0:15

It's the day of

0:15

the show y'all. It's the day of

0:18

the show. Brandon, I'm gonna be

0:18

dropping so many deep niche

0:24

musical theater references that

0:24

only 10 people are going to

0:26

understand on this episode. I

0:26

apologize in advance.

0:30

It's gonna be great. There's gonna be so many deep cuts today.

0:33

Welcome to. I'm so excited for this episode.

0:35

I am your co host click on done

0:39

and I am here with

0:42

Brandon Minnick. Great to see you again, Chloe.

0:44

Thank you. I've got my jazz hands on today because we have a very special

0:46

guest. I'm very, very excited to

0:51

you all because it's a theater

0:51

themed episode, y'all. We're

0:53

talking theater. We're talking

0:53

Broadway. We're talking the

0:57

performing arts, which we always

0:57

seem to bring up on this show.

1:01

But this time, it's a little bit

1:01

special. But we'll get into that

1:04

in a second. There's a little

1:04

there's a sneak peek. We're

1:06

trying out a teaser right now.

1:06

Brandon, it's been a week no

1:12

longer than a week we took last

1:12

week off. We have we had a big

1:16

event happened last week. But we

1:16

we now have a new president now.

1:20

So welcome, Joe. How is your

1:20

week? Ben weeks then Brandon.

1:27

I mean, just

1:27

this week's off to after a crazy

1:30

start. We were you were chatting

1:30

before the show about just the

1:34

weather that's going on right

1:34

now in the Bay Area around San

1:39

Francisco. And it's it's wild.

1:39

There's there's rain that just

1:44

doesn't stop. We're getting like

1:44

flash flood watches and warnings

1:48

set my way. And I was joking

1:48

around last night, but before

1:54

going to bed. They said that

1:54

this morning, like, just FYI.

1:58

It's only a flash flood watch.

1:58

But it could escalate to a

2:01

warning overnight and like

2:04

watch it.

2:06

I guess. Do I

2:06

just stay up all night? Or like,

2:08

do I just checked my phone every

2:08

hour? What do I do? And I mean,

2:15

I just I slept I put a actually

2:15

like lead into the sleep too cuz

2:20

I've got those Bose sleepbuds or

2:20

sleep is

2:24

an unofficial

2:24

product that we're both obsessed

2:27

with and could not sleep without.

2:30

Yeah, pop those

2:30

in but on a sleep mask. And I

2:32

was out and just hope for the

2:32

best.

2:38

I luckily live on

2:38

a higher floor. So I wasn't too

2:41

concerned about having to hop

2:41

onto Noah's Ark over here on in

2:46

the East Bay. But yeah, it was a

2:46

wild storm last night. Lots of

2:52

rain. I got a little scared

2:52

Brandon. You cannot see my view

2:56

right now. But I had to recently

2:56

bring in all of our patio

2:59

furniture because the wind blew

2:59

into the air like the Wizard of

3:02

Oz and patio furniture just

3:02

hanging out indoors with me

3:06

these days. But what a crazy

3:06

week for weather. I feel you

3:12

know, I said something to

3:12

someone recently, I was very

3:14

embarrassed because I was doing

3:14

a screen share with them. And I

3:16

said please don't judge me for

3:16

all the tabs that I opened. I

3:18

was like this is kind of a representation of my brain right now. I feel like the weather is

3:20

trying to mimic my anxiety.

3:26

Chaos.

3:27

Yeah, but you

3:27

know, this is fine. I'm that

3:30

meme with the mug. This is fine.

3:30

I'm trying to think what has

3:35

been going on in the last couple

3:35

of weeks for me, I'm been doing

3:40

a lot of fun. content as your

3:40

content. Oh, I've been streaming

3:45

with that project on Mondays. So

3:45

we've been doing lectures, all

3:49

of the lectures for bit project,

3:49

this cohort are public and open

3:53

to anyone to join. So oh my

3:53

gosh, Brandon, you'll love this.

3:56

So everyone will love this. But

3:56

Brandon in particular love this.

3:59

So we were learning serverless

3:59

we're learning about Azure

4:03

Functions with that project. And

4:03

you can check out all these

4:05

videos on my twitch on bit

4:05

projects twitch on their YouTube

4:09

as well. And the first week,

4:09

we're learning all about Azure

4:13

Functions. So how to set up an

4:13

Azure function how to, you know,

4:16

work with GitHub, because a lot

4:16

of these folks are programming

4:18

for the first time. But on

4:18

Monday, we were playing with the

4:22

Microsoft face API, which if

4:22

folks aren't familiar, you can

4:26

use the Microsoft face API.

4:26

Actually, you know what, I think

4:29

I have a link that I'll share

4:29

it's aka.ms slash bit project

4:34

something all good.

4:38

project for the

4:38

wind f Tw

4:40

a no big project

4:40

face something. Let's see. We're

4:45

gonna This is worth it. Y'all.

4:45

aka.ms slash bit. Project face,

4:51

big project face. And we

4:51

basically were had to test we're

4:58

using beard detection. We wanted

4:58

to To determine what what is the

5:02

likelihood that there is a beard

5:02

in this image and my boyfriend?

5:06

It can it can do. Is this person

5:06

wearing eyeglasses is this

5:09

person on facial hair does so

5:09

many things that you can make up

5:12

all kinds of things. And so we

5:12

needed a data set. And my

5:16

boyfriend has a very epic, red

5:16

beard. And so the this is the

5:23

interesting part, y'all because

5:23

I played with the Microsoft face

5:26

API a lot. I actually have this

5:26

Azure. It's a Mario Kart

5:32

astrology face API project where

5:32

I used cosplay imagers of Mario

5:36

Kart characters to determine

5:36

what your cosplay or your your

5:40

chosen Mario Kart player says

5:40

about you. And the reason that I

5:43

had to use cosplay images is

5:43

because the Microsoft face API

5:46

doesn't work on animated faces.

5:46

It only works on real human

5:50

faces. So we ended up going on

5:50

this fascinating tangent, I

5:54

highly recommend, highly

5:54

recommend checking out the video

5:57

y'all on my Twitter, on bit

5:57

projects, YouTube. So we use an

6:01

image of my boyfriend and we

6:01

went to Thailand, and he had a

6:04

pancake or a crate printed of

6:04

him with this, like, 3d printed

6:08

machine, you gave them a picture

6:08

and they put it on pancake.

6:10

Basically, it was in a mall in

6:10

Bangkok. And it was really cool.

6:15

And so I have this picture of my

6:15

boyfriend holding a pancake. And

6:17

we use a Microsoft face API. And

6:17

because the pancake was rendered

6:22

from an actual image of a

6:22

person, it was able to detect

6:25

the beard and the image. So then

6:25

we got very curious, we started

6:30

clicking around and being like,

6:30

okay, so maybe a really

6:32

realistic photo can stump the

6:32

face API. So we used the Mona

6:36

Lisa, it detected a person. So

6:36

we've been playing around with

6:40

this with the project we even

6:40

tried. So we of course, this

6:43

didn't work, but we tried Yoda

6:43

Chewbacca, baby Yoda, it's a

6:47

little, I think it's a little

6:47

too animal like perhaps to

6:51

identify it as a face. But stay

6:51

tuned on Mondays because I

6:55

believe we haven't officially

6:55

confirmed it yet. That the

6:59

project will be working on going

6:59

forward on Mondays starting on

7:02

February 8, is building a data

7:02

set with because we we

7:06

determined after using the face

7:06

API, we're like, well, we can't

7:08

determine if this is Yoda, not

7:08

Yoda or Chewbacca, not

7:10

Chewbacca. So we will be

7:10

training our own data set using

7:14

Yoda images and Chewbacca images

7:14

to determine. So I know this is

7:18

technology that people have been

7:18

asking for, for a really long

7:21

time. And I'm here to say,

7:21

myself and the students of that

7:24

project are going to provide

7:24

this for you. If you ever need

7:26

to determine if something God or

7:26

not, we got you.

7:30

The people what they want.

7:31

Exactly, exactly.

7:31

That fun video. It was we

7:36

honestly did not know if it was

7:36

going to work when we started

7:39

feeding it the Yoda images. So

7:39

our shocking surprise with with

7:43

some of those images is genuine,

7:43

genuine and on camera. Oh, but

7:48

Brandon, I want to make sure we

7:48

have so much time to speak to

7:52

our guests today. So wait any

7:52

other should we have tried to

7:56

think is has anything else been?

