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Janice is the founder of nonprofit ChickTECH, a Portland based company running programs for women to get into technology including high school, summer camps, job boards & so much more!

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• Janice Levenhagen (@jlevenha) | Twitter
• Anybody can learn | Code.org
• Mainframe | Data | Replication | Integration | Modernization | Treehouse Software
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Angela is the Operations Manager of “ALL THE THINGS” at Jupiter Broadcasting but also a mother of three. She discusses her journey in tech as well as her kids’.

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Transcription:

ANGELA: This is Women’s Tech Radio.
PAIGE: A show on the Jupiter Broadcasting Network, interviewing interesting women in technology. Exploring their roles and how they’re successful in technology careers. I’m Paige.
ANGELA: And I’m Angela.
PAIGE: So, today, everybody, we put Angela on the hotseat, ask her a whole bunch of questions about Jupiter Broadcasting, about being a mom, about how technology has improved her life or changed her life, and a lot about sharing and connecting with other people. It’s a really good interview.
ANGELA: Well, I have to agree, if I say so myself. But, before we get into this interview about me, I’d like to mention that you can support the network and Women’s Tech Radio by going to Patreon.com/today. That is the Jupiter Broadcasting bucket. The main bucket where you can support pretty much any show on the network. And when you go there, specifically, you are supporting Women’s Tech Radio. Patreon.com//today.
PAIGE: And we get started with today’s interview by just chitchatting with Angela.
So, Angela, thank you for joining us on Women’s Tech Radio. It’s really fun to finally put you on the mic since you put me on the mic a while ago.
ANGELA: i know, like two months ago, at least.
PAIGE: Yeah, much longer, actually.
ANGELA: Really?
PAIGE: Yeah, it’s been quite a time.
ANGELA: Wow, time flies.
PAIGE: It does.
ANGELA: Oh my gosh, is it going to be a year in November?
PAIGE: I don’t know. We need-
ANGELA: I think we started in November.
PAIGE: We need what, eight more episodes after this to do 52.
ANGELA: Well, that’s if you count by episodes. But I mean, like time.
PAIGE: Well, yeah, time. It’s about November, yeah. That’s crazy.
ANGELA: Wow. Yay.
PAIGE: I love it. So, what people want to know, what I want to know, is kind of like what this journey has been like for you. And I think that we’ve heard some about how you got started in tech. How you, through the different interviews, and I guess I would like to know some of your story of like what it’s been like to really be immersed in tech, especially in this broadcasting end of things. Where we’re in this age of no gatekeepers, you know, you can just put things out on the interwebs, like we do with this show. What has that done to your life? How has it been interesting? How has it be, like kind of coming from a semi-technical background into this media that’s so richly technical on both sides; where the topics of Jupiter Broadcasting are technical and the work itself is technical. Talk to me about that.
ANGELA: Okay. So I think from that, I would like to talk about I have always been one that has wanted to help others and educate others, and that is kind of the foundation of anything I do. And the technology that has developed over the last 10 years just magnificently supports it. It just is. It’s completely natural and even in middle school when we first started using technology, you know, I have the LiveJournal account. You know, I was dabbling in the small parts of the internet, but then, well being with somebody that always wanted the latest technology really helped, you know. I started on a Mac and I really, for some reason, I guess it could have been anything. Actually, you know what, i didn’t start on a Mac, but once I started on a Mac, I guess is what I mean. I feel like it really opened up my opportunities. I started using Soundtrack. That was specifically the thing that I moved to Mac for.
PAIGE: So, for people who don’t know, what’s Soundtrack?
ANGELA: Soundtrack is recording and music compilation software and it, it was like some crazy amount of money, like $300 or $400 at the time. This would have been like 2002. I was writing songs and I was using software that ran on Linux before switching to Soundtrack. But when I went into that Apple store and they had Soundtrack on demo, I grabbed a couple tracks and I put something together and it was amazing. And then a couple weeks later I bought it and I tried it. And I assembled those same tracks and now I have a song that I made. It was really cool. So I am a very creative person and that is another way that the creativity and the educational or desire to educate aspect really do goh hand in hand. I was a mommy blogger. That’s kind of been on hiatus for a little while. I do the Fauxshow, which is really a show that is whatever I want to talk about, but I always to grab things that–like if I told you that I was going to do a show on a certain topic, you might be like eh, yeah. But once you were there, you would be interested in it, because it would be a lot of different sources. And whether they be right or not, that’s debatable, but it’s not a real show, you know.
PAIGE: Yeah, right. It’s a fake show, a faux show.
ANGELA: Yeah, so in terms of Jupiter Broadcasting, I was a lot of the backend behind the scene operational side. You know, the accounting, the, you know, all that behind the scenes stuff. But once we put up the green screen in our third bay garage and started doing show there, I started getting more interested in the chat room and would hang out after Jupiter At Night. And that’s kind of where the Fauxshow started. I started just talking to the audience and the audience talked back and it gave them a personal touch and also involvement. And I really think that it solidified a whole new community aspect of Jupiter Broadcasting. And just from there, I just started getting to know the community and being more active in the IRC, which automatically got me more involved with the technology stuff and then now here I am doing Women’s Tech Radio.
PAIGE: Right. Awesome. Yeah, I mean, I”ve always been really impressed by your ability to share across a lot of different platforms.
ANGELA: I think people would call me an oversharer.
PAIGE: Yeah. Well, I don’t know. I think that you have a great way, like in person you connect with people really well, and I get to witness that. But I think that you, and I feel like that’s kind of a feature for me as well. But you also have this awesome way of bridging that to a digital audience. Like to people, like, even before I met you, I kind of felt like I knew you, because I had seen the Fauxshow and I had seen your Twitter. I had been following you on Google+ for a couple years. And then I showed up and I met you and I’m like, this is totally the Angela that I expect. You have a great ability to bring yourself across. How do you do that? Is that natural?
ANGELA: I guess it must be.
PAIGE: Yeah.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: Does it just like occur to you, hey this is a moment that I should share or do you have to actively think about it?
ANGELA: Well, a lot of things, when I, when I make the decision to share something, it’s because I think that it will, likely it will help somebody else. That’s why I started MomVault, my mommy blog. Because there are things–it’s kind of like, it’s not that I want to share the hard sides of parenting or anything, because there’s a lot of harder articles in there, like getting allergy testing and cosmetic surgery for Dylan and things that people don’t want to relive or share or whatever, but there are so many moms and dads out there that kind of rely on knowing that they aren’t the only person that has to hold down their son while their ear is sewn back on.
PAIGE: I mean, it’s it’s the reason we do this show.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: It’s just to know that you’re not alone.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: That this is possible. You can get through it. You’re not alone.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: I think that’s a really important, that’s a really fascinating way. I’ve always struggled with sharing. Some of my friends have been like, you really shout tweet, and I’m like, I don’t know how to tweet. Well, I know physically how to tweet.
ANGELA: No, she doesn’t. I know her in person, she doesn’t.
PAIGE: It’s so true. I’ve had people, I’m as bad with Facebook too. Somebody was like, you need to change your profile picture on Facebook. It’s been there for a long time.
ANGELA: I was going to tell you that earlier.
PAIGE: Oh man, okay.
ANGELA: Oh my gosh.
PAIGE: I have to sit down and really, really dig around every time, because I just don’t do it. I’m just not a natural sharer. But I think, thinking about it as helping people, I like that.
ANGELA: Yeah, and I feel that due to my creativity and my directness, bluntness-
PAIGE: I like directness, that works.
