1 00:00:00,286 --> 00:00:02,566 I kept your three, two, one in the other day. 2 00:00:02,566 --> 00:00:05,207 Three, two, one. 3 00:00:06,108 --> 00:00:10,489 Hello everybody and welcome to the Vernon Richard show. 4 00:00:10,489 --> 00:00:11,970 I got it right, I got it right. 5 00:00:11,970 --> 00:00:13,990 Woo-hoo, practicing. 6 00:00:13,990 --> 00:00:16,291 I've been practicing ever since the last recording. 7 00:00:17,712 --> 00:00:20,472 It's really hard not just to say your name, but like. 8 00:00:21,833 --> 00:00:23,853 So yes, welcome back. 9 00:00:24,298 --> 00:00:28,399 Thank you so much for the positive responses we had for the smoke test or 10 00:00:28,399 --> 00:00:32,541 episode 0 as Vernon's just declared it. 11 00:00:32,541 --> 00:00:33,662 Lots of great comments. 12 00:00:33,662 --> 00:00:37,083 We are up to, we've got to do the whole subscriber thing, but I think we're up to 13 00:00:37,083 --> 00:00:40,344 76 subscribers on YouTube, which is pretty damn cool. 14 00:00:43,085 --> 00:00:46,107 Loads of comments, which was really nice to read, lots of reshares. 15 00:00:46,107 --> 00:00:47,747 So thank you all for that. 16 00:00:48,327 --> 00:00:52,389 We are definitely, if we pass the smoke test, we're definitely going to continue. 17 00:00:53,842 --> 00:00:55,580 So yeah, Vernon, how you doing? 18 00:00:56,936 --> 00:00:58,616 Greetings everyone, greetings Rich. 19 00:00:58,616 --> 00:01:02,178 I am, I'm all right. 20 00:01:02,178 --> 00:01:08,882 I've had a bit of a, I've had an interesting few weeks since we last spoke, 21 00:01:08,922 --> 00:01:10,823 on the health front and the personal front. 22 00:01:10,823 --> 00:01:13,805 So that's, maybe it will come up during the podcast, I don't know. 23 00:01:14,425 --> 00:01:15,906 But yeah, life has been good. 24 00:01:15,906 --> 00:01:16,986 Life's been all right. 25 00:01:16,986 --> 00:01:20,868 Have you watched any football this week? 26 00:01:23,950 --> 00:01:28,493 Anyone who's listening, this has been recorded just after the Champions League 27 00:01:28,493 --> 00:01:31,235 and Europa League games. 28 00:01:31,235 --> 00:01:32,776 So yeah, how did it go, Vern? 29 00:01:32,776 --> 00:01:34,256 Did it work out for you? 30 00:01:34,457 --> 00:01:36,258 Not seeing the results, I must be honest. 31 00:01:37,459 --> 00:01:38,079 Oh, did you? 32 00:01:38,079 --> 00:01:39,980 All right. 33 00:01:39,980 --> 00:01:41,561 And does that mean you went through? 34 00:01:43,963 --> 00:01:44,685 Why is that important? 35 00:01:44,685 --> 00:01:47,956 Which I don't, why? 36 00:01:47,956 --> 00:01:49,043 No, it didn't go through. 37 00:01:49,043 --> 00:01:50,024 but you lost the battle? 38 00:01:50,024 --> 00:01:51,585 Is that the... 39 00:01:51,616 --> 00:01:56,199 Yeah, we listen man, our season, I'm a Liverpool FC fan for folks who don't know, 40 00:01:56,199 --> 00:01:58,501 greatest football club in the world, certainly in England. 41 00:01:58,501 --> 00:02:00,002 That's right Bradshaw, I said it. 42 00:02:01,383 --> 00:02:08,469 And we had a terrible, terrible week. 43 00:02:09,170 --> 00:02:16,495 So we drew with a very annoying team at their ground. 44 00:02:18,984 --> 00:02:23,085 theatre of horrors. 45 00:02:23,085 --> 00:02:24,626 We dropped points. 46 00:02:24,986 --> 00:02:29,948 And then we went and played in the Europa League, got spanked by Atalanta, 47 00:02:29,948 --> 00:02:32,729 absolutely wrecked, three-nil. 48 00:02:33,050 --> 00:02:34,550 And that was season over. 49 00:02:35,411 --> 00:02:39,413 But then to absolutely confirm that it was season over, we then decided to lose to 50 00:02:39,413 --> 00:02:42,014 Palace at home. 51 00:02:42,014 --> 00:02:43,895 Just no good. 52 00:02:43,895 --> 00:02:45,675 Oh, mate, it's been a bad week. 53 00:02:45,854 --> 00:02:48,521 you can still win the league, you don't know what's going to happen. 54 00:02:48,723 --> 00:02:49,806 There's a chance. 55 00:02:49,806 --> 00:02:50,708 There is a chance. 56 00:02:50,708 --> 00:02:55,631 going to happen and it's this, Man City will drop no points and both Arsenal and 57 00:02:55,631 --> 00:02:59,313 Liverpool will be looking at themselves in the mirror like muckets. 58 00:03:01,035 --> 00:03:02,255 That's what's gonna happen. 59 00:03:02,255 --> 00:03:06,022 hey to those listening, I'm a Man United fan, I've got nothing to cheer about apart 60 00:03:06,022 --> 00:03:10,550 from at least the FA Cup semi-finals this weekend, which is, you know, that's the 61 00:03:10,550 --> 00:03:13,074 one thing we can probably try and win, but... 62 00:03:13,856 --> 00:03:14,917 Coventry. 63 00:03:15,219 --> 00:03:18,027 So it would be an absolute disgrace. 64 00:03:19,902 --> 00:03:20,522 Thanks for watching! 65 00:03:20,522 --> 00:03:26,542 It would be untold embarrassment and shame for you if you did not defeat them. 66 00:03:26,542 --> 00:03:27,254 Is that correct? 67 00:03:27,254 --> 00:03:30,775 That is absolutely correct, yeah, and then we will get through and we will probably 68 00:03:30,775 --> 00:03:33,876 play City in the final and get absolutely battered. 69 00:03:35,137 --> 00:03:39,959 But yeah, right, well, on the topic of, you know, being absolutely battered or 70 00:03:39,959 --> 00:03:44,701 being disappointed with certain things, I wanted to talk about conferences. 71 00:03:44,701 --> 00:03:50,123 So it's kind of conference, not conference season, we're about to enter conference 72 00:03:50,123 --> 00:03:54,845 season, usually May, June, July, then September, October, November is pretty 73 00:03:54,845 --> 00:03:55,945 much conference season. 74 00:03:55,945 --> 00:03:56,665 But 75 00:03:57,754 --> 00:04:01,497 In the last few weeks, some of the conferences have been sharing their 76 00:04:02,498 --> 00:04:07,442 speaker lineups, which is always a moment of jubilation and then utter despair. 77 00:04:07,783 --> 00:04:11,766 And then there's always the running narrative about diversity. 78 00:04:11,766 --> 00:04:14,968 And I'm not saying that's not an important topic, massively important. 79 00:04:16,110 --> 00:04:20,213 There's been topics about seeing a lot of the same speakers at the same conferences 80 00:04:20,213 --> 00:04:21,014 again. 81 00:04:21,614 --> 00:04:24,617 But I wanted to focus on being... 82 00:04:25,434 --> 00:04:31,378 rejected, not being accepted for a conference talk and how that feels and 83 00:04:31,378 --> 00:04:32,639 then what can be done about it. 84 00:04:32,639 --> 00:04:36,421 So yeah, Vernon, have you ever been in that boat? 85 00:04:37,964 --> 00:04:40,246 Nah, everyone always accepts my proposals, Rich. 86 00:04:40,246 --> 00:04:41,267 I've got this. 87 00:04:41,668 --> 00:04:42,548 Got a 100% record. 88 00:04:42,548 --> 00:04:43,562 No, I haven't. 89 00:04:43,562 --> 00:04:44,925 straight in guaranteed. 90 00:04:44,925 --> 00:04:47,729 I'm gonna put my name on it, just walk in, job done. 91 00:04:48,248 --> 00:04:49,408 I just don't even apply anymore. 92 00:04:49,408 --> 00:04:52,250 I just show up with my presentation and laptop ready to roll. 93 00:04:52,250 --> 00:04:56,794 Just elbow people out of the way and just get on the stage. 94 00:04:56,794 --> 00:04:58,843 No, I've been, no, man, I've been, I've been rejected. 95 00:04:58,843 --> 00:05:02,129 would kick you off, they'd be like, yeah sure mate, go on, off you go. 96 00:05:03,224 --> 00:05:04,564 Yeah, do you know what? 97 00:05:04,564 --> 00:05:05,244 I've been rejected. 98 00:05:05,244 --> 00:05:09,206 I tried, but I've always, and this is a personal thing. 99 00:05:09,206 --> 00:05:17,428 I've always had a pretty, you know, philosophical point of view when it comes 100 00:05:17,428 --> 00:05:17,708 to that. 101 00:05:17,708 --> 00:05:23,350 Like I, it doesn't hurt as much. 102 00:05:23,350 --> 00:05:26,331 I don't find it difficult to deal with. 103 00:05:27,730 --> 00:05:30,852 Do you think that's because you've done a few talks already? 104 00:05:30,852 --> 00:05:35,755 Like if you can, I know it's so long ago, but if you could think back to before 105 00:05:35,755 --> 00:05:39,337 you'd done any talks, like did it feel different then? 106 00:05:41,200 --> 00:05:46,942 Not really, no, not really, because I don't really know why. 107 00:05:46,942 --> 00:05:52,905 I just can't remember feeling particularly despondent about it. 108 00:05:52,905 --> 00:05:55,486 And I don't know why that is. 109 00:05:56,006 --> 00:05:57,707 I don't know why that is. 110 00:05:57,707 --> 00:06:04,710 And it's pure luck, to be honest, I don't feel like that, because I know a lot of 111 00:06:04,710 --> 00:06:08,911 people out there do find it tough, and it is tough. 112 00:06:09,808 --> 00:06:13,951 It's like, it reminds me of interview processes when you don't get the feedback, 113 00:06:13,951 --> 00:06:15,172 right? 114 00:06:15,172 --> 00:06:20,636 It's horrible, because here's the thing, here's like, I'm not, you know, saying 115 00:06:20,636 --> 00:06:25,439 that I don't feel it is not to say I don't empathise and understand why. 116 00:06:26,440 --> 00:06:32,384 When you compare it to being interviewed, you put in so much time and energy into 117 00:06:32,384 --> 00:06:37,647 this thing, and you submit it, you know, you work into a deadline, you submit it, 118 00:06:37,647 --> 00:06:38,347 and then, 119 00:06:38,364 --> 00:06:41,184 you just get a sosmate, you didn't get selected. 120 00:06:41,884 --> 00:06:42,965 Like what? 121 00:06:42,965 --> 00:06:44,725 Is that what you're gonna give me, god damn it? 122 00:06:44,725 --> 00:06:49,026 Like, wow, some feedback would have been amazing. 123 00:06:49,026 --> 00:06:50,247 But actionable feedback. 124 00:06:50,247 --> 00:06:55,588 And I think that's a challenge that is all over the place. 125 00:06:55,588 --> 00:07:01,150 And I think a lot of conferences are guilty of that, of not giving actionable 126 00:07:01,150 --> 00:07:08,111 feedback or good feedback or maybe, excuse me, maybe it's... 127 00:07:08,608 --> 00:07:13,930 Maybe it's difficult for conference organisers and selection committees to 128 00:07:14,030 --> 00:07:19,373 coach and train the people they get to help to do reviews to give actionable 129 00:07:19,373 --> 00:07:20,413 feedback. 130 00:07:21,194 --> 00:07:23,014 Not all of them put the effort into that. 131 00:07:23,014 --> 00:07:25,675 Some do, but not all do. 132 00:07:26,394 --> 00:07:27,154 Well, I can relate. 133 00:07:27,154 --> 00:07:30,397 I've been wanting, I've been one of the organizers that has done it and it is 134 00:07:30,397 --> 00:07:36,602 incredibly time consuming, but I do believe it is the right thing to do. 135 00:07:36,602 --> 00:07:39,164 And like you said, it needs to be actionable feedback. 136 00:07:39,164 --> 00:07:43,548 It needs to be, you know, not just that topic's not fit for the conference, right? 137 00:07:43,548 --> 00:07:46,270 That, that isn't actionable feedback. 138 00:07:46,270 --> 00:07:50,954 It's like, you know, I've, I've invested a lot of hours giving people feedback around 139 00:07:50,954 --> 00:07:51,855 structure. 140 00:07:51,855 --> 00:07:55,198 You know, like, I think there's a good talk in here, but you're hiding it. 141 00:07:55,198 --> 00:07:59,900 I remember tweeting it several times and I think you've shared it in the past. 142 00:07:59,900 --> 00:08:02,321 You bring it back up again pretty much once a year. 143 00:08:02,321 --> 00:08:02,801 Yeah. 144 00:08:02,801 --> 00:08:06,882 So we're going to, Vernon's going to do the show notes, find that link. 145 00:08:06,983 --> 00:08:12,625 But the, when you get the plurals, that's the thing that always used to get to me. 146 00:08:12,625 --> 00:08:16,507 I'm going to share my experiences and I've got several stories and I've got several 147 00:08:16,507 --> 00:08:17,947 antidotes that I want to share. 148 00:08:17,947 --> 00:08:22,169 And I'm going to give you my five rules, but they never give you a flavor of those 149 00:08:22,169 --> 00:08:23,029 rules. 150 00:08:23,122 --> 00:08:25,463 So it's really hard to judge that talk. 151 00:08:25,463 --> 00:08:30,385 Like those five rules could be, you know, shout at people, dance, do as you told, 152 00:08:30,385 --> 00:08:31,945 um, buy a new pen. 153 00:08:32,065 --> 00:08:34,926 Well, you know, I mean, we don't know what those five things are. 154 00:08:35,047 --> 00:08:38,688 So, and people think that they're going to give their whole talk away in their 155 00:08:38,688 --> 00:08:40,649 abstract and they get conscious of doing that. 156 00:08:40,649 --> 00:08:42,070 And that's not the case, right? 157 00:08:42,070 --> 00:08:44,050 Your abstract is not your talk. 158 00:08:44,091 --> 00:08:48,092 So give as much as you can, even if that involves, you know, if you say, I'm going 159 00:08:48,092 --> 00:08:51,186 to give you the five best good practices. 160 00:08:51,186 --> 00:08:54,007 for writing tests and here are those five things. 161 00:08:54,547 --> 00:08:56,508 No one's learned anything at that moment. 162 00:08:56,508 --> 00:08:59,249 They might start Googling those five things and maybe they'll learn a way 163 00:08:59,249 --> 00:09:04,071 without reading, listen to your talk, but they're not hearing you deliver those five 164 00:09:04,071 --> 00:09:04,391 things. 