Conference Rejected, Networking and Joining a New Team

Richard (00:00)
I kept your three, two, one in the other day. Three, two, one. Hello everybody and welcome to the Vernon Richard show. I got it right, I got it right. Woo-hoo, practicing. I've been practicing ever since the last recording. It's really hard not just to say your name, but like. So yes, welcome back.

Vernon (00:04)
Hehehehehehe

Well done.

Ha ha.

Richard (00:24)
Thank you so much for the positive responses we had for the smoke test or episode 0 as Vernon's just declared it. Lots of great comments. We are up to, we've got to do the whole subscriber thing, but I think we're up to 76 subscribers on YouTube, which is pretty damn cool. Loads of comments, which was really nice to read, lots of reshares. So thank you all for that. We are definitely, if we pass the smoke test, we're definitely going to continue.

Vernon (00:39)
completely insane. When I saw that I was like what? Yeah, that's.

Richard (00:53)
So yeah, Vernon, how you doing?

Vernon (00:56)
Greetings everyone, greetings Rich. I am, I'm all right. I've had a bit of a, I've had an interesting few weeks since we last spoke, on the health front and the personal front. So that's, maybe it will come up during the podcast, I don't know. But yeah, life has been good. Life's been all right.

Richard (01:13)
Yep.

Have you watched any football this week? Anyone who's listening, this has been recorded just after the Champions League and Europa League games. So yeah, how did it go, Vern? Did it work out for you? Not seeing the results, I must be honest. Oh, did you? All right. And does that mean you went through?

Vernon (01:20)
I really despise you, Bradshaw.

opening.

Yeah, we beat Atalanta in the second leg actually.

Why is that important? Which I don't, why? No, it didn't go through.

Richard (01:48)
So you won the game but you lost the battle? Is that the...

Vernon (01:51)
Yeah, we listen man, our season, I'm a Liverpool FC fan for folks who don't know, greatest football club in the world, certainly in England. That's right Bradshaw, I said it. And we had a terrible, terrible week. So we drew with a very annoying team at their ground.

Richard (02:01)
I'm going to edit that out. That's getting edited out immediately.

Vernon (02:18)
theatre of horrors. We dropped points. And then we went and played in the Europa League, got spanked by Atalanta, absolutely wrecked, three-nil. And that was season over. But then to absolutely confirm that it was season over, we then decided to lose to Palace at home. Just no good. Oh, mate, it's been a bad week.

Richard (02:24)
Ha ha

Hey, mate, optimistically, you can still win the league, you don't know what's going to happen. There's a chance. There is a chance.

Vernon (02:49)
We all know what's going to happen and it's this, Man City will drop no points and both Arsenal and Liverpool will be looking at themselves in the mirror like muckets. That's what's gonna happen.

Richard (03:01)
Well, hey to those listening, I'm a Man United fan, I've got nothing to cheer about apart from at least the FA Cup semi-finals this weekend, which is, you know, that's the one thing we can probably try and win, but... Coventry.

Vernon (03:06)
Ha ha ha!

So it would be an absolute disgrace.

Richard (03:19)
Thanks for watching!

Vernon (03:20)
It would be untold embarrassment and shame for you if you did not defeat them. Is that correct?

Richard (03:27)
That is absolutely correct, yeah, and then we will get through and we will probably play City in the final and get absolutely battered. But yeah, right, well, on the topic of, you know, being absolutely battered or being disappointed with certain things, I wanted to talk about conferences. So it's kind of conference, not conference season, we're about to enter conference season, usually May, June, July, then September, October, November is pretty much conference season. But

Vernon (03:33)
Smoked. Yeah.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Richard (03:57)
In the last few weeks, some of the conferences have been sharing their speaker lineups, which is always a moment of jubilation and then utter despair. And then there's always the running narrative about diversity. And I'm not saying that's not an important topic, massively important. There's been topics about seeing a lot of the same speakers at the same conferences again. But I wanted to focus on being...

Vernon (04:03)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Richard (04:25)
rejected, not being accepted for a conference talk and how that feels and then what can be done about it. So yeah, Vernon, have you ever been in that boat?

Vernon (04:37)
Nah, everyone always accepts my proposals, Rich. I've got this. Got a 100% record. No, I haven't.

Richard (04:39)
That's what I thought mate, yeah that's what I thought. 100% straight in guaranteed. I'm gonna put my name on it, just walk in, job done.

Vernon (04:48)
I just don't even apply anymore. I just show up with my presentation and laptop ready to roll. Just elbow people out of the way and just get on the stage. No, I've been, no, man, I've been, I've been rejected.

Richard (04:49)
Hahahaha

No one would kick you off, they'd be like, yeah sure mate, go on, off you go.

Vernon (05:03)
Yeah, do you know what? I've been rejected. I tried, but I've always, and this is a personal thing. I've always had a pretty, you know, philosophical point of view when it comes to that. Like I, it doesn't hurt as much. I don't find it difficult to deal with.

Richard (05:24)
Yep.

Do you think that's because you've done a few talks already? Like if you can, I know it's so long ago, but if you could think back to before you'd done any talks, like did it feel different then?

Vernon (05:41)
Not really, no, not really, because I don't really know why. I just can't remember feeling particularly despondent about it. And I don't know why that is. I don't know why that is. And it's pure luck, to be honest, I don't feel like that, because I know a lot of people out there do find it tough, and it is tough.

Richard (05:41)
No? Okay, nice.

Yeah.

Vernon (06:09)
It's like, it reminds me of interview processes when you don't get the feedback, right? It's horrible, because here's the thing, here's like, I'm not, you know, saying that I don't feel it is not to say I don't empathise and understand why. When you compare it to being interviewed, you put in so much time and energy into this thing, and you submit it, you know, you work into a deadline, you submit it, and then,

Richard (06:14)
Haha, yeah, it's pretty the same.

Vernon (06:38)
you just get a sosmate, you didn't get selected. Like what? Is that what you're gonna give me, god damn it? Like, wow, some feedback would have been amazing. But actionable feedback. And I think that's a challenge that is all over the place. And I think a lot of conferences are guilty of that, of not giving actionable feedback or good feedback or maybe, excuse me, maybe it's...

Richard (06:41)
Yeah.

Vernon (07:08)
Maybe it's difficult for conference organisers and selection committees to coach and train the people they get to help to do reviews to give actionable feedback. Not all of them put the effort into that. Some do, but not all do.

Richard (07:20)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Well, I can relate. I've been wanting, I've been one of the organizers that has done it and it is incredibly time consuming, but I do believe it is the right thing to do. And like you said, it needs to be actionable feedback. It needs to be, you know, not just that topic's not fit for the conference, right? That, that isn't actionable feedback. It's like, you know, I've, I've invested a lot of hours giving people feedback around structure. You know, like, I think there's a good talk in here, but you're hiding it.

I remember tweeting it several times and I think you've shared it in the past. You bring it back up again pretty much once a year. Yeah. So we're going to, Vernon's going to do the show notes, find that link. But the, when you get the plurals, that's the thing that always used to get to me. I'm going to share my experiences and I've got several stories and I've got several antidotes that I want to share. And I'm going to give you my five rules, but they never give you a flavor of those rules.

