Muse and Metrics S5 EP3 — Growth Mindset with Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba [Guest Bio, Summary, Audio and Transcript]

Guest Bio

Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba, an alumna of the University of Benin, Nigeria, with a degree in Computer Engineering, embarked on her professional journey at Soteria Eye Clinic Limited, handling Billing and Administration. Her role involved extensive engagement with over thirty Health Management Organizations, where she honed her skills in client interaction, verification, and benefits administration.

Her transition into the realm of design began with a graphic design role at a non-profit organization, marking the start of her deep dive into the fascinating interplay between human interaction and technology. As an experience designer, Oghenetejiri champions purpose-driven design, focusing on forging meaningful connections between brands and people.

Colleagues recognize her as an innovative thinker, consistently bringing fresh ideas to discussions and meetings. Her innate drive to fix things and find solutions to complex problems sets her apart as a problem solver, not only for her challenges but also for those posed by others. Her expertise in research and user experience design enables her to craft impactful and meaningful products.

In her current roles as a Women TechMakers Ambassador and Co-organizer of the Google Developers Group Warri, she continues to demonstrate her commitment to technology and design. Oghenetejiri’s passion lies in the development and collaboration with high-performance teams, aimed at creating disruptive technology and business platforms with a tangible impact on daily life.

Through her journey, Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba stands as a beacon of innovation and creativity, inspiring those around her to explore the limitless possibilities at the nexus of technology, design, and human interaction.

Summary

Key Highlights:

1. Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba’s Background and Path in Tech:

• Graduated in Computer Engineering from the University of Benin, Nigeria.
• Began her career at Soteria Eye Clinic Limited, engaging with Health Management Organizations.
• Transitioned into design with a graphic design role at a non-profit organization, eventually becoming an experience designer.
• Currently a Women Techmakers Ambassador and Co-organizer of Google Developers Group Warri.

2. Role in Fostering Community and Mentorship:

• Highlights the significant role of tech communities and mentorship in her transition to UX and product design.
• Actively participates in tech forums, emphasizing the impact of community in personal and professional development.

3. Journey to Product Design and User Experience:

• Shares her progression to UX design, sparked by participation in tech events and hackathons.
• Played a key role in developing a digital diagnostic tool during the COVID-19 pandemic, showcasing the real-world application of design.

4. Balancing Design Aesthetics with Functionality:

• Discusses finding the balance between visual appeal and usability in design.
• Reflects on the journey from junior to senior design roles, highlighting the importance of comprehensive UX elements.

5. Insights into the Tech Industry’s Dynamics:

• Engages in conversation with Philippa Burgess about the evolving and challenging nature of the tech sector.
• Discusses collaborative processes with clients, aligning design solutions with project constraints and goals.

6. Guidance for Aspiring Designers and Tech Enthusiasts:

• Encourages pursuit of passion in tech and exploration of different areas.
• Suggests using communities, mentorship, and structured resources to navigate the tech landscape effectively.

7. Personal Growth and Career Development:

• Advocates for risk-taking, adaptability, and continual learning in career progression.
• Shares experiences in leading design projects, emphasizing the need to stay adaptable and evolve with industry trends.

Conclusion:

In this Muse and Metrics episode, Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba delves into her transformative journey in tech and design, underscoring the vital roles of community support, mentorship, and embracing a growth mindset. Her insights as a dynamic designer and tech community leader provide valuable perspectives and motivation for those aiming to make a mark in the tech industry.

Listen Now

Transcript

(This is a raw transcript — there may be errors)

00;00;07;08–00;00;19;28
Philippa Burgess
Hello and welcome to Muse and Metrics. This is your host Philippa Burgess. Welcome to Season five Episode three. Today’s topic is Growth Mindset.

00;00;20;00–00;00;34;22
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
So my name is Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba with Kimoyo Insights, which is a research platform that automates user research for Africa. WTM Ambassador, which is excited about.

00;00;34;22–00;00;35;22
Philippa Burgess
Because.

00;00;35;24–00;01;00;24
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
It’s all about giving back to community and when I look through my Insurtech journey, it all has to do with community getting started and getting to the point where I am. Currency is a community and also I am also one of the co-leads of the GTD community as well, my local community, and it has all been an absolute experience so far and I love it all.

00;01;00;24–00;01;33;18
Philippa Burgess
It’s wonderful. I also am new to being a WTM ambassador. I started last November, so almost coming out, not quite a year and it has been one of the things that yeah, it’s coming up on. Yeah, we’re moving quickly and that was the thing I was missing because I have I’m in my third career and I had left industries that had really very tight knit communities and I wanted to sort of set off on a new direction and it was missing community.

00;01;33;18–00;02;22;25
Philippa Burgess
And this has given me that sense of community and it’s been so incredibly powerful to have that. And then to help me expand and build additional communities through the resources and friendships and opportunities that I’ve gotten through this program. Yeah. So you also speak to having so there’s two sides of it. There’s what we get as ambassadors and the community we have with each other and the resources that were provided by Google and then the communities that we helped to empower and that we built as leaders and how we want to speak and share and empower, inspire others through our learnings, our skills, our trade, and how we want to address issues that are real

00;02;22;25–00;02;47;12
Philippa Burgess
issues and challenges for women, especially in the tech industry, as well as inspire other people about what’s possible. You talk about this community that helped you. Who are these people? Is it from an academic forum, from a professional forum? Who were the ways that you were able to identify mentors? How did you even set up on the path of I want to be a product designer?

00;02;47;14–00;02;48;19
Philippa Burgess
Okay.

00;02;48;22–00;03;10;07
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
All right. And oftentimes when I think of all the stories of three very interested one, because the first time I made up my mind, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to do formal design. I knew I was just interested in tech and because I had a bit of graphic design experience, I just said, okay, maybe this is something I’ll be interested in.

00;03;10;07–00;03;32;14
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
And I went on Twitter. I went to search for any person that was in my community. That was just what I did. And the name came up Chelsea Freeman. And at the time he was the lead for my local community and I reached out to him and told him that I’m thinking of dabbling in Sunsilk. I don’t know exactly how to go about it.

00;03;32;17–00;03;57;05
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
And it was like, okay, send me your contacts. I’m going to Video Call. Which he did. We got a call. He told me a few things about the community and I told him I’m interested. I was like, okay, when you call me, you’ll get connected with autistic people as well to get resources. And it would even help in making a decision on which of the parts you would want to go with.

