Friend of the show Adam Lear, a staff software engineer on the public platform at Stack Overflow, joins the home team to talk about one of the biggest tech acquisitions in history, why Ceora includes memes in her talks, and what happens when somebody “kidnaps” a celebrity’s NFT.
The Web3 crime of the century? Seth Green’s Bored Ape NFT is kidnapped by dastardly phishing scammers, kiboshing the TV series Green was developing around the Bored Ape character. Read more.
Ceora served as a resident emcee at this year’s Remix Conf. She and Cassidy offer advice for developers who want to give talks or host conferences.
In tech industry news: Broadcom acquires VMWare for $61 billion, one of the largest tech acquisitions in history.
Today in tech recs: Matt recommends Logitech’s MX Mechanical keyboard; Adam recommends roadmap.sh, a community dedicated to creating roadmaps, guides, and other resources to guide developers as they start their careers or upskill along the way.
Today’s Lifeboat badge goes to user munk for their answer to Python path as a string.
Ceora Ford: As far as like, getting over nerves, being an emcee is different than giving a talk. So one thing for talks that I, like, to do is I, like, to sprinkle, like, and I noticed that a lot of speakers did this too. I like to sprinkle a lot of, like, memes and things like that throughout my presentation, because, not really just to make the crowd laugh, but to make me laugh, because laughing helps relieve those nerves a lot. That's why people laugh awkwardly and, like, weird situations. Um, so –
Adam Lear: As we all laugh!.
[laughter, intro music plays]
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Matt Kiernander: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Stack Overflow podcast. We have a full house today with Ceora, Cassidy and Adam joining us. Hello everyone.
Ceora: Hello!
Cassidy: Hi!
Adam Lear: Hello, hello.
Matt Kiernander: Okay. We have some exciting things to talk about today. Ceora a has got an emcee event that we are going to be chatting about. We have one of the largest tech acquisitions in history, one of the largest, not the largest, but one of the largest. We also need to talk about a kidnapped NFT, which personally, I find this quite amusing. Maybe we can start off about this. Is anyone aware of the scandal that has happened recently involving Seth Green?
Cassidy Williams: No,
Ceora Ford: No. And I would love to know
Adam Lear: Wasn't it... He had an ape that was supposed to star on a TV show and then the ape got stolen. So now the TV show can’t proceed?
Matt Kiernander: That is exactly it!
Cassidy Williams: How was that possible?
Matt Kiernander: Basically, what happened is Seth bought a Bored Ape, which is one of the more popular NFT projects. So specifically Bored Ape number 8398. And what happened was he decided to name it Fred and turn it into a character for an upcoming TV show that he's a part of. He fell victim to a phishing scam and got a number of NFTs stolen. And because he no longer owns the commercial rights to said NFT, he cannot air this show. So he's kind of between a rock and a hard place because he can't air this because he no longer has the commercial rights and he's not able to buy this NFT back from whoever bought it from the nefarious person in the middle.
Ceora Ford: Gosh,
Adam Lear: That's fantastic. Fantastic. Phenomenal. Phenomenal is the word I'm looking for!
Matt Kiernander: Yeah.
Adam Lear: I'm not a copyright lawyer or IP lawyer, any kind of lawyer, really, but I, uh, I saw this argument that wouldn't technically, like, the Bored Ape Yacht Club owned the actual IP, so they could still assign him the rights to use it commercially, even if he doesn't own the actual Ape, but don't they own, kind of by our traditional laws, wouldn't they own the copyright on all of the drawings?
Cassidy Williams: I think traditionally. Yes. But the whole point of NFTs is that there isn't a central authority that owns anything. It is decentralized. And you own the thing that you own, until you don't.
Matt Kiernander: Right
Adam Lear: And the blockchain tells everybody who the current person is
Ceora Ford: So when stuff, like, this happens, you can't, like, go to any authority,, like, ‘Fix this. This was stolen from me.'
Cassidy Williams: No.
Ceora Ford: Oh, wow.
Cassidy Williams: Yeah.
