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From YouTube: Passion Projects (Live) 7: Jen Myers (How To Not Be An Expert)

Description

The 7th episode of the Passion Projects Live series, featuring Jen Myers. Jen is a web designer and developer and part of the instructor team at Dev Bootcamp in Chicago. In 2011, she founded the Columbus, Ohio chapter of Girl Develop It, an org that provides intro coding classes aimed at women, and currently co-leads the Girl Develop It Chicago chapter. Jen speaks regularly about design, development and diversity, and focuses on finding new ways to make both technology and technology education accessible to everyone. You can find Jen Myers on GitHub, Twitter, and on her personal site.

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A

♪ (funky music) ♪.

B

Thank you guys for being here.. I wanna introduce jen myers. jen is a developer and a designer.

B

she's, also an instructor at dev, bootcamp and she's. Also the founder of girl, develop it.

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In columbus, ohire. ohire., I was doing so well! I was doing so well. columbus, ohio. and she also co-leads girl, develop it in chicago now..

B

Please join me in welcoming jen myers. (applause).

C

Oh,, I just wasn't on. that's better right?.

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Hi!, there's lots of you. Guys. come in.

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There's a really nice couch seat right up here., you guys should take that.

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so,, I'm jen.. I don't really know exactly what I'm doing. Yet.

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So, we're gonna figure it out..

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When julie invited me to come speak,, it was wide open about what to speak about.

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and at first that was really exciting.

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and then,. It was like,. "Wow." "I can speak about anything.. I have no idea what to talk. About.".

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It was really hard to come up with a topic. Actually.

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so,. I decided to talk a little bit about something.

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That's just been on my mind: lately. hopefully,. They come out into some sort of a coherent talk.

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But I'm gonna talk about how not to be an expert on things.

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And when I say that I don't know what I'm doing,.

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I'm being pretty serious about that..

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That may be not something that you expect to hear or when I say that you may think...

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Well,, you may think a few things. you may think, "ok,. So why am I sitting here?" and then you may be thinking about leaving,, which I understand.. You might also be thinking,, "oh,, she's, just being modest or self-deprecating,".

C

"Or annoying, or all of the above.", and you might also be thinking about leaving,, which is what I would be thinking, honestly..

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So there's an interesting thing when I say that I don't really know exactly what I'm doing., I'm still figuring a lot of this stuff out..

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I mean that in a really positive way, that not only have I come to terms with the fact that I don't really know that,. Not only is that okay, that I've actually found that it's kind of desirable.

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and it's been an interesting journey becoming comfortable with that fact..

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But I think that's what I've done mostly this past year is becoming comfortable with the fact that I'm not really an expert,, and I don't know if I really want to be an expert and I'm sort of thinking about what is an expert in the first place?.

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So,, I don't know.. This is my exercise in thinking all of those things, through.

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That's how I'm gonna be approaching this, and actually that's how I kind of approach everything that I'm doing.

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So what do I do?? That's my twitter, account,.

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If you'd like to hook up with me, there.

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As julia is saying that I do a lot of web design stuff and some development-type stuff.

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I work full time as an instructor in dev bootcamp, in chicago.

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I think there's a lot of you guys here that know what that is,, but in case you don't,, it's an accelerated,, 9-week web developer program.

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Focusing mainly on ruby on rails.

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I've also...I used to live in columbus, ohio.

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in 2011,. I founded girl, develop it columbus,.

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And since I moved to chicago earlier, this year,.

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I've been co-leading girl, develop it, chicago, as julie said.

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So the main thing to take away with that, though, is that I've been doing a lot of work in the educational realm.

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I really stumbled into that.. I stumbled into it because I wanted to find better ways.

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To educate myself and they didn't really exist., so I just started trying to make them, and I didn't know what I was doing then either,.

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But just kind of ended up stumbling into more and more educational, reform, essentially.

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And now I do that full time.. So now I'm always thinking about education,, I'm always thinking about how I'm learning and how people around me are learning.

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When you're learning things, you usually try to get expertise in something..

C

As I said, before, I've been thinking a lot about. What is an expert.. Is there anybody here? That is an expert on what an expert is?. I bet, there's somebody.. Let me know..

C

This is interactive.. I wanna hear from you guys.. I like conversations.,.

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Nobody's willing to say anything? yes,, you are! good for you.. What do you think an expert is?.

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(Audience member) [inaudible], something very well.. That's a very safe answer,, but I like it anyway.

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is anybody-- myself as an expert in something.

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Somebody else wants to say: something. (audience, member), [inaudible].

C

So somebody who's made a lot of mistakes in what?

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in any particular area. [jen] in any particular area.

C

Okay, I like, where you're going with that. that's cool.. Does anybody else wanna throw anything in?.

C

Alright, cool. so yeah,. I like what you're getting at.

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Somebody who's made a lot of mistakes in that., but before I get into what I feel, maybe,, an expert is or what I would like it to be,.

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I wanna talk a little bit about what that word means now.

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Maybe put air quotes around it,, whatever you wanna think about it. how we define an expert,, maybe in our industry, right now,, how we measure that., and I tried to think about how do we measure that.?

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I came up with a couple examples..

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These are my linkedin endorsements. (laughter). These are my skills and expertise..

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I currently have more linkedin endorsements for batman, than I do for adobe creative suite,, which is awesome. [audience] (laughter) fire-breathing, is also up there,, which is also awesome.

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I don't know how to breathe fire,, but I do know a lot about batman, so...

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The point of this...I actively solicit batman, linkedin endorsements;, don't get me wrong..

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If you follow me on twitter, you already know that., but the point of this is,. Is this an accurate representation of my skills and expertise?? Do you take this seriously?? If you go to somebody else's linkedin profile,?

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How do you know that's what they're an expert in??

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How do you know that's what they're skilled at?, who endorsed them?, how the hell do they know??

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How do we know any of this stuff?? It's kinda just an exercise in,. I don't even know what it is.

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It's a game,, that's why I ask people to endorse me in batman.

C

But, you know,, so there's this..

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Have you guys seen these on portfolio websites??

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I actually took this one from a website. That's called,. I think it's the worst design portfolio ever,, which is actually a parody..

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I encourage you to take a look at it, if you haven't., but this is something that comes up in a lot of portfolio sites., it's like,. These are my skills and expertise, and I have this amount of them,. I guess.

C

If you read the description underneath there,, it kinda points this out., it's like,. I know 50% of logo design. (laughter) like,. I don't know.

