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The Interface Podcast Crew talks to Khensani Carter, Director Sales Operations at Tenable.
Interface is a podcast where we connect technology and culture through conversation. Interface is brought to you by EMPOWER at PROS. EMPOWER is dedicated to attracting, developing and retaining Black talent at PROS. PROS helps people and companies outperform by enabling smarter selling in the digital economy.
Khensani Carter
[00:00:00] Jennifer: Welcome to interface a podcast where we connect technology and culture through conversation. Interface is brought to you by empower at pros. Empower is dedicated to attracting, developing, and retaining black talent. At pros pros helps people and companies outperform by enabling smarter selling in the digital economy.
I'm your host, Jenny and my co-hosts are
[00:00:22] Siara: CC. Hello, Jenny from the block
[00:00:26] Jennifer: and Mattie,
[00:00:28] Matthew: All I can hear is your mic jiggling.
[00:00:29] Jennifer: I'm not touching it.
It's connected to my laptop drawer. So maybe I'm touching my laptop. I'm going to try and do better. We're still learning.
We are joined today Khensani Carter director of sales operations at tenable. How you doing?
[00:00:55] Khensani: Great. How are you guys doing great.
[00:00:58] Jennifer: Great. [00:01:00] Khensani is another old classmate of mine from UNBC. So everybody should know UNBC right now, we keep talking about it.
[00:01:08] Siara: I say we need to just have a reunion, get out to get the whole gang together.
[00:01:13] Jennifer: We have a good time. We had, our reunion was good when we had it in 2019 that was due.
[00:01:17] Khensani: It was, it was good. It'd be good to have another one though. Post COVID and all that. Yeah, yeah,
[00:01:22] Jennifer: yeah, yeah, yeah. So we like to start off the show. Oh, you know what? It is my. Is on the laptop stand. And then my mic is connected to that and that's when you're hearing the jiggle.
So I need to figure out a better place to
[00:01:37] Matthew: I'm going to leave it all in this episode.
[00:01:40] Jennifer: That's the fun, this is the fun of it. This is what happens. It's, you know, podcast, trial and error. So as I was saying what we'd like to start out with is, you know, tell us, you know, your, your career story your LinkedIn let's, I mean, it's just such a [00:02:00] variety of things I think you've done.
So I'm really interested in, you know, obviously I kinda know the UNBC part, but yeah. Share with our listeners your story,
[00:02:08] Khensani: My story, like from the beginning or just UBC on, cause there's there's elements that I go, go back and forth. No. Career-related there's a touch of it. That's related to origins and that I'm south African born and raised and came to the U S when I was like 11 or 12.
Speed, speed, speed. Fast forward through middle school, high school, and through UNBC but there's a, there's a tie in there. After, after UNBC, I went to graduate school and honestly my intent was to do research related, to breaking down HMO's because I fully believe that our physicians and nurses and medical staff should be in a position to make the decisions that they should for their patients.
And HMO's were in the way I ended up not going that path. And instead came out with more like a [00:03:00] manufacturing, industrial engineering sort of background, which to me played really nicely with the math, Jenny, you and I are both, you know, have math degrees and just solving problems was always my passion.
It still is kind of so after grad school started working for John Deere, which is why the manufacturing time came in. But again, very much a we've got these problems to solve in the supply chain, or we have these problems to solve on a manufacturing floor and take what you understand about problem solving a little bit of trickles that you learned with IE, industrial engineering and see if you can do something.
It was a little intimidating to be honest, just because I didn't have that base and background that my peers did, but I really enjoyed it because there's something about visually seeing what you do affect change in a positive way. Right? So you can see like the assembly line is getting more streamlined.
They're producing more X per Y and you know, all that stuff. So that was, that was pretty cool. The transition out of [00:04:00] hardcore physical hardware, manufacturing into software was a whole other journey where with, like I said, there's a technical. Satisfaction with that can touch this part. And I can do a 5s event where I sort all the things, whereas the software it's, you don't see it, especially if you don't have that background in coding.
It's like, I know things are happening. I know things are being produced out of nothing, but I can't see it. And it's hard to kind of, you know, make sense of it. But the thing that never I guess the thing that always remained is problems are there to be solved. And if you think about problems as breaking it down into bite sized chunks, it doesn't matter.
What you're dealing with is still a problem. You may need the language and the background to understand how the problem came about or what potential root causes are, but once you get there, a problem is there to be solved in my mind. So the, the, the journey through to tenable. Was very much in the same vein it's just the tenable leg for [00:05:00] me was I think I've mastered problem solving enough to want to teach it to other people that was a transition for me.
Yeah. And I'm not at all calling myself a master, but I'd done it enough. And I was like, I'm sure the variety can't be that different. It's just a matter now of the problem I want to solve is how do I teach others to do what I think I'm doing fairly well. So that, that was a speedy trial speedy trip through to where, where I am now.
And I'm happy to do a stop over and kind of give more context if that helps. But yeah, that's, that's how I ended up at 10 goals.
[00:05:37] Jennifer: Awesome. Yeah. I think one thing I'm not familiar with that I saw on your LinkedIn was a six Sigma black belt. What is that?
[00:05:49] Khensani: Other than that, it's a toolbox, it's a toolbox and a toolkit of solving problems.
It's a way of measuring variance and tolerance and understanding the root causes of why you're [00:06:00] not at that precise, precise decimal point to again, solve the problem and get you there. So the parts-per-million thing plays a role in that. There's very much a it to me, it comes from a hardcore manufacturing perspective.
So imagine you've got your assembly line and you're producing product X and you have to get this many out the door to ship to whomever. Well, the quality of your product is going to matter. So you've got these tolerances that tell you how close you are to where you need to be. And six Sigma gives you the tools to both measure and figure out how to solve when you see the issue and look at it at a larger scale, more than just your one assembly line.
