Ep__207_Andrew_Baines
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[00:00:00] Jenni: 

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 [00:01:00] outperform by enabling smarter selling in the digital economy.

I'm your host, Jennifer Plumer and I'm joined with Sierra and Matthew, my co-host. And our guest today is Andrew Baes, host of Custom Journeys podcast, founder and recruiter of Custom Talent Solutions. And um, really happy to have you on cuz this is our first, uh, swap. Um, yeah, I was on, I was on Custom Journeys and now you're gonna be on Interface.

So I'm super excited. This is a, this is a milestone moment for interface for sure.

[00:01:35] Andrew Baines: Yeah, no, I'm really excited that you guys invited me to come on the. I'm number one. I've seen the, the guest list, previous guests that have come on and I'm like, yo, I don't even know if I should be on here yet. I don't feel like I've made it to that point cause I see like CTOs of United Airlines and first, uh, credit unions and all this other stuff.

But I'm, I'm really excited to be here today and I appreciate the opportunity and it's always fun talking to you, Jenny, and I'm happy, I'm happy to talk to you [00:02:00] with your team as well.

[00:02:01] Jenni: For me, I, I definitely prefer being the one asking the questions than answering the questions. I feel way more comfortable, . Um, but

[00:02:08] Andrew Baines: Yeah, I, I'm a little uncomfortable.

[00:02:11] Jenni: Yeah, we're turning the cameras around a as you, you know, as you say, but, um,

[00:02:17] Mattie: You need to link your episode in in the show notes,

[00:02:21] Jenni: oh yeah. I should, I should do that. Uh, I'll do that. We'll do that. That's not my

[00:02:27] Mattie: can hear your awkwardness. Yeah,

[00:02:29] Siara: Little, little crossover moment. I love it.

[00:02:33] Jenni: Yeah. And um, which I'm sure we'll get into it, but he's had a lot of amazing guests. Your framework is pretty similar to ours, so I think we're in the same, we have the same wavelength or vibe to it. Um, I really enjoyed being a guest. Uh, you're a great host. So, um, tell us,

[00:02:52] Andrew Baines: it.

[00:02:53] Jenni: tell us, how did you get to you have a mechanical engineering background, [00:03:00] correct.

Um, so kind of tell us, which does make you a little different than previous guests cuz it's more on the, the real engineering with tangible things. , the software engineering was more, but tell us how you got into, you know, stem fields.

[00:03:16] Andrew Baines: All right. Cool. Cool. So yeah, I, I decided to become a real engineer, um, because when I was 17, 18 years old, um, up to that point I was really just pursuing like. I was like a typical kid. Uh, I grew up in Richmond, Texas, a suburb of Houston, Texas. And, um, I really, really, really, um, was just focused on being a professional N F L player.

And Jenny's met me in person. I'm barely taller than Jenny, if that, and that's like with boots on on a good day. I was pretty quick, pretty fast, all that good stuff. But it, it wasn't in the college for me to be in the N F L to put it lightly. And so, um, fortunately I had a friend of my dad who, uh, went to the same church as us.

He was in the oil and gas energy sector. Um, and he [00:04:00] really encouraged me, Hey Andrew, you have good grades in math, good grades in science. Just think about pursuing engineering and. , I wasn't really convinced. I, I thought about it. I always had good grades. Were in like GT or AP classes, but I didn't have the confidence that was necessary to actually say, okay, this is what I'm gonna do.

And it didn't help that. Like, a lot of times I would tell people like, Hey, I'm thinking about being an engineer. And, and the people that were like adults, some of the teachers were like, are you sure? Like, I know the math is kind of like, that's not gonna help me decide this is the, the career path I should choose.

And so, um, really name is Ron Forest. We, um, he invited me and my father to come by his house. Uh, one evening just chatted up and see, hey, what, what does a career as an engineer look like? Uh, how much money can you make? What does it require? And I mean, he had a nice house, couple of nice cars in the garage.

I was like, yo, I can do this. Like this is, this is the type of life I'm trying to live. And so at that point I was like, yo, let's do it. So, um, ended up taking a visit to L S U, also took a visit to, uh, [00:05:00] I think Texas a and m and then also UT San Antonio. LSU out-of-state prices were like, way too high. So my mom and dad looked at me and was like, yeah, you gonna have to think about something else.

Uh, son. So, uh, San Antonio just about three hours outside of Houston. So we decided to make that trip and I, I, I visited the campus, fell in love with it, really felt at home. And, um, that's really what kind of sparked it. And then I will say, one thing I'll kind of point out is like my first two years of college I had to take out student loans.

Even though I had good GPA and stuff, I just didn't have that many scholarships. But I was fortunate enough, probably around my third year or late second year, uh, where I started working for a professor on campus, uh, Dr. Harry Mill Water, and he had a research lab. And I didn't really know what a research lab was, but long story short, went through a program called lsamp, the Lewis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, where essentially I was getting paid as a college student to do on-campus research.

And essentially it was just like homework. So I'm like, okay, I'm getting paid to do homework. And then like, it just kind of morphed and developed. And we kept doing this over and [00:06:00] over and, um, probably by my senior year of school, I had got to the point where I was no longer in lsamp, but he would literally say, Hey, go online, print out your cost of tuition for the semester or for the year.

Send the bill to so-and-so within the department. I'll pay for that. And then you'll get a check for like a thousand bucks a month

[00:06:16] Jenni: Wow.

[00:06:17] Andrew Baines: that. So, Yeah, so it was like a blur. Very blessed and fortunate to kind of start off in this student loan predicament. But by the time I graduated it was like I was getting paid to go to school and I was like, yo, this works for me.

Um, he convinced me to do grad school, which I wasn't really sure if I wanted to do. By the time I, I finished grad school, I was like, yeah, I didn't really like that, so I'm not gonna do a PhD. And then, um, after that, just kind of fast forwarded, went to General Motors for a little bit, worked at Rice University for a little bit, pandemic hit, and then started having some time to reflect and then custom journeys, custom talent solutions and all this other stuff.

But yeah, I threw a lot at you, but that's kind of the, the, the genesis, the origin story of, of what kind of got me in this field.[00:07:00] 

[00:07:00] Jenni: That's an amazing story. So was there any other, you're talking about your mentor and having the, the, the research lab. Was there any other groups on campus that kind of help, that supported you as a, as a black student in engineering?

[00:07:14] Andrew Baines: Yeah. So, um, I will say, um, definitely nsbe, you know, less like every black engineers like calling card, you know, so that was especially freshman year, first time away from home, trying to ac get acclimated to college, find your way, and then also connect with people that have similar interests, similar career or, uh, college career, college pass as you, um, that really was a big help.

And so, uh, definitely was a part of nsbe, um, that was very helpful. And then also, um, lsamp I will say they provided some additional resources and it, it was kind of a community when it itself where I felt like, hey, okay, I have some people I can lean on. And then, Ironically, my apartment complex, they tried to match us up with other engineers.

So like my, it was like four of us in our, uh, dorm [00:08:00] and then also four of us, like in our apartment the, the following year. And they kind of partnered the engineers together and then, you know, it, it was good. It was definitely a good experience because a lot of my friends outside of engineering, they didn't understand like the lifestyle and like the grind and the work that was require to pursue that career.

And like, I remember I'm going to do homework. They like, yo, we about to go to the pool, like we about to go to this, this party. And I'm like, y'all ain't got no homework. Like what kind of college are y'all in? Like, what's going on? So, um, it was good to kind of, you know, have friends that, you know, could keep you up to date on the latest and greatest things on campus, but then also like have people that understand like the challenges of spending like half a day on a single homework problem and being like, dang, I don't think I'm smart enough to do this.

So, um, it was good, a good mix, but NSBE for sure was probably the most important organization, um, that I would say on, on any college campus.

