Beyond Tech Skills

Dr. Vinton Cerf is simply a legend within the Information Technology community. As the co-creator of the TCP/IP protocol, a key standard for inter-computer communication, he’s been awarded dozens of honorary degrees as well as the Turing Prize and the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. But Liron and Jim talk with Vint about one of his lesser-known pursuits as his role of internet evangelist at Google: his lifelong support for inclusiveness for people with impaired hearing.

Dr. Vinton Cerf is simply a legend within the Information Technology community. As the co-creator of the TCP/IP protocol, a key standard for inter-computer communication, he’s been awarded dozens of honorary degrees as well as the Turing Prize and the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. But Liron and Jim talk with Vint about one of his lesser-known pursuits as his role of internet evangelist at Google: his lifelong support for inclusiveness for people with impaired hearing.

Who wouldn’t want to play with trains all day? Craig Rodgers talks with Liron and Jim on how IT offers the ability to save our planet by furthering efficient energy use from the burgeoning tech sector in Belfast, Northern Ireland. They also chat about how the Great Resignation / Reshuffling has manifested in the UK and Europe, and even where to find a good Dutch sandwich with your Double Irish.

Gender-specific language can be confusing, especially to older tech employees, managers, and leadership. But as Liron and Jim discover during their conversation with Gil Bahat, IT organizations that increase their standards for mastering pronoun usage and enforce standards of workplace behavior for inclusivity have actually found those policies benefit their entire workforce.

Imagine this: You’re a focused, creative, problem-solving data engineer who’s had a tough time staying employed over the past 25+ years. Then your wife bluntly tells you, “Well, it’s your attitude – frankly, it stinks!” and suggests talking to a doctor. You suddenly find out the reason for your challenges is that you’re autistic and never even knew it. Tim Goldstein, at Google, explains to Jim and Liron what he’s discovered about being neuro-distinct (ND) during his decades in IT, why clear communication is especially important when working with ND folks, and why even your doctor might be autistic!

We’d never stigmatize a coworker for osteoporosis or hypertension, so why do we stigmatize people for poor mental health, especially when an estimated 1 billion people worldwide suffer daily from anxiety? Rob Stephenson is a TEDx speaker, entrepreneur and founder of the Inside Out Leaderboard and the Form Score toolset for identifying our mental state every day. Rob talks with Jim and Liron about living with Bipolar Type 2 and how he transformed his life through deep personal connections, exercise, therapy and medication.

Leaders are grown, not born, says James Fair, SVP at Executech. James chats with Jim and Liron on what he’s learned during his 30-year journey from networking tech to C-level executive: the importance of providing psychological safety to your team, when it’s a good time to promote a tech person to management, and the secret of growing a robust group of “sergeants” that can lead small teams to accomplish goals: simply putting people first.

So you think your daily commute to work is tricky? Try it with an F250 pickup hitched to an Airstream trailer. Jim and Liron converse with Keith Townsend, their fellow technology advocate from Jim’s hometown of Chicago, about his 25-year IT career’s trajectory, and what it’s like to take a three-month-long road trip to promote your brand from 14,000 pounds of rolling death accompanied by your business partner and wife. And yes, finding reliable WiFi was the least of the challenges they faced.

If your CEO just said he’s implementing an unlimited PTO policy, and it’s OK to take off as many days as you need to maintain your mental wellness, just how many days would you take? Jim and Liron chat with Ben Gateley, CEO of CharlieHR, about how he helps small and medium sized businesses with their HR needs. They also discuss some interesting experiments with different work schedules and their impact on worker productivity. Spoiler alert: Be prepared for some surprising results!

Like we’ve talked about in our podcasts, IT technology is literally everywhere, even on the expanse of the USA’s Great Plains. Jim and Liron discuss the future of IT with Brian Knudtson, a fellow technology advocate from the proverbial Silicon Prairie – Omaha, Nebraska – on the importance of the need for community regardless of geography, especially as the “hybridity” of future work continues to expand. Brian offers excellent advice on everything from blogging not just for an audience, but for yourself as well as how to prepare to present on technology topics in public. We also chat about some excellent paths to follow to build the youngest generation of future technologists through programs like Destination Imagination.