Talking Tech with Greg Marine

Greg Marine One of the common themes of 2020 was change. For some folks that meant change of career. This week's guest, TJ Pataria, is one of those individuals who changed careers into tech. Welcome to this week's episode of talking tech. There's no getting around it. Technology affects us all. It is in everything. But what does it all mean? And how do we interact with this technology? Let me be your guy. I'm Greg Marine. And this is talking tech. TJ Pataria I'm TJ, from Scotland, recent boot camp graduate. And they currently unemployed and looking for a job. Greg Marine Well, congratulations on graduating boot camp. Tell me a little bit more about your background where you're coming from before you started to go into tech. TJ Pataria So before tech had spent about 1617 years and worked in various roles in in retail retail management in the service industry. And one of these people who, who usually gets kind of not bored easily, but likes the keeps keep keep things fresh, if that makes sense. So that's Yeah. So yeah, I mean, in tech, it's interesting, because you're not always doing the same thing, right? It's not always the same remedial tasks they do. There's so many different technologies to work with so many different projects you can build. And so that's kinda how I landed in the lab of technology at the ripe age of just shy of 34. Greg Marine Congratulations on getting to this point. So you started this year? I assume. So was it a part of the 100 days of code or anything like that? TJ Pataria No. So weirdly, actually, um, so I grew up in the USA, Europe and scout when I was younger. Actually, I was enrolled in a course by my school, it was like a Microsoft program. And I actually started learning how to code when I was about 1415. Okay, but at the time, I didn't really enjoy it. So I was more into hardware and software. You know, I was one of these weird people who thought you know, software, it's, it's never gonna work. It's all about building computers. Right? That's right. That's where the money is. And I used to say, used to build people, you know, like, building computers from scratch. It costs like half the price, and I was in high school sighs making decent money on it. Oh, that's that. That's why late. That's why I enjoyed. Greg Marine Okay, so you built computers, so that you did that? at the ripe age of 14? You said about 1415? Yeah, yeah. Throughout and throughout high school. Okay. Yeah, I used to build computers that one of my dad still using his computer that I built about 11 years ago now. So nice TJ Pataria one, I still got one. And I built it's like a spider man themed one. Okay, it's for for it's tape. It's like top of the range. But I mean, eight Meg RAMs, nothing? is gonna do anybody any papers that are these? Greg Marine Yeah. Well, that's the thing when you build them yourself. Not only can you do it for cheaper, you can use top of the line parts of the time box last last a lot longer. Yes, true. Yeah, very true. So. So tell me a little bit more about your journey this year through your boot camp, and, and all that. TJ Pataria So recently, and when I say recently, in the last couple of years, I've been flirting with the idea of getting back into tech. And to be honest with you, if it wasn't for the pandemic, I probably wouldn't have gotten that push. It's just what the pandemic rate is, as most people know, there's so much more free time, you know, since I couldn't work, and you know, had to do something constructive with my team. And I kind of messed around on lane, you know, doing tutorials and stuff like that, and kind of was going around in circles. And I thought, you know, I'm just gonna want to Santa boot camp, I'm gonna get that structure, we're gonna get that help along the way. And then, hopefully, it should work. I did think though, at the beginning that the boot camp was going to be remote. So so I was surprised to learn that when, uh, when I enrolled, I got an email saying, you know, you're coming to your cohort in person. Greg Marine Oh, really? Okay. TJ Pataria And I was like, This is the opposite of what was gonna happen. But yeah, that was cool. Like, social distancing. And everything was practice on on campus. So they kept everything pretty clean, had to wear masks and shields and whatever, couldn't sit near anybody or whatever. So it was pretty cool. It was nice though to have like human contact after somebody myself. Yeah, I would say it of the people you live with. Greg Marine And get out and get out of the house. Yeah, TJ Pataria I'll get out of the house here. No traffic either, which was a bonus because no Nobody's going anywhere late. Greg Marine Yeah, that's been one of the most eerie parts about going and traveling in the cities in the early months was there was no traffic. TJ Pataria No traffic yet. That's Have you ever been to London? Greg Marine No, I have not. TJ Pataria No. So London is, I'd say, I've never been to New York. But what I see like, you know, in the media and like on TV and stuff, but in New York, the traffic's really bad. Right? London's all exactly the same. And then, my grandparents still live with me. They were they were stuck in India. And so they were coming back in April on like, government charge fleets. And then I went to pick them up. And I never in my life seen London that quiet. Like, it was really scary to see like, a quiet actually been. It kind of puts things in perspective, right? Like, absolutely. We're just Greg Marine not the same. Yeah, and I never will be the same again, some things will be better. Now right now you guys are going through kind of another phase and other lockdown. Is that right? TJ Pataria And yeah, so like Scotland's pretty, Scotland's been pretty strict compared to the rest of the UK through the process to be fair. And especially like the central belt of Scotland, we've been pretty much top tier of every variation of lockdown since it began. So it's not been fun. Well, I would say the one of my friends that day, like I've become really weirdly accustomed to just not doing anything anymore. And like to go out and do activities when things you know, get back to normal. Right. And it's actually more daunting than like staying at home for another seven months. Right. Greg Marine So one of the things that you're hoping to do is get into a position where you're doing software development. Yeah, for something. So tell me a little bit more about what what kind of job you're looking for right now. TJ Pataria And mostly anything back end? I'm not, you know, I'm wise to the fact that beggars can be choosers, though, right? And any experience just now is better than no experience. Right? So am I have a plan, whereas for the next few weeks, I'm applying to many roles that interests me before I kind of branch out and just start applying kind of not recklessly but right applying everywhere. And as opposed to being choosy about it. Yeah, that's probably I would prefer, I would prefer something back in or maybe even something kind of, you know, more driven towards data and stuff like that, because data and statistics, analytics, that kind of stuff always interests me, you probably seen on my term, massive sports fan. And I've been for many years and like more than actually playing. And I've gone through phases where like just just knowing the data, just knowing the statistics, and how to get them has been like more interesting than, than anything else. Greg Marine Do you have any interest in like, machine learning or AI? Because that's, that's something that's a data driven, very much TJ Pataria driven. I've actually got a couple of things lined up a couple of weeks short courses lined up over the next couple weeks to do and as a kind of an introductory thing to AI and ml. And so I think I'll enjoy it. Based on what everyone's been telling me, I hope I Greg Marine so what software development languages and platforms? Are you working with them out of boot camp? TJ Pataria So when we first jumped into boot camp, our first module was Python. Okay. And I dabbled in a bit of Python earlier in the year, so wasn't too unfamiliar with it. And actually really liked Python. And module two was JavaScript, Greg Marine no fun. TJ Pataria And that struggled with another lie, right? I still don't enjoy JavaScript, like if if I have to use it or use it. But after that came Java, and I was still not sure if I'm a Java fan, because I actually enjoy the language, or I just enjoy using IntelliJ. Yeah, there's half of the work for you. Right. But yeah, I'm a big Python. Finally, Python. Greg Marine Yeah, Python is definitely the number one language for machine learning and AI right now. A lot a lot of it's really good. It's got a lot of modules for basically chunking around on that data. And it does it very quickly, and very efficiently. So TJ Pataria that's a positive. Right? Yeah, absolutely. And Greg Marine then you said, you've struggled with JavaScript, that's actually a common thing. It's JavaScript has been around since almost the beginning of the World Wide Web in the early 90s. It's evolved. It's gotten better, but at the same time, it's still quite challenging. TJ Pataria Oh, yeah, I agree. It's, I mean, like, syntax is syntactically like, I'm okay. And it's just putting some things into practice. I struggle with sometimes even like, three fairly with some of the frameworks like view, kind of make it But easier, right and view I kind of, I kind of took too easily. And then we had only a couple of days of react literally two days just before a final project of react and as I struggled. And then once again, if you like view, you know, you love react and I'm still sitting there, you know, trying to work my way through this project. Thank you. Why don't I love this thing? Greg Marine I've actually gone the opposite way. I've done Angular react. And then now view, I look at view as as much better like an evolution of the two, the other two, and they've fixed some problems. And to me going back to react, I struggle. It's like I I'd rather this would be easier in view. TJ Pataria view. Yeah, actually funny you say that? Because a lot of my classmates actually felt the same way as though I think a lot more people enjoyed view than they did react. Greg Marine Yeah. Yeah. And when I started in web development, it was around 90 9096. And there weren't any frameworks. And so I've learned all that. But now that the frameworks exist, I prefer the frameworks because mostly, because all of the the, all the gotchas with the different browsers. It's just they've solved all that in those frameworks. And that's why I prefer frameworks today. TJ Pataria Anything that makes any job easier is always welcome isn't exactly what Yeah, yeah, it's good. Greg Marine It's good to understand the fundamentals. But at the end of the day, you got TJ Pataria it. It's like, why walk somewhere? If you can drive really what right? Maybe not if it's short distance, but if you're, if you're going somewhere, that's 50 miles away, you wouldn't walk there, you'd rather just cut out the riffraff and just just do the thing that makes things easier for you. Greg Marine That's right. And technologies exist to make it easy. And now if a technology is the problem, then move on. TJ Pataria Oh, yeah. Fair enough. Greg Marine That's why I'm trying to get into view because I like view a lot better. It does everything. I mean, it does the same thing that Angular and react. does. But for me, it makes more sense. It doesn't. TJ Pataria Yeah, Greg Marine I would say better. That's it. Yep. So now, you, you mentioned you have mostly interest in back end, any interest at all in front end? Since we're talking about frameworks, TJ Pataria I don't I don't mind doing front end work. But I just I genuinely prefer doing stuff from the back. Like I'm, I'm not, not like a relatively shy person. But I, in the same way with work as I am personally, like, I do like to keep things like to the background. So back in work just kind of suits me better. Not having to deal with, you know, where something's positioned on a piece as I prefer to work on, you know, the logic of why doesn't it just work in general? Why isn't it doing what it's supposed to do? Greg Marine Right. So more business logic versus user experience on? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. No, that's good. And one of the problems with being a full stack developers, I've done it all. And so I say problem is because, you know, I wear many hats. And so it's better to target just a specific thing and get really good at that. So if you target back, of course, and you get jobs like that, then you'll just become an expert. Yes, go back in and take care of that. That business logic. TJ Pataria That's the goal. That's the goal. I don't mind again, I don't mind full stack. It's just, I'd rather No, no, Greg Marine I don't I don't blame you. And all these years, that's, I've stretched my, my knowledge, but at the same time, it's it all clashes inside my brain. Okay, how do I do this in C sharp versus JavaScript? You know, they're different frameworks or different languages. And so that's sometimes bounces around inside my head, takes me a minute to TJ Pataria get it? Well, that's one of the things I learned along in my bootcamp journey was, you know, things aren't always going to be the same. And they, you know, Google is attains my best friend, but also things my worst enemy, so just, you know, be specific and be careful where you're looking for. Right? And Greg Marine that's actually one of the differences between a junior developer and a senior developer isn't so much their knowledge of a specific framework or language. It's what they're searching for, you know, how can they formulate their query to be able to get the answer that they're looking for TJ Pataria now? That's good. I hope that works out well for me, because based on what my classmates have told me, I'm a much better Googler than they are. Greg Marine There you go. So you're already held that week. So you're already ahead of the game, then. TJ Pataria Well, fingers crossed. I hope somebody else sees that when I'm applying for jobs. Greg Marine Absolutely. Yeah. So good luck with that. I mean, one of the things you may have to encounter is, you know, coding problems and whatnot to to show that you have some skills. I think one of the things that the companies are looking for somebody that can find the solution to a problem, not necessarily exist. How, how you do it but more or less how you research it and troubleshoot it? TJ Pataria Yeah, I've come across a couple of those already. I was doing one yesterday and I really stumped me. And on the there was two coding challenges in the interview. And I, the first challenge I got, I got 50% of the solution to work. And in the realm of running a team, the second one, I think I'd read 25 minutes, I just could not come up with solution even trawling the web just just couldn't find it. Greg Marine Now, the good thing is, once you get in there, you won't we have a time limit once you have a job TJ Pataria now, but yeah, it's a good thing. Yeah. Fingers crossed. Greg Marine So you had mentioned your passion for hardware in the past. Now you've built computers now Do you have any sort of passion for you know, embedded systems like Raspberry Pi, or an Arduino or any of those? TJ Pataria I don't am I actually stopped building computers, just after we moved back to Scotland, and probably are in all four or five. And the PI came a few years later than that. And then I remember I was working, I was managing an electronics place. And, and one of the guys that worked there, he'd ordered a Raspberry Pi and kind of Florida flirted with the idea of getting and I thought, you know what, I'm just gonna waste my money, because I'm not going to do anything with it. But recently, and I've been thinking about getting one and messing around with it. But I'm still on the fence. I'm not too sure. Greg Marine One of the nice things about it is you get to dabble in both hardware and software and software. Yeah, yeah. So you get to do both. And it's all it's very little front end. It's all back end type back end coding. So because you're dealing with buttons and whatnot, but not necessarily a display. So TJ Pataria I know I'm one of these people who if I if I can, like if I if I get it, cuz I can't get away something feasibly working on the first day, it's gonna like sit there and assaulted. Unknown Speaker Oh, yeah, it's TJ Pataria been a yearly thing. I should get a new one. Greg Marine So who's your favorite sports team? I know you've talked about it on Twitter. But go ahead and tell my listeners here. My Seahawks TJ Pataria on massive Seahawks fan? Oh, yes. The Seahawks actually aren't my first love. My first love. They don't actually exist anymore. Oh, they'd be the SuperSonics. But thanks to our shelves there. They're no longer a thing. So Seahawks was a close second. All right. The mariners haven't made the playoffs in years, so I just don't even don't even follow. Greg Marine So that's the American football. What about, you know, actual football and soccer what we call soccer here. TJ Pataria A Glasgow Rangers. Greg Marine There you go. TJ Pataria Classic Rangers. Yeah. Very cool. Greg Marine Have you heard of them? Yes, I have. TJ Pataria Yeah. It's a very contentious thing here though. Like he. And because there's only really two teams in Scotland. The main ones Glasgow Rangers and Glasgow Celtic. And it's pretty much split that in religious lines. Okay. So Rangers. They were, they were here originally. And then, when the Irish started to immigrate to Scotland, they weren't allowed to play with a lot of the other clubs and teams. So they created their own team called Celtic. So people always harp on that, you know, Celtic are the team of the immigrants. And I'm kind of the opposite of that. I follow Glasgow Rangers. Very cool. It's, it's like you, I always take a lot of people and because I was an Uber driver for a while, so people would always ask, you know, why do people people have asked us you know, what he used for me tell them and they get really angry. You know, it's, it's not something you want to talk about openly in this gray. Okay, kind of like it's kind of like skaaland shame. Like, it's pretty bad. can be pretty bad. Not everyone, it's getting better. No. And I think you asked a lot of people you know, why do you dislike this person? Just because they support it and they don't they don't even really No, it's just because the family have been that way for generations. That way so Greg Marine yeah, we we don't have so much of that here in the United States. One of the things we do have rivalries but it's not like it's more fun than than anything there's not a whole lot of anger there. TJ Pataria Yeah, I miss the I miss miss rivalry in the US it's a lot less intimidating. Greg Marine Yeah, the only thing we have that are is more of a hatred is more Polish politics and stuff like that. Yeah, that's Yeah, that's definitely split here on that. But when it comes to sports, it's more fun than, than anything. So like my, my grandfather and my one of his sons, my uncle. They had rivalry teams. My grandfather was for green bay packers and my uncle's the Minnesota Vikings and so? Oh, yeah, yeah. So for a while they would have those little bickering fights, not just for fun, you know, but uh, but yeah, that's uh, that's something that's uh, I grew up with and it was kind of fun. TJ Pataria Whatever you call it seemed the Greg Marine Indianapolis Colts. Yeah, that's where I'm from. So TJ Pataria I'll cool one of my cousin's is a cold fan. Although he's from Vancouver, BC. There we go. My dad was actually a redesign. Okay, cuz he's, so he was in LA when they were originally in LA. Yeah. And then they moved to Oakland. And when my parents got married, they moved to their original living in LA but then they moved to Stockton, California. So not far from Oakland. Right. And, and I think he always wanted us my brother and I to be like, prayer science, but I just never had. Yeah, it's just never was in me. I can see the appeal. A reader signs are nuts. But Greg Marine yes, they are. very passionate. TJ Pataria Yeah. That's when I started to like, enjoy sport. It was the Seahawks. I think it was about nine years old. Yeah. But 999 years old when I started properly get into sports, and it was all but the Sonics at a time, you know, during the NBA Finals and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. And then we just moved to Seattle. And everything was you know, obviously, you just couldn't top it for me at the time. You still can't know something. Yes. Greg Marine I've never been to Seattle. I hear it rains a lot. But I've wanted to travel out there to Washington. So TJ Pataria a bit say, Oh, yeah, it's bad in the winter. It's people think because I live in Scotland. The weather's worse here. But actually, I taste the opposite. The winters are harsher in in Seattle than they are here. It's cold here in the Bay here. But it doesn't snow. And we don't get storms like like we did in Seattle, because of the earthquakes here, which is a positive. Greg Marine Oh, yeah. That's nice. Did you have many earthquakes when you live in California? TJ Pataria And I don't remember we, we moved out of California when I was six, okay, six or seven. Like I was born in Scotland, okay, and grew up in California. Tobit, yes, six or seven. Then we moved to Scotland, then we moved to Seattle. And then when I was about 16 and a half 17. Then we moved back to Scotland. I was born here, because my mom was visiting her parents, okay. And when she found out she was pregnant, she was here and she wanted me to actually be born here. So I could have right both British and US citizenship. Right? And which I do so. Great. Greg Marine So you're looking for a job right now? What other jobs have you been doing? I mean, before the pandemic, you said, you're in retail and all that. But um, what happened was that the pandemic that got you into this position where you're looking? TJ Pataria So yeah, basically the two, three years before the pandemic I was a was a private hire driver. Okay, so you not do what to like mostly Uber or like my own private stuff. And, and when the pan I could tell just before the pandemic, I think it was around December, when the news broke of like, there's something happening in China. And then in January, it was like, it's actually starting to become a little bit of a worry for everyone else. February was, this country's now got it in their countries, but it's so like, around mid January pain, and I could tell something was off when things were really quiet, like, business wise. I'd never seen it that quiet. Yeah. And even the streets like around the city and the airports and stuff were really quiet. And you kind of got the sense that something was up. So like I said, like I had, I had been flirting with the idea for a couple of years of like maybe jumping into a boot camp or taking another route, maybe even going back to you know, your college or university. And, but it definitely was the pandemic that kind of pushed me to, you know, jump in with both feet. Because of the things that really get quiet and then and I'd stopped working around the third week of March. And technically, I mean, how it works since March 23. Actually, again, today's what December 23. So this will make exactly nine months. Yep. Yeah, nine months into this longest I've ever been to be here for was for just over four months, four and a half, maybe five in the in boot camp where everything has kind of been a blur. And because every time I say to people, you know, three months ago there, there wasn't any one single that was like eight months ago. Greg Marine Yeah. It's been a crazy year. And the timeline you mentioned was kind of interesting, because here in the US most of the news didn't really break until late February, early March like in December. Nobody was talking about it here. And it turns out there was a lot of folks who were getting sick in November and December last year here in the US. Yeah, but we didn't know what it was. And then then by March, that's when everything released, got tore what you were saying kind of became quiet, you know, businesses started shutting down. And then by late March, we were full lockdown. TJ Pataria So like, I, I read the news every night before I go to sleep, because it helps me fall asleep. Okay. So the way I have like, the tabs organized in the app is first of the World News. Okay. And then it's like, Asia, Pacific, you know, US and Canada. And then UK, and then more specifically, Scotland, in the west of Scotland, and then sports. And so yeah, I usually kind of catch on to these things before they kind of hit the mainstream, if you will. Okay, yeah. Just I'll see something. And I'm like, Oh, that looks interesting. See what it's about. And then monthly on the Yeah, I already knew, but it's because remembered a few weeks ago. Greg Marine That's very good. And that's actually a good way to approach the news. Because by the time it becomes mainstream, there's a lot of bias in it. So it'd be better to read the earlier story. So that's a good idea. TJ Pataria But I always remember what they say any other But yeah, I know I read. Greg Marine Yeah, especially since you're using it to go to sleep. You might. TJ Pataria That's Yeah. Positive and negative. Yeah. Well, that's Greg Marine the cool thing about technology, though, is today we can organize our news that way. And that's one of the benefits I think in having a pandemic now is like we have all this technology that'll help us get through it you know, you you're doing you did the did the but boot camp and and everything. So like that help time go by faster, I assume, kind of gave you something to do while on lockdown. And I think a lot of people have approached this year, that way, you know, they make new hobbies and whatnot, too. TJ Pataria I think so. Yeah. And one of my best friends is taking a boxing. Oh, nice. I don't think he ever would have if it wasn't for the, he's naturally quite sporty. Anyways, he does play a lot of football or soccer. And usually, like, in an organized team for the league. But boxing is something that's new to him, I don't I don't think he would have done it. If it wasn't something you can do on your own, right you don't need and you don't need a gym, necessarily. You can have any equipment at home and you can, you know, be up a bag in your kitchen if you want so. And I've got had other friends you know, upskilling into upskilling into other areas of relational learning new skills, and forging new career paths. And I would say to take as well, and for some people, because like I described the pandemic and it might sound odd to some people healing in this way, but as a blessing in disguise, right. And because if it wasn't for the pandemic, I wouldn't have had that kick up the butt to really, you know, get back into high gear and get going again, because it's not gonna live for a few years, I was kind of losing motivation. And then I was making okay money as a as a private hire driver. I'm not gonna, you know, pretend like I was grief stricken or anything I was I was doing okay, like, the money was good. It's just the hours were really long. And it was working almost seven days a week and like not being at work so wrong. Like if I ever came home and tried to relax. I just