[00:08:48] Siara: So fun fact for Sierra. I was a chemistry major my freshman and sophomore year in college, and I was also a part of the LSAMP program. [00:09:00] Um, I went to Texas Southern University, uh, found out very quickly. By the second semester of my sophomore year, I was like, yeah, chemistry. No, we're, we're done with this.

That's just is not abort the mission. We're gonna have to find something else,

[00:09:15] Andrew Baines: Our board, the

[00:09:16] Siara: But yes, LSAMP was such a nice program. They grouped us all together. It was such a good community of folks. I mean, my best friend now, she was my roommate and my apartment. She was made of honor in my wedding. So LSAMP was a really, really cool program.

Nice community. So you're bringing back memories for me with that one.

[00:09:38] Andrew Baines: Yeah, and I'll throw this in there real quick. Um, I, I love promoting them because they were actually the first. They, they provided me the first opportunity to travel abroad. And so, um, they have like the big LSAMP conference, um, I believe every year, every semester. Ours was in utep, so like all the UT system schools, so U T S A, ut Austin, U t, El Paso, all of them all met up at [00:10:00] utep.

And, um, kind of presented our work. And at UT San Antonio, we had a, actually had a competition to say who had the best like poster presentation or whatever. Um, the, the, the agreement was that the first place winner would get a chance to go to Madrid, Spain, and present at some other conference and. , your boy got second place.

And so I was very disappointed when I got the news. But then, um, my, the like director of the program, Darryl Balderrama, um, he's in charge of like where he was in charge of like P 20 initiatives and lsamp. He called me up, he was like, Hey, can you come down to the downtown campus? I want to like talk to you about your work and stuff.

I walk in the office, he's like, so, , you didn't get the first place , but we got some extra money, so I wanna see if you still wanna go to Spain. I'm like, Daryl, what kind of stupid question. Like yes. So, and then it made me look even better because the deal was not only did I get to go to Spain as a student, but then my mentor and my advisor got a free trip as well.

So it's like my advisor, of course he not gonna turn that [00:11:00] down and you know, I'm looking even better to him cause he is like, look at my star pupil that, you know, making stuff happen not only for himself but making opportunities come back to me. So, no, I was, I was very grateful for that. I was like maybe 20 years old.

That was my first time ever traveling outside of the country. So got a chance to go to Madrid and that was an amazing experience. So definitely one of my, one of my top,

[00:11:21] Jenni: Second

first loser.

[00:11:24] Siara: Not in this instance. It's not

[00:11:26] Jenni: second place is not the first. You still, you can still make something happen. Sorry. Sorry. What did you ask?

[00:11:34] Mattie: I, I was asking, like for me, when I went abroad for Peace Corps and then came back, that just like opened my world. Cuz like being from the Midwest, you know, you , you're kind of landlocked, right? And your, your worldview is just like very limited. And then once I got out I was like, oh, I don't know anything.

What did that do for you?

[00:11:53] Andrew Baines: Yeah, no, I would definitely say like, I've heard the saying like, exposure leads to expansion. Right? And so my parents did a [00:12:00] good job of taking us, my dad, he worked for FedEx his whole life. And once upon a time, um, as an employee, one of the benefits was we would get like free standby flights to like different places.

So like we had childhood memories of going. Disneyland and, um, different places and like even if we take road trips to like the Grand Canyon, so that, that, that was a great like child experience. So I got a chance to travel somewhat as a child, but being able to travel abroad and just see like, hey, it's a whole nother world out here and there's a lot more world of opportunities.

And it really just opened up my mind as well. It's like there's a whole set of different rules that like people are playing to. Like, it's a, like my boxing mind of like what success looked like and what I could accomplish was like so limited. It was just before going to college, you're like, okay, I'll get a good job, work there for 30 years, retire, be successful, have some kids and get married.

But like once, like getting to go travel abroad and see people be, become successful entrepreneurs and all these other things, it just really expanded my vision and my, my objective of what I wanted to accomplish in my own life. [00:13:00] So now it's like, hey, I, I wanna be able to travel the world with my family. I wanna be able to wake up, walk my kids to school.

Go work on whatever business or whatever I'm working on, and then, um, go to lunch stage to brunch with my wife, then go back to work, go pick up the kids. So it just changed my perspective on like what I want and what I view as like my goal, I guess, throughout my career.

[00:13:24] Jenni: So, um, you, you mentioned, um, kind of like some pushback in high school about pursuing an engineering degree. Do, was that. What was the basis of that was ? Cause you said you were a good student, so I'm just kind of curious, um, you know, where, where that pushback came from. Was it seeing an example o of a person in that, that, that career that kind of really let you knew that was possible?

Or like kind of, can you dig into that a little more?

[00:13:54] Andrew Baines: Yeah, no, that's a good question. I, I don't wanna, so it was more subtle than, than [00:14:00] most things. So I'll give you one example. I was dating this girl at the time and I got invited to a family dinner and I guess her dad was like trying to check and make sure I'm, I'm good guy and everything like that. And so her mom was like, questioning me, yo, what's, what's next after high school?

All this stuff, you know? I'm like, yeah, I'm, I'm. Be an engineer, I'm gonna, you know, go do whatever, whatever, um, at U T S A and then hopefully work at Boeing or General Motors. And, um, yeah, it was more so like these little seeds of like doubt, you know, kind of like self projection. Like I think she made a comment at the time like, oh, are you sure?

Like, I tried engineering but I failed because I couldn't handle the math. Like, are you sure you want to do that? And so like, it's not necessarily like, Hey, you can't do that. But to me if it's like, Hey, this young black kid is like trying to do something more than what the typical kid or what's typically stereotypically expected of him, like these little seeds of doubt don't necessarily benefit.

The individual at that time. Right. And then same situation, like I, I loved my college coaches at the time, [00:15:00] but I remember I had a coach who was like, yeah, you bangs, you sure man? Like I got a girl. I was big. My girl, she was, she wasn't really, she tried that, then she failed and she had to change, man. So it's like, it's like these casual conversations, but those little hints of like, are you sure you're doing the right thing?

Like, are you sure? You're like, why Is there a question about like my mental capacity or like my, my competency or my ability to pursue like a technical career field? Because I'm sure if I would've said, Hey, I'm gonna go pursue like marketing or business and don't knock against those careers. But if I would've said that they wouldn't have bated an eye, it would've been like, oh, okay, great.

That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did the same thing. But no, like we need to like. Encourage and push our, our students and the kids from our communities to do more than what's just typically expected. Or if I would've just said, yo, I'm gonna go walk on at JUCO and go try to play ball there, like, nobody would've blinked an eye.

It would've just been expected because I played football for four years in high school and it was like, Hey, this is what's naturally next. Like, yo, like, oh, you need to link up with my boy. He's a trainer. He can help you out. Like, no, like, it's okay to push your kids to pursue something [00:16:00] that's challenging and that's gonna stretch and expand them.

Just make sure that they have the resources and support available to help them be successful. 

[00:16:06] Mattie: I'm curious if like, you know, you have those experience in earlier in your life and maybe if you come up to those same experiences now, like how, how has your reaction changed? You just like rub it off. Cuz what I do is like, I call it out. I'm like, you're just projecting your own experiences on the mine and your reality is not my reality.

I don't know what you do in those instances.

[00:16:29] Andrew Baines: Yeah, no, that's a good point. And so I think, um, and this is, I'm, I'll tie it back into like my high school experience with like football. I was, I've always been like the shortest guy on the team, but at the same time, highly competitive and I'm not gonna cuss on the platform, but like if somebody tell me I can't do it, I'm like, yo, F you, like I'm about to show you what's gonna happen.

So like that kind of benefited to like the competitive nature, like within me, like, okay, they, they kind of like saying, I can't do it. Let me go show out. And so like my first year I'm like, yo, I'm about to make the dean's list. So I missed the [00:17:00] dean's list by like 0.01 points my first semester, and then I backdoored the next semester and get like the president's list.

