2 Seats Mentor Match Live From Comptia CCF

If you have yet to join the 2 Seats Community, here’s a little snapshot of what you’re missing!

Last week Comptia hosted their annual CCF event, and some of our community members were able to attend live while at the conference!

Here’s what you missed:

 

Remember, we’ve moved from the BigMarker platform to Zoom, and you only need to register once to participate any Wednesday!  Join us by registering here! 

All women working in (or wanting to work in) technology are invited to participate. Please see previous posts if you’re interested in learning more about what we talk about and when!

Transcribing a multi-user video session with multiple speakers on the same screen is an exercise in futility, but I’ve included the unedited transcript in full below for anyone who prefers to consume their content by reading it.

Below, you’ll find the transcript from the Comptia CCF 2 Seats video session:

So if you are just joining the topic of today as mentor mentee, we’re defining terms, we’re seeing how we can support, um, and just chatting all around that particular topic. So nothing in the chat yet. Okay. Excellent. Well, I am throwing Vicky under the proverbial bus because I’m really enjoying Let’s do it conversation.

Te tell me about a mentor, if you’ve ever had one. What was that relationship like for you? Yeah, I mean that’s, that’s a great question. I feel like, um, well recently I feel like my mentors have been people that have worked within my company and, um, maybe a manager, maybe a somebody indirectly that I work with.

And, um, you know, I think. For those indirect mentorships. I think it’s just somebody that you naturally have like a gravitational pull to, you know, sometimes you can’t put your finger on it. Um, but what I look for, or what I’ve looked for in other mentors, um, that I’ve had in the past is, you know, what is the type of initiative and, and what is the pride that they seek and what they do and the work that they, they put out.

And I wanna emulate that, right? Because I know that I can identify with. Driving and making sure that, um, I’m doing the right things right and then I’m pushing forward. And so somebody, finding somebody who can be a potential mentor that gives you that inspiration and that drive almost like, you know, like a coach.

Mm-hmm. sometimes, right? Mm-hmm. , I mean, I know sometimes I hate what, I just hate pushups in general, but if I have a personal trainer that’s out there and telling me, like, drop down and give me 10 and I’m gonna watch you make sure that you’ve got the right positioning, you know, for those pushups, then I’m gonna do it

Now I’m being held. So you just hit the nail on the head. We are mentorship and men, so mentors and mentees. Both the, one of the pieces I think that drives those relationships is accountability. It’s one of the reasons we asked the, uh, women that were asking for mentors to tell us what their expectations were.

I have to be held accountable. I am the first person to bail on something. I, I, I do, I have, my day gets busy and if I’m not being held accountable by my mentees, I’m the first person to skip that meeting. So I just, I use this mentorship program. I actually, uh, pivot myself into a new mentor relationship where I need that mentor.

My mentor, um, was a man named Tracy Hutchson, and he passed away a few years ago, and I was struggling to fill that. . Um, that’s hard. Tracy was instrumental to the growth in my career that brought me to where I am today, and I was, you develop a very, uh, That’s a personal connection, the super strong bond with the person that you mentor or mentee.

Um, Alexis Spiegel is here this week. She and I worked on a mentee mentor relationship through Covid, and when she won the Spotlight Award last night, one of the things that she said to me later was, I’m really excited that, that’s so cool. You know, that our mentorship relationship had some of that. Added to it, so.

Oh, that’s neat. There’s so many things that come from being a mentor. I think that as a mentor I get more out of that than I get out of being a mentor sometimes. Um, joy, let’s talk about, let talk about, well I’m curious about expectations. So, uh, cuz you recently, if I remember correctly, paired with somebody from two seats.

Yes. Did you do that? Yes. Okay. And we had our first meeting last Friday. Alright. So how did you talk to the expectations? Like how did that feel for you? I think it was good. It was more of like an exploratory type of call. Okay. Just to kind of understand, um, first of all, what is your background? What’s my background?

and then trying to find those, those points that I can hone in on to say, oh, okay, I can identify with that. I can hone in with that. Right? But trying to understand, you know, what was your path, getting to where you are today and where do you wanna go? And then finding those, those mutual points of connection to be able to drive that, that plan, create plan.

Yeah. So we’re not there. But we’re starting out. I mean, it’s, you know, the, the frequency we’re meeting is like biweekly and, you know, there’s deliverables, stuff like that that I’ve gotta get over to her. Um, but I mean, like it’s, it was a great first start and she’s just really excited to be part of it.

And I am too, as a mentor, this is my first time officially. Mentoring. Yeah. I think we all kind of in some capacity maybe mentor others. Sure. Um, unintentionally. Right. But then, yeah, you get people that say, oh, well thank you so much for your mentorship. You’re welcome. I.

Um, well we’re thinking Oh, too, our mentee too. I have a mentee we have not met yet cuz I’ve been on the road for a month. But we’ve got, uh, time to schedule to meets, uh, late next week. So we’ll get that going when I am back in suite and I’m really excited about the fact that I have found someone that really appeals to what I want to talk about because like I said, I can’t teach someone how to be a security expert, but I can absolutely teach someone how to pivot their career.

To the next, uh, trajectory. So that’s, uh, that’s piece I’m really looking forward to. I think for, for myself, understanding how my nights have changed over time because one mentor. That I had worked with for a while was very specific for helping me grow my msp, helping me understand my financial sheets and my ebitda, and how do I get my company the position to be more profitable and more flexible and all this stuff.

And then after I sold my msp, the work that I really wanted to dig into his emotional intelligence and going out there in the bigger world, much bigger world, and navigating. Huge organizations, right? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Um, and, um, because it’s a different level of conversation, all these different layers of management that I hadn’t been, you know, I had been swimming in my own sea for 21 years.

