Narrator: You're listening to the humans of DevOps podcast, a
podcast focused on advancing the humans of DevOps through skills,
knowledge, ideas, and learning, or the SK il framework.
Sara Faatz: What the pandemic did was open up our homes to
each other, right, you saw the human side and all of us. And to
me, I think that's one of the silver linings of everything
we've been through because it shows there's so much more
dimension to everybody than just what you do in your day job.
Jason Baum: Hey, everyone, it's Jason Baum, Director of Member
experience at DevOps Institute. And this is the humans of DevOps
podcast. Welcome back. I hope you had another great week. And
if you didn't, that's okay, we're gonna make it a great
week. This week, I like to do that little mantra with myself,
my daughter or wife, we also this is going to be the best
week we've ever had. And each one we really try. And I think
we get close. And you know what, now that we're a few weeks into
spring now, for the northern hemisphere, that means things
are starting to warm up and and start to grow. And I feel like
that's especially coming out of winter, sometimes you have the
the winter blues, I think that's a it's it's a nice time of year,
certainly I look forward to it. Weather getting nicer people
talking to each other, more socializing, you see them
outside, and the COVID, winter is retreating as well, in many
areas across the globe. And I think that's also allowing for
us to interact again, in ways that we really haven't had a
chance to do not just through the winter, but over the past
couple of years. So fittingly, on today's episode, we're taking
a look at the human side of development, and a group of
individuals whose job it is to interact and be social for a
living, which is daunting to some, I think you could say that
would be a little tiring for many. But for I would assume for
DEF rails, it must be something that gets them going in the
morning excited and happy about for a living otherwise, I don't
know how they do it. So we're gonna get into that and more on
today's podcast. And so Dev Rel that's that's a term that's been
tossed around, it's getting, it's becoming more popular, we
hear frequently. But I don't know if many of us know, the
textbook definition. So I, I looked up a bunch, and there's
so many but the one that I found that I really liked is the dev
rel is essentially short for developer relations. And
Developer Relations is pretty much exactly what that means a
marketing policy that prioritizes relationships with
developers. In general society, there's this word known for PR
public relations. And you could essentially say that Dev Rel is
the developer version of this, although that's incredibly
simple. You know, Dev Rel is the marketing technique used to
ensure that your company products and developers
establish a good continuous relationship with the external
developers through mutual communication. And that is very
textbook. So we'll get into the non textbook definition of that
with my guest, Sarah fats. And Sarah is here today. Sarah leads
the developer relations team at progress. With more than 20
years in the software development space. She's built
community partner content and influencer programs from the
ground up. And when she's not working, she likes diving with
sharks running and watching hockey. So she's really leading
a boring life, you could say, you know, diving with sharks.
Who doesn't do that? Right. So Sarah, welcome to the podcast. I
really hope we could talk about sharks, by the way towards the
end of this podcast.
Sara Faatz: Thank you, Jason. Yeah, it's awesome to be here.
And I will talk about sharks all day, every day, if you want to
do that. I also love DevRel. So
Jason Baum: there's that too, right? Yes. Yeah. Well, awesome.
Thanks so much for coming on the podcast, Sarah, and are you
ready to get human?
Sara Faatz: I am ready. Let's do it.
Jason Baum: Let's do it. So let's just start out, so I kind
of defined it. But you've got 20 years of experience in it. How
have you seen dev rel? I didn't even know that developer
relations was really that that? Well, you know what, I actually
watched the movie Office Space the other day. And it's so
funny, because they tried to I feel like define that. Like,
what was what is it that you do here? You know, lying just
sticks out? And so what is it about dev rel? And how have you
seen it evolve? And how do you define that?
