Muse and Metrics S5 EP8— The Whole Picture with Lisa Cao [Guest Bio, Summary, Audio and Transcript]

Guest Bio

Lisa Cao is a dynamic data engineer and product manager, currently leading product management at Datastrato. With over seven years of experience in the data and tech sectors, Lisa has honed her expertise in observability, validation, and reliability within large-scale data systems. Her career spans various industries, including startups, nonprofits, consulting firms, GovTech, and biotechnology.

As a Google Women TechMakers Ambassador and a Linux Foundation LiFT recipient for Women in Open Source, Lisa is a recognized leader in the open-source community. She is the founder and chair of the Vancouver Datajam and the lead maintainer of the BiocSwirl project. Her passion for intersecting data operations, distributed cloud computing, MLOps, and data science drives her approach to leveraging data systems for maximum impact.

Lisa’s work at Datastrato focuses on developing an open-source SaaS solution to create a distributed metadata layer for efficient data access in multi-cloud environments. She is also an independent consultant at Kessandra Consulting, aiding nonprofits and small to mid-sized organizations with their data infrastructure and best practice implementations of data science and pipeline engineering.

A strong advocate for inclusivity in tech, Lisa is a thought leader in the fields of Linux, data operations, tech community building, and data engineering. Her unique approach combines her background in psychology with her technical acumen, allowing her to navigate complex data landscapes with a people-centric perspective.

Summary

Key Highlights:

1. Career Journey and Transition into Data Science:

• Lisa Cao shares her transition from bioinformatics in academia to data engineering and data science.
• Emphasizes the importance of self-taught skills and the role of community groups, such as R Ladies, in her development.

2. Interdisciplinary Approach in Data Science:

• Highlights her psychology background as instrumental in understanding data at various levels.
• Discusses the importance of interdisciplinary knowledge in comprehensively analyzing complex datasets.

3. Challenges and Realities of Data Literacy:

• Addresses the challenges of data literacy among the general public.
• Stresses the need for improved public understanding of data collection and its implications.

4. Central Role of Data in Decision-Making Across Sectors:

• Underlines how data is increasingly central in decision-making processes in various sectors.
• Advocates for the inclusion of subject matter experts in guiding meaningful data interpretation.

5. Ethical Considerations in Data Governance:

• Expresses concerns about the governance of data collection, especially in consumer data and marketing.
• Points out ethical dilemmas faced by data scientists in navigating the commercial exploitation of consumer data.

6. Data Science as a Communication and Analysis Tool:

• Discusses the power of data in conveying complex scientific concepts to the public.
• Highlights data science’s role in communication and its potential in science communication.

7. Leadership and Community Building in Data Science:

• Reflects on her evolution in leadership style within the Vancouver Data Jam community.
• Emphasizes the importance of empowering others and fostering growth within teams.

8. Vision for the Future of Data Science:

• Shares her vision for the future of data science, anticipating a shift towards more nuanced, interdisciplinary approaches.
• Predicts a growing emphasis on understanding granular details of data while maintaining a broader societal perspective.

Conclusion:

In this episode of Muse and Metrics, Lisa Cao provides a comprehensive overview of her journey and insights into data science. Her interdisciplinary approach, combined with a deep understanding of data literacy and ethics, offers a unique perspective on the role of data in society. As a community leader and advocate for inclusivity in tech, Lisa’s story is an inspiring example of the impact of diverse knowledge and a thoughtful approach to data governance and communication.

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Transcript

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

00;00;07;18–00;00;19;20
Philippa Burgess
Hello and welcome to Muse and Metrics. This is your host Philippa Burgess. This is season five, Episode eight. And today’s topic is the whole picture.

00;00;19;22–00;00;42;05
Lisa Cao
My name is Lisa Cao. I am a data engineer and formerly data analyst and Women Techmakers Ambassador. I have been in the field for probably about 3 to 4 years now, leading communities for about seven since I was kind of in university. I got my start in bioinformatics, working in academia, and eventually I really got interested in data pipelines.

00;00;42;05–00;01;02;09
Lisa Cao
And from there I’ve been working a lot through different contracts, consultancies and start up. And that’s kind of where I stand right now. I also chair a local organization called the Vancouver Data Jam. I’m from B.C. Canada and yeah, so my undergrad is actually in psychology, so it’s nothing to do with data or science or really like computer science.

00;01;02;12–00;01;23;20
Lisa Cao
And when I was young and research assistant, I really wanted to do what lab stuff. So I was wanting to learn like different histology protocols, I was learning different assays and I realized that there was a divide happening between the people on fields who are not necessarily aligned with data, taking advantage of data because research is really data based.

00;01;23;20–00;01;47;24
Lisa Cao
It’s all about collecting data and correct data and analyzing it. And what you find in a lot of these more old school and more traditional fields is that they’re not necessarily up to date when it comes to data practices. It’s a platform that they’re dependent on. It’s something that’s kind of a chore. And I kind of noticed as I was moving through this field that, Hey, why wait until a graduate student teaches me these different protocols?

00;01;47;24–00;02;14;09
Lisa Cao
And maybe the trajectory, trajectory of my career is dependent on their sort of charity. When I can learn these skills on my own and I can actually become very valuable as a, you know, part of the lab as part of this. And so what I ended up doing was joining our ladies, which was my local group at the time, and teaching myself, ah, because it is a very like, you know, academic language for statistics and learning these different skills.

00;02;14;09–00;02;41;10
Lisa Cao
And through there it was just sort of like, Hey, I heard that you can do data, can you help me analyze this? Can you write a script for this? I need to make this reproducible for a publication. And from there it just started steamrolling. And some of the points that I thought you brought up were were so interesting as well, because I think that we’re in this weird brain drain sort of stage in careers where not necessarily like a data scientist within a specific field exists right now.

00;02;41;11–00;03;00;25
Lisa Cao
Maybe it does, but only for a data specific company. But what we’re seeing instead is a lot of really smart people then risk going into data and tech and creating brain drain out of these fields when really what they need is to stay in them, to reintroduce data and reintroduce technology in a new and really like, you know, advocated way.

00;03;00;27–00;03;03;08
Lisa Cao
But we’re not really seeing that, which is unfortunate.

00;03;03;10–00;03;19;22
Philippa Burgess
Love what you say about bring it back to your field, whatever your field is. That’s what I noticed was and that’s how I feel about like I feel that there are a lot of jobs right now that are, like you said, data analyst data. But I feel like in the future it’s going to be much more blended. Just like, for example, social media.

00;03;19;22–00;03;36;03
Philippa Burgess
You have a social media manager and there are people that’s entirely what they do. And they will even do it for several companies. But within a company there’s a lot of people who do social media where that’s not their job title. It just integrated or folded into a marketing role or an admin role.