ANGELA: And conciseness, or being concise, my articles aren’t, there’s not a lot of fluff and I’m not trying to make money. You know, like on MomVault, but it just, I just can, I don’t know. I do like helping people and I know that MomVault has helped a lot of people. I think Fauxshow has helped a lot of people.
PAIGE: Yeah. I think even your Instagram is helpful. I love seeing your Instagram stuff. It kind of, I’ll be like rolling along and then I’ll see this, you’re, they’re always so positive. You just have so much positivity in your photography.
ANGELA: Well, I try. There’s some negatives, but yeah.
PAIGE: Okay. Well they are by in large.
ANGELA: Yeah. The thing is, this is weird to say, but in the past somebody has asked me, oh my gosh, that’s a great picture, what camera did you use? And I kind of laugh. It’s not the camera, it’s the person.
PAIGE: Yeah.
ANGELA: It’s me. Like, yes, it took a good picture, but I framed it. I worked with the depth. I worked with the colors and the lighting and figured out how to capture the moment. And I choose only to share those pictures, because I do take a lot more pictures than I share.
PAIGE: Yeah, well.
ANGELA: As would anybody. I don’t keep all those pictures. You know, there’s a lot of photo 101 things that I think I could probably do a whole show about.
PAIGE: Could you do a Fauxshow about it?
ANGELA: Probably. I have done quite a few Fauxshows about the photos, but anybody can take pictures of their kids. But what really–who cares about my kids? You know? Like who cares. There are people that care and they care because of the thought and the time and effort behind the picture.
PAIGE: Yeah, you put intention into it.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: Yeah.
ANGELA: And it’s not just, oh here they’re smiling again.
PAIGE: You made me care about a snail the other day. You had this picture of a snail and I was like, that is totally true.
ANGELA: Right. It was about the little things in life.
PAIGE: Yeah.
ANGELA: Yeah. And I just– I didn’t step on him on the way to or from the bus stop. On the way to the bus stop I thought, I’m going to take a picture of that snail on the way back. And I did. I got down on the sidewalk and I took a picture of the snail. I took one where it had just the pavement as the background, and then I took another one, because I was like, oh the sun is shining over there. Maybe I can get a glow on the snail. So I took two pictures and I chose that second one that you ended up seeing on Instagram.com/MomVault.
PAIGE: Nice plug.
ANGELA: I know, right? So, I think everything I do has meaning and I hope that it would help other people in any way. I know that there are a lot of viewers, listeners of Jupiter Broadcasting that see my pictures on G+, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook that, not rely on it, but it’s very, very welcome.
PAIGE: It’s a value add to my day.
ANGELA: Yeah. Unlike maybe other people in their life that add pictures that don’t necessarily have the charm, the quality, or the focus. Which, I’m not trying to put people down, at all. I”m just-
PAIGE: No, you have a skill for that. It’s definitely there. And the intention, it means a lot. Like art without intention is just craft.
ANGELA: Yes. Yes.
PAIGE: I think.
ANGELA: Yes.
PAIGE: I think that’s the big differentiator between craft and art. Craft is something you can do; art is something with intention.
ANGELA: Yes.
PAIGE: And I realize that may be a really over simplification and some of my art major friends are going to be upset with me for saying that.
ANGELA: Right.
PAIGE: But that’s my take. And I love that about your work. It’s part of working with you. You always intention, which is great.
ANGELA: And attention to detail. That’s for sure.
PAIGE: Yeah. Yeah. Which is a nice add to me.
ANGELA: But I really like the social networking. I love the fact that people from around the world watch my show or listen or see my pictures and comment on it.
PAIGE: Yeah. The way technology has changed that is mind blowing.
ANGELA: Uh-huh.
PAIGE: I just can’t even really actually wrap my head around that.
ANGELA: Yeah. And honestly, it took me so long to get on instagram, and I was such a snob about it. I’m like, man, who wants all their pictures to be square. And now, like even though my phone has the square option, I still them full, but I, I’m like, okay, will that fit in a square.
PAIGE: You eye is automatically looking for a square.
ANGELA: Yeah, it kind of changes, it kind of changes how I take pictures.
PAIGE: I am going to call you out on something thought.
ANGELA: Okay.
PAIGE: You’ve got to fix the video thing. The portrait video has got to go, man.
ANGELA: Oh, that wasn’t me.
PAIGE: That wasn’t you? Okay. Good.
ANGELA: Yeah, that was, that was Jenny, yeah.
PAIGE: Okay. Good.
ANGELA: But yes, I am guilty of that though. And I am guilty of taking more portraits than landscape. I need to do more landscape.
PAIGE: Yeah. I’m a landscape junky, but that’s because I grew up–when I worked as a photographer for a while I was doing landscape photography and architecture photography, so it’s always landscape, especially for architecture.
ANGELA: Is landscape for landscape?
PAIGE: I know, shocking. Shocking.
ANGELA: It’s a lot easier to frame something square using portrait, to me. Even though, regardless, either way you know that-
PAIGE: How do you–so do you like still apply photography basics, like two thirds to square? Does that work?
ANGELA: I don’t know.
PAIGE: Do you know the two-thirds rule?
ANGELA: I don’t think so.
PAIGE: Oh, awesome.
ANGELA: I know, right?
PAIGE: The rule of thirds. So the idea is that if you break things up into three sections; one section, two sections, three sections. I’m using hand gestures which is super helpful for the radio. But that the, if you break a rectangle into three sections the focus of your photography should land on the separation between either section one and two or section two and three.
ANGELA: Oh, no. No. I don’t, I don’t use that. But, I’m not–okay, so a lot of people think a good picture is a centered picture.
PAIGE: No, that’s exactly what that’s fighting against.
ANGELA: No, I know. I know. And I do that. I do do centered sometimes. But there was a picture recently of Abby with a quote, and I intentionally had her off to the side so that I could put the quote there. So I don’t necessarily follow that rule, but I don’t stick to centering.
PAIGE: It’s internal, yeah.
ANGELA: Yes, correct.
PAIGE: Cool.
ANGELA: I have variety.
PAIGE: I believe that. I’ve seen it. So, a little talk, big switch here. I”m going to use some insider info. You’ve got three kids.
ANGELA: Oh man, now everybody knows.
PAIGE: No, that’s not the insider info.
ANGELA: Oh.
PAIGE: I know that they all use computers.
ANGELA: Yes.
PAIGE: And what do you think, like as a mom, how do you approach that? There’s a lot of information out there about-
ANGELA: Yes.
PAIGE: It’s good, it’s bad. How do you–and I know that because we’ve just talked about the fact that you’re always acting with intention, how do you do that intentionally with your kids.
ANGELA: Okay. That is a great question, Paige. So i–my first born is a son and I imagined him holding a mouse and keyboard at like a year.
PAIGE: Yeah, well with the house that he’s growing up in, right?
ANGELA: Right.
PAIGE: Yeah.
ANGELA: But was actually not until his fifth birthday, right? No, sixth birthday, just before his sixth birthday that I introduced him to the keyboard and mouse.
PAIGE: Oh wow.
ANGELA: On my computer.
PAIGE: So before that, was he still using tablets or something?
ANGELA: Yes. He was using iPads, yes.
PAIGE: Okay.
ANGELA: And he understands them freakishly well. All three of my kids do. But there was a little bit if a curveball with Dylan with the keyboard and mouse, but Minecraft is a good motivation.
PAIGE: He’s determined because of Minecraft. It’s a good motivator.
