EPISODE 4: SOCIAL JUSTICE MAVENS JILLIAN SCHULTZ & BEATINA THEOPOLD

Heather Newman: Hello everybody, this is Heather Newman giving you some more Maven Moments. I'm here today backstage with some lovely women I've been working with on Into Action, a celebration of cultural resistance and community power here in Los Angeles and ladies I'm going to let you introduce yourself.

Jillian Schultz: All right. My name is Jillian Schultz and on the Into Action team I've served a couple of different roles and worn a few different hats. I started off as the volunteer coordinator and then kind of transitioned into overseeing the production of all of the graphic design assets for getting the word out about the amazing work that we're up to here.

Beatina Theopold: And I am Beatina Theopold and similarly have done a couple of different roles. I started out on the donor team working to make sure that we had some money to make all of this magic happen. And then moved into, to work on the impact team with Eleuthra Lisch. Just to make sure that, you know, we have the record of what we are accomplishing here and that we can talk about all of the good work that we've done with some metrics, so number of volunteers that we've had come through the doors, number of people who've participated in our workshops and people who signed pledge cards and gotten involved with our art. So looking forward to getting the word out about that as well.

HN: Yeah. And what's been really fun for me is to. We're podcasting so welcome. So, yeah, so like I've just recently met these two gals and from being an event planner for a long, long time I can't tell you how impressed I've been with them both. They've been a joy to work with and they both have done monumental things here. I've watched them type so fast that you can't even see their fingers and running around and making things happen.

BT: With their fingers.

HN: Yes, fingers like the wind! So anyway, so have either of you worked on something like this before or worked on this event community or with these folks?

JS: So, I know this team from a group called Artivist LA

BT: We actually, that’s how both of us know them.

JS: Yes, both Beatina and I are on the steering committee of that group and that's how we kind of joined the fun. With regard to if I've worked on something like this before, I have worked on a number of large scale like public art events before, international photo festivals. I produced a number of those while I was based in Beijing, but it was nothing like the magic of Into Action. in particular the turnaround time, like making an event of this scale and size and human power come together in essentially two months is truly unprecedented.

HN: When was the start date of this? Cause I got involved a little bit later than you all did.

BT: I would say Yosi, the executive producer, Yosi started in October corralling people and getting people into their different roles. So, it really was just a three-month lead time, you know three and a half months from start to finish, which is a pretty quick turnaround for an event of this scale. This is the largest one that he's done to date. I have not been involved in the others that he's done, but Manifest Justice, Truth to Power. There are a few others.

HN: Manifest Hope.

BT: Yeah, that had been in Philly and other cities and have been sort of two to three days. Similarly, a lot of artwork but maybe not quite as large scale as this one. This one, you know, I knew Yosi, knew of Yosi, very briefly when I worked on the Obama campaign in 2007 and have followed what he has done and was just really excited to get involved in this because of the caliber of artists that he really attracts to submit their work. The level of artistry in the gallery is just amazing and it's really been a pleasure to be a part of it.

HN: Cool. That's great. So are you both, where are you from, Jillian? Where are you from?

JS: I'm from Chicago.

HN: Oh, hometown girl. Like myself.

BT: Go bears.

HN: Yeah, go Bears.

JS: Go ball sports!

HN: Went to high school in Wheaton. Where in Chicago?

JS:  I kind of moved around between Lakeview and Evanston.

BT: I from a very cold place, I'm from upstate New York, from Ithaca, New York. And I lived there for many years, then, like I said, worked on the campaign, bounced around for a while, was in Chicago for a little bit of time and moved to LA about two years.

HN: Okay, great. So what's, what's next for you both after this?

BT: I do have to say that, you know, I moved out to LA about two years ago. I've been involved in politics for a long time, but I am excited to get involved in more art related activities and I think LA is the city to do that. It's, you know, people think of it as the entertainment capital, but I think it's more than just entertainment and especially now it's arts and culture and people are really looking to infuse, I think a lot of their heart into the entertainment industry and you see a lot of people who are changing the industry and bringing new voices in and it's an exciting time to be here. So I'm excited to be a part of all that.

HN: Jillian, how about you?

JS: Oh boy. So much is next. Immediately after this project I switch gears to pick back up full steam ahead on a project that I'm doing for the Magnum Photo Foundation and I'm helping them to develop a mentorship program focused on cultivating documentary photographers, filmmakers, lens-based media practitioners in China who will be documenting, like working on social justice issues. So, that mentorship is exciting and then also doing

BT: That is another quick turnaround.

JS: Yeah, another quick turnaround.

HN: Shocking.

JS: And then I'm doing another similarly large-scale exhibition event festival related to climate justice with the Asia Society. It's an event called Coal and Ice and it's all about mankind's dependence upon coal and its impact on climate change. And that happens in San Francisco at Fort Mason in September. So that's like another full steam ahead type of endeavor. Lots of stuff like that. But I'm, I'm really excited. I've been in LA for four years and I was based in Beijing for a long time and a lot of my work has involved art and China, but it's been really thrilling to get involved in Artivism and find where the rubber meets the road of using art and culture to support social justice causes. So hopefully more of that.

BT: Wait, tell them about the movie.

JS: Oh yeah. I'm also producing. Forgot about that. Thank you. Would you like to be a producer? I am producing a documentary called How to Have an American Baby about Chinese birth tourism in Southern California, which is coming out any moment now. Watch out.

HN: That's exciting. We tell me a little bit about Artivists LA.

BT: Yes. So Artivists LA is a group that started right after the first Women’s March. So this is kind of the anniversary. Today's the day. Cristina Pacheco, who's an executive producer and Aleta Moliga who's an executive producer of this event, the Into Action exhibit. They both began Artivsits LA. After the first self-help graphics, women's sign making party, there was just this overwhelming energy. So many people who wanted to channel their energy into, into action, right? And they wanted to use their artistry for good things and get involved in changing the world. And so, the group kind of stood itself up in response to this overwhelming outpouring of people who wanted to, you know, paint signs and like knit hats and…

HN: Get together.