7:56

Any scoop? Any exclusives we

8:00

need to talk about before we get

8:00

into our guest?

8:02

new stuff in

8:02

the world of tech. I mean, it's

8:05

been it's been pretty quiet

8:05

because we're all just coming

8:09

back from winter break and

8:09

getting ramped back up for the

8:13

holidays. And so yeah, I'm

8:13

trying to think there hasn't

8:16

been any huge major

8:16

announcements at least in in my

8:19

world,

8:20

other than

8:20

politics, not really in the tech

8:22

world. Yeah. We should give

8:22

ample stage time to our guests.

8:29

I'm very, very excited for this

8:29

guest today, Brandon, because I

8:33

met this human being to the

8:33

power of twitter.com. And it is

8:39

so exciting to me when I find

8:39

people who come to this

8:42

industry, like from the arts,

8:42

but particularly from a

8:45

performing arts background. And

8:45

particularly when they did the

8:49

thing when they did the Broadway

8:49

when they did the national tour

8:52

of wicked or whatever that may

8:52

be. And this CMN Brandon,

8:56

they're going to introduce

8:56

themselves in a second here. But

8:58

they were on Broadway for seven

8:58

years. They did they did it.

9:01

They did the dream they lived

9:01

the life. They are now working

9:05

in tech, which is why we have

9:05

them here to talk about their

9:07

story and how that transition

9:07

happened and how they use their

9:10

tech background. Everyone please

9:10

welcome Taylor. Hello.

9:21

Welcome to the show. Taylor.

9:23

Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

9:25

Hello. Now we know

9:25

this is very different on a live

9:29

audience like Broadway of course

9:31

have a live

9:31

audience. It is live on Yeah,

9:33

that's true. It's a baby.

9:37

As you can see,

9:37

Taylor has all of the beeps and

9:39

beeps and gimmicks and stuff

9:39

because Taylor is a pro at this

9:43

streaming thing we were just

9:43

learning. I do.

9:45

I do work at a

9:45

company called Twitch and it is

9:50

been a great education for me to

9:50

learn how to do live streaming

9:53

really well. And I've got all

9:53

the toys here and I got the zoo.

9:56

Where'd I go. I got the zoo. And

9:56

when I set up my stream, I have

10:01

a lot of you know, I've got a

10:01

green screen back here, you can

10:03

see a little shout out mess up

10:03

over there. You know, I've got

10:06

my whole thing.

10:09

So you're a

10:09

producer, you're a set designer,

10:11

your stage manager,

10:13

right? It's

10:13

really great. Because like in

10:15

COVID, you when you want to be

10:15

creative as a performer, this is

10:18

like, yeah, yeah. And there's so

10:18

much stuff to do and play with

10:23

and learn, especially if you

10:23

like toys like me, and I've got

10:27

like a camera and I got a light

10:27

and I, you know, you can anybody

10:30

can have their own talk show,

10:30

like you have here. Yeah. So

10:33

it's just really been great.

10:38

Good stuff, we

10:38

need that, like, we need that

10:41

we're gonna so Taylor is going

10:41

to be our person that we go to

10:45

for all of our streaming needs

10:45

now. So Taylor, how did you find

10:48

yourself here on this call? It

10:48

does give us the the origin the

10:52

Marvel origin story of Taylor

10:52

Intertek.

10:55

Um, so, you

10:55

know, before I wanted to be a

10:58

computer Pro, I'm in full

10:58

screen. Before I want to be a

11:01

computer programmer, I wanted

11:01

sorry, before I wanted to be an

11:04

actor, I wanted to be a computer

11:04

programmer. And because I, I, my

11:08

parents were in television, and

11:08

when I was bored, everybody had

11:12

Mac's around. So I just like,

11:12

mess around with the Mac's

11:15

there, but there were no games.

11:15

So I just like, mess around with

11:18

like the settings and, and and

11:18

really figure out how a user

11:22

interfaces design. And at the

11:22

time, Mac was like it. And I was

11:27

really interesting computers. And so then in high school, I took AP Computer Science, took

11:29

c++ and went on a math. Like, I

11:38

think I remember the one thing

11:38

it was like, build a pyramid

11:40

with zeros. And I remember that

11:40

one. Yes. And I guess the

11:44

formula is like two n plus one.

11:44

And it took me like a day and a

11:48

half to try and figure it out.

11:48

And I was like, I'm out. But I

11:51

do miss performing stuff on the

11:51

side. I've been performing since

11:54

I was young, like in you know,

11:54

school theater and singing was a

11:58

part of my family. My mom's

11:58

super professional ice skater

12:01

performer and now she works in

12:01

TV. For Yeah, she's kind of semi

12:07

retired, impressive. We love so

12:07

like, entertain was always part

12:10

of it, right? And so I said,

12:10

Okay, maybe you're gonna do this

12:13

musical theater thing. So I dove

12:13

into the whole musical theater

12:16

training, and went to theater

12:16

school at UCLA. And then my

12:22

first audition out of college, I

12:22

booked the national tour of

12:27

Jersey Boys for two years, and

12:27

then got pumped up to Broadway.

12:33

And it was a great adventure.

12:33

But I always had this kind of

12:37

like tech yearning in my heart.

12:37

I said, I had five roles that I

12:40

covered on Broadway, four were

12:40

acting roles, and one was tech

12:43

support. And so like, I was

12:43

really into, like design and

12:47

website design. So I learned

12:47

WordPress, and I taught myself

12:50

PHP, and always kind of like,

12:50

played around with that. And

12:55

then I was like, yep, I think

12:55

I'm done with Broadway, and

12:59

said, Okay, how do we make this

12:59

transition? And that's okay, how

13:04

can I get the ground floor? It's

13:04

like, you're not going to start

13:07

like a Google or Microsoft, or,

13:07

you know, an Amazon right off

13:11

the bat. You may you might get

13:11

lucky, you might book jersey,

13:13

Boise first audition, but it's

13:13

not likely. How can I get the

13:18

ground floor here, and I found a

13:18

tech support job, and jumped

13:22

into that, and started working

13:22

and learning and, and it was

13:26

with a really small company, and

13:26

took that experience to another

13:31

company. And at that company,

13:31

they said, okay, train, you

13:34

know, what do you want to do?

13:34

And so I did, like, b2b

13:37

implementation. And then I went

13:37

to marketing, and then went away

13:42

from that. And I said, Okay,

13:42

what I really want to do is I

13:44

want to be in entertainment and

13:44

gaming, something that I'm

13:47

really passionate about, I'm

13:47

tired of this b2b crap,

13:49

whatever, no offense to b2b

13:49

people. But I learned a lot

13:53

there. And so I really focused

13:53

my efforts. And one of the

13:56

avenues that I found was

13:56

contracting, where you can

14:00

contracted a company, where you

14:00

know, there's not this like,

14:03

three, four month hiring

14:03

process, you just go on for six

14:06

months, learn a bunch of stuff.

14:06

And now you have that in your

14:08

pocket and you go, I had a

14:08

contract at this big company.

14:12

And then that now becomes your

14:12

resume, just like you would do a

14:15

performing arts resume. You say,

14:15

Oh, I did this in this show. And

14:18

I did this in this show. And so

14:18

I was able to build my resume to

14:22

a point where now I'm so happy

14:22

that I can work in, you know,

14:26

entertainment and Jason stuff.

14:26

And be creative still, while

14:32

still exercising that kind of

14:32

technical muscle. Yeah. And now

14:37

I do a lot of like, you know,

14:37

marketing and lifecycle and CRM.

14:42

And so there's, you know,

14:42

there's a method to the madness

14:44

there. But it's about, you know,

14:44

the the summary of all of that

14:48

is, you want to do something,

14:48

build your resume, make yourself

14:52

valuable, and then go find

14:52

people who want that value.

14:55

And I feel like

14:55

there's so much I mean, I know

14:58

that there's so much that you

14:58

did, I'm proud Play that is

15:02

transferable to what you do now

15:02

in your role. I mean, I think

15:05

back to when I entered theater,

15:05

I did so much of my own

15:08

marketing promotion, things like

15:08

that for myself. But even when

15:11

it comes to maybe for folks who

15:11

are joining us on the Microsoft

15:14

developer channel who don't

15:14

really know what a swing or

15:18

understudy is, um, let's explain

15:18

that to them. So, Taylor, you

15:23

just, you weren't just in the

15:23

show you were covering multiple

15:27

parts? Is

15:27

that right? Yeah, yeah. So I covered the lead, and I covered three

15:29

ensemble roles. And the idea is

15:32

that the people on stage are

15:32

also understudies. And so if

15:37

someone shifts up, someone has

15:37

to shift under to cover who they

15:41

shift up to, in most cases. And

15:41

so if they would shift up into a

15:46

lead role, I would shift into their role.

