(00:00:00):
Hey, it’s Jim.
(00:00:01):
Welcome back to Duke’s Corner.
(00:00:02):
So I’m continuing to work my way through the Java community here,
(00:00:05):
talking to as many interesting people as I can.
(00:00:09):
And it’s really one of the few things I love doing.
(00:00:13):
So I hope you’re enjoying the conversations as much as I love doing them.
(00:00:18):
Um, this chat here was with Grace Jansen.
(00:00:21):
She’s from the UK.
(00:00:22):
She’s a developer advocate at IBM and she’s a Java champion as well.
(00:00:25):
And we talk about science and open source and STEM,
(00:00:30):
um,
(00:00:30):
her transition to software development from degree in biology when she was in
(00:00:35):
school and her real passion for engaging the community,
(00:00:38):
engaging women in technology,
(00:00:41):
encouraging them to get involved in software.
(00:00:44):
And, um,
(00:00:45):
Yeah,
(00:00:46):
a little bit about a lot about actually skills and career and the imposter syndrome,
(00:00:52):
which I absolutely have.
(00:00:54):
So that’s about it.
(00:00:57):
Grace is really cool.
(00:00:58):
And we get more interesting people coming.
(00:01:00):
Talk to you soon.
(00:01:02):
Hey, Grace, how you doing?
(00:01:03):
Welcome to Duke’s Corner.
(00:01:04):
Hey, how you doing?
(00:01:06):
It’s great to join you here.
(00:01:07):
Thank you so much for the invitation.
(00:01:09):
Yeah, it’s nice to meet you.
(00:01:10):
I don’t think we’ve ever met.
(00:01:12):
I think we have crossed paths at some conferences.
(00:01:15):
And certainly I follow you on Twitter and I follow your conference sessions and things like that.
(00:01:25):
And so some people on my team recommended that I should have you on the program.
(00:01:30):
And so that’s really cool.
(00:01:31):
Yeah, it’d be cool if we can meet up at an actual physical thing.
(00:01:35):
I don’t like doing these.
(00:01:35):
Wouldn’t that be lovely?
(00:01:36):
Yeah.
(00:01:37):
zoom things you know yeah uh but we’re audio only here so that’s good because i’m
(00:01:41):
just i’m i’m just sick of the zoom frames to be honest
(00:01:46):
So you’re a developer advocate,
(00:01:49):
and I meet a lot of these people around the world,
(00:01:51):
and I’m interested in developers.
(00:01:55):
I’ve worked in this space for a long time.
(00:01:57):
I’m interested in how they think.
(00:01:58):
I’m interested in how they solve really hard problems and how they deal with
(00:02:02):
technology and things like that.
(00:02:05):
So why did you become a developer advocate?
(00:02:10):
I think it’s a combination of I have,
(00:02:13):
a great interest in, like you say, solving problems, understanding software.
(00:02:18):
I’ve, you know, from a very young age, always been interested in computers.
(00:02:22):
And I’m kind of of that era where I’ve grown up with computers now.
(00:02:27):
And they’ve always kind of been in my life.
(00:02:30):
And I’ve always been fascinated with how can I make it more effective to use as a
(00:02:34):
tool and sort of diving deeper into that and combine that with my love for
(00:02:40):
teaching and for helping others understand those tools and understand that
(00:02:45):
technology combined with my interest for presenting,
(00:02:49):
creating materials.
(00:02:51):
So really having that diversity of being able to code and understanding the
(00:02:55):
technical side of things,
(00:02:56):
but also being able to do other things alongside that,
(00:02:59):
like writing technical content or creating videos or presenting at conferences.
(00:03:04):
And I love that mixture and the opportunity that I get.
(00:03:08):
to be able to interact with developers around the world and see that spark,
(00:03:13):
that spark of,
(00:03:13):
oh,
(00:03:14):
that’s an interesting technology or,
(00:03:16):
oh,
(00:03:16):
maybe this can help me with my problem.
(00:03:18):
And that spark of excitement or curiosity or understanding when you present that
(00:03:23):
material is just really rewarding,
(00:03:26):
I find.
(00:03:26):
So it’s a great role to combine all of that.
(00:03:29):
Yeah,
(00:03:29):
it’s interesting you mentioned that in terms of the combination of skills,
(00:03:32):
because a lot of times someone’s a really good speaker,
(00:03:35):
but they’re not necessarily strong on the technical content or someone’s really
(00:03:39):
into the into the code.