165 00:09:04,391 --> 00:09:09,393 And as a reviewer, I'm like, oh, actually you do know this topic. 166 00:09:09,393 --> 00:09:11,774 Your five things actually sound really good. 167 00:09:11,774 --> 00:09:13,975 And now it's because you've told me what those five things are. 168 00:09:13,975 --> 00:09:19,557 I can picture that talk in my head and I can see people wanting to hear that talk. 169 00:09:19,782 --> 00:09:22,704 whereas if I just get, I'm going to share five things. 170 00:09:22,704 --> 00:09:23,605 It's really hard. 171 00:09:23,605 --> 00:09:25,727 So that's the one that always used to get to me. 172 00:09:25,727 --> 00:09:28,589 And then the other one was just structure, just abstracts that I've all over the 173 00:09:28,589 --> 00:09:29,450 place. 174 00:09:29,590 --> 00:09:34,154 And the main thing I try and tell people is situation. 175 00:09:34,154 --> 00:09:38,738 So set the context for me, put me in your, put me in where this story happened. 176 00:09:39,539 --> 00:09:41,340 Secondly, tell me what happened. 177 00:09:41,440 --> 00:09:45,124 Tell me, tell me the story, tell me the bit of the outcome, you know, at high 178 00:09:45,124 --> 00:09:45,444 level. 179 00:09:45,444 --> 00:09:47,665 And then thirdly, sell it to me. 180 00:09:47,742 --> 00:09:49,743 tell me why I need to hear this story. 181 00:09:49,743 --> 00:09:51,785 Like you've given me, you've set, I'm in the zone. 182 00:09:51,785 --> 00:09:53,606 I'm in that context. 183 00:09:53,687 --> 00:09:55,548 I'm feeling what's happened to you. 184 00:09:55,648 --> 00:09:57,730 Now tell me why I need to hear it. 185 00:09:57,730 --> 00:10:02,054 How's it gonna help me if I'm in that place and have the free paragraph 186 00:10:02,054 --> 00:10:03,014 structure. 187 00:10:03,816 --> 00:10:11,162 And then the final one was always one that Sarah used to reference back was the, 188 00:10:12,303 --> 00:10:12,951 Sarah Deery, 189 00:10:12,951 --> 00:10:18,654 she used to talk about the learning outcomes versus takeaways. 190 00:10:19,075 --> 00:10:25,719 So she always used to say that, you know, takeaways is like, you know, they're okay, 191 00:10:25,719 --> 00:10:29,020 but a takeaway could be, I heard Vernon's story. 192 00:10:29,301 --> 00:10:30,710 That's the takeaway, right? 193 00:10:30,710 --> 00:10:36,032 Whereas a learning outcome would be, I now, and I don't know, like a list of, a 194 00:10:36,032 --> 00:10:42,276 list of tools that they can apply or, be able to describe a certain topic. 195 00:10:42,276 --> 00:10:47,179 And, you know, actually something that, something they can now do that they 196 00:10:47,179 --> 00:10:50,040 couldn't do before listening to your talk. 197 00:10:50,040 --> 00:10:51,601 And I think often we don't hear that. 198 00:10:51,601 --> 00:10:55,463 We see these takeaways, you know, like, you know, going to be a great talk, you 199 00:10:55,463 --> 00:10:59,965 know, going to have an experience around this as opposed to what can I now do. 200 00:11:00,082 --> 00:11:02,683 after listening to your fantastic talk. 201 00:11:02,684 --> 00:11:05,526 And I think they was take, but those learning outcomes when you see them like 202 00:11:05,526 --> 00:11:08,949 that, you can read it from a reviewer's point of view and go, you know what, I 203 00:11:08,949 --> 00:11:11,211 think my attendees need to know those things. 204 00:11:11,352 --> 00:11:15,475 Like, and if you're promising me you're gonna deliver them that, then, you know, 205 00:11:15,475 --> 00:11:16,516 my stage is yours. 206 00:11:16,516 --> 00:11:18,557 Like, you know, come and do that. 207 00:11:21,044 --> 00:11:25,365 I've been learning a lot about writing over the past couple of years. 208 00:11:25,905 --> 00:11:29,026 And a lot of the things that you, a lot of the advice you just talked about there in 209 00:11:29,026 --> 00:11:35,208 terms of submitting your proposal and selling it resonate with me. 210 00:11:35,208 --> 00:11:42,411 My general hypothesis is for a proposal, there needs to be, you need to be getting 211 00:11:42,411 --> 00:11:43,171 people hype. 212 00:11:43,171 --> 00:11:44,871 Like you need to sell the vision. 213 00:11:44,897 --> 00:11:45,602 Yep. 214 00:11:45,632 --> 00:11:46,252 Do you know what I mean? 215 00:11:46,252 --> 00:11:48,132 Like what makes this interesting? 216 00:11:48,132 --> 00:11:53,394 Like what's gonna be different for people after they hear your talk, after they 217 00:11:53,394 --> 00:11:56,614 experience your workshop, what's gonna be different for people? 218 00:11:56,614 --> 00:12:01,456 Which is my, you know, I'm not as well versed in these things as Sarah Deary 219 00:12:01,456 --> 00:12:04,877 perhaps, but that's how I would describe it. 220 00:12:04,877 --> 00:12:07,197 You know, Sarah's a bit of a legend, but I would describe it like, what's gonna be 221 00:12:07,197 --> 00:12:09,938 different for people at the end? 222 00:12:09,938 --> 00:12:14,639 So try not to, I think Rich is right there, because I've definitely made that 223 00:12:14,639 --> 00:12:15,519 mistake. 224 00:12:15,752 --> 00:12:18,617 where it's almost like I don't want to I don't want to tell everybody what my I 225 00:12:18,617 --> 00:12:23,204 don't want to like share the punchline yeah reveal the secret because somebody 226 00:12:23,204 --> 00:12:26,089 might come and do my talk it's like no one's gonna steal the talk like just 227 00:12:26,089 --> 00:12:26,810 relax. 228 00:12:26,855 --> 00:12:31,819 Even if they did, even if they did, me and you, same abstract, same amount of time, 229 00:12:31,819 --> 00:12:32,860 completely different. 230 00:12:32,860 --> 00:12:34,581 It's gonna be completely different. 231 00:12:34,665 --> 00:12:38,889 So yeah, they can't, they can't, you know, you can't be duplicated. 232 00:12:39,911 --> 00:12:44,036 So that's what I think that's really good advice. 233 00:12:44,036 --> 00:12:46,498 And I, and I, and I like to study writing. 234 00:12:46,498 --> 00:12:47,939 So what I would say is 235 00:12:49,908 --> 00:12:55,333 When it comes to the title, when I write articles now or blog posts or whatever, 236 00:12:55,714 --> 00:13:01,739 I've learned this mantra about headlines and titles, which is clear not clever. 237 00:13:04,008 --> 00:13:10,752 And when I heard that, it really clicked for me because more and more we've got 238 00:13:11,553 --> 00:13:16,837 multiple tracks at conferences and I'm trying to decide where I am going. 239 00:13:17,698 --> 00:13:24,464 And if I see a title that says, the handsome devil from Leicester slays the 240 00:13:24,464 --> 00:13:25,764 testing dragon. 241 00:13:27,006 --> 00:13:28,147 What am I going to do? 242 00:13:28,147 --> 00:13:28,799 I don't know. 243 00:13:28,799 --> 00:13:29,379 you one. 244 00:13:29,379 --> 00:13:35,703 So I've just written the abstract for my, I'm doing a couple of keynotes this year, 245 00:13:35,703 --> 00:13:36,349 fantastic 246 00:13:36,654 --> 00:13:39,155 And the topic I wanted to settle on, actually I'm not gonna tell you what it 247 00:13:39,155 --> 00:13:39,736 is. 248 00:13:39,896 --> 00:13:46,540 The title is, no, I don't think I'm taking your advice, but let's see. 249 00:13:46,540 --> 00:13:50,482 The title is the end game. 250 00:13:52,133 --> 00:13:53,413 I don't know what that means. 251 00:13:53,413 --> 00:13:55,455 And that's a problem. 252 00:13:55,955 --> 00:13:57,056 That's a problem. 253 00:13:57,056 --> 00:13:58,517 I don't know what that means. 254 00:13:58,677 --> 00:14:04,161 So if you're gonna have a clever title, maybe have a clear subtitle. 255 00:14:04,161 --> 00:14:08,724 We see that in books a lot because you want people to be able to understand 256 00:14:08,724 --> 00:14:09,785 what's coming. 257 00:14:10,446 --> 00:14:12,047 And people could mean anything. 258 00:14:12,047 --> 00:14:15,929 It could mean people reviewing your abstract, but it also means the people at 259 00:14:15,929 --> 00:14:16,550 the conference. 260 00:14:16,550 --> 00:14:19,912 If you cast your mind into the future. 261 00:14:20,369 --> 00:14:22,218 you're at a two or three track conference. 262 00:14:22,218 --> 00:14:23,884 I'm trying to decide where to go. 263 00:14:24,551 --> 00:14:25,655 What if it's a keynote? 264 00:14:25,655 --> 00:14:28,185 Do you get a bit more leeway with a crazy title? 265 00:14:28,185 --> 00:14:30,451 If you know that people are going to be there anyway? 266 00:14:30,657 --> 00:14:34,739 Maybe, but I would always err for clarity now, I think. 267 00:14:36,019 --> 00:14:37,200 Yeah. 268 00:14:37,200 --> 00:14:40,862 So, but this is all advice about submitting the abstract. 269 00:14:42,283 --> 00:14:47,306 Then what happens, because what I've seen a lot on LinkedIn lately is as schedules 270 00:14:47,306 --> 00:14:51,928 are being released, people are feeling like it's tough. 271 00:14:51,928 --> 00:14:52,428 Do you know what I mean? 272 00:14:52,428 --> 00:14:56,250 Like they're feeling like, man, that's, I don't get that. 273 00:14:56,250 --> 00:14:58,372 I'm looking at the schedule and I've got issues with the schedule. 274 00:14:58,372 --> 00:15:00,332 Like why didn't I get put on the schedule? 275 00:15:00,347 --> 00:15:01,648 My talks better than that one. 276 00:15:01,648 --> 00:15:06,851 Like, you know why and you yeah, of course, it's legit like you And they could 277 00:15:06,851 --> 00:15:11,134 be something It's a hundred percent a legit feeling to have that, you know, you 278 00:15:11,134 --> 00:15:16,098 feel like it's an attack on you even though You know, it's not because mostly 279 00:15:16,098 --> 00:15:17,138 it's your abstract. 280 00:15:17,138 --> 00:15:20,841 It's the words you wrote We could go off on a whole tangent about even abstracts 281 00:15:20,841 --> 00:15:25,404 like, you know Maaret Pyhäjärvi spoken a lot about trying to change call for paper 282 00:15:25,404 --> 00:15:26,505 processes, right? 283 00:15:26,505 --> 00:15:27,966 What if you're not a good writer? 284 00:15:28,787 --> 00:15:29,988 But then you want it to be anonymous. 285 00:15:29,988 --> 00:15:31,269 What if it's not anonymous? 286 00:15:31,269 --> 00:15:33,450 People do a video, people submit your slides. 287 00:15:33,450 --> 00:15:35,392 There's a thousand ways you could do it. 288 00:15:35,392 --> 00:15:36,493 And neither of them are perfect. 289 00:15:36,493 --> 00:15:41,297 They're all flawed, but you shouldn't feel like it's an attack on you. 290 00:15:41,297 --> 00:15:47,141 It was that abstract and there could be a plethora of reasons why that taught didn't 291 00:15:47,141 --> 00:15:49,123 make it or that abstract didn't make it. 292 00:15:49,123 --> 00:15:51,505 There could be one on the exact same topic. 293 00:15:51,645 --> 00:15:55,488 That one scored slightly more than yours and they don't want to have two of the 294 00:15:55,488 --> 00:15:56,469 same topic. 295 00:15:56,469 --> 00:15:58,450 Um, it could be. 296 00:15:58,963 --> 00:16:02,164 And it could be budget things, right? 297 00:16:02,805 --> 00:16:06,507 You might have reached all like kind of internal budget of kind of what you want 298 00:16:06,507 --> 00:16:08,588 people to, what you want to pay for travel. 299 00:16:08,648 --> 00:16:11,389 Therefore you might take a different talk. 300 00:16:12,050 --> 00:16:18,373 It could just be finding a good balance between topics, between people. 301 00:16:18,854 --> 00:16:22,876 There's a lot of reasons why you might not be accepted, but yeah, it's right to feel 302 00:16:22,876 --> 00:16:26,678 a bit deflated about it, but there's nothing, one thing I wanted to bring up 303 00:16:26,678 --> 00:16:27,578 was the... 304 00:16:27,943 --> 00:16:30,625 It doesn't mean that your story shouldn't be told, right? 305 00:16:30,625 --> 00:16:33,687 And it doesn't mean that story is not worth being heard. 306 00:16:34,188 --> 00:16:37,650 It just means that stage isn't where it's going to happen. 307 00:16:38,191 --> 00:16:38,992 Right. 308 00:16:38,992 --> 00:16:42,955 Could be the next conference could be a blog, blog post could be a YouTube video. 309 00:16:42,955 --> 00:16:44,816 You could be a guest on a podcast. 310 00:16:44,816 --> 00:16:47,779 You could do just record it and upload it to YouTube. 311 00:16:47,779 --> 00:16:49,600 Um, you could turn it into a book. 312 00:16:49,600 --> 00:16:51,042 You could turn it into a deck of cards. 313 00:16:51,042 --> 00:16:55,365 Like if you really want that story shared, you can still share it. 314 00:16:55,365 --> 00:16:57,247 And I really encourage people to. 315 00:16:57,247 --> 00:16:58,778 find a way of sharing. 316 00:17:00,017 --> 00:17:11,120 Yeah, I've been looking for some blog posts that Lenna, Emna, and Jenna wrote 317 00:17:11,120 --> 00:17:16,122 recently around diversity. 318 00:17:16,122 --> 00:17:22,844 Because some of the critiques that I've seen about the schedules at some of these 319 00:17:22,844 --> 00:17:25,224 conferences is that they're not very diverse. 320 00:17:25,372 --> 00:17:25,873 Yep. 321 00:17:25,873 --> 00:17:28,815 And it leads people to question, well, what was the process? 