too. So it’s like everyone’s families and kids and all of that stuff. And that’s new for all super friends. So that’s really been the biggest thing adjusting to kids in school. My kids go to Catholic school. So there was a portion where they were at home doing learning from home, and then there’s a portion where they were going to school in person because they have small class sizes. [00:03:51] So just adjusting to all of that has been weird. [00:03:56] Frederick Weiss: [00:03:56] Yeah. Yeah. I’d imagine. What about w what about your wife? I know she’s, she actually just recently started her own company too. I [00:04:03] Dan Mall: [00:04:03] actually started a business as of a, I think earlier this week, maybe last week, I think. And so that’s been going really well, too, for the last week. [00:04:10]My wife’s a stay-at-home mom. She’s a writer also. She finished up her first novel recently. Again, working from home. So we’re used to it that the big complication is really just that the kids are home with us too. So the space that we had before to do our own thing and do our own work has evaporated because everybody’s home all the time. [00:04:26] So trying to figure that out has been a struggle. We’re coping and we’re trying to do the best we can. Do you [00:04:33] Frederick Weiss: [00:04:33] mind if I asked you what the novel is about? Is it science fiction science technology? [00:04:39] Dan Mall: [00:04:39] Yes. So it’s a young adult fantasy that she’s writing. [00:04:42] And I actually don’t know what it’s about because one of the things that she read, yeah. One of the things that she read and Stephen King’s book was he was like, never show your first draft to your spouse. It’s the worst thing that you could do. So everybody else done the book is about, I know very briefly what it’s about. [00:04:57] I know it’s a, it’s bit Harry Potter esque. There’s a female lead. And that’s really all I know. So she won’t let me read it until she gets a little bit farther into the editing stage. [00:05:07] Frederick Weiss: [00:05:07] That’s really funny. I am actually in the middle of finishing chapter two of my book, which is hopefully I’m going to be pushing out soon, which is all about creative direction and how to talk to people and get your ideas out there. [00:05:19] But yeah I guess I broke that rule right away. Cause every time I wrote a little bit, I asked my wife, I was like, Hey, what did you think of this? What do you think of that? Is that any good that I don’t know? [00:05:26] Dan Mall: [00:05:26] Totally. Okay. Yeah. I do the same thing when I write blog posts or anything like that. And so she does the same when she writes to her blog, but the book is different. [00:05:33] I think it’s a little bit closer. [00:05:35] Frederick Weiss: [00:05:35] Okay. If that makes sense, speaking about your family and super-friendly, which I definitely want to dive into in a little bit, I’d love to talk about your beginnings of being a freelancer. And I found this really interesting article that you not an article, rather, a video where you were talking about being a freelancer and why you left your day job for independence. [00:05:55] I think that was the title of the video. And you wrote about the common misconception about. People using the term freelancer that there’s a lot of some people will take that in the wrong way. They’ll think about it as someone that’s lazy or they live in their parents’ basement, which I’m quoting from the video here. [00:06:14]Do you mind going into that and how you started with you were working a full-time job, you were doing freelance at night when you would come home and you were testing the waters of what it would be like to do freelance, right? [00:06:27] Dan Mall: [00:06:27] Yeah, totally. I think one of the things that’s tough about freelance, in general, is that especially in our industry, is that there’s not a lot of. [00:06:34] Signals as to whether someone is good or bad at their job. So if you think about the trade that we have as designers or developers or engineers or writers these are trades and they are, self-taught usually not everybody goes to school to do them. Some people do and get a degree in design or graphic design or web design. [00:06:50]And then other people don’t, they just learn it on their own and they figure it out. So it’s hard for people, I think, to know where we sit on that spectrum are we trained it, and are we good at what we do? Or is it something that’s like a hobby, right? There are lots of web designer hobbyists out there. [00:07:03] And there are also professional web designers who do that as a living. So I think the term freelancers is too broad because it encompasses that whole spectrum. And in our industry, we don’t have things like certifications, generally, there are some, but it’s not a kind of a, an accepted standard quite yet. [00:07:18] So it’s hard for people to know what they’re going to get when it comes to a freelancer. And unfortunately, that affects those that are more professional. And those that are, have been doing this for a long time, get lumped into the same bucket as those who have not been doing it for a long time and do it maybe as a hobby. [00:07:33] So I think we need better terms and we need better ways to signal that this is something that we can actually be professionals at and be knowledge workers, as opposed to, I’ve been, I feel like everybody has a version of the story of Oh, my nephew builds websites too. [00:07:46]Which is that’s cute, but that’s very different than what I do too. So I think that the term freelancer is loaded and we tend to have to fight against that too, just even to get paid what we’re worth sometimes. [00:07:56]Frederick Weiss: [00:07:56] I think a lot that could contribute to that is the whole gig economy that everybody refers to lately is that a lot of people are like, you have this job, you have this job, you have this job and you don’t, maybe you might not specialize in one thing, but, honestly people are trying to just get by. [00:08:11] And especially in this environment, it’s really difficult. I don’t understand what’s wrong with the term freelancer and if that’s what you’re doing, that’s what you’re doing then. That’s great. But do you think more people should empower the term of CEO of X company? Like they should go out and make an LLC and go that way and post that on LinkedIn, is that for everyone to go down, or is that more of a very specific kind of thing? [00:08:37]If you know that you’re a specialist, maybe you want to pursue that path. [00:08:42] Dan Mall: [00:08:42] Yeah. I’m not so bold as to say Oh, everybody should start a company and have a company name and do all that stuff. That’s good for some folks and that’s not good for other folks. And I think, and I also didn’t mean to say that the term freelancer is a bad term. [00:08:53] It’s just that it means lots of different things. And so that’s, I think that’s the trouble with it is that we don’t know what it means. Some people who are freelancing are doing it between full-time jobs, and that’s the point of it for them is like they have a full-time job. They want to do their own thing for a while until the next full-time job. [00:09:09] And then other folks are like no, this is the business that I want to run, which is me being a hired gun for other studios or agencies or for direct decline or, whatever that is. And that’s, my job is to duck in and do my thing over here for a short amount of time. And then move along to the next thing. [00:09:23] Both of those are viable paths. Both of those are good paths. But we don’t know which one we’re talking about when we talk about the term freelancer. So depending on which one you are, depending on what you want to do with it, some freelancers go into it going I’m going to start with myself and I’m going to eventually grow into a larger company where I hire people and then others are like, Nah, I just want it to be me. [00:09:42]And I want to just do my own thing and be an independent person and work that way. So again, a freelancer is such a broad category that it feels like it’s an umbrella term for lots of different things. And some of the things that might come under those terms are like, there are people who are independent freelancers or independent business owners. [00:09:59] There are people who are one-person agencies, and that’s the way that they described themselves. There are, there are full businesses, there are hired guns, there are PERMA lancers, right? That’s another version of it where those are people who are freelancers that don’t work as W2 employees, but essentially do long stints or long contracts with companies. [00:10:16] So like, all of that is, is encompassed in the term freelancer. And anybody that’s a freelancer tends to have to qualify what they mean by that when somebody is trying to hire them, or they’re talking to somebody about what they do. [00:10:28] Frederick Weiss: [00:10:28] Yeah, it’s interesting because, and again we’ll dive into this in a minute, is you are the only employee at technically if that’s still correct at super-friendly and you have a re excuse the pun, an array of employees that, that work for you. [00:10:44] Which are freelancers and that’s how you could cite the best people for the position. And I’d like to just first start off by discussing the Sega Genesis hereof at the beginning of SuperFriendly because a lot of it was from my understanding of what I read about you. It’s the Oh, trying to find that the quintessential life-work balance, that we’re all seeking, we’re all hunting for, and for you wanted to spend more time with your family, which is admirable. We all want that. So you went that path and you started this company. Do you mind just telling us about what that was like, what that felt like, maybe, some trepidation, I imagine that there’s some fear of leaving your full-time job or starting this while you still have your full-time job, I’m not [00:11:25] Dan Mall: [00:11:25] sure. [00:11:26] Yeah, totally. So definitely there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of fear and a lot of risks, but I did things to try to mitigate some of that risk and some of that fear. One thing is I had a job that I love that paid me well. I worked at the time I worked at big spaceship, which is an agency in New York and they’re still around. [00:11:40] They’re still doing great stuff they’ve been around for, I don’t know, 20 years, 25 years, something like that. And it was my dream job. The problem was that I was working long hours there, and that’s that was part of the culture of, I think agency work. It wasn’t necessarily their culture, it was mostly like sometimes you’d work long hours to get work done. And so I just didn’t see a way out of doing that other than asking for things that I thought would be unreasonable, which is I know everybody’s working long hours here, but could I just work like five hours a day? [00:12:06] Would that be cool? Could I work here part-time somehow, but be treated like everybody else it was just, it just felt an unreasonable thing to be asking about. And so instead, what I tried to do was because I had that security of a full-time job, I was like, okay I can make an investment in that. [00:12:20] I can basically work two full-time jobs. I would work at the agency during the day, and then I’d come home and have dinner with my wife. And then I would work another full-time job, at night. And so I didn’t get a lot of sleep for that year, but I got to experiment with a lot of different things. [00:12:33]And before starting super-friendly, so when I started SuperFriendly in 2012, at that point, I had worked at other agencies for 12 years. I’m not really starting from scratch. I already had clients lined up. I had a good portfolio based on the work that I had already done, so like I had all these advantages, all this privilege, and starting an agency, it wasn’t like starting from scratch with anything. [00:12:52] It was like, it was, I had a lot of things already. As I worked the two full-time jobs, I was able to test how much I could charge a client, and not be afraid that a client was going to say no, because. I had a full-time job and I had a good salary. So if somebody said, Oh, the prices too high, it wasn’t like, Oh I’m not going to eat this month. [00:13:09]I didn’t have that risk. And I didn’t have that worry in a lot in a way that a lot of freelancers and a lot of business owners do because for, this industry is a lot of feast or famine. So I had all these things that I was able to test while I had a full-time job, but then mitigated the risk when I started SuperFriendly it was like, I already had clients lined up. [00:13:26] I already had contracts that I knew I could use. I already had a way of doing business that I’d already tested out. When I was freelancing. I had already tested the idea of could I build teams? And could that be a thing that I sell, teams of freelancers and H how do you organize those? [00:13:39] How do you direct them? How do you get everybody on the same page? Like all of those things, I had already experimented with those prior to today, one super-friendly. So I feel like I started at a pretty big advantage when starting my agency. [00:13:51] Frederick Weiss: [00:13:51] Yeah, that makes sense. And then I like too that you took that time to just experiment and see how it would work. [00:13:56] Like you said, feast or famine. It’s like the old thing where people would say, Oh, you, you just get on a bus and you go to LA and you become a movie star, right? Like it’s, maybe thinks about a strategy you have that full-time job and try freelance out while you’re doing that, while you can, make sure that you could still eat and experiments, you don’t have to go all-in where I think some personalities do or have to be sane. [00:14:22]Totally. [00:14:22]Dan Mall: [00:14:22] One of the things that were really helpful for me is I got to learn, by working for other people for so long, I got to learn on somebody else’s time. So I didn’t have to make mistakes on my own dime. I actually could do it. I actually could make mistakes and somebody else would pay me for that. [00:14:35]That is a massive privilege to have, and that is a massive advantage to have. And especially for those people, one of my superpowers is I’m able to learn from other people’s mistakes. I’m not the kind of person who has to make mistakes on their own in order to get the lessons from them. [00:14:47] So the ability to observe how other people do things and then mentally reconcile okay, yeah. If I ever had my own thing, like I would do that, or I would do that a little bit differently, or I would stay away from that. Like I had a lot of time and experience to be able to observe those things and then formulate, okay what would my version look like? [00:15:03]How could I remix all the pieces that I enjoyed? And then also eliminate some of the pieces that I thought were faulty, or I had a different version of how I wanted to try it out, and so that was a kind of a long time in the making, even though I didn’t realize that certainly at first that was a long time to making. [00:15:19] Frederick Weiss: [00:15:19] Yeah. So maybe we could talk about the model that you have with SuperFriendly again, discussing the whole freelance life and what goes into that. It’s again, you’re the only employee at super-friendly and you, I’ll let you say this in your own words, but from my understanding it’s, you’re sourcing the best people for a project. [00:15:39] You’re finding people that fit within that special unique need that challenge from the customer. And with that, you’re able to provide the best service moving forward. Am I understanding that, right? [00:15:52] Dan Mall: [00:15:52] Yeah. You got it. You got it exactly right. I’m the only employee and everybody else is a contractor. And what we try to do is. [00:15:59] Pitch that way, and say this is the best team for you. And one of the things that kind of led to that was, I remember when I was at big spaceship and working there, we pitched Crayola at the time. And we walked into the meeting and we had, there was four, four of us in the meeting and we all went with and introduced herself and said, Hey, I’m Dan I’m design director. [00:16:17] And co went around the table. And one of the people on the project is my friend Vic and Vic introduced himself as a strategist. He said I’m going to be the senior strategist working on this. And in a previous life, I was an elementary school teacher and the client stopped us. And he said hang on a sec. [00:16:31]Did you say you were an elementary school teacher? And Vic was like, yeah. I taught for, this many years. And the client Rob, who is the head of the digital at Crayola, Crayola does a lot of things for teachers and parents, and kids, in addition to making products, they really are invested in how kids learn and how creativity manifested learning. [00:16:47] So as soon as he heard that Vic was a teacher, an elementary school teacher, he was like you guys win. You all win then. That’s it like, will you? And I was like and that was it. The pitch was over. It was like, and it made me realize if you have the right people on the team, sometimes that’s how you win. [00:17:01]Sometimes the way that you win is the go you just have people on the team that other agencies don’t have, they don’t have. And so it made me realize if we could just have all the right people on the team at all at the given time, at the right time, then for some of those, we just win. [00:17:14] Like we win based on that now to employ all of those people would be incredibly expensive, but maybe they don’t have to be employed. Maybe they just have to be willing to commit a certain amount of time to the work, which I’m like, Oh, that sounds like what freelancers do anyway. So if all of the folks could be in the network could be in the Rolodex, it could be a phone call away. [00:17:32] And I could incentivize them appropriately, whether that’s with money or freedom or something interesting to do, or the team to work on or a client, whatever those incentives are. Perhaps there’s something there, perhaps there’s a model there that we could use. And so as I researched that more, I’m like that’s, I’m not inventing that’s called the Hollywood model. [00:17:48] That’s how Hollywood makes movies. Like the way that I talk about a Brad Pitt is not a full-time employee anywhere. Leonardo DiCaprio is not a full-time employee. They’re essentially contractors, right? To employ them, freelancers, actors, directors, photography, and they all come together for an amount of time, two years, three years, five years to make a movie. [00:18:08] And then they all go their separate ways after that. And they have no idea if they’re going to make another movie together again, maybe they will. Maybe the whole team will get back together. Maybe they won’t. But that doesn’t stop them from making something really good together or at least trying to, and I’m like, man, I Hollywood has that figured out. [00:18:22]So it could that model work in digital, and so that was the Sega Genesis of Superformance. [00:18:28] Frederick Weiss: [00:18:28] It makes me think of the Avengers where you have all these, like you said, these talented individuals that come together and make a movie and wow. That’s a team. [00:18:36]Dan Mall: [00:18:36] I prefer the super friends inside of the ventures, but, [00:18:38] Frederick Weiss: [00:18:38] Oh, is that where you’re going for? I noticed with a few of the companies there’s a super theme, maybe. Okay. We’ll leave it at that. So why don’t we discuss one of the new or newer you could tell me when this came out from my understanding, it’s a little bit new where the making design systems people want to use and I’ll share a share my screen so we can both look, we can all look at it together, but do you mind if we touch on that and talk about it a little bit? [00:19:03] Sounds good. Yeah. [00:19:09] So I imagine everybody could see this right now. [00:19:11] Dan Mall: [00:19:11] I can [00:19:11] Frederick Weiss: [00:19:11] see it. Perfect. Tell us about how this came about and w what design systems people don’t want to use as the title implies. [00:19:20] Dan Mall: [00:19:20] Yeah, sure. Super friendly. Is generally expensive. And I like to say, I like to think that’s because we deliver a lot of value to our clients and that they make more money from hiring us than they would by not. [00:19:33]And I hope that’s the case for every time. It’s probably not. But we’d like to try for that. And there are just some clients who need what we do or need what we know, but can’t hire us because they can’t afford to, or the timing’s not right. Or whatever. And so one of the things that we wanted to do for a long time is have something at all different price points. [00:19:50] So if there’s a client that can spend a million dollars, we have something for them and a client that can spend a thousand dollars, we have something for them. And we just, haven’t been good at filling in kind of the lower end of that. And so the course is the first step in that, which is we turn away a good deal of clients for lots of reasons, and one of those reasons is price. [00:20:07]We try to be as accommodating as we can, but for those that have a thousand bucks to spend, we don’t want to just say sorry, go away. It’s maybe you can take our course. Maybe you could learn about design systems. You still have to do a lot of the work on your own based on what you learn as opposed to hiring us, to help you with it. [00:20:20] But, at least that’s something that hopefully that’s better than nothing. So that’s where that course came from. And one of the things that we experienced every time we work with a client on design systems is every single day, the time when we go in and we talk to them, they go, we tried this design system thing like a year ago and I, a team here put together some components and they thought it’d be good. [00:20:37] And they shared it with all the other teams and then no one really used it. And we’re just not sure if a design system works for us and I’m like, Oh no, but it does. But every client, the screenshot you have up here, the episode for every client we’ve ever worked with has a design system, graveyards yeah, we tried it and then it died and then, we buried it. [00:20:52] And so we’re just not sure how to go about this. So that’s the thing is like, there is a process and there is a good way to get people invested in going I really want to use that design system, but there’s a lot of teams go about it the wrong way, even though it’s the intuitive way they go about it the wrong way. [00:21:06] So we just wanted to teach how we make successful design systems. I wanted to [00:21:12] Frederick Weiss: [00:21:12] read this because this echoes in my head of what you have here, it says it, it takes a specific process and mindset to make a design system that actually gets used. What, w what is the challenge? I understand that people. [00:21:27] Probably shy away from any kind of digital governance. They right away that a wall goes up and I’m not going to do this way. Human nature is people don’t want change. They w I’ve been doing it this way for three years and it works fine. If it’s not broken, don’t try to fix it. [00:21:44] What’s that summertime some summertime. Yeah. Anyway, but yeah what is it why do people not want to use these things some of the time? Why is there resistance? [00:21:54] Dan Mall: [00:21:54] Yeah, I think you nailed it. It’s all the human nature stuff. It’s all the but I’ve been doing it this way and you haven’t convinced me that your way is better, so that’s one thing. And how that specifically applies to a design system is what a lot of teams do is the goal. Let’s make a bunch of basic building blocks, right? We’ll make cards and tables and headers and footers and all that stuff. And then we’ll give that to all the teams internally and then a team will see it and they’ll go. [00:22:15] Yeah, but that card doesn’t have two buttons in it. And I need our cards to have two buttons instead of one. So therefore you can’t use it, it would take me longer to understand what you’re doing, modify it, add a new button, add another button without breaking anything. For that, I might as well just do it the way that I’ve been doing it. [00:22:30] Ah, just use bootstrap. And we hear that all the time bootstrap. Ah, who cares. Yeah. Yeah. Because they know how to use it. That’s the reason. And so just making a bunch of things and handing it to people go yeah, I use this, oftentimes they go but I can’t, or it just looks more difficult than the way I’m doing it now. [00:22:47] So all of the things that design systems are supposed to do, help you be more consistent, help you be more efficient. The adoption part of it is but it’s got to be better. Like it’s got to even be, it has to attract you by being better. And if that, if you don’t even clear that hurdle, then most folks go yeah, just keep using bootstrap. [00:23:04] It’s been fine. So so the human nature stuff is. How do you get somebody to do something new? You have to find their incentive and most teams don’t go far enough to find the incentive. What’s the incentive, to redo someone’s whole process of how they’ve been building something. [00:23:19] There is no incentive, usually in fact it’s the opposite. It’s usually a risk. Oh, so you want me to learn something new and use your thing? And if I don’t do it well, that potentially I could get fired or demoted. And if I do it well though, there’s no reward. So like, why would I do that? And so that’s usually the hurdle to clear is that the incentives aren’t made clear. And so part of the course is about going, like, how do you expose the incentives? How do you build it in a process that, exposes the incentives clearly and upfront, and then gets that automatic buy-in and that automatic kind of contribution process? [00:23:50] And that’s the idea of piloting that I think it’s episode five or something in the course. [00:23:56] Frederick Weiss: [00:23:56] Gotcha. Let me ask you, then that brings a, an interesting question. I think to me who exactly is this for? Who is the intended audience? Is this for somebody at a like a VP level to bring it to their team and say, Hey, I need a, I need everybody to watch this, understand it, or is this something that you could use possibly in an advantageous way as a tool to get a conversation started Hey, these people are coming in. [00:24:23]Why don’t we all take a look at these videos and they’ll help us understand where we’re going to go in the future. I don’t [00:24:30] Dan Mall: [00:24:30] know. Yeah. It’s less for VPS. It’s less for the C-level. I think those folks have different kinds of conversations than the conversation that we had in the course. So the course is mostly for Directors managers, people who are managing teams of designers and engineers, or product folks who just don’t have the language to talk about design systems. [00:24:48]They may be, they may understand it at a high level. They might understand like, yeah, the design system is mostly like a kit of parts that we can use to make other stuff faster. But then part of it is, especially when I talk to product owners or product managers and, even a lot of design directors are engineering managers. [00:25:03] When they look at it, Oh, when I think about a design system, they conflate it with Hey, that’s like a UI kit. And it’s no, not really, oh, that’s Oh yeah. We have a component library. That’s different. So I think part of it is just getting everybody on the same page, giving folks language on what to use to go here’s the difference between these things. [00:25:19] Here’s why one thing, here’s why a component library is different from a design system. And here’s why here’s how you could use a design system. Actually more to take more advantage of it than a component library. So a lot of it is for kind of director-level folks and managers who need to have the language and a more integral understanding of what their designers or their engineers or product folks are doing. [00:25:40]And then it’s also for practitioners too. It’s also for designers and developers. Mostly, designers understand what a design system is, but they don’t really understand how engineers work with the design system. And then vice versa engineers are like, yeah, I get what it is, but how that designer actually uses this. [00:25:54] So a lot of this is about understanding what the other side does. You know what if you’re an engineer, how does a designer work with this, and how do I work with a designer, to either make a design system or use a design system? So it’s for that tier of folks, it’s like directors and managers and practitioners in the design engineering kind of product trifecta. [00:26:13] Frederick Weiss: [00:26:13] Here’s an interesting comment from Todd Libby here. Two buttons go in one button, walks out a lot of this sounds like a comfort zone. People don’t want to leave. I think we touched on that. It’s a lot of it is just that I’m going to hold on to my blanket and you’re not going to take it away. [00:26:32] This is, this is my blankie, right? That’s a [00:26:35] Dan Mall: [00:26:35] fair analogy or not absolutely Todd Libby. That’s a great great thing. And thank you, Todd. It’s nice to hear a comment from you. Yeah, I think that’s true. It’s why would you give up your blankie unless you got a better one and unless you thought it was better, right? [00:26:48] Not that somebody else saying Oh, this is better. I have kids. I remember when they were younger. I couldn’t take their blankets away from them, even if I was like, but this one’s better. This one’s softer. This one’s new. This. It wasn’t attractive enough, and but once we find something to like, Oh, I’ll give you chocolate with it. [00:27:01] They’re like, okay, cool. I’ll give up my blanket. So like some, my chocolate it’s irrational sometimes it’s I don’t know. And I think you’ve got us, you’ve got to switch that brain totally. Exactly. So I think those are the things that, design system teams don’t have enough practice at that that stops us from, stops other teams from wanting to adopt the good work that we’re doing. [00:27:19]Frederick Weiss: [00:27:19] And I don’t want to go too deep in the woods in here, but I just want to touch on some of these things. Cause I, I think they’re important for maybe people that are trying to get their eye, their mind around what a design system is. And like for episode number three, here that you have component libraries versus design systems do just for the sake of brevity and getting that out there a quick explanation of a design system and why it’s not a component library. [00:27:45] Dan Mall: [00:27:45] Yeah, design systems are part of it. Yeah. Design systems are connected. That’s the big difference between component libraries. Aren’t you really connected to anything cause of component libraries you can copy and paste from, and that’s how you use them. I, if I use bootstrap as a component library, Oh, I copy the card code. [00:28:00]The HTML, I paste it into my thing, but if you update something if bootstrap updates, Oh, I got to go back and recopy and repaste. Oh, but I overrode my changes that I actually changed them up. It’s the connectedness. So most design systems I would venture to say almost all design systems are probably packaged, managed their software products. [00:28:19] They’re probably built on NPM or yarn or something that you can use as a dependency. And that’s what creates the connection between your app and the system itself. Right? Component libraries. Aren’t connected UI kits. Aren’t connected. So there’s a lot to cover there, but that’s the 62nd version. [00:28:35] Well, [00:28:35]Frederick Weiss: [00:28:35] And that’s why someone needs to go in and watch these videos because you go into all that and it’s I’m sure it’s a great explanation. When some of you had somebody actually watches the full video. The other thing I just want to briefly touch on. Cause again I don’t want to give everything away here is about the buy-in part. [00:28:52] So we talked about the friction, the resistance. So buy-in isn’t a thing that you get once before you create a design system, it’s an ongoing investment. So I just, found that so insightful because not every project is a living, breathing project. That’s not, you wrote a book. Books printed it’s done. [00:29:12] But also when you have these projects they live on, I think some of the videos that I’ve seen you talk about is, companies, they don’t have just one website now or this or that. It’s, they have a website, they have internet, they have X amount of websites. It’s there’s a, they have X amount of apps. [00:29:28] These are things that live and breathe and the [00:29:31] Dan Mall: [00:29:31] evolve as well. Absolutely. That’s the point of this stuff is and that’s why they have to maintain a connection because as your app evolves the system, and as the system evolves, you want both of those to move in stride, otherwise, when you disconnect it, that’s where we get legacy applications from. [00:29:46] And that’s where we get Oh, we haven’t touched that thing in seven years. And actually to update that would be its own project. And that would be a year-long project where it’s it doesn’t have to be, if you can architect it well enough, it doesn’t have to be. So I think, that’s the point of it is Digital things change, and that’s the advantage of them as opposed to, doing print work or something digital things can change and you can change them often. [00:30:05] So why not change them in a way that everybody gets the benefit of those changes? [00:30:09] Frederick Weiss: [00:30:09] Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, so again we’ll put a link in the show notes for all that. So everybody could take a look at that and really explore those videos great stuff there. And the next thing I really want to talk about is arcade. [00:30:21] And I love this for design tokens. I don’t know if everybody gets the pun right away of putting the coin in. But for the, again, for the sake of brevity, if for the people that don’t know exactly what a design token is, I’d rather hear it from you as the expert. [00:30:35] Dan Mall: [00:30:35] Yeah, sure. For what it’s worth still workshopping this because it’s fairly new, I usually point people in other directions. [00:30:41] There’s a great video that Gina Anne made about design tokens. She put it on YouTube and on our Twitter. It’s great, it’s a much better explanation than I’ve ever given. So I usually point people there, the short version that I’ve got, the best that I’ve got so far here is I designed token is like a way to capture a brand decision. [00:30:57] So for example, think of every, any company that you might know of, or the company that you work with, you probably have the main brand color, right? So like Spotify has green and Lyft has pink and Hertz has yellow, all that kind of stuff and everything that you make. Is going to use that same brand color right now. [00:31:15] The problem is if you have to distribute that brand color, that’s a difficult problem to have. That’s why you see, Spotify as green is a little bit different everywhere because they’re not connected to one source. And so the idea of is if you could connect all those things to one source, if you could define the green in one place and then everything else that needs to use that green references, that one place, that way of Spotify green ever changes, or, they want to make it darker or lighter because they want to be more accessible or it goes through a rebrand and Spotify, green is not Spotify purple. [00:31:44]What’d you change in that one place. Every other place that is referencing that token then gets the ability to be updated. Again, this goes with the design system thing where once it’s connected, you get a lot of advantages. So design token is a way to capture some of that stuff. And it’s not just color. [00:31:58] Spacing its topography, it’s all, animation time, it’s all sorts of things like that. It’s capturing your brand properties, putting them in a place, and then allowing other things to reference them. So arcade is a way to store some of those, be able to interact with them in a much smarter way than some of the tooling that exists currently. [00:32:14]Frederick Weiss: [00:32:14] So why did, what exactly did you start this company? What, why what was the thing that you saw and you were like, you know what, I need to get this gone. [00:32:23] Dan Mall: [00:32:23] So it’s super friendly. We do a lot of design systems work as we talked about and every client that we work with wants to tool like this, and I don’t blame them. [00:32:31]So do we, we’re like a tool, like a tool that will help you capture these design tokens and put them somewhere and reference them. Would be great. And, we hard-code them, we do it manually. I know lots of teams that do that, or they build their own solutions for them and they’re just not sustainable. [00:32:45]There’s, they’re not sustainable in the same way that any custom-built tool that you make is not sustainable. It’s great. It probably works for your needs, but then that person leaves the company or like they get reallocated to something else. And then all of a sudden you’re stuck trying to maintain this thing that nobody else knows how to do. [00:32:59] So after years of actually just call our clients saying do you have a tool for this? And we’re like, not really, and for us being like, who is going to make this we figured we should make it. [00:33:11] Frederick Weiss: [00:33:11] Makes sense. It’s totally in your wheelhouse and what you guys are doing. [00:33:15]I wanted to read this, which is, it says here a fun way to create, edit and manage design tokens for enterprise teams. Use, you specifically use the language enterprise teams, which I get, but do you mind just talking about that pain point specifically for enterprise teams and how that can help mitigate some of that? [00:33:37]Some of the challenges. [00:33:38] Dan Mall: [00:33:38] Yeah, sure. So we worked with a client a year ago now, two years ago now. And they were undertaking a rebrand, and their rebrand was very minor. When you, compared to, when you talk about what rebrands generally are, if only think about rebrands, it’s like we’re going to change the logo and our color palette, and we’re going to have different messaging and we’re do all this. [00:33:57] So the rebrand for this company was, all of our buttons are currently yellow. We’re going to change them all to purple. That was the reboot. And I was like, okay. They estimated that effort to be I think three years and however many millions of dollars, right? Tens of millions of dollars, because they have that many apps. [00:34:16] They have that many products, they have that many things, and it’s we’re talking about one button change, like just changing the color of a button. But when you think about they have hundreds of apps, some are on legacy code. Some are not even on the current tech stack. Some, don’t even have people that know the technologies that they’re built on anymore. [00:34:33] Imagine going into those apps one by one and just see, if it’s architected well from a front-end perspective, maybe it’s changing a few lines of CSS, but not all of them are architected. Either. So imagine every app one by one, every site, every app you’re having to go in and we’re talking about iOS, we’re talking about Android, we’re talking about the web. [00:34:51] We’re talking about, kiosks, like all of that stuff. And it’s like changing the one button. A few years, a few dozens of millions of dollars, right? It’s a massive problem, and they’re not the only one like lots of companies have that same problem where it’s easier for them to just declare bankruptcy on the apps to go. [00:35:07]We’re just going to make a bunch of stuff from scratch. Cause it’s easier. Even that is a massive effort. What do you’re choosing between two really poor options? So that’s why we’re focusing on enterprise teams. Ultimately we might open this up to yeah, anybody that wants to use design tokens. [00:35:20] But right now it is such a pain point specifically for enterprises that have many digital apps that we want to try to solve that first. Because I think that there’s a lot of impacts there. And then maybe we can expand the user group to a little bit larger, but that’s where we’re starting on it. [00:35:35] Frederick Weiss: [00:35:35] Yeah, I can totally see if you have a larger company, like you said, changing the color or changing the logo across all the applications and websites and just being, yeah. Able to just do that in one, one spot with that now interacting with several different team members, several different times, or probably a lot more. [00:35:54] What am I talking about? Several hundreds of different team members all across the world. It’s yeah. It’s as you’re putting it out, that’s quite a challenge. Why don’t we, why don’t we discuss the podcast? I’m so interested in this podcast and so it’s the, get it out of your system podcasts, a clever name once again, when did you actually start this? [00:36:16] Dan Mall: [00:36:16] Oh boy. I think that was maybe three years ago or two years ago, something like that. So we have a season, a season out that’s about, I think, six episodes or something like that. We’ve been working on season two for a while, but it’s just been on the back burner because of other things. [00:36:28]But it’s a podcast where we ask guests one question we ask what’s the hardest thing that you’re dealing with in terms of your design system right now. And that’s