Service X-Factor
Service X-Factor is the podcast where service operations stops being a cost center and starts being a competitive advantage. Hosted by Microsoft MVPs Scott LeFante and William McLendon, this show reveals the secret ingredients behind service operations success—transforming chaos into clarity and strategy into profits.
Service X-Factor
Women in Tech: Navigating Imposter Syndrome and Finding Your Voice
The tech world isn't always welcoming to newcomers, especially women and people of color. But what happens when someone breaks through those barriers with determination, continuous learning, and a commitment to excellence? Meet April Collier.
In this candid conversation, April shares her 11-year journey as a senior solution consultant at CongruentX, starting from her Management Information Systems degree at USF to becoming an expert in Power Automate, JavaScript, Canvas apps, and most recently, Copilot agent development. With refreshing honesty, she acknowledges the challenges she's faced as one of only two women in her graduating class and the persistent battle with imposter syndrome that many tech professionals experience.
"Make your presence known" – these words, which April wrote on a rock during a team exercise years ago, still guide her approach today. Despite being an introvert by nature, she emphasizes the importance of speaking up, asking questions, and contributing to conversations. The myth that questions reveal ignorance couldn't be further from the truth; they demonstrate engagement and a desire to learn.
April provides valuable insights on several pressing industry challenges, including the need for better documentation of complex Power Automate flows, the importance of governance in environments with citizen developers, and the responsibility of creating safe spaces for learning. Her perspective on bridging the gap between technical implementations and business users highlights a critical need in the industry.
Looking forward, April hopes to create blog content and potentially speak at industry events, focusing particularly on supporting women and women of color in technology. Her journey reminds us that diverse perspectives aren't just nice to have – they're essential for solving complex problems and driving innovation in the tech industry.
Ready to overcome your own tech challenges or imposter syndrome? Listen now, subscribe to the Service X Factor podcast, and join the conversation about creating a more inclusive and supportive technology community.
Welcome to another edition of the Service X Factor podcast. I am your co-host, or one of your co-hosts, Scott LaFonte, and I am here with my other co-host, who is Mr Quad McClendon.
Speaker 2:How's it going, mr McClendon? Hey, what's going on, everybody, what's going on? Happy to be back, man. We took a little break. We did take a little break.
Speaker 1:Well, you know it's the summer months, so it's you know we're on.
Speaker 2:We've got to sit on the on the beach. Have a couple my ties.
Speaker 1:You know it's all good, it's really hard for me to work on my tan this time of year. It is, I know, all right. So so, in in the spirit of, you know, one of our last episodes you know we had on riam darwitch, you know, when talking about women in technology. So today we're going to extend that, that topic, and continue the women in technology series. And we have a very special guest who is also a congruent ex-colleague, april Collier. April, how are you?
Speaker 3:Doing good. How are you Scott?
Speaker 1:Oh, just fantastic. You know it's another rainy day in Florida, so it's all great.
Speaker 3:A beautiful rainy day for me.
Speaker 1:That's right, Beautiful rainy day, All right. So, Quad, I guess what we should probably ask first. You know what do you do. What do you do and how did you get started in this industry?
Speaker 2:Tell us about yourself, april yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:We want to know everything where you were born. No, I'm kidding.
Speaker 3:Well, it all started in Apocca Florida. No, I'm joking.
Speaker 2:A cold night in Apocca Florida.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I am a senior cold night in Apaka, florida. Yeah, so I am a senior solution consultant at Congruenex. So basically that means I do a little bit of everything, but for the most part I am a part of the implementation team. I guess you could say where I'm doing a lot of configurations for various clients, anything from the new contact center to just power automate or sales things like that.
Speaker 3:How I got into this actually kind of funny story I went to USF with a degree in MIS, so more business degree, but it is focused on information systems, so I did quite a few things with databases and JavaScript and things like that. I did quite a few things with databases and JavaScript and things like that and met a couple of people that are familiar in CongruentX, chuck being one of them. He actually rated me on my elevator pitch, which somehow I won that competition, I'm not exactly sure how that happened Ended up interviewing with his company right out of college and I have been working with him and Mike pretty much ever since, and that's been about 11 years now. So that's kind of like my spiel into where I am now.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, that's a great story and it's always important for folks to understand especially right how folks can get started in this particular industry and I know it can be at times daunting, a little bit overwhelming for folks especially you know right out of college. But you know it's just to your point. It's just a matter of you know, having that desire and will and determination.