00;03;57;07–00;04;19;20
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
And I did. I got into the community and also the time I got seen as Google, I extended for that year that was like 2019. The way it extended was about to begin. And we’re looking for a graphic designer to help them with some of the events, fliers and pulses just to publicize the events. And I stepped up and said I was going to help them do it.

00;04;19;23–00;04;43;10
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
This is something I already had like a back running. So we did that, attended Google. I extended. I was excited. Having two year old speakers are like, if I was really interested, I think I would go to see here. And fast forward a few months. The site was DFS and they were trying to create a list of speakers for deafness.

00;04;43;12–00;05;00;22
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
All right, so of all the speakers on deafness, they had just one lady. Every other word was male, and she said no, that this is not diverse. And he was like. TG Would you be interested in speaking at deafness? How’s life? I don’t know. I haven’t done it before. And it was like, Do.

00;05;00;23–00;05;01;05
Philippa Burgess
Worry.

00;05;01;05–00;05;35;13
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
I’m going to show you what to do. I’ll give you a framework if it’s possible. I would help you practice so you can do it. And I did. From there on, I got connected to other people in tech. I got through experience, new dimensions, and that was I think it was only a death fest. 2019. That was the first time I heard about user experience design because one of the developers that came outside of our states to come speak, it kept emphasizing on needs when he was speaking about on setting products and I went to do my research about this.

00;05;35;15–00;05;59;26
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
I did my research. I said, okay, I have a background in graphic design. I think this is something I would want to get into. I started reading and this was November at the time I started reading, moving from one resource to I know death, then 2020 COVID heat, everyone was on lockdown, so you had to find a way to stay within that lockdown period.

00;05;59;29–00;06;22;07
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
I got to learning even some more. And then there were a lot of assumptions going on after that saying Do inviting people come and create solutions that could help us fight the COVID, as at that time? So I got into the structure. I know I was just a newbie idea of what I was doing, so I was just looking for an opportunity to practice everything that puts even learning.

00;06;22;10–00;06;46;10
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
And I got into it. Theme quotes in fact, Fight against Corona Virus. I got into the team and I help them. I told them I’m still new to product design, but one thing I know is that if we all work together, we can get the solution out. And so we ended up building a digital diagnostic tool whereby users does practically have to answer some series of questions.

00;06;46;13–00;07;11;00
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
They go through some series of process and they can give them like a shot, or if they have symptoms of COVID, get them to the nearest hospital around, or even an opportunity to book an ambulance to come get them. If it’s a situation that’s critical. And to our surprise, one of the architects we applied to, which was Cuban Dotson, we ended up winning the RSA, which was a meeting.

00;07;11;00–00;07;35;15
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
I was like, Wow, I think Ferguson is something I want to do because when we won that, I just went from the point of product design is not just about pixels, it’s not just about making things beautiful, it’s about solving the problem. And with design, we just solved the problem and we ended up winning. We were not expecting it, honestly, and that was it.

00;07;35;17–00;07;46;14
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
I started moving from internship to internship. I started learning, joined fellowships, and today we’re a.

00;07;46;16–00;08;02;13
Philippa Burgess
I love that. What a wonderful story. But also crisis is opportunity. We have this global crisis and teens are coming together to say, how do we solve this? What do we do? And being able to raise our hands.

00;08;02;16–00;08;29;04
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Is exactly and often times the transition is not really easy. It takes a lot of dedication and you have to be disciplined as well because there’s this tendency of you wanting to drop back and get back into your shell, which is a safe zone. I don’t want to move. I think I’m okay with what I have, but with the way things are working and the trends are constantly changing, you have to constantly evolve as well to reduce stress.

00;08;29;07–00;08;30;23
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
So I agree with you.

00;08;30;25–00;08;31;17
Philippa Burgess
That.

00;08;31;20–00;08;52;16
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
For every migraine direction that doesn’t look you like, Whoa, this isn’t working. And there are some that are just very artistically pleasing. But then you find so many blogs, it’s not usable, it’s not functional. So to what end? And at the same time, some people would tell you that, it doesn’t really have to be beautiful, but does it work?

00;08;52;16–00;09;13;11
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Does this solve the problem? And at the same time, it’s important for it to be visually appealing and it’s also important for you to be usable and functional. Everything is what creates the experience. That’s what keeps you going back to the product because you’re like, I love the interface, I love the micro interactions. It’s solving the problem.

00;09;13;11–00;09;36;09
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
I want it to sell. Everybody is happy. And I think also that’s another important thing when it comes to like perusing for design, because oftentimes you’ll find that there are different craft levels. You find some, you find some reading you designers that you can create very appealing UI. When you look at the UI, you like the color contrast.

00;09;36;09–00;10;00;29
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Everything is amazing, but then it comes to the functional parts, which is the U.S. you find that there are still some laps that needs to be covered. Sometimes you find out that they are levels. That’s why you find out that you have like a product design engineer, product designer, product designer. That’s because the level of the UX experience is totally different.

00;10;01;01–00;10;30;04
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
And as they grow in that user experience, they tend to the across more. That’s why you see often signs here. Designers cannot work on really complex project because it gets little women. But for senior designers they understand the experience and are able to convert that experience into a visually appealing interfaces as well. That’s why you see some products really appealing, really functional, and you want to keep going back to it as well.

00;10;30;11–00;10;47;07
Philippa Burgess
And you only get that experience by getting that experience, which comes back to, I think, why community is so important, because the people that know and trust you trust you to come on to that team and that experience is now going to grow you to the next level, to the next opportunity.

00;10;47;13–00;11;22;22
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Always work for a company. Ever since I got in support of design. So basically, like you said, the company basically and does all of those other aspects. I just need to focus on what I’m there to do, which is actually lead the design of different software product solutions. And with that it allows you to actually focus on what is important because then the other people to take care of the other aspect that needs to move to the product, to the company, to the exact vision that you’re trying to achieve as well.

00;11;22;25–00;11;36;06
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
And one thing I’ve come to understand as well is the fact that for everyone that is doing the role in one way or the order is just a step towards having to achieve the objective at that time for the business.