it. And we go, as long as the conversation goes, some conversations are 10 minutes, some conversations with 30 minutes. We just follow all the rabbit holes, that we go down and it’s a pretty fun conversation with the folks that we’ve had so far. [00:36:46] Frederick Weiss: [00:36:46] So w why did you actually start the podcast? What was the inspiration for actually get into podcasting? I [00:36:55] Dan Mall: [00:36:55] like talking to people, I think that’s part of what it is and and and so that’s one thing the other thing is, and I think this is a common thread between all of our design system, things that design systems are so new. [00:37:06] I, generally relatively in our industry over the last decade that so many people and so many teams just don’t know if they’re doing it like everybody else, and they’re just like, we have no idea. We have no relative measure of this. And I think it’s important to hear from people like you in the positions that you’re in, the, for all the listeners like to hear that somebody else’s like having the same problems that you are, I think there’s a lot of comradery in that. [00:37:29] And I think, a design system is a community effort. Ultimately, when it’s done well, a design system is serving all of the different parts of an organization from product to engineering, to QA, to content, to, all of those things to brand. And I think that we need a sense of community in the design system industry, and I think that conferences like clarity and on the design system, Slack channel are doing a good job to capitalize on that. [00:37:51] And I feel like we need more of those things. Like I think those things are great and we need more. So to hear somebody else hear a design leader at Lyft or at, Google or at, wherever say yeah trying to convince people to use this thing as hard. I think we’ve gotten a lot of feedback from listeners to go like, oh, I’m having that problem too. [00:38:07] And I thought it was just me. So I think that was part of the impetus for the podcast is let’s just let people talk about the problems that they’re having. And we don’t, we actually specifically don’t get into the solutions a lot, it’s not Oh, and this is how we solve that problem. [00:38:19] It’s yeah, this is hard me too. And I think that even that is like as good enough for a conversation and a worthwhile conversation to have. [00:38:26]Frederick Weiss: [00:38:26] It’s nice to have that camaraderie. If I said that word, probably not, but it’s nice to be able to talk to somebody else about a problem that you’re having and them having a similar or the same problem, and just talking it out makes you feel a little bit better. [00:38:39] And sometimes you come up with an idea afterward, too. Exactly. Yeah. Speaking of, and I’m sure I’ll embarrass her. I know, we talked about Sarah’s book, which is building design systems. You should get her on the podcast. If you go to thunder nerds.io/ there’s a book, a funny URL, but she couldn’t be with us today. [00:38:59] She’s a, it’s our anniversary. Just wanted to wish her a happy anniversary, Sarah and Brian. I hope you’re feeling better. I know what you’re sick, but I wanted to throw that out there for a little happy anniversary to Sarah, but I’m sorry. Go ahead. [00:39:13] Dan Mall: [00:39:13] Oh, I was going to say happy anniversary, Sarah too. [00:39:15] And and I love that book. That’s a great book. I recommend that book to, for, to a lot of folks too. So thank you for writing that book. That’s very helpful. [00:39:22] Frederick Weiss: [00:39:22] Yeah. Speaking of books obviously, you have a well-known book out there that people love, which is let me see if I have an image of it. [00:39:30] So I had a good pricing design, which is a great book, but I saw a tweet the other day where you were talking about possibly a new book on the horizon. Any, anything you could tell us about that new book, anything at all? I hope I’m not putting you on the spot. [00:39:47] Dan Mall: [00:39:47] You are put on the spot. That’s okay. [00:39:48] I can tell you that it will probably be a book, Andy, probably with pages, but yeah, it might be some writing also in it by me, I think. [00:40:02] Frederick Weiss: [00:40:02] That’s it nothing else. [00:40:03] Dan Mall: [00:40:03] That’s what I got. [00:40:06] Frederick Weiss: [00:40:06] That’s perfectly understandable. Just one thought I try to just, edge it out a little bit and see if I could get [00:40:11] Dan Mall: [00:40:11] something out of you about that, but that’s fine. [00:40:13] You might get a gap here and there if you keep poking on it. [00:40:18] Frederick Weiss: [00:40:18] Cool. The other thing I wanted to talk to you about that I thought was really interesting is the envision app thing that you’re doing with I think it’s with Josh Clark and Brad frost. I’m not sure when that came out, is that fairly recent? [00:40:31] Dan Mall: [00:40:31] That was maybe two or three years ago. So I think maybe 2017 or 2018, something [00:40:36] Frederick Weiss: [00:40:36] around that, I’m in the past. I find it really interesting because I was going through some of the videos and it was just, this was very insightful. I, at least I thought so. I loved how you went into some of the episodes here the heartache of design here, actually, maybe I should scroll down a little bit here, which is here. [00:40:54] You guys are, and yeah. So the heartache of design at scale selling the value of design systems, which struck me funny. I wonder is it still difficult to sell the value at this point now? Two years later, [00:41:09]Dan Mall: [00:41:09] It is difficult. I think it’s difficult for different reasons two years later. [00:41:12] So I think that, when we made the podcast, or excuse me, we made the videos Selling the idea of design systems was still a thing that we had to do. We helped out a lot of our clients with doing that where like someone in an organization that usually comes up from the design or engineering or product group is I heard about this thing, or I know about this thing. [00:41:30] It’s really good, but nobody else here knows about it. So I just need help evangelizing the idea. So a lot of times we would help evangelize the idea of it. Nowadays, we almost get no pushback, from any level of the organization where people go yeah, I know a design system is worthwhile. [00:41:43] Like I get it. It’s a good investment for a company. What we’re doing though is when you have that conversation is still difficult and that’s the thing that people still do poorly. In, in my observation, which is that people what teams try to do is they try to sell it before they made anything. [00:41:58]And it’s like trying to sell vaporware. So what a lot of teams try and do is they try to say They try to make their case for if we had a design system, here’s the ROI, here are some examples of other folks that have done well with the design system and they try to sell their leadership on that, but it’s still vaporware. [00:42:12] Like you haven’t made anything yet. And you haven’t done anything about it. And so it’s hard to sell. It’s hard to say, if we had this, it would be great. And so do your leadership, would you drop a million dollars for us to, or half a million dollars or $3 million, whatever, however, many millions of dollars or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to even do this. [00:42:30] And leadership is no, because I don’t know what I’m buying yet, and I, for what it’s worth, I think that’s a smart decision. That’s what I would say if I were in there in their shoes too. And, and that goes to the kind of counter-intuitive way to make design systems is like you do, as you make a bunch of stuff first, and then you say to your leadership, we did this in a very specific way, and these are just little mini examples of what we could do. [00:42:53] And we want to try and scale that now. So you basically have to put your picture, you’d make your MVP, and then you pitch to leadership and you go, if you want us to do more of these things, now you just have to do the math. Now. It’s like the efficiencies that we had on these three small projects, multiply it by the number of teams. [00:43:08] We have the number of people. We have the number of products we have, and then they start to do the math and go Oh yeah, we could see how that, you know how that goes. And that becomes a much easier sell. So it’s more, it’s still difficult, but it’s difficult for different reasons than when we first made that video series. [00:43:21] Frederick Weiss: [00:43:21] Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I could see where somebody would bring that too. Like you were talking about the one things for, directors, but if you could bring that to a C level or a VP and communicate the value and really the bottom line of the cost, what is this going to save? [00:43:38] How is this going to make us more efficient, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I wanted to ask you about a few people DMV and they wanted to know more about your day-to-day, what actually you do at super-friendly. We can all guess that, obviously, you’re probably putting these design systems together. [00:43:56]You’re organizing with other members of your team. Do you mind just walking us through what that looks like? [00:44:02] Dan Mall: [00:44:02] Yeah, totally. I’m a, I’m pulling up my calendar now to go like, all right what’s even on my calendar. What have I been doing the last couple of days? I don’t work on projects anymore. [00:44:09] I haven’t worked on projects in a couple of years. I am probably bad at them at this point. And like a little too salty about client work now. So it’s probably better that I don’t work on projects. So for me, super-friendly is my project. Last year, so like we’ve covered earlier. [00:44:24] I’m the only employee. And I think a lot of folks are like, Oh, that probably means super friendly as a small crew. Last year we had about 60 people working on super-friendly projects across the year. So it’s like running a 60 person agency except some of the rules aren’t defined yet. [00:44:37] So my time is generally spent working on super-friendly to figure out, like, how does the model work? How does it scale? How do we pitch? I do some marketing stuff for super-friendly. So yeah, that’s the stuff that I do. I’m looking at my, my, my stuff today my calendar today. [00:44:52] So what I did today was this morning, I had a conversation with a writer who’s helping me express what super-friendly values are so that we can publish that more and more about how we work. So I talked to her about that. Then, Oh, today I had Every Thursday, we have an, what we call opportunities to call where for every super friend, whether they’re working on a project or not, we invite everybody to hear about all the leads that we have and what the opportunities are for super-friendly. [00:45:17] So if anybody wants to work on a project or they want to hear about what’s going on, we had, we have that open every Thursday. So I did that, today I talked to my co-founder at the arcade. We had a one-on-one on what’s the vision of this product? Where do we want to go over the next couple of months? [00:45:30]I talked to my head of operations today because she was like, I have a better way for us to do everything. I’m like sweet. So she shared with me some diagrams that she’s been making about what if we did things this way? I’m like, that’s awesome. I had a one-on-one after that with our designer at arcade Julia. [00:45:46]And I did some critiquing with her. And so that was my day. That was my day today. If I were to describe to you my day yesterday, it will look completely different than that, but those are the kinds of things that I do. And most of it is not really, designing much, although I should say today, I designed a new landing page for arcade, to work on with Julia, so I designed like half of it and then handed it off to her to finish up. [00:46:06]I still do some stuff like that. It’s kinda random. I don’t know if that helps answer the quiz. Yeah, I think [00:46:12]Frederick Weiss: [00:46:12] Are you still one of those early, earlier, early-bird people? I can’t get my mind around that because I’m a night owl, but one of the things I read or saw about the use that you get a lot of your work done between five and seven. [00:46:24] Is that still true? Does that [00:46:27] Dan Mall: [00:46:27] resonate? I get up usually around four 30, five o’clock in the morning. I work for about an hour or two before, like getting my kids ready for school and dropping them off at school. And so that’s my time where I’m alert, my brain is ready. It’s I’ve slept. [00:46:39] I have rest. And my brain is like, cool, let’s go. Let’s do some things. I’m like, all right, excellent. Nobody’s tweeting at me. Nobody’s emailing. Nobody’s slacking. Nobody’s that so that’s the time where I’m like, all right, ready to go. And I get most of my work done it at that time [00:46:53]Frederick Weiss: [00:46:53] For the people that say wow how does Dan do all this stuff? [00:46:56]Is it more just that, it’s part of your lifestyle. Like for example if you want to be a runner, if you run, I run. If you want to run, you can’t miss a day because it’s easy to fall off and then not do it again. You have to live it. And it seems to me like what you described in your schedule there, which is very busy, it’s just, this is just the way you live. [00:47:15] This is your life is part of an integral part of your life, [00:47:19] Dan Mall: [00:47:19] right? W with work. I think so. I think it’s relative, right? Cause like it’s surprising to me when somebody is like, Oh, you get so much done because I feel like I admire other people. I’m like they get so much done. [00:47:30] So relatively, I don’t get a lot done, but it is relative. So I think part of it is that part of it is just, what your frame of reference is. The other part of it is and I was lucky to learn this I don’t know, maybe 10 years ago in my career, which is there’s this thing called Parkinson’s law. [00:47:45]Do you know Parkinson’s law? I’m talking about, I’m not aware of no, right? It’s Parkinson’s law says something to the effect of work expands to the time allotted to do it. Something like that, which is if you give yourself eight hours, if you give yourself eight hours to do a thing, how long is that thing going to take to do probably eight hours? [00:48:00]If you give yourself four hours to do it, probably take four hours. So I, I believe in the corollary of that too, which is that work contracts to the time that you give yourself to do it. Before in the past, like I remember when I was working at one job. I always thought that okay, in order to do like a concept, round of design, that takes a week. [00:48:17] And then I remember starting, and this is when I worked at happy cog. We took a week to do design rounds and use them to adjust a design concept. And then when I w when I left happy cog and worked at big spaceship, the first day that I started at big spaceship, they were like, Hey, Dan you’re working on this project now. [00:48:31]They onboarded me and we want you to do a concept. I’m like, okay, cool. Like how long do I have to do this? And they were like, Oh, let’s do it at the end of the day. And I was like, Okay. I was used to having a week, but I didn’t want to be the new guy who was like no. [00:48:43] I want more time. So it’s yeah, of course, I can do it. And you know what I got to do by the end of the day. So it just taught me that work doesn’t have a defined time, like you define the time you time box it. And so I’ve gotten really good at that because I’ve been able to practice that a lot. [00:48:56]So now I know, if I have an hour to get a Compton like I can do it in an hour. If I have, three weeks to get a comp done, I can do it in three weeks. And so I’ve been able to compress my work into the time that I have, because that’s the time that I have, having kids, certainly accelerated that as well, where I’m like, ah, I just don’t have the time that I had. [00:49:13] So I, my work has to now fit in a smaller box. And every time that happens to me, I’m like it fit in the smaller box. So with COVID, I stopped working, I would, I usually worked about like 30 to 35 hours a week because of COVID because my kids were home and then figuring out like, who like, is my wife doing homework with them? [00:49:30] Am I doing homework with them? Is she going to sit with them during the day? Am I going to sit with them during the day? All of that stuff, what I started to do was like, okay, I’m just not going to work in the afternoon. Cause like I can’t. So I would work in the morning and then I would stop in the afternoon with my wife. [00:49:43] My wife could work in the afternoon. And so I, my schedule became around like 20 hours a week and you know what, I got the same amount done. So it’s the as, as much as I keep contracting my work, it still gets done. Maybe not to the quality that I want it to, but that’s always been the case when I had a week to do it. [00:49:59] It was still not at the quality that I wanted it to be. When I had three weeks to do it. It was still not at the quality that I wanted it to be. So it’s like. I learned to be freer about that stuff and to go I’m not too worried about the quality of the work. Let’s let that be a later thing. [00:50:11] I can always iterate my way there let’s, there’s a time that I have. And so I’ll try to use that wisely. [00:50:16] Frederick Weiss: [00:50:16] That’s excellent advice. Dan, we’re getting right at the end of the show, and as I asked you before we started, if you could play us out a little bit, but first I want to get to obviously we’ll put a link in the show notes to all the places where people could find you, which is Danmall.me. [00:50:30]There is your Twitter account, which goes by your name, Dan mall. I see a pattern here. Use arcade.com and friendly design. systems. All really cool names, which I like a lot. But I’d love to ask you at the end here if you could provide any final words of wisdom for our audience. So to you. [00:50:54] Dan Mall: [00:50:54] Oh man. That’s the toughest question you’ve asked so far? Be kind, I think, to yourselves, to other people the people that you work with, the people that you interact with. I think that we are all guilty at some level of working too hard. And at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter that much, a lot of the stuff that we do, I think that we are lucky, generally as web designers and developers and all that to do this, the things that we do I often have to remind myself that I’m not saving lives in ways that other people do, and so when I get stressed out like it’s a good way to remain relative, to go what I do is a good choice and a good privilege for me. And what I try to do with that is being kind to myself, give myself breaks, be kind to the team that I have been kind to my family, to all the people that I interact with. [00:51:34] And I would like it if other people were kind to me too. If anybody interacts with me, please be kind to me as well. I [00:51:41] Frederick Weiss: [00:51:41] liked that. I think I actually one of the things I saw in your house, not that I’m looking into windows, but one of them, one of the photos I saw was like a be nice and let people be nice to you. [00:51:50] one of the golden rule things, right? [00:51:53] Dan Mall: [00:51:53] Maybe I dunno if that was me. It might’ve been somebody else. [00:51:56]Frederick Weiss: [00:51:56] No. It’s you, it’s definitely you it’s in one of your photos, I’ll put a link to it. Cause it’s definitely you. The last thing before we end the show, I just wanted to get in Todd, Libby’s come in here. [00:52:05] He wanted to ask you how was the Whoopie pie that came with the lobster roll care package. [00:52:10] Dan Mall: [00:52:10] It was very good. I’m not a Whoopie pie fan. Todd was kind enough to send me lobster rolls in the mail because I told him I’d never had any before. So he sent me a really great care package with some will-be pies and some delicious chips and lobster rolls. [00:52:25] It was all delicious. Thank you. Thank you, Todd, for all that. [00:52:28] Frederick Weiss: [00:52:28] That’s awesome. And if you don’t mind Dan, again we’re at the show. Do you want to play us out a little bit, a little something on the piano? I know you’ve played the piano since you were three years old from my understanding, right? [00:52:39]Dan Mall: [00:52:39] Yeah. That’s right. Yep. I got a panel here. I don’t know how the audio is going to pick up, but we’ll try. I’ll give it a [00:52:42] Frederick Weiss: [00:52:42] shot. Let’s try it out. Yeah, there we go. Dan mall everybody. [00:53:42] nice. That was really cool, man. Thanks for sharing that with us. I remember when we talked back at event depart, you were telling us how you play the piano since you were three and you enjoyed it and your parents didn’t really force you into learning it, but you just kinda picked it up and you really enjoyed it. [00:54:00] Dan Mall: [00:54:00] Yeah, that’s right. And to this day, I’ve got a piano in my office. Whenever I want to take a little break, I try to play a little bit. [00:54:07] Frederick Weiss: [00:54:07] Yeah. It’s nice to have that separation to just step away from your screen for a minute and just be a part of the world. [00:54:12] Dan Mall: [00:54:12] Absolutely. It does a weird thing. [00:54:14] When I switched between the piano keyboard and the keyboard on my desk. It’s like my brain doesn’t catch up fast enough. It’s very trippy. [00:54:22] Frederick Weiss: [00:54:22] There’s no control Z on the piano. It’s weird. No, none. Dan, thank you so much for sharing your time with us. Time is the most important thing that we could share and really appreciate it really humble. [00:54:33] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. [00:54:35] Dan Mall: [00:54:35] It’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me on the show. Our, [00:54:37] Frederick Weiss: [00:54:37] our pleasure, honestly some applause from Todd. He very much liked your like you’re playing well. Thanks, everybody for watching. Really appreciate it. And we’ll see you next time again. Thanks, Dan. [00:54:50] Dan Mall: [00:54:50] Bye all.

In this episode, we get to speak with software engineer educator, Kent C. Dodds. We discuss community, giving back, and future technology. Episode Sponsor Auth0: https://auth0.comAuth0 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/auth0Auth0 on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/auth0Auth0 Avocado Labs online meetup events: https://avocadolabs.dev/ Episode Links Twitter: https://twitter.com/kentcdodds/Github: https://github.com/kentcdodds/YouTube: http://www.Kcd.im/YouTubeWebsite: https://kentcdodds.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kentcdodds/How I am so productive: https://kentcdodds.com/blog/how-i-am-so-productiveThe bot for the KCD discord community: https://github.com/kentcdodds/kcd-discord-botKCD Office Hours: https://kentcdodds.com/office-hours/KCD Learning Clubs: https://kentcdodds.com/clubs/Front-End Engineering Courses: https://frontendmasters.comEgghead: https://egghead.ioHosts: Frederick Weiss: https://twitter.com/frederickweiss​Brian Hinton: https://twitter.com/mrbrianhinton Transcript Brian Hinton: [00:00:00] welcome. I’m Brian Hinton [00:00:28] Frederick Weiss: [00:00:28] 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… [00:00:41] Brian Hinton: [00:00:41] and do tech good. [00:00:43] Frederick Weiss: [00:00:43] Ah, thanks to everyone for watching the show again. And if you have questions, please ask them and we will answer them in the order they are received. [00:00:54] And also, if you can please go to YouTubes, go to YouTube.com/ThunderNerds. Subscribe, hit the notification bell to get seven years of good luck, Brian… [00:01:06] Brian Hinton: [00:01:06] Hinton, seven years. Yeah, I’d like to thank Auth0 as this season sponsor, 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. [00:01:25]Also check out them out on both YouTube and Twitch under a username. Auth0. They have some great developer resources and streams, and of course, avocado labs. They as an online destination that their developer app gets run, where they organize some great meetup events. Again, thank you all and check out  Auth0.com today. [00:01:47] Frederick Weiss: [00:01:47] Yes. Thank you so much Auth0, and Brian. Thank you. So let’s go ahead and get to our guests without any other further dues ado. We have software engineer, educator, Kent C. Dodds, Kent. Welcome to the show. Welcome. [00:02:05] Kent C. Dodds: [00:02:05] Thank you. I’m super happy to be here. We’re super [00:02:07] Frederick Weiss: [00:02:07] happy to have you can. How are things going for you? [00:02:10] How you been. what’s up. What’s new for you, Kent. [00:02:13] Kent C. Dodds: [00:02:13] Oh what’s new. It’s actually mostly I’m working behind the scenes on some stuff. There’s I’ve been, I write a blog post every week and I do like my regular stuff. I have three-minute podcasts and stuff that I keep up with, but nothing big and exciting. [00:02:27]Yet I’m working behind the scenes on that sort of thing. My biggest exciting thing was that thick reacting and that took a lot out of me. So it’s yeah, just kinda chilling, hanging out with the family a lot. [00:02:39] Frederick Weiss: [00:02:39] Nice. And just to say hello to everybody that’s seen. Hi, thanks to everybody for watching. [00:02:44] And apparently you also really love the Thundercats reference. Yes, I do. [00:02:52] Kent C. Dodds: [00:02:52] I didn’t grow up with under cats or anything, but my roommate in college, just thought they were the best. And yeah, I definitely caught that reference. [00:03:01] Brian Hinton: [00:03:01] Yeah. I always loved that. Love thunder cats. And what’s the other one? [00:03:04] That’s silver Hawks or silver Hawks. Yeah. [00:03:11] Frederick Weiss: [00:03:11] Yeah, that enemy, the weird squid guy. Super cool. Love it. Speaking of weird squid people, let’s talk about what’s going on with currently the COVID. How was that affected you? And obviously, we have some corner turning that we may be approaching soon with vaccines being distributed to everyone. [00:03:32] What’s how has this first, how has this affected you and your professional life? And how’s the outcome going forward, look to you. [00:03:40] Kent C. Dodds: [00:03:40] Yeah. So 2020 was the year of like pain and suffering and 2021 is the year of hope. And I was working remotely and everything already. Lots of my workshops were remote. [00:03:52] And I don’t think I was impacted as much by COVID as lots of people. But I certainly was, my kids started doing school at home and so my wife had to take care of them and I needed to take care of the younger kids who weren’t in school. And so yeah, it was definitely tricky, but, I wasn’t hit as hard as some people were, they’re single parents or they both of the parents need to work and so you need to figure out different things. [00:04:14] So I was really lucky in that way that it didn’t impact me as much as some of my friends and family. Yeah, like as far as this year, I’m totally excited about vaccines becoming available. I’d say I’m cautiously optimistic about the future here. [00:04:31] Frederick Weiss: [00:04:31] It’s good to be cautious. Who knows what happens? [00:04:35]I think there was some stuff written about the vaccine in South Africa that with the blood clots, et cetera, things like that. But it looks like we’re doing pretty good with the three vaccines that we do have available in the States. So let’s all cross our fingers and toes and hopefully, that will get distributed soon. [00:04:54] Kent C. Dodds: [00:04:54] Yeah, absolutely. I, it’s really hard to know what to believe, right? Because you hear stuff like that. And you’re like, it’s how many cases are there? What, who’s financing this report, right? It all comes down to where’s the money coming from. That’s where the incentives are as far as business is concerned. [00:05:09]And so you just, you don’t know what to trust online because you hear such a wide variety of reports on different things. [00:05:20] Frederick Weiss: [00:05:20] So you talked about that you have kids, you have three children if I’m correct where your children. Wow. Okay. Let me, I ABC you everywhere, but let me, and then I’m sure you alphabet get this all the time, but where do you find the time? Where, how do you do what you do? You put out a lot of content. [00:05:43] You have four children. I have one child and I can’t find the time to do what you do. [00:05:49] Brian Hinton: [00:05:49] Could you explain the clone in the closet behind him? [00:05:53] Frederick Weiss: [00:05:53] Do you have a clone? Could you [00:05:54] Kent C. Dodds: [00:05:54] confirm that? No. Yeah, I like first I wanna I’ll just say that having one child is a lot of work. So it’s I sometimes I feel weird when people compare it. [00:06:05] Cause I am child number 11 of 12 in my family. Wow. That’s impressive. Yeah. So I’m like fours, like whatever, but I don’t know it. My wife is a full-time mom and she has been since we started having kids. And so of course that helps an enormous amount. And and. I dunno I focus my effort on like, when I’m working and when I’m with my family, I’m with my family and I feel like I do a pretty okay job. [00:06:32] And I do have a blog post called how I’m so productive that I wrote back when I did have a full-time job. Cause now I’m a full-time educator. I work for myself. I do whatever I want. And whatever I want happens to be very public. And so you see all of the things that I do. But when I was at PayPal, a lot of people were like, how do you do all this stuff and have a full-time job? [00:06:50]And so I have that blog post to people can go take a look at, cause it is maybe a little more relatable to people than I am right now. Being self-employed. [00:07:00] Frederick Weiss: [00:07:00] I like we have one of the comments here. I don’t have children and I can’t do what Kenny did. So maybe we can take it away from the whole thing about you having four children and talk about how you actually do what you do. [00:07:17] Where did you get the inspiration to be an educator? Why are you and in this industry where does the passion come from and we’ll start. [00:07:27] Kent C. Dodds: [00:07:27] Yeah, sure. I’ve always been a teacher. I am a member of the church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints. And when I like all the way back to when I was a kid, we were spoken church. [00:07:37] It was just like an expected thing that you did every few months or so. And so I getting up in front of people was something that I became comfortable doing at a very young age. And it was just a very natural thing for me when I started learning how to write software to get up and teach what I’m learning. [00:07:54]I volunteered to be a tutor and help people in our classes. And I hosted a mini-workshop that I put together for my classmates. It just was something that I enjoyed and I’ve come to learn also that it’s a great way to solidify what you’re trying to learn. And so it’s a great mechanism for. [00:08:11]For learning and getting really good at whatever it is you’re trying to get good at. [00:08:16] Frederick Weiss: [00:08:16] Yeah. The learn, teach [00:08:17] Kent C. Dodds: [00:08:17] code kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I spend a lot of time. Thinking about it as I’m learning a new thing. I don’t just gloss over the things where like I hacked something together and then, Oh, it works. [00:08:29] Let’s move on. I, that’s not what I do. And this is why I’m really bad at like hack night projects and stuff. Cause I can never finish. I have to understand exactly what’s going on and why things are working or not working. And it’s the teacher side of me because I’m always thinking if somebody were to come to a workshop that I was giving teaching about this, they would ask me why and I wouldn’t be able to answer them and I need to be able to answer them. [00:08:51]So yeah, I, I don’t know. That’s where things come in. And when I started getting money for this, started like paying my mortgage and stuff, then it was like, Oh wow. I can take this thing that I enjoy on the side. And I can build up this passive income stream and pay my mortgage and. [00:09:07] And that’s that was pretty cool. [00:09:12] Frederick Weiss: [00:09:12] Let me think of two that you have this I don’t see this very often, but I see that you have this transparency page on your website that communicates exactly. If somebody is going to contribute what that means, where the money goes, where did that idea come from? I love that idea. I think more people should have something along those lines. [00:09:31] Do you mind elaborating on where the Phil Collins, the Genesis came from? [00:09:35] Kent C. Dodds: [00:09:35] Yeah, sure. Yeah, so it was a few weeks ago, actually, this page is pretty new. And clubhouse was getting really popular and people were excited about it. And I was just concerned because I had no idea where they made their money. [00:09:48] And and I’ve over the last few years have just started to realize that. Like money is where businesses get their incentives. And so if you understand where the money’s coming from, then you have a much clearer picture of the angle that they’re coming from. So for example, if there’s a news article that is very like talking very antagonistically about renewable energy and then you find out that it’s funded by big oil then. [00:10:12] Oh, okay. That makes sense. Maybe I should research this a little deeper and see where their stats are coming from. So yeah, the money you got to follow the money to get a sense of where whether they’re going to sell the user’s data in the future and stuff. So anyway, they, lots of companies don’t tell you where their money comes from. [00:10:30]Or like we know where their money comes from. And it’s the reason that lots of the incentives are screwed up like Twitter, Facebook and Google are really great examples of this. And I, as a co-op house was getting popular, I was just tweeting about how I think, Hey I’m just a little bit concerned about where like whether clubhouse is going to do right by its users when it starts to actually need to make money. [00:10:49] And and I said, I think every company should create a page that says where their money comes from. And if they don’t know yet, like they’re just getting started, then they should say make it stand on. Whether they’re ever going to sell their user’s data and stuff like that. So some of the things they will do and they won’t do things. [00:11:07] And then I realized, wait for a second, I have a company. So I was like, Oh, I guess I should do that myself. And so that’s where the transparency page came from. And actually, I have removed some sources of income because they didn’t align well with my mission. For example, I took YouTube ads off of my YouTube channel. [00:11:25] Because my mission is not pushed any further forward by showing people ads before my videos. That’s not where I’m making my money, right? Like there, there are plenty of YouTube creators. They’re making money on YouTube. That’s their thing. My YouTube stuff is three-hour live streams of me just like coding and stuff, or I have weekly office hours and they’re recordings of that. [00:11:46] So that, I guess it’s useful, but it’s, that’s not where I’m going to get my money. That’s where I go to say, Hey, like I’m creating content. You can trust me. I’m a creator. And if you want to more of this and higher quality and whatever, then you can go to courses and stuff. [00:11:59]So that’s any way the transparency page helped me focus a little bit more on my primary mission as a company which has been a really positive thing. I’m really glad about this transparent transparency page, and I hope that we get on more companies doing this sort of thing. [00:12:16] Brian Hinton: [00:12:16] Yeah, definitely. I love that. It should just be something that’s like privacy. Like we are, we’re so concerned about privacy. But like the same thing we should be concerned about, what governments, get their money in and even in some sense where they spend their money. [00:12:29]Yeah. I love that. Going back to what you said earlier about how you’d like to dive deep into what you’re working on. I can always tell him, Oh, he’s working on something. Cause all the types of your posts right now, I’m like, He’s totally going to be writing something or updating something Epic react or AR he’s doing something TypeScript right now. [00:12:47] So I’m just curious, are you what are you working on now with TypeScript? Cause I assume you’re about to do [00:12:52] Kent C. Dodds: [00:12:52] something. Yeah. So that actually goes back to the productivity question where people say, wow, he just does so much stuff. And I guess so, but I think we all do a lot of stuff. [00:13:01] I’m just extremely public about it. There are very few things that I do not share with the world of what I’m doing from a business standpoint. And yeah, like you see me talking about remix and TypeScript is because I’m using those tools right now. And it’s, they’re just like constantly on my mind. [00:13:17] And so yes, I am working on a TypeScript thing right now. I’m in the, I’ve been using TypeScript for three years, but I’ve been not on more on the abstraction side which is different kind of TypeScript than building application side. And I want to get into teaching people how to write TypeScript to build applications. [00:13:34] And I’ve been doing a lot of that as a practice to prepare for a series of workshops or maybe just one or two workshops on TypeScript. And the big reason for that is because. I’m going to revamp tap testing, javascript.com and Epic react dev to be a hundred percent TypeScript. And I know a lot of people are like, Oh no, don’t do that. [00:13:54]I shouldn’t say a lot, but if you are that person, you’re in a very small niche of the jobs, there are most people are way into TypeScript. So anyway, there are a lot of people who, or a fair amount of people who don’t want to do TypeScript or they’re new to TypeScript. And so I want to have this TypeScript course that I can say, Hey, go take that. [00:14:11] If you haven’t had much experience or you want to just freshen up and then and then you can go through the rest of this stuff. So yes, there is a TypeScript thing coming, a lot of TypeScript things coming your way from me. [00:14:22]Brian Hinton: [00:14:22] Yeah. It’s I just love seeing how much you share it. I w I wish more were more people were as open because you’ve basically built actually, let’s just get into that the kind of topic that I want to. [00:14:34] Talk about this episode as a community and building a community. So your openness, I think, has been like a big catalyst for that. And I’ve noticed that you’re literally everywhere can like, like nine [00:14:46] Kent C. Dodds: [00:14:46] clubhouse. I don’t have an iOS device. So [00:14:50] Brian Hinton: [00:14:50] maybe next week, the other day. Yeah. The other day we use Crossy and via at work. [00:14:55]And I was like, I just happened to go the NPM page to look something up. I was like what the heck? I feel like at this, I think I have far to look at our packages. At least all of them might have your lines, your name somewhere in there. But anyway how did we talk about, you get into teaching, but how did the community aspect really start were like your discord, for instance, I know has, 10,000 plus active users where did that all begin? [00:15:23] Kent C. Dodds: [00:15:23] Yeah. I, when I created testing javascript.com there wasn’t really a great place for learners to learn together and or to talk with each other about what they’re learning or support each other. And so I ended up fielding a lot of questions on Twitter and realized that, Hey, maybe if I create a space for people to. [00:15:43] And talk with each other. They’ll be able to help each other. And cause I, I can only scale so much. This is why I created the online courses because when I do it as workshops I can’t scale very well. It’s very expensive. And so it’s not very accessible and so I can make it a recorded workshop, but now it doesn’t take my time. [00:16:00] And so I can drastically reduce the price. But you lose that side of being able to learn with other people and have access to the instructor. So I make up with the access to the instructor by doing my office hours every week and people, anybody can just come and ask me questions. But then I also have the community where people can go and talk and with each other and help each other out. [00:16:21]So I started with actually spectrum spread spectrum. chat and that worked out okay, ish. But as I was ramping up Epic react, I just thought, I feel like. We’re missing something here. And I knew that react to flax and moved over to discord. They’ve been there for a while. I wasn’t really involved, but I decided, I’m just going to try it. [00:16:39] And I created discord in an hour made the images and whatever. And set up the roles and stuff. But I think it was before I opened it up or no, it was, yeah, it was after I really wanted to make sure that people who joined the discord would read the code of conduct. [00:16:56] So that was a very important thing to me. If I’m going to be in charge of this, I am going to make sure that it’s a safe space for people. And so I created a bot that would not let you in until you read the code of conduct and Like it’s okay to be able to enforce a code of conduct by banning people from the server and stuff. [00:17:14]But I also wanted to get email addresses and stuff as well. Not