00;03;36;05–00;03;59;03
Lisa Cao
Yeah, I think what we’re seeing right now is a shift from subject matter field experts where a lot of people spend maybe a decade in one career to a shift to intersections. So what are you the intersection of and what has your life really built you to becoming? And what is that unique brand especially now, people are learning to brand themselves in very unique ways, and I think data is a really good conduit for that.

00;03;59;05–00;04;19;16
Lisa Cao
And the main reason is because data as technically proficient as you are. It really is about subject matter expertise. Nobody knows your data better than you, and there’s so many different facets of data and it’s not always transferable in a 1 to 1 way like people think. And you know, you can ask a recruiter that I’m sure they’ve had a lot of headaches with trying to to assess somebody’s skills in that way.

00;04;19;18–00;04;36;07
Lisa Cao
But I’ve had a similar journey where I think, you know, my really early started, I spent about six years as a caricaturist, believe it or not, and that was kind of how I brought myself through high school and university. It eventually made me a people person and it made me somebody who was able to read what somebody wanted.

00;04;36;13–00;04;56;26
Lisa Cao
And that is actually a skill that has probably helped me more in my field than anything else. Right. And learning how to work with people and then figuring out also the nuance of data as well. That was one of the things that I really loved about coming from a different field like psychology, is that you’re looking at the brain from different levels.

00;04;56;26–00;05;16;13
Lisa Cao
You’re looking at it at it from like a, you know, personality level, from a behavioral level, from a brain circuit level, from the biological level, and then down to this genetic sense where it’s super granular with cellular data that you’re then translating into these huge amounts of databases and files. And how do you connect all of that in such a way.

00;05;16;13–00;05;40;20
Lisa Cao
And that also has its own intersections. You know, if you go into neuroscience or psychology, everybody has a different blend of what that looks like and how they figure out where they sit within that field. And I think data is a tool that we’re using to now communicate our expertise. Right? And that expertise is nuanced. It is complicated, but it’s also appropriate for the world that we’re living in now.

00;05;40;22–00;05;57;08
Lisa Cao
This is a data journey that, you know, the entire field has gone through, especially as data professionals, but also as businesses have gone through as well, where we generally looked for trends and yes or no answers. If you’ve ever been somebody who’s had to interface with a stakeholder, you know that they just want something quick, yes or no?

00;05;57;09–00;06;26;11
Lisa Cao
Is this what I need to do or not? What does this say? But really, data and actual proficient data science and statistics is about describing granularity and describing nuance. And I think once you’re deep in the data, you’re starting to understand those relationships more. And unfortunately, this is something that kind of still lives in academia but hasn’t quite made its way into industry because we’re still looking for really quick, you know, black and white answers, you know, quick demographics to kind of be the end all, be all.

00;06;26;14–00;06;47;11
Lisa Cao
And that’s unfortunate because I think that once we understand nuance a lot more, we start to appreciate things like intersectionality. And this is something that, weirdly enough, feminism has gotten really pat down way before anybody else did, which is that depending on the different facets of your life, depending on your life history, depending on your demographics, you’re going to have a unique experience.

00;06;47;13–00;07;12;12
Lisa Cao
And yes, there may be general trends that follow along that, but there’s also really valuable information and granularity there that isn’t necessarily described when you’re looking at data from a very simplistic perspective. Right. And how can we find the right middle ground of that where, you know, our data analysis is still meaningful in some ways, but it’s still really is what we consider accurate?

00;07;12;14–00;07;32;24
Lisa Cao
Well, that’s one of the really big issues with big data as well. And it’s odd because I just talked about not necessarily looking at data in a granular enough way, but organizations these days kind of fit into one of two bins and we’re seeing them fit into the second bin more and more now as they’re trying to become data driven organizations where first people had a lot of survey data and that was really limited.

00;07;32;24–00;07;52;09
Lisa Cao
It was a small sample size and now everything is collected really discretely through different tools like online analytics. You know, you have Google Analytics as well where you have almost this endless amount of granularity and it’s still kind of spotty, but you can kind of pull whatever conclusions you want because all of a sudden now you’re dealing with big data, right?

00;07;52;12–00;08;13;00
Lisa Cao
But oftentimes still missing that subject matter expertise that can act as your sanity check beyond just like actual observability and data quality metrics. I think those are, weirdly enough, two totally different types of governance that you really have to look at. And those facets. So yeah, it’s really hard to figure out what is the right level to look at.

00;08;13;00–00;08;29;29
Lisa Cao
And if you’re not a data expert or even if you are a data expert but not a subject matter expert, it can be really hard to figure out when to stop and when to go deeper. And then you have this whole product side of it is, you know, what do I need just to get through this meeting? What do I need just to get through this next push?

00;08;30;00–00;08;54;01
Philippa Burgess
You mentioned a really great phrase, discretely collected. And I think that we are the data points and everything we do, every move we make, every way we use our I mean, our cell phone has just become this remote, remote sensor that we carry with us all the time. And we sit here about so many crimes that are solved because, well, their cell phone pinged from that location.

00;08;54;01–00;09;19;20
Philippa Burgess
They were there. We can just see on a map where they went when they were there. And the question is, you know, obviously with law enforcement being in the courts, being able to sort of access some of these records, under what circumstances and and what is due process, and yet at the same time, they can randomize some of our data to see sort of massive trends of where people are going and what they’re doing and what choices they’re making and how they’re spending their money.

00;09;19;20–00;09;44;13
Philippa Burgess
And but we are the data and we oftentimes I always refer to in media that there’s two business models. You’re either paying for the thing, you’re paying for the book, the ticket, the concert at the movie theater, and and or it’s just both you’re being advertised to. And so we often will take the advertising in exchange for it’s free.

00;09;44;16–00;10;02;17
Philippa Burgess
But now sometimes that advertising is in the form of we’re collecting your data and you’re in because you want something fast and free, you’re saying, Yeah, I’ll, I’ll sign, I’ll sign up for cookies, I’ll sign up for whatever you want to give me because I just want access and I want it to be free. And I’m willing to contribute my data.

00;10;02;17–00;10;26;01
Philippa Burgess
But you get into whole other issues now and you get into like hippocampal science in the hospitals and medical field. So let’s talk about like, yeah, where is this data being sourced from? How accessible is it? Where we where should the governance be? What are our rights or what are we what contract are we kind of making that says, you know, sharing this is in the best interests of society?

00;10;26;04–00;10;43;00
Lisa Cao
Yeah, I love that you mentioned that because weirdly enough does circle back to consumer psychology, right? What is something that is immediate and tangible that we can actually weigh the pros and cons of? And what is something that is abstract that we’re not necessarily able to keep at the forefront of our mind? And how do we value that?

