live from that conference

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

So that being said, I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you need to reach me, tailor at vacovac.com is how to get and touch me old-fashioned email social media at TDS&T D E S S E Y N. And finally, please rate and review this in the app store because I want this to be discoverable for others so they can navigate their careers. I hope you enjoy the episode. We didn't really get that. So this means we're live. That's what everybody welcome to that conference. It is Monday, the 16th. I just got a notification that we're streaming on YouTube. So excited to be here. I'm with my dear friends.

I'm going to do a quick intro. We'll start with Michael down. For those of you who are like, hey, I recognize these people. All of these individuals have been guests on my show throughout the years. So I was like, hey, let me bring them up on stage here at that conference and talk about an important topic to all of us about getting involved in tech community, being present at conferences, meetups, etc. Even though we're streaming virtually, but we're in person, which is great. So Michael, go ahead and kick it off quick intro by yourself. I'm Michael Richardson. I am an engineering manager at Kroger Technology.

I run momentum developer conference and since they suffer craftsmanship, meetup. They didn't involve in tech for about 10 years now. You got your intro. Correct. That's I'm congratulations. Thank you. With a new role in title and everything. That's enough last time. Yeah. You got a stumble because you know, you should be in a manager, which is your relation. Congratulations. Thank you. Hi, everyone. I'm James Q. Quick. I am now a full time technical content creator as of six months ago. I'm not actually this small compared to Taylor. They're just like, I look like a player. I'm like a child. I feel like I'm at Taylor's children.

Yeah. Yeah. I love it. And then. Okay. It's me. I'm Becca on the technical community builder at the grandma's speech to text API company. And I'm the creator and one of the maintainers at virtual coffee and organization for developers at all stages of their journey. I love it. And so what's really cool here is everybody is built a pretty incredible community. So Becca, you know, with virtual coffee, what you're doing at Deepgram, obviously, it's amazing. If you haven't checked out virtual coffee, please do that. You have James who obviously has created his own ecosystem, really on YouTube. But across. Yeah. Discord as well. What's your discord?

Learning ability. Learn ability. Yep. So go check that out. And then Michael with momentum dev. Michael, how many people do you have at momentum conferences here? 500. That's amazing. And he's had a hockey stick growth in a middle, obviously, with very difficult time or coming out of a very difficult time. So the reason why I wanted to and also for those of you who are tuning in, I don't see any comments. This is very different. But I would love for you to say, hey, kind of the typical spiel network say, hey, be involved. I can't see it this time. So if you do give us any props, I'm not going to be able to throw it up on the screen.

So let's go ahead and first kind of kick it off. So we're here in Austin at that conference. Talk about why it's so important to show up and be present. Because I feel like a lot of times now we've gotten comfortable being alone. We've gotten comfortable being at home. I mean, I don't know about yoga. I get social anxiety when I leave the house now for too many days. I literally had three appointments last week on a row. And I literally canceled my Thursday appointment because I was so nervous about leaving the house because I'm so used to being at home. So who wants to kick it off about why it's so important to be at things like this?

Michael does. OK. All right. There is a component to human interaction when you sit down, talk to somebody face to face, break bread with another person, and not be replicated when you are either on a phone call or on a video conference, something like that. There's a very primal connection that occurs between people. So that is not to be underestimated. And the types of conversations that I've had and interactions, one of the things that I do miss about being in the office is the serendipity that occurs. Having someone that you wouldn't have expected, happening upon a conversation that's occurring, and oh, I need to know about that because I didn't realize that was occurring, things like that.

So the in-person aspects there with open spaces or picking in on a talk, it can be really helpful. I love that. I love it. Anybody else have any thoughts? Yes. Exactly what you're saying. And when you're meeting in person, there's an authenticity that happens a lot quicker than online because we're used to kind of curating who our online persona is. And it becomes much easier for us to put ourselves in front of a Zoom screen or whatever and be that person that we've created for that online presence. But it's different when you're in person. And so you see, I think it's Austin, there's more vulnerability that happens quicker in person.

