Reinventing Nerds

Joanie hosts a special holiday episode with Fabrice Paracuellos. Fabrice is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in the state of California.  He helps individuals, couples, teams, and organizations with emotions, relationships, self-worth, and wellness. In addition, Fabrice has a technical background with multiple degrees in engineering and business and he’s worked for startups and large tech companies. Today, Fabrice talks about how technical leaders can be supportive to others both at work and at home to people who are stressed out or feeling bad during the holiday season.

Highlights:

Q: Tell us about your background, including your international studies and your work, and how you came to become a therapist and specialize in wellness and relationships.

Fabrice received therapy when he was a teen and it was a wonderful experience for him.  He studied math and physics in high school and engineering in college.  He worked in IT for several years. Having a daughter opened his eyes to doing something that was more meaningful to him, and he transitioned to international relations and business.  Later, when he was ready, he trained to become a therapist.

Q: Technical leaders often say that they want to be a good partner or a good manager or a good friend, but they don’t know what to say to someone when that person says they are stressed out about family dynamics during the holidays. Can you help explain what kinds of stressors and emotions that holidays can bring up for people?

Fabrice explains that what’s called for in this situation may not play to the strength of a person who is really good at solving problems, as technical leaders often are. Simply listening and understanding the emotions that the person is experiencing may be all that is needed. Empathizing by acknowledging their stress may also help. He advises a straightforward statement, such as “That sounds very stressful.”

Fabrice has noticed that lots of tech folks, for various reasons, may not have developed a comfort level with emotions. He says that the trick can be to recognize the emotion the person you’re dealing with is experiencing and validating it. He recommends practicing with a good friend.

He also has found that technical leaders are often used to working in an autonomous fashion.  Asking for help may not come naturally. A good friend can be a good place to start.

Listen to the episode to hear more from Frabrice about how to be a better listener, how to offer support at the workplace without getting too personal or intrusive, and how to manage your own emotions and stress during the holidays so you don’t become a tyrant at work.

Word of Wisdom:

In lots of situations, what’s called for is not what we’re good at.

Emotions are really logical when you are given the right theory and tools.

Noticing emotions is a form of data collection.

Emotions usually have valuable information in them that eventually need attending.

Contact Fabrice Paracuellos:

therapyforhumans.com

Katheryn Baker is Vice President at Artic Consulting, a consulting firm that provides technology solutions for business and data management.  Katheryn is passionate about both technology and business and is skilled in Enterprise Software, Business Strategy, Productivity, Data, and Program Management.  She’s joining us today from Anaheim, CA.

Highlights:

Q: You have a background in both business and technology, and you have been a consultant for essentially your entire career.  Tell us your story of how you got to where you are now.

Katheryn has a degree in Art History but quickly found she was interested in program management.  She became good friends with the dev teams and moved into leading them.  She had to learn as she went.  She has grown dev consulting teams for many years, including at Artic.

Q: Did you have to learn how to program to lead dev teams?

Katheryn learned what she called “enough to be dangerous,” both in programming and database management.  She said her sweet spot was understanding how things work together and working with the technical and leadership teams and translating between them.

Q: You work with a wide range of clients, from small companies to giants across different industries.  Is it pretty much the same to communicate with them or do you have to use different methods?

She said Agility has been important in all industries, but it’s critical to her as a leader and a consultant to a wide range of clients.

There are some similarities, but jargon changes across organizations and industries.  Whether people are remote or on site is another consideration.  It is extremely helpful for her team to be able to go on site and actually see what is going on.  She has to use different forms of communication to work with different clients—email, chat, in-person, and so on.

Listen to the podcast to hear Katheryn’s tips on being flexible with different clients and as a leader working with different team members, how she has handled the talent shortage, and tips on working remotely and what challenges they have overcome at Artic.

Words of Wisdom:

There isn’t a one size fits all to a specific issue or goal.

If you understand what motivates people, you can help them have a sense of pride in their work.

As a manager, it’s important to recognize that people have different scenarios in their lives at different times.