Vernon (08:00)
legendary threat legendary threat bro

Richard (08:23)
So it's really hard to judge that talk. Like those five rules could be, you know, shout at people, dance, do as you told, um, buy a new pen. Well, you know, I mean, we don't know what those five things are. So, and people think that they're going to give their whole talk away in their abstract and they get conscious of doing that. And that's not the case, right? Your abstract is not your talk. So give as much as you can, even if that involves, you know, if you say, I'm going to give you the five best good practices.

for writing tests and here are those five things. No one's learned anything at that moment. They might start Googling those five things and maybe they'll learn a way without reading, listen to your talk, but they're not hearing you deliver those five things. And as a reviewer, I'm like, oh, actually you do know this topic. Your five things actually sound really good. And now it's because you've told me what those five things are. I can picture that talk in my head and I can see people wanting to hear that talk.

Vernon (08:54)
Mm.

No.

Yeah.

Richard (09:19)
whereas if I just get, I'm going to share five things. It's really hard. So that's the one that always used to get to me. And then the other one was just structure, just abstracts that I've all over the place. And the main thing I try and tell people is situation. So set the context for me, put me in your, put me in where this story happened. Secondly, tell me what happened. Tell me, tell me the story, tell me the bit of the outcome, you know, at high level. And then thirdly, sell it to me.

tell me why I need to hear this story. Like you've given me, you've set, I'm in the zone. I'm in that context. I'm feeling what's happened to you. Now tell me why I need to hear it. How's it gonna help me if I'm in that place and have the free paragraph structure. And then the final one was always one that Sarah used to reference back was the, Sarah Deery,

she used to talk about the learning outcomes versus takeaways. So she always used to say that, you know, takeaways is like, you know, they're okay, but a takeaway could be, I heard Vernon's story. That's the takeaway, right?

Vernon (10:20)
We are.

Yeah.

Richard (10:30)
Whereas a learning outcome would be, I now, and I don't know, like a list of, a list of tools that they can apply or, be able to describe a certain topic. And, you know, actually something that, something they can now do that they couldn't do before listening to your talk. And I think often we don't hear that. We see these takeaways, you know, like, you know, going to be a great talk, you know, going to have an experience around this as opposed to what can I now do.

after listening to your fantastic talk. And I think they was take, but those learning outcomes when you see them like that, you can read it from a reviewer's point of view and go, you know what, I think my attendees need to know those things. Like, and if you're promising me you're gonna deliver them that, then, you know, my stage is yours. Like, you know, come and do that.

Vernon (11:21)
I've been learning a lot about writing over the past couple of years. And a lot of the things that you, a lot of the advice you just talked about there in terms of submitting your proposal and selling it resonate with me. My general hypothesis is for a proposal, there needs to be, you need to be getting people hype. Like you need to sell the vision.

Richard (11:44)
Yep.

Vernon (11:45)
Do you know what I mean? Like what makes this interesting? Like what's gonna be different for people after they hear your talk, after they experience your workshop, what's gonna be different for people? Which is my, you know, I'm not as well versed in these things as Sarah Deary perhaps, but that's how I would describe it. You know, Sarah's a bit of a legend, but I would describe it like, what's gonna be different for people at the end? So try not to, I think Rich is right there, because I've definitely made that mistake.

where it's almost like I don't want to I don't want to tell everybody what my I don't want to like share the punchline yeah reveal the secret because somebody might come and do my talk it's like no one's gonna steal the talk like just relax.

Richard (12:19)
I reveal all my secrets.

Even if they did, even if they did, me and you, same abstract, same amount of time, completely different. It's gonna be completely different.

Vernon (12:33)
different talk. So yeah, they can't, they can't, you know, you can't be duplicated. So that's what I think that's really good advice. And I, and I, and I like to study writing. So what I would say is

Richard (12:39)
Absolutely.

Vernon (12:49)
When it comes to the title, when I write articles now or blog posts or whatever, I've learned this mantra about headlines and titles, which is clear not clever.

And when I heard that, it really clicked for me because more and more we've got multiple tracks at conferences and I'm trying to decide where I am going. And if I see a title that says, the handsome devil from Leicester slays the testing dragon. What am I going to do? I don't know.

Richard (13:07)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Let me give you one. So I've just written the abstract for my, I'm doing a couple of keynotes this year, fantastic

And the topic I wanted to settle on, actually I'm not gonna tell you what it is. The title is, no, I don't think I'm taking your advice, but let's see. The title is the end game.

Vernon (13:40)
He's not taking his own advice is he? He's not going to tell her.

His own advice, I mean.

I don't know what that means. And that's a problem. That's a problem. I don't know what that means. So if you're gonna have a clever title, maybe have a clear subtitle. We see that in books a lot because you want people to be able to understand what's coming. And people could mean anything. It could mean people reviewing your abstract, but it also means the people at the conference. If you cast your mind into the future.

Richard (13:53)
That's what I mean. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Vernon (14:20)
you're at a two or three track conference. I'm trying to decide where to go.

Richard (14:24)
What if it's a keynote? Do you get a bit more leeway with a crazy title? If you know that people are going to be there anyway?

Vernon (14:30)
Maybe, but I would always err for clarity now, I think. Yeah. So, but this is all advice about submitting the abstract. Then what happens, because what I've seen a lot on LinkedIn lately is as schedules are being released, people are feeling like it's tough. Do you know what I mean? Like they're feeling like, man, that's, I don't get that. I'm looking at the schedule and I've got issues with the schedule. Like why didn't I get put on the schedule?

Richard (14:32)
Yeah, clear, clear over clever. I like it, I like it a lot.

Yeah.

Yep.

My talks better than that one. Like, you know why and you yeah, of course, it's legit like you And they could be something It's a hundred percent a legit feeling to have that, you know, you feel like it's an attack on you even though You know, it's not because mostly it's your abstract. It's the words you wrote We could go off on a whole tangent about even abstracts like, you know Maaret Pyhäjärvi spoken a lot about trying to change call for paper processes, right? What if you're not a good writer?

Vernon (15:02)
It's legit, right?

Richard (15:28)
But then you want it to be anonymous. What if it's not anonymous? People do a video, people submit your slides. There's a thousand ways you could do it. And neither of them are perfect. They're all flawed, but you shouldn't feel like it's an attack on you. It was that abstract and there could be a plethora of reasons why that taught didn't make it or that abstract didn't make it. There could be one on the exact same topic. That one scored slightly more than yours and they don't want to have two of the same topic. Um, it could be.

Vernon (15:56)
Hmm.

Richard (15:58)
And it could be budget things, right? You might have reached all like kind of internal budget of kind of what you want people to, what you want to pay for travel. Therefore you might take a different talk. It could just be finding a good balance between topics, between people. There's a lot of reasons why you might not be accepted, but yeah, it's right to feel a bit deflated about it, but there's nothing, one thing I wanted to bring up was the...

It doesn't mean that your story shouldn't be told, right? And it doesn't mean that story is not worth being heard. It just means that stage isn't where it's going to happen. Right. Could be the next conference could be a blog, blog post could be a YouTube video. You could be a guest on a podcast. You could do just record it and upload it to YouTube. Um, you could turn it into a book. You could turn it into a deck of cards. Like if you really want that story shared, you can still share it. And I really encourage people to.

