compressed.fm w/james quick and amy dutton while at magnoliajs

full transcript

auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

Hello, hello. Thanks for listening to Guidance Counselor 2.0. Listen, I want to give you a quick rundown of what this podcast is and what you're about to get into as you listen to these episodes. We had Guidance Counselors in middle school. We had Guidance Counselors in high school, but we didn't really have Guidance Counselors in college and now as professionals, we don't really have anybody to turn to to ask a quick question to learn something about the job search or to navigate your career. And so that is what I want this podcast to be for you. I want it for it to be a tool for you to navigate the job search and your career.

So that being said, I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you need to reach me, Taylor at vaco VACO.com is how to get in touch with me old-fashioned email, social media at tdesntdesseyn.com. And finally, please rate and review this in the app store because I want this to be discoverable for others so they can navigate their careers. Hope you enjoy the episode. So we're talking about conference over here in the lobby of a, where we got west of us, I must say, a Marriott, now it's a Westin. So, and I want to talk about conferences and networking and how to do it and, you know, why y'all are here.

So talk about y'all's podcast and what is it and then why did y'all decide to come down here? So my part of this story is really boring because James asked me to come to a conference with him to report the hundredth episode of our podcast live which is exciting. So that's why I'm here. But also it's just been very beneficial to meet awesome people like Taylor. I don't remember what episode it was but you've been mentioned. Really? Yeah. Well, she was like, Taylor's exactly what you described. I didn't even describe it. I was like loud and like, you have the coolest clothes. Thanks James. Thanks James.

Yeah. But so Boydys can press that down. Yeah weekly podcast about what development and design a little bit of zest. And I realized I had forgotten this but there's like an intro a little rap piece to each episode that I did and it's got the reason we have zest is because it rhymed with compressed and the intro. That's awesome. I love that. For a year and a half, we're about to record live tomorrow the hundredth episode, which is absolutely wild. That's awesome And that'll be published like on the actual podcast in a couple months. We'll be live tomorrow at McEllea J That's awesome. That's awesome.

A few more people have tuned in. Who we got? Who got going on over here? Let's see here William. Hey, William. What's up, buddy? It's good to see you. Stu, Victor, Darryl. I got your text. Yeah, see my text, text, that's work. Oh, Jordan, what's going on? Hey, look, you got fans love compressed FM. Yes. Jordan, thank you, Jordan. Let's see here. You have the cool shirts. Thanks, I appreciate it. I haven't hoped you don't well. Hope you don't want us to Thursday. All right, cool. And we're like red. It's really kind of weird. So conferences, networking, why is it important to come out to these things?

Well, we just got a collaboration out of nowhere to do this. Yeah. Like, there's, we've done a lot of virtual stuff in the past couple of years. Virtual stuff is pretty good. We've got conferences, we have meetups, we have live stream stuff with bringing people on the stream yard. But there's nothing like meeting someone in person. And those sort of relationships you just never know. When the person works at the company that you want to work for, when they post a job that you're qualified for, when you need help with the thing that they know how to do, or if you just want to talk tech or recruiting or whatever.

And hang out. I don't know, it's always nice to go somewhere, especially the conferences and know a couple of people because it makes it overall easier experience to just get in and be comfortable and kind of be yourself. 100%. Do you have thoughts on why the people who are watching should attend the conference? Yeah, a lot of the same reasons. I mean, you can say, oh, I'd love to go to a virtual conference with the difference. I mean, I'm still getting the same content. You are getting a lot of the same speaking content from the platform, but you miss all those hallway conversations. And I think people really undervalue and underappreciate what that could do for your career or.

Well, let's talk about that, because I feel like I've talked about this exact same topic. And people are probably so tired. They're like, great. There's literally talking about that. We're going to get them a log off. But I want to hear from you all, is there a moment, or can you remember a moment in your career where you really helped, networking really helped you get to a place in your career? And maybe this is a good segue to kind of what you've been doing. So full transparency, I got Lego for my job in July, along with like 99% of the DevRel in cross-v I've been in the community, I've been doing this for years.