Speaker 3:Exactly Yep and networking. You know, knowing people is very good as well and that's coming from someone that is a what I would tell everyone is an introvert, but I still try to do some networking. That way I know people in the industry and I have contacts that I can always call on if I need help or anything else.
Speaker 2:So that's awesome. So that's awesome. So what makes me laugh, april, is I've been working here for a little over four months now, and three months, four, it's going to fourth month and I think on our first interaction I realized that I was way outclassed.
Speaker 1:Just every day for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, much right. Well, april, it's special, right. It's like you know you're in the presence of greatness. So you know, if you can give us a little bit more, if you can, if you want to, I know that's something you're not. You don't like doing too much, so I'm. You know you could say shut up, will? Or next subject can you tell us a little more technically, from a development standpoint, your capabilities and the things that you're very well at do, good at doing, which is almost everything, which is everything, but you get from going right?
Speaker 3:well, of course, I feel like everyone suffers from some degree of imposter syndrome.
Speaker 3:So I wouldn't say the following is everything that I excel at, but it is things that I do on my daily basis. The biggest one, I would probably say at this point, is Power Automate. I feel like I can do Power Automates in my sleep at this point. I also write quite a bit of JavaScript, so I need, like client Canvas apps although arguably that's not really really technical, but I do do Canvas apps quite often Integrations with Power Automate or a little bit of Azure Functions and Logic Apps. Very, very little, a little bit of C.
Speaker 3:Sharp.
Speaker 2:Honestly, it's a lot. Stop so, just for everybody who's listening to this. You know a lot for the rest of the world Just throwing that out there. You know a lot for the rest of the world just throwing y'all just throwing that out there.
Speaker 3:That is true, you got to keep it humble. Also, I don't say I'm super, oh yeah, I'm super proficient in writing C-sharp plugins, and then I get asked to do one and you know I'm like, oh man, I need to up my proficiency level in that.
Speaker 2:But that's like, that's the, that's the craziest thing, like, I think, for women in tech and you know, I don't know what that's like being a woman in tech, but you're almost, you, almost. It's that imposter syndrome. It's a real thing, like, how do you, how do you deal with it? Cause the reality is is, you know, I put my money on you any day of the week, but when you come to work every day, you, you yourself, may not necessarily feel that way. How do you guys, how do you deal with the imposter?
Speaker 3:syndrome.
Speaker 3:You know that is something that I struggled with a lot very early in the beginning.
Speaker 3:You know, I think in my graduating class there was one other woman in my degree and this was a pretty big class for my degree. So definitely have struggled with imposter syndrome since day one and to this day obviously I still struggle with it a bit, you know, kind of downplaying what I know and what what I do know or what I do know what I don't know. But honestly I feel like that's a hurdle that I have gotten better with overcoming just by being honest with myself on my capabilities and what I know I can do very well, or what I know I can learn to do very well. So that's definitely one of the things that has helped me overcome that or at least getting closer to overcoming that. I don't think that's something that ever goes away, but being honest with yourself and willing to learn. So if it's something new or something that I haven't gotten a chance to really work with, I get example or PCF controls I've recently gotten into doing those, as you'll know.
Speaker 2:But being able to and you did very well with them. You did really really well. It wasn't an easy concept either. Really good with it, yeah.
Speaker 3:Very, very fun to do. But being open and just saying I may have only done this once or twice, it may take me a little bit longer, but it's something that I'm willing to learn and dedicate the time to get really familiarized with, to learn and getting comfortable with learning is how I kind of push those feelings aside, but they definitely do not go away.
Speaker 2:No, that's a. That's a real thing, like I I the insecurities that come with coming into this field and area this field is, in my humble opinion, is one of the it's. It it is a bit unique and imposter syndrome itself is not a unique problem, but I think in this industry, because you can, you can kind of stay in one spot and be incredibly technical, but when you are in front of customers, it requires you to also have a certain set of going back and forth between technical and functional and then having to understand all the new tools that are coming out at light speed from microsoft and then, yeah, to know all these things from integrations and principles and designs. It's, it's a lot like it's.