And so like I, I've kind of like taken that as like a chip on my shoulder. And then later on throughout my career where I do notice people projecting like, Hey, are you sure you can do X, Y, z I, I've kind of matured some and understand like, hey, their, their, their dreams and ambitions may not have worked out the way they want it.

And sometimes it may be coming from a place of love, like, Hey, are you sure you wanna quit your job? You got a wife and kids, da, da da da. I haven't quit my job yet. But you know, I, I understand that some of these things are coming from a place. They may sometimes come from a place of love, or sometimes they come from a place of ignorance.

And so, um, for me it's just like, Hey, I don't care. Like I'm, I'm gonna show you, um, what I can do and then I'm gonna be successful doing it. And then this will just be part of the.

[00:17:48] Jenni: Yeah, I think it just goes a show to have people in your orbit. You're always gonna have people, like you said, it could be from a place of love or you know, people trying to make sure you understand how much work is gonna be there. Um, which, [00:18:00] you know, when you take a step back, you could re read it that way.

But just making sure people who are not always negative Nancy, but also kind of others that are like, oh, you can do it. I can support you through this. Or, these are the people that can support you through this, or if you do this, this is gonna make it easy. You know, your path to get there so that, that competitive spirit is good for you.

But for, you know, in general, for people that maybe when they hear that seated doubt, it kind of grows bigger. Just be like, you know, you just need to have a plan to set your mind to it. Anything is achievable.

[00:18:30] Siara: And there's a fine line between, um, , you know, saying something out of love and just trying to give the person awareness of how much work it's going to be and not discouraging that person. It's, you know, I know it's gonna be a challenge. I know it's gonna be difficult, but now that you've planted that seated, then I start kind of second guessing myself, even though I'm gonna pursue this.

It, it's just a fine line to walk. Um, so [00:19:00] I would encourage anyone to be very careful, you know, when giving that type of feedback to someone, you, you don't, some the person may not be as competitive as you and taking that like, okay, I'm gonna show you. It can really kind of derail there, their.

[00:19:16] Andrew Baines: Y Yeah, that's a great point. Now I think you gotta be, if you're that person giving advice, you definitely gotta know the individual, number one, like where is their head space at? What is their awareness of what they're about to do? And by no means, I, I definitely think transparency and helping the people understand like, what are the steps needed to be successful on this journey?

I think that's, that's critical, right? Like let the students know, like, Hey, you're gonna have to take calculus one, two, and three if you're gonna be a mechanical engineer or whatever the case is. Um, definitely have that understanding. But then at the same time, letting 'em know like, Hey, these are the resources they got on-campus.

Tutors like, dang, near 24 7. and I, I'm gonna be honest, I lived in the, like the tutoring facility, even being good at math. Um, so being able aware of like, Hey, what are those things? And then on the backside, to be honest with you as an [00:20:00] engineer, like the things you learn in class are so much harder than like, what I've actually seen in industry.

Like we ain't never did no differential equations integrals by parts like triple and third integrals and derivatives, like that stuff that they teach you is like, it is so challenging and it really stretches you, it makes you a better problem solver for sure. But I think if we can give people the full picture, like, yo, you're gonna have to go through hell like for the next four or five years of your life.

But I promise you like on the back end, depending on what career you go, yeah, you can go like the r and b route and you'll probably use some of that math and stuff. But if you're like doing product management or going the product route or whatever the case may be, or project management, um, you're not gonna never see that stuff.

It's gonna. communication skills gonna be project time management. You're not gonna ever see derivatives, integrals a day in your life after that class. So I think giving people the full picture in terms of like, what they can expect and encouraging them to like go through this rough patch right here, and the, the, the reward on the other side is gonna be so much worth it.

[00:20:59] Jenni: Did. Did your [00:21:00] experience in the research lab, was that more of a real world kind of job or was it more of a r and d kind of heavy math sort of thing?

[00:21:09] Andrew Baines: Oh man. So it was, it was definitely a heavy math thing we were doing. We got deep into like, imaginary numbers and like, we would do like, um, complex numbers and like, we would basically, I don't even wanna think about this hurting my head, but basically we would take like a, you know, how imaginary numbers have, or complex numbers have, like the real and the imaginary part.

We would basically like use a Taylor series expansion and like make more imaginary numbers on top of that. So you wouldn't just have one real, one imaginary. You would have like a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, however many you wanted. and then you could represent that number using a, um, a matrix. And we were doing like a lot of MATLAB codes, a lot of Python, JavaScript, um, or I was doing a little bit of Python and JavaScript, but primarily MATLAB to just calculate derivatives.

I primarily did fracture mechanics research as a, um, as a grad student. I will say one of the benefits, um, and one of the things that really helped me land my [00:22:00] first, um, industry job working at General Motors was the fact that I learned like finance element analysis, um, working in a research lab, that's something that they taught a class on, but it was optional.

It was an elective. But being in a research lab really gave me that skillset that when I applied for jobs that General Motors, that was one of the key things that they pointed out was that, hey, I've had experience working with final element analysis using Abacus, um, writing Python scripts, things of that nature.

And ironically enough, those are the things they didn't teach you directly in the class. So it is like, it don't get me started on the whole education system.

[00:22:33] Jenni: do you mean a literal abacus?

[00:22:37] Andrew Baines: No, no, no. So it's a software program called Abacus. It's a slightly different spelling. You thinking of like the old school girl? No, and I'm not that, I'm not that old. What's going on Jenny No. So, um,

[00:22:58] Jenni: I.[00:23:00] 

[00:23:04] Andrew Baines: you're terrible. Um, no. Abacus was just a software. It is just like, um, it's competitors are like Ansys. Um, it just let, Abacus just lets you like, create a part, load a part into the computer program and then just applies stresses to the part, and you can calculate, hey, will this part break? Or what are the strains?

How much will this part displace? Things of that nature. I know you're not a real engineer, so I kind of have to

[00:23:28] Jenni: I am a virtual engineer. Everything's, you know, we can invent whatever we want. That's, that's the fun part. It's like, it's always, it could be done with a simple matter of programming. No matter what you want with, we can do it. It's just . We have to program it to

[00:23:42] Andrew Baines: True. True, true, true. But yeah, that's what I did. So yeah, I just wanted to point that out because I think there's, when you're in college, um, I don't know the demographic, primary demographic of your audience, but when you're in college or whatever opportunity you're in, I think you still need to look for those extra opportunities that are really gonna stretch you and give you a certain skillset [00:24:00] that you can apply to a different job or dif next opportunity that you may be interested in.

So although I didn't learn those in the classroom, which is what I was actually paying for, um, that was a very fortunate situation where I able to expand myself and learn something new.

[00:24:13] Jenni: I second that. Yeah, always, always find a, a working opportunity to apply the things that you're learning and it's kind of helps you decide what am I gonna do after I graduate? Cause there's a, there's usually like a million directions you can go into and that helps you figure out, I really like this, or I hate this.

I'm gonna try something else. So you're, you're in talent. Talent now. So what are you looking for when you, when you're, when you're looking for people,

[00:24:41] Andrew Baines: Yeah, that's a great question. So, um, I got into talent really because I felt like it was, it was, I, I started the podcast cause I felt like, hey, this is the best way to kind of help people. Um, and I feel like getting into talent is even a even better way, um, to really help people and then also help like, provide companies with a diverse candidate pool.[00:25:00] 

And so, and talent side, I really recruit for anything stem. Um, and me being an engineer, I consider myself a good engineer. I know what a, a good engineer looks like or a good problem solver. A good technical person looks like even if I don't know all the, in intricacies of c plus plus or whatever, I feel like I can kind of structure the questions in a certain way and determine like, Hey, does this person really know what they're talking about?

And also are they gonna be a good fit for this culture? And so my first client that I was actually recruiting for was a management consulting firm here in Houston. And they were looking for good consultants. At first. They said, Hey, we need some project managers, we need business analysts. And we kind of talked, I learned more about, Hey, what are you looking for from these individuals?