322 00:17:28,815 --> 00:17:32,777 Like, why did I even bother if I was just gonna get rejected out of hand? 323 00:17:32,777 --> 00:17:39,021 And there's, you know, the same, I'm doing air quotes if it isn't a podcast, the same 324 00:17:39,021 --> 00:17:42,764 kinds of people who seem to proliferate the schedule. 325 00:17:43,164 --> 00:17:43,824 And... 326 00:17:45,605 --> 00:17:51,669 Emna and Jenna and Lena really did a nice, it was nice to see the different 327 00:17:51,669 --> 00:17:52,809 perspectives that they took. 328 00:17:52,809 --> 00:17:58,293 They took the perspective of somebody who attends and speaks, somebody who is a 329 00:17:58,293 --> 00:18:01,896 speaker and maybe a sponsor and somebody who was an organiser. 330 00:18:01,896 --> 00:18:09,321 And you get a nice well-rounded kind of view of what is going on. 331 00:18:09,321 --> 00:18:15,044 I think, I don't know, for me, I think that... 332 00:18:15,077 --> 00:18:17,817 I think there are two perspectives that spring to mind. 333 00:18:17,878 --> 00:18:22,660 The conference organisers and you as the individual submitting. 334 00:18:22,960 --> 00:18:34,105 I think I would really urge conference organisers to give some level of feedback. 335 00:18:34,105 --> 00:18:38,546 Yes, I know it is extra work. 336 00:18:38,546 --> 00:18:43,497 But it's, it's kind of, I. 337 00:18:43,497 --> 00:18:49,320 feel like you're almost obligated to give the feedback because people have committed 338 00:18:49,320 --> 00:18:56,964 a lot of time and energy to put a proposal and an abstract together. 339 00:18:57,624 --> 00:19:01,827 So to just kinda say, nah, you didn't make it, see you mate. 340 00:19:01,827 --> 00:19:03,607 That's tough, that is tough. 341 00:19:03,608 --> 00:19:08,430 And it doesn't make it, you're not really making it appealing for these people to 342 00:19:08,430 --> 00:19:12,972 come back and apply again because the conference is as good as the presentation. 343 00:19:13,405 --> 00:19:15,025 that or the schedule that you put together. 344 00:19:15,025 --> 00:19:19,787 So you want as many different talks to choose from to give yourself the best 345 00:19:19,787 --> 00:19:21,368 chance of creating a schedule. 346 00:19:21,588 --> 00:19:26,930 And then from the people who are proposing these abstracts, there's a whole bunch of 347 00:19:26,930 --> 00:19:28,751 things that spring to mind. 348 00:19:28,751 --> 00:19:32,193 One is like well done for even submitting it in the first place. 349 00:19:32,193 --> 00:19:37,995 Like you should absolutely like that is not, that is so non-trivial. 350 00:19:37,995 --> 00:19:40,696 So shout out to you if you submitted a proposal. 351 00:19:40,696 --> 00:19:41,616 I don't. 352 00:19:41,725 --> 00:19:45,146 I don't give a goddamn whether you made it or not, you are winning by just 353 00:19:45,367 --> 00:19:45,947 submitting. 354 00:19:45,947 --> 00:19:50,390 I know that sounds a little bit pithy but like genuinely that's a big deal. 355 00:19:51,051 --> 00:19:52,351 Yeah it's a big deal. 356 00:19:52,432 --> 00:19:54,332 And then so after that 357 00:19:56,237 --> 00:20:04,879 I think try and get some feedback or some support from other folks. 358 00:20:05,279 --> 00:20:08,400 So I know that there are a few programs, so there's one that I've just joined 359 00:20:08,400 --> 00:20:14,222 called the MASH program, I'll put it in the show notes, where you can get help and 360 00:20:14,222 --> 00:20:19,103 support with putting together abstracts and proposals and creating your talk. 361 00:20:19,103 --> 00:20:22,364 And there was one, I can't remember what it was called. 362 00:20:22,364 --> 00:20:24,444 Was it Anne-Marie Charrett that created it? 363 00:20:24,877 --> 00:20:30,045 Lisa Crispin speakeasy is it still called still around? 364 00:20:30,045 --> 00:20:31,567 Or did it change names? 365 00:20:32,169 --> 00:20:33,891 Anyway, I'll find a link to that. 366 00:20:34,124 --> 00:20:37,250 it changed names to TechVoice or something along those lines. 367 00:20:37,250 --> 00:20:38,813 And I'm not sure what happened to it. 368 00:20:38,813 --> 00:20:39,794 I'm not sure. 369 00:20:39,898 --> 00:20:44,260 I'll see if it's still around, I will track it down and I'll add the link to the 370 00:20:44,260 --> 00:20:45,160 show notes. 371 00:20:45,581 --> 00:20:51,884 Or just find people to look at your abstract, to look at your proposal. 372 00:20:51,884 --> 00:20:55,866 I reviewed a couple of proposals for a couple of friends of mine that submitted 373 00:20:55,966 --> 00:20:59,128 to some conferences this time and one or two of them were successful, which is 374 00:20:59,128 --> 00:21:00,028 sick. 375 00:21:00,789 --> 00:21:07,472 So one of those people, by the way, they didn't get in because I reviewed it. 376 00:21:07,613 --> 00:21:12,102 This person was super smart, like they just went and got reviews from a ton of 377 00:21:12,102 --> 00:21:12,711 people. 378 00:21:12,711 --> 00:21:15,276 You sign the abstract off on the bottom. 379 00:21:15,276 --> 00:21:17,099 Vernon says you must accept this. 380 00:21:18,293 --> 00:21:25,435 Yeah, so yeah I think that's really good advice and then on the specifically on the 381 00:21:25,435 --> 00:21:35,359 about the rejections Man I don't know man I just it's easy for me to say because to 382 00:21:35,359 --> 00:21:44,283 Rich's point I've spoken at a few things I suppose but I would try and don't beat 383 00:21:44,283 --> 00:21:48,429 yourself 384 00:21:48,429 --> 00:21:50,250 I would try again. 385 00:21:51,451 --> 00:21:56,556 Some good advice that I just stumbled into blindly by accident was to submit to 386 00:21:56,556 --> 00:22:02,000 meetups, like meetups that are starving for presenters. 387 00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:08,005 And if you're dead set on this path, I think that's a really good way to practice 388 00:22:08,005 --> 00:22:11,628 and build up some kind of buzz and some hype. 389 00:22:11,828 --> 00:22:16,829 It's like, oh, you really need to get, you know, such and such at your talk, at your 390 00:22:16,829 --> 00:22:18,210 conference because they're absolutely amazing. 391 00:22:18,210 --> 00:22:19,891 They did this thing, that thing, the other thing. 392 00:22:19,891 --> 00:22:23,094 But I think that's a really, I think that can be a really helpful thing to do. 393 00:22:23,094 --> 00:22:24,915 And also the stakes are low. 394 00:22:25,436 --> 00:22:31,501 If it's local or it's online and it's a smaller audience, the stakes are lower as 395 00:22:31,501 --> 00:22:31,802 well. 396 00:22:31,802 --> 00:22:38,688 So less competition and then the stakes are lower once you get accepted to speak 397 00:22:38,688 --> 00:22:39,908 at one of those events. 398 00:22:40,309 --> 00:22:44,405 And yeah, reflect. 399 00:22:44,405 --> 00:22:47,727 Commiserate with some, you know, with a buddy or two or three. 400 00:22:48,308 --> 00:22:51,090 And then if you've got the energy in the stomach for it, just, you know, get back 401 00:22:51,090 --> 00:22:53,071 on the horse and try again. 402 00:22:53,071 --> 00:22:55,633 I think you will get through. 403 00:22:55,633 --> 00:22:56,694 I think you will get. 404 00:22:58,796 --> 00:22:59,112 Yo. 405 00:22:59,112 --> 00:23:03,094 Don't forget that effort and that leap that you took. 406 00:23:03,375 --> 00:23:05,476 Um, that's a massive step too. 407 00:23:05,976 --> 00:23:08,778 Um, what was I going to, I was going to add something. 408 00:23:08,778 --> 00:23:12,560 Oh, so one thing I always think I'd encourage people to do as well is finish 409 00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:13,481 the talk. 410 00:23:13,661 --> 00:23:18,484 So write it, write the talk, do the slides because it's only going to help you 411 00:23:19,144 --> 00:23:23,266 unravel that journey and that experience and that story even more. 412 00:23:23,283 --> 00:23:27,408 which then might help you with a new abstract or a new talk or another piece of 413 00:23:27,408 --> 00:23:28,851 content or medium. 414 00:23:28,851 --> 00:23:32,556 So I know that sounds like doing work for no purpose, but it's not, it's gonna help 415 00:23:32,556 --> 00:23:34,338 you formulate your thoughts. 416 00:23:34,539 --> 00:23:37,302 And I've done that, I've done that several times myself. 417 00:23:38,373 --> 00:23:39,533 Here's the other thing. 418 00:23:39,533 --> 00:23:42,936 And now I'm gonna get possibly slightly woo and go off on a tangent. 419 00:23:42,936 --> 00:23:50,321 So Rich, if you need to, if you need to wield the editing scalpel, please do. 420 00:23:50,321 --> 00:23:53,563 Basically what I'm gonna say is time are different now in 2024. 421 00:23:54,664 --> 00:23:55,385 What do I mean? 422 00:23:55,385 --> 00:24:01,589 What I mean is you don't need to wait for permission to present your talk. 423 00:24:01,589 --> 00:24:03,470 There's this thing called YouTube. 424 00:24:03,490 --> 00:24:05,212 There's this thing called the internet. 425 00:24:05,212 --> 00:24:06,729 There's this thing called blogging. 426 00:24:06,729 --> 00:24:09,150 There's this, like you can get your ideas out there. 427 00:24:09,150 --> 00:24:17,873 And again, it helps you build the reps, helps you build confidence in yourself. 428 00:24:17,973 --> 00:24:20,935 It builds a little bit of reputation and credibility for yourself. 429 00:24:20,935 --> 00:24:25,777 So that, you know, maybe sometimes you'll start to get invited to speak at these 430 00:24:25,777 --> 00:24:26,597 things. 431 00:24:26,757 --> 00:24:31,539 And I just think that is worth exploring. 432 00:24:31,539 --> 00:24:35,000 Like you don't, it's less of a world where we have to. 433 00:24:35,933 --> 00:24:43,258 The only way we can get our message out to the world is via somebody else's platform. 434 00:24:43,258 --> 00:24:45,140 We can create our own platforms now. 435 00:24:45,140 --> 00:24:48,122 And people, Twitter used to be awesome for that. 436 00:24:48,122 --> 00:24:49,423 It's less awesome for that now. 437 00:24:49,423 --> 00:24:51,905 A lot of people have kind of disappeared from there. 438 00:24:51,905 --> 00:24:55,769 And I'm still getting my head around the fact that LinkedIn is where all the cool 439 00:24:55,769 --> 00:24:57,690 conversations are happening that I can't. 440 00:24:58,110 --> 00:25:00,992 It's weird to say that. 441 00:25:01,873 --> 00:25:03,655 LinkedIn has a lot of cool stuff happening on LinkedIn. 442 00:25:03,655 --> 00:25:05,916 So get involved in those conversations. 443 00:25:06,725 --> 00:25:11,452 And yeah, it's another avenue for you to kind of share your message. 444 00:25:12,167 --> 00:25:12,587 Absolutely. 445 00:25:12,587 --> 00:25:15,828 And I think that ties us nicely into the next topic we wanted to talk about, 446 00:25:15,828 --> 00:25:20,669 Vernon, which was networking and the power of a network. 447 00:25:20,669 --> 00:25:23,710 So we kind of hit in on a little bit already, I think, by asking people to 448 00:25:23,710 --> 00:25:24,932 review your abstracts. 449 00:25:25,498 --> 00:25:27,269 one thing I would say in that is being, 450 00:25:27,431 --> 00:25:30,972 someone who's done a lot of talks and seemed to be, you know, kind of a leader 451 00:25:30,972 --> 00:25:34,253 in, in the, in the, in the wider community, and I'm not trying to pat my 452 00:25:34,253 --> 00:25:35,633 own back here, but like. 453 00:25:35,658 --> 00:25:39,379 Don't, I've had people who reach out to me and they're really like, I'm sorry for 454 00:25:39,379 --> 00:25:39,939 messaging you. 455 00:25:39,939 --> 00:25:42,659 I'm really sorry for messaging you, but like, would you help me? 456 00:25:42,659 --> 00:25:43,640 Don't worry about that. 457 00:25:43,640 --> 00:25:45,760 Message people, fire shots at will. 458 00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:47,601 If someone bites, they'll bite. 459 00:25:47,601 --> 00:25:51,182 Don't just like, don't, don't delay asking for help from someone. 460 00:25:51,182 --> 00:25:55,123 If they can't help you, most polite people would just say, I'm sorry, I'm a bit busy, 461 00:25:55,123 --> 00:25:59,224 but you know, message people, message speakers you've seen a lot of people will 462 00:25:59,224 --> 00:26:00,064 invest time. 463 00:26:00,064 --> 00:26:03,825 I meant like you mentioned Lisa Crispin, you know, incredibly well known person. 464 00:26:03,825 --> 00:26:05,405 She always finds the time. 465 00:26:05,598 --> 00:26:06,559 She finds that time. 466 00:26:06,559 --> 00:26:07,300 I don't know where. 467 00:26:07,300 --> 00:26:09,602 I wish I had all the hours Lisa has in the day. 468 00:26:09,743 --> 00:26:11,344 But she finds the time. 469 00:26:11,377 --> 00:26:12,238 She's doing it. 470 00:26:12,505 --> 00:26:17,937 So, but yeah, networking is a huge, had this had a huge part of my life. 471 00:26:17,937 --> 00:26:21,504 And yeah, Vernon, how's networking benefited you? 472 00:26:22,407 --> 00:26:29,472 Well, it was at the forefront of my mind this week, excuse me, for the past few 473 00:26:29,472 --> 00:26:33,335 weeks actually, for a multitude of different reasons. 