Speaker 2:I honestly don't know how some people don't wake up and just honestly don't want to hide in their covers some days because it is a lot. So how did you balance remaining focused and upskilling yourself while dealing with some of these feelings of inadequacy? I know that I struggle with them, but how did you deal with it? Because there's a lot more women that are coming into the technology field and I think they might appreciate that yeah, that's a hard question.
Speaker 3:It's a good question, but it's a hard question and the reason why I say it's a hard question is because I'm not sure if I'm there yet, but I can tell you that I there yet but I can tell you that back to school, I get it, I get that but I can tell you that obviously this landscape landscape is constantly changing.
Speaker 3:As soon as you think you're proficient or you know, um, so the technology reasonably well, it's going to end up changing on you, but I also feel like that benefits you as well. You may have two engagements back to back that are relatively the same, but because everything is changing so quickly, you have a chance to learn kind of as you're doing it right, um, and I feel like that always learning while also simultaneously delivering a product to someone really helps me with, you know, feeling like I am getting there in terms of being one of the people or a person that is knowledgeable in this industry in general. Obviously, everyone kind of has like their nuances that they pick from and they're just really really good with that specific thing, and I feel like in this type of landscape, I feel like that's something that's not super achievable now because it is changing so quickly. Maybe you can pick like an area, but having the chance to actually learn while you're actively delivering a product or actively learning to get better as you're doing something, is the key there. It's constantly changing.
Speaker 3:I constantly am on blogs and kind of reading about new things, especially of implementations that I've done in the past, how that implementation would have changed had this been out today. Kind of going back and doing those. Yeah, kind of going back and doing those. What would I do in this scenario today? Two years ago I, I did this. What would I do with everything that's new today? I do that quite often and you'll be surprised how often those scenarios kind of come come up again with other clients and engagements and you're killing it.
Speaker 1:I know I, you know, I'm impressed because she can run circles around me, you know, technically so, which is great, because I love that she's a SharePoint or not SharePoint, a power automate expert, because now I'm going to have to pick her brain later.
Speaker 2:It gets, it gets better. You got to see this is a shameless shout out, I don't care, but you got to see some of the agents that you know April's built. April took the knowledge that she had from power automate and she went headfirst into into copilot and I think she actually is you're you still got your certificate? You got your certification for copilot, didn't you?
Speaker 2:yes yeah, and then she started building these amazing, amazing agents, like real use cases, probably need just go ahead and just write something in oh, oh, no, maybe she should write something you want to tell us about what your plans are for what you're going to do for the community. See what I did there guys, I love it.
Speaker 1:I love it. It's a great idea.
Speaker 3:I have been. I have been poked at to maybe create a blog of some sort. I'm definitely more write a blog post than showing my face, but, um, I actually think that would be kind of like a good segue into that, you know, because obviously I have built co-pilots for my use, my workday use, but I've also built them for our clients as well, done some really cool stuff with a lot of the prompting.
Speaker 1:So I think that would be something that I could potentially blog about in the future tbd incoming well and helping out the community is is such a vital uh task because I don't think you know, a lot of people will post things on linkedin. There's some like mark christie, shameless, plug it shout out.
Speaker 2:Shout out to mark, shout out to mark.
Speaker 1:We got to get ian on there, but shout out to mark yeah, but you know there's there's several that will go ahead and post some things that are, I think, really meaningful, uh, but there's really not enough from a hey, this is my personal journey, or hey, this is things that I've built and, or how I've built it and why it's so important, or how it's so easy, or maybe it's not easy, um, and I think that's really important because, like I said, there's not enough of it going around, and this is a very small community. It seems big, but it's pretty small, so I think it's super important.
Speaker 2:Right, definitely agree so you're, you're, you're, you kill everything, you're like phenomenal. Everything you touch you and I at work. We go back and forth, you know, and I oftentimes I have to at the end of it say you know what you're right, that's for you and aaron. So you, aaron and jessica, are always right, but nice, I'm always which one, yeah, yeah, and emily.
Speaker 2:Emily's always right too. You gotta throw emily there. She's always right, um, always right. But got to throw Emily there, she's always right, always right. But which offering be nosy? Which offering do you honestly like? If you had your choice, working with all day, every day, which one of them would you work with?