Sara Faatz: That's a great question. And it's funny because
you know, and I tell people what I do when they asked me what do
you do for a living? Like I lead a DevRel team, you either get
the blank stare or you get the especially outside of our space,
or you get so is that like customer service? And so really,
you know, deverill has evolved a ton over the last 20 years, the,
the way I like to look at it is that the people on my team,
they're responsible for interacting and being active
engaged members of the community in a very genuine and authentic
way, right. So not, not because they're forced to be there, but
because they truly have a passion for software and
technology, whether it's you know, and I have people on my
team who have different areas of subject matter expertise. And
they all have niches within the community that they spend a lot
of time. While they're in the community and part of the
community, they're advocating for software developers as a
whole. They're also bringing information back to our product
teams to help influence the product so that we, they can
help be the voice of the developer community and say,
this is really what the community needs and wants. And
vice versa, we can, you know, we do share what our products are
about what they do. But, but it's really not the only focus,
right, there's a big chunk of what the team does, which is
that is just about being, again, active, engaged members of the
community, being thought leaders, helping educate people
about software, of all kinds, and not just not just particular
front end frameworks, but things like accessibility and, and
Design for Developers and topics like that, that are, you know,
important in the development lifecycle in general.
Jason Baum: So I, there's so much I want to talk about on
today's podcast, it's so it's so interesting Dev Rel, and, you
know, I feel like, you know, as you said, it's evolved so much.
The first thing I kind of want to address is there's a there's
a stigma, there's a thought, I feel like out there that
developers, engineers, you name it there, it's there. It's not
social people. You know, that there, there are these
introverts that are socially awkward and like to code and
stare at their computers and never come up for air? And if
that's not true,
Sara Faatz: right, oh, no, it's not true. I mean, anything with
anything? Humans, they find their tribe, right. And so when
you even if you are, I actually just just came out of a meeting
where we were talking about, you know, people who are extroverts
versus introverts? And and how does that work? And how do we
work together, even if you are more introverted, there are
still absolutely ways to be part of a community and, and from a
DevRel perspective, most of the people who find themselves in
deverill leaned more towards extraversion, but it's really,
when you find a passion or an excitement for something, none
of that really matters, right? Because what really matters is
that we have this this thing in common. And you can find that
people come out of their holes, and out of there, you know, when
they have something that they that they're excited to talk
about and share.
Jason Baum: Yeah, you know, it's my, myself, I am I would lean
toward I always say I'm a reluctant extrovert. You know, I
can be very extrovert, I can see that. And I can turn it on and
be incredibly social, but then I am usually exhausted.
afterwards. My daughter is like, the, my daughter is very
introverted, I would say in a group setting, but you get her
one on one or get her talking about a topic. And it's I mean,
she could tell you literally everything about frozen. I mean,
a lot stop talking. When you bring up those topics. I get
what you're saying,
Sara Faatz: yeah, yeah, it's funny, my husband's an engineer.
And people will often say that he's very quiet until you get
him talking about boating or fishing, or aerospace or design
or hockey. And our daughter is very much the same way. So she
has, she has a little bit leans a little more towards the
extroverted side, on some things, but she's definitely
more like him with regard to that. So yeah.
Jason Baum: So let's talk about you a little bit. You know, how
did your personal life really like shape those work goals for
you, you know, how did you get into the developer relations
space? To talk about 20 years? Yeah, yeah. I that for with no
social piece to it? Right, right. I mean, imagine that it
looked different.
Sara Faatz: Yeah, that the space has evolved a ton. And when you
look, when I look back at my career, it makes sense now, but
to tell you that I that there was a deliberate path that took
me to where I am right now is, would be a lie. Growing up as a
kid, I was the middle child. And you know, my mom would talk
about how my older brother was great at art. My younger brother
was great at math and science. And she would pause when she
would look at me and she'd say, Sarah, you're really good with
people. And I used to laugh. I used to think it was a total cop
out. And then I realized that she was not wrong in the sense
that that people are it's where I get my energy. It's where I
where my passion is, and I've always had that This huge
passion for, for building community and being part of
something bigger. And then in the, you know, fast forward to
late 90s, when the internet boom was taking place, I fell in love
with technology, I was working for a PR agency. And I remember
coming home and again, you know, remember, my husband's an
aerospace engineer, I come home from work one day, and I am
talking a mile a minute, I'm like, Oh, my gosh, you know, we
learned today that with a quest was putting in an all optical
network, and with just two regeneration points from San
Francisco to DC, they can, you know, transmit the entire
library of congress in like two seconds or something like that.
