how to navigate large conferences w/ nick taylor, dev advocate

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

um yeah so I think with when it comes like the dads and Tech stuff I think so a buddy of mine he did my welcome home video and he runs creative in community for freaks of nature freaks of nature is a dtoc brand it's a sunscreen brand um I don't know who this is Kelly Slater is like the big thing yeah he's yeah and so like it's like amazing job he has he flies out to like he was in Hawaii okay shooting a surfing shooting surfing content for a week I'm like oh that's stinks Yeah so basically he told me something that I think this

is what I want to do with dad's in Tech is like you like you just want to give people a starting line and I just think that like really resonated with me so much just like just giving people a starting point uh I think it's huge no totally totally yeah it's the you know same obvious here but Community the people are what make the community it's not the people's like you obviously need people starting the community and you you do you do need moderation and stuff but it it's really hard to scale like a very large community yeah like uh like for example like when

I worked at Dev 2 like by the time I left we had a million active members like that's a crap ton of people that's crazy and and hey what's up Jason um you know and like we had a moderation team but it was like when I left there I think it was four people the only way we were able to scale moderation was there was some automations but a lot of it was people in the community like people like uh I don't know if Jeff Jesse's in the chat yet but like there's a lot of people that and including myself even when I left I

stayed as a moderator because I cared about the community you know and it's it's just really hard to moderate all that you know but yeah but but it's really the people that that make it and and build it you know it's you're just kind of like you're just kind of like starting the fire that's it you know so yeah right now 100% it's 100% the people ah there he is there he isy there he is there I mean shout out Jeff Jesse dude I you're a g I mean you know you're you're making the torque Community I mean Jeff's out there welcoming people into the

torque Community yeah Jeff you are gonna get our first batch of merch by the way the swag for torque is going to be insane like I got the second revisions of the torque shout out Isaac we're using um Zara Isaac on Twitter oh yeah yeah over in over in um Africa Nigeria I think is where he's base out of and dude the like our goal is to get it completely done I'm going to try to get something um uh rushed for us rushed for me for Amsterdam because the hoodies are sick I mean they're sick so yeah okay so that's where you're going it's Amsterdam

I'm I'm going to London yeah yeah yeah yeah all right real quick good morning everybody happy day but basically so I I think starting out these things is a little awkward because it's like it takes like a few minutes for people to tune in and so like uh Nick and I were just like kind of dve diving into community and we were talking about dads in Tech Nick's like man we're just like talking about a lot of good [ __ ] like we should probably go live so we just went live so good morning happy Wednesday it's good to see you all I'm dragging this

morning had beerly cocky last night we lost again w a three- game losing streak uh lower a has gotten very competitive and we just can't put Pucks in the back of the net so we lost last night uh six to six to four unfortunately and I didn't go to bed till about 1:00 am last night so um dragging a little bit this morning but nothing but a little cold brew and some zins won't help so yeah yeah totally um but good morning please say hey we love to hear from you um I'm excited for this conversation so I first off I want to apologize to

Nick publicly uh because Nick is an amazing individual I've admired what he's done from afar his streams his engagement he's always there and and I actually tell people this I said the people who I consider my friends I actually do the worst job of inviting people onto the show because I'm like oh I I know them we have great conversations I respect them I don't think to invite them so a lot of I've had some people not Nick has not done this but I've had some people in the chats go like hey like why haven't you invited me I'm like oh [ __ ] I'm

so sorry there's no hard it's just because I I I I know you so like I don't think about it so this is a long time coming um uh so I'm happy to have Nick on the show I think this top is going to be very applicable to a lot of people I'm headed to Dev World in two weeks in Amsterdam Nick where you heading yeah I'm heading to London uh April 1st to uh cubec Con Europe okay so it's and it's uh we'll get into our comps but it's it's massive like I've been a render which I went to render been yeah I can't

remember how big it was in 2023 I feel like it was like 3,000 maybe yeah uh they hit 5,000 this past year like yeah that's wild but uh this is the first time I'm going to cubec con because like I've kind of I'm still in the webd community but like where I'm working at now it's kind of more security infra so like uh I'm about to meet a bunch of new friends and about to meet a bunch of nerds let's just be honest side is is very is very different I mean that the best way possible I all I'll say is I'm a bit of