15:48

And that's often why if you're the production of Hamilton, and the before times,

15:50

or things like that, and you're

15:52

like, Oh, my gosh, there's so many different people have different roles. They're usually

15:54

always in the show, but they're

15:57

just playing a different part.

15:57

Usually, yeah.

15:59

Like, sometimes you'll see, okay, this person is playing this person,

16:00

this person is playing this person, this person, this

16:02

person, it's not necessarily

16:05

because three people went in,

16:05

it's because one shift over and

16:08

then to shift into those that

16:08

were, you know, move around.

16:13

So when people ask you an interview question, and tech Are you used to change I

16:15

mean, all the time.

16:20

Tell us about a time when you experienced change. And it's like, the

16:22

greatest thing that I ever

16:25

learned was in Broadway is that

16:25

you go to show up to work and

16:28

you don't know what's going to

16:28

happen. You have a set of skills

16:30

that you can employ, but you are

16:30

ready to change at a moment's

16:34

notice and make choices that are

16:34

is going to benefit whatever.

16:37

And the other idea there is, you

16:37

know, this idea of just ship it

16:41

right, we're gonna put on a show

16:41

the train is leaving the

16:44

station, you just have to ship

16:47

right, that show

16:47

must go on Yes,

16:49

got to get on

16:49

a stage. And that has been

16:54

transferable. The other thing

16:54

that can you can bring over is

16:59

now more than ever, I think it

16:59

just started when I was getting

17:02

into theater, but like, you can

17:02

create YouTube, you can create

17:06

tik tok, you can create

17:06

SoundCloud, you can create all

17:08

these different avenues for

17:08

creativity. Just go build

17:11

something the same way you would

17:11

build a tech project. And now

17:15

you have it as something you can

17:15

point to one thing I like to

17:18

talk to is like, one of the

17:18

questions is tell us a time when

17:21

you handle the tough project

17:21

management thing. And I talked

17:24

about the time when I did a

17:24

charity event, which was a

17:27

Holland oats, seeing tribute

17:27

night and handled the booking

17:31

and the tickets and the venue

17:31

and the Russia, you know, and so

17:35

there's all these things that

17:35

are transferable that it's about

17:37

providing value to these

17:37

interviewers. Yeah. And, and I

17:41

think now more than ever, with

17:41

so many startups and so many

17:45

companies is they're looking for

17:45

a diverse set of people, not

17:49

just people who know JavaScript,

17:49

although that's a good thing to

17:52

have. I've been trying for 10

17:52

years. But you know, it's just a

17:56

matter of going, as we say, in

17:56

the 90s. Think outside the box

18:01

of what stories and what

18:01

experiences from your life can

18:05

be transferable to other parts

18:05

of your life, where it's not

18:08

just like, Oh, I'm just an

18:08

actor, I'm just performer. It's

18:10

like, No, you have skills that

18:10

you've built to get things done

18:13

and ship a show. Yeah. How does

18:13

that transfer you know,

18:18

I love that is

18:18

we've kind of our ethos on the

18:22

show is to interview folks like

18:22

yourself who have non

18:25

traditional tech backgrounds

18:25

that didn't necessarily go to

18:28

college for the computer science

18:28

degree and get their first

18:32

internship straight out. And

18:32

there's a couple things you

18:36

touched on. One once pretty

18:36

common one, the first one being,

18:41

you might not get the exact job

18:41

you want is your first job in

18:45

tech. And I mean, even myself, I

18:45

did go to school, I got that

18:49

degree. And my first job was not

18:49

what I expected. I ended up

18:53

working as a test engineer and

18:53

had to kinda climb my way up.

18:57

But

18:58

it's like the ensemble you got unless you're a lawyer and you

19:01

break someone's leg deep.

19:06

It Same thing

19:06

with theater is like a lot of

19:09

people would start in a touring

19:09

company or start in like a non

19:13

tech show. And then transfer

19:13

over to a bigger show, as you

19:18

said, You've proved yourself to

19:18

be competent in this smaller

19:21

risk situation. Let's increase

19:21

your capability for risk. Ah,

19:26

yeah. And I

19:26

think the The other thing that's

19:29

great that you touched on that I

19:29

don't think we've dove into into

19:31

this show before is what you're

19:31

saying about the the interview

19:36

questions and the the life

19:36

experiences you have that

19:39

absolutely transfer over into

19:39

the tech world into the product

19:43

project management world where

19:43

Yeah, when you're, you're in

19:47

that interview for maybe it's a

19:47

JavaScript developer role, and

19:52

they asked you about a scenario

19:52

where you've had to manage a

19:55

project and schedules and

19:55

budgets. Well, if you've done

19:58

it, this is a great idea.

19:58

Example. It doesn't have been

20:02

with a team of engineers like

20:02

you, you arguably did something

20:06

that was way harder, and you put

20:06

on a show and had to, you know,

20:09

hurt all these cats and keep

20:09

everybody in line and on top of

20:13

all the budgets and all that

20:13

craziness. And I think that's

20:16

such a great thing to keep in

20:16

mind. Because thinking back,

20:19

I've worked with folks who were

20:19

former military. And I remember

20:24

that also being an answer that

20:24

came up. In one interview I did

20:30

where he was like, you know, I

20:30

used to be a sergeant and I used

20:33

to have, I don't remember the

20:33

exact number, let's say I

20:35

thought 1000 soldiers underneath

20:35

me, and we used to have to do

20:40

the logistics of setting up

20:40

camp, they're moving to a new

20:45

man, I'm just gonna butcher

20:45

other words, base station, or

20:48

whatever it is. And it's like,

20:48

so yeah, I think I can handle a

20:51

team of five people. You're

20:51

like, Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. So,

20:56

right. But you

20:56

know, what that says is there is

20:58

a gatekeeping there. And this is

20:58

the big issue that I have with

21:01

tech is sometimes they say,

21:01

well, you're not avail, you

21:07

don't know what to talk about,

21:07

because you can't talk about

21:10

KPIs, or you can't talk about

21:10

LTV, or you can talk about CAC,

21:14

you know, all these acronyms

21:14

that are inside baseball words,

21:18

whereas you go, what's the LTV,

21:18

you go lifetime value? And you

21:22

say, Well, you know, when I ran

21:22

a weekly theater series, I made

21:27

sure that I had people returned

21:27

to the show over and over, and

21:31

that would increase the lifetime

21:31

value of their customer score,

21:34

right. And so if you go into an

21:34

interview, and they say an

21:37

acronym that you don't

21:37

recognize, and the interviewer

21:40

doesn't like that you don't know

21:40

that acronym. That's crap,

21:43

right? Yeah. So that's a flag.

21:43

There is there is some like

21:49

trickery you can do. Where if

21:49

you can just understand these

21:53

insider terms, you can write

21:53

stories for your interview, that

21:58

allow you to essentially pass

21:58

the test using any story you

22:01

have.

22:02

I already am

22:02

bookmarking this video to send

22:04

to all the people that I mentor,

22:04

because this is truly something

22:08

I believe so strongly in finding

22:08

your gimmick and tech, whatever

22:11

it may be. Maybe you're

22:11

previously a teacher, and you

22:14

you bring all this value to

22:14

education tech, or maybe you

22:17

come from the finance world, and

22:17

you go into FinTech. But I

22:20

couldn't agree more Taylor. And

22:20

I wish that I had had this

22:23

conversation when I was a little

22:23

baby junior developer, answering

22:27

questions in these interviews,

22:27

because I would get questions

22:30

like this where, you know, it's

22:30

a chicken and egg thing. How do

22:33

you get the experience if you

22:33

don't have the experience? And I

22:36

would get questions like, tell

22:36

me about a time that you engaged

22:38

with the developer community.