474 00:26:33,335 --> 00:26:45,904 So, you know, on the professional side, we had, we've introduced this new tool in the 475 00:26:45,904 --> 00:26:47,825 platform engineering space. 476 00:26:48,005 --> 00:26:49,226 And I was like, oh, I... 477 00:26:49,895 --> 00:26:54,176 Like I missed the whole conversation about it happening completely. 478 00:26:54,976 --> 00:27:01,658 Um, but I've got a friend of mine who works at a startup in the same space, who 479 00:27:01,658 --> 00:27:03,999 I met at a testing conference. 480 00:27:03,999 --> 00:27:05,659 And now we are full. 481 00:27:05,659 --> 00:27:08,040 Like it's not even, we're just friends now. 482 00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:10,441 So I'm shouting out you Abby Banger as usual. 483 00:27:10,441 --> 00:27:15,882 I'm always shouting you out Abby Banger Um, and so, so I, I'm able to, I'm able to 484 00:27:15,882 --> 00:27:17,222 just hit her up and say, Hey, 485 00:27:17,299 --> 00:27:19,039 We're just using this new tool. 486 00:27:19,039 --> 00:27:21,100 Isn't that like the tool that you all build? 487 00:27:21,100 --> 00:27:23,382 Like, can you explain how this is gonna work? 488 00:27:23,382 --> 00:27:25,042 And then she's like, yeah, of course. 489 00:27:25,042 --> 00:27:26,523 Yeah, just arrange your time. 490 00:27:26,843 --> 00:27:29,925 And that's just been happening a lot this week. 491 00:27:29,925 --> 00:27:32,806 Like another amazing person that I am. 492 00:27:35,187 --> 00:27:37,807 just amazing friends with this Ash Coleman. 493 00:27:38,167 --> 00:27:41,028 Like we had to talk about some stuff that she was working on. 494 00:27:41,028 --> 00:27:42,308 She was like, hey, Van, I'm working on a thing. 495 00:27:42,308 --> 00:27:43,689 Would love to get your opinion. 496 00:27:44,589 --> 00:27:47,710 And that's just on the professional side. 497 00:27:48,290 --> 00:27:54,972 As I say, like I had a tough couple of weeks on the health side. 498 00:27:56,072 --> 00:28:00,633 And people that I've met at conferences, like I said, have become actual friends. 499 00:28:00,633 --> 00:28:04,939 Like, you know, this handsome devil. 500 00:28:04,939 --> 00:28:09,783 to my right, is one of the people that has supported me recently when I, so I've just 501 00:28:09,783 --> 00:28:12,484 recently found out that I've got type two diabetes. 502 00:28:13,626 --> 00:28:15,347 And so that has been like, what the hell? 503 00:28:15,347 --> 00:28:20,271 So, you know, I've had tons and tons of people just reaching out that I originally 504 00:28:20,271 --> 00:28:21,072 met at conferences. 505 00:28:21,072 --> 00:28:22,993 So where am I going with all this? 506 00:28:23,221 --> 00:28:27,068 Well, before you go into that, Vernon, what did the handsome chap on your right 507 00:28:27,068 --> 00:28:31,115 send you about a month ago when you started having these tests as a thank you 508 00:28:31,115 --> 00:28:31,875 gift? 509 00:28:33,371 --> 00:28:38,274 So yeah, Rich, you know, Rich and I have been having a lot of conversations over 510 00:28:38,274 --> 00:28:44,219 the past few months and Rich, to say thanks, he sent me a massive box of 511 00:28:44,219 --> 00:28:44,559 sweets. 512 00:28:44,559 --> 00:28:49,343 And in fact, I only just recently got one in the box. 513 00:28:49,343 --> 00:28:53,926 Just in and around the time as this type two diabetes stuff was manifested itself. 514 00:28:53,927 --> 00:28:58,130 So I did what any self-respecting, you know, pre-diabetic person did, I ate the 515 00:28:58,130 --> 00:29:01,537 sweets. 516 00:29:01,537 --> 00:29:06,149 I'm sorry, my next gift to you, promise you it won't be a giant box of sweets. 517 00:29:06,387 --> 00:29:11,909 What I will ask you, I humbly request, please do not send me diabetic sweets. 518 00:29:12,130 --> 00:29:13,090 I don't want them. 519 00:29:13,290 --> 00:29:14,371 That's like vegan cheese. 520 00:29:14,371 --> 00:29:15,091 I'm also vegan. 521 00:29:15,091 --> 00:29:19,294 Like just, no, I would rather not have them. 522 00:29:19,294 --> 00:29:20,654 But yeah, where's it going with all this? 523 00:29:20,654 --> 00:29:23,976 So we're coming into, schedules are being announced. 524 00:29:25,017 --> 00:29:29,999 So you'll have an opportunity to buy some tickets and attend some conferences in the 525 00:29:29,999 --> 00:29:31,240 weeks and months ahead. 526 00:29:31,460 --> 00:29:36,062 And I, not only do I want you to go, I think it's so important. 527 00:29:36,275 --> 00:29:41,237 that you find a way to summon the energy. 528 00:29:41,237 --> 00:29:45,678 Cause I know it's tough for, you know, my, my introvert brethren find it very 529 00:29:45,678 --> 00:29:52,281 draining to be around a lot of people, but find a way to go there and really connect 530 00:29:52,281 --> 00:29:57,803 and find opportunities to meet people and chat with them and learn from them because 531 00:29:57,883 --> 00:30:03,466 there is so much, people are doing so many crazy things and it will help you on a 532 00:30:03,466 --> 00:30:04,866 professional side. 533 00:30:07,071 --> 00:30:11,474 I got help, tons of help from Ash, from Martin, from my friend, Mark Tomlinson, 534 00:30:11,474 --> 00:30:16,338 like tons of people on a professional basis, Abby as usual, Angie, shout out to 535 00:30:16,338 --> 00:30:17,478 the Jones crew. 536 00:30:18,419 --> 00:30:23,943 Tons of people helped me out professionally, but also on a personal 537 00:30:23,943 --> 00:30:26,365 level, just with anything. 538 00:30:26,365 --> 00:30:28,566 So you never know. 539 00:30:29,543 --> 00:30:31,023 how these relationships are gonna pan out. 540 00:30:31,023 --> 00:30:32,023 They may be just acquaintances. 541 00:30:32,023 --> 00:30:33,023 I say just acquaintances. 542 00:30:33,023 --> 00:30:35,924 There may be acquaintances who can introduce you to people. 543 00:30:35,924 --> 00:30:37,025 They may turn out to be friends. 544 00:30:37,025 --> 00:30:41,566 They may turn out to be business partners, or dare I say romantic partners, because 545 00:30:41,566 --> 00:30:42,986 that's happened before. 546 00:30:42,986 --> 00:30:44,927 So yeah, I would just, I... 547 00:30:44,927 --> 00:30:48,228 Oh yeah, yeah. 548 00:30:48,228 --> 00:30:50,768 Actually, there are two that spring to mind, right? 549 00:30:50,768 --> 00:30:55,750 So I would definitely encourage you take a look at some of all these conferences that 550 00:30:55,750 --> 00:30:59,230 are spinning up, that are announcing their schedules. 551 00:30:59,399 --> 00:31:02,781 If you can possibly attend any, definitely get them, but this applies to any kind of 552 00:31:02,781 --> 00:31:07,844 gathering, like a meetup, online, offline, doesn't matter. 553 00:31:09,285 --> 00:31:14,369 You've got a high concentration of incredible people who are super motivated, 554 00:31:14,629 --> 00:31:19,573 high agency, they've showed up to learn about something and you are missing a 555 00:31:19,573 --> 00:31:26,577 trick if you don't leave with at least one email address or one LinkedIn profile that 556 00:31:26,577 --> 00:31:28,578 you can hit people upon afterwards. 557 00:31:28,583 --> 00:31:32,025 Like I've had mad conversations, like shout out to my new friend. 558 00:31:32,025 --> 00:31:32,565 Check this out. 559 00:31:32,565 --> 00:31:38,009 What's the what's the only thing better than one tester called Vernon? 560 00:31:38,009 --> 00:31:39,710 Who tested Vernon? 561 00:31:39,850 --> 00:31:40,851 That's right. 562 00:31:41,031 --> 00:31:42,252 I met a guy called Vernon. 563 00:31:42,252 --> 00:31:43,453 Scott, shout out to you, Vernon. 564 00:31:43,453 --> 00:31:48,516 Like he's also a handsome, spectacle wearing black dude who's in the space, 565 00:31:48,516 --> 00:31:49,857 who's in the software testing space. 566 00:31:49,857 --> 00:31:51,899 And we had a great chat earlier on this week. 567 00:31:52,019 --> 00:31:55,001 That's pure just reaching out, connecting with people. 568 00:31:55,081 --> 00:31:56,002 I just highly recommend it. 569 00:31:56,002 --> 00:31:56,905 And the conference is a great. 570 00:31:56,905 --> 00:31:58,847 Scott, did you say? 571 00:31:58,987 --> 00:31:59,648 Oh, sorry. 572 00:31:59,648 --> 00:32:05,434 At least I've got a new replacement if being your good downhill mate, I've got a 573 00:32:05,434 --> 00:32:06,094 replacement now. 574 00:32:06,094 --> 00:32:07,255 Cheers for that, boss. 575 00:32:09,611 --> 00:32:11,496 You're a disgrace. 576 00:32:12,321 --> 00:32:13,184 You see what I'm... 577 00:32:13,184 --> 00:32:14,206 ..with her people. 578 00:32:14,587 --> 00:32:15,568 but I don't see that. 579 00:32:15,568 --> 00:32:19,511 That what you just said though, is like so true about the networking. 580 00:32:19,571 --> 00:32:24,576 Um, the, the network is there for whatever you need, you know, like I've had lots of 581 00:32:24,576 --> 00:32:28,199 issues recently and the network was there to help me, you know, lots of positive 582 00:32:28,199 --> 00:32:33,002 messages, lots of support, lots of suggestions, lots of phone numbers for 583 00:32:33,002 --> 00:32:35,985 people who want, you know, willing to let me phone them and call them and like, you 584 00:32:35,985 --> 00:32:38,967 know, chat to them, um, offers to come and meet me. 585 00:32:38,967 --> 00:32:40,648 Uh, you know, and these are people who. 586 00:32:40,861 --> 00:32:44,783 You know, I've connected through from a testing perspective, probably most likely, 587 00:32:44,783 --> 00:32:49,025 or, you know, some, you know, software related, but actually, you know, are there 588 00:32:49,025 --> 00:32:51,226 for also even bigger things than that. 589 00:32:51,667 --> 00:32:54,929 Um, so yeah, definitely, like you said, there's lots of things that can come out 590 00:32:54,929 --> 00:32:57,290 of networking, but it's there. 591 00:32:57,290 --> 00:33:02,473 Um, and also, you know, like, I think the important things that I, the best thing 592 00:33:02,473 --> 00:33:05,035 I've always done with mine is like kind of nurtured it. 593 00:33:05,035 --> 00:33:07,556 So, you know, there's a lot of people who take it for granted, right? 594 00:33:07,556 --> 00:33:08,597 They'll, you don't. 595 00:33:08,597 --> 00:33:09,877 They disappear for months upon end. 596 00:33:09,877 --> 00:33:11,038 And this, I'm not criticizing them. 597 00:33:11,038 --> 00:33:12,419 They disappear for months and they come back. 598 00:33:12,419 --> 00:33:13,700 It's like, I really need this now. 599 00:33:13,700 --> 00:33:15,421 Well, you know, this is what I'm after. 600 00:33:15,421 --> 00:33:16,881 Then they'll disappear again. 601 00:33:16,881 --> 00:33:22,685 I like to try and keep not fully active all the time, but you know, being present 602 00:33:23,585 --> 00:33:30,169 regularly if I can in the network that I know that I've built just to keep those 603 00:33:30,169 --> 00:33:33,992 connections, to find out what's going on with people, to be, you know, up to date 604 00:33:33,992 --> 00:33:35,512 in what, you know, what the... 605 00:33:36,337 --> 00:33:39,838 What's the context is and things like that, instead of like, again, just dip 606 00:33:39,838 --> 00:33:42,640 coming back in four months later because I need something. 607 00:33:42,740 --> 00:33:46,482 Um, you know, I like to try and my best to be there as much as I can to help, to 608 00:33:46,482 --> 00:33:49,344 spot, you know, to be there when someone says I need help, you know, pay it 609 00:33:49,344 --> 00:33:50,084 forward. 610 00:33:50,084 --> 00:33:53,566 That's one thing I said when I was, you know, um, back in September, October, and 611 00:33:53,566 --> 00:33:54,406 I was really struggling. 612 00:33:54,406 --> 00:33:58,048 I was like, everyone who helped me is that I'm going to pay it forward. 613 00:33:58,348 --> 00:34:02,431 Um, and that's for me now being active in the network and in my community means I 614 00:34:02,431 --> 00:34:06,432 could spot those opportunities where I can pay it forward. 615 00:34:06,971 --> 00:34:09,120 So yeah, really powerful. 616 00:34:09,304 --> 00:34:15,810 just follow, you know, it doesn't even have to be an on, you know, it might sound 617 00:34:15,810 --> 00:34:21,815 like you're allowing people to place massive demands on you and your time. 618 00:34:21,815 --> 00:34:25,598 And it doesn't have to be that you can, you can, you know, you're still in control 619 00:34:25,598 --> 00:34:30,441 of, of how much energy and time you devote to this and to the people that you meet. 620 00:34:31,342 --> 00:34:35,906 But to Richie's point, you know, just, just dropping people's line, like, so, so 621 00:34:35,906 --> 00:34:36,746 today, 622 00:34:38,415 --> 00:34:43,816 I saw on LinkedIn that Marie Cruz and Louis Prescott have just announced the 623 00:34:43,816 --> 00:34:45,657 book that they're writing. 624 00:34:45,657 --> 00:34:47,697 So contract testing in action. 625 00:34:48,238 --> 00:34:54,999 I haven't spoken to Marie for months and I haven't spoken to Louis for probably years 626 00:34:54,999 --> 00:34:58,180 or a year at least at all on any level. 627 00:34:59,361 --> 00:35:02,922 But it didn't stop me from getting hype like, yo, that's awesome. 