00;11;36;08–00;12;22;24
Philippa Burgess
So how do you deal much with I see these memes on the internet where they’ll have a dishwasher, glove, will have rhinestones on it with plastic, and then they’ll have a one that’s made of pure gold and authentic gems and they’ll sort of say client budget versus client expectation. And the client budget is $5. And the client expectation is $5 million and they are you reined in with what you do to understand how much resources are actually been given to a particular project to know, you know, where your limits are in a product development task?

00;12;22;27–00;12;46;26
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Okay. right. Okay. So basically how it works. Now, in my current company, we don’t really have like the entire details of how much resources is flowed into it. But what we do is that at the beginning of every quarter based on the results that is available, we get like a list of objectives that will cover true for that resources for the quarter.

00;12;46;29–00;13;06;20
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
And so with that objective, we tend to like have several goals that will be able to help us achieve the objective one session for that quarter. So in terms of having the resources, we we don’t have a full disclosure of that. That’s only on the high level management side of things.

00;13;06;22–00;13;30;01
Philippa Burgess
But you have enough to run with and just bring your best to every project and bring everything that you need to design in and solve the problem. That and how much does the client bring to you as far as the idea, the assets, the resources, the branding, how much is there versus how much do you need to add to the project?

00;13;30;04–00;13;50;24
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Okay. So it basically depends. Yeah. Sometimes that I basically take on projects that are for maybe an external client when maybe I have the free time. So most of the times for such clients, I first of all, I get on the meeting with them. Joseph, is can you understand what they’re trying to do, What solution are you trying to solve?

00;13;51;01–00;14;17;02
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
And all of that. So when I do that interview to get all the information I need, they tend to provide the brunt elements because oftentimes they already have the upper on the elements because it’s always responsible for the brand. Identity design is totally different. So that’s usually the first step that most most organization or most startups do. They tend to have their branding in place.

00;14;17;05–00;14;48;04
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
So then you’re able to have like positioned himself in the industry. This is what we are known for. This is what we are creating. We don’t have the solution yet, but the position themself at the point whereby when the solution comes, people already know about them and they would be willing to use what they are offering. So coming back to my own point of view, after having this meeting with them to understand what the requirements are and all of that, then I get the assets from them.

00;14;48;06–00;15;32;26
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Usually what’s needed, it depends. Sometimes for the clients. They’ve already done their research, they have all their research needs already. They have it synthesize, so they just give you the information and you as the designer, you use that information to determine what’s the best submission for this problems that we have quotes across the users. And from there you start creating ideas in exploring different solutions, which you go through the process of having success, testing the solutions just going through like the inside design thinking process design, you test, you repeat the process once you arrive at a solution that you can put difference of customers.

00;15;32;29–00;15;54;05
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Because when you are able to put it in front of customers, then you understand is this that’s really solving the problem it’s intended to do. Because once they are using needs, you tend to observe it’s itself in your problem. And if you find out that the basic problem is subunits, then you start discovering what else and what else can just do.

00;15;54;07–00;16;12;06
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
And all of this you get by conversing with your users. You tend to identify what their problem is and you conversing with them. Most people get the idea or you speak to your users or you speak for your potential users to get features from them. More like, okay, if I could have these, I think it would be better.

00;16;12;06–00;16;44;03
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
But necessarily that’s not the case because oftentimes some of the problems we’re trying to solve, the solutions are ready for them. So what you are trying to do is basically to get from this, use this, you’re already using this product. What exactly is working for you here and what exactly are you looking for that could better improve the experience and all of this information is what guides your decision to be able to create the product that is expected for the users.

00;16;44;05–00;17;10;26
Philippa Burgess
So there’s there’s an iterative process you’re building, you’re getting feedback, and then you’re getting new ideas to take it to the next level and see where else can we expand and grow and to do things that just make sense for the fact that you’re already here and we’re not trying to solve all problems, we’re just trying to solve the problems that make sense with you being in this lane, in already on this website, already on this app.

00;17;11;02–00;17;20;04
Philippa Burgess
And actually it’s another question. What products are you actually are you building on web? Are you building on mobile? What where where do these products exist?

00;17;20;06–00;17;47;06
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Okay, So this one now, the product I viewed, abusive product, that is basically a web app and that’s for a few agencies is a product that helps some agencies to find keywords spots and for them to be able to manage a lot of the key keywords. Well, currency, not more. Your insights I work on across the website, your web app and your mobile app as well.

00;17;47;09–00;18;09;25
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
So of course, of course the three platforms. So sometimes there are some products that are basically web app. You don’t need to think about mobile. But yeah, so products that you have to think about, websites think about the web app on mobile app and fucking oil insight camera insights, the stats up so was to try to build everything and get right be positioned in the tech community.

00;18;09;27–00;18;30;24
Philippa Burgess
So working at a startup is its own experience because as I was, we were talking about the difference between working for yourself and having to bid out and do payments. And and then there’s the, the other side of it, which is corporate, and they’re super established. Startups are their own thing. As they evolve, they grow quickly. They have to be nimble.

00;18;30;24–00;18;50;23
Philippa Burgess
Some of the best cultures you can find can be startups because they really do start with this I care, we really, really care. But then they can also be some of the worst cultures because they sort of say, Well, you have to kind of forgive us for everything because we’re just a startup. But then as they grow, they start to you start to ask questions and they say, no, no, we definitely can’t do that.

00;18;50;27–00;19;13;13
Philippa Burgess
We’re corporate now. And you’re like, Yeah, but 2 seconds ago you just said you were a startup and we need to forgive you so that you have to really manage and protect yourself when you work in a startup because is driven by a lot of enthusiasm, is driven by a good mission, a good purpose, and there’s a lot of motivation to grow and to establish your market position.

00;19;13;13–00;19;36;11
Philippa Burgess
So they ask a lot of their employees to really help because it’s a big stretch from where you are to where you want to be. But also making sure that you’re protected and you’re treated fairly and that you can manage appropriate work life balance. I think startups are amazing because they let you wear many, many hats. It’s not so in the box.

00;19;36;11–00;19;58;03
Philippa Burgess
It’s like kind of whatever needs to be done, all hands on deck to do it. So you can get amazing experience and to really have that resumé building and that confidence of, Yes, I’ve done this and I’ve done that and I’ve done that and I’ve done that. I worked for HYPERGROWTH Company for five years. I guess my point is, yeah, just talk about your startup experience because I’m sharing mine.