00;10;43;02–00;11;03;00
Lisa Cao
We know data is valuable because we’re data scientists, but the average person, I think, doesn’t understand how valuable they are as a data point. And in terms of the local ecosystem, I won’t go into it too much. But there was a video essay I watched recently about dollar stores and how dollar stores seem like this really immediate nice thing to have in a community.

00;11;03;06–00;11;27;04
Lisa Cao
But they oftentimes are a drain and can actually kill local businesses because they’re this immediate gratification. We’re using data right now to really exploit that and to make it so that people don’t necessarily care. And we’re not presenting that information in a way that is friendly or consumable. Right. You’re having all these pop ups on your screen, but you’re not necessarily reading what these terms of agreements are.

00;11;27;06–00;11;45;29
Lisa Cao
And so in a lot of ways it’s a data literacy thing, but it’s also the way that that’s communicated. And how that awareness is made. But a lot of people still it’s not really relevant in their lives. Like truth be told, I’m somebody who has ten different extensions on their computer. I use Linux, I block everything from tracking me.

00;11;46;06–00;12;06;00
Lisa Cao
But I’ve also been on the marketing side of things and trying to get those analytics. I’m like, my God, there’s so many people, you know, using these blockers that I can’t track them. And now my data is all messed up. which side do you pick at the end of that battle? Right? And yes, we believe that governments are doing good with our data and are using it to to save children.

00;12;06;00–00;12;31;12
Lisa Cao
And I think that’s valid. I think that’s true. But I also think that it can be used, unfortunately, as this form of control. That’s why our data so valuable. That’s why you and I have jobs. You know, and why this is a lucrative field is because the way that you control consumer behavior oftentimes translates directly into profit. And there’s a huge incentive there to keep people in the dark about that.

00;12;31;14–00;13;07;09
Lisa Cao
And because you know that if they’re aware of it and they don’t want their data to be collected and there’s this huge uproar about it, that kind of makes my job harder in a lot of ways, right? I don’t know how to grapple with that. That’s a really difficult thing. The way that I’ve grappled with it is just not to market with marketing data and not to work with consumer data as much, but, you know, a lot of people point to government policy in law because I think this also applies to a lot of other fields as well, not necessarily data collection, but the government is slow to move and there’s a literacy issue at

00;13;07;09–00;13;31;12
Lisa Cao
the top of the chain right at the actual like policymaking level. And if they’re not able to get caught up on the tree and how can you expect that to trickle down to the general population, it’s just not something that’s worth their time and it’s not something that’s going to work. Well, I think the EU does a really good job of finding that middle ground, you know, depending on on which side you take there.

00;13;31;14–00;13;57;13
Lisa Cao
But they’ve been very proactive about it. Not perfect, but it’s a start. And we’re in that learning curve right now where people are going to figure out the downstream effects of it. But again, because our biology is slow to catch up, because our psychology is slow to catch up, because our government slow to catch up, it might not necessarily ever come to fruition where people are super aware and passionate about their data rights in the same way that they are.

00;13;57;13–00;14;22;20
Lisa Cao
Other things that might just actually be a reality that comes to pass. Unfortunately, people do tend to ask for forgiveness more easily than they ask for permission. And do we have processes streamlined in place as a society to make people aware of when they’re being recorded, of when they’re being, you know, collected in that way and when they’re being used?

00;14;22;20–00;14;41;13
Lisa Cao
And I don’t think we do, to be honest. I don’t think there’s the incentive to build that. And I think that it’s it would be a terrible business model, right, if you were to to do a start up around that. But it’s needed because it’s the right thing to do in terms of, you know, how technology is use these days.

00;14;41;16–00;15;02;25
Lisa Cao
Everything can be a camera, everything can be a recording device. And, you know, if you’ve ever done anything like, you know, working with Flipper Zero’s or any sort of hacking, all you need is, you know, a really simple plastic device and you can just put whatever you wanted it and people will kind of trust it and you can do whatever you want with that data.

00;15;02;28–00;15;32;09
Lisa Cao
And that’s been exploited time and time over again and know hospital systems in, you know, police offices, wherever people are trying to extort other organizations. And it’s unfortunate, but we just have a hard time protecting against that. Those quick, easy data startups have kind of come to fruition in the past five years, and some of them fit very specific niches because it’s an easy place for them to just make quick money and then kind of move on.

00;15;32;12–00;15;58;24
Lisa Cao
You know, with tech, what we see so often is quick innovation, quick and dirty innovation oftentimes. And there’s a beauty in that that you don’t see in other fields. And that’s something that I think lends itself really well to like intersectional thinkers. If we were to bring bring it back, right, where can we find this nation, exploit it and really build something that nobody else has ever seen before?

00;15;58;26–00;16;21;24
Lisa Cao
Academia moves really slowly. A lot of, you know, traditional businesses move really slowly, but tech moves quick and it sometimes moves inefficiently. But there’s also something kind of nice about that where something just needs to work. It doesn’t always need to be super, you know, fleshed out in the same way that other places are. And they can kind of standard dependently in that weird way.

00;16;21;24–00;16;46;04
Lisa Cao
You can kind of do so much with a five man team. I love this idea that you’ve brought on because one of the things that I love the most about being an engineer is, you know, this DevOps philosophy of shamelessness. You know, how do you figure out the core failing without necessarily having to to point fingers? And five or ten people like this is a postmortem, right?

00;16;46;06–00;17;07;22
Lisa Cao
And and there’s so many different inefficiency use when it comes to operations in general and in society that we’re not necessarily able to look at in a super objective way and really, you know, figure out the root analysis and cause for. But oftentimes what you find as well is that a lot of those failings are in things that almost can’t be helped.

00;17;07;25–00;17;32;19
Lisa Cao
I think that there was a lot that was preventative like within the the Hawaii fires. But in other pieces like climate change, you know, that’s a communication thing that maybe occurred because so many people lived in silos before and there wasn’t enough communication that was meant to be friendly. One of the things that I’ve loved seeing rise out and the last ten years is this idea of science communication being a viable field, right?

00;17;32;20–00;17;49;22
Lisa Cao
I think people are starting to really take advantage of that and realize the benefit of it because, you know, all of that funding that goes into that science comes from essentially public sources. And if the public is not necessarily, you know, in tune with what their science is doing for them, they’re not going to value it as much.

00;17;49;22–00;18;11;02
Lisa Cao
And, you know, in turn, we’re not necessarily going to get as much funding towards those things as opposed to, say, an app on your phone. The funding for that seems pretty straightforward because it they directly interface with that technology, right? How can we take lessons from this one field and again, bring it back to things that really matter and things that benefit society?

00;18;11;05–00;18;18;24
Lisa Cao
And I love that you brought that up because I think that’s where your career is starting to sit now, and that’s sort of where you’re starting to exploit things a little bit more.

