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A podcast about neither tech nor people but both and how, if we want technology to move as fast as the consumers want it to then we must admit it's time we started to consistently do the Human Work. With a total of 50 years in tech between them, author, start-up founder, thought leader and influencer Duena Blomstrom and VP of Engineering for Evora Global, Dave Ballantyne, the hosts of this show come from the two opposite sides of the equation above and debate how we can best meet in the middle. The hosts are also neurospicy, Duena is diagnosed AuADHD and Dave isn't yet formally diagnosed, the couple are (still) newlyweds and they won't hold back from real talk, banter or the occasional swearword!
Hi, everybody, and welcome back after a prolonged break, People and Tech. Let's call it and say season two. I think the tone may be changing this season.
Duena:Be season two, doesn't it? It is season two, yes.
Dave:It certainly is. Perhaps this is the tech and more on the people.
Duena:Thanks for coming back to listen to us, in particular after all the statements you've heard about us over the last few months. How long have we had? I
Dave:don't know, it was October. September, October.
Duena:It's ample time to have prepared this, but we haven't prepared it at all. You've been So able to we're really flying off the seat of our pants. We've been quite busy. We've been traveling. We've been standing up new teams, new geographies where there are a couple of fun things that are being announced, and you may have heard about a bunch of them online already, such as our beloved tearsofdopamine.com.
Duena:Go give that a listen. But outside of that, we've tried to keep our head above the water and obviously keep our clients happy. The world doesn't stop because one has maybe reindeer personal drama. So that's been interesting. It's been quite a challenge keeping up with the Jones of the technical world, whilst being what can only be described as in some of the most limited situations of our life.
Dave:I would say so, yeah.
Duena:We should have dressed that you're outside.
Dave:If you cannot see it, I hope you said yes.
Duena:I mean, not everyone is looking, so whoever isn't looking
Dave:I mean, it's very good for your morning gratitude.
Duena:It's it's good for your any time gratitude. I don't think there's a special time where one cannot be grateful whilst out here. So you know, where we are we are very, very we don't sound it because we're tired, and we've been doing a lot more than expected to be doing in the last few months, weeks, would say, or probably not in the short. You wanna move a bit, Lauren?
Dave:Appendage. Appendage.
Duena:We've destroyed our martyr short of
Dave:There we go.
Duena:Perfect. Still take a good look at us. Let's get back to what little there is of business, which is the question of the day. The question of the day to me is, when does work stop doubling as an identity?
Dave:When does work stop doubling as identity? I mean, going way back, people used to be cool with their jobs, used to cook for, etcetera. And I think a lot of males still, and I think as much as we like to say that sexism is dead of all the rest of it, I think it's still predominantly the males who are going out to work, and predominantly create their identity through work, and who they are about, who they are in life through work.
Duena:Yeah, don't know if it's necessarily a male versus female thing. I think it's absolutely a human thing where we hitch our carts, our proverbial carts to being this person who is X is Y. Know, by we, I mean everyone in the workforce. With that said, surely there are different.
Dave:I don't know, you meet someone, a party say. Second question is gen mode. What do you do for work? It very much identifies you all the way through.
Duena:You're right, of course. And that's understandable. And many people are very they find a lot of pride into what they do, I swear they should. Let's face it, we were some of those people until a while ago when we had to stop doing other things as well. When, you know, it, there's no universe in which we're going to argue that it, there isn't a great amount of status that comes from doing the right job.
Duena:And that is really what powers the world, right? Everyone just trying to do a good job. At the end of the day, where is that who I am outside of work laying for us professionals of a certain age in particular? I suspect that this limitation of who you want to be and who you are slurs with time ideally. You go more towards who you want to be.
Duena:The younger you are, the less you've placed your bricks. But the likes of us that are in our second wonderful part of our lives, what we do for work, that has to be who we are.