Vernon (16:34)
Mm.

Okay.

Richard (16:57)
find a way of sharing.

Vernon (17:00)
Yeah, I've been looking for some blog posts that Lenna, Emna, and Jenna wrote recently around diversity. Because some of the critiques that I've seen about the schedules at some of these conferences is that they're not very diverse.

Richard (17:12)
Yep, I think I saw the one from Lander.

Yep.

Vernon (17:25)
And it leads people to question, well, what was the process? Like, why did I even bother if I was just gonna get rejected out of hand? And there's, you know, the same, I'm doing air quotes if it isn't a podcast, the same kinds of people who seem to proliferate the schedule. And...

Richard (17:40)
Yeah.

Vernon (17:45)
Emna and Jenna and Lena really did a nice, it was nice to see the different perspectives that they took. They took the perspective of somebody who attends and speaks, somebody who is a speaker and maybe a sponsor and somebody who was an organiser. And you get a nice well-rounded kind of view of what is going on. I think, I don't know, for me, I think that...

I think there are two perspectives that spring to mind. The conference organisers and you as the individual submitting. I think I would really urge conference organisers to give some level of feedback. Yes, I know it is extra work. But it's, it's kind of, I.

feel like you're almost obligated to give the feedback because people have committed a lot of time and energy to put a proposal and an abstract together. So to just kinda say, nah, you didn't make it, see you mate. That's tough, that is tough. And it doesn't make it, you're not really making it appealing for these people to come back and apply again because the conference is as good as the presentation.

Richard (18:51)
Yep.

true.

Vernon (19:13)
that or the schedule that you put together. So you want as many different talks to choose from to give yourself the best chance of creating a schedule. And then from the people who are proposing these abstracts, there's a whole bunch of things that spring to mind. One is like well done for even submitting it in the first place. Like you should absolutely like that is not, that is so non-trivial. So shout out to you if you submitted a proposal. I don't.

Richard (19:31)
Yes, yes.

Absolutely, that is a massive step.

Vernon (19:41)
I don't give a goddamn whether you made it or not, you are winning by just submitting. I know that sounds a little bit pithy but like genuinely that's a big deal. Yeah it's a big deal. And then so after that

Richard (19:48)
That's true. That's a proper good point.

Vernon (19:56)
I think try and get some feedback or some support from other folks. So I know that there are a few programs, so there's one that I've just joined called the MASH program, I'll put it in the show notes, where you can get help and support with putting together abstracts and proposals and creating your talk. And there was one, I can't remember what it was called. Was it Anne-Marie Charrett that created it?

Richard (20:17)
Nice.

Vernon (20:24)
Lisa Crispin speakeasy is it still called still around? Or did it change names? Anyway, I'll find a link to that.

Richard (20:26)
Oh, Speakeasy, yeah, then I think... I can't remember. No, it changed names to TechVoice or something along those lines. And I'm not sure what happened to it. I'm not sure.

Vernon (20:38)
Okay, I'll see if it's still around, I will track it down and I'll add the link to the show notes. Or just find people to look at your abstract, to look at your proposal. I reviewed a couple of proposals for a couple of friends of mine that submitted to some conferences this time and one or two of them were successful, which is sick. So one of those people, by the way, they didn't get in because I reviewed it.

Richard (20:54)
Yeah, me too.

Vernon (21:07)
This person was super smart, like they just went and got reviews from a ton of people.

Richard (21:12)
You sign the abstract off on the bottom. Vernon says you must accept this.

Vernon (21:18)
Yeah, so yeah I think that's really good advice and then on the specifically on the about the rejections Man I don't know man I just it's easy for me to say because to Rich's point I've spoken at a few things I suppose but I would try and don't beat yourself

I would try again. Some good advice that I just stumbled into blindly by accident was to submit to meetups, like meetups that are starving for presenters. And if you're dead set on this path, I think that's a really good way to practice and build up some kind of buzz and some hype. It's like, oh, you really need to get, you know, such and such at your talk, at your

Richard (21:55)
Mm-hmm, absolutely.

Yep.

Vernon (22:13)
conference because they're absolutely amazing. They did this thing, that thing, the other thing. But I think that's a really, I think that can be a really helpful thing to do. And also the stakes are low. If it's local or it's online and it's a smaller audience, the stakes are lower as well. So less competition and then the stakes are lower once you get accepted to speak at one of those events. And yeah, reflect.

Commiserate with some, you know, with a buddy or two or three. And then if you've got the energy in the stomach for it, just, you know, get back on the horse and try again. I think you will get through. I think you will get. Yo.

Richard (22:52)
praise yourself for like you said though, that bit that you did it in the first place, right? Don't forget that effort and that leap that you took. Um, that's a massive step too. Um, what was I going to, I was going to add something. Oh, so one thing I always think I'd encourage people to do as well is finish the talk. So write it, write the talk, do the slides because it's only going to help you unravel that journey and that experience and that story even more.

Vernon (22:59)
Yeah, man. Yeah.

Richard (23:19)
which then might help you with a new abstract or a new talk or another piece of content or medium. So I know that sounds like doing work for no purpose, but it's not, it's gonna help you formulate your thoughts. And I've done that, I've done that several times myself.

Vernon (23:34)
Here's the other thing. And now I'm gonna get possibly slightly woo and go off on a tangent. So Rich, if you need to, if you need to wield the editing scalpel, please do. Basically what I'm gonna say is time are different now in 2024. What do I mean? What I mean is you don't need to wait for permission to present your talk. There's this thing called YouTube. There's this thing called the internet. There's this thing called blogging.

Richard (23:39)
I'm sorry.

No one can see, I'll set a timer. Go on.

Yeah, absolutely.

Vernon (24:03)
There's this, like you can get your ideas out there. And again, it helps you build the reps, helps you build confidence in yourself. It builds a little bit of reputation and credibility for yourself. So that, you know, maybe sometimes you'll start to get invited to speak at these things. And I just think that is worth exploring. Like you don't, it's less of a world where we have to.

The only way we can get our message out to the world is via somebody else's platform. We can create our own platforms now. And people, Twitter used to be awesome for that. It's less awesome for that now. A lot of people have kind of disappeared from there. And I'm still getting my head around the fact that LinkedIn is where all the cool conversations are happening that I can't. It's weird to say that. LinkedIn has a lot of cool stuff happening on LinkedIn. So get involved in those conversations.

Richard (24:53)
You've got to go somewhere. That's the thing.

Vernon (25:03)
And yeah, it's another avenue for you to kind of share your message.

Richard (25:04)
Well...

Absolutely. And I think that ties us nicely into the next topic we wanted to talk about, Vernon, which was networking and the power of a network. So we kind of hit in on a little bit already, I think, by asking people to review your abstracts.

Vernon (25:14)
Oh!

Yeah.

Richard (25:21)
one thing I would say in that is being,

someone who's done a lot of talks and seemed to be, you know, kind of a leader in, in the, in the, in the wider community, and I'm not trying to pat my own back here, but like.

