Margaret Dawson is the VP Portfolio Product Marketing at Red Hat, recently acquired in the largest tech acquisition in history by IBM for $34B.
Margaret talks about re-entry from an international assignment. Her re-entry company? 2000 Amazon. Imagine that dynamic! She gives us the details including working with Jeff Bezos.
Margaret is an author and global speaker on digital disruption, emerging technologies, open source, cloud computing, and women leadership. As a mother of five, Margaret talks straight-talk about the tug and pull of being a great mom in the environment of a challenging work.
In delivering advice to her younger self, Margaret says, “Let it go. It doesn’t matter. Be true to you. Set those boundaries.”
Join us for a conversation about the human factors in technology.
Margaret Dawson is the VP Portfolio Product Marketing at Red Hat, recently acquired in the largest tech acquisition in history by IBM for $34B.
Margaret talks about re-entry from an international assignment. Her re-entry company? 2000 Amazon. Imagine that dynamic! She gives us the details including working with Jeff Bezos.
Margaret is an author and global speaker on digital disruption, emerging technologies, open source, cloud computing, and women leadership. As a mother of five, Margaret talks straight-talk about the tug and pull of being a great mom in the environment of a challenging work.
In delivering advice to her younger self, Margaret says, “Let it go. It doesn’t matter. Be true to you. Set those boundaries.”
Join us for a conversation about the human factors in technology.
You are listening to the you are techy podcast with Ellen Twomey, episode number three.
Intro:Welcome to the you are techy podcast where it's all about growing in your techy-ness so you can find the tech job of your dreams and now you're host technology learning coach, Ellen and Twomey.
Ellen:Margaret Dawson is the vice president of portfolio product marketing at red hat. Margaret has graced the presence of many tech giants including Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, and Amazon as well as many startups. Early in her career working as a foreign correspondent for Businessweek magazine. Margaret has always had an outside of the box approach to tech, marketing and well everything. Do you not only works in a high pro high profile VP role for red hat, most recently acquired by IBM in the largest software acquisition in history. She also serves as a leader in the women in technology movement. A partial quote of a recommendation of Margaret from a former colleague reads, she makes everyone on the team accountable for her own IX expertise in a way that makes them feel listened to, empowered and proud of the work they're doing. It's rare that I get colleagues I admire and business mentors role models all in one, but I count Margaret and that select group. The fact that as a powerful woman in the technology business that manages to retain her sense of humor and sense of self for me makes her someone to truly look up to. Margaret is an author and global speaker on digital disruption, emerging technologies, open source, cloud computing and women leadership. She hosts a popular women in tech leadership blog series, snored out loud, a self proclaimed intrepreneur. Margaret is the recipient of business role model of the year for women in it and mentor and coach of the year in the Stevie business awards. The call her interesting is a huge understatement. It is an honor and a privilege to have you on the program. Margaret, welcome.
Margaret:Wow. That was the most incredible. Could you just follow me around like all day long? I'm sure. Okay.
Ellen:So Margaret. Let's start off. I'd love for you to tell us about your career journey and how motherhood played a role in your career and family decisions. And then we need to touch on your foreign travels. Maybe if you can wrap all those together. So however it works for you.