Yes. And so, um, for me it was a, a very different need that came into play. And I realized that for me to be successful, I had to learn to speak a different language. And so I worked with somebody different for them. And then I’ve always had somebody that I’ve worked with for my, uh, career progression as far as my credentials.

Mm-hmm. and what’s the next best thing that I should be looking at? Sometimes that’s one consistent person. Sometimes it’s the CEO of the company I’m working for right now. You know, um, if I have these three things that I’m all excited about, , which one do you feel is gonna be the best return on investment for the business?

Because you’re paying for it, right? Right. I gotta pass the test, but you’re paying for it. And so, um, hearing his rationale for why he chose the one he chose was really interesting and helped to guide me, you know, even better on my career path in the organization. So yeah, needs definitely change. And being open to having more than one person guiding is really good and healthy.

I. Yeah. I think we, we need mentors in many areas of our lives. We need them in business especially because often women don’t find their voice as early in their career as they should. Yep. Mm-hmm. . But what about mentors outside of business who has a show of chat, hands in mm-hmm. , who’s got a personal mentor that helps ’em with personal growth?

That isn’t a paid for therapist because we should all have those and if you don’t have one of those, we should talk about that. But I love that. Outside of that, I have a personal mentor who works with me on understanding, you said emotional intelligence? Mm-hmm. . I struggle with that. Mm-hmm. . It is not my go-to.

I have to work really hard. Hard. Oh, me too. It’s inside voice. I find that so surprising though for you too. Yeah. Oh no. Absolutely no. There’s the inside voice and then there’s the outside voice. Sometimes my inside voice goes outside and bad things happen. Exactly. You mean the whole, oops. Did I say that out loud?

I meant to just keep it in my head. Yes, . Can anyone else relate to that? ? So while we’re waiting for people to chime in on that particular topic, Tina is asking, and this was just from a minute or two ago. Mm-hmm. , um, she had filled out a form or the survey to try to get matched. So how do we, how do we make sure she gets matched or what’s, what’s the status?

I, I haven’t been involved in that process. We’ll pick that up before the end of the day. Tina. I’ve got some working time at the airport. Let me take a. And we’ll make up by for the end of the day and it’s, it’s Tina with Blue Net just in case there’s more than one Tina . Awesome. Yeah, I have to say too, like I love that this is a forum that’s that, that you have helped to create.

Because I know for me, I work at ConnectWise. I’ve worked at ConnectWise for eight and a half years. We’ve got 3,500 colleagues now, our employees all over the world. Mm-hmm. . And it’s very easy to kind of get stuck in that mindset of working within an organization and not, you know, venturing outside to find other connections and other leaders that you can connect with that can help you to grow, mutually grow, I guess.

Yeah. And so I feel like this is a great conduit and being at Katia Communities and Council Forum. Also a great opportunity if you’re not a, a member of CompTIA yet, um, definitely take a look. This is, this is kind of how I’ve, you know, I’ve seen you both here. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Um, you know, at previous events.

But yeah, I mean, just make sure that you’re pushing yourself outside of your company, um, to, you know, but otherwise, I’m gonna kind of build on that because, um, last night we had a conversation, you and I. . And when you started this con, this conversation today about sponsors in your organization? Oh yeah.

What about sponsors outside of your organization? In the different industry groups Yes. Right. That are going to keep an eye out for you. Mm-hmm. , and Yes. I think that that’s a huge part of it. I think that everyone, I, and I know that, uh, you especially, um, and I, I know. Oh, what’s her name with Cisco? Michelle.

Michelle. She’s famous. Like she’s, she’s almost like a, a industry conference like. Professionals. I call her the conference Instagram influencer, although she doesn’t use Instagram for it. Right. That’s we talk all the time about her. Right. Her ability to amplify the voices. Yes, yes. Of women at events is extraordinarily second to none.

She has and gives you a ton of associations and I think that that exposure, if you get a champion or a sponsor or a mentor, what, whatever you wanna call it, whatever that dynamic. In various industry associations, that’s going to just catapult you for the recognition and having people thinking, you know, cuz I would think of you for many roles outside of ConnectWise.

Not that you’re not, that’s what just clear that was not to us, not that Joyce Joys recruiting people. This is not a recruiting conversation along the lines of using, uh, a space like this. I had. No less than three sit down conversation where people asked for time with me yesterday while I was here, and the question was, I’m trying to decide.

Mm-hmm. , for lack of a better phrase, what to do when I grow up, right? What I do next, what do I wanna go to? Mm-hmm. , and most of those conversations surrounded, not who do you know and who can you leverage? For me, the conversations were, what do you think? I’m good. Yeah. That’s a really good, that is a good, interesting and important conversation to have.

Yes. What do you see my value ask? Good stand for asking. Yeah, I was, that’s brave and that’s wonderful. Yeah. So that was, that’s why I love this from a, from a women’s group because I don’t, I’m gonna gender stereotype, but there’s a reason for it. Like if, if you have not read the book, I just blanked on the name.

I’ll think of it when I stopped trying to think of it. But how men, men probably never ask that question, what do you think I’m good at? Because they, they gen genuinely think they’re good at everything. They will take positions where they only meet 65% of the criteria where we, women often wanna meet 95% of the criteria before we even put our resume in.

Yeah. So, um, yeah, the confidence. The confidence code, the confidence gap, something like that. It’s a phenomenal book. Um, especially if you’re a woman who’s like, does every other woman like struggle with self con confidence or does every other woman struggle with imposter syndrome? And, you know, that type of thing.