22:38

And I wish you know, at the

22:41

time, I didn't have that

22:41

experience. But I wish what I

22:44

would have said was something

22:44

similar to you like, oh, let me

22:47

tell you about the time, I ran

22:47

my own one woman cabaret, and I

22:51

it was a charity event that all

22:51

my friends you know, we all put

22:53

it together. And we had like an

22:53

overall there, that wasn't even

22:56

something that came to mind

22:56

because the two worlds seem so

22:59

different. But I love this idea

22:59

of that's, I mean, first of all,

23:03

we need more diverse non

23:03

traditional background, people

23:07

in this industry, period, point

23:07

blank. But the more that we

23:10

share these stories like yours,

23:10

where it's like, Look, this

23:13

thing like stage managers, your

23:13

PMS, will say like

23:19

so in chat,

23:19

hey, Kelly, and Mojo Jojo are

23:22

saying the same thing,

23:22

essentially. Yeah, Mojo 886. is

23:26

Sam, you know, he's working in

23:26

the NHS. And as a Java Dev, what

23:29

does that mean? Right, NHS? I

23:29

mean, some of us may know that.

23:33

But if you don't know what NHS

23:33

I'm sure I'm assuming it's the

23:36

National Health Service. Right.

23:36

And now you're a Java Dev. What

23:39

is that? Right? One? One

23:39

question that I got, I remember

23:43

specifically around that of

23:43

like, Oh, I'm a Java Dev, is

23:46

they're saying, Well, have you

23:46

had experience with Salesforce

23:51

Marketing Cloud. And I said, it

23:51

doesn't matter. Every marketing

23:58

email system is going to have a

23:58

core set of features that you're

24:02

going to know. And if they don't

24:02

have something that is an

24:04

industry standard, a B testing,

24:04

open rate, click through rate,

24:08

right, it doesn't matter what

24:08

the tool is, you can train a

24:11

tool, but if you don't know the

24:11

concepts behind it, then it's

24:13

not going to be there. So I bet

24:13

that question out of the air and

24:17

said, I know the concepts here.

24:17

So same thing with like doing

24:19

JavaScript, right? You know,

24:19

JavaScript, you know, if you you

24:23

know, if then statements, you

24:23

know, for loops, you know, all

24:26

this stuff, you're transfer over

24:26

to like, I don't know, Python or

24:31

PHP, it's all it's all the same

24:31

stuff. It's just the matter of

24:34

how you write it and speak the

24:34

language, you know? Or like you

24:38

say, sfmc I don't know what that

24:38

is.

24:43

If you and I

24:43

Taylor start riffing on the OBC

24:46

of, you know, anything goes

24:46

Brandon, tell me like, Oh, you

24:49

see, what is that? Like? There's

24:49

such that's such a thing that we

24:52

do in tech because there's a lot

24:52

of assumed knowledge and being

24:56

able to welcome where people in

24:56

this industry like absolutely We

25:00

got to like, break down these

25:00

barriers and make sure that

25:02

we're actually asking the real

25:02

questions that we want to be

25:05

asking, which is, Hey, will you

25:05

be a good fit for this team? Not

25:08

Hey, are you familiar with all

25:08

these acronyms?

25:11

And you roll

25:11

the boat or familiar with this

25:14

specific or right out of

25:14

titanium? And would it's like I

25:19

can roll the goddamn bow, you

25:19

know? Yeah.

25:23

I've noticed with with with the acronyms. there's kind of two p, two

25:25

schools of thought really where

25:30

it's, I noticed some people will

25:30

use acronyms to almost make

25:35

themselves sound smart or smart.

25:35

Yeah. Oh, everybody knows you

25:39

don't you don't know what this means

25:41

many leather bound bugs.

25:45

But then

25:45

there's also the folks that just

25:47

use it so much, and especially

25:47

working at Microsoft, we are

25:51

certainly guilty of this because

25:51

Microsoft loves acronyms

25:54

internally. We use it so much

25:54

you don't realize that it's not

25:59

a common phrase. Hasn't hasn't

25:59

reached that critical mass.

26:03

where like, like we say FBI

26:03

probably most people watching

26:07

have heard of the FBI. You don't

26:07

really have to explain that one.

26:09

But But yeah, it's super

26:09

important. Like you were saying

26:11

earlier, Taylor that. If If you

26:11

catch yourself using that

26:15

acronym, like it's gonna slip

26:15

out, right? just preface it or

26:19

back it up and say, Oh, I'm

26:19

sorry. By the way, did you? Do

26:22

you know what cltv means? It's

26:22

like, customer lifetime value.

26:27

Got it. Okay, now we're on the

26:27

same page. Pretend you

26:31

don't want to be inclusive and get diverse voices in there. And you're in

26:33

the interview room and you're an

26:35

interviewer, make sure that the

26:35

person you're speaking to knows

26:38

the acronyms that you're using,

26:38

because they may not know what

26:41

it is. I have people where I say

26:41

s, SF DC, and they still don't

26:45

know what I mean. And it's an industry wide thing. salesforce.com. I didn't know

26:47

that when I started, right. But

26:50

if you guys thought

26:50

it was data

26:50

center, I knew what Salesforce

26:54

was like San Francisco.

26:58

If I go, oh,

26:58

SF DC. I'm very intelligent. Can

27:03

you see? It's like no, let them

27:03

understand. Like if I talk about

27:06

LTV or lifetime value, right,

27:06

say the lifetime. So tell me

27:11

about it. Like if I'm an interview, I said, Tell me about a time when you increase the

27:12

lifetime LTV of a customer,

27:17

right. And you say just like you

27:17

know, LTV is lifetime value,

27:22

which is the the amount of money

27:22

that you can grab from a

27:25

customer over the time that they

27:25

interface with your product.

27:28

Right now you're set up your

27:28

interviewee for success to tell

27:32

the story as opposed to Haha,

27:32

tell me about LTV, and also try

27:35

to guess what those letters mean.

27:37

Oh my gosh, I hear

27:37

LTV and high here when TV which

27:40

we're streaming to currently so

27:40

my brain just gets jumbled up

27:43

all the time. I love this

27:43

comment that we have here. It

27:46

says someone in my business made

27:46

an acronym hunter as a slack

27:49

plugin. We can all add it, we

27:49

add to it too. But if there's

27:53

something you hear, but you

27:53

don't know, we can just do slash

27:56

acro hunt NHS etc. Oh, wow. It's

27:56

amazing opens things up for

28:00

people. I love that I famously

28:00

my first day of hackbright, the

28:04

engineering school I went to

28:04

that was full of all of these

28:08

wonderful, amazing women who

28:08

came from stem backgrounds.

28:12

They're talking about STEM and I

28:12

was literally googling what stem

28:15

was on my phone Taylor because

28:15

this was like an original

28:19

Broadway cast. Awesome. Yes,

28:19

yes. These people

28:22

love flowers. They're

28:22

florists.

28:27

Yeah. And I think

28:27

like even on top of that, you

28:30

know, obviously the three of us

28:30

all have dabbled in the

28:34

performing arts in some form or

28:34

another. I know. Brandon

28:37

famously was in the Pirates of

28:37

Penzance. And we've talked about

28:40

that middle school. We've all

28:40

had experience and do a little

28:47

bit of public speaking, I think

28:47

improv and that experience as

28:50

well. Like helps from a

28:50

communication perspective when

28:53

and even Oh, my gosh,

28:53

interviewing Taylor, let's talk

28:56

about whiteboarding interview

28:56

versus auditions and callbacks,

29:00

because at least in an audition

29:00

or a callback, I know what

29:03

material maybe you're gonna give

29:03

me but in a whiteboarding

29:06

interview, that was a lot.

29:09

Um, you know,

29:09

I've been doing, I've been doing

29:11

improv for 20 years. Oh, my God,

29:11

I'm an old now. I'm an old man.

29:17

I said it the first time saying

29:17

like, I'm an old but I didn't

29:20

put in the noun. But I was like,

29:20

Oh, that's a funny thing. I'm

29:24

old as the noun. So it's really

29:24

about being a kinesthetic

29:34

detective, of understanding what

29:34

your environment is, right?

29:39

What's going on and saying, What

29:39

can I pick up from what's going

29:43

on? What can I pick up from? The

29:43

feeling of the person that I'm

29:47

talking to? What can I pick up

29:47

from what they're looking for?

29:50

It's, it's when you're an

29:50

improv, you're trying to take

29:54

all the data points you have at

29:54

your disposal and use as much of

29:59

them as pie So if you're in a

29:59

whiteboarding process, and I

30:02

haven't done a lot of whiteboarding processes I've done like one I think, but it's

30:04

the idea of saying, here's what

30:09

is presented to me is the offer.

30:09

Now how can I make the best

30:12

thing out of it? And yes, and if

30:12

they say something like, oh,

30:15

what about this? You go? Oh,

30:15

yes, I am. Let's add something

30:19

on there. Yes. And it's Adrian

30:19

says that yes. And I know a lot

30:23

of friends who have the yes and tattoo.