00;18;18;27–00;18;44;16
Philippa Burgess
Yeah, And I it I’m seeing things in science that I think are really exciting and I’m like, Hey, if I can tell that story, if I can create a platform, if I can be one more voice to help get this information out or, or work within systems to be part of it. And things I’m learning as a woman tech maker, Ambassador, is that so many of our ambassadors are definitely at the top.

00;18;44;16–00;19;08;23
Philippa Burgess
I was at the top of the scale as far as women in tech in terms of being leaders in their community, being active and being in mentorship. But we’ve been coming out of a leadership class and we looked at, you know, there’s strategic leadership, there’s operational leadership, and every woman tech maker I’ve ever interfaced with, they have strategic and operational leadership that that’s just part of who they are.

00;19;08;26–00;19;33;17
Philippa Burgess
They wouldn’t have been a tech may applied to be a tech maker or been accepted to be a tech maker if they didn’t have that, were where their growth is is as a thought leader and as a bridge building leader. And I feel that this community is really creating an opportunity to lift up and help together, this opportunity for us to have this collective voice.

00;19;33;19–00;20;01;17
Lisa Cao
Now one 100%. And I think a lot of the things that you mentioned and touched on so much lead into management as well. I see women tech makers and ambassadors as being amazing managers and potential leaders in the field just because they understand, you know, bridging people and bridging technologies in a way that I think people who stay purely on the technical side sometimes struggle with, especially when it comes to building people up.

00;20;01;20–00;20;23;17
Lisa Cao
I’ve had this weird up and down cycling relationship when it comes to my own, you know, intelligence and the way that I think about myself and where I find my place in technology. At first I you know, because I started very early on as a community organizer for a really long time, I felt myself as just like a service, like I exist solely for the community.

00;20;23;22–00;20;40;18
Lisa Cao
And in a lot of ways I ended up over functioning. And, you know, everything that was asked of me, I just tried to meet at 110% and I always gave other people that first platform. And I think, you know, obviously that goes into so much of, you know, our upbringings and how we think about ourselves and self confidence, imposter syndrome.

00;20;40;21–00;20;58;10
Lisa Cao
And eventually I did kind of reach this point where I didn’t want to 80 and I was like, you know what, now my voice is worth being heard. And then I started speaking more and I started really becoming much more confident in myself and, you know, saying things that maybe I didn’t think were the most intelligent. But I just thought, you know, just say it anyways.

00;20;58;13–00;21;21;25
Lisa Cao
And, you know, it’s it’s such an uncomfortable thing to come to now. But where I am is, you know, having to figure out the balance of where can I have room for myself and others. Right? It’s not always just one or the other. Where can I find that nuance where I can use that platform? And, you know, as an extrovert, it’s just the way that it is to bring introverts into the room and make sure that they’re getting their platforms to.

00;21;21;28–00;21;41;05
Lisa Cao
Same with other women, same with other people. Because I think that I have a bit of privilege that I can use now to uplift other people. Whereas before, maybe I was just in a little bit more of a fight or flight mode, like, okay, I’ve just got to get in at all costs. I’ve got to kind of train role through through everybody and everything.

00;21;41;07–00;22;04;29
Lisa Cao
And that has been my own personal journey. You know, where I sit now is, you know, you know, I chair a committee for a hackathon, and it’s a really big event that happens in my local community called the Vancouver Data job. And, you know, my leadership style from my first year of being a committee chair to now has been completely different, but almost exactly the same.

00;22;05;02–00;22;23;11
Lisa Cao
My first year, I just took on everything. I didn’t feel like I was worthy of asking my committee members to do things, of asking things of other people. I still struggle with asking for sponsorships, right? And I think that translates to so many other people’s journey and tech with asking for a salary raises or or negotiating or even asking for fundraising.

00;22;23;11–00;22;50;25
Lisa Cao
Right. And then I kind of settled into this place of, okay, now I’m just going to offload everything to everybody because, you know, I’ve put in my dues and this is like other people’s turn out to to take the reins. And now it’s like, how can I be a hands on leader and not over function, but still also make it so that the people who are coming in, we can uplift and bring up their leadership skills at the same time.

00;22;50;25–00;23;27;12
Lisa Cao
How can we create that bridge for them to to then, you know, really feel comfortable and in their own and it takes a little bit more care, it takes a little bit more nuance in your leadership style. But I think it’s something that women técnicas does really well. How can you empower and give somebody their own wings, but not necessarily feel like you’re, you know, being patronizing or, you know, how how do you find that balance and communication and how do you then ensure that it’s trickled down to you, your managers that are working under you and they’re building that philosophy to you while keeping like a good environment?

00;23;27;12–00;23;31;16
Lisa Cao
And it’s so tricky sometimes.

00;23;31;19–00;23;49;05
Philippa Burgess
Yes. And I think that we only see that obviously when we have these late and you have deadlines and you’re moving parts and you have budget and you have all these people and and then we sort of show up as we are and we very quickly learn what we naturally do well, what we are kind of maybe naturally falling short on.

00;23;49;05–00;24;18;02
Philippa Burgess
And then and there’s like kind of the growing in the evolving, like, how do we do this better? You mentioned sponsorships. It was interesting. That was actually one of my big wins when I first moved to Colorado. It was I just had that so dialed in and I got involved in some committees that they were like that they needed sponsorship chairs and I, I jumped into that role and it was interesting because I did too, that I just won out really, really well.

00;24;18;04–00;24;40;24
Philippa Burgess
And then the third one, I they wanted to repeat one of them another year. And what they did is they sort of said, you did such a great job last year. We’re going to raise the ASP. And they kind of ignored the fact that they gave me so much support the year before and that we had such a great team and it was really collaborative and they’d have a new president every year.

00;24;40;25–00;24;59;27
Philippa Burgess
The new president, like I didn’t understand any of the behind the scenes work that had went on and the fact that I now had a whole punch list of things I would do differently now, and they had no interest in hearing any of those things or giving me any support team. And I had I sort of just started and then I was like, I quit now they’re doing this.

00;24;59;27–00;25;26;06
Philippa Burgess
And they were shocked. And I was like, Yeah, because I and there’s no way that you can succeed in this if you don’t work collaboratively and you’re not willing to improve and iterate the process. Because I learned everything we did right last year, but I also saw the things we could have done better. But a big thing, just a good takeaway for you and anybody else is that marketing departments have a budget.

00;25;26;08–00;25;46;26
Philippa Burgess
Think of it like you’re not trying to plant a seed with somebody and say, Hey, sponsor you’ve never sponsored before. Like, we’re going to grow this tree together. Now all you’re doing is plucking the fruit. And so you just look for companies that you are solving a problem for them. They have marketing budget and then they have a purpose, which is we want to get in front of like this particular demographic.