(00:03:41):
But but, you know, they’re not really doing a lot of articulation.
(00:03:45):
You’re really very articulate.
(00:03:48):
And where did that come from?
(00:03:49):
Did you just it was that natural or did you work at it?
(00:03:52):
Oh, no, not at all.
(00:03:54):
Yeah, it was I can confirm why my mom saw one of my first presentations.
(00:03:58):
I was about 1112 presenting at a primary school when I was in middle school.
(00:04:03):
And as much as she loves me,
(00:04:05):
she came up to me at the end and said,
(00:04:07):
I think that’s the worst presentation I’ve ever seen.
(00:04:09):
I love you.
(00:04:11):
but you need to improve.
(00:04:13):
And she was, yeah.
(00:04:14):
And she was completely right.
(00:04:16):
I was awful.
(00:04:16):
I was nervous.
(00:04:18):
I couldn’t speak.
(00:04:18):
I kept saying,
(00:04:19):
um,
(00:04:19):
in between every other word,
(00:04:21):
all of these classic mistakes or pickups or ticks that people have.
(00:04:25):
And it was just through practice,
(00:04:27):
really,
(00:04:28):
if I’m completely honest,
(00:04:29):
practice through internships,
(00:04:31):
university,
(00:04:32):
school,
(00:04:33):
putting myself into those uncomfortable situations so that I could have the
(00:04:37):
opportunity to improve the
(00:04:39):
being open to critical feedback afterwards and trying to use that feedback to get better at it.
(00:04:45):
So no, definitely not a natural talent, just hard work and perseverance, I can confirm.
(00:04:50):
So if anyone’s out there and thinks that they’re a rubbish speaker,
(00:04:54):
then definitely don’t feel like that’s the end of it.
(00:04:57):
You can never speak through practice, through openness and feedback and trying.
(00:05:02):
There’s definitely a way that you can get out there and present more and get better.
(00:05:06):
That’s really good.
(00:05:07):
When I was a kid, I had a very bad speech impediment.
(00:05:10):
I really didn’t speak fluently until I was in my…
(00:05:13):
well into my thirties and that, and my thirties was a long time ago.
(00:05:17):
So I was, I’ve been fluent for quite a while now.
(00:05:21):
I still stutter a little bit,
(00:05:22):
but I have the memory of,
(00:05:25):
of,
(00:05:26):
of not being able to communicate at all when I was in high school and college.
(00:05:30):
And so, yeah, it’s, but you, you have a biology degree from school.
(00:05:36):
So, so how, how did you make the transition?
(00:05:38):
I mean, biology is obviously a technical degree, sort of comparable to any kind of a
(00:05:43):
other you know science degree like computer science or something like that um but
(00:05:48):
still it’s it’s it’s biology not cs so you know how how did you well actually why
(00:05:55):
and how did you make the change
(00:05:56):
Yeah,
(00:05:57):
it was definitely a roundabout journey,
(00:05:59):
I would say,
(00:06:00):
not your typical journey into either tech or developer advocacy.
(00:06:05):
It was really,
(00:06:06):
so I’m very lucky that I live around 20 minutes away from the main IBM research and
(00:06:12):
development site for Europe.
(00:06:14):
And I’ve lived here like pretty much my whole life, moved away for uni.
(00:06:17):
But apart from that, been down in this area in the UK.
(00:06:20):
So my mom is a primary school teacher and she took her kids on a trip to IBM and
(00:06:25):
said and she came back that evening and said,
(00:06:27):
you’re going to love it,
(00:06:27):
Grace.
(00:06:28):
They don’t wear suits.
(00:06:29):
They work on computers all day.
(00:06:31):
They’re really friendly.
(00:06:32):
So she thought it would be a good opportunity for me to try work experience there.
(00:06:36):
So when I was 13, I emailed them and said, please, could I come and do some work experience?
(00:06:40):
So I did two weeks of work experience there and absolutely loved it.
(00:06:43):
Learned how to build a very, very basic website, but absolutely enjoyed it.
(00:06:48):
But unfortunately, my school didn’t offer computer science.
(00:06:51):
It was we had IT, but that was pretty much how do you use Excel?
(00:06:55):
How do you use PowerPoint?
(00:06:56):
So it wasn’t really coding.