BT: And make sculpture.

JS: Make art.

BT: Get together and make art that could really express all the, you know, all of the emotions that are happening around what's going on in our country. So, we've had a lot of fun and we've had a lot of people get involved. We've done a bunch of different projects there have been, you know, movie making projects, there have been sign making. There's been sculpture…

JS: Hooten-nannies, protest songs, a flash mobs.

BT: Yeah. So, it's exciting and growing and everybody should get involved. You can find us online at @Artivists_LA on Instagram.

HN: Ah, gotcha, yeah. And there's a Facebook page as well and its very active

JS: ArtivistsLA. Look us up, I'll add you.

HN: Yes.

BT: Yeah. And we meet monthly and usually have good snacks and good chats. So we'd love to see you there.

HN: That's awesome. So, both of you are sort of new to LA-ish as am I. Outside of this sort of, where's your favorite place to hang out?

BT: Well, I live in the Larchmont area, so I kind of straddle Larchmont and Korea Town. I love going to Korea Town for some Korean barbecue and then also over in Larchmont there is a lovely farmer's market on the weekends. Go Get 'Em Tiger is my favorite coffee shop. Just a little plug for that. Everybody it's very nice. I take some dance classes at Dance Arts Academy. Those are all my favorite places. I love the Griffith Observatory.

JS: Yeah, I'm also similar neighborhood gal. I live in like East Hollywood/Korea Town zone. I love a good dive bar, so I highly recommend the HMS Bounty. It's like a 1960s nautical themed dive bar inside of the Gaylord Manner. Former hotel now residence. Highly recommend. It's like stepping back in time.

BT: Five stars.

JS: It's awesome.

HN: Five anchors.

JS: Yeah. I also, I'm obsessed with a chilaquiles, so anywhere I can get that. Tacos Via Corona in Atwater Village has a chilaquiles burrito for $5. That is amazing. And Cacao Mexicatessen has really good chilaquiles. So that's.

BT: That's where you can find Jillian

JS: Or out in the San Gabriel Valley having super legit Chinese food.

HN: That's good. I can't wait to flip through, rolodexes don't exist anymore. Dating me a little bit, but I'm going to be tapping you both for that for sure. I can wait. It's been amazing to watch you both, just meeting you and just being around other amazing strong women and women who are a little bit younger than me just coming up and kicking ass. And so it's just the grace under pressure that you both have shown with a lot going on has been pretty impressive. So I just wanted to say for the record, they're amazing. And if you're looking for folks to work with, I would highly recommend contacting me and getting ahold of these two because they're both fabulous. I know that this has been a lot, like I've had moments during this time where I just have been stunned to silence or tears of joy and all of that and not to put pressure on you to pick out one, but is there something that stands out or a couple of things that stand out to each of you at this experience that you want to share with folks?

BT: So, I think, yeah, I mean it has been, you know, a total emotional rollercoaster because you're working hard, you're exhausted, but then you're also, you know, around these amazing experiences. I think one of the things that I really loved was the dance session that they did, the dance activism. We shut down the bridge here and there were two groups of women dancing across the whole bridge. And just the joy of that was so amazing and that was a really big high. And then there are other pieces of the show that really touch you and remind you of just, you know, a lot of the grief that is happening in our country. One of the pieces that I think is most moving is the piece that is, that represents all of the mothers who've been affected by police violence and it's just such a beautiful piece and you see the pictures of their sons below them, and just realizing, you know, the heaviness of that experience of life and what it must be like. So yeah, it's been, it has been definitely an emotional experience to be a part of this and I'm so grateful for every part of it.

HN: How about you, Jillian?

JS: I would say what has impacted me the most deeply has been volunteer interaction. My faith in humanity is restored with every person that has like made, there are people that have come from across the state, from across the country to give their time, energy and expertise to make this happen. And that like, that blows me away and renews my faith that like the fight will go on and that the only way out is through and we're all in this together. And that's like what keeps me coming back and showing up when we're exhausted and under resourced and overwrought. It's like we're all doing this together and people are really, really grateful for this type of opportunity and to get involved and I'm looking forward to how this continues and like taking the show on the road and seeing what, what else we can make possible.

BT: I also have to say, you know, it has been the people that we're working with this, they're just such an amazing group of people and I feel lucky to have been a part of it because I have really built a lot of friendships. You know, I've of course built professional relationships, but I think also a lot of friendships and it's exciting.

HN: Yeah, absolutely.

JS: I was saying to my parents the other day on the phone, they're like, you sound stressed out and tired. And I was like, it's fine, I found my tribe in Los Angeles. These are the people, these are the ones I want to keep doing this type of work with these types of people.

HN: Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I feel the same way. So you two, so thank you ladies for a moment. I pulled them away and I was like, "Come on, let's go do this for a second." And they were like,

BT: Ten seconds, ten seconds, ten seconds.

HN: "Wait, just wait a second. I'm typing, I'm typing". Like, oh my God. I was like, all right. I know, I know, ladies. Let's go. So anyway, thank you. Thank you both for all your hard work on this. This is Heather Newman with another maven moment podcast and just remember, we're always learning together. We rise and empathy makes us human and action makes us warriors, so get out there.

BT: Into action!

HN: Thanks ladies.

BT: That was fun I feel so professional.

JS: Yeah.

EPISODE 3: TECH MAVEN - ERICA TOELLE

Heather Newman: Okay, so this is Heather Newman and today we're talking with Erica Toelle, good friend, colleague in the SharePoint Office 365 world and I, wanted to talk to her about being an expert in user adoption because she brings that to the table and lots of other good things. So Erica, hello!

Erica Toelle: Hey Heather. Thanks for having me.

Heather Newman: Absolutely. So where are you working? What are you doing now? What's going on with you these days?

Erica Toelle: Yeah. So, I'm the Product Evangelist at Recordpoint focused on records management, compliance and information management. I'm very excited by the end user adoption opportunities in that area because it's so important to have companies have a solution in those areas and in order for it to work, people have to use it.