It, it, it really explains the gender gap with some of these things that are inborn. And so, um, I don’t think I, I love that she was willing to ask that question. Yeah. Yeah. , it makes a big difference when you open up, because I would’ve said, you know what? I actually don’t have any rules open in my org, right?

With what they do today currently. So instead of thinking that way, I was able to think about what do I know is open and what do we have open right that might fit what they’re good at, not what they are doing today. Because we focus often on what are you doing today? And maybe you’re doing that today because you didn’t present yourself well.

You know, the last interview to get the thing you really wanted. Right. So I’m excited about the idea that, so I’m, I’m curious, what kind of feedback did you give and we’re anonymizing this, we’re anonymizing this, if you’re listening on like personality strengths or, um, who they know and where they’ve worked or certifications, like how did that come out?

So for me, in each of the sessions that I had yesterday, it surrounded more, what do I see? Visibly of them in the industry. Cause a lot of perception. Perception is reality. Reality perception is reality. What do I find you doing repeatedly? When I think about people’s, uh, genius zones, which is what I call it, the things that you love and you’re really good at.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I think about genius zones, I think, what are you repeatedly drawn back to? So the feedback that I had was one individual, you are a. That’s what you’re good at. You’re good at bringing the right people into the room and it nears well to the thing that I’m good at. Yeah. So we talked through the idea of taking a relationship driven industry and connecting people.

So that’s a community platform. Yeah. Right. That’s it is. That’s someone they used to be forward facing and out in front of people on a regular basis. Yeah. Maybe in a different way than they are today. Mm-hmm. because they don’t see that in themselves. I don’t do that. So I was able to pull examples together.

I’ve been on the road for a month and I was able to take some examples and say, well this is the thing I watched him do three weeks ago, and I don’t think that she had any idea that she’d done it. Oh, wow. Huh. She just was fascinating. I love that kinda. When you love something, you don’t do it on purpose, you do it because you do it right.

So, yeah. And it shows, and then you, sometimes you diminish the value of it because it comes so easily to you. Well, I just, I just introduced to people they should know each other. No big deal. Everybody does that. And it’s like, no, everybody doesn’t do that. And so it, it is easy to overlook our zones of genius because, They come easily to us.

So I love having that outside perspective who, someone who can say, no, this is not normal. This is unusual, and you are really good at it. And I don’t think we often can identify those in ourselves. Yeah. Mm-hmm. , I think as you know, leaders, women leaders in the channel too. If. I love that you said that and you identified that and you called it out.

Right? I, I think that we could advocate for each other mm-hmm. a lot more by being more vocal about things that we see in equ, qualities that we see in other women in the channel. Um, because again, you mentioned she didn’t understand it herself, right. Until somebody else told her. So I think a good opportunity to change a little bit of perspective is right, staring me in the face right now, when you see another woman in an industry event as women, we do this.

Mm-hmm. , hi, uh, what are you, we’re moving furniture. Yeah. Behind. We’re just, we’re changing this. We’re changing up the space. When you see another woman in the industry, it is very, very common for us to say, Hey, I really like those boots. What a great talk. Oh, yeah, yeah. They’re nice. To be clear, I, I, I, I did not say it specifically.

I love where you’re going with this. What we do is we, as women comment on physical appearance Yeah. All the time. Yeah. And I, I don’t know why we do it. We do. Right. But if a man comes up and talks about our physical appearance, it can be awkward. So as women. When we think about how do we elevate other women, yeah, you know, those boots are awesome, but what can I tell you as a compliment that talks about your strengths in.

Business production. Great. What is it about you that I find, so I’m trying to be very cognizant as I travel over the next couple of months to say, I really like that thing you said in the meeting today. Yeah. It reminded me of this. So that we start to focus less and less on, Hey, you look great today. Yeah.

Because that is confidence boosting. So you’re saying having an an intentionality. Mm-hmm. , like that type of mindset, that conversation. Yeah. I, I actually have started to naturally do that for other. Females that I know are doing something like hands on cyber, I call them out. And, um, like yesterday, um, Maria Scar, Mardo, do you guys know who she is?

I don’t. Oh no, she’s just so, she’s a little firecracker and she’s all about grc. And yesterday I, I have my first opportunity to be in a meeting with her when we rolled up our sleeves. We, Hey, how you wanna careful come over, say. Keep going. Yeah. Um, but what I did this morning is I sat her down and I told her the things that I really liked about how she navigated that conversation and that the, the GRC expertise that I see in her now is a completely different level.

And it’s exactly what you’re saying. It’s so important to have that conversation. It’s not about the, the clothing that looks anything else like that? Yes, it. This is where I see you excelling in our playing field. Yep. And I wanna see more of it. Mm-hmm. , you know, she was really all lit out from me pulling Hannah into the conversation.

We were just talking about how as women, one of the things that we tend to do when we’re all out together is say, Hey, you look great today. I love those shoes. Did you get your haircut? Instead of saying, Hey, you did this thing that I saw in business, that was really cool. Yeah. So just changing that conversation amongst the women themselves.

Yeah. That’s a great one. Don’t get me wrong, I love it when someone tells me I’m. It,

we, we perpetuate some of that. Yeah. Uh, and then it just becomes a thing that we focus on as women and we should be focusing on is how do we lift each other career wise? Yeah. Mm-hmm. . Because that will allow you then to say to me, well, what do you think I’m good at? So we were having a conversation about, those were questions I got asked.

Yeah. What jobs are open in the world? What do you think I’m good at? Mm-hmm. , I’m looking to do something new. Yeah. That, and also I feel like as women, we do a lot of negative self-talk. Yes. Oh yeah. And then we feed off of each other. We’re like, oh, I don’t look good, um, in this color. And they’re like, oh, I don’t look good in this color.