And really that really aligned a lot with like engineers. They're looking for problem solvers. They're looking for people that can communicate well, people that can engage comfortably with the client. a lot of people that don't or aren't in engineering expected, like, Hey, we're just in our corner working on something.

But a big part of the job is being able to communicate the technical [00:26:00] and the non-technical stuff to people. Um, and then also being able to problem solve, problem solve and break down problems into bite size portions. And so, um, and then fortunately enough, a lot of times consultants typically come from a technical background and then go get an M B A, and then they become consultants and they use that technical foundation to help them be successful.

And so with my first client in particular, it's really just, like I said, looking for strong technical people, people that can communicate really well. That was really probably on the, the top priority list because these are people gonna interface with interface, interface with the clients. Um, and they need to be able to, uh, put, um, be able to communicate to the client what's the problem that they have, what are the different options that they have to resolve these issues, and, um, what are the steps that they can take.

Um, I'm not gonna say any names, but. I've been, um, I actually leveraged somebody within Jenny's network, um, for a solutions architect role that I was, uh, recruiting for. And they got really close, got to the, the point where an offer was made. They, uh, they just, [00:27:00] um, de decided to go with a different route because of some concerns that the candidate had.

But yeah, I'm looking for people that can communicate well to me, what are the things that they're working on, and then also looking for talented, smart individuals that can, I can trust, um, that can solve problems, and then communicate well with others. So that's kind of the main thing. And then, um, I've gotten a couple more clients looking for more, but really, I, I'm specializing in this stem space, in this STEM domain with a particular interest in like engineers and things of that.

[00:27:29] Jenni: Yeah. Uh, the, the, the, the side effect, which I wasn't realizing I would enjoy so much, is just meeting so many people and seeing the stories and then seeing how people are connecting, like this person, that person. So that's really awesome to hear, uh, that you've, um, made some connections there. Um,

[00:27:51] Andrew Baines: Now. I'll tell me real quick while you're thinking. I was gonna say, that's a great point. And that's, so the podcast has kind of been like a catalyst for two different ventures I'll say, [00:28:00] that I wanna pursue. And really from doing the podcast, I realize, hey, there's some amazing people out here, diverse people in particular that I'm focusing on.

Um, and they just don't have the connections or the resources or the opportunities. And so on the recruiting side, it's like, hey, I'm interviewing like the best and brightest or the, the most upcoming people's tech founders that are raising millions of dollars. And so if I can connect candidates or job seekers with employers that are looking for top tier.

Candidates that just so happen to be black or Latino or whatever. Like, I don't discriminate. I two offers have been made to candidates that were Caucasian that I, I put before a client. Um, but if I can give these clients a diverse candidate pool and help these candidates, like, I love that. And then on the other side, so that's the recruiting of the talent side and the future.

I definitely wanna get into the BC side, the venture capitals thing, side of things. Cause again, I meet a ton of diverse founders and I'm like, yo, this, this idea right here. I, I like this idea, but even more so, I love this founder and this individual, and I figure that, I believe that they're gonna figure it out one way or another.

So if [00:29:00] they just have the financial means so that their day-to-day life, their, uh, responsibilities don't get in the way, um, and they have a longer runway and they can be successful, um, that's definitely the next thing that I'm gonna be looking for. Once the, once I get the talent stuff sorted out and we got some money coming in and we're good and stable, and the wife and kids are, are safe and taken care of, then we'll look at the VC side of things and, and be, uh, I'm really excited about that potential.

[00:29:27] Jenni: So maybe you can, I, I know your framework's pretty similar to ours, but maybe you could walk us through, um, custom Journey framework,

[00:29:35] Andrew Baines: Yeah, for sure. So it's kind of, it, it's morphed over time. Um, when it first started, yeah, I had a co-host and everything when I first started , but, uh, when it first started, um, it was really, and, uh, I'm a, I'm gonna leave our first episodes on our YouTuber, on our, our, our website forever. And they were so trash, like it took like an hour and a half for my co-host to interview me. So my, my, my co-host did like an hour [00:30:00] and a half interview of me, and it was a two-part series. So the first part was an hour and a half. Second part was an hour and a half. And that was like my whole career. It's like, no way. Like I haven't accomplished that much stuff for that to happen. So we didn't, and, and the same thing when I interviewed him, if we just didn't know what we were doing, introverted in nature weren't first time interviewing people.

So I say that to say like the concept of the show has changed over time. Originally we did like the whole life story, the origin, whatever. Now I've really kind of figured out what's makes a successful show in my opinion. And so I really, when I do like a pre-interview screen, I do like a five or 15 minute chat with somebody.

I'm learning about the career and what I feel like is gonna connect with our audience. And right now our audience is primarily 25 to 34 year old. Primarily men, but women too. Um, but primarily 25 to 34 year old individuals that are looking to kind of make some kind of career pivot. And so I'm looking for individuals that either have a really interesting origin story.

They've come across a really unique opportunity, like a tech apprenticeship program or a fellowship program that helped them make a [00:31:00] transition from whatever they were doing before into stem. Um, or they're a tech startup founder that have a, a heck of an origin story. Like our last recent interview was an interview with, uh, Chandler Malone.

He's a, um, founder of a company called Boot Up based in Miami. And basically it's a platform for people that wanna learn about tech and coding and things of that nature. And he raised, he was a VC at one point and he raised 2.1 million from all black VC firms, um, to start his own venture or his own startup.

Highlighting those individuals is really what we focus on. And in terms of structure is, hey, what are the most valuable parts of the story that I feel like are gonna resonate with people? So, like I said, origin stories, I really, really, really put a huge emphasis on opportunities and actionable steps. I want somebody to be able to listen to our show or watch our show and then like go emulate that.

Like, okay, I did the Meyerhoff Man Fellowship program. Go do that LSAMP that do, I'm giving you the answers to the test right now. Go do that. So that's really what I [00:32:00] try to provide for our audience. And we've gone from hour and a half. We're down there about 45, 50 minutes now. So I feel like that's the sweet spot, you know, where I don't scare people off and I can, you know, kind of entice 'em with a good hook in that first minute.

And then I feel like once I got 'em hooked in, like it is, all bets are off. It's, it's a, it is a go time. So, um, it's

[00:32:19] Jenni: Are you still doing cap? No. Cap. Are you still doing

[00:32:23] Andrew Baines: I haven't done that in a while. I haven't done that in a while. I, I kind of stopped after you disrespected Black Panther in these, uh, black produced movies.

I think you said like, the second Thor movie was the best Marvel movie and I was like, this is tragic. It was something egregious like that. So I kind of stepped away from it for a minute, but I, I'll bring it back at some point.

[00:32:43] Siara: Explain to our listeners what no cap is.

[00:32:47] Andrew Baines: yeah, yeah. Well, your listeners are from the culture, so they already know Cap, no cap, but I'm

[00:32:51] Siara: We wanna know what your version of no cap is.

[00:32:56] Andrew Baines: So, um, the word, we had a segment in the show where basically [00:33:00] it was just true or false or, um, so if it was false, you would say, uh, cap. If it was true, you would say No cap. And so I might say like, Hey, um, I might ask, I guess.

Um, it's not what you know, it's who you know, or, um, your network is more important than your skillset. And I'll say factor cap.

[00:33:19] Jenni: Yeah.

[00:33:20] Andrew Baines: so there you go. So I'll say fact. I'll have the guest say, fact captain. I'll be like, yo, Maddie, why do you say your network is not more important, or is more important than what you know?

So like that kind of like back and forth. And then same thing with, um, we would talk about like student loans. We, I would also try to tailor it to the guest as well. So Jenny, I know she's like movie buff, film nerd, kind

[00:33:42] Jenni: Yeah. He, he threw in, he threw in, was it Black Panther is the best Marvel movie ever. And I was like, you not gonna get me record saying it's not Um, and once again, one of my favorite movies and Wakanda [00:34:00] forever. I was just crying. I would stop crying. If something else would happen, I would cry again. It was like an emotional release. That movie, I saw it twice in the theater, so definitely a favorite

[00:34:13] Andrew Baines: boy.