30:26

Oh, cool.

30:27

But it's also

30:27

with improv, you go through a

30:30

little of CBT, cognitive

30:30

behavioral therapy, where you

30:34

really learn how to take the

30:34

moment. One director I worked

30:41

with said, when you have

30:41

somebody listening to you, and

30:50

they're there, you have control,

30:50

right, because they have no

30:56

choice other than to listen to

30:56

you or to interject. So take

31:00

that moment, understand you're

31:00

not rushed. And understand you

31:04

control the room. And that's why

31:04

I really think everybody should

31:07

take an improv class, because it

31:07

teaches you how to slow down the

31:12

moment, here's something that I

31:12

figured out. And that may have

31:15

someone has already said this

31:15

before, I don't know. But

31:18

especially with smart

31:18

engineering type people, or not

31:21

smart engineers, anybody is

31:21

sometimes your Thank you, yes,

31:26

is a strong moment, it's a

31:26

dramatic moment. Sometimes, as a

31:30

technical person, your brain

31:30

moves faster than your mouth.

31:34

And it's our job as technical

31:34

people to make the sausage and

31:38

allow the mouth to be basically

31:38

the dam for what the brain is

31:44

putting out. And you have your

31:44

brain at this pulse of like

31:47

that, but your mouth can't get

31:47

it out. That's why you will

31:51

start and they go through it and

31:51

whoever, right? So it's about a

31:53

matter of going, how can I get

31:53

the tempo of my brain and my

31:56

thoughts in sync with the

31:56

communication of my mouth, that

32:01

grounds you, and allows you to

32:01

take your time, and really

32:04

express yourself when you're in

32:04

a whiteboarding, or you're an

32:07

inner in an interview, of

32:07

saying, Let my thoughts match

32:13

the tempo of where I'm going so

32:13

that I don't get ahead of

32:16

myself, or I don't lose the

32:16

person in the room, because all

32:19

of this is storytelling, you're

32:19

telling a story, to get them

32:23

across the line for you.

32:24

And, and I

32:24

found for me, it also helps to

32:28

explain things as you go, that

32:28

definitely helps slow me down.

32:32

And so especially when we're, if

32:32

you're speaking on stage or

32:37

presenting something, you're,

32:37

you're gonna be nervous, you're

32:41

gonna feel that need to rush

32:41

through it. But it's always good

32:44

just to kind of catch yourself

32:44

and say, Actually, let's explain

32:49

what that means. Or let's take a

32:49

step back. This, this is

32:52

actually this, this, this and

32:52

this, and you kind of you can

32:55

break it down a little bit. And

32:55

not only does it help everybody

32:59

who's listening, keep up. But it

32:59

also ensures everybody's on this

33:04

on the same page as well. So you

33:04

didn't you didn't miss anybody,

33:08

you didn't leave anybody behind

33:08

by moving to the next slide.

33:11

Even though your mind as the

33:11

presenter might be thinking

33:14

about, okay, what's on the next slide? How am I gonna do this transition, or the next thing

33:16

I'm going to do is jump into

33:20

code. And I've got to keep all

33:20

these things kind of juggling in

33:24

my brain. But yeah, just slowing

33:24

down explaining things as you

33:28

go. Also, at least for me helps.

33:28

Like you're saying, link up that

33:33

brain to mouth connection.

33:35

Well, here's

33:35

another one. So I took stand up

33:38

comedy as well. And I do not

33:38

like stand up comedy. I like

33:41

working in groups. I like working in teams, I like collaboration. But the best

33:43

thing about stand up comedy, I

33:47

learned was how to construct a

33:47

joke. Premise, turn, right. And

33:54

in your premise and turn, you

33:54

have to create breadcrumb

33:59

breadcrumbs to the turn. So

33:59

somebody understands the turn

34:04

that you are taking. And that's

34:04

a lot of with a lot of like,

34:09

stand up, comedians who start,

34:09

they think, Okay, I'm gonna get

34:12

really heavy here and create

34:12

like a third degree joke that

34:15

you have to be really in the know and understand the reference and the inside to get,

34:17

what you can do is in order to

34:21

tell your story, set up every

34:21

beat so they walk with you down

34:25

the process, whether you're in a

34:25

whiteboard or an interview, to

34:29

get them to understand and say I

34:29

do this and then do this. And

34:33

then they do this, which gets me

34:33

to this. And that's the button

34:37

or the last line of whatever

34:37

you're trying to create. I love

34:43

I love. One of my favorite stand

34:43

up bits is Norm Macdonald doing

34:47

the roast of Bob Saget, and he

34:47

gets the worst jokes ever. But

34:52

what he does is he does a great

34:52

example of him building the

34:56

beats to getting to the punch

34:56

line. Even the punch line is

34:58

really corny or bad. Add, he is

34:58

taking you along the journey of

35:04

getting to that line. So like

35:04

one of my favorite jokes he did

35:07

was yes offline program or

35:07

someone can learn to be funny.

35:11

It is formulaic. You know, Bob,

35:11

you have a face like a flower, a

35:18

cauliflower. Your face was as

35:18

ugly as a cauliflower. He made

35:27

sure that you understood exactly

35:27

what it was. So the premise was,

35:31

you have a very pretty face like

35:31

a flower. And the turn is

35:36

actually a cauliflower. And then

35:36

he even explained it even

35:39

further as saying that your face

35:39

is very ugly. Another one of my

35:45

favorite jokes that he does is

35:45

well tonight you have a lot of

35:48

well wishers and including a lot

35:48

of people who would like to

35:52

throw you down one. A Well, that

35:52

is being that there are people

35:58

who would like to murder you

35:58

using a well. entire process of

36:03

the joke, the turn. And then if

36:03

you missed it, he lets you know

36:08

how it works. So whether you're

36:08

in interviews, or you know,

36:11

whiteboarding are all those

36:11

things, it's like you have to

36:14

understand your audience and get

36:14

them to come with you on the

36:17

journey.

36:18

I love that.

36:20

Nice. Yeah,

36:20

great advice for it's funny

36:22

because normally, I feel like we

36:22

speak to the the interviewees of

36:26

the world. So like, how do you

36:26

get that first job in tech? And

36:29

how do you Ace the interview?

36:29

Right? But it's so true. The the

36:31

interviewer really affects how

36:31

the interview goes. And I think

36:38

so far we found like, if you're

36:38

spouting off acronyms and

36:41

pretending to be really smart,

36:41

you might lose the person you're

36:45

interviewing,

36:46

and also reading

36:46

the room. I think something that

36:49

Taylor mentioned earlier, like

36:49

knowing who you're in the room

36:52

with and who you're performing

36:52

for. I mean, I can speak as a

36:55

woman in tech, how many times

36:55

have people said things to me

37:00

that have immediately made me

37:00

want to say no to a job offer?

37:02

Like, oh, hey, thank you so much

37:02

for coming in. Today, we

37:05

actually have another woman who's coming in later and interviewing for the role, I

37:07

think you guys would really get along? What if I said that to

37:08

any guy?

37:14

You must know things about each other? Because we are both women? Yes. Well,

37:16

they're

37:18

best friends

37:20

about our nail

37:20

polish together. I mean, there's

37:24

so many moments that I think

37:24

even you know, if you are I've

37:27

been in situations before, at

37:27

conferences, where the swag of

37:31

the booth has been men's boxers.

37:31

And don't worry, we have stuff

37:35

for women to baby onesies read

37:35

the room, read the room, you

37:39

know. So I think when it comes

37:39

to these things, you know, I it

37:44

is very common, where you will

37:44

go and interview at a company

37:46

and they'll really spout off a lot of like, you know, we have a very diverse team, we have so

37:48

many women who who work here and

37:51

you get interviewed by all men.

37:51

I think castings important when

37:55

interviewing. I think

37:55

representation is important when

37:59

interviewing. And you are

37:59

really, I always tell this to my

38:02

mentees who are typically Junior

38:02

engineers, but it's important,

38:05

it's hard to, it's hard to

38:05

remember this when you're a

38:07

junior engineer, and you're just

38:07

like struggling and you're like

38:09

God, I

38:09

get it, I

38:10

want it, you want

38:10

it so bad. But it's important to

38:13

remember that you are in demand

38:13

as well, like, you should be

38:17

picking up on these signs in the

38:17

interview, it is so much better

38:20

to not to not to say no to the

38:20

role and not have to go through

38:24

a whole other cycle of

38:24

interviews, again, than to take

38:27

a job where you can tell that

38:27

the signs are there and the

38:31

interview. So it's an interview,

38:31

you're interviewing the company

38:33

as much as they're interviewing

38:33

you. As far as I'm concerned.