Margaret:So I always find this question interesting because I think of my career journey is literally a cricket path. Um, and I've actually talked about that a lot with the audiences and people that I coach that so often we think there's gotta be this perfect ladder, you know, straight up. But my might look like that if you just looked at my trajectory, if you looked backwards, you know, which is always wonderful. Hindsight is, is so perfect in, in the way it appears. But the reality is it was this incredible zig-zaggy line. And every decision that I made had a very clear reason at the time. And motherhood and family were often, you know, a critical part of that. Um, we actually had something in our family that we call the decision grid and all the kids have used it and they continue to use it today. And we've actually, some of the kids have passed it on to friends of theirs, but basically it was whenever you're facing a decision and it can be small or large, you have kind of your criteria on the left and then you have the options or the different things you're deciding against each other. Um, on the upper part, think of a spreadsheet, cause we always did an Excel or Google spreadsheet and then you have a, you have a, a grading system, right? Let's say, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna rate each thing one to five. And so every time there was an opportunity from the time the kids were really small, actually, um, you know, I would go to them and we'd have a family meeting and I'd say, okay, you know, I'm being asked to take on this new role, or I got called by a recruiter to do this job, or there's like three different job opportunities, you know, what do you guys think? And you know, we'd walk through it and Oh, one of my sons was reminding me about one of these decisions the other day. I don't remember why we were talking about it, but he said, remember that one you had this job opportunity. It was actually at Nike, which is like, you know, I worked there in high school so it was like dream job and it was head of I think Asia Pacific communications for all of Nike and it was 50% travel and then 25% of the time I was supposed to be in the Beaverton headquarters and we lived outside of Seattle. And one of my commitments to my children was not moving them because I moved 13 times growing up, which we can get to it a different time. But you know, so we went through this decision grid and there was like a job at Microsoft, a job at Nike. And then I think a startup and you know, we walked through this and one of my sons that, no offense mom, but your job one is being our mom so you can't do that job, you can't take that job. And I was just like, I think it was five or something at that time. And I was just like, who are you? And so I have paid for this sense that, and believe me, my children know how to negotiate way too well, which they take advantage of it. But I mean I think the point of that was was multiple things is one is as a working mother and the fact I never stopped working and working as such core to who I am, but I never felt like I had to choose between being a great mother and being, you know, a professional or a leader or a woman in tech or whatever label you want to put on it because both of them identify who I am and both are so important. But you do make tradeoffs like let's be real, right? There's trade offs and fact that my kids were always involved. It empowered them, I think to feel part of that. Like they always visited my office, they helped make decisions that when I'd come home and had a crappy day, I would tell them about it and what I learned from it. And so I think motherhood is an amazing opportunity because it makes us so vulnerable in some ways and raw and real. And if we can bring those two parts of our life together, I think that's what really makes us successful. Right? You take those learnings and that, that compassion and that nurturing and bring it into the workplace. And you take your curiosity and your, your, you know, commitment to success and your drive and your, your, I don't know, passions or whatever in the workplace, back home. You know, I think that's when it works. I think we think too much. We have to separate it. And I know that wasn't your question, but I, I feel very passionate about that, that we always feel like we have to choose. And I always joke that I think it's work-life imbalance and that's how it works for me. Right? So it's 24 seven which motherhood is anyway. So what the hell throw in an 80 hour job on top of that. Right. But I don't know. It just works. You know, you cook dinner while you're on the phone to Japan and then, you know, you put the kids to bed and then you, you know, do some email or whatever it is. But for me it was, it was always a constant part. And I learned early to set boundaries based on my role as a mother. And I learned to be honest and transparent and if a company didn't like it and that was the wrong company for me.
Ellen:Right, right. I think you did answer my question. I think it's, um, you know, there's no perfect answer and it's always a learning journey, but I think that they can, you know, I love that you shared with your children if you had a bad day. I, I always, um, especially my sons, I always, cause I have two daughters and two sons and my sons tend to want to talk to me about video games. And I always tell him, ask, ask me about what I like because I think that teaching them that empathy, you know, sometimes we'll think of that as selfish and I'm like, no, you need to ask about my day. You need to show you me, you're curious about me and what happened to me at some point. And, um, I think it's a great life skill and I love that you'll tell them that you've had a bad day because, um, to think that we all have great days every day, if that's how you think it's supposed to be, I think that can steer them on the wrong course.