And to me, the beauty of six Sigma is, or I guess the. Problem-solving tools as if they're tools there, isn't just one tool to use for every job. You got to figure out what you're trying to do. And then pull out the tool. To me, six Sigma is one of those tools, right? And there are others like process mapping or value stream [00:07:00] mapping.
There's computer generated, XYZ that you can use. If you understand it all, it goes back to that. I know I'm going to sound like a broken record, but to me, it goes back to, do you understand the world you're in and the problem you're trying to solve. Okay, great. Now go figure out the tool. That's going to work best for it, you know?
[00:07:15] Jennifer: Ah, okay. So does that apply to software because, and maybe it's going, I'm doing software. I feel like... right. You, we tried, you know, we have an overall product we're trying to build or an enhancement we're trying to build and we try to, you know, we're agile. So we're, you know, that whole philosophy is like you kind of, well, you're just.
Estimating as you go. And it's kind of chaotic sometimes, and it's really hard from a management standpoint, because you want to say, oh, I'm agile. My team is flexible. We'll work on whatever the priority is at the moment. But at the same time, the people I report to are like, well, how long is it going to take till this is done?
And you're like, [00:08:00] well, I can't really say with a hundred percent confidence what that would be.
[00:08:05] Khensani: Right. And, and your, your story about agile reminds me of a project I did while I was still with, I think it was safe net and the task. I didn't use six Sigma purely, but I pulled elements of it. Right. But the task was there are certain teams within the dev ops group and I come from a non-coding environment.
So I'm walking in like. Dev ops ops operations development. I'm trying to piece words together to make them make sense. They still don't. But at the end of the day, the skillset and the experience that I had, plus the tools that I use was all right, you're trying to get from a to B. And then after you get there, you're handing off to somebody else who's trying to get from their a to B.
So if I broke it down like that and said, okay, somebody at the leadership level, maybe it's your own team thinks the journey from a to B to the next a, to B is taking too long or we're missing [00:09:00] stuff. Or you have to go backwards and you're reworking, or you want to agile, but you're not. So let's understand what you're doing.
And then out of your own mouth, you'll figure out why you're not getting from a to B in the way that they need you to do. So. The, the toolkit, toolbox, whatever I use was process map. I had these brilliant minds coders who for a long time, I thought I don't speak code. I don't speak their language. How am I going to.
Even pull out from them. What I know, they know how to fix that. They don't know yet. If you get what I'm saying. Right. So, so then I'm like, all right, well, let tell me I'm up there on the walls. Like, I don't know, 10, 12 foot wall with my sticky notes and my Sharpie. And I'm like, what did you first, what do you do next?
And they're looking at me like, seriously, halfway through. They're like, wait, we'll wait, no 65 should be here. And then they're talking amongst themselves. And they're like, no, no, that's not how I do it. And then all these aha like, wait, what? You don't do it that way. Oh, that's why this and that and the other.
And it's, it's fun to watch [00:10:00] people. Really thought I was coming in to consult, you know, the components is coming and trying to tell you what, and then realize that no, it's in your head. I just know how to get it out. Potentially. You know, so maybe a process therapist, I don't know.
[00:10:16] Siara: That sounds really fun and something that I'm interested in. I love watching people have that like aha moment and talking things out. And I think it also goes back to a theme that we've run into as we've been recording these episodes of asking the right questions. Are you asking the right questions to get to the root cause? Not just putting a bandaid on it to get from today to tomorrow, I'm making sure we get into the root of the problem so that we don't run into this again.
[00:10:44] Khensani: Absolutely. I do not like rework I, and I use it even in my current job because rework to me resonates very much with hardware. Right. Literally reworking the part because you did it wrong the first time. But I, I, I [00:11:00] used terms that to me translate. It doesn't matter what field you're in. I'm like rework is non-value add that's another term.
I'm like, okay, there's, value-add, non-value add value map streaming, but I'm like, it's a non-value-added activity. That is a waste of your time. So we won't do rework because we'll get it right the first time, because we're understanding the problem we're trying to solve.
[00:11:20] Jennifer: My, my software I'm being triggered. I feel like we, we often, and it's sometimes necessary to write to refactor and, and, and that you're right with with with assembly line or a physical thing that you're building, you can't build it twice, but the beauty of software, so you can kind of rewrite it and it does take time. And when requirements change sometimes.
So I guess maybe we're not. You're trying to fix one problem, which you would write, you know, an application for that problem. Then, you know, next year you get a set of requirements. And so it doesn't fit neatly into that. So then you're like, oh, time to [00:12:00] refactor. We're gonna write, you know, kick all this out and start it again.
So I guess it's, it's different.
[00:12:08] Khensani: Well, I, that, that reminds me of a current project I'm on in Tendable now. We we implemented CPQ three years ago and I was project manager at the time who saw the implementation all the way through we had outside consultants and it was, it was pretty cool.
I'd never done that type of project where it's a software implementation project versus a process improvement project. Right. Hmm. Now we're three years in and in my mind is like, yeah, you did it once. But no no no the business changes. The quoting requirements change. You need to, like you said, refactor, and that's not a bad thing.
It's potentially a, when you build it the first time, understand you may need to tweak and, or all the way rip and replace and maybe build in some flexibility, if you anticipating a tweak or be in line with the vision and mission and [00:13:00] strategy of the company. So you kind of build it directionally. Correct.
Right. So, but in the moment as, as your client or whomever is like, I want this thing to do this. There's that balance of you do, but then you don't because you're locking your door. You don't want to lock your door too tight, you know, so that I don't, like I said, Jenny, I don't, I don't code. I sit very closely to my partners in business platform, especially when I give requirements that they need clarification.
I can't help it understand behind the scenes enough to be like, you could use that thing or that thing, you know? And so I, I pretend to know what I'm, what I'm asking them to do. But they let me some of them,
[00:13:41] Jennifer: No I feel that way sometimes too, the more years that I get away from coding. Cause I haven't been coding for several years now. That's kinda like how quickly and just how quickly the technology moves anyway. So it's like the stuff I was working on is definitely not applicable [00:14:00] to the things my team is working on. So you kind of have to, yeah, you have to kind of learn how to speak, to speak and just.