(00:06:59):
There was no Python programming in schools at that point.
(00:07:02):
So I pursued that, but also the sciences.
(00:07:05):
I really enjoyed the sciences.
(00:07:06):
I enjoyed the problem solving behind it, the analytical and critical analysis within it.
(00:07:12):
So I took those on to do and sort of did my A-levels, what we do in the UK here before university.
(00:07:19):
And then at uni, I was like, well, I know that biology is something I enjoy and I like.
(00:07:25):
Let’s see if I want to pursue that as a career by doing a degree in it.
(00:07:29):
And I know that
(00:07:30):
If I want to switch into computer science, well,
(00:07:32):
I have my free time.
(00:07:34):
So I actually started learning Python and things like that in my free time because
(00:07:39):
I knew that it was something I could pick up.
(00:07:40):
So I entered like a robotics competition and things when I was about 16,
(00:07:44):
trying to learn Python programming and at university,
(00:07:47):
I loved it.
(00:07:48):
I really enjoyed biology, but started to realize that it maybe wasn’t what I wanted to do for a career.
(00:07:55):
And I had very fortunately the opportunity to be able to combine computer science
(00:08:00):
and biology in my modules.
(00:08:02):
So I was actually modeling biological simulations and doing modeling with R and Python.
(00:08:09):
Ironically, given COVID, I was actually modeling virus spread through airlines.
(00:08:13):
Yeah, absolutely.
(00:08:14):
Sure.
(00:08:14):
That was crazy.
(00:08:16):
When that came around, I was like, oh, I recognize this.
(00:08:19):
But yeah, that was really interesting.
(00:08:20):
And at that point, I realized actually it was the coding that I preferred to the actual biology itself.
(00:08:26):
So I ended up doing an internship at IBM at their summer internship in my
(00:08:30):
penultimate year at university.
(00:08:32):
And from that, I got an invitation to come back and be a graduate at the firm.
(00:08:37):
So,
(00:08:37):
yeah,
(00:08:37):
finished my degree,
(00:08:38):
switched into software and software engineering,
(00:08:42):
and then delved into the world of Java,
(00:08:44):
which I did.
(00:08:45):
Never heard of, never even come across.
(00:08:49):
It was object orientated.
(00:08:50):
All I’d done was functional before that.
(00:08:51):
So it was really diving into the deep end headfirst.
(00:08:54):
So it was a big change.
(00:08:57):
So it’s not the same as Python then, huh?
(00:09:00):
quite well definitely not from my amateur uh sort of experience of it just doing it
(00:09:05):
in my free time or being taught by a biology professor so um yeah it definitely was
(00:09:11):
a lot more structured uh many more rules to learn so i was just lucky that i had
(00:09:17):
some fantastic mentors who helped
(00:09:19):
just to have that person to ask all of those,
(00:09:22):
what you’d call stupid questions to,
(00:09:24):
things that might be obvious to a computer scientist or maybe someone who’s done a
(00:09:28):
degree in it,
(00:09:29):
but aren’t necessarily to someone who’s new coming in.
(00:09:32):
So I was lucky that I had a lot of support around me of fantastic,
(00:09:35):
brilliant people who were open to giving me that support and guidance,
(00:09:39):
yeah.
(00:09:39):
So when you got into Java then,
(00:09:41):
you weren’t sort of scared or turned off or intimidated at all by the complexity?
(00:09:49):
Hell yeah, I was.
(00:09:50):
It was intimidating.
(00:09:53):
When I joined, that’s when I realized that the language I was coding in was older than me.
(00:09:58):
And that was so intimidating.
(00:10:01):
It’s like,
(00:10:01):
how am I supposed to understand a language that’s been around for as long as I have,
(00:10:06):
if not longer,
(00:10:07):
and all the complexities that come with that.
(00:10:10):
And it really gave me sort of imposter syndrome for a very long time,
(00:10:13):
which I think many of us in this industry experience,
(00:10:16):
especially coming from a non-computer science degree,
(00:10:20):
coming into a language
(00:10:21):
that was so established and so complex and used in so many critical applications
(00:10:28):
that it was just almost overwhelming.
(00:10:31):
And it was at that point that I kind of came upon my aha moment when I think it was,
(00:10:38):
I delved into the world of reactive,
(00:10:40):
which was a fairly kind of newish topic.
(00:10:43):
It was coming to the forefront of development.