00;19;58;03–00;20;06;05
Philippa Burgess
It’s not like it’s crazy. It’s fun. You’re on a mission. Yeah, everyone.

00;20;06;05–00;20;35;09
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Is on a mission and I couldn’t agree more with you, but I think it’s it’s a very good experience when an extended and once in a like about it is the fact that they allow you to explore. So it’s different in a situation whereby you as much as you a time balance because you have to quickly iterate because what tried to get the product out quickly is to allow you to explore, because then to you are you able to do this?

00;20;35;14–00;20;54;25
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
You are allowed to learn on the job, not basically coming in as with no experience, but you know what you’re doing. But they allow you to lend. They allow you to feel while learning. By the end of the day you are able to come up with a solution. And I can tell you it’s the fact that, like you mentioned, you have to be a many OTS.

00;20;54;28–00;21;25;02
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
You have to constantly be presenting and before you know, it’s for someone who maybe you’re not so confident with presentation, your storytelling is not good. After a while, you find yourself just being flexible with it. And I would share something with you initially when I have presentations in order to present my designs. Before now, it was really difficult because then you have to think of all of the stakeholders that you have available.

00;21;25;04–00;21;50;24
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
How do you ensure you communicate your ideas? And everyone understands because if you get too technical, maybe those in marketing may not understand what you’re saying, and maybe if you’re not so technical, engineers might be wondering, what did you say? So you should be able to communicate in such a way whereby you are speaking everyone’s language managers do like to hear what metrics, like what metrics is this affecting?

00;21;50;28–00;22;17;22
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Are we making more money? Are we having more customers, more users? So if you’re presenting, you have to be able to present in such a way whereby you communicate to them that, look, this feature we’re designing is going to affect this metric is going to increase our users. When you’re speaking to developers as well too, you have to come from a point whereby you help them understand what you see and before you know it, you’re not just learning about design.

00;22;17;24–00;22;43;25
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
You’ve started diving into other aspects of product development just because you need to communicate those ideas you’re designing. And it’s very interesting because you find yourself reading even more and you get better and honestly, sometimes when I watch myself or maybe when my teammates the they get back to me and sell me that tag. I really love how you speak this and I smile because like this never used to happen.

00;22;43;27–00;23;01;25
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
I used to be so terrible at this, but I’ve been given the opportunity to learn it in the process. But we’re yeah, for you. No one is going to judge you and you find that you keep growing. And honestly, I love it. I love it to an extent.

00;23;01;28–00;23;28;09
Philippa Burgess
That’s fantastic. I do think that startups offer excitement and growth where bigger corporations can offer more stability and just and yes. And so it’s a different and but when you’re in that but sometimes when you go to a larger corporation, you don’t really expect the promotion like go in there with the job that you want at the level that you want, and be satisfied with that.

00;23;28;09–00;23;52;24
Philippa Burgess
And if you don’t really move very far, then you’re okay with that because you’re really happy with the place that you got in. I think for younger people who are ambitious, who want to grow or startups are so great because all these challenges, all these opportunities are coming at you. And whereas when you’re corporatized, they’ve sort of hired you to do one thing and they just want you to do that really well and in exchange they’ll give you stability.

00;23;52;26–00;24;32;14
Philippa Burgess
And I think that I think that startups are really there’s there’s so many ways where you’re encouraged to grow and that there’s growth and that I’ve noticed that people who stay at startups and really stay the course can end up in some really nice positions as those companies do become more corporate and do get more established. Those who are there from the beginning and took those opportunities to learn and grow and find their perfect expression of who they are and where they best deliver on their talents.

00;24;32;17–00;25;04;20
Philippa Burgess
And some of the challenges are completely developed, like speaking, presenting, and you’re only there with a I think the name of the show is Muse and Metrics. Muse is to capture the cool and the let’s just explore what’s possible and the metrics, which is, yeah, let’s talk about the details. Let’s talk about the, the, the, the tech, the science, the math, the the part of it that’s very grounded in solutions.

00;25;04;20–00;25;36;12
Philippa Burgess
And so that’s where I kind of name the show muse and metrics because that I felt was appropriate and who I am. I’m very creative, but I’m very practical and I think I just finished the leadership class and in it we talked about the different types of leaders that we can be. And what I really appreciated about class is they said it’s not the had to pick one, it’s that all of these exist within can exist within us, that we can be strategic leaders and that we can be operational leaders.

00;25;36;15–00;26;03;23
Philippa Burgess
And I think that many of the women I speak to who are women tech makers, ambassadors already come in when they apply to the program in being strategic leaders and operational leaders. And it feels like all of us in this program are becoming better thought leaders and better bridge building leaders, that those are the skills that we are getting to work together to enhance and improve.

00;26;03;25–00;26;26;19
Philippa Burgess
And I think that public speaking, presenting is all part of thought leadership and bridge building leadership. And so I just appreciated that those were some of the the leadership types that are out there that we can all embrace. I’m very operational. I if I say I’m going to do something, I want it done. I like the idea, but I’m also strategic.

00;26;26;19–00;26;33;20
Philippa Burgess
Like what’s possible when I think of something, then I immediately move into what are all the practical steps to actually execute this.

00;26;33;23–00;26;59;23
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
It’s a combination of boards is really important. Yes. When it comes to software development, because as much as you you try to explore what’s possible, you get to the point whereby you have to like documents. Okay, this is what we need to do. All of this are possible, but for now this is what we need to do. So one of them together is really important, is an important skill to to want.

00;26;59;25–00;27;18;13
Philippa Burgess
I had my own business with a partner for like a while years ago, and I remember one time he came to me and he said, I don’t understand because in meetings sometimes you’ll say this and this and this and this, and he’s like, Then you go off and do this. And I said, Yes, because I was in the meeting thinking about what’s possible.

00;27;18;19–00;27;35;11
Philippa Burgess
And then I filtered through it and decided what was actually practical and executable. And that’s what I did. And he’s like, can you just explain that to me? Just be more articulate. So I know this is an idea and this is a task because I only want I only need to hold you accountable to tasks and I do all my tasks.

00;27;35;11–00;27;53;13
Philippa Burgess
Once he understood that I do tasks, but I everything I talk about in the meeting was, what’s possible? What are some of my ideas that brainstorming? And then I would pick the best and I get it done. Once he understood that, I was like, okay, great. That’s totally helpful. Just let me know. So I’m not left with the meeting.