It looks to me like, slow down little film, you're not speaking
my language, right. And what I realized was, I also had this
passion for technology. And so to be able to marry the two, I
feel incredibly fortunate to be able to, to talk about, about
technology to be part of technology to be a part of a
community that, you know, as I mentioned, before you find your
tribe, right? I mean, I could, I could talk to you all day about,
about technology and software development, just like I could
talk to you all day about sharks, or hockey for that
matter. So I just feel very, very fortunate that, that my
path took me that way, way. And, and so that's how I got to
Developer Relations space. And it's, it's been pretty magical
since then,
Jason Baum: it was the outreach. So I remember like, listservs
and yeah, gosh, a ame. You know, everyone's a messenger in the
group. Yes. And for the gens ears who are listening to this
podcast probably have like no idea what that even is. You
know, is that where you typically would find people?
Sara Faatz: Oh, yes, yeah, we would find people there. But
more than anything, we found people in person, like the old
fashioned way. So there were, what's that? Right? Especially
the last two years? That's a question. User Groups were a
big, big part of the developer community. And they're still
things like meetups and, and we're finding people in
different ways now. But I was part of Microsoft had had an
organization that they started calling Netta, which was the
International Association. And it was an umbrella organization
that was set up to support user groups around the world. And we
would go and we would talk to people at user groups I was I
was a volunteer for the organization, and talk about
technology, pair up speakers with user groups. And you could
get a user group meeting, you know, some of the larger ones in
the heyday would have 200 people showing up for pizza and soda
and just talking about dotnet, or, you know, C sharp or VB
dotnet, for that matter. So you know, it was super exciting.
And, and that was so we relied you still relied on technology,
some and listservs, like you said, and but actually there I
have some friends who could still tell you what their IC Q
number was, because that was our our chat. But But yeah, I mean,
it was a lot of in person interaction, going to
conferences and events, and then the user groups and meetups. So
yeah,
Jason Baum: I'm wondering, do you think that's going to come
back? Because I feel like there is an itch to get out there.
Breadman mentioned Gen Z, and actually, Gen Z of all the
generations are probably the ones who are going to push for
that in person, right, more than anyone. Yeah,
Sara Faatz: 100%. I do. I think that there are one of the things
we found over the last few years, as we were trying to
still engage with community was that there are a lot of amazing
tools available right now. And we spun up a Twitch channel. And
we're, we're live streaming every day. Throughout the
throughout the week, we have regular shows, we have long
format streams, and engaging with people in chat there is
awesome, but you still cannot replicate the one on one in
person interaction that you get at a conference, we tried to
replicate the hallway tracks through AR VR. We tried all
different ways. And for some reason, when you are in a
digital environment, it's really hard to I think people feel time
constrained. They don't have the the energy that you get when
you're in person. And so I do you think that we'll see a
resurgence of that. And we're already seeing we have a number
of events that we're will be participating in in person in
April and May and the team is super, super excited about that.
Jason Baum: You mentioned VR by the we did an episode on the
metaverse where i i The company Modren actually sent me a an
Oculus, I got to do it for the first time and jump into their
workspace and I have to say it did feel more real than this
which is odd because I for this is this is an audio podcast but
for those listening I am I'm looking at Sarah we are talking
we're having a conversation I could see in real life, if you
will, but it's still 2d. And and when when you get into that
verse world. Even though I'm looking at a cartoon, it felt
more real. Like I was actually there. So it's interesting. I
feel like we have that dual thing going on. Right? We have
that that happening. And it will. Yeah. And then yeah,
jumping back into into reality,
Sara Faatz: we actually replicated the seventh floor of
our office in Sofia, Bulgaria. And it has in, that's more of
our hangout space. We have ping pong tables and all that we
replicated that in a VR world. And we were able to we invited
people in and we played ping pong, we, we threw chairs off
the deck that we balcony, which we obviously wouldn't do in
person. But it was really fun to have that that interaction. I
think the the, the hardest part for us was that, you know, you
talked about the Oculus, everybody has different headsets
and different ways that they engage. And so until we have
more and more unified approach to that, it's going to be harder
to have that but it's definitely exciting. And it does, like you
said it, it helps having, you know, being able to see even if
you can't see their real legs, seeing people look like human is
pretty short of a torso.