Dave:I think
Duena:in my case, Russell, but would you not say that that's the case? No. You say that's the case mostly for technologists, mostly for males, What for anyone at would you
Dave:Well, I can only speak for white collar workers, should we say. I don't think there's very many. Not just for a petrol pump attendant, but a petrol pump attendant would be saying, That's what he does for work. In the same glee as a developer would be saying who's
Duena:I see that. That's really wrong. I'm sure that there's loads and loads of people who are doing a lot of
Dave:Well, maybe it's a
Duena:bad job. In fact, I don't dispute that a million percent. I think it's very likely that blue collar people take a lot more pride in their job than most programmers, you know. Wouldn't you say that's the case?
Dave:Yeah. I'm not saying they don't pride in their job. But I'm saying that it doesn't necessarily identify So them as
Duena:you're saying that there is something about the type of job that we do that seeks into our consciousness and into our way of being ourselves, and that's a lot more Absolutely. Mandatory than
Dave:Where we're struggling with the work life balance, where we're struggling with that identity of self.
Duena:I wasn't in the picture physically. I wasn't looking away for anyone for two months. But maybe that's for the best.
Dave:We could dispute that.
Duena:I appreciate it. Thank you. That's that's cute. So the reason we're asking this and the reason we're saying this and the reason we're starting the season with such a deep and strange to a degree question is because we have had to do a lot of soul searching together with our teams and together with our investors and together with our supporters regarding what we stand for, regarding what we believe in, regarding who we are professionally and individually as humans. And a lot of that thinking, maybe you want to document face people as well.
Dave:Yeah, I have been looking
Duena:at it. We can each take that in
Dave:the facings. They're looking at the dark. They're looking the dark.
Duena:We've been out of the picture for a minute because we had a student group and a lot in the world is moving. Let's be honest. Most of the world is in movement and most of the world is in turmoil and not everyone has the luxury of thinking nothing else is happening, right? We live in a world where there's active war in two important places, there's no more war dealing. We live in a world where there's civil rights being trampled every day.
Duena:We live through this ourselves. We used to think that it's just a theoretical thing, but it isn't a tort, it's a theoretical thing. It's an everyday reality for those of us that aren't different in any which way. And we did work where there's no certainty doesn't exist anymore or not the way that it did. So how can we identify with jobs and our work in a world where, let's face it, AI is coming together?
Duena:Here's your second question.
Dave:How do we ask?
Duena:AI is coming continue believing that it's okay to identify with what you do.
Dave:So if AI is coming to get all of our jobs, does that necessarily mean there are not more jobs created off the back? Or does that necessarily mean that other people are able to focus more on those things they'd like to do?
Duena:I like that. I don't like the more on the back argument, because I mean, what does that even mean? How many jobs do we need to have? Who knows what amount of jobs must exist in?
Dave:I just tried the camera again.
Duena:That view is gone.
Dave:But yeah, I used to say to the kids that people I worked with, their jobs didn't exist ten years ago. This is now just that cycle on steroids. There's still going to be more jobs out there than
Duena:I don't agree at all. I don't agree at all. Everyone will be out of jobs, so what? Why does everyone have to be a job? There will be more jobs created.
Duena:I mean, a long, long while there will be just this supreme conclusion as always. But once the confusion lifts, there will be very, very few jobs remaining for humans and those will be the jobs of being intensely human. The jobs we don't know how to do. Jobs that all of the people listening to this would be the last picked for because we are technologists, because we didn't spend time looking inside and understanding our feelings, because we are the ones that are most proud and have had most amount of can you grab that? Oblistic burnout, have had the most amount of stressors, the most amount of trauma.
Duena:And so of course, we're only well prepared. Whether it happens this generation or the next one, that's definitely where it's going. Why else if you assume any rate of
Dave:This is the eid on. If you assume any rate of improvement at all within the video game, you get to the point where you have to assume that we're all inside a video game.