And then we go on and on and on. It’s like, let’s just cut all that out. We’re all beautiful. Right? I know. Still right? , like somebody else notices that you don’t get in that color. Men don’t sit around and say, Hey, does red look okay on me? Cuz I’m going to accomplice. Yeah. I was gonna say too, I, one of the things I’ve made a conscious effort on recently with LinkedIn is really the, the women that I’m connected to in the channel, uh, and not, not even in the channel, but other professional women that I’m friends with or have met through, you know, my other, my walks of life, um, is making sure that I’m celebrating them.

When there’s an award or something. Right? Yeah. Just making sure that you’re making an intentional comment or, uh, providing feedback right. And celebrating that win. I think that that definitely, I feel good if you do that for me, so yeah. How are we doing in chat, Jennifer? I see a couple of things that I can’t read cuz I’m old.

So Tina, Tina was just piggybacking, she said, how about I love that dress and your energy and your attitude. So I, I think that’s, thank you. You look good in red. You know, my network because I, I’m gonna have to go to my network because I forgot the jacket that gave this dress. And I bring this dress because it is, And, uh, without the jacket, it is not day.

And I had to present in the emerging text session this morning. And so I went out to my, my level this morning and said, that’s fine. Has a blazer. Cause I can’t present in this. There, Caitlin has left without it. This blazer is mine now, Caitlin, it’s never beingd. So it’s so interesting cuz at my, at the last event I went to, I, I got there and I, I think I had to present and my hairspray, it was a, it wasn’t a pump hairspray, it was a, um, whatever, I can’t think of what it is, but all the compressed air had gone on the airplane.

So literally a pushed it and nothing. And the sundry shop was open, but only for cash. Well, like I don’t have cash and I mean, I looked like I’d been traveling all day, you know, very flat hair, and I mean, I can put on makeup, but if the hair is flat, like I just wasn’t confident. Yes, I should feel beautiful no matter what, but I didn’t feel beautiful.

Men feel confident. And so I’m like, I need hairspray. Like I need hairspray and there’s no time to get to a Walmart. And so I pinged a couple friends that I knew were there. Guess what? Most women have, like hairspray. One of them gave me like a little travel hairspray. Here you go. I don’t need it back.

Just take it. I’m like, ah, what a lifesaver. So, um, having that network is super, is super important. So you’re a blazer. My hairspray life is good. Scroll, scrolling back in the chat a little bit. Somebody’s asked, and I, I can’t tell who someone said, does anyone have a sponsor? That concept is new to me. That was me.

You, okay. Alright. I, I’ve never heard of that before. Maybe it’s just because I worked at smaller companies, but that is a, a newer concept to me. So, sponsorship understanding for me came from my last mentor, uh, that I was saying had passed away. Carrie Tracy Hutch used to build sponsor. So when Tracy was looking for a new position or anyone at Tracy’s org was looking for a new position, he would send them out to build a sponsors map and he would say, go map the organization.

Figure out who you know. That’s interesting. Figure out what pathways might get you somewhere and start building yourself a map of people you need to connect with over the next six, eight weeks as we go through the process. Mm-hmm. so that they will talk about you as, so that sponsor talks about you when you’re not in the.

Nice. And if you can build a, a web of those. Yeah. Right. You don’t have a single sponsor. I do it a lot because I work with entry level individual contributors. Mm-hmm. . And one of my claims to Fame and Hunters is that I’ve promoted 13 people in two years, and I’ve done that. That’s awesome. Because I have built spiderweb sponsorships.

I spend half of my day talking to people at the org that I, I mean, I don’t know what the engineers do. Yeah. I don’t understand that at all. But I do understand that if I make good relationships with the engineer, , you have the ability to move someone. So I’m in the middle of, I think what’s gonna be our first move from SDR to, uh, software engineering.

Ooh, so nice. Can everybody do me a favor and look at, okay. So Tracy, you talk, say something. Hello, my name is Tracy. Hey, now everybody look at the camera Uhhuh without it and like try not to blink. I’ve been trying to do like a print screen so I could do like the CompTIA edition. . I need to catch Tracy doing this.

or Jennifer with her eyes closed. So everybody ready in 3, 2, 1, smile.

Are we still smiling? Got you. I don’t like, I hope I, I had to blink. I’m sorry. I hope you got me. No, no, I just got this, I did the, uh, we use uh, like some sort of, we use screenshot for screen caps and it works really well. I love it. You’re like, I don’t know. I keep catching Jennifer with her eyes closed.

That’s all I do all day is sleep. Sponsorship comment you’re making, not only does it help to create a potential new career path for somebody that you’re mentoring, but I also feel like selfishly for the company and for your team, you’re making those connections and then understanding how all those departments work and how you can tie into those departments.

Yep. Or effectively. And the long term thing is that you’re retaining employees, which is Yes. We do have your employees all the time at Great America. It’s all about how can we keep that individual, even if it doesn’t mean in your division or department, but how can you move them to a spot that is going to be home forever?

And we’re all about that. You can keep them in the company. That’s the number one goal. It doesn’t matter where it’s at. Yeah, and I think a step further, if you can’t keep them in the company, so Carrie, you and I were super. We struggled with this in our own and sales post for so long where we didn’t have enough upward spots for people because we were a small business and understanding.

So when I, when I finish interview rounds, anyone that I think is gonna make it to the final cut, I say to them, here’s, here’s the deal. We are a big company now we have 300 people. Odds are will find you a seat, but if we can’t find you a seat at Huntress. Mm-hmm. , if I cannot figure that pathway out with you and there is nothing available.