(00:10:46):
for serious consideration in use of in applications and i had kind of gone deep
(00:10:51):
into it because i found it really fascinating and it wasn’t until i was asked by
(00:10:55):
the senior engineers can you teach us about reactive that i realized i didn’t have
(00:11:00):
to know the whole what was it something like 27 years of history of java all at
(00:11:05):
once i just had to know an area in
(00:11:08):
and become an expert in that area.
(00:11:10):
And then once I was finished learning that area, move to a new area and understand that.
(00:11:14):
So it was about really chunking it down into bite-sized bits and knowing and being
(00:11:18):
okay with not knowing all of it and knowing that no one knows all of it.
(00:11:23):
People are just experts in small bits.
(00:11:25):
Yeah, that was my aha moment.
(00:11:27):
And senior engineers were okay asking you.
(00:11:31):
Yeah, which was surprising.
(00:11:33):
I mean, I was what, like 21, 22 years old and…
(00:11:36):
Them coming to me was a real shock.
(00:11:39):
But I actually,
(00:11:40):
I mean,
(00:11:42):
I’m a lot older than you,
(00:11:43):
and I actually can see a lot of young people in Java,
(00:11:46):
but a lot of the older people are very interested in what the new people are
(00:11:50):
bringing in,
(00:11:51):
right?
(00:11:52):
Because they’re smart.
(00:11:53):
They’re not necessarily experienced and like yourself, know everything.
(00:11:57):
you know, from just years of experience, but they do see things in a different way.
(00:12:00):
They’re just young people, right?
(00:12:02):
So,
(00:12:02):
I mean,
(00:12:03):
if I go to a college campus and hang out with a bunch of people,
(00:12:07):
they’re just different human beings than I am.
(00:12:08):
I mean,
(00:12:09):
they grow up in a totally different era and they see things very differently and
(00:12:13):
they’re smart sort of as a baseline,
(00:12:15):
right?
(00:12:15):
So when you teach them something,
(00:12:17):
they can really progress very rapidly,
(00:12:19):
but what they create with that tool could be very different.
(00:12:23):
And they really have something else to offer.
(00:12:25):
And so also,
(00:12:27):
you know,
(00:12:28):
I tell my daughter all the time,
(00:12:30):
like this field,
(00:12:32):
well,
(00:12:32):
really everything,
(00:12:33):
but really this field changes so darn fast that it offers plenty of sort of on
(00:12:39):
ramps for new people to get in,
(00:12:41):
you know,
(00:12:42):
because if you get into a field and just kind of hang out for 10 years,
(00:12:46):
whether it’s medicine or science or whatever,
(00:12:50):
or, you know, software, you can be passed by jet quick if you’re just hanging out.
(00:12:55):
Oh yeah.
(00:12:56):
So I always tell people,
(00:12:57):
if you’re interested in software engineering,
(00:12:59):
know that if you’re going to have a career in it,
(00:13:02):
it’s going to be a career of learning because it just never stops.
(00:13:05):
Yeah.
(00:13:06):
Interesting.
(00:13:07):
So it’s that different perspective where I remember that I had some of the senior
(00:13:11):
engineers turned around to me at one point and said,
(00:13:14):
you ask some excellent questions.
(00:13:18):
keep asking.
(00:13:18):
And I hadn’t realized at the time that I just kept asking why the entire time.
(00:13:22):
I was like, but why do we do it that way?
(00:13:24):
And why is it done this way?
(00:13:25):
And why do we have that particular annotation?
(00:13:27):
And why is it used in this scenario?
(00:13:29):
And it was those sort of delving questions and that curiosity that made them think
(00:13:35):
as well as me,
(00:13:36):
made them think,
(00:13:37):
oh,
(00:13:37):
is this the best way to be doing it?
(00:13:39):
Because they had to justify it to me in that why question.
(00:13:42):
So as you say, those young people coming in, learning, being curious and
(00:13:46):
can be fantastic resources for senior people who might be experts in a particular subject,
(00:13:51):
because it might get them to think about something in a different way.
(00:13:55):
Interesting.
(00:13:55):
I used to work on,
(00:13:56):
actually,
(00:13:57):
I actually used to work at Sun on the Open Solaris project,
(00:14:00):
and I had a manager.
(00:14:02):
She was an incredible,
(00:14:03):
if there’s anybody out there who knows anything about Solaris,
(00:14:06):
they’ll know who I’m talking about.