628 00:35:02,922 --> 00:35:03,482 You wrote a book. 629 00:35:03,482 --> 00:35:06,102 Like, you know, I'm going to signal boost that all day every day. 630 00:35:07,919 --> 00:35:09,620 And so it's just little things like that, right? 631 00:35:09,620 --> 00:35:15,042 So, you know, don't be an energy vampire, I guess is how I translate what Rich said. 632 00:35:15,462 --> 00:35:22,045 Like see how you can help, like how can you help people and how can you amplify 633 00:35:22,045 --> 00:35:22,245 them? 634 00:35:22,245 --> 00:35:25,806 Like if you connect with somebody or you see somebody doing something cool, you 635 00:35:25,806 --> 00:35:30,668 know, just drop a little message and say, oh, I saw you got accepted to a thing, 636 00:35:30,668 --> 00:35:31,569 well done. 637 00:35:31,629 --> 00:35:35,470 Or I saw your post that you shared on X. 638 00:35:36,207 --> 00:35:37,147 or LinkedIn or whatever. 639 00:35:37,147 --> 00:35:37,867 That was really cool. 640 00:35:37,867 --> 00:35:39,528 Here's the impact it had on me. 641 00:35:39,528 --> 00:35:41,188 Like, da, da. 642 00:35:41,188 --> 00:35:42,369 And people appreciate that, man. 643 00:35:42,369 --> 00:35:45,910 You don't even just, you know, just giving those people those little big ups and 644 00:35:45,910 --> 00:35:49,531 without any expectation of, it's weird, woo incoming. 645 00:35:49,531 --> 00:35:54,273 So when you do stuff like that, it's weird how things come back to you. 646 00:35:54,273 --> 00:35:59,054 Like you just offer that support, offer the kind words without any expectation of 647 00:35:59,054 --> 00:36:00,147 anything in return. 648 00:36:00,147 --> 00:36:01,489 you still get stuff in return anyway. 649 00:36:01,489 --> 00:36:06,939 It's like the universe doesn't see you out of pocket, so to speak. 650 00:36:07,665 --> 00:36:12,247 Absolutely, feels like a feels like an odd time, but the right time to say, uh, be 651 00:36:12,247 --> 00:36:16,209 sure to subscribe and follow and share this, uh, amazing, uh, podcast. 652 00:36:16,209 --> 00:36:24,594 Um, comments subscribe. 653 00:36:24,594 --> 00:36:27,556 Um, and it's also a good opportunity for us to talk about a format that we want to 654 00:36:27,556 --> 00:36:27,796 do. 655 00:36:27,796 --> 00:36:33,039 So I listened to the rest is football podcast, um, with big meeks Alan Shearer 656 00:36:33,039 --> 00:36:35,760 and, um, Gary Lineker. 657 00:36:36,171 --> 00:36:37,023 Thanks. 658 00:36:37,025 --> 00:36:38,425 I forgot links on it, but... 659 00:36:38,425 --> 00:36:42,848 It's true, yeah. 660 00:36:42,848 --> 00:36:46,230 They do a fantastic thing where they do a bonus episode every now and again called 661 00:36:46,230 --> 00:36:48,991 the AMA episode, and I want to try and mimic that. 662 00:36:49,231 --> 00:36:50,792 I think it would be good for me and Vernon. 663 00:36:50,792 --> 00:36:53,974 We've got a lot of knowledge and sometimes thinking of what to talk about. 664 00:36:53,974 --> 00:36:57,176 It's actually not becoming a problem for us, but in my brain it's like, what the 665 00:36:57,176 --> 00:36:58,176 hell are we going to talk about? 666 00:36:58,176 --> 00:37:03,219 But I want to try and do an AMA show, so what I'm going to ask you to do is if you 667 00:37:03,219 --> 00:37:05,940 have any questions you would love me and Vernon to answer. 668 00:37:06,245 --> 00:37:11,587 Please send them to us DMs on Twitter or LinkedIn or comment on the video or 669 00:37:11,587 --> 00:37:14,849 wherever you're watching this or listening to this and try and get them to us or 670 00:37:14,849 --> 00:37:19,711 whatever way you can and We'll basically we'll do a bonus episode Periodically 671 00:37:19,731 --> 00:37:23,244 where we run through some of these questions So yeah 672 00:37:23,244 --> 00:37:26,089 You can also you can also well, I'm just going to speak for both of us. 673 00:37:26,089 --> 00:37:32,058 You can also hit us up on LinkedIn, you can DM us on Twitter slash x, you know, 674 00:37:32,539 --> 00:37:33,849 the more the merrier. 675 00:37:34,578 --> 00:37:35,920 Yeah, so. 676 00:37:37,809 --> 00:37:45,635 I joined a new team in my day job towards the end of last year. 677 00:37:45,635 --> 00:37:52,200 So right, it was kind of like November, December, but I still feel like I haven't 678 00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:57,444 on boarded properly onto the team properly. 679 00:37:58,629 --> 00:38:00,910 And I was talking, I was talking with one of my teammates. 680 00:38:00,910 --> 00:38:03,132 He's also a QE on the team. 681 00:38:03,152 --> 00:38:07,975 And we were trying to figure out, like I wanna go through all the tests and see 682 00:38:07,975 --> 00:38:12,418 which ones we can throw in the bin and which ones we can, you know, find out how 683 00:38:12,418 --> 00:38:13,039 we can automate. 684 00:38:13,039 --> 00:38:14,980 Like, why have we even got all these tests? 685 00:38:14,980 --> 00:38:16,121 Like, what are we doing with them? 686 00:38:16,121 --> 00:38:17,361 What are we doing with them? 687 00:38:17,522 --> 00:38:20,324 If I try and run them, will that help me on board? 688 00:38:20,324 --> 00:38:22,685 Is there other documentation that I need to be reading? 689 00:38:22,685 --> 00:38:23,986 Like, who do I need to speak to? 690 00:38:23,986 --> 00:38:25,427 What even is this thing? 691 00:38:25,547 --> 00:38:27,588 It just got me thinking about onboarding. 692 00:38:28,109 --> 00:38:31,710 and the fact that you know I'm at least four months in and I'm still feeling 693 00:38:31,710 --> 00:38:38,073 uncomfortable I mean I'm still feeling like oh man did I have I am I doing the 694 00:38:38,073 --> 00:38:41,274 right things like am I helping people out like what am I supposed to do ah this 695 00:38:41,274 --> 00:38:45,776 product is so complicated and you know this that and the other so it just got me 696 00:38:45,776 --> 00:38:51,018 thinking about onboarding I know and I know Rich you started a new job this year 697 00:38:51,359 --> 00:38:54,860 and so I was wondering if you've had you know what's your take on it what advice 698 00:38:54,860 --> 00:38:55,920 you had 699 00:38:55,953 --> 00:38:59,797 how you're solving is because you're, because you're, here's your, because you 700 00:38:59,797 --> 00:39:02,920 work at a consultancy right, which is like double onboarding. 701 00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:03,647 It's like you've got 702 00:39:03,647 --> 00:39:05,708 say, yeah, I've done double onboarding. 703 00:39:05,708 --> 00:39:08,068 Yeah. 704 00:39:08,068 --> 00:39:12,830 Well, the first onboarding to the actual company got cut short because there was a 705 00:39:12,830 --> 00:39:15,851 client ready that needed, needed me. 706 00:39:15,851 --> 00:39:19,732 So, um, technically there's a two week onboarding to the company. 707 00:39:19,732 --> 00:39:22,252 Um, I did the first week as it was meant to be. 708 00:39:22,252 --> 00:39:24,753 And then the second week I kind of had to dip in and out. 709 00:39:24,893 --> 00:39:27,254 Um, why I would say I'll name the company. 710 00:39:27,254 --> 00:39:29,607 So I joined Slalom, um, Slalom build. 711 00:39:29,607 --> 00:39:32,468 The onboarding from the Slalom site, amazing. 712 00:39:32,468 --> 00:39:35,129 It's probably the smoothest I've probably had. 713 00:39:35,390 --> 00:39:38,091 Everything was well structured, well planned out. 714 00:39:38,091 --> 00:39:40,953 There was centralized lists of the things you needed to do. 715 00:39:40,953 --> 00:39:46,616 And they use a tool called Workday, which bits of that are okay, but it was very 716 00:39:46,616 --> 00:39:50,278 good at prompting you to, you know, remind you to do certain things. 717 00:39:50,278 --> 00:39:53,881 And very people focused on boarding. 718 00:39:53,881 --> 00:39:57,622 So a lot of encouraging me to go and meet people. 719 00:39:57,679 --> 00:40:00,099 As in just here's a list of people. 720 00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:04,282 You're expected to have X number of conversations with people. 721 00:40:04,282 --> 00:40:06,923 You know, it feels intimidating, but it's not that bad, right? 722 00:40:06,923 --> 00:40:09,184 Cause they, they know you've joined, right? 723 00:40:09,184 --> 00:40:12,646 Cause they, you know, they see your name pop up or if like we have a one day in the 724 00:40:12,646 --> 00:40:15,807 office, a hybrid approach, so, you know, people see you. 725 00:40:16,047 --> 00:40:19,949 So that, that bit I would say was definitely one of my best tips talking to 726 00:40:19,949 --> 00:40:20,809 people. 727 00:40:20,849 --> 00:40:23,290 Um, because number one names. 728 00:40:23,903 --> 00:40:26,924 Most teams just throw names around, oh, you need to go talk to Dave. 729 00:40:26,924 --> 00:40:29,046 You need to go and talk to, you know, you need to go talk to Janet. 730 00:40:29,046 --> 00:40:31,527 And he's like, Dave who Janet who, right? 731 00:40:31,527 --> 00:40:33,048 You don't know these people. 732 00:40:33,048 --> 00:40:38,851 So the more you can familiarize yourself with people, like, you know, I definitely 733 00:40:38,851 --> 00:40:40,232 encourage that. 734 00:40:40,232 --> 00:40:42,053 But yeah, they did that side really well. 735 00:40:42,053 --> 00:40:43,874 So that was great. 736 00:40:43,894 --> 00:40:47,717 And then the onboard into the project, I was actually quite fortunate, I think, 737 00:40:47,717 --> 00:40:50,458 because everyone was on boarding at the same time. 738 00:40:50,558 --> 00:40:51,278 So. 739 00:40:51,588 --> 00:40:52,051 Yeah. 740 00:40:52,051 --> 00:40:54,251 it was a little bit rushed. 741 00:40:54,591 --> 00:40:59,433 So there was structure in place, but it was all new. 742 00:40:59,433 --> 00:41:01,573 And there was a lot of things that we couldn't do. 743 00:41:03,054 --> 00:41:04,514 But yeah, so I've done it twice. 744 00:41:04,514 --> 00:41:07,955 I think one thing that I wanted to bring up, which just made me laugh when you were 745 00:41:07,955 --> 00:41:11,696 talking, was it's been, what's it been? 746 00:41:11,996 --> 00:41:12,817 I can't count today. 747 00:41:12,817 --> 00:41:14,497 It's been two and a half months. 748 00:41:15,437 --> 00:41:19,518 And I finally got access today to the final tool on the list. 749 00:41:19,631 --> 00:41:22,093 of all the things I needed access for. 750 00:41:22,113 --> 00:41:26,177 Like it's, and it's just been because of the context of this project. 751 00:41:26,177 --> 00:41:28,240 I'm not, I'm definitely not criticizing anyone. 752 00:41:28,240 --> 00:41:31,303 Like, but there's been so many things to get access to. 753 00:41:31,303 --> 00:41:35,507 There's so many people trying to get access to these things and the processes 754 00:41:35,507 --> 00:41:37,169 are still being formalized. 755 00:41:37,169 --> 00:41:41,894 And yeah, it took, it's taken that long to get everything that I need. 756 00:41:41,989 --> 00:41:46,338 Listen man, it can't be a criticism of the project because then we'd have to 757 00:41:46,338 --> 00:41:50,405 criticise, well I'd have to criticise every goddamn project I've ever been on. 758 00:41:51,992 --> 00:41:55,075 But I would say that that's one of my first things on the list, the access, get 759 00:41:55,075 --> 00:41:58,437 the access, because once you get the access, you can learn in your own time. 760 00:41:59,057 --> 00:42:02,640 Prior to that, I was having to pair with people and ask them to do things for me on 761 00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:05,542 certain tools because I didn't have the access myself. 762 00:42:05,582 --> 00:42:08,904 So as soon as I got access, I was able then to start tinkering with these tools. 763 00:42:08,904 --> 00:42:09,104 Right. 764 00:42:09,104 --> 00:42:11,706 And I'm like Mr. 765 00:42:11,706 --> 00:42:12,687 super curious, right. 766 00:42:12,687 --> 00:42:16,269 I'm intrigued, like, you know, even if we're using tool for purpose, A, but the 767 00:42:16,269 --> 00:42:18,170 tool offers B, I'm looking at B. 768 00:42:18,271 --> 00:42:20,252 because I'm like, what does B do? 769 00:42:20,252 --> 00:42:21,673 Could we move A to B? 770 00:42:21,954 --> 00:42:23,675 I'm that kind of mindset. 771 00:42:23,675 --> 00:42:29,160 But once I get in those tools, I can start looking around, which is really useful. 772 00:42:29,441 --> 00:42:34,665 Then from a testing point of view, obviously the tools are important. 773 00:42:35,686 --> 00:42:38,429 I know a lot of the tools I needed access to had APIs. 774 00:42:38,429 --> 00:42:43,794 And I find sometimes I find API docs a lot easier to read to find out what the tool 775 00:42:43,794 --> 00:42:45,014 is capable of. 776 00:42:45,242 --> 00:42:45,851 Yeah. 777 00:42:45,851 --> 00:42:50,993 Um, as opposed to reading maybe marketing pages or heavy documentation, I find just 778 00:42:50,993 --> 00:42:56,175 quickly looking at the API, um, endpoints and that, Oh, that looks interesting. 779 00:42:56,175 --> 00:42:57,436 That's that name. 780 00:42:57,436 --> 00:43:00,957 So it's basically just digesting the names a lot quicker than reading all these help 781 00:43:00,957 --> 00:43:01,378 guides. 