ANGELA: Yes. Yes. Perfect.
PAIGE: Had he done Minecraft, so jumping in, had he done it on the iPad first?
ANGELA: Yes. Pocket edition.
PAIGE: Okay.
ANGELA: Yeah. And I honestly cannot do it on the iPad, because it’s weird.
PAIGE: I haven’t tried.
ANGELA: You have to use both hands. Which, I know, it sounds like a really–it’s just so weird on a touch screen.
PAIGE: You’re old now.
ANGELA: I know. Yeah, he reminds me of that every day when he’s like, oh mom ,did you know about this in Minecraft. I’m like, yeah, I’m been playing Minecraft for four years, but no, I never knew that. Or that’s new. That’s an update since I’ve played. Just all three of the kids have done really well with learning on Ipads. Once Dylan started on his laptop, Abby expressed interest as well. And I wanted them to be able to play Minecraft together. So she actually started just after she turned four, or I guess, yeah, ish. She is four right now and she is playing Minecraft on the computer. I made it fun. I did L and R for left and right on her mouse. I did different stickers so she could learn WASD. And then also added stickers for esc and one other one that I can’t remember. But basically, it made it a lot easier for her to learn it.
PAIGE: Wow.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: Full disclosure. I was hanging out with Abby and she was obsessed and asking all night last night if she could show me how to play Minecraft.
ANGELA: I know, yeah.
PAIGE: Which is hilarious, because she would actually have to show me how to play Minecraft, because I have not ever played. Well, I played for literally five minutes on a Raspberry Pie once, because it’s the one thing they include on the Raspberry Pie.
ANGELA: Oh, that’s funny.
PAIGE: Yeah, that’s it. At some point she will have to teach me how to play Minecraft.
ANGELA: Well, I ran into an issue where her iPad can no longer play Minecraft, because the OS is no longer updatabalbe.
PAIGE: Is iit a 2 or?
ANGELA: Yes. And I accidently did a Minecraft update just broke it. So she plays on her computer now. But that freed up her iPad so that Bella could play on it. And so there’s educational games on there. Learning her ABCs, learning how to count, just learning the whole touchscreen interface. And I rely on that heavily.
PAIGE: How old is Bella?
ANGELA: She’s two. She just turned two. I rely on that heavily in the morning when she gets up between 4:30 and 6:00. I leave the iPad on the beanbag in my room and she comes in on her own and sits down and plays it.
PAIGE: I’m really impressed. I have a nephew, he’s three, and he loves the iPad. It’s definitely a reward for him. It’s very careful, like when he can use the iPad and when he can’t. Especially because he’s a bit jack smash, so he likes to smash things. So, the iPad, of course, being a very expensive piece–and he hates the case–like we got one of the kid case things and that was good when he was two, but now it’s no, he won’t touch that one. He has to have the real iPad. But the amount that he has learned on the iPad is really impressive. I think the educational games have really stepped up their game from when I first looked at them. Do you think it’s like–do you worry about them spending too much time on these devices?
ANGELA: Yes and no. There’s something that I have done very right, and I can’t pinpoint what it is. But I can say that my kids have a really good balance of outdoor play, social play. And by social play I just mean like when we’re at parks they play with other kids. When we’re at the children’s museum they play with other kids. We’ve done a lot of play dates. I literally at one point would drive the kids to the park, let them out, let them play for two minutes, and then say okay let’s get in the car. Just to get them used to it. Because parks are fun and they want to stay there, but I needed them to get over the, I want to stay here. Why can’t-
PAIGE: This is going to sound terrible, especially to all the moms out there, but you worked on recall with your kids.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: Yeah, that’s what we call it with dogs.
ANGELA: Okay. Yeah.
PAIGE: They’ll come when you call.
ANGELA: Same thing with technology.
PAIGE: Oh, okay.
ANGELA: They don’t freak out when I say no to TV. They don’t freak out when I turn off the TV.
PAIGE: I have noticed that.
ANGELA: Yeah, they know that it will still be there tomorrow or later, or whatever and that I’m redirecting them, or that I’m redirecting them to something that could be equally or more fun. Or feed themselves.
PAIGE: So did you do the same sort of thing where you kind of set small time limits for a while so they got used to that or was it just kind of more natural on that?
ANGELA: It was very organic. There’s never really been a time limit. There was a slight concern when Dylan developed a tick where he was squinting his eyes a lot and I thought, oh gosh, maybe it’s because he’s sitting too close to his iPad.
PAIGE: Yeah.
ANGELA: So I did limit it for two days as a temporary thing, but then he just got over it.
PAIGE: Okay.
ANGELA: I have never really done hard fast, but if in a pinch and I need to get work done and they can be–the older kids can be playing Minecraft and Bella can be on the iPad, yeah, we’ll do it.
PAIGE: And do you guys use the parental features on the iPad-
ANGELA: Yes.
PAIGE: Where you can lock down certain apps?
ANGELA: Absolutely. I also use it on Abby’s computer, though I recently had to take it off, because Minecraft runs a lot of websites in the background.
PAIGE: Huh.
ANGELA: Yeah, I don’t know what that is about, but every five seconds it was popping up with a parental control. You can’t access this website. Allow once or always. And then I’d have to type in my password. Then it would happen again next time. So it was really–in fact, I guess OS 10 switched away from using, well I don’t know if it was OS 10 of Mojang, but the Minecraft launcher no longer uses Java and so when I got the new launcher it couldn’t fully download the executable, because the websites websites were blocked.
PAIGE: Interesting.
ANGELA: I couldn’t figure out why the launcher wasn’t working and so I signed out and then, or signed in as an administrator.
PAIGE: I have to say, for as big a market as kids are, I used to work professionally as an in-home technician and I would go places. And one of the most requested things was parental setups, because it’s so confusing. It’s so not supported by so many things.
ANGELA: Have you looked in OS 10 parental controls? It’s fantastic.
PAIGE: No, they’re really good, but they’re complicated for non-technical people.
ANGELA: Well, maybe.
PAIGE: Maybe.
ANGELA: Because the default is, you can strap down, no websites for these educational ones, and they’re actually meant for kids. It’s perfect.
PAIGE: Right.
ANGELA: Then you can add websites that are okay. Which, obviously, there are a lot of websites so you would run into the constantly being limited.
PAIGE: Yeah.
ANGELA: But it has only allow the computer to be signed in during these times and after an hour, that was all very user friendly.
PAIGE: Oh, okay.
ANGELA: I haven’t used it yet, because Abby doesn’t really need it. They play Minecraft every once in awhile, but I was so impressed with that when I saw it. It would be, you could set it by day.
PAIGE: I actually used a parental control account when I first started working remotely to limit myself to only my work sites.
ANGELA: Ah, good for you.
PAIGE: Because I was having focus problems.
ANGELA: An you locked your phone, right?
PAIGE: I would log in-
ANGELA: You locked your phone away.
PAIGE: Well, at the time the phone was not great for that sort of thing. It was tiny. It was like iPhone 3 or whatever so it was a tiny, tiny screen. Not cool like they are now, but it’s really cool. So, you’ve kind of had this journey. You’re a mom, you’re working in a small business, it’s all in tech. Have you found that it just kind of flow together with your life? Do you feel like having a career that is technology based and kind of some of the, the freedom that we get because of that has worked well with being a mom? Has it been bad, because you can kind of–because you can work anywhere, do you work more? Like-
ANGELA: Right. Well, that is a very loaded question, because it’s not like working for a company remote, right? Like a different company.
