Trailblazing and handling rejection

(Photo credit @zhangkaiyv)

Happy new year to all of you!! It was great to end the chaos of 2020 by being featured in Thrive Global alongside some amazing female entrepreneurs: Trailblazing Womxn to Watch in 2021. Like many of you, I’m looking forward to a year that allows me the chance to grow and thrive, and not just survive (yes - I’m talking about you, 2020).

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It's a new year -- and time to sharpen those tech job search skills. Check out my Coaching options to get you ready to find the tech job of your dreams.

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It’s that time of year when people like to make predictions, so I thought I’d put forward a couple of my own. What do you think? Email me and let me know if you have other ones to share!

1. Certain tech companies will have to start thinking a LOT harder about their brands and their image/reputation. 

   • As I was reading this CBInsights article about business moats, I noticed all the tech firms were highlighted for cost and network effects moats. That observation along with the recent lawsuits really got me thinking about how cavalier some tech companies are with their brands. There is an understandable focus on the technology & products as a primary driver, but they seem to forget that humans also like to identify with the brands they choose to purchase from. People also like to know that their values are being considered and cultivated, and the constant legal and regulatory challenges are beginning to permeate the wider public awareness. 

2. If we have a K-shaped recovery and a roaring 20s redux, we need to prepare for how to ensure that inequality doesn’t become even worse. 

   • In a few of the big trend articles I saw, others indicated that ‘a K-shaped recovery will send companies to court the wealthy’ and ‘the pent-up desires from 2020 will launch a creative [and hedonistic] decade.’  But if you combine these trends, I see a potentially dangerous further stratatification of our society.  If companies overfocus on those with wealth, the vast majority of people at the other end of the spectrum will be left even further behind. I remain optimistic that some brilliant entrepreneurs will also see this pending challenge and launch new companies to meet this demand.

3. Netflix and streaming will not kill movie theaters.  

   • While I can admit that streaming offers massive convenience, there is still an enduring allure to “going to the movies.” Comedies are funnier, horror movies scarier and romances more sweeping when there are other patrons around you, all experiencing the same thing. One of my favorite movie experiences was watching Scream in a theater full of chatty & engaged people, all of us yelling at the idiots on-screen & having a great time. I miss this sense of camaraderie with my fellow movie-goers, and can’t wait to return to the theater!

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#random

Here’s what we know about the signal from Proxima Centauri : while it’s likely not a message from extraterrestrial beings...the question remains: what if?

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Want a Career in Tech but aren’t sure where to start? Take a look at MY COURSE, ‘TECH SEARCH COMPASS’ FOR STEP-BY-STEP SUPPORT

As a job seeker, should I be concerned about the BigTech lawsuits?

(Photo Credit @jamessutton_photography)

** Update: Since I published this note in my newsletter on Fri 12/18, Google has been sued two more times with private lawsuits. Given the sheer length of time (years) that it will take for these lawsuits to play out in court, it likely won't have short-term impact on recruiting. And the stock market agrees --- GOOG and GOOGL are both up 200+ points since the first lawsuit dropped in mid-October.

For those in the northeast, many of us spent last week digging ourselves out from under at least a foot of snow! (My cousin’s house measured almost 40 inches!) Friday morning was one of those times where I appreciate working from home, so I could enjoy playing in the snow with the dog vs digging my car out before work. Reminded me to take a deep breath and be grateful for nature’s beauty. 

#techtopic

In order to answer the question I posed in my subject line, we first need to understand why these lawsuits are being brought against two of the “BigTech” firms, Facebook and Google. (1) The first big volley was fired this fall in mid-October when the US Dept of Justice (DOJ) joined with 11 state attorneys general to file a lawsuit against Google. They accused the company of illegally stifling competition by contracting with phone manufacturers to ensure the Google search engine was the default one. (To hear a great in-depth discussion of this lawsuit as compared to the 1998 Microsoft case, check out this NPR podcast with Columbia law professor Timothy Wu.) 