Heather Newman: Absolutely. Yeah. I know you and I kind of share love of that. We both speak on that topic in different wonderful ways I think at events. I love the word Maven, obviously that's the name of my company. It's the sort of self-proclaimed expert is the actual definition of the word, but I love talking to friends who have been working in the industry a long time and really become experts at what they do. So how long have you been working on sort of the end user adoption angle?

Erica Toelle: Well, I started out in management consulting focused on organizational change management, which is kind of the means, whereas end user adoption is the end you're trying to get to and actually ended up focusing on SharePoint because of the interesting end user adoption challenges it presented.

Heather Newman: Right. Or the dilemma I guess sometimes to some people.

Erica Toelle: Very much a dilemma.

Heather Newman: Absolutely. So as far as end user adoption, is there a methodology that you stick to or that you've created or things that you really like out there in the universe that you pluck either from Microsoft or other places that you recommend to people?

Erica Toelle: Yeah, certainly. I mean one of the things that's great about this space is you can get a doctorate degree in organizational design or other aspects of organizational change management. So there's a lot of research out there and things that people have discovered to work. I think the challenge in our space is that a lot of the methodologies are overkill for what we can do in our space. People don't have a six figure end user adoption budget on our projects.

Heather Newman: What? Really?

Erica Toelle: So, we're looking at what can we do with what we have that'll make the greatest impact and while you know, I don't think it's ever been the perfect solution on a project, we are able to add value if you will, and get more people to use it then if we had done nothing.

Heather Newman: Sure. Do you have, I mean not naming clients or anything like that necessarily, but is there somebody in the late past that you've felt like has done a really good job rolling out, say SharePoint or Office 365 or both or all of that that you can talk to a little bit like how they did it?

Erica Toelle: Yeah. I mean, I can say that they were in oil and gas and what they did is had about a four-person project team rolling out the SharePoint intranet and they were really focused on document management and collaboration and functionality offered above file shares, which is what they had previously. They had one of those four people dedicated to understanding and feeling the pain of the end users, if you will. And so, you know, they were the business analyst and the end user adoption person, but they were empowered with listening to people, understanding how they felt about it from week to week and the project team would actually have conversations about that and troubleshoot and respond and mitigate risks that were presented by basically people's feelings, which sounds really like, hippie, if you will, but

Heather Newman: Human.

Erica Toelle: It is, it's human. And I think just the fact that they were able to have a place in their project, in their conversations, for that type of a dialogue really helped. And then also, I was involved because I would meet with this person for about an hour every week or two and we would talk about how to solve and mitigate the risks that she had been identifying. So, I think that having somebody who had done this a bunch of times and could bring the experience and learnings from those projects, but not having to pay that expert full time was a really good choice.

Heather Newman: Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. That's cool. With executive buy in I know that's usually a really key factor and it's kind of one that's at the top. Do you have suggestions for people about that? Like how to get that executive buy in if it wasn't their idea?

Erica Toelle: Yeah, I mean, I think first of all, you need to identify the right executive. Depending on what you're building, you might not need the CEO of the company to be endorsing it. A better choice might be, you know, the VP of Sales if it’s a group or if it's a solution for the sales group. So first of all, pick the right person. Second of all, have very clear and specific things that you want them to do. Whether it's clicking send on an email communication or advocating for the project at a higher level to get more budget, whatever it is, just be very specific with them because they're more likely to do it and actually follow through then if you're vaguely asking them to support the project.

Heather Newman: Gotcha. Yeah. And I think that's great. And then sort of, you know, I think you and I both sort of reference different checklists that are fairly the same, you know, in talking about this and I feel like, I guess is there one piece of it that, it's always so different, right? But is there one piece of it that is consistently the outlier that people just either don't do, won't, do, you know what I mean? Out of sort of all the things in the adoption, sort of what you should do kind of thing.

Erica Toelle: Well, I'm going to maybe answer that in two parts. So, first of all people are getting really good about doing this, but it still is by far the most important, which is having a change champion program. Having people who are embedded working in the business, in the groups that you're trying to, where you're trying to effect the change because they're the ones that are going to tell you if there's a risk that needs to be mitigated. So number one, but people are getting pretty good at that. So, the second one that maybe we should do better is seeing is believing. I think we're still sometimes asking people to provide requirements when they don't even understand the tool.

Heather Newman: Okay. Yeah.

Erica Toelle: So, you know, if they don't understand the tool, they can't provide good requirements and so it's kind of a chicken and the egg problem. So just looking for those success stories, documenting them well through video and screenshots or even being able to show it live to other people so that they can have that Aha moment. So the whole goal is to create Aha moments

Heather Newman: Aha, like it.

Erica Toelle: Yeah. And then maybe have them use the more baseline solution for a bit before they start giving a lot of customization requirements because the customizations are what drive up the cost of the project really fast and if it's something that's so nice to have or isn't that important that they're kind of grasping at straws because they don't really understand the baseline yet, then why are, it's just a waste of money.

Heather Newman: Yeah, no, I completely agree with you. Those are great. So, with adoption and campaigns and stuff like that. So there's sort of the, you know, brand new Office 365 installation or installation of something brand new, it doesn't even have to be, you know, Microsoft or all of that. And then there's the ongoing sort of new hire or people coming into a department. I think. Do you see those all as sort of the same adoption path for the most part? Or do you think that, I mean they have some nuances obviously, but anything sort of big and striking between those, between sort of a new or a migration or that new hire? Anything there that sticks out?

Erica Toelle: Yeah, I mean I think they're a bit different in this situation, so if you're just moving brand new from on premise SharePoint, file shares or something to Office 365 I'm actually a big proponent of just get the content in there and don't change the business processes or enhance them too much until after the content is moved so they're kind of doing the same thing but with the new user interface. Let them get used to that just a little bit. And then in the second project, do the transformation of the content and changing of the information architecture or building solutions to make it more optimized and to be more productive because again, that way people are understanding the baseline functionality before they're now given requirements to customize it. And then for the new hire, I think it's less about maybe training them on here's how you use the software and more about here's how we've implemented it and here's the specific solutions we have, here's our team’s solution for sharing and collaborating on files. So, it's more step by step business process oriented instead of training on general functionality.