00;25;46;29–00;26;04;28
Philippa Burgess
And, you know, and they usually want to like give away swag or do a demo or something that like you’re helping them get market share or they’re really big and it’s just more like, Hey, you want to be aligned and help your narrative be supporting the community. And this is a great place to show up and do this.

00;26;05;01–00;26;22;06
Philippa Burgess
So I think when you pitch for sponsorships, it’s really making sure you have all the supporting documentation because they always want to see it in writing. But the lead in is starting with, you know, do you have a marketing department, Do you have marketing budget? They don’t like that. They haven’t. Their fruit hasn’t is not ready to be plucked.

00;26;22;09–00;26;43;10
Lisa Cao
Yeah, I love that. And one of the two great pieces of advice to to go into that as well because I think that it’s something that not a lot of data scientists understand not a lot of software engineers understand as well when they’re trying to do these community events. It’s all of the other parts of the organization. And you you know, at first I used to always pitch to the eye managers.

00;26;43;13–00;27;07;00
Lisa Cao
And one of the best pieces of advice that I got for from somebody else who kind of taught me so much about sponsorships has been D-I. Budgets are low compared to marketing and recruiting. You need to learn how to resell yourself depending on which department that you’re working with. And this goes into what you said. How can you solve the issue that that particular department is going to right?

00;27;07;00–00;27;29;03
Lisa Cao
Recruitment for women in tech is an extremely hard thing. And you know, if you can fix that problem by just giving them like, hey, here’s 200 woman who all of a sudden are qualified data scientists, like doesn’t that solve a problem that you’re having as a recruiter? Doesn’t that solving a problem that you’re having with hiring if you’re not getting enough applicants?

00;27;29;06–00;27;53;15
Lisa Cao
Same with marketing as well. And I think one of the weird personal lessons that I had to deal with when trying to fundraise was not letting my own personal relationship with money. Cloud What will look like in tech And I don’t know if anybody else really deals with this, but like I grew up without a lot of friends, I grew up thinking that like $5,000 was a ton of money and it was a ton of money when I was growing up.

00;27;53;18–00;28;16;17
Lisa Cao
And it still is. It still feels like a ton of money, right? But to a company that’s kind of not that much. And and I think a lot of women tech makers are so used to coming from underprivileged backgrounds that now they’re thrusted into this position where they don’t necessarily get the whole scope of things. Now, they don’t see those numbers right, because they’re not on that side.

00;28;16;17–00;28;37;13
Lisa Cao
I think you get to see them because you have like, you know, been around the block and you’ve seen corporations at this more holistic level. But a lot of data scientists and engineers don’t really know that. And I think also we think of ourselves as sometimes being synonymous with our initiatives and what we do. And I oftentimes, you know, have to think, am I worthy of this investment from somebody?

00;28;37;20–00;28;59;21
Lisa Cao
And I think that’s such a thing that resonates with the community because it affects the way that we lead. It affects our ability to to do startups and to be executives. And it it’s so hard to grapple with that sometimes. But if you can separate that successfully, you can even compartmentalize it because fixing it is going to take a lot of work and some years of growth in there as a person.

00;28;59;23–00;29;13;17
Lisa Cao
But if you can successfully figure out how you can get a better, more realistic picture of your assets and how that relates to, you know, other places in the field, you’re going to be much more successful. I think.

00;29;13;20–00;29;35;06
Philippa Burgess
Yeah. And the other thing it reminds me also when you go for, for example, scholarships or grants or things like that, they’re listening exercises. They’re not pitching exercises. You listen. And so a lot of times, again, if you have an idea of who the group sponsors could be before you have a deadline and a budget and like, no, I’ve got to figure out this problem.

00;29;35;06–00;29;51;25
Philippa Burgess
And then tomorrow and I meant to call them two weeks ago, but now I’m calling them today and then you’re in pitch mode. The reality is, if you can find the point of contact like six months earlier and just say, what are you guys looking for? If I find an opportunity, that would be a good fit, what would it look like?

00;29;51;28–00;30;10;24
Philippa Burgess
And ask and get the information and not try to put it into your particular box. Now you have this information. There may be other people that you deal with are doing it. The other events and this the answer that you got could be perfect for that. And now you’re you’re armed with this information. And then if yours is perfectly aligned.

00;30;10;26–00;30;25;27
Philippa Burgess
it’s a really you’re like I said, that you’re not even that fruit is just falling right in your hand. You’re not even having to sort of put it. But I think a lot of it is really getting in early and asking them what kind of things do you guys sponsor? What kind of things are you guys looking for?

00;30;25;29–00;30;39;22
Philippa Burgess
If I come across one, what should I be bringing to you? What should I be recommending you for so that I can play matchmaker? And then, you know, I’d love it if my event was a perfect fit, but let me hear what you have to say first, because you have a budget. And that’s another thing, too, about budgets.

00;30;39;29–00;30;56;09
Philippa Burgess
Budgets tend to be set year by year, and so they may not have planned for your event this year because they didn’t know about it. They already had a locked in their budget. But if they know about it and you can have an ongoing conversation, then they can plan for it for the next year. They can pre-approve it already in the budget’s already planned for.

00;30;56;09–00;31;26;03
Philippa Burgess
It’s not even like it has to be pulled out of a a bigger, undefined block of money like you are now a line item. You’re there. And so these were you know I think a big part of is I guess a relationship building is going in early and just asking, is it just a general point? You kind of have an idea of the companies that you see that are floating out there that could be aligned and that you can get in and just Yeah, just build that relationship, find who’s that point of contact, find out who’s the right department.

00;31;26;06–00;31;42;20
Philippa Burgess
And it might take being referred to a few departments to get to the right person that takes time. And if you are on a, you know, a rush and you’ve got an event, you’ve got 100,000 other things in your on your to do list, that’s not going to be as have as much flow to it.

00;31;42;23–00;32;07;18
Lisa Cao
100%. I think that’s all just gold that you’ve given right there, especially to anybody who’s like looking to to figure out how to build relationships with sponsors. It’s really that those small little pulses throughout the year that really pay off. And this is as somebody who has tried to fundraise very last minute and has kind of left the event planning last minute because, you know, as women tech makers, we have full time jobs.

00;32;07;18–00;32;30;13
Lisa Cao
Right? We are doing this as sort of this community service. And it can be really hard to figure out the allocation of that in terms of our time, in terms of our energy. But I do think that it really does pay off because it gives you a fantastic network at the end and you keep your kind of hands in this web and it’s a continuous thing that builds and it really does snowball over time.