00;27;53;13–00;28;11;14
Philippa Burgess
Having written all the things you sat down thinking you were going to do all of those things. Okay, because we do have to go through the possibility to the actual executable. What’s worth the time, What’s worth the money, What’s worth the impact?

00;28;11;16–00;28;39;03
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Yes, Yes. All of those putting all of those into account is over. Helps you to time books. What exactly you should do. Because when you have all of the explorations you tend to do, there’s this tendency of you have into like, there isn’t enough time, how am I going to get all of this done? But the moment you have the text that you’re supposed to do, you find out that it’s easier for you to complete and you can move to the next as well too.

00;28;39;05–00;29;00;12
Philippa Burgess
Yeah, I see. That has been a recent struggle for me in my YouTube life because I have all these different interests and these different things I want to talk about. And so I boxed them into niches and then I have these ideas of these videos that I want to make, but then I just I get analysis paralysis because each video has multiple steps into the planning and of the assets.

00;29;00;12–00;29;19;04
Philippa Burgess
You have to know all these things. And I have just fallen into analysis. Yeah, I just freeze. So now I’m trying to figure out like just specifically what am I supposed to do so I know what I want to do. I’ll get it done. But if I get to overwhelmed with where do I start? What do I do next?

00;29;19;07–00;29;48;04
Philippa Burgess
I’m not nearly as productive. And I think that’s where I also had to pull back from what are my technical limitations. When I really made peace with I no longer have editing on my computer. What can I do now and suddenly realize that I was like, or or to be specific, I no longer have premiere pro editing. I have an audio editor I use that has some video functions and I haven’t fully explored yet what they are and they actually might do the job I could.

00;29;48;06–00;30;07;02
Philippa Burgess
So I shouldn’t say I have no editing, I just don’t have fancy editing. But I also don’t have the You talked about the levels. I don’t yet have the skills yet to do the fancy editing, and I want to learn it. But I also maybe I should have my audience first. Maybe I should just get in the practice of doing the videos with what I have.

00;30;07;02–00;30;41;10
Philippa Burgess
So I do think that growing and learning and understanding, like I said, time limitations, skill limitations and just working with what you have and building on success. Because when you said like, I’m sure when you got that award, your confidence level of what can I take on now? What’s next? Where do I go from here? It doesn’t have those awards and that positive feedback from other people has such a positive and actionable way of sort of how we perceive ourselves and what we want for ourselves.

00;30;41;11–00;30;50;20
Philippa Burgess
Can you talk a little bit about that experience of being acknowledged publicly in the work you did?

00;30;50;23–00;31;11;20
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Okay. So having to be acknowledged for the work I do, it comes in two ways because you have to also be careful because you can get to a point whereby you get all of these acknowledgments and then you tend to put so much bridge on yourself like, What am I going to do next to be acknowledged? What am I going to put out there to be acknowledged?

00;31;11;25–00;31;33;20
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
So you have to first did some way to beat that down and just basically focus on groups. Because if you allow the project to get into you, then it’s not going to be about you focusing on your work. What’s going to be about you trying to see what’s the social media is going to do for you or what you’re going to get from that.

00;31;33;22–00;32;01;28
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
So simply puts out just see, it’s it’s been really a good experience because when I get most of this acknowledgments, it tends to make me understand that what I’m doing is valuable. People actually understand what I’m doing, and then I ask myself, How can I get better? Yes, sometimes I get into that that zone of having to like think involves a lot of things I want to do.

00;32;02;04–00;32;16;19
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
And like you said, I tend to have that analysis paralysis, like I want to get this done. I want to get this done. But then I would realize like, well, why are you so scared? Why are you putting so much pressure on yourself? Take a step back.

00;32;16;22–00;32;38;19
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
And when I’m taking a step back, that’s just me taking out my journal. I start documenting what exactly is in my head that I think I want to do. I start writing every single thing down. I write silly points whereby I have nothing else to write to do. And when I get to that point, I was like, okay, which one of them are my going to focus on first?

00;32;38;22–00;33;08;23
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
What exactly do I want to do first on this list? And the moment I start doing those things and start thinking them out? Aung San Suu Kyi Now I’m back to actually growing and not being influenced by maybe the rewards or maybe the recognition that I got, all of the things I put in, because then it puts you in a position where by people understand that, okay, you a domain experts in what you do, you can actually help other people come into what you do as well.

00;33;08;23–00;33;24;00
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
You have the skills, you have the experience, and you have what it takes to help people call me by the same side. You have to be sure, you know, put in so much pressure on yourself because the moment you get to that point, it tends to affect your productivity as well, too.

00;33;24;02–00;33;46;04
Philippa Burgess
I can see that. Absolutely. When you I’ve seen even some YouTubers have said that they get a video that spikes and then they sort of freak out about what do I make next? Because most of their videos, but over time they’re improving. They just get this one and then they just kind of how do I how do I get how do I repeat that?

00;33;46;05–00;34;05;28
Philippa Burgess
Is instead of just focusing on the hey, you’re just making steady progress, keep going. So it is important to find that balance of just doing doing the work and not looking for that next, like, you know, big award, you know, But it’s still nice when you get them.

00;34;06;00–00;34;26;10
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Yeah, it’s nice. But is it’s it’s better when it comes naturally. You get a lot more focused needs you find that that you get to the point where by the common naturally you don’t even have to do anything anymore for them to come to you. You get to the point you’re like, okay, now I’m tired. I don’t want this anymore.

00;34;26;12–00;34;49;11
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Well, it didn’t just happen. It took a while. And often times I think a lot of people would go into that point slip by because they are not able to like consistent these words. The tense of future. No, Bri. So the moment they get to the peak, they’ll be like, how did I get here? But if they actually documented the growth process, they would see they’ve been moving.

00;34;49;17–00;35;05;00
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
But more like it’s sort of moving slowly. Then all of a sudden you’re okay. It’s actually a process I don’t see are able to see that you just feel overwhelmed with everything that’s happening.

00;35;05;03–00;35;28;21
Philippa Burgess
I want to bring that point back to community because being a graduate student, I trust my teachers, my professors the university to take me on a six week learning transformation. And I just lean in and I trust the process, even if I feel overwhelmed, even if I don’t understand it, even I’ve been working really hard to get it, even if I have to go to office hours.

