Thunder Nerds

276 – 🧭 Build a Safer & More Compassionate Web with Lisa Welchman & Andy Vitale

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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.

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Show Links
  • Lisa Welchman
    • Website: https://www.lisawelchman.com/
    • Twitter: https://twitter.com/lwelchman
    • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisawelchman
    • Lisa’s book – Managing Chaos: https://www.amazon.com/Managing-Chaos-Digital-Governance-Design/dp/1933820888
  • Andy Vitale
    • Website: https://www.andyvitale.com/
    • Twitter: http://twitter.com/andyvitale
    • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyvitale/
  • Radio Garden: http://radio.garden/
  • Broadcasts: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/broadcasts/id1469995354
  • Org 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=8-1
  • You 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=1-1
  • Hosts: 
    • Frederick Weiss: https://twitter.com/frederickweiss​​
    • Brian Hinton: https://twitter.com/mrbrianhinton
    • Sarrah 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.

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Thunder NerdsBy Frederick Philip Von Weiss, and Brian Hinton
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