only for managing the code of conduct and stuff but also this is my community, I’m offering this service. And I think that it’s okay for me to ask for your email address so I can let you know when I’m doing stuff. And so the bot is responsible for just onboarding, asking their name and getting their email, making sure that they read the code of conduct. [00:17:36] In fact, it says, do you accept the code of conduct here it is. And they of course say yes. And then it asks, okay. So because you read the code of conduct, you must know what email address we send violation notices to, and Oh shoot, I guess I need to open the code of conduct. And yeah, I, they, I forced them to open the code of conduct at least And and they go through that. [00:17:56]So because of that friction that I’ve added to join the community, it’s a very high-quality community of people who are actually active. We don’t have any drive-bys and you’d be surprised, the number of people who joined the discord and then realized that they created a new account instead of logging into their existing one. [00:18:14] And so we have none of those because people realize that, and then they sign in to their right account and then they join. And so it’s actually very high quality. I did that. Oh, that happened to you. [00:18:27] Brian Hinton: [00:18:27] Oh yeah. I totally accidentally created an account [00:18:29] Kent C. Dodds: [00:18:29] and I had to fix that. I did the same thing in another community. [00:18:33] And so now there’s this nebulous account just hanging out in some community somewhere. We don’t have any of those. And so that, that is like the, when we say we have 10,000 members, that’s a high activity actual people who participate in the community. So it’s a really awesome place. [00:18:47] I, I love it. There. [00:18:48] Brian Hinton: [00:18:48] Yeah. And you even then your open-source the bot too, so that, yeah. Yeah. [00:18:53] Kent C. Dodds: [00:18:53] I know of at least two other communities that are using the bot. They like forked in, did their own thing with it. Yeah. [00:19:01] Brian Hinton: [00:19:01] Yeah. And piling onto the whole being efficient with your time, as the learning groups too. [00:19:06] That’s an incredible concept. Could you tell us a little bit about the learning group? Yeah. [00:19:11] Kent C. Dodds: [00:19:11] So when I did, I was creating Epic reacts I, I was going to go and just record all the workshops. Cause I’d given them so many times I was ready, to just pull the trigger and go, but I decided I just want to do one more time. [00:19:27] We’ll just see, make sure that everything flows nicely and everything. And so I scheduled eight workshops and I opened it up where people could just buy a ticket to all of them. And so then over the course of two months, they’d go through all of these workshops. That’s very fast-paced. People don’t normally go through Epic react that fast. [00:19:43]But yeah, so what I found in that process was that the people who, and there were like 30 people who went through all of it It went really well for them being able to get to know the other people who are learning. And I won, I didn’t want to lose that by going to record. And on top of that, when I do live, I also do breakout rooms where you’re in a group of three or four other developers working through the exercises together. [00:20:08] And I didn’t want to lose that either. And so I wanted to have some way to say, Hey, basically Epic react is supposed to be all of the good parts of workshops with the none of the bad parts and all the good parts of a recorded course with none of those bad parts. So that’s like the best of both worlds. [00:20:22]And the problem with going recorded is now you lose access to the instructor and you lose access to other learners. And so learning clubs are supposed to give you access to other people to learn and bounce ideas off of. And then my office hours give people access to me to ask questions in a live setting. [00:20:40]And so what a learning coach is basically my bot facilitates getting a group of people who want to go through the material together and it’s, it doesn’t have to be any of my material too. Like we have we’ve had people going through like some rushed course and a VIM course and a bunch of others. [00:20:56]But the idea is you have this curriculum you want to go through there, there’s a specific schedule. And then you use the bot to let everybody know that this is the thing that’s happening. People sign up on your form that you create. And then you create a little discord DM, or lots of people just make an entirely different server and go through the curriculum together. [00:21:15]It’s been really successful. We’ve had I dunno, maybe two dozen learning clubs that people have started for various. Most of them are my content, but yeah, for various things and there’s always like the really excited everybody starts off really excited at the beginning. [00:21:28] And then it kind of tapers off in there maybe four or five people laugh. But even if it’s just to that is a success because of the accountability that you get by going through the curriculum together I can’t tell you how many books and courses that I’ve bought that I haven’t gone through at all, because I just have no accountability. [00:21:45]And having a group of people that I feel accountable to make me more likely to go through it and I’ll just get more out of it. So it’s been really successful. That’s community [00:21:54] Frederick Weiss: [00:21:54] with you. If you have a bunch of people together and everybody’s learning together, and you’re talking about the same things, like whether that’s a conference room where we used to go to or a book club, or what have you a mastermind, like when you have that kind of pseudo accountability where it’s, we all want to learn that same thing, you just get so much out of it. [00:22:14] Kent C. Dodds: [00:22:14] Absolutely. Yep. Yeah, it’s been fun. [00:22:18] Brian Hinton: [00:22:18] One thing, one thing I’m curious about as someone who’s an educator, what, how do you decide what to, what you’re going to actually create? Like what’s your like, How do you get the vibe of the feel of the room, so to speak? Yeah, I think [00:22:35] Frederick Weiss: [00:22:35] I know the answer to this. [00:22:36]Kent C. Dodds: [00:22:36] A lot of people will do like a Twitter poll. What do you want me to teach and stuff? I’ve done that in the past. I’ve found that I’m much more successful if I just teach whatever I’m hyped about and excited about at the moment. There, there’s always a, unless I decide to go into some like very niche topic of something there’s always going to be a market for whatever I’m excited about. [00:22:54] And and I’m always way better equipped to teach the things that I’m excited about. This is why I haven’t actually. And taking the time to create a TypeScript course until now. Because I haven’t been super psyched about TypeScript for the years that I’ve been using it. And so now I am using it a lot and I’m getting excited about it. [00:23:13] And then it’s B just become naturally interesting to me. And so that’s why that’s the next thing for me. Yeah, I think that it’s going to wish we [00:23:21] Frederick Weiss: [00:23:21] got a, we got a comment about that. Yeah, [00:23:24]Kent C. Dodds: [00:23:24] Yeah. It definitely is. I like those sorts of comments. They’re really validating to me cause like I’m in this box, I’m by myself all day. [00:23:34]And I, of course, have to be a community. Yeah. They keep you there. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And so when I hear people outside of this box that says that what I’ve created has been helpful to them. It is just really validating. So I appreciate comments like that. Thank you. [00:23:50] Brian Hinton: [00:23:50] Yeah I’ve definitely loved and share the beginner react one way. [00:23:54] I’ve used it. A lot of people have joined my team. Some of them are newer to react and that the one on ed keg, the beginner’s guide to react. It’s excellent because it actually goes into something that I feel like a lot of reacting, documentation and lessons just don’t that react are JavaScript. [00:24:10] JavaScript is reacted and I really. I appreciate that you did that. High five to you. [00:24:16] Kent C. Dodds: [00:24:16] Yeah. That’s my approach for teaching things in general, if I can help it and actually react testing library came out of that method of teaching. So what I like to do is if we have time for it, I want to take the subject that we’re trying to learn an abstraction and remove the abstraction for a second and do what the abstraction is doing in a small way. [00:24:36] So what you’re talking about, Brian, there is at the very first lesson of Epic reacts, we don’t actually even touch, react or sorry, actually. Yeah. Epic reacts to but beginner’s guide to react. We don’t touch react. We just pull up an index HTML file and we write some JavaScript to create a domino and stuff. [00:24:50]And I feel like people are able to draw a line around abstractions a lot better if they understand at least at a basic level, what that abstraction is responsible for. So when I was getting into teaching testing libraries and enzyme was the thing at the time I wanted to say, okay, so let’s take react Dom, and we’ll render this to this dev that we have to create ourselves and all of that. [00:25:11]But the jump from what you could do with just react on dot render. And enzyme was just enormous because there were so many utilities that enzyme offers and then you have to choose between mountain render and shallow and all of those things. And that bothered me a little bit. And so I was looking at the exercise where let’s just do it with react. [00:25:28]And I said, you know what? That test is actually not that bad. And I, compared that to the test I had to write with enzyme is like, what? Like there are so many concepts in here I don’t want to even not only I don’t want to have to deal with, but there are lots of other things that I want to tell them. [00:25:41] I was going to make a list of here don’t do these things with the enzyme. Cause it just enabled me to do a bit, a lot about things. So I was looking at that and I thought, you know what. I could probably just write a little utility around this react on dot render thing, and then just go with, run with that. [00:25:55] And I did this was like two weeks before I was giving a workshop at Trulia to 60 people. I decided to create a new library and teach them to use my brand new library. It’s I’m glad that worked out. I was like, Peter, I went to front-end masters and did the same thing and that’s a that was recorded and everything. [00:26:13] Yeah. I’m really glad that reacts. [00:26:17] Brian Hinton: [00:26:17] That’s great. That’s a little last minute. [00:26:20] Kent C. Dodds: [00:26:20] Yeah. Yeah. I was convinced that the enzyme was harmful. And it was now the there were some things, if you used it in the right way, it was fine. The problem was that it was just so easy to use it in the wrong way and the documentation. [00:26:33] And like comments and get a hub, all encourage people to, to write implementation detail focus test and that just was not great. So yeah, react testing library is now the most popular and recommended testing library. So that ended up being pretty successful. [00:26:52] Brian Hinton: [00:26:52] Nice job. Getting back to the community too. [00:26:54] One thing I’m curious about do you have LA what are your next goals with it? What do you, what are the next steps for the community that you’ve built as it continues to grow? [00:27:04] Kent C. Dodds: [00:27:04] Yeah. A few months ago these aren’t the next steps, but these are recent steps. I realized that the community was growing beyond a KCD. [00:27:11] Like it, wasn’t just here’s the place that I’m talking about, Kenton his stuff. And I had my office hours on there. I would do live streams on there. And there were a couple of people who were making a name for themselves, within the KCD community. And I thought like I should just figure out a way to enable these people to serve the community in the same way that I do. [00:27:31] just because it’s the KCD to the community doesn’t mean I’m the only one who can post office hours and stuff. And in the spirit of clump house, I created this thing called meetups which is a command that you give to the bot to schedule a meetup. You can list yourself as one of the people that people can follow. [00:27:47] And when you schedule a meetup, all your followers will get a notification that you are streaming. And so this could be like anything it’s basically what clubhouse is except you also have video and the screen-sharing capabilities and stuff, but you can talk about baking or you can talk about politics, or you could talk about coding, does it like whatever it goes. [00:28:05] And so now we have people who. Are hosting their own meetups and they’re doing their own office hours and stuff like that. So that’s what I’ve been thinking about for the community is how can I make this just bigger than myself? Because I think that my mission is to make the world a better place through quality software. [00:28:20] And that there are a lot of people who can help me in that mission. I don’t have to do all of that by myself. And there are people who are willing and able to do that within the community. So that’s where I’m thinking about what the, what I’m thinking about with the community is how to enable other people to push that mission forward. [00:28:37]Frederick Weiss: [00:28:37] Let me ask you then if that’s what you’re talking about, where, what does that look like? Hypothetically, like best case scenario with three years, five years down the road what does that look like? [00:28:47] Kent C. Dodds: [00:28:47] Yeah, it’s a little bit tricky to measure make the world better, I’m just mean [00:28:52] Frederick Weiss: [00:28:52] hypothetically, like if you had your choice. [00:28:55] Kent C. Dodds: [00:28:55] Yeah. So I’m mostly interested in Like lots of the developers that I am teaching, they’re working for a company that’s trying to do something useful in the world. At least, hopefully, I can’t really control that, but that’s, I have to go with that assumption. Otherwise, I would do nothing. So I assume that people are working for companies or building companies themselves that are making the world better. [00:29:16] And if I can help them to level up their skills, to be able to push their company’s mission forward, then that’s success in my mind to take it even a step further, more on a personal level. If I can help people get a pay raise or a promotion or a job in the first place that also helps their corner of the world be better for them. [00:29:36] And that’s also like something that I’m thinking about pretty often. And I. Really enjoy it when I hear people telling you I got a job because Epic reacts that this happens every week or so somebody else says something like that. And that is really validating to me because that’s right on point with my company. [00:29:54] Brian Hinton: [00:29:54] What do you say on the flipping on the opposite end all being validated. Fantastic. But what happens when you reach the, what do you do when you reach those low points where it’s harder for you to get in front of the computer and record something or, work at all? [00:30:08]What are you, what are some tips and tricks for people? [00:30:11] Kent C. Dodds: [00:30:11] Yeah. So I have the benefit of being committed to not having deadlines. I don’t make deadlines for myself. I don’t tell people when something’s going to be out. I do have a partner company in particular egghead.io. They are my primary partner for most of the things that I do. [00:30:27] And we have plans that we make together. And then when we’re getting closer to something happening, then we schedule a date and sometimes we’ll share it since actually, we won’t. But I don’t really schedule something to be completed until I get really close to that thing being done. And because of that, I can say, Hey, this is the plan. [00:30:45] This is the next thing that I’m working on, but I don’t have to have anything delivered or whatever until like ever honestly. And so that kind of makes it works. And of course, this is nice just because my business has been financially successful and there’s a recurring revenue stream, a passive income stream. [00:31:02]That means that when I have those slumps, I can just go hang out with my kids and I don’t have to tell my boss or anything that I’m not working today. Unfortunately, that means that’s not exactly relatable to everybody. I know some of you, I go to the job and you can’t just tell your boss that I’m not feeling it today. [00:31:16] I’m doing it [00:31:17] Brian Hinton: [00:31:17] now. [00:31:20] Kent C. Dodds: [00:31:20] Yeah. So I have had those experiences before and sometimes it’s nice to switch gears and do something else for a little bit. And most employers are totally like they have plenty of work for you to do you just say, Hey, listen, I’m just really struggling with this a little bit. [00:31:35] Can I help Jane out with her thing or whatever just to change the pace a little bit. Yeah. And that I’ve done that in the past and that’s worked out pretty well for me. [00:31:45] Brian Hinton: [00:31:45] So when will the discord bot actually start teaching or replace you. [00:31:52] Frederick Weiss: [00:31:52] That’s a great question. I’d imagine that’s in the future soon. [00:31:56] Kent C. Dodds: [00:31:56] You know what? You probably you’ll know when that’s going to happen, because I’ll be tweeting about AI a lot and I’ll be like, I’ll make an AI course or something. And by the time that’s done, nobody will need to take it because AI will take over the world. And so nobody needs to coat. [00:32:11] Frederick Weiss: [00:32:11] We just got to find out where Sarah Khan heirs and make sure she’s safe. [00:32:14]Speaking of your courses, I just wanted to bring up this cause I’ve, I’m sure things like this that you read all the time and for audio listeners thanks for creating react testing library. I’m used to ignoring the test before and I hate them. I hate. Writing them now things become better. [00:32:34] Thanks for your testing article. Like how that’s some great feedback. So how does that make you feel and how does that help you become motivated to do more of this? [00:32:43] Kent C. Dodds: [00:32:43] It makes me feel great. It, it is super validating. Thank you for saying that to him. D I’m not sure if I said your name, sorry. MITIE I’m not sure. Sorry. But yeah, it is validating, and at this point react testing library has pretty much won the hearts of most people. There are plenty of people who are still like mocking things a lot and they want to use shallow and stuff. And I just okay, that’s if that’s what you want to do, but yeah, lots of people are really happy with that. [00:33:07]I’ve written a lot of articles about testing. In fact, I’m just going to check right now on my blog for the number of articles that I have with testing. Tag. [00:33:18] Brian Hinton: [00:33:18] Oh, I was going to guess. Sorry. [00:33:20] Kent C. Dodds: [00:33:20] Sorry. Yeah, we’ve got I’ve written a lot of articles on testing, and yeah I don’t know how I became the testing guy, to be honest. [00:33:28]I know-how now, like I can tell you this story, but it was never a plan of mine to be the testing guy. It just happened because I started writing tests. So this is the way that happened is I got into open source. I was like writing a library and I thought it was cool and whatever, but every time I made a change, I’d have to open up this little demo that I had. [00:33:48] And I test everything manually. I was like, what pain is that? And so I, this guy at work taught me how to use mocha. And so I started using MOCA to test my stuff automated. And I was like, wow, this is amazing. I like, I have the thousand little Kent’s running around, making sure everything works. [00:34:02]And so I just started testing everything. And when you do something enough, You start developing opinions because of your experience. And just because I naturally share the things that I learned and just share what I think is important that I share my opinions. I started tweeting about it and writing articles about it. [00:34:18] And and then I became the testing guy. I made a course about it. And yeah it’s really nice to hear that my articles and my open-source software have helped people out because that’s not the only reason that I create this stuff. The big reason is that I want to remember it. [00:34:33] I want to learn it. I want to really understand it. But’s a big reason that I create this stuff is to, to make the world a better place. And I’m hoping that this stuff is going to help people be more productive. And yeah, when I hear stuff like that, it makes me feel validated [00:34:46] Brian Hinton: [00:34:46] and anything in testing, JavaScript that you look back now and you’re like, Ooh, should’ve done that different. [00:34:53] Kent C. Dodds: [00:34:53] Oh yeah. Th this sort of thing happens all the time. No, there’s not a lot of stuff in testing JavaScript, but eh, all the time when I have material my opinions change, the things or new technology comes up. And that’s the case for testing. [00:35:05] JavaScript is there’s this new, relatively new software called MSW that allows you to intercept requests. And so instead of having to mock modules and stuff like that, you can actually just MSW will intercept any HTTP requests that are made. It’s amazing. And when I created the, so I created a testing JavaScript in 2018, I think. [00:35:26]And then in 2019 I did a relaunch I, or V2, I just revamped everything. And then a few months after is when MSW was created. And in 2022, I was totally focused on Epic reactions, but I really wanted to tell people about testing JavaScript about this cool thing, MSW. And so I just recorded a couple of videos to say, Hey everybody I’m planning on updating testing JavaScript eventually, but I don’t want you to have to wait until I get this stuff. [00:35:51] So I recorded a couple of videos to show you a couple of cool additional things. And I replaced a few things to make some changes. So yeah, things do evolve over time. It, most of the time it’s coming out of not out of Hey, we’re going to do things fundamentally different from the way we’ve done it. [00:36:06]I haven’t made huge changes like that. But it’s Hey, there’s this cool new tool that means that you don’t have to do all this weird stuff. Do [00:36:13] Brian Hinton: [00:36:13] you, do you ever feel I know I personally do. I imagine you do too. Oh, overwhelmed by. All that actually is available. [00:36:23] Kent C. Dodds: [00:36:23] Yeah. I dunno, like actually, yeah, so people will email me all the time and say, Hey, look at this cool tool that I built. [00:36:30] Or most of the time it’s something that they built that has been really helpful for me. And lots of the time it’s like something very specific for a specific use case that I don’t know anything about, or I don’t I know about, but I don’t really have use cases for it or whatever. [00:36:44] And so those are pretty easy. I just say, Hey, I’m not your target audience. And thanks anyway. But yeah, there’s just, there’s a huge, I get emails and tweets all the time from people saying, Hey, check this thing out. And I just sorry, I can’t check out everything that people tell me about. [00:36:58] So I, you just choose which things you’re going to spend your time doing and then move forward. [00:37:03]Frederick Weiss: [00:37:03] There’s only so much time in a day, and there’s so much technology that we could explore. And that’s why there’s. An array of people that, excuse the pun, an array of people that we could depend on and ask them their opinions as well. [00:37:17]I wanted to also ask you about the podcast. How’s that going? Or are you still continuing that? [00:37:23] Kent C. Dodds: [00:37:23] Yeah, so I am Eventually I’m going to start work on season four. I think I have three seasons. And yeah, I’m definitely planning on making that a thing again. Or, so the reason that I did the seasonal release thing where I just released the whole thing, I’ll all at once kind of Netflix binge style. [00:37:40]Yeah. So the reason that I do that is I’ve done a lot of podcasts. I did angular air. I did JavaScript to air. I’ve got this three-minute podcast. I do. And there was a react 30 that I did with Michael Jackson and Ryan Florence for, I was at, it was like 15 episodes so it of shorter. [00:37:54]But yeah, and then I have a podcast on Epic react and where I’m the guest in a podcast where I have guests. And so I’ve done all this podcasting thing a lot. And one thing that I’ve learned is that. It can become a chore. It just takes a lot of work. I’m sure you two both know, takes way more work than I ever expected. [00:38:13]Yeah. And especially when you’re doing I did the live thing like you are and when you want to have a consistent time every week, we do it there. This time finding guests that can just happen to make it at that time is very difficult. And yeah, it was, it just became too much and that’s why Java script error kind of fizzled out. [00:38:30]And so when I decided, Hey, I want to do this podcast. You think I want to have guests. But I don’t want to. Have to go through like finding guests all the time and stuff. So I’ll just do a bunch of episodes, record them all in rapid succession. I’ll do two or three a week and then we’ll put them all together and just ship them all at once. [00:38:47] And then there’s no expectation on consistency from me. Nobody people will ask me, but they’re not expecting something every single week. And so that just reduces the amount of I don’t know, the effort now I’m doing a daily podcast, but it’s three minutes long. It takes me like four minutes total to do the whole [00:39:02] Frederick Weiss: [00:39:02] thing. [00:39:02]Could you imagine if you had a wait like a week for a new Wanda vision to come out like I just want to sit down, watch the whole thing and about one day and that’s it. Yeah, I guess [00:39:13] Brian Hinton: [00:39:13] I just want you to know Kent. I am expecting podcasts from you. Yeah. Yeah. [00:39:16] Kent C. Dodds: [00:39:16] And I do get that quite a bit. [00:39:18] People are like when on season four coming out and that’s fine. I don’t feel too pressured by that. But season four is going to happen. I have a couple of people in mind that I’m probably going to invite on. But yeah, it’s, I don’t know. I haven’t started I, it doesn’t actually take a ton of work. [00:39:34] Egghead helps me with that a lot. You’re not [00:39:37] Brian Hinton: [00:39:37] doing anything right? Yeah. [00:39:41] Kent C. Dodds: [00:39:41] Busy was fun. The reason I started podcasting in the first place was I was driving in my car, listening to a podcast and they would talk about something and I would start talking. I would like to respond. I’d be like, no, that’s not how it works. [00:39:52] Or I’d say, Oh yeah. And then this they respond back. No, they never luckily they never did. Otherwise, you were like [00:39:59] Frederick Weiss: [00:39:59] talking to the TV. [00:40:01] Kent C. Dodds: [00:40:01] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so I was like, you know what, I’m just going to start doing this myself. I need to, I want to participate in these conversations. And so that’s why I started podcasting. [00:40:09] And then I got to talk with amazing people. I started with angular air and I started with the angular team. That was awesome. When I started JavaScript air, I started with Brendan IQ as my first guest. Like I was able to meet some really awesome people. And the whole thing was just a big excuse for me to be able to talk with some interesting people about interesting things. [00:40:26]So it’s not really a chore to me. But it does take time. And yeah. That’s why I just decided to let’s do seasonal and then I can just do it whenever I want. Yeah. [00:40:35] Brian Hinton: [00:40:35] Yeah. Same with us. We really enjoy just connecting with people. I know my big thing is I always want to humanize people because people look at you can’t get people to look at you and they’re like, it’s Kent. [00:40:47] And I’m like Kent is four kids. He just ate the lasagna last night, [00:40:51] Frederick Weiss: [00:40:51] yeah. Our big thing is really just to get to know people like Brian said, people put people on these weird pedestals, et cetera, but what actually drives you to do these things? And yeah it’s great talking to you and getting some of that. [00:41:05] And like you said, getting the opportunities to talk to some of the more interesting people, which is presently something that we’re all participating in. [00:41:15] Kent C. Dodds: [00:41:15] Yeah. It’s fun. [00:41:17] Brian Hinton: [00:41:17] Yeah. Frederick, do you have any further questions or would you like to move to the lightning round? I [00:41:23] Frederick Weiss: [00:41:23] think the lightning rod round Brian I would like to do that. [00:41:27] Kent C. Dodds: [00:41:27] I am comfortable. I’ll be honest. When I saw this, I was like, Oh no, I’m really bad at lightning. I am. I just ramble a lot. I just talk a lot, so yeah. Yeah. [00:41:37] Frederick Weiss: [00:41:37] Ready to ramble. Ramble time lightning round rambling. [00:41:42] Brian Hinton: [00:41:42] Ramble time. Yeah. Yeah. So I’ll ask the question first and Frederick, can we just go back and forth? [00:41:47]My first question would be where do you mind not waiting? [00:41:52] Kent C. Dodds: [00:41:52] Where do I mind not waiting? Yeah. Oh, it’s like, where do I mind? Just like hanging out or yeah, you’re in line somewhere where you’re just like, I’m cool with it. Yeah. I don’t know. I hate waiting at work. There’s nowhere that I don’t mind not waiting. [00:42:11] Frederick Weiss: [00:42:11] That’s a fine answer. Kent, let me ask you a serious question. What do you find to be your most favorite quality about yourself? [00:42:20] Kent C. Dodds: [00:42:20] Ooh, this is a sort of question that I would ask my kids, as for they can feel good about themselves. I feel like we don’t love ourselves enough. So yeah, that’s a great question. [00:42:28]I am a very driven person. I‘m, I get really committed to things and I like that about myself. Good. [00:42:35] Brian Hinton: [00:42:35] Nice. Okay. Imagine this you’re in the circus. Can you, would you rather be the person with their head in the lion’s mouth or shot out of a cannon [00:42:46] Kent C. Dodds: [00:42:46] shout out of a cannon for sure. Okay. That sounds awesome. [00:42:49] That would be so fun. [00:42:52] Frederick Weiss: [00:42:52] Kent, if you can not be around a computer ever again for some hypothetical circumstance, what would you do professionally? [00:43:02] Kent C. Dodds: [00:43:02] I would write a book a fantasy novel. That’s that’d be really hard to do without a computer though. [00:43:09] Frederick Weiss: [00:43:09] It is possible. There are typewriters. Yup. [00:43:12] Kent C. Dodds: [00:43:12] Yup. That’s what I would do. [00:43:15] Brian Hinton: [00:43:15] Okay. You go on a trip. You, your plane crashes, a Castaway style with Wilson and everything. You hit your head, you wake up somehow you made it back to land. You only have one technical skill that you still have. What is that technical skill? [00:43:30]Kent C. Dodds: [00:43:30] Shoot I with all of the skills that I have right now, I would still die. [00:43:37] So it doesn’t make a difference. What I choose. [00:43:39] Brian Hinton: [00:43:39] Oh, you made it back to the end. [00:43:41] Kent C. Dodds: [00:43:41] Oh, so like I survived. Okay. One technical skill. [00:43:45]Typing. [00:43:48] Frederick Weiss: [00:43:48] There you go. That is technical skill. Okay. Kent, imagine this, you come home. Nobody’s there it is late. It’s like one, two 30 in the morning. It’s raining. Pouring you open the door, you see a [00:44:05] Brian Hinton: [00:44:05] ghost. What do you do? [00:44:07]Kent C. Dodds: [00:44:07] Invite them in, no, they’re in the house. Yeah. Yeah, sure. They’re going to come in anyway. [00:44:12] So may as well act friendly. [00:44:17] Frederick Weiss: [00:44:17] Would you like some tea come on in [00:44:20] Brian Hinton: [00:44:20] what chores do you absolutely hate doing? [00:44:23]Kent C. Dodds: [00:44:23] I queen toilets like cleaning the bathroom. I hit that. [00:44:28] Frederick Weiss: [00:44:28] Nice. All right, Kent, what are you listening to for fun right now? Are you listening to any certain kind of a podcast or something [00:44:37] Kent C. Dodds: [00:44:37] such as that? Yes, I am always listening to a podcast. [00:44:40]One thing that people know about me is I listened at three X that’s how fast? So here’s here, I’m listening right now too soft skills engineering. And [00:44:49] Frederick Weiss: [00:44:49] this is, [00:44:55] Kent C. Dodds: [00:44:55] I didn’t do a lot of podcasts at very fast speeds. And soft-skills engineering is a favorite. I’ve got I listened to a lot of Tesla stuff. So I’ve got tastes, Tesla, daily and ride the lightning, the Tesla, and the official podcast. I love dark net diaries. I listened to a lot of books, so I like Brandon Sanderson. [00:45:13] I’m a big fan. And yeah, like some self-help books and stuff like that. I’m a listener of syntax and planet money. Yeah, so I listen to podcasts a lot. Writing excuses is writing podcasts. I listen to. And then I, when I’m coding, I just, it doesn’t matter what it is and it can have lyrics or not. [00:45:30] It doesn’t matter. I don’t even realize it. Sometimes it can sometimes I’ll realize that there it’s really dirty or something. You’re like, Oh, shoot, kind of skip that because I just did not pay attention. But I do need something when I’m coding. [00:45:45] Frederick Weiss: [00:45:45] Gotcha. Yeah, it’s funny. You mentioned that I heard just the other day Dave ripper on a shop talk. [00:45:51] He was talking about how all he does with podcasts is listen to them at two X, et cetera. And I could imagine going back to listening to them at just regular speed. I think a lot of us do that. We just rush through, I want to get the info. [00:46:05] Kent C. Dodds: [00:46:05] I know like our brains are really capable. People who are blind are able to listen to it like six X or more. [00:46:12]So lots of that is because of the parts of their brain that are processing vision or have been retrained and stuff. But yeah, our brains are amazing. And I worked up over years to get to three acts and, but it means that I have to be very focused. I either I’m just sitting there listening to it or I’m doing dishes or driving or something that like, I can just put on autopilot sometimes, literally. [00:46:34]And and so I can listen. Otherwise, I’ll miss stuff. And I’ve just not [00:46:37] Frederick Weiss: [00:46:37] cleaning the toilet. Yeah. [00:46:40] Brian Hinton: [00:46:40] I’ve definitely watched your videos too at two X cause I like move faster cats. [00:46:45] Kent C. Dodds: [00:46:45] Yeah, that’s impressive. Cause Eric had added the ability to slow down videos because of me [00:46:54] can’t but slower. [00:46:59] I talk fast. I don’t like wasting people’s time and I don’t like my time being wasted either. [00:47:03] Brian Hinton: [00:47:03] Would you rather be able to copy and paste to real-life or undo? [00:47:09] Kent C. Dodds: [00:47:09] Oh, I find myself trying to do command F in real life, like finding a lot undo for sure. It’s actually pretty easy. I make mistakes all the time. [00:47:20] Kent, [00:47:20] Frederick Weiss: [00:47:20] what advice would you give somebody that is just getting into JavaScript development? What would be the first place you would point them to. [00:47:31] Kent C. Dodds: [00:47:31] Sorry, I’m thinking about that last one. I’m going to change my answer to compensate. I was just thinking if you undo every mistake you make like you never really learned anything. [00:47:42]And and sometimes you don’t realize that the thing you did was a mistake until later. So yeah I wouldn’t want to mess with time. [00:47:48] Brian Hinton: [00:47:48] So wait, you’re undoing your answer. Now [00:47:52] Frederick Weiss: [00:47:52] you realize the thick layer of irony here. [00:47:58] Kent C. Dodds: [00:47:58] I can’t do that. I guess I just gave that ability away. Yeah. Okay. So you wanted advice for someone who’s just getting into programming? [00:48:06] Frederick Weiss: [00:48:06] Yes, exactly. Somebody’s just getting into programming. Where do you point them to say they’re they want, they have aspirations to learn JavaScript. What is the first place you point them to? You know what you should do here and start looking, reading, consuming. [00:48:20] Kent C. Dodds: [00:48:20] Yeah. That one’s actually really tough. [00:48:22]I have made a living building or creating material for experienced developers. I don’t teach brand-new developers. A whole lot people need, I have assumptions that you have knowledge. And because I haven’t created anything, I also haven’t gone through anything like the mind mechanism for learning this stuff was just playing around with things a lot. [00:48:43]And so I don’t know if I can recommend that path. If there’s maybe something out there that’s better like a more guided journey. But like I hear great things about West boss is JavaScript. 30 is good, but I think that kind of expects that you have some experience a little bit friend and master’s, I think has some intro stuff. [00:48:59] That’d probably be a good place to start. [00:49:02] Frederick Weiss: [00:49:02] Oh yeah. We’ll add that in the show notes. That’s a great one. [00:49:04]Brian Hinton: [00:49:04] What do you miss most about being a kid? [00:49:11] Kent C. Dodds: [00:49:11] When I was in fifth grade, I was homeschooled. And I would wake up at five in the morning and my mom would have a checklist, actually, something like this. This is what I do now. And she would just, every, all of my homework assignments for the day, I would get them all done by nine. And then I have the whole day to myself to do whatever I wanted. [00:49:28]I miss that. Now I have that, but like now I have a wife and four kids. I need to look after it when I was a kid. It was just like, I do whatever I want and nobody relies on me. No, I can’t. Your mom’s awesome. Yeah, that was awesome. I really loved that year. It was actually a transformative year. [00:49:45] That’s like where I got my drive and my productivity, just like I have a checklist, I just get it done. And then I can do what I want. [00:49:54] Frederick Weiss: [00:49:54] Love that. Brian, do you have anything else? [00:49:56]Brian Hinton: [00:49:56] I’ve. I have two more. I just want to know, like in the 11, so you’re 12 [00:50:00] Kent C. Dodds: [00:50:00] I’m number 11 of 12 or [00:50:02] Brian Hinton: [00:50:02] 11 and 12. [00:50:03] Yeah. I want to know where you’re. I was curious where you’re at in that. And why was the JavaScript developer sad? Oh, God. [00:50:10]Kent C. Dodds: [00:50:10] Because then defined wasn’t a function, [00:50:12] Brian Hinton: [00:50:12] because he didn’t know how to express himself. [00:50:14] Frederick Weiss: [00:50:14] Brian’s joke of the week, [00:50:18] Kent C. Dodds: [00:50:18] those punny jokes, people will find that every five or six videos, I have a break and it’s just a broken video. It’s two minutes long of me saying, Hey, let’s do, let’s just take a quick break. And I show them I can have dad joked.com. And we just look at random dad jokes like three or four of those. [00:50:36]Cody, the koala bear also joins us and Oh my God, that’s [00:50:39] Brian Hinton: [00:50:39] awesome. [00:50:43] Frederick Weiss: [00:50:43] Kent. We’re at the end of the show. And I just want to make sure that we’re telling people where to go to find more information about you, obviously your website, which is Kent C Dodds, two DS, and the s.com. You’re also on YouTubes. You provided a URL, C D I M slash YouTube. Do you have the Twitters, you were at Kent C Dodds on the Twitters and get hub slash Kent C Dodds. [00:51:10] I imagine everywhere that anyone would book, if I go to the Kent C Dodds, they would discover you that’s [00:51:19] Kent C. Dodds: [00:51:19] the case. I don’t think there are any exceptions so far. [00:51:23] Frederick Weiss: [00:51:23] Yeah. Great. And the last thing I love to ask the guest is, do you have any final words of advice for our audience? [00:51:33]Kent C. Dodds: [00:51:33] So my father-in-law likes to say ask, Hey Kent, is it more important to be a hard worker or to be smart? [00:51:40] And he says it’s more important to be a hard worker and is more important to be a hard worker or to be nice. And it’s more important to be nice. And it doesn’t matter how smart you are or how hard I work or you are, if you’re not nice then you’re missing out on a lot that the world has to offer and the world is missing out on a lot that you have to offer as well. [00:51:58]So that would be my parting words of advice. Be a little introspective and think about how you can make yourself a little nicer. [00:52:07] Brian Hinton: [00:52:07] I like that. I love that. Yeah. Thank you so much for spending your evening with us time. I always say it’s the most valuable thing we have and free to spend a little with us. [00:52:17] That’s great. Thank you [00:52:18] Kent C. Dodds: [00:52:18] so much. Thank you. I appreciate you giving me some of your time and the audience as well. [00:52:23] Frederick Weiss: [00:52:23] Yeah. Thank you so much, Ken. And thanks to everybody again for watching the show. Really appreciate it. We’ll catch you next time. Thank you so much, Kent. Take care. All.