Don't, I've had people who reach out to me and they're really like, I'm sorry for messaging you. I'm really sorry for messaging you, but like, would you help me? Don't worry about that. Message people, fire shots at will. If someone bites, they'll bite. Don't just like, don't, don't delay asking for help from someone. If they can't help you, most polite people would just say, I'm sorry, I'm a bit busy, but you know, message people, message speakers you've seen a lot of people will invest time. I meant like you mentioned Lisa Crispin, you know, incredibly well known person. She always finds the time.

Vernon (26:00)
Right.

Richard (26:01)
She finds that time. I don't know where. I wish I had all the hours Lisa has in the day. But she finds the time.

Vernon (26:04)
Her. She's incredible, man. She's doing it.

Richard (26:08)
So, but yeah, networking is a huge, had this had a huge part of my life. And yeah, Vernon, how's networking benefited you?

Vernon (26:18)
Well, it was at the forefront of my mind this week, excuse me, for the past few weeks actually, for a multitude of different reasons. So, you know, on the professional side, we had, we've introduced this new tool in the platform engineering space. And I was like, oh, I...

Like I missed the whole conversation about it happening completely. Um, but I've got a friend of mine who works at a startup in the same space, who I met at a testing conference. And now we are full. Like it's not even, we're just friends now. So I'm shouting out you Abby Banger as usual. I'm always shouting you out Abby Banger Um, and so, so I, I'm able to, I'm able to just hit her up and say, Hey,

We're just using this new tool. Isn't that like the tool that you all build? Like, can you explain how this is gonna work? And then she's like, yeah, of course. Yeah, just arrange your time. And that's just been happening a lot this week. Like another amazing person that I am.

Richard (27:16)
Yeah.

Vernon (27:28)
just amazing friends with this Ash Coleman. Like we had to talk about some stuff that she was working on. She was like, hey, Van, I'm working on a thing. Would love to get your opinion. And that's just on the professional side. As I say, like I had a tough couple of weeks on the health side. And people that I've met at conferences, like I said, have become actual friends. Like, you know, this handsome devil.

to my right, is one of the people that has supported me recently when I, so I've just recently found out that I've got type two diabetes. And so that has been like, what the hell? So, you know, I've had tons and tons of people just reaching out that I originally met at conferences. So where am I going with all this?

Richard (27:58)
Oof.

Well, before you go into that, Vernon, what did the handsome chap on your right send you about a month ago when you started having these tests as a thank you gift?

Vernon (28:26)
So yeah, Rich, you know, Rich and I have been having a lot of conversations over the past few months and Rich, to say thanks, he sent me a massive box of sweets. And in fact, I only just recently got one in the box. Just in and around the time as this type two diabetes stuff was manifested itself. So I did what any self-respecting, you know, pre-diabetic person did, I ate the sweets.

Richard (28:51)
Ha!

I'm sorry, my next gift to you, promise you it won't be a giant box of sweets.

Vernon (28:56)
What I will ask you, I humbly request, please do not send me diabetic sweets. I don't want them. That's like vegan cheese. I'm also vegan. Like just, no, I would rather not have them. But yeah, where's it going with all this? So we're coming into, schedules are being announced. So you'll have an opportunity to buy some tickets and attend some conferences in the weeks and months ahead. And I, not only do I want you to go, I think it's so important.

Richard (29:06)
Yeah.

Vernon (29:26)
that you find a way to summon the energy. Cause I know it's tough for, you know, my, my introvert brethren find it very draining to be around a lot of people, but find a way to go there and really connect and find opportunities to meet people and chat with them and learn from them because there is so much, people are doing so many crazy things and it will help you on a professional side.

I got help, tons of help from Ash, from Martin, from my friend, Mark Tomlinson, like tons of people on a professional basis, Abby as usual, Angie, shout out to the Jones crew. Tons of people helped me out professionally, but also on a personal level, just with anything. So you never know.

how these relationships are gonna pan out. They may be just acquaintances. I say just acquaintances. There may be acquaintances who can introduce you to people. They may turn out to be friends. They may turn out to be business partners, or dare I say romantic partners, because that's happened before. So yeah, I would just, I... Oh yeah, yeah. Actually, there are two that spring to mind, right? So I would definitely encourage you take a look at some of all these conferences that are spinning up, that are announcing their schedules.

Richard (30:34)
Well you just mentioned Martin and Ash so yeah there you go.

Vernon (30:49)
If you can possibly attend any, definitely get them, but this applies to any kind of gathering, like a meetup, online, offline, doesn't matter. You've got a high concentration of incredible people who are super motivated, high agency, they've showed up to learn about something and you are missing a trick if you don't leave with at least one email address or one LinkedIn profile that you can hit people upon afterwards.

Like I've had mad conversations, like shout out to my new friend. Check this out. What's the what's the only thing better than one tester called Vernon? Who tested Vernon? That's right. I met a guy called Vernon. Scott, shout out to you, Vernon. Like he's also a handsome, spectacle wearing black dude who's in the space, who's in the software testing space. And we had a great chat earlier on this week. That's pure just reaching out, connecting with people. I just highly recommend it. And the conference is a great.

Richard (31:28)
Ha! Two? Oh no. Oh no.

Was that Vernon Scott, did you say? Oh, sorry. At least I've got a new replacement if being your good downhill mate, I've got a replacement now. Cheers for that, boss.

Vernon (31:48)
Yeah. Bernard Scott. The second.

You're a disgrace. You see what I'm... ..with her people.

Richard (32:02)
But I, but I don't see that. That what you just said though, is like so true about the networking. Um, the, the network is there for whatever you need, you know, like I've had lots of issues recently and the network was there to help me, you know, lots of positive messages, lots of support, lots of suggestions, lots of phone numbers for people who want, you know, willing to let me phone them and call them and like, you know, chat to them, um, offers to come and meet me. Uh, you know, and these are people who.

You know, I've connected through from a testing perspective, probably most likely, or, you know, some, you know, software related, but actually, you know, are there for also even bigger things than that. Um, so yeah, definitely, like you said, there's lots of things that can come out of networking, but it's there. Um, and also, you know, like, I think the important things that I, the best thing I've always done with mine is like kind of nurtured it. So, you know, there's a lot of people who take it for granted, right? They'll, you don't.

They disappear for months upon end. And this, I'm not criticizing them. They disappear for months and they come back. It's like, I really need this now. Well, you know, this is what I'm after. Then they'll disappear again. I like to try and keep not fully active all the time, but you know, being present regularly if I can in the network that I know that I've built just to keep those connections, to find out what's going on with people, to be, you know, up to date in what, you know, what the...

Vernon (33:21)
Yes.

Richard (33:26)
What's the context is and things like that, instead of like, again, just dip coming back in four months later because I need something. Um, you know, I like to try and my best to be there as much as I can to help, to spot, you know, to be there when someone says I need help, you know, pay it forward. That's one thing I said when I was, you know, um, back in September, October, and I was really struggling. I was like, everyone who helped me is that I'm going to pay it forward. Um, and that's for me now being active in the network and in my community means I could spot those opportunities where I can pay it forward.

So yeah, really powerful.

Vernon (33:58)
Yeah, just follow, you know, it doesn't even have to be an on, you know, it might sound like you're allowing people to place massive demands on you and your time. And it doesn't have to be that you can, you can, you know, you're still in control of, of how much energy and time you devote to this and to the people that you meet. But to Richie's point, you know, just, just dropping people's line, like, so, so today,

Richard (34:04)
Ahem.