Jason Baum: Yeah, right. Yeah, you know, what's interesting, I
feel like what I was trying to nail down when I was in there,
trying to figure it all out what is what is what what is missing
still. And it's the ability to like, so I'm a community builder
networker, by trade as well. And it's the ability to tap someone
on the shoulder while they're in mid conversation, literally
interrupt them and jump in, or have your own conversation that
still doesn't exist. And that is an in person thing. We I don't
think we'll ever be able to who knows, we probably
Sara Faatz: Yeah, well think about it, too. When you're at a
conference, and people are having a conversation in the
hallway. If you walk up to people who are talking, you can
tell by their features, if it's okay to jump in, or if it's more
of a private conversation, and an AR VR world. It's really, I
mean, I remember feeling so incredibly rude because I
actually walked through one of my co workers. And, and yeah,
for
Jason Baum: that you can actually for those, listen, you
can actually walk through someone that is a real thing.
That's not like,
Sara Faatz: right, and it's awful when you do it cuz I'm
like, Oh my gosh, that was so rude. I would never walk through
somebody in person, but couldn't see their you can't see their
expressions or their body language. So I think once that
is, is to a point where where we can replicate that, then it's
gonna get really real.
Jason Baum: You can see hand movements. So if you're really
did anger them, I think you'd get a gesture. True. Today's
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trial activation. So that's some of the the progress progress is
making. What other initiatives is progress doing that you're
most proud of that focus on the human side of software?
Sara Faatz: Yeah, you know, progress is one of the things
that I'm proud of is that we really do put people first not
just our employees, but but people in general, which is,
which is amazing. You know, with all the things that are going on
in Ukraine right now, progress has committed to donating
$100,000 to the World Health Organization, emergency appeal
for Ukraine. But on top of that, my team last week did a live
stream where it was a charity to benefit the same organization,
where we talked about we actually talked about the human
side of software. We talked about gaps, not you know,
knowledge gaps, and how to fix them, gender gaps, all of those
kinds of things. We talked about how to research new
technologies, all of that, but what was really exciting to me
was that the community came together and donated over $5,000
to that organization.
Jason Baum: Congratulations on that. Thank you. It's fantastic.
Sara Faatz: Yeah, I mean, it's it's it was one of those one of
those days where I think everybody was there were tears
on on the Livestream, because we felt like we were really
honestly doing something that hopefully will make a difference
in people's lives. And again, talking about your tribe and
bringing people together. This was a community endeavor. Right,
this wasn't you know, we were hosting it, but the community
came together and did that. And that's that really, it just, it
was a pretty amazing feeling to be part of something like that.
So, you know, from the human side, those kinds of things are
great. We have scholarships, you know, the progress women in STEM
series of scholarships, which is fantastic. Mary Kay scholarship
and women for STEM as part of that it's a $10,000.04 year
renewable scholarship for women in Massachusetts, because our
corporate headquarters are based there. And we just announced one
in India as well. So yeah, I mean, it's when we think about
how progress responds to the world, and thinks about as a as
an organization, and a corporation thinks about the
humans, who are part of everything, it really it's
exciting to me to be part of something like that. Yeah,
Jason Baum: that's that sounds great. And yet a company that
doesn't keep its head in the sand isn't afraid to get into
what's going on in the world. I think it's I think that's really
important. And we all have a role to play, right?
Sara Faatz: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, I think
one of the things that pandemic has shown us all is that there
is a human side to everything that we do, right. I mean, I, I
was a remote employee for I joke that I was remote before remote
was cool. But I was a remote employee before you came here to
hit Yeah. And it's before COVID hit, you know, it was I used to,
I'm sure you saw, I'm sure probably all of your listeners,
listeners saw the gentleman who did that interview a few years
back on television, then his child comes in on a little
Walker, and, you know, he's trying to get them out. If you
had asked my daughter, what I look like, when I was on a call,
it was usually it's gonna be you know, like, hand gestures, you
know, I'm on the phone, whispering and all of those
things. And what the pandemic did was open up, open up our
homes to each other. Right, you saw, you saw the human side and
all of us. And, and, to me, I think that's one of the silver
linings of everything we've been through, because it shows that
people are, there's so much more dimension to everybody than just
what you do in your day job.