00;32;30;13–00;32;59;22
Lisa Cao
And all of a sudden, you know, things become easier and easier. And you’re then that companies or that sponsors place to be connected with the community and that centralized position is so powerful in a lot of ways, especially if you can get to that really trusting relationship. I really loved so much of what you said with, you know, taking your ego out of a problem and instead of trying to prove yourself really listening to a problem and what you can do to solve it and how you can be somebody solution.

00;32;59;22–00;33;17;20
Lisa Cao
Because I think in our careers in engineering, we are so caught up sometimes with proving that we’re smart and that where we belong, that we’re not necessarily sitting down and listening. And I’ve been guilty of this throughout my career so many times of, you know, what are they actually trying to achieve? What do they need to make it to the next quarter?

00;33;17;20–00;33;45;29
Lisa Cao
If you’re in a startup, right, Or what do they need to to prove that this team works? And now as I interview with companies and you know, in the past, I’ve always really tried to to gauge, you know, what is it that they’re trying to solve and how can I help them or how can I figure out a way to help them instead of constantly proving I’m hirable, instead of constantly proving that I’m a good engineer and that my code is good?

00;33;46;01–00;34;16;02
Lisa Cao
You know, if you can demonstrate that understanding of real problem solving, then I think you’ll go so far in this field and it’s something that a lot of people don’t necessarily learn until later. And in a lot of ways, it’s what separates, you know, a junior from a senior, right? Instead of being siloed in your own little base, trying to fact everything and pouring so much of yourself into it, thinking about the organization as a whole, you know, what is I ecosystem?

00;34;16;02–00;34;27;12
Lisa Cao
What is that problem? What does that pinpoint? What is that bottleneck? And then tackling it. And it’s not even about you. It’s just about the solution that you’re bringing to the table. You are just a tool in advance.

00;34;27;14–00;34;41;24
Philippa Burgess
And because you’re a tool in that sense, one of the big things that I’ve been doing this year is I keep raising my hands. I raise my hand for the most ridiculous things now, and as long I feel like there’s a potential there aligned, not going to waste my time if I get it, but I don’t care now if I don’t get it.

00;34;41;26–00;35;00;22
Philippa Burgess
Because I think the same thing about asking for sponsorship. There’s this sense of like, I need you to say yes, and I know you put so much energy into the the building yourself up to even be able to ask that you kind of are so attached to it. Yes. Where you know, to me a lot of it also is like, here’s the opportunity, here’s what it is.

00;35;00;22–00;35;21;04
Philippa Burgess
If it’s a good fit for you, great. Let me know. Moving on. And it’s just and the idea that I can kind of put and then a lot of the sponsorships I ended up getting were people I had a friendly relationship with and they were like, We like you. And, you know, we got an extra, you know, one of the big numbers, they’re like, we got an extra $500, we got an extra $2,000, and we’re just going to give it to you because we like you.

00;35;21;06–00;35;33;12
Philippa Burgess
And sure, it’s going to help our company, but it’s not like, you know, a big thing for us that we expect like a big result from. It’s not going to hurt our company, but we like you and we’re going to support the things that you’re doing.

00;35;33;14–00;35;52;27
Lisa Cao
100%. And I think that it’s those relationships that feel much more organic and feel so much more genuine. Right. When I think about our organizations and how we kind of started, at least for me, you know, being part of women tech makers is fantastic. But it’s this huge global organization where my heart is, is in my local community.

00;35;52;27–00;36;14;25
Lisa Cao
That’s where I started was by volunteering at, you know, as a day camp leader and with my local like organizations and then building my way up through there. And when you’re interconnected with in the community, it’s all about just, hey, this person knows this person or I’ve seen you like three or four times now at the same event such as Connect, Let’s just be friendly.

00;36;15;02–00;36;40;08
Lisa Cao
Let’s just figure out where we’re trying to go and if our interests align. And that is something now in sort of this COVID age, as things have moved remotely in a lot of ways, we’ve lost sometimes for better or sometimes for worse. I’m very lucky in that I live in a city where there is a tech community and I can just kind of go outside my door and there’s five different meetup groups there and that is so nice.

00;36;40;10–00;36;55;26
Lisa Cao
But also when things are online completely and things are moving at this global scale or this national scale, it can feel really hard to to build those same relationships that then lead to these sort of organic sponsorships in a lot of ways.

00;36;55;28–00;37;14;14
Philippa Burgess
Yeah, I think a lot of it was about personal relationships and I think like other things that I have because I’ve moved a couple cities is like, what makes you feel safe? And I feel that the people you know know each other. And what makes people motivated to want to know you is when they know that you know people that they know.

00;37;14;16–00;37;33;13
Philippa Burgess
And I think that that’s that idea of community and just being able to show up regularly and contribute. But I have sometimes such a light touch in communities because I’m there for such a long period of time and they know me that I can pop in and out and and it it’s like I never left. And it’s and it’s always I feel welcome.

00;37;33;13–00;37;51;05
Philippa Burgess
I always feel safe, always feel that that network has been going on without me and continues to only get stronger. And then they all know I’m part of it. So I can sort of pop in when I do. And I think people have talked about, you know, so the older you get, the harder it is to make friendships.

00;37;51;05–00;38;23;09
Philippa Burgess
And I always feel like just again, finding communities, you’re really aligned with is and where the people know that you know, know each other and that you’re really part of a fabric is a great way to build those friendships when you’re older. Another thing that you were sort of saying, which reminded me I have this new I kind of got it at the conference where I I’ve been feeling this really strong sense of ageism in the fact that I mid-career I walked away from what I was doing before and I was like, I’m kind of starting over and then I’m and then not at the same time, because those past relationships and those past experience

00;38;23;09–00;38;42;25
Philippa Burgess
are kind of coming to the fore. And it’s my version of ageism, which is to say, I don’t care how you judge me, I’m judging you. When I look at a company and a culture, I have way higher standards than I’ve ever had before about what the work I’m willing to do, how I’m willing to be managed, how I want to be compensated, where I work, how I work.

00;38;42;28–00;38;51;01
Philippa Burgess
And that’s just not something I ever thought about before. And so, yeah, I take that as a positive thing.

00;38;51;03–00;39;12;29
Lisa Cao
It’s a tricky situation. I think as women in tech, we know that there is this intersectionality between these gender roles oftentimes that are put upon us by society and, you know, so one of the the event that I run, which is the Vancouver Data Jam, we do workshops and we’re very beginner friendly. And one of the nice things about this hackathon is that we target working professionals.

00;39;12;29–00;39;35;11
Lisa Cao
We’re not just, you know, based around university students. I think so many hackathons are kind of around that ecosystem. We don’t need to concentrate on it anymore. And so oftentimes because of the way that we market ourselves too, we get a lot of women who are returning to their careers after a break, who are switching from more non-technical fields to to then become, you know, data professionals.