Yeah.

Vernon (34:28)
I saw on LinkedIn that Marie Cruz and Louis Prescott have just announced the book that they're writing. So contract testing in action. I haven't spoken to Marie for months and I haven't spoken to Louis for probably years or a year at least at all on any level. But it didn't stop me from getting hype like, yo, that's awesome. You wrote a book. Like, you know, I'm going to signal boost that all day every day.

Richard (34:34)
Yep.

Yeah.

Vernon (34:57)
And so it's just little things like that, right? So, you know, don't be an energy vampire, I guess is how I translate what Rich said. Like see how you can help, like how can you help people and how can you amplify them? Like if you connect with somebody or you see somebody doing something cool, you know, just drop a little message and say, oh, I saw you got accepted to a thing, well done. Or I saw your post that you shared on X.

Richard (35:00)
Absolutely.

Vernon (35:26)
or LinkedIn or whatever. That was really cool. Here's the impact it had on me. Like, da, da. And people appreciate that, man. You don't even just, you know, just giving those people those little big ups and without any expectation of, it's weird, woo incoming. So when you do stuff like that, it's weird how things come back to you. Like you just offer that support, offer the kind words without any expectation of anything in return.

Richard (35:31)
Yep.

Vernon (35:50)
you still get stuff in return anyway. It's like the universe doesn't see you out of pocket, so to speak.

Richard (35:51)
Yeah.

Absolutely, feels like a feels like an odd time, but the right time to say, uh, be sure to subscribe and follow and share this, uh, amazing, uh, podcast. Um, comments subscribe. Um, and it's also a good opportunity for us to talk about a format that we want to do. So I listened to the rest is football podcast, um, with big meeks Alan Shearer and, um, Gary Lineker.

Vernon (36:07)
Energy vampire. But at the same time, please like, comment, subscribe.

Thanks.

Richard (36:26)
I forgot links on it, but... It's true, yeah. They do a fantastic thing where they do a bonus episode every now and again called the AMA episode, and I want to try and mimic that. I think it would be good for me and Vernon. We've got a lot of knowledge and sometimes thinking of what to talk about. It's actually not becoming a problem for us, but in my brain it's like, what the hell are we going to talk about? But I want to try and do an AMA show, so what I'm going to ask you to do is if you have any questions you would love me and Vernon to answer.

Vernon (36:28)
I just played Link, my Leicester brother. Ha ha.

Richard (36:56)
Please send them to us DMs on Twitter or LinkedIn or comment on the video or wherever you're watching this or listening to this and try and get them to us or whatever way you can and We'll basically we'll do a bonus episode Periodically where we run through some of these questions So yeah

Vernon (37:12)
Yeah, that'd be awesome. You can also you can also well, I'm just going to speak for both of us. You can also hit us up on LinkedIn, you can DM us on Twitter slash x, you know, the more the merrier.

Richard (37:19)
Absolutely.

Vernon (37:24)
Yeah, so.

I joined a new team in my day job towards the end of last year. So right, it was kind of like November, December, but I still feel like I haven't on boarded properly onto the team properly.

And I was talking, I was talking with one of my teammates. He's also a QE on the team. And we were trying to figure out, like I wanna go through all the tests and see which ones we can throw in the bin and which ones we can, you know, find out how we can automate. Like, why have we even got all these tests? Like, what are we doing with them? What are we doing with them? If I try and run them, will that help me on board? Is there other documentation that I need to be reading? Like, who do I need to speak to? What even is this thing? It just got me thinking about onboarding.

Richard (38:10)
Yeah, okay.

Vernon (38:18)
and the fact that you know I'm at least four months in and I'm still feeling uncomfortable I mean I'm still feeling like oh man did I have I am I doing the right things like am I helping people out like what am I supposed to do ah this product is so complicated and you know this that and the other so it just got me thinking about onboarding I know and I know Rich you started a new job this year and so I was wondering if you've had you know what's your take on it what advice you had

Richard (38:39)
Yeah, yeah.

Vernon (38:45)
how you're solving is because you're, because you're, here's your, because you work at a consultancy right, which is like double onboarding. It's like you've got

Richard (38:52)
I was about to say, yeah, I've done double onboarding. Yeah. Well, the first onboarding to the actual company got cut short because there was a client ready that needed, needed me. So, um, technically there's a two week onboarding to the company. Um, I did the first week as it was meant to be. And then the second week I kind of had to dip in and out. Um, why I would say I'll name the company. So I joined Slalom, um, Slalom build.

Vernon (38:56)
Yes, man, that's crazy, bro.

Richard (39:19)
The onboarding from the Slalom site, amazing. It's probably the smoothest I've probably had. Everything was well structured, well planned out. There was centralized lists of the things you needed to do. And they use a tool called Workday, which bits of that are okay, but it was very good at prompting you to, you know, remind you to do certain things. And very people focused on boarding. So a lot of encouraging me to go and meet people.

As in just here's a list of people. You're expected to have X number of conversations with people. You know, it feels intimidating, but it's not that bad, right? Cause they, they know you've joined, right? Cause they, you know, they see your name pop up or if like we have a one day in the office, a hybrid approach, so, you know, people see you. So that, that bit I would say was definitely one of my best tips talking to people. Um, because number one names.

Vernon (40:10)
Hmm.

Richard (40:13)
Most teams just throw names around, oh, you need to go talk to Dave. You need to go and talk to, you know, you need to go talk to Janet. And he's like, Dave who Janet who, right? You don't know these people. So the more you can familiarize yourself with people, like, you know, I definitely encourage that. But yeah, they did that side really well. So that was great. And then the onboard into the project, I was actually quite fortunate, I think, because everyone was on boarding at the same time. So.

Vernon (40:41)
Yeah.

Richard (40:41)
But also it was a little bit rushed. So there was structure in place, but it was all new. And there was a lot of things that we couldn't do. But yeah, so I've done it twice. I think one thing that I wanted to bring up, which just made me laugh when you were talking, was it's been, what's it been? I can't count today. It's been two and a half months. And I finally got access today to the final tool on the list.

of all the things I needed access for. Like it's, and it's just been because of the context of this project. I'm not, I'm definitely not criticizing anyone. Like, but there's been so many things to get access to. There's so many people trying to get access to these things and the processes are still being formalized. And yeah, it took, it's taken that long to get everything that I need.

Vernon (41:09)
Ha ha!

Listen man, it can't be a criticism of the project because then we'd have to criticise, well I'd have to criticise every goddamn project I've ever been on.

Richard (41:41)
But I would say that that's one of my first things on the list, the access, get the access, because once you get the access, you can learn in your own time. Prior to that, I was having to pair with people and ask them to do things for me on certain tools because I didn't have the access myself. So as soon as I got access, I was able then to start tinkering with these tools. Right. And I'm like Mr. super curious, right. I'm intrigued, like, you know, even if we're using tool for purpose, A, but the tool offers B, I'm looking at B.

because I'm like, what does B do? Could we move A to B? I'm that kind of mindset. But once I get in those tools, I can start looking around, which is really useful. Then from a testing point of view, obviously the tools are important. I know a lot of the tools I needed access to had APIs. And I find sometimes I find API docs a lot easier to read to find out what the tool is capable of.