And so when I posted on Twitter what happened and that like, hey, if anyone is looking to hire developer advocates or head of Deverell, like that type of role, I can't tell you how many messages I got. Like this is like how many? Like approximately a hundred at least, easy. Like people, and not everyone is like, I wanna hire you. You two were just reaching out, but like 20 to 30, easy of like we'd love to have you work for our company type of thing. Like what more amazing position could you be in than to like go through losing a job and then not necessarily really having to worry about that.

Like it's still defeating. Sure, I mean, the next day I could be with another company. Now I decided to do content full time and it's turned out to be like this amazing opportunity for me to continue to do that. But I know I'm so much safer in doing this because I know if I get to a point like tomorrow where I need to get a job, I can do a good job. because I built relationships, because I learned my reputation, because I learned trust, because people know who I am and trust the stuff that I do. That's awesome. What about you? Any? Yeah, so I have been doing tech stuff for a long time.

Yeah. I'm a granny. When we were at the conference, Mesa, does anybody know Jeffrey's open? I was the one who is that? Yeah, he does a list apart event apart. He's behind book apart. He's older generation. I don't know. Is that a cranny? That's a granny. But I started when I was 16. So I've been... You have a great skincare routine because I thought you were like 20. Thank you, Chris. No, I had my birthday the other week. I'm 38. Did I miss this? Happy birthday. Oh, happy birthday. Hey, go. Great people to know. Guys counselor brings people together. Happy birthday. I've been doing this for a while, but I did not start creating YouTube videos until like two years ago and I have not in an all-transparent's game I posted last year.

But I've had things open up to my career that I've never had open up opportunities, people reaching out to me, the whole podcast situation, really because I started my YouTube channel. That was why I came from a executive audience, but I reached out to her to come on my livestream back when I was doing Learning Quick. Oh, it's so good. I love that. And she came on and we did our episode and then she messaged me two days later. And I was like, this is going to sound really weird and really like stalk-erish. But do you want to do a podcast? That's great. You told me not.

You told me not. Well, I was like, you know, I thought about doing that. It sounds like a lot of fun, but I have no time. Because I was working full-time content on the side. I have no time to like do that sort of stuff. And we talked a little bit and I was like, do you mind just writing up a little bit of why you would want to do that? Yeah. And she had this bolt, she needed a freelance for years. So that's kind of. And proposal. Oh, yeah. And it had this whole proposal and a good background on why. I would have immediately said yes.

And branding and stuff. But the number one reason the thing that we share is the why behind that was wanting to be able to teach. Using content as a way to share knowledge with people. And that's the thing that I think resonated with the most in the content that we create. And it just and all those other like things that came along with it. So yeah, everybody has questions please ask if there is any questions it's great to see Brian from Birmingham it's great to see Yolanda. No it's it's it's Birmingham. Erica it's great to see you. Erica's always consistent I always see Erica she's good Hey, all right, so if you have any questions for or compress that them, please ask so I want to give the next thing to which You know kind of kind of going back to what?

So going back to conferences, I think a lot of people have a hard time getting out of the shell I have a hard time like I'm an introvert I On you on a Sprinter I've been in my room for the past five hours. So I'm a social sprinter how do you all navigate conferences? Because I'm very tired, like we're still in conference season. I saw a tweet, it was between Pato and Shande. And they were, because Shande was like, when conference season's over, I wanna develop a hobby. But it was like if that's not in tech. And Pato goes, when is conference season? And it's kinda like mid-October.

So there's still a few left. But what's y'all's advice to navigating these things? Just as a noob, like who's never done it before. I think your perspective's changed. Why is that? Well with content creation, trying to figure out where. Oh well, it's where is the most value for my time and money. Which is. Yeah, and I think we might have different perspectives on that too. OK, yeah. This might be interesting. Yeah, let's talk about new stuff. OK, so one of the things that I really valued about this particular conference that it's a smaller conference. So I feel like I've been able to connect with more of the participants that had deeper conversations with them.