38:37

It's, you

38:37

know, you you, I think the

38:40

objective in a lot of these

38:40

rooms, is the same thing in an

38:43

audition room. And the other

38:43

thing I always hear from casting

38:46

directors is they go, we want

38:46

you to be good. Because if you

38:49

are good, then our job is over.

38:49

Right? We're not here wanting

38:52

you to fail or to be smarter

38:52

than you all I really want you

38:58

to succeed. And if you succeed,

38:58

then everybody can go home, and

39:01

we've got a new, you know,

39:01

person on the team. I don't know

39:05

where it's going,

39:06

I will tell you

39:06

that the biggest, most wonderful

39:08

gesture that has ever been done

39:08

to me to interview and is why

39:11

one of the many reasons I

39:11

accepted her role at my last

39:14

company century was halfway

39:14

through, they realized that I

39:17

had only been interviewed by

39:17

men. And they replaced one of my

39:21

interviewers with two women. And

39:21

I thought that is so thoughtful.

39:25

And this is a company that I

39:25

would I'm sorry, a woman and a

39:28

non binary person, I should say.

39:28

And the thought process, there

39:32

was oh, this, they're thinking

39:32

about this. And this shows to

39:35

me. This is a company that I

39:35

really want to work for if these

39:38

are things that they're noticing

39:38

and things that they're keeping

39:40

in mind. And I think that goes

39:40

to show on a lot of career pages

39:44

on hiring pages and a reason why

39:44

we took a lot of care at century

39:47

to make sure our page

39:47

represented who we were and who

39:50

what we did there and what the

39:50

people looked and acted and

39:53

sounded like what we actually

39:53

believe. I think there's a lot

39:55

of jargon in corporate America

39:55

where we say here are our core

40:00

values are our beliefs, right?

40:00

They'll have it at a startup up

40:03

on the wall. But what do those

40:03

words mean? Right? It's going

40:06

back to the acronyms like, what

40:06

does this pillar represent?

40:11

Because I'm seeing diversity on

40:11

the wall, but I'm seeing a much

40:15

different story in your hiring

40:15

process.

40:18

Yeah, you

40:18

know, there's only one thing I

40:21

want to talk about it being in

40:21

the room is your objective as an

40:24

interviewee is to put the person

40:24

you're talking to, in comfort?

40:28

Yeah, try to make them as

40:28

comfortable as possible. Don't

40:31

make them nervous or uneasy or

40:31

feeling like they, you know,

40:35

they need to say shoe, same

40:35

thing for the interviewer. Make

40:38

sure that the person you're

40:38

interviewing is comfortable,

40:40

because you want someone to be

40:40

comfortable. So they perform at

40:43

their best ability, and it helps

40:43

build rapport. But back to that

40:48

point of, I think there's a lot

40:48

of things that we end up doing,

40:54

where we think, okay, all of

40:54

this stuff is is very efficient

40:59

and very high leverage. But, and

40:59

they go, you know, we should get

41:04

rid of X, Y, or Z. You know,

41:04

what, why should we? Why should

41:07

we have Chloe interviewed by

41:07

these people, it doesn't matter

41:10

who it is. And it does matter.

41:10

Because sometimes the things

41:14

that you think don't matter,

41:14

matter to the people who are

41:17

affected by it, whether it's,

41:17

it's, you know, what I was

41:21

talking about something about

41:21

like, today of like, we should,

41:25

we shouldn't ask these people X,

41:25

Y, or Z. And I said we should,

41:29

because even if we don't use it,

41:29

it shows that we are listening,

41:32

and we're trying to get them

41:32

invested in what we want to do.

41:36

And, and so, I used to work at a

41:36

camp and they said, some people

41:42

say, it's not the way you say

41:42

it. It's how you say it. Sorry,

41:45

it's not how you say it. It's

41:45

what you say. And they said, No,

41:47

that's not true. It's what you

41:47

say and how you say it. That's

41:50

important. Yeah.

41:53

Words matter. And

41:53

actions matter. Right.

41:56

And and I love

41:56

and I love the strategy that

41:58

metzen around uses of juggling

41:58

broken glass in a room that

42:01

really helps put a nice piece of

42:01

ease in the room. That's

42:05

awesome.

42:06

Yeah, I hear they say it's, it's like drinking three cups of coffee in

42:08

the morning. Well, Mama wakes

42:10

you up. You're ready to go.

42:13

They now have

42:13

Coca Cola mixed with coffee.

42:16

Great way to start your day.

42:17

Oh, no. I

42:17

totally, totally aside. Yeah, I

42:21

learned about that. A couple

42:21

years ago. I was in Panama, and

42:26

a guy I met who lived in Panama

42:26

City. He was like, Yeah, we do

42:32

that. Like we'll just take a

42:32

coffee and pour Coke into it. I

42:35

was like, that sounds crazy.

42:35

I've heard about wine. And of

42:39

course,

42:42

I saw a table

42:42

thing that was like red wine and

42:44

coke. And I was like, and

42:44

apparently it's something that

42:48

is popular in other countries.

42:48

Who knew? Hey, now I know. I

42:52

need this feature.

42:55

I will say when

42:55

when I did my experiment when I

42:57

got back home. When I lived in

42:57

San Francisco, I grabbed a cold

43:02

brew and a coke. And yeah, I was

43:02

awake for like 36 hours straight

43:06

it.

43:09

It does. It tastes good.

43:11

Um, it's

43:11

definitely a new taste is

43:14

something that

43:15

it's not probably.

43:17

It's something you've never, or at least for me, it's something I've never

43:19

tasted before. And I will say by

43:22

the time you got a couple sips

43:22

into it. It wasn't that. And so

43:28

his thing was like he he does a

43:28

lot of driving. And so he needed

43:32

to needed to stay up, whether

43:32

it's two in the morning, and

43:36

he's got to meet his deadlines.

43:36

And so for him, it was just

43:40

let's stay awake. And so yeah, I

43:40

guess if you ever find yourself

43:43

in that situation, hopefully,

43:43

hopefully we don't have any

43:45

crazy stressful deadlines,

43:45

right. But

43:48

when I did children's theater at Berkeley in the morning, I relied heavily

43:50

on Red Bull, pineapple flavor,

43:56

or Monster Energy Drink.

44:03

Well, let's see.

44:03

Do we have any questions in the

44:05

chat here for Taylor? I thought

44:05

PJ has some questions. By the

44:09

way.

44:10

Adrian, does

44:10

he mix everything with beer? I

44:14

know they have a rattler they

44:14

have a diesel. Like what what

44:18

like what else do they mix with

44:18

beer? Wow.

44:23

appetising, man,

44:23

right. Yeah.

44:27

It really gets

44:27

the point across like, you know

44:29

what you're getting into and your dad diesel.

44:32

We've got a question here. Taylor. What do you love most about what you do

44:33

now?

44:36

Um, I love I love that I'm

44:38

creating entertainment and I'm helping create entertainment. I'm also

44:40

you know, as a as a creator and

44:44

a former creator and a former

44:44

creative professional. It's

44:47

like, I want to help other

44:47

creative professionals. do what

44:51

they do best. You know, it's

44:51

like when I when I saw Chloe and

44:54

she was starting, streaming and

44:54

like being a really great actor.

44:59

advocate, I was like, Oh, this

44:59

is a really, really great

45:02

person. I was like, I just want

45:02

to help her create something

45:05

awesome, you know and see her

45:05

thrive. And that's why I'm here

45:09

is because I want to see this

45:09

thrive and do well. And so I

45:12

really love setting up people

45:12

for success. I think the other

45:15

thing, there's two other things

45:15

is like in operation stuff, I do

45:18

a lot of work in no code. So

45:18

when you build out like a no

45:21

code sequence, and it works

45:21

perfectly, you're like, Oh, it's

45:26

like I did magic. And everyone

45:26

is using Yes. Hey, elite

45:32

hacking. And then the other one

45:32

is when you create a UX pattern

45:37

that forces people to do what

45:37

you want them to do in a great

45:40

way. It's awesome. Like, do you

45:40

set up like a landing page or a

45:44

form field and they fill it out

45:44

perfectly? And it's wonderful

45:47

and use the right language? And

45:47

then it comes back in? That's an

45:50

amazing magic trick.