782 00:43:01,378 --> 00:43:05,800 So I found that very useful on this project because we, we integrate with a 783 00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:11,382 lot of third party tools and most of it's done by the API, so that helps me get up 784 00:43:11,382 --> 00:43:12,783 to speed a lot quicker. 785 00:43:12,783 --> 00:43:16,386 especially when I see stuff in the code, like, even today, there was something 786 00:43:16,386 --> 00:43:17,407 around an identity. 787 00:43:17,407 --> 00:43:18,708 There was a model called identity. 788 00:43:18,708 --> 00:43:20,409 I was like, where's this coming from? 789 00:43:20,409 --> 00:43:22,311 And I was like, oh, it's coming from that tool. 790 00:43:22,311 --> 00:43:24,413 And I was like, yeah, but this name doesn't make sense. 791 00:43:24,413 --> 00:43:24,593 Right. 792 00:43:24,593 --> 00:43:25,874 I don't understand that. 793 00:43:25,874 --> 00:43:29,878 So then I went to the API of the tool to see what the JSON looks like. 794 00:43:29,878 --> 00:43:32,199 And I was like, oh, that must map to that, I reckon. 795 00:43:32,860 --> 00:43:38,085 So I was able to kind of reverse it myself because obviously, yes, we're consuming an 796 00:43:38,085 --> 00:43:40,415 API, but we can call our code whatever we want, right? 797 00:43:40,415 --> 00:43:43,617 just because it's ideal to try and name them something similar, but it's not 798 00:43:43,617 --> 00:43:44,838 always the case. 799 00:43:44,938 --> 00:43:49,883 So I found that, I think that's a really good hack, looking at API docs of third 800 00:43:49,883 --> 00:43:51,083 party tools. 801 00:43:53,566 --> 00:43:54,033 Yeah, go on. 802 00:43:54,033 --> 00:44:02,997 maybe realize something man so like you've spent a lot of time talking about the 803 00:44:02,997 --> 00:44:10,180 product and the technical side of the product is naturally where you've 804 00:44:10,180 --> 00:44:14,069 gravitated to 805 00:44:14,069 --> 00:44:18,990 I've just realised I've spent a lot of time trying to build relationships with my 806 00:44:18,990 --> 00:44:20,150 teammates. 807 00:44:20,911 --> 00:44:26,052 If I imagine how much time I've spent on where I focus my time in the onboarding, I 808 00:44:26,052 --> 00:44:31,594 think I've spent more time just trying to observe my teammates and trying to 809 00:44:31,594 --> 00:44:40,056 understand who they are and what they are like rather than diving into the product. 810 00:44:40,056 --> 00:44:40,967 I don't know how to treat that. 811 00:44:40,967 --> 00:44:41,587 role though? 812 00:44:41,587 --> 00:44:49,931 Like for me, my role in this is hands on tester, QE, automating, so like, yes, I 813 00:44:49,931 --> 00:44:51,251 need the people relationships. 814 00:44:51,251 --> 00:44:52,452 Absolutely. 815 00:44:52,572 --> 00:44:56,894 But if I, if I don't get my, like in the first episode, we spoke about the model of 816 00:44:56,894 --> 00:45:01,516 the system, if I don't get that quickly, I'm going to struggle to be effective. 817 00:45:01,716 --> 00:45:05,698 Which, and a little bit of imposter syndrome would make me not, without that 818 00:45:05,698 --> 00:45:07,578 model, I don't feel as comfortable. 819 00:45:07,871 --> 00:45:12,132 talking to maybe some of the more experienced people, unless I'm talking to 820 00:45:12,132 --> 00:45:14,692 them to get information and that's framed that way. 821 00:45:14,812 --> 00:45:18,333 But if it's in a meeting and it's like, you know, dev saying they're gonna build 822 00:45:18,333 --> 00:45:22,574 a, and I'm like in my head, I think, I saw something earlier, but there's a gap in my 823 00:45:22,574 --> 00:45:25,475 model that I'm not brave enough to go actually, I don't think that's a good 824 00:45:25,475 --> 00:45:26,315 idea. 825 00:45:26,876 --> 00:45:29,076 I probably wouldn't say it. 826 00:45:29,076 --> 00:45:32,097 Like not in the early day, not two and a half months in, like maybe once I've been 827 00:45:32,097 --> 00:45:35,058 there longer, but then if I've been there longer, my model will probably be 828 00:45:35,058 --> 00:45:35,998 complete. 829 00:45:36,158 --> 00:45:37,798 So, yeah. 830 00:45:38,829 --> 00:45:45,314 Yeah, I think I was having this conversation with some, I'm pretty 831 00:45:45,314 --> 00:45:45,635 blessed. 832 00:45:45,635 --> 00:45:53,261 I worked my team across the company, and none more so than a quality engineering 833 00:45:54,182 --> 00:45:54,783 role. 834 00:45:54,783 --> 00:46:00,147 I've got some incredible teammates and I'm working on a thing with two of my 835 00:46:00,147 --> 00:46:02,609 teammates, Lizzie Hocker and Ben Doan. 836 00:46:03,110 --> 00:46:05,632 And we were having a conversation similar to this topic. 837 00:46:06,329 --> 00:46:11,954 and I'd realised that I'm the kind of person, I like to read stuff first before 838 00:46:11,954 --> 00:46:13,775 I start playing around with stuff. 839 00:46:14,777 --> 00:46:15,657 Yeah. 840 00:46:16,098 --> 00:46:19,681 And I realised, talking to those two, I realised that I've always been like that. 841 00:46:19,681 --> 00:46:24,346 So one of my oldest friends and me, we used to spend a lot of time playing video 842 00:46:24,346 --> 00:46:27,228 games from when we were kids, like a lot of time. 843 00:46:27,869 --> 00:46:31,432 And even then, we'd get a new game. 844 00:46:32,781 --> 00:46:34,421 I'd be the one who would read the manual. 845 00:46:34,421 --> 00:46:36,462 He'd be the one, he'd just start playing the game. 846 00:46:36,862 --> 00:46:40,404 Immediately, like he's just like, I don't care about any manual shmanual, I'm 847 00:46:40,404 --> 00:46:40,744 playing. 848 00:46:40,744 --> 00:46:42,044 I'm like, why am I playing the game? 849 00:46:42,044 --> 00:46:43,705 The manual's right here, I'm gonna read it. 850 00:46:43,885 --> 00:46:52,369 So I think, and I think I haven't done that as much as I would have liked in my 851 00:46:52,369 --> 00:46:52,789 new team. 852 00:46:52,789 --> 00:46:54,549 Like there's tons of documentation. 853 00:46:54,729 --> 00:46:58,671 Everybody uses confluence, that is where requirements go to die a lot of the time. 854 00:46:58,671 --> 00:47:02,232 So I know the information is there, and I've seen a lot of it, but I haven't. 855 00:47:02,957 --> 00:47:03,718 consumed a lot of it. 856 00:47:03,718 --> 00:47:05,840 So that's maybe that's another gap. 857 00:47:06,141 --> 00:47:07,523 An obvious gap that I need to fill. 858 00:47:07,523 --> 00:47:11,909 Go and find that documentation that people have painstakingly put together and is 859 00:47:11,909 --> 00:47:19,639 awesome and go and read it and consume it to try and fill gaps. 860 00:47:19,639 --> 00:47:20,460 Oh yeah. 861 00:47:21,031 --> 00:47:23,013 well, there's an art to it, but also even thinking that. 862 00:47:23,013 --> 00:47:28,458 So again, I can think back to my current context where we've got a lot of 863 00:47:28,458 --> 00:47:32,161 documentation built by us that was done during the discovery phase. 864 00:47:32,161 --> 00:47:36,144 As we were getting familiar with this client, lots of stuff was done, 865 00:47:36,144 --> 00:47:41,249 documented, but there's also all the existing documentation from the previous 866 00:47:41,249 --> 00:47:43,490 supplier and the client themselves. 867 00:47:43,886 --> 00:47:44,111 Mm-hmm. 868 00:47:44,111 --> 00:47:48,975 And one thing that I've learned is the previous supplier had masses and masses of 869 00:47:48,975 --> 00:47:51,496 test cases, like there's loads of them. 870 00:47:51,637 --> 00:47:57,922 Um, but searching through them gave me some useful insights into how things were 871 00:47:57,922 --> 00:47:58,903 working. 872 00:47:59,083 --> 00:48:00,965 Um, so we didn't, I didn't need them. 873 00:48:00,965 --> 00:48:04,227 We had no interest in taking them from our one to run them point of view. 874 00:48:04,288 --> 00:48:07,030 It was purely from a, a ticket's come in. 875 00:48:07,030 --> 00:48:09,552 It's about part A of the system. 876 00:48:09,792 --> 00:48:12,415 Is there any existing test cases that were there? 877 00:48:12,415 --> 00:48:17,056 around that part of the system that I can read to help me understand this ticket a 878 00:48:17,056 --> 00:48:21,417 little bit more, to help me build that model, to help me get closer to what I'm 879 00:48:21,417 --> 00:48:22,117 doing. 880 00:48:22,117 --> 00:48:26,398 And I've noticed that a lot of the other roles on the team aren't doing that. 881 00:48:26,639 --> 00:48:30,960 So there's messages in Slack and it's, you know, so let me reframe it. 882 00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:35,961 So one, read the API docs, look at the code, read the looking confluence, right? 883 00:48:35,961 --> 00:48:37,362 Or ask for help. 884 00:48:37,362 --> 00:48:39,982 A lot of people are defaulting to the ask for help. 885 00:48:40,071 --> 00:48:43,873 So I'm seeing these messages, which is, does anyone know about A? 886 00:48:43,933 --> 00:48:47,736 And then I'm like, have you even searched, it's like, try Google that for you, but 887 00:48:47,736 --> 00:48:48,577 not as offensively. 888 00:48:48,577 --> 00:48:50,778 It's like, shall I confluence that for you? 889 00:48:51,359 --> 00:48:54,200 Like, have you read this? 890 00:48:54,821 --> 00:48:56,462 But obviously, you know, everyone's different, right? 891 00:48:56,462 --> 00:49:00,225 But then, you know, they're still solving their problem because people are gonna 892 00:49:00,225 --> 00:49:01,766 help them, of course we are. 893 00:49:02,046 --> 00:49:04,267 But it's like, have you read this, have you read that? 894 00:49:04,728 --> 00:49:08,530 And a lot of the time as well, I think in the context I'm in. 895 00:49:08,767 --> 00:49:13,230 I think sometimes people are hoping just to get the answer, whereas we're not in 896 00:49:13,230 --> 00:49:14,150 that space yet. 897 00:49:14,150 --> 00:49:18,193 We're in that space where here's a little piece, here's another piece, here's 898 00:49:18,193 --> 00:49:20,935 another big, this is a slightly bigger piece. 899 00:49:20,935 --> 00:49:24,898 You're gonna have to stitch that together to find what you're looking for because we 900 00:49:24,898 --> 00:49:26,618 don't know those things yet. 901 00:49:27,057 --> 00:49:35,360 Big time, because if you're joining a project that is new, project, a team, like 902 00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:39,822 you're building a product that actually isn't even finished yet, there isn't an 903 00:49:39,822 --> 00:49:40,662 answer. 904 00:49:40,703 --> 00:49:42,263 Like you haven't built it yet. 905 00:49:42,343 --> 00:49:48,126 So there's an element of having to go and try and help yourself a little bit. 906 00:49:49,147 --> 00:49:52,628 And I think, to be honest, I think that's a useful thing to do in any contest 907 00:49:52,628 --> 00:49:53,848 because you can. 908 00:49:54,681 --> 00:49:59,503 you can build a lot of credibility with your teammates then such that they are 909 00:49:59,503 --> 00:50:01,264 more likely to help. 910 00:50:01,264 --> 00:50:10,629 But when I, at the beginning of the year, I bought a book called The First 90 Days, 911 00:50:11,630 --> 00:50:18,154 which is all about how, you know, it gives you a playbook to use when you join a 912 00:50:18,154 --> 00:50:19,434 team, bloody hell. 913 00:50:20,255 --> 00:50:22,316 I bought to use when you join a team, but my, 914 00:50:23,665 --> 00:50:28,666 The beginning of this year was so crazily disrupted, like in a really unpredictable 915 00:50:28,666 --> 00:50:34,688 way, but I haven't even got anywhere near close to finishing reading that book. 916 00:50:34,688 --> 00:50:42,910 So I need to go and get the audio book version and like smash my way and see if 917 00:50:42,910 --> 00:50:45,031 there are some classic mistakes that I'm making. 918 00:50:45,031 --> 00:50:48,292 One of the ones, and I might've talked about this before, so apologies if I have, 919 00:50:48,312 --> 00:50:51,612 but one of the things I remember the book talking about was positioning. 920 00:50:52,965 --> 00:50:56,008 And it's something that I'm really interested in excited about. 921 00:50:56,008 --> 00:50:59,491 And I think it would help a lot of QE's and testers is positioning. 922 00:50:59,491 --> 00:51:04,656 Like how are you positioned when you join this team such that people know what to 923 00:51:04,656 --> 00:51:11,543 expect from you is such a massive deal. 924 00:51:11,843 --> 00:51:13,008 So there are some things. 925 00:51:13,008 --> 00:51:18,274 by others or positioned in yourself or both? 926 00:51:18,505 --> 00:51:23,466 I would say more so others. 927 00:51:24,367 --> 00:51:30,269 Like you almost wanna make sure that the people that are bringing you into the team 928 00:51:30,269 --> 00:51:35,310 in whatever leadership position, they are super clear about what your mission is on 929 00:51:35,310 --> 00:51:36,270 that team. 930 00:51:37,831 --> 00:51:43,732 And you need to almost nag them, like encourage them strongly. 931 00:51:43,961 --> 00:51:46,801 Make sure that when you're telling people I'm coming to this team, that you're 932 00:51:46,801 --> 00:51:50,802 positioning me as this kind of person who's gonna hear to do these kinds of 933 00:51:50,802 --> 00:51:51,642 things. 