Margaret:Oh, I agree. And you said a really powerful word that I think is a driver for life. Ideally that's empathy. Um, and I think we don't use the word empathy enough in work. You know, we, we somehow only tie that to being a good human. Um, but I think being a good leader, having that empathic, you know, compassion or uh, curiosity or just, you know, just giving, uh, who'd about the people that work with and, and understanding that, you know, life happens. And how do you react to that? You know, as a, as a professional, as a, as a manager, as a leader, as a role model, uh, makes a huge difference in both. I think the morale of your team, the productivity of your team and you know, how successful you are. And I always hope that karma catches up cause there's plenty of assholes that are leaders and, and that probably, you know, will, will never go away. But I, I, I cannot give up the hope that I think compassion and empathy and you know, strategic thinking and strong leadership are not mutually exclusive. And I think that women are uniquely, um, built or capable of, of driving that balance, which is why it's so important that we get more women leaders because I think we will continue to push for that balance of compassion and strategic and operational excellence.
Ellen:[inaudible][inaudible] I love that. I love that. It's both and it doesn't, you know, so often that's seen as a weakness. And so I think that's, I love the way you said that. Tell us about some of these foreign travels I have. All the places you've been or lived in is not that
Margaret:many. I think it's more exposure and working in all of them. I mean, it started, you know, I mentioned that I'd moved a lot as a child. So, um, back in the 70s, 60s and 70s, and the automotive industry, which my dad worked in, um, I think IBM was like this too, where you would work somewhere for a couple of years or year and a half and they'd move you, you know, there was no internet at that time. And so it was like, Oh, thanks for doing that. So great in Denver. Could you go do that in San Francisco? Oh, thank you. Could you go do that in Portland, Oregon? Or, you know, wherever it was and Oh, now you need to come back to Detroit and you know, hang out at the mothership for a year. Okay, now we're going to ship you back out. There was this kind of constant every year and a half, you know, family conference. Um, so I think with that provided me fundamentally was, um, an absolute hate of high school. No, it's not. It's going to say, Oh, that's another topic for another day. No, uh, school was horrible, but, uh, was, was this ability to adapt and really weekly try to understand a different culture, a different perspective. You know, when it came out of survival, right? Like literally you'd move from LA to Denver and be like, Oh my God, I just figured out like what to wear to not get beat up and now they're wearing Levi's and cowboy boots. Like I don't, I can't do this. Like, you know, and so what, what I adapted that to in a positive way cause I, they could have just come out an angry person, you know, Oh my parents moved me every year and a half. And it's so interesting to see how people adapt to their life situations. But what I took from it and try to do positively was I have the ability to walk into a room, walk into a new culture and quickly grasp like some fundamental perceptions about that in order to not just survive, but to um, adapt to relate, to be empathic, right? And understand there are some fundamental ways we are all just absolutely the same, right? So it doesn't matter if I'm in Tokyo or Istanbul or Montreal or Amsterdam or whatever it is. Like, there are just ways that humans need and want to connect and feel respected and feel validated and feel appreciated and just, you know, like, and it's so foundational. I mean, and going back to your motherhood thing, if we can teach our children to have that global empathy, I mean imagine, you know, what the world would be like. Um, it's a nice fantasy but, but it is about perspective. So I've traveled all over Europe, North America, Asia Pacific. I lived in Taiwan for nearly a decade. Two of my sons were born in Taiwan. Um, had amazing opportunities there. It's what attracted me to tech. Mmm. And I, I just love experiencing new places and people and things and food. And you know, you bring that back. And I, I believe the most powerful aspect is when you are looking at your own culture and country from the outside in it, it changes you forever. Because no matter what you're taught or where you grow up in America, you are automatically, you know, a product of the American psyche. Right. And we have things I didn't know we had propaganda and I thought we were the perfect democracy. And I thought, you know, Christianity was the only way. Like, you know, you come out of this, you think you're so openminded, but then you realize you have this belief system that is quite structured and unless you're forced to get out of that and just traveling all over Asia and Europe and living in a different country where I had to learn a language and, and learning these fundamental truths of humankind, but how we are also different and that that's okay too. Um, you know, seeing beauty in Buddhist monks, you know, going to the temple, there's no way I could say that that is, you know, something