When you are ready and you have done the work, I will pivot you outside our organization. Mm-hmm. , I will use the connections we have in the network. I will help you find the right sponsors, mentors outside of us. Because what I really want is for you. To find your home. Right. And if I can’t give you that Right.

I want them to understand that we’re not gonna limit them. Mm-hmm. , and that I’m willing to take them onto my team and have their managers and myself grow them to a point where they will go somewhere else. Yeah. Because I think otherwise we, we run the risk of not bringing the right people in because they feel like they only have one path.

Right, and if you teach people that I am willing to mentor you, work with you and let you go somewhere else, all of a sudden, well, in my role that is strategic partnering, like I would love to have a, if somebody’s going to be leaving our organization anyways. Have them go to an organization that you are already doing business with, where they’re going to be a champion for your team, right?

Mm-hmm. , they’re gonna wanna keep your team involved because that’s their buddies. That’s their, you know, where they grew up, , and that you trust, you know, somebody that you know they’re gonna take good care of. The individual that you’re sending there, have the relationship with them so that. they’re sending off, but you know that their career is gonna continue to grow, right?

Yeah. We need a lot, we need to maintain a, a great industry and a great channel and grow. And so retention within the industry is, is great. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, so Ultrafit is so hard to match though, right? Like when, when we close, like when we sold, uh, the US call center, we hand. Everybody that worked for us that wanted to go somewhere else.

So instead of binding people into non-compete, some people went with Tracy over to Huntress. But we set up interviews for any vendor that had ever partnered with us that wanted to hire somebody directly. And then we let the agents interview with anybody that they wanted to. And then we let the, the vendors that we’d partnered with choose what agent, if any, they wanted to hire.

And remember a bunch of them went to a vendor and that vendor was unable to support them. Like they just didn’t have the, they weren’t able, like we weren’t a very corporate group, right? Like we hired out of workforce readiness programming. So the people that worked for us had never worked in an office environment.

They’d never worked in death by meetings environments. Right. They worked for us and we were like, yeah, whatever. Make your calls, hit your numbers, don’t bug me . And so going from that to like, now we have to have eight meetings this week about this, that, and the other thing. And everybody that went to that vendor, uh, left and they provided a hundred percent healthcare coverage.

Like can you imagine a hundred percent for their, them and their family? Wow. Wow. They paid double what we had paid them, and they still couldn’t hold onto them because the culture fit was so significantly different. So you almost have to prepare the company that like, could we have prepared him better for that transition?

I don’t know, maybe. Maybe, but what a wonderful thing for you to attempt to do. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. I mean, that really speaks volumes. Yeah. That was kind wonderful. The peace, Carrie, that you and I said had to happen in order for us to, uh, you dives. Yeah. I was willing to man, run that business until I didn’t have another dollar in the bank.

Yep. But I wasn’t willing to go into debt to save it. So unfortunately we, we got out before that, before I had to make that , that Sophie’s choice . Uh, and I think everyone did all right, right? Like nobody was unemployed and it was a terrible time to be unemployed. I didn’t wanna put people out on the streets who didn’t really, can you imagine like half of those people interviewing Tracy?

It would’ve been a shit show. Okay. Like we had to prep them. We had to work with ’em. We had to like, okay, everybody wears something nice. . Well, sometimes we had to make sure they had something nice. Oh, that was true. Like, yeah, we found out that people were homeless working for us. It was a huge, they were borrowing blazers.

That’s right. Same concepts, never. Oh, is that Caitlin’s Blazer? She left without it, so it’s mine now. I got a job. Okay. See you later guys. Up. Let’s see it. I wanna see this blazer. Is it long? Send anybody in. Nice meet you here. Send anybody in the lobby this way to, is it a long blazer or is it hip? Yeah, it’s like a, yeah, it’s a long blazer.

It’s, it looks nice. It’s, uh, I had to, I had to present on emerging technology today and nothing about emergency emerging technology. We were presenting on the process. It was, it was a process presentation, so it was really good. But at the end someone said, you don’t know anything about emergency emerging tech.

And I’m like, Nope. No, not a thing. Whole process. Yeah. If you asked me how an NDR like any of that worked, I’d be like, I don’t know, just buy it. Well, it’s so, it’s funny, so Joy and I were just in a, um, cybersecurity community meeting and it was like a working meeting where there was all these like aspects of, I mean, you could do much a better job of explaining basically families of security controls.

Yes. Families of security controls and. , I was watching to see what all of these, you know, what all these topics were gonna be. And I, I naturally felt more comfortable going to Wayne Silk’s table because he had like a, a topic that I felt like I could contribute to. And poor Joy didn’t have many people at her table.

And she said, Hey, we need some more, some more people over here. And I was like, joy, I don’t know anything about this. And she said, it’s okay. Just come over here, Uhhuh , and we’ll figure it out. You know? What were you presenting on Joy? Um, well, the topic that we grabbed off the wall was backup and, and, uh, data, data, data, data.

Mm-hmm. . And it’s a simple conversation. The exercise was what is the MSP responsibility and what is the customer responsibility? Yes. Because we’re building out a shared responsibility matrix at CompTIA because that’s what we do. Yep. Um, for all the different areas of it, service delivery, and, um, you did great on it.

Okay. Cause it really is just the thought of. If you’re an organization and you’re hiring an M S P, what would you wanna know about the database backup or what should you know that you’re afraid to ask or you don’t know to ask? So it was a, a really good exercise and, and that’s, I think that it really represents how much women can collaborate and participate in it and cyber, even if they don’t have that as their background.