Jason Baum: Definitely, I couldn't subscribe to that more.
I think a lot of us feel that way. And certainly, I mean, the
theme of this podcast, you know, the humans of DevOps, we don't
talk. Tech here. We don't we don't get into, you know, too,
too technical. We talk human, we talk about the issues that are
going on. So yeah, I think we speak the same language. Yeah,
we kind of touched on this a little bit. But, you know, we
talked about how it was, what about today? You know, how has
accessibility played into the human side of development today?
Sara Faatz: Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. I mean, when you
think about, and again, I'm gonna go back to the pandemic,
there were, prior to the pandemic, we had apps that were
apps of convenience, right, you know, it was, it was convenient
to order my groceries ahead of time, or order a cup of coffee,
or even engage with my doctor, it was, you could do that on
your phone, on a mobile device, when the pandemic hits, some of
those things that were apps of convenience, all of a sudden
became apps of necessity. And, and one of the things that that
did is open up the understanding that if we don't democratize our
apps, they're not going to be able to be, you know, these apps
of necessity won't be usable by, you know, one in five people
have a disability of some sort, and every single one of us will
have a disability at some point in our lives, right. So that
could just be you know, that you, you know, you broke your
arm, right, it could be that you had your eyes dilated, and
you're wearing those big, you know, dark glasses, and you
can't see things very well. But what that showed us is that our
reliance on reliance on technology gets as that becomes
more ubiquitous with with the world we're living in. It's that
much more imperative that we are thinking and developing with an
accessibility mindset first. And I think for developers, it's
hard because sometimes you say accessibility, and there's this
overwhelming sense of, oh, my gosh, what does that mean? What
how do I really do that? But it's things like thinking about,
you know, pinch and zoom and making sure that we're able to
do that, thinking about the time limits on forms that they're
creating, right, and making sure that if somebody has a has a
disability, that means that they need to take more time to fill
out that form, that we're not time limiting them by, you know,
that we're giving a generous amount of time. So it's all of
those things that I think that again, silver lining of the
pandemic has pushed us to really start thinking about, how do we
make sure that that everybody can use The technology that
we're creating. Yeah, I
Jason Baum: love what you just said. And I think that goes back
to even the previous question and answer is, we're actually
taking time and thinking about what people need and want and
it's not pushed to the, you know, for the longest time, it
just would be. We don't have time to think about that stuff,
right? We need to think about everything. We need to make
money, we need to think about everything else. And we ignore
people. And right people are the ones. headcount used to be how
you describe staff, you know, like, right, even even staff,
it's the people who work for you. Right,
Sara Faatz: right. 100%? Yeah, yeah. Actually, we believe that
so much progress that our human resources team is actually
called the people team, like we don't, we don't think about it
as human resources. It is they are the people team, they're
there to talk and help our people and which is a pretty
awesome mindset, I think.
Jason Baum: I think so too. I think it's about time that we
made that shift. You know, we talked to someone who told me,
like, for the longest time in their career, they weren't
allowed to talk about themselves. I was like, Wow,
that's fascinating. And it's like, we I feel like we're
making that pivot. Right now. We're, you know, each generation
each time here, we you constantly go through these
shifts and changes. And I think this is a big one, that in a few
years from now, we're going to look back and say this was this
was a big change in workforce.
Sara Faatz: Right, right. 100% agree with that. Yeah.
Jason Baum: So what are some steps that organizations can
take to improve developer relations?
Sara Faatz: You know, I think, I think thinking about developer
relations as as a unnecessary discipline, that it's hard to
measure. So let me let me back up. One of the things when
people talk about developer relations for a long time, there
was this, it was kind of in this nebulous area, should it be part
of a sales organization? Should it be part of the marketing
organization? Where does it live? And when you you know, you
were talking about headcount? Initially, people were like, if
we can't justify the spend that it costs to have people on staff
who are subject matter experts and traveling to conferences,
and then you know what, maybe we just disband it and get rid of
it. What people what we've had to learn on our end is, how do
we measure what we do? Right? And how do we? So when you think
about how can an organization improve their developer
relations? First, they have to understand why they're doing it.