(00:14:08):
She was probably the best
(00:14:10):
project manager in the entire Solaris organization.
(00:14:12):
And she did exactly what you just mentioned, this probing, this questioning, right?
(00:14:17):
So she can go into a room
(00:14:19):
And there’d be many senior engineers there.
(00:14:21):
Now she was an engineer herself, but her job at that point was management.
(00:14:25):
So she was looking at it from a manager’s mind and she can have the most amazing
(00:14:30):
discussions with the engineers and was all based around questioning.
(00:14:34):
And I’d be sitting there taking notes,
(00:14:36):
like studying her about how she’s able to get the engineers to drill deeper and
(00:14:40):
deeper and deeper and deeper until the problem was solved.
(00:14:43):
It was really, really interesting.
(00:14:45):
I think there’s a technique, they call it the five whys, and it’s just keep asking why five times.
(00:14:51):
And by the fifth time you’ve gotten to the answer that you were really looking for.
(00:14:54):
Yeah.
(00:14:56):
So how did you come along with Java Champions?
(00:14:59):
So you got into Java, you loved it, you learned it over time, and then you became a JC.
(00:15:05):
And that’s sort of a group within the larger community.
(00:15:10):
But it’s a very small group.
(00:15:11):
It’s just a couple of hundred people.
(00:15:13):
But considering the Java engineering community is very, very big, how did you get involved with them?
(00:15:20):
So,
(00:15:21):
yeah,
(00:15:21):
when I was doing my developer advocacy work,
(00:15:23):
I was doing a mixture of,
(00:15:25):
you know,
(00:15:25):
advocating for a lot of open source projects,
(00:15:28):
getting involved with them,
(00:15:29):
projects like MicroProfile,
(00:15:30):
Jakarta EE,
(00:15:32):
Open Liberty,
(00:15:33):
and loads of other ones,
(00:15:34):
and doing a mixture of sort of presenting them at conferences,
(00:15:37):
also getting them into universities.
(00:15:39):
So really advocating for Java technology to audiences that we may not have reached yet,
(00:15:46):
to audiences that maybe…
(00:15:48):
don’t look at Java in the same way that perhaps it was looked at before,
(00:15:53):
especially the younger generation.
(00:15:54):
I think a lot of people look at Java in the younger generation and don’t
(00:15:59):
necessarily see it as cool or trendy because it’s been around so long,
(00:16:04):
even though it runs a huge proportion of applications around the world that are critical.
(00:16:10):
And so it’s about,
(00:16:11):
yeah,
(00:16:12):
I kind of did a lot of work around trying to build up that community,
(00:16:15):
especially within younger cohorts,
(00:16:17):
around getting excited about Java and teaching them how to use it effectively
(00:16:21):
through all of these open source tools and technologies.
(00:16:24):
And it was kind of through that advocacy work that I did and through my work with
(00:16:29):
the younger sort of generation that I was considered for the JC title.
(00:16:35):
And I was fortunate enough to be accepted.
(00:16:37):
So yeah, it’s been fantastic joining them.
(00:16:39):
Yeah, cool.
(00:16:40):
So it was pretty recent, right?
(00:16:42):
In the last couple of years?
(00:16:43):
Yeah.
(00:16:43):
Yeah, it was last year.
(00:16:44):
Yeah.
(00:16:45):
So very recent.
(00:16:46):
Yeah.
(00:16:46):
I remember your name flying by and that’s cool.
(00:16:50):
That’s really cool.
(00:16:51):
Cause I I’ve gotten to know, I don’t know, probably, you know, I actually a fair number of them.
(00:16:56):
I see them at conferences as well.
(00:16:58):
And they seem to be very cool, very friendly, very open to helping people.
(00:17:04):
Yeah.
(00:17:05):
And I think that’s a key factor in the Java community and one that I don’t see in
(00:17:09):
every computer software language community.
(00:17:13):
I think Java is particularly welcoming,
(00:17:15):
friendly,
(00:17:16):
open,
(00:17:17):
and that’s reflected in the leadership that we see within the Java champions.
(00:17:21):
And it’s just so wonderful,
(00:17:23):
especially coming from,
(00:17:25):
say,
(00:17:25):
an outside perspective,
(00:17:26):
or so you’d call it,
(00:17:28):
and being so welcomed so early on and encouraged.