[00:34:15] Jenni: to reassert my position on this.

[00:34:19] Andrew Baines: Yeah. It was just a segment meant to kind of, you know, lighten the mood and, and make things fun and engaging. And, you know, I, I try to, as a, you guys do a great job of this as well. I try to make the guests feel as comfortable as possible. The more comfortable I feel they, I make them feel.

And the more I feel like I can make 'em open up and hopefully I can, you know, get, get some hot takes or get some entertaining content at the same time, you know? So,

[00:34:42] Mattie: Yeah. I wanted to circle back to kind of, you said your first episode was trash, um, and then the growth up until now. What, what have been some, like the biggest learnings that you've kind of experienced, maybe with the podcast specifically, and then just generally with your self?

[00:34:59] Andrew Baines: yeah. No, [00:35:00] that's a great question. I think, and honestly, I've been, Preaching and stuff like going, I'm say preaching. I don't preach, but I've been like going around like telling people like, yo, you need to start a podcast, especially if you're a business owner. But the biggest thing that people always push back on is like, I don't know how to do it.

I don't know how to get started. I'm like, yo, the first however many episodes you can put a number, 10, 15, 20, 25, they're gonna be trash. So just get started, get the trash out the way, and then get better. And really, for us, the learnings that we kind of took along the way, Maddie, was that number one, we didn't know what people wanted to hear, wanted to listen to, um, and we didn't know how to tell a story very well.

Um, those were two things. And then also we didn't really understand fully how people were consuming content. Of course, like we were using social media personally ourselves, but. That's an extra level of effort that you need in order to like take a full length, hour and a half episode and break it down into bite size pieces.

Um, but it's really been an entire learning experience across the board. When we first started, I was just using a built-in webcam and like the [00:36:00] internal mic. Then I got my first external mic, a Samsung, uh, q2 U and I said, okay, I figured that out. And then I figured out, hey, you can convert your iPhone into, because iPhone is the best phone out there.

Jenny, you can convert your iPhone into a webcam.

[00:36:15] Mattie: You're telling someone that listens to Google Podcast, so we'll just put that out there. Right? Right, exactly.

[00:36:22] Andrew Baines: y'all need to kick her off the show Maddy Sierra, and see y'all need to handle this. Like y'all jump her, kick her off the show. I don't

[00:36:29] Siara: That's a difficult Andrew. She's the reason why we are here, but we'll day.

[00:36:36] Andrew Baines: Hey, look, you know, sometime the, the founder don't get to see the promised land. They don't get to, you know, finish the, the ride with you. So, but, um, no, but I found out you can use your iPhone as a webcam. And so, um, I use a app called camo and I'm, however, I'm trying to help out whoever's listening and interested, but, um, CAMO is like a five month, $5 a month subscription, which let's use your iPhone as a webcam, and the quality is [00:37:00] like perfect.

Dang near 4k. And so that was my first external. Um, actually back up I used a webcam, um, a Logitech $70 webcam. I used that as my first camera, the Samsung Q T U as my first mic. Then I said, Hey, you can use your iPhone as a webcam. It looks a lot better. Then I started buying some road products, R O D E. And so I actually bought a, uh, road Wireless Go mic, which you can kind of clip on your lapel or on your shirt, or you can plug it into an external mic like I have now, and you can use it for your podcast set up.

So really it's just a whole process of learning. Like you don't have to wait until you figure out everything. And that's really been to answer the second part of your, your question like, throughout life. I feel like we've kind of, you're kind of conditioned through school, K through 12, like, Hey, you gotta take these sequential steps and you can't go to this next part before you get this last part perfect.

Now you have to pass this standardized test and you better not whatever, whatever. Or you have to get a certain grade in this class before you can go on to the next thing. And that really, people have that same mindset in life and they're thinking, okay, wait, I have [00:38:00] to be here before I can take the next step.

And I was like, take that first step now, learn along the way. And then you're just gonna continue to learn and keep that motivation, keep that, uh, momentum going, and people will be there along the way to help you out. But if you wait until you learn everything, until you figure out social media, until you figure out audio and video equipment, until you figure out what people want in terms of consuming content or you figure out how to edit podcasts, you never gonna get started because it's too much stuff to get started.

And then people will pay tens of thousands of dollars to a coach to learn these things. But it's like, yo, you coulda l. Got started like now today and saved a lot of money, and of course, learned along the way. And I'm not against coaches by any means, but get started now. Like stop delaying it. And same thing with anything else, like if you wanna pursue a different career or whatever the case may be.

Like, get started now and you'll learn as you go.

[00:38:48] Jenni: Yeah, and sometimes you won't even know what questions to ask until you've dabbled in it a little bit, right? And then you're like, okay, now that I understand this piece, now I need to dig into this more. And, but if you'd asked that question at [00:39:00] the beginning, you, it kind of would've gone over your head.

[00:39:03] Andrew Baines: Yeah. And I, I, I've, I've also seen some similarities between podcasting and entrepreneurship real quick because, um, what I, what I, from interviewing, , um, tech startup founders, and then also just meeting people in Houston that are interested in getting into tech. Um, some people understand it, but some people don't in terms of customer discovery.

And by customer discovery, I mean going out, interviewing and talking to people, understanding what do they want, what do they like, what problem do they have and what solution are you gonna provide, and does that actually fit what they're, what their issue is, are you actually bringing value to them? And so in the world of podcasting, like I said, we didn't know what type of content people wanted to consume.

We knew we had a bigger barrier than entry because we were deciding to talk about professional development and stem and tech versus talking about like relationships and Kevin Samuels and dating and those kind of things. So we knew like, Hey, we don't have the same shock factor like as other types of content, but along the way we learned, okay, these are things that people are looking for when they go on YouTube, when they're [00:40:00] trying to search, how do I get into software engineering?

These are the kind of questions or the kind of programs that they're looking for. The opportunities is the biggest thing that people are looking for in my opinion. And so, , same thing in entrepreneurship. Like you don't, you have an idea, you have a thesis of what they want, but until you get started and take that step and start talking to people you don't know, you haven't validated it.

So, um, that it is been a, a great learning experience. Um, I will say I'm definitely introverted, um, introverted and somewhat shy, but, um, people don't believe me when I say that, but that's my natural nature. But the, definitely the podcasting has helped me get outta that. And I feel like I'm talking to people all day and I'll be getting home and I'm like, Hey, y'all don't wanna talk to nobody else the rest of the day?

Leave me alone. But

[00:40:41] Jenni: we feel you. We, we get

[00:40:43] Siara: to the choir.

[00:40:46] Andrew Baines: Yeah.

[00:40:47] Siara: similar experiences with the interface crew.

[00:40:50] Mattie: Yeah. What data are you using? Are you making data driven decisions? Because like, I feel like when we started it was like, oh, let's just start a podcast, and now we're starting to collect metrics and [00:41:00] use that to kind of guide where we're going. How have you been using that for your podcast?

[00:41:05] Andrew Baines: Yeah, great question. Um, and this is, I really gotta give kudos to, um, the community that I've kind of found here at Commodes and at Ion, the ion here in Houston. Um, because I, I've met so many entrepreneurs that, um, we're basically doing the same thing. I'm in the media space. They're like in a product or in the SaaS space.

Um, they really stress the importance of data to me. And so, um, originally when I first started, kinda like you guys just say, Hey, let's start a podcast. We'll put it out there. It was really just my mama, my co-host mama, my aunties watching and supporting on Facebook. It was like, yo, y'all ain't gonna like my stuff, y'all know me. Um, and so we had to learn , we had to learn real quick, you know, what, what people wanted. And collecting data was part of that. And one of the things, um, of course looking. within YouTube Studio, I focus a lot on YouTube because I feel number one, that's the, the main way I consume media. And I feel like a lot of people moving forward are really, really big and bullish on, [00:42:00] uh, video content.