a nerd too because like even like one of the guys I played rugby with like when we go on vacation together sometimes like we be on the beach and I'll be reading a programming book and he'll be he's like he's a good friend of mine he's like are you reading one of those nerd books and I'm like yes yes yeah yeah that's awesome that's awesome I love that um so yeah we're gonna talk about that today uh um but again kind of kind of some few shout outs real quick as always first off shout out torque listen we hire people too right I think I

think one of the things I'm gonna start doing I was listening to a marketing podcast yesterday I'm going to try to do one video a day for 30 business days on like basically what torque is i g to release I'm gonna do one today but we do hire and we help hire a ton of people around the globe so if you need engineering help um I think what's really cool about this is like when I my last companies were just kind of more us-based we can literally help scale teams anywhere because we also have the power of ronad global to be able to do that

so really really cool so shout out Tor um also want to shout out to aight um iio I'm an aight hero Jason's an aight hero um we're looking to some cool stuff with them I have some app right Heroes coming on the show here soon um so shout out them love their product love their team they're doing some a lot of good stuff uh let's see I want to give a sh oh also too if you want to give if you want to check out everything we're shout out Jason for kind of deploying this site um t.v.

apppp um I I really we probably needed to just do like a simple URL than that but go check out our community page it has literally our schedule um we're about to do a call for ambassadors and a call for Mentor mentors as well so if you are interested in being a mentor in our community get some of that sweet swag I was talking about uh go sign up on this page it's gonna be a great one and also to final thing if you want to be kept in a loop with when I go live text text live text this number um I should probably

edit this a little bit and say like text live um this is actually my number I'm trying to use my texting Community a little bit more than I have um so if you want to get caught up I I text every morning or every time I go live on like who the guest is so uh text me if you want to be kept up to date all right so all that being said we definitely got some people tuning in now this morning um so it's great um okay cool we are moving to the Tor platform there you go awesome all right so Nick let's give

a background about you real quick other than you like to read nerd books at the beach yeah yeah so I've been in the tech industry for quite a while uh I've been a Dev professionally since 2002 kind of worked all over the place had a lot of my early career and.net and then eventually moved over to like kind of full stack node.js JavaScript typescript kind of stuff and it's kind of funny like since 2020 I've been working professionally in open source so like literally getting paid to work in open source so like from Dev to net lefi open sauce and now pomarium where I'm at

and it's kind of funny people always thought I was a developer Advocate but I've always been like full-time engineering and this opportunity came up at pomerium for developer Advocate role as somebody in my network reached out and I was like you know what people always think I am one so like hey let's give this a go yeah so uh yeah it's been it's been a wild ride in a good way but uh super pumped to be over there I love that I love that all right so let's get in me potatoes and why people are here how to navigate Big conferences so I'm an introvert

I'm a social Sprinter as I like to say um you know how many people are cucon or are gonna be there at least tentatively this is wild it's apparently six to 10 thousand people uh which is the big like 7500 is what their Tower okay yeah so and and they have this twice a year there's one in Europe always and then one in North America um so it's yeah it's it's the biggest one I will have ever been to before that it was render like we were saying so uh yeah uh yeah I'm I'm still thinking about how to navigate this because part of part

of what I'm going down there for I'll be working at our booth uh for a bit obviously Bo makes it a bit easier I will say that yeah it's true because you're obviously gonna talk to people uh but I'm kind of also I'm new to this community and I'm not I'm still pretty new to kubernetes so like I want to be able to try and catch some talks but also like I really do want to meet people in that industry in that community so so I'm just trying to figure out the best way to do that really like I I am extroverted so like I

have no no problem just going up to a random person saying hey can I sit here and have crazy that's what I that's like my head of this head of community I just can't I'm terrified go it's funny that you say that but like until you said it literally uh publicly that you were not extroverted I always assumed you were so you like yeah you put a lot of work into it but I know it's draining for you so it is and that's something like I'm trying to be mindful of So like um so I I'll I'll kind of get nerdy for a quick second

on kind of some things I'm thinking about we can go back and forth so like yeah for me we don't have a booth I'm going by myself um I I will have the video guys we'll produce some pretty cool content I'm excited about but um one of the things that I do really well on is podcasting and and and small intimate settings right so yeah one of the things that I I'm really excited about with devor is they actually have a podcast Booth set set up oh that's sweet and it's fully equipped and as far as I'm understanding I'm going to message Yos after this