Use your experience kind of like, okay, this is, this is a thing that makes that thing go, or this is monitoring that or whatever.
[00:14:14] Khensani: And I, I go, I use exactly the type of words you've just said, because I don't know the language, but I know what I mean. And I'll say the thinga-ma-jigger that did the thing last time I remember.
And then we tweaked it like this, but it didn't, it wasn't working. So it wasn't happy. Like I, whatever I can say to convey the head, nod that like, yeah, I get what you're saying. Your word choice is interesting, but I get, what,
[00:14:40] Matthew: If you run into pushback from like not having that coding experience, how do you navigate that situation?
[00:14:46] Khensani: I challenge them and I say, help me understand. I push it right back, because I'm like, I, I detect that I'm not getting what you're saying to me because when you tell them, you know, especially if it's really, really direct and I'm like, well, you don't get it or something very [00:15:00] in my face.
And I'll say I don't because that's not my world, but I'd like to understand what you're saying. You know, so I push it right back on them. I'm not going to get a coding, kale coding experience, or, or, you know, comp sci degree in 10 minutes between meetings. That's not, that's not happening. And I I'm very self-aware I know I don't know everything, but once I understand watch out, because then I can understand the problem and then we're going to solve it. Yeah,
[00:15:30] Jennifer: Absolutely. And then it kind of, it also, if you did have that background and if your path had taken their path and your mindset would be their mindset, and then you would need someone else to come in and sort it all out for them
[00:15:42] Khensani: Potentially right now, you'd like that diversity in thought. Right. And to me that's critically important.
Both in the project team, if you've got people that think the same, where does the creativity kind of get, you know, get in? So yeah,
[00:15:58] Jennifer: so. [00:16:00] Th-this is, this is a career path that I think I didn't realize existed when I was in undergrad. So, you know, what, what would you say to you know, people kind of who might be interested or, you know, what path would they take to get to where you are today
[00:16:14] Khensani: to problem solving?
I, I didn't know. It existed either to be honest, with a math degree, the options were actuary or teach. Right. And I'm not seeing that movie. So I stumbled on it and I think it, it presents itself in industrial engineering. If you go to like a UW Madison, that's where I went to grad school or any of the big tens, really that, that there's something about the Midwest it's really prevalent in, I E I'm guessing because of the, you know, the.
Car manufacturing and, and all the other things, not to say other areas in the country don't have that, but that's where I found it most advertise most [00:17:00] prevalent. I E it'll emerge in any course or in your career path through that. Like if you're getting your IE degree, problem-solving comes with saying if however, Jenny, you're asking about process improvement in the way that I'm doing it.
Funny enough consulting firms, that's how they kick you off. At least that was my miniature experience with the Deloitte for that stint for three months was that's what they do. They're like you have enough understanding basic without having to be an expert, having to have a potentially an engineering degree that you can learn how to solve a client's problems.
If you think in a way that says, I understand the world that you've told me and I can. Work my way to asking enough questions to get to. Oh, okay. That would be a problem. I get it now, you know, kind of thing. Not, not the best advice. So I'm going to sum it up and say something more coherent. I think, I think it'd be, if you go mathematics and you love problems, problem solving, and then if you go, [00:18:00] I E you'll get it.
But I think a lot of it for us at the time, the interwebs were not what the interwebs are now. Right. And you couldn't just Google any questions. So I think folks that are in college or aspiring to go to college have a lot available to them to figure out what they want to do. But I also think that if you don't know what's out there, you, you know, you gotta look, I dunno.
Yeah. Non-answer answer. But
[00:18:30] Siara: I feel like this type of role. You could, this could be applicable to any industry. I know in my current role just as a training admin and just listening to people around me and problems that come up, it's like, okay, this sounds like something is broken. So let's go back to the beginning.
What are you doing? What are you doing? What is the objective again? Okay, let's go back. What are you doing? What are you [00:19:00] doing? I think we need to plug the gap here. So I think that type of problem solving. I think it's sort of an organic thing for certain people who think a certain way. Cause I feel like, I think similarly to the way you do consignee and I think you'll have pockets of people in the organization who sort of think like that.
And it's, I mean, I think it's great. If you have both of them, you have the, the, you can ask the questions, the right questions, and then also having the skills to fix the problem as well. So you can kind of have a dual role there, but yeah, I think that's a, somebody can organically fall into a role that way.
[00:19:40] Khensani: I 100% agree. I think it expands industry. And like you said, it's a matter of, it might be a, I need, I want to do this and I don't naturally think that way, so I have to train, but it could also be, oh yeah, that doesn't make any sense because I'm watching the, your steps 1, 2, 3, and you're doing five before [00:20:00] two.
So wait, what you know, and curious enough to be, to ask the question and say, why are you doing it? It doesn't seem like it's going to give you what you need as quickly as you want. Also be, gets more of that thought process. I think,
[00:20:11] Matthew: To speak on that problem solving going through undergrad when we were like learning how to teach, especially in science, we're moving away from that factoid base, like who invented this at what year to more inquiry based.
And like the students lead the classroom in their questions. It's structured in a way that is more problem solving, problem solving centric and inquiry based.
[00:20:35] Khensani: That's awesome. I I've had the opportunity to hire interns while at tenable and there's some interns I interviewed and and I didn't realize what I was looking for until several interviews after, because it was my first time interviewing interns or even having interns and me being a manager was still fresh thing.
But I was looking for individuals who were curious, not I have a math [00:21:00] degree and I know exactly, you know, the quadratic formula. I only remember that term, Jenny cause my,
you know, the oldest is in calculus and he's like my differential. I'm like, oh, that sounds like something I should remember.
[00:21:18] Jennifer: Yeah, I can relate. I can relate.
[00:21:20] Khensani: I need to Google or something, but anyway, not to deviate in my conversations with the intern. And I was allowed to hire two or three at a time.