(2) The next pair of lawsuits were aimed at Facebook on December 10, with one suit from 40+ state attorneys general and the other from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). These suits allege Facebook acquired both Instagram and WhatsApp in order to quash competition, and recommend that they be broken apart. [To deflect some of the heat, Facebook is also involved in a public spat against Apple, which will be putting user privacy features front and center for its newest iOS release. Facebook claims that these privacy features will cut deeply into its revenue and damage the livelihoods of many small businesses in the process. The claim is that by pushing user privacy, Apple is helping its own revenue stream via the app ecosystem. It’s basically a “both are right” scenario -- and which business model are you, the consumer, more willing to support.]

This week brought more fun for Google, with two additional lawsuits on Wednesday and Thursday this week. (3) The Wednesday suit is led by Texas and 10 other state attorneys general and alleges that Google and co-conspirator Facebook have a monopoly on several parts of the online advertising market, and unlawfully fix prices in the ad auction market. (4) The Thursday lawsuit was brought by 38 states & territories and is also aimed at Google’s search monopoly, but suggests multiple other tactics used to maintain search dominance. It’s likely this suit may be combined with the one from October. 

Overwhelmed yet?? 

(5) One spot of bright light for Google is that their proposed acquisition of Fitbit was approved by European regulators yesterday, as long as the company does two things: a) ensures interoperability for wearable devices on the Android smartphone platform, and b) no European Fitbit user can be targeted by advertising in relation to their health data.

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#random

The coolest way to learn about machine learning AND compose an opera! https://artsandculture.google.com/experiment/blob-opera/ 

Reminds me of the Toy Symphony from the MIT Media Lab, which is also a very cool project to help anyone to make music.

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Want a Career in Tech but aren’t sure where to start? Take a look at MY COURSE, ‘TECH SEARCH COMPASS’ FOR STEP-BY-STEP SUPPORT

Do you understand the narrative behind the ‘magic’ of tech/AI?

(Photo credit @juliusdrost)

On Sunday, I was listening to the latest episode of ‘This American Life’ - one of my *favorite* podcasts for its fantastic ability to tell unique stories. I like to visualize the narrative arc included in each episode (and in each ‘act’ within the episode). This episode’s title was ‘The Magic Show’ and I enjoyed hearing the backstory for how magic tricks are constructed -- and how crucial story-telling is for a mind-blowing magic trick. I remember experimenting with a magic kit as a kid -- and I loved showing off my (clumsy) ability to make a scarf disappear from my hand. Good career coaches are a bit like magicians -- helping you pull together seemingly disparate aspects of your background until -- poof! -- a compelling pitch appears. But as any good magician will tell you -- you need to practice over and over and over...and sometimes you drop the ball instead of palming it.

#random

I highly recommend listening to The Magic Show podcast episode - a completely enjoyable way to spend an hour and might even spark some long-dormant magical yearnings. 

#techtopic

Sometimes, tech innovations can seem like magic.  Fifty-odd years later, the Apollo 11 moon landing is considered both a magic moment and a feat of technological and scientific innovation. I am also continually impressed by the new feats achieved by AI. After ‘listening’ to thousands of recorded coughs, an AI can now diagnose covid19 from just the sound of a cough (and even for those who are asymptomatic!)  Not only are balloons bringing internet to rural areas of the world...but an AI has been developed to allow a Loon balloon to take in wind speed & direction inputs and raise or lower the balloon accordingly.  AI also recently solved a 50-year-old biology challenge known as the ‘protein folding problem’ -- helping biologists determine how and why certain proteins fold themselves into certain shapes. Behind all of these seemingly magical feats is ridiculous amounts of hard work. 

While I don’t want to lose the awe and wonder behind many tech innovations, I know more people in the general public need to understand the narrative behind the “magic.” If people don’t understand how drones work and the software that runs them is developed, then we could end up unknowingly subverting our own privacy interests with AI-powered police drones recording our moves. A lack of understanding about how automated systems are developed can cause us to be unaware that these same systems may be excluding the poor from basic services, jobs and housing. Or we can be fooled into thinking a blog is being written by a human when it was really by an college kid’s AI. 

Tech is increasingly pervasive in all aspects of our society -- and that means we have an individual responsibility to see what’s behind the curtain and the ‘tech magicians’ also need to show us how their tricks are developed (like my favorite YT illusionist Zach King!).

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Want a Career in Tech but aren’t sure where to start? Take a look at MY COURSE, ‘TECH SEARCH COMPASS’ FOR STEP-BY-STEP SUPPORT