couldn't switch off. Oh, yeah. So now I'm like, I've learned to kind of just take it easy, a little bit. You don't take a deep breath, just walk outside, just chill out. Greg Marine Right? I think that's been the take for a lot of people that I know is that they're learning how to relax, finally, because it's always been Go go go and the sheer. It's like hitting a brick wall. He stopped. What is he gonna do so? TJ Pataria Well, that's it. Especially mentally, there's nothing more important than your mental health, your physical health, maybe, but your mental health is a big piece of who you are. Right? And you got to look after it. Whichever way you can. And you have to rest your brain from time to time. Like it's it's you just can't keep it switched on all the time. Greg Marine Yeah, I'm hoping that, that me personally, I continue to use the new techniques of relaxing, going forward once this is all over. And we're kind of back to a new normal. Yes, that, that I can still take what I've learned this year to relax and continue to apply that in the future. TJ Pataria What are you doing just now for your mental health yoga, hot yoga? Greg Marine No, no. Both mostly what I'm doing is writing and doing like this part, this podcast. The nice thing about this is I'm getting out and talking to people that I wouldn't have. Otherwise talk to. And so I'm learning about backgrounds and about personalities from people all over the world. Like Like I mentioned, and actually the reason you reached out to me for this interview is I was already talking to folks all around the world. And you're like, Hey, how about you and I chat. And so this is a new thing for me. I'm branching out, I'm more of an introvert. I can, you know, talk to people, but this is a lot easier having a camera and a microphone to talk to people. So, yeah, this is one of the things that's helped me get through it. And again, writing blog posts and talking about my experiences and whatnot and sharing with the world. What I'm doing has been a big help this year. TJ Pataria That's really cool. Cuz I'll be Honestly, I wouldn't have taken you as an introvert, you don't come across as one. So, you know, I don't know if you're masking it, or you just kind of jumped over that hurdle. But well, well done either way. Greg Marine Thank you. Yes, it's much easier to be to seem like an extrovert. When on the computer, you know, I'm behind a keyboard and I talk about what I'm doing. But when I'm out and about, I don't necessarily talk to people to strange it. That wouldn't have ever known. I don't always just sit and chat with people. TJ Pataria I'll tell you a funny story. Some I'm kind of the opposite. Like, I, I just when I'm I could be in the doctor's waiting or in a restaurant or a bar wherever they go. I always tend to strike up conversation with strangers basically, like, fly by myself, or you know, there's nothing else going on around us. Like it's it's awkward sitting in silence. Right. Right. And by famed like doing interviews on zoom, and especially job interviews, like I lock up quite a bit like I could feel myself like I start dripping in sweat. I get nervous. I'm stumbling over my words. I don't know what I'm talking about anymore. I start rambling. And then I look at them. And I'm just thinking, do you actually understand any of what I just said? Or are we both know very confused? Greg Marine Yeah, I'm the Yeah, I'm the exact opposite on that. I'm more like that in person. Yeah, doing I've done interviews. You know, I've been in this business for almost three decades. And so doing face to face interviews has always been a what's been nervous, nerve wracking to me. Doing this all on a computer this year has been kind of nice. TJ Pataria That's good. Greg Marine Get to relax. But But yeah, like when I'm out and about, I like to people watch. If I go to a bar or something like that. I'm sitting by myself. And I'm watching other people and just kind of interacting in my head. And, like, I'll send a text back to my wife saying, hey, this person just said this funny thing. And I won't even acknowledge that to the person who said it. TJ Pataria I've been there too, to be here. A couple of days. Greg Marine Yeah. Yeah, recently went to back to Walt Disney World in Florida. And this is a couple weeks ago. And I'm glad the numbers are down, they've reduced how many people are allowed in the parks. So that's helped and everybody has to wear a mask, but it allowed me to sit and just kind of observe people without it being so chaotic. You know, there's not people going everywhere, like in the past where the streets of the the park would be packed. Now it's just you know, people here and there just kind of scattered throughout and distance and it makes it easier for me to observe those those folks. TJ Pataria Oh, that's cool. How was the trip? Greg Marine I was very good. It was very relaxing. did a lot of firsts. You know, I've I go to Disney World a lot. That was the first part of the trip. The second part of the trip, we actually went to the Florida Keys. And that's a set of islands down the South very southern tip of the continental US and I did some snorkeling around the barrier reef there in Florida, and then went out to a fort Fort Jefferson on the Dry Tortugas. It was just neat to see all that and since there's reduced numbers of people doing these things, it was just kind of nice to relax and it didn't feel like I was constantly bombarded with the virus. like everybody's distanced and so it was fun to do those also did jet skiing and never done that before and parasailing was fun. No lifting up, you know? 300 feet in the air. Yeah, yeah. And it was just it was really nice. TJ Pataria I'm afraid of heights. I want to do parasailing Yeah, actually, like, like over water. I think it'd be more comfortable within like some like skydiving. Yeah. Oh, and I get really I get really weird. Like, even if I go up like an escalator, or even you know, you get like the glass elevators and you can Oh, yeah, yeah. And I always turn my back just so I can see smart my legs get really shaky and weird. And going up an escalator. I can't even look over the thing because I can't I just get really weird. I can fly no problem. They put me on an airplane 20 minute, window seat. Look, that is not an issue. It's just something like about being over war that's like really, really calming to me is like, oh, maybe I don't know if it's like a survival thing like that. I feel as though subliminally somewhere like, and I'm going to I'm going to survive if we hit war as opposed to crashing into a farm or field somewhere. Greg Marine Right? My buddy I was with he has a fear of heights as well and he talked himself into going on the parasailing and he actually when we got up there. He was very real. So you know we're overwater, like you said, we weren't anywhere near land, you could see the island off in the distance. But when you're up there, it doesn't feel like you're 300 feet in, there's just sees nothing but ocean. So yeah, it's very common for him to TJ Pataria the example I always give people the the best example, I was getting my fear of heights as the Space Needle in Seattle. Oh, yeah. Because as a child, when people used to visit, there's only a couple of places and see how you can feel them. The best place is the Space Needle. Because once you get to the top, you get a view of, you know, like the Puget Sound. And you can see the city and beyond, and you can see the mountains in the distance it as a really nice view from it, I won't deny that. The problem is once you step out, like once you take the elevator to the top, and you step out into the actual platform, it's slightly slanted. Okay? And, and you can feel a breeze. And it just kind of knocks me off balance. So what I do is, I kind of hug it inside real. And I look back like this now, and I kind of creep around and do a 360 tour. And then I go back and save. And you'll see people, the young kids, and they're laughing, and they're like, I can understand why it's funny. Because if I was a kid, and I seen a group, and instantly, it would be funny to me also. And but now I still I still leave when I'm back and to try and go by choice to like, conquer the fear. Because when I was younger, like I had to go up. And you know, because no one's gonna leave a 12 year old downstairs by themselves. Right? You know, I'll probably run off to the fear as opposed to anybody taking me. Because that's the kind of kid I was, and not run away, but you know, run off to the right. Right. So yeah, like, I've tried to do it. And the last time one of the Space Needle was actually one of my cousin's, and he's afraid of heights, though. I didn't realize until then that he's actually more afraid of heights than I am. And I see makes me feel better about my fear of heights. Because he just he just couldn't hack at all. Like, he pretty much almost passed out as soon as we got to the top. Oh, wow. It will, you know, we're trying to feed him beers Will you know, just relax everything we find just nothing works. Really, let's just go straight back. It was let's try something closer to ground level. That's right. Greg Marine Now, that's the thing. There's nothing wrong with a fear of heights. Obviously, they've got it. You're not gonna fall out or anything. But I mean, it's a real thing. And I used to have a fear of like enclosed spaces. I used to be claustrophobic, you know, elevators bothered me, and everything. And I had to face my fears a few times, and that there were times when I'd be at the grocery store. Somebody would be on one end of the island, somebody would be on the other and then I'd be in the middle. And I would panic and want to climb over the over the shelves. Oh, TJ Pataria wow. It's not like that anymore. No, no, you don't feel that way anymore. Greg Marine No, I faced some other fears in my life and realized I can overcome that one because overcame the other fears that I've had. You know, I've been in places that just scared me to death. And I'm like, Okay, now I can handle elevators. That's cool, though. So yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's something that if you don't get over it, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with it at all. TJ Pataria I'm a little bit better now. Well, I want to portray that a little bit better. Then Then I was before, and I like to feel that I have, but I guess I'll only know when I get to go back out into the world and try activities that can require me to be at height. Yeah. And as opposed to sitting at my desk talking about being a lot easier to do. Greg Marine Exactly. And that's the thing this year, the pandemic has has been one of those things where you can, it gives you a kind of a chance to reset and face those fears. I mean, at first, the world was afraid of the virus, and it's still there, and we got vaccines and all that now, but the problems not over yet. So it's it's like, Okay, we got we still have some time to evaluate these kinds of things and, and figure this stuff out. And for me, I'm still continuing to face other fears, like, you know, talking to folks like said, I'm by nature, I'm an introvert. So trying to talk to new folks constantly is has been one of those fears that I've had, and I'm trying to overcome those this year, and hence the podcast. And so that's the nice thing about this pandemic is the positive is that we can face these kinds of things and get through it. You have to get together. TJ Pataria Yeah, yeah, I agree. wholeheartedly. And like I said before, like I'm glad, like you feel comfortable. Well, I hope you feel more comfortable talking to people, strangers. Yes. I mean, you can talk to someone like on Twitter or you know, by email, but how much do you really know someone to actually get to write back and forth with them, like somehow, whether it's a phone or on a video conference or wherever? Greg Marine Exactly. And that's, that's one of the things I've loved about doing this is, you know, back when I was a kid, you know, we dreamed about having video conferencing and stuff like that and it just wasn't a reality. Now, here, we are 2020 and this is the reality. You're in Scotland. I'm in Indiana in the United States. We're talking real talking. Yeah. TJ Pataria And I said, I said that a few weeks ago, someone has a you know, if you, you said to me when I was even in middle school that and you know, I can live in one country, I can video calls somebody in another country, because I mean, video calls have been around for how many years now? and Apple had FaceTime since we're gonna see 1112 Yeah, someone? Yeah. And, you know, so like, I was in middle school and 9880. Okay, so like, if you had told me that 1314 years later, you could, you know, call someone across the world and see each other face to face like I really cannot get my face. Greg Marine Yeah, yeah. And most of the listeners for this podcast will be listening to it via audio. But for those who are doing that, we're actually talking face to face via video cam. So TJ Pataria I thought this was going, like as a video, Greg Marine well, it will be on YouTube. But most of my listeners are on podcast like Google and stuff like that. My mom will actually be watching this on YouTube. That's her preference. So she will be seeing us. Hi, Mom. Yes. Hi, mom. So um, but yeah, that's, that's, that's the cool part about this. And, you know, I, I enjoy doing it. You know, look forward to continuing this in 2021. TJ Pataria That's cool and long may be successful. Greg Marine Yes, thank you. Do you plan to do other podcasts? One of the things I want to do as a Disney based one, since that's one of my passions is Walt Disney World and Walt Disney himself. And so I got a couple friends that, that we're probably going to be doing a Disney podcast next year. TJ Pataria What can I what what is it that draws you into Disney? What's your favorite thing about Disney? Greg Marine I think the biggest thing is that I don't feel like an adult there I go in and I feel like childhood memories just flood into my brain. And I can relax a lot of the trips I take there, I prepay everything, so I don't have to worry about money even while I'm there. I'm sure it hurts expensive. And I think about it before the trip. But once I'm there, that's out of my mind. Terribly fearful. And they they have this. They call it Disney magic. There's just something about the place that's different than any other theme park. Things happen there that don't happen anywhere else. All of the cast members are the people who work there. They're very friendly, and they answer all the questions you can ask them anything. If you have any problems, they'll take care of it. So it's just one of those places that's that embodies, you know, the spirit of relaxing. So speaking, Walt Disney himself is somebody I look up to his example. I don't know what he was like personally behind the scenes, but on the open a lot of his philosophies are things that I want to apply to my own life. TJ Pataria Not fairplay. It's nice to have someone like that, that you can can look up to for ideas and philosophically where you said, and it makes, you know, walking down any new path that a little bit easier. Because you right, you have sort of a blueprint. And as a blueprint, yeah, kind of a blueprint to do things. And when you're down, you know, you go back and you're reading. Okay, so I can't do this. But how did he do this? Oh, he did it slightly differently. Maybe I'll try it that way. And that may work. Greg Marine Exactly. Yep. So TJ Pataria Disney for me is an odd one. Because I know I've been to Disneyland in California. And I only know that because I've seen it in pictures. But I don't actually remember being there. That makes sense. Yeah, I think I must have been around, or three, four or five. And I went by just I have no memories of it whatsoever. Greg Marine Yeah, and I've never been to Disneyland itself. I want to get out there and experience that as well. But yeah, that's the thing when you're when you're that young pictures are the only thing you have and yet you may not have the memory appear until you've to go back it may trigger once you go back but but and that's what it has been for me like when I go to Disney World. That's where I went when I was a child was in Florida. And I walk in there and all sudden that memory that I had from when I was three or four floods into my brain. That's cool. So let's let's do this. It really is cool. In TJ Pataria fact, that's actually really cool to you. Greg Marine Yeah, so that's, it helps me and then now my share that with the kids. My son remembers his first trip to Disney World. And so every time he gets to go back, he'll say Hey, Dad, do you remember this? Do you remember that? It's a lot of fun. TJ Pataria That's awesome. How old is he when he when he first when Greg Marine he was six? So yeah, so he he remembers it really well. You give details that I that? I wouldn't think that a six year old would remember. TJ Pataria You know what's funny, though, is in my family like we used to go to Reno I remember going to Reno a lot like I actually have memories From Reno, from being around the same age, I just have, I don't know if it's maybe I just didn't enjoy it. Maybe I wasn't well, but I do remember going to things in Reno, and you know, especially going to see the circus and stuff like that. Greg Marine Oh, yeah. TJ Pataria So not totally devoid of memories from that kind of age. But yeah, it's just it's the Disneyland one that always kind of, I just can't figure out why I don't know or why I can't remember it. Greg Marine Yeah, it's interesting. You mentioned a circus. That was one of the childhood members. I remember. We had Ringling Brothers and Barnum, Barnum, TJ Pataria Barnum and Bailey, Greg Marine they would come quite often, I think they're, I don't think they operate anymore. But they, they would come here every year, and so my parents would bring us was Market Square arena at the time. And that place doesn't even exist anymore. Well, but um, Leah, those are some of the fondest memories I have of childhood as well as the circus. grayling brothers, I'm TJ Pataria pretty sure I seen when I was in either middle or just entered High School. Yeah. And I think I won tickets through a raffle at school. Oh, that's pretty cool to go and watch. And yeah, even that circus in general, I don't know what they really operate anywhere anymore. Greg Marine Now, they probably aren't right now, especially this year, because of the pandemic. There's data you can't do. Now, that's the thing. And I really feel for the for the folks who do the entertainment industry, because there's no longer movie theaters. Those have all shut down around here anyway. You know, sports, there's hardly anyone in the stands because of those same restrictions. And it's just, I can't imagine trying to perform and not have an audience. TJ Pataria Yeah, it's even watching sport like from home. It's been really weird. And so I don't know if you follow soccer, football or soccer. Greg Marine The American football I do when not, not sorry. Not, not international football. TJ Pataria Nine international football. Yeah. Not the one you play with your feet. Greg Marine Right. And the actual football. TJ Pataria Yeah, seems to be fairly, I'll often have conversations, people are both football. And sometimes it can be misleading because I can mean one or the other. They can be they're both about it. Because that's just the way I grew up. Right. And but sometimes I forget, like I'm talking to you. And then I'm like, I better differentiate, you know, which one, sometimes with football. And I'm like mentioned teams, like the Seahawks and patriots, some people here get confused, because they're like, What do you mean? And same, like vice versa, like I'm talking to my family from North America, sometimes they confused. But the thing was, so like the English Premier League, one of the biggest leagues in the world rates, followed by millions all over the world. And so when they restarted the league had no fans obviously. And, and it was just really strange. And so what they started doing after a few weeks was they started using fake crowd noise, Greg Marine right? TJ Pataria Yes, in the broadcast, so you could watch it on one channel without the fake noise. Or you could watch it on the channel with the fake noise. And I couldn't watch it with the fake noise because it just, you know, the cheers were delayed, the boos were delete, and, and you could it just felt really fake. And whereas I kind of got accustomed to the no fans, because you can hear everything, you know, like them arguing, you know, what they're arguing about? why they're upset with their teammates, why they're upset with the opposition, what the coaches are saying. And so I find that really cool, but I'm actually glad because recently they've started letting I think it's around 1000 or 2000 fans back into the stadiums in England anyway is not in Scotland. And so there's a bit more of an atmosphere to the games, which had certainly been lacking during the year now, which I think most most people are happy about. But it looks like the UK will probably have to put that by once again for a few weeks. It seemed right. Well, this mutated stream of Coronavirus lingering around. Greg Marine Yeah, I heard about that. And the fake noise did bother me at first to when I've watched the the opening game of the NFL this year, they had the fake crowd noise and it just didn't make any sense. I mean, the crowds were cheering for every play. I was like there's no crowds, and that play wasn't worth cheering about. So it was very distracting and I just couldn't watch it. And so it's much better without the the fake crowd noises now but but yeah, that's an I'm back to this. The second that new strand strain over in the UK. You know, I really that's that is devastating news and hopefully, hopefully they can squash that and hopefully it doesn't mutate other places as well. TJ Pataria Then with the vaccine rollout, hopefully things will get there. And it's like the cold right there. There are many variations of the cold. There are many different treatments for it many variations of cancer, there are various different treatments for it. It's just to tame things. More than anything, right? Right. And I think as long as people managed to stay safe in, in the short term, and it'll be bad for the long term, Greg Marine and stay patient, that's the thing with any of this kind of stuff we have to that's the other 2020 lesson this year is patience. You know, just TJ Pataria patience it Greg Marine take time, let it let things happen. Don't try to rush, anything, just be patient, and get through this. TJ Pataria Like I said before, is everything got messed up? I feel like I've missed like, the second half of the year, because of boot camp. So for me, I guess I've kind of been patient but I like unwittingly. Right? And unknowingly. And but yeah, it's Yeah, it's, it's, it's the thing is like it is what it is at this. I know, there's a lot of people up in arms with things like for various different reasons. But it's it's a case of it as well as you know, make the best of the bad situation, which you would probably want to do in any situation, any of these right, you make the best of any situation that or any hand that you're dealt, Greg Marine right. Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you, TJ for your time today. I appreciate this conversation and, and best of luck to you as you continue to explore technology and apply for those jobs for for software development. TJ Pataria Thank you, Greg. I've had a blast. It's actually been really fun. It's my first hour, we've been taking on a stumbling thing again, this is my first time being on a podcast. And actually I thought was gonna be a lot more nervous than I was. Because like I said before the job interviews and stuff on zoom, I was sweating buckets, but I'm glad man, you made me feel really at ease. So appreciate that. Unknown Speaker Thank you. Yeah, it's Greg Marine been a great conversation, and I look forward to many more in the future. TJ Pataria I hope to be on your Disney podcast one day. Greg Marine Oh, yes, absolutely. Thank you for listening. This has been talking tech