Matt Kiernander: Not much he can do about it. I'm very curious as to what happened. If, say for example, they got a – the show is, and then three years later that NFT gets transferred to somebody else. Like, is the copyright ownership then changed at that point in time, even though historically it's been used in getting royalties from a TV show?
Cassidy Williams: I didn't even know that there would, like, be a copyright issue with NFTs.
Matt Kiernander: Yeah. Because people can assign commercial rights over with an NFT. So if you purchase an NFT, then you can then use that in a commercial capacity.
Ceora Ford: So is that, like, a new thing?
Cassidy Williams: I learned about it during this podcast,
Adam Lear: I saw the news, I think a day or two ago, but that's all I got
Ceora Ford: So I thought.. if they are so new and they're unregulated, people were kind of, like, doing their own thing. Like, that's how you can like, get it stolen from you. And no one can say anything because it's like…
Adam Lear: I think ultimately it comes down to the fact that none of this has actually been challenged in like, real life. So kind of hard to tell, I mean…
Ceora Ford: Do the laws apply?
Cassidy Williams: Yeah!
Ceora Ford: Right?
Cassidy Williams: The rules, the rules are made up as we go.
Ceora Ford: That's why I'm like, so why does this rule apply now? When, like, when it's literally stolen from you.
Cassidy Williams: Yeah. I only know a little bit about copyright stuff. Fun fact, one of my side projects is generating contracts for copyright, for creators.
Adam Lear: Oh!
Cassidy Williams: Yeah. How about that? And –
Matt Kiernander: I'm sorry, I'm very excited about that. We'll about that chat later.
Cassidy Williams: But, like, the US copyright office is, like, the strongest copyright that you have. And when you have a copyright and someone steals it, like, it protects you. If someone steals something and you don't have a copyright, you are kind of out of luck generally, but NFTs are very new. And it's a very weird thing with ownership, especially because so many NFT creators have stolen artwork from people where people have copyrighted their art already. And so I think it's still very fuzzy and just not covered yet. Kind of, like, what Adam was saying
Adam Lear: I mean, you don't have to register something for it to be protected by copyright. It's, like, you create a thing and –
Cassidy Williams: I think that's trademark…
Adam Lear: And you have the rights?
Cassidy Williams: The copyright has to be registered officially. I mean, like, you might, you might, like, high-level own, like, the intellectual property and stuff, but the only way to guarantee that you're protected is to register a copyright
Matt Kiernander: With trademarks, you do, I think at least this is New Zealand laws, which is going to apply to a very small amount of things, but you do have to register for a trademark in New Zealand. It's not kind of automatically given. I know with some platforms as well, if you're posting. So for example, on Instagram or any other platform, whether your creative work is going, they typically have licenses or some kind of statement in there around copyright. And the fact that, like, – you know, there was a big issue with people posting content to Instagram and other larger brands reposting that without their consent. And that was all, as soon as it's in the public domain, then, then it's fair game.
Cassidy Williams: I just found the copyright.gov website and it says, 'Why should I register my work if copyright protection is automatic?' And it says 'It's recommended for a number of reasons, many choose to register their works, because if they really wish to have the facts of their copyright on the public record and have a certificate of registration, registered works may be eligible for statutory damages attorney's fees, litigation, et cetera, et cetera.' So There you go,
Ceora Ford: Oh, so, like, me slapping copyrights on, like, my website and stuff…
Cassidy Williams: So it sounds, like, it's real, like, it's a little real, but if someone actually steals stuff,
Ceora Ford: But if someone stole my website or stole, like, content for my website, I really can't, like, sue them. I wouldn't anyway, but like, I really couldn't if I, if I was mad…
Adam Lear: It sounds, like, that registration is what gives you proof of, like, the timeline and –
Ceora Ford: So you can actually sue them. That's good to know!
Cassidy Williams: There, there is such a thing as, like, the quote-unquote “poor man's copyright,” where like, if you send a copy of your own work to yourself, that is considered, like, the poor man's copyright and it kind of works. Fun fact! But it still doesn't protect you from any copyright law things that come into play,
Adam Lear: Just don't lose that envelope.