PAIGE: Right.
ANGELA: When you work for yourself there, it’s really hard to limit yourself to 8:00 to 5:00 or whatever. I think it’s definitely been a struggle, because I had to adjust my perspective and expectations of working while having three kids. You know, getting mad at them because I can’t get a task done is just–it’s just not okay.
PAIGE: That’s just bad for everybody.
ANGELA: Yeah, and so, and because of that I decided that I needed solid blocks of time where I could focus and so about two years ago I hired a nanny that would come into the house a couple days a week, give me that ability to focus, and then the kids–I mean, I wasn’t neglecting the kids, but obviously, I can’t focus on them and the company at the same time.
PAIGE: Yeah, I mean, it’s not neglect. You’re setting up quality time for both, because it means that when your’e with the kids-
ANGELA: Exactly.
PAIGE: You’re with the kids. And when you’re with the company you’re with the company.
ANGELA: Right. Yes. Yeah. So it’s definitely a struggle and adjustment and I think it just varies, really from person to person and situation to situation, but you just have to–I’m of the mind–and this happened really early on when Dylan was an infant, or almost almost a year old, that really they are my life. They are the priority. They are the focus. And they will pretty much always come first.
PAIGE: Yeah.
ANGELA: And that’s pretty well, I think, relayed in, in my photography.
PAIGE: Yeah, i think in the way that you share.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: Also in the way that you kind of–the way you move through life it’s very obvious that your kids are that level of importance to you. But it seems so healthy. I’ve very impressed by that.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: I’m not going to lie. You really impress me as a mom and as a not mom. That’s kind of hard to do, because I don’t know a lot about momming.
ANGELA: Sure.
PAIGE: Is that a word? Momming.
ANGELA: Yeah, coined right here, Women’s Tech Radio.
PAIGE: There you go. I think mothering is the appropriate term.
ANGELA: Mothering, yep.
PAIGE: Yes. Which sounds like, I don’t know.
ANGELA: Don’t add an S, it’s not smothering.
PAIGE: Oh, that’s terrible. I love it. You’re so funny.
ANGELA: I know. No.
PAIGE: So what has been the hardest part about tech for you? Because I know we’ve talked some and you’ve been–like some of interviews that we’ve done-
ANGELA: Yes. Right.
PAIGE: You kind of get this glassy look where you’re like, I wish I understood. And it’s not just a glassy look. It’s like a look of, I wish I understood more of what you guys were talking about.
ANGELA: Yeah, well, you know, the inferior complex or whatever.
PAIGE: Imposter Syndrome?
ANGELA: That is exactly what I meant, yes. That definitely happens, but not like–I feel like if I just, if I just learned a little bit it would give me enough in to have a better perspective, but because I haven’t been able to take a class or a course or learn one language or any kind of programing or whatever. I know a little bit of HTML, but I just, yeah. I feel like if I learned one language it would help me kind of better understand other languages.
PAIGE: Yeah.
ANGELA: And other things.
PAIGE: Honestly, it’s the fundamentals help you, it’s vocabulary.
ANGELA: Exactly.
PAIGE: Most of learning programming is vocabulary.
ANGELA: Yes. Yes.
PAIGE: At the beginning at least. I mean later on there’s all sorts of other things.
ANGELA: Right. Right. And I haven’t exactly had the time to focus or–I’d really like to do Linux Academy.
PAIGE: Yeah.
ANGELA: Or some other kind of-
PAIGE: Codecademy or whatever.
ANGELA: Yeah. To get to learn stuff. But I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know, because I don’t know it. I don’t know if that’s a direction. I know that I like database. But I don’t know if I could do that on a daily basis. You know? Or if that would my passion or career. Right now, I’m pretty satisfied with the business operational side of things.
PAIGE: ANd you are very good at it.
ANGELA: And social networking. But I’m not opposed to learning more.
PAIGE: You know, I don’t even think necessarily I’m going to look at you and say, well you should be a programer, it’s an excellent career. Well, of course it’s an excellent career. I like it. I love it. But I think that, you know, I’m not quite on the everybody should learn to code train. I think anybody who has interest should try it. You know, like anything else. How do you know if you like ice cream if you don’t try it.
ANGELA: Right.
PAIGE: Trust me, you’ll probably like ice cream.
ANGELA: Right. Unless you’re my kids and you ask if it can be warm. Yeah.
PAIGE: Wow.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: That’s a thing. So do they like bread pudding?
ANGELA: I’ve never fed them bread pudding.
PAIGE: It’s like warm ice cream. You should try.
ANGELA: Gross.
PAIGE: It’s an English thing.
ANGELA: Okay.
PAIGE: I’m super English. It happens. Well, I think that I would totally be happy to commit to, we should do a lesson on air.
ANGELA: I think so too.
PAIGE: Okay. We’ll look up some stuff. We’ll talk about some options. We could either do a stack talk where we talk about what actually makes all the stuff function or we could talk about a specific language or maybe both.
ANGELA: Now, keep in mind that I’m very, very direct. So, and I’m going to ask stupid questions.
PAIGE: There is no stupid questions.
ANGELA: Well, okay. I’m going to ask questions that will probably make you giggle.
PAIGE: You’d be surprised. I’ve taught hundreds of beginners at this point.
ANGELA: Okay. Okay.
PAIGE: So, I’m not worried about it.
ANGELA: Okay.
PAIGE: Yeah, I think that, as long as people are asking questions it means they’re engaging.
ANGELA: Right.
PAIGE: If you sit there and don’t ask question, that’s when I’m like, are you stupid or something son?
ANGELA: Wow.
PAIGE: Yeah, no, not quite.
ANGELA: Judgement.
PAIGE: Yeah, super judge. No, you know, I’m going to call you out. You should engage. Ask questions. Anybody who is out there trying to learn to code, don’t feel like it’s a stupid question. At some point somebody had to figure it out. And, you know, maybe you’re working with one of the savants who started coding when they were six, but the likelihood of that is rare.
ANGELA: Right.
PAIGE: I remember, I spent almost six months trying to just understand the very, very basic concept of object oriented programing. Just understanding what it was. I just couldn’t even get my head around like waht is this? Not even just how to do it. That was a whole separate journey. It was like, I don’t get it. I don’t get it. And it look going to four or five different meetups, asking a whole bunch of questions, finally finding a book that kind of filled in those gaps. If I hadn’t asked those questions, I’d still be stuck. And they felt like, of course they felt like dumb questions. I was years into my programming journey and I don’t get this really fundamental concept, like what the heck.
ANGELA: Yeah. I took an environmental class in college where I was the only person to ever ask questions.
PAIGE: Oh my goodness, that’s terrible.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: I hope the rest of the class failed.
ANGELA: Well, I don’t know, but nobody really had very high grades. But I was complemented by other students about how I was able to ask questions regardless, you know, just because I wanted to know.
PAIGE: If you’ve got a question, especially if you’re sitting in a room full of people, likelihood is someone else has that same question.
ANGELA: I know.
PAIGE: And they’re just not willing to ask it.
ANGELA: Yep.
PAIGE: Yep. And it sucks. I’m totally that person. I step up and I ask questions, because I know that I can. I know that people need it, but I hope other people will do it too. The pivotal question, what are you the most excited about about technology?
ANGELA: I knew. I knew you were going to say that.
PAIGE: Well, then I’m going to ask you the stack question too, so.
ANGELA: Uh, I don’t know what that is.
PAIGE: That’s okay.