00;35;28;21–00;35;57;12
Philippa Burgess
What’s going on? A lot of the technology I love, but it bends my brain because I don’t think that way naturally. And then once I kind of get it, it kind of clicks and it’s like, okay. But it took me a while to get there, especially learning these mappings softwares that we use or SQL. The logic of it make sense, but it just takes me a while to get there and just to have that trust that it’s okay to feel kind of overwhelmed.

00;35;57;12–00;36;32;29
Philippa Burgess
It’s okay to just go with it. And like you said, that incremental growth and having done a one year certificate coming out that other side, also realizing that one year wasn’t nearly enough and I sort of signed up for the full second master’s beyond the certificate, I but I felt like in that one year certificate, I feel like I have enough credibility to now go back and teach people who are at the beginning and use that to really polish my skills, really say, do I know this well enough?

00;36;33;02–00;36;55;15
Philippa Burgess
Do I know the terminology, the language, the logic, or how to apply that particular geo processing tool for a particular result? Do I know all the steps there? Can I explain it? Someone else is actually rooted in wanting to help other people but really grounded in I want to know this well for myself. And so we learn by teaching.

00;36;55;18–00;37;21;02
Philippa Burgess
So I think when you talk about that incremental growth, I guess part of it is there’s a community around us that lets us get uncomfortable because there’s people that we can ask questions of, there’s people we can ask for help, there’s people we can sort of say, Hey, I’ve taken on this aspect of this project, but I don’t really know exactly the way forward here or how to implement this or what the most efficient way is.

00;37;21;04–00;37;31;02
Philippa Burgess
So the ability to be in that community helps us grow and then we’re able to turn around and give back to that community. Can you elaborate on some of those?

00;37;31;02–00;38;06;08
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So currently now there are some women who wanted to learn product design that I’m currently mentoring now. And one thing I’ve come to understand ever since I started mentoring them was the fact that if I don’t own this and fully what I do, I won’t be able to teach them. And one thing I’ve also understood is that the fact the more I get to work with them, the more I get to mentor them.

00;38;06;11–00;38;27;14
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
I tend to learn even better because when I know I’m going into a meeting with them, I understand that, Look, if this is what I’m going to focus on today, I need to know very well the basics. I need to know. It’s even more than the basics so that I can actively teach them what is expected to do.

00;38;27;17–00;38;59;20
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
And I found that that’s when you get to give back so much to the community. It helps you in the process. And that’s one thing that I’ve come to understand in the long run, inasmuch as you’re giving back to the community some of the things life or you spend a lot of time giving back to the community, but at the end of the day, I’m helping myself too, because then before I give back, I have to then and like you said, if you’re not grounded enough, if you don’t know the domain well enough, you can pass the knowledge to anybody.

00;38;59;24–00;39;33;24
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
No one will will take you seriously because then you won’t even be credible. So having to have this opportunity to do presentations on setting of the mentoring, it helps me to learn as well, because if you listen, for instance, you do a presentation on your particular domain topic. Definitely questions are going to arise, questions that might not even be in your presentation if you don’t have understanding of the domain subjects, you wouldn’t be able to respond to the questions.

00;39;33;26–00;40;02;03
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Or that comes back to the fact that you have to know what you’re doing, ensure you learn even more about it for you to be able to function well. And ever since I started mentoring the community and giving presentations, it has really helped because it allows me to force myself to read. You know, reading is not. Nobody loves to read, nobody loves to read, nobody loves to do courses or do anything whatsoever.

00;40;02;03–00;40;20;18
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
It’s stressful because you think as my days work, I just need to rest. But then it’s helpful for you because when you read, you become more knowledgeable and also you become more confident in what you do. So it’s it’s it’s absolutely really important.

00;40;20;21–00;40;54;21
Philippa Burgess
I completely agree with that. And that’s I mean, being in university, that’s what they do. They say, here’s your reading list and we grow through the books that we read, the articles that we read and the exercises that we do. And then the lectures are there to reinforce key points and bring it together in a discussion. And I think that one of the things that has been transformative for me, going back to school mid-career, is that when I started school, we only had the choice of reading paper.

00;40;54;23–00;41;14;18
Philippa Burgess
And then now there’s Reading Digital and actually my favorite thing and I do it quite a bit is read it to me. I can now take any PDF and bring it into Microsoft Edge and hit read it to me and I have found look my dad or someone say what? Like he’s like, Well, it’s so much slower to have it read than just to read it yourself.

00;41;14;18–00;41;31;20
Philippa Burgess
But I got to the point where I’m like, I can’t read more that at the end of a long day I can just lie down and just have it read to me. If there’s pictures or things like that, I can look at the screen and kind of watch it, but it’s a little slow to kind of try to read and and have it listen to.

00;41;31;20–00;41;50;02
Philippa Burgess
So sometimes I’ll just sort of even play a game just because a game keeps me awake from not falling asleep. But it’s mindless. And I’m listening and I’m hearing everything, or I’ll have a subway from the computer as opposed to being wired into it. And with a wireless, I can go do a task while I’m listening to it.

00;41;50;05–00;42;09;04
Philippa Burgess
And so I find that it doesn’t matter to me how you take in the information, whether you take it in through video, whether you take it in through audio, through reading, digitally, through reading paper, however you want to take in the knowledge, take it in, because there’s a lot of really good stuff out there that grab learners knowledge.

00;42;09;04–00;42;15;03
Philippa Burgess
But also when you talk to other people, you now have these new ideas to reference.

00;42;15;06–00;42;29;06
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Because when you are able to reference so many other domain experts, it actually means that you’re not just in your own space. You understand what’s happening in the industry, and that makes it all the better.

00;42;29;08–00;42;58;02
Philippa Burgess
And just going in and listening to that event. How much more? I know about the Palm too, and Gemini and all the things that Bart is doing and Adobe Firefly and all of these really cool things. And then I’m seeing them happen. When I Google, I see generate, you know, I see I now just enabled my workspace so in sheets yesterday and I was able to add generative AI to I’m working on this kind of table can you help me set it up boom.