It’s a great time for women in the tech industry.

Contact Katheryn Baker:

Website: https://www.articconsulting.com/

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katheryn-baker-34bb485/

Joanie has a conversation with Steve Hoffman, CEO of Founders Space, one of the world’s leading startup accelerators. Steve has trained hundreds of startup founders and corporate executives in the art of innovation and provided consulting to many of the world’s largest corporations, including Qualcomm, Huawei, Bosch, Intel, Disney, Warner Brothers, NBC, Gulf Oil, Siemens, and Viacom. Steve is also a venture investor, serial entrepreneur, and author of several award-winning books, including “Surviving a Startup” published by HarperCollins. Steve has also worked in the television and gaming industries and has some great tips and stories to share.

Highlights:

Q: Steve, you’re known as Captain Hoff in the gaming world. Tell us about your work in the television and gaming industries, as well as what games you play.

Steve is known in Silicon Valley as Captain Hoff because he’s a game player and designer.  He started out playing Dungeons and Dragons, RuneQuest, and almost any board game you can think of, as well as video games of all kinds.  He worked for Sega on Sonic the Hedgehog, and eventually started a company and created the award-winning strategy game, Gazillionaire, and many other games that are still available on Steam.

Q: What skills did you have learned along the way to expand your ability from developing to lead teams and companies?  How did you learn to manage people?

Steve learned the hard way.  He was an introvert and extremely shy.  Even though Steve comes across as an extrovert now, he said it was all trained.  He said he started out being really bad at presenting, interviewing, making sales pitches, and so on, but just did it.  He said the way he learned was to notice every time what worked and what didn’t and never do the same thing twice.

He learned how to go from telling people what to do to asking them what they think they should do, what problems they are facing, and what they need.

Listen to the podcast to hear how Steve came to start Founders Space, what some of the most common challenges he see tech startup founders running into, and what kinds of barriers technical founders create for themselves.

Shout Out:

Steve’s book called Surviving a Startup: Practical Strategies for Starting a Business, Overcoming Obstacles, and Coming Out on Top.

Words of Wisdom:

The only way to meet a challenge is head on.

Don’t sell people on what you’re doing; figure out what they want.

You cannot motivate people by standing over their shoulders and nitpicking them.

Get people on board by asking them what they should be doing.

Instead of convincing yourself that you’re the best, ask yourself “how can I be better?”

Contact Steve Hoffman (Captain Hoff):

Founders Space: https://FoundersSpace.com

Books: https://FoundersSpace.com/books

Podcast: https://www.CaptainHoff.com/

Facebook: https://Facebook.com/groups/FoundersSpace

LinkedIn: https://LinkedIn.com/in/FoundersSpace/

Instagram: https://Instagram.com/FoundersSpace/

Twitter: https://Twitter.com/FoundersSpace/

Franklin Taggart is the host of the podcast called Your Own Best Company.  He coaches and leads a community of people who enjoy working alone.  A lot of nerds work alone and it seemed like a good idea to learn more about what kind of support is out there for them.  This is also a special episode because it is the 50th episode and Franklin was my first guest on the podcast.  He gave me the idea to host a podcast and supported me through figuring out how to create one and getting it started.

Highlights:

Q: What inspired you to support people who work alone?

Most of the people Franklin has worked with have tended to be people who were working alone.  He noticed some patterns and some specific challenges for this population.  He also brings his enthusiasm for working alone and connecting with others in the same space.

Q: Are people who work alone typically introverts or does personality matter?

Franklin says he often works with introverts who enjoy a slow pace and quiet place.

Q: Who are your typical clients?  Are they remote workers in companies who work on their own or solopreneurs or something else?

Franklin started off mostly working with artists, authors, and musicians, but now works with a lot of businesspeople too.  The majority of clients are in professional services, like coaching and consulting, some who are freelancers, and others have roles such as technical writers.

Q: What kinds of challenges do they run into?  How do you help them?