Yes. A lot of this is common sense and we scare ourselves into saying we’re not technical enough. Right. I still. Right. I still do that. So yeah, I just read a very boring paper on the C M M C levels of certification, uhhuh , and how they compare to other certifications, Uhhuh, , and I can’t imagine having a job where I have to read that every day.

That’s my world. Sounds good. . All I know is CMM three covers most of it, and CMM five covers all of it. That’s an old paper because there’s no, I hate did tell you. I hope you got a good night’s sleep after reading that. Cause it’s invalid. Well, I thought it was interesting cause there’s so many different, um, like as a business owner who’s non-technical, who did have a managed IT service provider, for most of the duration of my business, when we were large enough to require one uhhuh, them explaining that to me would’ve been like, um, What?

Oh, okay. Um, not like I, like we don’t have any C M M C requirements. We’re a call center and we’re a line of, like, all of our line of business applications are in the cloud, right? So when we figured out it was cheaper to have 10 extra computers than a managed it con, right? Pivoted to that. All we needed was 10 extra boxes.

Who cares if the $600 Dell OptiPlex is down? Throw it in the garbage and go move to that computer and we’ll buy another one and we’ll set it up. Will we erase the data? Yes. Yep. Yes. Yeah. There got, there is no data though. Like what kind of data would we have had sitting around on one of the. The boxes.

Well even, I mean it depends on the configuration, but they even could have got your password. You’re usename some passwords. We definitely buried those in the desert. We didn’t just throw ’em away. Oh, buried with the box? Yes. Okay. Um, Alan Joseph disposed of those for us. So yes, Alan did dispose of those for us, and I suspect he did all of those things.

Cool. Yeah. I’ll ask you next week.

I love that. Um, so pulling, pulling the, uh, the audience themselves. We spent the majority of the first half talking mentorship, which was the goal of today. Wanna make sure that we’re not missing out on something somebody came to listen and learn about today. Mm-hmm. , I will wait. Nobody is chiming in yet in the last two seconds, but I’ll see if anybody pops in.

And I’m gonna take a real quick sneak over to the lobby while we’re getting towards that and see who’s milling about because it is now normal lunchtime. I’m gonna go find some, uh, victim, uh, victim victims I’ll be, didn’t misspeak with Yeah. Means victim. I love it.

It’s nice to see everybody. I have to check out of my hotel now, so I, uh, will see you guys next Wednesday. Thank you for everyone who took the time out of a busy event to participate. Yeah, absolutely. It’s very nice to see everyone. Thank you for hosting. Oh, sure. Jennifer, you figured out how to log in as the host.

I. Okay, good. Yes, but I’m gonna have to balance in three minutes. So is your laptop, you are now the host, so that’s good. . No worries. Awesome saying, glad to be a fly on the wall. Just here to listen. So awesome. Couple people bouncing out. I think a lot of people are gonna have to bounce early or slightly early.

I’m gonna have to bounce. Jen, will you send me, will somebody send me, um, a link to the recording and that looks like there’s a transcript as well that comes with. I didn’t know that I turned on the transcript. Oh, I did so, which I love cuz otherwise I would’ve had to run it through script. I normally take them, run them through script, write a little blog post about it, and then I’ll put it underneath the video so people can watch the video or read about what we talked about.

But they don’t have to read it word for word and don’t have to get all the ums and the ahs about. So that sounds good. Appreciate you all and, uh, joy, if you wanna get the stuff to me, um, I’ll edit out, um, the chit chat at the end and the chit chat at the beginning and kind of keep the, the conversation part that I think I missed most of, so I apologize.

But, so supposedly you can take the transcript and load it into the new version of G P T four and ask for a three sentence synopsis of the entire meeting and it will give it to. I haven’t tested it yet. Comfortable. I know, but see, I’m not comfortable really with our information being uploaded into a public.

I get that fine. I, I think it’s one thing if all I do with chat g p T is ask it to suggest movies. Like to write them. I was like, uh, because after I heard that there was a movie called Cocaine Bear, I was like, Hey, pretend that you are a movie producer and you have to create 20 movie ideas about wild animals and illegal drug use.

Oh, that’s really funny. Can you share with me the names of the movies and a quick synopsis of each one and then it is like, gives me 20 movies. One was Ganja Gorilla, which I actually would’ve gone to . Then I asked them to write me for each of the movies above, please write me three. The summary of three acts.

For the movie. So then it like starts breaking down the movie into act one, act two, act three, and what happens in them. I’m like, okay, so for act one, write me 10 integral parts of act one. That would set us up for act two, and then it’ll give me, give you ideas. So yeah, right now just, uh, creating movies about animals and illegal drugs, I like it new.

I have less to do than most of you guys. I think , grab.

Going on, we have someone who doesn’t understand what S is doing. So that’s exciting. I’m gonna, yes. Slide in, slide over. Let’s see. Are you just grabbing people out of the hallway? ? I am woman people, so I mean they’re, I do have to duck into the thing. Hundred percent. We just wanted to be clear that we’re running.

Uh, so the women. Women in Technology two seats program is designed to elevate the voices of women in technology. There are some of us who are very, very loud and there are some of us who are not quite as loud, right? Um, none of them are here, but , well loud. Uh, we wanted to spend some time just being clear that CCF is a place.

Where we have the ability to bring women together that wouldn’t necessarily be together in different conference areas and just say like, this is a space where women should be banding together. And we were talking about mentees and mentors today. Oh, great. Yeah, and it kinda fit the theme of some of the things we’ve been talking about at, uh, CCF this week.