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I see these maybe a lot more on designer sites, because it's very visual and it's pretty.

C

But I see developers do that,, too. and they'll list different languages. "I know 100% of ruby.". What the f*** does that mean?.

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[Audience] (laughter), I don't understand any of this stuff..

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This is apparently how we measure skills and expertise,, where somebody has 100% of something,, then they're an expert in something,. I guess.

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So, my point about this is that the metrics that we're using,.

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I mean, such as they are, they just,. They don't really make a whole lot of sense, and it's really hard for us to gauge what makes an expert.

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what system are we,, I mean,. How do we measure rockstarness?? How do we measure ninjaness?

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the words that we use to describe experts and the way we treat these type of people in our field,?

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It doesn't always make a lot of sense and it's hard to kind of figure out what the system behind it is. Informing.

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How could we trust that?.

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Basically, we can't,, which is kinda what it comes down to,, and if we can't really trust that these people have these skills,.

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Have these expertise,, if we can't trust experts,, that basically means that we really can't trust the system that is calling them experts. so then,. We have to examine not just the experts, but that system that is making them that..

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So, what's underneath all of this?.

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So, funny thing about me and you might have picked up on this,.

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So I actually don't trust the authority of systems very much.

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I've always had a bit of a problem with that.

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and when I think about trying to trust.

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The authority we have now of expertise,.

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It's hard for me to do, and I tend to go back to some of the lessons I've learned from people as I was growing up and I was constantly questioning the authority of the systems around me..

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Does anybody wanna be really cool and tell me who this is?.

C

Sombody's gotta know., so this is a guy named joe strummer..

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He was in a band called the clash..

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He was one of the first people who taught me what it was like to question the authority of a system.

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He was punk rock in the real sense of the term,.

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The spirit of it,, not just the trappings of it., he was about speaking truth to power and telling individuals that they had the power to remake a system.

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I learned a lot from him, things like this.

C

He said, "authority is supposedly grounded in wisdom," "but. I could see from a very early age" "that authority was only a system of control" "and. It didn't have any inherent wisdom." "I quickly realized that you either" "became a power or you became crushed.".

C

So this, that got serious real quick, didn't it? (laughter).

C

But there is a link there between thinking about how we measure expertise, and how we value people of experts in our industry, and how much we can trust the system that will name them that,.

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The methodologies that we use to name them experts.

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And to be really frank,, I don't know if I trust that right now., there is part of me that is like,.

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"You have to prove this to me in the first place." and there's a lot of things that I see that I'm not really sure. If I do trust that., I don't know if that makes a whole lot of sense to me..

C

This makes more sense to me., but that's also really confusing, kind. Of.

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It's confusing, but then it also, the flip side of this,.

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Means that if we don't have inherent trust,.

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And there's no reason to inherently trust. Authority,.

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That also means that, as individuals, we have the power to question and to remake things.

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And that's one of the things I really loved about joe strummer, is I really felt that when he was making his art, when he was making his music and sending his message out there, it was 'cause. He really believes that individuals have the power.

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To make things differently,, and that was the message that he was sending out too. he was saying,. "You can change this.".

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"Why, don't you change it?"?

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So how do we change things??

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How do we make experts in the first place?.

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Essentially,, that's what education is.

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education is something that I've been really interested in for a long time,, mostly because my own sucked really, really badly in a lot of ways., definitely growing up,. I hated school. always.

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I was really good at reading and writing and art,, but I was really bad at doing anything. I was supposed to,.

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Just basically 'cause I was supposed to.

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and then I went through this period, when I was in college- and I didn't know what I wanted to do. and I took some time off, and that was the first time in my whole life, during that time. Off that I had access to a computer and internet 'cause. I grew up in rural ohio and this was like 2000.

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And I had a dial up connection., it was awesome., so I was teaching myself html and css.

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and I'm like, "hey. I can type things into a computer" "and. I can make things happen." and that was the best thing that ever happened to me.

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so,, I'm like, well, hey,. Let's go back to school and I'll study, computer science 'cause! That's pretty much the same thing, right?.

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And it was a really bad experience (laughter) for me.

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it was really, really hard.. I went to a really small liberal arts school..

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I was the only female computer science major in my whole class and I felt like...

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You're not supposed to see that yet; sorry. (laughter).

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I felt like, when I went there that this idea of education,, like I was going there, because I was like, "hey,, I'm deliberately trying to put myself" "out of my comfort zone.", I'm this english artsy chick and I'm like,.

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I wanna learn how to do this. Computer stuff.

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and I'm coming to you and saying, "hey, I'm coming from this different perspective," "I'm challenging myself., I'm deliberately putting myself" "out of my comfort zone,. So I can learn this."! That's what education is about, right?

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I wanna learn something. and I felt like everybody else had been doing this for years.

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And they already knew it, and so they're like, "but. If you don't already know this,, then why are you here?".

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I'm like, "'cause I want to learn?" and that just didn't seem,.

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It wasn't anything that was mad, people, weren't mad or mean..

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They were just like,, they don't understand that., it's like,. If you already are like this,, that's why you want to study this..

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So it was really a confusing experience for me and I basically retreated. and I kept doing more designy-type stuff in the web field.

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And just self-teaching for years 'cause, I didn't really know what else to do..

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At some point I thought, "I feel like I could still do more than this;" "I feel like there's something else there.", and this was almost ten years down the road from that,.

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It took me a really,, really long time.

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and I thought, "what. If you could learn" "in an educational, environment" "where, it's not only okay, but it is desirable".

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"That you come in to put yourself outside of your comfort, zone".

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"And learn something new that you didn't know: before?" 'cause, that's kinda! What I thought education was about in the first place, right?, how about, if you do that?

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how about, if you bring that spirit to it?, and it just so happened that when I was thinking these things, there was a couple women in new york who had just started girl, develop it.

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and six months down the road,. I gave them a call and be like, hey. This is really cool,. Can you give me some tips?

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and they're like, "why? Don't you start a chapter?" and that's how I started girl develop it,, columbus.

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This is another one of my heroes, that kind of informed a lot of the reasons why I did that.

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Does anybody know who this bottom of the face, is?

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in the t-shirt? [audience member] (inaudible),.

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It's not joan jett,, but it's very close..

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I can see why you think that.

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she's wearing the shirt.. This is kathleen hanna..

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She was the lead singer of a band called bikini kill.

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And if you don't know, bikini kill, there was a movement of feminist punk bands called riot girl that happened in the early 90's.

