Real Technologists

I consider Robin Yeman a friend, though our story starts out with me being awestruck after listening to Robin present at the DevOps Enterprise Summit in 2019. She was among an impressive list of speakers that year including Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Rosalind Radcliffe, and Jonathan Smart.

In her role as a Senior Technical Fellow at Lockheed Martin, Robin partnered with Northrop Grumman Fellow, Suzette Johnson to present on a topic they called industrial DevOps. This is a hardcore mixing of software and systems engineering. What else would we expect from Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grummond? They are two of the DoD's most prolific defense contractors.

During the talk, they discussed ways to apply DevOps and continuous delivery to significant cyber-physical systems. Cyber-physical systems are things like robotics, warfighting, transportation, and complex medical devices.

My mind was blown. After they finished, I scurried to the stage to introduce myself. I had just begun working with the US Air Force and with the F-35 joint program office. Their experience and their materials would prove invaluable.

Robin and Suzette were approachable and gracious; after introductions, we compared notes and realized we were all, in one way or another, supporting a controversial figure named Nick Chaillan. He was the Air Force's First Chief software officer.

Over the course of the next few months, I reached out to Robin for insights and to bounce ideas about challenges to accelerating work done by and for the DoD. It's been a few years since that first introduction. That is how I went from a fan, to part of a network, to being a friend.

The more I've gotten to know Robin, the more incredible and inspiring her journey has been. Like me, this Real Technologist grew up in a small town, the type with small graduating classes, and where you seem to know everybody. Oneida is in upstate New York, about 30 minutes from Syracuse.

Trac Bannon:

To be honest, I don't remember when or how I was introduced to Duena Blomstrom. I do know that throughout the lockdowns, we began randomly hopping on calls together and chatting. It really helped us navigate the seeming melees that embrace the globe during the lockdowns.

We are constantly finding strong deep topics that focus on humans. We've debated gender affirming care, child rearing, and the joys of having a partner. And if I can be totally honest, I'd consider her a friend and a crush. That's right, a crush. This is not a romantic crush. This is when you connect with someone's message and their ways of expressing themselves. Hang on and you'll understand why.

One of the topics Duena and I come back to again and again is the idea of cognitive overload and human debt. Human debt is the kissing cousin of technical debt. Tech debt accrues Based on the decisions we make and possibly shortcuts we take that we will need to address or fix over time. As we make decisions, debt accumulates just like financial debt. The longer you wait to pay down the debt, generally, the bigger the debt grows and the greater the effort needed to fix it.

Human debt follows the same pattern. Human debt accrues when people's issues are not addressed and needs not met. When you ignore people's needs, human debts accrue at the team level, and even at the enterprise. Teams can be empowered to reduce their human debt by learning to measure and improve their behaviors to become happier, to feel a sense of psychological safety and to experience high performing dynamics.

I can talk to Duena about the human element of the technical world and she just gets it.

She's also wildly independent and authentic. When we got together to record her episode of Real Technologists, she showed up in beautiful colors, perfectly applied vibrant makeup, nifty earrings, and vaping... all this to record audio.

Duena Blomstrom:

If I were to puff on this... Will you hear it and destroy your audio?

Trac Bannon: There's raw authenticity for you. She was savvy enough to ask if the mics and recording equipment would pick up the sound of her vaping... Of course Bob, our recording engineer, popped on screen and told her to hit the vape and he would check the sound levels. Duena was cleared to vape and be her normal self. It was midday US and Duena dialed in from her office in the UK.

Duena Blomstrom:

I'm just tired, babe. I've been awake since 5:00 AM.

Trac Bannon: A few years ago, I was introduced to Helen Beal through our work with the DevOps Institute. Helen was the Chief Ambassador and I was submitting my credentials for consideration as an ambassador.

We are both combed-shaped people and naturally had so many topics and passion areas to talk about. What is a comb-shaped person, you may ask?

It's more likely that you've heard the metaphor of a "T-shaped person". The horizontal bar of the letter "T" represents the breadth of skills in multiple areas... the vertical bar of the "T" represents exceptional depth in one area. T-shaped folks are very very competent in their primary field. Their breadth is a little more shallow though it is this mix that helped "Ts" to collaborate with a wider context.

Well, what, then is a comb-shaped person? The spine of the comb represents competency and awareness in a bunch of topics... much like the horizontal bar for the T-shaped person. Each tooth of the comb is a different area of depth. This is Helen Beal. She is particularly valuable in situations with rapid change... she is that person who can synthesize with many different deep specializations.

I admire this life force named Helen Beal. We have a shared commitment to technical expertise, continuous learning, and community engagement. But it is her ability to juggle roles and interests that makes me simply a fan girl. It was time to learn more about this Real Technologist.

Helen was born in Yorkshire in the North of England. The countryside, history, and distinct regional character remind me of Vermont. When she was six, her father left the Royal Air Force and took a job with a civilian airline that included moving the family closer to Gatwick and the international airports.

Her mother was a science teacher, and it was her mother who decided to teach her to read along with her older brother Simon when Helen was barely three...

Helen Beal: So my mother taught me to read when I was three. I was holding books up when I was one. I held them upside down. I can actually read quite effectively upside down, which is quite handy when you're opposite someone at a desk or in a restaurant and there aren't quite enough menus to go around.

Simon is 18 months older than me. And the reason my mother taught me to read at 3 is because she was teaching him and she could see that I was also ready. So she taught us both together.

I've always been a bookworm. And that's kind of my first love really is reading and storytelling and writing with, you know, they're so intertwined.

And I think at school I was a swot, frankly. I was a nerd. I really enjoyed school. I really enjoyed learning. I was the girl that would finish the maths exercises and ask the maths teacher for more maths, please.

Full transcript and resources for this episode: https://realtechnologists.org/

I first met Rosalind Radcliffe during the early days of the pandemic. We were both invited guests on a technical panel called DevOps Unbound. Our topic? Exploring the reality of DevOps and compliance. Following usual protocol, the moderator shared the names of the other panelists. Time for a little Googling.

Rosalind's experience in education pops off the page at you: an IBM distinguished engineer recently elevated and celebrated as a prestigious IBM fellow. Much of her focus appeared to be on z/OS. z/OS is a 64-bit operating system for IBM z/Architecture mainframes. It's been around since the early 2000's. Being on a panel with Rosalind discussing and debating DevOps was going to be interesting.

Our panel discussion was meaty diving into the fallacy that you can buy agile and do DevOps. Where Rosalind and I found we were squarely aligned is on the core challenge: the real meaning of modernization and the curse of buzzwords.

Full transcript and resources for this episode: https://realtechnologists.org/

Jennifer Leggio is a fixture in the Cybersecurity industry. She's a no-nonsense communicator and that makes her perfect for her role in marketing, security solutions, and building communities.

Jennifer has an honest approach to discussing security which has become her trademark. Jennifer is legendary in her push for accountability and security marketing. Building on principles of disclosing with integrity and honesty in content. It's no surprise that she's a Chief Marketing Officer for Netography, a startup Cybersecurity platform addressing the complex networks we use now... different devices, remote and hybrid operations.

In her own words, "we must truly care in our bones about helping others protect their companies." This is the type of empathy that Jennifer brings to Cybersecurity domain.

When she started her career, Jennifer was focused on writing; not technology. Her journey from writer to well known voice for Cybersecurity is filled with discovery.