And also because like it's impactful seeing the four of us on camera. Um, I think that's impactful for that person that looks like us, but doesn't know is this something I can do? And so, um, within YouTube, YouTube studio, they can kind of, they provide a lot of metrics for us and that's how I'm able to tell you guys what our primary demographic is right now in terms of 25 to 34.

And then also about 75% male, 25% female at the moment. Um, hoping to get some more women. I always show love to women, get a lot of women guests on the show. Um, but they haven't, you know, they haven't found us yet. So we working on that. Um, but also, so like YouTube Studio for sure. Um, also one thing that we've kind of done or that I've done, um, because of the inspiration from a guy I met here named Philip, uh, is I created a Typeform survey.

And so I went on Typeform, created a survey, especially. Once I made the decision to get into talent, um, or recruiting, and I went on typeform.com, I said, Hey, let me put some questions in here. Let me find out who my audience is and what, what they, [00:43:00] what they want in terms of content, what they want, um, in terms of job opportunities.

And I, I put that out there. And so I asked maybe like eight questions. Name, email, um, age, uh, racial ethnicity, uh, background, and what's your, your what career or what role are you looking for? And then also, like any comment at all in terms of like what kind of content or what kind of opportunities you wanna receive.

And so I, I will probably receive like maybe 75 responses on Typeform. Um, and they're not in all our descriptions. We need to, I need to actually make sure I put it in every single one. Um, but of those 75 responses, I would say more than half are like soft software engineers or aspiring software engineers.

Um, a lot of individuals were looking for information on like, so. Tech, tech apprenticeship programs and opportunities where they didn't have to go into student loan debt to, to find out, um, or to, to make that career change. And so that right there tells me, okay, I know what type of content my people are looking for, so I need to be looking, I need to be [00:44:00] looking and focusing on tech.

And that's my initial niche. Of course, I got bigger plans, but let me focus in really keenly on tech, on software engineering, on tech apprenticeship programs, things of that nature. Or just unique opportunities at h at Houston Community College or any community college that people may not be aware of, where they don't have to take out a loan to go to school or they can even get paid to learn.

Um, so that data has been very critical in determining the direction of the show. And it's really, it kind of took probably about 30 episodes before that decision was made. Um, but you know, it's been a learning process, I will say. And that's, Again, wouldn't have learned that, or wouldn't have come up with that without starting, getting started and asking people, what, what kind of things should I be aware of or what should I be doing to grow my audience and everything like that.

So the data, the data is huge. The data is huge. But don't get caught up on the vanity metrics. I will say that like the followers, the subscribers and things of that nature, like, yeah, you wanna increase that to increase the, the, [00:45:00] the value. But for a while there, in the beginning I was so focused on that. I would watch it each and every day.

Um, my subscribers are only at 300. They're at 301 a week later. What's wrong?

[00:45:10] Jenni: I'm one of those

[00:45:11] Andrew Baines: I appreciate that. I appreciate it. Yeah, I appreciate it. But yeah, just stay in consistent and you'll work your way up. So,

[00:45:19] Jenni: Okay. So what, especially since you're, you're in talent acquisition, um, what programs do you think companies should implement to increase black talent and technology?

[00:45:30] Andrew Baines: oh man, that's a, that's a great, uh, question. I definitely. Think, and so I don't wanna take no shots at nobody, but I remember reading like in the pandemic, a c e O, or I don't think the official memo came out, but a memo from a c e o of a big bank came out and it was like, Hey, we didn't meet our diversity metrics because, uh, there's not a diverse pool of candidates to recruit from.

And, um, I wanna call BS on that when people, I feel like that's kind of [00:46:00] lazy. But I, I do think the, the, the talent is out there. The people are out there. But I do think there's things, if you really believe, hey, there's not, and of course we need more work, more can always be done. But if you believe like, hey, there's no talent out there, you have the ability to like invest in, um, your talent within your organization.

Um, and I'm really, really bullish on apprenticeship programs at the moment, and I'll give you a perfect example. Um, looking at cybersecurity in particular and the big push that like the White House administration is pushing right now on cybersecurity. I think it may have even started with the previous administration.

Um, but. , I was on a call probably on Wednesday, no, it was actually Monday of this week, um, March, whatever that is. And the whole discussion was about an apprenticeship program. And at Purdue University, Purdue University actually received like maybe a 12 million grant from the Department of Labor. Excuse me.

So Purdue University received like a 12 million grant from the Department of Labor to help corporations start an apprenticeship program. And so I was talking to the, the guy at Purdue [00:47:00] saying, okay, I, I would like to start an apprenticeship program one day. I don't have the money right now, but like, let me figure out what the steps necessary to take.

And so they'll provide all the training resources if you're in the cyber security space. And I think their program, I can't remember the length of it, but essentially they'll give you a program, like if you are a company and it cyber security, you're like, Hey, we need more talent. Um, but we're having a hard time finding.

if you're willing to pay minimum wage, at least minimum wage to some employees that you're going to employ, Purdue will give you all the training. They'll even give you like some mentors to help you start and establish your apprenticeship program. So that's one opportunity where people can kind of go in there and say, Hey, we're having a hard time recruiting this diverse talent.

Um, let us create systems or opportunities or programs within our organization so that we can train the next, um, batch of talent that we need for the problems that we have currently. And of course, there's already tech programs. There's um, there's companies out there that are doing this successfully.

Like I think if, like, I know Amazon has like a program where like they'll pay for like your continuing education. I don't like [00:48:00] Starbucks back in the day, a long time ago had like, I think a partnership with like Arizona State University where like you can do, um, free classes, like even as a employee, like you can be a barista taking classes at a s u and learning different things.

Um, so I think there needs to be an investment on the corporate level, um, in order to get more talent within these spaces and. Part of the reason is because I feel like the barrier to entry in college is way too high. We're still charging way too much money, um, for kids to go get an education despite having a severe talent gap in this country, in particular in the STEM fields.

Um, I will say I'm encouraged slightly by seeing co uh, universities like Rice University, U T S A, starting to take some of those billion dollar, um, endowment funds and saying, Hey, we'll help subsidize your college tuition by giving scholarships to kids based on their economic background. But I think we need, that needs to be widely adopted or the, the price of tuition just needs to be dropped because nowadays people can go to coding bootcamps and pay 15 or 10 grand learn how to code and then go get a job [00:49:00] legit versus college kids that are graduating and then they have to find out from an employee that they don't have the skillset that the employer's looking for.

And it's like, well, why did I invest a hundred grand in a college degree? So I'm kind of going long-winded answers, but I think definitely programs, companies need to, need to invest in apprenticeship programs or continuing education programs. Um, If you don't wanna do that, invest in, um, continuing education or, uh, tuition reimbursement programs, things of that nature.

You gotta meet people where they are. Um, and if you're really trying to make a difference in its world, and I really encourage companies to think about it because if we're looking at this from, I look at it from a, like a competitive standpoint, like if America versus China versus Russia versus Germany versus Canada.

Not from a adversarial, like, Hey, we're gonna kill each other. But from a, a technical capability standpoint, like America get, can get caught if they don't want to make the investment in the talent because it is just, there's, there's this big talent gap that's already here. So I just think it's a perfect opportunity for us [00:50:00] to say, Hey, okay, what do we need in this country?

Um, maybe they can call it like a, it's not gonna be like a reparations program, but give them an education. Make it happen. So, I don't know.

[00:50:10] Jenni: Ah, you, you made a lot of great points. I wanted to ask, what is the difference between an apprenticeship program and a like an internship?

[00:50:18] Andrew Baines: Yeah, that's a great question. So, um, I believe internships typically are just like the summer length and they're, they're kind of some similarities in there. Um, the apprenticeship programs typically, and what I've really seen lately is that there's like a PREAs pre-apprenticeship period, which is typically like a unpaid period where individual has to learn like some basic fundamentals of software engineering, for example.