who's who puts it together he puts together JS World by the way Yos Gerard is the guy who puts it together um they give you all the assets for free okay that's awesome so one thing I've thought about is like why don't I just literally hole up all day and just interview people yeah right so if if I'm doing 30 minute interviews now that's a long time I'm not saying I'm going to do like eight hours of interviews because I may shrivel up and die but like yeah yeah one thing I thought about is like I may get a really heavy dosage the content will

be great sure but I think more it's just more I work better in those type of settings so one thing I've been really laser focus on is the podcast Booth getting people set up there um another thing too is is I'm throwing two dinners uh speaker so so there is no speaker dinner for devor um so what I'm doing is I'm manually outreaching to uh engineers and Engineering leaders so I mean in full transparency our ICP is engineering leaders right we want people to hire from torque so um I want to give a shout out to Hank Taylor um uh head of marketing at Lille

he put out a podcast uh with he in ganto um recently check out um was it it's Dev marketing I think uh is what it's called or Dev tooling or something like that the podcast highly recommend it but they talked about actually like how to throw dinners specifically and so that's so I'm trying to do an engineering leadership dinner and then I'm trying to do like a Dev Advocate dinner as well um on on on two nights so if you think about if I can get people in a podcast for an entire day and then I get two dinners going on you know I'm gonna

meet at least 30 to 40 people and you're probably Taylor you're probably going like out of 7,500 people that's not good math but 30 or 40 intentional connections I think it's pretty good at a conference what are your thoughts oh for sure like like it's it's like like you could go spread fire and just like spend one minute like shaking somebody's hand or saying hey what's up nice to meet you but I don't know about you but like I'm generally pretty good with names but I need to have at least a solid two to five minute conversation with somebody to lock that in so I

don't forget them and it's definitely more important and it's like it's not exactly the same thing but like my old CEO B douy says like you want to get your first 100 true fans you know like in terms of a product not exactly the same thing but it really is true like I would rather have like like every conference I've gone to so far like I met some great people at all things open I mean we hung out again we we've seen each other at other conferences but like first time I met Jason even though we chat all the time uh Roxy like uh Richard

a bunch of people and I I had like good connections and it was us just kind of going into a little nook and cranny like we went out for drinks after uh we grabbed lunches together and and that's really where you make those more meaningful connections and those will last longer than just going spread far especially like your conference is like super huge mine is super huge it would you would not be able to scale yourself to like if you were literally trying to hit everybody up there you know what I mean so yeah yeah yeah and I think too one of the things that

I've um one of the the things I've started to do early on is and even with smaller conferences is try to so when I started my conference journey I used to go I want to know I just I want to meet one keynote speaker so prime example I never forget years ago Dev space in Chattanooga um Reed Evans spoke and I was like man I've Loved Reed Evans from afar I love his stuff I want to meet Reed yeah and like that was my one goal I went to a conference and and now it was a smaller conference like 200 200 250 people but like

I met Reed I shook his hand after his keynote and and and and literally like read I mean I would say we're we're professional besties at this point right like he'll respond my DM come on my pod if I'm in Knoxville we'll hang out right yeah and and and that relationship stemmed out of like 10 years ago yeah totally and so I think a lot of people need to let themselves off the hook because they think they get anxiety yeah and you'd be surprised like even if you're introverted or ambivert or extroverted I would say in general most people at a large conference like that

will probably want to talk to somebody um and like obviously like I said I'm extroverted so I have no problem just sitting at a table but you know just just saying hey how's it going or what's your name I know it sounds silly to just you know like but people will tend to open up and start chatting you know and and the having these smaller groups also helps with that too right you know you know if if you're like a hundred people at a table it it's even like if you go to dinner with friends like it happens to me like when I've gone to

a birthday dinner the table's too big like I didn't talk to two-thirds of the table because that's another I have I mean my hot take is like dinner like like I have like 12 people confirmed for dinners right now yeah I mean I think if you get 10 people out of dinner you're not talking to half of them I really think like the perfect dinner is like five people yeah or you could do something silly like say hey okay we gotta we gotta everybody get up yeah after apps everybody gets up and switches a waiter's worst nightmare by the way yeah I know Ser oh