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Basically, is the reason why I'm everything I am today.

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And she said, when she was talking about making that band,.

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She's like, "you, don't necessarily have to have talent," "you can just get up there and do something" "and see where it takes you.". I always tell girls who want to start a band, but don't have any talent, well,. Neither do I.

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I mean,. I can carry a tune,, but anyone who picks up a bass can figure it out..

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You don't have to have magic, unicorn, powers.

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And I really liked her attitude with this..

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This is like, just go and do it, and find a way to make it happen., and I thought that's what education should be like,, where you just are encouraged, that you're not saying that you have to be a certain way coming into it,, that you can just jump into it and make something out of it. Anyway., and maybe it's not gonna, be the same thing that somebody else comes out with on the other end,, but that's okay, 'cause. You were in there and you're doing your own thing and that's a really cool thing..

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I wanted to do the tech educational equivalent of this basically.

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And so,, I did that with girl, develop it and that was cool.

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And so we, in case you weren't familiar with girl, develop it,.

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I should explain. That. .,.I started the first us chapter in columbus a couple years ago.

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But we now have over sixteen chapters,, including one here in san francisco.

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and basically,. We focus on doing introductory programming classes aimed at women., but more than that,. It is very specifically,.

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It's not just about getting information into women's heads,, it's about creating an environment where people feel safe to ask questions, safe to come in with different perspectives,, safe to step outside their comfort, zone, and they're rewarded for that and they learn new things.

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and that's what I was really attracted. To.

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In the course of me doing this for a couple years,.

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I kinda got connected with other people who were interested in education and that's how I ended up at dev bootcamp in chicago..

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So, now I'm full time thinking about how we create these environments, where people can learn things.

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And the thing is that I've learned, I've learned a lot of things doing this., that's the thing., I'm talking about how what other people are learning, but my process of going through this is,.

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I'm basically gonna tell you what I've learned, because that's the biggest thing, is when you do these things,.

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It's not just about...I'm, not an expert,, I'm not imparting my wisdom to do things,, I'm going along this learning process, just like everybody else, and so these are the things that I've picked up from my educational experience. So far.

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The most important that is,, if you teach someone a thing,, she knows a thing,.

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Or you can teach her how to learn things and then she'll go out and learn lots of things. Herself.

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When we do girl develop it classes,, I tell teachers who come in and ta's that come in,.

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I don't really care if they walk out the door.

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Remembering everything you told them,, but I care that they feel, when they leave this class,, that they can learn all of this stuff..

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And it's amazing how much of a difference that switch makes.

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If you can turn that switch on,, then you've just opened up so much more for people.

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and in a way,, that's more important than education,. That is actually giving them certain information or things.

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And that's where this comes in, too,, where I've learned that education is primarily about teaching people just to get out of their own way..

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It never ceases to amaze me when I see students come through of how many barriers you can put up between yourself and what you can do,, what your potential is.

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We don't realize we're doing it..

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Sometimes we do realize we're doing it and we still are kinda powerless to do anything about it., but that's the single biggest thing;. If you remove that,.

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Then you've opened up everything that you can possibly learn.

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Another thing that goes along...- these are all very closely related.

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so, unlearning old expectations is more difficult and way more terrifying than learning new information. Is.

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When I've learned about,, I've gone through this whole process of being okay, with learning and being okay, not being an expert.

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and I've also learned, though, that you can go through all of that and you can feel comfortable with your own non-expertise,.

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But that is going to freak everybody else around you, the f***, out.

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like, people don't know how to deal with somebody who is genuinely okay with not knowing something.

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And that was a really weird thing for me,, like we do., we just don't know what to do with that.

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like, "oh,, you don't know something?" "well,, that's weird.. If I didn't know something" "and, I were in your place,, I would be panicked" "or. I would be worried," or "what's gonna happen about this?".

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So,, even after you've gone through your process,.

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Of maybe being comfortable with not knowing things,, you have to understand how to create an environment where other people feel okay to go through their own process of that and understand how to explain that you are going through this process, too..

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It's a really scary thing to unlearn all of these habits and expectations and pressures.

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That we've learned throughout our life to be able to know things, to have to know things, to be an expert, to do all this type of thing. unlearning. Those things is a lot harder than learning new information.

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So, the thing is, though, that I've also learned,.

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If you can create an environment where all of these things are not factors,, then the information just comes., it's an amazing thing to see somebody, if they can remove these mental and psychological blockers;.

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That's when they can really learn things.

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and so the act of teaching or creating an environment.

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Where people are learning, or even learning, yourself, is not really so much what you're learning or how you're doing it. it's this meta-angle of, "have I removed everything" "that, doesn't need to be in my way, to learn?", and that seems to be the key, over and over and over again that I see.

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so,. The thing is though,.

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This has been a really great experience for me to be in an educational environment all the time.

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And work with people who are learning and confront my own things that I wanna learn and get better at.

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And be part of this process and that's awesome., and that helps me feel a lot better about the stuff. I was talking about at the very beginning, about not understanding quite what experts are and how we evaluate all these things.

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But then we come back around full circle., we create beginners and we send beginners out into the world.

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And now we're gonna end up with the same problem: all over again, right?, so they're gonna go out into a world where we don't know how to measure what they know or what they do.

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In a reliable way.- and we don't really know how to think about that..

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So what do we do if we are able to create anti-experts and be able to tell people that, yeah,, keep your beginner's mind, keep learning,, but then you need to go out into the world and we have this system.

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That is a little weird to figure out what they do know, or how they can get some places with what they know..

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Where do they go with what they know?? Where do I go? Next?.

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We always think that if you start learning something you're, a beginner,, you go from beginner to expert,, that's the scale.

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Is that what we need to be doing??

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Do we want to get people who are really excited about what they're learning,, who have grown as people,, who have cleared their blockers,, who are comfortable with not knowing things, and who are comfortable about going outside their comfort zone?.

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And learning new things? and then we throw them into this system where they have to be an expert in things and that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.. So who do we remake that??.

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I'm not really sure, honestly..

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I struggle a little bit with this..

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I struggle a little bit about the system and now that I'm involved in education full time and that I'm working to bring new people into the system,, what they're gonna do when they get there.

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This is a long one., I'm gonna read it anyway.

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"like most of the others," "I was a seeker,, a mover," "a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser.".

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"I was never idle long enough to do much. Thinking,".

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"But, I felt somehow that my instincts were right.".