ANGELA: Okay. So, um, I don’t know anybody at st-, no that’s slack. Okay. Technology. I am really excited about user experience. Essentially one of the interviews that we did today. The Cornbread app has my mind blow. I really hope that we see more companies that provide something that creates an almost all inclusive personal touch experience built on a community. I’m really like the community oriented everything. That is just so cool to me.
PAIGE: What I said, technology for connection, not consumption.
ANGELA: Yes. Yes. Exactly. We can all be on the internet for hours consuming, but, well, I was going to say what is the value, but there is value in that. But I really like the connection.
PAIGE: Yeah. I do think that we’ve–you know, and I rail against this and a lot of my friends know I’m fairly anti-Facebook and even Twitter, I’m much more picky about things. Because I think that there’s a lot of this mindlessness that goes on now.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: You know, it’s the same with where TV is or was. You know, at the same time, you can just kind of sit there and you aren’t getting anything out of it except distraction.
ANGELA: Right.
PAIGE: And distraction and escape can be really valuable. Like I don’t deny that. I definitely have my moments where I’m like, I’m just going to go look at Facebook for half an hour, because I just need to zone out. But that’s what I’m doing, I’m zoning out. I’m not adding to myself. I’m not adding to my community. And I think that being able to separate that and find the ways where we are providing value to ourselves and to each other is really important. I think that tech is, we’re on the verge of some of those breakthroughs again.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: Like with Cornbread.
ANGELA: Also, i did a recent–well, I guess it’s probably been over a year now, but I did a Fauxshow on the Buy Nothing pay groups. The Buy Nothing groups on Facebook. It’s so amazing. In our city it was split into five different groups, because we’re big enough. And I am getting to know all of my neighbors. And so I posted on the Buy Nothing, where you can either give stuff away or accept things. You know, ask, hey I need this. I had put, you know, I am looking for anything owl related for my daughter’s birthday. She’s going to be two soon. You know, this was like in July. And one gal, she had an owl shirt that I could wear. And it was perfect. IT was one size too big, but, which is actually flattering, because, you know, so it was good. and it was black, which is perfect, with silver, and I love silver. It was just so perfect. And then as I was picking it up and meeting her she said, oh, do you have a cake being made yet? And I was like, well no. And she said, let me do her cake. And, you know, honestly the skeptic in me was like, I don’t know. I mean, I could see her living condition. It wasn’t horrible, but I’m like, I don’t know if I really want her, like can she ever make a cake. Is this one of those people that thinks they can do something.
PAIGE: You just never know.
ANGELA: But I’m not going to burst the bubble. I was like, yeah, sure.
PAIGE: Good. Yeah, step out in faith.
ANGELA: I’ll pick up and maybe, maybe it will go in the garbage and maybe it will be amazing. It was amazing. I was amazing.
PAIGE: I think it’s really, it’s sad awesome to me that we have to go out-
ANGELA: Yeah, I know.
PAIGE: We essentially have to send things into space and let them come back to connect us to the people right next to us. So, it’s sad and awesome. It’s like, oh man, I wish I could just go knock on my neighbor’s door, but at the same time-
ANGELA: Yeah, but we used to have to use horses.
PAIGE: Yeah. Yeah.
ANGELA: It’s not much different.
PAIGE: No, it’s not. And we’re definitely-
ANGELA: Like, there’s even more connectivity than back then.
PAIGE: Yeah. I agree with you. I love, as excited as I am about like wearables and internet of things and all these other interesting parts and smart homes, and some day I will build Jarvis. This is on my to-do list. The fact that I can start to use technology to connect with the people who are physically around me is so valuable to me. And especially someone who, I work remotely. I work by myself. Without things like meetup, I would be a really miserable person.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: Meetup.com has changed my life.
ANGELA: Yeah, and really, the IRC changed my life. I’m like, wow there’s a whole community out there. There’s a lot of people. I don’t know. It really opens up possibilities. And then, since she made that cake–and she didn’t make it. She actually didn’t make it. She has a friend that works at a local grocery store that made it. She has since, she bought Bella and owl sweatshirt.
PAIGE: Aww.
ANGELA: Yeah, and it was so crazy. Yeah, I mean, it was just so cool that people can be so selfless. And that’s what I like to do. I like to give away things to the community. But I also buy, I also sell. I also use the buy/sell pages, which are also awesome.
PAIGE: No, there’s still value there. Like, I’m getting something cheaper than it would be in the store, for sure.
ANGELA: Right. Or getting rid of something.
PAIGE: Yeah, both sides of it are important. Yeah. I had this kind of pivotal experience, which I say a lot, but I traveled for two years in an RV all across the US and I loved it. It was really fascinating. But the thing that really impressed me, because I kind of always believed this, but didn’t really have proof, but people are good people. I think by in large anywhere you go, people want to do good things. We all, I think we’re wired for it. We get a lot of value out of providing for others. Out of helping out. It’s biogeochemical at this point.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: You know, we get dopamine when we do good things for people.
ANGELA: Right. Yeah.
PAIGE: It’s legit. I don’t know if I believed it until I did this journey and it was, like I really do. Like random things, like you know coming up to Chris at OSCON for the first time and being like, hey. And then meeting you guys. And you’re like, yeah, let’s do this thing. There’s no–we’re not getting anything.
ANGELA: This thing being Women’s Tech Radio.
PAIGE: Women’s Tech Radio, yeah. We’re not–I don’t sound like Women’s Tech Radio is paying my bills or making me a fortune or anything-
ANGELA: Right.
PAIGE: I want to give back to the community and you wanted to too. And getting together and doing that is even more valuable.
ANGELA: Yep.
PAIGE: So, very cool. And I love that technology gives us space to do that.
ANGELA: Uh-huh. What’s your stack?
PAIGE: Okay. Stack question. So what are the tools that you use on a daily basis?
ANGELA: Oh, right. Yes.
PAIGE: What’s your stack is what we developers call it.
ANGELA: Whew, okay.
PAIGE: You got all like, flustered, possibly.
ANGELA: Yes. Here I go. Here I go. Um, wow. Okay. There’s a lot. So, Telegram for internal communication. We use Freshbooks for invoicing. Quickbooks for accounting. I use Google Docs. I use Excel. I use Pixelmator to do promotional artwork.
PAIGE: I love Pixelmator.
ANGELA: I use 99Designs, which I know isn’t an app you can go get.
PAIGE: No, it’s still something in your stack.
ANGELA: Yeah. I use 99Designs, in fact, one person in particular has designed all of our logo refresh that I started back in 2013, I think, ‘14. Yeah, the end of 2013. Let’s see, what else?
PAIGE: Instagram.
ANGELA: Yeah. Patreon, Instagram, Twitter, G+, Facebook, all of those. I’m trying to think. Reddit.
PAIGE: You really are like a social maven.
ANGELA: Yeah. I do a lot of social things here. Let me pull up my thing.
PAIGE: You mom frequent tabs?
ANGELA: Or just my Jupiter Broadcasting dropdown. So, I guess more Jupiter Broadcasting related, we have a lot of different subscriptions. A lot of people think I just start up a podcast. No, there’s a lot of backend subscriptions. We use Scale Engine. I’m not sure if BlipTV is still running. I don’t think it is. But we use Archive.org, Libsyn. There’s, we used to use Roku TV.
PAIGE: You guys use Dropbox too, right?
ANGELA: We definitely use Dropbox at the, where you have to pay a buttload now.
PAIGE: Yeah.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: I pay for Dropbox, even personally.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: It’s so good.