Speaker 3:So I'm definitely going to be biased here, because I've had a couple of engagement. I feel like Scott probably knows the answer to this, but I feel like, because it's on the cutting edge, it's something that they update at this point and I just think it is so cool when you have your hands in literally everything from co-pilot agents to Power Automate, you can do integrations, a couple of prompting and engineering and AI just built into it, and that would be co-pilot service service, aka contact center, also known as omni-channel that is yeah, I think doing those implementations are just so neat.
Speaker 3:I think they're just really really fun. I love the um ability to like build out rules of you know what specific things go where and the effort estimate estimation tools that are. I believe those are still in preview um. I think that's just an offering that is really really, really cool and I think that's something that can benefit pretty much any type of industry or business. Even if it's something as simple as distributing emails, I just think it's a really cool module that they have out there. That's very interesting. I didn't expect that.
Speaker 2:I thought I had the answer down, I guess I didn't.
Speaker 3:What did you think?
Speaker 2:I was going to say you know what I thought straight up, you were just going to say something about the effect of developing custom connectors and Power automate or, like you would just just writing code in general, like you.
Speaker 3:But you're so yeah, yeah, just I think I think the reason why I chose that one in particular is because that one involves everything that you just said, got it, yeah, got it, got it, got it.
Speaker 2:No, I was just just.
Speaker 1:I was so shocked, man I'm good, it's good to know, good to know so yeah, and I'm just so technically inept so I'm just listening in and saying, man, I'm like I need to learn. You know, I mean I'm pretty dangerous with power automate, but ai also helps with some of the more technical details, because I I just would spend hours upon hours, if not, trying to figure out some things out. So, april, like I said, I'm going to have to pick your brain and just you know, I'm going to have to just put you on some projects.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I always like things that challenge me.
Speaker 2:I got to be nosy. So this is about, like you know, this is about we get a chance to sit down with you and pick your brain. So what are some things you'd like to see different from the customer from the product perspective that would really help our customers? Because you know, you mentioned that you're an introvert. So, from from one, from one introvert to another, I just pretend like I'm not. From one introvert to another, I just pretend like I'm not. But I, if you've seen me at sessions or see me at conferences, you know I'm pretty much in the corner drinking um water by myself or hiding behind my favorite people. But but from one introvert to another, you know what are some things from the product that you would like to see that would really help out our customers, any product. So it's like a wide open thing.
Speaker 1:That's a that is a really good one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, honestly yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, we didn't share these questions ahead of time. We don't share, we don't ever share questions at a time, so we have to get this authentic response. We have to capture it for our audience, right? So I just sorry, april, you can. So I just sorry April.
Speaker 3:You can. I know you're an engineer. No, I actually have an answer. I do have an answer, but so my issue is that I tend to go more technical than I really need to be Go for it.
Speaker 3:But I think what would help and what I've seen happen several times and I feel like there's a gap between the end users, the business units, or not even just the end users, but maybe the admins on that side and I'm not talking about crm admins, I'm talking about the managers or those that are kind of like in the same space as managers, but they also have their foot in the serum side, or those that don't have a dedicated serum person that would use a consulting company. But there's a gap between those individuals and the more IT side or the CRM. What's going on behind the scenes? There's several times, you know.
Speaker 3:Obviously they understand the requests that they're asking for, but a year down the road something may happen where a record has changed by automation and they don't really have. And I know to a degree this is built in like while you're actually building out automations, but there's not really a way for end users unless it's documented by the person that did it to really understand what's going on in the back end, especially with the introduction to Copilot. With Copilot you can have it do various things throughout the system if you set it up that way, and I think it would be really really good for clients specifically to have more information on what's going on behind the system in a easily digestible way, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:You know what April Like? You just need to drop the mic podcast over facts that's it like I think the maker experiences are are they're doing a lot. They're doing, they've gotten better, but like, honestly, like that, that, that's, that's, that's preach. Right there, man, you know you're preaching.