(00:17:31):
And it’s just a fantastic community to be part of.
(00:17:36):
So tell me, when you go out and do your talks, what are you talking about?
(00:17:41):
You’re standing up, you’re delivering sessions at conferences and stuff like that.
(00:17:46):
I’m sure you’re talking to customers as well and whatever along the way.
(00:17:51):
Developer Advocate does a variety of things.
(00:17:53):
You’re writing and things like that.
(00:17:56):
What are you talking about in general?
(00:17:58):
Is it just Java?
(00:18:01):
Well, actually, no.
(00:18:02):
The question is, what specifically are you talking about yourself?
(00:18:04):
So I talk about a mixture of things, just depending on
(00:18:09):
what is either what interests me or what I think customers are interested at the moment,
(00:18:15):
or a problem I might’ve come across that I could help people solve.
(00:18:20):
Uh, so solutions and things like that.
(00:18:21):
So for example,
(00:18:22):
uh,
(00:18:24):
I started out my speaking career,
(00:18:26):
actually mixing my biology and software engineering,
(00:18:29):
which I love doing absolutely great fun.
(00:18:31):
So I was drawing analogies from nature and the natural world.
(00:18:37):
to be able to help explain what can be often very abstract and complex concepts
(00:18:42):
within software engineering.
(00:18:44):
So my first talk was around how reactive principles are actually behaviors that we
(00:18:49):
see in beehives and how bee societies work.
(00:18:53):
And so using this acronym of,
(00:18:55):
you know,
(00:18:55):
a physical thing that you can understand and see and remember as well,
(00:19:00):
And linking that back to things like responsiveness,
(00:19:04):
resiliency,
(00:19:05):
reactive,
(00:19:06):
event-driven architecture,
(00:19:08):
and mapping them back to provide that concrete foundation of understanding so that
(00:19:13):
developers can then build on top of that or utilize it.
(00:19:16):
So I love being able to do things like that, mixing my passions for biology and for software engineering.
(00:19:23):
Interesting.
(00:19:23):
Well,
(00:19:24):
you know,
(00:19:24):
one of the things that’s very,
(00:19:26):
a lot of sort of career development people say is you should mix fields as much as
(00:19:31):
possible because that makes you more unique.
(00:19:33):
You know, because every human being has a unique history, you know, they have unique skills.
(00:19:37):
And if you can possibly mix them, then anything you do is going to be even more unique.
(00:19:45):
And I think they make for some of the best talks because you can feel that passion from the speaker.
(00:19:49):
And it’s so interesting to get a fresh perspective on something.
(00:19:54):
So if you have a passion,
(00:19:55):
for example,
(00:19:56):
I have a friend who works at Spotify and he also is an advocate and he presents
(00:20:01):
around Kubernetes and things.
(00:20:02):
And he linked it to F1 because he loves Formula One racing.
(00:20:06):
And it was such a fresh perspective on it and so interesting and innovative.
(00:20:10):
And so I think they can make the best presentations,
(00:20:13):
material,
(00:20:14):
learning material,
(00:20:15):
I would say,
(00:20:15):
because it really helps you to remember what you’re being taught and link it to
(00:20:19):
something concrete.
(00:20:21):
So is this something that you are going to continue doing?
(00:20:24):
What are you thinking about the future in terms of, because things do change.
(00:20:29):
It’s not like the last few years have been sort of stagnant and certainly the world
(00:20:34):
has changed and you know,
(00:20:37):
Technologies emerge, there’s different trends, different people.
(00:20:42):
What do you sort of,
(00:20:43):
as you travel around,
(00:20:44):
talk to people at events and stuff,
(00:20:47):
what do you sort of see as the future of this technology,
(00:20:51):
of what you’d like to do with it?
(00:20:54):
Yeah, so I think, you know, when I first started out in IBM, it was back in, gosh, 2017.
(00:21:01):
And we’d sort of just done things like open sourcing Liberty into Open Liberty.
(00:21:06):
And that open source was still kind of new in our organization in terms of as a
(00:21:10):
business model and also contributing to those open source communities within Java
(00:21:15):
as such a big player in that.
(00:21:17):
And I think that has only increased since I’ve been an advocate.