Cassidy Williams: Yeah or that NFT, ha ha ha! (sarcastic laughter)
Matt Kiernander: Speaking of, um, envelopes that you don't want to lose, there was a significant cash handover recently with Broadcom –
Ceora Ford: Wow nice segue look at you!
[complimenting Matt on the segue, laughter]
Matt Kiernander: Yeah, so we have Broadcom, which is the manufacturing design semiconductors for modems, wifi, bluetooth, chips were mostly use their technology at some stage, they acquired VMware for $61 billion.
Ceora Ford: Yeah. The article says it's one of the biggest tech acquisitions ever, after Dell’s 67 billion EMC deal, and Microsoft's pending acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. So it's number three in the list of biggest acquisitions, biggest tech acquisitions.
Adam Lear: I don't know how much money that is., like, I can't, I can't conceptualize that at all.
[laughter]
Matt Kiernander: That's, like, some country's GDP.
Cassidy Williams: It's an incomprehensible amount of money, it makes you get philosophical about what else could that money be used for. But I won't get into that..
Ceora Ford: Exactly that's for another podcast episode. I wonder how long it takes for these deals to like, be thought of and, like, discussed and then brought to fruition.
Cassidy Williams: A lot on, and even once it's announced, there's still so much that has to happen
Matt Kiernander: That Activision blizzard, blizzard, one hasn't even gone through yet. And that was, that was announced quite some time ago. So I think these, these things take a lot of time, you know, I, I'm not sure,, like, have any of you been through an acquisition before and had to deal with that whole process? Because I imagine something, like, this as. A lot of VMware employees are probably thinking, like, 'oh, what's going to happen, are my ways of working going to change? Is like, is it going to be layoffs or structures?' Like, what has your experience been with?
Cassidy Williams: Yeah. So I've, I've been through a couple, one of them. It was at a creative agency that I worked for and we were kind of treated as its own company for a very short while. And then we were just, like, absorbed into the mega company and, like, the website doesn't exist anymore. And so that's something where. It's, like, that line where it's like, 'I fell in love with you, like, you fall asleep: slowly and then all at once.' That's kind of how the acquisition happened, where it was really slow initially, we were kind of left alone. Yeah. We have a parent company. We just get their benefits now, it doesn't matter. And then suddenly everything changed and that's around the time where I left, just because they were taking away certain benefits that we had gotten used to, even things like: Creative Agency [had] unlimited vacation, Big Company didn't, suddenly we don't have unlimited vacation. Things, like, that, where just lots of benefits change. And then you could kind of tell that strategy was changing and, and team structures were changing and it was definitely a changing of the culture.
Another one that I was involved with that ended up being kind of weird was when I was at Venmo. Because Venmo had been bought twice where it was first bought by a company called Braintree and then it was bought by PayPal. And then PayPal was owned by eBay and then PayPal and eBay split while I was there. And so it was quite the time where it was, like, Ventry Pal Bay as a combination of all four, and then all of a sudden the “Bay” was gone. And I think something, like, this where it's so big and it's already such a big company, I'm sure. The absorption will be much slower just because there's a lot more moving parts.
Ceora Ford: Yeah. Yeah. Almost, like, with GitHub and Microsoft, that happened, like, a couple of minutes ago. And Github is pretty much still its own entity, but they just get, like, the benefits that Microsoft employees get and the salary the Microsoft employees get, too.
Cassidy Williams: My husband works at Microsoft and he tried to, like, get into the GitHub offices just cause he was like, ‘Oh, I think I can, right?’ But they are treated so separately that he can't, like, it's considered a subsidiary of Microsoft. Which I think is a really good way of doing it, where the company again gets benefits and stuff, but is a very separate entity
Ceora Ford: yeah. And I think that's probably the thing that current employees would probably want the most.
Adam Lear: The thing that's interesting to me about this Broadcom acquisition is the article says that they are now planning to rebrand their Broadcom software group to VMware, which is not usually how this goes –
Cassidy Williams: Woah! That isn’t at all!
Matt Kiernander: it looks, like, they're really leaning cause, like, VMware has a lot of, kind of, like, brand equity.