Speaker 3:Even if it was a simple way to export power automate to like a diagram, a physio diagram or something that they can easily see. Yeah, you know, especially with like complex ones, I try to document exactly what I'm doing, but it is. They can get quite technical and they can get very complex. But if there was a way for them to say, like what does this do or what could have changed this record, and it just spits back, you know, some type of easily digestible document or visio diagram or some type of diagram that tells the person like what could have happened or what this specific flow is doing, that would be very, very helpful. Because I can't even tell you how many times I've had a client reach back out and say what exactly does this do? Because they don't quite understand the intricacies of Power Automate. For example, it is low code but they can get very technical, very quick for someone that's not familiar with it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I would definitely agree, and it's really easy. I think as well to to create a power automate flow that creates this loop, If you're not careful. It can just go ahead and create a loop and keep running over and over again and that obviously becomes a significant issue. And so, yeah, absolutely, I think that's important, like you said, to sort of explain and say, hey, this is what it's doing and why, and because I think at some it's a little bit overwhelming, I guess, to say the least.
Speaker 3:Yes, especially because you can have citizen developers, so people could be making their own flows and not really necessarily knowing the impact that they might be making.
Speaker 2:So now I have to ask you, what about governance? Like, what part does governance play in that area for you Like, do you feel like organizations? You know, they usually just get like these wonderful amount of licenses you know I'm gonna paint this picture and stop me if you haven't heard this before but they buy thousands of licenses and they enable power automate for thousands of users at one time. What's the worst that could happen? Right?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Where do you feel like governance will play in that area, and even enabling users to learn more so that they do a build with best practices.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's a big big thing. In fact, I've implemented COE in quite a few engagements as well. But, again, I think it is very, very impactful because you can tell when flows are orphaned or if there's been issues with anything. But you still have to have that foundational knowledge of interpreting power automates especially when they're written by other people that are not you, people that don't like to write comments or notes. I'm not pointing anyone out, but OK well well well, I'm used to.
Speaker 2:I'm used to being on a team by myself. Man, I'm sorry, I can't help it.
Speaker 1:Averoy it just, it's just you know, he's a team of one, that's what he is.
Speaker 3:Rename your actions. Please rename your actions.
Speaker 2:I am so sorry. Look, it's the ADHD, it's the, you know, it's.
Speaker 1:I have ADHD Denied.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, while I do think that COE fills that gap in governance, especially when it comes down to allowing users to use specific type of actions and connections and things like that it still would be, in my opinion, helpful to have a gap filler of those that don't necessarily know how to interpret what everything means.
Speaker 2:Now I got me all self-conscious about what I do now.
Speaker 3:Sorry.
Speaker 2:First time, just a funny side story. First time I'm like I think I'm sharing some code and I'm writing some code. In April, like she gets eerily quiet and she was like yeah, I don't want you doing that anymore. Nice, I love it. So I always, I always preface it with a. I'm not a developer, but I can write code and I probably am not what people should be doing for what people should be developing. And April kind of like you know, just kind of scared me out of it altogether. So I'm humble enough to kind of bow out when it involves her.
Speaker 3:I will say that I used to be really bad with documenting and just code and writing comments and notes in general, until I asked, I came across something where I had written it, didn't even remember that I had written it and I didn't put any notes or comments and I myself could not interpret what my intention was. And from that forward, from that time on, my stance is will I remember this in a year? Probably not. Then I should probably make it clear what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:facts facts just you know, and and I, I think I do a pretty good, that's the one thing I think I do is I, I quad, I do rename my actions look, man there's something more. There's something very meaningful.
Speaker 2:So governance, I am a huge governance nut Governance is the end-all be-all for me. You have to have it, and part of your ALM strategies, and part of that is documentation. It is near and dear, but I will say that when you sometimes are by yourself and you're, you know you're doing it. I'm just trying to give myself an excuse to kind of get out of this, because I can see april kind of rolling her eyes right now for every power automate. You know I will, I will rename my actions and I will leverage the comments and shout out to troy the captain connector. So you, you yelled at me before about this, so you know I was gonna hear you laughing.
Speaker 2:And troy taylor, troy taylor man, troy taylor, you know, troy, yeah, I know, you know that's right. So we got to give him a hard time, but this is awesome. So, april, what are, what are some future aspirations, like I mean that you have planned for the community, or like, what are your future aspirations?
Speaker 3:so just in general sorry, go ahead nope, I'm not gonna stop you, go ahead okay, just in general, for personal aspirations, for, like me myself, definitely continuing education and getting some more certificates, certifications although I have quite a number of them now, but I always feel like I could do more.