ANGELA: And we also rebranded email. And, of course, Colloquy for IRC.
PAIGE: Oh yeah.
ANGELA: I use Colloquy.. And sometimes LimeChat, but eh.
PAIGE: Yeah. I think the really impressive part about this stack is, like, barring a couple standouts, most of that is web apps.
ANGELA: Yes.
PAIGE: You can run almost your entire business from the browser.
ANGELA: Yes.
PAIGE: That’s very cool.
ANGELA: It is cool. It is.
PAIGE: That is a huge change in the world. If you think about business in the past couple years. It’s really been even in the past five years that can be true.
ANGELA: Yeah. I do very much dislike Google Docs.
PAIGE: Yeah.
ANGELA: A lot.
PAIGE: It’s getting better.
ANGELA: Specifically spreadsheets.
PAIGE: Google Sheets is weird, because they went with their formula setup instead of using Excel so a lot of people have trouble translating.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: And then some of the major features that you’re used to in Excel-
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: Aren’t there or are really hidden.
ANGELA: Yes.
PAIGE: And I think Google Docs is going to have the same experience that Microsoft had going from Office 2003 to Office 2007, which the thing was that they did this interview where they were like, okay people want in the next version of office. And they did hundreds and hundreds of interviews and 99 percent of the request were features that were already in Office.
ANGELA: Yes. Right.
PAIGE: And they were just, people didn’t know how to get to them.
ANGELA: Sure.
PAIGE: So that’s why we had the huge facelift between 2003 and 2007.
ANGELA: Yeah. Well, the thing is, the reason why I use Google Sheets is because you just can’t beat accessing it anywhere online.
PAIGE: Yeah. And the share.
ANGELA: Yeah. And sharing is very easy. Yes. Right. Yeah, I do not like–I had a bad experience using Dropbox and people editing, multiple people editing the same doc. It just does not work. The collaboration was not there. I’m sure there’s collaboration tools out there that would be better, but I haven’t used them.
PAIGE: Yeah, well, I don’t know. i really think that, honestly, as picky as I am, Google kind of has the market on the collaboration. Although, EverNote is picking up.
ANGELA: I haven’t used it yet.
PAIGE: I love it. It’s my second brain.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: Maybe it’s my first brain at this point.
ANGELA: And, and of course we use Bitly.
PAIGE: Bitly, yep.
ANGELA: Yeah, to shorten links.
PAIGE: Very cool.
ANGELA: Oh, and some Markdown. Markdown browser add-ons.
PAIGE: Yeah. I’m still trying to get my head around the Markdown thing.
ANGELA: Yeah?
PAIGE: Yeah.
ANGELA: I did a Fauxshow on it.
PAIGE: Really? Oh, I should check that one out.
ANGELA: I did.
PAIGE: I will admit, I don’t watch all of them.
ANGELA: But, honestly, I’ve pretty much forgotten everything. I just use the add-ons now. It’s so easy. I’ll show you after the show.
PAIGE: Cool.
ANGELA: It’s really cool.
PAIGE: Yeah, at this point I just write things and then edit it later. I just write in plain text and then make it fancy later.
ANGELA: Uh-huh. Okay.
PAIGE: We’ll figure it out. Well, this has been super fun. We’ll have to do some more later.
ANGELA: Uh-huh.
PAIGE: If you guys have questions for either of us, feel free to send them in. We are always listening to you on Twitter and we’re always interested in new guests that you’re like to hear about. Cool.
ANGELA: Yeah. Thanks for listening to this episode of Women’s Tech Radio.

Transcribed by Carrie Cotter | Transcription@cotterville.net

The post Sharing with Intent | WTR 45 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Jen is an engineer at Esri portland R&D office. She lived out of a youth hostel when she came across a startup that got her on her path!

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Show Notes:

• Jen Oslislo (@poeks) | Twitter
• Lesbians Who Tech – The Community of Queer Women In & Around Tech
• Find your people – Meetup
• Esri PDX R+D – Esri PDX
• Esri Portland (@EsriPDX) | Twitter
• Learn Perl – learn.perl.org
• Perl Golf

Transcription:

ANGELA: This is Women’s Tech Radio.
PAIGE: A show on the Jupiter Broadcasting Network, interviewing interesting women in technology. Exploring their roles and how they’re successful in technology careers. I’m Paige.
ANGELA: And I’m Angela.
PAIGE: So Angela, today we speak with my friend Jen who is a developer at Esri. She works on a wide variety of awesome technology. So we get into talking a little about that and about her career and how she kind of took a leap and headed out to San Francisco and lived out of a youth hostel and all the crazy other things that she got into, and now how she’s influencing the community of Women in Portland.
ANGELA: And before we get into the interview, you can go to Patron.com/today to support Women’s Tech Radio. It is a monthly donation that automatically comes out. It could be $3, it could be $5, whatever you can afford. Whatever you think that this content is worth, really. It’s up to you. We are community funded, this show is, and if you find value in the show you can go over there to Patreon.com/today to support Women’s Tech Radio.
PAIGE: And our first question today was to ask Jen what she’s up to at Esri.
JEN: Hey guys. I am an engineer at Portland R&D office and what I’ve been doing lately is working on an iOS SDK for our location enabled software. And occasionally I do things like Ruby and everyone once in a while in go, but right now I”m doing a lot of iOS stuff.
PAIGE: So, do you enjoy it? Are you in Swift? Are you still in Objective C?
JEN: Yeah, we’re still in Objective C because we’re doing the next iteration of an existing SDA, but hopefully eventually we will move to Swift. I haven’t actually gotten the chance to work in Swift yet, so that will be cool.
PAIGE: I definitely recommend playing around with the playground that they published. It’s very fun.
JEN: Yeah.
PAIGE: It definitely, I think they did a good job of answering a lot of those got yous that we have from Objective C, which was neat. So you work in kind of a wide range of technology there. You’ve got some mobile, some web, some really close to the middle stuff with Go. What’s your favorite?
JEN: I guess, I would say probably Rube, because, I don’t know, it’s just so, I think it’s so expressive compared to language, well I guess Objective C, you know, is going to kind of be around forever, but it is a bit clunky to write in and that is occasionally kind of frustrating. But, I don’t know, I guess I would say that in my career I’ve used Ruby the longest so that’s probably my favorite.
PAIGE: If you, when you say expressive for people who aren’t super familiar, either with Ruby or with programing, what do you mean by that?
JEN: Um, I guess I mean that you can kind of massage the language to sort of — they’re say like what you want to say in a variety of different fashions. Like how in a sentence you can say the boy jumped over a log, or over the log jumped a boy. Or, you know, in a bunch of different varieties. And you have some flexibility. And also, I think that Ruby is just, I enjoy it’s thorsness and its-
PAIGE: Readability?
JEN: Yeah. It’s readability. And you don’t have to write a ton of code to say something that you’re going to have to say all the time.
PAIGE: Can I just ask why other modern languages don’t have the each function? Like that just boggles my mind.
JEN: Yeah. It’s so nice, isn’t it?
PAIGE: It is very nice. Yes. And so that was a super inside developer joke.
ANGELA: I know.
PAIGE: That Angela is totally not clued on.
ANGELA: Shoulder shrug.
PAIGE: That’s okay. Very cool. So you do a lot of development in our day-to-day. What does your tool stack look like? What kind of tools are you using on a daily basis? Obviously, probably Xcode.
JEN: Yes, definitely Xcode. I use TeamX a lot in terminal.
PAIGE: I love it.