And I did, and I realized that a person's curiosity is huge and it's not a given and some people just don't have it. Right. And I don't know how to teach that, but if you're curious about what you're looking at, learning, whether you love it or not, but if you're curious and you peel back the onion more and more, that lends itself so well to this type of role, I think because you're asking the experts of the process, how they do [00:22:00] their job, because you know enough about the general process to detect where things may need to be poked further peal back to help them realize how to solve their problems.
It sounds tricky, right? It sounds like I'm getting. To take answers out of people's brains, but that's kind of what it is.
[00:22:24] Siara: I can also view this as sort of that curiosity. And I'm interested in, in this, the curiosity can also have you labeled as like a troublemaker, you know, if you're the person in the room who everybody thinks a certain way, and this is how we've always done it, then you raise the question, but why that doesn't seem to be working.
And I'm, I'm curious, culturally, I would say that. I wasn't raised in a household where I was asked, you know, like, what is your opinion? What do you think about that? How would you solve this problem? It was more of a, you do this because I [00:23:00] told you to do it. And don't ask me questions. So as your curiosity, Khensani you know, you know, you've been labeled the troublemaker or has the kids would say problematic?
[00:23:12] Khensani: I haven't I was a kid who like, you you're, you know, culturally, you do, as you're told, but, and I knew it would come back. Right? So my upbringing we came to the U S because my dad worked for IBM in South Africa, and he was on a special program to migrate to the U S for three years and then go back.
But part-time being what it was. We ended up staying that being said, because dad was a computer geek. He was a sales person, but he was a computer geek. He bought us a PS2 and encouraged me to figure out what it does. And I remember coding in basic and I'm like, what? 11, 12, all the kids are out playing and I'm inside trying to figure out this thing, this machine.
And, you know, so the curiosity was [00:24:00] quenched in that way, for me in that it was encouraged and it wasn't ever smacked down, but I'm also, I was also brought up to be very tactful in how I approach speech and language and people and almost almost too much so to where I have no edge, I mean maybe a little bit, but I don't think I haven't had.
So if I'm curious about something. I find the words to relay my curiosity. So it does not rub people in a way that they'll shut me down because I have more to gain if I'm, you know, so it, it, combination of those two things I think is why I'm not a troublemaker in my head. Others may say differently, but
[00:24:38] Matthew: The way I see curiosity, isn't like like a video game trait, you either have curiosity or you don't.
I say it more as like muscles, like everybody has muscles. And whether like you go to the gym and you work out, your muscles might be big and you might start from a point where your muscles are already big. And like you're genetically predisposed to having big muscles. But like, if you go to the gym and you work hard, Your [00:25:00] muscles are going to get bigger.
And like, you can develop that curiosity in the same way.
[00:25:03] Khensani: I liked that. I liked that I'm pivoting my thinking a lot.
[00:25:09] Jennifer: What it reminds me of is I think in school, I remember there'd always be that one person in class that just asked too many questions and you just be like, why are they asking so many questions, but to answer your question, Siara, like they're annoying, but I also want that person on my team because I know that person is going to, you know, whether they do it in a tactful way, like Khensani or if they're just kind of people have different personalities.
So sometimes, sometimes it's a person who's, who's curious or, or you know, challenging what's going on and they do it kind of in an annoying way. But ultimately, you know, that. You know, these questions are because they want to make sure we're putting the best thing out there. And, and, you know, you know, concise talk about [00:26:00] interviewing people and, you know, you know, are, are, they're curious people like, yeah, if they don't have that, they're there, you know, it's going to be harder for them.
And I see very shy. So I used to not say anything. I'm thinking things in my head and I wouldn't really say anything. So for all listeners out there, if you feel like, well, I don't know if I should say things or, you know, it's better to say it and, you know, risk being, you know, getting it out, maybe not, not saying it cause they know then you know, this, person's thinking through the problem or they're trying to understand it, or they're trying to enlighten me to their understanding of the problem, which might be different than mine.
And I might be, you know, I might be misunderstanding and they might be letting me know, Hey, you didn't think about. All these problems that we can have over here.
[00:26:50] Khensani: Yeah. I have a member of my team who is probably more the vocal person and probably speaks before they think, but [00:27:00] man, the number of times that they've dropped that bomb and chat or verbally where we're like, huh, and we all, we all paused like, oh yeah, you're, let's explore that.
And so it's the diversity of thought thing again, right. Where it's like, we can't all be the same otherwise, you know, I don't know.
[00:27:20] Jennifer: Yeah. Things won't be as good. Yeah. The next question is diversity representation and companies has been hot topic. I think everybody who's that crazy agrees that something should be done, but we want to know. What should be done? What is the action? W-what do you think? How do we bring more black talent into stem careers?
[00:27:48] Khensani: That you're right.
It's, it's the topic I think, I think, and, or talk about at least once a week with somebody on, on some level, we talk about it in our house, my [00:28:00] friends and I obviously, and even at the job, how do we bring more black talent? It has to start at the very beginning when I'm going back again. Right. My dad, I'm fortunate.
He worked for IBM and nine, 10 year old playing with a PS2, not intimidated by a computer thinking it's normal to such an extent that he He would let me create spreadsheets for his sales presentations. Right. And I was just like, oh, it's a great, and it makes sense. And it totals and because math right.
So I I've never felt the, I don't belong in stem in the way that I've heard it articulated by others, or I wouldn't be good at that or whatever. And I, I, there was something I was watching. I can't remember if it was an article and a video within it, but the, the author was just saying, you know, if it's a natural thing you're exposed to.
As a kid, most of us are curious when you get to the point where you're [00:29:00] trying to figure out what you want to do. It's not a foreign thing. You expose kids to music, they may play it. And then when they get to where, you know, it's high school, it's not a foreign thing. So I think it starts at the very, very beginning.
I used to think it was, oh, we got to get us in college, but I don't think that's good enough. And I used to think high school and I was like, no, that's, that's not far back enough. So in my head, I'm like, I'm like, w you know, when do we start? And it was like, start when they're born. Why not? You know, start when we're born, just like everybody else.