I'm not saying any of these things can't be replicated online. But that in-person experience, like you're saying, creates an opportunity for that to happen in a different way and for you to create those bonds and relationships in a much more authentic way than often happens and curating it online environment. There's headwinds friction to doing that when you're not face to face. What do you mean? What do you mean friction? Basically the stuff that Becca was saying around finding communities happening upon them or just even joining a new slack or those kind of things. When you've got an open space is here and literally I walk up to a table and I'm part of the open space, that's really straightforward.

That makes sense. Yeah, you're talking about going out and actually having to find the slacks, the discords, then jumping into them, then trying to build rapport, build connection. It takes a lot more groundswell in the front end when an actuality, if you're at an in-person conference like that conference, you can sit down at the lunch table with 10 other devs and just immediately strike up a conversation with the point. James, do you have any thoughts about why people should attend these events? Yeah, I've learned so much in my career just from being around people. We've talked about over-hearing people who have conversations about things. Super, super general and generic, but you just never know what little tidbit is going to be out there.

One of the really cool things, after you do a couple of conferences or you come to the same conference for the second time, is now you have that support group around you. We've all talked about this together as friends, which is really cool. Now we show up and we know we have at least one or two people in our corner that when we get lonely, when we get intimidated, we have that person that we can go hang out with. That makes such a big difference. This is not, well, I guess it is a good analogy in college. You go to a bunch of frat parties.

Frat parties are a lot more fun when you know a lot more people. My friend, Reggie, who I've told Taylor about, I'll continue to talk about them. I've heard about Reggie for last 24 hours. We've heard about Reggie in a tired time. Reggie, freshman year, all he did was introduce himself to everyone that he met or everyone that he couldn't meet because you have the built-in excuse, like your new to campus. You go around and just introduce yourself and build some sort of relationship. Then when you go to that party or you see people at this next thing, now you have those people that bring you to your comfort zone.

This is something of the content creator. I'm not my full self in content. I'm not my full self in video. It's not that I hide who I am. I can't reach my full who I am through video, but I can be just a silly and goofy and weird in person with y'all because now we have that relationship and I can be my full self in person. I want to call out one more thing in person before we want. The fact is that in person, you're here. It is so much easier to be in it than when you're doing something virtually where I've seen virtual conferences or video conference call with work.

Half the people in the call are typing away on their lap. That's usually me. While the video conference is happening and when you're here, there's less opportunity for that. You can't totally space out and go away. You are here with those people and it's obvious if you do that. Why, what would you tell folks who are sending us and watching this now in the future that are like, well, this all sounds great. How do I get my company to buy? Let's talk to the companies. Let's do a little 180 here. We talked to the individuals. What would you tell companies right now? We're coming out of the time.

We've been fully remote. We can get into some recruiting and retention strategy here. What would you tell companies that are like, well, this sounds great. Why should I send my people? They're only going to leave. I think there's a couple of different reasons why you send people. First of all, if you're building a company culture, you want your employees to say happy and over the past couple of months, I've really been thinking about this idea of your company as your community. I think that's a bad idea to be honest with you because your company is not always there for you. They might fire you and then your community is gone.

I think that what company should be doing is promoting external community building because it helps with diversity of ideas and opinions. It helps your developers to grow through those relationships and those conversations. It can also help with recruiting. I met this person at the conference. They would be perfect for this position. Now that you're already able to have that conversation, you have an existing relationship and then you can bring that over to your company. I love that. You all have any other thoughts. You work on yourself, but obviously you've worked for companies before. Yeah, from a networking standpoint, I can't tell you how many people not that I've hired directly, but through a connection that I've had, people have gotten hired on teams that I've worked on.

Especially working in a market in FedEx where FedEx is very local. And me being so involved in the Memphis Developer ecosystem, four out of the last five people they got hired on my team had a referral through me. That's the kind of thing that I could provide value to that comes from this sort of stuff. Not only is it from a networking perspective that I think companies should support, but also from a technical training and career progression. If you're not able to have conversations with your manager to say here are things that I want to build on and they reciprocate to say here's how we're going to support that.