So we wanted to make sure that somebody from. Up. Can I, can I tell you something? I, so our social media manager, um, for ConnectWise lives in Chicago. Okay. But I mean, she’s like the only one I think that lives in Chicago. But I said, Hey, you should come to comp Tea should come to the event. So she came for the, the opening night and she told me, cuz she’s been to a couple other industry events and she said, I really was surprised by the amount of diversity, like in the audience.

That’s awesome. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, that is so cool. You know? She’s like, there were so many women there. I was like, I know. Yeah. It’s great. I’ve been on the road, this is my fourth week. And the amount of female attendees at C C F out numbers, all of those at the three weeks, I think five. It’s really great.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. . So I have a picture of us at. I wanna say it’s a data event or an enable event in 2017 where they’re we’re at a table of women. And we’re the only women at the event. And there was like eight of us lights. Yes, it’s Come in. Come in, mj. It’s fine. I still have that picture. Cause you remember that weird jacket with the circles, that ripoff jacket.

That’s the only way that I know that. That’s where we were. Mj. Hi . See you. I feel like a woman in tech . This is awesome. Well, so I really wanted you to come over to talk about the fact that it isn’t just women in the women in tech scenario. No. We talk about allyship all the time. We talk about mentors, mentees.

I’ll be honest with you, I’ve only ever had mentor, uh, relationships with men. I find that, uh, I learned lots because, and then, and when I started. Career. There were more men than women by far. Mm-hmm. . But one of the things that you’ve done over the course of your time with Come Tia is really be an active voice for women in a lot of different ways to rise out.

Yeah. And I mean that really to be Thank you. You’re welcome. But to be fair, its me. Um, we’ve always had a strong culture in the community of men. Supporting women and wanting to see women excel and do more in the career. I mean, I’m a girl dad, I have two daughters. Mm-hmm. and a son, but the two daughters were first, so, and it’s awesome.

You know, I’ve seen them succeed in their career and it’s, they haven’t had necessarily that same mentorship, um, at least not that I see in this community and certainly, The amount of men who are more than willing to be strong advocates for women. Mm-hmm. and I, you know, my own personal feeling is, I don’t even, it, it’s kind of, this may sound backwards, but it, it’s almost a shame that we have to have something called advancing women.

Right. Right. Because what is, I mean, have we not learned anything? It’s 2023. I mean, it’s silly, but it’s, you know, it’s, it’s real. So, okay, we should just stand up and acknowledge that. But I think that’s something that we. Think about acknowledging more of like, I agree. Isn’t it kind of a shame that we have to focus on that?

You know, we don’t have advancing men in it. Right. But we have advanced, but, and you know what, it’s the same with d e I and B. Right? Why do we have to focus on that? I know, right? Right. Yeah. Why, why? But the fact of the matter is because of the lack of it. Right? Exactly. It, it’s interesting, I heard, I heard a podcast interview recently.

I was skiing with my son and he listens to his podcast and uh, it’s some guy from m mit. But he was interviewing Gin Remedy, the former, um, c e o of IBM m mm-hmm. . And she was saying some really interesting things cause they were obviously asking her, you know, what was her experience and blah, blah, blah.

And she was just always a, a self-driven person and found herself in a very successful position. But interestingly, she and her husband, she didn’t say why, but they had decided not to have children of their own. So she calls herself a, I forget, like a crazy, crazy. Crazy aunt or something like that. But what was interesting is what she said about all the other women that she’s worked with in her career who have families, and how much respect she had for the challenges that they had to overcome if they chose to have a family and a career.

And she really tried to institute. A lot of change in certainly one of the most historically stuffed shirt men. You know, remember the old blue soup white shirt, IBM image? Mm-hmm. , um, how she tried to make change in that. So it was just was, it is just fascinating. Listen, too, so you can’t see the group expanding because some of them are off camera, but we are developing a little following here.

Brianna Analyst here now, sorry. You don’t get to register people for channel con . Do not, do not count this against Brianna. I didn’t say. Saying. Hi. Hi. Come on in.

Thank you. Thank you. You got the best seat in the house, mj. What’s that? You got the best seat in the house. Apparently my people. So that all guy in the middle. We are, uh, running up to 10 minutes above the hour. So those of you that I co-opted to come, if you have somewhere else to. Do not feel the need to stay.

I release you to industry . You don’t gotta go home, but you can’t stay here. All right. Fair enough. Thank for inviting me, Maria.

Okay, I’ll, yeah. Yeah. Brianna. Very involved with the, the TIG and well, let’s find some time together. Yes, absolutely. I’ll email Tracys bully all the women there into completing their speaker bio so we can get them up on the site. So let’s, so far only, Jen and I have finished hours and Jen already had hers done.

Jen I think has just finished mine. I co-opted Jen into writing mine. Oh, well done. I should have done that. Honestly. So we should, we should, so when you talk, we should talk about how we can best support you with this. Yes, absolutely. We’d love to. Because it’s, it’s not, it’s not just, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s not just what we’re doing, what we, what we’re doing.

We wanna also support what’s being done everywhere else too. Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s a whole collaboration. I will say we are going. It’s not a hundred percent, but I’ll, I’ll say it’s better than 99%. We’re probably going to reinvigorate the AIC community with Yeah. Yeah. Name it. Something that, that where it’s like we’re gonna, we’re gonna, I can tell you for a fact, we’re gonna move away from at t d.

It’s a multiple and it’s confusing. We’re gonna break out into workforce women diversity. We’ll, we’ll just go with D E I B and be, you know, we’re gonna. We don’t need to make up new terms. Right. They’re more, there’s good terminology. No more. Right. D ei terminology. Uh, so advancing diversity. Oh no, it’s, it’s advancing tech talent and diversity.