And, and give us the options or to think about ourselves in a way that we don't right now, then that may be the, all the books that are available are available and represent us as well as others. When you're reading to your kid, you said Sierra, you have a one and a half year old. I don't want you to have to look for books that have people in them that look like your kid.
It should just be on the shelf, you know, or the television shows shouldn't be [00:30:00] something that, you know, your friends slacked you or chatted with you. You got to catch a show because it's got no, it should just be, it should just be, and I'm super optimistic. I am optimistic and, and sunshiny most of the time.
But with this one, it's like, we got to start at the beginning and give every child a fair shot at being interested in something that they might be interested in. Whether we traditionally been there or not. No, we gotta, we gotta start at the beginning.
[00:30:31] Siara: I do feel like generationally the tide is changing. I think if you just listen to the way children talk and how they, you know, kind of view the world, they is just like, this is my friend Jose, and he's Hispanic, you know, he's brown and I'm, I'm black and that's my friend.
And you know, there's just this and I find [00:31:00] it funny it's as a parent, Trying not to push your sort of biases or your trauma onto your children's. Like, just let them be, let them explore the way they want to. But I can see even in this generation coming behind us where it's like, we belong no matter what and whatever I need to do, whatever window I need to climb through whatever crack there is, I'm going to find a way to make my voice heard.
You know? And if this person won't listen, then this person will, and if you won't listen, then I'll go that way. And I think it's, I think it's just a generational change that's coming where I think it is going to be more of, it just is. You're not having to go out and search for it.
[00:31:50] Khensani: I'm encouraged by what you're talking.
Sorry, Jenni. I'm encouraged by the generational difference in that way, because. My generation. [00:32:00] I think it's hard to flip and become that way because it's been so this way for so long and the walls are up and I met, you know, I'm in conversations or spaces where I'm being asked to pull the wall down and it's hard.
It's hard. It's hard.
[00:32:19] Jennifer: Yeah.
[00:32:20] Matthew: But it doesn't happen if you don't do it.
[00:32:23] Jennifer: Yeah. You have to be intentional. I come from the, we don't see color generation, so it's definitely...
[00:32:34] Siara: Sorry, go ahead. I was interrupting, you know,
[00:32:36] Jennifer: like I said, he was saying, it's, it's nice that, you know, when my kids are coming up, they can say, oh, this, like you said, this person, you know, this person is Hispanic.
This person is. Or Latin X, I think it's, I'm still, I'm still learning what I was supposed to be saying, but or you know, this person's Indian or this person, you know, has two moms or this person has, you know, and just being able [00:33:00] to openly talk about it where before it was kinda like, like, I definitely remember being in school and being like, you know, who is it?
You know, instead of just being like, when you're the only black worker is the black person, right. That's the easiest way to filter down.. You know it's the girl. She's kind of short kind of tall. She's this it's like, it's okay. She's black. You could call her black, it's okay, it's different.
[00:33:25] Siara: I still struggle with that as a black person.
I'm like, okay. Do I say black? African-American I'm like, African-American seems so formal. She's black. Let's just, let's
[00:33:34] Jennifer: I'm from the black generation too. I can't do the African. Khensani maybe African American.
[00:33:44] Khensani: Literally.
[00:33:49] Jennifer: She's literally from
Africa.
I am not.
[00:33:57] Khensani: My child corrected me and said, mommy, we're [00:34:00] brown. Look at the color of your right. Boo.
[00:34:06] Jennifer: Yeah.
[00:34:11] Khensani: Yeah. He was, he was way younger at the time, but he was like, no, you're not black or brown. And he's looking at it like wrist, like we're, we're brown. Like yeah, we are.
[00:34:21] Jennifer: Yeah. Yeah. That's better than when your kids are like, you're not as brown as the rest of us.
[00:34:35] Siara: We've got a spectrum in my house. Also, my husband is about the color of that lamp. And so my children are various shades between that and me. So we've got a little rainbow coalition in my house, so I get it.
[00:34:55] Khensani: Oh, Yeah. It's more than just start early though, [00:35:00] obviously, right? Because you have people in the middle, you've got middle schoolers, high schoolers, college folks, people in the workforce, and more than just stuff to babies has to happen to get more people of color in tech
[00:35:12] Jennifer: Well it kind of boggles my mind that I don't think that coding is a standard course that students take in high school.
Right. I don't, I don't think everybody, I don't think it's like science or biology.
[00:35:29] Khensani: Oh, okay. As in it's an it's an elective or it's not
[00:35:32] Jennifer: I think it's an elective. And at one point I don't know about now it counted as a foreign language and Alvin ISD and I laughed so hard.
It is a foreign language. I don't think that's the, well, I don't know. I haven't checked, but it's not a foreign language. It's, you know, it's a different,
[00:35:53] Siara: I mean, in our school district, My son goes to a magnet school. So [00:36:00] it is a stem focus. Like they do regular curriculum and then they have a S you know, stem or stem branch.
And so I, I don't know if in the non-magnet schools, if that's even a conversation because he's done robotics he's done coding already. He's like, mommy, this class is hard, but I'm like, you got an a, so you're doing something right. But, you know,
[00:36:25] Jennifer: I know my daughter didn't do she in undergrad. She did a course where she did some like HTML and that was the first sheet she had done it.
So in this day and age, I would think every school, right. It should be kind of part of your core curriculum, because if you don't, if you've never tried it, how do you know? You know, I understand how to write, you know, reading, writing, arithmetic, you know, this is kind of like the other extension. You know, try this too, because there's, you know, all kinds of options or, or related, you [00:37:00] know, career it's really up to that.
So
[00:37:02] Siara: I think it's another big conversation of just being exposed, as you were saying, Khensani like, it was just a natural thing. Your dad works at IBM. It was just a, it was, you know, cop what is it? Dinner table talk, you know, this is just a part of my life. And I think, and a lot of, you know, underrepresented communities, that's not right.