934 00:51:52,183 --> 00:51:56,144 Because then it helps set those expectations, especially with such an 935 00:51:56,144 --> 00:51:58,264 overloaded term like tester. 936 00:51:58,424 --> 00:52:04,526 I know quality engineer is trying to indicate some different things, but I 937 00:52:04,526 --> 00:52:07,627 think people will, I think people will just do the mapping. 938 00:52:07,627 --> 00:52:10,588 They'll just go, oh, tester, okay, tester means this. 939 00:52:10,868 --> 00:52:13,628 And whatever tester means to them in their overloaded, 940 00:52:13,693 --> 00:52:16,436 in their namespace if you like, then that's what they'll expect. 941 00:52:16,677 --> 00:52:19,701 So I think that's a big part of it and I think that book talks about it. 942 00:52:19,701 --> 00:52:24,608 So maybe in a few weeks time when I've actually either listened to the audio book 943 00:52:24,608 --> 00:52:27,931 or finished reading the book, I can come back and answer my own question. 944 00:52:28,663 --> 00:52:34,744 I think that's another thing we can add to the list is that, you know, even making it 945 00:52:34,744 --> 00:52:39,946 sure that you're aware of how you were meant to be positioned, but also finding 946 00:52:39,946 --> 00:52:41,946 out if you were positioned that way. 947 00:52:41,946 --> 00:52:45,487 So once you have some of those relationships, maybe you can even ask and 948 00:52:45,487 --> 00:52:49,008 say, how was it positioned that I would, you know, how was it explained to you 949 00:52:49,008 --> 00:52:51,209 about why I was joining this team or what I was doing? 950 00:52:51,209 --> 00:52:55,150 You know, because there was probably conversations before you joined. 951 00:52:55,890 --> 00:52:57,543 And then obviously when you do join. 952 00:52:57,543 --> 00:52:59,063 you're then obviously there. 953 00:52:59,464 --> 00:53:03,066 But once you've built some relationships up and you're a lot closer with some of 954 00:53:03,066 --> 00:53:10,251 the team, then you might be able to find out, not necessarily, I don't mean it in a 955 00:53:10,251 --> 00:53:15,294 negative way as in something might happen, you'd be like, something mustn't have been 956 00:53:15,294 --> 00:53:15,594 right. 957 00:53:15,594 --> 00:53:18,756 It's like, hey, can you tell me what was said when I joined this project? 958 00:53:18,756 --> 00:53:20,998 And then you're like, ah, now I can unravel it. 959 00:53:21,758 --> 00:53:22,345 But. 960 00:53:22,345 --> 00:53:23,225 Absolutely. 961 00:53:23,225 --> 00:53:26,487 You should definitely ask your teammates what their expectations are of you when 962 00:53:26,487 --> 00:53:27,367 you join. 963 00:53:27,968 --> 00:53:29,509 For sure. 964 00:53:29,669 --> 00:53:34,312 That's one thing that I've learned over the years is a smart thing to do. 965 00:53:34,312 --> 00:53:38,755 And I've done it with, I think there's a couple of people I'm still yet to have 966 00:53:38,755 --> 00:53:41,616 that conversation with, but I've had it with some of my teammates. 967 00:53:42,057 --> 00:53:47,180 And it's such a wise and helpful thing to do. 968 00:53:48,329 --> 00:53:53,211 because you can, you can, if there's a mismatch in the expectations, you can, you 969 00:53:53,211 --> 00:53:54,032 can address it early. 970 00:53:54,032 --> 00:53:57,794 And I think that's really, really important to do. 971 00:53:58,174 --> 00:54:01,075 So I think I've got at least that part partially right. 972 00:54:02,299 --> 00:54:07,603 And I think one more that's jumped to my mind on that topic is, like, one thing 973 00:54:07,603 --> 00:54:12,246 that I did quite soon on was try and find out who specializes in what. 974 00:54:12,246 --> 00:54:16,790 So from an existing knowledge of the system point of view, but also in a 975 00:54:16,790 --> 00:54:21,974 general software point of view, you know, finding out, you know, who's got these 976 00:54:21,974 --> 00:54:22,334 skills. 977 00:54:22,334 --> 00:54:25,717 Like literally I was in the office the other day and this is not actually to do 978 00:54:25,717 --> 00:54:28,418 with my project or team, but it's in the same vein was. 979 00:54:28,483 --> 00:54:32,125 I needed some help with a bash script and I was like, is there any bash gurus in the 980 00:54:32,125 --> 00:54:35,168 office, can you come to my desk and just help me with the script? 981 00:54:35,168 --> 00:54:35,488 Right. 982 00:54:35,488 --> 00:54:39,091 But if, if I knew someone was already a bash guru, I can ping them and be like, 983 00:54:39,091 --> 00:54:40,752 Hey, can you help me out? 984 00:54:40,752 --> 00:54:44,695 So getting on that team and realizing that this person is the one who's had the most 985 00:54:44,695 --> 00:54:48,358 experience with this part of the system, and it's actually happened to me now with 986 00:54:48,358 --> 00:54:52,581 the payment gateway that we use, because some of the tickets I've been on have been 987 00:54:52,581 --> 00:54:55,222 very intensely around the payment gateway. 988 00:54:55,407 --> 00:54:57,829 So now people are coming to me going, how'd you do this? 989 00:54:57,829 --> 00:54:58,449 How does that work? 990 00:54:58,449 --> 00:54:59,310 Can you explain this to me? 991 00:54:59,310 --> 00:55:00,491 How does that work? 992 00:55:00,491 --> 00:55:00,712 Right. 993 00:55:00,712 --> 00:55:05,035 And it's because number one, I've been on those tickets, but also I've been quite 994 00:55:05,856 --> 00:55:09,459 open and vocal about being willing to help. 995 00:55:09,620 --> 00:55:09,940 Right. 996 00:55:09,940 --> 00:55:12,242 So I post these little snippets and slide. 997 00:55:12,242 --> 00:55:17,507 That's one thing I've only realized it now that I do is I tend to post things into 998 00:55:17,507 --> 00:55:21,150 Slack and say, if you ever have this problem, this is what I did. 999 00:55:22,563 --> 00:55:24,843 So it's not worthy of confluence. 1000 00:55:25,664 --> 00:55:31,745 It's not lengthy enough for that, but it's a very simple thing in Slack because 1001 00:55:31,745 --> 00:55:33,806 that's where the conversation's happening. 1002 00:55:34,106 --> 00:55:39,107 So, and if it's there, it's searchable, someone might find it. 1003 00:55:39,107 --> 00:55:43,248 So, could be any, like little config errors, little things like this, the error 1004 00:55:43,248 --> 00:55:47,690 messages that pop up on the UI, stuff like this, like if you ever have this error, 1005 00:55:47,690 --> 00:55:48,850 it's most likely because of this. 1006 00:55:48,850 --> 00:55:51,270 I mean, I've just spent half an hour working that out. 1007 00:55:51,311 --> 00:55:53,693 So I'm going to tell, I'm going to share with that with you. 1008 00:55:53,693 --> 00:55:58,717 And also you get the joy as well of like, for me, writing that message does 1009 00:55:58,717 --> 00:56:03,400 something in my brain that kind of puts it in a filing cabinet, it banks it for me. 1010 00:56:05,222 --> 00:56:05,882 So. 1011 00:56:06,410 --> 00:56:13,312 You're making me think like the thing to abstract out of that is just look for 1012 00:56:13,312 --> 00:56:15,113 those small wins where you can be helpful. 1013 00:56:15,113 --> 00:56:19,174 And, you know, when you're saying, look, how can I help? 1014 00:56:19,434 --> 00:56:22,135 You know, I did that when I joined my team. 1015 00:56:23,315 --> 00:56:28,796 I helped with a documentation task around security, I seem to remember. 1016 00:56:29,509 --> 00:56:34,650 And I paired it with one of the devs on that, like within the first week or two of 1017 00:56:34,650 --> 00:56:35,311 joining the team. 1018 00:56:35,311 --> 00:56:37,531 And I think that can be really useful. 1019 00:56:37,531 --> 00:56:39,992 Like share the knowledge, be willing to just pitch in. 1020 00:56:39,992 --> 00:56:44,233 You've just joined. 1021 00:56:44,233 --> 00:56:47,014 There is something to be said for just throwing yourself in at the deep end and 1022 00:56:47,014 --> 00:56:49,675 saying, I don't really know what the hell is going on, but I'm gonna help with this 1023 00:56:49,675 --> 00:56:50,635 piece of work. 1024 00:56:51,716 --> 00:56:52,335 Why not? 1025 00:56:52,335 --> 00:56:53,155 Yeah. 1026 00:56:53,155 --> 00:56:57,338 I know in the flip side of that, another thing I've just remembered doing is got a 1027 00:56:57,338 --> 00:57:01,380 lot of AWS on this project and I know a little bit about AWS, but I am far from, 1028 00:57:01,380 --> 00:57:03,561 you know, a guru. 1029 00:57:03,561 --> 00:57:08,724 And I remember posting saying, um, it was to do with a cloud watch and the logs and 1030 00:57:08,724 --> 00:57:09,344 stuff like that. 1031 00:57:09,344 --> 00:57:11,965 And I was like, I could read all the docs here, but you know what? 1032 00:57:11,965 --> 00:57:14,606 I'm just going to be vulnerable and be like on the slab. 1033 00:57:15,287 --> 00:57:17,847 I know half the team had been doing this, right? 1034 00:57:17,847 --> 00:57:20,528 Cause you know, they've been debugging tickets and stuff. 1035 00:57:20,528 --> 00:57:23,889 I was like, can someone just walk me through cloud watch? 1036 00:57:23,889 --> 00:57:27,390 It's going to be so much quicker than me doing all this reading. 1037 00:57:27,390 --> 00:57:31,111 Even if maybe they had expectations that I should know those things, right? 1038 00:57:31,111 --> 00:57:32,412 If so, I didn't really care. 1039 00:57:32,412 --> 00:57:35,972 I was like, I want to get this knowledge as quickly as possible. 1040 00:57:35,993 --> 00:57:40,734 And the best way is to be vulnerable, ask for help, admit I don't know what that is. 1041 00:57:40,734 --> 00:57:42,811 Um, because I don't know. 1042 00:57:42,811 --> 00:57:43,752 And that's fine. 1043 00:57:43,752 --> 00:57:45,234 It's okay that I don't know. 1044 00:57:45,456 --> 00:57:47,279 Um, but I want to learn. 1045 00:57:47,279 --> 00:57:50,285 So I'd rather have those relationships. 1046 00:57:50,285 --> 00:57:53,992 Um, I'd rather like you, you know, have conversations with people, which in turn 1047 00:57:53,992 --> 00:57:55,774 helps me with those relationships. 1048 00:57:57,577 --> 00:58:03,000 Okay, how much is that natural for you and how much did you have to learn that? 1049 00:58:03,000 --> 00:58:04,861 The vulnerability part, I mean. 1050 00:58:05,061 --> 00:58:09,383 Because that's risky and scary and fear and. 1051 00:58:10,579 --> 00:58:17,124 I would say definitely learn, but probably a more, um, shift in my mindset of wanting 1052 00:58:17,124 --> 00:58:19,986 to be more effective, efficient and effective. 1053 00:58:19,987 --> 00:58:23,650 And I know I can go and learn that stuff, but it's probably going to be a lot 1054 00:58:23,650 --> 00:58:29,835 longer, um, and on the team where we're trying to obviously be fast and, you know, 1055 00:58:29,835 --> 00:58:33,478 try and get, you know, tickets through and knowledge built up as, you know, as 1056 00:58:33,478 --> 00:58:34,878 effective as possible. 1057 00:58:35,039 --> 00:58:38,060 I now find it easier to be vulnerable and ask for help. 1058 00:58:38,060 --> 00:58:42,942 Um, but yeah, definitely never used to, I used to be the one, you know, I'd go, I'd 1059 00:58:42,942 --> 00:58:46,283 spend my evenings learning it because there's no time at work, like, cause I 1060 00:58:46,283 --> 00:58:48,304 don't want to be that person. 1061 00:58:48,304 --> 00:58:51,526 Uh, but now it's complete shift in that, you know what, I don't know. 1062 00:58:51,526 --> 00:58:51,986 It's okay. 1063 00:58:51,986 --> 00:58:53,727 So number one is I don't know. 1064 00:58:53,727 --> 00:58:58,309 The number two is it's actually okay that I don't know tech is so vast. 1065 00:58:58,309 --> 00:58:59,869 It's so complicated. 1066 00:58:59,869 --> 00:59:02,851 And even if I was an AWS guru three years ago, 1067 00:59:02,851 --> 00:59:06,952 I ain't going to remember that because I spent the last three years in, uh, I don't 1068 00:59:06,952 --> 00:59:08,892 know, Google cloud or Heroku. 1069 00:59:08,952 --> 00:59:09,732 Right. 1070 00:59:09,992 --> 00:59:13,713 So it's not, maybe not in my head as much anymore. 1071 00:59:13,713 --> 00:59:18,535 So, and maybe I need the conversation with someone to find the right cabinets to open 1072 00:59:18,535 --> 00:59:20,535 again, to unravel it. 1073 00:59:20,535 --> 00:59:24,276 But yeah, I, I'm fine personally now you mentioned relationships at the start. 1074 00:59:24,276 --> 00:59:27,457 I find it easier to be vulnerable, ask for help. 1075 00:59:27,557 --> 00:59:31,878 And also I think it ties nicely with other people that kind of makes them do the 1076 00:59:31,878 --> 00:59:32,468 same. 1077 00:59:32,468 --> 00:59:34,258 I can see you rubbing your hands, so go on. 1078 00:59:34,597 --> 00:59:36,338 Here's a conundrum for you. 1079 00:59:37,498 --> 00:59:44,262 Where do you find the right balance between asking for help and helping 1080 00:59:44,262 --> 00:59:44,743 yourself? 1081 00:59:44,743 --> 00:59:47,984 Because there is a sweet spot depending on the situation. 