Franklin discusses several challenges.  One of the biggest challenges is that working alone means having to wear a lot of hats.  A resulting challenge is being unwilling to delegate and let go of control.

In this episode, we also talk about social isolation, anxiety, and depression, why people who like to work alone would want to have a community, what the benefits are of working alone, ow can extroverts succeed at working alone, and what resources Franklin recommends for people who work alone.

Shout Out:

The book The Company of One by Paul Jarvis is a great resource.

Words of Wisdom:

Introverted doesn’t mean shy.

People who prefer working alone still need human contact.

Contact Franklin Taggart:

Website: https://www.franklintaggart.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/franklin-taggart-coaching/

Podcast: Your Own Best Company

Joanie has a conversation with Angelo Ponzi, a marketing architect at The Ponzi Group. Angelo has more than 25 years of marketing experience in and outside of companies in industries ranging from semiconductors to financial to restaurants to beverage to ice cream. As a fractional Chief Marketing Officer (and marketing nerd!) he helps define market opportunities, develop competitive profiles, and marketing strategies.  Angelo talks to us about how technical leaders can strategize about marketing and what pitfalls to avoid.

Highlights:

Q: What drew you to the field of marketing?

Angelo says that it is about being able to solve problems for clients.  He also talks about feedback he received early in his career to identify where his aptitudes lay.

Q: What’s the difference between what you do and what the typical digital marketing firms do?

Angelo describes how digital marketing firms are often his clients.  They hire him to conduct market research for them so they know who to target to get clicks.

Q: What are some common marketing pitfalls technical leaders tend to run into?  Are they different from the pitfalls other types of leaders face?

Angelo has noticed that there seems to be more of a focus on the features of the product than the functional value of it.

Q: How can technical people think more strategically about marketing?  When should they start doing this?

Angelo talks about the importance of telling your product’s story, among other things.

Q: How can technical people better communicate with and appreciate marketing help?  How would your ideal technical leader interact with you?

Angelo suggests stepping back to understand the user and the customer.  They may not be the same people. Listen to the show to hear more about what technical leaders can do to improve their marketing strategies.

Shout Out to Angelo’s podcast Business Growth Café.

Words of Wisdom:

It’s the failures that help you learn what you’re good at.

At the end of the day, you will fall in love with your product but you have to make sure there is a market for it.

Know your customer and build relationships with them.

Contact Angelo Ponzi:

949-357-9547

www.theponzigroup.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/angeloponzi/

Joanie has a deeply personal conversation with Michael Puldy, CEO and Founder of Puldy Resiliency Partners, LLC.  Michael has over three decades of technology, information risk management, and operations experience in the aerospace, banking and computer technology sectors, including at IBM. He is passionately focused on ways companies can improve their offensive and defensive posture towards internal and external threats.  But, in this episode, Michael shares a personal story about how an unexpected suicide impacted his life, both personally and professionally.

Highlights:

Michael answered these questions and more.

* Your career was pretty accelerated for the first 25 years. You worked in governments, aerospace, banking, a security services start up and at IBM….and then you personally came to a full stop.   You lost your first wife to suicide.  Walk us through your professional mindset and focus around that time (2009).

* Professionally, you have built a career around disaster recovery, continuity and incident planning, and crisis management, talk about how your professional vocation helped you through this experience…or did it?

* Let’s fast forward 12 years later, looking back how did you navigate your way through your crisis both personal and professionally, what worked and how did you reinvent or rebuild yourself?

Listen to the episode to hear his story, how he took care of himself, how others supported him, and what he learned.

Shout Out:

Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, where Michael volunteers.

Contact Michael Puldy:

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mpuldy/

 

Vladimir Baranov is the founding CTO of AdvisorEngine, a fintech company that was recently acquired by Franklin Templeton. Vladimir has been building successful technology solutions primarily in the fintech industry for 15 years, and he shares his experience on managing the business/tech divide.

Highlights:

Q: What are some of the common challenges that come up between CEOs and CTOs?