In this episode, we get to speak with Jared Rhodes: Microsoft MVP, and Pluralsight Author. We discuss what it takes to build a HomeLab. We review the technology, hardware, software, and economic logistics to get you started. Episode Sponsor Auth0 https://auth0.comAuth0 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/auth0Auth0 on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/auth0Auth0 Avocado Labs online meetup events: https://avocadolabs.dev/ Episode Links Website: https://jaredrhodes.com/Twitter:  https://twitter.com/QiMataLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/qimata/MeetUp: https://www.meetup.com/atlantaIntelligentDevices/Conf-migos 4 Life: https://www.thundernerds.io/2020/06/conf-migos-life/Pi-hole: https://pi-hole.netReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/Github lists of great software:https://github.com/n1trux/awesome-sysadminhttps://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhostedZynthian: https://zynthian.orgFeather: https://www.adafruit.com/featherHosts: Frederick Weiss: https://twitter.com/frederickweiss​Brian Hinton: https://twitter.com/mrbrianhinton Transcript [00:00:00] Brian Hinton: [00:00:00] Hey, welcome to Thunder Nerds. I'm Brian Hinton. [00:00:02] Frederick Weiss: [00:00:02] And I'm Frederick Phillip 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 and do tech [00:00:15] Brian Hinton: [00:00:15] good [00:00:17] Frederick Weiss: [00:00:17] ha. Thanks everybody for joining again. Please ask your questions. [00:00:21] We'll answer them in the order they are received. And additionally, if you can go to the YouTube, go to youtube.com/thundernerds  and subscribe click on that the notification bell, throw some likes and hearts our way we would deeply appreciate it. Thank you so much, [00:00:39] Brian Hinton: [00:00:39] Brian. Yeah, deeply. Appreciate it, please, please subscribe. [00:00:42]Yeah, we'd like to thank the return of auth0  as this season sponsor. They make it easy for developers to build a custom secure, and standards-based know if I login by providing authentication and authorization as a service to try it out, go to Auth0.com  as can see on the screen today. Also on both YouTube and Twitch under username Auth0 with some great. [00:01:04] Developer resources and streams. They also run avocado labs, which is an online destination, our developer advocates run, organizing some great meetup events. Again, remember to check out Auth0.com today. Thanks again. [00:01:18] Frederick Weiss: [00:01:18] Yeah, thanks everybody. So let's go ahead and get to our super cool guest today. [00:01:23] We have Microsoft MVP, Pluralsight author. Jared Rhodes, welcome to the show, Jared, or welcome back rather. Good to be here. Yeah. Good to have you, yeah. You were on the show. God sometime last year, a look at the exact date when we had the con Migos. It was in June, was the June last year. Okay, cool. [00:01:46] Yeah, we had a bunch of amazing guests. We had a Baskar Rao Dandlamudi . The, your doppelganger, Jared. Janell Michael Todd Libby. Vincent Tang, Faisal Abid. [00:01:56] Brian Hinton: [00:01:56] Yeah. It was a big show too, we'll link to it in our show notes. It's a great show. [00:02:00] Frederick Weiss: [00:02:00] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Great idea, Brian. So Jared let's let's start off by talking a little bit about you and what's going on? [00:02:06] How, how are you surviving with the COVID? I know you can't do any of the traveling you normally do with all of your speaking events, talking about all kinds of super cool Neato things around the world. What's going on, buddy. [00:02:21] Jared Rhodes: [00:02:21] So yeah, can't do any of that. Can't travel, can't know the speaking gigs or anything. [00:02:26] And I personally did the really shunned away from doing any of the, the online talks or anything, unless like directly asked to to do one for a group. So for me personally, I have been. A cave nerd, I guess, like I've just been in my office, you know, building out different pieces of technology to entertain myself. [00:02:46] I've, I've cut down every tree in my yard and dug plenty of holes. And other than that, it's just been sitting in front of this keyboard for [00:02:54] Brian Hinton: [00:02:54] like you gotcha. He actually is in a cave for our audio listeners. You're missing out. It's a great cave. It's like great lighting. And I'm curious. Okay. I saw in the background just now I just noticed this and I want to know what's going on. [00:03:05] There it looks like there's a monkey, a flashlight and a supplier's. So I'm looking [00:03:10] Frederick Weiss: [00:03:10] considering specific. Brian's saying a real monkey. [00:03:12] Brian Hinton: [00:03:12] No, no, it's not a real monkey, a real monkey. But why is there a monkey? I think it's a flashlight and pliers in the background. What's going on there? This is not a flashlight. [00:03:24] Okay. Oh, camera monkey and fly and [00:03:26] Jared Rhodes: [00:03:26] fliers. Okay. That's a camera from an IOT company that basically sold all those cameras and then turn their app off. So you can't use them anymore. So I'm trying both, it had so many security holes. I think I can, I can still use it like it was that badly secured. [00:03:41] I can just. Override the firmware. And I also want to rip it apart to see what the parts inside would be worth and see if I can't just buy them off of people who don't want them anymore and sell the parts. [00:03:52] Frederick Weiss: [00:03:52] I don't believe we answered the monkey question is [00:03:55]Jared Rhodes: [00:03:55] Xamarin  monkey. Do not know the Xamarin monkey. [00:03:58] Frederick Weiss: [00:03:58] I do not. I'm not aware of what you enlightened [00:04:00] Jared Rhodes: [00:04:00] us, Jared. I don't know why, but Xamarin is mascot was a monkey. And so there's Xamarin monkey was. [00:04:07] Frederick Weiss: [00:04:07] Yeah. What happened to the monkey? They chose to move away from said monkey, lack of bananas in the COVID. [00:04:13] Brian Hinton: [00:04:13] Oh, okay. Yeah. There's even a blog spot called Xamarin and monkeys. [00:04:20] That's great. It's very interesting. [00:04:24] Jared Rhodes: [00:04:24] I don't know where the muscle came from, but. I dunno, I, I started with Xamarin like eight years ago and it was like every, you know, how companies do that? Where they've got like a mascot or something. So everything has it in it. They had like the monkey app demo and the monkey, this and the monkey that it was there. [00:04:37] Brian Hinton: [00:04:37] Yeah. We used to have the, a Firefox stuffed animal when we'd go to conferences back when, you know, we could go to conferences, we put it on top of the camera. So we'd look at the Firefox like, Oh shit. [00:04:47] Frederick Weiss: [00:04:47] I dunno. Know how many companies back in the day, when I first started out, had like way too many of the Linux penguins everywhere. [00:04:54] Like, they were just so excited about it. Like, [00:04:56] Brian Hinton: [00:04:56] okay. I love, I love penguins. In fact a spirit animal of a cool like Prince thing that I'm going to put behind me eventually, because I love penguins. Let me, let me [00:05:07] Frederick Weiss: [00:05:07] put up this chart. If you don't know him actually. Yeah, he's very much into penguins. [00:05:13] They are his spirit, animals and Alton Brown Alton Brown is also Brian's spirit animal. Don't ask me why, but Jared, again the COVID is you can't go out, you can't do the talks. Are you doing any of the virtual events? And if you are, what do those look [00:05:28] Jared Rhodes: [00:05:28] like? I've only done a few and that was one directly asked. [00:05:32]Usually if there was a, someone had to step out, I would step in at the last minute and do a talk and. And for me personally, I've really shunned away from doing it though. Cause it's, it's really not the same. I don't have any drive to do them at all. Like literally at all, [00:05:48] Brian Hinton: [00:05:48] I don't even have to drive. [00:05:49] Yeah. [00:05:53] Jared Rhodes: [00:05:53] I said, I don't feel like doing any of that. The virtual events really, I feel like you could make something better. Prerecorded and, and a lot better edited. But yeah, I just did a few of them and I don't, I don't really like it either. Like trying it, you have no interaction. I half the time I would miss my cues when people would raise their hands to ask questions or anything like that. [00:06:13] So she didn't like it. What about your experiences [00:06:16] Frederick Weiss: [00:06:16] with the attending? Some of these, have you been. Going to any of these interesting events, have you partaken in any of these talks and anything that you found successful working for other people? A lot of people are coming to us asking about how I put on these virtual events and if we have any advice. [00:06:33] So, do you have any such advice. [00:06:36] Jared Rhodes: [00:06:36] No, no, because we actually have a team member, so I helped run the Atlanta code camp as well. And so we have a team member that's been putting together all kinds of events for I Tripoli virtual. And honestly, when the idea of doing code camp virtually was presented to our group of organizers, it was like a collective side and then no one will do it. [00:06:58] Wait, we skipped out. So I personally, I, I haven't run my user group virtually after the first month. And then I haven't done anything else virtually, so I really. I wish I could help people out to do this, but I am so interested in doing the virtual meetings. [00:07:13] Brian Hinton: [00:07:13] I'm just, I'm the same way. I mean, I run the Figma Tampa Bay meetup, and I've only done like maybe one or two since COVID started. [00:07:20] And yeah, just not hugely into it because there's no one-on-one interaction and, you know, Rachel bakes cupcakes, I can't bring virtual cupcakes to people that doesn't [00:07:31] Frederick Weiss: [00:07:31] work. You could program that. Brian, come on your slot. I'll tell you what though. Who does some good events is the people at advent apart, they do some pretty interesting things where you have a lot of deep interaction with the presenters. [00:07:44] So they, they, they got really creative with that and that's. That's as good on them. That's a great Avenue to to explore and try that out. We'll put a link in the show notes as well. What about courses, Jared? You mentioned courses. Are you developing courses right now? And if you are, what are those [00:07:59] Jared Rhodes: [00:07:59] courses? [00:08:00] I'm not developing anymore right now. So basically right as COVID hit, I had started a new contract for a company based out of New York that I was flying to. So that was back in March. And at the same time I was finishing up my last two or three courses for Pluralsight. And there were some Xamarin courses and between my wife's a pharmacist. [00:08:22] So between, you know, stuff that was happening in healthcare, the traveling stopped my contract suddenly going from on-site to remote. It was chaos and I wasn't, to be honest, I just wasn't happy with what I produced in my last couple of courses. So I've kind of, I've steered clear of it for a while. [00:08:40] I kind of wanted to take a break, really examine why I didn't, why I wasn't happy with those courses so that I could maybe make some that, that people wanted, you know? [00:08:50]Brian Hinton: [00:08:50] I'm curious, how is your family doing? How's your wife doing, being a pharmacist with healthcare and all this stuff going on? [00:08:56] How she, how she been well, with all [00:08:58] Jared Rhodes: [00:08:58] this, she's been fine. The first a month and a half of people literally walking up to the pharmacy and coffin get them. They installed the place glass and everyone started wearing a mask and she somehow drew the short straw and had to open the pharmacy for senior hours. [00:09:12] And she's been doing that since April or whatever. So every Tuesday at 6:00 AM, she has to go open that pharmacy. And at this point, no one even shows up, right? None of the seniors go to senior hours anymore. Yes. I don't know. It's been okay in that aspect that she's had some easier work on, on top of that, but now vaccines are coming out. [00:09:31] They're shooting, you know, they're shooting people up with the vaccines. So she's got tons of more work and has to learn a lot of things quickly. [00:09:37] Frederick Weiss: [00:09:37] Yeah, I heard not I heard, but I read on May 1st. Apparently that's like the national, everybody over 18 could get a vaccine according to CNN and what Bindin project. [00:09:50] So crossing my fingers. I could get even sooner than that, but you know, I'll, I'll take what I could get. I'm very excited. Put it in my, I don't care wherever you need it. I really don't care where you put the vaccine, as long as I could get it. If you have to stick a needle in my teeth, go for it. I just gave me this damn vaccine. [00:10:09] I'm excited. So why don't we talk about a little bit more work related things, Jared, let's get to know you a little bit. What do you, what do you do exactly on a day to day? I know you are a Microsoft MVP. You are a plural site. Author, what do those two things mean? If you could, just for the sake of brevity, if you could just quickly go over those and I want to ask you something a little bit more deeper, [00:10:36]Jared Rhodes: [00:10:36] For brevity sake, what that usually means in non COVID times. [00:10:40] There's a lot of content generation and a lot of presentations. So generating content, blog posts obviously the courses videos doing the in-person meetings, running the code camps. That's what those things mean outside of work. And for work, I'm just a cloud solution architect right now. [00:10:57] Frederick Weiss: [00:10:57] Yeah. [00:10:57] And from my understanding, your main thing is a business that you run, which is the well, there's your website. Let me find the right slide here, which is Humana. If I'm saying that correct. Is that, is that right? Humana? [00:11:11] Jared Rhodes: [00:11:11] Qimata. [00:11:13] Frederick Weiss: [00:11:13] Qimata excuse me. Camada correction.  dot com. So that's Q I M a T a.com for audio listeners, go back and watch we'll have it in the show notes. [00:11:22] Can you tell us what Phil Collins, the Genesis of this company, was and why you actually started it? And what are some of the verticals that you serve? What are some of the solutions that you provide? [00:11:34]Jared Rhodes: [00:11:34] I'm not going to oversell it. I mean, it's just the company I started so that there was a company between me as a consultant and basically, so I could 10 99 through a company. [00:11:43] Gotcha. Under that banner, I've done tons of Azure work and mobile work. So Xamarin mobile, and mainly Azure, either automation or architecture. Why the [00:11:57] Frederick Weiss: [00:11:57] name? What's the, what's the [00:11:58] Jared Rhodes: [00:11:58] name mean? It means nothing. So funny enough, I was in, I was with my wife and we were in India and we were going around and we were trying to figure out a name because I was stuck in the car for 16 hours a day with my in-laws. [00:12:11] So I was on my phone trying to figure out a name for a company. And it just happened to be, it was a play on a word that was the only word that wasn't taken in. As a domain name, right? I want something weird, but I just wanted something that was like six letters. There was a play on a word and boom, those are the letters that fit together. [00:12:26] And the funny ending of that story is that it's actually the English name of a city in China. So most of my traffic actually comes from people in that name.com. That's [00:12:39] Frederick Weiss: [00:12:39] so awesome. You should get the the the level domain for the China, the China version of that, [00:12:45] Brian Hinton: [00:12:45] I think a C H yeah. Something like that [00:12:47] Frederick Weiss: [00:12:47] is like that. [00:12:48] Yeah. I don't even know if one could purchase that with our geographic challenge and all that. Great. So what kind of, what kind of challenges do you help? Resolve for customers. Do you, do you have people come to you for several specific things and what are those specific things that you specialize in? [00:13:09]Jared Rhodes: [00:13:09] I would say I usually get two types of customer requests and that'll be both with Azure and Xamarin. Usually it's someone that has used the technology on a project or as a team, you know, they're building out some solution for about six to 10 months and they come to me and go something's wrong. [00:13:25] And I usually get pulled in. I go and I try to help them figure out what's wrong. I could say one here in Atlanta was a They make cash registers. You can figure out who it is. So they make cash registers and they came to me after six to 10 months on his Amerind project and everything was wrong. [00:13:42] And I mean, everything, it didn't start fast. It didn't, it didn't stay on. It crashed all the time, blah, blah, blah. So I went in and over the course of a couple of months, we fixed it for. The current client, they are the, I think they're the world's largest, largest insurance company. They do weird insurances that you don't think about. [00:14:00] Like if I'm trying to ship something through three different languages. Countries, what are they, you know, whatever, or from Walmart, ensuring every location across the world, that kind of thing, big insurance. And they want it to get into new markets. So they wanted a cloud solution architect to try to help them walk through like, Oh, and they weren't in the cloud. [00:14:17] They had a private cloud, they had a huge cloud initiative and they brought me in to help with that cloud initiative. As they built out this new business line to try to figure out how they could use this enterprise Azure contract to their benefit. [00:14:30] Brian Hinton: [00:14:30] I'm laughing. Cause I can just think of my, if my parents were listening to this, they'd be like, get a private cloud because they would have no idea. [00:14:38] What is this? [00:14:38] Frederick Weiss: [00:14:38] The Jetsons? I don't get it. [00:14:42] Brian Hinton: [00:14:42] I mean, on that point, like for, for people who aren't familiar, like, what does that mean to like like how would you explain that to layman's terms like private versus like what you're doing? Yeah. Private cloud versus public cloud. [00:14:55] Jared Rhodes: [00:14:55] Yeah. Think about everything before the public cloud. [00:14:57] And that's basically what a private cloud is. They just have their own servers and they have a lot of them and they have teams that manage them. So in their world, you either send an email, go to a little portal or something and you request this whatever access to whatever thing, or to create a thing within that private cloud. [00:15:15] Whereas the public cloud. It's supposed to be a little bit easier. You can just log in and there's already a portal and you can self-service your way to turning on your website or your database, just through a few clicks. So do you, how do you, [00:15:27] Frederick Weiss: [00:15:27] let me ask this because this pertains to this communication. [00:15:32] The dangers and the value of one having a private location, like a private cloud, opposed to something like, you know, a Google or an Amazon service. And two, how do you sell people on maybe a cloud redundant solution just in case if they have that private have some kind of redundancy. [00:15:55] Jared Rhodes: [00:15:55] Okay, so go over the first question again. [00:15:57] I'm kind of confused by it. It's about how do I convince them to move to the public cloud, even though it may be less secure. [00:16:05] Frederick Weiss: [00:16:05] Not specifically that it might be, it might be less secure to have a private cloud just for the fact that if all your stuff is in this you know, and, and again, they can have a private cloud in multiple geographic locations, but say something goes wrong with this cloud service. [00:16:25] Basically what I'm getting at is the, the second, the latter of the question really, which is the redundancy of. Redundant clouds and what that means and how that can best ensure service. [00:16:39] Jared Rhodes: [00:16:39] Well for a company like this, it's so large that it's private cloud is actually one of those multi-region. And I mean, when I say multi-region they had data centers in Hong Kong, they had data centers in Zurich. [00:16:49] They had data centers in South America. I see. So they're really big. And their private cloud was very large. They're moved to the public cloud wasn't necessarily for that redundant cloud per se, per purpose. I believe if I could guess it was a cost cutting measure. When you invest in a private cloud, you have a lot of capital expenditure. [00:17:09] Whereas if you go to the public cloud, you have a lot of operational expenditure and for a company that large, that spends that much on the cloud, that's usually the driving force behind it is to ship. It's a shift from CapEx to OPEX. However, to address the idea of the redundant cloud, there's two two things that come to mind when you say redundant clouds. [00:17:29] So you are talking about the private and public cloud. Whereas what a lot of companies are looking at is the public public cloud. So first is the private to public cloud. It's like me personally, if we go into talking about the home lab, I use the public cloud as an offload for my private home lab. [00:17:48] It's my backup, right? Because backups are so much simpler and easier there. And I just get the easy geo-redundant security and all that kind of stuff for my backups. Right. For a company that was that large and had that large of an internal private cloud, the public cloud just offers something different. [00:18:08] It's not exactly that they need that redundancy. And if you're talking about redundancy, when we go to Amazon and Azure, that is something that companies. Okay. How so? How do I put it? It's if you, if you've done this long enough, you've seen it where you've, you've gone through a client and that client will have spent millions and millions of dollars with an idea in mind, like a redundant cloud. [00:18:28] And for some reason, it just never really comes to fruition easily. A lot of companies are now trying to do that with Kubernetes because I can just do Kubernetes and Azure and, and do Kubernetes and Google. And I can do Kubernetes and Amazon. But at the end of the day, there'll be these minor differences and they don't want to spend the extra a hundred thousand dollars to get those minor differences out of the way. [00:18:46] And these public clouds are so large that for you to not have access to your resources and something as big as Azure would require something as catastrophic as either one certificate going bad or governments falling. It's just that large. [00:19:01] Brian Hinton: [00:19:01] Like the government's falling. I found it interesting, you mentioned your, your home lab. [00:19:07]What, that's one of our, our topics today is building a home lab. What, what the heck are you talking about when you were mentioning home lab? [00:19:14] Frederick Weiss: [00:19:14] Yeah, I guess just to, just to even set this up further, we, we, we, we need to there, I'm sure there's a lot of people that don't have some kind of concept that appears in their head when, when Brian said home lab, like they think there's like girls, [00:19:29] Brian Hinton: [00:19:29] like, you [00:19:30] know, [00:19:31] Frederick Weiss: [00:19:31] Oh, you went for an actual lab. [00:19:35] There's a lab. That's exactly it. Right. [00:19:41] Jared Rhodes: [00:19:41] So a home lab, no. Sarcasm depends on what you want to do with it. So like there's these found these, these groups. So again, they, you know, I got locked inside for a year and my outlet for creativity when I couldn't talk to people in groups was to apparently just go and buy old computer hardware and create my own little It'd be too much to call it a private call, but my own little data center server set or a home lab in a home lab is just whatever where you want it to be 90% of the people that I see doing it are doing it so they can run their own multimedia server, which seems to be the thing everyone in technology likes to do. [00:20:17] You can do more than that though. I run it as sort of a test lab for a bunch of different projects and to learn different technologies like Kubernetes, you know, you can do whatever you want to with it. [00:20:29] Frederick Weiss: [00:20:29] Okay, go ahead, bro. Okay. [00:20:31] Brian Hinton: [00:20:31] I've been debating I'm getting a raspberry PI and doing the whole, I can't remember the name of the software, but there's a software you can use that basically intercepts ad traffic before it like gets to your computer and PI yes, yes. Pile. I've been wanting to try that out just cause it seems like it would be, it's just a smart thing to have in between my computers and everything else. [00:20:52] Frederick Weiss: [00:20:52] Just put the link in the show notes to that. [00:20:54] Brian Hinton: [00:20:54] Yeah, it's pretty cool. [00:20:57] Jared Rhodes: [00:20:57] Yeah. I looked at doing that too. So mine was just, I had, I had routing equipment, so I went ahead and did the The no lookup BNS for those ad sites in that, but a pothole is also another very popular one. But do note that when you do that, when you turn off all the ads, a lot of websites know that you turned off their ads. [00:21:14] So when you go to hell not work at all, Well, we'll make you click 15 things to let you know, Hey, your browser seems to be, [00:21:23] Brian Hinton: [00:21:23] they tend to not like it. Yeah, it's crazy. How much, how insane it's gotten. Like, I mean, the verge has always been notorious for ads, but I watched a video the other day. There were, there were in the first four minutes, like five ads. [00:21:37] And I was just like, this is insane. Like, that's ridiculous. Like, come on guys. [00:21:44] Jared Rhodes: [00:21:44] She was the same YouTube. Doesn't want you to listen to music anymore. It wants ads. [00:21:48] Brian Hinton: [00:21:48] Yeah. Yeah. So tell us a little bit more about your lab. Like what you're doing. Like, how did you like it? Where you like, Oh, well I'm stuck at home. [00:21:55] Let's I guess I'll do this. So what, what got you into it? [00:21:58] Jared Rhodes: [00:21:58] That's pretty much it. I was stuck at home and I'm I'm you know, I've, I've done Azure for so long and technically I'm supposed to know a lot about edge computing and IOT. Right. So I needed a bunch of servers in my house to really try that kind of stuff out. [00:22:14] And so I went and I, the first place I went was the there's a subreddit. So reddit.com/r/home lab. And I went to the home lab and I looked over stuff there. And that, that kind of helped guide me down the path of figuring out, like, you know, you're talking about doing the raspberry PI and doing a pie hole. [00:22:30] Cause I have so many raspberry pies. I honestly just not, I think I just kind of knew that it was like 23. Some of them, you know, so old that I don't even want to plug them in, but I had a lot of those and I didn't really want to wire together, a bunch of raspberry pies. I wanted to look at some sort of older hardware and try it out. [00:22:47] And that's where, when I was looking at the home lab, I learned like, you know, you, you can get this stuff pretty cheap. A lot of companies are getting rid of their servers and they just ended up in the, you know, like eBay and you can just buy them really cheap. [00:22:59] Frederick Weiss: [00:22:59] Yeah. I've actually looked at some of the videos of people that are putting these things together. [00:23:03] And some of the advice they have is to actually reach out to some of these companies, maybe even some of the OEMs and ask them about, you know what are you not using? What are you getting rid of, et cetera, et cetera. And a lot of times there'll, they'll, they'll provide these things to you. They'll just, yeah. [00:23:21] Oh, you want this? Here you go. It's kind of like one man's garbage is another man's. I dunno how to build a robot. Some of the things are a lot more accessible to get. You don't need to have a hundred thousand dollars to do this. And, and speaking of which would you mind sharing if it's not a something very ostentatious, like like a number to what your home lab is like, what, how much did you pay [00:23:50] Jared Rhodes: [00:23:50] for this? [00:23:51] So the original amount when I bought the first five servers let's see, each server costs me around a hundred dollars and that's full shipping and everything, but it had no hard drives. So then the hard drives themselves, cost me about 30 bucks a piece. So there were five of them. So we're looking at a what? [00:24:08] Six, $700 for that whole setup. I went and bought a router and the router was like 30 bucks. [00:24:14] Frederick Weiss: [00:24:14] So you did this for well, under a thousand dollars. It didn't cost you like 20 grand. You didn't have to take a loan out. It didn't have to give anybody blood. Yeah, it was fairly Easy to obtain these things [00:24:29] Jared Rhodes: [00:24:29] as far as cost goes, right? [00:24:30] Yeah. And that was actually before I learned how to really cut costs. What I did for those was I went and I found some like server refurbishing websites. So that's what they do. They refurbished servers and you buy them, you can configure them and they'll send them to you. That's what I did first. [00:24:44] But now I've gotten to where my prices are super low, because I know enough about hardware to really. Why are these things together and kind of figure out what's wrong with them and be like, you're talking about the guy who said you can call the OEM. If I could give advice for anyone who wants to pick this up, it's a check with your local electronics recycler. [00:25:03]Both for this. And if you do mobile development for test phones, because the electronics recyclers, what happened, what happened for me that that worked out was there was a merger between two banks locally here in Atlanta. Those two banks then closed down a bunch of branches. Those branches all had servers with server racks in them. [00:25:21] So the recycler, the recycler gave me the racks for a hundred dollars a piece, and then like the power backup, power supplies and all the other stuff for, you know, $20 here, $50 there. And now I've got stuff. That'll never leave the room in this office because it's way too heavy, but enough, I still am under like a thousand dollars for that set. [00:25:42] And it's a full. Private cloud for me now in there. [00:25:46] Brian Hinton: [00:25:46] Yeah. These are also a great resource. I, I used to buy little setups when I was younger, from the local university, the university of Florida. They have actually, if you look, if you Google, you'll find websites for like Oh, old hardware and you can like buy them, like. [00:26:01] Super cheap, like 20, $30 and like this server that was used. And it's pretty, pretty good deals out there. Even Goodwill is a good, good place. If you go to the right Goodwill and are in the right city, like surprisingly I've come across some interesting things. [00:26:17] Frederick Weiss: [00:26:17] Let me ask you about the advantage of doing this. [00:26:20] I mean, obviously one, like you said, the equipment's really heavy, so you could use it as a pseudo gym for nerds too. You could really gain a lot of experience and, and, and many different kinds of realms of technology, right. Not just putting these things together, but exploring all the ways that