Right. So the purpose for for our team is, you know, to be
that conduit between the developers and developer
community and our product teams and our organization in a
really, again, natural, natural way, right? And being being the
voice for for the community, even if it's not necessarily
popular with what the general thinking, Is it from an
organizational perspective, and vice versa? How do we kind of
have that two way conversation? So we sat down and really
thought, how do we, how do we measure this so that it's not
just a collection of vanity metrics, but it shows value to
the business, while also showing value to the community? And so
the one thing that we really thought about is, is that
engagement, right, I don't, I don't care if we're reaching 4
million people, if really, what I really need is to have
engagement with this core group of developers, who are I'm
providing valuable value to them and vice versa, right. So we
look at, we look at engagement rates, we look at how many chat
messages are we exchanging, we stopped using our social
channels as megaphones to just yell at people. And we actually
have conversations with people. So I think thinking about and
truly understanding why you're doing Developer Relations is and
what your expected value is from that is probably the first step
that most of us organizations can take, you know, knowing your
why knowing your purpose.
Jason Baum: Yeah, that's knowing your purpose. You know, we
talked about accessibility, right? And then and into what
you just said, I mean, there's also that trust factor that you
got to build, right, you got to be authentic with what you're
saying. And so we talked about accessibility, what about
sustainability? How does that play into the human side of
development?
Sara Faatz: Yeah, I mean, I think it goes back to genuinely
being in any community if you're not genuine to your beliefs and
your you won't be successful a community will sniff that out.
The faking it just because it's popular is not, you know,
Jason Baum: yeah. You know, when someone's not authentic, right.
Sara Faatz: So, you know, from a sustainability perspective, we
progress itself has taken a step back and looked at things like
when we're sending out prizes, you know, are we are we are we
being good stewards of the environment and making sure that
we are You know, or do we have excessive packaging? Or we, you
know, are there simple ways that we could send out prizes or
awards or community gifts without, without hurting the
environment? Or they're, you know, we take a step back, and
we look at that. I think that, you know, we've done some things
within our office spaces, and we're looking at different ways,
especially, you know, as we return to office in some form or
fashion, are there ways that we can be provide access to, to
office space without access? Right. So, you know, so I think
that, from a sustainability perspective, it really goes back
to truly thinking about what your beliefs are, knowing your
purpose there, and, and not just talking about it, but doing it.
So, you know, we try very hard we to walk the walk as much as
we were talking the talk
Jason Baum: actions very much often are louder than words,
right? Absolutely. Yep. Yep. So what does the sustainable and
accessible future in tech look like?
Sara Faatz: That is a great question. So I think, you know,
an accessible future in tech means rethinking, obviously,
coming to coming to the development table with it and
accessibility. First mindset. But that also means when we're
teaching and training developers from an early stage, that we're
also building that into the process, because I think, as I
mentioned, when you bring accessibility to the table, to
somebody who's been doing this for years, I think there's this
overwhelming sense of, I don't know how to do that. Right. And
and it really is, there's, there are a lot of very basic things,
you know, and part of that's just an education thing, and
that education is actually the same answer for sustainability.
Right. I think that, that educating developers on what,
how do we build sustainable software? How do we build? How
are the environments that we're working in sustainable? How are
we thinking about how we're engaging the community, and, and
all of that comes back down to, to education, right. And so if
we, we take a step back, and I think the younger generations
have an advantage at this point, because I think this is
something that's more part of our, our culture. But I think
for people who, who are in the have been in business for a
while and established in their careers, it's really just kind
of taking a reset. And looking at both of those things. It's
not that they didn't care about them before, but there wasn't
this intersection between our personal beliefs and our actual
subject matter expertise, right. So I think as our world blends
and, and work in home, and personal, all become one, as we
look at the human, as a, as a whole, in a, you know, three
dimensional existence. I think that that's where that education
and training becomes really important.