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"I shared a vagrant optimism" "that, some of us were making real progress," "that. We had taken an honest, road," "and that the best of us would inevitably" "make it over the top." "at the same time,. I shared a dark suspicion" "that. The life we were leading was a lost cause," "that. We are all actors kidding ourselves along a senseless odyssey.".

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"It was the tension between these two poles," "a restless idealism on one hand" "and, a sense of impending doom on the other" "that. Keep me going.", that's hunter., so we aren't doing the exact same things..

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I hope you guys aren't doing the exact same things as hunter s. thompson is., but this quote really, really,.

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Well, it could be fun in small doses,, but it won't end. Well. (laughter), okay?,.

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This quote really spoke to me a lot when I think about what I want to do, what I wanna accomplish with education, and then what I feel is happening on the other side.

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In our industry, right now, in the world that people are going out to. and there is a tension there for me,, where I'm not sure. If I can create beginners who have all these qualities, if they can go out and really be anti-experts and that's really gonna work out for them, and I'm not always sure about that..

C

I talked about this a little bit at the beginning,, how we think about experts in our world now and I used linkedin endorsements and that's really funny, and I can laugh it off,.

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But there are some things that I can't laugh off..

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Something else that I do, among all the other things that I do, is I'm also a single mother of an eight-year-old daughter.

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And I worry sometimes about what world she's gonna be going into and what her opportunities are. Gonna be like, and what she sees when she goes with me to conferences, or meet-ups, or classes that I teach, and that she is a part of this world and she sees the tech industry as a whole, and I wonder what I should do about that.

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and I worry what she's gonna see,.

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I worry, what her opportunities are gonna be like,.

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I worry that she's gonna get hurt.

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All that type of stuff., I can't really laugh that off..

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I worry that sometimes it's too easy to lose touch with both reality and humanity in our industry and what we do.. I worry that we start thinking about worshipping experts.

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Who fit a certain mold, who look a certain way, and come from certain places, and think certain ways,, and that just kind of accidentally becomes.

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Our idea of what an expert is, and then people who fit that mold already.

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Have an easier time of becoming experts and then,? Suddenly though, we've got more experts, in, and then, those ideas of what makes an expert or what an expert looks like from far off gets more complex, 'cause, there's more competition.

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And now an expert needs to live a certain lifestyle, in a certain place and they have to have certain things.

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and then, you know,. Maybe we get to a point: where, hey,! You don't really need to be an expert,. You just need to have that lifestyle,. You just need to live in that place,. You just need to have those things, and hey, bam, you're an expert.

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and then you're in that place,, and you can kind of do whatever you want, and you can treat people. However, you want, and there are no consequences: 'cause you're, an expert and that whole cycle is just...

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And you can do all these things, and we have experts, and nobody really questions that they're experts and no one questions the system that makes them experts and nobody really stops to think that maybe all of that is just b*******.

C

and that worries me.. That worries me thinking about the world that my daughter is gonna come into., so my experts are not people who necessarily know a lot of things.

C

My experts are questioners, and searchers, and explorers, and learners, and beginners, and f***-ups, and risk-takers, and punks,, and freedom, fighters, and rebels with causes.

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Those are the people that I would like to see be our new experts..

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Instead of saying that you've done a certain thing, you've learned a certain amount,.

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How about we just switch that all around and just say, "you're an expert?".

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Maybe it's kind of what somebody said earlier in the beginning.

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Thanks for setting me up for that. you're, an expert if you make a lot of mistakes and that you are comfortable with that process and you're embracing this and you're open and honest about it.,.

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So it's, I'm giving this talk because I give a lot of talks.

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And I get up here and I speak and I feel like a lot of people are saying, well,. She must be an expert in something 'cause she's up there talking.

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they just make that assumption and that's okay.. I appreciate that., but I don't know if I really wanna be an expert because it seems kinda limiting and it actually sounds. Kinda boring and I don't feel like that.

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I don't really feel like. I have a relation to that.

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So I would like to think of myself as not an expert but,.

C

Somebody who is more like, something like this., and I think that when I teach people, or how, in whatever ways I can, just by example, or with that,, I would like them to think,. Not so much of trying to reach this end of the scale, 100% expert in these skills,.

C

But more of something like this and that's my recipe for this.

C

So if you're into this idea, here's the thing,, we can all do this. so go out, right, now,, well,, not right now, in a little bit. at some point in the future.

C

(laughter) and go learn something that you have no idea how to do, that you've never done before, that maybe you thought you couldn't do. and, as you do, that, take note of how difficult, and confusing,.

C

And uncomfortable, and painful it is, and then go teach somebody something that you do know.

C

And remember how you felt and make sure they don't feel that same way.

C

And you will be challenging yourself to keep learning new things and then somebody else is gonna, learn and they're. Gonna learn how to do that same thing, in the same confident way that you are, and then you just repeat it over, and over, and over,, and over again.

C

and they're gonna, learn how to repeat it and then, maybe,. Instead of having the scale of beginning to expert, and that's just it,, and we don't really know why or how any of this works, all we've done is create a dynamic environment, where people are always stretching themselves,, always learning,, always teaching, and always being very authentic and sincere,.

C

Rather than being any sort of expert that we're not sure that we can trust.

C

and that's something that everybody can do., you may never really be an expert, but you can be somebody who is sincere and authentic about what they're doing and share that with other people and inspire that in other people- and I think that's worth more than any specific expertise in the world.

C

and that's all. I've got, thank you. (applause).

C

♪ (funky music) ♪.

B

So,, thank you for your amazing talk..

B

Can we agree that was amazing? (applause), yeah?, cool., bad. awesome.

B

One of the reasons that I don't ask our speakers.

B

To speak about something specific is because I want them to talk about something, they're really passionate and excited about, and I think we nailed it with your talk..

B

I think we did it.. We can do some more claps, if you guys are into that..

B

Can you do some more of those?, (applause and cheers).

B

I'm really into applause right now.. It's a good thing.

B

So, let's just jump into it., so you talked a little about this in your talk,.

B

But what was your "aha" moment with the web or with computers in general,, where you knew this is something I wanna do or be involved with?.

C

So,, I can tell the story a little bit.

C

So, I told a little bit of the story,. I didn't have any access to the web or computers growing up at all.. I grew up in a very working-class, rural family in the 90's.

C

So we didn't have that. you're gonna, get the whole story, by the way.. Is that cool? ok, yeah.?