you could leverage these pieces of technology. [00:26:44] Now, what comes to my mind is documenting these things in an advantageous way, such as a blog or a tech talk, I don't know, whatever the kids use, right? Like document the stuff, not only to help the community. And get the word out about how to do these things. Cause I'm sure there's many people that want to have this knowledge, but also it's advantages for yourself to be able to put hooks in the water to be you know, not just like, look at me, I'm the expert, but it could help with career opportunities down the road. [00:27:18] Possibly. What do you say to that [00:27:19] Jared Rhodes: [00:27:19] jury? I haven't about this particular today was the first day where I really felt like I did something that was something that I could write an article about. But for most of it, I am learning as I like to write my articles about Azure. I've been using Azure for 10 years, blah, blah, blah. [00:27:36] I feel like I can give insights to things that are very much opaque to even seasoned people that use it. This stuff. I mean, I feel so lost sometimes when I'm trying to, I just configure the networks and Linux, when there's two ports, you know, to either net ports, it took me long enough to figure out how to do that, that I could write an article on it. [00:27:56] But I think for people that do that, it might be simple and blah, blah, blah. The only thing I did re I even felt like I could blog about was I. I had set up this Postgres cluster and it took like weeks because every article on how to do it with a red hat. And I did it on DVN. And again, I feel like it as far as blogging about this stuff so people could know maybe I should blog about it a little bit more being locked inside, kept me from blogging as much. [00:28:22] But I also feel like a lot of this stuff I'm learning now. Like I'm not teaching, I am in the learning phase of, of a lot of this. And so I'm not so sure I should be teaching actively to like, know what I'm doing. [00:28:33] Frederick Weiss: [00:28:33] I see what you're saying, but there's also a lot of value in being honest and authentic with doing this as learning like, Hey, I'm going to pick up this wrench and I have this piece of wood. [00:28:45] I don't know what's going to happen, but let's explore this together. I've seen a lot of videos like that, and I think they're really interesting to see somebody's experience of learning and, and their thought process, looking at them, at the work at the math problems and see how they figure it out. [00:29:03] Brian Hinton: [00:29:03] So you're saying Jerry should start Tik TOK for this stuff is what you're saying. If that's [00:29:08] Frederick Weiss: [00:29:08] literally what you got from what I said then. Absolutely. I agree with you and your purple wouldn't coffin, Brian. Yes. [00:29:16] Brian Hinton: [00:29:16] Yeah, yeah. That's good. Yeah. Let me [00:29:21] Frederick Weiss: [00:29:21] just focus on you really quick so everybody can see you and your purple winning coffin. [00:29:25] It's a little bit more roomier than my coffin, but I think Brian looks beautiful in it and he's a handsome young vampire. Speaking of vampires, Jared, let's talk about free software. Soft wheat. We've talked so much about hardware and how to, to start this. Let's talk about things like freemium, et cetera, like does one need to spend again an absorbent amount of you know, dollars to, to do this? [00:29:52] Or can you obtain a lot of this? Brian says, yes, Jerry, just so you know where he weighs in. But does one need to spend an absorbent amount of dollars to do this? [00:30:02]Jared Rhodes: [00:30:02] Not from software. So from the software perspective, one thing you'll do is you'll learn, you'll learn Linux. I mean, that is just something that will happen after you've plugged in enough [00:30:12] Brian Hinton: [00:30:12] and you'll cry a [00:30:13] Frederick Weiss: [00:30:13] lot. [00:30:14] Jared Rhodes: [00:30:14] You will, I'm a fan of crying, just so you know, I 'm even going back to the block. One of the reasons you don't blog as much when you're doing this, because you broke your network so many times and none of your servers are up like, okay, it just keeps you, you can't post your blog. Right. So And [00:30:30] Brian Hinton: [00:30:30] your keyboard won't connect. [00:30:31] Jared Rhodes: [00:30:31] Yes. So, as far as software goes, you'll learn Linux, but if you go, and I think I put some stuff in, in our, in our doc at least like github lists, there are lists that people make specifically for like awesome server software, free software. That you can run. And some of them are just people's personal github projects where some of them are full fledged, like things you know, like Postgris like huge enterprise database software that you can just install for free, even going beyond the free stuff that you can get. [00:31:02]Just as talking about things like Linux and things that run on Linux, there is. Close to free Virgin of VMware. You can get a look into that. If you're a listener and you're really wanting to learn VMware, they have this very close to free version. I should actually take it back so first you can actually run ESX PSI for. [00:31:22] I'm not a lawyer. So check this, but you can run ESX PSI for free. As far as I know, unlike a up to like a hundred machines that have no more than eight cores and that's just ESX size. So it's not like they're big, like vSphere or anything like that. But if you run ESX PSI and you use something like a VMware workstation, I mean, you've got a full setup right there just to log into your server and start building VMs and testing and learning things that way. [00:31:48]Microsoft used to have some. Easier to access free versions of. Microsoft software. They do have them, or at least they did have like dream spark and they used to have BizSpark, which was really helpful. I don't know if they still have a dream spark. Hopefully they do. Other than that check to see if you get a visual studio license through work. [00:32:10] And since you're using this home lab as a home lab, you know, again, I'm not a lawyer to check your licenses before you come back at me. [00:32:17] Brian Hinton: [00:32:17] Jared says everything. He is legal. He [00:32:21] Frederick Weiss: [00:32:21] is a lawyer, just so you know, the link in the show notes. If you actually go to Jared's website slash lawyer, you'll learn, he is a lawyer just putting that out there. [00:32:31] J K JK K. [00:32:32]Jared Rhodes: [00:32:32] But yeah, you can, you can check your license at work. See if you get a visual studio license and that should allow you to download some stuff from Microsoft. If you'd like to try it locally. I still use a team foundation server, or what do you call it? Azure dev ops server nowadays just for work tracking and stuff like that, just to be familiar with it. [00:32:49] Cause it's the same thing that runs in Azure. So building local builds is good practice. And, and [00:32:55] Brian Hinton: [00:32:55] just because I'm a nerd, I want to mention something that's With rabbis disputing that everyone knows I'm in there, a raspberry PI, because I'm excited by this, you know, the pies and small, like little computer things. [00:33:07] You can make sense with xynthia. I'm also big into music and have like, I think six or seven synthesizes around me. And  xinjian was an open sense platform where he could just take a raspberry PI and create a synthesizer that can do all sorts of amazing sounds. So I'd say, check that out too. [00:33:24] If you're locking in a cave and want to do some cool, like a hardware stuff. [00:33:30] Frederick Weiss: [00:33:30] That's all I know, Jared. Oh, fun stuff. There's this idea, there's this idea of fun. I mean, you, you said it, so I don't associate you with fun, Brian, but let me get to the real point. What about fun stuff that you do with this? [00:33:43] Like you know automation of things which doesn't stand for attack on Titan, but AOT automation of things, IOT, what, what kind of fun stuff are you doing with this? What kind of. Exploration are you diving into with your candles lit on a Sunday morning? [00:34:00]Jared Rhodes: [00:34:00] One of the things is like I showed you that little camera with the, the monkey and the pliers or whatever, back there in my, in the back [00:34:09] is trying to play around with it. There are some open source videos. Processing like image detection, security style stuff, servers. I want to see if I can get the cameras on that, to work with those and do some video and audio recognition with those. Just because I can buy a bunch of them for cheap and see what I can do with them, but trying that out. [00:34:28]I was trying to revisit a DJI drone, the little, well known, really expensive camera drone. I've got one of those. And I was trying to play around with some automated processing of its imagery, but I'm having some trouble with it right now, due to how it's SDKs work. And I've got Oh, I got these little I think they're feathers, the feathers and I [00:34:50] Brian Hinton: [00:34:50] that's clearly a circuit board of some sort. [00:34:52] That's not feathers. [00:34:53] Frederick Weiss: [00:34:53] That did not come from a bird [00:34:56] Brian Hinton: [00:34:56] feathers. Tell me more. [00:34:59] Frederick Weiss: [00:34:59] Explain to the audience. [00:35:00]Jared Rhodes: [00:35:00] Yeah, sorry. So I got these eight fruit feathers. They are just 1915, make a Hertz, a little radio. And I am trying to just build out an automation on the build. So I've been building libraries so that a friend of mine can work on something. [00:35:16]As far he's got beehives, like he got into bees during the lockdown. [00:35:20] Brian Hinton: [00:35:20] Cool. That's a good thing to get into [00:35:22] Jared Rhodes: [00:35:22] honey. Yeah, he really likes it. And we, one of the things we want to do is he's an, he's a professional electrical engineer. And so we're going to try to put some sensors in his beehives and then put them on, on these long range wireless cause we can get. We can get a couple of miles out of these if they aren't if, as long as they've got a clear line of sight. [00:35:39] And so we're trying to do that with as beehives and we want to see what we can do as far as automating, like, you know, just reading out the temperature, see if they're getting too hot, see if they're moving that kind of stuff. And we also want to see a for at least, for me, as far as the automated build portion of it, I've got a bunch of code and I want to be able to check that when I start auto altering the firmware that I can run a bill. [00:36:01] Deploy to two of these and then ha or three of these, excuse me. And then have those three in different configurations and messages. And that I didn't break the firmware during the build. [00:36:14] Brian Hinton: [00:36:14] Hmm. I got completely distracted by everything you said, because I went to add a fruit and they have a hollow and Otter for Halloween and for express Halloween orange Halloween edition, that has a screen with an eye on it. [00:36:30] And I don't know what it does, but I w I want it [00:36:36] Frederick Weiss: [00:36:36] super thrilling. Thank you, bro. [00:36:37] Brian Hinton: [00:36:37] No, no. Check it out. Orange Halloween did out. I'll put a link. It's really [00:36:41] Frederick Weiss: [00:36:41] cool. It's like always share your screen too. [00:36:43]Brian Hinton: [00:36:43] I can't, Hey, let's try this out. I've never done this before so we could shut down the entire podcast probably. [00:36:50] Yeah. Well, let's try this. I'll go over here. Wait, actually, let me not have all my hundreds of browser tabs visible for everyone. This is riveting for everyone listening. I'm sure. Due to [00:37:03] Jared Rhodes: [00:37:03] these sounds like [00:37:05] Brian Hinton: [00:37:05] new to do. Okay. Is it sharing? I can't tell. Oh, it is sweet. Look at this. This is awesome. It's like an eye that Just like looks around. [00:37:15] I mean, I don't know what I'd use it for, but I would like it maybe on my wall or something because that's a super [00:37:20] Frederick Weiss: [00:37:20] cool Jared, can we use this to help? I don't know. Keep the humans in check when the robots take over, what is this form? [00:37:27]Jared Rhodes: [00:37:27] Well, this looks like, and I'm just guessing by the skull shape of the circuit board, that it is a decoration. [00:37:35] Brian Hinton: [00:37:35] Yeah. It's purely for sure. It's purely executive, but I mean, it's pretty awesome because it has like a screen for displays. It looks like it has light sensors, so you could probably have it turned on and look, look around when people walk by, it's only $40, like $40. You can have something cool to play with, like, why not? [00:37:52] Right. Yeah, [00:37:53] Frederick Weiss: [00:37:53] dude, I get it. That looks fun. [00:37:55] Jared Rhodes: [00:37:55] In Atlanta. I went to a, so I go to dragon con every year in Atlanta. We're, you know, it's a big cosplay thing. They're like everyone they build the costumes is the, is like a central theme. And I think it was eight of the fruits that were actually there. And they did a presentation and they handed out like a, a, a thread. [00:38:12] It was, you could sew and then you put the battery on the end of it. And it will have lights through the thing, but they actually, they sent one of their evangelists and I gave out free stuff at, like, not a tech. Things. Just so people could cosplay like this first thing, eyeball was like, I could take a costume and just put eyeballs on the back for whatever reason. [00:38:32] Yeah, that'd be [00:38:32] Brian Hinton: [00:38:32] pretty cool. Yeah. Some of the costumes at the cosplay stuff, I mean, a hundred percent are off topic, but are pretty awesome. But yeah. Last thoughts on IOT, we're going to switch to our nuts round of questions. We call lightning round, but I want to make sure if you have anything else you want to talk about before we go. [00:38:49] Jared Rhodes: [00:38:49] The only other thing I want to bring up is when you start doing the home lab, make sure you know where you're putting them because they put out heat, they can be loud and they usually have lights on. [00:38:57] Brian Hinton: [00:38:57] That's very true. Yeah. Heat is a big thing with all the computers. Get, wait there, is there a story with this? [00:39:02] Did you have something happen to yourself? [00:39:05] Jared Rhodes: [00:39:05] So, yeah, I mean, I guess when COVID hit, I hadn't, I wasn't in this office, I was in a separate office. I left that office, moved everything back into my house, which meant that now my closet, that my wife's closet really now has blue lights and fans in it. And it's just like that all the time now. [00:39:21] So for like six months, every time we went to bed, the house was fully blue and lit up and [00:39:27] Brian Hinton: [00:39:27] nicely heated. Yes. Awesome. So now lightning round time, which is my favorite time. Where's where's the thing, Frederick, [00:39:35] Frederick Weiss: [00:39:35] where's the graphic. No, I don't have it for some reason, then you'll have to deal without it. [00:39:40] Yeah. [00:39:41] Brian Hinton: [00:39:41] Let's see. Previous episodes for lightning, your own graphic. So we ask you a question. I go, Frederick goes, you, we answer like, you know, back and forth pretty quickly. My first one for you is what's one pet peeve of yours that you wish you could get rid of because it would make your entire life easier. [00:39:57] Jared Rhodes: [00:39:57] Ooh. Video conferencing. [00:40:01] Frederick Weiss: [00:40:01] Okay. Fair enough. New technology. Are you excited about, [00:40:07]Jared Rhodes: [00:40:07] New technology that I am excited about? I don't know. Quantum computing seems pretty interesting. Oh yeah. [00:40:13] Brian Hinton: [00:40:13] Yeah. So, okay. Jared you're in the circus. Would you rather be the person who puts their head in the lion's mouth or the one that gets shot out of the cannon? [00:40:23]Jared Rhodes: [00:40:23] Lion's mouth just cause I get to interact with nature. Oh, nice. [00:40:27] Brian Hinton: [00:40:27] It's a good way to look at it. [00:40:29] Frederick Weiss: [00:40:29] If you could eat one bug, what would it be? [00:40:34] Jared Rhodes: [00:40:34] One bug. I would have to say one of those giant tarantulas, just so I'd feel full. [00:40:40] Brian Hinton: [00:40:40] That's true. That's a good point. [00:40:42] Frederick Weiss: [00:40:42] Yeah, I totally see that. [00:40:45] Brian Hinton: [00:40:45] What if anything? [00:40:47] Have you re [00:40:48] Frederick Weiss: [00:40:48] gifted? [00:40:50] Jared Rhodes: [00:40:50] Oh, all kinds of hardware. Like IOT hardware. I go to, I've got so many Bluetooth speakers. I could, I sell them on eBay at this point, get Bluetooth speakers from me that have some company's logo on it. [00:41:05] Frederick Weiss: [00:41:05] Jerry, you could answer this with a little bit of brevity. You don't have to jump into the full story, but what got you into technology? [00:41:10]Jared Rhodes: [00:41:10] I was a physics major friends were on the submarine team. They needed someone to program how they wanted to do the sonar. Oh yeah. I wrote it out for them. They said we don't know what that does. And then I had to write it and see, so I learned how to. Okay, [00:41:24] Brian Hinton: [00:41:24] awesome. Awesome. What chore do you hate doing? [00:41:29]Jared Rhodes: [00:41:29] Cleaning my bathtub. That's a good one new house, some reason that thing collects dirt, like it's a hobby. [00:41:38] Frederick Weiss: [00:41:38] I like that. I hear that. Jared. Let's see. What, what, what kind of tats you got there? What's on, what's on [00:41:44] Jared Rhodes: [00:41:44] the sleeve. Oh this is so I have a lot of nerve damage in my right arm due to an accident when I was really young. [00:41:50] And so this is a nice sleek robot. But when it gets to where I have nerve damage, there's a alien growing in it and it's all broken and messed up. [00:42:00] Brian Hinton: [00:42:00] And you got to, after obviously, after whatever, [00:42:03] Frederick Weiss: [00:42:03] whatever happened, you didn't fall out of a tree like [00:42:05] Brian Hinton: [00:42:05] Brian, did you? I did fall out of a tree from the very top. [00:42:09] Jared Rhodes: [00:42:09] No, no, no. I had a different accident. Not, it's not a happy accident so we don't want the viewers to be like, what? Yeah. If you look [00:42:17] Frederick Weiss: [00:42:17] at this Brian chart at the very bottom, it says fell out of a tree. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:42:25] Brian Hinton: [00:42:25] Yeah. I missed the chain link fence, so thank you, Frederick. I keep reminding [00:42:28] Frederick Weiss: [00:42:28] everyone. [00:42:29] I went back in time to push you. I, I got a little sloppy, but go ahead, Brian. [00:42:33] Brian Hinton: [00:42:33] What, what do you miss most? About being a kid, [00:42:36]Jared Rhodes: [00:42:36] Not being as fat. [00:42:38] Frederick Weiss: [00:42:38] Okay. Fair enough. Question, Jared. This, this sounds goofy, but what is your favorite thing about yourself? Your favorite trait about yourself? [00:42:49]Jared Rhodes: [00:42:49] For some reason, I guess it was because I have to . I'm very short and both of my brothers are six foot or, or larger. [00:42:56] I am very good at navigating situations. [00:43:01] Frederick Weiss: [00:43:01] That's very fair. [00:43:02] Brian Hinton: [00:43:02] Okay. Think carefully about this. This question is for my coworkers. This is very serious. Taco or burrito, [00:43:10] Frederick Weiss: [00:43:10] taco easy. [00:43:12] Brian Hinton: [00:43:12] Oh, I'd have to agree with them there. Ah, two tacos. Okay. [00:43:19] Frederick Weiss: [00:43:19] Jared, do you [00:43:20] Jared Rhodes: [00:43:20] play you, do you think Beretta? Like why [00:43:23] Brian Hinton: [00:43:23] are you? Oh, no, no. [00:43:24] I mean, there's people at work who are going to be very adamantly unhappy with your choice, but it's okay. It's okay. [00:43:31] Frederick Weiss: [00:43:31] I support you, Jared. [00:43:32] Jared Rhodes: [00:43:32] I work with people who don't know things to [00:43:36] Brian Hinton: [00:43:36] share [00:43:36] Frederick Weiss: [00:43:36] that that's great. Too hot to handle too cold, too cold, too cold to hold something like that. Bobby Brown, look it up, Jared. [00:43:44]Do you play an instrument? And if you do, what is that instrument? [00:43:49] Jared Rhodes: [00:43:49] Not anymore. I played the saxophone when I was younger, but I don't play it anymore. [00:43:53] Frederick Weiss: [00:43:53] Did you want to be that guy from the lost boys without a shirt? Just like, cause I could see that about you. [00:43:59] Jared Rhodes: [00:43:59] Sure. No, no, no. The reason I played the saxophone is a very interesting story. [00:44:04] You see, my brother did. [00:44:07] Frederick Weiss: [00:44:07] Super interesting. It's a lot of context and I know I, did you have your own read or did you guys share a read? Because that's gross. [00:44:15] Jared Rhodes: [00:44:15] We didn't share. [00:44:17] Frederick Weiss: [00:44:17] Okay. I just want to put that out there, Brian, [00:44:20]Brian Hinton: [00:44:20] Would, okay. Would you rather be able to copy and paste in real life or undo, [00:44:29] Jared Rhodes: [00:44:29] copy and paste? [00:44:31] Kind of all right. Because mistakes. No, it's a whole new thing. What would I undo? Except for the copy and paste. [00:44:39] Frederick Weiss: [00:44:39] All right. Oh man. Yeah, you must we'll cut the eraser off your pencils, Jared favorite podcasts that you're listening to right now, purely for enjoyment. That's educational and enjoyable. [00:44:54] Jared Rhodes: [00:44:54] Well, my, one of your favorites was lightning heats. It was a real lightning peak. Did you say geeks? Lightening? [00:45:03] Frederick Weiss: [00:45:03] Wait, wait a second. Here. I believe you're making a funny L O L F. If I'm saying that right. I [00:45:12] Jared Rhodes: [00:45:12] mean, I am, I enjoy the best podcast for technology out there and that is Thunder Nerds. [00:45:20] Brian Hinton: [00:45:20] That's great. [00:45:21] We're going to use that every episode, [00:45:23] Frederick Weiss: [00:45:23] every episode, ah, that and Lisa singing, we've gotta get that all put together. Right? Thank you, Jerry. That's very nice of you. Well, let me ask you again, because actually, nevermind, go ahead, Brian. It's your church. That's [00:45:35] Brian Hinton: [00:45:35] stealing my turn. You did multiple times earlier. [00:45:39] So what fact amazes you every time you think about it? [00:45:42]Jared Rhodes: [00:45:42] Honestly, the thing that actually was something I learned when I was getting my degree. So when a light travels from its own reference frame, everything is instantaneous. [00:45:55] Frederick Weiss: [00:45:55] Yeah, that makes sense. I've seen, I've seen Picard on paramount. I understand that Jared, Magine you come home. It's probably one in the morning. It is raining outside. You just want to get in the door, you drop your keys, like three times, just trying to get in. You get in, you take off your shoes. [00:46:16] You're like, huh? Jared, you see a ghost. What do you do? Shoot it. There you go, dead ghost. Don't good. [00:46:25] Brian Hinton: [00:46:25] Double dead. Oh, okay. My question, you shoot the ghost. The ghost is really angry and chases you away. You end up tripping and falling, hit your head. You'll wake up, but you only keep one thing. Like career-wise that you remember? [00:46:43] What's the one thing you keep? [00:46:45] Frederick Weiss: [00:46:45] Oh, I couldn't keep up with that. [00:46:46]Jared Rhodes: [00:46:46] How to sell myself in an interview. [00:46:51] Brian Hinton: [00:46:51] All right, but you don't know any of the work I can do the job. [00:46:57] Frederick Weiss: [00:46:57] You can't stack stuff on top of your question. You need 3d Brian, [00:47:03] Jared, if you could not be on a computer hypothetically for the rest of your life what would you be doing professionally? [00:47:11]Jared Rhodes: [00:47:11] Probably some sort of electrical work. [00:47:14] Frederick Weiss: [00:47:14] Hmm. [00:47:16] Jared Rhodes: [00:47:16] I don't know. I guess I like electronics. I don't know, man. [00:47:19] Brian Hinton: [00:47:19] Okay. You have 30 minutes of free time. How do you pass the time outside? [00:47:24] Outside of anything? We've talked about IOT. What's your other thing that you do? [00:47:29] Jared Rhodes: [00:47:29] Well, I don't remember, but during lockdown again, I've cut down every tree in the yard and I've landscaped it. Everything inside. Okay. [00:47:41] Frederick Weiss: [00:47:41] What's the, what's the first thing Jared, that you're going to do once we're able to escape, once we're able to move around freely and everything is in a state of not, not a semi normal, but in an actual normal, I don't, I don't know when that is. [00:47:56] Say it's 2025. What's the first thing you're going to do? [00:48:00]Jared Rhodes: [00:48:00] It depends on when exactly you mean one of the things we'll be seeing in the part of my family that sorta has to be locked away until they are fully vaccinated. If you're talking about way after that, when it's much more normal, if you go back to dragon con they have to cancel it, do the thing. [00:48:14] And I like walking around and seeing all these people's crazy costumes and getting together with nerds and drinking a lot. [00:48:20] Frederick Weiss: [00:48:20] Nice, nice. [00:48:22] Brian Hinton: [00:48:22] What is one irrational fear that you have? We won't use it against you. Don't [00:48:29] Frederick Weiss: [00:48:29] worry. No, we definitely will. But keep going [00:48:32] Jared Rhodes: [00:48:32] one irrational fear that I have. Write this down, Brian. [00:48:36]Your rational fear. I don't know. It seems rational to me. I, I do get freaked out as, for, as a person who flies as much as I did, at least I do get freaked out, man. Every time we get in that plane, I mean, it shakes a little bit. I'm like, well, I guess that was that's it. That's how it is, [00:48:51] Frederick Weiss: [00:48:51] right? Yeah. [00:48:52] I think that's a fair one. I mean, a lot of people are totally. Fine with planes. And I know a lot of people that just freak them out when they get ever near any of that shit. So totally get it. [00:49:03] Jared Rhodes: [00:49:03] I also, I know a couple of pilots and like have drank with them and God it's like, when you get to know engineers or programmers, you're like, how does any of this stuff stay [00:49:12] Frederick Weiss: [00:49:12] working well, that's, that's the lesson. [00:49:15] Yeah. Right. That's when you get across the Rubicon of adulthood and you realize that. Most people don't know what they're doing. We're all making it up as we go. And we're all trying to not, not fake it till we make it, but you realize, you know, maybe I'm not the best of something and you just, you, you kind of learn on the job and you become that leader or that person that does that thing. [00:49:36] And everybody's people, we're all people, we're not robots. I mean, not until 2045. When you know, we're legitimately all robots, doc, thanks to Ilan. And you know, everything goes horrible. But yeah, on a happier note, Brian. [00:49:50] Brian Hinton: [00:49:50] Okay. This is my last one for you. What did the ocean say to the beach? Oh, God splash nothing. [00:49:57] It just waived. [00:50:01] Frederick Weiss: [00:50:01] If you're going to do that, then I got to get one in. Okay, go Jared. The frog was driving down the road and his car broke down. What did he do? [00:50:13] Jared Rhodes: [00:50:13] I don't know. What did he do? [00:50:15] Frederick Weiss: [00:50:15] He got it towed. [00:50:21] So, Jared, let's we're right about the end of the show. Let's talk about where people could find you. Then, I imagine some of the best places are your website, which is Jared roads.com. Of course we'll have the link in all these spots in the show notes. We have the, I'm not going to say it, right. [00:50:38] So I'll let you say it [00:50:39] right. [00:50:40] Jared Rhodes: [00:50:40] Kim technologies [00:50:42] Frederick Weiss: [00:50:42] Qimata technologies was Qimata.com and also, which would correlate to your Twitter handle, which is Q Mada. That's it. Yeah.  so all the great places, anywhere else that you want people to to find you on the internets, [00:50:58]Jared Rhodes: [00:50:58] Meetup. So I run a couple of talks about that and help a couple of groups. [00:51:04] So I run the Atlanta intelligent devices group. I help out with the.net users group. So you can find me on meetup on both of those. And I also help run the Gwinnett, Georgia, Microsoft users group. So any of those, you can find me on meetup. And then obviously the same Kimaya name on LinkedIn. If you just want to reach out and ask some questions. [00:51:23] For some reason, I get more of that on LinkedIn than I do on Twitter. Really? [00:51:28] Frederick Weiss: [00:51:28] Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. It's interesting how the, all the, all the plethora platforms have their own kind of personalities and questions that go with it in unpredictable ways. [00:51:41] Brian Hinton: [00:51:41] It's all those IOT connections. [00:51:44] Frederick Weiss: [00:51:44] Is that what it is [00:51:46] Brian Hinton: [00:51:46] that joke, sorry, I just want to say Jared, I appreciate you taking the time with us and spending it, you know, it's the most important thing then that we have in our life is time. [00:51:57]So thanks for joining us. [00:51:59] Frederick Weiss: [00:51:59] Yeah. You really spend your time. Really appreciate [00:52:02] Jared Rhodes: [00:52:02] it. Yeah, man. Thanks guys. Yeah. Thanks for having me on another one. Like we did for the Amigos. Yeah. Oh yeah, [00:52:09] Frederick Weiss: [00:52:09] we'll definitely do another con Migos episode that is going to be a yearly thing. We're going to do another one, I guess in June. [00:52:16] So we have to do it around the exact same time to keep the consistency of the yearly thing. Which makes sense. Last question that we enjoy asking our guests. Jared is, do you have any parting words of wisdom, any advice that you could, but never lightly bestow upon the audience? [00:52:37]Jared Rhodes: [00:52:37] Yes. If you want to learn something, try to start teaching it. [00:52:42] If you go and you get, and you talk at a user group or something like that. You're not being judged. People know that you are learning it and you are talking to people who probably know less than you do, because by the time you get up there, you have learned more than you ever thought you would have. [00:52:57] Frederick Weiss: [00:52:57] Nice. I just want to put on here that Shiva said hi. Hey Shiva. Hi. Hi Jared. Hi Brian. Hi frantic, which is possible on the cough Migos. Hey, I'll be getting in touch with you, cause we're all gonna do that again. Shiva. But yeah, that's that? That's great advice. Thank you so much Jered, and I guess that's it. [00:53:17] And thanks everyone, buddy, for watching the show. Really appreciate it again. If you could do us a solid and go to the youtube.com/Thunder Nerds and subscribe, really appreciate it. And for more on Jared, you know, obviously you could go to, again, Jared roads.com. You could go. Qimata on Twitter and the website qimata.com and we'll have a link to everything in the show notes. [00:53:41]Everyone. Thank you, Jared. Thank you so much. [00:53:43] Jared Rhodes: [00:53:43] Super appreciate it. Alright, thanks for everyone. [00:53:47] Frederick Weiss: [00:53:47] Take care, everybody. Thanks. And we'll see you again. Bye.