Um, and that really the company's kind of used that to see, okay, hey, how serious is this individual? Um, are they a good fit? Um, is this something that we think that they can be? It's basically de-risking the candidate, like, okay, we wanna make sure that this candidate's gonna be successful after the pre-apprenticeship program.

Then the, the individuals are typically employed by the company that's offering the apprenticeship program. [00:51:00] And I'll give you an example, like Catalyte is an example. Um, you can go to catalyte.io and kind of learn about their model. Then you would get after the pre-apprentice program. Or a pre-apprenticeship period, you would get hired by a Cadillac as an employee.

You would have a set salary or a set pay range that you're making. Um, and you'll still be learning during that time, but eventually Cadillac would then sub you out to, um, like a Bloomberg for example, or a partnering company or a corporation that actually needs that junior software engineer. And so for that two year period, they understand that, hey, you don't have like the same expertise as like a junior or a mid person.

Um, but so they're, they're paying you somewhat accordingly, but they're making an investment in you and training you along the way. So it's really like a,

[00:51:46] Jenni: So you have zero, you, you may have zero skills in that area when you get into the program. I think that,

[00:51:54] Andrew Baines: Yeah, a hundred percent.

[00:51:55] Jenni: it's all learning as you're going. Okay.

[00:51:58] Andrew Baines: Yeah, a hundred percent. So [00:52:00] internships typically you're in college, you have some classes, you've taken some general knowledge or experience or skillset that's applicable. Whereas a lot of times with apprenticeship programs, they'll take you in regardless of what your background is like.

I interviewed, uh, Katherine Booker, she's the one that went through the CATALY program, and then now she's a, uh, software engineer at Bloomberg. And she was like a Spanish major in college and never coded a day in her life before getting into the apprenticeship program. And so she did that as a Catalyte employee that was, um, onsite at Bloomberg for two years.

And then at the end of that program, then she got hired on at Bloomberg full-time. So that's kind of like, I really like that model. And I think ibm, they've done some stuff similar. Um, there's a lot of corporations that have done similar things, but yo again, if you don't, if you don't have the talent, if you don't believe the talent exists, I think you should, you know, , you're a problem solver.

Uh, solve the problem. Meet, meet the people where they're at, and, um, provide opportunities for them, um, so that you can, it's a win-win situation. You get to, [00:53:00] um, have the people that can build the solutions or the, the product that you need, and then the individuals have the opportunity to progress and improve their life.

[00:53:07] Jenni: I love

[00:53:07] Mattie: How do you balance that with, uh, business needs? So, for example, you might have employees that wanna shift into something technical and there's an apprenticeship. Program of some sort. How do you, you know, if everybody's wanting to do that, how do you kind of balance of like, oh, we need you doing the job that you're doing currently.

[00:53:27] Andrew Baines: Yeah, that's a good question. I don't really know if I have the answer like off the top of my head to be honest with you, but, um, I don't know. I feel. Definitely, like there has to be some understanding like of the, the can, the candidates have to have some understanding on their part in terms of like, Hey, this is not my end goal in terms of like where I'm at, but it's gonna help me progress to where I want to be.

And that's something that, to be honest with you, I have even, I've been encouraged, or not encouraged, but expose people to the idea of like, hey, let's say you want to be a software engineer, or, um, [00:54:00] let's say you have a certain position in mind within an organization and you love that organization. That's the organization you really wanna work for.

Maybe you have to apply for a slightly different or a slightly junior position within that organization so that once you're in the system, you have a easier opportunity to kind of make that jump to your, your dream job or the ideal position that you're looking for. Um, so. in the situation that you kind of outlined, the candidates have to understand like, okay, where are they at currently?

How is this gonna help them get to their next opportunity or what they're looking for next? Um, and then also how does it help the corporation as a whole? Um, because those are things that you can put on your resume. Like, yeah, you may not have loved this, this job that you were in, but you improve efficiency.

Like this way you save the corporation like that and that'll help you regardless of like what position you may be looking to go to next.

[00:54:48] Jenni: All right. Now time for the heat check. So the heat check is where we share, uh, an article. Podcast or something that's in the culture kind of [00:55:00] presently that we wanna discuss with this group. Um, could be technology, could be more on culture side. Uh, so we like to share something every episode about that.

I've got one. Shall I go first? I'll go first. All right. So we had, um, my, my team, um, we, we provide a service that's kind of routes things to other parts of our platform. So if there's any problem downwind of that or downstream of that, um, they see the error message from us. And so what we're learning is have good error messages or else you're gonna get a lot of extra work.

So my heat check is this article called. when life gives you lemons, write better error messages. Uh, and basically is describing right? Anytime you're gonna write some software, you know, some, when you're engineering something, it isn't real. When it's virtual, it's not real engineering, it's software [00:56:00] engineering.

Um, you can have some sort of error message come up for whatever reason, right? I can't, I click this button and it was supposed to say something and sorry I couldn't save it, or something like that. And so maybe your error messages, you know, the, you kind of feel like, oh, I'm just gonna say couldn't save, blah, blah, blah.

Moving on, they know they got the error. They know I couldn't save. Um, but how to write your error messages and what work you need to put into thinking about the text of those error messages to really enable the per your end user. So understanding what they wanna do. So, you know, you need to be descriptive of, you know, could not save the error message because, you know, couldn't save this form because of X, Y, and Z.

Um, you know, try to give them some action about, you know, how maybe they can fix it themselves. Maybe it's, uh, Downtime issue. Maybe they just need to try again. A couple, you know, in a few minutes or, and you know, maybe if this doesn't work, you know, link them somewhere else. Um, you know, like contact customer service or contact your system administrator [00:57:00] or something like that.

So, um, put a lot of time into that cuz it's a small thing. It's that 80 20 rule, right? You spent a lot of time developing a user interface and backend and APIs to do something. But if you don't spend enough time on those buttons or those error messages, then you end up right. A lot of support issues, a lot of people reaching out to you.

Like I got error message, it says error. And then so now you have to talk to someone every time and walk them through what it could be and. You know, what it might be and what the problem might be, or maybe it's somebody else. So, um, that's usually, you know, a usability, uh, conversation. So it might be, you know, collaboration with the developers, with product management, with usability.

Maybe some, you know, maybe wanna test some stuff out with your end users. That's what usability is really good at, um, uh, doing those, those surveys with people. Um, but definitely, you know, encouraging people to really, really think about their error messages. Cuz if [00:58:00] you don't then it's probably gonna end up being more work for yourself.

So that's my heat check for today.

[00:58:06] Mattie: error message 5 9 0 0 8. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I , I did some like, like stumbled on some like UX um, websites and they were talking about this and some of those error messages. It could be like you put a, like a symbol that you shouldn't have put in a field, but if you're getting these user like ear messages that are like very random numbers, you only have a choice as a user to reach out to support and be like, Hey, I got this error message.

And it's like, oh, it's just this field. Whereas if the error message was, Hey, this field is incorrect, then you know, oh, I just need to fix this. So I I, I think that's really funny. Like the thought process that goes into like all the stuff, all the, the, the workflows. Like you have to really think, if this happens, then this happens.

And then if this doesn't happen, then what happens? And I. I don't know. Just [00:59:00] having that exposure, it's just like really interesting because when you're, as a user going through it, you don't, you aren't thinking about stuff. But when it's not working, it's like very obvious. It's like, this is a problem.

[00:59:10] Jenni: Right. And usually like someone's asking you to fix it with the most urgency and maybe you're working on other things, so save yourself some time and, um, write good error messages, or at least have a path for them to fix it themselves if they can.

[00:59:25] Mattie: I'm gonna go with my heat check. Since, um, it's kind of, since you did usability, I'm going with accessibility. So the title of the article is Accessibility and ai. Microsoft's Details, its Plans for a More Inclusive Future. So Microsoft had a, um, event on March 8th, 2023 called, called the Ability Summit.