Heather Newman: Yeah, that makes sense.

Erica Toelle: Yeah. For training on general functionality, you know, I'm a big believer in, in-context training tools and I wasn't paid to say that.

Heather Newman: Not yet.

Erica Toelle: But I really think that they make the most sense for that general education because then what that means is people are right there when they're trying to upload a document, clicking on the help button and it tells them how to upload the document.

Heather Newman: Right? Yeah, absolutely. Cool. I want to switch gears a little bit because as well as being a maven, an expert on end user adoption. I know personally that you are also a travel maven and someone that, you know, you and I have traveled together a bit and, you know, shared some wonderful experiences together. Do you have for the road warrior for, you know, just in general, sort of some tips and tricks that you might want to share with people? I know you have so many. Maybe I should be a little bit more specific, but maybe about, we've got shows coming up. We're actually sitting here at a SharePoint Saturday having a conversation, so just sort of maybe tips and tricks for conferences, things that come to mind for you.

Erica Toelle: Okay. Well maybe not specific to conferences, but as soon as you said that a conversation I actually had on the plane with the guy sitting next to me on the way over here came to mind and there were two things that I see people confused about quite a bit. Number one, you're spending all of this time and money traveling, research the mileage programs and the credit card programs to get points and miles and value from those investments you're making so you can take your family on a cool vacation or take a dream trip. Like without even trying I can take about two fully luxurious vacations a year, like first class business class, five-star hotels, that I'm not paying for. It's just money I'm spending anyway on conferences and business travel being leveraged. And to that point, the second tip is you get most of that from credit card spend, and credit, a lot of people, there's this association that credit cards equal debt and that's not true at all. You can have a credit card and you can pay it off in full every single month and not be charged any interest and be earning the points and miles from it.

Heather Newman: Absolutely.

Erica Toelle: So yeah, that's how, that's how you do it.

Heather Newman: Right. So it's connecting sort of what you get sort of double points for. So say if you have a Chase and it's United and you're buying a United ticket or whatever for the example, like what's connected to what, what gives you double the bang for the buck, a free bag, entrance into a club, like all that kind of stuff.

Erica Toelle: Yeah, I mean it's really about what you want to get out of it. A trip for your family. Do you want to have more comfort on your existing business trips? All of that's possible and even if you just want to keep it super simple and get one well rounded credit card and keep it simple or you can be more complicated. Like I think this is fun and so I have one credit card that gives me the most points for airline tickets and one that they use for hotels and, because of the bonus categories, but that's just because I find it fun and interesting and I like the math of it.

Heather Newman: Yeah, absolutely. No, that you do. I mean, you definitely do that really, really well. Is there, I mean just besides sort of looking it up and, you know, reading about the different programs, do you think, is there any besides, you know, sort of the things you write because you write great things about that on your Facebook and different places where you're always sharing information about, “Hey, if you want to know about this, check it out”, you know, are there other people that you look to as far as like travel kind of tips or anybody instagrammy or, you know?

Erica Toelle: Yeah, so I mean there's two blogs that I think are really the best. My favorite favorite blog is called One Mile at a Time and he travels around reviewing lounges and business and first class products. But he also has things like, he's determined what he considers to be a value of points, so you can use it to check like, oh, I'm gonna, maybe get this redemption, like I'm going to use my Alaska miles to fly on Cathay Pacific for First Class. You can do the math and say, “Oh, I'm getting, you know, five cents a mile value from that”. And I go and check his evaluations. He values Alaska points at 1.8 cents. Since five cents is higher than 1.8 cents, it's a good deal.

Heather Newman: Sure.

Erica Toelle: So, I use it as kind of a sanity check. And then the other one is probably the most famous blog out there. He's the one who's always on Good Morning America and stuff, the Points Guy. So, he also has an app that's super useful on your phone you can put in the credit cards that you have, and it'll tell you what credit card do to use for what category. So use this credit card for airlines, use this for groceries, use this one to pay your gas. So you don't have to like remember it all, you can just check the app.

Heather Newman: If it's easy, we'll do it. Right?

Erica Toelle: Yeah, absolutely.

Heather Newman: Where are you, if you don't mind sharing, are there any places you're excited about going this year that you've kind of made out of points and that kind of thing.

Erica Toelle: Well, I haven't exactly decided yet.

Heather Newman: Well, you just got back from seeing the pandas. Oh my god, we haven't even talked about that. I was like, "You're hugging pandas, I'm so jealous".

Erica Toelle: Oh yeah. It was great. I really recommend you go to Chengdu, China and visit the giant panda breeding center. I didn't go to the actual Chengdu Breeding Center because it's very touristy and pop, there's a lot of people there. There's about five in the area. So, I went to one of the other ones that I actually can't pronounce to this day. And you can, you know, pay $100 and be a panda volunteer for the day where you actually get to, well, "get to" clean their cages, hand feed them, and really get up and close with the pandas as well as learn a lot about them. Yeah. So I recommend doing that. You can any, I think you have to be 12 years old to do it, so it's great to do with teenagers as well.

Heather Newman: That's cool. How did you find the pandas? I mean.

Erica Toelle: You know, it's funny, One Mile at a Time, that blog I like. He went there in maybe October and was like, you know, did all the research, documented the car service he used, how he booked it to get the lowest price and I literally just copied his itinerary.

Heather Newman: Really?

Erica Toelle: Yeah. I stayed at the same hotel because I was really busy and I didn't have time to plan the trip and so I was like, I know I trust this guy, so I just took his trip.

Heather Newman: That's fantastic. Hey, if it works, if it ain't broke, that's awesome. Very cool. So yeah. So, any future things you're looking into?

Erica Toelle: I mean this year I'm trying to finish visiting all the US states, I think, so I'm going to use up some of my Alaska miles. I'm checking those off and I want to see our whole country maybe before I start seeing the rest of the countries that I want to see.