In this episode, we get to speak with Lisa Welchman & Andy Vitale. We discuss their new podcast and how we can build a safer and more compassionate web. We also chat about digital governance and how companies can own their accountability. Episode Sponsor Auth0: https://auth0.comAuth0 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/auth0Auth0 on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/auth0Auth0 Avocado Labs online meetup events: https://avocadolabs.dev/ Show Links Lisa WelchmanWebsite: https://www.lisawelchman.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/lwelchmanLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisawelchmanLisa’s book – Managing Chaos: https://www.amazon.com/Managing-Chaos-Digital-Governance-Design/dp/1933820888Andy VitaleWebsite: https://www.andyvitale.com/Twitter: http://twitter.com/andyvitaleLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyvitale/Radio Garden: http://radio.garden/Broadcasts: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/broadcasts/id1469995354Org Design for Design Orgs: Building and Managing In-House Design Teams: https://www.amazon.com/Org-Design-Orgs-Building-House/dp/1491938404/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=org+design+for+design+org&qid=1614304339&sr=8-1You Belong by Sebene Selassie: https://www.amazon.com/You-Belong-Connection-Sebene-Selassie-ebook/dp/B081D13YJG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3K7IVNV7EVWKQ&dchild=1&keywords=you+belong+sebene+selassie&qid=1614304192&s=books&sprefix=You+Belong%2Cstripbooks%2C191&sr=1-1Hosts: Frederick Weiss: https://twitter.com/frederickweiss​​Brian Hinton: https://twitter.com/mrbrianhintonSarrah Vesselov: https://twitter.com/svesselov Transcript Brian: [00:00:00] Welcome to thunder nerds. I'm Brian Hinton. [00:00:06] Sarrah: [00:00:06] I'm Sarah Vesselov [00:00:07] Frederick: [00:00:07] and I'm Frederick Philip Von Weiss. And thank you so much for consuming these Thunder Nerds, a conversation with the people behind the technology that love what they do [00:00:18] Brian: [00:00:18] and do tech. [00:00:21] Frederick: [00:00:21] Ah, thank you everybody for watching the show. Uh, just a reminder, please subscribe, hit the notification button and ask your questions and we'll be answering them in the order they are received. [00:00:32] Brian. [00:00:33] Brian: [00:00:33] Yeah, we'd like to the return of Auth0  as this season sponsor, uh, then make it easy for developers to build a custom secure and standards-based unified login. By providing authentication and authorization as a service go-to Auth0.com today to check it out and make sure to visit our YouTube channel at Youtube.com/Auth0 and their Twitch channel at Twitch.TV/Auth0 and avocado labs, where they re which is an online destination for meetup events, run by their developer advocates avocadolabs.dev [00:01:09] Frederick: [00:01:09] Nice. Thank you so much, Brian. And I guess without any more, ados furthering past this, let's go ahead and get to our amazing two guests that we have on the show today. We have keynote speaker, author, consultant, and coach at digital governance. Lisa Welchman welcome, Lisa. And we also have, yeah, thank you. [00:01:31] And we also have vice-president product design at. Quicken loans, keynote speaker and educator. Andy Vitaly. Welcome to the show. [00:01:42] Andy: [00:01:42] Hey, thanks for having me. [00:01:43] Frederick: [00:01:43] Thank you both for being on the show. Really appreciate it. I know I was talking to Andy a little bit and, uh, found out that you and Lisa are going to be getting together and writing a book. [00:01:54] And, uh, you know, we'll, we'll dive into all that. I'm super excited to learn more about that, but why don't we first start off with, uh, what's going on? Topically is, uh, is the Covance, how were both of you doing I'll start with you, Lisa. [00:02:08] Lisa: [00:02:08] You know, I'm doing all right. How's that? I mean, it's, it is what it is. [00:02:13] I am, I have a roof over my head. I've always worked from home. So for, or for quite some time for at least 15 years work from home. So that wasn't a big change for me and, you know, and I have work. So there are some minuscule things that I could complain about. Like, I really wish I could go to the jazz club and listen to live music. [00:02:31] Um, In a restaurant, I've been one of those people that have been really showing the COVID, uh, honoring the COVID, uh, social distancing, and pretty much just staying at home and not talking to people. So I'm all right. Um, I'm really sad about so many people dying, but other than that, I'm hanging in there. [00:02:51] Yeah. It's been horrible. Yeah. It's been absolutely it's tragic, but. [00:02:56] Frederick: [00:02:56] Yeah. What about you, Mr. Andy? [00:02:59] Andy: [00:02:59] Uh, I'm doing okay also. Um, I've been staying in, I've been staying safe. Uh, it's it's been an interesting time, but for the most part, like, uh, I'm good. Uh, I switched jobs in the middle of a pandemic. I haven't met anyone that I work with in person, which is really interesting. [00:03:19] But aside from that, uh, I'm safe. Everybody's safe and do the best we can. [00:03:25] Lisa: [00:03:25] And we talked to each other every Saturday for two hours. [00:03:28] Andy: [00:03:28] We do the normalcy through the pandemic. [00:03:34] Brian: [00:03:34] Can we talk about your shoes for a second? [00:03:37] Frederick: [00:03:37] Yeah. You got a, a large closet there, Andy, for audio listeners. [00:03:42] Andy: [00:03:42] Yeah, there's a, quite a few shoes. [00:03:44] There's about 160 pairs between what you can't see, what you can see. And what's in another room. It's my one thing that I've realized now that I collect, but I do wear them all or at least I try. Uh, there's a few pairs of very few pair I've got since the pandemic that I haven't worn yet. I've been wearing just a pair of Crocs throughout the house and inside and outside, which, which I promised I would tell the story that Lisa asked what, what my shirt said. [00:04:10] So I've got to North face straight on which, which I wrong side. I actually. Like North face, but I was wearing a different shirt today and I, it was 71 degrees here in Charlotte and I said, let me go, let me go outside. Let me take the dogs outside and see what's going on with them. So we went outside and of course the dogs go in different directions in our yard and they didn't want to come in and it's been cold. [00:04:31] And like, why would they want to come in? No big deal. So I went, I picked one up on one end, walked over to the other end, picked up the other one. And it rained a lot last week, but I thought the rain, you know, wouldn't be wet or damp. I slid down my grass Hill wiped out in this like mud pile of clay ruined my pajama pants that I was wearing that had like donuts and coffee and, and, uh, I had a camel shirt. [00:04:59] Luckily nobody could have seen me. They just saw like this head rolling down a Hill, but here I am, I threw on a new shirt and, uh, life is good. Oh, man. [00:05:08] Brian: [00:05:08] Are you still muddy from [00:05:10] Andy: [00:05:10] waist down? No. No. I got a few minutes to clean up. That's good. [00:05:16] Frederick: [00:05:16] I like to imagine that you're still muddy. You know, one of the things that we, uh, we talked about with our guests last week was about, um, They're within their experience about COVID was how we treat our, um, how we treat our coworkers when everything starts getting more back to normal or, or even right now with everybody having brain fog, um, uh, a lot of people having brain fog, um, lasting health issues, um, You know, a lot of people need to think about being patient with some of our team members, uh, that, uh, that are going through these things, you know, family issues, et cetera. [00:05:53] Um, do you guys have any kind of insight on that and how, uh, how we move forward with, with, with these kinds of things? [00:06:03] Lisa: [00:06:03] You all say something? I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't go to work with anyone. And so I'm always visiting people's offices all of the time as well. But I think a general, I'm not an authority on mental health, but I think a general good vibe for people to carry around with them is to treat everyone as if, you know, just assume everybody's going through some difficulty and hardship and just give them a couple more beats than you normally would. [00:06:31] A couple more breaks than you normally would. Um, and a little bit of emotional space to not be perfect. I'm not talking about crazy stuff in that front, but just, you know, it's just going to take a while for us to learn how to interact face to face with one another. I think we'll be really delighted when we can all hold hands and hug again and go to concerts. [00:06:52] But, um, we're also not used to being in crowds and crowds can be difficult. So I think we just need to be a little gentle with each other as we start to reintegrate. [00:07:01] Andy: [00:07:01] Yeah, that's a great point. I think it's not just brain fog. We've gone through so many different things in 2020, and I think everybody's kind of feeling it differently and everyone needs a little bit of space and we need to be aware of that. [00:07:16] And we need to know there are, there are things that are driving people to. Act differently or take things differently than ever before. I mean, who would have thought everybody would be home with their family or alone or with pets like 24 seven and the workplace and the office and the people we interact with. [00:07:35] It's, it's, it's a bit much right. For anyone to take in on top of everything else that's going on. So we just do need to check in with people as humans, uh, show that empathy that as designers we preach about all the time, And make sure that we're practicing it. And like Lisa said, giving people, you know, a couple of extra breaks when, when we think they need it or even just check in on them, just, you know, I honestly, maybe don't know what to say at certain times, but just let them know, like whatever you need. [00:08:05] I got you, like, let me know anything you need. Like. [00:08:15] Frederick: [00:08:15] So why don't we jump into the, uh, the book. I know you two are writing a book together and, and that's kind of the, uh, the whole thing of, of the, the Saturday two, two hour, uh, uh, session that you're going through here. Um, and it's about designing for safety, is that correct? Is that still a working title or. [00:08:39] Lisa: [00:08:39] I'm going to let you give the excuse first this time, Andy. Cause I'm going to let you, I'm going to let you say, I'm going to hear what you have to say about the book. Yeah. [00:08:50] Andy: [00:08:50] So the story with the book is, um, it's just gone in so many different directions there's been, so the direction hasn't changed the content, the amount of words versus where we originally thought where we want to go. [00:09:06] Um, you know, again, You talked about a pandemic and brain fog. Like, I don't know that that's affected us in any way as far as brain fog, but I'm sure it has, but just in general, like we worked, we met at a conference that we both spoke at in Cleveland. We both talked about similar ish things, maybe from a design lens, at least from the governance lens. [00:09:30] And we thought it would be great to connect and just kind of. Tackle a topic that that was important to us. And as we started to write the manuscript for a book, it felt good. And as we've continued to dig into it, just so many other opportunities presented themselves. I mean, we went from, is it a book? [00:09:49] Yes. Are we going to add a workshop? Is it a course? Like how do we help people learn how to create safe products or at least safer products? And then it just. It ballooned into something and we're like, wait, is there something else that we can do with this? Is there. We, we connect every Saturday. Like, These conversations are, are entertaining or they're fruitful. [00:10:14] So it's, it's actually, the book is kind of on a, on a, on the shelf right now on hold, as we're starting to morph into creating a podcast and we've recorded a few episodes that, that haven't launched yet. Uh, and, and that's been the focus for us, like our energy kind of shifted towards, towards this podcast. [00:10:34] So we will revisit the designing for safety. It's a constant topic that we talk about, but what, what it actually becomes is still TBD. [00:10:45] Frederick: [00:10:45] So what's the name of the podcast [00:10:47] Lisa: [00:10:47] it's called surfacing surfacing. Yeah. And so, you know, the idea behind that was not only were Andy and I having interesting conversations that. [00:10:57] You know, personally, I think need to be had inside of an organization. There are all of these, you know, I'm, I'm constantly working with digital teams all the time, trying to make them, it's trying to help them figure out a good collaboration model so that they can actually design and deliver it with intent. [00:11:16] Right. Like just make things intentionally instead of making things sideways and from putting them on the line and, Oh, they're broken and fixing them here, here and there and everywhere. And so, um, which is really what governance is about. Just helping people figure out how to collaborate well together. [00:11:32] And so I'm around every aspect of a team all the time, including designers and UX people and, and content strategists and the it team and the business complaining that the designers too slow and you know, all of this other stuff I'm around them all the time. And so, Andy. You know, it's a designer. So we've, we're having these conversations me from a governance perspective and him from a design perspective. [00:11:53] And we're thinking about safety in terms of, you know, You can't make a car that's not safe or you can, but you're not. So you're not allowed to make a car that's unsafe. You're not allowed to make a baby carriage. That's unsafe. There are certain rules around products and services that exist in the physical world. [00:12:08] That don't seem to be the same in, in, in the digital world. And so we were just having these really rich conversations, but what might safety look like? How can we design for safety, right. To make sure that people are emotionally safe, physically safe, all of these different aspects when they're operating online and. [00:12:26] I think we will at the very least put together a rich article. And I think we will write a book about it, but in trying to work out those things, we were just having these great conversations about, you know, policy versus design. Like where are the lines, which where's the push and pull all of this rigor that has to be in the system in order for something to be both beautiful, usable. [00:12:51] And safe and within the bounds of the law and good for the general public, there's just all this stuff that aspect happened together. And I think we can figure that out overnight. There need to be a lot of different interplays, interdisciplinary conversations, and we're going to try and get all those people on the podcast to talk about it. [00:13:10] Frederick: [00:13:10] I [00:13:10] Brian: [00:13:10] love that. It's an interesting topic too. It, uh, how so many people think it's impossible for it to happen at a global scale, but then just look at cars, seatbelts, um, you know, stop signs, stoplights. It's pretty much standard around the globe. What's preventing that same sort of mindset translate translating to, you know, apps and web and yeah, [00:13:35] Lisa: [00:13:35] it's not a mindset. [00:13:36] It's a, it's an, it's a maturity cycle. Yeah. And you can look at any technology and it takes about 80 to a hundred years to put it in the pocket, to the product where it's so boring. The cars all look the same. Right. They all look the same sort of, they all, I mean, we can pretend that they don't, but there used to be way more, you know, exciting car design. [00:13:56] And I'm not talking about that, you know, do you know what I'm saying? Like, we've got it down to the aerodynamic safe shape car, right. And I think there's more stuff going on in the inside that might make something deluxe versus not deluxe, but it just takes a certain amount of time for a technology to mature. [00:14:12] And so I think if people just. Own that like, understand that it's going to take time. There's no magic lever for designers to pull. There's no magic button for the chief marketing officer or the CIO to press. We've just got to intentionally do work and get this stuff together. [00:14:28] Brian: [00:14:28] Does that mean we have 50 more years or so [00:14:32] Lisa: [00:14:32] I think I'll be a very old, over a hundred year old woman when, when, when it gets boring, when it gets to the point where it's just, you know, like the telephone was before it was disrupted. [00:14:42] Right. It was like, I'm buying a telephone. What color and how many lines right there. Wasn't a lot of, you know, options around what you were going to do. It was just, you know, Basically what it looked like. Cause it all basically operated the same and yeah, I know that sounds boring, but that's what happens. [00:14:58] So [00:15:00] Frederick: [00:15:00] that's how you put it in your, uh, one of your videos you were talking about how it's it's like an orchestra, like you have this governance for each instrument, how a plays when it plays time sector signature. Et cetera. It's, it's, it's kind of that, um, it's a nice balance. It's a, it's a framework. Um, w why do we have, uh, so much push against it though? [00:15:22] Is it just people want to rush technologies at the MVP kind of [00:15:26] Lisa: [00:15:26] syndrome? No, I think it's natural. I mean, when, when the web first started and I cut my teeth on coding, HTML and text, you know? Right. Like before we had any tools, so that's like 1995. Right. And so. You know, when something is new and it's unshaped and it's exciting. [00:15:45] You're not really sure what it does. Right. And so a lot of us just went in there and we were allowed to do crazy stuff for years, the 20 years, we were allowed to just mix crazy stuff and put it online almost with zero accountability. Right. Because we weren't sure how it worked and we didn't know exactly what we were going to do with it. [00:16:04] Right. And then people started making a lot of money and that made it super sticky in that way. And so part of the culture of working in a digital space is that you get to do whatever you want. And that's kind of unfortunate because I mean, Andy have this conversation, you know, he's worked in the financial sector for a lot and they don't get to do whatever they want. [00:16:23] So some people do, some people don't governmental organizations generally couldn't do what they want, financial services couldn't. But there are a lot of areas where people could design what they want, you know, social media people could do whatever they want. And so that's sort of the culture. And so a lot of people who are in it. [00:16:37] Like that culture, they like being able to do. They don't like the idea that something's going to standardize, which is weird because the web is nothing but a set of standards, but anyhow, but they don't like the idea that the stuff that they're making locally, it has to be standardized. And so I think, um, it's a maturity issue. [00:16:55] We've just got to realize that this is too big and too impactful for it to be running like your skunk works in your basement. Right. It can't run like that and be for everybody because that's inherently going to be unsafe. And so that's going to involve some maturity in the digital team and maturity and the public sense of maybe slowing things down a little bit, um, so that we can make, you know, have designed be inclusive and accessible and right. [00:17:20] And safe. Um, and that's just going to take work and some conversations, but I also think it's. It's also going to happen down the legislation front, people are going to get sued. Policy is going to be written unfortunately by people who know nothing about the technologies because technology companies never self-regulate. [00:17:35] So there's just going to be a lot of things. It's going to be like a giant interesting color for the next 20 years while we figure it out. And I'm going to come out of the other end with some good policy, some not great policy and hopefully more maturity in the way, digital and consistency in the way digital and design teams are structured. [00:17:53] Right. So that those vocations and professions become more structured, more rigorous and are more accountable for what they make, because right now, digital teams have very little accountability when something goes wrong online. It's not the team that designed it, that gets in trouble. Right. That's not really what they don't never get in trouble. [00:18:13] Right. And so, um, you know, it got a little harder if the server doesn't work, people generally can get burned. Right. And so, but somehow that whole. Other side UX design work sort of operates in an untouchable zone. So it'd be really interesting. It'll be really interesting. Yeah. [00:18:29] Andy: [00:18:29] So we touched on a couple of different things. [00:18:32] I'm looking at this chart, but, but really, you know, it's maturity for sure. And beyond maturity, you know, you mentioned something about an MVP Frederick and. You know, what happens is, is we it's, it's still relatively new. So we experimented and that's good. And we play, and we think that we're learning along the way, but then we launch something to a small subset of people. [00:18:56] We call it an MVP. If, if our company is at scale, that small subset of people is, is a ton of people. And then what happens is it's too late to realize the harm that we could have done because we're actively doing harm. And once we actively do harm, then everybody looks at each other, raises their hands. [00:19:14] Like, I didn't know that was going to happen. Like, first of all, you went way too fast. But second of all, like Lisa mentioned, it's going to take a lot of harm for people to start to regulate things. And, you know, regulation is a necessity, but at the same time, like, People don't don't want that. It's sometimes it's that we need it. [00:19:36] So if we can go ahead and search to figure out how to minimize, you know, harm, whether it's emotional, economic, physical, or psychological to people or to society like. Then maybe we can get ahead of regulation and we can start to set the tone so that it isn't people that don't understand what we do that create those regulations for us. [00:19:59] Brian: [00:19:59] It definitely does feel like, uh, most of the people in power, uh, like politicians mainly and businesses have kind of left, left them to self regulate. Clearly that hasn't worked as we can see in, on, in numerous cases. Uh, what do you say to the people that. You know, that don't, that, like you mentioned, does that feel like it's constricting and restricting and going to make things boring? [00:20:24] I mean, we don't want, no one really wants the internet to be born. It can we have both? [00:20:33] Lisa: [00:20:33] Of course. I mean, like th the example you were talking about with the orchestra and I use the example, I'm a musician. I use the example of musical ensembles all the time, and I talk about small, like three or four person, you know, improvisational, jazz ensembles. I talk about slightly larger bands that might operate off of a piece of music or chart. [00:20:51] And I talk about orchestras. Those are all very, very creative models and whether or not your taste is that music or not, that's entirely up to you. But, you know, my point is the larger group, the more controls you need to keep them together. It's got nothing to do with making cool stuff. Absolutely nothing. [00:21:07] Right? You may not like a ballet. You might not like ballet, but say, but say you really love modern improvisational dance that stuff's highly choreographed. It's not like it's not like they just get out there and start wiggling. And yes, that type of experimental dance is a thing. Right. But that's not all art. [00:21:25] That's only one way of doing things. And I just argue that it's completely irrational to think that an 80,000 person global multinational company is going to operate 2000 websites and, you know, 25 different languages. With all these things coming off of it, how many social media channels and not have some kind of operational structure. [00:21:46] In fact, they're just going to create a disaster. I mean, that's how you get brand disasters online is by not having goals. And so I think that this idea that having rules make something boring, it just doesn't make sense to me. I think it's just not true. And so I think what people are really saying in a sort of indicator, that there is an immature vibe. [00:22:08] In the system is I want to be able to do whatever I want to do. That's different than saying during this part of the life cycle of creation, we're going to allow for open creativity and a lot of different ideas to come into the system before we decide what we're going to do. I'm not saying don't do that, but I mean, some people really. [00:22:26] Somehow think they should be able to express themselves personally through, uh, through their corporation. And maybe that's true if you're the social media moderator and they hired you to do that, but that's not true when it comes to creating safe, you know, transactional services online or any type of, um, consistent experience for folks, um, maintaining their private state. [00:22:46] I mean, like that's just too serious. [00:22:50] Frederick: [00:22:50] I think you said something about, um, one of the videos I watched where we let things get so bad and we'll, it's kind of like a human nature thing to where we do let things get so bad, uh, before we even try to fix things. So how, how do we go about making any kind of like. [00:23:09] Basic fix, for example, like what w what would you do once your, um, start working for a company? Where, where do you start with making some basic fundamental fixes? What, what do you look [00:23:20] Lisa: [00:23:20] at? Well, I mean, there's two main things that I actually ask people that they usually can't give me the answer to. One of them is show me all your digital stuff, where it is and who touches it. [00:23:32] And usually people can't do that. They can't tell me how many I'm talking about. It's usually a very large company, so I'm not talking about, you know, a tiny or, or even higher education. How many websites do you have and who works on them? And, you know, people kind of sheepishly look at each other and they're kind of like, uh, well, we don't depends. [00:23:52] We don't know like how many social media, well, media channels you have. Oh, I don't know the baseball team set one up over here, but they run it and it's under somebody's email. I mean, it's. So some basics of like, what do you have? And who's touching it. To me, that's a fundamental, because if you want to be able to talk to the group of people and get them to collaborate together, you actually have to know who they are. [00:24:12] So a lot of organizations don't really even have a sense of who's touching their stuff. And this is mostly true for big global B2B and organizations that existed prior to the web. If you're a.com, you're an all digital model. That's a totally, they have a different set of maturity problems. Those types of organizations, their problem isn't that they don't know how to scale and create digital things. [00:24:35] It usually has to do with organizational maturity, for instance, an example. And I haven't done any work with Facebook, but for example, if you actually read Facebook's policy, About, you know, content moderation, or even Twitter's policy about it. It's actually fairly decent PO policy, but they don't know how to push that policy down into the operational model so that it actually happens. [00:24:58] Right. That's that's a process problem. So they've got that problem. They know how to make digital things. Pretty consistently. I mean, design people argue about it, but they don't know how to run a mature organization and make sure that what your intent is at a policy level on a strategic level runs all the way through a big global pharma knows how to do that, but they're not so great at doing digital. [00:25:17] So depending on who it is, I'll ask them like, show me what you have and who's touching it. And then the next thing that I will ask them and it usually comes together is when you say digital inside of your organization, what are you talking about? Right. What is the scope of digital? And that really blows people's minds because people will think of websites, mobile data, um, uh, web apps, I mean, uh, mobile apps, whatever, a whole different set of channels, email marketing campaigns, all of this, you know, customer CRM stuff. [00:25:51] But they can't really nail it. And part of that reason is because digital is so pervasive, there really is no difference anymore between the business and digital. And so there's, that's the maturity thing. There's this transformation happening where digital is displacing traditional business processes and exploding, and those other things are getting smaller. [00:26:08] So people just, they just don't have a handle on it. And it might sound sort of nonsensical what I'm saying, maybe, but literally. These organizations don't even know how to conceive of what they're doing. They don't know what they're doing and they don't know who's touching it. And so that's the first place I start [00:26:24] Andy: [00:26:24] digital organizations, depending on the industry, you know, having worked in healthcare and finance. [00:26:30] It's a lot of. Non digital. It's a lot of bankers. It's a lot of, uh, medical professionals that, that dictate the process and how we work and end up, you know, being in charge of the digital products and not wanting to leverage digital in a way that we can to move their business forward. It's them wanting to use. [00:26:50] To digitize their existing analog process. And that's where there's a little bit of conflict and that's really where we need governments to come in and understand the decision makers. And that's when you see the internal battles in the organization of like, is it. Is product actually the business or is the business a stakeholder of product. [00:27:09] And what does that look like? And it, again, it, it definitely ties to the maturity of the organization. And then when you get to organizations that are more digitally mature, I think there is this like, It's just freedom that they feel. That's like, I'm just going to go and do this. I'm just going to go and try this. [00:27:28] We're going to pave the way on this and there's this desire to be first and sometimes being first visit the best thing. Sometimes it's better to be second and get it right. Look at Apple. Versus Android, right. Brian, you're going to, but also the Androids are released every feature first and Apple will then market the fuck out of it. [00:27:48] Like two years later, like they [00:27:55] did and everyone will think they're the inventors of it. So it's that blend of getting it right. And understanding the capability of your technology. [00:28:06] Frederick: [00:28:06] It's going to be the, a little stylist on the Apple pencil. That's six, two, the magnetic back. Whoa, how come nobody thought of that before? [00:28:15] Andy: [00:28:15] Exactly. It's the Apple. [00:28:17] MagSafe like. Exactly. Been in a hurry. I don't know what they call it. [00:28:24] Frederick: [00:28:24] Sarah. I didn't give you, you haven't had a chance to, uh, to speak. I'm sure you got a few questions. [00:28:30] Sarrah: [00:28:30] A couple of questions have already been answered, so I'll try to jump in faster as, uh, as they come up. But yeah, I was really curious to hear more about what, what you mean when you say digital. [00:28:39] So I think, you know, we definitely delved into that and, um, You know, thinking a lot about this at my own w in my own work right now, you know, one of the things that we're doing is going through and, and, and building a design system and thinking a lot about accessibility first. And instead of doing accessibility as a big project or a, this kind of bespoke thing, kind of laying it down as, Hey, this is fundamental. [00:29:02] Like this is foundational. Every time we make a design decision. These are the things we consider, um, and try to make that part of our process, um, and things like that. Uh, and it sounds like a lot of this is really about getting people to take that ownership, um, before we get to that crisis point and we have to be regulated, um, but taking it on ourselves to, to do the things that are, we should be doing to make it a safer place and an easier place for people to interact and to use. [00:29:29] Andy: [00:29:29] Yeah. You know, when you think about accessibility or universal design or inclusive design, you know, these, these terms have been around a lot longer than we realized, but yet to a lot of companies and, and a lot of designers, they seem like new things and something Lisa touched on earlier about, um, you know, regulation, some of these, you know, accessibility, wasn't a priority for a lot of companies until they got sued. [00:29:58] And then all of a sudden, a few other companies like, well, I don't want that to happen to me. So let's focus on this. And the important thing is like we've learned and that by designing products for more people being inclusive in our design universal design, it makes it better for everyone. And it took like finding that problem and seeing the harm. [00:30:19] And then also the financial hit that companies took to raise that awareness. And now it is that starting point in a lot of companies or at least a lot of new products while everyone else is scrambling how to make their existing products more accessible. But it's, it's super important, right? I mean, It needs to be a top focus for teams that build products that create products, experiences for designers for, for really anyone in the organization to be aware of. [00:30:46] Brian: [00:30:46] Okay, we're assaulted. We're going to solve this right now, Amazon, they have a horrible accessibility experience. How do we deal with those large. Companies that just like the lawsuit, the fines don't matter because they're just like, Oh, well that's, that's five minutes of income. Okay. We'll pay that. Um, so what do we do with those organizations? [00:31:08] Like how do we approach that right now? [00:31:16] Lisa: [00:31:16] I was going to say, [00:31:17] Andy: [00:31:17] you probably have the first step, the main self, but you know, if it were me, what we do is we. There's there's two angles. The angle from how we make them do it is we find them more and more and more to the fact that it's costing them enough money, that it hurts them. But from the inside is where change actually happens. [00:31:36] So it's got to start feature by feature with someone that's like, we're going to make this feature more accessible. We're going to prove that it was more accessible, the value that it added. And then the company is going to get the appetite to do that more and more in scale that. Um, but you know, that that type of change really happens from the inside. [00:31:54] And a lot of times people on the inside, they hit that wall. They're like, all right. I tried, I tried, I tried, I can't get anywhere. I'm out, I'm leaving. The next person comes in. Maybe they have a little more momentum because the person before them kind of voiced that, but ultimately they're starting from scratch and they either stick it out and build support or they give up and they leave also. [00:32:16] Frederick: [00:32:16] Yeah, it's about, um, It's about these bubbles that we have and these companies and, and bubbles are just something that we naturally have. Um, and then being able to, um, find a way out of these bubbles and, and reach people and, and understand, uh, our responsibilities for these products and services that we, uh, we, we put out there in the world and being able to take ownership and identify, uh, issues and, uh, and, and, and provide safety. [00:32:47] Right. [00:32:48] Lisa: [00:32:48] Yeah. I mean, all, all of this stuff exists in the system, right? So I think that this sort of, you know, we all talk about siloed, siloed teams and that kind of stuff, but there's this sort of binary thinking about problem solving this. Yes. You're going to have to design your way out of it. Somebody's going to have to, you know, make Amazon more accessible internally. [00:33:10] And that work has to happen with domain expertise experts who know how to do that, but as long as they can pay those fines, And as long as they're allowed to behave that way. And as long as their culture is such that they don't care, that they're behaving that way. Right. That's a big one, right. They will continue to behave that way. [00:33:29] So you need not only expert expertise in this internal push that Andy's talking about, but. They're going to be, have to be forced, correct? That's it's, it's just going to have to be, it's illegal for you to not do this, or it's not, you know, all of this other kind of stuff. And I think it's this sort of squeezed play. [00:33:45] It's a similar question to what people say to me inside of an organization, we're trying to get a standard set of policies and standards. The design people are like, you know, It's design ops or, you know, the, it, people are like, you know, it's all about the servers or the digital rich digital team, which is the combination of those two things and that middleware of taxonomy, metadata publishing and development richness that happens, that actually gets stuff online, which is. [00:34:11] It's an interesting combination. They're trying to get standardized, you know, we only want one web content management system system instead of 19, or, you know, we only want this color palette if you're, or if your designers or this particular set of banners or, or whatever the case may be. And so I think, you know, pulling all of that stuff together. [00:34:29] Is going to require bottom up collaboration. So I'm always building these digital communities of practice inside, which is basically a forum for people to, that holds the entire global digital team. So they can talk to each other and cross pollinate, but they can't get anything done. They have no authority, unless somebody way up top says our culture says we do this and we do it right. [00:34:50] Here's the policy that supports that. And I'm telling you, you have to do that. Right. So if that mechanism isn't happening, which is what I think was happening in a lot of big social media companies, which pushed them so sideways, right. That they just weren't getting that. Even though there might've been people on the bottom going, this is wrong, this is wrong. [00:35:07] If the top isn't owning it. Right. And isn't saying, yeah, no, I'm not going to do that. Like, I'm not a big Costco nut because I don't shop in big box stores. I live alone, but you know, today they were like, we're going to pay $16 an hour. Dammit. Right. That's an executive decision, right. That, that guides the culture and the whole. [00:35:25] So if that's not happening, it's really, really hard. And if that's not happening consistently, that's when it steps outside of the organization. And we end up sometimes getting crazy, crazy regulations. Because people won't self-regulate, I mean, the next, I guess there's the step between that and crazy regulation is like vertical market collaboration. [00:35:45] Like all the pharmas could decide we're going to act like this and our self-interest and that does happen sometime. Right. But then you're dealing with competition. Right. And so do I really want to get together? It's like that open source thing that Jack Dorsey's putting together, right. Saying, yeah, let's create this open source thing so that we, and then Twitter will be a customer of it. [00:36:03] Right. So it's. It's fascinating and it'll come together. It's just going to take some time and it's going to be bumpy and weird. And I think delightful honestly, is going to be fun to watch that whole process play out. [00:36:16] Brian: [00:36:16] Yeah. As you were talking about the people on top having to pay attention, I was just picturing them on top being like, I'm sorry, I can't hear you around all this money. [00:36:23] Uh, I really think that I kind of wonder do we need something like. Um, I mean more empowered like OSHA or the FDA, or, I mean, that just says, Hey, you aren't doing this right. I mean, obviously those of agencies kind of feel now a little bit too. Well, they don't, [00:36:45] Lisa: [00:36:45] they do, they do in some ways, but then they also succeed in a lot of super-duper ways. [00:36:50] I mean, I don't know if you've been in countries where they don't have an FDA. [00:36:56] Right, right. So I'm not saying it's perfect or I'm not even saying it's great. I'm just saying it does and can have a good and positive effect. Right. I don't even know if that's the way to go, but I'm not going to dismiss them out of hand. [00:37:09] Brian: [00:37:09] Yeah. And to be clear, I want to say that it's less than the agency itself and more how they keep getting gift and underfunded, understaffed, uh, excellent work. [00:37:19] Okay. [00:37:23] Lisa: [00:37:23] We're going to send the bad x-ray machine at you and you don't believe in the medical device control we do here or use this black market x-ray machine that I got from, I don't know where, right? [00:37:39] Oh, [00:37:39] Brian: [00:37:39] didn't get to [00:37:40] Andy: [00:37:40] see it. [00:37:40] Frederick: [00:37:40] Frederick speaking of excellent work, I think we should, uh, quickly talk about before we run out of time, is your book Lisa, which is managing chaos. Uh, do you want to talk about this a little bit? I know you wrote this book on airplanes from my understanding, uh, here and there and you, you finally got it out. [00:38:00] It's managing chaos, digital governance by design. [00:38:05] Lisa: [00:38:05] It is. I mean, I wrote that book a bit bit back and it's really funny because I think it came out in 2015 and it's gotten some traction this year, as people realize that we need to govern the web. So, um, it really just talks about, you know, how to create a governance framework inside of an organization and define some key concepts. [00:38:24] You know, when Andy and I were talking a lot about this part of why I'm really enjoying. Working and talking with Andy is because, you know, I'm a consultant and yes, I worked inside, you know, Cisco systems back in the day. And so I, I know what it's like to be on a digital team, but that was a long time ago. [00:38:39] It was, you know, 20, some years ago, 23 years ago or something like that. So it's been a long time, but you know, Andy works inside of an organization and so. I have a lot of knowledge about how that works and you know, what type of policy you need to put in place and how to put policy in place and how to put standards in place and how to pull teams together. [00:38:57] But I don't work there. And so, um, I think it's a really good handbook to help yourself get organized, but it also has to be coupled with. Some, you know, hands on common sense knowledge, which is why I'm hoping that Andy and I eventually get to this next book, whether it's about safety or whether or not it's just it's ends up being about something else. [00:39:18] I think there's some power in the combination of digital governance and design informed by digital governance and vice versa. Because we're all working towards the same thing. Design teams want to create quality things. So, um, I think it's a good book. It's a solid book. It's the first book written on digital governance or enterprise digital governance on how to put a framework in place. [00:39:40] And so I think that's a super solid and it's valuable for people. I have an online training course that goes with it as well, if folks want to do that. But, um, Uh, I, um, um, I just, shouldn't say I'm more interested in not dissing my own book. I'm, I'm more interested in taking that and marrying it with other disciplines. [00:39:56] Right. I mean, just. How do I take what I know about governance and apply that to something, you know, Sarah, when you were talking about accessibility, I'm reading Regina what's, Virginia's last name? Regina Gilbert's book on accessibility. Um, right now, because we're thinking about inviting her on the podcast. [00:40:10] Hi Regina, if you see this, come on our podcast. Um, and you know, I came to the same conclusion that you did, which is, you know, it's, that's what Andy was saying. It's just foundational. Right. Accessibility, universal design, all of these broad things. And I want to ask her about how can we take all these siloed disciplines, including digital governance and design and accessibility, and, and realize that we're just trying to create a good experience for everyone. [00:40:34] So I think my book contributes to that conversation. Um, but it goes hand in hand with a lot of other things as well. [00:40:44] Frederick: [00:40:44] Speaking of the podcasts coming up. Um, w w who have you actually had on the podcast? It sounds like you both have, uh, a few episodes in the can. Uh, would you, would you be able to share a little bit with us about who you spoken with, who you spoke with and maybe some of the subjects. [00:41:02] Andy: [00:41:02] Yeah, I mean, so, so it hasn't launched yet and we're still actively like figuring out the order of when things get edited and put together. [00:41:10] But, um, we had a really interesting conversation with Mike Monteiro, uh, about. Just just a different side of Mike than, than a lot of people always see. Uh, who's new talk. Uh, we talked about music. Uh, we had a really interesting conversation with, uh, Whitney Quesenberry, who, you know, mail-in ballots, civic, design, really detailed conversation there. [00:41:37] Um, Lisa, I'll let you talk about our other guests. [00:41:42] Lisa: [00:41:42] Kevin Hoffman. We talked about meetings. And, you know, he wrote a book about meetings and you know, what might he change post pandemic about, you know, how to have a good meeting and why to have meetings as well. And we talked about a number of, um, a number of other factors. [00:41:58] Did we talk to anybody else? Am I missing someone? [00:42:00] Andy: [00:42:00] Yeah, his name's so well, [00:42:06] Lisa: [00:42:06] I actually got the Swedish pronunciation name. Um, so I've known pear forever because. They do. He's one of the hosts for UX podcast and I've been a guest on that several times. And so I really want it to turn the table because he, you know, in his professional life, um, deals with digital ethics all the time. [00:42:20] So we have a really rich discussion with, uh, pair about, uh, digital ethics. And, uh, coming up soon, we're going to be taping a conversation with a South Africans consultant Dean broadly. Um, who's really brilliant, absolutely brilliant in talking about leadership and teams. Um, and it has a different perspective being in South Africa, um, rather than being in the U S and Europe, which is generally where a lot of these conversations happen. [00:42:42] So. We're psyched about it. Oh, and also, where do we have, uh, we have two different streams for the podcast. We have these things called deep dives, which are basically me and Andy talking about an idea. So we recorded one of those, which is a governance versus design. Like why are they pushing against each other? [00:42:57] And so we're hoping that people will find them really interesting. [00:43:00] Sarrah: [00:43:00] That sounds awesome. That sounds awesome. I can't wait to listen. Um, and those guests are great. I Kevin's book is actually right across from me, uh, on my bookcase. So, uh, that sounds really, really great. [00:43:13] Frederick: [00:43:13] And the show's going to be called, uh, servicing. [00:43:16] Right. Yeah. Yep. Surfacing. Excellent. Is there any URLs out there that people could go to right now? Do you have a Twitter or a website? [00:43:26] Andy: [00:43:26] I have a website up very shortly [00:43:30] Brian: [00:43:30] domain. We're going to be here in the show and be like, Oh, I gotta buy that domain [00:43:36] Lisa: [00:43:36] entities, the website person. So [00:43:39] Andy: [00:43:39] I'm getting the domain going right now. [00:43:41] We, uh, we're close. Uh, it should be up. It's going to be servicing podcasts.com. So if you want to go ahead and bookmark it, I would say within the next week to 10 days, it'll be up and running. Right [00:43:57] Lisa: [00:43:57] now it has, it has an animated GIF of a jackhammer man. It's sitting under construction now. I'm kidding. [00:44:04] Frederick: [00:44:04] I really wish it did. [00:44:06] Lisa: [00:44:06] So probably we could get away from the game would get away with that now, because it would be like throwback, you know, it would be yeah. Retro [00:44:15] Brian: [00:44:15] kitschy. Yeah. Definitely make it nice. [00:44:18] Lisa: [00:44:18] Rolling. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Mario brothers jackhammer guy on the under construction. So. [00:44:27] Brian: [00:44:27] Yeah, I run a better quickly go bookmark that. [00:44:29] So they're ready to, you know, be like lightening in and do it kind of like our next round of questions, lightning round. Uh, yeah, we're getting towards the end here. And we, this round of a conversation is kind of a quick, we each ask you a question. Uh, you answer it and we move on. Uh, Sarah's kind of sweating slightly. [00:44:49] Okay. Uh, she always says the [00:44:51] best [00:44:51] Frederick: [00:44:51] questions and [00:44:52] Brian: [00:44:52] she's going first, obviously. No. Okay. I'll go. I'll go first. [00:44:57] Lisa: [00:44:57] I'm never ready. I just have a list [00:45:00] Sarrah: [00:45:00] so I know, but that's boring. You have to think of it on the fly. That's the whole point of lightning [00:45:05] Brian: [00:45:05] love. I love my questions cause they're, I've tailored them. [00:45:08] I've tailored them to things I want to know. [00:45:13] Andy: [00:45:13] All right, sweet. Wait. Now that there's multiple guests, is there first of all, is there a rule? Do we like both go? Do we go well, we'll start, you know, medical order, [00:45:24] Brian: [00:45:24] Andy. And do, you can go first with this question. So, um, what, what chores do you absolutely hate doing Andy? [00:45:33] Andy: [00:45:33] I really don't like, uh, Any tourist for real, like, I'm the, I'm the worst to do. I've gotten really good at like doing laundry. It's not so bad. Cause you just set it and forget it. But, uh, anything that's in the moment that I have to commit to that's chore related like vacuuming or, or anything like that? [00:45:53] No, not interested. [00:45:56] Lisa: [00:45:56] Um, hands down without a doubt, laundry second would be dishes except you have to do those. Laundry. If you buy a whole bunch of underwear, you can get by. [00:46:15] I'll go ahead. That's fine. I have one. So [00:46:17] Sarrah: [00:46:17] you've had a really bad day. Something terrible happened. Hopefully not too terrible, but you know, you're feeling really crappy. What's your go-to comfort food. Like what, what will just make you feel better? You know, that having that food is, it's just going to do it for you. [00:46:30] Andy: [00:46:30] The camera's on me. So I guess it's my cue. So it's pizza. I've been ordering pizza from GoldBelly from all different parts of the country. And tonight I actually had a pizza from buddy's pizza in Detroit where my office is that I haven't gotten a chance to visit yet. So typically it would have been, uh, Tennessee hot fried chicken, but haven't had it in the pandemic. [00:46:52] So it's pizza. [00:46:56] Lisa: [00:46:56] I would have to say Chinese food delivery, something spicy, um, or the spinach and fetish squares. What's a side of meatballs from the pizzeria shop. It's very specific [00:47:16] Sarrah: [00:47:16] savory, no [00:47:17] Lisa: [00:47:17] sweets. No, actually, I, I like sweet, savory. No, I'm a birthday cake. Like something bad happens. It just makes you feel bad. [00:47:31] After that's [00:47:33] Sarrah: [00:47:33] the whole point. I buy a giant birthday cake from Publix. I eat the whole thing. I feel really bad and I wake up the next day vowing to do better and it's over. [00:47:41] Andy: [00:47:41] If it works, [00:47:43] Brian: [00:47:43] it works. Yeah, I D [00:47:47] Frederick: [00:47:47] uh, what is your favorite book right now that you're pulling a lot of inspiration from, [00:47:53] Andy: [00:47:53] and Andy you're you're nice. You know, right now, I guess Chris, we were working on, on hours. I was so deep in the weeds in that. Um, I'm still pulling inspiration from, uh, or design for design orgs. I think that Peter mere wholesome, Kristin Skinner wrote a book that's been. [00:48:14] Interesting to people that are, that are working, standing up an organization or growing the maturity of their design organization. So it's, it's a bit of a, let me see what some of these options are, at least check what I'm thinking to see, who has had similar reactions or, or what that looks like. So that's been a book I've been able to quote a lot lately and also Rotman on design. [00:48:36] Uh, that's another great book with civil quotes of design impact to organizations. [00:48:42] Frederick: [00:48:42] Nice Lisa. [00:48:43] Lisa: [00:48:43] Okay. Andy sounds really smart. And topic topic smart. Me. I'm reading this book called you belong by 70 Selassie. The subtitle is nerdy black immigrant tomboy, Buddhist weirdo. So I'm a very serious meditator. Uh, and so it's just, it's just a great book. [00:49:03] It's a really, really great book about no matter who you are, what you are, what you've done, whatever you like, you're supposed to be here and, and you belong. And you're okay. And so I think particularly in this pandemic times, that's kind of just all need to feel like we're okay. And it's okay. And so I'm drawing a lot of inspiration even for, you know, the client work that I do as well. [00:49:23] I think teams really. People want to go to work and feel like they belong and they do good work. And so I'm trying to draw some inspiration for that of just trying to always remembering that we're dealing with human beings. [00:49:35] Frederick: [00:49:35] Yeah. We, we definitely, definitely need people right now. Brian, make sure you put that one in the show notes. [00:49:43] Brian: [00:49:43] Um, so my question, uh, you're you're in the circus, would you rather be the person with their head inside the lines of mouth Sarah, or get shot up out of the cannon? [00:49:57] Andy: [00:49:57] I shoot me out of the Canon. Like that seems pretty exciting. [00:50:05] Put my head in the lion's mouth too. Like I love, I don't love watching the circus, but I love circus and corny shit. So like all of the circus things. [00:50:18] Lisa: [00:50:18] So when you said you were in the surface, my head really reeled back to when I was in college and I used to do dinner theater. I used to, I, I started out a voice opera major, and I was like the music theater person in high school. And so I was in Barnum and I played, I played Joice Heth the oldest woman in the world. [00:50:39] So when you said that, that's where my head went. And then you said, Lion's mouth are shot out of the cannon. I don't know if I can decide, cause I think I've already have a part in the circus and that's what it was [00:50:54] every day, except Monday and twice on Sunday. Joyce always have the oldest woman in the world. Oh my goodness. [00:51:01] Sarrah: [00:51:01] Oh my God. Now I forgot my question. Cause I was so into that story. Oh my God. Okay. No, I got it. I got it back. No, I really wasn't like so into that, um, Okay, [00:51:10] Lisa: [00:51:10] so we've all. Well, I think [00:51:13] Sarrah: [00:51:13] most of us have had strings. [00:51:14] I'm sorry, I didn't [00:51:15] Lisa: [00:51:15] use my phone. No worries. That's okay. All right. [00:51:19] Sarrah: [00:51:19] So most of us have had strange jobs, uh, at one point in our life. Um, for me, I was, um, booboo at Yellowstone camping ground. Um, one winter don't ask. Um, so I'm just curious, um, if either of you, like, what is the strangest job you've ever had? [00:51:34] Andy? You gotta go first. [00:51:36] Andy: [00:51:36] Yeah. So I used to wrestle professionally. I think that's qualifies as a really strange job. Um, I got to do some, uh, interesting things and see some interesting parts of the country and, uh, get beaten up a little bit and then realized very early on that it wasn't, I wasn't going to make a living doing it. [00:51:55] Uh, at least not a good living, so I'm not doing it anymore. [00:52:03] Lisa: [00:52:03] We are just, we are just job. It's a toss up. One of them was one summer. When I was in high school, I was a damsel in distress at the Renaissance festival and I had to run around and faint on people. And pretend that it's awesome that I was under duress. What [00:52:19] Andy: [00:52:19] is the job [00:52:19] Brian: [00:52:19] interview for? [00:52:23] Frederick: [00:52:23] Let's say your duress base [00:52:26] Lisa: [00:52:26] set you loose, you run around you scream. [00:52:28] I think you have to be brazen enough to just bank on it. And scream at, you know, a complete stranger, right. Which is horrifying. You know, I would never do that now. I just like, I just wouldn't do that. [00:52:38] Sarrah: [00:52:38] Can trust them to catch you where they like ahead to actually [00:52:40] Lisa: [00:52:40] catch you too at did some of them let you fall on the ground. [00:52:43] It really depended on the personality of the site. Like the person you were assaulting, basically. So it's all, but you know, it was a Renaissance festival. So, um, the second weirdest job I have or doubly more pro job was I was coordinating producer for candid camera. And my job was to set up the gags that tricked people. [00:53:01] And that was a very interesting, that was a very interesting job. Right. And so, you know, I got to make a pinball machine smoking squirt, and kids came and put money in it and they would play it. It like squirt water in their face. And they were just like, you know, just fun stuff like that. There was a fake beauty pageant where, you know, the back of it's embarrassing and probably not great for these days. [00:53:22] The back of the, the, the woman's dress would fall off. And there was an honor guard that was trying to keep a straight face while, you know, Well, you know, so it just, just like crazy dumb stuff like that, which is sort of embarrassing. And I quit that job because I was like, I'm really uncomfortable. Making people feel uncomfortable. [00:53:40] Right. It was great when kids are laughing at a pinball machine, but really bad when you realize I'm really causing these people to rest. So I stopped, but that was an interesting problem. [00:53:49] Frederick: [00:53:49] I love that. Well, Hey, we're, we're getting to the end of the show and I know we need to make enough time, uh, for Lisa to play us off. [00:53:55] Cause she said she was going to sing and play a little piano. And I, I got my, I got my piano here too. We're both gonna play something together. So yeah. So we have enough time for that. No, it's it's okay. We don't need to get a secret anymore, at least. So let's let's before we get to that point, uh, how, uh, we'll start with you, Lisa, how can people find out more about you? [00:54:14] What's uh, what's the URL. [00:54:16] Lisa: [00:54:16] And sweltering.com. Very easy. And my any Twitter handled handle is at L Welchman. [00:54:22] Frederick: [00:54:22] Okay. Perfect. [00:54:23] Andy: [00:54:23] Andy. Yeah. So I'm Andy vitale.com or at Andy Vitaliy on Twitter or LinkedIn or any other social thing. Find me on clubhouse. I was playing with that the other day. It's where you really [00:54:37] Lisa: [00:54:37] see it scares me. [00:54:41] Andy: [00:54:41] It took me a while to figure it out, how to actually make it, like, use it the way I want it to. But it's not that I just find, talk about that. [00:54:50] Brian: [00:54:50] Okay. I just find it funny that we keep inventing basically the same thing. It's basically a group conference call. Yeah. [00:54:57] Andy: [00:54:57] Whatever you want to do [00:54:58] Lisa: [00:54:58] that we keep reinventing conference calls and radio. [00:55:02] That's what we keep reinventing right. In, in lots of different ways, but you know what, it's something to do, I guess, to Pandora. [00:55:11] Andy: [00:55:11] Yeah. Last Saturday, Lisa introduced me to this interesting radio, uh, website, and then I got an email about it at work. It was part of our corporate email and it's like, here's radio garden. [00:55:21] I was like, Holy shit. Like at least they showed us to be on Saturday. [00:55:25] Lisa: [00:55:25] Avant garde. I knew all about that. Yeah. [00:55:28] Frederick: [00:55:28] Old hat. I know that. [00:55:30] Lisa: [00:55:30] That's great. And that's like listening to the radio, like in Iceland or something. It's amazing. Yeah. Oh, [00:55:36] Frederick: [00:55:36] what's the, what's the URL for that? I want to look that up. [00:55:39] Andy: [00:55:39] It's radio garden. [00:55:40] Is it.com? [00:55:41] Lisa: [00:55:41] I think it's radio.garden. [00:55:44] Andy: [00:55:44] I think that's right. [00:55:45] Lisa: [00:55:45] I think it's radio.garden and it's basically a globe and you can. Go anywhere on the world and you can, I'm sure it's selected stations. I actually researched it a little bit, that it was like a research problem project out of the Netherlands and some other partners where they've just basically, you know, so you can listen to the radio. [00:56:00] It's fantastic. I'm sure some stuff that's going on. Maybe isn't great, but I don't speak all the languages, but it's just great to say, like, I just want to see what it sounds like in Peru right now. Let's on the radio. If I was in Peru. [00:56:12] Frederick: [00:56:12] Yeah. It's just like watching a little bit of Japanese television here and yeah, well, it's just like funny, [00:56:16] Brian: [00:56:16] another great one is pod brought broadcasts. [00:56:19] It's an iOS app for, yeah, it's similar. You can listen to radio stations all around the world. It's really awesome. Yeah. [00:56:27] Frederick: [00:56:27] Love it. Cool. Hey, uh, we're at the end, so we love to have an opportunity for you each to, um, say something in closing to the audience and I'll go with, uh, with you first, Lisa. [00:56:41] Lisa: [00:56:41] Um, I'm going to go back to where I started, um, or how I end most of my talks. [00:56:47] Very, very intimate, but just in case you're needing it. I love you. And I care about you and take care of yourself. Cause it's kind of tough times. [00:56:56] Frederick: [00:56:56] Nice Andy. [00:56:59] Andy: [00:56:59] Yeah. You know, be, be a good person. Um, stay curious and keep putting yourself in uncomfortable situations because that's how you become more comfortable with, with yourself and who you want to be in and what you want to do. [00:57:14] Frederick: [00:57:14] Well said, well, with that being said, Lisa, do you got the keyboard or you're ready to play us out? Or I, I [00:57:20] Lisa: [00:57:20] D I can tap on my phone. [00:57:23] Frederick: [00:57:23] Okay, go ahead. And you can sing us out. [00:57:41] Andy: [00:57:41] That's our new intro. I hope you don't mind if we use [00:57:45] Frederick: [00:57:45] that [00:57:47] Brian: [00:57:47] to the show. Thank you. Both of you for your time tonight. Really appreciate it. [00:57:53] Frederick: [00:57:53] Yeah. I always, I always like to say time is the most valuable thing that we have and like really, really appreciate you sharing that with us. [00:58:01] Lisa: [00:58:01] Good to it was good to meet you all and good to spend some time with some folks. [00:58:03] So, thanks. [00:58:05] Andy: [00:58:05] Hey, before you hit stop, I want to know, has anyone else been on this show three times or did I set a record today? [00:58:14] Frederick: [00:58:14] Chris core has been on the show four times. [00:58:18] Andy: [00:58:18] That's when you get the jacket. [00:58:20] Frederick: [00:58:20] No, no, no. Chris Cora has actually been on the show like four or five times because he cameo at a bunch of times. It's true. That doesn't count. No [00:58:30] Lisa: [00:58:30] actual guest Andy's inventing a flying car. So when he found that you could have him back on [00:58:37] Frederick: [00:58:37] true. [00:58:38] Sure. Perfect. Well, we'll see you back next week, then Andy, [00:58:42] Andy: [00:58:42] two years [00:58:44] Frederick: [00:58:44] next week, I need to get places. [00:58:52] Andy: [00:58:52] Well, that would [00:58:52] Brian: [00:58:52] work well. [00:58:55] Frederick: [00:58:55] Well, for some governance around there and what we'll get you going really quick, but thank you all really, really, really appreciate you joining us today. Super thankful. Thanks so much. [00:59:05] Lisa: [00:59:05] Great. Have a good one. Yeah. Yep. All [00:59:08] Frederick: [00:59:08] right. Take care everybody. Bye. Toodles noodles.

In this episode, we get to speak with King of Web Standards, Jeffrey Zeldman. We discuss the current situation with COVID and how it is impacting our lives at work. We also dive into Jeffrey’s background and lessons from his career journey. Then we chat about believing in yourself, making your own opportunities, and building a better bat cave. Episode Sponsor Auth0 https://auth0.comAuth0 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/auth0Auth0 on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/auth0Auth0 Avocado Labs online meetup events: https://avocadolabs.dev/ Episode Links Twitter:  https://twitter.com/zeldmanWebsite: https://www.zeldman.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zeldman/Everything Apart:Co-founder & Principal – An Event Apart: https://aneventapart.com/Publisher & Co-founder – A Book Apart: http://www.abookapart.com/Publisher – A List Apart: https://alistapart.com/Front End Nerdery Podcast – Season 1, Episode 1, Part 1 – Jeffrey Zeldman: https://youtu.be/ada-9KYpv3wThe Big Web Show – https://5by5.tv/bigwebshowJeffrey Zeldman 20 years of Web Design and Community – an intimate portrait by lynda.com: https://vimeo.com/219302853Founder Emeritus of Happy Cog: http://www.happycog.com/In which I am vaccinated: https://www.zeldman.com/2021/01/16/in-which-i-am-vaccinated/http://www.zeldman.com/2020/05/03/worlds-worst-vacation/Hosts: Frederick Weiss: https://twitter.com/frederickweissBrian Hinton: https://twitter.com/mrbrianhinton Transcript Brian: [00:00:00] Welcome to thunder nerds. I am [00:00:27] Frederick: [00:00:27] Brian Hinton. I'm Frederick Phillip Von, Weiss. And thank you for consuming the thunder nerds, a conversation with the people behind the technology. That love what they do to do [00:00:38] Brian: [00:00:38] and do tech. Good. [00:00:42] Frederick: [00:00:42] Hey everybody. Thank you so much for joining us on our first episode of season six. [00:00:46] Really appreciate it. Brian, go ahead and take us off. Yeah, I [00:00:50] Brian: [00:00:50] think this season sponsor again, coming back again is Auth0. Uh, they make unified log-ins for apps, uh, easy, uh, and uh, all, I didn't make a custom secure and standards based unified in by. Providing authentication and authorization as a service, you can find out more often xero.com and there they have a lot of, uh, uh, other outlets like youtube.com, auth auth zero for a great developer resources, their Twitch channel, uh, Twitch TV for slash Auth0 for some great live streams. [00:01:21] And, uh, they also have avocado labs for an online destination for a meetup events organized by their advocates at. I have an avocado labs.dev. Thank you again. Yeah. [00:01:34] Frederick: [00:01:34] Yeah. Thank you Auth0. I really appreciate it. So with, uh, all the ados being further now, let's go ahead and get to our amazing guests. We have designer author, educator, the King of web standards, and a person apart from the rest. [00:01:51] Jeffrey. Zeldman welcome to the show, [00:01:53] Jeffrey: [00:01:53] Jeffrey. Thanks Frederick. Uh, thanks, Brian. It's awesome to be here. I [00:01:59] Frederick: [00:01:59] really appreciate you being here. Uh, Jeffrey, why don't we first start off with something topical, which is, uh, everything going on with, with the COVID we're still experiencing this. It's it's hard for a lot of people to even get a vaccine. [00:02:13] And, uh, for a lot of us, it's just not obtainable at the moment with age and, and whatnot or jobs. And certainly a it's probably going to the right people at the moment, but you you've received now the, the, the two doses, uh, love to hear your experience and want to know how the knee's doing. [00:02:29] Jeffrey: [00:02:29] Thank you. Uh, I got two doses cause I'm old and, uh, I mean, there's a whole lot of frontline workers who haven't gotten it. [00:02:40] Um, people with unglamorous jobs like janitors, who haven't gotten it, uh, food delivery, people, mail people that's wrong. They should have gotten it first. I get it because I have the privilege that I, you know, I work at automatic. Uh, makers of WordPress and so forth, uh, wordpress.com and, uh, I have the privilege to work remotely so I could have waited. [00:03:10] I also have read, like, if, if you qualify, you should go get it. Um, you're not actually helping people. If you decide it's not up to you, you basically, when your lottery's called, he just go. So I went, um, and I'm also glad to have had the second one, had it just a few days ago. Doing. Okay. Um, so the experience is you in New York, the experiences there's 50 websites. [00:03:37] Uh, they were designed by whoever they could get. Um, they're not, it's not a UX experience, right? It's not like, uh, a very cultivated UX experience. It's under-resourced folks. From ver, you know, somebody knows, uh, HTML or JavaScript and, uh, they throw something together. It's like, whack-a-mole in reverse. Um, basically you're told this is the, you know, that you have it and you, you just click one link after another, until you find a website that has an event that you can go to and you sign up for. [00:04:17] And if it's, you know, What if it's not going to be like, they're doing it in a hospital on my block, but I can't go to that one. You know, it's like, I, I go to another borough. So I've been, I've been to, uh, another neighborhood and other borough, the first one they got, they, you know, it's, it's, uh, It was sad to see. [00:04:42] There were people who had trouble, difficulty walking and so forth, and they hadn't really set up for them. It's still, you know, it's a work in progress. Um, on the other hand, [00:04:54] Brian: [00:04:54] and you got COVID to write a blog about it in [00:05:00] Jeffrey: [00:05:00] late February, in late February of last year. Came down with it for three weeks, I denied that. [00:05:06] It was COVID like, I was sure it was something else. I was already working remotely and I wasn't going out. So I quarantined without really thinking about it. But, but, uh, then I saw the doctor and said, yeah, he said, yeah, that's it. Um, I had it for about four months. Um, I'm still in recovery. [00:05:30] I breathe like Darth Vader when I'm carrying groceries. I can't really, if I walk more than a block, I'm tired. Uh, so that's the first thing. The second thing is there's some weird neurological stuff for me. Like this morning, I was looking in. I was looking at five bottles of medicine and a medicine chest, except there were only four, but I saw five and then I went, but I know there's four and then I saw four. [00:05:59] So I'm not dyslexic. My daughter is sure. My brother is sure. My dad was my daughter's mom is, it was over-determined. I never had that. My problems with math were emotional. Like, you know, like, I didn't want to, I didn't like math as a creative. I don't want to do math. Maths for nerds. Yeah. Well, no, I didn't mind. [00:06:26] I didn't mind being a nerd at all. Yeah, no. Yeah. [00:06:31] Frederick: [00:06:31] I just meant the little kid thing, you know, as a little kid. [00:06:36] Jeffrey: [00:06:36] Absolutely. I, I, we could probably spend an hour on that, but, but anyways, there's, there's stuff. There's like some neurological damage. I don't really know the extent of it. I get, I have to take a nap every day, then again, I'm old. [00:06:52] So you know how much of this is would have happened anyway, I don't know. [00:06:58] Frederick: [00:06:58] I wouldn't say you're you're that old, but I mean, yeah. Having an app is very nice, but, but yeah, the brain fog, the brain fog for people is, seems like a very real thing. And a lot of people are experiencing that. And, um, uh, yeah, I, I couldn't imagine. [00:07:15] What about the, the, the post kind of, um, Uh, experience like, do you, do you, are you, do you have any kind of like a depression from it or are you suffering anything from like, Oh, this, this, this brain fog is just bringing me down. It's it's, it's hard to concentrate, [00:07:31] Jeffrey: [00:07:31] etc . No, I, um, I'm really a survivor by personality and I've overcome things in the past. [00:07:41] And so I'm really grateful to be alive. I know people who died. I know people who are much more incapacitated. I really glass half full I'm I'm I I'm lucky to have a job. I'm lucky I can, you know, do my conference as well. And I can do what I need to do. I can take care of my kid. I'm a, I'm a home body with an anxiety disorder. [00:08:14] So being stuck at home, doesn't bother me and my kids here. So, and, and her mom lives very close by. So. Uh, all that is good. I, I think there's, I hate to say there's silver linings because especially for people who've lost them, buddy. It sounds incredibly callous to go, Hey, it hasn't been so bad, you know, it's been terrible. [00:08:40] That's horrible. But, um, but spending extra time with your family because the schools closed during the day, not a bad thing. [00:08:50] Brian: [00:08:50] Yeah. I mean, we all have our own contexts in our own world and our own difficulties and trials and tribulations. So I think that's understandable. And I love all your, of all your titles for the world's shittiest vacation. [00:09:02] That's [00:09:02] Jeffrey: [00:09:02] totally true. I [00:09:05] Brian: [00:09:05] say that [00:09:09] Jeffrey: [00:09:09] we're having spaghetti again possible to have too much spaghetti. [00:09:15] Brian: [00:09:15] I thought it was, [00:09:16] Frederick: [00:09:16] uh, uh, uh, pretty interesting too. I dunno. Interesting. Maybe is the right word, but it sucked that you have that issue with your, your, I think your air condition went out, like ruined your floors while you're like deep in the sickness. [00:09:30] Jeffrey: [00:09:30] Yeah. Yeah. So I lay there, I lay there with a flooded floor for a couple of months. It wasn't old enough. She couldn't really, but, so, so then I had a guy come in. But it was a class. Did you ever watch Mr. Blandings builds his dream house or you ever just listen to a comedian, do a monologue about, I mean, once you get an expert in it and they know when you don't know, right. [00:09:55] Brian: [00:09:55] All these [00:09:55] Jeffrey: [00:09:55] other problems. Yeah. And you know, it's, well, it's really what it is. So it ended up being much more expensive and I have really good insurance, but it's America. So like they said, That's great. You have it's cost $7,000. That's terrific. You're fully covered. I'm like, Oh, thank goodness. And they're like, we'll cover $2,000 of it because 5,000. [00:10:22] I'm like, yeah. You know, but you know, so, but now I have a floor, so that's nice. And I love that floor and I've kind of swept everything that was in my room into a corner of the living room that I don't look at. And, um, there's basically a S what used to be a dining room area is now just a storage unit. I don't go there. [00:10:47] I don't look at it. It's depressing. Uh, but my room, it looks like a Japanese monastery. There's like, there's a bed, there's a little statue. There's a Bureau, a light, that's it. And, and it's great. I have a lot of peace. In that room. Yeah. Um, I, I would, I wanted to make a point, which is I'm fortunate to work at a good company, but, um, I think there are people coming back with brain fog and other problems who are then getting not where I work, but at other companies where they're sort of getting pushed out of their position. [00:11:33] Because they make mistakes. This is the third time you've made that mistake. Or do you know what I mean? You're not paying attention. You're not learning. We changed that process last week. I think managers, if they're listening, like managers need to be a little extra sensitive right now and supportive, I think many are, but, but if there's somebody who, and if there's somebody who feels like. [00:12:02] They're having issues, which are not their fault, which are purely neurological and because they had COVID, but they're getting punished. Like they're a scofflaw or like they're just not doing their job. I think it's okay for them to request a little support. I think it's really important for companies to do that right now. [00:12:28] Frederick: [00:12:28] Yeah, that's, that's a really great point because as you said, so many people are coming back and w w having these, these issues that it's, it's not. Uh, fault or anyone's fault. Um, I, you know, that's a different discussion, but yeah. Uh, w we need to be a little bit more understanding and caring to help everyone get adjusted and see where things go. [00:12:53] I mean, it's, we're still probably a good year off from getting to a, some kind of. Level of normal. Um, maybe sooner, I don't know. It's certainly not the fastest to get these vaccine vaccines out there for, um, for people. I mean, as you see right now, it's people are fighting. I read on, on the news the other day that, uh, there was two people in Florida that go Florida that dressed up like elderly people. [00:13:21] So they could sneak in and get vaccines. Oh God. [00:13:25] Jeffrey: [00:13:25] And it works. It [00:13:27] Frederick: [00:13:27] works. And it worked, they got the [00:13:28] Jeffrey: [00:13:28] vaccine. Don't you have to show it births. [00:13:32] Frederick: [00:13:32] No, no, no. We're talking about [00:13:33] Jeffrey: [00:13:33] Florida gentlemen. Yeah, because in New York you have to show like your age or that you have a job. Like you have a job actually in New York. [00:13:42] They're really good with frontline workers, medical, frontline workers. If you show that you're a medical frontline worker, you know you, but you out. Okay. So Florida, you just walk in and. That's bizarre. Yeah. [00:13:54] Frederick: [00:13:54] In Florida, you walk in you're you, you know, you pass them a beer and it's like, cool. All right. I can say that. [00:14:00] Cause I'm from Florida. It's everything's okay. [00:14:02] Brian: [00:14:02] Everything's very lenient. Yes, same, same here. Um, I'd like to transition a little bit into your background, Jeffrey, but I want to read a quick quote, uh, before we do that, um, I would recommend this browser to any Mac user. In fact, I'd recommend it to anybody. [00:14:21] Because I believe it is the most standards, conformant browser, or at least by any company. So far on any computing platform, it's a win for designers and a win for people who use the web. And that is a first and that was you. Of course. And I E five was the browser, which just, uh, I say that just to highlight, you know, how, how long you've been in the field, how much, how the contribution over the years? [00:14:42] Um, not because five is good anymore, but back then it was [00:14:47] Jeffrey: [00:14:47] Mac, Mac Mac. Yes, correct. Yeah. So, um, the, the lead developer behind that and behind the Tasman rendering engine, Tajik shellac became a friend of mine and he'd been involved in web standards for a long time. And he made the horrible mistake of supporting web standards before this company had fully aligned around that objective. [00:15:13] Um, and that's not the fault Microsoft, they were ahead of the game versus Netscape. Right. Um, at the time, but, uh, it was the first time somebody had really tried to, I can't, there's a weird thing with the, in the beginning of CSS, nobody except possibly Eric Meyer. Really knew how it should work because there was no, it was a chicken and egg problem, so, right. [00:15:43] So hope humbly and Burt, Bose created CSS CSS one and no browser supported it because it was in their minds. And they said, this is how it should work, but what did that mean? And so they were test suites, but you know, that's, it's a. I mean, it's a process, like a creative process, like, um, making a movie and you start with a script and then there's story boards. [00:16:10] And then when you're actually building the models, you find out that the mountain doesn't relate to, it looked great in the storyboard, but. When it's actually made of clay and it's putting the background of the shot, it doesn't work. So you have to rethink that. And, and that's, you know, web the web standards, design saga was a lot like that. [00:16:27] There were a lot of great ideas, but then a lot of things, you know, when you dream, you know who a character is, but you know how dreams like leave blanks. Like, it's not always like, that's why movie scenes of dreams never work because they shoot every pixel, obviously. So you can see every detail of the doctors' beard and his freckles and the ward on his nose. [00:16:54] But in real, you know, in the real world, in your dream, Maybe there's just a medical gown floats by, or who knows what some synapse is fired. And you think so web, uh, web standards in quotations were a lot like that. CSS was a lot like that. This is what we think it should do. I had a book, I don't remember the author now. [00:17:13] I feel really bad. It was the first DSS book I got in 1996. And it was, here's what we think that should do. Here's what we think will happen. Oh, man, I, I apologize profoundly to this author, but the other, it was, it was, it was guesses. And then he was sort of in Photoshop faking screens, like I think get on a look like this and I think this is what flow will do. [00:17:40] Um, but the other thing, even when I five Mac came out. For a long time, I was still doing layouts as tables. So basically I would use symbol column their tables because how do you make columns and CSS? Wasn't it, wasn't part of the original specification. The fact that really wasn't part of the specification until CSS grid, like, you know, a few years ago. [00:18:08] So basically for a long time, we've been getting by on hacks. Oh, [00:18:12] Brian: [00:18:12] yeah, definitely. We have floats and clear fix. Yeah, it's weird [00:18:16] Jeffrey: [00:18:16] because there's a hypocrisy. I don't know if you could, progress is exactly the perfect word, but there's a contradiction, maybe a slight about it and we're like, no, you shouldn't do it that way. [00:18:26] There's standards. Oh, so what's the standard for layout? Well, um, use floats, but aren't they supposed to be used for shut up. Yes, that's the [00:18:37] standard. [00:18:38] Brian: [00:18:38] So [00:18:39] Frederick: [00:18:39] go ahead. I have some images for your, a rounded corners in your table. [00:18:43] Brian: [00:18:43] Okay. [00:18:43] Jeffrey: [00:18:43] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those [00:18:44] Brian: [00:18:44] were, those were those days. [00:18:47] Jeffrey: [00:18:47] Doug Bowman, there was a whole generation of wonderful Doug Bowman, Dan Cedar home. [00:18:54] Um, Dave Shay just really, really talented people who came up with. You know, Dave, Dave, Doug Bowman was like, you know, the rounded corners in, in before we had responsive design, but we had like liquid design, like flexible design. How could you make the rounded corner? And then. Allow that tab to get one now it's you don't even think about it, but then it was, there were so many layers and you'd be like, Oh, I'm so glad I got rid of cable table layouts. [00:19:27] Now I just have 7,000 gifts and spans and I'm using a childlike demean ad, this rounded corner, like just, you know, [00:19:37] Frederick: [00:19:37] It goes back to the ax conversation. I, every once in a while too, I get this, uh, this kind of PSD where, where I'm like, ah, can I actually do that? I'm like constantly on, can I use? And I'm like, Oh yeah, yeah, that, that does exist. [00:19:48] Okay. [00:19:49] Brian: [00:19:49] Just checking. [00:19:50] Jeffrey: [00:19:50] So I, I love, can I use what a wonderful public service, but I also hate can I use, um, my, my. My conference partner, Eric Meyer, a genius also would have charts of like here's, you know, here's how the 5.0 browser support on various platforms support various or, um, Peter Paul coughed is another like, like brilliant person who would make these charts of what worked and didn't and various browsers. [00:20:21] And I was just like, well, the reason, so the reason I loved it was, you know, without that we couldn't do our jobs. And the reason I hated it was it's a standard it's just supposed to work. I hated that we had, you know, that's very childish in a way, because time takes time. [00:20:37] Brian: [00:20:37] Yeah. And it's like the chicken legs thing too, because like, if you see, Oh, it's not supported and no one's doing it in the browser, like Waldo is doing it. [00:20:45] We don't need to support it. [00:20:51] Jeffrey: [00:20:51] has, has things in it. Not because they're well considered best practices, but because, well, this is what, this is what 50 developers were doing. That you know, that Hicks Ian Hicks and followed. He said, well, they're all calling it content area. So it's not going to be called content area or whatever. Do you know what I mean? [00:21:11] Um, So it made sense pave the cow paths. It made sense to go let's make standards the way people are really using this stuff. But there was probably an intermediary step where it would have been nice to be asked and go, Oh, well, if you're doing that, let's have a conversation. Probably these conversations take seven years and that's the W3C and people were restless, which again is why. [00:21:41] Brian: [00:21:41] Yeah. [00:21:43] Frederick: [00:21:43] Oh, yeah. Just wanted to get, get caught up on here. Yeah. It took a class in college, uh, and school used Mac, uh  back in 2003. Yeah. We've all been there. [00:21:58] Brian: [00:21:58] Three hours [00:22:00] Frederick: [00:22:00] or the tower? No, no, no. They, they were the tower. I think they went up to the towers were up to. G for [00:22:08] Brian: [00:22:08] the colorful towers. If I remember correctly, [00:22:11] Frederick: [00:22:11] I don't think the  were, I think they were just the gray towers [00:22:16] Jeffrey: [00:22:16] or the iMac, right? [00:22:18] Yeah, it was before. [00:22:19] Frederick: [00:22:19] No, no, no, no. It was during [00:22:21] Jeffrey: [00:22:21] the iMac, but the iMac, the original iMac was very underpowered was like a consumer model. So it was like, if you're doing video editing, you need the G three. Uh, but if you're a school. By an iMac badly by [00:22:36] Brian: [00:22:36] an