Matt Netkow https://twitter.com/dotNetkow [https://twitter.com/dotNetkow] Ionic https://ionicframework.com [https://ionicframework.com] Capacitor https://capacitorjs.com [https://capacitorjs.com] Stencil https://stenciljs.com [https://stenciljs.com] Greg Marine As a software developer, I find one of the most important aspects of my industry, in terms of vendor support is Developer Relations. This week I talked with Matt net CO, the head of Developer Relations at Ionic. If you would like to learn more about building a great mobile app with ionic, my good friend, Mike Callahan has introductory courses available right now. Select either Angular or react and start building your app today, you will find these great courses using the following links. Developing Mobile Applications with Ionic and Angular - Idea to App Store: https://gumroad.com/l/FyZHi [https://gumroad.com/l/FyZHi] Developing Mobile Applications with Ionic and React - Idea to App Store https://gumroad.com/l/KJvnU [https://gumroad.com/l/KJvnU] Matt Netkow Yeah. Hey, Greg. Well, first, thanks for having me on. I'm really excited to chat with you today. Yeah, so I am Matt natco. I am head of Developer Relations at ionic. And thrilled to be talking with you today. So we ionic for those that don't know, in the web development, you know, ecosystem and the sphere, we create tools and products that basically help web developers just take their skills to the next level, and specifically reuse their, you know, HTML, CSS JavaScript skills to build web apps that can be deployed to mobile desktop, and of course, the web and beyond. So yeah, great stuff. Greg Marine Very much. Looking forward to hearing more about that. And also you recently a new father. Haha, Matt Netkow yep, that's why I've got my diet coke here. Um, excuse me. Now I need a bunch of caffeine to keep going here. It's been such a blast. My little buddy is seven weeks old, as of a couple days ago. So still in the beginning? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I am back at work down here in my lovely basement office setup. Yes. Mm hmm. I know it's a bit of a mess. Now. I should have cleaned up. That's not good. No, Greg Marine I cleaned up just before we started this. Matt Netkow That's the the zoom way these days are the pandemic right? That's right. Um, but yeah, newborn at home, during a pandemic, and you know, everyone's got their unique challenges, but let's just say, yeah, it's been, it's been particularly tough, but, you know, rewarding and fun still, you know, I've got a lot to learn about being a dad, for sure. Greg Marine Well, be sure to follow all of my dad jokes on Twitter, those will come in very handy. Matt Netkow You know, I gotta say, I really enjoy those and seeing them leading up to becoming a father was was something I have. I'm excited to build out my dad joke game myself. I like to think I've been trying for years, but now it's the real deal. Greg Marine Yeah, I've had a great, great teacher from my dad, and glad to pass that along to folks like you. And so before you started ionic, where did you come from? What's your background? What brought you to, to being Dell Developer Relations at ionic? Sure. Matt Netkow Yeah, I've had a great and varied career so far. So let's see, it's been about 1010 1213 years or so that I've been a software developer. And I actually started and came from more of a consulting world. So I had a couple roles in that realm. The first role I was at was as part of a SaaS company building. technology that basically helps sales and marketing folks find their content better. So this goes back a number of years, it's that's pretty table stakes, and a lot of things like Salesforce and Microsoft products, and you know, all that kind of stuff. But at the time, they were they were pretty innovative. And what I was, I was part of their consulting org. And this was 99% project manager. So you know, walking enterprise clients through setting up the software for their particular needs, and loading up their content into the site and all these other things. And what was kind of cool, though, is I was one of just a handful of developers on the team that was responsible for integrations, and really, a jack of all trades type work. So if we had, you know, maybe some automations to create, to help tie systems together, we would do that. So a lot of like scripting, working with third party API's to bring in data to our main products, all sorts of work so that that was something that you know, I really cut my teeth having to work fast, pivot fast. And learn fast. And I really love that the variety was there, I wasn't working on any particular software product at the time, it was kind of just a mix and match of things. And additionally, what was really cool compared to more of a traditional software developer engineer role is I was exposed to the business side of things. So some sales and marketing, but even just from the sense of working with clients directly, so building up people skills, a little bit of I might talk through a technical white paper on a call, like we're having now. I remember when that was incredibly scary to me, this Junior kid out of out of school, you know, talking through to IT professionals about single sign on something or, Greg Marine you know, whatever I can, I can imagine. Yep. Matt Netkow Oh, it's so scary when you start out, right? Greg Marine Indeed it is. Matt Netkow And now that's like, full time job is being out in public learning, and public's doing a lot of speaking. So Greg Marine it's definitely been a journey. So yeah, it's good to get those soft skills to be able to do that. Let's build those over those years. Yeah, Matt Netkow yeah, I mean, it does. It didn't take years, for sure. I've definitely am more of an outgoing person, for sure. But regardless of that, personality, there's you there's a lot behind, you know, of course, building those those skills up and really being comfortable, because a lot of times, it's still nerve wracking to speak to others be interviewed on a podcast, whatever, you know, whatever. Yeah. And so that was really, really great, had a good exposure to that I liked working directly on solving problems and seeing that impact. Oftentimes, like on the phone, or again, over over email, we didn't have this kind of zoom setup. So that would have been interesting to really celebrate wins a little bit more with clients. Right? But absolutely, yeah. And then I moved over to a company called slalom, who does, I absolutely love them to this day, and spent a couple years there. And that was a little bit more dedicated engineering roles where they take on, you know, major, major projects and augment teams, engineering, resources and teams basically. So think about, really where that comes from and why they've been successful is, you know, every company is kind of being forced into becoming a software company, right as, regardless of the enter in industry, you have to compete with software. And so, you know, I worked with clients like Starbucks, who else I'm trying to think, well, some other little, little not as well known brands and things like that, but all kinds of customers in different verticals like manufacturing retail, that, you know, realize they're really just starting to build up their developer teams, so that that company was kind of neat, I would actually, before I would be more on the phone, but this, I would actually go on site and sit with other developers, with the development team, you know, for weeks, months, even years at a time for some of the projects. And so that was really fun. Got to, you know, kind of grow more into like a team lead and architect role, kind of guiding them. Because oftentimes, you'd have more, as teams are not, you know, you're juggernauts like Facebook or Google that you might think of finding talents hard, right? Because they're right there, they might be an insurance company out of some small town or, you know, some other spot and finding and attracting talent is hard in tech anyway. But especially so when you don't have that recognizability. So we kind of learned a lot of talent to those to those teams and things like that. And then I was, you know, kind of on the side, I've always loved tinkering with different with with software, right? Like, it's my software is my full time job and being a developer, but I've always enjoyed it as a hobby as well. So tinkering with different things, exploring different apps and API's building stuff on the side. And even over time, writing about it, right, so putting out blogs. I actually, believe it or not, I found in some of the slalom roles that I was liking, documentation more and more, which is we know software developers and Doc's are not always, you know, it's a necessary evil but not exactly. Greg Marine Right. Exactly. Yeah. Matt Netkow Have you done a lot of documentation work yourself, Greg in here. Greg Marine Do not enjoy it. Yes, I have. But I do not enjoy that part. I like the building. Matt Netkow Mm hmm. No, I understand. I do. But I found some what I was finding with some success with that is I would, you know, being deployed to these other teams and companies. We didn't really have any issues integrating or being like accepted, quote, unquote, by those teams, but at the end of the day, you will you were still kind of an outsider, right? You kind of had to even like as at a company level or individual level, there's everyone had different perceptions of why you were brought in, what your motivations are. You know, sometimes if you think about it, if you're a developer on the team, and you have other companies devs brought in, like, how does that reflect on you, you know, you could have some feelings there. And it's usually wasn't like a problem of their talent or skill or something, it literally was always, like, they just need more help, and more guidance on things. Right. So that's a side note. But where I was going with that, is they, I actually found that building up good writing skills, and the communication skills that go with that was crucial to some of my success there for being getting ideas heard, bought into being able to craft and summarize like, maybe it maybe it's an architectural decision, like let's go with so and so for an authentication provider, or even just some of the process, you know, how do we do code reviews, pull requests, things like that, you know, it's, if you try to do it one on one, like we're talking now, that works, maybe I convince you, Greg, but what about the whole team, right? And so stealing that, it's not always feasible to have these convos? Or have to go through the whole spiel over again. And then to management, right, it becomes exhausting when you're trying to drive change, especially like we were? If so, that kind of led me to love writing more and more. And I had on the side, over the years been working with Cordova and the web, stack JavaScript, etc, to build hybrid applications. Those are hybrid mobile, I should say. So iOS and Android apps. And that ultimately led me to ionic. Greg Marine Very cool. Matt Netkow Yeah. And kind of what's neat about that kind of technology spaces is I actually started more in the dotnet. realm. So building more, again, automations ASP. NET MVC websites that were more back end heavy and database driven, right. But going back a few years, I realized that there was this language called JavaScript that was really taking off. You may have heard of it. Yeah. Because I was going, you know, back in, I don't know, 2010 2012. That's a long time ago now. But not really. But yeah, it feels like it. You know, I love going to conferences and talking to other devs. And it was so much JavaScript content and things online with it. Twitter was starting up and, you know, getting more of folks in developers on that. And I kept seeing that and thought, like, wow, I really, I'm more of a back end person, but I should not ignore the web, you know, I should really build up those skills. So what ultimately led me did more and more JavaScript things and at work, trying to build more interactivity into my projects, and really started enjoying that, especially from if you think about it, the I love backends, and API design and things like that. But it's not as snazzy or sexy as building out a UI that someone might interact with, or complete a job or get some tasks done. So that can be really fulfilling to see that work visually. out there in the world. Right. Unknown Speaker Exactly. Matt Netkow Mm hmm. And so what I ended up getting into was I found this project called Cordova or PhoneGap, basically synonymous, that allowed you to use web tech and build mobile apps from them. And so speaking from that, kind of hobby mindset and kind of side project approach. And working alone, right, I didn't want to, I wanted to, I remember, I just gotten my first Android phone. And what blew my mind was the ability that you could potentially build an app for it, like write software for the phone. That was, you know, because up till that point, so much, so many of us had just built websites, etc, for desktop computers, right or lab era, but to actually, this potential to have something that you're holding and phones over there that you're holding in your hand and carrying it throughout the physical world was just I think, I don't know, it still blows my mind. If you think about it, you know, just, that's only been a little over 10 years that we've had the iPhone and everything that came from that probably Yeah, so just just incredible. Greg Marine And be able to To use a technology like web technologies, and then like you mentioned Cordova slash PhoneGap, gave you the ability to write once and run it on either iOS or Android. Exactly. Matt Netkow Yep. Yep. And the Cordova project basically is, provides that kind of native runtime layer provides the scaffolding for creating what those native projects look like. And the compelling part of that to me was, well, oh, gosh, I want to build mobile apps. I have an Android phone, and you know, great Android, I can build for Android. But I want to go on iOS to you know, I want to be on both and not have to learn Objective C, or swift on iOS, or Java and kotlin, whatever it is now, for Android, right? There's a whole, just so much to them. Even Of course, it's grown and grown and grown, like any platform, you know, the type of things you have to learn for them. Right. And so that was really compelling to me. So I built a number of apps, some of them did, all right, and, and really loved that technique. And along the way, came this company called ionic, based in who I had kind of just found, I think, through reading about Cordova, and just that hybrid approach, right, that was what they were about to, and I kind of kept them in my back pocket. I used remember not use, I read a bunch of their blogs and their thought leadership and always thought they were really cool. You know, they were doing really slick stuff. Unfortunately, I never had the bandwidth or just didn't make the time to try ionic was always in my as I told him when I was interviewing, um, I was always just around the corner from rewriting my app, and ionic and stuff. And it's like, oh, gosh, I hope they believe me and, and hire me. So here we are today. So I guess it worked. But what was kind of the turning point there is I've just really enjoyed this kind of app stack and writing, speaking, I've done a little bit of speaking at different conferences. And they had a position open up a couple years ago for a technical product evangelist. And it really, I remember I because I turned to my wife. And I was like, I think I found my dream job. Because they combined development, software development skills, with all these other skills that I've slowly been building up over the years, writing public speaking, to some extent, not as much, but interacting with communities and teaching other developers. And that was exactly what they were looking for. They had been they've been starting to, they have built up a over many years, a successful open source product there Ionic framework, which is a library and framework of over 100 Mobile components that help you build these these apps that are, you know, specially styled for Android and iOS. So really great for web devs. And something that you didn't have back when I was building apps. I think I used jQuery Mobile and some other other things. But they you know, the apps never really looked great. I wish I had a little picture for you. But you'll have to take my word on my design skills not being so hot. So Greg Marine well as part of your company's history. You probably already aware jQuery was kind of something they started using what was drifta ko, and then they came up with Ionic framework. And that has now snowballed. It may have started out slow in the beginning, but now it has snowballed into a framework that can be used using react Angular view was your latest. And I'm sure there's gonna be more down the road. But so you know, they may have started with jQuery, but now they're using all the top three. And using components, like you said, over 100 components that are all styled for either Android or iOS using the tiller material designer, the iOS stuff, look and feel. And so now that snowball is, is becoming its own thing. And you guys are doing some great stuff, including capacitor if you should not really replace Cordova it's it's well I guess, in a way you have now but now capacitor is something that can be used to build to compile to use these on both iOS and Android, as native. Basically, web native, I think is the newest term that Max has coined. Matt Netkow Oh, you caught that? Yep. I'm starting to write some of the messaging for that. So you're way ahead of the game. I like it. I'm gonna reach out to you, Greg, on ideas for that. No, no. Um, yeah, that's a great. That's a great summary. Absolutely. That's what I found so compelling about joining them. And this space is there so much. It's a friend Being a alternative approach to traditional native mobile development. Now using those native platforms, why should say as a, as a result of that, there's so many tools, techniques, education, so many different things that need to be done. So I, myself and the rest of team have a full plate constantly, Greg Marine constantly, Jason, I can imagine. So. Matt Netkow And you've probably seen, we've had a number of different products come and go over the years, and a lot of different innovations come out of it. And that's what makes it so exciting. Because what they what they maximize Ben, the founders, you know, found even many years back as you just had these, the web in terms of accessibility, the platform that is ubiquitous on mobile, desktop, tablets, whatever. The web has been around for multiple decades, and, you know, shows no sign of slowing down. Right. Right. Um, I mean, honestly, most I realized like, especially with streaming services, or even video games, all kinds of content, most of the time we're consuming and in a web browser, if you really think about it, you know, maybe there's some native apps that are to the whatever platform you have, but at the end of the day, it's such a great proven delivery mechanism for content, productivity and work. You know, really, the sky is the limit there. So we're, we like to say we bet on the web, because of all those things. I love that I love that phrase, I think it encompasses so much of what we do. Absolutely. It's, I never thought that I would be on this kind of switching stacks from back end front end. But it's just so much fun to be involved with that. And now, kind of what I'm doing today is just an evolved role. running our developer relations program. So just building up lots of content, partnerships, I do a lot of if anyone knows me at all, it's probably because of our The, the usually monthly webinars we run, teaching and promoting some of our products, and teaching different web development concepts. And it's just been absolutely rewarding type of role that I really enjoy and recommend for sure. Greg Marine Well, Andrew, a very people person, like you're very approachable, they're easy to talk to. So hosting these, these webinars makes perfect sense for you and a few of the others that I've gotten to meet over the course last few years. And so kudos, you're doing a great job there. And I think you're on to the people that wrote a series of posts on the new view, you wrote a tutorial that's available on the ionic website, I'm not going to ask you, which is your preference of you react or Angular? Because in a way, that it's it's everybody's choice, you know, whatever stack you want to use. But now that you're in these three major things, what what do you find the biggest benefit to having that much coverage? Matt Netkow Uh huh. Now? Well, it's, you know, we. So the quick background, there's the Ionic framework was originally built on Angular one, angular j. s, and then moved on to Angular two and different versions of Angular. And we love Angular, it's, it's going stronger than ever great ecosystem and community and Google's backing cannot be, you know, understated, is incredible. But what we're seeing is, the JavaScript and web ecosystem moves fast. There's new incumbents all the time, I think, you know, and I'm a fan of this things have slowed down a little bit. It feels like in the web development world in terms of churn and new projects taking over. So from a developer anxiety and my personal anxiety trying to keep up with learning, you know, that I think I'm, I'm fine with that. Honestly, I think it's great for innovation to have new tools and things. But so many of us, you know, we work regular jobs, and you can only have a life, and you can only do so much at a time. So I'm fine with that. But what we realized is, particularly react and view are growing. And react is really dominating today in terms of, you know, usage and developer love and whatnot. And, but to be able to support those developer communities, we just feasibly wouldn't be able to rewrite the framework from scratch to target those, right? It's just so many reasons. I mean, what chief among them is, we're a small company about while we've grown a lot lately, probably 5060 people and up. And even but even if we had a Google size organization, keeping up with all these frameworks would be really challenging. You know, like doing it right. You know, Putting out, we really pride ourselves on putting out high quality work, and giving the time and space and letting it breathe, you know, kind of given that time for that. So, long story short there, we ended up rebuilding the framework on using Web Component technology. So the base core of Ionic framework is built with web components. And the gist of that is we are then able to provide thin wrappers, right libraries on top of those, to provide syntactical sugar for those three frameworks. And what's great is we get to support and you know, from a community and business perspective, growth, and attract more developers, and devs, using us get the familiar tooling and syntax and all that stuff that they're used to, it's not some custom ionics way of doing react or view or whatever. It's just, it's just react, it's just view I love, I love being able to say that. Oftentimes, we've all used proprietary tools, especially in software is a consumer or a developer. And I've had frustrations with them being going out of under life support or just having to learn that specific skill set that you might not take to other jobs, or like part of your career, which can be risky, right for when time is limited. And what's great about what we do is in being focused on web development is it's all what I'm getting around to is it's all just modern web techniques. So you kind of asked like, what my favorite is, and I'm not, or you know, it is a contentious thing we get asked a lot about which of the three I should go with. And really, there's no clear cut answer there. It really depends on your background, and where you're at in your career and, and what your skill set is what I realized. So I, I built, I built our first app tutorial kind of guide that you go through, if you start in our documentation that walks you through, kind of like a lightweight tour of our products and all the open source, things we have. And having built it. Now, the same tutorial three different times for Angular, then react and view. Honestly, it, I got faster and faster at building them, which I was definitely a fan of from a workload perspective, but quality and just you know, being able to offer a great experience that there wasn't a hit there, there wasn't a sacrifice, because what I'm finding, especially for I've been really I had I had done a lot of Angular development professionally at slalom, so I have a great larger background in that, and a much newer to react in view. But what I'm loving about both of those two is just a focus on modern JavaScript development techniques. So meaning, while they do have their own UI and library type of concepts and their opinion away opinionated way of building things, there's there's a lot of overlap, especially between react and view these days, would you would you agree, Greg, I know you're a react yourself, right? Is Greg Marine that true or started out Angular moved to react last couple of years. And then now that view is supported by Anke, by ionic, I'm starting to delve into it. And I'm realizing views actually sort of like the, like the lovechild. Between Angular and react, there's a lot of similarities from the two that are baked into view that that actually, I love, I'm absolutely having a great time with the view experience. I haven't done anything that's out in the open wild for work or for personal yet, but I've just been playing around with it when I've had time. And I absolutely love your guys's support of them. Yeah, but like you were saying, you know, the tooling and everything. One of the decisions that was made by you guys a few years ago, was to Yeah, you've got a c li, you've got your own command line interface. But it's a wrapper sort of on top of the tooling available for Angular react and view so that the teams that are using it can actually use the angular react and view tooling without really learning anything. So that's one of the beautiful things about the way ionic has been evolved over the years is now you could take your ionic skills to any company or any client that's using any of those three major frameworks and and be able to use them without losing any time. Exactly. Matt Netkow I admittedly it was right before my time at ionic I came at kind of an a spoiled sense because they were making all these great architectural decisions like web components, or in that case, embracing whatever frameworks tooling. So I kind of missed some of the more challenging days. It sounds like from when I talked to the have older versions of ionic. But yes, I it's my understanding that in the past, we had custom build scripts and tooling that we created to to augment some of the angular tools make them. I don't wanna say better, but just more robust for mobile development. That was our kind of main target use case. And exactly. Greg Marine I was using it back then. So, yeah, yes, I know exactly I'm talking about. Matt Netkow And what, what we found though, is, the more especially in the open source world, the more you have to well, the more ideas to, you know, thought, leadership, whatever, the more great stuff you put out into the world, the more folks you attract, but the potential drawback there is, that's more to support from the software, Greg Marine exams, Matt Netkow community issues, triage, whatever. And again, when we're, when you're a small team, it's very easy to get overwhelmed. Even even large teams, I mean, it's just it's really, I've tried to say this gently before, to folks where it's just like, gotta have some patience. Sometimes, because, you know, it's, it's a potentially a million developers to one, you know, at that scale. Regardless, if you're like, us, or Microsoft or something. And, you know, we we're not robots. So, you know, especially with development work is hard. So it takes time to get really quality answers and figure out issues. So long story short, I think the those custom tools and scripts were hard to maintain, as Angular would change, things would break, for example, they'd have to like patch things or make it work with new versions. And with this new kind of mantra, where we're use under, we might wrap them in some special commands and put some sugar on top and do some mobile specific things. But yeah, at the end of the day, it's it's just using their CLS under the hood. So with with full, you can see the output of what's going on as well. So there's really full transparency. So like when I was learning react and Vue, you might I might not necessarily know, what create rat react app or web pack is really are what it's doing. But at least it gives you a starting point to to troubleshoot, sure. And find answers in a in a supported way. Because it's not the ionic web pack something something, it's, it's just the official one. And we're leveraging that. And that also means when you're encounter challenges, when you're isolating and debugging issues, it's really easy to quickly divert like, well, is this an Ionic framework type of issue is your Cordova capacitor one, or this tooling? Right? And modern web development has gotten very complicated. So that is very important these days, because honestly, I don't know if you agree there, Greg, but half the battle seems to figuring out issues is like, Okay, what are who is causing the issue? Is it me, the developer, or is it my tooling? The browser, my mobile device, like iOS 13, versus 14, or something like all these different layers? And yeah, it makes for? There's no good answers there. Because it's still challenging today, and probably will be for ever, Greg Marine honestly, honestly. Yeah, look, the markets kind of fragmented when it comes to the amount of devices that are out there. And of course, the versions, like whatever version of Angular or react or view you're using at the time when you first start a project, and then have an upgrade along the way. Of course, some of that's getting easier to upgrade. But of course, there's going to be new challenges tomorrow. So yesterday's challenges, or today's solutions, and so on. So Matt Netkow that's true. Yeah. Yeah. Greg Marine So yeah, I thought that's one of the things I think that goes along with that as capacitor was created to solve a problem a little while ago. And then now, in 2021, Cordova support