inherently evil and bad, right? They are the most peaceful creatures on the world. Or I'm watching a Hindu ceremony and you know, fair. And Aussie India, you know, you just, it just breaks your ability to think. There's one way of doing things. And if I was to tie that back to leadership, it would be letting people find and discover their path, whether that's their career path or the path to solving a situation instead of leaders who say, here's the problem and here's the way you're going to fix it, and here's what I want that to look like. That's very different than saying, here's the problem we're trying to solve. I think this is the destination. Why don't you come back and let me know how you think we should solve it? And letting people, you know, work that out their way in their own way. Even if it's totally different from the way you would do it, but if as long as the result is you've hit your destination or you've achieved that plan, or you figured out the problem, who, who cares how they did it right. And we don't do that enough. Okay. I agree. Completely agree. That's fascinating. Diving into another fascinating topic. I'm, I'm so excited that I get to even ask you this question because it just, no, no, I mean, it just, I mean, what was it like to work at Amazon in 2000 I think? I think they were like, I mean, were they even were the attorney was small where they just, no, no, they were already public. Yeah. So here's, here's what not to do. What I did, if you could work at a company at the only time in their hire history where you make no money and don't make money off the stock, that would be me at Amazon. I do what I say, not what I do. No, I'm just kidding. But financially it's true. It's why I'm still working until I die. But, um, although I guess bayzos is still working and he's a kajillion air, so it doesn't matter. It was, I mean, here's what I'll say there. It was a very challenging culture, especially as a mother with young children, which I will get to, but let, let me start on the positive first because I think, well, when I'm, I'm a, I'm an optimist first always, or try to be, but you know, one of the things is I got that job at Amazon, uh, when we were ready to come back to the United States. So it was a re-entry, which is very hard to do when you have started building a career overseas, regardless of where it is. There's kind of this and your Mark that if you stay in a country or region and are an expat professional for more than 10 years, it almost becomes, you have to stay forever. Mmm. Because the reentry into American work, life in a credible way is really hard. So the Amazon job, um, gave me the opportunity to come back and it was the perfect transition role because I was running international, um, PR for all of Amazon, so it was a global job. So I still had those touch points with this global community that, you know, I learned to love. Um, but it was in Seattle, which is, you know, was home and, uh, it, it, you know, gave us a chance to, to kind of re-entry or whatever. And I got through my culture shock in a way that was a little more gentle. I think even though it was hard because of the fact that I was still traveling to Asia and traveling to Europe. Um, and so I, you know, I will always be incredibly thankful for that opportunity. It was also amazing cause it was still very early in e-commerce, right? If you think back to 2000 it's so now such a, just a normal part of our existence to go on our phone and say, Oh, I need more of this supplement and just order it. You know, cause it's already in your, your order history. Um, but this was a time I remember, I can't even tell you how many times I would answer questions to media about the danger of cookies. Like who cares about cookies? Like how many times do you hit? We collect cookies. Okay, click my cookies. I don't care. Right? But in 2000, something as simple as a digital footprint was absolutely shocking to people. Right. Because they did not have even the most basic understanding of, of the internet. Right. It was still, it was still early in just the life of the worldwide web as we know it. And so, um, I got to be, you know, on the ground as e-commerce started scaling and becoming part of life and I, I was part of a very small team of all people that had an international experience. So we were kind of a like a tiger team of about 12 or 15 people that each had a different role in the industry or in the, in the company that was specifically global. Um, and so there was an international treasurer, there was an international PR in communications, there was an international marketing director and we were part of this team that would go all over the world. And we're launching, um, the, the other international sites cause at that time, Amazon, there was two things happening. One is that Amazon was going from just being American based.com do launching um, in France and the UK and Germany, in Japan and in Canada. I think that was the main areas. Plus we were promoting all of the sites in every country around there. So in the UK we tried to get Nordic customers right and whatever. So we would try it in Austria, you try to send them to D, Oh I forgot about Germany. So we had Amazon dot E that we launched. And so that was kind of the global expansion with the, the core, uh, books, music and