Off Script

2021 has been an eventful year! From January's launch of the AVIF format, April's Basecamp employee speech controversy and the web hitting 30 years old plus much more. Hosts James & Josh take us on a journey through the highs and lows of the year.

Thanks to Cooper Press’ Frontend Focus and Ruby Weekly, invaluable resources that helped us go back in time to compile the monthly breakdown.

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How do you avoid burnout and keep productivity high? What methods can you use to help produce an efficient flow state? How have companies addressed these issues around hybrid working? Productivity and mental health go hand in hand but how do you manage it? Hosts James & Josh explore these issues around creating a positive motivated team.

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What leadership style do you have? How do you foster a productive culture? When do you give people autonomy and when do you put your foot down? The decisions around how to lead a team can affect how successful a project delivery is. How did the pandemic and working from home impact things? Hosts James & Josh explore these questions and look at ways to engage the team.

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How long will a project take to complete? How can you get this as close to reality as possible? Software estimation is an essential part of the development process and one that many people don’t know how to approach correctly. Is your team equipped with the right tools? Is there a shared understanding of the process within your team? Hosts James and Josh explore these questions and look at practical solutions to get it right.

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What would your first steps be when working on application performance? What tools can you use to help you through this process? What are the challenges when you overly optimise your application? Our hosts James and Josh dive into these questions and outline their thoughts on the following and much more:

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Today, Off Script hosts Josh and James discuss all things web application security. It’s something that is getting more and more important to get right. More cyber attacks. More ransomware attacks. They address good application hygiene and the common pitfalls they are seeing people fall for. Big data breaches can lead to losing customer trust so it’s so important to makes sure you’re running a tight ship with security.

Basic security maintenance is essential but what can companies and individuals be doing to make sure their web applications are secure during a time of high value bug bounties being offered to people for finding vulnerabilities?

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We’re happy to welcome James Hall to Off Script as a new co-host alongside Josh Nesbitt in our new podcast format! The topic today is ‘Career progression’.

Josh and James have known each other for many years and have a lot of professional experience in tech at the top level between them, ranging from agency work through to consulting. Josh runs Leeds-based software consultancy Stac whilst James runs Parallax - a digital agency specialising in websites, apps and much more. This gives our co-hosts different perspectives on the tech topics they’ll be getting into in the coming episodes and gives the listener a balanced take on today’s top topics in tech.

If you enjoy this episode, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next one! In today’s episode, Josh and James explore:

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Why does the cyber security industry need to hire more anthropologists? Because the criminals already are.

By 2025 it is estimated $10.5 trillion will be lost to cyber criminals. Hacking humans is a very lucrative business.

Social engineering is one of the easiest and most effective ways to access a secure system. Cyber criminals know this, and they are increasingly leaning on the research and techniques of the social science disciplines to leverage the human element into letting them into our lives, our businesses and our bank accounts. Yet, while the security industry is always striving to be ‘one step ahead’ of the criminals in terms of technical capabilities, it often neglects the need to consider the very social nature of hacking.

As more of our lives are now online, how can security practitioners increase security awareness and build up our resilience to unite against malicious actors looking to leverage our weakest, but what could be our strongest, defences in cyber-warfare - our people?

This discussion puts people and social science at the centre of the solution. Utilising anthropological theories and methodologies - such as reciprocity, participant observation and tribalism - Lianne will demonstrate why cyber security teams need to hire beyond technical expertise and look towards the social sciences for the next advancements in cyber fortification to respond to this ever-increasing threat.

To face this threat, we need to readdress the fact that technology does not exist without human interaction. Cyber security practitioners must cater for a wide breadth of expertise, capabilities, experiences, cultural norms, along with all equalities and disparities that frame these individuals. This task is not one for the computer scientist alone and it highlights the urgency to address this problem from an anthropological perspective.

We welcomed Sharon Steed to Hey! Live as our guest in November for a special, free live-streamed lecture. Sharon and Hey! Founder, Josh Nesbitt explored "Empathy at work".

Transformational culture starts with empathy. But how do you make that happen? How do you create a culture that everyone feels heard in? Respected? Where each individual knows them and their ideas are valuable to not only their coworkers, but the company at large?

These are the ideas Communilogue’s founder and principal Sharon Steed examines in her ebook "Empathy at work". Communilogue is also an empathy consultancy, so we can't wait for Sharon's insight into this fascinating topic at our live-streamed event.

Sharon speaks at companies and conferences globally on empathy at work. Her story is unique in that she got her start speaking and consulting in a non-traditional way.

Sharon is a life-long stutterer, and she uses her speech impediment to teach what empathy is and how to use it as a foundation for positive and effective communication. Stuttering has informed her view of communication as a result of years of being both terrified to speak but also fascinated with the the intricacies of conversation. She has spoken about empathy and communication, vulnerability and her experiences as a stutterer at conferences and companies globally.

"Empathy at work" is a topic Sharon has fantastic insight into. She has written an ebook about it facilitates a training course of the same name.

We're happy to welcome Lu Liu, software engineer from Fintech industry to Off Script by Hey! Radio.

This is a story with practical lessons about how it's never too late to get into technology. Lu shares her journey into tech, how she got into the industry and how she overcame the difficulty and obstacles she encountered at the beginning of her career. She extracts key advice and takeaways she's learned that will be useful for people who are trying to change their career path into tech or students who want to pursue a career in tech.

There are lessons in Lu's talk that also benefit anyone with more experience in the industry who wants to reconnect with what that journey feels like if say, you manage a team with people who are. It's easy to lose sight of what the beginning feels like so there is something in this for all levels of industry experience.