Matt Kiernander: Yeah.
Ceora Ford: That's what I was thinking. Cause I knew VMware and not Broadcom.
Cassidy Williams: Right.
Adam Lear: Maybe that's why it's 61 billion paying for the brand name, at least in part.
Cassidy Williams: Yeah. Ah, there you go.
Ceora Ford: Yeah.
Cassidy Williams: It's kind of, like, when companies try to hire influencers and stuff and they want the influencer to be the face of the brand. And so they, they get high salaries. It's, it's a thing.
Matt Kiernander: Speaking of which we actually had, uh, Cassidy as a resident influencer for Stack Overflow, sorry for using the “i” word, but that was, that was very, very fun. Um, for anyone who doesn't know, we had the Stack Overflow dev, so go live, uh, earlier on this month, and Cassidy promoted on her stream. And that was a very fun experience for all of us. So I think, um, first of all, if you haven't checked out Cassidy’s stream, please go do that. And second of all, if you haven't had a look at the Stack Overflow Devs survey results, which will be coming out in the next couple of months, please do check it out because I found them very, very valuable.
Ceora was a resident MC. Would you, like, to talk about that experience? And it was this the first time in emceeing for you, is this something that you've done many, many times before?
Ceora Ford: This was my second time emceeing, but it was my first time emceeing an in-person event. It was also my first in-person conference,, like, tech conference ever.
Cassidy Williams: And it was also your first time on a plane, right?
Matt Kiernander: Oh wow!
Adam Lear: Wow! Lots of firsts.
Matt Kiernander: Lots of first!
Cassidy Williams: That's amazing.
Ceora Ford: Yeah, I know. I'm, like, so insane. I should have just been like, I'm going to just chill at my first conference. That'll be, like, local to Philadelphia so I can just drive there, but no, I decided to make my first conference,, like, almost all the way across the country. And I also, it was also the first conference that I had and I was also the emcee and I brought my younger sister along. So that was fun. So she could also have her first flight before she turned 18. So I was happy about that. And it was an experience.
Matt Kiernander: I mean for any kind of technical folks out there who may be interested in getting into more of the social side, doing conferences, speaking, that kind of thing… Like, do you have any advice for anyone who is curious about doing it, but is nervous about the public speaking aspect or even getting on stage and talking to actual real life people for the first time in a very long time?
Ceora Ford: Yeah! I'll say that I think doing virtual conferences helps because it's a little easier to do it, like, through a computer., like, you still get nervous, but like, if you're doing it through Zoom or wherever or Twitch or whatever, it feels more comfortable,, like, a better stepping stone to just being dropped on stage in front of, like, 300 people and you just have to, like, talk. As far as, like, getting over nerves, being an emcee is different than giving a talk. So one thing for talks that I, like, to do is I, like, to sprinkle, like, and I noticed a lot of our speakers at Remixed did this too. I, like, to sprinkle a lot of, like, memes and things, like, that throughout my presentation, because, not really just to make the crowd laugh, but to make me laugh because laughing helps relieve those nerves a lot. That's why people laugh awkwardly and, like, weird situations. Um –
Adam Lear: As we all laugh!
[laughter, nervous but also fun]
Ceora Ford: I, like, sparse those throughout, because it helps me relieve the nerves a lot. And then I would say two. I try to make my, like, when I give a talk, I try to make it as natural to me as possible. Because the thing that makes me the most nervous is not even just, like, talking in front of people. It's not even just like, ‘oh, I have to like, be technically sound and make sure that all the things I'm talking about are correct.’
Ceora Ford: It's really the fact that I'm afraid I'm going to forget something. That's the scariest thing for me. So I have to like, and also I'm a chronic procrastinator, so – I'm afraid of forgetting things, but I don't prepare enough to like, remember what I'm supposed to say. So if I do an in-person conference where I'm actually a speaker, I'll have to fix that because I'll be a mess on stage if I feel, like I'm going to forget what I have to say. But the cool thing about being an emcee is like, you get to just, like, wing it,, like, you get to just like, not make stuff up, but kind of at the same time. So I don't have to, like, there were a couple of things that were scripted, like, the introduction was a little scripted because there were things I had to say, and I got nervous for that. Like, I was, like, super nervous as I'm going to forget something. And then it's, like, going to the whole conference is going to blow up and then it's all going to be my fault. So that's like, what's going through my head. But after that I was really comfortable. Cause it's just like, I enjoyed that talk. They talked about this, that, and the third, that was really interesting, And then we have our next speaker,, like, it wasn't, like, super scripted. I didn't have to, like, remember to say certain things. And if I did, that was when I started to get nervous.