Speaker 3:And as far as around us quad type of space and not to be sexist or anything like that, but dedicated to women and particular women of color. I feel like there is a much needed gap that needs to be filled, or a gap that is much needed to be filled. Let me rephrase that. So not saying that would be like my only focus, but I think that would be something that would benefit the community greatly. You know different perspectives on different things, so that's one and then kind of um, obviously I mentioned the blog post and little tips and tricks and things like that. That's something else that I'm interested in doing. Obviously, I know that there is information out there and I I kind of tend to say no, I don't want to write a blog post about this, because I feel like it's already been written about multiple times or have I done my due diligence to make sure I'm not taking someone else's idea? That's like a big concern that I have, but that's still something that I'd like to do and kind of fulfill.
Speaker 2:So you know somebody has been hounding you about that and so, like we had similar, I think all of us male, female have all had similar fears. I know Trish Trish Sinclair, like she told me basically I'm not going to repeat it verbatim on the podcast because you want to keep it PG, but she told me to basically, you know, because I was way overthinking this. She's like people want to hear what you got to say. They don't want to hear you know, they can hear it a thousand times. They want to hear your perspective on it. So you know you gotta gotta. You know it's.
Speaker 2:It's hard, though, cause you're worried about being judged, and that's just part of it. But I think the wonderful part of this community is that we tend to be very supportive of anyone who's really trying to get out there. I mean, if you're putting yourself out there and this is to anyone who's listening or if you need any help with this area, we're more than happy to assist, and there's opportunities, too, for first-time speakers that are coming up. So if you're interested in doing that, you know where we are.
Speaker 3:Public speaking.
Speaker 1:Look, it's a thing I need to start behind those fruits on that listen you, just you just sit there and you just pretend, you see, like you just focus on like one or two people maybe. I remember in college they said just picture someone naked. I go, yeah, I don't know if that's gonna work, I don't know if that's a good idea. It's not a good. It's not a good idea. It's not a good idea. It's not a good idea.
Speaker 2:It's not a good idea.
Speaker 1:But it's funny. So I started out and I was taught in college in my business classes to kind of scan the room, right. And the funny thing is when I worked at Oracle we did a presentation class and it was like they videoed you and I've scanned the room and their instructor goes you look like stevie wonder. I was like oh, hey, I'm like all right, we won't do that anymore.
Speaker 2:Like okay, apparently I was scanning the room too quick you were doing the my, the, the my share you more rolling your head yeah, that happens pretty much I think we oftentimes too like we feel like there's going to be some like hecklers in the audience.
Speaker 2:One thing I love about our community, like my first. You know this is funny man. So I already gave Mark a shout out. So enough of him. But first real session. No, that was my second one.
Speaker 2:My first one was Trish. Trish got me the one for dang, I can't remember the name of it, but or dang, I can't remember the name of it. But it was those two sessions where I was literally freaking out, thinking there was gonna be some sort of heckler, but like everyone was so supportive, asked really good questions. And then when I did my first in-person session, there was one there was one person in a room and I have no problem standing up for myself or speaking up or telling you to just get out. But you know, I was trying to be a bit more softer. I was shocked at the amount of support from other mvps who kind of just like looked at them and kind of started speaking up and they were like no, no will, this is your session, but let me, let me do this and they in their own, so in their own kind way, kind of just let that person know that.
Speaker 2:You know you're, you're not, you're. Know it all. You're dead wrong. So it's not uncommon for us to kind of you know, prevent the heckling. So if you're ever afraid to do it april matter of fact you're gonna do it. You know we're, you're gonna do it. You're gonna do it. We're gonna submit some sessions. You're gonna do it nice I love it.
Speaker 1:It's gonna be awesome.
Speaker 2:We're gonna do it. It's god's gonna be there if anything bad happens, so you're good that's right.
Speaker 1:You know what I? I'm good at throwing softballs up to people that, that is for sure.
Speaker 3:You know.
Speaker 1:Um, hopefully we wouldn't be in that situation that you would need to do that, but I appreciate you telling me that you well, it's better than hand grenades, I mean yeah it could be worse.
Speaker 1:You know, I do remember. I'm gonna give a shout out to miss sarah, the first session I ever attended where she was speaking. This was great she. She asked people to turn off their phones and and things and if they, if they, if their phone went off, she would make them sing a song. So sitting in the back of the room and someone's phone goes, oh my god, it was hilarious. I love sarah. She's so funny. I just had to share because it was just you know, presentation, oh yeah, she can do it.