(00:21:21):
The importance of open standards,
(00:21:23):
of open source tools and technologies,
(00:21:26):
open collaboration is really where I see the heart of Java and tools within Java going,
(00:21:32):
because it provides that really solid foundation,
(00:21:35):
that shared strategy,
(00:21:37):
common toolkits to be able to move your product,
(00:21:40):
have that flexibility,
(00:21:42):
have that portability without having vendor lock-in,
(00:21:45):
but still being able to utilize the latest innovations.
(00:21:48):
So I really think the open source standards that are being developed today are what
(00:21:53):
is going to be the base foundation for the future of Java going forwards and what
(00:21:57):
I’d like to be more involved in as we continue in the future,
(00:22:01):
really.
(00:22:02):
It’s interesting you mentioned that because,
(00:22:04):
I mean,
(00:22:05):
since I joined Sun,
(00:22:06):
I joined Sun in 2000,
(00:22:08):
and I’m still with Sun all these years later.
(00:22:14):
I immediately got interested in open source because it was the most interesting thing happening at Sun.
(00:22:21):
I mean,
(00:22:21):
I was in marketing at the time,
(00:22:23):
and there were lots of products that I could get involved with,
(00:22:26):
and that was fine,
(00:22:28):
you know,
(00:22:28):
in terms of,
(00:22:29):
you know,
(00:22:30):
closed products that they were selling at the time whatever but i mean i would you
(00:22:33):
know was this open source then you guys open office.org what is that net beans net
(00:22:37):
beans that sounds cool there’s a community around it juxta then java
(00:22:45):
um genie so everything was sort of at that time being opened and i was right there
(00:22:50):
it was really really cool but what was most interesting was the people there were a
(00:22:54):
lot of weird people at sun at the time they’re listening um and scary smart people
(00:23:01):
you know doing really interesting things but this concept of contribution which is
(00:23:06):
what you just mentioned
(00:23:08):
It’s very interesting to me how companies pay employees to go out and contribute to
(00:23:15):
an open project,
(00:23:17):
right?
(00:23:17):
Because it’s in their business interest.
(00:23:20):
It’s also in the employee’s interest.
(00:23:21):
It’s in their careers and stuff that they can create these vast networks within the company.
(00:23:27):
Obviously, IBM, Oracle, these are very large companies, hundreds of thousands of people.
(00:23:31):
You’re creating a network internally as well as externally, you know.
(00:23:35):
And I’m really,
(00:23:36):
really interested in this concept of these human value networks that are all based
(00:23:40):
around contributions.
(00:23:42):
And this very, very powerful thing, because even someone like me, I can contribute.
(00:23:47):
I’m not a coder, but I can contribute something to a community and get
(00:23:51):
attention from myself.
(00:23:52):
I can help somebody else out,
(00:23:55):
and then I could go into that community and grab something from myself that they contributed.
(00:24:03):
And so I try to explain this concept of contribution to everyone I talk to,
(00:24:08):
and I always ask about it,
(00:24:09):
and they say similar things.
(00:24:10):
So I’m on the right track here with it.
(00:24:13):
This is something that I’m very, very interested in.
(00:24:16):
So you’re contributing to Java.
(00:24:19):
Is there any other communities or any other open source communities that you sort of poke around with?
(00:24:24):
So I’m particularly passionate,
(00:24:26):
less on the technical side,
(00:24:27):
but I’m particularly passionate around getting more women into technology.
(00:24:31):
I think it’s a massive sort of industry wide issue that we have in terms of.
(00:24:37):
increasing diversity, whether it be women, whether it be any other minority.
(00:24:43):
And I try and get involved in as many of those communities as I can.
(00:24:47):
There are quite a few that you can get involved in as women who code,
(00:24:51):
there’s specific women in technology groups that are based in different geos.
(00:24:56):
And so getting involved in those and also whenever I’m traveling,
(00:25:00):
trying to meet the women in technology groups that are in those particular locations,
(00:25:05):
making connections, like you say, making networks to be able to help them.
(00:25:09):
And hopefully they help me and my communities in my network and my geo.
(00:25:14):
So I’m particularly, I have a particular passion for that.
(00:25:17):
And I try and link that into any travel and presenting I do when and where I can.
(00:25:22):
And yeah, it’s a pretty, pretty cool space to be in.
(00:25:26):
Yeah, it’s very interesting.
(00:25:27):
When I was in marketing before I came to this team,
(00:25:31):
every conference we had some sort of event centered around that.