It was tech, talent and diversity. It was a, it was a come together of, um, Somewhat workforce, but not quite workforce advancing women and diversity. And it just wound up with an unfortunate background. It was nobody’s, nobody’s fault. It was trying to catch everything and it, I remember being on stage the first time saying it.

I’m like, I, you know. Yeah. That one. At tt. Okay. But we’re just going, I mean, we don’t need to make things up, but, and in so doing, we can provide support wherever it’s appropriate. That That’s awesome. That’s awesome. You can, uh, you run with that. Oh, I’m sorry. I couldn’t be there in Chicago with you guys this week.

Now you’re leaving. There is something going on through energy here, mj. Why? I don’t know how I did that. I turned the lights off. Apparently I turned them on. It’s good to. Good to see you. Nice to see you. Everybody I have to check out, so I’m off to El Paso. I love you on this couch now. I love it. Enjoy.

Thank you so much for setting up the Zoom instance and getting this all organized. I really appreciate your help. It’s been kind of a chaotic month. Hi. Lemme tell. We’re almost done. We’re gonna shut it down. I’m on over there. All right. So what we spent our day talking about most of the day was mentee, mentor relationships.

Okay. Um, Vicky and I actually ran into each other in an elevator talking about it earlier in the week. Yes. And I thought, how much fun would it be to host it live and have as many women as we can pop in and out over the course of the hour. So I’m gonna put you on the spot Yes. Over the course of your career.

Mm-hmm. , tell me about the best mentor relationship you’ve ever had. Ooh. Whether you mentee or mentor. Yeah. And, and what did you get out of it? Well, I had, uh, someone mentor me and I didn’t realize I was being mentored. Um, and I was, me. I love mentors . I, I sort of like tough love. I was like, because I knew that this person was coming from a place of wanting to push me out of my comfort zone.

Um, and it was very uncomfortable, but I knew that the intention was good, and that’s what made me want to do it, because if it was somebody, I think it’s all about the intention. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . If someone has really good intention and you have a really great relationship with that person, you will, you’ll be encouraged to get out of your comfort zone and do those things.

So, um, so yeah. So, but at that time I didn’t really. Label it as being named to it. I just was like, you know, oh my goodness, that person’s evolv. . Yeah. If you know what, that’s, that’s good. So I, uh, was mentored. Um, I’ve had two really great mentors. Uh, they actually worked together. Uh, one’s a venture capitalist that taught me everything that I knew about business and what really helped me launch, uh, owning my own.

And, um, you know, to your point, and ev sometimes, you know, the challenge, I would just, I would get very nervous when, you know, we would have our meetings sometimes, and I just knew I was gonna be so challenged every time and Yes. And even when, um, I would sit there and, and put out all my thoughts or, you know, let’s say it was, you know, when I was building, creating my org charts and, you know, things like that and he poke a million holes into it, right.

And I just would be like,

And I only cracked like once. I think I had like one tear come down and here I got an email later. It’s like, this is all just to push you. Yes. You know, to do better. And then, and really when I launched it was I kept getting up to the edge and just not. Pushing it and they would put some pressure on me, um, in ways that, you know, good mentor, you don’t even realize how that pressure comes.

Yeah, yeah. You just know that I, I just know like I jumped off the edge and everything, you know, with no safety net or anything. Yeah. But I had so much from that mentorship relationship that. You know, that’s how I was able to succeed. That’s awesome. Ashley, you’re off camera in the corner, but I can throw you under the, uh, under the perfect.

Um, excellent. I like you. A biggest, um, the, the biggest impact that my, my mentors have had on me would be similar, Estelle with what you said, this, um, uh, providing opportunities and kind of recognizing. What I had in my, what, what I’m, what my potential is. Maybe even before I recognized it myself. Yes. Right.

And providing these stretch and growth opportunities for me to get out there. Mm-hmm. . Um, and sometimes, you know, I wouldn’t be, I wouldn’t even be aware that, that that’s happening, but um, you know, I think it’s access to opportunities, but on my part, I had to be willing to say, Yes, I’m gonna try this.

Mm-hmm. , and I’m gonna, I’m gonna be brave enough to give it my best, right? Mm-hmm. , and, and, and let you know, let it be a little scary. And then, you know, now, now a new opportunity becomes a habit. Yes. Good. Awesome. Anne. Welcome to the very last couple of minutes and into the two program a number of times.

Today we’re focusing on mentor and mentee relationships. I’m gonna throw you onto the, uh, proverbial spotlight bus and just ask you to share as we are heading out of the session about, uh, a small mentor-mentee moment that meant something to you over the course of your career. Um, Men. I’m trying to think of a specific, I guess one thing I would say as a mentor, I’d say to folks, just take advantage of every, every opportunity that you can get.

And, um, I, I just cut the tail end of what you were saying, but be, get comfortable with being uncomfortable and, um, mm-hmm. , that’s the theme. I, I, I’ve spoken to very, very well known people who will, will say privately how nervous they are in situations. And if everybody seems one way on the outside, it might not be.

Same way they are on the inside, and I think that’s something that’s, uh, really important to remember inside, outside pieces. Talk about this. You can be as loud and gregarious as you are, but maybe that’s not who you are. Maybe that’s the front that you’re putting on. Right? Uh, sadly, I am just loud and gregarious.

I think for a lot of times we’re compensating in all kinds of ways as women rather compensating to make ourselves smaller. Mm-hmm. , we’re compensating to make ourselves larger. We have all kinds of isms. Yeah. And this space, this two seat space, we wanna really use it to amplify voices in ways that are creative and new.

So I hope you continue to join us. Yes. Yeah. I’ll Thank you. I’m gonna go ahead and turn this for a minute, just so that we can tell you guys on.