00;39;35;13–00;39;57;13
Lisa Cao
And that’s always one of the big questions is, you know, I’ve heard it like maybe three or four times now at this point in the last three months. You know, I’m coming back after a break. I am, you know, over 40 at this point. Everywhere that I’m interviewing is just turning me down based off this career break and this ageism, you know, can you help me write?

00;39;57;16–00;40;20;11
Lisa Cao
And in a lot of ways it’s like, yes, I can get you into these courses and you can attend these workshops and you can build these connections. But there’s a weird reality there of, you know, cognitive dissonance between, you know, this bias that we have. But also I think that there’s an empowerment too. And I speak as somebody who doesn’t have to deal with these issues.

00;40;20;11–00;40;38;10
Lisa Cao
So I kind of acknowledge that I can say it, but I haven’t had to live through it. And I think that’s something that’s worth acknowledging on my side, and I think it’s something that we all fear as as women in a lot of ways. But there’s an empowerment to going, you know what, screw you guys, I didn’t want to work here anyways.

00;40;38;10–00;40;54;08
Lisa Cao
I’m going to go do my own thing. And we’re in the ecosystem where we can do that now, where maybe 20 years ago that wasn’t the case. But now you can start your own consultancy if you want to. You don’t need to be the next big IPO. You just need make enough to live. And I think a lot of people are happy with that.

00;40;54;08–00;41;13;22
Lisa Cao
And not to say that you should keep the bar low, but there’s options now that exist where you now no longer have to bend over backwards just to please somebody who didn’t like you to begin with anyways. And that’s where we’re seeing a lot of these really unique and cool startup ideas come from. And That grit that you have, that perseverance can pay off.

00;41;13;27–00;41;28;01
Lisa Cao
So, so, so wow. So if you’re willing to do things like, you know, learn continuously and and get back in touch with the community and put yourself out there, I think that’s probably the initial hardest step is being vulnerable in that sense.

00;41;28;03–00;41;45;02
Philippa Burgess
Yeah. And that was, you know, things that I had to kind of address in the fact that when I lived in the heart of Los Angeles, there were probably millions of jobs available to me. Very short commute in or, you know, it’s L.A. And then over time, as I had jobs, I’d move from one side of the city to another.

00;41;45;05–00;42;00;12
Philippa Burgess
And some of it was driven by work, and some of it was just wasn’t driven by sort of personal choice. But either way, I was like, I was in the heart of the city. And I never thought about the idea that a job would not be readily available to me because there were just so many things to do and there were so many opportunities.

00;42;00;14–00;42;22;17
Philippa Burgess
And then I moved to Denver and then sort of found myself kind of gravitating towards Boulder, which is about 45 minutes north west of Denver, but had really kind of tight communities. And part of the reason I’ve sort of done a reset on my career is that when I got there, very there was a whole wash over of the cannabis and CBD industry.

00;42;22;17–00;42;42;10
Philippa Burgess
So I found myself working in the Kansas City industry and there were tons of startups that needed a lot of marketing. I still did a lot of work with law firms. It was construction, so a lot of happening there. But ultimately I just found myself completely sort of pulled into the cannabis industry and then after a while there was a number of reasons why I was like, and it was led by personal.

00;42;42;10–00;42;58;18
Philippa Burgess
When I my marriage ended and I was like went back to kind of hanging out my family back east and then my mom is actually in California. And so I have my family split across the country. My parents are in their mid eighties and I was realizing they needed a lot more attention. So I’ve never been in the role of a caregiver before and now I am.

00;42;58;20–00;43;23;16
Philippa Burgess
And so now I think about the fact that my dad lives in rural Pennsylvania, my mom lives in Colorado, San Diego. So it’s like there’s there’s opportunities there, but they’re very fixed. Like in my younger days, like, I would have just moved right now, I don’t think commuting I would have moved right next door to the company. You know, got an apartment, Like I didn’t even have thought about the fact that, you know, now I’m like, No, I’m in a very fixed location.

00;43;23;16–00;43;39;28
Philippa Burgess
Like, I can’t just move next door. I could hang out with you guys. I could get a hotel lounge room, stay for like a month or two or even like, I could probably done that even maybe six months or a year ago. Now my mom’s like almost a full time care. Like, I can’t even go back to Pennsylvania right now.

00;43;39;28–00;43;57;01
Philippa Burgess
So I’m like, How’s this work? And I’m thinking it, but I’m not thinking it. I think that’s why I’ve decided. I was like, you know what? I’m just going to lean into the being as technically proficient as I can be with all the things I’m super passionate about, which is like spatial data science I like, I want to be very good.

00;43;57;01–00;44;17;23
Philippa Burgess
I can work on teams. I, I can travel. I’m sure we can sort of get her paid care as she as she as she goes. I mean, but it’s striking that balance that I’ve never had before. I was like, how do I do this? And I think it’s going to make me a lot more motivated to be a content creator because I can say like, okay, I can see that there’s a there’s a path there.

00;44;17;25–00;44;32;19
Philippa Burgess
But also I’m like, I still need health insurance. I get it through my university. I’ve got another 18 months of school. So like there’s no rush, but it’s for the first time in my life, like I actually have to think about these things in a way I’ve never had to think about them before.

00;44;32;21–00;44;55;28
Lisa Cao
You know, it’s so interesting that you mentioned this, and this was not something that I was planning to to bring up whatsoever. But I think as a woman, technically, it’s one of my more defining features where I’m like for like about three years I was a caregiver as an only child to like an only parent. And, you know, during that time I could think about was how much I was ruining my career.

00;44;56;00–00;45;14;09
Lisa Cao
Maybe not all of that, all I could think about. But it was one of the big things because I was a workaholic. I couldn’t move for any sort of internships or early career opportunities, and I was fixed in this place. And, you know, all your time, all your energy is being poured into this one thing. And, you know, caregiver burnout is so real.

00;45;14;09–00;45;36;07
Lisa Cao
And I was just talking to some another software engineer who I was providing some mentorship for, who was dealing with the same thing, right? She was like, my God, I’m 25 and I’m a caretaker. How did you do this? It’s only been five months for me. And it it’s one of those things where you have to learn at that point which decisions are worth making and which aren’t.

00;45;36;14–00;45;55;15
Lisa Cao
And it’s one of the biggest life lessons that I’ve had to personally go through. But it was that experience that I think makes me such a good leader in the community now, because I think when people talk to me, they kind of get that sense of like genuineness because I really don’t muck around. Now it’s like, how severe is this issue?

00;45;55;15–00;46;15;23
Lisa Cao
Let’s, you know, really figure out the pros and cons of this and let’s figure out the the life nebulous stuff around that. That’s something that should be acknowledged. I think that’s something that, you know, woman tech makers does. Right. But it was really hard at that point in in a lot of ways. Even now, I feel like I’m still having to to bounce back technically from my career.