C

So I didn't have access to the internet until I went to college, and then I did two years of college and went back and we finally had a windows 98 machine,, probably at that point,.

C

With a dialup connection, and I was making websites on aol hometown 'cause, that's what you did, and I was just using the wiziwig and I was getting, and it was just like,.

C

I write a lot,. I still do a lot,, so as a writer and I was,.

C

Like, making portfolios for my stories. so,, it had nothing to do with the underlying technology..

C

It was just like,. I was making something and I started getting really, really frustrated that I couldn't make it do what I wanted it to do.

C

like, "no!, the wizi wouldn't do that.", so I'm like,, "well fine,, I'm just gonna, learn html then." and then I could type things and then I made something,.

C

And that was awesome., so I think it was like the first thing that I was able to just make it.

C

And it was, oh,, it was more or less the way I wanted it,.

C

It wasn't exactly how I wanted it. To, 'cause. I wasn't really good at it yet,, and this also was like, a really long time ago,, so I, yeah., I was probably still using tables for layout and things like that. (laughter), but I just made something.

C

And it's really that simple, like, just making a little site, just something that I wanted. That expressed something that I was doing, that I could use, and I had the power to make that,.

C

And that was really awesome, and it was really that- and I still think that's the thing,- that I just get to make things and that's pretty sweet.

B

It's the closest thing to doing magic..

B

It's magic. that as humans, we can do.

C

Totally. my next question for you, is,.

B

How did you decide to make the leap from being just a designer and developer to being an instructor with dev bootcamp?.

C

I don't know if I did decide; it just kinda happens.

C

So I was talking,. I got into education through....

C

All of this whole journey of what's led me here.

C

Is really accidental. really, really accidental.

C

I mean that literally. so,, I started doing girl develop it because I essentially wanted, I wished those educational avenues existed for me, and nobody else was doing it,, so then, "fine, I'll do it.".

C

But then I was organizing it,, and so I wasn't, I was just doing it.

C

and then our first html teacher in columbus went to grad school.

C

And so there was no one to teach the html class and I'm like, "well,. I guess I could do that." "we need someone to do. It." so, I started doing that.. It was all based out of need,.

C

And then, I'd been doing that for about a year and people knew I was doing it. and, actually,. A couple years ago I had some friends in chicago.

C

Who were helping organize the software craftsmanship, north america conference.

C

and they were like, "hey,? We want more women on there." and I retweeted it and I'm like, "hey, good for you." and he's like, "well,. What about you?" and I'm like, "um,? I guess?".

C

I, like,, what would I talk? About? and like,? You could talk about girl, develop it and what you do with that. and I'm like, "well,. If you really want me to,, I guess.", I don't know., I could do that.

C

and so,. I started speaking about it and I started speaking.

C

and I actually remember,. I gave a talk at cna, 2011.

C

About girl, develop it and beginner education, and I remember in that talk, it was the first time I met a guy named dave hoover and he was very interested in partnership and education..

C

He was in the first row of my talk, taking notes.

C

And then a year later,, I got a message from him. he's: like, "hey,, I'm gonna make this school in chicago; would you" "like to come, do it?" and I'm like, "I still don't really know".

C

Why people are asking me to do these things, (laughter)? But since you are, yeah,, I mean,. I don't know how to do. It,.

C

But I bet I could figure it out.

B

(Julie) there's a great saying, fake it til you make it. yeah.! That's why I'm on the stage. just fyi.

B

That's amazing.

B

What makes for a good teacher,, do you think? or a good instructor?.

B

Oh boy. (laughter).

C

Several of them are sitting in the audience, so.

C

I guess it's a lot of the same things that I talked about in my talk,, where it's,, I think that you want to,.

C

You have to want to not necessarily make sure that,.

C

It's not about exchange of information so much as it is opening doors, but I think that you have to get that, or care about that.

C

And that also means,, it's not wrapped up in your own ego..

C

I think that's a big point of it,. It's very easy,. That's the whole thing I don't like about experts, especially as an instructor:. It's not about you. Really.

C

That's something I think I've learned also as a parent.

C

This isn't about you,, and your job is not to necessarily make other people learn exactly the way.

C

And what you think they need to learn. like,. You can have your opinions and that's totally cool,, but in the end, I'd be a pretty horrible parent. If I didn't give.

C

My daughter, the tools that she needed to learn things on her own.

C

And I kinda do the same thing with teaching,.

C

Or I think of it the same way that I would be really doing them a disservice if I were teaching them how to do things, as opposed to just do certain things..

C

So I think you need to be able to let go of your own ego and step back from that.

B

Yeah,, when people ask me "what's the one thing I should be learning right: now?", it's like, "how to learn, obviously."!

B

That's the one thing. Everyone should learn how to do.

C

It's amazing how many people don't,, we don't teach that., right. yeah.,.

B

We tend to do this thing where we tell you what to think and not how to think..

B

It's a really common learning pattern in the u.s.

B

So, do you have any personal mentors?.

C

Um,, I don't have, well, yeah,. I guess.

C

I dunno, that's weird. (laughter), I never did, a long time ago..

C

I never did, when I really needed them.. That's also part of the reason why I do a lot of the things I do now. one of the things that I do on the side is,. I do a lot of beginner speaker mentoring..

C

I just put the word out on twitter and I do skype calls and I've done over a couple dozen, and I just did one sunday and the woman. I was mentoring, she's like, "do you mind. If I ask you why you're doing this?".

C

(Laughter) and she was just kinda like, "I, just wanna know," and that's a valid question.

C

Nobody ever did this for me and I would've really appreciated somebody who did do that.. I will say, more recently,. I have had people.

C

Who've definitely stepped into a mentor role.. The company I worked at before I was at dev bootcamp,.

C

Which is a software consultancy called relevance--, it's no longer called relevance, but it's still the same group of people--.

C

I was really fortunate,. There was a designer there.

C

Who took me on, and see, "hey,? We can make you into what we".

C

"Want you to be,", and he also was really great about pulling out.

C

The things about my personality and the soft skills that I had.

C

That...Sometimes don't get very valued., he brought those to the forefront and he would say, "hey,. This is really important." "I, like that you're here.", and so that gave me the edge to learn all of the huge amounts.

C

Of other stuff that I was learning on the job, every day.

C

so,, I really appreciated that..

C

I feel like I find more mentors as I go along in my career,.

C

Which seems weird., I think it's supposed to work the other way around,, but the more I go. On,.