And you know, part of the conversation, computers, you know, my, my mom probably doesn't have a laptop. My dad probably works in a blue collar industry, you know? Hm. I think there should be a bigger push and schools where at least they get the exposure there where they may not be getting it at the dinner table or my, you know, my parents come home and, and talk about these things.
I think that also makes a huge difference and people who say, yeah, I can do this. You know, we, we talk about all the [00:38:00] time or, you know, I've experienced this, my mom does this, or what have you. So I do, I think it's just start very early, also.
[00:38:09] Khensani: Agreed.
[00:38:10] Jennifer: Totally agree.
Any other follow up on.
[00:38:19] Siara: The awkward silence.
[00:38:22] Jennifer: Sure. I don't know how to read everybody yet to know if they've got more to say if that's the case, it's time for heat checked.
[00:38:40] Matthew: I don't know about that one. You might want to
[00:38:41] Siara: Mattie, you gotta get in on the
air horns.
[00:38:48] Matthew: No air horns. I heard an air horn, I think in a video and. I hope they don't suggest that
[00:38:56] Jennifer: please. It was something otherwise I want to keep going.[00:39:00]
[00:39:07] Matthew: next week I'll have something
[00:39:08] Jennifer: we can come up with a song
[00:39:27] Siara: WE
[00:39:27] Jennifer: really appreciate you spending your time with us. So we don't want it to be a, you know, like a interview. Yeah,hang
[00:39:40] Khensani: out. Yeah..
[00:39:43] Jennifer: So he checks where we share something that we thought was cool recently. Are we excited about as far as technology or the culture or whatever, is there anything concerning you would like to share?
[00:39:57] Khensani: I, I saw tidbits [00:40:00] of thisdocumentary and I, II don't documentary. My husband does that. I do shows for entertainment, but it was it was a Netflix thing and it was about AI.
I don't know if you guys have seen it. It's not, it's not recent. I think it's a year or more old, but the topic, or I guess the whole thing was was a woman at MIT because she's, she's an instructor trying to create. Something really cool. And needing facial recognition software to play a role in that.
And then finding that what was available from all the giant tech companies did not recognize her face because of the color of her skin, maybe the features and stuff. It was just, it was interesting. And then I was kind of going deeper into it, like, well, what role does AI play in all of our lives? A lot of me in my head, when you say AI, I immediately think like robots taking over the world.
Right? Like it's like you know, substituting us and [00:41:00] we're, you know, in a ditch somewhere and they're taking over our families kind of thing.
[00:41:04] Jennifer: Like the Terminator.
[00:41:05] Khensani: Yeah. Right. Or I robot or very, very future like, oh, that's far, far away. That's not us, but no, it's here. It's happening right now. And it's affecting our lives as we speak.
So to me, I don't know how many of us. Eyes wide open on it. Everything from voice recognition to facial recognition, to patterns in your scrolling, to all of that is influenced by people who coded the machine to do the thing. And they don't look like us. Not enough of them do. Right. And I'm not calling out in any way, malice, I'm calling out absence, right?
We're not there to say, wait a minute. That's not how that, or that's not what we, and so there's assumptions and there's data, which eventually we'll get it. Right. But in the meantime, what's the price we're paying, [00:42:00] whether it's our freedom or money or whatever, Because we're not at that table or behind that desk to say, no, no, no, no computer, you're doing it wrong.
This is the way to do it because this is what I do. This is what we do. This is what we look like. Right. And then even, even more so, not even on the scary I robots taking over perspective, but what opportunities are companies missing by not having us enough of us? Right? Like the world is so small now that it can't just be for those who have the means or whatever, when, when you are selling or when you're creating or selling a product, I think it's incumbent on you to not think so small and understand that there's an entire population of people that you could be missing out on just because your perspective is narrow.
Right? Yeah. So that's yeah.
[00:42:54] Matthew: Where did they say like, if you don't know how it's getting. Like where the money's coming from then [00:43:00] you're the product. Was that saying, you know, you heard that before
[00:43:03] Khensani: I have.
[00:43:04] Jennifer: Yeah. I know what you're talking about. I don't know,
[00:43:07] Matthew: and is that show called coded bias. Anyone listening that wants it.
[00:43:15] Siara: I mean, we've talked about this before.
I'm going to have to look that one up coded bias
[00:43:19] Jennifer: yeah. I haven't seen that one added to my queue. I have a legit Netflix subscription now I was using my brothers. I'm a grown up. So I bought my own
[00:43:35] Matthew: Netflix. Police is coming for you.
[00:43:45] Khensani: I've got, like I said, I'm, I'm hopeful. Some people call me Pollyanna cause I, I default to rose colored glasses. Most of the time I just do, it's hard to take them off. Sometimes I have to cause reality. Right. I'm hopeful that [00:44:00] the things that you guys are doing this, this type of show, I'm sure a plethora of other things that you're doing to bring awareness and to help move the needle.
Maybe scary. iRobot won't happen for us. Right. Because maybe we'll sit behind the desk and be like, Nope, that's scary. iRobot for us. We're not doing that. You need to, you need to code that way. Cause that's not going to work.
[00:44:23] Jennifer: Yeah. The goal of this is to see more of us out there and make sure we're working on all those things that are going to be in everybody's homes, you know, on their phones that they carry around with.
You know, we want to make sure we're involved in all of that stuff.
[00:44:36] Khensani: Yeah. Yeah. And some of the involvement could be. We're aware. Right. And if we're in a conversation fictitious, right? You're in a conversation you're at a bar or you're talking to somebody you don't know because you're waiting for your friend or whatever you understand enough about this topic, that when that coding director of coding, I'm saying all the wrong things, director of [00:45:00] it, who's responsible for, you know, 50 coders is talking to you.
And there's something that you say that influences his or her thought process and then delivers into the 50 Pete, like it could. Right. But it doesn't mean you're the coder you just happened to understand enough about what's being done to have an opinion to influence a decision or whatever the case may be.