Vernon (42:35)
Yeah.

Richard (42:35)
Um, as opposed to reading maybe marketing pages or heavy documentation, I find just quickly looking at the API, um, endpoints and that, Oh, that looks interesting. That's that name. So it's basically just digesting the names a lot quicker than reading all these help guides. So I found that very useful on this project because we, we integrate with a lot of third party tools and most of it's done by the API, so that helps me get up to speed a lot quicker.

Vernon (42:44)
Mm-hmm.

Richard (43:02)
especially when I see stuff in the code, like, even today, there was something around an identity. There was a model called identity. I was like, where's this coming from? And I was like, oh, it's coming from that tool. And I was like, yeah, but this name doesn't make sense. Right. I don't understand that. So then I went to the API of the tool to see what the JSON looks like. And I was like, oh, that must map to that, I reckon. So I was able to kind of reverse it myself because obviously, yes, we're consuming an API, but we can call our code whatever we want, right?

Vernon (43:21)
Hehehe

Richard (43:30)
just because it's ideal to try and name them something similar, but it's not always the case. So I found that, I think that's a really good hack, looking at API docs of third party tools. Yeah, go on.

Vernon (43:34)
Mm.

you maybe realize something man so like you've spent a lot of time talking about the product and the technical side of the product is naturally where you've gravitated to

Richard (43:46)
Yeah.

Vernon (44:01)
I've just realised I've spent a lot of time trying to build relationships with my teammates. If I imagine how much time I've spent on where I focus my time in the onboarding, I think I've spent more time just trying to observe my teammates and trying to understand who they are and what they are like rather than diving into the product. I don't know how to treat that.

Richard (44:20)
Interesting.

Is that because of the role though? Like for me, my role in this is hands on tester, QE, automating, so like, yes, I need the people relationships. Absolutely. But if I, if I don't get my, like in the first episode, we spoke about the model of the system, if I don't get that quickly, I'm going to struggle to be effective. Which, and a little bit of imposter syndrome would make me not, without that model, I don't feel as comfortable.

Vernon (44:31)
is hands-on.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Richard (44:54)
talking to maybe some of the more experienced people, unless I'm talking to them to get information and that's framed that way. But if it's in a meeting and it's like, you know, dev saying they're gonna build a, and I'm like in my head, I think, I saw something earlier, but there's a gap in my model that I'm not brave enough to go actually, I don't think that's a good idea. I probably wouldn't say it. Like not in the early day, not two and a half months in, like maybe once I've been there longer, but then if I've been there longer, my model will probably be complete. So, yeah.

Vernon (44:58)
Well, race go.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think I was having this conversation with some, I'm pretty blessed. I worked my team across the company, and none more so than a quality engineering role. I've got some incredible teammates and I'm working on a thing with two of my teammates, Lizzie Hocker and Ben Doan. And we were having a conversation similar to this topic.

and I'd realised that I'm the kind of person, I like to read stuff first before I start playing around with stuff. Yeah. And I realised, talking to those two, I realised that I've always been like that. So one of my oldest friends and me, we used to spend a lot of time playing video games from when we were kids, like a lot of time. And even then, we'd get a new game.

I'd be the one who would read the manual. He'd be the one, he'd just start playing the game. Immediately, like he's just like, I don't care about any manual shmanual, I'm playing. I'm like, why am I playing the game? The manual's right here, I'm gonna read it. So I think, and I think I haven't done that as much as I would have liked in my new team. Like there's tons of documentation. Everybody uses confluence, that is where requirements go to die a lot of the time. So I know the information is there, and I've seen a lot of it, but I haven't.

consumed a lot of it. So that's maybe that's another gap. An obvious gap that I need to fill. Go and find that documentation that people have painstakingly put together and is awesome and go and read it and consume it to try and fill gaps. Oh yeah.

Richard (47:02)
But yeah, I think there's an art to that though. I think that the, well, there's an art to it, but also even thinking that. So again, I can think back to my current context where we've got a lot of documentation built by us that was done during the discovery phase. As we were getting familiar with this client, lots of stuff was done, documented, but there's also all the existing documentation from the previous supplier and the client themselves.

Vernon (47:30)
Mm-hmm.

Richard (47:31)
And one thing that I've learned is the previous supplier had masses and masses of test cases, like there's loads of them. Um, but searching through them gave me some useful insights into how things were working. Um, so we didn't, I didn't need them. We had no interest in taking them from our one to run them point of view. It was purely from a, a ticket's come in. It's about part A of the system. Is there any existing test cases that were there?

Vernon (47:46)
Yeah.

Thank you.

Richard (47:59)
around that part of the system that I can read to help me understand this ticket a little bit more, to help me build that model, to help me get closer to what I'm doing. And I've noticed that a lot of the other roles on the team aren't doing that. So there's messages in Slack and it's, you know, so let me reframe it. So one, read the API docs, look at the code, read the looking confluence, right? Or ask for help. A lot of people are defaulting to the ask for help.

So I'm seeing these messages, which is, does anyone know about A? And then I'm like, have you even searched, it's like, try Google that for you, but not as offensively. It's like, shall I confluence that for you? Like, have you read this? But obviously, you know, everyone's different, right? But then, you know, they're still solving their problem because people are gonna help them, of course we are. But it's like, have you read this, have you read that? And a lot of the time as well, I think in the context I'm in.

I think sometimes people are hoping just to get the answer, whereas we're not in that space yet. We're in that space where here's a little piece, here's another piece, here's another big, this is a slightly bigger piece. You're gonna have to stitch that together to find what you're looking for because we don't know those things yet.

Vernon (49:07)
Yeah.

Big time, because if you're joining a project that is new, project, a team, like you're building a product that actually isn't even finished yet, there isn't an answer. Like you haven't built it yet. So there's an element of having to go and try and help yourself a little bit. And I think, to be honest, I think that's a useful thing to do in any contest because you can.

you can build a lot of credibility with your teammates then such that they are more likely to help. But when I, at the beginning of the year, I bought a book called The First 90 Days, which is all about how, you know, it gives you a playbook to use when you join a team, bloody hell. I bought to use when you join a team, but my,

Richard (50:06)
Okay.

Vernon (50:10)
The beginning of this year was so crazily disrupted, like in a really unpredictable way, but I haven't even got anywhere near close to finishing reading that book. So I need to go and get the audio book version and like smash my way and see if there are some classic mistakes that I'm making. One of the ones, and I might've talked about this before, so apologies if I have, but one of the things I remember the book talking about was positioning.

Richard (50:26)
Hahaha

Vernon (50:39)
And it's something that I'm really interested in excited about. And I think it would help a lot of QE's and testers is positioning. Like how are you positioned when you join this team such that people know what to expect from you is such a massive deal. So there are some things.

Richard (50:59)
Positioned by others or positioned in yourself or both?

Vernon (51:05)
I would say more so others. Like you almost wanna make sure that the people that are bringing you into the team in whatever leadership position, they are super clear about what your mission is on that team. And you need to almost nag them, like encourage them strongly.

Richard (51:23)
Okay.

Yeah.