movies, right. They were kind of trying to become the best place to discover and buy books, music and movies. But at the same time, Amazon was trying to transition and was transitioning from being, you know, its own online store being an eCommerce platform. And so I've learned about this transition to a platform. And that was kind of my earliest learnings of the power of being the platform and having the marketplace or you know, it's almost a hub and spoke model, but whoever owns the platform and who owns that data and the technology that everyone else connects to and builds on. And you can see that in look at Salesforce, look at whoever is that platform. And so it was understanding the power of the network, the power of the platform, the platform of owning the data and the customer that, I don't know if I realized at the time how that was becoming kind of part of my, you know, just in my vein, so to speak. You know, and that I would take that and, and learn from it. But more importantly, I think continue to, to make decisions based on that when I, cause I realize that fundamental truth and power that that brings. And really everything they did at that time around the eCommerce platform is what led to the development of AWS, which came after, you know, I left by a few years, but they built that for themselves and for, you know, their, their e-commerce partners. So it was kind of a natural thing because they built out this massive infrastructure they had you. And then it was like, wait a minute, how do we take this experience of building out our own network, our own infrastructure, our own global data center footprint? And is there a horizontal business model that goes with it? Well, yes there is. And Amazon was amazing at taking risks at, you know, thinking ahead of everybody else and being very bold and pushing forward. And a lot of that came from Jeff Bezos. Um, he was, uh, a challenging individual, but I would never say anything but him being[inaudible] probably one of the most incredible visionaries you know, that I've ever met. And one of the most incredible spokespeople, you know, when he would go overseas, I would often be with him, with the journalists. I've never seen anyone develop a rapport and make every single journalist feel like he's telling them something for the first time or he, you know, he would develop a personal relationship and, and you would brief him on anything five minutes before and it was as if you'd known it his own life, like the way he could consume information and then make it something very compelling and personal, like it was in him forever, uh, was amazing. And I definitely took that with me. I mean, he is a brilliant individual. Um, so that's a lot of the positives. I mean, that was across all those different areas, right back to the challenge. It was not a positive working environment in that I'd never, yeah. Seeing grown men cry before, which I did that, um, people were constantly stabbing you in the back. Um, and at that time it was a much smaller company. But I don't know if this culture has changed where everyone was so concerned with being in Jeff's inner circle. Okay. They would do anything to do that, including making sure you failed. So I'd never been in, it's like the opposite of team sports, right. Which I grew up in, you know, doing both theater and, and sports. And so to me it was like, wait, you're not supposed to stab me in the back because maybe I'm gonna do a layup next time. You need to pass the ball down the court. Like that's not the way it works. Right. But it was all about I am going to be successful in this world and if Jeff likes me, I will be successful. And it was very much a relationship with Jeff, um, at that time. And I don't know if that has changed immensely. I mean, obviously they've scaled huge and you can't have that one on one, but, um, but you know, I would leave work at five to go get the kids from childcare and people would say things like, Oh, it must be nice to be, you.[inaudible] my immediate reaction at that time, you know, I was much younger, it was, was defensiveness. It was like, you have no idea what my life and work is like. You don't know I'm going to be on a phone call at five o'clock while I fixed dinner or after the kids go to bed, I'm going to be on, you know, a phone with Asia or get up at 4:00 AM and talk to Paris. Like you don't know what I'm doing. I'm just not sitting here in this chair. But that was my early, I think for me that those boundaries were, I had nothing to be defensive about. I was working my butt off, you know, and working very, very long hours and was very successful at what I did. But I was constantly feeling like I was having to overcome the fact that, you know, I was a mom and I was working here and you know, there were, it's a lot of single young people as you would expect in the year 2000 and Seattle e-commerce and Amazon culture. So they made a point of saying they hired rock stars and it was at that time, especially, I don't know if it is the same now where it was like a big deal, if you even got an interview at Amazon back then, but then once you were there, it was like you were spending your whole time justifying that you were qualified and you know, watching your back[inaudible] though. Mmm. The good news is I took those positive experiences and positive learnings