There's not always infinite budgets. They can't do everything, but if they're not actively trying to support you and doing that, they're missing out. And you talked about the fear of people leaving. Yeah, I'm going to leave if you don't support me. And the biggest thing, biggest responsibility is it's your responsibility to ask. I'll actually talk about this tomorrow. Most of us fear asking for anything. And so we won't ask for resources. I mean, we won't ask for it. It's full transparency. I mean, you're absolutely in the world. No, you say that. But I can seem very loud and brash. But one of the things that I'm currently working through with counseling and a big mental health frame is you all know is that like I think it's very stressful asking for things.

That is absolutely. And you know, this isn't a marriage counseling session by any means. But then obviously you're with your spouse and you feel comfortable asking. But the thing is, it's like you have to put that on to something and never to last as well. Yeah. You have to, I think it's two things. You have to take ownership on yourself to be able to put it out there to ask. The company or whoever the reciprocator is has to take the responsibility of reciprocating. And the fact is a lot of companies don't do that. And in my opinion, if they're not doing that, you should be looking for companies that do because I think there are a lot of companies that do invest in you.

And I think that shows on retention and quality of work and all those things. Of that. Michael, obviously Kroger's been very supportive of you. I'm interested on kind of your journey with them and kind of what they've realized even maybe through you doing what you're doing. I mean, conferences have always been a part of, since, you know, just a year or two, in my first year in software development, I went to my first conference and I was like, oh my gosh, this is the most amazing thing I've ever done. Pipe it straight into my veins. This has to be a part of my life. And ever since then, happily my companies I've worked for have really supported that.

In fact, that's been a question I've asked when I interview is what's your policy on conference attendance? What is your, you know, how do you support your employees in leveling up and knowledge transfer and that kind of thing? So, you know, like you were saying, if your company is not supporting it, oftentimes those employees will leave because they're not being supported. So you can change your job or you can change your job. And I'm going to say this, I've discovered so many companies. I would have never known what deep gram was if I hadn't met you, right? Kroger, that's sorry, but everybody knows your Kroger is.

You've heard of Kroger. You've heard of Kroger, right? But like, you know, in your past experience, it's an octave or playing a scale, right? And so for me, I think, you know, I always, I always talk about Christmars, right? Like, with Split, right? I would have never known who Split was if it wasn't for Chris. And I feel like, and this is kind of getting the content started. We could talk about this too because we all like content. We all produce it in some way shape or form. But yeah, but especially the guy who's full time with it. But I feel like it's incredibly important.

Let's talk about content for a second about being out in public and almost having a mascot, right? Like Michael, like in my mind, you're the mascot Kroger. You're the mascot for Kroger, right? You are the mascot for Deepgram. I'm my own mirror. I'm a mirror mascot. Yeah. So, I'm actually like, I'm a mirror. I'm crazy. Chris, Chris, Demars, right? mascot for Split, right? And there's so many people here at this conference. There are everyone's in sessions right now. There's so many people, right, Brandon, right? I didn't even see you there, right, Brandon with flight control mascot. Brandon, that's his own company, but still, right? When I'm attending conferences, I pay attention to what companies are sending employees and what companies are sponsoring.

It's like, oh, I'm going to put them on my radar if I do find that I'm in need of a job. So you have to, the company has to think about it on both ends. Like, how are we retaining and how are we recruiting both of those? Why? So let's talk content real quick. I know we're going to wrap up here in the next 10 minutes because that goes, is podcast and after this, all the content. What? She's podcasting with Clark after this. That's all, oh, that one. Yeah, that one. That's cool. No, I don't do chill. I want to be on all the podcast.

No, James, I'll be over here. So, yeah, sure day. Give me all the content. Why do you think content and especially in the dev rel space and just in the tech community, why do you think content is so important in this day and age? Because it could be contradictory, right? The book will be watching this now. And if you should go, we'll tell you're talking about attendees in person events, getting out from behind your computer screen. But you're also preaching that content is king or you should be doing content, which is online. So talk about why content is so important from the online side of things.