JEN: Yeah. I would say those are my two main things.
PAIGE: So I meat a lot of young ladies, or women, who are getting into technology because I teach an intro to Javascript course. And one of the things that people are the most scared about is the terminal.
JEN: Hmm.
PAIGE: What do you think I could say to people to get them through that? Because I am a TeamX vimmer. Like I spend the entire day in the terminal.
JEN: Yeah. I don’t know. It’s a — that’s an interesting question. It’s hard for me to wrap my brain around that because it’s just like where I live all the time, you know?
PAIGE: Yeah.
JEN: LIke what would it be like to breath underwater?
PAIGE: Well, as a fish, I would like to tell you, it’s like breathing.
JEN: Yeah, just tell them that. It’s like breathing. And don’t elaborate at all. Just be like, it’s like breathing.
PAIGE: So, is terminal, or really any of this, is this something you taught yourself? Do you have a degree? I actually don’t know any of your story on this.
JEN: Actually, I don’t have a degree. When I was growing up in New Jersey I went to Rutgers University in New Jersey and I studied there, more or less I guess you could call it studying, for a year. And then it was the height, well not the height, the beginningish of the first dot com boom in 1998. And I was like, I want to go out and be a part of that. So I moved to San Francisco and I lived in a youth hostel for six months. But then I eventually got a job at a startup and I just kind of was in the right place at the right time and they’re like hey you’re smart and plucky. Why don’t you be a developer? And I was like, all right.
PAIGE: Plucky is an amazingly good way to describe you, actually.
ANGELA: It is. I love that word.
PAIGE: Yeah, that’s great. So you just kind of dove in at the startup level, what was that like? Like, especially, you know, as we’ve talked about on the show before, like we’re kind of in a minority in tech. And I know definitely at that point in history-
ANGELA: Yes.
PAIGE: How did that all go for you?
JEN: Yeah. Oh, it was amazing. It was like — it was such a heady time and people are just crazy about technology. I worked like 80 hour weeks and slept under my desk. And I just wanted to learn everything that there was to learn about software development. And it was just so fun. I was definitely in a huge minority as a woman, but I don’t know. I guess I was very naive about that, being 19 years old. But it was a lot of fun.
PAIGE: What were you doing at first? In ‘98, I don’t even know what language that would have been.
JEN: Yeah. I first started out being a front-end developer and I was doing like — I worked at this emarketing company and so we got these HTML templates from these corporations that we were doing newsletters for. And so we had to convert the HTML into XML and use our proprietary tags in there for the different offers and links that people click on to track them. And so I found that very boring. So I decided to learn how to program so I could automate my job away.
ANGELA: Nice.
PAIGE: That is exactly how I got into real programing. I was like this is boring. A computer should do this.
JEN: Exactly. Yeah. And so the first language that I learned was Perl, because it was good at text manipulation. I think somebody just said you should use Perl and I was like all right I’ll learn that. And that was kind of how it all started.
PAIGE: Perl is exactly the reason that I took a 10 year hiatus from learning programing.
JEN: Oh really?
PAIGE: Yeah. I was in high school and I had gotten super into HTML and CSS and and building web pages. And this was before Javascript was really a thing. And I was like I kind of want to learn some stuff. ANd my friend was like, you should learn CGI Perl. And I was like, okay that sounds cool. He’s like yeah, get the llama book, which is the O’Reilly book which made the O’Reilly books famous, actually. And I kind of got through the first chapter and was ready to throw it out the window, because they dove right into what people call-
JEN: Yeah.
PAIGE: Perl Golf, which is the fact that with with Perl you can write very, very complex functions in 20 characters or less.
ANGELA: Hmm.
PAIGE: And it was just super intimidating and I didn’t understand any of it. And I was like, well I will do kind of designy things, maybe, for a little while. And so I did HTML and CSS just for funsies for years, because Perl had blow me out of the water.
JEN: Yeah. Yeah, that’s interesting.
ANGELA: How did you learn Perl? Did you take a course? Did you find somebody that knew it that could teach you? Did you just Google it?
JEN: I actually, well, Google was kind of — probably wouldn’t have bene very helpful at that time.
ANGELA: Yeah. Yeah, I realized that as soon as I said it.
JEN: But I did-
PAIGE: You could Yahoo it.
ANGELA: Yeah. Yeah.
JEN: Yeah, I Yahoo’d it.
PAIGE: Or dog pile. Do you remember Dog Pile?
ANGELA: Ask Jeeves.
PAIGE: Oh, even better.
ANGELA: Anyway, go ahead.
JEN: And so I just read, I read Learning Perl. And I was just like — It was a huge flog to get through it. And that kind of, what Paige just said, reminded me of how hard it was to learn programming when I didn’t know how to do it. You know, now I read a book and it’s like oh how is this different from everything else I know.
ANGELA: Right.
JEN: You know, how is this new language different. But when I was first learning it, it was just, it was really hard. But I was just really motivated to not do this boring work anymore, I guess. And I thought it was really fun. Even though it was challenging to wrap my brain around. But it was — just reading a book and trying stuff yeah.
PAIGE: Yeah, it was definitely a different ear. So since then you’ve learned several other languages. LIke what does your career look like from there to there. Because I know you’re not even in the same city anymore.
JEN: I do some of the same stuff. Like, I mean, it takes a lot less time to do stuff and I work on a larger team and on products rather than, yeah, service work. But I live in Portland now and I guess I’ve moved around a bunch since then. I lived in New York for a while and back to San Francisco and then now been in Portland about five years.
PAIGE: Crazy. Um, okay, so ‘98. You’ve been doing tech for 17 years?
JEN: Oh my god. Don’t say that out loud.
PAIGE: Well, but this brings up a really pertinent important question. That’s a long time, especially as a woman, to be in this field. You know, we know we’re kind of suffering this mass exodus of women from the tech field and have been for several years. How have you stayed fresh? How have you stayed in it, because almost every time I see you you’re super excited about things in tech or at least about women in tech
JEN: Uh-uh.
PAIGE: Like what is, what has kept you from burning out? From, from just saying screw it and walking out the door?
JEN: That is a good question. I, uh, I have nearly said screw it and walked out the door many times, definitely. ANd it has been a challenge to stay in the field. And I think that the longer that I stuck around the more that problems, which at the beginning i thought were because I was young and inexperienced, continued to linger and now I can’t really attribute them to like reasonable reasons, you know what I mean?
ANGELA: Uh-huh.
JEN: So it is, it is definitely a challenge to stick around. But I really get a lot out of doing volunteer work and working with women in tech stuff and getting other women on board and trying to change the environment, I guess.
ANGELA: Do you work with many other women?
JEN: I work with one other female developer, actually. And there are not many in this — well, not in — I don’t know about Esir at large, which is about 3,000 people, but in the Portland office there are not many developers and two of us are women.
PAIGE: So it’s not terrible, I guess. So you said you do volunteering. I happen to know that you — my understanding is that you are the lead or the director for Lesbians Who Tech in Portland?
JEN: Yeah. I am.
PAIGE: What is that organization about?
JEN: Well, we are mostly about creating a community for queer women and our allies in technology. And just sort of like getting people together and seeing what comes of it. Primarily like a social organization compared to some of the other ones in town that are more workshop based. I really enjoy seeing people become friends and just get together and they’re chatting about their jobs or their lives or what have you. It’s pretty rad.