with me. Um, and, and try to hold onto that, you know, what, you know, what was that foundation? And just practically having Amazon on my resume has helped me immensely, especially right after that. I mean, that was a, a great, um, help for my career being there two years and yeah. Then I went and got a lot of massage and, and uh, you know, found a good therapist to get over the rest of it so I could, I just, I felt completely beat up after two years there. It was hard. It was hard to tell that younger Margaret that defensive Margaret, uh, without, uh, using my potty mouth. I, you know, cause I, I think it's that, you know, pretty much showing those people to, you know, what you'd expected Detroit or to say, uh, no, I think it's like let it go. Like it doesn't matter. Right. It's like be be true to you and set those boundaries and you know, say thank you. Like when they say, Oh, I wish I was you and, and say something like, thank you. I bet you do. You shouldn't because I've said no because I've set boundaries. Clearly you think you have to stay here till 8:00 PM I'm going to go spend time with my children, which is much more important than sitting at this desk. So it's like having that, that self awareness and that, um, that confidence to know that you're doing the right thing and it's not apologizing. And I think that just takes time. I mean, we don't get that. I feel like women and mothers, we don't get that till we're like in our forties where we finally feel, hopefully, I know a lot of women that don't even feel it then don't, don't. Right. Right. And then we can, we'll get to that because that's kind of, that's the Genesis of, of this passion project. We're going to talk about that. It's that feeling grounded in who you are. Um, and there's a great, um, psychologist that calls that being differentiated, right? It's like you are grounded so that people cannot sway you by their words and, and, and it's not, it's not an arrogance. It is just, it is a, it is a self. Love it as a self understanding where no, you're good enough the way you are. And if other people don't see it, you know, and you're being true to your values and, and you know, doing what's right. It's not being negatively impacted by that. Not listening to all that input, but that's really hard when you're in your 20s and 30s. It's hard.
Ellen:I think it is hard. Let's talk about the need for human connection in the digital transformation. What, why is this increased so much and, and how can we, how can we really focus on,
Margaret:I don't know if it's increased. I think my hypothesis is we're still forgetting about it. And so in talking about it, I'm finding there is an increased awareness or a desire to understand this, but we are still starting with technology. And I am, and I'm coming from a perspective of, you know, the technology industry, but I think it's true across a lot of places is that we look to technology to solve the problem, right? Um, we just need faster internet. We need a different device. Um, we need better software. Um, you know, we need, we need cloud computing, we need containers, we need Coopernetties, whatever the hype phrases of the time. And I'm not expecting any of you to understand that, but it's just, you know, just the hype phrases in, in technology and, and you know, are you need the latest iPhone, whatever it is. We, we somehow think that if we just had that cool new technology or built this new software, it would solve all our problems. It would be the panacea. Um, if you talk to governments or enterprises today, they think if they just could use more public cloud, you know, put everything in AWS, their problems would be solved. The challenges that technology alone never solves what we need, right? It is human ingenuity. It is and it is human connection. And, and if you think about it, I mean, why are we doing a video call, right? Why do you need to see me? Why do we want to have that, that eye to eye contact or why do I fly to Vienna to meet with a customer or to speak to our salespeople or, and I'm going to point us is to speak at a women's conference. Why would I do that? Why can't we just talk on the phone? Why can't you read my blog post? Because it doesn't give us the same emotional connection, right? Think about when you shake someone's hand. There is something that happens not just physically, but almost like an energy, right? That we get where we immediately decide if we trust that person or not. Right? You know, you can't. I, I like to say you can't do that with a digital handshake, right? You don't have that foundational ability to, to judge. And as humans, we are wired to have intuition and insights. That's what separates us from most other creatures is that we have this, the soul, this intuition, this, this, this, I don't know what to call it. Common sense connection, right? That that changes our interactions and it keeps us survive. That's why we've survived. It's survival of the fittest, right? At a foundational level. So as we move through this next digital age, which some people say this is a third, fourth, I don't know, whatever one it is, we are, we are moving faster. Technology is innovating at a, at a pace like we've never seen or, um, you know, and we're, and we're, we're still thinking that the next thing is what's going to save us. But if we do that