And for, I'm also an introvert. And so that's a little bit more approachable walking into a room that's smart, so it's not quite as overwhelming, that kind of thing. So you could say, well, I wanna target smaller conferences because that leads my personality and I wanna have deeper conversations with people. But for some of the things you're doing, you talked about going to larger conferences. Yeah, for me it's from a speaking approach, like where I invest my time and what the response or what the outcome is of it. I'm actually looking to take steps in my career from a speaking perspective. I was speaking at two larger audiences and keynote opportunities and that sort of stuff just to professionally get better and more visibility for speaking.

But the thing that makes conferences so much easier for me now is I go to conferences and I already know you. already know you already know I have a little people that are here. James knows a lot of people. He knows a lot. Taylor knows more people. But that makes all so my point is like if you're going into a conference and you're in that situation where you don't see if you can find people on Twitter beforehand and just say hey James saw you're going to conference. I'd love to come love to meet you. We can grab coffee. Like if you if you find You find two to three people.

So at KCDC. Yeah, not this not two months ago, but it was yeah Yeah, 21. Yeah. Taylor and Becca were the two people that I texted constantly for us for like where you are. Where are you? Where are you? And if you have one or two people to just be your person to go into these awkward situations, you know that you're gonna do it together and and use that as a way to like approach other groups. It goes a long way. So if you just if you find any way to connect with a person or two, I think it makes approaching the bigger audiences. Do you have any other tips or tricks?

Because I want to get tactical. I mean, this is tactical. Specific, specific. Like for me, for example, I talk about this before on the show. I like to zero in on like five to 10 speakers. I like Wanna Meet. Like I'll never forget. Seamix City, Chattanooga, 2018, I think. I was like, man, I want to meet Reed Evans. I want to meet Reed. Reed looks like an awesome guy. super nice I want to meet Reed. Reed was on top of my list. He noted that the last session, and I went up to him, I said, Reed, I've been a fan of you, I've loved what you tweet, you know, kind of taken after the admiration, flattery thing, like I talk about it, it's incredibly important to be kind and like, I really kind of, you know, give some dabs, right?

Give some dabs. And so, and so now Reed and I, like, like we're, we've literally like stayed, I actually just hit up Reed. I was like, Hey, would love to have you back on the show because it's been two years, three years and so but like I made an effort to make sure that I went up to him. So do you all do you all have any other tips or tricks at all like that? Yeah so this is gonna kind of jump off of what you said. Sure. When you go up to somebody sometimes like oh good it's what I say. Well that's like hey what do you do?

Well I'm a dad no shit you're a developer you're already here. Or like if you come up to James like oh I've seen you on YouTube and Twitter like I want to meet you but I I don't know what to say. Say that. Yeah, that does remove some awkwardness, but if James already given a talk say, this is what I appreciated or this is what resonated with me. And that usually works as a springboard for that conversation. And I've never met somebody that when you say, oh, what you said resonated, they shut down. I don't want to talk to you. Yeah. They just gave a whole talk about that subject.

They can go on for a minute. I know. I love that. I love that. That was going to be a specific thing. So I have the story. once a November which was a national it wasn't national that was a lot I don't know who's running there 17 or 18 Kyle Kyle well yeah shout out Kyle miss buddy Kyle well but Amy Knight was someone I started to hear about and she did a keynote and I was so excited to meet Amy Knight I walked up to her like hey you're Amy and yeah and she was like yeah I was like I'm James and then we had a really awkward moment and I was like yeah that's all I had.

I didn't know what to do so just have had like something to come and not do. I'm glad you said that. I mean I felt like I was so embarrassed and I doubt she remembers it. We've gone back and forth on like DMs and stuff that we're like friendish. Which I want to touch on that here in a second. Yeah so there's that and then I think the other thing is like all it's hard to overcome but all the awkwardness is in your head like even I mean, we're all nerds. Like, what's just call it what it is? Like, yeah. So, a lot of, let's see your comments coming in.