[00:45:23] Jennifer: That is so sure.
CC Mattie, you have a heat check?
Other than the guests first,
[00:45:36] Matthew: We should probably figure that out. Going into the episode. Starting now.
[00:45:40] Jennifer: Yeah.
[00:45:41] Matthew: I'll go. I know Sierra has an iPhone, so this is good news for her. I'm starting next year. Apple is releasing, they're releasing the tool, the parts and the manuscript or the, yeah, the schematics to like repair your own iPhone, or [00:46:00] mac. But then like at supposedly it's not going to be super accessible to like the everyday folk.
So you're still going to have to go to a store.
[00:46:08] Siara: Of course, of course. I mean, but I think that's a big thing for apple. Cause you know, they want to keep everything secret, give me money and.
[00:46:18] Jennifer: Do you have to go to there's third-party vendors that can fix your phone though, right? Yeah.
[00:46:23] Khensani: Yeah.
[00:46:23] Matthew: It's super expensive still.
[00:46:26] Khensani: Why are they doing it? Is it
[00:46:27] Matthew: I think it's you know, how like congresses kind of coming down on the tech giants, it's still like a big thing with the right to repair because if you buy a cell phone and you can't fix it yourself, like you have no right to repair it. Like, do you own the product at that point?
I think there
[00:46:43] Jennifer: Like, I could change my own oil if I want it. Yeah.
[00:46:45] Matthew: That was like a big thing with John Deere.
[00:46:50] Khensani: So cool. Proprietary repair shop.[00:47:00]
[00:47:00] Siara: All right, Jenny, you or me?
[00:47:07] Jennifer: Do you want to go next? Okay. So outperform pros outperform our annual conference. And one of the speakers, Patty Azerello, who wrote rise and move. And I actually have RISE on my shelf. I'm not so good with reading. I know how to read obviously, but just
making the time. And then when you finally get to it and you get like three pages in and then you're like leaving. So I actually have it. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I really enjoyed her talk. The title was move leading business transformation. And she was talking about when executives have a strat, like every year, right?
There's a new strategy or, you know, we need to communicate to the. [00:48:00] The company with what that goal is and talking about how to communicate it and how you kind of have to you have to f you know, follow up and you can't just kind of be like, I want this to happen. It needs to be happened by December. I'll see you in December.
Like that's extreme, but most people don't wait till December, but they'll, they'll kind of check in, but talking about how, you know, you really need to make sure that you're getting feedback and having unstructured conversation about. You know, what the stakeholders, or even just like, you know, you know, down to all levels, how does this impact, you know, how does this decision or this thing that you want to do impact, you know, everybody and what are their thoughts about it?
And that helps that helps everyone grow in the right direction. And one thing I really resonated with is because I love my we use confluence and I love a good conflict. Like when I have a project or initiative, I'll create that table. And I like to put in the little status icons and put them in color and be [00:49:00] like, you know, to do, to do, to do in progress complete.
And I love flipping them to complete. So she, she was kind of, kind of saying the same thing. Cause sometimes when you roll out these new strategies that some people have not heard anything about, and it was like, where is this coming from? She's like, no, you need to communicate. How did you get to this part?
What research did you do? And have a timeline that says, you know, we had an idea. We, we did this research or we met with people at bloda yada, yada. She was like, you are here, you know, in the middle of the timeline and then all the things that kind of need to happen until it's done, you know, until it's done.
And I'm just remembering, I'm, I'm kind of a overcommunicator and people make fun of me because people joke like managers, the solution for everything is to have a meeting, which I love,
but I love it because,
you know, that's, you know, I kind of feel like you need to, you to write it down. You need to talk to them about it and have interactive. And then [00:50:00] even a one-on-one, I'll be like, I wrote this down, we had a meeting about it. How do you individually think about it? Just to make sure, you know, the message is getting across.
And I I've seen that when I. You know, when I get busy and I don't do all those steps, you know, the whole process is a little rougher than it needs to be. So that's why I always default to a good meeting. But it was good to hear her say that. So I try not to, oh, sorry. My team for always
scheduling me, but there's a method to my madness,
[00:50:31] Siara: terrible. They can be valuable from time to time.
[00:50:34] Jennifer: I try to make them have a purpose. Right. They're not just meetings for the sake of meetings. Cause I know some people were like, well, let's just meet every week. It's supposed to have a purpose. So you know, sometimes I do better than others, so but yeah, I thought it was an excellent talk.
And I am definitely going to read her book.
[00:50:53] Siara: I'm going to hold you to it.
All right. Me [00:51:00] last. So I was laughing with Jenny earlier. I was like, oh my God, I haven't found my heat check for today. And when you go looking for something... you can never really find it, but I came across a trending topic from on Twitter about the cash app company has now released cash app for teens.
So anyone 13 and over can now create a cash app account. And at first, as we were talking about it, I was like, oh my God, I'm not ready for that. I don't, you know, here we go, getting kids more involved on their phones and blah, blah, blah. But then as I was ruminating and on my soap box, I was like, actually, It's probably not a bad idea.
I know for myself growing up, there was not a lot of conversation about financial literacy. As a kid, you know, we didn't get insights of how the bills got paid and why, you know, how we have lights and water and, you know, mom and dad go to work, but what do you do all [00:52:00] day at work? I know I go to school and I do all of these things, you know, what are you going to do?
So we were also talking about, you know, my son, he got his first wallet, this, you know, this year he started seventh grade. I was like, son, you need to have a wallet and carry your money and blah, blah, blah. But I think this, you know, starts the conversation of how to manage your money. That's a really important conversation.
And the younger, you can get them the better, you know, how important it is to save. I am now learning at the ripe age of 35, how important invest investing is. And I wish I would have known that many, many years ago. But these are, you know, more tools that parents can use to help have that financial conversation with their children and how to be responsible with your money, how to manage things, you know, and it's a great way for kids to be social.