ended. capacitors now sort of becoming the go to for hybrid, or web native development. So you know, tell me a little bit more about what capacitor does for the developer. Sure, sure. Matt Netkow Yeah. So as you kind of mentioned, it's a, you know, something that, you know, over time, so we had built up a really great UI toolkit with Ionic framework. We had our own. That's a whole nother topic. We have a web component compiler and builder called stencil that helps us build that framework. So again, lots of lots of tooling on To the hood, or more open source work there, we have a mobile ci CD cloud service called app flow that helps you automate the process of going from idea to the app stores and, you know, submitting builds and native builds and things like that. And we were using Cordova for many years, great project, love the team, we contributed back to it even to this day, and an open source fashion. And but what we were realizing is as a, as it was something that was we have some influence over, but not part of our, you know, kind of suite of offerings. There was challenges there, which is getting things moving features, fixes, stuff like that. And as well, as, you know, I think it was released initially in like, 2008 or so. So, you know, over a decade, it's it's definitely a, it's been around for a while. And, you know, there's, there's, of course, challenges from a legacy perspective of like, you know, taking on modern tooling, different, you know, of course, let's see, that'd be 12 years or so that's a huge, huge amount of time in terms of the software development world, right. Six months, it could be a lot of time, let alone 12 years. So Right, exactly. really reflecting on it was, you know, we, it was a hard choice. You know, do we continue to put all of our efforts into Cordova slash phone gap, or do we do our own thing, and ultimately, that's, you know, kind of spinning off into something new and different was what we went with. And it's been, actually, some of the, especially the last year or so, has been growing like crazy. It's been quite a ride, because the the adoption and excitement from the community is really palpable, in terms of just the the love out there. So if anyone's used it, we really appreciate that and appreciate all the feedback and whatnot. But it what it allows us to do is embrace more modern tooling. And, you know, essentially what that means is you, you take your ionic app, or really any, almost any web or single page application app, those are really great for that, and, you know, take that code and bundle it into a native app. So at the end of the day, for your end users, it's a native app that you can publish on the App Store. So it's, you know, discoverable there. And the bonus of being built with webtech is you also can build a progressive web app and run it like a web app or site. So naturally, there's difference between those platforms. Some of that is, you know, responsive design wise is handled for you with different breakpoints and the way our components style themselves automatically across those different form factors and platforms. But ultimately, what capacitor is meant to do is just provide that native layer and that container to publish on the different, you know, really take your skills and publish them on to iOS and Android. Greg Marine And to give you a common API between all those two. So you can also use a camera API on a desktop, or mobile, and it's one API that you've talked to, from your app standpoint, Matt Netkow definitely my favorite part because a lot of folks that are coming to like exploring this technique where we say, we make a lot of promises, right, we say, one code base and multiple platforms. And you know, I understand it's, it seems a little a little dicey, right? I'm offset if you don't, if you're kind of new to that technique. And while I'm certainly biased have being part of my job day in day out, it is the real deal, because the the web platform has evolved so much in terms of the features like Bluetooth notifications, the camera, you mentioned, all those hardware features we can access now, and have been able to, for many years now they've just keep advancing and the browser platform gets better over time. And as you said, for some of them, we have core API's or plugins, that ramp and give you that one API, that one interface into those different native functionality, or you can build your own, which is really cool. So one of the things I love to call out in some of my demos, or when we're talking to companies is is we can you know, the proof is in the pudding sort of thing I can show you doing a lot of open source work has been a lot of fun, especially coming from that more of my corporate background where none of my work will ever see the light of day, or it's just not even probably in production anymore. open sources is learning in public, it's, it's, it's, you know, the proof is right there you can for better or worse you can validate our claims or anyone's as to the validity and how easy it is to use and all that kind of stuff. It's it's All out there for you. So one of the things I love to do is pull up some code samples, like with the camera, and show like, Hey, we're not actually writing platform specific spaghetti code, which would be a nightmare. I think that's what a lot of folks think of is like, okay, yeah, they say, we can write for every platform, but is it like, you know, if iOS go to line for, you know, run this block, if Android if web etc. And while you certainly can do that, and occasionally you might have to, for variety of reasons, you know, really just your business logic needs to do different things, or there truly are differences that are Stark in the platform offerings. It's pretty rare. It's, it's fairly rare. So one of the things that I love that, really that look on, when I when I've been back in the old days before, fantastic, where I could be in person, seeing someone light up where they could run their, their, their ionic app on their device, you know, and just a few steps and see that interactivity like what that tutorial I talked about, is fairly powerful. And I think, fairly convincing, for sure. But that's capacitor in a nutshell. And, you know, it's something that we, we've seen, just take off this past year heading into 2021, we're going to be doing even more with it. We have capacitor three ruptor, version three now coming, hoping to start a beta soon, which we are, haven't really been talking about too much. But that is, you know, really just a lot of like performance optimizations, they're getting the bundle sizes of the code that you ultimately shipped to your users down. So that's kind of something that benefits all developers, improve tooling, we're always we've we've, in addition to being the web company, or based on that we do so much with tooling, and try to make that like a really great developer experience happen with these, you know, when you're building these types of apps, so there's always more we want to do with that. So last, last to come there. Greg Marine And you'd mentioned a couple of other products that you that you guys have just kind of in passing. First one of those being stencil. Now stencil, you basically can build these web components. design systems even tell me more about stenzel. And how it can benefit potential clients. Matt Netkow Yeah, and so that's a really, really neat stuff. So the idea behind it a they're called, I think, officially custom elements is the is the official name. I'm not a huge expert in this, but I think I can explain it well enough. But you know, the idea here with a web component is the web gives us buttons forms, all these UI controls out of the box, right, that are built into it. And, you know, at the end of the day, they're just HTML tags. They're just components that you use a cross platform and that sense of you know, all the browser's support them and whatnot. So I imagine someone at some point said, why the browser gets these, but why don't we, like other companies, other indie devs? Get them? Where we can, again, instead of having to rewrite them in every framework, like the React specific one, jQuery, you know, whatever. What if we could use them across different platforms and different browsers. And so that's the idea there, you're essentially able to publish your own UI components and element tags and just drop them into your project like you would a button, or a form or radio buttons, all that kind of stuff. And to your developer, as the end user, they don't need to know the details or see the implementation, they can just import and consume that component right on the page. So that's really the secret sauce to how we rebuild Ionic framework, as we've said, For the last time, because they're using this web component technology, and stencil specifically is theirs out of the box, the browser gives you custom elements slash web components, a way to build them. And as we've said, we're pretty fond of, you know, layering more tooling, making that developer experience, you know, we're very opinionated, hopefully in a good way. So what essentially what it does is just adds makes the process of building web components easier. If I had to say at a nutshell, this, the details of that I'm actually I'm actually as well versed to talk about it, but that's kind of how that how that works. And it's what we end up using to build Ionic framework, so What I love about us is we have this feedback loop, and dogfooding of our own products to build on our products. So, you know, some companies are kind of like siloed different, different offerings, but we really use day in and day out our own products to make everything better. So it's really quite incredible to see both from myself and like marketing slash dev REL to give that feedback and, and do that, but also our developers, in and out interacting. And, you know, making things kind of be more cohesive is always the goal. Greg Marine Yeah, that's a that's quite important, especially for someone such as myself, a developer, or a company that's hiring developers to have those kind of tools, and then the fact that you're dogfooding it, if I were to come to you, for information on how to use it, you know, your company, you guys can easily talk about it, because you're using it yourself. And then another sort of a big thing that's happening right now is ci, CD, continuous integration, continuous delivery. Now you have app flow, that's evolved over over some time. But now it's quite a strong tool to allow the ability for teams and companies to build their apps and get them delivered to the app stores for Google Play, and the Apple App Store. Tell us a little bit more about that, and how that benefits companies besides what I just said, Matt Netkow Sure, sure. So typically, you know, you build your ionic app, you'd create it for and deploy it to the app store's, you know, kind of manually to iOS and Android, the Play Store and App Store specifically. And there's a, you'd use the native IDs, development environments for those. And and Apple's tooling, Google's tooling for that to upload the binary into the your Play Store, your Google Store, right. And that works just fine. But at scale, if you're on a team, or a large, you know, really, of any size, a spot, but especially larger companies, you know, doing maintaining those builds, and especially the native binaries is really challenging. Because you have, you have different versioning, you have to account for, and what if you have, you know, Bob and Sally submitting different you know, what they think is their right, the right app to the app store's like you could imagine there'd be a disaster there if the right features or the wrong features, getting out. Maybe things not being coordinated well, between developers, QA, project managers, and whatnot. So the idea behind Apple is to kind of help scale that last mile delivery to the app stores. So and really meant for certainly useful for even even hobbyists or solo devs, like automating their workflows, because of course, time savings in any part of the development process have just monumental payoff, right. So that's definitely important. But we really see the impact with you know, teams, of a handful of people and up. Because what you get essentially as a centralized hub or dashboard, where you can coordinate your iOS and Android releases, and builds. And then we also have some cool things with different branches and channels, for example, where you can we hook right into your GitHub, get lab, get repositories, and build the code for you deploy it, and whatnot, and then unlocks a lot of different options like setting up different environments. So you know, a lot of teams will have development, staging, QA, production, all those things, and you can keep your mobile apps moving through those stages without kind of kind of fumbling through that or having mistakes come up from someone owning it manually, you know, you might have like, Bob is the person that submits to the App Store and has to manage the keys and certificates, which is like a security concern, or just the bills themselves, right. And one other kind of neat thing that that unlocks is we have something where it's the it's called the live updates feature where you can actually submit and deploy changes to your app without going through the app stores. And how that kind of works is we it's it's absolutely allowed by you know, we think of Apple is kind of the most strict when it comes to App refuse. Putting it lightly. And what's kind of neat about that is because we're our apps are built on web technology. You can ship web updates, web based updates to apps, because of just the way that the architecture and the way they're design. So that's your CSS, JavaScript, business logic and even images, you know, kind have that kind of content, what, what we're seeing teams do it. And the impact of that is substantial. Because if you think about it, we, my favorite example is I actually could really have used this feature back a few years ago, when I had a Cordova app and building some of these hybrid apps. I had an app out there that used a third party provider to sign in and connect your account from them. And I was on vacation. And they changed. They changed one of the login URLs, they maybe the hash or some one of the properties was renamed, I think it was probably a mistake, or maybe, you know, they didn't version it right. And it broke my app, because I was pointed, you know, the hard coded to whatever URL and that whole author, excuse me, authentication flow. So I had to scramble, pull out the laptop, which, you know, when I was on vacation was not not the most fun thing, and submit a fix, and deploy it, especially to Apple. So Google Play, updates are a lot simpler, they're a lot more lacks in terms of deploying and releasing apps in terms of their guidelines and review process. But Apple is notorious for taking days or weeks to let your updates through. And this was just more of a personal project for me. I wasn't but not like my company app, being down, but I still got emails about it. I still I it was a paid app. So I was losing money, you know, and other other concerns there. Oh, I mean, not a big deal, because it was like a side project. But the point is, if I had had live updates, I could have shipped that change. Because really, it was just a simple parameter that I needed to change. That was also what really was irritating is, you know, sure the company changed something and probably shouldn't have done that. But that I mean, what real What better real world example. Yeah, there's humans involved, right, we all make mistakes, or like, maybe I missed, maybe I missed something I actually don't know. But it wouldn't have mattered because I could have fixed that bug, you know, within honestly, 1010 minutes or so. And then users get the update. And they're none the wiser. What happens is, when you pull up the app, there's a bunch of different options, but you can essentially download it in the background and then apply that new code, essentially, effectively patching the app with the new version, without going through that review process. And I love that because you know, if you're just really fixing a bug, maybe running an A B test, an experiment that you want to have beta users opt into, doesn't really need a multi day review. I mean, especially in these days, when we're trying to move fast, and company revenues on the line. And your velocity is it's just a no brainer. Greg Marine So an app flow does all this for you. That's the power of app flow. Matt Netkow It is Yeah. So I don't know, I just always love sharing that story. Because they we've all even if you're not like I'm not a DevOps person, I don't have that background. But and that's another reason to go with a platform like that is if you don't it's a it's an entire discipline, there's so much you can know, from that over, especially the past few years, the tools that have built up. So the other aspect is just really putting that responsibility on our shoulders, you know, to keep up the the tooling, the support for all that kind of cloud back end stuff. Let us do it and just focus on building your app, which is plenty of work for anyone that's been a software developer for for a day or so well know that that's you always have enough to work on, let alone deal with infrastructure. And these App Store releases, which are like, as I said, can be pretty hairy to deal with. Greg Marine Absolutely. Well, Matt, I want to thank you so much for being on the show today. And thank you so much for your insight and, you know, highlighting all these wonderful tools from ionic, and I wish you the best of luck being a dad as well. Matt Netkow Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much, Greg. had a blast. Cheers. Cheers. Greg Marine Thank you for listening. This has been talking tech

Jason Alba https://twitter.com/jasonalba Jibber Jobber https://www.jibberjobber.com/ Pluralsight Courses https://pluralsight.com/profile/author/jason-alba Greg Marine So you've landed your dream job, only to find out two months later, it wasn't such a dream after all. This week, I talked with Jason Alba, and he has some great advice to manage your career. Welcome to this week's episode of talking tech. If you wouldn't mind, start off, introduce yourself and tell my listeners, who you are and what you do. Jason Alba Hey, so thanks for having me on. My name is Jason Alba. And I do a number of things. When people ask me what I do. I usually say I don't know. Or it depends on the mood. And then I'll tell him I either Do you know my jibber jabber, which is a CRM for job seekers, or that I make courses for Pluralsight or that I'm an entrepreneur, I, I have a lot, a lot of plates spinning that I work on. So that's me in a nutshell. Greg Marine Very cool. And it's interesting, your analogy of the spinning plates. I've heard that quite a bit this year. It's a crazy year. So a lot of people are spinning new plates. Jason Alba Yeah, oh my gosh, I mean, I'm talking to people who, you know, you go to a, you go to an A work at an office, right. So you commute you have, you have podcast time, on the way there you have unwind time on the way back, and then you go into whatever family environment you're in. And, and kids or if you have kids, you know, if you have a family and kids and they're, you know, they're they're at school, and they have homework, and then they have friends to hang out with. And now you know, since March or April, or may or whenever you started your quarantine, you're working at home, trying to figure out how to have a good connection and the right technology, right? Your kids are at home, and and they're tugging at you saying hey, I can't get on my zoom class, can you help me? Or you know, or they're, or you watch them on their zoom class. And they're like doing acrobats and not even paying attention? Exactly. They can't play with their friends, you know, the whole world has shifted from everybody being able to do what they're used to being able to do to oh my gosh, I need to play, you know, both sets of parents and teacher and babies. I mean, and I still have to have a career and a job. It's been just an amazing amount of stress and change for the average person. Greg Marine Sure. And with that stress and change, they have to be very flexible. Because it's an evolutionary process. There's, it's constantly changing. We're Jason Alba constantly changing. And then, you know, things that are weighing on people's minds are, I just lost my job, but nobody's hiring or, you know, 660 percent of my department just got let go. What does that mean, for me? Is the writing on the wall? And I'm going to be let go soon? Or am I going to be covering everybody else's work? And you know, it's, it's been a crazy year, it's been, and I mean, I've had a good year. But I totally recognize that. I mean, there's been some good stuff that's come out of this, like I've been able to see my family I haven't I have not seen my kids. Previously, the way that I have been able to this year like it, we've been able to slow down. But man, I just recognize that there's just so many people out there that are that are scared, and they're hurting. And they're in a position that they've never had to be in before. I mean, I remember when I first got laid off in 2006, which really started my whole, like, it gave me a 90 degree turn on my journey. It was it was lonely. It was scary. I felt like a failure, why me? There's just a lot of emotions that go through it. And the interesting thing is now it's not like one person that's going through that it's not even one community. It's like the whole world is going through this industries have been devastated. And 10s of thousands of people in single industries have been put out of work. That has a huge impact on everybody else. Right. So that's been weird, and really weird. Greg Marine Yeah, exactly. And speaking of the 2006, where you've been in this position before, 14 years ago, tell tell tell me about what that process was to get back on your feet. Jason Alba Um, it was long and painful. I can imagine Greg Marine so. So I Jason Alba got I got let go from a company that you know, the industry was facility maintenance. They say you know, total facility services, but it really was was like a janitorial company that did some construction. And the reason why that's important is because you know, construction is like a 30 40% margin industry. janitorial is a 3%. Industry, right. And so when when when somebody gets laid off from a janitorial company, they're typically not getting out placement. Now placement back in the 80s. And 90s was, you know, it could be three 510 thousand dollar package. Now, it could go up for sure. Like, if you're hired for me, it wouldn't have been bigger than that. But, you know, when I got let go, it was the first time that I was in a job search that I didn't plan on, like I had changed jobs before. But it was always things that came to me and I would evaluate it and talk to my wife about it. And then we'd make a decision and move to another company. But this was the first time where it's like, you are going away. And good luck. You know, don't let the door hit you. And, and so I didn't know at all how to do a job search. I mean, this was 2006. I literally went and looked for newspapers to open the wanted ads. That's what I knew to do. And honestly, there's people I work with today and jibber jabber, you know, people in their 60s who get laid off after having worked at a company for 30 or 40 years, they've never even thought about looking for a job. And they go down and buy a newspaper to write, because that's how you did it back in the 1900s. And so I had no idea what I was doing. I did all the wrong things. I'm actually fairly introverted. I love people. I love talking with people. But I don't like going into big networking events where I don't know anybody. It's just uncomfortable for me. And so I thought, you know, I want to do this in the most efficient way possible. So I'm going to, I'm going to jump on job boards, like indeed, it will indeed wasn't really around back then it was really like monster, and careerbuilder and dice for the technology people, kind of how you segmented out which job boards you were going to spend time on. LinkedIn was around, but I remember going to a job club meeting one morning, and this guy was like, I landed a job Jason, you got to get on LinkedIn. It's so awesome. I'm like, what's that? Like, I really don't want to get on another thing where I have to have a login. That's such so obnoxious. So anyways, that's where I was at in 2006. And I started and I just banged my head against the wall, doing the most ineffective things you could do, which was looking for openings and applying to openings and hoping right? And then I remember there were times where I was out. And I was like, I can't wait to get back home and see if any new job postings have been posted in the last two hours. I mean, how stupid is that? And so anyways, that's really where I started out. And about six weeks in I wasn't making any progress like I was, I was. And I could talk for a long time about why that is that one of my friends, Nick corca, dillos runs asked the headhunter website and he there's a statistic that's been floating around for since I think the 60s that 14% of jobs are found through job boards, well wanted ads, I should say, like, posted jobs. And Nick came out a few years ago, and he said 2% of jobs are actually found through job boards. Greg Marine Oh, that's incredible. To purple. Oh, yeah. 2%. Jason Alba You know, I mean, 14% is already low. Right? But 2%. So anyway, that's what I did. I spent 10 hours a day, six days a week, I spent 60 hours a week on my job search, but it was very ineffective. Wow. And after a while, I was like, Okay, this isn't working. Let's stop, let's analyze what's going on, go read some articles from the experts and see what they say to do. And that's when I started to kind of realize, okay, I'm doing all these things wrong. I'm not doing any of these things, right. But as I'm understanding what the wrongs and rights are, I found this this. This constant bit of advice to everybody said, the experts said, you know, make sure you follow up, make sure you keep track of what you're doing. You don't want a recruiter to think that you're aloof or that you don't care just because you're disorganized. And so you don't record what you're doing, who you're talking to make sure you're doing all you know, the follow up is so important. And I kept reading that I thought, Man, you know, how do you do that? Have a spiral notebook. I've sticky notes. I can write stuff on my hand. Sure. But what if what if job seekers who were really treated like third class citizens and in the world? What if job seekers could have a tool that first class citizens had and that's the idea that's where the idea for jibber jabber the job search CRM came from. And and so I started this entrepreneurial journey and I decided to not look for a corporate job anymore, and I was gonna become super wealthy by Making a startup and then selling it like all the other super successful people have done? Greg Marine Well, yeah, exactly. Sounds like quite the journey. And you'd mentioned some of the things that you were doing wrong. And I remember last month you wrote an article, basically don't give up. And so you kind of, there's