I'm about to do my context. are so dried out. I can't even read the screen. Let's see here. Yeah, Dev comes in here. My first conference. I was so angry that I barely approached it connected with people. The only three to four times I connect with someone was when it was a prior conversation on Discord. So I want to get to that. I want to talk about that. Existing connection that you can walk into. So a lot of conferences are doing this, right? Oh, you did it. Render did it. React Miami did it. I'm sure there's other conferences out there. You all just haven't invited me.

So but like, I'm not in life a lot. I haven't gotten into code mesh yet. So all that being said, why do you think people should start looking at discord channels, right? I feel like the discord, the slacks are like the new meetups now. It's, I mean, again, like, that's the perfect example. You had some sort of not necessarily relationship with some sort of connection, some sort of talking point, you get a feel for who's gonna be there. you can do a little bit of like stocky, searchy stuff. Like we see names and discourse that are gonna be there, go and look up on LinkedIn and see what they do.

And like we all do that. It's not weird to have like what's going on. It's not creepy. It's called researching. Yeah. And it gives you a talking point, but also you can see what are different people's interests, what's gonna align, who are the people. That's one of the things I don't do as great as I would like to, but actually making notes. Like I've done this before at conferences. Like I need to meet this person, this person, this person. being that intentional. Because my worst fear is like I've talked to someone on Twitter and then you get there in person that like, James, so good to see you.

Oh, I don't know. Remind me, I'm so sorry. Also, make sure your avatars are your freaking face. I'm so tired of y'all putting y'all's NFT artwork as your Twitter avatar. And then I come up and you're like, yeah, I've been following you for a while. I was like, I don't know that. Your picture's a duck with glasses on. How am I supposed to know that to you? Yeah. What about you thoughts? Thoughts on the Discord Slack kind of transition? Yeah, it's great. So, new water cooler, especially when you're working from home and having a group that you can go talk to and connect with. I love that.

I think that's like an additional thought slash recommendation is to drive that engagement before the conference. Like for all the things that we're saying, like you get the benefit if you go and be proactive about it, like conferences have the ability beforehand to drive that engagement to support, right, to facilitate that and make it easier for people that then by the time they get to the conference, I love that. But it's even going beyond that. Like what do you do after the conference? Okay. Okay. Okay. So this guy is so okay. Great. Love this. Because this goes back to your comment about the DM with Amy.

What is your strategy? So I'm big on social media and leveraging social media network. How do you keep up with people? No strategy. None. I have a strategy that I wish I could. Which was what? Because I'm sure a lot of people probably. Specifically with James. No, just just general. Yeah, I wish I was tweeting every day Why why? Some of it is I mean you just I feel like you have to feed the bees like on Twitter It's like if you don't you can post once a day, but chances are if somebody miss that poster It's like a babbling broke is what I call it.

It's a great metaphor and good with metaphors Just kidding. If you got me early. I don't know where I got that from. If you're continuing to provide value to people, then that's naturally going to facilitate a relationship with somebody else. They'll want to have a relationship with you because you provide value in life. But also if they come to a conference, it gives them something to talk to you about. So I wish I was more prominent. I feel like James is everywhere. James is everywhere. So, yeah, I mean, we'll talk. Okay. So I want to get this. thing. So my strategy, so I just went on a trip to, well, on vacation.

No big deal. No big deal. It was great. We, me and my wife met up with a couple. And by the way, if you all have more questions, please ask them. I see them coming in and we're going to try to get to them here as soon as we can. So I had a choice in that moment. I was like, I could ask for this couple's phone number and put it in my phone book and then it would never see them again or I connect with them on their platform or choice that they use on social media. The reason why I did that is because if it goes in my phone book, I'm never gonna talk to them.