Cassidy Williams: The thing that I, like, to say about, like, emceeing versus speaking is, like, speaking is just kind of a big burst of stress. And then you're done with your talk. Emceeing is a very, very light level of stress throughout the day. And so you kind of pick your poison.
Ceora Ford: That was the thing that was, like, the, maybe the hardest was that you have to be on the whole day. And then after the conference is over, people are like, ‘oh my gosh, you did so well.’ So you have to like, (high pitched) ‘Oh yeah, thank you.’ Like, you start to, like, smile and like, be happy and stuff, like, that. Which for me, isn't super hard, but it is still, it drains your energy a lot. So like, by the halfway point of the conference, I was, like, dead a little bit, just a little. And like, that's the thing you have to think about. If you want to emcee versus speaking, because once you get,, like, you said, once you give your talk, you're, like, done. It's very nerve wracking because it's, like, 30 minutes, 45 minutes where you have to, like, stand there and talk. But as the emcee I'm, like, there the whole time. Like, one of the people I know through Twitter, she gave a talk, and at one point, she went back to her hotel room and took a nap and then came back. I could not do that as the emcee which I would have loved to do, but like, you know, so that was one of the things that was, like, that you have to think about. If you're going to be the emcee it's, like, less stressful in the way that you don't have to worry about, like, saying your lines and being smart and making sure everything is correct, but also you have to do it all day. Unless it's, like, a conference where they have, like, an emcee in the morning and a different one at night, but still, or for the afternoon session I should say.
Adam Lear: How do you get into emceeing? So for, you know, if you want to give a talk, you apply to a conference, you know, you get selected, all this kind of stuff. How does one get on this other sidetrack?
Ceora Ford: I think Cassidy, you probably know this. I think most of the time for emceeing, people will reach out to you. There's not really, like, something you can fill out a CFP for. I wasn't reached out to, I tweeted that I wanted it to be an emcee-- oh, well, maybe I kind of was, but I was like –
Adam Lear: You put it out to the universe
Ceora Ford: yeah, I put it out to the universe and I was like, someone will respond. And then, like, 30 minutes later, what had happened was one of the employees of remix who I know through Twitter was like, ‘Yo, y'all need to, like, reach out to her. She says she wants to emcee, we need someone for an event.’ And then they reached out to me. So that was, like, through – wasn't, like, I just was sitting around and randomly like, dm-ing like, Hey, you want, I, like, asked. Basically I basically was like, I'm going to make this happen because that's what I wanted.
Cassidy Williams: I think that's key though, because you, you put it out there and then people are aware that you want to. Cause I think for a lot of conferences, people don't know how to find emcees because they don't know who might want to, because it is a tough job you are on throughout the day. You're kind of, like, not a speaker, not an organizer, but this weird halfway point ‘cause you have to communicate between everybody and stuff. I do think that doing talks first is easier because then you already kind of have a speaking repertoire and then going into the emceeing side. It's, it's, again, it's different, but it's just similar enough where you can kind of put yourself out there in that way. But for talks, you could do what Ceora did and say, I want to give a talk at a conference and chances are some conference organizer might see it, but also there's a lot of different channels on Twitter. If you just look up the word., like, CFP or Call for Papers, Call for Proposals on Twitter, you will find so many conferences that are asking for people to come and speak, and you can reuse talk proposals. You can reuse talks, right?
Ceora Ford: You should, yeah
Cassidy Williams: Like, one or two talks and then send it to multiple events because that talk audience, it might be a larger conference. You might be giving that talk to 300, 500, a thousand people, but that is very small. Percentage of people in the entire industry and you can definitely overlap it and give talks multiple times. I think some of my talks I've given a solid 10, 12 times before because it's different people in the audience every single time.