Duena:No better than that. You know, argument today. I mean, I've often spoken publicly against Ivan, but he's not necessarily wrong on everything. You know, if the man knows something about the simulation, stimulation, stimulation, and the stimulation. I have nothing against any relations.
Duena:Well, why I do have something against this, the fact that we are not willing to accept that. We by we, I mean, all of us in technology and business, as eager to accept as I would like us to be, that it's time we rethink work. It's time we rethink identity. It's time we rethink our worth as humans. It's time we start valuing other things like kindness or comprehending others.
Duena:It's time we started rewarding people for those things. There's not a lot of, you know, if we accept this is moving at all, there's not a lot of time remaining for us to. We are behaving now in our forties and fifties and sixties, like people were behaving in their seventies back in the day in workforce, clinging onto a chair. We are now clinging onto nothing's happening. This is Y2K.
Duena:But something is happening and it isn't AI. My view is that what is happening is this collision of two types of beliefs, systems and attitudes in the workplace. One is that I get to be me and I get to have rights and I get to be valued and I get to have boundaries and I get to have thoughts and creativity. And the other belief is I get to do what I am told to do and I'd better move with fear. And these two beliefs will collide.
Duena:And when they collide properly and they are doing so every day in the workplace, what you have is what looks like an enterprise that has lots of human debt or lots of tech debt. If you note, listen to, if I'm not mistaken, want to tell us about it, recorded something about tech debt?
Dave:Yes. Yes. Done a small little stick on tech debt on how to tackle it, and a few articles around how we need to resolve it and see that.
Duena:It's your first episode of Developer Insights.
Dave:Yes. The last episode of Developer Insights.
Duena:Tell the people what your last episode of Developer Insights is about. I haven't actually listened to it. What is it So
Dave:conversation between myself and Mikhail Ottosson around basically his career moves and the things we think around sort of pair of programming TD there and tech debt, How we can identify, remove, and what was it?
Duena:To begin your first, and what did say? Famous dot net developer.
Dave:The famous dot net developer.
Duena:Right. Okay, So I'm sure that people are gonna go ahead and listen to them.
Dave:That makes it sound so appealing.
Duena:It may not be for me, but it may be for everyone else who cares about how developers talk to each other about their insights until you find that developer insight. And obviously we've also launched Tears of Document as our podcast that details our experiences as parents of trans children ourselves. But other than that, we just kind of let's get back to this conversation over who are we? Whether you're a technologist or an accountant listening to this or adults, we have many people who are accountants listening to us if you are out there, holler. But whoever you are, you are a human with a life, most likely a parent, and most likely someone who is living through this period of extreme world in insanity where things are changing, things are changing.
Duena:For the worst, nothing feels solid, nothing feels safe anymore, and all of us are faced with the same reality. Right?
Dave:Yeah. The world is a change. The next industrial revolution is upon us.
Duena:I doubt that it's it's it's gonna be a lot worse than that. Yes. I guess a lot better than that, not a lot worse than that because it's a question of how you wanna claim the chips are falling for humanity and the fat lady of of of where the earth's land hasn't yet sank. For all the singing we've heard so far, it's not gonna be a nice landing. I mean, it doesn't matter what you look at.
Duena:There's not one area that I can confidently say, well, at least x is going well. Can you think of any and I mean, you're not the most positive of guys, the best of
Dave:luck. No. No. The whole political situation around the world. Most countries all seem to be struggling.
Dave:I don't think there's many countries that view their government favorably at the moment.
Duena:And no government is really moving on climate change whatsoever anyway. Absolutely.
Dave:Yeah. That's all just being kicked to the back.
Duena:And on top of everything, we now have absolutely devolving civil rights and police brutally and episodes of overt and blatant hatred towards children, things that would normally not happen because they are far from the fabric of civilized society. So this is terrifying in many places on earth right now, and to ignore that, and to continue being a shoemaker who can rest in that identity is probably difficult for everyone.