First of all, multiple things can be true. Like, the value of content can be valuable as well as being in person. But like, I think one of the most common phrases you'll hear and specifically dev rel and like exposure and marketing for developers is meat developers where they are, where our developers, there's not that they're in Slack, they're in Discord, they're at conferences, they're at meetups, they're on Twitter for better, for worse. Like, the list is not that big. I'm not moving to massive. I'm not moving to massive. I'm not moving to massive. I'm on Twitter until something actually exposed. But like, developers are only in so many places and there's, I need to go back and actually read the quote.

Sort of research to actually make a significant impact where someone remembers you is not just from one of eight times. It's like seven or eight different touch points. So they could see a piece of content that I share on Twitter. They could then see me at a conference. They could just didn't see a YouTube video, then have a Discord interaction and now they actually pay attention to what I do going forward. So when you're actually building brand loyalty, it takes multiple touch points over an X amount of time and different avenues. And for me, like I don't do this selfishly because I love it. But if you watch one of my videos, that's cool.

If you watch one of my videos and then we got to talk about it in person, that's a person that's actually going to pay a lot more attention to stuff I do in the future. So that's where the end person interaction of one of those several interactions brings it all together and takes it to the next level. You got some content creation because you do such a great job of it too. Yeah. I mean, a lot of it is it helps you to develop one awareness and two credibility and shows kind of creates that personality. So you're talking about the idea of the mascot. But like, who is this person?

Is this like DevRel or DevSell? Right? Are they trying to sell me something? Or is this a person that's coming to me fully authentic? And they're just interested in what I think is a human being first rather than like, oh, I'm a developer. No, like you're a person, first. And I want to get to know you. And when you are able to do that through your content, through those interactions that come from content creation, then that somebody who's going to be more likely to trust you. You may not have a use case for your product right now. But you know what? Like five months later, they might have that.

And they're going to say, oh, I remember that Taylor works at this company and I need somebody for this thing. So I'm going to go talk to Taylor. And so it's not, you know, it's not always an immediate turnaround. But when you do create those multiple touch points, it's more opportunity to engage to get to know that person and to create that nurture that relationship. I love that. I saw too. It was Gary Vaynerchuk talked about it recently. And I saw it and he was like, he says, so he throws, which is kind of what I mean, a lot of what I do at my left or him.

So he throws these big dinners. I'm not there yet, but close once once once once once. My division grows. And the dinner. He's a good guy. Yeah. Yeah. Gary, Gary, this is the $14,000. And I was like, damn, I got to get that little. But basically, but we will be calm. Right. Exactly. So basically, what he said, he goes, I'm throwing this $14,000 dinner. He goes, I'm saying this, not because of the price to price, but he goes, I'm saying this because I am probably not going to get any ROI out of this ever. And he goes, I'm OK with it. I like that. Because he goes, and he goes, companies that ask about, you and I think I've talked to this about with you all here.

But it's like, where did this person come from? How many clicks here? What's your pipeline look like? What's your website traffic? It's like, I'm paraphrasing what he said. But he goes, that's all great. But he goes, at the end of the day, be fucking human. Right. He goes, and that's kind of what I model. It's like, listen, at the end of the day, most of the people I talk to, I'm not going to help find a job. But I want to be a resource in some way, shape or form. And that's why, again, there's a lot of people I want up on this stage because I love so many people here in a lot of podcasts, but we only have so many mics and so much stage space.

But at the end of the day, there's a lot of people here, especially in tech community, they're doing it the right way and just being present, being human. And I think that is totally missed when it comes to content because it can be lumped under marketing and marketing is spreadsheets and power points and clicks and views and all that stuff. You might quite know if you have any thoughts on that. Around the in person versus any of it. Any of it. Yes. So I do have thoughts on the in person versus content creation. So the beautiful thing about the content creation is you get the multiplier where I can talk to you one on one.