same yeah I God damn it um yeah I want give a shout to yeah Co code to Market highly recommend I've sent that to my team a few times I think uh ganto and Hank Taylor give some really practical advice the way they are thinking about Dev marketing is exactly how I'm thinking about Dev marketing from a Tor perspective I highly recommend checking them out um let me ask you this how are you thinking about like what some conversations internally with p uh uh pomerium around signups are you gonna have a QR code on your phone I know you have a boo so it's a

little easier to do signups there what are some conversations internally of some goals that you're having for qon yeah so I'll have to give some context to what the product is to just help uh shape it a little better but so we're a security product uh I I I'll give the technical what it is it's it's zero trust security and we're basically an identity aware proxy platform that enables secure client connections to web apps and services without a VPN and I'll explain what that means basically that means right in a nutshell like this is not something you're going to use on versell or netlify like

when I worked at netfi you know you just push your website up and it's there same thing with versell this is more at the network level so it's really like this is more for people that have internal apps that they want to secure and so like part of uh my job and part of what we're trying to do at the booth is you know conveying that in a somewhat simple manner because like security is inherently complex so being able to explain it in more simple terms or like being able to demo that in a like a reasonable amount of time at a booth uh so

uh we're definitely gonna have QR codes we're basically going to try and get them to sign up to pomerium zero which is one of our offerings uh you can sign up for free and stuff and the idea is we want them to just go set up stuff on their computer like they don't have to do it immediately there and and part of the reason is we're like we're thinking like okay maybe they could do this sign up on our computer there but then they're not really trying the product correct correct you know so so that alone you might be like okay whatever maybe if I

have time I'll do that but obviously we're gonna have some swag which I can't reveal what it is yet but like we'll have some it's going to be decent swag that it's actually enticing to one you have that first touch point where you speak to them they hopefully go set it up they come back for a second touch point where where at a minimum they're still going to get a decent thing of Swag but if they you know we're still formulating how to do the the nicer swag to give them like based on because we're not giving it out to everybody but that's kind of

the idea and that's two touch points to talk with people and I think the other thing that's going to be interesting is because like I'm new to that Community I'm still new to kubernetes as well so I think I might potentially have an easier time talking to people uh think so that's kind of an interesting mindset because like I'm like tell me about what you do with kubernetes I said I can be like totally transparent I'm super new this is even my first conf here you know tell me about what you do with your your with kubernetes or whatever I feel like that you know

it could go either way I guess but I'm sure I'm thinking it might be to my advantage we'll see yeah do you have any do you have any personal goals right do you have any like I really want to meet these people or I mean like like have you kind of come up with kind of what your goal because I think that's important right I don't want to gloss over the fact I think attending big conferences you have to walk in with a goal because if you don't you're literally gonna feel like you didn't do anything yeah no I I definitely have a goal like

obviously I have my uh you know work stuff I have to do but uh there's definitely some people I want to meet like uh Marino who was on one of the the torque devops uh I think that was yesterday I don't know if Jason wants to Great panel shout out Jason I mean I didn't understand half the things that said but yeah yeah yeah I I I met Marino briefly in Toronto at uh at a conference refactor DX in 2023 but didn't really talk too much but he's in Canada too and we've chatted a bit but I'm looking forward to have like a a better

conversation with him and just hanging uh there's Justin Garrison who's pretty well known in that Community yeah I think he's he's pretty active on Blue Sky think if it's a same one yeah yeah uh but speaking of dinners when I went to All Things open somebody created an offic unofficial speakers dinner which was a smaller dinner and I got to speak to Justin and some other people in the space that I'd never met so I'm hoping to go check out his Booth but also maybe hang with him a bit and there's just some other people in that space that uh I still got to compile

a bit of a list of people I want to hang with but that's that's kind of my my personal goal is just like hang with maybe four or six people in the that community and just kind of start learning a bit more about the community but also those people you know so that's that's my main goal personal I love that is there is there any conversation you guys are having on a company level of just like hey we need to get this many signups or we need to get like is there any I'm kind of curious because again we're having these I mean in full

transparency I'm trying to pick everybody's brain because we're having these exact conversations at torque like what does it look like with signups and is there a goal and all that stuff yeah uh uh I don't know our exact goals yet uh but one thing I'll say is we're actually testing I mean we have goals what I mean is like I don't have an exact number of signups I could give you it's not because I'm not trying to say it um but one thing we're trying like for that whole swag flow I was telling you about we're going to a smaller conference in Seattle a couple