Um, it's their annual, um, summit where they. , they talked about kind of AI and empowering some of the exciting development developments to make things more inclusive and accessible in design. So [01:00:00] you kind of already use accessibility whether or not you're thinking about it. So like auto-filling search bars, close captioning on YouTube videos or spell checking on a Word document.

And they're saying like, responsible AI is accessible ai, and they demoed like the uh, Bing search engine and like plotting a wheel, like a wheelchair accessible trip to an airport and all the, like, the planning that goes into that. Um, cuz you, I mean, I don't, I'm not disabled in that way or have that disability.

So just having to go on maps and be like, I want to go to this place. Well that would be super, um, e accessible if I was in a wheelchair and needed to go to that place. But then it shows me the route that I need to get to or that I should. Being, um, having a wheelchair. So they're introducing some new accessibilities to Microsoft 365.

So being able to, like with spellcheck, they have another one that's like alternative colors for hard to reek text and creating auto-generated descriptions for images. [01:01:00] And one of the ones that I thought was really interested, interesting, um, with their generative ai, um, and we all know about chat G P T, but they're saying like it lessens the load of those with limited mobility and reduces cognitive load for neuro di divergent people.

So like low code. Um, and being able to just like use natural language to build workflows, I think one that will open up the technical roles to more people generally if you don't have to go through like these very hard workflows. Um, and then they said at the very end it's like, I'm more accessible tomorrow, today.

Um, and that accessibility is a fundamental right. Um, and of course like the debate over ethical AI use, you know, AI's coming, the robots are coming to take over the world, but just like be, there are doubts with ai, but like, it's super obvious that there are a lot of positive and real, real world applications and especially for people with disabilities.

So I, I think the future is, is super bright for, [01:02:00] um, AI and technology and making a more inclusive world. Um, so I'm kind of excited for that.

[01:02:07] Jenni: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, um, I love close captioning. I can't watch anything. It's annoying when I can't. And that's 

something 

[01:02:15] Siara: too now. 

[01:02:16] Jenni: yeah, it's like a lot of the things that people don't think of immediately, right? To, to include, um, really benefit everybody as well. So it was just kind of, you know, take that extra step and, and, and, and work. Sierra.

[01:02:34] Siara: All right. So, um, from Team iPhone, um, in this corner of the world yesterday I got a notification on my phone that Apple Music was launching this new app called Apple Classical. And I just saw it and I kind of was like, okay, I'll get back to that later. But then I got an email from TechCrunch with a nice little article about this new app [01:03:00] that they're launching.

So Apple is launching a new classical music streaming app, and it's available now for pre-order. Um, so it's all classical music, which. . I'm a big music person and I love the Apple Music app. Like I use it all day every day. And, um, I just like that it's integrated. I don't have to listen to commercials. I pay for it.

Like, it's just great. So Apple, uh, acquired an Amsterdam based streaming company called Prime Phonic. Um, and so this new app will offer Apple Music subscribers access to more than 5 million classical music tracks, um, including new releases and high quality. They, um, have. This whole app is like a simplistic, you know, kind of pared down thing that's again focused on classical music.

Um, they commission artists to go in and create these, uh, for the [01:04:00] famous, uh, composers, these brand new portraits of them. Um, and so it's no additional charge for Apple Music subscribers. Um, they're putting it with a thing, but it's gonna be a separate something. I like to listen to classical music. I'm not a classical music buff, but when I need to do like deep focus work, it's something that I like to put my headphones in and listen to.

So I think this will be, it's a really cool, I wasn't expecting it from Apple. I don't know what I was expecting, but not a classical music app, but I was like, this is really cool. And they're putting like a lot of effort into it for people who love that, um, that genre of music. So I thought it was cool. Um, the app is available for pre-order and the official launch date is March 28th.

Um, so for my Apple Music users,

[01:04:53] Jenni: do movie scores count as classical music,

[01:04:57] Siara: I dunno. I don't think so.[01:05:00] 

[01:05:00] Jenni: or does it have to be like a, a re-recording like Beethoven or

[01:05:03] Siara: Yes, I believe so, but I mean, I'm gonna take a look and see if, because I, I like also listening to movie scores, um, as well. So I thought

[01:05:15] Mattie: you know, I, I saw this update too. Um, I haven't looked into it. I'm curious what , what differentiates them from kind of just using Apple Music to look up classical music that you want. The, the, I saw the same thing, so I was like, Why would I download a whole nother app to listen specifically to classical music when I could just use the app that I use to listen to the classical music that I wanna listen to.

[01:05:39] Siara: I think this is just, this is going to be more of a, um, a more expansive catalog than what's available in Apple Music. Um, which again, begs the question, why couldn't you just integrate that into the original app? But, um, apple is Apple and they march to the beat of their, , their [01:06:00] own drum. And so they're, they also called out that, um, apple just released the spatial audio.

Things like the super high quality audio thing that they have. They've got a number of genres that you know specifically in spatial audio. So a lot of the new releases and they've adapted a lot of the classical music to be available in this spatial audio to give you a better listening experience. So I'm gonna check it out.

I don't know that I'll actually know the difference, but we'll see.

[01:06:33] Jenni: Let us know how it goes. 

[01:06:34] Siara: I sure will. 

[01:06:36] Jenni: yeah. Andrew, where can people find you 

[01:06:39] Andrew Baines: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I appreciate it. So, uh, biggest thing is you can find me on LinkedIn. Um, if you just go on LinkedIn and search Andrew Baes, B A I N E s, um, really easy to find on there. Um, also, I have a couple of websites, um, especially on the talent acquisition side, if you go to custom, and that's C U S T E m [01:07:00] talent.com, um, you can go on there.

If you're a candidate and looking for a role, you can kind of fill out your information, send me some stuff. Or if you're a company looking to hire, um, STEM talent, you can reach out as well on there. But LinkedIn, I'm on there all day, so, uh, feel free to reach out and, um, yeah, I appreciate the opportunity for coming on the show.

[01:07:18] Jenni: Oh, thank you so much. It was a pleasure. Maybe we can do something again. We keep swapping back and forth. Um, cause it was always, it's always a good time

[01:07:29] Andrew Baines: Yeah. And then let me say, I forgot real quick. I don't know what I'm thinking. So I was thinking about the talent stuff. You gotta check out the podcast, the Custom Journeys podcast. Um, again, it's Custom Journeys, C U S T E M, journeys, j o u r n E y S. We're on YouTube, apple Podcast, Spotify. We might be on Google Podcast at Trash Podcast, but you might be able to find us on there too.

So make sure you check us out. Uh, I, again, like I've had a, a pleasure. Y'all are more than welcome to come on my show at any time, uh, especially y'all Apple adopters. I, I would love to kind of have y'all in that [01:08:00] Sierra Maddy. Uh, it's been a lot of fun talking to y'all.

[01:08:03] Jenni: Android forever. Maybe this explains, I had a friend send me a link cuz it was like a yellow iPhone and I was like, is this a, is this a hint? Everybody wants me to make the switch. I'm like, no, I'm on my Android. It's, it's cool. I still get Apple music. I still use Apple Music. So it's, it works. It all works.

[01:08:26] Andrew Baines: I'll leave it alone, but thank you guys.

[01:08:29] Siara: Thank you, Andrew. It was a pleasure,

[01:08:32] Jenni: Thank you, Andrew for joining us today as well as all of you listening in. If you enjoyed this conversation, share the show with your colleagues, friends and family.

Drop us a line at Interface podcast@prose.com or find us on LinkedIn. Your feedback is important to keep this show valuable and relevant. So please rate and review us on whatever platform you are listening from, even if it's Google Podcasts. Awesome. , we are excited to share [01:09:00] that. Pros is searching for a Chief Information Security officer.

Please check out pros.com career page, uh, for more information on that. Um, we encourage you to go out and continue this conversation or even start your own. We will meet you back here on the next episode from our crew to you. Have a good one.

[01:09:22] Siara: Bye everybody.