iMac. [00:22:37] Frederick: [00:22:37] Yeah. If you were a professional, you went for a  you were like, Oh yeah, you know, I'm, I'm really doing some stuff. [00:22:44] Jeffrey: [00:22:44] Or if you were broke, you went for a clone, which is what I did. And I was very mad at Steve jobs when he came there's no more clones. [00:22:55] Brian: [00:22:55] They were colorful egg shaped. I was right. There were the colorful ones. Yeah, the handles, [00:23:00] Jeffrey: [00:23:00] I think. Do you have a screenshot? I'm [00:23:04] Brian: [00:23:04] just quoting Todd here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, speaking to though, I mean, we're talking about web standards. [00:23:10] I mean, you were, you know, you're heavily involved in the web standards project, you know, stop, start all that. I didn't know that you were briefly were a reporter. How did, do you Trent, like, what was your transition into doing web development? Like [00:23:24] Jeffrey: [00:23:24] what, what was your as another step in? But, so I failed at a lot of jobs, right. [00:23:31] And I think you're supposed to. Um, I, I learned something from every failure, like failure is great. Um, but, uh, so, okay. So there was a paper called city paper in Washington and Baltimore, and I was living in Washington, DC, and I went in with something I'd written and they said they weren't interested. And then, uh, The editor quit the paper. [00:23:58] And he took all his loyal writers with them. So all the writers left the paper. And so the new editor and chief were the owners and hired. He was calling people and going, Hey, can you still write for the paper? And they're like, no, I'm loyal to so-and-so and we're going to do it. So in desperation, he started going through their mortgage rejected stuff. [00:24:16] He liked my thing. And he said, come in. He said, would you, would you write for us? I said, yes, but I want to call them. And blah, blah, blah. And I, and I got, so I got this music home. I was, I was also a musician at the time and there was a big, well, there was a really interesting, um, early hip hop scene. Uh, and there was a really interesting hardcore scene, both happening in DC. [00:24:40] And I thought nobody's really covering the hip hop scene was called Gogo. It was like a, sort of a swing beat. That was, it was started with kids at alleys getting hitting drums. Uh, and, and nobody was covering with stuff. So I said, I would cover it. And I had this column, which they called killer Hertz. And that was so I leveraged the editor's desperation. [00:25:03] Not that I was like a strike breaker or anything, but just like, this was my chance. I took my chance. And after I'd been doing that for about a year, Richard Harrington, the Washington post contacted me and said, we'd like you to write for us. And I was like, Oh my God, you guys published, you know, you broke Watergate. [00:25:21] Oh my heavens God, this is an amazing opportunity. Sure. I'll do it. Um, so I was doing it, but I was getting $35 an article and I would have, uh, you know, 20 minutes to write the article. And they made me cover like three dog night and Bruce Springsteen and groups like that, like touring groups from the sixties. [00:25:41] And I'm not putting those groups down on the, certainly not putting down Bruce Springsteen, but I kept saying we have this local scene that I'd like to cover, like rolling stone. Does this cream magazine does this, there's already publications out there that cover from my point of view, there were already publications that covered. [00:26:01] Mainstream successful rock. And I wanted to cover this other thing. And from their point of view, Our readers in Alexandria, Virginia, who live in the suburbs, uh, you know, and commute to work in, in DC. They don't really care about some punk group in DC. They want to hear about their Springsteen. So that made sense. [00:26:21] Anyway, they fired me. I bought before they fought that they fired me without explanation, but before they did, I had started freelancing at an ad agency just because I was not making a living at $35 an article and the ad age one day. There was a news. There was a Washington post article by me here, 21. [00:26:42] And right next to, it was an ad that I had worked on. And I was like, this is a sign from God. Like, this is a weird coincidence. And the ad sucked. Don't like, it, it was my early at, I was terrible, but I was getting a salary there. And so I went, I have to, so when they fired me, it was kind of like, well, that's easy. [00:27:06] That decision is easy. So I, I was a journalist and I, and I, then I became a, an ad person. And when I moved to New York, there was no internet yet. And I got into advertising and I really, uh, struggled there. I'm creative, but I think to really succeed at something well, you need luck and privilege and opportunity. [00:27:31] There's lots of stuff that happens. But you also need passion. And I enjoyed advertising like a critic. I enjoyed ads from the sixties, you know, from the golden age of advertising, I was fascinated by the stories. I enjoyed the work, but I wanted to go home at night and it wasn't for people who wanted to go home at night. [00:27:53] It was like work seven days a week. You know, if you're not willing to come in Saturday, don't bother showing up on Sunday. So, um, so, and I work, I also, because I started in DC, when I came to New York, they were like, yeah, you worked at a regional agency. So you're already on a bad career path. You can't, you can't work at a good agency. [00:28:18] It was like, they almost like the Soviet union. You're going to be a ballerina and you're going to be a worker. And that's that. And so I wasn't a ballerina. I was a worker. It was basically, I could work at someplace. That made money and did boring ads and places would hire me almost as the loyal opposition, like bad agencies would hire me and pay me a living salary. [00:28:41] And I would do work that didn't get produced to scare their clients back into the mediocrity that they were selling. So they'd say, well, here's the segment. And his partner came up with this. Edgy idea. Oh, see, you don't really like that. Well, that's okay. Because Chuck over here and his team came up with this very safe ad about, you know, for the seafood lover in you or, you know, only for the mind, you know, I like, I, I did, uh, an ad from an altar. [00:29:13] Don't write your life story in pencil for this. Um, Point and shoot camera that use 35 millimeter technology, which was new that point and shoot, but with 35 millimeter, that was amazing. That's standard now, but it was amazing then. So I wrote like, don't, don't regulate you wouldn't write your life story in pencil. [00:29:32] And what they bought was only from Mormon, ultra magic. From this other team that did like super stay safe stuff. I'm not saying I wrote the best ad in the world, but there was thought in the end. So I was frustrated there. Then one day I'm in an ad agency, uh, with and Warner brothers is the client and they say, Hey, can you make websites? [00:29:53] Don Buckley was the VP. And I, we just lied and said, we could, we'd never seen a website. I'd never seen a website. And I was like, strictly from AOL at that point. Right. That was like, AOL has, you know, graphic design and the web looks terrible, but, but we, um, we were ignorant enough to do all the wrong things and have like full screen. [00:30:17] Backgrounds and all kinds of stuff that a lot of, we had a flash intro before there was flash. We had like an animated intro. Um, I worked with Alec Polycon Steve McCarran, two really super talented art directors. And the three of us just locked ourselves in Steve's office for like three months, refuse to work on anything else. [00:30:41] And after that, as soon as that was out, um, I've made a personal site. And one of the things I started doing was explaining how to do web stuff, because I thought everybody's going to want to do this. Every artist, musician, writer, everyone on the planet, every political person, every person who, who, um, can't get their point of view out. [00:31:04] I was in love with the democratizing idea of it. I still am. Despite the dangerous that we're discovering with. All that. And, uh, and I, I wrote a thing called ask Dr. Webb, which was this first early primitive, how to do web stuff, web design stuff, Mo which have terrible advice, like table layouts and all the things we don't do now, but good for the time it was, it was okay for the time. [00:31:31] And also the other thing, I love it throughout the web. Um, a week after we launched the site clients, very happy. Doug Buckley, the director, Joel, Schumacher's very happy. It was for Batman forever. He's like, Oh, it's better than a movie. I'm like, Nope, it's not, but thank you. That's a great compliment. [00:31:51] Obviously it's not better than the movie, but, um, the text was wall to wall because there were no gutters. And then I discovered this website called a web walk by David Siegel. Uh, where he said you could make gutters by turning on, uh, like cell padding and tables and turning off the display of the borders of that. [00:32:19] So I get it. And I, I sweet talked to a producer at Warner brothers and said, can I just go back up there online? I edited the files online in fetch, and I was like, But what a thrill to change something alive that like half a million people we're looking at also we're 1 million web users and we had half a million unique visitors. [00:32:43] So. Like I'll never be that successful again, it was the first project and I was like half the web, half the web used it. It was for a week. It was the Facebook of its day, you [00:32:54] Frederick: [00:32:54] know? Yeah. You, you, you built a, you built a better back cave is what I, what I've, uh, got from that story. I love how everything like, like. [00:33:03] They didn't, they didn't even know that they could make a website. You guys didn't know you could make a website. And then you, even when I think you were pitching against another company too, and like in the middle, middle of the meeting, you stood up because they were like, eh, Batman is going to come out and he's going to say, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. [00:33:18] And you're like that man doesn't dock. Yeah, [00:33:20] Jeffrey: [00:33:20] that's right. I was like, yeah, that man doesn't talk. They just blurted it out, which is totally rude. I never should have done that, but, but. You know, and if they, if they could have totally wanted, they could have said we're going to use a Perl script and we're going, like they could have like, so surpassed us on technology and experience. [00:33:42] They could have talked about early interactive strategies of 1995 and, and kicked our butts. But, um, but as in this, in this pitch, in this fight between the two rival potential builders, They said, Batman swings out on a vine and says, hi, I'm Batman. And I went Batman, like, how could you pimp Batman like that? [00:34:08] How can you misjudge the character? He didn't even talk in the movie. He's like, like he's, you know, he's five angry words. Like the kind of Batman that we had there. And so, um, and the client, we just like looked at, it was like, Oh, it's done. One of the greatest things I learned as a designer is like, what? [00:34:29] You, there's a moment. There's a moment in almost every meeting where if you say the right thing, everything else follows. You can really not always, but sometimes you can get alignment. You can get buy in, you can sell a work. They by listening. And hearing that one really important thing that you just have to comment on it again, it's a passionate thing, right? [00:34:57] A lot of times designers go, why do I have to sit in this meeting? It's so boring or I hate to present my work or, you know, Oh my God. Yeah. Look at that. That's [00:35:08] Brian: [00:35:08] that's the website. [00:35:11] Jeffrey: [00:35:11] That's the website that I love. [00:35:14] Frederick: [00:35:14] I love the navigation at the bottom. Yeah, [00:35:17] Jeffrey: [00:35:17] that was, you know, that, and that was inspired by, uh, CD ROMs. [00:35:22] It was inspired by America. Online. Cute navigation was a really people. Hadn't done it on the web. But so we did it on the web because, um, well, one of us was a gamer and was really a CD ROMs, uh, uh, and just digital design generally. So it was bringing a lot of stuff that, uh, some thinking from digital design into the web for the first time and to do that, that's all a, um, an image map. [00:35:58] Right where it's a giant image and it's clickable, and this relies on everyone having the same size monitor, right. Or everyone having the same six 40 by four 80 dimensions, regardless of their pixel size. You know, if you had a bigger monitor, the pixels were just bigger, but, um, yeah. And. It's kind of obvious, right? [00:36:22] The text files are in the library, the downloadable videos that were 300 by 200 pixels that took an hour or two to download like a few seconds, um, at the time with 14, four modems and 28, eight modems. But, uh, I mean, it was magical and I think just. Also I took, um, I took a Nicole Kidman photo that was like three megs in Photoshop, which before Photoshop had layers, just because of, you know, it was a very high quality photo and I reduced it to like a 4k Gif. [00:37:00] And just the idea that you could take something. So resource-intensive and make it so light and transportable. I mean, easily, the 4k Jeff didn't look anywhere near as good as the four megabyte Photoshop file or the. You know, half Meg JPEG, but it was accessible. It was, it was, well, it w yeah, it was accessible in, in the broader sense, the broader sense. [00:37:30] Frederick: [00:37:30] And in the time too, I really enjoy to the whole, um, uh, uh, Part of the story where it's, you know, everybody said, ah, yeah, of course we could do it. Yeah, of course we could do it. You know, it's kind of the, um, the, the, like the fake it till you make it kind of thing where it's like, but it's not about faking it. [00:37:49] I, I really don't like that term. It's more about just kind of accepting that you could be, um, You, you could take something on and try it and be, you know, just let yourself be vulnerable, be the worst at something and accept that. And because that's where all learning starts, right. A blank slate and just accepting you, you know, you might be the worst at it, but you could say, yeah, I can do it. [00:38:10] And you learn how to do it. And you put out this great project and look where it led. So, you know, I think. Accepting things and, and, and saying, you know, let me try this. And who knows where that can lead obviously, with, with your story that led somewhere [00:38:27] Jeffrey: [00:38:27] great. Frederick, almost everyone I know from who started when I did or who started with eight and five years of that, everybody faked it. [00:38:35] So they could, they made it because we were, nobody knew anything. Nobody knew anything. There was nothing. Also, uh, I mean, where I work now, uh, automatically hit, we have a creed sounds weird, but we have a creative, like beliefs that we basically subscribe to when we're thinking of working there. And it's no problem is insurmountable given enough time and effort. [00:39:02] No problem is insurmountable and I will always keep learning. And I think those two things are at the start of my career and they've still like, that's how I live every day. Like, like, I don't. I think we can do it was advertising speak for, we are confident that with our abilities and with the available information, we can learn what we need to learn to make something great for you. [00:39:29] Frederick: [00:39:29] Be endlessly resourceful. If you, if you look in yourself and you're determined, you can, you can do it. You can do anything. [00:39:36] Jeffrey: [00:39:36] And I know so many people who have overcome all kinds of disabilities overcome coming from poverty. It doesn't mean that everyone gets to, or that someone who, who can't overcome an obstacle is deficient not saying that, but, but I was saying that, um, I'm inspired by people who overcome things, overcome obstacles, and I think that's part of the life journey. [00:40:00] We all have one way or another, right? [00:40:03] Frederick: [00:40:03] Yeah, absolutely. And it makes me, uh, kind of transitioned into your, your career journey a little bit. I think we could touch on it because in my research it seemed that your, your, your, your whole journey is a combination of a few factors, right? It's it's the chance you, you kind of were in the right place at the right time with, with, uh, the way the web was. [00:40:22] Um, you took responsibility, you took ownership for the way things were and try to. Uh, help everybody out. Um, you know, you, you were, you were relatable, you were the, you know, somebody just trying to do it, just like everybody else and a blue beanie, um, you know, you, you were there. So I, I believe that, you know, there there's many lessons here. [00:40:40] It's, it's about keeping your eyes open. It's about, um, being able to, um, Uh, look around and try to find opportunities. Um, so I wanted to ask you, um, what was, what what's some of the current opportunities now that, that you might see in the, in the industry that, that kind of go back, uh, aligned with what, where you came from and how you started? [00:41:02] Like, is it, um, like voice technology? Is it, is it something else? [00:41:06] Jeffrey: [00:41:06] Oh, [00:41:10] I think, okay. Man my brain, I'm thinking faster than I can speak. Um, it's a wonderful question. I think there's a real opportunity in our industry to make user experience, not user exploitation. So that's first, I think there's an opportunity to look at a lot of, we've gotten really good at some wonderful patterns. [00:41:38] Removing friction, making it easier for people to shop, making it easier for people to get information. We've also come up with a lot of, uh, addictive, destructive, uh, patterns. Right? We know how to make it almost impossible for someone just stop paying a monthly fee because it's so hard or making them almost impossible for them to return the product, even though by the letter of the law. [00:42:05] We say you can return the product for a refund there. We know how to make that so difficult that people, many people give up and just end up throwing the thing away and throwing their money away, um, patterns and patterns. We know. Yeah, there's a lot of anti-patterns. We know them. There's a lot of, uh, dopamine driven experiences, which I'm as addicted to as anyone else. [00:42:31] Uh, but we have the chance to. Do better as an industry. So that's one thing. Um, also accessibility is something that. It's super important. It's still observed mainly in the breach. It's something people talk about and companies now give lip service to, but it's kind of like, like diversity and everything else. [00:42:56] It's the company wants to do a better job. They know they should do a better job. They talk about it. They have pamphlets, they'll say, Hey, this is the law. And we believe in it, but they're still screwing up. So there's an opportunity. Um, To make more accessible experiences. And when you bring up voice control and stuff like that, all of that works together because as you're designing an experience, that's that that's voice amenable that can be controlled by the voice or by the movements of head things that you do for accessibility. [00:43:31] Now may end up being something that works for a non-disabled driver. Who who makes something happen by moving their head later? Um, things that you do with voice commands to help a person who is, um, physical, whose who's our hands are disabled, uh, may end up making an experience that a gamer or a television viewer can, can use in their home making something like Alexa. [00:43:58] So it all overlaps the multi-device universe, the need for, uh, Con four have basic conscience structures that are still, that are accessible and structured in a way that content is still find-able all that stuff's really important. And there's kind of a civil war right now. Oh man, I'm sorry. I said that there's kind of a war, but not the one you're thinking of. [00:44:26] There's a war between we can make stuff. That's so awesome by grabbing the power of these platforms. These complex platforms and we can make stuff that's awesome by starting simple and building an accessible experience first and then layering in. So, so, um, progressive enhancement, the idea that you layer on top of a basic, uh, accessible experience that you layer, um, levels of additional, uh, experience. [00:45:03] Maybe visual, maybe some, some, uh, you know, maybe, um, touch, but it works without touch or it works without a mouse. Like, there's that, but there's also. A lot of stuff getting built right now where people feel like it's gotta be like an app and it's gotta be the kind of app that works for 80% of our users. [00:45:23] And it's gotta be, you know, it's gotta be, there's always been a war between, um, uh, conflict, attention and interesting tension, not a war, an interesting tension between pushing the envelope on exploration and discovery and making something new and cool. Like we did when we made Batman forever. But if I go back, that was a completely inaccessible site and you had to have Netscape 1.1 to see it, but, but it pushed boundaries and going back to excuse me to the tried and true things that something should work. [00:46:01] For everyone, regardless of their device, regardless of the size of the screen, regardless of their abilities, regardless of their cognitive abilities. Um, so I think there's a real opportunity there. I think web design and development product design is really hard and complicated right now. I, the. The days when you could open fetch and drag a few files to a server, which I missed those days are gone because our stuff is more complicated and more capable, but, but we're trading off. [00:46:42] Alert, we're trading it off for a high learning curve. I don't know how you start now. And I worry too that like a bootcamp that prepares you, like you come in, you know nothing, and they're going to train you with everything. You know, they're going to know like now you know how to use react and you know how to use bootstrap and you need to know how to use these five other things, but you don't have the basics. [00:47:03] So it's almost like giving people 12 fonts and illustrator. But not teaching them a graphic design. So I feel there's an opportunity for educators. If you're a generalist and you feel, if you're a generalist, you may think, Oh, I can't, I, you know, I don't know, react. I don't know this, that the other, no one will hire me as an engineer, but maybe they'll hire you as a product product owner. [00:47:29] As a product designer, as a product developer, being a generalist is still an important thing in companies, um, in agencies. So being a specialist is a great way to go. And being a generalist is a great way to go. Depends on whether you're happier, figuring out the experience and brand of a product or whether you're happier, fine tuning the details, right. [00:47:53] Of a particular aspect or particular niche of it. Yeah, I've definitely [00:47:58] Brian: [00:47:58] seen that with, uh, bootcamp, uh, people I've interviewed cause I'm a manager at my organization and I'll a lot of people who go through the boot camps. I, I like to compare it to this. Like it's like getting a microwave dinner. Um, and you can put it in the microwave and you make it, and you have your food as opposed to chopping up the ingredients and, you know, knowing salt and pepper and you know, the spices, what do you put in, um, you know, bootcamps? [00:48:24] I think they're amazing. Uh, I wish back when, in my day there are things like that, but yeah. They do. I, I, they, I caution anyone going into them, you know, learn the basics to like, you know, take what they're teaching you and go above and beyond that, [00:48:39] Frederick: [00:48:39] you mentioned the same kind of thing the other day on when you were talking. [00:48:42] I think you were, had a interview with Dan the other day where you're talking about how it was easy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Jeffrey, when you were talking about like Rachel Andrew's, like when she first got into CSS and how back in the day, it was a lot easier to get into something like, such as that, like CSS and now it's, you know, where do you start? [00:49:01] Jeffrey: [00:49:01] Right. There's um, during a pandemic and with childcare going back to home and, um, There's a wonderful opportunity for parents maybe who are looking to transition to new work, to learn and, and work remotely on the web. But the web is so complicated that if you just starting, I don't know how you do that. [00:49:30] And I, I do quote, my friend, Rachel, Andrew, who was a young mom. Um, and became a web designer and it was possible to do that back then, what you know, with your baby in one arm and your fingers on the other hand, on the keyboard. Um, and I think that's, that's harder now. I, I hate the idea that we're losing that. [00:49:53] I hate the idea. I love the view source. Like when I was teaching people how to do stuff, I was telling them what I'd observed in view source as much as anything else, you know, I look at, so how did so-and-so do this? How did they get those two things you align or, [00:50:09] Frederick: [00:50:09] uh, that's an interesting, it was like the inspector. [00:50:12] Now you would like pop up in the inspector for now [00:50:14] Jeffrey: [00:50:14] the inspector everything's so complicated and we've replaced like millions of cable sales with millions of gives and, and. Yeah. Yeah. And [00:50:26] Brian: [00:50:26] class names that are like, like, what does this even do? I didn't want to say one other thing with accessibility. I kind of feel like to me, it compares because I I've been doing my best to learn it and I'm going to get certified and everything myself, but it, it, it kind of seems from my research and trying to learn things. [00:50:50] The beginning days of the web and some weird ways where it's not documented well, the guidelines are kind of loose, uh, all the screen and the browser support some of this, some of that. Um, so it's really, um, I encourage anyone who has even a glimmer of interest in doing web development, learn accessibility, uh, you know, along with everything else. [00:51:12] Jeffrey: [00:51:12] So it's not automated. I mean, there are automated tools and all that. The first. The first, uh, will CAG WCA G uh, uh, accessibility standards were a bit loose and open to interpretation, um, and people complained. So they made the second set of guidelines that are much more, you know, the candle power of, you know, how many lumens of contrast is, is sufficient and all that stuff. [00:51:48] And, you know, that's not perfect either because it's possible to comply with every one of those requirements that make something inaccessible it's possible to have. Right. It's possible to have all texts and all these things that are inaccessible for some, and yet still being accessible. So it still requires judgment, like anything interesting. [00:52:09] Right? You can't, you can't automate being a doctor. You can't automate being an attorney. Right. Uh, I think web and product design and development are things that require, I'm not talking about the complexity of the platforms and all that other stuff I'm talking about doing it well, doing anything well, whether it's play basketball, play the violin or designing web experiences, whatever it is, it requires human judgment taste thoughtfulness. [00:52:45] Experimentation willing to learn a willingness to learn, willingness to fail, um, working with people, not designing for people, but designing with people. Um, so yeah, I think, I think there's a lot of opportunity there. Yeah, because the web is for everybody. The web is for everybody that that's the [00:53:07] Frederick: [00:53:07] nature of it. [00:53:08] Jeffrey, we're getting really close to the end. I just, I would feel bad if we didn't talk about the, uh, event apart events coming up. Uh, yeah. [00:53:19] Jeffrey: [00:53:19] Yeah, [00:53:20] Frederick: [00:53:20] sure. Do you mind if we just touch on that really quick, if you want to talk about it? [00:53:24] Jeffrey: [00:53:24] Sure, absolutely. So, um, We, uh, Eric Meyer and I, with our staff, uh, you know, Toby Molina, Marci Eversole, um, And we, uh, we made this conference, uh, and we used to do six shows a year, um, in various cities with 12 speakers and they would be the best speakers we could find. [00:53:49] Um, if you could put it, if you could put that screen up again and scroll down a bit, and then since COVID, um, Is it possible? Oh no, you can't artwork. Okay. I appreciate the art. That's awesome. It's an event, a part.com, but we have, uh, 16 speakers over three days. They're like the best speakers we can find. [00:54:11] We curate the heck out of the experience because we're experienced designers. So the day starts maybe, you know, with. It's musical. It's like listening to a good playlist or like watching a story there. You know, it starts maybe with a really good general topic and then moves into a stream of learning something. [00:54:31] We, we serve developers as well as designers. It's a front end UX conference, so it's not. There are interaction, design conferences that are very good. There are UX conferences. There are very good. There are front end code conferences that are very good, but this is a holistic conference. It's for it's everything. [00:54:53] And you know, Eric and I, before we started this conference, we'd both done hundreds of speaking gigs, like literally, uh, and. I used to watch other conferences and learn from them. Um, what makes a good conference? And one thing we both agreed, we used to meet at South by Southwest every year, um, and have brunch, which was fantastic. [00:55:20] And I was just getting to know Eric and we always said, We love South by Southwest for all the content it's putting on. But man, today I have to choose between four things I want to see that are all on at the same time. And then when I talk and I can only see one of them. Um, wouldn't it be great to have a purely linear conference where everyone sits in the same room for the same, and everybody sees the same thing, no breakouts, nothing. [00:55:46] So that everyone's taught, there's a topography session. Everybody, everybody sees it. There's a responsive design. What we didn't know about that then, but, but you know what I mean, whatever it is, everybody shares it together. That was our idea. Now that, you know, it's now kind of. It's become a standard in its way. [00:56:04] There are other one track conferences and that's cool, but it's a one track holistic conference, curated musically with the best speakers we can find with things, um, best practices, things that are coming down, the pike, things that are a bit experimental, but won't be soon. I mean, Rachel Andrew was teaching CSS grid at our show four years ago. [00:56:29] And Jen Simmons was doing advanced layout and, uh, Ethan Marcotte debuted. Responsive web design on our stage. Um, Kristina Halvorson was on our stage talking about content strategy 12 years ago. So a lot of things that become standards because it's a good place to learn. What's coming. [00:56:51] Brian: [00:56:51] I love about it is the diversity too. [00:56:54] And I'm a big, I'm a big believer to have one track. I like, I hate, he used the word hate. I shouldn't use it, but I don't like a multi-track. Conferences. Cause it's always like that one that I want to see over here. And then one over here I want to see. And I'm like, ah, which one do I go to? [00:57:12] Jeffrey: [00:57:12] And then, and then when you share with your, with other people afterwards, you go, did you see what Alice so-and-so said? [00:57:20] You see what Brian says? No. So this way everybody, you get to network with people, who've all had the same experience. [00:57:28] Frederick: [00:57:28] I think you're also, and correct me if I'm wrong, Jeffrey, there you're there. We're providing a promotion. Like you. You get a copy of, uh, the, the new, the new book, um, when you buy a ticket, [00:57:38] Jeffrey: [00:57:38] if you, if you buy. [00:57:40] Yeah. It's Dan Cedar homes and senior homes find new book. Uh, 20 bits. I learned about design and business and community. Uh, Dan is a wonderful writer who just amazing personality, really challenged, even did illustrations for this one, but it's so it's, it's the, you get a free copy of the digital. We don't, we don't mail you this, we, you get the free copy of the digital, if you buy a ticket, uh, this month to, to, uh, that three-day show. [00:58:15] Excellent. Yeah. And it's it's uh, so. Live, you get donuts, live there, snacks and meals, hot meals all day long and all this stuff that we can't do it but digitally. But what we can do, you're watching someone give a presentation and you're also communicating with them. Uh, on, uh, in a conversation channel. So, Oh, Todd Libby says ag events are a great time. [00:58:43] We'll have a virtual. Thank you, Todd. Let me talk. Libby has been to many of these, so very much so thank you very much. And y'all have been, uh, We did a, a booth with you with you folks a few years ago. So I hope we can do that again soon. Cause that's, [00:59:00] Frederick: [00:59:00] that was, that was so much fun. I, I really wanted to come up and say hi to you, but I think me and you both suffer from the same, uh, resting beanie mug. [00:59:09] Uh, so I was like, Oh, I don't know if I should say hi. I was a little intimidated. [00:59:13] Jeffrey: [00:59:13] I love meeting people, but then I get, I get like now I have to go lie down in my room. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. And so, yeah, so the, the silver lining of the pandemic is I don't have to go out as much and everyone else is going like, man, I miss, I miss. [00:59:32] I miss restaurants. I miss looking at my favorite scenery and everything, but, uh, but there's something nice about like rolling out of bed, rolling over to the computer, rolling back to bed, my weird little hermit brain kind of Jake's that. So. Yeah. So, yeah, but it'll be great when we can do the live shows again, for sure. [00:59:52] But we're trying, we're trying to make the digital experience as close to it as we can and having some success, I think, [00:59:59] Brian: [00:59:59] yeah. I definitely miss the, uh, live conferences and the like, but what I don't want to miss right before the end of the show, we like to have a little segment. We call lightening questions where we each ask you a quick question. [01:00:11] Um, and there's the lightning. And so I'll, I'll. I'll kick it off. Um, so if, if you were in the circus, would you rather be the person with their head in the lion's mouth or that gets shot out of a cannon? [01:00:31] Jeffrey: [01:00:31] I don't want to be in a circus. It's cruel to animals. That's I think [01:00:35] Brian: [01:00:35] that's a good answer. It's good answer. [01:00:38] Frederick: [01:00:38] Jeffrey. What song stuck in your head right now? [01:00:43] Jeffrey: [01:00:43] Ben down the branches by Tom waits because it's just heartbreaking song. [01:00:51] Brian: [01:00:51] It's so good. What, what chore do you absolutely hate doing? Like you're like, you don't want [01:00:56] Jeffrey: [01:00:56] to do that one. [01:00:58] Picking up Kleenexes from the floor, how they got there. I will say [01:01:07] Frederick: [01:01:07] Jeffrey blood. Money's my favorite album. Which one's your favorite song mates [01:01:11] Jeffrey: [01:01:11] right now for Tom waits? I would say, um, um, Orphans brawlers and, uh, bastards. Yeah, it's just, and then, um, also a really old album that he did, um, called foreign affairs, um, especially side one. [01:01:29] Yeah. The seventies were completely different sounds and he has a duet with. With that Midler, but it's like , since you live, John, just like he's looking at this weird 150 year old drunk singing to a cigar singing to a cheap cigar, like coming out of a it's just, I don't know. It's beautiful. [01:01:51] Brian: [01:01:51] It's beautiful. [01:01:53] So, so where do you mind not waiting? So you're waiting somewhere and you're like, you're I'm okay. Waiting [01:01:58] Jeffrey: [01:01:58] here. Um, I didn't mind waiting for my shot. Nope. That is a very good one. You know what? Happy to be here. It's okay. Um, also, this is weird when I travel, I don't mind sitting in the car. In fact, I start to get like addicted to being like, if I'm in a, uh, If I'm in a Lyft or a taxi on my way to the airport at a certain point, I just wished that the taxi ride would go on forever. [01:02:28] I don't know why it's bizarre. And when on, on a flight, um, I'd get off again. Like I'm taking, uh, some kind of transportation to the hotel and I start to wish I didn't have to go to the hotel. I started wish I could just stay on the train forever. I don't mind. Three, four hour train rides that like, um, So, I don't know. [01:02:48] It's weird. Um, I hate sitting in an airport. And, uh, yeah, and I hate taking a really long time to cook. Uh, I'm really good at recipes that I could make in about five minutes and bad at anything else. [01:03:08] Frederick: [01:03:08] Uh, Jeffrey, let me ask you, I know you were in a band called the insect surfers and correct me if I'm wrong, but what instrument are you playing? [01:03:16] Do you still play now? And, uh, do you have any kind of musical aspirations that, that, that you have? [01:03:21] Jeffrey: [01:03:21] I still play keyboards. I've played them since I was eight. Um, I should be a lot better, but I, I don't really play much anymore. I was more of a composer. Um, had I, I gave up on music, uh, when I was 29, I was just like, okay, I can't make a living with this. [01:03:41] I think like, like most people, um, the amount of drive that you need, uh, and also you should feel like you have no other options. If you have another talent. It's so much easier to get paid for any other talent, regardless if you're a mediocre accountant and a pretty damn good keyboard player, you're better off as an accountant. [01:04:04] Like there's more work for you and I'm not putting accountants down. I'm just saying if you're an okay. If you're an okay designer. And design is creative and I love design, but if you're an okay designer, there's more work for you then if you're a really good musician, but not great, like you have to be so great. [01:04:21] He might have more fun as the musician. And then, and then to have something very unique and personnel, like you have to be Prince or Bowie or, or, um, Tom, Tom waits. I'm not gonna, I'm not even going to go on and yeah, go ahead. [01:04:39] Brian: [01:04:39] What w my, my last question for you, uh, what fact amazes you, when you think about it? [01:04:48] Jeffrey: [01:04:48] We're all made of stars. [01:04:51] Frederick: [01:04:51] That's a good one. Yeah. Um, my, my last, uh, fast question lightning question here is, uh, Jeffrey. What are, are those novels that you wrote? Are they out there somewhere? I [01:05:04] Jeffrey: [01:05:04] read books in my twenties. Uh, I finished, um, two of them. They were terrible. I lived in a complete fantasy world. [01:05:15] Um, my daughter is brilliant and she says, she's weird. And I say, no, you're creative, but. Honestly, I was weird. Uh, I am creative, but yeah, I have to accept, like, we're all weird and that's, that's fine. You know, I don't think Tim Burton was popular as a child and that's okay. Like not, not saying we're as good as he is just saying in our own special way. [01:05:43] We're also awesome. I think everyone, you know, so, so. Yeah, that was a weird answer. Was it, was that a complete answer? I'm not sure. That was a complete answer. [01:05:57] Frederick: [01:05:57] That brings me to that a Netflix show. That's coming out with Tim Burton. He's doing a Wednesday Adam show on Netflix. I've actually just got announced yesterday. [01:06:06] Yeah, [01:06:06] Brian: [01:06:06] I know. [01:06:08] Jeffrey: [01:06:08] But, but no matter how good it is, um, it's always going to be Christina Ricci for me. You know, Christina Ricci is going to say Adam's like, I don't know how you could talk to that. Yeah, [01:06:19] Brian: [01:06:19] pretty [01:06:19] Jeffrey: [01:06:19] impossible. Then again, I liked the show Hannibal and I think Matt's Madsen. What's his name? Matt. He made me forget while I was watching that show. [01:06:30] He made me forget, um, the brilliant British actor. [01:06:34] Frederick: [01:06:34] He's amazing. Brian's you got any more? Uh, [01:06:38] Brian: [01:06:38] no, no, that's it. I mean, all I want to say is, you know, time is more valuable than anything else, and I really appreciate that. You know, you shared some of yours with us this morning, so [01:06:47] Jeffrey: [01:06:47] thank you for that. You all have a, you have a great show. [01:06:50] You're wonderful interviewers, really nice people. I'm wishing you all the best. And, uh, Thank you, sir. [01:07:00] Frederick: [01:07:00] Jeffrey J the last thing we like to ask people is if you have any kind of parting advice for the audience, [01:07:07] Jeffrey: [01:07:07] uh, I, I would say, uh, no problem is insurmountable and I would take it right from, uh, you know, trust yourself. [01:07:17] Uh, we all have, um, We all have imposter syndrome. Everyone has imposter syndrome. Everyone feels like they're faking it. Um, we're all faking. It. It's like parenting or anything else. You've figured it out on the job. There's no manual. And no matter how much trading you have, the still there's unique stuff that you're going to contribute that no one else can. [01:07:40] So believe it yourself. If people. If you're looking for a job and people don't get you and you're not getting hired, that's on them because there is something that's perfect for you. That's something that only you can do and nobody can do as well as you and find it or make it, but believe in yourself and don't be discouraged. [01:08:01] That's what I would say. [01:08:02] Brian: [01:08:02] Awesome. [01:08:03] Frederick: [01:08:03] Sounds great. Thank you so much, Jeffrey again. Thanks for being on the show. I, I forgot I was going to have my blue hat on for the, uh, For, for the, for the questions, but, uh, I thought I'd support. Yes. [01:08:16] Jeffrey: [01:08:16] I'm making a fake one here in the gray [01:08:19] Brian: [01:08:19] one. Sorry, [01:08:21] Frederick: [01:08:21] but yeah, Jeffrey Zelma. [01:08:23] Thank you so much for being on the show. Really appreciate it. And thanks everybody for watching, uh, catch you next time. Thanks all. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks Jeffrey.

In this episode, we get to speak with fullstack developer, tech educator, and speaker, Vincent Tang. We discuss the value of learning from hackathons, and how to get started in the tech industry. We also discuss Vincent’s new podcast Code Chefs. Episode Sponsor Auth0 https://auth0.comAuth0 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/auth0Auth0 on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/auth0Auth0 Avocado Labs online meetup events: https://avocadolabs.dev/ Show Links Twitter: https://twitter.com/vincentntangWebsite: https://www.vincentntang.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincentntang/Code Chefs: https://www.codechefs.dev/Scuba diving injury: https://www.instagram.com/p/CFaLOcYBTxU/Github: https://github.com/vincentntangLevelup with Hackathons: https://youtu.be/fEXpBFBuHkAHost: Frederick Weiss: https://twitter.com/frederickweiss