45:51

It's very, yeah.

45:51

And I think also, I'd be really

45:56

interested Taylor in knowing

45:56

what your feelings are about

46:00

just the performing arts

46:00

landscape. Now we're in this

46:02

digital area era during COVID-19

46:02

where everything is online.

46:07

Bradley is shut down right now

46:07

all of the regional theaters are

46:10

shut down. We've seen some

46:10

things like Ratatouille, the

46:12

musical and there was a really

46:12

cool Broadway performer I think

46:16

and Beetlejuice who did an at

46:16

home, Floyd Collins production

46:20

made completely of cardboard

46:20

boxes. Wow. Which has been so

46:24

cool to see. Have you seen any

46:24

theater or performing arts? I

46:29

guess I should say during

46:29

quarantine, that has been

46:32

interesting to you.

46:33

Yeah, you

46:33

know, I think the biggest thing

46:35

is like, understand the medium

46:35

that you're pushing on. If

46:38

you're using Tick tock, like

46:38

don't try and do you know, a 30

46:43

minute talk show. I mean, they

46:43

have a live thing, whatever. But

46:46

it's like it's quick clips

46:46

around Instagram. It's very in a

46:49

certain way. I think one thing

46:49

that a lot of people run into

46:53

when it comes to like live

46:53

versus VOD, is what makes live

46:57

unique. It's this conversation

46:57

I'm having with chat with a

47:00

Kalyan and Mojo Mojo Jojo 86.

47:00

And, and that it's live. We can

47:04

ask questions. That's the

47:04

function of live Yeah, I end up

47:08

doing just a talking head video

47:08

on Twitch or YouTube Live or you

47:13

know, Instagram Live like what

47:13

is the purpose of being live

47:16

just do a video on demand. I

47:16

would say things that I'm really

47:21

drawn to right now on Twitch are

47:21

people who build these amazing

47:25

performance experiences. Like

47:25

one of my favorite is the sushi

47:29

dragon.

47:30

Oh, yes, we looked

47:30

at that yesterday with you I'm

47:33

I'm amazed by people on Twitch

47:33

who are doing full kind of

47:37

immersive interactive

47:37

performances. And in a weird

47:41

way, Taylor I kind of Hope it

47:41

rubs off into the life theater

47:43

world because the interaction is

47:43

very cool. Oh, yeah.

47:47

You know,

47:47

it's, it's, it's that, you know,

47:49

I think like St. Vincent does

47:49

some of it to another one I like

47:54

is dandy does it and they have

47:54

the controllers on their hands

47:57

and they dance around the room

47:57

and they got a green screen and

47:59

they make effects happen and

47:59

they do different things. And if

48:01

you're a developer, this is a

48:01

great moment for you to create a

48:04

stream there's a great great guy

48:04

that I always promote named

48:07

cruiser eight, and cruiser eight

48:07

and he's got this thing called

48:10

cruise control and it's a pseudo

48:10

code library for controlling

48:14

twitch interactions. And so you

48:14

can have chat make things go and

48:17

have channel points make things

48:17

go and and and you can have this

48:21

interactive art experience with

48:21

chat building things out. Danny

48:25

does it does it sushi dragon

48:25

does it. And and so there's a

48:29

lot of really amazing web hooks

48:29

and API calls you can pull in to

48:34

create really fully immersive

48:34

interactive performance

48:37

experiences. And even if you're

48:37

just somebody wants to turn on a

48:40

camera and go, like what is your

48:40

show, right? What is your live

48:44

show? If you're doing it on

48:44

Twitch I like to liken it to a

48:48

radio show where it's like

48:48

dropping content somebody is not

48:51

going to hang around for the

48:51

entire two three hours of your

48:53

thing, but they might come in

48:53

for 20 minutes How do you allow

48:56

them to have context when they

48:56

drop in and then with YouTube

48:59

it's like you know it's video

48:59

content make video edited? Build

49:04

an experience from beginning to

49:04

end there's all amazing

49:07

opportunities for you to do

49:07

stuff and you're not going to

49:10

know unless you say the two

49:10

words do I

49:19

just have to ship it

49:20

does I have to

49:20

ship it yeah that's like been

49:23

the wonderful thing about so I

49:23

recently I've just been going on

49:27

a twitch and browsing just being

49:27

like what are people doing on

49:29

here I'm so curious. And I was

49:29

at before doing this browsing

49:34

only following a drag queen that

49:34

I love named Vishal vivacious

49:38

highly recommend who deejays

49:38

almost every single day, but

49:41

it's fascinating to see

49:41

everything from a meditation

49:45

sound bath to having people do

49:45

there's ASMR twitch there's

49:50

crafting twitch there's just

49:50

watch me click on my keys for a

49:54

little bit Twitch. There's so

49:54

many things Dev.

49:57

People do live

49:57

coding on Twitch and what

50:00

They'll do is if you subscribe,

50:00

or you put in bits or do any of

50:06

those things, they will put your

50:06

name into the comments of the

50:11

code. So it's still an

50:11

interactive experience. So like

50:15

say, Okay, I'm programming this

50:15

thing. Let's test it. Hey, you

50:20

know, Kelly, you just gave me 15

50:20

bits, or Oh, that's a really

50:23

great idea. I'll put you in the

50:23

comments. This was Kelly's. I

50:26

love that, you know, and so you

50:26

can make it an interactive

50:29

experience. But it's just like,

50:29

imagine you're hanging out with

50:33

your friends, because that's

50:33

what COVID has done for all of

50:35

us, is it as you made us have

50:35

these pseudo social

50:38

relationships that we need, and

50:38

we crave? Yeah, you can create

50:42

those pseudo social experiences

50:42

on YouTube, live Twitch,

50:46

whatever, so that people feel

50:46

connected and have a community

50:49

that they feel like that are part of,

50:51

it's almost more intimate than a live event. Because you can have these one

50:53

to one interactions that

50:56

previously as a speaker at

50:56

events, there would be a lineup

51:00

of people, sometimes people would have to go and get the lunch or go to the next talk. So

51:02

I've, in a weird way, kind of

51:06

enjoyed it can be overwhelming

51:06

sometimes. But I've really

51:09

enjoyed being able to have these

51:09

connections with people I

51:13

wouldn't otherwise be connected

51:13

with at all.

51:16

Yeah, well, there's there's a, there's two here. I think it's a high l

51:17

maybe high l codes of people who

51:23

have built extensions and

51:23

experiences where you know, it

51:27

like I said, it's, it's it's all

51:27

about live is all about

51:30

stimulation. And response is,

51:30

you press a button and you get

51:34

something back. Right. So you

51:34

know, I you can build something

51:38

and it just changes the color or

51:38

as as a hotel code, I think I

51:43

would say is it chill or Kyle

51:43

clarkia built an extension that

51:47

allows folks to highlight leave

51:47

a message on a lot of VS code.

51:50

It's like all people want to do

51:50

is be recognized in chat. That's

51:52

what I'm trying to do with all

51:52

of you in chat is make sure I

51:55

call you out to know that your

51:55

stim your stimulus is getting a

51:59

response. And that's what's so

51:59

cool about live. Yeah.

52:03

That's the

52:03

other thing I really love about.

52:06

I mean, it was already happening

52:06

before COVID. But like we were

52:09

saying earlier, like COVID

52:09

certainly accelerated it. Is

52:13

this, this move to online and

52:13

like you mentioned forming these

52:17

communities, because there's so

52:17

many, like niche hobbies, niche,

52:24

things that you might think,

52:24

like, I'm the only one I know in

52:28

the world that enjoys

52:28

crocheting, and writing

52:32

JavaScript.

52:33

That's why I'm

52:33

taking apart all these toys on

52:36

stream. I'm like, surely I enjoy

52:36

this, surely some other people

52:40

are going to enjoy this.

52:43

And this thing, like I guarantee you, there's hundreds, if not 1000s of people

52:44

around the world that also love

52:48

those things. And you get to

52:48

share that passion with them.

52:52

And this is a world you would

52:52

have never known existed. These

52:56

are Oh yeah, never would have

52:56

met or come across them day to

52:58

day life. And I just love how we

52:58

can just literally go to a

53:03

platform like Twitch and say,

53:03

start. Right and you're done.

53:06

You're going.