(00:25:37):
That’s very interesting.
(00:25:39):
And it’s an important thing.
(00:25:40):
I mean, it starts young, too.
(00:25:41):
It starts in,
(00:25:43):
I guess,
(00:25:44):
even grade school,
(00:25:45):
not even high school,
(00:25:46):
because you have to choose the right subjects as you’re going along,
(00:25:49):
the maths and the sciences.
(00:25:50):
Exactly, yeah.
(00:25:51):
I think I was quite lucky that I went to a science specialist all girls school.
(00:25:56):
So it was quite an unusual mix,
(00:25:59):
but one that basically meant that I never felt the,
(00:26:02):
I guess,
(00:26:03):
the particular stereotypes or pressure not to choose the sciences.
(00:26:06):
And instead it was completely the opposite.
(00:26:08):
It was, no, come on, choose the sciences.
(00:26:10):
Like the girls who do science and STEM.
(00:26:13):
So it was a really nice atmosphere and one that I would love for other women around
(00:26:17):
the world,
(00:26:17):
especially young girls.
(00:26:19):
to be able to experience and understand.
(00:26:21):
So yeah,
(00:26:22):
I do a lot of outreach with local schools to try and,
(00:26:24):
as you say,
(00:26:25):
get in young and show them that,
(00:26:27):
that if they could do anything they want to,
(00:26:29):
if that’s STEM,
(00:26:30):
then great.
(00:26:31):
Yeah.
(00:26:31):
And, and it’s, it’s sometimes like someone like yourself, I mean, it’s okay.
(00:26:37):
So you did science, you did, you know, biology, now you’re in software, right.
(00:26:41):
Which is, so someone can take a technical track, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t
(00:26:49):
also literate in other things like literature and language and things like that
(00:26:53):
because just look at you you are extremely articulate you’re well read all these
(00:26:57):
things um and it’s not like you have to always just sit behind a computer you’re
(00:27:02):
banging code or sitting in a lab someplace these fields are very diverse extremely
(00:27:07):
diverse and there’s many many things you can do
(00:27:10):
Sometimes I don’t think that’s well explained in high schools and grade schools.
(00:27:15):
We have events where we invite them to IBM and we try and get them to meet as many
(00:27:20):
different roles,
(00:27:21):
people like females in as many different roles as we can.
(00:27:24):
As you say,
(00:27:25):
to really emphasize that point of you don’t have to be stuck in a room coding the
(00:27:28):
whole time if you don’t want to be.
(00:27:30):
You could be a project manager,
(00:27:31):
you could be in marketing,
(00:27:32):
you could be in sales,
(00:27:34):
you could be a dev advocate.
(00:27:35):
There’s so many other roles that are involved to get a software product to
(00:27:39):
production that they could be and they could,
(00:27:42):
you know,
(00:27:42):
aspire to be from school age.
(00:27:46):
And it’s also,
(00:27:47):
I think the most important thing is this thinking process,
(00:27:49):
being able to solve problems,
(00:27:50):
being able to think through something and think very deeply about something.
(00:27:56):
Also a passion of mine.
(00:27:57):
So, all right.
(00:27:58):
Well, is there anything else that we’ve left out?
(00:28:01):
I think they’ve exhausted my questions.
(00:28:04):
Is there anything that you’d like to sort of wrap up with?
(00:28:07):
Anything I’ve left?
(00:28:09):
No, I think we covered a lot.
(00:28:11):
Just as a closing thought for people is,
(00:28:14):
We all experience imposter syndrome.
(00:28:17):
We all come from different backgrounds.
(00:28:19):
Use your background,
(00:28:20):
use the skills and the knowledge that is special to you and understand that
(00:28:25):
everyone feels imposter syndrome.
(00:28:27):
Nobody knows everything.
(00:28:29):
You just have to come to terms with accepting the fact that it’s okay not to know everything.
(00:28:34):
Our industry changes so rapidly that you can become an expert in whatever you’re interested in.
(00:28:40):
Keep an open mind,
(00:28:41):
keep learning and really utilize what makes you special because it can be a
(00:28:46):
fantastic tool.
(00:28:48):
That’s perfect.
(00:28:49):
We’ll leave it there, Grace.
(00:28:51):
Thank you very much.
(00:28:51):
We’ll talk to you soon.
(00:28:53):
Thank you so much.
(00:28:53):
Bye-bye.