C

The more I just seem to be really fortunate to be around people who are just,. Maybe it's not direct mentorship,, but it's very inspiring.

C

So yeah,, I don't know if I have any one particular people, that I've formed a mentorship relationship with,, but that I have a lot of people that are inspiring and I just steal from them. A lot.

C

Cool., what can we do as a community.

B

To better connect people with mentors?.

C

That's a really good question.

B

Gotcha. yeah,, she told me earlier,.

C

She's like, "I'm, not gonna, tell you what the questions are," and I'm like, "that's cool. I like that," and it was like, "wow," "I, don't know what to say." until now.

B

Until now, yeah. [audience] (laughter).

C

I think that, well,, I think, there's two different ways.

C

There's the one level is this more,.

C

Kind of what do we do as a community?.

C

It's kind of like, well,. We are more accessible.

C

And open to people and we're friendlier and all these kind of squishy things and I think in practical terms,, if we're asking, "what, do we specifically do?".

C

Then I think it's just, people who are in the field right now,, who are doing these things, can be more proactive about doing little. Things,.

C

Just doing them within your schedule., you don't have to start a whole organization or a program.. I was talking about speaking mentoring, that's,.

C

I've resisted making it a thing, 'cause, I'm very good at making things and I'm very deliberate, like,, I'm not gonna make this a thing..

C

I put the word out on twitter,. I open up a couple slots.

C

For like an hour, for a very specific time when I know I'm available,.

C

And I say, hey, I'll call you on skype.

C

We can talk about anything. You wanna talk about, about speaking. I'll help. You brainstorm topics,.

C

I'll answer your questions,, whatever you want, and I confined it, and that's what that is.

C

anybody can do something like that. it's an hour every couple of weeks..

C

I just put the word out through my normal channels. so,. I think it's encouraging people to understand that they can just do little things,. They don't have to do these huge, world-changing things..

C

You don't have to go teach classes for weeks at a time.

C

You don't have to take on a padawan, like a jedi.

C

It doesn't have to be that deep., you can just do little things and it still makes a huge difference to people. right, and you don't.

B

Have to be considered a thought-leader, or an expert to do it. god,, I hope not.

C

Please don't mentor people, if you consider yourself a thought-leader. [audience] (laughter) at all,, ever. (laughter),.

B

So you talked a little bit about your daughter,, who I call "the kid",, as you refer to on instagram, so often.

B

How is having a daughter, having a child, changed your career, path?.

C

You have to work, no matter what. (laughter).

C

Yeah, I mean,. I talk a lot about,, so I'm a full-custody, single mom, and I don't get child support.

C

I'm pretty open about the fact that it's really weird that I'm sitting here in this beautiful office in san francisco and as an expert, speaking on stage.

C

About eight years ago,, I was a single mom on welfare, it's...I've been very, very fortunate.

C

That I had a little bit of an edge.. I had some access to computers, where I could just,. I don't come from a place where people go to college., I'm from still country, northeastern ohio.

C

You don't do that, and I'm very, very fortunate.

C

That I was able to get enough of an edge to keep teaching myself.

C

But you just work., I just took whatever job that came.

C

And some of them really sucked, and some of them sucked,, but in ways that I learned from.

C

So I think that the biggest thing about my career path,.

C

Like,, I don't have a career path.. I just took jobs because I needed to work.. Then you get to a point, where it starts paying off a little bit. More.

C

I invested a lot in speaking and doing things like this.

C

Because I thought it would pay off in the end, career-wise.

C

And it was harder to do at the time,, but I did.

C

the only other thing,, that's actually really different. Is,.

C

For being a mother, is that sometimes I just have to take my daughter with me to things.

C

She goes with me to every girl develop it class. I teach,.

C

Which I started doing that back in columbus 'cause my sitter quit on me a week before I started a new course, and I'm like, "fine, I'll just take her with me." and now she loves it, she's gone to the last four classes, with me, she's, like the mascot of the class.

C

I've taken her to conferences when I've spoken and also again, because the last big talk I did.

C

Was a big keynote at a conference and I wasn't gonna take her eventually and then I was having kind of a crisis. Of, "I, don't know what to do with this" and talked to the organizers, and they're, "just bring her.", I'm like, "okay.".

C

So my daughter went to the strange loop conference,. She was probably the youngest attendee ever. [audience] (laughter). So I do that out of necessity,, but I actually think that there's a really good thing in that.

C

She's used to that. it's totally normal for her to go to a conference and see her mother speak.. It's totally normal to see a whole class full of women programming.

C

That's her normal. so,. She doesn't actually have to do any of this,, but I think that, because of necessity I brought her into this world and she sees me doing things and so she's, never gonna think that she can't do it..

C

If she doesn't wanna do it, totally cool.. She might not.. That's totally understandable.

C

But if she wants to,, she can and it's never gonna seem an impossibility to her.

B

So what career advice do you have for women?.

B

Especially women who work in a male dominated field?.

C

Man, you're good at these., [audience] (laughter).

C

There is a lot of stuff.. I would say, kinda a little bit what I said: before.

C

Pay your dues. you're gonna have to work like hell.

C

And there's a certain amount of that where I feel like you just gotta do it.

C

But once you know you have paid your dues, and you know who you are,, and you know what you wanna do,, then don't ever compromise that.. You have to get to a point where you know all that stuff.

C

usually,. You don't know that at the beginning of your career., I sure, as hell didn't;, I think I'm still figuring it out.

C

But eventually, you do get to a point where you're like, "no,. This is what I'm doing." "this is, who I am,", and you just have to stick to that.

C

And that manifests in different ways.

C

In practical sense,, how does that actually work out??

C

But I would say, having a clear idea who you are and being up front about that, and I think, having support networks is really a good thing.

C

And reaching out for that and realizing that,.

C

Maybe if you don't need a bit of support right, now,, maybe somebody else can., it's a really hard thing, again, yeah,.

C

As a single mother,. I think that women.

C

Do still statistically carry most of the responsibilities of the families and all this other stuff.

C

I mean,, I do everything and it's hard to juggle it all. Sometimes.

C

And you have to make trade-offs, and it's really useful for me if I find people who understand what that's like.

C

just to have somebody like, "I know what it is,. I know what it's like".

C

"To have to make those trade-offs," to understand what that is.

C

And that can be various different things,, but having somebody who understands a little bit more about the lifestyle you lead or the background, you come from and being able to just sympathize with that can do wonders.

C

Maybe they don't have to actually, physically, literally,.