Dave:It is, it is. And teaming with that, do we get to the blade runner view as the rise of the corporations? I mean, the corporations do seem now more powerful than ever. Countries by and by seem to have given up trying to get a hold of their tax dollars.
Duena:I hate this argument. Such an easy discussion, if I'm honest.
Dave:Where tax resides?
Duena:When the boys are talking about it as well, and in particular, when there's an entire anti corporation moment that the boys would have in that conversation. Because it cannot be thoughtless. It cannot be wide stroke. What are we to do away with then? Capitalism altogether?
Duena:Well, we must be I think we must be a lot more intelligent when we take the discussions, the genuine discussions about where should power exist in society and where should people be safe and how should people be safe? Because those discussions are bigger than just corporations or politics. They're about individuals and their willingness to come to the table. I think that's where we need to work more. It's very easy to push the border down the line and to point the finger at the corporation.
Dave:I'm not pointing the finger at the corporations, I'm saying the government seems to have given up the chase on the corporations on trying to bring those into here a little bit. The ordinary taxpayers, when they see they've paid more tax than Amazon have, you're to start thinking there is something else.
Duena:Yeah, I don't touch tax on our podcast.
Dave:See. Will be a fact.
Duena:I don't touch politics. I don't touch any of those because I just feel like, let's face it, there are simple arguments that we can't really make off of these podcasts without the impunity of knowing that they won't really land. So what are the odds that something as complex as a throwaway remark on tax or politics would be taken not out of context.
Dave:Very true.
Duena:Very high. So, side of tax and so on. What do we think has happened? What are the big changes of late? We've seen a lot of conversation around measuring of teams.
Duena:Again, good for Google and the Dora community for sponsoring these talks. Haven't seen as many people into them as I would have liked to have seen, but it's worth giving it a good gandan. Recommendations wise, what else would you say would be useful? Think John Cutler put out a nice little podcast as well, Niche Medicine Tech. And obviously kind of wiring the winning organization is not something that should be missed.
Duena:Nothing that Jean ever touches be missed. In particular, today, when the question to me is not whether Jean or you or I say the right things, who's listening? The question to me is, and even if people are listening, should they be listening? Does that matter? Does it matter more than life?
Dave:You'd like to think someone's listening.
Duena:Yes and no. Like to think
Dave:that people listening.
Duena:Wouldn't. I would like to think that no one's listening. People are just out living a life, death of righteousness and death to their children. But I suspect that's not necessarily what's happening.
Dave:It was at the old kids show, when you just switch off your TV set and go on, go out and do something So
Duena:that's not where it's at. It's not at the hope for a separate album. But if we're looking at kind of what has happened in the world of corporations in the last two years no. In the last four years in the London world, would you say anything has changed in the world of technology? Have we advanced any which way?
Duena:Have we learned to do anything better or less or more? Or
Dave:No, I think from the view we've got at the moment, it does seem like the return to office is being pushed and abated. I'm not entirely sure how successful that's been now.
Duena:In some industries, it's super successful, too successful. In some industries, we never can. And I am pleased to see digital nomads everywhere. So I think, let's face it, after we forgot to tell our listeners that we have one of the, in our exercises of starting a business in Europe and elsewhere, the easiest to have had it has been really stagnant in Malta, but we see the digital nomads are still alive and thriving everywhere as a culture that's amazing, what's good must remain so, but obviously, extending that would be needed to a lot more than just digital novelties to kind of move it from the element of novelty to the element of life in just any other way, precisely. So to bring it into normality, we need to do a normal work in many corporations.
Duena:But I put it together, people haven't done the work for a reason that I find very intricate. I was going to this conference with Alessandro on the civil society, which is is it possible that people just didn't didn't want to uphold the point? And that is because they needed the humanizing destruction. Think about it.
Dave:So needed, so they didn't uphold the point of mobile out.
Duena:Of I'm not coming back, right, remote work. Because they subconsciously, despite knowing intellectually they should and that's the way to go, they needed desperately to be with others.