things you don't give up on. But sounds like there are some things you should give up on. Jason Alba Oh, absolutely. Seth Godin wrote a book about pivoting. It's called the dip. And he talks about culture sacks, where you go into, you go down a process, and like, you know, he, the whole analogy is like streets, right? You're going down this one road, and you realize it's a call to sack it's a dead end, essentially. And so you have to figure out when to stop and what to stop doing. So let me jump ahead of your question here. In my early job search, what I did was a lot of job boards, a lot of job board and, and that meant looking applying. And and you know, I told you the statistics on that they're just heartless, horrid, they're, they're discouraging. And it actually led me into a depression, right? And so and when you're depressed, you can't you don't think straight, right? You don't understand how to communicate your brand. Well, you don't network? Well, because you come across as kind of beyond sought and like, it's just not a good place. So anyways, let me fast forward a bit. I actually, you know, I started jibber jabber, I wrote a book, I became a professional speaker, which means people would pay me to come speak, which was really amazing. And I was in Austin, Texas, in a church basement, there's probably 40 5060 people in the room. And I had not thought of this line before. It just came to me in the moment. And I thought of it just really quickly as it came to me, and I thought, Man, Is this true? But but it was, and I said it. I said, If Jason Alba, we're starting a job search today. And I don't talk too much about myself in third person. So I probably switch back to First, I would spend 90 something percent of my time on informational interviews, okay. And so informational interviews are like a phenomenal, it's not a thing. It's actually a collection or a series of things. But if you take all the right things that you should be doing in a job search, it's an informational interviews. So I'll say, going on monster and a PA or LinkedIn now. And applying is easy. And you can feel productive. You can say I applied to four jobs today. Like how productive was that? Right? There's a metric, there's a statistic that you can track over time, informational interviews is like, I'm going to go have lunch with that person, or I'm going to go I'm going to have a phone call. It just didn't feel metrically successful. Right. Okay. But what I've realized over the years is that informational interviews, which is networking, and some of these other things, that is where it's at for job seekers. Okay. Greg Marine And yeah, and I think one of the reasons that I reached out to you for this interview was because you're reaching out on Twitter, to get to, to basically give away your time, 30 minutes at a time, to job seekers, to kind of them and mentor them. But tell me a little bit about that. Jason Alba Yeah. Ah, this is really a phenomenal. So there's some people that I've been following on Twitter for the last couple years that have been really inspirational. Christopher Johnson is one. And Chris says on on Fridays, I think it's on Fridays, says, What are you doing? On a note my calendar reached out to me are very giving person right and motivational and, and helpful. And I thought, I want to do that, like I want to, I want to give to people and help and inspire and give hope and ideas. And, you know, I wish somebody would have spent 30 minutes with me when I first started my job search and said, Jason, you're doing all the wrong things. Like what you really need to do is stop this and start this. And I know it's hard, but this is the right stuff. And so I'm actually in the process right now of redoing some around a dozen PluralSight courses, which is which is incredibly difficult. Like if I rushed through it could take a month to redo a course, right because I'm redoing the whole thing. And and I'm just really crunched for time. And I'm thinking I don't have any time. On the flip side, Fridays are like dead. Like, I don't get hardly any emails on Friday. I don't see much action on social on Friday. Like I could really sit around on Friday twiddling my thumb, just kind of waiting for something to react to. And I thought you know what, I'm going to open up my calendar. See how this goes. I mean, we're in mid November of 2020. And so I Thought, right? Let's schedule this out to the first part of, of 2021. So the first part of January, and see what happens, and I'll put it out there. I haven't put this up to my jibber jabber people yet I've just put it out to my Twitter, friends or audience or whatever. And so I've had people sign up. And it has been awesome. I've talked to brilliant people, people who are very, very high in their career, people who are just starting out in their career, I've talked to people across the world, I've learned about I go on the maps and, and I'm like, Oh, I thought that was part of India. And it's actually it's his own country by India, but it's not a part of India. I'm talking to people who are saying, I don't know what I'm doing right now. Or they'll come and say, here's a very specific issue that I have. So I talked to somebody who's looking for a promotion, a really, really awesome promotion within the same company. And I talked to somebody else who's like, I'm a problem with my LinkedIn profile, and other people who are like, I don't even know what I want to be when I grow up. I remember this one girl I talked to in I'm pretty sure it was you gone the. And she is very educated. She's getting a master's in machine learning. She has just really, really sharp lady, and she wants to help people. And I'm like, man, with your education and your experience with robotics and all that other stuff. You can write, you can write your own ticket, you can kind of go wherever you want, and do whatever you want. And she's like, I want to stay here in my country and help people and educate people on on technology and a man talking with people that are super ambitious, and people that have super big hearts. And it's been a lot of fun. It's been really cool. Greg Marine Well, that is great to hear. And that's one of the encouraging things is that you're talking to people throughout the entire globe. And anywhere from people just starting out to those who want to do what you're doing being a mentor to. You had mentioned your PluralSight courses I saw you have 30 some, I think it was 36 total. Time and and so what what all do you teach? I mean, I saw what it was, but go ahead and describe to the listeners. What is it you teach through your courses on Pluralsight. Jason Alba So when when Pluralsight first reached out to me back in, I think it was 2012. I had been on the road speaking about LinkedIn, mostly LinkedIn, did a lot of career management stuff. And I actually had nine courses on jibber jabber, I had a DVD on how to use LinkedIn. And so they said, we'd love for you to do, you know, back in 2012, they had a lot of programming courses. And, and, and they had a few soft skill courses. But they came and said, Hey, we would love for you to do a course on LinkedIn, we don't have anything on LinkedIn. And this is really, you know, obviously a growing thing. And everybody wants to learn more about LinkedIn. And so I did my LinkedIn course. And then a little bit later, I went back to my nine courses that I've done on jibber jabber, and I said, Well, let's do those on, on Pluralsight. And so I started doing those courses. And they were for job search, right? They were informational interviews and personal branding and career management and stuff like that. And so one day, though, I was talking with somebody, and I realized that there was an opportunity to start talking about soft skills, and then later where I would start to call professional development. And so I started doing courses on how to become a better listener, which is one of my more popular courses, probably, because managers of developers are saying, hey, before you go into a meeting with that customer listen to this course on listening, right. And so it's an easy way for managers, instead of them to coach and mentor, for a long time on how to become a better listener. It's like, go watch this course. And then let's talk about it in our next one on one. I have courses on working with one of my favorite course working with people who have personalities that are different than yours, right. So I remember an experience I had where I was working with somebody who had a very different personality than I did and what he was not warm at all is very business. He seems kind of cutthroat he. And and when I, when we interacted I was like, Man, this guy hates me. Turns out he didn't hate me at all. He liked me quite a bit. And he liked what I did. He just interacted different than I did. And and I thought, how many problems could be resolved if we recognize that at work? And of course, even in the job search, you're going to be communicating with people that communicate different than you do. If we recognize that just because somebody says something a certain way doesn't mean they hate us. They hate our work or anything. But that's just their personality, right. And so I really wanted to raise awareness on the differences and how we interact. So I, I have Team teamworking courses, I'll tell you one of my most favorite courses of all time, is on emotional intelligence. So I had the opportunity to start a course on emotional intelligence. And I was like, Alright, that sounds easy enough. Emotional intelligence to me seems kind of fluffy. Like, it's just one of those. I don't know, like, okay, whatever. Like, we can talk about this in a meeting and, and feel good about each other and say nice things. But then we all go back to work and like, I get paid to program or I get paid for my hard skills. Right? Right. So I had this lady come over to my house, and she teaches, I don't know, health and awarenesses, and stuff like that at my kids High School. And she's a family friend. But But I learned that she'd been teaching about weekly on emotional intelligence to the kids. And I was like, Well, I don't know anybody else who knows more about this. So come over, and let's chat. We talked for probably two and a half hours, and I took tons of notes. And I was like, this is the most amazing topic out there. And after I was done going through the course, which is a learning process for me to figure out, you know, what I want to include and how communicate it and what I want to exclude and stuff like that, there was two things that really jumped out at me One was that if you have narcissistic or sociopathic tendencies, you could use the principles of emotional intelligence, to manipulate to the nth degree like this, this really could be dangerous, if you don't have good intentions. And so there's five pillars of emotional intelligence. And I added the sixth concept that you have to have good intentions in order to use those appropriately. Right. And so that was one thing that really stood out to me. But the other thing, and I tweeted this, you know, right after my course went live, I said, if you if, if the world increased our emotional intelligence, just a little bit, like if we became more aware of ourselves, and others, and empathetic and you know, the elements of those five principles, if we increased anywhere at any of those, how amazing would this world be where there was more tolerance, and more love and more acceptance and, and all that stuff. So that honestly, you know, they look at my catalogue of my 36 courses that I have right now. And hopefully, I'll be able to do more courses in the future. That's the one that I'm kind of hanging my hat on saying, this is how I'm going to touch the world. If I can help people increase their emotional intelligence, I can feel good about having created, you know, any content anywhere. Greg Marine Oh, that is that is an excellent, not only story, but encouragement and inspiring chorus that you're referring to there. And you've mentioned a few times so far, jibber jabber, go ahead and tell me more about what you do with that. And I know you got it started because of your job search in 2006. But tell me a little bit more about what jibber jabber is, and how, what kind of a tool it can be for for other people. Jason Alba Yeah, so I mean, jibber jabber is almost 15 years old, right? So what an app is out there, that's 15 years old, that looks good. It's kind of ugly, because it's like a 15 year olds going through, you know, hormonal changes as we're going through some changes, right. But the principle of jibber jabber is that I can organize and track what I'm doing, right. So one time I was in a, I was at a job club, and we would go in and have these weekly trainings and weekly accountability. And the people who were putting on this job club said, they found out that the spouses were saying, Well, why aren't you applying for jobs? You Why aren't you do it? Why don't I How come you're all you're doing is going out to lunch, right? And they thought, you know, we give these job seekers a lot of training on effective tactics. But we really need to help the spouses understand what was happening in the job search and why we are or aren't doing certain things. So we pulled together, they pulled together a dinner, invited all the spouses, so the spouses could have an exposure into what the systems and programs were. And this one guy was up talking about, you know, here's what we're doing and we're networking and following up and getting introductions and informational interviewing and all these things. And this one very sharp lady says she raised her hand and she said, this is so complicated, like complex as you meet one person and they introduce you to two people and then you talk to those two people and they introduce you to four people and and then you got to go back and circle up and follow up and all this stuff and and now you're interviewing with this company. Handle interview with four people and then, like, is so complex. She said, How do you keep track of it all and people in the room just started giggling because I had already launched jibber jabber by that point. And they're like, well, we got an app for that. Like, there's a tool for that. And that's really what jibber jabber is about, when we go back to the idea of informational interviews being very, very effective. You know, you really are going in and talking to somebody and saying, Hey, who should I talk to? Like, who can you introduce me to every informational interview can lead to one to 510 introductions, right? And, and so, you know, I can keep track of that, in my mind for a few minutes. I can keep track of it on Excel for a few weeks. But after about two or three weeks, if you're really networking, and you're really following up, and you're really being proactive about what you're doing, you're going to get turned upside down, and you're going to forget stuff. And that's exactly what happened to me out of spreadsheet. And I was looking at my to do column, I had all these names and companies and stuff. And I had this next next thing that I got to do. And and I remember Friday morning, I looked at it and I was like, Oh my gosh, yesterday, Thursday at 10 o'clock, I was supposed to have called this hiring manager. And it was like one of the only few calls that I ever that someone ever agreed to have with me during my job search, right? And I completely missed it. And I emailed the person I'm like, I'm so sorry, Mr. Call, can we reschedule and I never heard from him again. And I thought I need a tool that will flick me in the brain, you know, whether that's an email alert, or an SMS or whatever, but I need something that is not that's not going to fall apart. And so I thought I thought about, you know, the CRM that I had used previously, or seen my sales teams used previously. And I thought I need to make a CRM that dumb, like dumb down. And it's simple. And it's not pipeline, and it's not revenue. It is simply about networking and job search. And so that's, that's what jibber jabber has become a team that works on it full time, we still work on stuff. We're doing some really big stuff right now. And then we got to go back and work on little stuff. But I've always had developers on this since 2006. Greg Marine Very cool. And speaking of job seekers, or what kind of job seekers, are they? Does that include like freelancers? Or are these just people trying to get jobs in the corporate corporate world? Jason Alba Um, so my message is, you're not going to land a job and keep that until you retire. Right? Like, I want you to internalize career management and networking and branding, and taking care of your career because no one else is going to, I want you to internalize that. And even if you do land, your dream job, I want you to think, Okay, what am I doing now, to secure my finances in the future, whether that means I go to industry, networking events, and meet people from other companies, or stuff like that. So that's really what my message is on on Twitter. And I think LinkedIn, my, my background image is an image of a stream, because I'm a real big proponent of multiple streams of income. And as you digest more of my stuff, hopefully you start saying, Okay, what what can I do to have another income stream, right, other than a job, which can come and go for so many reasons. So that's really what i what i want to grow my audience and my users into thinking that I need to have gigs I need to have side hustles I need to have you know, rentals or saw whatever my other side, whatever my other multiple streams of revenue are. But having said all that, most people that initially come into jibber jabber, actually, I'm gonna, I'm gonna break this into a MB. Most people that came early in 2006 to 2015, were the corporate person, it was like one PR it was what person looking for their next job, I just got laid off, I need to organize my job search spreadsheet wasn't working. So I'm now here and I'm looking for my next job. That's what most of my users were somewhere. I don't know if it was 2015. But somewhere I started getting people who are like, I need something to help organize my stuff. And I am never going to be in this position. Again, like I will create another revenue stream, whether that's consulting, or I'm making a product that I want to sell. And if you're consulting, guess what you network, you need to follow up with the all the same stuff that the job seekers do is what a small business owner does, right. And so that that's one thing I love about these principles, and for me, it's under the Career Management umbrella. Whether you're a job search Your job seeker and your networking, or you are a consultant and Freelancer and you're networking, you're doing the same stuff, and you still need to follow up. And you still need to ask for introductions and all that stuff. And maybe you'll outgrow jibber jabber, maybe there'll come a time where you say I need to go pay, you know a lot more and get Salesforce or something like that. But I have people who have gone from job search to real estate agents. And they say on jibber jabber, because it's their tool where they have all of their contacts and their follow up and their conversation and stuff like that. Greg Marine And you hit a few nails on the head here, you're talking about multiple revenue streams. Now, because you don't want to be in a position where you're, you're laid off, especially in a year, like this year 2020. But you need to have multiple revenue streams. And this is a tool that someone in any position could utilize, to be able to maintain the communications with all your contacts, even if it's not a necessarily a revenue stream, but it could potentially be one Jason Alba absolute, I mean, I mean, people the job search experts to say network, whether you have a job or not like it networking is not just for job seekers. What so let me let me tell you this pathetic story about when I started my job search, I'd been a general manager of a software company. And then before I was General Manager, I was still at the executive level in the software company, trying to, to, to, to grow and become profitable, right, like, this was a bit of a mess of a company. And so anyways, I was heads down. I don't know, I would say, I was a workaholic, because I had a pretty good, you know, work life balance. But I worked a lot and I did a lot and I was focused on on fixing this problem of a company, right. And so it was good, right? It was good wall lasted, but then then it wasn't good. And I got laid off. And so I got laid off. And I knew nobody, I had just moved from a small town and moved another state away to a larger area, which is good, because you think there's more jobs, more opportunities and stuff like that. But I didn't know anybody in the town. Right? I had really no, no network. I had never gone to industry events or anything like that. I didn't volunteer for anything. Because I was busy doing my job. I was heads down. Hundred and 10% loyal at my job. Right? Exactly. Right. Then I get laid off. I didn't know Nobody. Nobody knew me. I didn't have no brand. I had no reputation, right. And so that's what I want to help people avoid. When when they come into jibber jabber, and they're like, I'm gonna get my job. And then I'm going to wash my hands of this job search thing, and I'm going to go just bury my head in the sand again. Well, I had this one person come to me and they said, Jason, thank you so much. jibber jabber was a great tool for my job search. And I just landed my dream job. Will you please delete all of my stuff? Oh, wow. And I was like, Yes, I will. Like you can do it. Just go into this place and click on delete my account, everything goes away. I said you can do it. I'll do it for you. I said, but there's no charge if you leave it sitting here. Because according to the federal government, we all know love and trust the federal government, right? So according to the federal government, every two to five years, we're in transition every two to five years. You're in transition. And early in my career, I thought cool. I'm getting promotions. But after 2006 I was like, wait a minute, transition. This is painful. I don't ever want to do this again. And if I do do it again, How awesome would it be if I had a network and the brand to be so different? Right? So this person's like, yeah, this is my dream drop dream company. Nothing's gonna happen. Two months later, they came back and they're like, hey, me again. Things didn't work out. You know, it turned out that there was some bait and switch the culture was completely different. Can I can I get my stuff back? And I'm like, I'm sorry. Like, I didn't want to, but you really wanted me to delete your stuff. And you're starting off. You're starting over from scratch. And so one of my big things is, you know, with job seekers and I when when you go in and you delete your account, say, hey, Atlanta, my job, please delete all my information, I say, Are you sure because it's free to keep it here. And you might be back in two to five years. And it's a lot more fun to come back into something that's already built than to have to start from scratch. Exactly. Greg Marine Yeah, and I think one of the things you're encouraging people to do here is not even necessarily from two to five years from now, but to keep it up you get you land that dream job or that dream client, still use the tools you know, still do the networking, still communicate with with other people. And yeah, because you can't just rely on say Twitter or Facebook or anything like that. You've got to convince Newly build your brand? Jason Alba Yeah, absolutely. And honestly, one of my favorite ways for you to transition into a new job is to, you know, you're not doing job search networking anymore. But I guess we can call it career networking now, like you have a new job, go meet people at your company, you know, go go sit down with them at lunch, or, or, or ask for 20 minutes on their calendar and get to know them. I actually took a job a couple years ago, because just because weird stuff was going on and, and I needed a change of scenery. And I was, I was ready to kind of, I don't know, I was feeling kind of stagnant, really. And so I went and took a job and, and I met people then back in 2018, that I'm still in touch with today, and not going to say that it's really been helpful for my for my career, or my company, or many of my revenue streams. But I know that if I were to go to any of them today and say, Hey, and a lot of them have moved on to other companies, go back to them and say, Hey, I'm actually looking for a role. I now have ends at probably a dozen companies, you know, that I didn't have before. Because I took time to get to know people. And like I said, I'm an introvert, right? So the way that I come to terms with that is because people are like, Oh, you're an introvert, you don't want to talk to people. It's like no, and you know, people say, well, it's how you recharge your batteries. The way that I really come to terms with me being an introvert and, and being around people is I love going deep with a person. Okay, you know, not not for like a deeper relationship necessarily, but I want to know about you. I want to understand who you are. And so so I get over any of my social anxiety or whatever, by just thinking, Hey, man, me and Greg, we're going to learn about each other like, right, and I'm going to figure out how I can help him and where he wants to go in life and all these other things. That for me is that next level of after you land your job, that's what you should be doing. Don't bury your head in the sand, and hide from career management. Keep doing that stuff. Greg Marine Exactly. And like I said, you're an introvert, you don't have to be an extrovert to do any of this. And a lot of ways you just have to sit and listen to somebody lunch, sit and listen to their story. Because you're gonna learn from them. And then they might ask you questions. You don't even have to drive the conversation. So you can be an introvert and still do all of this. Jason Alba Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. There's books on like, networking for introverts and stuff like that. And I think really where introverts really get hung up as they're like, Oh, my gosh, I have to go into that meeting or that room, you know, and it's like, no, you're just going to go talk and get to know somebody, you know, no obligations. But I don't know, for me, I love humans, I love I love this, the backstories and where you came from, and what you've overcome, and what your hopes and dreams are. And that's really where, you know, I don't look at this, like, we're gonna have a 20 minute meeting. And that's it, you know, and maybe I'll decide if I like you or not, it's like, I want to get to know you at a deeper level. And that's really where I start off my, where my mind is out on these types of relationships. Greg Marine Now, are there any other tools that you would recommend with us? Do you still recommend LinkedIn and stuff like that for networking? Or is this just a face to face kind of networking that you're you're talking about? Jason Alba I mean, I wrote a book on LinkedIn and actually wrote a book on Facebook didn't do very well. LinkedIn, the LinkedIn book did really well, I think it sold over, I don't know, 20,000 copies. So let me give you well, and then