Heather Newman: I road tripped a lot as a kid, so I've seen a lot of it, I think Alaska and Maine are some of the outliers for me.

Erica Toelle: Yeah Maine, I need to go to Maine.

Heather Newman: Yeah, it’s so far, I guess.

Erica Toelle: And Alabama.

Heather Newman: Oh, Alabama, awesome. Very cool. Well, right on. Yeah, thanks for the chat.

Erica Toelle: Always a pleasure.

Heather Newman: Aww, I know. Such a great colleague and a friend so it's always awesome to talk to folks who really are experts at what they do and that's what I'm really interested in sharing and Erica definitely has such a great background and is such a great community person in SharePoint and Office 365 and is always sharing really cool travel tips and she's a world traveler and she's really experienced with doing all this fun stuff. I always learn things from you all the time and

Erica Toelle: Oh, thank you.

Heather Newman: Yeah, it's super fun. And lastly, Erica is also very passionate, as am I, about women in technology and so we work on that kind of stuff a lot together and we're, you know, a lot of the shows that are coming up, there's a lot of that, you know, women in SharePoint, women in tech and all of that stuff. Have you been doing anything around that recently? And I know we've sort of talked about some things. I don't know. Is there anything coming up for you in that realm?

Erica Toelle: Well, I mean, something I do ongoing is just mentor college students. And, well I know I do it equally between men and women.

Heather Newman: Perfect and wonderful. Yay. Absolutely.

Erica Toelle: So, I'm just like kind of helping the young people get ready for a real job in the real world outside of like the Ivory Tower of academia. But I do find myself having a little bit different conversations with the women about, you know, how to properly assert yourself in the workplace or you know, stand up for your ideas or present them because I find they haven't been taught the skills yet for some reason. Whereas the men have that come to them a little more naturally. I don't know if it's PC to say that, but it's just what I observed.

Heather Newman: No, I think that's not wrong. Yeah, I do. And I think hopefully we're changing that all the time. But I do, I think there's just something about that growing up in our education system, you know, and our country

Erica Toelle: Well, even when at the beginning of this podcast when you were like, oh, you're describing me as an expert, it made me feel very uncomfortable.

Heather Newman: See. I think you, I think you are though, I mean it.

Erica Toelle: Right, but it's like hard to do, still to this day it's hard to do the self-promotion.

Heather Newman: Yeah, I get it. Well, I talk a lot about with, with folks when I do personal brand stuff, is that we talk a lot about the imposter theory, you know, that we have this idea that, you know, like we don't know what we're talking about and, some of life and business is smoke and mirrors, you know, from the theater if you will. But I do feel like I do feel like women tend to not give themselves enough credit and not realize that they are truly experts in our fields. And I do it sometimes too, for a long time I said, “Oh, I'm just a theater major”. Well, being a theater major in the technology world and what I'm doing gives me an edge and makes me different. And I had my, some friends and some people very close to me point that out to me and they were like, don't sell yourself short that way. You know,

Erica Toelle: It also makes you an excellent presenter. Entertaining and informative.

Heather Newman: It does bring the jazz hands to the table, that's for sure. So anyway, well cool. I'm so thankful for you for doing that with the young people. I knew you did that, but I'd forgotten about it. That's super cool.

Erica Toelle: It's honestly my favorite thing to do.

Heather Newman: Yeah, that's Rad. That's very awesome. And Erica has like this huge awesome background in music too, producing festivals. You are an expert in lots of things, so yay, that's why you're on here. So. Awesome. All right, well thank you for joining me on the podcast.

Erica Toelle: Yeah, thanks for having me. This is great.

Heather Newman: Yeah, you're very welcome hun. All right, signing off. Thanks everybody. Always learning. Have a good day.

EPISODE 2: SEARCH MAVEN AGNES MOLNAR

Heather Newman: All right. Hello everybody, it's Heather Newman with you with Creative Maven here at Microsoft Ignite and talking to a longtime colleague and friend, Agnes Molnar and talking with people who are mavens, experts in their field. I think she's definitely a maven in tech. How are you today?

Agnes Molnar: Hello everyone. Hi Heather. Thank you. I'm quite exhausted because it's been a long day, long week, but at the same time I really feel very good. It's an amazing and very interesting even.

Heather: Wonderful. So Agnes tell everybody a little bit about your awesome company. So female woman owned business. Yes?

Agnes: Yes, absolutely. So, what I do is I do trainings and consulting and also in person workshops about enterprise search and SharePoint and Office 365 and, well the name of my company is Search Explained, and I think it describes everything I do. I explain search in the language that makes sense for everyone. If I talk to business, I try to talk their language. If I talk to end users, I like to talk their language, so I really, I really like, you know, just explaining things, how it works, how you can make it work because search is like magical black box for a lot of people. So you'll get the content in and you get some results out. This magic is actually, it's complex, but it's not magic.

Heather: Right. I think you’re magic. So that's awesome. You have a lovely accent. Where are you from?

Agnes: I am from Budapest, Hungary, central Europe.

Heather: That's wonderful. Budapest. It's one of my favorite words to say ever.

Agnes: We pronounce several things a little bit differently. We pronounce Budapest.

Heather: That's awesome. How long have you been in IT?

Agnes: Since my birth I would say no, not really. It's, it's been a long story because, you know I was born in central Hungary in a very small town in a very poor family. We didn't have computer. We, I mean, yeah. And, even in the school where I was in elementary school, they did have computers, but only in the eighth grade you were allowed to go to the computer room which had 16, Commodore 4s and Commodore 16s. And so it was a big thing to get to that room. but I was very good at math, so my teacher, my math teacher allowed me to go to the computer room in the fifth grade, with the eighth-grade boys and girls, which was a very cool thing. I spent a lot of my time and often was in the computer room, but at the beginning I, in the fifth, sixth grade I wanted to become a doctor. So I thought, okay, it's fun to play. I mean, play with computer. I was writing code, so I was developing games

Heather: So, you came out of the womb writing code?