weeks before so we're gonna test it out and see how that goes and if if it goes well great if it doesn't go as well we'll refine it so kind of like a bit of a test bed uh and it's less it's a smaller comp so less swag to give out to so uh we're going to do that just to see how things go but but the main I'd say the main goal right now for this quarter is really making a creating awareness about the product so so I've started doing some YouTube shorts like they they have a YouTube channel uh but like a lot

of companies it's not necessarily a big following anywhere yet it's usually we're building Ours from the ground up right now so yeah so I'm I'm doing that and some shorts uh and I'll have some other content but I'm also starting to do just informal live streams more like bringing in community you know and I'll have guests on there like Becca my good friend that we both know Becca har wagle she's coming on tomorrow that'll be the first one but yeah it's really about awareness so I think that's like the main high level goal right now 100% so kind of some underlying themes that I want

to hit real fast um in the last like 10 minutes or so we got together um I've mentioned swag you've mentioned swag you know I've mentioned that swag's gonna be good you've hinted at you guys got some good swag coming out yeah just talk about your overall thoughts around it I think most company swag sucks uh it does suck in general are you guys having that it sounds like you guys are having that conversation too right now yeah so I'll give an example right now I'm wearing this shirt from Sentry I got it off syntax and you know the Design's kind of like here it's

it's like a bug Slayer we're both wearing syn oh yeah yeah yeah now regardless of what's on the shirt what I would say is I love this shirt because it is a super comfortable t-shirt same it's like stretchy and like yeah and I've I've definitely gotten T-shirts from other booth and they're literally scratchy like it and it's just not comfortable and like honestly I think it's a waste of money like if anything you know like spend a little more or if you're G to give out swag that can't be a t-shirt get a I don't know like I know a lot of people like fidget

Spinners or something like just get high quality don't break the bank but like if you're gonna buy something make sure it's good and I don't think this is a hot take but I think we're kind of oversaturated with water bottles for swag yeah we're not doing no water bottles I'm giv away water I don't have it with me but like a really nice one like a really like a like I I have one of those the ones that don't that that's like a 40 ounce doesn't spill situation that's like 30 or 40 bucks off Amazon like like if you're going to do it like just

go big if you're G do water bottle yeah and I I'll point out to a cool swag I got from uh a couple that I got from um all things open so this here it's it's just a USB cord but I got it from Source graph it's really good quality and it's got multiple things and I use it all the time like it's a useful thing uh not as but I thought it was a cool swag is like from U from Red Hat like the company like they were giving out these fedoras and like I don't wear it obviously but like my my kids are

like Carmen and San Diego but it's it's a nice it was just a cool piece of Swag even though I don't really wear it um so I yeah you know like I get it it costs money but I think if you I'm generally a fan of if you're G to buy something buy it high quality whatever it is you know one thing one thing we're one thing we're doing is and I follow a lot of fashion brands we're going to kind of model after a lot of uh the brands I follow we we are going to probably only have one or two public things that

you can buy like like we will have a public we will have a public interface or a public site and it's only gonna be like one shirt now it's gonna be a good shirt but it's only one the rest we're doing is so um I did get the okay which I'm really excited about I'm I'm going to You'll the people who are here can hear it first we are doing a limited run collab swag with all things open AI oh nice yeah so I I talked with Todd um and uh they are they are allowing us to use their some of their Graphics Okay cool

so we are going so you can only get all things open AI swag torque at all things open right so that's one thing we're doing another thing we're doing too is our ambassador like if you are a part of our any internal programs Ambassador Mentor mentee program anything we roll out in the future um you will be gifted uh some very very high caliber Swag Like right now like Jason um is hosting a Denver Meetup um he's flying out there we're doing an AI Meetup um we will have carart hoodies nice so it's like you know for us it's like we're gonna do limited drops

and we're gon to keep things very tight and we're also gonna have kind of like if you're if you're an ambassador or part of our community and you're really vocal we're gonna have I kind of took it off a brand called represent um represent is a london-based uh lifestyle and fitness brand um and they have something where like all of their kind of like workout wear slash like if you're part of the club says 247 on it okay um and so we're going to have something like that where like if if you're a part of the inner circle like you will have that and so