Ceora Ford: And you change, you get better at it as you do it more and sometimes you change it as you do it more to the thing that I did when I was first trying to get into speaking, I did,, like, I said, I did, like, a lot of prerecorded,, like, talks, but I also started doing them for like, Bootcamps or, like, local meetups and stuff, like, that virtually. So that is like, if you're talking to a bunch of people who are learning how to code, who don't maybe know, like, JS that well, or React that well or whatever. And you're talking about this subject, it feels, like, a lot less pressure because they're not really looking to check you to see if you're, like, correct or anything, like, that, they're just happy, like, that you're willing to speak to them and. They might learn something from it. So that for me was, like, a nice, like, springboard into actually doing, like, conferences and stuff like that, just because it's lower pressure and you get to get into the habit of speaking and communicating your thoughts and, like, getting over the nerves and stuff like that. So that's how I started out. I did, like, a couple bootcamps and, like, local meetups. And then I started to do actual conferences after that, which felt more natural. And then like, there are tons of a lot of the developer newsletters that are out there have, like, a list of CFPs that are open and you can just like, look through the ones that you feel, like, would be a good fit for you to fit your schedule and everything. So, yeah, it's like, I probably don't fill out. And after a while, like, you probably won't even really have to fill out CFPs that often, cause people would just start reaching out to you and you'll start having to say no more than anything.
Cassidy Williams: I think too, everyone has something to teach. You don't have to be the number one expert in a particular field of a particular language or anything to teach a topic. And so if you are interested in any way in speaking, but you're not sure what topic to do, just spend some time, take 10 minutes and just write down everything, you know, and don't be so generic, Like I know React. What are the different parts of React that, you know, maybe you're really good at using factor reducers or, or, like, class-based components to hooks or something like that. Maybe in JavaScript, you know a lot about string manipulation or how to do one thing particularly well over another thing, write down just as many things as you can, you have talk topics and you could always refine them, change them and rearrange them and, and. It's good to have more voices because you never know how the way you might teach might change how someone else understands something.
Matt Kiernander: That was exactly what I did for my first talk, actually, like, I – My first talk I did, about developer relations and how you can use YouTube and social media as a technical company or as a, as a technology led company. I had not been a developer relations engineer or a developer advocate when I did that talk, but I had just seen what other companies are doing well, what other companies weren't doing well, and I put my thoughts on paper, and then I submitted it to Twilio for one of their conferences. And that, that was the first time I did the talk and it was a really great experience and exposed me to a lot of, like, very talented people that we had some good conversations from. So I would very much encourage anyone. I found a lot of value out of it because it got me out of my comfort zone a little bit. I saw, you know, like, what it was, like, to prep and what kind of value I could add, I guess, as somebody on the internet, and it was, um, it was a lot of fun. So I would, I would definitely recommend it.
Cassidy Williams: Ask your coworkers and your friends and classmates. What do they want to learn from you? Or what do you think, you know really well? Because that is also really, really helpful as well if you are feeling any imposter syndrome and stuff, chances are people who care about you or know what you know are going to be stronger in their opinions of your abilities, than you are of yourself.
Matt Kiernander: Adam, have you ever done any technical talks? So even, like, a, like, a lunch and learn or something, like, that, where you've presented on a technical topic?
Adam Lear: Yeah. I mean, I've done a few, kind of, internal to the companies that are worked at, I've never done a,, like, an actual conference talk. Maybe someday. I did some community theater in my past. I do enjoy the attention of being on stage. It's kind of fun, but
(Others: Cool! Fun!)
Ceora Ford: A lot of, a lot of in-person conferences starting up now, which is cool. If you feel comfortable, like, being around other people and stuff, you know, we're still in a pandemic, unfortunately,. The biggest reality check for me was that I've, since I've been in tech, everything I've done has been remote. So I've always worked remotely. I've always been to remote conferences, remote meetups, everything, like, that. And of course you hear about, like, diversity and inclusion and how, like, it's really bad in tech. And I'm like, yeah, of course. Yeah. It's bad, whatever. And I've had a couple of, like, weird experiences at, like, my past jobs where it was like, man, This is not cool. People are, like, racist and sexist and stuff, like, that. But it still was very eye opening to see, like, in person that, like –
Cassidy Williams: It’s jarring,
Ceora Ford: it was something else.