without stopping and making sure that any technology or any innovation is providing the right human connection and that we're bringing in that, that need for humans to interact, experience and connect with not just the technology, but the humans around it and behind it, we won't be successful. Right. Um, and you can, you can tie this to any technological advancement in the history of mankind, right? Whether it's a spaceship, you know, was it technology that solved it or was it somebody that figured out what was wrong? Was it, you know, and so, you know, every time we, we try to solve a problem, if we just throw technology at it, it's going to solve a portion of it, but it's not going to reach the potential because we're not taking in the human factors as, as I call it. Right? I think there are all these human factors that go into play and ideally we put those first, not after. And so does that make, are those human factors UX or is UX a portion of that, or how does, yeah, no, that's a great question. So, you know, user experience, user interface, so UX, UI, you know, whatever you want to call it is absolutely a fundamental part of, of the human factors. Right. And I think building on that, that comment I made just a second ago is that I would love it if every time someone built a piece of software that they would start with the experience that they want to create. Very rarely, um, does anyone think, Oh, okay, I'm going to build software to help these different applications talk to each other so I can make better decisions. Let's just take a very basic problem that we try to solve over and over again. If we started with, okay, what would be the experience that the business person trying to get those data insights wanted? So do they want to click a button and see a dashboard? Do they want to get a report that tells them the five things that their customers did overnight across it's different applications? I don't know. But if we could start with, you know, that business problem and that experience that we were trying to create, you know, do we want customers just click once and see, you know, everything that is blue in my platform, I don't know, like, but we don't do that, right? We start with, I'm going to build software that brings together these different applications so I can give information to the customer. And so the user experience and focusing on that first, starting with that is, is a fundamental part of that human connection, that human factor. There's other ones which, you know, start with, I mean, the one I always start with is just have a vision, which kind of is, is a similar thing, which was started the end in mind. And so maybe, maybe the, the common denominator in all of this is, is that starting with a destination, right? People want to be inspired, but take a company or take any project you're doing, you know, when do you get that human engagement? When people feel inspired, right? Well, you want to believe in something bigger than ourselves. We want to be inspired. We want to believe that the world can be a better place. We want to believe that we can make a difference. You know, all those things. And for an organization or a group to have that clear vision, like, here's where we're going, this is exciting. You want to be part of this. Right? Um, and then there's cultural aspects. It's how you make personal connections. Like, if you're a CEO, you know, do you take the time to walk around, you know, and talk to your employees? Um, you know, how often do you go out and just talk to your customers and see what they're doing? You know, if you're managing a restaurant, are you walking the room and making sure everyone's happy? Or are you just too busy delivering food? So it doesn't matter what industry you're in. I mean, I tend to always, you know, go back to technology, but we can take these human factors even outside of a digital transformation, you know, to just a, a business transformation and they still apply, right? How are you rewarding people? How are you developing your people? How are you breaking down silos and getting people to collaborate? Collaboration is a huge human factor. And if you look at organizations that are truly trying to become digital leaders, if their organization is still working in silos, it will not happen, right? Because digital technologies in their very nature are art transcendence of, of silos, right? So if you're, if you're trying to build these amazing things, but you're still, I dunno, maybe you have five different data centers, one for each line of business or the lines of business. Don't talk to each other or you have it that doesn't talk to each other. Or developers don't talk to operations or whatever your silos are. I mean, you know, choose your, your boundaries. You also can't be successful. So I think, you know, user experience is, is, is a critical, absolute critical piece of it. But there's many other factors that go into it as well.
Ellen:Wow that Margaret Dawson, she's pretty incredible and we have more with Margaret in the second half of our conversation and our next episode we'll talk about what it means to be a leader in technology who happens to be a woman mentorship, interviewing and authenticity. Ella Margaret's blog snored out loud. I'll see you there.
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