so that's again like I I I really think Swag like I got really deep into like this the like looking at fashion brands over over Christmas yeah and like if there's one thing that unites a community it's actually merch or swag or whatever you want to call it or apparel um you know it's it's that public kind of Nod uh that okay you're you're a part of the club and that's something that I really want to embody here T yeah totally and and just getting back to high quality swag you know like people are going to wear it so like if your name is on

it it's it's gonna show up wherever they go like I like I still have this like shout out to like KY dods for Like Remix com I have this kotap pxi um uh fanny pack and I use it all the time and they had a really high quality hoodie and I like I just like the look of it uh and I wear that all the time too so like you know what I mean it's not just like it really isn't I mean obviously it's for the people that get the swag but if it's good swag you're you're like getting free promotion all the time you

know yeah well so for some reason I don't think LinkedIn is showing all the comments Amanda Martin probably dropped in I want to give a shot if it's the same Amanda I'm thinking of with Wix I Still Rock the Wix tote bag from render two years ago or three years two years ago so it's a great tote bag and that's something we're doing too we're gonna have a tote bag um for torque um and like I take it whenever I go to the gym um if Jackie and I do like a quick kind of one nter overnighter type situation like I use it like and

I think and I think and again like I I I truly think if you are in marketing um I know I saw some clips from again Hank Taylor from laravel like they have some really really good stuff coming in um yeah I I I I truly think it can unite a community in my opinion I think it's incredibly underrated and and again like I want to wear torque stuff 247 but I'm only going to wear 247 if it's comfortable and it looks good yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah yeah yeah but um another thing too as we kind of wrap up here um uh another kind

of underlying theme was um so we had swag you said something else a few times and I'm drawing a blank um but when it comes so so let's pivot for a second any last I'm trying to remember because there's another thing that you said a few times I want to bring back to it but um any any last piece of advice for people just even going to conferences in general like like just any haven't touched on yeah uh I'll just reiterate I understand people can be shy but just even if it's a big effort for you just say hi to somebody like and going to

lunch is the easiest thing because it's like a table it's like oh there's no I I don't know I just can I sit here you know and it's like I know it can be difficult for people but do that up um if you go catch a talk you know hopefully it's a good talk you know let the speaker know you know they'll really appreciate it and also gives you a touch point to go speak to the person if it's somebody you wanted to meet as well um like uh like I know like I've met Angie Jones a few times now and like I would consider

her a professional friend you know like don't know her super super well but matter at react Miami and all things open and I think somewhere else but like yeah yeah um yeah aside from that um you know there's a lot of talks going on I I'm laughing at Richard Choy not at him sorry but like he was like he's so dedicated to the people that he he really wants to see talks for and I remember at all things open he's like I really want to see your talk Nick but Danny's speaking I'm like don't sweat it man it's cool like I appreciate the gesture but

like don't don't like go there for 10 minutes and then run over to M or something it's it's like I'm not taking offense at all it's just uh you know uh but just kind of like figure out what talks you can go to hopefully they don't overlap with all the people you want to see it depend and that this is more like depends on the conference right if there's one track that's not an issue but bigger conferences it's probably an issue you know like it happened to me at render I I caught Scott tulinsky talk on CSS but there was another talk I couldn't catch

I think it was either uh Kelly Von or somebody else's but it was just just couldn't do both right so um you know but got a great point I want to highlight go to go to talks I would thread and create content for the speaker yeah I think that's the biggest hack in my perspective if you come to any of my talks yeah and you take pictures of me and you tweet thread something I'm GNA repost it yeah I'm probably GNA turn into content myself and give you credit I'm gonna post the pictures I think it's incredibly incredibly important so like instead of just sitting

in a meeting instead of sitting in a conference session and watching it and not being active take notes tweet live tweet do something because the speaker is going to be so appre no speaker is going to be upset that you did that like no matter how big they are right so like again I I think um I think creating content and again this is why I'm so passionate about content is it's it's really the great unifier when it comes to networking yeah um yeah absolutely um I would I would create content for the speaker yeah and this this just hits the thing I know you