PAIGE: I think that connecting in your professional space is super valuable on any level. Be it with people who identify the same way as you do or be it just with peers in your group. Super important. I actually get a lot of value. I have attended one or two of your events. I don’t know, yeah, I’m fairly busy. But I found them very edifying, i think is the right word for it.
ANGELA: You wanted to eat them?
PAIGE: No, uh-
ANGELA: I’m just kidding.
JEN: We’re very edible.
PAIGE: Not edible. Although I did eat at the meetup, does that count? I also had some excellent cyder. I’ve kind of been struggling personally lately with the burnout on that side too, where I’m so passionate about women’s issues in the tech sphere that I’m over extending. How do you reign that in carefully. Because I know that you’re involved in many of the same things that I’m involved in, and in fact, you even do more than I do frequently.
JEN: I don’t know about that, but that is definitely a balance challenge. I guess a lucky thing for me is that I often get to work on a little bit of volunteer stuff at Esri as part of our outreach. So that kind of cuts a few hours out the total numbers of hours that it takes to do stuff. But it definitely — I don’t know, it’s a labor of love. And can be a bit exhausting, but I find that people are — once you reach out to them for help everyone — not everyone but many people are more than willing to carry some of the burden and to give you ideas and to help out. So I find that relying on others is definitely a help.
PAIGE: Yeah, I can definitely agree with that lately. I’ve had a couple times where I’ve just had to say hey can somebody cover this meetup for me or can somebody help me with this task. And I was kind of surprised, pleasantly so, that so many people were willing to step up and help shoulder the load.
ANGELA: How many people typically come to the Lesbians Who Tech meetup?
JEN: We usually get around 20 people for kind of like the more happy hour type of stuff. For our next event, hopefully we’ll get a bunch more, because our head honcho Leanne Pittsford will be in town. Our numbers have been growing a lot since we got started in January.
ANGELA: Is there a website? Any easy website for that?
JEN: Oh, yeah. There is. Well, there is lesbianswhotech.org which is the main website. And also, we have a Facebook group, Lesbians Who Tech, Portland. And we also have a meetup group, Lesbians Who Tech PDX.
PAIGE: That’d be great. I mean, I just want to be involved in all the cool community things that are happening, because there’s so much happening. You and I have actually talked about this some at length, but I think there are so many women’s movements and I feel like if we could find the space and the time to kind of come together, we could change everything. Just everything. And I love that in Portland we’re actually kind of doing that. We have an upcoming meetup where all of the women’s groups bi-yearly, thanks to Jennifer, actually who started this, there’s kind of this group. We all get together. It’s just a happy hour, but our last one we had 150 women show up to.
ANGELA: That’s fantastic.
PAIGE: Yeah. It was just great. I did figure out my question though. How do you feel, especially as a senior developer at this point. You’ve definitely been in the industry a good long while, about mentorship? It’s a question that gets asked of me a lot. Both about finding a mentor, being a mentor. Do you feel like there’s a clear path for that? I feel like it’s kind of a valuable role in bringing junior developers up to speed, but it seems to be very hard to connect somehow.
JEN: Yeah. I think that is a bit murky as it currently stands. Kind of like, I know that at the meetups that I have and stuff like that, I definitely do, I think a lot of sort of informal mentorship. Because people will ask me questions about my job or my career and stuff and, you know, tell me their woes. And so in that way we kind of connect. But I haven’t had any formal mentorship situations yet. So, yeah. I think there’s definitely a space for that because it’s something that everyone seems to want, but no one really seems to know how to go about doing that.
PAIGE: It seems like, and I wonder if this is kind of reflective of some of the other issues that we have, specifically — and this is not exclusive to the women developer community. I also see this with male developers, but I can speak more personally to the women, obviously. And I find that the imposter syndrome is so strong that people are not willing to step out and say yes I”m someone who could mentor someone under me.
JEN: Interesting. That is a good point.
PAIGE: Yeah. And it’s definitely something that has really pushed me lately and I’m trying to — I’m working out of a boot camp right now and there’s — one of the students there has definitely decided that I’m essentially going to be her mentor. And it’s been wonderful. She comes to me, we talk about where she is in her journey, why she’s having trouble with different things. We got to have the long talk about breadth and depth of why you should learn more of one language before you learn lots of languages. Stuff like that. And then, you know, kind of advising her. Where she’s like, you know, I really, really was struggling with Python and Django, but as soon as I picked up Ruby in Rails, it just was like light bulbs went off. I’m like, you know, if that’s what lights your fire, even though we’ve had this other discussion, go down that path and I can help you with that. And I still feel, you know, many days like a junior developer. But there’s still someone under me who knows less.
ANGELA: Hi. That’s me.
PAIGE: Yeah. Which we are going to have some episodes.
ANGELA: She’s going to be my mentor.
PAIGE: We’re going to have some episodes where we teach-
JEN: Awesome.
PAIGE: -Angela some stuff.
JEN: Oh, nice. NIce.
ANGELA: Yeah.
JEN: It will be fun.
PAIGE: Yeah, so I would encourage you or anyone else to step out and at least — and it doesn’t have to be a formal relationship. I think we’re also scared of that, because everybody in the modern world is so busy and our time-
ANGELA: Right.
PAIGE: Our time is so precious.
ANGELA: We pack our schedules and, yeah. But you can always fit in an email here or a message there.
PAIGE: Yeah. Or just coffee or, you know, chat while you’re driving or whatever.
JEN: Yeah.
ANGELA: Or meetups.
PAIGE: Or meetups.
ANGELA: You’re already dedicated to be there.
PAIGE: Yes. Yeah. When I”m not leading, it’s helpful.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: You know, and do lightning talks. Everybody should do lightning talks.
JEN: Yeah. I need to like get over some public speaking fear.
PAIGE: Well, you should come. There’s a new event happening in Portland. It’s called Navigate IT. If anybody is in Portland and wants to check it out, it’s, we’re specifically trying to help with career skills as opposed to, like, coding skills.
JEN: Oh sweet.
PAIGE: So, like, we did an awesome workshop on imposter syndrome. And I think the next one, it’s up and we’ll get the link in the show notes, but I think one of the next ones is specifically public speaking.
JEN: Cool. That would be awesome. Yeah, we actually did one of those for Lesbians Who Tech for our last meetup. It was really good. I think everyone, I had Kristen Gallagher who is the founder of Edify.edu and she — you know her from the Act W Organizing team, but she gave a talk at the Act W Conference about doing talks and speaking in front of people. So I had her come and give everyone who gave a lightning talk some pointers and advice on what to try and how to improve their talks. And it was really good. It was very well received I think.
PAIGE: Awesome. Also, if you’re scared to even step out and do your first one, if you Google how to give a TED talk there is a great TED talk about how to give TED talks.
JEN: NIce.
ANGELA: Wow.
PAIGE: And I got a lot out of that. It was very informative.
ANGELA: Thank you for listening to this episode of Women’s Tech Radio. Don’t forget that we are on social networks, as it turns out. We are on Twitter, @heywtr. You can email us, WTR@JupiterBroadcasting.com. We are on, well, JupiterBroadcasting.com. You can look at the back catalog of shows. And we’re on YouTube on the Jupiter Broadcasting channel.
PAIGE: You can also find us on iTunes where if you’ve got a minute you can leave a review and let us know how we’re doing with the show. If you want to get in touch, you can use the contact form on JupiterBroadcasting.com, selecting Women’s Tech Radio from the dropdown. Or you can email us at WTR@Jupiterbroadcasting.com. Thanks so much for listening.

Transcribed by Carrie Cotter | Transcription@cotterville.net

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