00;42;58;02–00;43;29;16
Philippa Burgess
Like the whole template is there. So I got that because I leaned in and listened to the audio and was able to fold it in and and spent several hours doing that. That was so time. well spent that I wouldn’t have done it otherwise if the WTM ambassador team hadn’t invited me to say, Hey, go ahead and produce a video about Google I o extended and then that sort of because I didn’t.

00;43;29;18–00;44;02;07
Philippa Burgess
Sometimes if you don’t attend something, then you think, I wasn’t there. So that relevant to me. But all of these things are millions of hours of conference material available online just for the the looking and the seeking. And I think that, again, I think that that’s maybe our role as leaders and our role as ambassadors is helping people to know what to focus on, because I think people also your own analysis, paralysis of there’s too much out there, I don’t know where to start.

00;44;02;10–00;44;29;25
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
But there’s so much of that. And I totally agree with you because I think even for me as well, I had to like, learn so much and start on learning at the same time. So having a structured learning path is really important. And because you have like a mix of the community, you have developers, you have people that into cybersecurity, you have designers.

00;44;29;28–00;45;01;18
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
So you have to ensure. And another important thing is that everyone is not on the same level. You have people that are coming in, you, you have people that junior, you have people that, okay, you’re already in somebody. Then you have the domain experts as well, too. So you have to be able to bring in resources that close across all of these levels and which it’s not really easy because that would require you spending some time as well to research what exactly is going to be beneficial to the community.

00;45;01;20–00;45;26;25
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
I don’t just want people to join because it’s easy for you to just to mature as it is in my career on frontend development without having to go through it to see if it’s something that is rich in content and would actually help and you just keep pushing it across. So that means you have to like go through the materials to an extent or have someone or, you know, the domain expert asks questions, Is this immature?

00;45;26;25–00;45;53;15
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
It is good for frontend developer or backend developer Because I’m from a design background, I really don’t know much about backend development infrastructures and all of the programing languages. What I do know is maybe I have a conversation with our bucket engineer what we are building and maybe tells me it’s going to involve the infrastructure. So I have limited knowledge and limited understanding when it comes to that background.

00;45;53;17–00;46;10;09
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
But I have a community web, I have all backgrounds, what am I going to do? So there has to be a way where you strike a balance to be able to get the required resources available to them. So they have structured lean plots.

00;46;10;11–00;46;29;14
Philippa Burgess
Which brings it back to community and why that community is so incredibly valuable to have all of those people around you and to be able to reach into their area of expertise and to say, Hey, we’re thinking about this or this is what we’re trying to accomplish. And how does this work in from your language and from your understanding?

00;46;29;16–00;46;53;16
Philippa Burgess
And they can sort of break it down to say, well, if you do it this way, it’s this many hours and resources, but if you do it this way, it’s it’s a different package of hours and resources and you can kind of make decisions based on that experience and those insights to where without that you might commit to things that are not as effective and efficient.

00;46;53;18–00;47;30;08
Philippa Burgess
So having all of those different people knowing that thing, I mean, even cybersecurity, one of the things that another conversation that came up recently was just how, you know, we think about like external threats as being cybersecurity. But when you’re in a startup, sometimes people because there’s a trust level people are really fast and loose with passwords and just internal things that if someone is no longer working at the company, is the company or just decides to be internally subversive, you know how secure the company internally, not just, you know, not just from the external threats.

00;47;30;11–00;48;03;09
Philippa Burgess
And then a lot of people, you know, aren’t aren’t really thinking about in DevOps. You know, there’s also devsecops and putting security into your your applications, you know, right from the foundation. But you really want know to think about that unless you had a security professional in that conversation with you. So tell a little bit more about some of the activities that you’re doing at the your local G.D. G and what is the name of your local GDG?

00;48;03;12–00;48;06;23
Philippa Burgess
And just a little bit more your community? Yeah, sorry. Go ahead.

00;48;07;01–00;48;38;10
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Okay. All right. So look, what you did is did you worry? It’s located in the South in Delta State, Nigeria. So that’s where it’s located. And so most of the things that we do basically is to organize events. We have in-person and virtual events. We have a an event that happens monthly that’s called meets old. So we just have the community members will mean we have a certain topic we’re going to discuss for that month.

00;48;38;12–00;49;00;15
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
So we have like a series of topics we might focus on maybe a particular stock for the month, just so we have this inclusion that everyone in the community is being accounted for and we have something for every stock in the field. So we have those events, we have those activities. And yeah, there are times whereby we have workshops.

00;49;00;18–00;49;29;06
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Recently we had a Google Cloud workshop for those interested in attending Google Cloud. So we had an in-person and virtual workshop just to help those that are interested to get in. Because one thing that we we got to understand was that is very difficult training alone, but when you have a community of people learning with you, it’s easy for you to share what your issues are, what your problems are, and you’re able to help you as well too, when you’re doing that.

00;49;29;06–00;50;04;27
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
So those are some of the activities we’re doing right now. Well, majorly. Our focus right now is we’re looking towards DFS having to make arrangements for DFS, but we also have the WTA and events that will be coming up soon as well too, just to help the women in our community because we recently got some new members into the community because we’ve gotten to a point where but people are actually going out to let people know that, yes, it’s a community and worry you had about it and you just have them coming in and you’re like, Well, when are we going to meet?

00;50;04;27–00;50;19;28
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
I would love to meet everybody and all of that. So we’re looking forward to creating another event in person. So we get to meet all of the people as well too, and see how we can help them get to achieve the desired careers that you want.

00;50;20;00–00;50;43;11
Philippa Burgess
That is so fantastic. So what advice do you have for people who are just starting out or at the beginning of their careers and moving forward, moving forward with a desire to do more in product development or have some of these creative skills and just wanting to sort of go, how do I cross that over into actually being in tech?

00;50;43;13–00;51;08;24
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
All right. Okay. So firstly, what I would say is that there’s this meets whereby you have to have a mentor at the beginning before you get to do it. But that’s not true. And it’s been proven time and time again. I think it was, said Gordon, who said it said instead of you having mentors have ears, Those are people you look up to in the industry.

00;51;08;26–00;51;42;08
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
The industry is interested in people that have made it in the industry. People are domain experts. Look through what you are doing and have come to understand that. That’s something that has really helped me as well to there’s this design upside of Christine is one of the lead designers in Netflix. It has this blog article it releases and it was because I enjoy when you write sell sports on LinkedIn, I like mostly how it communicates these ideas.