talk about this all the time I'm a big proponent of this too but like and it's not just because of this current job market and I know the Market's getting better but like I have only seen good things happening in my career since doing things in public and doing things in public can mean many things doesn't mean you have to live stream it could be you're just blogging or you're posting like you're saying uh but do something to stand out right now uh yeah you know just just do it and don't doesn't matter if you don't have a big following it doesn't matter if somebody's

written about something before just do it and you're just gonna see like that's that's how I got contacted for my current role they they knew I post stuff all the time they didn't read at all but they're like hey you know like uh just wondering if this might interest you you know and uh so yeah just whatever you can do in public I think is just a net positive so 100% 100% all right uh wrap up last uh kind of Rapid Fire questions um again thank you all for tuning in appreciate the comments obviously we're fantastic again this morning appreciate the tour Community for for

for hopping in here this morning um please go connect with Nick uh he's a heck of a dude um so Nick uh first question Valentine's Day is here is upon us hopefully you've made reservations um we're doing something U bought flowers or something um uh what's your favorite go-to candy during this Valentine's Day season and don't say you like candy just appease me and pick something yeah yeah it's definitely not cinnamon Hearts cuz those things are just like I don't know they're just too intense and also drank some Fireball whiskey in uh I've made decisions off Fireball yeah i' I've made some terrible decisions but

uh no I think candy wise it is chocolate you know like uh I'll give a shout out to it's just funny because my uh my American cooworker was in Canada recently he bought coffee crisps they're chocolate bars that I didn't realize they were only in Canada Canada and they're really good they've got like a slight coffee taste to it but it's chocolate um or there's just like there's like high quality chocolates you can get too at least in at least in Montreal there's like you can go to like kind of like almost like a a chaer place and get some good chocolate so uh that's

probably what I'd go with uh love that jelly beans aren't bad either gross um next question so if I told you that tomorrow morning can't do anything in Tech but I pay you the same if not more AKA money's not the issue what what would you do like like basically what hobby would you pick up and make it your full-time job yeah I don't maybe personal training I like working out uh I've been LIF I've been lifting since I was like 16 and like I saw picture that you posted day that is a real picture meee head I love it yeah yeah but I think

you know and like whatever in that Spectrum just like helping in that industry whether it's uh nutrition or training but it's just like I just like lifting heavy things it just makes me feel better same same yeah lifting heavy things and putting it back down I love it um next question I want to give uh I always I this is a new thing I've added want to give shout out to people in the community who who who do you want to give a shout out to right now anybody in your community who um who's doing a good job yeah I'd say I gotta give shout

out to Roxy who's in the chat yeah she's she's putting herself out there all the time uh you know she's she's breaking in a tech and I just I really enjoy that she posts all the time and she's very consistent very consistent it also shows that she actually goes to the gym every day too Soh so F give a shout out to her hand stands for Liv yeah yeah yeah exactly yeah exactly so Hand stands is a service um yeah no I I just think she's doing great and I just she's just good people I got to meet her at all things open so I

love it that's awesome that's awesome shout out Roxy um she's very very vocal in our chat too which I'm I'm I'm incredibly appreciative um last question as we wrap up here um uh because I I forgot I had a meeting um show called guidance counselor 2.0 because you had guidance counselors middle school high school and college but now's adults we don't really have them well if you can go back in time and tell Nick Taylor young Nick Taylor anything about his career what would it be I know honestly I wouldn't change anything and it's not to sound cheesy or anything but it's like I wouldn't

be where I am today because of the things I've done like I could say stuff like sleep more uh you know shouldn't have you know stuff like that fireball shots yeah exactly you know I mean I I I would have said maybe maybe don't don't play with a broken ankle in a rugby game maybe I don't know stuff like that but no in general I I went to University and I didn't apply myself as much in University it was only after I focused honestly more on Rugby but um but I graduated but I think I could have maybe applied myself more in University but honestly

it didn't really change anything career-wise aside from some people myself yeah yeah exactly uh I got asked for my first job if I had a degree after that it wasn't really brought up ever yeah um yeah but yeah so not too much you know kind of like Back to the Future stuff they want to change the future I love it I love it all right awesome well y'all thank you again for tuning in this morning we appreciate It Go connect with Nick um again if you're going to conference take some notes I think this was a really applicable conversation for the conference season coming up

and uh last one of the week last live of the week so we'll see y'all next week Nick appreciate you um say you backstage but y'all have a great one and we'll see youall next week everybody