Dave:Yes. And maybe that brings us full circle, being known by your job.
Duena:Is your work your identity?
Dave:Yes. If your work is your identity, if no one sees you doing your work, do you have an identity?
Duena:I didn't even necessarily consider the visibility. Think, but surely people are able to do a lot of visibility, see it online as well, I don't need to be in the office. Maybe there is something physical about people wanting
Dave:But there still doesn't discount those chance meetings in hallways and bumping into Bob from
Duena:accounts please don't mention any watercolor that might throw up. It's going to be like one of those men's makeup, toothbrushes, don't do it. I'm better than that. You know, all of us that have set foot back into the office, no, we didn't need to be there. Anyone who's done a meeting.
Dave:Yeah, we didn't need to be there to do work.
Duena:No, no one needed to be there to do work. And we all need to be with other people to be intentionally human.
Dave:I think
Duena:I there's a lot think the future is that of experiences. The future is that of humanizing intentionally. The future is that of people coming together to have mind wandering, to create, problem solve, to have a goal, to move the tickets in a sprint together in person for that magic, for that psychological safety wonderment moment, for that king of the happy have moved this ticket together. So, yeah, that's coming back in some way. But we haven't let it on how.
Duena:And I don't think it's gonna be a question for us anymore. At this rate, the duration is gonna change and they're gonna decide on their own to show up when they feel like it.
Dave:Yep.
Duena:Yeah. That might do.
Dave:And maybe the stereotypical view is that of the lazy teenager. But you see the more industrious teenager. We watched the show Fisk, when there was a guy who came in from Fiverr who was just taking a Fiverr to hold a door open, or run out to get some sushi, or to do this, to do that, to do the other.
Duena:She had itemized his five verses very early indeed. Yeah. And does that mean that that person does not very well know their boundaries? They very clearly know how and what they should charge for. Congratulations to them.
Duena:And maybe that is the way that you should monetize on any kind of interaction. But is that not a black mirror future that we should be wary of?
Dave:The people get paid by the people.
Duena:Yes. That we, for our listeners, wonder if are wanted people or not.
Dave:Uh-huh. There's a fifty fifty chance to get the 50 chance to get young.
Duena:Well, don't know. And you are gonna get this life, happening now. Unfortunately for anyone tuning in with the Hawks that there's something spectacular is gonna happen to us. I have news from our legal team that seemed to amount that the spectacular thing for rendered the bits coming next are going to be spectacular for the people who owe us. So we can't yet tell you everything.
Duena:We'd love to, but there's going to be enough coming your way, in the way of videos and commentary, and even documentary we have hinted at, multiple times.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah, we've got a big story to tell people.
Duena:And it's been exhausting just
Dave:keeping up with it.
Duena:Materials, and doing all of our, what was essentially the same type of exercise as the baby reindeer had to do. In our case, was just going through material from the period where we were genuinely very traumatized. We have both suffered from very serious PTSD. It's been quite distressing to even put ourselves back together, but I think we are on the mend. We are obviously not done processing.
Duena:We're going to take a We have to unpack what this has meant to us and to the children. But for now, we are as stable and as healthy as we humanly can be and as interested in cracking what is it that keeps the world of worth and the world of personal love and and really emotion and genuine existence apart because the separation is not serving anyone these days.
Dave:Agreed.
Duena:Let's ask people though, right?
Dave:Yeah. Let's ask people, are they identified by their jumps or not?
Duena:Yeah. How do they genuinely feel about it? So send us comments. Yep. Leave us your thoughts or respond to our tidbits on TikTok.
Duena:We're really interested to hear how you feel about this. How was it for you when something big exploded in your life? Obviously, hopefully nothing as big as this exploded in your life, but did you feel supported by society, family, your work, and did you feel more connected to your identity than not? Answers on our postcard, and we'll talk to you next week.
Dave:Okay. Thanks very much, everyone.
Duena:Bye.
Dave:Bye.