C

Do something to change the situation? You're in,, but just having a little bit of support around you and having somebody that,, it's like, "okay,. They get that too;! It's not just me,"!

C

That goes a long way., so I would say that actively seek out support and then offer it to other people who need it.

C

amazing.. Maybe you can meet them.

B

At this passion projects, event.

B

So,, my final question, we'll take a few from the audience after this..

B

What type of environment is a healthy environment for you to work in??

B

What do you look for when you're looking for a company or somewhere to work?.

C

This is actually an easy one..

C

The most important thing to me is being surrounded with people that I admire and trust.

C

Kinda, a lot of the things that I talked about in my talk is that sometimes I feel like. I don't always trust people.

C

I don't trust people very easily, or I don't trust people to....

C

I don't trust people to be who they say. They are.

C

and sometimes that's not. Deliberate. everybody's got their own s*** to work out, right?, but I really admire people who,.

C

I can look at them and be like, "okay,. That's who you are.. I can rely on you" "to. Do the things that you say: you're, gonna, do.", "I, trust you to be a full, actualized person.".

C

I work with those type of people and that's really the only thing 'cause. When you get people like that together,, then it doesn't even really matter what you're doing exactly..

C

I think I've been really, really fortunate in my past couple jobs to be able to pick people.

C

there's nobody that I would work with to be like,. I don't trust you, or I don't admire you, or I don't respect you., that's not the case.. I have to know those things about somebody.

C

cool., so we'll go ahead and take a few questions.

B

From the audience. does anyone have one?.

B

Diana, up here?.

D

What was your favorite "aha" moment, like.

D

"This is why I'm doing this," a rewarding moment when you've been teaching someone and just made you feel like "this- is why I keep doing this, and this makes me feel great" and you feel like you've done something great for someone else?.

C

I think that...I referenced this moment before too,, but one of the last.

C

Girl develop it classes, I taught in columbus,. There was.

C

A group of women and they were on their way out....

C

It was a course of four classes,, but at the end of the first class,.

C

There was a woman who walked out, and she said, "I was really scared and apprehensive to come. Here,".

C

"And now I feel really excited and capable to learn all this stuff,".

C

And I felt like that was that thing. whenever.

C

Something like that happens,, where it's not even like somebody, does something specifically,. They just felt that they.

C

Couldn't do something for no reason;, it just was something.

C

They had in their head that they couldn't do it, and now not only do they feel that they can, but they feel excited to go, learn that,, that's what I was getting at.

C

In my talk too. for me, it's not even that I taught.

C

Anything specifically or have an actual result,, it's just.

C

Able to open up that door for somebody and reveal that potential to people. I'm really big on potential,.

C

So I don't like artificial barriers in the way of potential.

C

I like to clear those out of the way,, so whenever I can clear a barrier out of somebody's way,, it doesn't even matter what they go: do, honestly. it really doesn't.. I don't care,.

C

As long as it makes them happy and they're not doing it for anybody, else, and they're not doing it, because they think.

C

They should,, or they can't do something else..

C

It doesn't even really matter what they do;. All that matters is that they go do something, and that they felt that they could do it.. That's the most important thing for me.

B

Do we have another question? lots of questions.

E

How do you approach the people that have a computer science degree stuck in their head as.

E

The measure of how you value a person, and how do you.

E

Teach them that a self-taught education is actually.

E

Really important?.

C

I would probably avoid it if I could. (laughter).

C

Not to be flippant,, but there is a certain amount...

C

if I have to have an interaction with somebody, or if they come to me,. I'm totally willing to have a conversation,.

C

But if people aren't wiling to think about different perspectives,.

C

Or open up to that,, there isn't really a whole lot. You can do.

C

you just do your own thing. in general,. I try to just talk.

C

About my own story and how I felt with my own education.

C

And also the thing is that, even though it's taken me a really long time,, I have managed to accomplish things.

C

Without that,, without having a successful education,.

C

As they call it., it seems to be okay.. I try to talk to things.

C

Like that, and also,, I think that the only other...

C

it depends, if...I was gonna, say "if. I really like them,".

C

Maybe it's also if I really dislike them.. I also try to challenge.

C

Them and be like, "how much better. Would you be" "at the things that you think about and do if you try" "to, do something totally outside of your field?", because that's another thing that I feel like I talk about, moving out of your comfort zone, and you guys are maybe more of a programming audience, and maybe I'm talking about things that are not programming, but believe me,. When I talk to just straight-up designers,.

C

Or artists,, I am way harder on them., it's the same deal.

C

There's so much cross-education that can happen.

C

Just learn something new., I just don't see a downside.

C

To things like that,, so I guess the main thing I try to do is challenge ideas. Of..., there's lots of different ways.

C

To get to the end,, and just because you like one way..., that's totally cool., they don't necessarily have to be mutually exclusive.. Different paths focus on different things.

C

And different people want to focus on different things and take different paths,, and I think they can all work together.

C

If people are willing to work together on them,, so I guess what I mainly try to do is give my opinions.

C

And my advice: if people are open to it., if people are really stuck in their mindset that this is the only way you can do things,, I don't really tend to get along with those people much anyway.. They don't really like me. so..that's it.

C

(Laughter) was that helpful at all?.

B

F

So my question is: giving talks is hard...where. Does your.

F

Motivation come to continue to give talks?.

C

I really like connecting with people. that sounds.

C

Kind of weird,, but it's true. like I said,, I stumbled into speaking,.

C

And I just did it because it was kind of like,.

C

"I guess I could talk about that.". I never did this decided.

C

"Yes, I'm going to be a public speaker," and obviously I'm not a very practiced public speaker.. I just like to talk.

C

I like to express ideas, and..., really what it comes down to.

C

Is I like to start conversations., I don't feel like.

C

A talk that I give is an end in itself. in fact,. I think.

C

I get annoyed by people who think that their talks are ends in themselves; they're, usually the type of people that I was talking about, earlier. when I give a talk, the best outcome.

C

Is that it starts other talks,, it starts other conversations,.

C

It starts other ideas.. I like to see that happening,.

C

I like to be a part of it,, and I also like to connect one on one.

C

With people. I really..., I've mentioned this to a few people,.

C

But every once in a while I'll get somebody who sends me an email or they'll come up and see me after a talk at a conference, actually, not even come.

C

To see me. I've gotten emails and tweets from people like,.

C

"Oh,, I saw you speak at this conference, but I didn't come say: hi".