In summary, Vladimir says it’s about the relationship between two individuals.  Typically, when the relationship starts, there may be friction because they’ve never had a relationship before.  They may also have different myths and legends about what the other thinks.  Understanding each other’s concerns is important but so is communicating them. They may have different ideas of scope and product success too.  Vladimir gives several specific examples of challenges and myths and legends.

Q: What have you had to learn or change to improve your relationships with CEOs?

I am a constant reader and a complete believer in self-improvement. Understanding where the other person is coming from and understanding their biases and context is probably the most important thing you have to learn. Our natural tendency is to start analyzing anything that is said to us from our own context and sometimes that is faulty if we are not taking into consideration the context of the person who is telling us.  Vladimir talks about how he communicates his knowledge vertical to others.

Q: How did getting an MBA help you better work with CEOs?

It has helped me more on the engineering side than the business side.  Eighty percent of the benefit came from when I had to explain the business rationale to my reports and my partners on the technology side who did not have the business background.

Vladimir also talks about what CEOs have done to build a solid relationship with him as a CTO and he gives advice to CTOs on how to improve their relationships with their CEOs.  Listen to the episode to hear more.

Words of Wisdom for Building Relationships:

Even when you have your own self-awareness, it is important to realize another person may not.

Build trust by acknowledging we may have conflict, but it doesn’t come from trying to hurt each other.

Be transparent and be open and tell each other you want to build a collaborative relationship.

Invest in training soft skills.

Contact Vladimir Baranov:

Email: [email protected]

Website: ceo-and-cto.com

Joanie has a conversation with Manish Bhardia.  Manish is a principal at Think AI, a software development and consulting firm, author of the book Teamwork and Collaboration: How to Select and Use Right Productivity Environment for You and Your Team, and co-host of True Stories in Tech podcast. Manish specializes in AI and cloud consulting and has more than 17 years of experience leading complex technical projects.

Highlights:

Q: How did you move from being an engineer to a project manager?

Manish was told he was good at communicating with the clients and business users and that got him thinking about becoming a business analyst or project manager.  Also learning about the bad things that project managers do, such as working their teams too hard, made him want to do better with his team.

Q: How did you come to start your company, Think AI?

Because he worked well with clients, Manish decided he wanted to work with multiple clients as a cloud consultant and business owner.  He tells us how he learned how to build his sales skills too.

Q: How did you come to write your book, Teamwork and Collaboration?

A lot of Manish’s work at Think AI has been focused on teamwork.  They conducted a user-group survey to find out what their challenges were, and he wrote the book on the top ten items that centered on teamwork and collaboration.

Q: What are some of the unhealthy habits that remote workers have adopted and how can they get back to or start new healthier ones?

Manish said there are easy answers, but they are hard to implement.  He gives many tips both in his book and on the episode.  He also talks about how to add fun to a remote work environment, how to add clarity as a leader.  He also talks about how people adapting to interacting with AI.

Words of Wisdom, especially for Remote Work:

Keep your body active.

Keep calendar slots open for fun.

Create your ideal calendar and try to fit your schedule to that.

Be clear to your team on what to ignore.

Shout Out:

IAMCP, the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners.

Contact Manish Bhardia:

Website: Think AI

Book: Teamwork and Collaboration: How to Select and Use Right Productivity Environment for You and Your Team

Podcast: True Stories in Tech

 

 

Joanie interviews Lydia Chiu, a partner at Jub Jub Interactive.  Jub Jub is a web application development company based in Orange County, CA.  Lydia has over 15 years of programming and web development experience.  She has a deep understanding of content management systems and enterprise application development.  Listen to the episode to hear Lydia’s stories on how she became a web developer, how she developed as a leader and how communication has been core to her success.

Highlights:

Q: How did you develop an interest in web design and become a partner at Jub Jub?

It’s not the typical story and it involves an interesting pivot and an unusual partnership.

Q: What challenges did you run into early on as a team lead and how did you overcome them?

It included a feeling of imposter syndrome, a lot of learning, and good communication skills.

Q: How have you evolved as a leader over the years, for example as a partner at Jub Jub?