Jason Baum: You know, for those who listened to the podcast, I
often bring up my daughter, and parenting because I feel like
many things that we deal with in issues that we deal with in the
workforce, or just in life can often go just go back to a
parenting skill 100%. And I think about, so my daughter's
four and a half. She misses a cut off. So she'll, she has
another, you know, year to go for kindergarten. But we're
teaching them the transition, right? She's in preschool or pre
K. And it's a very hard transition of home school, how
you act in two different environments. It's so
interesting, because it's like, telling someone who has no frame
of reference that they can't act a certain way in one area is a
very, it's like, what, why I don't get it. And I feel like as
a society, we don't get it either. It's like we're trying
to basically unlearn some of that, too. I think it's good
that we're going through this, because it does seem silly that
of course, you can't like scream out in the middle of a lesson at
school and you're not going to go around work telling at the
most personal thing about you that might be incriminating or
weird, or I don't know, like, you're just there's just things
you don't say, right. But there are things that we can share and
there and we shouldn't be human. Right.
Sara Faatz: Yeah, yeah. Because at the end of the day, we are
all human right? And when you start can look at I think this
is probably an hopefully the next step in the evolution in
the changes that are happening in society, I think, when we can
stop and understand that everybody has human right and
see their vulnerabilities and see who they are. We also can
start to understand intent, right? So by understanding
intent, you you aren't necessarily going to be offended
by something that somebody said over here because you understand
where they're coming from. Right and so and but I also agree with
you as a parent, yes, there are things you know, my I mentioned
to you, I think, hockey I love watching hockey. My daughter is
a is an ice hockey player. She's actually we actually leave next
week for Philadelphia. She's playing in the US, USA Hockey
national. Oh, wow, that's awesome. And yeah, thank you
good luck to her. Thank you. We're super excited about that.
But you know, as a, as an athlete, and even growing up,
she's been playing hockey since she was four. She has been
around hockey, she heard some things in the locker room, you
know, with the older kids, and now she is an older kid. But I,
we've always said, there's a time and a place for things
right, you know, and so you do, you do still have to have
boundaries? There's no question about that. But to think that
any of us is just what we do at work, or just what we do at home
is very silly. And I think, again, the pandemic has opened
up, you and I are sitting here and I'm seeing, you know, the
inside of your office, you're seeing mine, usually I would
have it's spring break here. So I had to let everybody know, you
and I are talking. So please don't come into the office. But
you know, they're usually there's a dog who walks in, or
my daughter who checks in or something along those lines. So,
you know, I think that those, we do have to find that balance.
Jason Baum: Definitely. And I think that we are and I think
we're all trying to figure it out together. And it's, it is
goes back to what we were saying before, this is a very unique
time, and I hope it changes a lot of things.
Sara Faatz: And I think it requires grace. Right? It
requires us not to just give each other grace but to to
expect you to give and get grace, right, you know, when we
are the beauty of humans is that we are all flawed as well.
Right? And so understanding that, and that goes back to I
think my comment about intent as flawed humans, not everybody is
set out to to do or say something that might offend you.
You know, and so being able to take a step back and say okay,
we are all nobody's perfect. How do we you know, how do we move
forward and talk as humans?
Jason Baum: Absolutely, it's seeing the lens from someone
else's viewpoint, seeing it through someone else's lens and
Pathak leadership being you know, just being an empathetic
person. Empathy is so important we talked about on this podcast
actually right before we left for the holidays and the new
year and I thought that was a great way to end the year and
yeah, set out this year myself, you know, making the effort of
leading with empathy and I think for all of us figuring out how
you know we can be empathetic peoples is very important. So
that that now will transition the sharks just like that, I
believe in transition. Yeah, so So let's go back to that that
bio and you're swimming with sharks. So is this like legit
swimming with so I've done the like, you dive down and there's
the steel cage or whatever, you know, all separating you. Is
this like, is this that
Sara Faatz: or this is this is real, like diving underwater
with sharks. So my, my husband and I have been divers for a
long time. And actually our daughter is a divers, she her
10th birthday, she got certified to dive. And we, I It's funny
when I go out on a boat, and I see a shark on the surface. I
don't think oh, you know what, I should jump in with that. But we
seek out dive trips where we can actually go diving with sharks.