Speaker 2:She's awesome to your point, like april, like, I think, with women in tech, especially women of color in tech, if we can get the needle moving in the right direction, if it's in public speaking, you know, blogs are great, but if we can get more representation at these events, you know earth shattering so the more, the merrier. Um, and I think, as a community, you know, we could probably do a bit better in that space. Um, you know, I just my honest, humble opinion.
Speaker 1:We could, we could do a lot better, but I think we could do a lot better in terms of even promoting the women in technology in our space. I think, because you all contribute, just like anyone else, and I mean, for example, riam. She's an amazing asset to any organization and had so much insight, and I think that's where it's important. And plus, let's face it, you all are smarter than us. It just comes down to it. I mean, especially Will and I I mean forget it.
Speaker 2:You're not going to hear me complain, I'm not. I already know what side of the fence I sit on, so no, it's just as good. So we talked about what your aspirations were. You know what you feel, what you want, anything any advice you'd probably give to maybe any up and coming young superstars or rock stars that are, or young women out there who are super nervous, kind of afraid to put themselves out there, or who just don't think that they're, quite honestly, as smart as they really are.
Speaker 1:but anything you'd like to say to them, or introverts, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Because the fact that we, the fact that you offered to give to come on here, says a lot. So we appreciate you for putting yourself out there straight up, definitely Anything you want to say to him. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I would say keep learning, don't be afraid to ask what people to think I was dumb for asking questions. But it's the opposite Asking questions at least indicates to others and that you are engaged and you're actively asking those questions. It's very important, especially in consulting. Very important you're actively asking those questions. It's very important, especially in consulting. Very important.
Speaker 3:You don't want people just um, you don't want to start assuming that you know the answers to things when you genuinely and speaking up. So if there's a discussion and even if you don't know, or if you're thinking to yourself, well, maybe it's not valuable input it could be, and you don't know until you actually speak up, you know. Kind of bringing it back just a little bit. When I first started at my first company right out of college, we had like a kind of like a work trip event where we all had to pick up rocks and then write something on them.
Speaker 3:I still have it sitting on my desk to this day and what I wrote down 11 years ago was make my presence known, and I think that still stands true today. You really do have to make your presence known. Don't sit there and feel like you need to be in the background because you don't want to draw attention, or any attention that you think you're going to draw to yourself will be negative. I mean, obviously there is such thing as negative attention, but asking questions, speaking about what you're thinking or even contributing to the conversation, speaking from someone that does suffer from impoverishment as an introvert, that's not what you want to do. You do want to make sure that you're contributing and continuously learning by asking others.
Speaker 1:You know. I think that's a great point. The last point you said is continuously learning, right, Everything is changing so quickly, especially with AI. I think it's important for especially the younger crowd that's out there and I can say that because I'm old continuously be learning. Like I said, it's just changing so quickly and if you're not, if you're not staying with it, then you know, chances are you're going to be left behind.
Speaker 3:Right, Absolutely, and there's a lot of. I was going to say there's a lot of initiatives that you can join to, especially with small communities that you can join. I know a lot of people have negative connotations with Reddit, but I personally think that Reddit is a good tool to kind of engage in those conversations with some type of anonymous I can't say the word. I think you know what I'm trying to say Anonymously, contribute to conversations without feeling like you're being judged there you go.
Speaker 3:I was like, I think that's what I think she's going to do. I'm not concerned, just did not want to say that word at all. I'm not going to even try it again, um, but it's a good place to learn and contribute to those conversations if you're not very comfortable, um, asking questions with people that you talk to on a day-to-day basis, but it's a good place to start.
Speaker 2:But to that point though, I honestly feel like it should be a safer place for people to ask questions. You know, like shout out to Chris Simmons man, like one of my big projects, like it was like, hey, you had to be a Canvas apps expert and I didn't know a thing about Canvas apps, nothing that was not compared to others. I knew Canvas, canvas apps, but not like compared to these guys. Chris was a director at avana and he let me come up to him and, and just you know, annoy the hell out of him and ask him all the questions. He didn't want publicly judge me and I'm joking, chris, don't get mad at me, but I think it has to be a safe space to uh, pay for that um oh, yeah, yeah, oh yes there's.