Yeah. Yep. And I'm never gonna see them again. And now, because I connected with the husband on Instagram, I've been fawn along with their journey after we left them and I've been commenting and engaging with them since then. So talk about, and especially you because you're big on content, talk about why social media is really the best way to network. Yeah, well, a lot of it is the consistency that Amy is talking about. If there's some research, I don't have the quote or whatever, but for someone to actually become, and I don't like the word fan, but for someone to become a fan of you, it takes eight different touch points.

So I had different touch points. It's like they saw a tweet that you tweeted that they liked a video. They saw a picture, they saw a livestream. It takes a repetition of engagement points where people actually follow and care about the stuff that you do. But it's also just so easy. As a developer, stack overflow is the thing that people go to to find out where's the code. I don't do that. I post on Twitter because I've built the network around me of people that I know in the relevant areas and expertise that I need to be able to go and get that answer. And then from networking, again, I post on Twitter that I lost my job and I'm maybe looking for jobs and get 100 DMs.

It's crazy. Like that's the power of it. And it's not like a super special thing. A lot of it is just consistency. as you're working on stuff, share that. As you're seeing other people do stuff, engage with it. And the thing for me, like being with people in person at conferences, I'm so much more likely to engage with your stuff and now care about your stuff. Correct. And then have more context for what you're doing based on the conversations that we had. Because you came out like I was super excited the first time because I had seen your live streams to do the live stream with you.

And that was cool and it was kind of a one off thing but then we hung out at KCDC, and then it was a different type of relationship. 100% all right, we'll try to get through these because because we need to go a happy hour something Let's just have a listen so do you guys it comes in? I've yet to my first conference. I'm actually hey I'll tell you this all things open is in Columbia, South Carolina. They do a I think the founder. Yes They have a Columbia one to I know, I know, I know, I know, I saw your speaking all things open.

That's like my dream conference to speak out. But anyways, that's another thing I said. Yeah, so I'm submitted for the last five years, not better. All that being said, just, yeah, go to all things open. Columbia, it's in February. Dev comes in conference Twitter discourse, I was so important. Exactly, Victor comes in, I've attended many virtual conferences, most recently, Cascadia, JS. That's a good way to be here. I'm definitely looking forward to, yeah, definitely looking forward to one person, Alberto, what's going on, do you have to take them to associate awkward as hell? But I just go, listen, I'm awkward. I mean, I just run my mouth a lot to overcome it.

I mean, if you can just embrace that, like everybody, like I just told you my really awkward moment with, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Like everybody does that. And here's the thing, like, if you are more confident in yourself, one of the things you can do to help other people is just only awkward disperse. Like I'm super comfortable being awkward because I'm very comfortable being in these situations. And if they get awkward, I'm like, it's whatever. So one thing I can do to help other people, and there's other people who do to help other people as well, is just like only awkwardness first, and take that burden away from them, and own it yourself to make them feel more comfortable.

I love that. Because if you can make them feel slightly more comfortable, they start to open up, then you have more natural conversation, and now they feel like they're part of the thing that you're doing. So practical story. Oh, here we go. I practically yeah earlier today we met a girl and Jane said I'm sorry you just told me and I was not listening you owned the awkwardness and you said I'm sorry what's your name and she repeat it and she goes you know what I wasn't paying attention at all I think it's the exact same thing yeah tell me your name so we please tell me again I'm glad you own it because I didn't want to say anything and it just opened up so one of the I saw TikTok the other day I says we're not really bad at remembering names we just don't listen.

That's so true. Because then we have like a 30 minute conversation. Yeah, that's a long conversation. That's great. That's way too long conversation. So you'll want to, it's great to see you grow. You're on the. Oh yeah. Yeah, you want to met James at random. My first conference in a friend introduced me to James. And I had a lot of casual conversations. Good. No, I'm always going to remember. Always saying hi, many chats. I didn't know James and felt embarrassed afterwards. Once I got home realized how big James is. I'm still in the text for definitely learning process. I love that so much. I mean, again, you want to say, again, you want to engage with people.