I'll say one more thing. I was on Twitter early on. I don't remember how early but I was early before the wave of like pop culture got on and kind of muddied it all up. And so I fell out of love with Twitter, walked away from Twitter for a while, and I got back a couple of years ago. And so I've been you know, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, the big three as they were. But really, the answer is go to where your audiences. Okay, so right now, I have tapped into this really cool group of techies on Twitter that I'm not seeing anywhere else. Like, I will go post stuff on Twitter. That's techie related that I can't post on Facebook, because most of my Facebook friends and family are not technical writers. They're not techie at that level. And on LinkedIn, I have a completely different group. Like those are more job seekers that are across the board of what they do and what level level they're at. So I go to where my audience is, and I think that's really the most important part. technologies are going to come and go right like MySpace went, you know, Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn and been around for a long time. But LinkedIn has changed a lot, right? And so if you want to go on LinkedIn, there's good stuff there for sure. But the key is to find who your network and your audience, I actually talked about this in my courses, this idea of space. Yeah, I want to connect with a network of people who are in my space, and my space is my profession, my geography and my industry. That's ands, or ORS, right? So if you're in technology, I don't really care what industry you're in, and I don't care what your geography is, you're in technology, and Pluralsight would be relevant to you, my courses would be relevant to you. If I can find somebody that's in tech in my profession, and my industry and my geography, that's a really, really strong connection. Right? So what I'm saying is, let me let me narrow this down even a little more. Let's say you're like, well, I really want to go to LinkedIn, because that's what everybody is saying. Great. Go to LinkedIn. But the next level is to go into LinkedIn groups that are in your space. Yes. Right. So that's what that's what you really want to do is find out where people are hanging out in your space. And for some people, that's only face to face monthly meetings. And for other people. It's like right here in Twitter or right in this LinkedIn group. Greg Marine Gotcha. Well, that's good advice. And I think for me, Twitter's been one of my things for this year. But I've also got LinkedIn, Facebook, but each one of those are a separate space there. They're definitely different audiences. So I speak differently. They're some of the stuff I cross post, like this podcast. I like the cross post, because it's a general podcast. But we'll talk about all kinds of technologies that affect everyone. In this case, the primary audience would probably be technical people, but some of your courses and some of your advice would definitely carry over to any industry. For sure, of course, this episode will then get published on all those platforms. Something I wanted to ask you about is one of the articles you wrote last, and I say article, but as a blog post last month, was on a bad reference. So I've had some experience as a CTO, where I had let somebody go, and they asked me for a reference, of course, in my mind, I was thinking that's, I may not necessarily be a good reference for you. So I'm not sure I could do that. But I nodded my head as they walked out the door. In the case of the article, you wrote about other types of bad references, what kind of advice do you have for people who may or may not have or may have a bad reference at one of their positions? Jason Alba Um, well, and so when I when I come in here, I have advice number zero, like the basic bit of advice and advice number one, the think, I think the most important thing about a bad reference is, it might not matter. Right? I remember back in, hold on, let me think, probably 2004, like, this is a long time ago, this isn't something new, this is something that may be decades old. So back in 2004, ish, the HR manager sent out a memo to email to everybody saying, if somebody calls for a reference check, you can't say anything. Right? Send them over to payroll, and payroll can verify the dates they worked and their title or something like that. And that's it. Right? So, companies have been have become very sensitive to the idea of somebody saying something bad about a previous hire. Right, right. Um, it still happens. But I don't think you need to worry about it as much as you might have worried about it in the 70s and 80s, and maybe the 90s, right? So So what I'm saying is, if you have a bad reference, you know that you burned a bridge or somebody was a complete jerk or a turd, or they just didn't like you, it might not make that much of a difference. And so you might not have to worry about it. Right. The The other thing, though, is, is my advice number one on the blog post is just to address it head on. And what that means is, you have to figure out in an interview specifically, but maybe in a networking conversation, if somebody says, hey, why Why'd you leave that place? Or Hey, I heard some stuff about that other place, like what will happen to you? If you spout off, right? If you say, Oh, my gosh, my boss was such a jerk. And they actually got fired because of it, but I was part of the carnage before they got fired, right? You're not doing yourself a favor, you feel vindicated, right that you can save that your boss was a jerk and you weren't the bad person. But the problem is you come across as Having a grudge, not letting it go like all these things, right? And so what you want to do is have a line or a couple of lines. And so let's see. So I actually wrote this in the blog post, I said, Oh, this would be in an interview situation. Oh, you're referring to the separation of performance on my record, because this person that asked the question was from a city, right? And I said, Yeah, that was an interesting situation. Turns out my supervisor regular, regularly marked her team members with that, and abused it to the point where she, she got terminated for it. So there's not like, spite, like, My message is not I'm being factual, but I'm not like trying to dig into her right. And so what I found is too often, job seekers feel like they have to justify or validate why they lost their job. Right? And you don't you don't you don't exhaust A lot of times, it doesn't matter what you do, what you should do is come up with a really gentle, soft, like, yeah, it was it wasn't really that big of a deal. Here's kind of what happens. Yep. Let's move on to the next topic. Greg Marine Exactly. Yeah, that's some that's some gold advice. So I'll call it gold advice. Because that applies to everybody. Everybody, especially especially in the first world, any corporate environment, that is golden advice, Jason Alba you know, you know, my wife had some inspiration years and years ago, she was talking about somebody a lot. And she heard her inspiration was stop talking bad about this person, because it doesn't matter. And what she found was that when she held on to it, and she talked about it, she internalized it and and harbored bad feelings. And it impacted her quite a bit. And people around her were like, Oh, there she goes again. Right. And so that became part of her brand, right. And so I see this with job seekers and and like I said, you feel like you need to be validated or vindicated. And you really don't people don't care. But what happens is you you harbor that badness inside of you, and you just don't let go of it. Number one, number two people around you see you as toxic really, there's not a there's not a other word that I can choose right now. They look at you and they're like, Okay, I got to watch out for that person, because they really hang on to things, you know, so you just got to let it go. I know it's hard. I'm still upset about what happened to me back in 2006. And I harbor bad feelings. I actually saw the guy at a restaurant a year or so ago. And I had a little bit of an anxiety attack like it attack it was. I was like, I don't want him to see me. I don't want to see him or I'm going to eat, keep my head down and sneak out the door. You know, and this was over a decade later. I mean, I understand those feelings. But the more you communicate those, the you're just kind of digging a hole for yourself. No, exactly. Greg Marine We're Well said. The last question that I wanted to talk to you about is actually one of your latest blog posts, if not the lightest, is do the thing. Now, in my case, I'm glad you wrote about that, because something you had said months ago, and a few other folks on tech Twitter said, you know, get out of your comfort zone, do the thing. You know, worst case scenario is it won't work out this blog post or this I'm sorry, this podcast is one of those things for me. Jason Alba Good for you. Greg Marine This is the seventh interview. This is the seventh episode of a blog, Pat, of sorry, podcast. I can't say that correctly. A podcast that I'd never even dreamed of before this year. Oh, I thought what's one of my core competencies that is talking to people getting some information out of them, sharing that information with other people? What better way to do that than a podcast? So here I am doing the thing. Tell me what? What other encouragement do you have for people with that in mind? The do the thing? Jason Alba Yeah. So my The thing was my Friday, you know, 30 minute career consultations, I actually I've been thinking about it for years, and Christopher inspired me. And every the sun, moon and stars came together. But really, it was like, I just need to push the button and do it. Right. So. So let me let me marry two ideas. So early on in the job search. I was with a guy who was also in this job search and he got up and he started talking about the chicken list. And I was like, what's the chicken list? I don't have a list of chickens. And he said, No, no, the chicken list is a list of things that you're afraid to do. You're at Chicken, you're afraid to make this call to this person, because for some reason they intimidate you, or you're embarrassed to make that call, you're afraid to email that person, right. And so what his message was, was, look, you got 20 people, you need to reach out to three of them on your chicken list, do the chicken list First, get that out of the way, it's the hardest thing mentally get it out of the way, right, and then everything else is just going to be easy. And your day is gonna fall into place. And so I've really carried that idea for a long time. Actually, I want to marry three things. So then, so that's thing, one chicken. Last thing, too, is understanding what your priorities are. And so I have this program called the job search program, which is based around informational interviews. And it's a phenomenal program. And I borrowed with permission ideas from a brilliant business coach named Mark LeBlanc, who's in the Minneapolis area. And Mark LeBlanc talks about he talks about so many cool things, one of the things he says is you need to choose three high value activities to do every day. And if they might take five minutes each, it doesn't matter how long they take. But if they're the highest value activities that you could do that day, I don't care what you do the rest of the day, you will have had a successful day. But get those three things done. Right. And, and so there's a there's a concept from him, where I thought, Oh my gosh, we need to really figure out prioritizing, because a lot of times we'll go and start our day with 20 things on our list, and work our way down our list alphabetically or some, you know, however, they came to us, and we're not getting the most important thing done. Right. Okay. So let me let me take another idea that I got from Mark LeBlanc, because he talks to a lot of small business owners, and he says, talks about the idea of identifying your niche, right. And and, and so for me, I love multiple streams of income, I have multiple streams of income, but and so when he was talking about the niche, I was like, that's cool. I got my niche here, and my niche chair, my niche, my niche here, I'm gonna work on all my niches. And he's like, no, pick one, focus on your niche. And he says, I don't know how it works. But all of the others grow when you focus on the one and you have success in the one the others grow. And I'll tell you right now, Greg, I don't know how it works. Either. The math doesn't work. For me. It's fuzzy logic. But it works. Like when I focus on one or the other things do grow, as opposed to giving a little bit to each of them. And none of them grow. Right. And so, okay, so marry those three concepts with the last airbender cartoon with aim, not the one with Korra. But one thing, which is a brilliant series, watch it with my 11 year old, fell in love with the show. And, and and do the thing. There's a character who says that who has an assistant, he says, Julie, do the thing. And he never tells her what the thing is, she always does it the right thing. We never tells her what it is. But she does a thing. And that had this in my mind, like do the thing, do the thing, do the thing. And I married those three ideas together. And it's like, you know what, we need to make sure that we get over our fear. That's the chicken list thing. We identify where we really need to be, which is the niche thing. And we do the thing to help us accomplish that. And that's the that's the prioritizing the high value activity thing. And so if you do the thing, now know what your thing is, like for you, it's the podcast and probably breaking through that mental barrier of starting your podcast has just kind of freed your mind a little bit and then allowed you to be like, I can do stuff I can. So I don't know doing the thing is so powerful. So that's where that blog post came from. Greg Marine Very Excellent. Well, Jason, thank you so much for being on talking tech today. And, and good luck with all your all your endeavors, the PluralSight courses, jibber jabber, and everything else that you're doing. Thank you so much for giving back to the community, especially this new venture that you're doing every Friday, mentoring individuals on their job search. Jason Alba Yeah, my pleasure. Greg, thank you been a pleasure. Greg Marine Thank you for listening. This has been talking to

Greg Marine Do you know what happens behind the scenes when you call 911? Have you ever wondered how first responders work well under pressure? This week, we learn the answers to those questions and more as I chat with Dan Hauger, a firefighter and first responder. Welcome to talking tech. Dan Hauger My name is Dan Hauger. I am a firefighter. I have been a firefighter for going on 20 years now. I have been involved in some of the trainings, some of the product development that we use for the fire department, and just an all around grunt. But other than that, I'm just what's called a blackhat. backseat. I do the work that needs to be done. Greg Marine Excellent. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for being on the show today. On behalf of everyone, thank you for your service to the community as a first responder, you, you help save lives and and that greatly appreciate. Dan Hauger Thank you. Greg Marine And one of the reasons I am today is to talk about the technology that you deal with day in day out in the job. And I say day in and day out. You actually have a you go on shifts, 24 hour shifts. Tell us a little bit about that. Unknown Speaker All right, not every fire schedule is the same. But the most common schedule is you work 24 hours on shift and you're off 48 hours. A lot of people look at that and think wow, you have two days off. Technically, yes. But the older you get that first day off of shift is a recovery day, depending on how how much time you spend out in the field the night before, I just got off shift this morning. And I think we got a total about three and a half hours of sleep last night, on and off. Multiple runs, different scenarios, different situations. But you get used to it after a while ish. But then the next day, but a lot of us will work a part time job on those two days off. So many times we'll work 24 hours go straight from our fire job to our part time job. And so I lovingly call those my 32 hour work days. Now, when we're on shift, we're not one runs. The whole shift. We're not out from the firehouse the whole shift. A lot of times there have been times that we have been but there are times to rest and eat occasionally. And very rarely we have times where we do not see our bunks until the very very end of the shift. Greg Marine Now you said that you came off a shift this morning. So this is your recovery day. Today is my recovered and here you are recording a podcast. Unknown Speaker Yeah, it this is a this is a pleasure. I'm glad I could help out. Not working a part time job right now is good. It was a choice. My wife and I made for me to prepare for my retirement coming up in a few years. Greg Marine Okay, speaking of retirement, what do you plan to do in retirement? Unknown Speaker my retirement plans. I am a musician, I'm a trumpet player. Prior to being a firefighter, I was a school teacher. I was a band director. So I'm very heavily involved in music. I plan on upon retirement, or planning on moving down to Florida and I will be going back into music full time playing my horn, possibly teaching and working for either Disney universal freelance work, basically being a trumpet player and getting a tan. Oh, very nice. Greg Marine That'll be a good retirement, I think I think you mentioned that Disney universal. That's one of the passions that you have is Walt Disney. And it is the parks and the movies and and basically the lifestyle that comes with being a Disney fan. Dan Hauger Right? Greg Marine Right. So yeah, that'll be that'll be fun. And But before that, you're still going to be a firefighter for a couple more years. So tell us a little bit about some of the technology with stuff by talking about some of the newer stuff. Today's age, there's a lot of digital software and stuff like that that goes into any kind of industry but in this case, what kind of tools do you have at your disposal? When it comes to Unknown Speaker smartphones are one of the one of the things that for for us from it that that is one of the newer things is our dispatch. Typically what would happen is when a person worked a call, when a person calls 911 they talk to another person. Okay? They get that person gets them. They put them on hold, then they dispatch us. And we have a verbal dispatch, for example, what would happen is, let's say my son fell and hurt his ankle. I would call 911911 dispatcher would say, what's what's going on? This is a total paraphrase. And this is not how it really happens, what's going on, hey, my son hurt his ankle, what is your address 123 North Main Street, okay, stay on the line while I dispatch someone, then that person would get flipped, which is how we like to flip a switch, and then dispatch the fire. So the tones of our house, then that person would actually say engine one, medic 1123 North Main Street for an injured person into one medic, one North Main Street for injured person. How that has changed is we now have gone totally digital. And we have what we lovingly call digital Debbie. Just okay. So what happens if someone calls 911 they are talking to a person, as they're that person is getting the information, they're punching into the computer, hit send, and then a digital voice will dispatch us, okay to that address telling us what's going on. While the human person is still talking to the person online giving them direction giving them instruction, if they need it, be that shock management, CPR. You know, dislodging something by doing what has changed the Heimlich maneuver, but they change that. So they are actually still having that contact. And many times we get there when they're still talking to the person online. Very cool. And so they can dispatch multiple companies without having to break contact with a person. Greg Marine Yeah, that sounds very interesting. What used to be where they had to break contact, now they can continue stay in contact with the the injured person or the person taking care of them right without without having to disconnect. And then that kind of hopefully makes it go by quicker, but also eases the, the panic. Unknown Speaker That that's one of the things that we have developed as fire companies, we practice so many different types of scenarios and things one of the ones we do is called a mayday drill, where if I get separated from my company, I get into have no idea where I am column A through my radio, we all carry radios. And then what happens is, other companies will hear what's going on. But one person who's in charge of that that scene will maintain contact with that person and tell them don't worry, we're sending people your way. Can you look around, see where you are. And so that one on one contact is a way to keep that person calm. And so that is carried over to our fireground operations. Very nice. Yeah. Greg Marine And that makes me feel even better. I've never had to go in the event that I have to now I know with confidence that I'll still be talking with the 911 dispatcher, because they're just pushing buttons and it's all being electronically sent. Exactly to your location. Okay, Unknown Speaker one of my favorite stories ever. I, you know, we joke about many, many things. But we got dispatched to a car accident and one of my partners at the time, the guy is as big as a house. We go up to this guy in a car, he's still on the phone. And he sees people that got hurt in the accident. windows are still up. So my partner knocks on the window and says hey, roll down your window and open your door and knock it the guy looked at him said I'm on the phone with 911 my partner didn't kindly says some 911 so that was one of our funny stories. True story. And it really reminded me of Princess Bride. When Andre the Giant says I'm on the brute squad and Billy Crystal says you are the brute squad. Because that that was very appropriate. Greg Marine That is a funny story. Now, as far as technology that's been carried over throughout the decades, some of the technology that I'm interested to hear about are things like what was called Jaws of Life and all that kind of stuff. That's technology to it may not be controlled by computers. But tell me a little bit about some of the equipment that you use to help get into vehicles or if you're at a house to buy a house or certifiers Unknown Speaker handle including extrication tools, breaching tools, even hose lines and we just got new technology on our upper Ryder day for our department. We got new new nozzles for hoses. There are different types of nozzles, different companies, different beliefs in which kind you should use because they're The nozzles that are called combination nozzles where you can turn the nozzle one way and it creates a what's called a fog stream or fog becomes a fog nozzle, you can turn it another way becomes a straight stream, the kind we have are called solid bore nozzles. And the best way to describe that is if you were to go to any type of amusement park or guess or or Disney or whatever, you see these fountains with the solid streams of water shooting up in the air, right? It's that concept, the tighter the the water that we have, the easier it is for us to control and to go where we aim. The new nozzles we have now is new technology that we didn't create. They were created in laboratory or with scientists for people who are much smarter than what we are. But we know how to use that. And what happens is, the more water we're pushing out of that nozzle, the faster we can get the fire out better control, but the vote these nozzles in such a way that is putting less pressure back on us. So we can advance the hose a lot quicker and a lot easier to go through a house because many times we'll do training, try to simulate a house. And we cannot do it in a way that simulates every house because some people may have a couch right in the front doorway that we will have to go around. Some people may have just a long line of empty space that we can just take the hose right through. The less pressure we have in that hose, the easier it is to bend it around things. So they think they take that consider create the technology. But that's that's our newest, newest thing. you'd mentioned Jaws of Life. Jaws of Life is actually a brand name and I was very clear. I'm going to be very careful at not mentioning brand names. Initially I since I just got off shift like yesterday, I was looking at a lot of the things that we use the different tools we use and decided I'm not going to write anything down because I do not want to bring a name and make it sound like I'm endorsing. But extrication tools, we do have cutters and spreaders and we have Rams. There there. There are different tools for different functions. I the last two years, I have been at a firehouse where I'm on an engine now and my house does not have any extrication capabilities. For the last 15 years I was on the extrication team at the Firehouse and so my job was the spreaders. I was the spreaders guy, my partner's job was the cutters. spreaders are what many people call the jaws of life. Okay. The original spreaders that that you could see on old old pictures are hydraulic spreaders. Okay, well, we still use hydraulic spreaders, but the difference is back then they use a hand pump. Okay, that doesn't spread. Now we have either a small compact pump that we that's ran by gas, or we pull the hoses straight off of a truck and use the hydraulics from that. And we're able to use the the spreaders and the cutters. And each spreader and cutter have different torque amounts and they vary from manufacturer they vary from size, because you might get a set of spreaders that you know weigh significantly more than other that cannot spread as much because of the design. So that is another thing that that we have. Always wise open for things like that. more torque, more ability to to spread things with the new technology in vehicles with the new metals that are being used. The metals do not cut like they used to. They shatter and add a force for them to shatter. And a lot of the tools that we carry will not cause them to shatter. So we have to reconfigure our thinking and thinking what do we need to move. So if you're involved in a vehicle where we have to what we lovingly call cut you out. Unknown Speaker That is where I really had a forgiving for things. I had a lot of fun, because I'm a puzzle guy. Sure. And if I said you were trapped right there and the dashboards down on your legs and your legs or ankles that they shouldn't be, I have to move that dashboard in a way to keep your legs from getting crushed even more I have to keep you as comfortable as I can and move everything else away. And that's that's what we do. So that that technology has improved over the years since I I've been on in 20 years significantly different size of ramps and use a ram to let's say the roof is crushed down. You can put a ram on the floorboard, extend and start pushing that roof up to give more headroom, things like it's