53:08

The other fun part is you meet these people in these communities. And then when

53:09

you know we can meet each other

53:13

for real again, you go with

53:13

conferences, and you go, Hey,

53:15

this person from my chat. Hey,

53:15

how are you? Nice to see ya. You

53:19

know, oh, yeah, Insta fluff

53:19

builds some really good

53:22

interaction stuff as well.

53:23

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

53:23

I'm so excited. I'm, I'm newer

53:28

to twitch, I just became an

53:28

affiliate. And I'm playing

53:30

around with all the booths and

53:30

the beeps. And I think that's

53:33

what makes me so excited is

53:33

that, you know, previously we

53:36

would give a talk, and it'd be

53:36

like, Hi, I'm this person, I'm

53:39

just going to talk at you. But

53:39

the ability to be to be able to

53:42

have an ongoing conversation

53:42

while working on something. I

53:46

tuned in yesterday to our co

53:46

workers, Tierney and M. We're

53:50

doing a live stream on Twitch of

53:50

they're setting up GitHub

53:53

actions, and I got to join the

53:53

chat. And then we start talking

53:56

about cheese because Tierney was

53:56

sagging on some string cheese

53:59

and then the conversation turned

53:59

to cheese. So I just loved it.

54:03

This is this would have never

54:03

happened if M and Tierney were

54:06

doing a live talk it would have

54:06

been you know we're on the stage

54:09

and we're on and and I love that

54:09

this has now become this format.

54:14

That is a lot. Not only Not only

54:14

do I think it opens it up to

54:18

more people, because I think

54:18

there's people who are able to

54:20

tune into this that maybe

54:20

wouldn't have previously

54:23

attended a tech conference. But

54:23

it's like you said there's all

54:26

these niche bizarre things that

54:26

people love. I was encouraging

54:30

our guest on my show yesterday

54:30

llerena clown turned engineer

54:34

that she just needs to do a

54:34

twitch stream of her pug. And

54:37

then she showed me a video of it

54:37

snoring and I'm like I would

54:39

watch this

54:41

stream there

54:42

was a stream

54:42

from while of like a dog shelter

54:45

and you just sit there and or

54:45

there's one of like a chicken

54:48

coop. And just like Hey, nice

54:48

window in the life you know,

54:51

because we can't go out so let's

54:51

let's just hang out and watch

54:55

chickens and talk and chat. One

54:55

of the coolest interactions

54:58

recently was games done quick

54:58

was a few weeks ago, and anytime

55:01

there was a clap emote in chat,

55:01

that's what we call them on

55:05

Twitch their emotes cat clap

55:05

emote on Twitch, there was a

55:08

crowd, and an animation of

55:08

somebody clapping would go. And

55:14

if more claps would go on

55:14

screen, you'd see the hands go

55:18

more and more and more and the

55:18

sound will get louder and

55:20

louder. So as a creative and as

55:20

a coder, you can create these

55:24

experiences that are interactive

55:24

with the crowd, you know.

55:27

Yeah, I love and

55:27

because, you know, we we know,

55:30

Taylor from joy musicals, very

55:30

rare to be able to acknowledge

55:34

the audience, except in very

55:34

specific certain instances in

55:37

particular shows,

55:38

turn off your phone.

55:39

Yes, turn off. We're coming for you. Unwrap

55:42

your

55:45

laws before the show.

55:48

And it's been so

55:48

interesting for me because I

55:50

used to say something in a talk

55:50

that I gave like, shout out to

55:53

the daughters, like back in the

55:53

before times, you'd give a talk

55:56

and you're like, Is anybody Oh,

55:56

there's someone nodding. So I

55:58

know, at least this person's

55:58

listening. And I feel like the

56:02

people in the chat especially

56:02

when you're streaming and it

56:04

says, you know, 60 people are

56:04

watching, there's two people

56:06

active in the chat or something

56:06

like that. And I can have this

56:12

interaction with them.

56:13

Right? What if

56:13

you like, um, like, right now,

56:16

you could type in slash poll and

56:16

take a poll? Or you could say,

56:21

hey, chat. Do you like pineapple

56:21

on pizza? One for Yes, two for

56:26

No. So let's see it right now.

56:26

Do you like pineapple on pizza?

56:31

One for Yes, two for now, or do

56:31

a poll but that's interaction.

56:34

You know, it's like you can

56:34

Yeah, you can put something out

56:36

and get something back. No, is

56:36

not a number, right?

56:42

Oh, gosh, I love

56:42

all of this. I I'm here for

56:47

like, I'm very torn y'all

56:47

because I cannot wait until we

56:51

can I just keep picturing us

56:51

being back in a concert venue or

56:54

a theater and being around

56:54

people and hugging our friends.

56:57

But I equally am excited by what

56:57

this has done to be able to open

57:03

up more things to more people on

57:03

a digital scale. So I'm, I'm

57:07

hopeful and optimistic by how

57:07

this changes not just the

57:10

performing arts world, but just

57:10

how we present content.

57:14

Yeah. Here's

57:14

I'm gonna put some links in chat

57:17

here. There's sushi dragon.

57:17

Here's dandy does it who I think

57:21

is identical the previous one

57:21

you sat? Okay, I want this. Let

57:26

me put a space here. There we

57:26

go. dandy does it and then

57:31

another one that I've been

57:31

liking a lot recently is clone

57:34

Corp. clone Corp. Yeah, clone

57:34

Corp. Does interesting stuff

57:40

too. But it's all really crazy

57:40

weird. Adult swimming sub. Oh,

57:46

there's also like v tubers. The

57:46

V tuber world is amazing. And v

57:50

streamers where they have a

57:50

digital avatar that tracks their

57:53

face and does animation on

57:53

screen. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, no.

57:57

Somebody's got a mods have to

57:57

allow me links, whatever. Okay,

58:01

well, Shannon's? It's, well put

58:01

them in the notes. Yeah, the

58:04

sushi dragon. dandy does it a

58:04

clone Corp. And then Oh, so like

58:14

the V shojo. group. So if you

58:14

were to look up the shojo iron

58:18

mouse is a V tuber. And then

58:18

there's one more I was gonna say

58:22

iron mouse sounds

58:22

like a cool metal band that I

58:25

wanted to see perform live.

58:27

coding. Nico

58:27

has a full body tracking suit

58:30

and full Unreal Engine 3d motion

58:30

capture. And she does a talk

58:34

show. And it's I mean, wow,

58:36

I love it. I'm

58:36

just so excited. Taylor, you are

58:40

our official twitch

58:40

correspondent for the show.

58:43

We're gonna come to you to help

58:43

us get all the beeps and boops

58:46

that we want on here. Thank you

58:46

so much for coming today. Where

58:49

can people find you on the

58:49

interwebs

58:52

twitter.com

58:52

slash Taylor's here and go see

58:56

the the Killer Instinct promo I

58:56

posted because that's going to

58:59

be a lot of fun.

59:00

Whoo. Tell us about that.

59:02

So I work for

59:02

twitch rivals, which is eSports

59:07

shows on Twitch and we're having

59:07

a killer instinct tournament,

59:11

which is a fighting game. And we

59:11

got the original announcer who

59:15

does like you know, killer ads.

59:15

And it's amazing. And he sounds

59:20

great. But I just posted the

59:20

trailer. It's gonna be a lot of

59:22

fun. And then another one we got

59:22

is the streamer bowl. We got 30

59:27

football players, 30 streamers

59:27

and 30 community players playing

59:30

in the big streamer bowl coming

59:30

up. And they're playing

59:33

fortnight trios. So that'll be a lot of fun.

59:35

Adrian I thought

59:35

the same thing I thought Killer

59:37

Instinct from bringing it on

59:37

initially the musical. Thank you

59:42

so much for joining us, Taylor.

59:42

That is our show for today. But

59:46

I can't wait to see all of the

59:46

exciting Performing Arts type

59:50

things that we'll do together

59:50

and will bring to this world.

59:54

And thank you for sharing all

59:54

your knowledge. I'm like taking

59:57

notes for myself.

1:00:00

Buddy has any questions about streaming, feel free to contact me on Twitter.

1:00:01

My DMS are open, happy to help

1:00:05

you out. Because I just love

1:00:05

creating cool stuff and helping

1:00:08

people out.

1:00:09

Well thank you for

1:00:09

helping enable it. And from both

1:00:13

of us here at eight bit studios,

1:00:13

aka our own homes. That is all

1:00:18

for today. Brandon, play us out.

1:00:22

We'll see you

1:00:22

next week. Bye.