Learning how to groom new leaders and employees who could interact effectively with clients.

Q: How do you understand your clients’ businesses and needs and what skills did you have to develop to get better at that?

Lydia’s early work in customer service while in high school was an important experience for her to develop communication skills and comfort in delivering bad news.  Delegating is an ongoing challenge.

Q: There aren’t many women who do what you do.  What has been your experience as a woman in the field of software development?

Lydia has had great female role models but has also encountered some unfortunate situations with clients who respond to her differently than her male counterparts.  Listen to the podcast to hear her stories.

Words of Wisdom:

Mom was always right.

No matter what you’re doing, writing and coding are fundamental skills for success.

Anytime you start a business with partners, there’s a huge amount of trust that you need.

Knowing you’re going to work through conflict is key to a successful partnership.

Contact Lydia Chiu:

Website: jubjub.com

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @lydiaatjubjub

Joanie has a conversation with Michelle Beauchamp about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the tech world.  Michelle is the CEO of The Champ Group, a training and coaching firm that focuses on sales and diversity.  One of the reasons Michelle is so special is that she is a very positive, encouraging person.  She will inspire you in this episode.

Highlights:

Q: How did you come to help organizations work on diversity, equity, and inclusion?

“My passion is to help people learn and grow and succeed.  When I started The Champ Group, I decided to focus on leadership, sales, and communication.  That’s what I have done for 14 years.  I love helping people grow in those three areas.   I help people understand the greatness they already have within themselves.”

“This summer, I had an epiphany.  It happened because of my awareness of so much racial injustice— the cases of Ahmaud Arbery, BreonnaTaylor, and George Floyd—and that’s just to name a few, just for this year.  I thought, ‘I have a passion for this.  Clearly, I have my own experiences being a Black woman,’ and I thought, ‘I need to put my leadership training that I already have and the subject of diversity and inclusion together and make that work.’  I came across a program from another group I’m a member of—a program that I could purchase a license to—and I decided, ‘I’m going for it!’”

“Clearly, this is a subject that is tough.  Everybody has an opinion about it.  Some subjects that I already teach, such as the power of listening, the energy that is required to really listen and not interrupt and jump in there, and the ability to have empathy, are already leadership traits that I train on.  It’s just that now, we can dive into it on the subject of diversity and inclusion, which does require a lot of listening, a lot of empathy, and speaking at the right time.”

Q: A lot of clients are asking about diversity, equity, and inclusion.  But, especially in tech, I hear that they feel like they are doing as much as they can, and they don’t know what else to do.  Or they are concerned about doing the wrong thing and are playing it safe by doing nothing.  What is your response to that?

“The good news is that it is being discussed.  People are curious and they are concerned.  I look at that as a good news thing.  I’ve been doing a lot of research on this and I saw some descriptions that I thought were interesting.  One came from Accenture and it said that companies who take this on need to have bold leadership.  They need to have an empowering environment.  And they need to be willing to take action.  You can’t have these conversations and then nothing happens.  That’s what employees are concerned about.  Not doing anything, that’s what not to do!  Don’t try to sweep it under the rug.”

“I wish that more companies would hire consultants to work with them on this because that’s what companies do; they seek professional guidance when they need help with something.  The same is true with this subject.”

Q: The stats on diversity in STEM suggest that not enough is being done.  What are technical organizations missing?

“I hear ‘We can’t find qualified minority applicants.’  That has to be yesterday, not today and tomorrow.  It does take extra effort.  Someone in the company can have the job responsibilities to reach out to other communities.  For example, there are the HBCUs (historically Black colleges and universities), as well as other ethnic universities.  There are also the chambers and women’s organizations.  The existing workforce is diverse.”

“One thing I know is the people in the tech companies are smart.  Companies that have more diversity enjoy more profits.  It’s worth the effort to go out and find the people.  We need more people to be mentors and sponsors.  That’s the inclusion part of it.”

Q: How do we start the conversations and take action?  Listen to the episode to hear Michelle’s response.