just the only limit is your imagination many times but You start to use a safely why you can't use a ram for something that you need to use cutters for. Greg Marine And that's actually one of the you mentioned you kind of have some fun with it. Loosely you say that but at the same time, that's the type of person that I would want coming rescue me because you're a puzzle, you'll be like puzzles and trying to navigate through a fire smoke. Or if it's an accident, the the different angles at which the metal is been bent. You have to work through that. So one way, I think it would take the kind of mindset to be able to say, Okay, here's a puzzle, how am I going to do this to most effectively do it and find the right tools to make that happen? Right? Unknown Speaker Right. If the team I was on we were a team, typically, when how we operate, one crew takes one side of the vehicle, the other crew takes the other side of the vehicle and my crew would take the primary side. If it was just a driver, we take driver side. Sure, they will, the other team will start coming up with Plan B. If our plan A is not working, they're ready for Plan B, we step back, we start coming up with a plan C or D. Because in that that's the way we operated. Many times. We would adjust Plan A to become plan 8.1. Plan A. But when we would practice what would happen is we'd go to junkyards and the junkyards that allow us to come in and practice wonderful people, they had more almost more fun than we did, because they would come in with their fork trucks with cars. And we would say, hey, look, turn, you know, inverted, smashed up on the roof, this this with a side thing here, let's put the dummy in there. Because we would put dummies inside the car. That's the driver go at it, and they would ram cars together and stack them and do different things like that. And then we'd have competitions, we'd have two scenarios set up exactly the same way. When you mark, get set, go and do the other crew would go at it and see who can get the patient out. Not only the fastest, but with the least damage to the patient, or dummy. And we had certain we had worked together for so long, and it worked so, so well that we became silent. few words were passed between us because we knew what the next step be when we always had our tools in ready position. And when a tool would fail, because it's technology technology fails. We had the third person reading or sending our crew was always or officer he typically would step back. Fortunately, all three of us were at the level, we could sit back and assess the situation and give instruction. So my tool would fail, I'd step back, my officer would step in with the tool, I get another tool Get ready, give instruction if needed to be but we were we were pretty much in a quiet way. And we would hear the the other guys who many times were the younger bulls that, you know, beat their chest and gave some grunts over there telling each other what they needed to do and this and that. And by the time we had the whole side of the car off, they were just opening up the front door. A little bit of an exaggeration, but not too much of an exaggeration in that. But when one piece of technology that was used in still is used more, let me rephrase that. There's a piece of technology that was used way before I got on the fire department that basically one person or two people mad and that was the radio. If you remember the old TV show emergency, okay, Johnny and Roy would contact the hospital through their police. Basically they had a suitcase and that's how they contact hospital. Now, everybody carries a radio, okay, and we haven't on straps with a lapel mic, we can talk to a hospital we can talk to dispatch, we can talk to one another we can talk to command, we can basically talk to anybody that we need to and that is the technology has improved our fireground operations immensely a fire ndms One of the things that each radio has is a panic button. Okay, and so if I get it put in a situation in a fight, I can hit that panic button, it clears everything out and just has an open channel for me and roll and they can hear what's going on. I can do my Mayday if I need to. Or if I'm in a situation. I'm in a house medical situation. And Unknown Speaker something happens that doesn't need to happen and I'm in imminent danger I can hit the panic button and it knows exactly where I am and knows my address and will immediately if I do not respond back they immediately Sending officers and things like that vary. And so it kind of gives you a little bit of security. Sure, a little bit more security, I guess you could say, well, that's good because then you don't that's one less thing you have to worry about. As you're going into a situation, we we still are concerned our heads on a swivel. But many times we do get into situations where we are told seen as not safe wait for police. Okay. So our relationship with police officers are, it's a valuable relationship. It's, it's a symbiotic relationship. And we converse with them on radios do we just go to different channels, we can talk to the police officers. And that's really valuable in Swat situations, when there are SWAT situations, we will show up there and be in staging with a SWAT team, and we have communications with them. Greg Marine Now we'll be in movies, paint a different picture of that, that, that that is really neat. I didn't realize that, that your communicate that efficiently with the other first responders really cool. Unknown Speaker And our radios are digital now. And that was an interesting switch. We went from analog to digital and just like with anything else with the fire department, any change, you're going to have your guys that grumble and complain about it. They're like, there was no need, it worked really, really well. And, and we're happy with the change. Greg Marine Very cool. Very cool. Now what is one technology over the course of the last 20 years, made the most improvement, it sounds like radios have Is there any other technologies that have made a vast improvement in the evolution, Unknown Speaker I would have to say, our own board computers, we did out with for my career, we started out with these little yellow screen monitors, and keyboards that you would receive, where you are going the coordinates because every thing is on a coordinate system. If you live on Main Street, that's usually zero, east and west, or north and south. If you live like meridian stream, zero, east, west, north south, and then you go coordinates down that way. 100, South is one block that and things like that, right. And that's what we would get 123 Main Street 100 South 20 West, Greg Marine okay, Unknown Speaker like that. That was the information we got. And when you needed to information, your times because right when you get in the truck, you hit f4, which means you're responding f5 you're on scene f8, you're back in service. And if there are any other firefighters going to listen to this, I am just those are numbers I'm just making up out of my head because it changes for everybody. And those, it's been so long. So we use them, I can't remember what numbers we use. But now we actually have laptops, okay. And on our laptops, what will happen is we get dispatched for one, it will not only have the address, it will have the coordinates it will have what's going on if our scene is safe last night, or I should say, I think it was like 330 this morning 530 this morning is actually when this was it said garage door will be open, the garage door was not open. So the officer was able to contact control controls, they will call them like hey, they're there, they can't get in. And the reason why we had to go through the garage door is because the injured patient was laying by the front door wouldn't meet it. And so we had communication like that. But sometimes they will have the garage door code for us. It will also give us information prior run. So let's say I'm going to your house, it might give me information of pre run patient stated key was in this lockbox with this code, okay? You didn't give them that information that time, but they were able to pull that up, which will then help us to get to the house. Because if you're not letting us in, and we can look through a window and see in your unconscious we stopped to get in, right? We do not want to break anything. Sure we love breaking things, but we do not want to break anything. So if we look at that information, go to the key code, punch it in without breaking anything, we will do that. Okay. Another thing will also give us his maps. Oh, and we do turn by turn directions. But there are still glitches in that picture. In one of the things that we we laugh about. Due to the fact that I'm on the southwest side of Indianapolis, we might get a dispatch to a run. And it will say that the run is actually on the northeast side of Indianapolis about 25 miles away. And we know that's not true. Okay, because we know address. And we know it's only two miles away from us. Okay. Yeah. So we still have those that we still work through, but that's just part of the good Greg Marine and that'll change over time. it'll improve it will. Unknown Speaker It will another part of that his cell phones are battalion chiefs have a cell phone behind cell phone, and what will happen on scenes, what they cannot put on a screen, because a lot of that information is, you know, anybody can see if it's sensitive, they will actually call the battalion chief and say, Hey, we have this going on in an example of that is if we have a patient that was going mental, emotional patients at times, we're not going to go there and try to excite the patient in a way to cause them more harm, or anguish or anything like that. They will call the battalion chief, a battalion chief, especially that run and say, Hey, this is what's going on. Here are a few triggers, here's what usually come just to let you know, the battalion chief with information to us. And an example of the importance of cell phones, and happened to us yesterday. And due to HIPAA, I cannot give very specific things. But what I can say is, we were in a situation where the patient was injured in an area off the grid. So one of our crew members pulled up his cell phone, got on the maps, did a pin drop of where we were took a screenshot and send the battalion who was outside of the area, the battalion was able to use that get on a four by four, and bring the other crews to us, we were able to load up the patient, get them out of out of the area, right. So we were able to do that we were not able to access that on our computers on the effects because the trucks were parked away from the scene, okay. But we will use the computers in the mapping system for that too. And especially with us, because many times we go on runs outside of our normal fire area. And so my officers given our driver, just say by play, when you get up here, you're going to turn a right second turn left. And that should be a dirt road here or let's say a gravel road that turns into a pavement here. And he can see that off the mapping. Greg Marine Very cool. Unknown Speaker It is it is cool. It's nice. It's really nice. Because one of the funny things that I always heard growing up for my dad, he would say, look at those idiots, my dad's works. Look at those idiots, they don't even know where they're going when you have to fire him or the ambulance or the ladder trucks. And when I got on the department, I told Dad, I said, Dad, they're going where they're told me to go. And that changes when we're on our way there. And so this has actually come down a little bit of the confusion of where to go. And also with going back to what I really said, with a dispatcher still talking to the person they can update and we get updates continually. Which is really, really nice. Greg Marine Yeah, they can update you while they're still talking to him. patient. Dan Hauger Nice. It has helped us tremendously. Greg Marine Very cool.Very cool. That's very fascinating. And I appreciate the insight into the technology that goes into being a first responder and saving lives. And earlier this year, because of the COVID pandemic, there was it wasn't necessarily a shortage of personal protection equipment as much as it was the need skyrocketed compared. And one of the things that you and I had to work with was we have a 3d printing business. And so we work with you and your, your department to get some of that 3d printed, right compete available to you guys. And so can you tell me about that and, and that equipment was used? Right? Unknown Speaker It was interesting, because along with every part of government, no matter how big or small, there's a bureaucracy and many times you'll get things in it will be shelved. However with the items that you made for us, which we greatly appreciate, they were used immediately, they were dispatched to the different houses face shields in, in the holders for for masks and it was credible because instead of the things being instead of service receiving the items and being told well, you'll get them when you need them. The need was immediate, it was given to us it was dispatched to us and it was used almost instantly. Whatever run because still on runs, now we are wearing masks, be it the cloth masks or the N 95 masks, the shields, the ones that you made. Those are now our protection when we are doing cardiac arrests to protect our or wholesales or faces from bodily fluids or if there are any any other type of trauma things We still have some that we are using for those situations. Greg Marine Very nice. Dan Hauger So we appreciate it. Thank you so much. Oh, Greg Marine you're welcome. It was those times were like, what, what can we do? And that was one of the suggestions when we were looking at the forums for printers. And now we've got, we have 10 printers that were pumping out this PP and so it was easy to make hundreds we made hundreds of face masks, we made over 5000 year guards for the masks. So it was it was a it was a challenging time for the for the community around us. And so we were so glad that it went directly to helping save lives here in the Indianapolis area, especially here in South Southwestern. So. Unknown Speaker Now, Greg Marine aside from the technology that we've talked about here in first responding and firefighting, the things that brought us together was disc golf, right. And before we met, you are already playing it. So what got you into the leisure of outside of your job to wind down and play this thing called disc golf. Unknown Speaker My family and I were attending mountain Gilliam church in Morrisville. And one morning when we arrived, I noticed a basket, a disc golf basket. And I had seen it before. I had thrown a frisbee at one before sure, but never played around a disc off. And I told my wife Hey, that's fun. That'd be fun for us to get him. I think we'd like to do that. So my birthday, it was close to my birthday. So for my birthday, I got a starter pack. Okay, that came with a driver, a mid range and a putter. So our first round of disc golf My wife is not a disc golf person. She she's decided that it's not her her bag, she came out and tried to play with us and she said no. But my son, my daughter and I went out and played around the desk off and I had this great idea of not knowing anything about disc golf, per se. I had this great idea was okay first hole, you throw this disc, you throw this, this and this disc, okay? And so that led to a little bit of frustration when this would have to tee off with a putter okay, because our beginning our beginning drives with typical drives of a new person playing disc golf where they go straight up and come right back down, right. And with a putter it even less distance than the driver with my daughter decided it was okay. But it's not her bag, either. My son and I, we started drooling when we realized this is fun. Yeah, we get to walk we get to throw things in and have a blast. And so then that started our disc golf adventure and about, I'm just going to guess and say let's just say 30 discs each later, we now know the difference between a driver putter mid range. Greg Marine And the to explain this to some of the listeners who may never have heard of this golf or didn't know what it was. Basically the the rim of the desk is a different shape for different types of throws, and says that you can throw a disc and it's like a typical frisbee that you would just toss to your dog or back and forth at the beach. You know a driver is more streamlined, thin on the edge can cut through the air as it's spinning, whereas a putter is very dull on the edge and is designed to grab the chains of the basket. And so the mid range of course is different shapes on the on the edge to have it go certain directions as you're throwing it with it left or right or depending on the spin that you give it. Just like ball golf, you Unknown Speaker have your your Woods your irons and your putters, right. And that's what we have there. It's just the carts that that people use in disc golf for the kind you pull behind it. Not the kind you're right in such a big difference. Greg Marine Yeah, this is good exercise, which is actually what got me into it to begin with is I needed to lose weight. And then I heard about this. This league and Mongolia. I joined it met you guys. Unknown Speaker So for now, but you can't get rid of this and I Greg Marine can't get rid of you. Unknown Speaker And that's all right. Yeah. Greg Marine And we also share our love for Disney. Not to go into too much detail. But one of the things that we use there from technology is my Disney experience, the app and one of the things I find interesting about you is that you have the app installed, not just for Walt Disney or you. Right You also have the parks in other countries and California, right so you can see the wait times of all the parks that Unknown Speaker I am a self professed geek. I love it. And I also found out that another guy that I'm on the fire department with is also a Disney freak. And his name's Brandon and Brandon, Brandon and I have some good conversations about about Disney. And he's a great firefighter, great guy. And we've talked about the different apps too, and in his kids love Disney, and so on. So I say no, wait time. Shanghai right now is outside that the morning he just shakes his head because he comes in as I'm condemned for his shift as I'm getting off shift. So yeah, my geekness will cause some head shaking and things like that. Yeah, I it's interesting. I like I like looking at the different layouts of the lands and the different ways that they present the same story. Greg Marine And then 10 years ago, we didn't have that, right. Like these apps were just being introduced, let's say about nine to 10 years ago, but it wasn't across every Park. So right. It was very fascinating the difference now that you can have that Disney magic in your pocket, yep. Regardless where you are, where you are in the world. Unknown Speaker Yeah. And what's interesting, also, going to Disney and doing a bridge between Disney and in the fire department. We, part of our another part of our technology that we use at the fire department is we have different detectors. So might have a co detector we might have, we have sectors, and we have thermal imaging cameras, where we use in situations where we need to find heat signatures within a fire for bodies or hidden fires and things like that. But we got called for carbon monoxide in the home, there are carbon monoxide detectors going off. And so we arrived and, and the homeowner was standing outside with four kids, a husband was at work. And as we started talking, you know, button, the monitors calibrate outside, come to find out she was a Disney freak, which was pretty nice. And so I was able to talk to her about Disney the whole time while her house is getting checked out. Yeah. And so the technology of the fire department was being used inside the technology of Disney was being talked about outside and forth, we were able to find the leak to the help of the gas company and, and in able to take care of the bad situation that could have happened. Yeah. But through Disney and in the technology of Disney talking about the differences between the technology technology they use in California and Lando kept her nice and calm and collected. Well, the technology we use to save their lives were being administered inside the house. Greg Marine That is very cool. Very interesting. Awesome. Yeah, Unknown Speaker I am, I enjoyed it, I enjoyed it. The the new, I'm calling them toys that we have. I just said we got a grant to get new co detectors, so all of our products are gonna have co detectors again. Because what will happen just like anything else that uses that test, air filters will go bad internal filters will go bad. So if you are wondering if you should change your, your smoke detector, it has filters, change it, if you're wondering, they're relatively cheap, or you can a lot of times you can get ahold of your fire department and say, Hey, I need new smoke detectors. And many times they're free. And how we do it is if you contact the headquarters will come out and install them may just put them up right back up where the old ones were, because there are specific areas that where you want to. But if you've ever had a fire in your house or anything like that, that filter is probably has some some residual smoke or Ash on it and it would need to be replaced. So Greg Marine that's good advice. Very good. Unknown Speaker Technology, technology will will save you or cause you to scratch your head and go What am I doing here? Greg Marine Well, thanks. Thankfully the technology we've been talking about today is mostly the good kind of saving. Exactly. So versus the scratching head kind so yeah, no, that's great. And I appreciate your time today, Dan, and thank you again for for your service to our community. Thank you and, and everything like that. So thank you for being on the show. Unknown Speaker I appreciate it. Thank you for inviting Greg Marine Thank you for listening. This has been talking tech

David Dal Busco https://twitter.com/daviddalbusco Deck Deck Go https://deckdeckgo.com Ionic Zurich Meetup https://www.meetup.com/Ionic-Zurich/ Zurich Indie Hackers https://www.meetup.com/Zurich-Indie-Hackers/ Greg Marine This week I had the pleasure of talking with David Dal Busco. David is a freelance developer currently residing in Zurich, Switzerland. He leads meetups as a blog writer, and as one of the creators of deck deck, go, welcome to this week's episode of talking tech. If you wouldn't mind, go ahead and start off by telling me telling the listeners a little bit about yourself and what you do. David Dal Busco Oh, so yeah, first of all, thanks for having me, Greg. Greg Marine Thank you for being on. David Dal Busco Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the chat. It's always a pleasure to speak with you. And yeah, so I'm David. I come from the Swiss French part of the country. So that the small French accident and really small, and I live in Zurich, and I'm a freelance software developer. Greg Marine Excellent. Sh, today, one of the reasons I asked you to be on the show today was to talk a little bit about a project that you started. It looks like it's been around for just over a year now. But Deck Deck Go. Tell us a little bit about Deck Deck Go, and what inspired you to begin that project? David Dal Busco Yes, thank you. So actually, I think it's around since two years, two years. The editor is live since one year. Okay. So basically, two years ago, I think I had to make a presentation about web components and ionic v4, something like that. Okay. And when I was developing my, my, my talk, I thought, yeah, that's a bit dumb. I'm talking about web component, and I don't use web component to to make the presentation. So I thought, Yeah, I just gonna build that little library quickly. Sure. That's for one forward two years later rights and nidito. And, and a bigger, big project. So I mean, like, after a year, so I was kind of a king around that that's more library. One evening, I had dinner with my friend Nicola matcha, which also collaborated to dictate book. Okay, we are having pasta and a glass of wine. And then we said, maybe, you know, maybe we can build an editor around it. Okay. Okay. Yeah, we're gonna do it. And I probably would have not been jito alone. Because the three a big, big project on earth for absolute, because my friend was doing a quiz me was like, a fancy things to do for a couple of months. So Greg Marine yeah, very nice. And so you basically got inspired to do it because you were doing a talk on web components with ionic. So is that the technology that you built a decade ago with? Was it ionic? Yeah. David Dal Busco I would say to them, did we Stenson okay. Okay, why are you using ionic for like, for the UI component for the design system, like for the, the batanes, or the router and so on, Unknown Speaker that David Dal Busco everything else is built with stencil Unknown Speaker over. David Dal Busco We have also that kind of inspiration to try to be a bit as much agnostic as we can. So when we need a component, even though sometimes we find really great component for the challenge or something like that, we try to be deep by ourself. Okay. Like, I don't know, we have a component which is made to drag, resize and rotate elements. And, yeah, it's like, a lot of mathematics just to make everything stick in the right place and stuff. Greg Marine Sure. Okay. David Dal Busco Yeah. We just spent a couple of nights on it, because it was fun to do you know, Greg Marine yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's what some of the best products that are in existence today are built by people because they're having fun doing it. David Dal Busco Yeah, I hope so. I hope so. Greg Marine And then yeah, that's, that's great. And I, you're one of the few projects that I know other than ionic itself, that's using stencil, is that fairly easy to work with David Dal Busco I would say yes. I saw when I when when we speak from front end development. I Yama and I was mostly a non Gouda developer. Okay. So when I jump into stencil, he was kind of easy, but I have to be familiar with a JSX, which is the same syntax as vs. React. Right. Okay. So I would say, yeah, it's not like an HTML page, it takes a bit of, of time. But once you, you get that all the rest is really easy, I think. Because it is, oh, sorry. Yeah, sorry. It's just like stencil is a good mix between ankura and react, you got JSX. So that functional way of building component. And those aside, you got all the decoration properties, you know, if you want to add a listener on it, and so, yeah, I really like it. Greg Marine Yeah. So that's, as one of the fascinating things that's come from the ionic folks is that they've built a tool to be able to build web components. And it's something that works equally well, in most of the modern browsers today. Have you found any difficulty working with the various browsers such as Chrome, Firefox? edge? Has there been any things that you had to tweak to make it work on all those? Or has everything just worked? David Dal Busco So not really, actually, when it goes to the Web Components themself, it just works, and also, stencil, you can plug a polyfill poly file and still compatible with all the browser. So not that there