You know, I'm always surprised when I hear my son, he's playing video games with kids from his school the other [00:53:00] night, he was in his room. I'm on discord with some of my classmates. I'm like, how the heck do you even know what discord is? And what are y'all talking about? But. Yeah. And then having it opens the door to have those conversations with our kids, especially our black and brown little boys and girls.
How important that is so that they can start ahead of the curve. When, you know, they have their first job, how important it is to make sure that you're savings start saving for retirement as early as you can. Talking about debt. And I told him my son, he's way too smart for me to have to pay for him to go to school.
So we're working on scholarships and I mean, I really don't want you to take out loans, which I have that's, you know, always an option, but I'm still having those conversations about, you know, being financially literate and understanding, you know, what credit cards are and how, you know, awful they can be, but they can come in handy in some situations you just have to be responsible.
So yeah. I thought that was a pretty [00:54:00] interesting, I knocked myself right off my little soapbox really quick on that one. So you have cash app is now available to kids 13 and up.
[00:54:10] Jennifer: I mean, how to kids these days , like when I was a kid, like you see the money come out of your mom's wallet to pay for things.
Now it's just like swipe swipe site and they don't. Yeah. How do you comprehend that? You know, there's a balance and it's gets smaller and
[00:54:26] Matthew: Chase bank has like a really good banking system for kids. Yeah.
[00:54:31] Siara: And it's also, I mean, I think you can still have that conversation. I know no one balances their checkbook anymore, but still kind of going back to that, how you kind of manage your money that way.
But yeah, I mean, it was amazing to me. My sister-in-law is a school teacher and she taught second grade for a really long time. And this was just a few years ago, she pulled out a newspaper, like an actual, and her kids were like, oh my God, what is that? Like? What,
what a newspaper, [00:55:00]
what world are we living?
They're like, Google, we Google everything. So it's just, the world is changing in such a weird, it's such a weird way. But yeah, my son still thinks cash is gold. He's like, can I have, can I have three bucks to go do the thing? I'm like, sure.
[00:55:23] Jennifer: I never have cash. It's always, it's always like a thing it's like cat, like, can I pay, can I just sell someone? They're like, no, I need to take cash.
[00:55:31] Siara: You get your kids the cash app so that you can send them some money.
[00:55:36] Jennifer: Yeah. Yeah. I need to.
Well, thank you so much. Khensani
[00:55:45] Khensani: yeah, this is pretty cool. This is pretty cool.
Thank you for the invite. I really appreciate it. Yeah. I think sometimes you don't know how you're thinking about things until you're asked and you're in that conversation, then you self reflect.[00:56:00] So I'm going to be thinking a lot about this, right? It's it's, you know, my every day is I go to work. I come back, I do the dinner thing and then we do school.
Soccer on the weekend because one of them plays cello on the other side and then it repeats. Right. But wait, what do I want to think about outside of that project? There's no time for that, but if you have a conversation like this, it's birds, some stuff and you're like, oh, okay. Maybe
[00:56:28] Jennifer: You have things to say, you sound very wise too
[00:56:33] Siara: oh yeah.
Very much so good time. Yes.
[00:56:39] Khensani: Wise that sounds like old
[00:56:42] Siara: you got, you got that black girl magic going girl.
[00:56:47] Khensani: That's so kind. I appreciate it. No, this was a ball. This was a ball. I don't know if you do repeat guests, but if you ever feel, I would love to join you for
[00:56:55] Jennifer: I'm tryna do the Meyerhoff reunion at some point.
Yeah. So we [00:57:00] definitely need to bring multiple people try. I've been talking to some others and they're kind of like, I don't know.
[00:57:05] Siara: We think once we start releasing some episodes, you know, the people gonna be like, oh, that sounds like it's fun. I want to be a part of that. So yeah,
[00:57:21] Khensani: definitely a good time.
[00:57:24] Jennifer: So if people want to get in touch with you to hear your wisdom, how would they get in touch with you?
[00:57:30] Khensani: I am on LinkedIn for sure. I'm on Instagram. I did not send you my details, but I will. I think I don't even know where my handle is. Is that a thing handle on Instagram? Okay.
[00:57:45] Jennifer: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll stick that in the show notes for the listeners
and thank you listeners for listening to this episode. We hope you had a good time. If you enjoyed it. If you enjoyed this [00:58:00] conversation and you want to have your own conversation, go out and ask somebody.
[00:58:13] Siara: Khensani we've been trying. What is this episode nine? We have been trying to work on our closer for nine long episodes. We're getting there.
[00:58:23] Khensani: What was the closer, last time? What was what'd she do last time and
[00:58:26] Jennifer: it was finger guns. It was like, see you later.
[00:58:31] Matthew: I had to, I have to like do creative stuff for these endings.
I actually cannot wait for this one. That'll be good
[00:58:40] Jennifer: music, which I love our, I love our music.
[00:58:49] Khensani: He said, ask somebody. Just right for like two, three seconds.
[00:58:55] Jennifer: I was trying to see,
[00:58:59] Siara: I was, [00:59:00] I was waiting to see how you were going to get there. I was like, this should be entertaining.
Yeah, there it's, it's fine. It's great.
[00:59:14] Jennifer: Yeah. He just fades it to the music and so people know right. Episodes over. Thank you.
[00:59:25] Siara: We need, we need to poll our potential listeners. Hey, we, we need, we need a closer, we need to close or help us out.
[00:59:34] Jennifer: Yeah, for sure. But yes. If you want to get in touch with us, I also forgot this part.
If you want to get in touch with us, you can email interfacepodcast@pros.com. With your suggestions for our closing. We really appreciate that. Cause we don't know. We'll see,
[00:59:55] Siara: we'll get there eventually
[00:59:57] Khensani: sounds like drums in the background with your mic. I [01:00:00] wonder if that's a closing
[01:00:01] Jennifer: oh, he says, I
[01:00:03] Khensani: wonder
[01:00:08] Siara: that he's like finally somebody.