Agnes: Just a, just for fun. So I didn't have any plans with that. I thought it's just fun. And then I don't know why I was in the seventh grade maybe when my teacher asked me, “Why don't you want to learn this?”, because those days at the universities, we already had computer science and those kinds of things. So, she asked me, “Why don't you do this?”, and I am like, is it possible? So I went to high school. I did almost the same there, but I still didn't, I didn't have a computer at home. I got my first pc when I was 17 and yeah, after, I mean at the the end of the high school I applied to the Budapest University of Technology and Economics to, for computer science. And, yeah, I've been there and stayed there. I mean, yeah, I mean it's, it was a very fun part of my life. I started my studies at the university, but after a few months my parents told me that I didn't have money for it anymore. So they wanted me to move back home and start doing something, you know, that I make money with and you know, I am, I can be, I don't know the right word.

Heather: Formidable?

Agnes: Yeah. So, basically what I figured out, okay, I'm going to start work, but I'm not going to home. I'm staying at the university, I'm doing my studies and work at the same time. So, I started to work, you know, the school year starts in September and I started to work in January. The same semester actually. My very first semester. So it, yeah, it was seven years until I've got my diploma in the end, but by the end of my studies I've got six and a half years of work experience as well. So it was really, really hard at some points. But now I am, I am very happy for that.

Heather: That's amazing. And you persevered through the whole, you just kept going and going and going.

Agnes: So, from the point of when I've got my first salary, you know, after the first month, because in Hungary we get salaries each month, not, you know, not every two weeks. So when I've got my first salary, I haven't accepted a penny from my parents anymore. Nothing. I was like, okay, you wanted me to work. I do that, I do that for myself. Just, you know, to be able to continue my studies and everything and yeah, it was, it was a big thing.

Heather: I can see from the smile on your face. That's something to be proud of.

Agnes: I am.

Heather:  Yeah. You should be, you know, because that's a big deal to be able to fend for yourself.

Agnes: Yeah. So back to your question, I was 11 when I started to play with the computer. In other words, when I started to write code and yeah, since then I've been doing that in different things, but still with computers.

Heather:  When did you start with SharePoint?

Agnes: It was in 2001 with SharePoint, 2001. I was working with a company who just became a Microsoft Partner at that time and they wanted to do a proof of concept, which was really funny because it was a Windows application that use the SharePoint search API to get data from Exchange. And the funny part was I was a developer. I was responsible for the back end. So, I use the SharePoint API to get data from Exchange, but for more than a year I didn't realize that SharePoint had a user interface as well. So, for me at that time SharePoint was an API, but my next project was to work with SharePoint from user perspectives to create some content management or whatever. And Yeah. And after that, you know, I've got the stamp on my hand that I know SharePoint, so at that company and at my next, employers as well, they, I did several other things, but I always got back to SharePoint.

Heather:  And when did you start your business?

Agnes: Actually, it's my second business. Yeah. I started the first one which is still alive, it's a funny thing. When my first son was born, who is 11 and a half now, we founded a company with my husband, which is a software developer company. what they do, I mean my husband still runs that company, so that's the funny part. They do SharePoint development, custom applications and all those things. So I, I used to work there for about three years, then I decided to leave and when I left the company that I had founded with my husband, a lot of people thought we have got divorced as well. No, it was not the case. I just wanted to do something else. So yeah, I started working as an employee again for a company based in the US. Um, but I still lived in Hungary, so it was a really funny two and a half years. And then I left that company and finally I founded this company four and a half years ago.

Heather: Okay. It's been a while then. Do you love running your own business?

Agnes: I do, yes. It gives me, you know, it gives me the freedom, you know, raising three children is really challenging.

Heather: Yes. Good on you sister.

Agnes: Uh, so yes, I, I don't know how other mothers do that. I mean working mothers do that, but I really need the flexibility and freedom that I get when I run my own business. Of course it has another tradeoffs that I have to deal with it, but it's, I think it's the best for me and the best for my family as well.

Heather: That's great. So, um, in a sort of women in tech area or just, I know you read a lot, you know, you're looking at different things education-wise. Is there anybody that sort of lately or in the last bit that you really like what they're saying. women out there who have blogs or books or talking about different issues or writing or any of that stuff. Is there anybody you pay attention to?

Agnes: I know you are not expecting this one, I swear, but my answer is you.

Heather:  I didn't pay her to say that actually. Thank you.

Agnes: No, but really, whatever you write on medium and your Facebook posts and everything, you gave me so much inspiration. I really mean that. So if anybody asked me I would say the same.

Heather:  Wow. That's. We’ll all right then. Thank you. Absolutely. That's great. Well, cool. And for this show, you know, there's been lots of announcements. What are you sort of taking away from Ignite this year that's pertinent to you or just think pertinent to SharePoint in general?

Agnes: Yeah, I think there are a lot of very cool things and the amazing announcements here. To be honest, I cannot be as excited as many people are, not because they are not cool announcements because they are really cool. But first some of them are not related to my expertise. Second, some of them are kind of not messaging the way I expected or not communicating the way I expected. But anyway, it's a cool conference. And, and the announcements are really cool. I just really have a lot to do with, you know, I have to digest everything

Heather:  You’re expected to talk to people and they're asking you questions and so you have to have that filter of like I am taking in all this information, trying to understand it regardless of how it's messaged, and be able to put it back out into the community as a community leader. I mean, you're an influencer, you're a leader, you know? How many times have you been awarded all kinds of great things, you know, like lots, right?

Agnes: Yep. Absolutely. So back to the beginning of my conversation, I want to be able to explain it to everyone.

Heather: That's the point of your company, right?

Agnes: Yeah, exactly.

Heather: That's great. Yeah. my last question for you is, I'm very interested in sort of those moments, be they big or micro that spark us to do something or that change us or, that something that happened in our life, it can be, you know, about business, something in business or you know, just something that really, that you kind of recall as, maybe something that lit you up in a way that changed something for you or you know, something.