Vernon (51:30)
Make sure that when you're telling people I'm coming to this team, that you're positioning me as this kind of person who's gonna hear to do these kinds of things. Because then it helps set those expectations, especially with such an overloaded term like tester. I know quality engineer is trying to indicate some different things, but I think people will, I think people will just do the mapping. They'll just go, oh, tester, okay, tester means this. And whatever tester means to them in their overloaded,

Richard (51:41)
Yeah, absolutely.

Hahaha

That makes it harder, I think.

Vernon (52:00)
in their namespace if you like, then that's what they'll expect. So I think that's a big part of it and I think that book talks about it. So maybe in a few weeks time when I've actually either listened to the audio book or finished reading the book, I can come back and answer my own question.

Richard (52:03)
Yep.

I think that's another thing we can add to the list is that, you know, even making it sure that you're aware of how you were meant to be positioned, but also finding out if you were positioned that way. So once you have some of those relationships, maybe you can even ask and say, how was it positioned that I would, you know, how was it explained to you about why I was joining this team or what I was doing? You know, because there was probably conversations before you joined. And then obviously when you do join.

you're then obviously there. But once you've built some relationships up and you're a lot closer with some of the team, then you might be able to find out, not necessarily, I don't mean it in a negative way as in something might happen, you'd be like, something mustn't have been right. It's like, hey, can you tell me what was said when I joined this project? And then you're like, ah, now I can unravel it. But.

Vernon (53:05)
Hell yeah.

Absolutely. You should definitely ask your teammates what their expectations are of you when you join. For sure. That's one thing that I've learned over the years is a smart thing to do. And I've done it with, I think there's a couple of people I'm still yet to have that conversation with, but I've had it with some of my teammates. And it's such a wise and helpful thing to do.

Richard (53:14)
Yeah.

Vernon (53:35)
because you can, you can, if there's a mismatch in the expectations, you can, you can address it early. And I think that's really, really important to do. So I think I've got at least that part partially right.

Richard (53:41)
Yep.

And I think one more that's jumped to my mind on that topic is, like, one thing that I did quite soon on was try and find out who specializes in what. So from an existing knowledge of the system point of view, but also in a general software point of view, you know, finding out, you know, who's got these skills. Like literally I was in the office the other day and this is not actually to do with my project or team, but it's in the same vein was.

Vernon (53:59)
Yeah.

Richard (54:15)
I needed some help with a bash script and I was like, is there any bash gurus in the office, can you come to my desk and just help me with the script? Right. But if, if I knew someone was already a bash guru, I can ping them and be like, Hey, can you help me out? So getting on that team and realizing that this person is the one who's had the most experience with this part of the system, and it's actually happened to me now with the payment gateway that we use, because some of the tickets I've been on have been very intensely around the payment gateway.

So now people are coming to me going, how'd you do this? How does that work? Can you explain this to me? How does that work? Right. And it's because number one, I've been on those tickets, but also I've been quite open and vocal about being willing to help. Right. So I post these little snippets and slide. That's one thing I've only realized it now that I do is I tend to post things into Slack and say, if you ever have this problem, this is what I did.

Vernon (54:46)
Oh, nice. Nice.

Richard (55:09)
So it's not worthy of confluence. It's not lengthy enough for that, but it's a very simple thing in Slack because that's where the conversation's happening. So, and if it's there, it's searchable, someone might find it. So, could be any, like little config errors, little things like this, the error messages that pop up on the UI, stuff like this, like if you ever have this error, it's most likely because of this. I mean, I've just spent half an hour working that out.

Vernon (55:25)
That's nice. I like.

Richard (55:38)
So I'm going to tell, I'm going to share with that with you. And also you get the joy as well of like, for me, writing that message does something in my brain that kind of puts it in a filing cabinet, it banks it for me. So.

Vernon (55:38)
Yeah.

Hmm. That's big. Yeah, hell yeah. That's big. You're making me think like the thing to abstract out of that is just look for those small wins where you can be helpful. And, you know, when you're saying, look, how can I help? You know, I did that when I joined my team. I helped with a documentation task around security, I seem to remember.

And I paired it with one of the devs on that, like within the first week or two of joining the team. And I think that can be really useful. Like share the knowledge, be willing to just pitch in. You've just joined. There is something to be said for just throwing yourself in at the deep end and saying, I don't really know what the hell is going on, but I'm gonna help with this piece of work. Why not?

Richard (56:35)
Absolutely. Yeah. I know in the flip side of that, another thing I've just remembered doing is got a lot of AWS on this project and I know a little bit about AWS, but I am far from, you know, a guru. And I remember posting saying, um, it was to do with a cloud watch and the logs and stuff like that. And I was like, I could read all the docs here, but you know what? I'm just going to be vulnerable and be like on the slab.

I know half the team had been doing this, right? Cause you know, they've been debugging tickets and stuff. I was like, can someone just walk me through cloud watch? It's going to be so much quicker than me doing all this reading. Even if maybe they had expectations that I should know those things, right? If so, I didn't really care. I was like, I want to get this knowledge as quickly as possible. And the best way is to be vulnerable, ask for help, admit I don't know what that is. Um, because I don't know.

And that's fine. It's okay that I don't know. Um, but I want to learn. So I'd rather have those relationships. Um, I'd rather like you, you know, have conversations with people, which in turn helps me with those relationships.

Vernon (57:27)
Yeah.

Okay, how much is that natural for you and how much did you have to learn that? The vulnerability part, I mean. Because that's risky and scary and fear and.

Richard (57:48)
Oh no, like learn. Yeah. Um, I would say definitely learn, but probably a more, um, shift in my mindset of wanting to be more effective, efficient and effective. And I know I can go and learn that stuff, but it's probably going to be a lot longer, um, and on the team where we're trying to obviously be fast and, you know, try and get, you know, tickets through and knowledge built up as, you know, as effective as possible.

Vernon (58:03)
Mm.

Richard (58:18)
I now find it easier to be vulnerable and ask for help. Um, but yeah, definitely never used to, I used to be the one, you know, I'd go, I'd spend my evenings learning it because there's no time at work, like, cause I don't want to be that person. Uh, but now it's complete shift in that, you know what, I don't know. It's okay. So number one is I don't know. The number two is it's actually okay that I don't know tech is so vast. It's so complicated. And even if I was an AWS guru three years ago,

Vernon (58:31)
Okay.

Yeah.

Richard (58:46)
I ain't going to remember that because I spent the last three years in, uh, I don't know, Google cloud or Heroku. Right. So it's not, maybe not in my head as much anymore. So, and maybe I need the conversation with someone to find the right cabinets to open again, to unravel it. But yeah, I, I'm fine personally now you mentioned relationships at the start. I find it easier to be vulnerable, ask for help. And also I think it ties nicely with other people that kind of makes them do the same.

Vernon (58:53)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Richard (59:16)
I can see you rubbing your hands, so go on.

Vernon (59:18)
Here's a conundrum for you. Where do you find the right balance between asking for help and helping yourself? Because there is a sweet spot depending on the situation. Because if you're asking for help, that means somebody's gonna context switch or stop what they're doing to help you out. And it's not that it's, I'm not saying it's wrong, but there are situations where,

you can feel like to your point earlier, it's like, mate, Google is real. Like Google is a thing. Like why didn't you, you know, how do you judge that?