And that's great. I've shared some knowledge with you. And this comes back to Scott Hanselman's keystrokes left idea, which is if I answer your email, that's great. You get the info. If I make a blog post out of it, now people can view that for years to come, I might help hundreds or thousands of people with this same topic. And so it has to be it's both. There's the intensity of the in person connection. And then there is the reach of the content creation. And you can balance those and use both of those to your advantage, but also the advantages people around you. Because we've got knowledge.

All of us, everyone in this room. I really just saw you talking about SEO on website about Kroger bananas. So yeah, I mean, everybody's got yeah, exactly. And so don't keep that locked away. Don't keep that locked away. Share it in person and by creating content because it will provide value to other people. I love that. So I want to wrap up here last last five minutes we have. And I actually want to leverage y'all and kind of get this content for other recruiting companies. So let's talk at recruiters for a second. Obviously me being one of them. What is your tips to recruiters to attend these?

How should they act? How should they be? What should their boost? Can you give like I'm just going to align so back you can start if that's okay. And just kind of like talk to me as a recruiter, but that you don't know me like about conferences and how we should act because a lot of us don't act well. You want me to give you tips on being a recruiter? Yes, on how recruiters should approach developers. I'm authentically, honestly, just have a conversation with them. Don't think like this is my next sale. Think about like, hey, who is this person? Right? Like how are you?

And I honestly think that we would all benefit a little from introducing ourselves and not saying our job titles, right? How can you describe yourself without saying what you do first? And that encourages that relationship and that growth and then you get to that point. But you treat it with trust first transaction later. Exposed some personality. Yeah. We're Pokemon t-shirt or something. Yeah. Laurel. Yeah, exactly. I always like jokes. If somebody just comes up to your little angel to do that, that would be my favorite. I love that. And now we know how to recruit back out. Yeah. Not our group back out. If I'm going to say dad jokes.

Yeah, jokes all the way. Okay. Do you have any thoughts to kind of like any tips to two recruiters? Yeah. Like I know you're not asking for this, but Taylor is like the perfect example. This is not what I'm asking for. I know you're not. And you never do. But I rave about this when you're not here and you can ask other people. Two is friend Reggie. To my friend, John's Reggie. Recruiters just leave a very bad taste in my mouth as a whole. And it's not fair to judge a group. A lot of the experience is like all the interests of the Black being genuine.

and they're black sharing that they give a shit about me. If I get a message saying, hey, I've read your profile and you look perfect for this job that has nothing to do with anything I've ever done or anything I've done in the last five years, you're immediately banned in my head. Like I'm never going to trust you or your company or your team. I have no, I have no trust. I have no respect for what you're doing because it's not me. You didn't take me seriously. So I'm not going to take you seriously. So showing up and being here and actually having conversations with people.

I haven't sent anybody specifically to you for me. They go, but I damn sure know if I have somebody that's looking for someone specifically in Asheville or the rest of the country. Now, if you do global stuff, which is going to wow. I can't let you be the person I think of because I know you as a person. Your job today comes secondary. I trust you as a person first and your job comes secondary. Well, thank you. Michael thoughts. I think it's the... Actually, with our big company, don't a lot of careers. So you... Sure. So it's... Sorry, I lost your hand. I thought there for a moment, but my car was coming back to...

Ah, yes. So I talked about this a little in my SEO session this morning. Think about what value you actually provide. And like, you know, just point that like book. Look, I can help you in this way specifically. Maybe that's you. Maybe it's not. Maybe that's later. And also focus on the law. That's it. The law in the long game is just everything in this industry. And it's not... It's not as big as you think it might be as far as connections go. Oh, like, we're around people now. And so it's built up building the reputation, focusing on the long game. And, you know, being clear of the value that you provide.

I love it. I love you all. Thank you for hanging out with me today. And thank you online community for hanging out with us. And you'll have a great rest of your Monday. Go connect with these folks. They're great. Bye. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode. And I am very grateful. Because you know why there's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes. And I myself rarely finish an entire episode. So I appreciate you so, so much for listening. Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the app store. I want this to be discoverable to others.

And the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it. Please, like right now, unless you're driving, then don't do it. So thank you again. If you need to reach out to me, Taylor at vaco.com or at t-test and on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.