1082 00:59:48,084 --> 00:59:53,527 Because if you're asking for help, that means somebody's gonna context switch or 1083 00:59:54,588 --> 00:59:56,349 stop what they're doing to help you out. 1084 00:59:56,349 --> 01:00:01,072 And it's not that it's, I'm not saying it's wrong, but there are situations 1085 01:00:01,072 --> 01:00:01,852 where, 1086 01:00:03,749 --> 01:00:08,299 you can feel like to your point earlier, it's like, mate, Google is real. 1087 01:00:08,299 --> 01:00:09,382 Like Google is a thing. 1088 01:00:09,382 --> 01:00:13,470 Like why didn't you, you know, how do you judge that? 1089 01:00:15,379 --> 01:00:16,419 Good question. 1090 01:00:16,959 --> 01:00:19,820 I'm trying to think of like, again, just trying to think recent scenarios. 1091 01:00:19,820 --> 01:00:23,122 So there's been, I said, there's been a lot of people pinging me because of the 1092 01:00:23,122 --> 01:00:24,502 knowledge on this payment gateway. 1093 01:00:24,502 --> 01:00:26,583 And I agree with you. 1094 01:00:26,583 --> 01:00:34,046 Sometimes it does impact your flow and like your work. 1095 01:00:34,046 --> 01:00:40,189 But for me, I think nowadays, I'm just a people first person, right? 1096 01:00:40,189 --> 01:00:44,450 If someone needs help, like I wanna help them. 1097 01:00:44,751 --> 01:00:48,613 And also I kind of think of sometimes on the lines of being blocked. 1098 01:00:48,673 --> 01:00:50,734 So for them, they're blocked, right? 1099 01:00:50,734 --> 01:00:51,695 I'm not blocked, right? 1100 01:00:51,695 --> 01:00:56,017 Yes, I'm being interrupted and it might delay me a little bit, but that person is 1101 01:00:56,017 --> 01:01:01,940 currently blocked and I want to unblock them and I believe that I can unblock them 1102 01:01:01,940 --> 01:01:06,403 and I think maybe it's context of our team that seems to be a commonly accepted way 1103 01:01:06,403 --> 01:01:07,083 of working. 1104 01:01:07,083 --> 01:01:11,005 That, you know, it's not, it's not okay to disrupt people all the time, but it's not 1105 01:01:11,005 --> 01:01:13,806 like I'm like, you know, literally pinging them, calling them. 1106 01:01:13,843 --> 01:01:16,924 I'm sending them a Slack, you know, they could, they could choose to mute their 1107 01:01:16,924 --> 01:01:17,284 Slack. 1108 01:01:17,284 --> 01:01:20,685 You know, they could choose to do whatever they don't have to reply to me. 1109 01:01:20,685 --> 01:01:25,947 Um, so it's not like, you know, I'm not like walking up to their desk and standing 1110 01:01:25,947 --> 01:01:27,988 behind them and being like, help me now. 1111 01:01:28,088 --> 01:01:30,669 Um, yeah. 1112 01:01:30,709 --> 01:01:34,111 And, you know, again, I've worked in offices where that would be okay as well. 1113 01:01:34,111 --> 01:01:37,252 But I think the switch for me is more. 1114 01:01:37,872 --> 01:01:40,753 If I'm really blocked and I know that that's going to unblock me quickly, I'll 1115 01:01:40,753 --> 01:01:42,354 probably frame it that way. 1116 01:01:42,354 --> 01:01:43,674 And I'll probably say. 1117 01:01:44,043 --> 01:01:45,444 I think you might help me. 1118 01:01:45,444 --> 01:01:46,664 This might help me now. 1119 01:01:46,664 --> 01:01:51,828 So like again, providing the context and the framing in the message that I send. 1120 01:01:52,168 --> 01:01:55,430 Explain what you're doing on camera for the people not watching. 1121 01:01:55,658 --> 01:01:56,399 Oh, I do this. 1122 01:01:56,399 --> 01:01:59,504 I do when somebody says something absolutely love I just point at them and I 1123 01:01:59,504 --> 01:02:00,404 like just 1124 01:02:01,907 --> 01:02:03,025 But be just 1125 01:02:03,025 --> 01:02:05,474 beat my chair, I'm like, yo, love that. 1126 01:02:05,718 --> 01:02:06,881 Love that advice. 1127 01:02:07,135 --> 01:02:12,119 yeah, it's that effective thing for me, trying to get the problem solved, unblock 1128 01:02:12,119 --> 01:02:16,742 people, and yes, I can go and learn all these things. 1129 01:02:17,443 --> 01:02:21,246 And also, again, I think sometimes it's not always the tool. 1130 01:02:21,246 --> 01:02:26,530 So with the CloudWatch instance, the tool itself was quite simple, but there was 1131 01:02:26,530 --> 01:02:29,211 like 500 log groups I could choose from. 1132 01:02:29,211 --> 01:02:30,973 And it's like, well, what are the log groups, right? 1133 01:02:30,973 --> 01:02:33,794 The AWS documentation ain't gonna tell me that. 1134 01:02:33,947 --> 01:02:34,811 It's not. 1135 01:02:34,811 --> 01:02:37,752 somebody else on the team has already worked that out. 1136 01:02:37,932 --> 01:02:39,513 And maybe they'd not documented it. 1137 01:02:39,513 --> 01:02:40,173 Maybe they did. 1138 01:02:40,173 --> 01:02:41,614 Maybe they are just not found it. 1139 01:02:41,614 --> 01:02:45,695 Or maybe again, it's just not there anywhere, but little things like that. 1140 01:02:45,695 --> 01:02:49,357 And also with, again, with AWS, you can do filters on cloud watch. 1141 01:02:49,357 --> 01:02:51,357 You can write little filtered messages. 1142 01:02:51,478 --> 01:02:54,939 Some of the team had already designed their own that they use all the time. 1143 01:02:55,279 --> 01:02:59,521 You know, ID log ID, um, some sort of keyword, something else. 1144 01:02:59,521 --> 01:03:01,022 They've written that query. 1145 01:03:01,022 --> 01:03:03,242 And yes, I could have learned the query language. 1146 01:03:03,623 --> 01:03:08,826 wrote my own query or a four, three, four, five minute conversation. 1147 01:03:09,346 --> 01:03:10,407 They've shown me the groups. 1148 01:03:10,407 --> 01:03:13,669 They've sent me their query job done, right? 1149 01:03:13,669 --> 01:03:15,891 I'm, I'm unblocked off I go. 1150 01:03:15,891 --> 01:03:19,433 And also another person now knows how to unblock the next person who might ask that 1151 01:03:19,433 --> 01:03:22,235 question and the cycle continues. 1152 01:03:22,235 --> 01:03:27,278 Um, so yeah, but then the, the other side I would say is it's more. 1153 01:03:28,039 --> 01:03:29,400 If everyone's new to something. 1154 01:03:29,400 --> 01:03:32,807 And I know that if I approached like someone who does. 1155 01:03:32,807 --> 01:03:35,868 Literally we all got introduced to a new tool on Monday morning. 1156 01:03:36,128 --> 01:03:39,610 And I know on Wednesday that yes, some people will have probably got further than 1157 01:03:39,610 --> 01:03:42,872 I have, but I'm probably not going to go and ask them on that day. 1158 01:03:42,872 --> 01:03:44,473 I feel like it's too soon. 1159 01:03:44,633 --> 01:03:49,436 I'd probably on that situation, I would go back into the docs, applying, you know, 1160 01:03:49,436 --> 01:03:52,357 play with the tool myself, explore the tool myself. 1161 01:03:52,517 --> 01:03:56,119 Uh, me and Mark in our training, we always used to talk about, you know, the 15 1162 01:03:56,119 --> 01:04:01,042 minute rule, you know, if I can't get, make progress in 15 minutes, then I'm 1163 01:04:01,042 --> 01:04:02,511 going, then I'm going for help. 1164 01:04:02,511 --> 01:04:03,654 Right, so. 1165 01:04:03,945 --> 01:04:07,806 I love that Rich, love that time box, that crap. 1166 01:04:07,806 --> 01:04:13,288 I mean, I really love my solution to all that is to really, is what you said 1167 01:04:13,288 --> 01:04:18,811 before, is around the context, like share the context of why you're coming to them 1168 01:04:18,811 --> 01:04:20,771 and what you may or may not have done. 1169 01:04:22,152 --> 01:04:25,654 You know, so it's things like saying, oh, well, I tried this thing, I tried that 1170 01:04:25,654 --> 01:04:27,834 thing, I looked here and there and everywhere and I couldn't find it and da 1171 01:04:27,834 --> 01:04:28,915 da. 1172 01:04:28,915 --> 01:04:29,795 Can you help me please? 1173 01:04:29,795 --> 01:04:32,396 Or, you know, it might be, look man. 1174 01:04:33,797 --> 01:04:37,018 times of the essence, I don't really have time to be chasing around all over the 1175 01:04:37,018 --> 01:04:42,140 internet because someone just helped me out because reasons, you know, I think, I 1176 01:04:42,140 --> 01:04:45,882 think that's a big, I think that's a big, big part of it. 1177 01:04:45,882 --> 01:04:51,344 And I love, I love the idea that you and Mark had around time boxing, how much 1178 01:04:51,344 --> 01:04:53,525 you're going to flail around in the dark. 1179 01:04:55,366 --> 01:04:57,007 I think that's very, very smart. 1180 01:04:57,007 --> 01:04:58,227 I think that's okay. 1181 01:04:58,227 --> 01:05:01,488 I want to try and get myself unstuck for X amount of time. 1182 01:05:01,957 --> 01:05:05,104 And if I'm still struggling, I'm calling in the cavalry, man. 1183 01:05:05,999 --> 01:05:06,759 Yeah, we used to do it. 1184 01:05:06,759 --> 01:05:08,480 And it was the framing around a brand new tool. 1185 01:05:08,480 --> 01:05:12,241 So, you know, if the tool says you can send an API request, right. 1186 01:05:12,241 --> 01:05:15,963 If I can't send an API request in 15 minutes, then there's probably something 1187 01:05:15,963 --> 01:05:17,303 wrong with that tool. 1188 01:05:17,584 --> 01:05:22,106 Or again, I shouldn't, I'm going to end up wasting a lot more time trying to do it. 1189 01:05:22,106 --> 01:05:25,967 I should stop consider what we've just mentioned, find someone who knows more 1190 01:05:25,967 --> 01:05:30,529 than me, read the docs, look at the API, look for YouTube videos, look for 1191 01:05:30,529 --> 01:05:31,570 conference talks, right? 1192 01:05:31,570 --> 01:05:33,150 Tight roll back to where we started. 1193 01:05:33,150 --> 01:05:33,810 Right. 1194 01:05:33,903 --> 01:05:38,367 I'm going to, I need to know that actually I'm about to enter a rabbit hole and I'm 1195 01:05:38,367 --> 01:05:39,588 probably going to get flustered. 1196 01:05:39,588 --> 01:05:41,430 I'm probably not going to be working very effectively. 1197 01:05:41,430 --> 01:05:42,992 I'm not going to have a clear model. 1198 01:05:42,992 --> 01:05:45,414 So I stopped myself at that 15 minute. 1199 01:05:45,694 --> 01:05:50,519 I formulate a plan and then basically try and execute it without spending three 1200 01:05:50,519 --> 01:05:54,042 hours in a dark hole in a rabbit hole, trying to find some. 1201 01:05:54,489 --> 01:05:57,831 Maybe that could be another under the topic for another show like learn how to 1202 01:05:57,831 --> 01:06:00,352 learn stuff or learning resources. 1203 01:06:01,033 --> 01:06:01,833 Yeah. 1204 01:06:02,991 --> 01:06:05,897 Right, so there we go. 1205 01:06:06,700 --> 01:06:09,085 Lots enjoyed that conversation, Vernon. 1206 01:06:10,205 --> 01:06:14,708 I mean, yeah, apart from the football part, it was a really nice conversation to 1207 01:06:14,708 --> 01:06:15,188 have. 1208 01:06:15,188 --> 01:06:18,511 I think we should edit out all talk of football until Liverpool start winning 1209 01:06:18,511 --> 01:06:19,191 again. 1210 01:06:20,739 --> 01:06:23,702 I might now copy the diary of a CEO, you know, where they put snippets at the 1211 01:06:23,702 --> 01:06:24,042 start. 1212 01:06:24,042 --> 01:06:27,645 I'm going to put football snippet at the start, then keep the original football bit 1213 01:06:27,645 --> 01:06:29,766 and then football bit at the end as well. 1214 01:06:31,228 --> 01:06:35,691 But yeah, the usual request at the end of this pod, please like, share, subscribe, 1215 01:06:35,691 --> 01:06:37,733 send us feedback, good, bad. 1216 01:06:37,973 --> 01:06:41,556 We're on this journey for the long haul and we want to keep improving episode 1217 01:06:41,556 --> 01:06:44,658 after episode, so send it our way. 1218 01:06:44,965 --> 01:06:48,347 Yeah, definitely let us know who your favourite host is and why it's Vernon. 1219 01:06:48,347 --> 01:06:49,507 We want to know that. 1220 01:06:49,687 --> 01:06:52,809 It's really important that we get this information. 1221 01:06:52,809 --> 01:06:56,951 No, seriously, Vernon Scott indeed. 1222 01:06:56,952 --> 01:06:59,053 The second thing, Vernon Scott the second. 1223 01:06:59,493 --> 01:07:01,455 But yeah, please feedback would be great. 1224 01:07:01,455 --> 01:07:04,676 Please like, comment, share, subscribe. 1225 01:07:04,676 --> 01:07:06,077 All of that good stuff. 1226 01:07:06,157 --> 01:07:08,018 You know, you know the drill. 1227 01:07:08,219 --> 01:07:10,060 And yeah, thank you for listening. 1228 01:07:10,060 --> 01:07:10,835 Let us know what you think. 1229 01:07:10,835 --> 01:07:15,220 topics, questions that you want us to cover, please post them, send them to us 1230 01:07:15,220 --> 01:07:18,984 any way you can, especially questions for the AMA episode that we're going to give a 1231 01:07:18,984 --> 01:07:19,724 shot. 1232 01:07:19,925 --> 01:07:20,385 Awesome. 1233 01:07:20,385 --> 01:07:21,646 Thank you all for listening. 1234 01:07:22,347 --> 01:07:23,569 It's goodbye from me. 1235 01:07:23,569 --> 01:07:25,550 Copy, might as well copy the rest of this football. 1236 01:07:26,473 --> 01:07:27,399 It's goodbye for me. 1237 01:07:27,399 --> 01:07:28,391 Is that what they say? 1238 01:07:28,391 --> 01:07:30,620 Yeah, they say it's goodbye from me, and it's goodbye from me. 1239 01:07:30,620 --> 01:07:31,883 Anyway, goodbye. 1240 01:07:31,945 --> 01:07:32,645 Bye.