Richard (59:54)
Yeah.

Good question. I'm trying to think of like, again, just trying to think recent scenarios. So there's been, I said, there's been a lot of people pinging me because of the knowledge on this payment gateway. And I agree with you. Sometimes it does impact your flow and like your work. But for me, I think nowadays, I'm just a people first person, right? If someone needs help, like I wanna help them.

And also I kind of think of sometimes on the lines of being blocked. So for them, they're blocked, right? I'm not blocked, right? Yes, I'm being interrupted and it might delay me a little bit, but that person is currently blocked and I want to unblock them and I believe that I can unblock them and I think maybe it's context of our team that seems to be a commonly accepted way of working. That, you know, it's not, it's not okay to disrupt people all the time, but it's not like I'm like, you know, literally pinging them, calling them.

Vernon (1:00:38)
Mm-hmm.

Richard (1:00:57)
I'm sending them a Slack, you know, they could, they could choose to mute their Slack. You know, they could choose to do whatever they don't have to reply to me. Um, so it's not like, you know, I'm not like walking up to their desk and standing behind them and being like, help me now. Um, yeah. And, you know, again, I've worked in offices where that would be okay as well. But I think the switch for me is more. If I'm really blocked and I know that that's going to unblock me quickly, I'll probably frame it that way. And I'll probably say.

Vernon (1:00:58)
Thanks. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. So, we're going to go ahead and start the presentation. Okay. So, we're going to start the presentation. Okay. So, we're going to start the presentation. Okay.

Yeah. Hey man, how we are?

Richard (1:01:27)
I think you might help me. This might help me now. So like again, providing the context and the framing in the message that I send. Explain what you're doing on camera for the people not watching.

Vernon (1:01:39)
Oh, I do this. I do when somebody says something absolutely love I just point at them and I like just

Richard (1:01:45)
But be just

Vernon (1:01:46)
beat my chair, I'm like, yo, love that. Love that advice.

Richard (1:01:49)
So yeah, it's that effective thing for me, trying to get the problem solved, unblock people, and yes, I can go and learn all these things. And also, again, I think sometimes it's not always the tool. So with the CloudWatch instance, the tool itself was quite simple, but there was like 500 log groups I could choose from. And it's like, well, what are the log groups, right? The AWS documentation ain't gonna tell me that.

Vernon (1:02:17)
It's not.

Richard (1:02:17)
Whereas somebody else on the team has already worked that out. And maybe they'd not documented it. Maybe they did. Maybe they are just not found it. Or maybe again, it's just not there anywhere, but little things like that. And also with, again, with AWS, you can do filters on cloud watch. You can write little filtered messages. Some of the team had already designed their own that they use all the time. You know, ID log ID, um, some sort of keyword, something else. They've written that query. And yes, I could have learned the query language.

Vernon (1:02:22)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Richard (1:02:47)
wrote my own query or a four, three, four, five minute conversation. They've shown me the groups. They've sent me their query job done, right? I'm, I'm unblocked off I go. And also another person now knows how to unblock the next person who might ask that question and the cycle continues. Um, so yeah, but then the, the other side I would say is it's more. If everyone's new to something. And I know that if I approached like someone who does.

Vernon (1:02:52)
get you unstuck.

Yeah.

Richard (1:03:16)
Literally we all got introduced to a new tool on Monday morning. And I know on Wednesday that yes, some people will have probably got further than I have, but I'm probably not going to go and ask them on that day. I feel like it's too soon. I'd probably on that situation, I would go back into the docs, applying, you know, play with the tool myself, explore the tool myself. Uh, me and Mark in our training, we always used to talk about, you know, the 15 minute rule, you know, if I can't get, make progress in 15 minutes, then I'm going, then I'm going for help.

Vernon (1:03:28)
Yeah.

Richard (1:03:46)
Right, so.

Vernon (1:03:47)
I love that Rich, love that time box, that crap. I mean, I really love my solution to all that is to really, is what you said before, is around the context, like share the context of why you're coming to them and what you may or may not have done. You know, so it's things like saying, oh, well, I tried this thing, I tried that thing, I looked here and there and everywhere and I couldn't find it and da da. Can you help me please? Or, you know, it might be, look man.

times of the essence, I don't really have time to be chasing around all over the internet because someone just helped me out because reasons, you know, I think, I think that's a big, I think that's a big, big part of it. And I love, I love the idea that you and Mark had around time boxing, how much you're going to flail around in the dark. I think that's very, very smart. I think that's okay. I want to try and get myself unstuck for X amount of time.

Richard (1:04:39)
Yep.

Vernon (1:04:45)
And if I'm still struggling, I'm calling in the cavalry, man.

Richard (1:04:49)
Yeah, we used to do it. And it was the framing around a brand new tool. So, you know, if the tool says you can send an API request, right. If I can't send an API request in 15 minutes, then there's probably something wrong with that tool. Or again, I shouldn't, I'm going to end up wasting a lot more time trying to do it. I should stop consider what we've just mentioned, find someone who knows more than me, read the docs, look at the API, look for YouTube videos, look for conference talks, right? Tight roll back to where we started. Right.

Vernon (1:05:00)
Yeah.

Richard (1:05:17)
I'm going to, I need to know that actually I'm about to enter a rabbit hole and I'm probably going to get flustered. I'm probably not going to be working very effectively. I'm not going to have a clear model. So I stopped myself at that 15 minute. I formulate a plan and then basically try and execute it without spending three hours in a dark hole in a rabbit hole, trying to find some.

Vernon (1:05:38)
Maybe that could be another under the topic for another show like learn how to learn stuff or learning resources. Yeah.

Richard (1:05:43)
Learn how to learn.

Right, so there we go. Lots enjoyed that conversation, Vernon.

Vernon (1:05:53)
I mean, yeah, apart from the football part, it was a really nice conversation to have. I think we should edit out all talk of football until Liverpool start winning again.

Richard (1:06:04)
I might now copy the diary of a CEO, you know, where they put snippets at the start. I'm going to put football snippet at the start, then keep the original football bit and then football bit at the end as well. But yeah, the usual request at the end of this pod, please like, share, subscribe, send us feedback, good, bad. We're on this journey for the long haul and we want to keep improving episode after episode, so send it our way.

Vernon (1:06:28)
Yeah, definitely let us know who your favourite host is and why it's Vernon. We want to know that. It's really important that we get this information. No, seriously, Vernon Scott indeed. The second thing, Vernon Scott the second. But yeah, please feedback would be great. Please like, comment, share, subscribe. All of that good stuff. You know, you know the drill. And yeah, thank you for listening. Let us know what you think.

Richard (1:06:31)
Hahaha

Vernon Scott, right?

And if you've got topics, questions that you want us to cover, please post them, send them to us any way you can, especially questions for the AMA episode that we're going to give a shot. Awesome. Thank you all for listening. It's goodbye from me. Copy, might as well copy the rest of this football.

Vernon (1:07:10)
It's goodbye for me. Is that what they say?

Richard (1:07:12)
Yeah, they say it's goodbye from me, and it's goodbye from me. Anyway, goodbye.

Vernon (1:07:15)
Bye.