00;51;42;15–00;52;09;23
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
I started reading this blog and believe you, I learned how to write documentations just by reading his blog because why? It was one of ears. So it’s important for you to have Eros. Don’t wait for mentors because mentorship. The idea we have about mentorship is having that one on one conversation. A lot of people are busy. You might not really very few people will agree to be a mentor and some with you.

00;52;09;28–00;52;32;04
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
And I tell you, when get that don’t joke with it is a very good experience. But if you are not able to have groups, people you look up to in the industry that would really help you in the long run, then for those who are wanting to basically commit to product design or any succeed whatsoever, they want to come into.

00;52;32;07–00;53;00;18
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
One advice I would give is to have is structured linen products. It might just be a course that takes you from maybe the idea stage to a newbie in that field. Don’t don’t try to dabble in on the trends because it’s very easy to get into the trends like, what three’s what’s trending now? Everybody jumps into Web three now is artificial intelligence.

00;53;00;18–00;53;26;11
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Everyone’s jumping to artificial intelligence. You get so points whereby you’re not long, you’re no longer focused on your journey, but now you’re focused on what’s trending, what’s everyone jumping into, and you want to be able to grow. Because until you are able to understand the foundations of what you do, everybody’s seen that content is just the extra you think of How can I apply what I have?

00;53;26;17–00;53;34;20
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
So this new nutrients that are combining, not leaving what you have to dabble into the strengths to see what’s going on in there.

00;53;34;22–00;54;22;02
Philippa Burgess
I think that’s fantastic advice and I think I do see the work I’m doing in. Gears is intersecting with machine learning. There’s an application to it, but if anything it’s getting me more motivated to follow the direction of some of my heroes that say, Get really good at statistics, learn calculus to get foundational with this. It’s you can, you know, there’s a lot of top line discussions but they really encourage go deep and go to the you know, lay a solid foundation because once you calculus statistics in my field, it’s applicable across everything it touches, every aspect of data science and geographic information science.

00;54;22;02–00;54;23;21
Philippa Burgess
So it’s there and you.

00;54;23;23–00;54;23;29
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
You.

00;54;23;29–00;54;59;11
Philippa Burgess
Can move forward without it. But once you see it and understand it, you start seeing it and everything and you start being able to apply it. And so those are things that, you know, I am seeing the trends, but then I’m also wanting to have more of a basis and a footing in it. And which brings us back to marrying the creative and the technical closing words, closing thought, you know, bring us home.

00;54;59;13–00;55;30;21
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Okay. So closing thoughts. What I’ll basically see is that for anything you do, it’s important to. Have like a daily routine. And most times when people ask me what’s one thing you want to tell your younger self? And that would be have is structured daily routine. You’re consistent. It’s because I’ve come to understand to an extent that when you’re consistent with something, after a while it becomes second nature.

00;55;30;23–00;55;53;16
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
You can change it. It’s more like when you don’t do it, your body system makes you understand something is missing. Today’s not complete. So having that consistent daily routine is very important, not even just for your car, even for your wellbeing as well to having a daily consistent routine. It’s really important.

00;55;53;18–00;56;17;28
Philippa Burgess
That it’s excellent advice and actually I think one of the things is when you’re looking at a wish list or to do list, I love looking at an 18 month plan broken into quarters. So there’s these six things of like, what are we going towards? Where can we be in 18 months? And it helps break down a goal and not make it feel so overwhelming.

00;56;17;28–00;56;37;00
Philippa Burgess
If you say, okay, well, here’s what I’m going to get accomplished in this quarter, but then I love what you’re saying to make sure that if you have things on that list, where do they fit in your week? And more importantly, where do they fit in your day? Because if you’re not working on it every day, or at least every week or a couple of a week, you’re not going to get there.

00;56;37;02–00;57;15;19
Philippa Burgess
And so it’s I love the idea of the strategic strategic thinking and the putting it in your plan every day is the operational thinking. How do we actually realize it and make it happen and we make it happen through those everyday actions. And and it’s nice to know where you’re hoping those everyday actions will lead you because you’re participating in some sort of discipline that either just helps your health and wellbeing, helps you relate and connect to your inner circle, your community, or helps you on some learning journey that you’re on.

00;57;15;21–00;57;43;18
Philippa Burgess
So I think that’s that’s fantastic. I so appreciate you joining us today. This has been fantastic. I really, really resonated with the idea of having heroes. And I think heroes also can be public figures. But this is part of, I think, also just network, community, community going to events. There are so many people that we meet along the way who are just being themselves and.

00;57;43;18–00;58;04;20
Philippa Burgess
They’ll say something to us that lands and resonates. I remember the first time I was at a GDG networking event and I met someone who said, I’m a Jedi, and I said, What’s a Jedi? now I’m an expert. And she was the first person I met who was a deity. And immediately like, she didn’t need to be my mentor.

00;58;04;27–00;58;24;21
Philippa Burgess
She just needed to be the person who introduced me that something was possible and that it seemed worth exploring. And to the point that I said, I want to be a Jedi, too. And I understood that this is a multi-year journey and this is many, many steps involved and a whole lot more learning than where I am today.

00;58;24;24–00;58;57;10
Philippa Burgess
But I was excited about that. And so sometimes just even the casual interactions that we have when we participate in community can inspire us, or we can inspire others by something we do or something that they say, okay, you seem normal and approachable and you’re doing this. I can be doing this too. And so I think that, you know, our heroes and our mentors can come in all shapes, sizes and forms of interaction.

00;58;57;12–00;59;24;16
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Exactly. Exactly. I couldn’t agree more with you. And just like you said when you met the Jedi expert, oftentimes some of this erodes. They might just necessarily might just come up with a tool or maybe it’s who they discovered helping your productivity. You don’t speak to them directly, but you find that that once you’re able to take that information and apply it to your own processes, it works seamlessly as well, too.

00;59;24;19–00;59;33;27
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
So often saying to the introduce us to tools processes to help with our careers development as well too. So totally agree.

00;59;33;29–00;59;51;21
Philippa Burgess
So we just have to be on a have a plan so we don’t get distracted by the everything but in our lane to be really open to the things that are going to further and enrich and enhance our journey.

00;59;51;23–00;59;54;20
Oghenetejiri Owhe Agbodoroba
Yes, exactly. I agree with you. And that’s exactly.