isn't much problem regarding the session, then when when you book like competitive programming more because that browser didn't implemented that API or as an nosorh implementation of that API, and so on? Greg Marine Sure, okay. Yeah, that's one of the things that I find to be really neat about stencil. I've not used it myself. But everything I've read is that when you're using stencil, and creating those bindings, it just, it just works. And I think that's one of the powerful tools to allow developers like us to do what we do best. So we don't have to worry about compatibility between the browsers. David Dal Busco Yeah. And I've kind of really confirmed that it works also everywhere, because, like I said, I've made a couple of components, and I use them quite everywhere. Like in my website, which is built with Gatsby, I'm using stencil component. Okay, I've got a couple of Angular apps where I'm using stencil component. Okay. It's really, I think it's really the right tools to build components, because then you can use them everywhere. And you don't have to think about art, that's that technology to do that, and so on. Greg Marine So I need to spend some more time working with stencil. It sounds like because I use I don't I've kind of drifted away from Angular, but I still use react. And I'm delving in view now as well, at work. So it's, it's kind of nice, that if I just build a component and stencil I can use it with whatever framework the clients wanting to use. David Dal Busco Yeah, I mean, if you know, react, I don't know if you because I never, like just literally spent like one hour interview, but speaking, you should know react, then it's gonna be easy to jump into. Even more easy, I think. Because then you got like, you know, you're gonna find you, you function with a random Ito then then then it's the same syntax. So it Yeah, it's gonna be it's gonna be nice. Very nice. After so for me, it was I did a new react. So because I spent a lot of time in stencil, then I think it was for me easier to jump into react, because I already knew JSX and JSX. You know, okay. So, it makes things interesting to jump from one technology do I do there and so on? Greg Marine Yeah. And it's nice that those what skills you already had allowed you to transition a little easier between those? David Dal Busco Yeah, exactly. Greg Marine Okay. Now, one of the things we had talked about being on the show a little over a month ago, but then in talking with you that we decided to wait until now and the reason being hack tober fest. You had a big month during October in a hashtag October fest. So tell me a little look into it before we got on to this recording. It looks like you had closed 34 different items on your Oktoberfest you have a few that are still remaining waiting for prs, but tell me what Was that like, and what kind of new features have you added to deck that go? Because of the October hack? tober fest? David Dal Busco Thanks for asking. Yeah, I mean, he was really, I was really surprised that we had so much interest and have really to sync all the best songs and contribute those who took the time to help. Because I really felt like it, push it the the project forward, they provided really create fear trees or bird Pixies, and that was really a nice app. And so we have added, we have added more styling options. So now you can in our editor, mostly you can add book shadows border reduce, you can vary a bit more the text and so on, then the results are new functions where you can plug or generate random waves and plug them in the background of your slides. Okay, you know, it's quite common now, when you are the landing page to have this waves between section. So you can do the same with with, with slides. Very nice. And that works really well because we are currently working on something we call puppy riffs. And so it's like, instead of swiping your slide, like vertically or horizontally, we basically publish your presentation as a landing page. Okay. So it's kind of nice. So it works quite, you know, you can add the ways in a presentation, which is actually a landing page. That's that's kind of, yeah, it's fun to see. Then there was also a new components because the holy Tito is based on templates. So for example, you have the templates where the teacher is in the middle, or the teacher is on the left side, or you got the templates for the QR code or charts or you can also have ports to your charts where you can interact with your audience. You can also showcase code and so on and someone provided a new component to generate automatically worlds of clouds. Greg Marine Okay, yeah. So, remember that feature came about because of a tweet that Mike. Michael Callahan tweeted? Yeah, one of our mutual friends. Yeah, he had made a comment about it. And that that born that gave birth to this idea for your, your words of clouds, or cloud? David Dal Busco is is that the origin of that? That it's a nice way to present when you have multiple eyes? These I mean, yeah. And, yeah, we have also a couple of fixes. And no, we also because everything is built with our editor is a PVR. And when you publish your slides, the slides are pre shared as standalone progressive web apps to Yeah, okay. No, Akash provided a PR where, you know, you got the reload bar when there is a new version. So you can click and it automatically updates to the new version. Greg Marine Oh, very nice. Yeah, I think one of the, that's a powerful feature to be able to create your presentation as a progressive web app, so that you can share it with anyone on social media, or even when you're doing it live, but you're able to share those slides with anyone. And all it takes is a web browser to power that they don't have to download any special apps to look at the presentation that is generated by deck deck. Oh, David Dal Busco yeah. So I mean, of course, I'm agree with you, I know. The single season. When I get the presentation, somehow, I don't want to download something and wait for the right. I want the presentation. So that's why also in our slides, everything is lazy loaded. So we use the intersection of several and then all the images which are coming and not loaded when you start the presentation. So Greg Marine okay, so it can start right up. And yeah, wait for everything to download. Yep. David Dal Busco Which was a bit tricky to do, because there is also an offline mode in technical so you can alter like on a bit like on Netflix, you can go in your in your slide and say I want that presentation offline. So we kind of have to trigger all the images to be downloaded before going in the floorplan Yeah, that was also fun to do. Yeah. I probably forgot other factories right now. Greg Marine Well, there was a lot added during the last month. I was going through and seeing the list and what you had already mentioned one of the things that I was going to ask about the waves. I think that's a brilliant little one. addition to, to the to the slides, like you said, you can turn your slideshow into a landing page. And I mean, so that makes the presentation software in Dec that go just that much more amazing to me that you can not just presentations, you can build a product landing page and talk about your new product just by using basically desktop software. David Dal Busco Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Greg Marine So one of the one of the cool features I was playing with it today before this, this recording is the remote control. And basically, you have the ability to after you've you're ready with the presentation with a QR code shows up on your screen with your phone, you can just hit a little the QR code and pull up remote control so you can control your presentation from your smartphone or a tablet. Tell me a little bit about that and how that came about. David Dal Busco Oh, I'm not sure. I think someone suggested the idea like, but before they did exist, that was one of the first things I did. Because there was an interested to be teased because I was interested to use web RTC never use that technology before. Okay, so that was again, something more technology driven at the begin. And then I noticed that that actually the UX future was really interesting. Yeah. So we made several iteration on that remote control to because, for example, know, when you sync your presentation with the remote, like the aspect ratio in preserve it. And also, since a couple of months, the content is also sync with the remote control. Greg Marine Yes, I noticed that as well. David Dal Busco And I think it kind of the best solution is not even having like a remote control on your mobile phone. But maybe like having a tablet, you know big because probably you're gonna be behind the desk, but can't happen for your presentation. And when you have no screen in front of you just have like a tablet in history, see all your notes, both the actions and all your slides. And moreover, you can also draw on the remote control and it cannot be then gonna be drawn on your, on your presentation on the big screen, you know, Greg Marine okay, I did not realize that, that's very cool. David Dal Busco So you can have our rows and so on. So that was also interesting too. And we try to have this it's maybe more more fun again. But like we have the remote control where you, you see, you see a QR code and then you scan it and then you multicultural upon. But likewise, you can add ports in your in your presentation. And on the same slide, you're going to have a chart, which summaries the votes of your audience. And next week, you've got a you've got a QR code. So your audience can scan the QR code. It starts the dig up on their phone, it's a TDR. So start straight away. And then they can vote for what they want. Greg Marine Yeah, I noticed that you can have a poll right there inside your presentation. Like you said, a QR code comes up and they can scan it with your phone, sitting in the audience and can start voting. So during your presentation, it's all calculated on the fly. And instantly, I noticed that I was playing around with it. Soon as I click my vote. The The results showed up on the on the screen immediately. David Dal Busco Yeah. And yeah, the only thing I see is that the next thing I have to build in terms of either direction is, as I told you in the remote control, you can draw over you slide. And I think that would maybe be nice if you can do the same in the ditto. Because notice there are a lot of lot of presentation are made online, right? Yeah, he was. Yeah. This there is. So there is a chance that you're going to present it on your laptop. So then the presentation is going to be displayed on your laptop and you're going to stream it so it would be nice that you can draw on. So that's probably one of the next things I gonna I'm gonna drop. Greg Marine Very cool. One of the things that I noted is sort of I don't know if I want to call it marketing or not. But one of the phrases that you you've repeat is that you can build simple presentations. And I immediately had a question mark over the words simple. It is simple to build them. But there's nothing simple about the presentation in my opinion. You have so many advanced features, like being able to embed polls. like we mentioned, graphics, you also have the ability to embed an entire website, and like as a web app, inside the presentation, and YouTube videos, which can be controlled from the remote control. So you have all these advanced features. You know, this, this feels like a very advanced tool, almost better than something like a PowerPoint. David Dal Busco Sir teresting, thank you. Maybe I think in terms of simple because we've got this approach that you have templates, and some extension, you cannot make everything you want. You can tweak a lot of things that you cannot make everything where in more standard tools like PowerPoint, and so on, you can destroy everything which you want. So that's why I think it's simple because it's kind of driven what you can do. Okay. But, yeah, that's a that's an interesting thought. Greg Marine Thanks. Yeah. So so. So it is, I see your point is that it's simple in that you have a very finite way of presenting. But of course, I look at it as advanced because of what those finite things are. So many options that I haven't seen in other other software, similar software. So. But kudos to you. I mean, I applaud what you guys are doing. And I think it's absolutely amazing. Something else you do besides deck deco? You had mentioned your freelance web developer, project manager as well, you do project management as well. David Dal Busco Yeah, it's like, I think I used to work for company when I was doing project management and so on. So now it's kind of the added value. I add, sometimes when I take over project by my own or something like that. Sure. Then I kind of part of Yeah, I my client to a bit schedule his project or to make it aware when it's possible, when there is no change can happen. And Sure. Greg Marine So yeah. And then you also take that on, do you a UX, user experience. And then other types of consulting as well? David Dal Busco Yeah, but the UX expensive, more intense. I bring that developer point of view and the UX and had the chance to collaborate project which started from zero. So where we had to think about what we're going to build, we start up what we can put pretty neat. And then I bring that experience of the interactions from the developer point of view. Greg Marine And you're also a community leader, in that you run a few meetups. That's actually one of the things that allowed us to meet when we conversed on Twitter. But then I joined a few of your meetups, and then you ended up inviting me to speak at one of your meetups. And so tell me a little bit about how you got involved in organizing those and and how those are going. David Dal Busco So I organized the ionic meetup in Zurich, since was three years, I think, three years. I'm not sure anymore. So the big chance I had, I go to a co working space here in Zurich, which is called the impact of Zurich. And they try to, they push their member to organize seems to be together to come together to exchange it. Greg Marine Okay. And David Dal Busco they do that. And we had through that we had the chance to have like a room for free in a space where we can meet once a month. So that was kind of the right match. You know, I was sure beginning to develop a lot of things in ionic, and I thought maybe some other people too, and there is a room for free. So Greg Marine let's do it. There we go. David Dal Busco Yeah, exactly. So we have built that small community. And yeah, it's like it's a small community. Sometimes we have 10 people going to the meetups and stuff, too. But it's kind of idea it's kind of like France or something. Tissue has been a bit more quiet because I have to say, because it's a really small community and we were used to meet the maybe have a drink together and stuff like that. kind of make all the every single bit more slow, but we try to catch up. Sometimes we summon like a run And a bit in the same same spirit, beginning of this year with my friend dashana, we started the India meetup. Okay, where we had the chance to have youth became one of you wonderful project. You Greg Marine know, I appreciate that. Because of COVID. I know a lot of the stuff goes online. So you were able to have that one online. And I was able to join you for that. So I appreciate that. David Dal Busco Yeah, that was really interesting. And that's what so for me, which basically spend all my time more like, in a technical way, it's like that. It's, it's interesting to have that meetup where not, not everyone is a developer, you know, there is also like, designer marketing guys. Oh, yeah. I mean, three, like, people coding things and people using no code. So it's an extra chance to, to have like, all the side. So, yeah, Greg Marine yeah, it's nice to meet people from different backgrounds. And it was one of the other presentations on that particular meetup was sort of a design system. Where they were able to say, okay, they could sell to their clients, here's how you can build a website, and use that same thing for print material. And so basically had, you know, set up templates. And that was pretty powerful. And actually, one of the things that brought me into being available for that was I started building a tool myself, and I come, I had come across one of your blog posts about how to use markdown, because I was looking to use markdown technology in react code. And so that brought me to a blog post that you'd written. So that's something else that you do you also do a lot of writing, how often do you write Do you is a weekly or I've read several of your of your blog posts, but I'm not sure what the cadence is on that. David Dal Busco So I don't have a fixed kidded. It's more one. So like, in October, I really had too much to do, like between the my clients project and October 1, I was kind of intense. Yeah. But otherwise, I try. every couple of weeks. She was a bit special, because when there was the first lockdown in Switzerland, first and on Sadat. And then I say, Okay, I gonna write one blog post every day until the lockdown is finished. So I had to write like something like 32, or something like that blog post in a row. So that was kind of intense. Greg Marine can imagine. So yeah. David Dal Busco Now the idea was, when when we have when we have good dig, they go, we saw that we're going to use it to learn something. So I was thinking that maybe I can share what I learned from some blog posts. So that's why you often got, I often write a blog post, I build that. Here's why I did it. Yeah. It's kind of kind of the ID. And it's maybe the engineering way or like, practical stuff. And I like to see. No, that's, it looks like this. You can do it like that. Greg Marine Yeah, I think it is really cool to share that knowledge. Because we're all learning constantly, if we're doing it right, I should say, because technology is constantly moving. It's constantly improving. So we have to do the same. And it's great that you're sharing that knowledge through blog posts. And, you know, that's, that's one of the reasons that attracted me to you to begin with, start following you on Twitter was because of that, now, freely sharing your information, because you make money from from working with clients that hire you for your expertise, and you're giving back to the community. And I think that's great. And that's one of the reasons that deck deck go i think is so successful today is you opened it up to being open source kind of shared that and now you have contributors that are making it even better. David Dal Busco Yeah. Thank you. Yes. Like, I don't know, you know what, I'm like a try. I want for my client like 8% hundred percent a week, like, like, it would be like a normal job. Right. But maybe because I'm a freelancer, I got a bit more flexibility in my wall shirts, like it helps also to have a bit more time or more flexibility to write blog posts and stuff like that. Unknown Speaker So David Dal Busco So it's a it's a good way for me to, like you say to to keep learning because yeah, I mean, especially as a freelancer, it's not like, yeah, it's the fascinating part and the art part of development, some of Yeah, so senior thing, because you always learn new stuff. And the other side, you always have to learn. So it's kind of Yeah. Greg Marine Well, I'll tell you what, as a recently, I became a freelancer. And I've been following a lot of other freelancers online. I'm kind of throwing this at you and didn't prepare you for this question. But it just came to my mind what what kind of advice would you give to somebody who's just now starting get into freelancing? Or who is considering doing a freelance opportunity? What kind of advice would you give to such a person? David Dal Busco I don't know. It depends. Like, I tend to think that what's really important is kind of to build the network. If you have to be read, but I got other friends, which are freelancing, freelancer, and they just find geeks online, you know, they go on platform like Upwork. And they gonna, they're gonna find geeks, because they are really specialized, specialized in what they do. Okay. But, to me, that doesn't work. It's really like, I heard and I have to build a network to find you about. Greg Marine Yeah, I think networking is quite important myself. Yeah. David Dal Busco So that would be that would be something because at some point, if you decide to become a freelancer, and you say, okay, tomorrow, I cannot be a freelancer, and you don't have a contract or anything. But what you can do, you should write to all your friend and say, yeah, as of tomorrow, I'm a freelancer. If you hear something, tell me, I'm looking for a client, you know, if you if you if no one knows what you are doing it, then it's gonna be hard to find something. Greg Marine Yeah, as a matter of fact, you mentioning that reminded me when I, when I started this journey this year, I had just lost a job. And within a week had a freelance gig because of my network, because I had had those relationships. And I was able to find work within a week, simply because of that. If I had not had a network, yeah, it could have just dropped off the map and been unemployed for months. But instead, it was just a week. Yeah. David Dal Busco I mean, it doesn't mean that if you don't have a network, it's not gonna work. But somehow, you have to try to find a way to reach more people again. And for the rest of the knowledge, like, not really advice, I think it's like, again, it's not my job to, especially if you like coding, then it's easy. You find things to code, and then you complete them. Greg Marine Now, I've been doing this for nearly 25 years, I've actually been coding since the 80s. So about 34 years or so. One professional 10 years later. How about you? How long have you been doing this? David Dal Busco Oh, yeah, it's been a while. I think in the 90s. I began, okay. I think I finish then generic engineering school around 2000. Something. Okay. Yeah. Most probably more than 20 years. Greg Marine Yeah. Very nice. David Dal Busco That was the good years now. Greg Marine For me, it was the young years, I feel like David Dal Busco but yeah, then most of my career that was like more Chavo wanted, and it's since a couple couple of here that I transitioned it to be like a web developer. Greg Marine Yeah. Yeah. Did web development the mid mid 90s, but mostly Java, which is what got me into full time development of mins dotnet as well, C sharp and all that. What other? So you've worked with Java and web technologies, any other technology stacks that you you've dealt with? David Dal Busco No, not really. Oh, yeah. We shall find a little bit more time to try something heads. But currently sleep spray difficult to find more time? Yeah, it's not a problem. And just Greg Marine yeah, just curiosity though. David Dal Busco Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I know wanting to ask, why is it going with your project? Greg Marine It's actually slowed down a little bit because I've considered rebuilding it all in view. My son started looking at view A lot of the gotchas or a lot of the hurdles that I came across working with the React code. They don't exist in view. And it's kind of strange how that works. But it's basically the implementation of ionic, the components are the same. The web components are all the same. But the way that view handles, being able to render the views is so much more advanced than react. And so I'm actually starting to think I could be, I could build better templating in view than I am in the React version. So I've considered actually not scrapping it, I'll probably keep the React going. But I'm trying to decide if I want to rebuild it and view the kind of have more than one option. Now originally, my, my goal was to build it in react and angular and view. But now that I've dealt with views, like, oh, man, I think I might just just go with you. But yeah, I was gonna reach out to you in about a month or so after doing that and seeing if we could talk again, because I, I just think you've seen it, the presentation everything, and I thought it would be kind of cool to share what I found. So that's to come. Let's, yeah, David Dal Busco yeah, anytime. Sure. Yeah. That sounds interesting. I mean, it's like, and then you also gonna improve your use case? Yeah. It's like, it can be like a win win situation. Greg Marine Exactly. And it's kinda like, what you were saying with deck that goes are some technologies that I've been wanting to, to learn. And a project like, this allows me to be able to do that a project. Like I said, topical will allow me to, to do that. say, Okay, I have this new feature I want to add, and I want to use this new technology that I've never played with. And since it's my own pet project, I can do it. David Dal Busco Yeah. Why not? There is always so something to read the blog post, try it out quickly. Then to apply a technology to a real application, you're always gonna end up on different scales or different problems you might not face when you do a test. So I think it's always a win to try to build something great. If I can say, Greg Marine exactly. David Dal Busco Just take time, Greg Marine next time. That's right. And I've actually had more time this year than I've ever had, because we don't what my wife and I, we like to travel. We do a lot of traveling all within the United States. But we're actually hoping to branch out and start exploring the world. I think we're going to start this year, we definitely have plans for next year to visit Greece, but all that fell apart because of the virus. So this year, I've just been spending a lot more time at home getting projects done at the house and and I do have more time than I've ever had. What's the difference this year? David Dal Busco Hopefully, hopefully do the trouble gonna come back to Greg Marine Yeah, I hope so too. David Dal Busco I never been to the states. So I hope I can come one day to the stage to you Greg Marine now. You don't want to come right now. The numbers are rising. The vs. Is, is rising. But I know we wanted to go to Greece next year for my wife's 40th birthday. And it's just not going to happen is that even if they have a vaccine and won't be widespread yet? You know, maybe not everyone will have it and travel will still be restricting. David Dal Busco Let's do that. Let's keep hope. Greg Marine Yes, I do have hope. But it doesn't have to be the two years from now. I think what's going to happen? We'll just postpone it to 2022 because we still plan to do it. We're not gonna cancel everything. David Dal Busco Yeah, you're my hype. The time to rewrite everything one more time. Greg Marine That's right. That's right. Very true. Well, uh, David, I really appreciate your time today. And I wish you the best of luck with with deck deck go. And also with your, your freelancing. I think it's great. And I appreciate your time. And and thanks. David Dal Busco Thank you very excited. Thank you for coming. And likewise, I wish that your financing things gonna go further as it already going. Well, I mean, I'm looking for what the next step of your project and yeah, anytime you got a question or want to show me something, I would be happy. Always nice to have a chat with you. Greg Marine Yes, it is. Thanks. Likewise, David Dal Busco same with you. My pleasure.