Agnes: It's a really interesting, you know, because, you know, I travel a lot for events and conferences and many people think that it's exhausting. And as a mother of three, I should stay home more and those kinds of things. Actually, even if I travel for business and even if I travel for fun, I am busy when I travel, those are kind of me time when I have time and you know, I can be away from my home, my work, everything, to reflect. And so usually I get those moments when I travel.

Heather:  Yeah, yeah. I get your little sparks. I feel the same way. I love, I love that there's the, I love my home, I love going home. There's something about, you know, a super clean hotel room that you can mess up

Agnes: And I don't know, like right now the contrast is not the same because we still, and it's a stupid thing. We still have a very good weather in Hungry, but I am here in Orlando every year for another conference, which is always in November or December when we already have winter. So those trips are always amazing for me because you know, I can get sunshine, I can, it's warm and everything. So even if I work hard then I don't know. I have lots of meetings and I do workshops every year and, and those kind of things. It's always like a vacation for me as well and I always go back with new ideas.

Heather: Energized.

Agnes: Yes, exactly, exactly.

Heather:  Well, so everybody, this is Agnes Molnar. She's fantastic and worked in SharePoint for a long time. She's a, I will call her a search maven for sure. She is an expert in that field. she has her own wonderful company Search Explained, she's doing blogs and she has wonderful courses and she's doing webinars and all of that stuff. And where can we find that on the web? Where can we find you on the web?

Agnes: You can find me at the SearchExplained.com

Heather: So, Agnes, lovely. Thank you so much.

Agnes: Thank you Heather.

Heather: You're welcome. And I really didn't pay her to say that, but I really appreciate that.

Agnes: Not yet you didn't.

Heather:  We'll get you later. No. So anyway, so I'm talking podcasts for Creative Maven and everybody, let's lift each other up and have a great day. Thanks.

EPISODE 1: EVENT MAVEN TRACY O'CONNELL

Heather Newman: Hi everybody, this is Heather Newman and we are talking here today at Ignite. I'm doing a little bit of mavening. We're looking at a great friend and colleague, Tracy O'Connell who is in charge of the European SharePoint Conference and I would call her an event maven for sure. Maven in tech, a longtime friend in the SharePoint community. So hello!

Tracy O'Connell: Hello. Thank you, Heather. Thank you for the lovely introduction and great to do this podcast with you. a lady, who I think, is the one of the leaders in SharePoint and has been from the very beginning, so thank you.

Heather: You're welcome.

Tracy: Thanks for having me.

Heather: Absolutely. Going to check and make sure we're doing our thing here. Oh yeah. Okay. Recording. Yay! I'm coming to speak at your event again, so thank you for that.

Tracy: Exactly, fantastic can't wait to have you in Dublin.

Heather: I know, I'm so excited to come back. Studied at Trinity for a semester a long time ago. So I'm excited to come back. So when is the event?

Tracy: The event is in November, so November this year in about seven weeks and it's 13th to 16th of November and it's in the convention center in Dublin. So we're really excited. We're inviting people from all over Europe, all over the world and to date we already have confirmed in and around 1200 people from everywhere, all over Europe to the states, Canada, China, Australia, even. Predominantly our attendees would be from the Nordics, Germany, UK, and then all over Europe.

Heather: That's fantastic.

Tracy: So, IT Pro, Dev and Business is, you know, the three tracks we cover at the conference and everything SharePoint, Office 365 and Azure. we have nine sessions at any one time, so you can kind of choose what to go to. And loads of choice. Really a strong program I think in 2017.

Heather: Fantastic. That's really great. How many people do you think are going to attend?

Tracy: I expect somewhere between 1,500 to 1,700 this year. I'd like to see us grow on our previous numbers in Vienna and Stockholm and just strengthen the conference. It is the biggest one in Europe and we've been consistently growing, so, yeah, I think we can expect to see that in 2017 in Dublin.

Heather: Yeah, that's great. Wonderful. So how about our keynotes?

Tracy: Our keynotes are amazing. We have a lineup of four really strong keynotes. I can't wait to see them. we open the conference on Tuesday morning, the 14th of November with Jeff Teper.

Heather: Wonderful.

Tracy: So that will be amazing. We can't wait to see Jeff.

Heather: I was hanging out with him last night a little bit. He's amazing.

Tracy: He is amazing. Yeah. so, we're really privileged and honored to have Jeff open the conference for us. Then we have Benjamin Niaulin who I think everyone knows and respects as well. Also met him this morning, wonderful guy and he's really pumped about the keynote. I think he's going to really do an amazing job. So, we will have, you know, for that first morning opening the conference, we will hear from Jeff, you know, the Microsoft story and then we'll have Benjamin who will give the Office 365 SharePoint perspective from the community side. I think they complement each other perfectly. They're back to back on the first morning of the conference and then we break out into breakout sessions. So, eight to nine choices at any one time then we have on the following day we have Rafal Lukawiecki. He's amazing. Yeah. Really, really good guy. you might have seen or heard him do presentations on BI before. I'm really, I think this guy is a genius. He is speaking on machine learning and AI. So that's going to be something really special. I think he's also here at Ignite, doing a few sessions. And then the final keynote is going to be Vesa Juvonen. So, you know, a Dev keynote essentially, and PMP. Although we haven't announced it yet, that's going to be a scenario where Vesa predominantly does the keynote, but potentially with some friends as well.

Heather: Oh Great.

Tracy: So that story is evolving based on friends. We're really excited about that as well. That's the final day. So, all in all I think a really good set of keynotes and I can't wait to see them.

Heather: Something near and dear to my heart, the Women and Technology Lunch that you wonderfully had me do for the last couple years.

Tracy: Thank you Heather. You've been really awesome speaking for the last two years.

Heather: Yeah, absolutely. So thank you for that. And I know that you're mixing it up a little this year, which is awesome. Are you revealing who's speaking there?