Ceora Ford: I was like, wow. Cause there were, I probably could count on both hands. How many women were in the whole conference? Yeah. And there was. About, I would, I don't know exactly how many people were there, but it was maybe, like, 300 people that were there, I think, I don't know. But it was like, Whoa! like, I, and I knew it was bad. People say that it's bad, you know? And I've also heard like, Chloe Condon. She is a developer advocate. She used to work at Microsoft. She has, like, a picture that went viral where she's, like, at a conference or something, like, that,, like,
Cassidy Williams: Where she does, like, a thumbs up.
Yeah. And she's, like, standing there. She's literally the only woman. And she looks so awkward and she has, like, her thumbs up because that's like, and I had read that when I was like, is she wrote an article about it too. I read that when I was getting into tech and I still like, seeing it in person is still very different and experiencing that and being like, whoa, these people were in line when they said it was like, bad. And no one was rude. Thankfully, no one was, like, rude, but it is just, like, jarring to see. How it is, like, in, like, really see it, how it is in tech. That was, like, the thing for me that I was like, wow.
Cassidy Williams: it really, it just kind of reignites your fire to be just like, I need to get more women in here. It's, it's one of those things where whenever I've been at an event, It's a constant thing where I'm just like, I can tell if a woman was on the organizing team. I can tell if they had people of color helping out with the code of conduct or moderation or anything like that. You can tell because there has to be so much active effort in that area to make it even close to parity or anything. It's definitely challenging. And I acknowledged that and I'm so glad that it was at least a good culture around you, even though you're a deep minority, but yeah.
Ceora Ford: But yeah, it's just something to think about., like, as, as in-person events start, start up again, if you are not the typical, I think it, typical is the way to put it.
Cassidy Williams: If you're... You're underrepresented.
Ceora Ford: If you're underrepresented, that's something you want to consider is that you may feel uncomfortable standing out that much. And you may also be put in an environment where you are made to feel like you don't belong. That is a huge possibility. And you should keep that in mind and maybe ask about that if you can. I don't even know how you can ask about, like, the diversity of the audience. You can always check on the diversity of the speaker panel before you even say, like, yes to anything. I think that's something you should always do. I know there are some people who have, like, a specific criteria. At least such and such percentage of the speakers must be underrepresented. So that's something you should definitely try to do. But just, just be prepared to not find a lot of people who look like you or come from the same background as you. That's, like, something that you definitely want to prepare for, especially if you've never done in person events like me before.So that was – Whoa.
Cassidy Williams: something that some organizers did again, pre pandemic before all of this world stuff that I think was really, really great, is there was an option when you bought a ticket to have, like, a check mark saying like, I want you to be connected to other underrepresented people at this event. And then you could have, like, a mini meetup at the actual conference. And so I'd go to a hackathon and I'd say, okay, I'm going to be working on my projects and stuff, but I know at this time I should be at this place because that's where all the women are going to be hanging out. Or this is where, like, the Latinas in computing meetup is going to be, or something, like, that, where you can be with people who look like you or who might have your back, or who understand that level of discomfort that you might have. And then you can kind of go out of that with, with some new friends and a new community and stuff. And it's something that I do think some people object to particularly people who are in the majority, because they're like, ‘well, how is that inclusive if they get their own meetups? And we don't.’ But people who are in the majority automatically have a community that when they're in this tech industry, when they look around and there are a bunch of people who look like them. And, like, you said, Ceora, because there weren't as many, you kind of huddled together and you're like, there's some of us. I think it's good for organizers to keep that in mind, especially as we are coming into more in-person events, to have those kinds of opportunities for people to connect with others that might be uncomfortable doing so otherwise
Matt Kiernander: I can provide a little bit of a different context and hopefully more of a silver lining for anyone who might be feeling underrepresented. Because I mean, at the moment we're talking very much about, like, North America,, like, the North American tech scene. And just from my experience with tech, you know, being four years, I've worked in New Zealand and Amsterdam, I've either been very lucky or fortunate or very intentional around the companies that I've worked for. And the fact that like, they're the first team, I think. The senior developer on the team was a woman, my product manager, that two product managers were women. The next team that I joined, again, the, it was me and then a senior female lead and then another junior female leads. So, like, a lot of the teams that I've been in have actually been majoritively women. So for anyone who I guess might be feeling a little bit underrepresented or, like, there's, there's no hope. It seems, like, the North American market has got a very long way to go, but at least my experience in New Zealand and Amsterdam, like, it seems, like, there's a lot more diversity there.