Christina, I'm seeing Christina Sunday in Vegas. Hey everyone. She's part of your team. She's helping me put on a guy that comes with 2.0 meetup in Vegas. No one. So Christina was on the show. She's fantastic. So what I do is I say, hey, nice to meet you. Or hi, it's nice to see you instead of nice to meet you. Because in many cases, we have met in person on social. I'm going to start doing that now. It's nice to see you. I love that. I would be good to be seen. I'm damn damn it's great. I'm damn you're too funny. You're too funny. It helps have a costume.

I wear red Taylor's wear Hawaiian shoes. Wait, do I know? I don't know. Krit Kristina, do you know James? I don't know if y'all have been. I don't know if y'all have been. Just look at the Hawaiian shirts. I love it. So you haven't met Miami Hawaiian shirts. Oh, Kristina's in Perth. She's in Perth. She's speaking at a conference in Perth. Wait, my wife was just in birth for a conference, which conference? I don't know. Do you need to develop a little bit of a developer? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really? I don't know. My wife was just there with all zero. That's crazy. A costume. A costume, please explain.

Wait, what's wrong? It is. So here, hold on, let's pause on that. So she mentioned she wears red. Oh, got you, Gee. I had an eyewear. Yeah. You wear the shirts, you wear the ripped jeans, all the things. Yeah. And a coworker of mine, Christine Mothany, who started the same time I did at Microsoft, she always wore yellow. She every time. Really? Had something like an accessory or like a blatant dress. Or shirt and those are the like icebreaker things like if someone but I think from a branding which the whole other conversation We don't have time to come to go drink somewhere, but It's so right being able to like they talk about thumbnails on YouTube So They talk about like consistency with your brand right like what you how you show up and what you wear is like can be part of that too.

So you nailed your brand, cause what did you say earlier? He was exactly the way I just wanted to do it, right? Cause it's an easy thing to describe. Like we see it right here. Yeah, I love it. All right. We're going to wrap up here. DRT, I'm definitely taking the approach on LinkedIn connections. I love that. I mean, I think LinkedIn is just a great platform for it. And then agreed it diffuses anxiety and that was awkward. All right, sweet. Cool. Well, that was it. That was great. That was fun. How long has it been? It's been 30 minutes. This is such an easy thing to produce and such a great, like, especially you have comments and stuff, and then if you can get, like, random people popping in, like that are at the conference because we've got such a good group here.

Dibs on purple. Elbow to hey, Rocket, man. Rocket, I love it, I love it. I need to get, like, a defining, like, you do, I guess, style. You need to just wear a Q on your shirt. Yeah, I think you get a little bit of Q. I don't want to let her do it. Yeah. Well, thank y'all for hanging out. We appreciate it. Hopefully, I'll go connect with compressed FM. Yeah, compressed FM. I was gonna say compression.fm. Compressed FM. And oh, Christina goes, yes, we know each other. I need to see, see, this is like, this is why it's so small. Yeah, what's your bigger picture?

Oh, I passed him in that last month. And she said she didn't stop say hi. I've read that and I thought it said that I didn't say hi. Like she said hi. Called you out. I'll do it. All right, y'all. Well, that's it. Thanks y'all for hanging out with us today. A little guidance counselor compressed FM collab. We need to do it again like in actually like good lighting. Maybe we should do that again like in like when we get back home. Yeah, good lighting. You can be natural. Yes. Oh, yeah. We'll just yeah. That's going to be a few months at the beginning of the year.

I'll definitely come. Okay. I've got too much stuff in the meantime. Awesome. All right, y'all. We'll go in. Y'all we'll get even. Bye. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode and I am very grateful. Because you know why? There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes, and I myself rarely finish an entire episode, so I appreciate you so so much for listening. Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the App Store. I want this to be discoverable to others, and the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it.

Please, like, right now, unless you're driving, then don't do it. So thank you again. If you need to reach out to me, Taylor at Vaco.com or at T.S. on all social media handles and I hope you have a fantastic day.