Tracy: We can reveal it now. So, I've just confirmed recently we're going to have Karuana Gatimu who is the principal engineer of Microsoft Teams, so she's going to be amazing. She's going to speak on empowering women in the age of digital transformation. It's going to be really good, really awesome person. We may also have some smaller elements of that lunch where we hear from women in tech and girls in tech, so some of those great organizations yeah. We hope you join us as well, heather.

Heather: Of course. Yes. I'll be Rah Rah, Rah and get everybody going to this. Absolutely. So that's great. So you're a woman in tech, how long have you been at this?

Tracy: I have been working on technology conferences since 2001.

Heather: Goodness.

Tracy: Yeah. So around 16 years. So, I'm in the SharePoint space, Microsoft space since about seven years ago. And prior to that I was working on software testing events. Yeah. So still in technology, you know, technology events. But yeah, this community, the Microsoft community is one that I think really stands out as special. There's a tightness and closeness in the SharePoint community that I haven't experienced in other industries. And yeah, this week more than ever I think that's really apparent. You know, you can see the excitement and the energy when Jeff does his keynote, you know, everyone knows each other, respects each other and helps each other. I think even in the expo you see that there's a competitive edge, but also already friendly, camaraderie,

Heather: Co-opertition maybe?

Tracy: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's really nice, but I do think it's exclusive to this community. I haven't seen it as tight in any other industry.

Heather: Yeah, for sure. I'm curious about, I've been doing some writing and talking and reading all kinds of things about sort of what, what moves us and moments of awe in our lives and I'm curious, maybe put you on the spot a little bit, but can you think of like a moment that was the spark for you of like when you say, decided to kind of get into this or what, what made you go, yes, this is what I want to do.

Tracy: I think for me, the one that stands out is the first SharePoint conference I did in Berlin because there what we did, myself and the team, was that we took an idea to something real and a real life event within 12 months and there was that sense of accomplishment and wonder, you know, when all that community came together in Berlin. A community, which granted, already existed before I was in this industry, but just to facilitate those people meeting on a larger European stage was really special and since then we've been growing. It gets more special the more we can kind of grow out that event and, and bring more nuances, more elements to it. But the first one was special because you could tell it was strong and it was special. It was going places. So that was, it was hard work, but certainly a serious sense of accomplishment. And there is that, that buzz you get from a live event that I think is difficult to replicate. I love working on events and there's something about a coming together and the energy from all the people there that is really special.

Heather: That's great.

Tracy: I love doing this.

Heather: What was your first, first event that you ever put on?

Tracy: First, first event?

Heather: Was it when you were a kid? Maybe?

Tracy: Yeah. Well, yes, you know, there would have been birthday parties and school events, college events as well, you know, I was in the Kayak Club in college and then we would do fundraising events and that kind of thing. So yeah, those were probably the first ones. At that point I didn't think I would be in events.

Heather: What where you're going to do?

Tracy: I was studying commerce. So it was kind of wide open, you know, um, and I specialized in marketing, so therefore, you know, it does make sense. Yeah, and I did begin working in marketing and then really liked the events side of it. you know, attending events, organizing smaller ones and that's where that was the direction I took then, and although I'm still involved in marketing, someone else overseas that function in our company and does a great job on it and so, you know, I am involved but not to the scale I am in the event side of things.

Heather: You run the logistics and the content. I mean you run the whole show, right? As far as that goes, you have a lot of people to help you.

Tracy: A great team though. They really help. Couldn't do it without the team.

Heather: Will you tell me where are you from? I love your accent and I know where you're from, but will you tell everyone?

Tracy: I am from Ireland. So, based in the west coast of Ireland in Galway. So, next stop America really. We're on the west coast. It's lovely. Seaside town.

Heather: I Turned 24 in Galway.

Tracy: Did you? Oh, amazing.

Heather: There's a bar there, restaurant, bar, ha ha. Called is it, I'm going to say it probably incorrectly, but it's the Nockton?

Tracy: Oh, Neachtain's. Yes. Yeah, yeah. It's still, they're still going strong.

Heather: I tuned 24 in that bar.

Tracy: That's a fabulous bar. Hasn't changed. Everything inside is quaint and very old, wooden furniture.

Heather: Galway is known for that beautiful arts festival which I went to, it was all at the same time. So yeah, I got to do all of that, which was quite lovely.

Tracy: You would've been doing loads of acting around that time and everything yeah?

Heather: That was when I studied at Trinity, actually Irish plays and playwrights. So yeah. I didn't realize you were from Galway, that's amazing.

Tracy: I'm from Kerry. My parents are from Kerry, in the south, and that's where I grew up, but work and live in Galway now. I love it. Yeah. So, the conference we're running this year as it happens is in Dublin as well. Dublin is east coast. So, a few miles from Galway.

Heather: Well wonderful. So, to some of the other women in tech out there, sort of any piece of advice, inspiring thing you've seen lately or somebody that you read and follow that you're like, oh yeah, you should check them out?

Tracy: I like Sheryl Sandberg, you know? I also like the idea, and I've heard you talk on this, Heather, is that what's important is that women help each other and we're all in this together and you know, if there's someone that needs help, or you've done it before and you can give someone advice, help them along. I think that's really important and you know, I think it's important as well for us to feel more so that we're, we're all equal. Men and women, we're all doing jobs. And I like to think of it as I like to try and think of us as all equals and sort of, yes, that women should help each other, but by the same token, we should be helping men. Men should be helping us as well and like to kind of feel that it's a more even playing field, but certainly in tech and in these events, we can see, you know, that there are far, far more men in this industry than women. For that reason alone, I think we do need to look out for each other and help each other along the way. Yeah.

Heather: Lift a sister up. That's awesome. Cool, well I appreciate you sitting down with me for a minute and doing this.

Tracy: I loved it and thank you heather. So good to see you

Heather: I know, it's great to see you too. So everybody, thank you so much. And um, that was Tracy O'Connell from the European SharePoint Conference and we're going to sign off and have a great day and do lift each other up is what we need to do. So thank you.

Tracy: Thank you heather.