Speaker 2:It's got to be a safe space for people to come to and walk, ask, ask questions. Yeah, just, you know it. Just you have to make it a collab, a true collaborative space for everyone that's involved and it shouldn't be, you know we look at someone and say you're an idiot for even asking that question. You know I've had people say that before and then I, you know, when I was new to the industry and you know since then I've got a little bit different. But yeah, I genuinely feel like it has to be a safe space and if you're ever with any of us like I said, april Scott myself you know you can always ask. There's no such thing as a dumb question.
Speaker 1:Unless it's Monday morning and you ask April about field security profiles and she's like you should know this, because then she'll hurt you. Unless the question comes from me or you, then there's a chance it could be a dumb question facts no, there's no dumb questions yeah, I don't know about that.
Speaker 3:If you can see my google searches on a daily basis. I'm like, why does she even, why did she even ask that he just needed the reminder?
Speaker 2:it happens, man it honestly happens, so the brain refresher yeah, it's been absolutely phenomenal. We love having you and we can't wait to see you at one of our community events. Hopefully we'll see you at ug summit, right you.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say, ug summit 20 that's the one.
Speaker 2:That's the one in orlando right yeah, yeah, I don't really have an excuse not to go, since I live here exactly and then in 2026 maybe we'll see you presenting at community summit better, even better. Yeah, I'm with you on that we'll see. We'll see yeah see, yeah, it's gonna happen we're gonna make it.
Speaker 1:You know what? First one how about this co-present? There you go, oh yeah, I can do that.
Speaker 3:As long as the spotlight's on someone else temporarily, you know, for 95 of it, I can do that there you go.
Speaker 1:You know what quad and I will will absolutely have you co-present with us there you go, sounds like a plan deal, deal, deal done drinks that's right drinks, aren't you?
Speaker 2:awesome. Well, thank you so much, april.
Speaker 1:We really appreciate your time and your insight. Continue the great work you're doing and also evangelizing women in technology Great, great cause. So we definitely appreciate everything you're doing.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:All right, and that wraps us up for this episode. Stay tuned. We have another episode, I believe, coming up later this week with continuing our Women in Technology series, so super excited, all right, thanks everyone. Have a good day. All right, we're a wrap. That was awesome, april, you did great. Thank you.
Speaker 2:If you ever ask me any questions like that again, I'm going to hear from that.
Speaker 3:I am so sorry, April I feel like I did better than I thought I will say I only got like two hours of sleep.
Speaker 1:No, you did great. And once this gets uploaded, it takes a little bit. I run AI because I use Loom you can see Scott's Loom note taker. It basically will upload everything and then I run it and it takes out all the quiet spaces, it takes out the ums, it'll take out all those sort of filler words and then of course, I'll go through the area where I screwed up at the beginning and chop that. And I think you know if we I think the one area where we lost connection we'll chop out that, we'll chop out that, and then it'll be good to go good, where do you?
Speaker 3:I feel like this should be known, but where do you release your podcasts on?
Speaker 1:so it gets released to spotify, it gets released to iheart radio, apple podcast, a bunch of other ones as well, so it pretty much it goes out to all the like, the big, the big ones, which is which is really. And then what I do is typically I'll post it on LinkedIn and there's a link to. I basically say here's the link to it, based on the site that we use, which is Buzzsprout. But then I always say like, hey, fine, you can listen on your favorite podcast apps, and a lot of people do. I was actually pretty surprised the different apps that people are using to listen.
Speaker 3:I was actually surprised that so many people listen yeah, I'm a big podcast person on Spotify, so I'm trying to find it now because I actually don't. I don't see it, you don't have our podcast on favor no, and I follow so many CRM adjacent podcasts. What is it called again?
Speaker 1:Service X Factor. If you can't see it, let me know, because then I have to contact Spotify and find out what the hell they did.
Speaker 3:I see it.
Speaker 2:Did she really just say she didn't know who we were.
Speaker 1:I know I mean come on, we're famous.
Speaker 3:Good thing we're not recording anymore.
Speaker 1:Awesome. I mean, come on, we're famous, good thing we're not recording anymore, that's right, awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I am there now.
Speaker 1:Awesome, all right.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much, guys.
Speaker 2:All right. All right, You're the bomb. Take care mom. Talk to you later. Bye.