C

"Because, I didn't think you would want to talk" or anything like that., I'm like, "dude, that's" "what, I'm there for.". If I didn't want to talk to people,, I wouldn't go out and talk. that bums me out,, because.

C

That means that they're used to people who want to go out to talks, so they can prop up their own egos and make themselves feel important,, not share ideas and start conversations,, and I think that's bullshit..

C

If I'm gonna go, do this,. It's because I want to talk about ideas,.

C

And I want to talk to you. yes, please..., not if you're creepy,, but just don't be creepy.

C

(laughter) other than that,. I want to talk to people, and I want to connect, and I want to hear what people have to say, and I want other people to go out and talk.. I just think that's awesome.

F

Hi., what lessons have you learned from being a parent.

A

And applied to your work, and/or vice-versa?.

C

Way too many. it's actually kind of scary.. I touched on it.

C

A little bit when we were talking earlier, that I've learned as a parent, you have to let go. your job.

C

As a parent is not to make something in the world.

C

That is the way you want. It., you do that,, it's gonna.

C

Grow back in your face., I think that the most important.

C

Thing I've learned is how to let go of my own ego,.

C

And, as my daughter gets older,, let her make her own decisions,. Even if I don't particularly like them.

C

But I also at the same time, in order for her to make her own decisions,. I have to equip her to make her own decisions, and I have to teach her how to think about things and what's a value, and how to come to determinations and all those sort of things.

C

So I guess that's probably the biggest thing that I come to with teaching, is, again,. How do you think through things??

C

How do you problem solve? and it's...I? Don't want to push you to get to an end result. in fact,. I'm gonna be really careful about not giving you an end result,, so you can come to it on your own., but I do need to give you the tools, or something that you need to do it on your own.

C

You also have to be willing to let people make their own mistakes and do those sort of things..

C

I tell this story a lot about when my daughter was about four,. She was at a playground and running around.

C

She was on a little platform, like sitting down..

C

It wasn't too high off the ground,, but she went to go like this, and I knew she was gonna jump off of it, and I also knew that it was just a little bit higher.

C

Than she thought, not so much that it was gonna seriously.

C

Hurt her,, but I knew that she didn't realize how far.

C

Off the ground, it was. my first instinct was, "okay, I've got to get up;, I've got to stop her., you don't know this," and something stopped me.. It's a good thing,, because.

C

She just jumped anyway.. I wouldn't have made it there in time anyway.. It was a little bit too high, and it jarred her.

C

She didn't really fall, but I could tell... you do that, you miscalculate.

C

The length and you jump off and you get jarred., then she.

C

Shook herself off and she went running off and it was all fine.. I felt like we both learned a really important lesson: there,, that it's okay for her to jump off of things...it's.

C

Not my job to stop here, and that, if it jars her a little bit,.

C

Then she gets to learn that, and also I get to learn that she's totally okay.. She can go off and do other things.

C

Hopefully,, I managed to get her to the point where she can make a judgment call about when to do that and how to pick herself up when she's done, and that's really my job, and I'm not there to do anything. Else.

C

This sounds like I'm: a really horrible teacher, actually, [audience] (laughter), which might be the case., but I feel like...this was.

C

When she was about four. she's about eight now., almost universally,, all of her teachers and other people who know her, will tell me they really appreciate her independence.

C

And how well she can take care of herself,, and so I'd like to think that, maybe I was able to lay the groundwork for her being able to do those sort of things on her own, and that's worked out better for her in the long run.. So, if I ever feel like, I want.

C

To swoop in and give an answer or make something easy.

C

Or save somebody from jumping off things,, that is not too high,.

C

That is okay. there's the range, right?. If it's.

C

The top of a mountain,- then I probably should stop it, or you need to teach her, "this, is why you don't want".

C

"To do that,", but at some point you have to be able.

C

To not do what you want to do for your own sake,.

C

So that the person involved can learn something on their own.

C

Because it's their journey, in the end.

B

Any more questions?.

A

I had one., so you talked-- [audience] (laughter),.

A

You talked a few times about that. It's important for people.

A

To make an environment where people feel comfortable.

A

Not being experts and not knowing stuff., I think.

A

You talked a little bit, too, about how to get started.

A

Mentoring and those types of things,, but I wanted to know more about making that environment.

A

what are techniques you recommend for making people feel okay with failing or not knowing things.

A

Or stuff like that?,.

C

That's a really good question.

C

I think there's...first of all, just the superficial:.

C

Don't sound, annoyed, or don't sound impatient.

C

patience is a really important thing.. That's something else.

C

That I've learned a lot as a parent:. Patience is a really big thing.

C

Also,, I think, learning how to spin things in a positive way.

C

Is important too, because if you have somebody who's really fighting against their own confidence, issues...

C

And everybody's different,, but a lot of times,. If that's the case, they're gonna, pick up on any hint.

C

Of disapproval or impatience, or anything, that's gonna.

C

Make them go back into their zone of "okay,? I can't do this;".

C

"This is no good.", so there's a lot of just superficial...

C

the way you're speaking, the way you're behaving.

C

I think that the other thing is really listening.

C

To the things they're saying and learning how to...

C

It depends on exactly what you're talking about,, but it's either explaining it back to them in a way. That's more coherent.

C

Or maybe just explaining the problem back to them,.

C

In a way, again,, so you don't necessarily want to always give them answers or give them something that they're looking for,, but you can frame it in a better context.

C

I think context is a good word for that.

C

create a context for them that they either feel more confident.

C

To explore in or they're like,, you can give them little pieces,.

C

Set up a place,, it's, "okay,, you don't know exactly".

C

"How to do this,, but why don't we start here?".

C

Or give them a suggestion of a place to start, that sort of thing.. So it's a balance between giving them.

C

Specific answers, but also just giving them a place to start,, maybe a context to keep going in.

C

I don't know if I have many other actual practical tips.

C

I probably should think about that. A little bit more.

C

Mostly, I've been going on..., I tend to be all about connections.

C

And things like that, and I'm pretty good at connecting with people and making them feel easier that way,.

C

But I don't really think about it that much,.

C

So this is a probably good reminder to me to examine that a little bit more and pull out some of the things that I'm doing so that other people can employ it. Better.

B

Do you have any more questions for jen?.

B

Alright. well,, I think that wraps it up.. Thank you.

B

So much for being here, jen. stick around for the cheese.

B

And maybe a few more beverages. thanks so much.

B

B

Jen myers].