Cassidy Williams: And I think also it's, it's one of those things where Ceora, I'm very grateful that you spoke at that event and emceed it because you were representing that, uh, representing the underrepresented and, and I think you can't be what you can't see. And so if people are interested in speaking, they, they might be inspired because you did. And if you want to help pay it forward and, and lift as you climb in your career and you are in an underrepresented group, it would be awesome to see you amongst all the speakers and stuff. And I'm not saying that people who are in the minority should be putting in more work because that, that is not what I mean at all. But if it's something that interests you, I think people would welcome you with open arms and we'd love to see more representation amongst speakers so that events can be more inclusive and diverse overall.
Ceora Ford: And I think it definitely comes at a cost. But it's not a complete loss, I should say. I just want to be completely transparent about, like, what it's really like. So like, if you decide that I want to speak, I want to do in person events, just know what to expect, especially if it's not a conference that's focused specifically on, like, diversity or something, like, that. Those are, like, things that you should keep in mind because it is definitely something that has happened.
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Matt Kiernander: We have one recommendation. This is actually a recommendation that I was excited for cassidy to have a look at Logitech have just released their first, like, Bluetooth and mechanical keyboard with brown linear and I think another switch I thought this might be of interest to you. You can't customize them, but they're part of the MX last master line, which has been very synonymous with developers and productivity over the last little while. So I thought I'd give that a shout out. Adam, you hit something as well that you want.
Adam Lear: Oh, yeah. I just want him to quickly call out a thing that I learned about this week. And it's this website that has a bunch of roadmaps and guides and there's educational things for helping people learn how to become developers or learn specific technologies. And it's a roadmap.sh. I– and there's multiple roadmaps there. So I just kind of want to say it as “roadmap.s” Hopefully you’ll remember it that way, but, uh, it's very cool. Check it out.
Matt Kiernander: I've seen this before and it was actually incredibly useful. Just, like, looking back with hindsight, I guess the, the developer roadmap, I mean like, oh, I wish I would have done that. So it is genuinely useful, so I would encourage having a look moving on to our lifeboat. A lifeboat is an answer score of 20 or more to a question score of negative three or less. Today's lifeboat goes out to Munk, M U N K for answering the question Python pass as a string. Thank you very much for being part of our community. That wraps up our episode today. Thank you so much to Ceora, Cassidy and Adam for joining us this week on the podcast. Everyone liked to do their handles, shout outs, everything else, Ceora, if you want to start.
Ceora Ford: Sure. My name is Ceora Ford. I'm a developer advocate at a place that will soon to be announced.
Ceora Ford: You can find me on Twitter. My username, there is C Oreo that's C E E O R E O UNDERSCORE
Cassidy Williams: my name is Cassidy Williams. You can find me at Cassidoo C A S S I D O O on most things.
Adam Lear: And I'm Adam Lear, staff software engineer at Stack Overflow. And you can find me on Twitter at AA Lear
Matt Kiernander: And I'm Matt Kiernander.. I'm a developer advocate here at stack overflow.
Matt Kiernander: You can find me online at Matt Kander M a T T K A N D E R on Twitter and all the other things. Thank you so much for tuning in, appreciate your time. And we will see you next week.
Cassidy Williams: Bye!
Adam Lea: Bye
Ceora Ford: Byee
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