We did an amazing trip to Cocos Island, where it was during a an
off year for sharks in Cocos Island. But on one dive, we saw
five different species of sharks and and we're sitting in this or
we were underwater and kind of on this rock ledge. And we have
a tiger shark swims through, which was a big shark. It was a
massive shark and it was one of those ones where you just he let
you know that he he commanded respect. Just so but we saw I'd
say yeah. hammerheads black tip, white tip Galapagos sharks, blue
gloves, a shark and then the the tiger shark. Which was, it was
just an incredible experience. One of those things that I will
never forget. We did a trip to Galapagos where we had hundreds
of schooling hammerheads below us. And then when we were out on
I think we're at either wolf or Darwin Island, you would go and
just again, hold on to the rocks as hammerheads swim by and this
goes back to my I wouldn't jump in with them. But I I do crazy
things when I swim underwater and you're not supposed to hold
your breath underwater, right when you're diving. If you're
moving in within the water column, but I was sitting there
and I this Hammerhead is swimming towards me and I
thought and they're very skittish, right they so they're
very scared by your bubbles. So I thought I wonder if I don't
exhale, exhale my bubbles. How close will this Hammerhead get
to me? Just not like a normal thought that most people have.
But I did and I I mean, he came my husband got an amazing
picture of of the Hammerhead it was it was beautiful. But it
came probably two feet in front of me before I thought what am I
doing and I excelled my bubbles and you know, you know swam away
but
Jason Baum: I'm like freaking out as you're Tell me this like
I could feel my heart racing. That's that is. Wow. Well, good
for you. I don't think I could do that.
Sara Faatz: No, you know what there's so graceful underwater
and going back to intent. You know, as we're talking. I mean,
sharks have to have such a bad rap and there are there are some
that are definitely the tiger shark. I did not want to mess
with and we had one dive in the Bahamas where it was a dusk die,
which is great because you can they feed so everything's
feeding at that point. So you see a lot of a lot of life you
Jason Baum: jumped into the water with feeding shark with
sharks that were like, oh,
Sara Faatz: yeah, everything is feeding but yeah, there was a
there was a bull shark who was swimming just he was started to
circle as we were finishing our safety stopped and we thought,
you know, I think it's probably time to get out like this is not
what we want to mess with. But we've been on some incredible I
like I said, I could talk about this forever the dive diving
with sharks. It's just, it's incredible. Yeah,
Jason Baum: that's that sounds. That does sound incredible.
Also, I think I I like panic. Just just hearing you say, I
went on a my honeymoon was in Fiji. And every day at the
resort, you get a little notice. And we went snorkeling because
they finally convinced us to go and we went and it's beautiful.
I mean, the full wreaths on touched. And then we get home.
And you know, in the newsletter it said, you know, swim with
friendly reef sharks. So we're friendly here. What do we know?
And we get home and it Shark Week. And they're like the the
actual world's most dangerous shark. And guess what the most
human attacks whatever is the Fijian reef shark. Okay. Better.
We didn't know that. Exactly, exactly. We're coming up at the
end of the podcast. And I like to ask one thought provoking,
usually personal question. So today's question for you is,
what's something that everyone in your industry should stop or
start doing?
Sara Faatz: You know, I think I've said it probably a couple
times here. But I definitely would say, from the developer
perspective, I would, I would pause and approach all of your,
all of your applications with an accessibility first mindset. I
would broaden your scope and understanding of your audience.
So a lot of times when people think about who am I creating
this application for, they think about, you know, personas, and
they, you know, demographics, and all of that, but really
understand that humans are the ones who are using our software,
and understand that humans do have impairments or limitations
that we need to be developing for, so that we can democratize
applications across the board.
Jason Baum: Awesome. Sara, thank you so much for joining me on
today's episode, I had a lot of fun talking to you about the
topics. And I feel like we could talk all day about Dev Rel but
also shark. So thanks so much for coming on.
Sara Faatz: Thank you so much. I
Jason Baum: really appreciate it. And thank you for listening
to this episode of the humans of DevOps Podcast. I'm going to end
this episode the same way I always do encouraging you to
become a member of DevOps Institute to get access to even
more great resources just like this one. Until next time, stay
safe, stay healthy, and most of all, stay human, live long and
prosper.
Narrator: Thanks for listening to this episode of the humans of
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