00;46;15;23–00;46;35;28
Lisa Cao
And and at the time, you’re you’re dealing with so much stuff like it’s just like hell sometimes. And, you know, the last thing that you’re thinking about is like, I should go learn Kubernetes, right? Because you’re just like, trying to make it through the days and times and you’re exhausted. And now I’m in a place where I can think about those things.

00;46;36;01–00;47;12;29
Lisa Cao
But, you know, and the reason why I bring this up is because I felt like it was this sinkhole and waste of time that I just lost, you know, my my early to mid twenties, like just doing this thing. And now as I’m a little bit older and now you know, as I’ve had time back in the industry, it’s like, you know what that maturity, that ability to think really strategically and to think about these really deep things and take them head on, they’re so valuable and I think they reach, you know, different parts of our careers in ways that we don’t necessarily even have the ability to acknowledge or see because they become so

00;47;12;29–00;47;23;27
Lisa Cao
integral to who we are as people. And weirdly enough, I think other people can sense it and they can also acknowledge it in their own ways. But it’s so hard when you’re in the thick of it.

00;47;23;29–00;47;41;25
Philippa Burgess
Yeah, and I mine’s like a day by day thing, you know, I was because I was actually planning even going to Colorado this October. And I reached out to my friend that I stay with there and I was like, No, I can’t leave right now. I said, And if she’s fine 98% of the time, But it’s the 2% I worry about.

00;47;41;27–00;48;04;10
Philippa Burgess
It’s the you know, it’s like she doesn’t take her medicine by herself. You know, I administer that every day. Super simple thing takes 5 minutes. I mean, morale. And I get along so well, it’s super easy to live with. She knows I’m in grad school. She knows I’m like she refers to as, your clock clocking. Or I have my studio time and she’s very supportive, so I don’t feel yet that I’m like, I held back from all the learning I want to do for all the connecting I want to do.

00;48;04;12–00;48;26;21
Philippa Burgess
I have a couple of trips to L.A. Day trips like, no problem. But going away for two days, three days, like that’s where I, you know, So I’m now like, okay, I have to accept this new reality. And yeah, so it’s just I think but I mean, women, kids, women with husbands, women with houses. And if those houses are, you know, in an urban environment, you limit your options.

00;48;26;21–00;48;51;17
Philippa Burgess
And so it’s it’s trying to figure out kind of I think all of these things just need to be sorted out both individually and collectively, because I’m sure I’m not the only one. And and at the same time I’m like, well, what what’s the other option? I’m at the point where I’m like, I’d rather keep her alive and make certain sacrifices then than the alternative.

00;48;51;17–00;49;11;15
Philippa Burgess
But I also understand, like when the alternative happens, you know, I will be set free to go do other adventures. And given my interest in disaster resilience and recovery, you know, there’s I’m very likely to just show up, you know, in a in a in a disaster and and get my hands dirty and see what I can actually do.

00;49;11;16–00;49;19;16
Philippa Burgess
So I know that this time is also very finite and I want to appreciate it as well.

00;49;19;19–00;49;42;27
Lisa Cao
Yeah. And you know, as people I think we grow so much from it. Like I had to make the same decision. I set my career on fire for like three years straight where I was just cycling through different start ups at a certain point. And you know, in a lot of ways I was underperforming, but it also allowed me to see which companies were really worth sticking with and which weren’t, who was understanding and who wasn’t.

00;49;42;29–00;50;05;02
Lisa Cao
And I think a lot of times when we first enter into the industry, all we can think about again is proving ourselves. And we’re not necessarily critical of, you know, what’s around us or the company. We just want to get we just want to be a software engineer. In a lot of ways, we’re just chasing that title to validate ourselves in some way, validate our intelligence.

00;50;05;04–00;50;25;11
Lisa Cao
But, you know, after a certain point when all of these other things come into play, you then really take a look at things with a more critical eye. And I think that makes you a more realistic person and makes you somebody who stands on your own a lot better. And it’s not pretty, but it’s worth it to do in the end.

00;50;25;11–00;50;46;17
Lisa Cao
And it’s a lesson that I think so many people have to learn because we all deal with things through life, like it’s just something that is inevitable. We have partners that, you know, go through things as well. We have kids that get sick. We have parents that eventually die. We, you know, who knows, right? There’s so much. Our homes get set on fire sometimes.

00;50;46;24–00;51;17;14
Lisa Cao
How half the country is burning right now. And that’s just something that we’re supposed to ignore at work. It’s totally not realistic. It’s not going to happen. And the more transparent and open that we are about these things, I think that the more change we can push on the industry because our industry is one that is high performing, especially if you’re in the startup arena, you know, you’re given like 50 or 60 hours a week and you’re doing all this community work on the side and then you’re dealing with this nebulous life stuff.

00;51;17;17–00;51;39;17
Lisa Cao
It’s crazy. Like it really is crazy. And in a lot of ways you’re just kind of pushing through it. But in some other ways you’re just figuring out what can be on fire and what can’t be. What tradeoffs am I going to make? And that’s something that only you can make as a person. Nobody can judge you for those things because only you know the whole picture now.

00;51;39;19–00;51;59;12
Philippa Burgess
Yeah. And I think I think the thing is that women are doing an incredible job of still stepping into what is a man’s world. What are these structures? Everything from the 9 to 5 even. That was, you know, a lot of labor movements had to sort of make it so that it wasn’t the 12 hour day and the seven day workweek and the six day workweek.

00;51;59;12–00;52;19;25
Philippa Burgess
And, you know, we’ve gotten it to where we have it. But I think as we get more women leaders, we’re going to actually see workplace cultures evolve. I remember being in one office where they were being very protective of the moms. And so if you had kids and you needed anything, they were like, no problem. But that wasn’t fair for the rest of us who didn’t have kids.

00;52;19;25–00;52;32;25
Philippa Burgess
Like, I wasn’t allowed to, even if I felt like I’d be more creative and productive to go downstairs and work in the coffee shop. Couldn’t leave my desk. And and yet if someone was like, I have kids, I won’t work from home this afternoon. no problem. And I was like, So I also feel like that way.

00;52;32;25–00;52;52;10
Philippa Burgess
I truly feel like to get gender equality we’re looking for is to actually give the same flexibility to men and and that they evolved to be able to sort of pick up more of the home responsible parties in the home duties that they’re right now many of them are sort of completely off the hook for outside of some yard work and some grilling.

00;52;52;13–00;53;01;05
Philippa Burgess
So we need to like also sort of evolve our society so that women don’t feel like they’re just doing two full time jobs.

00;53;01;07–00;53;21;05
Lisa Cao
Yeah, I think Pat leave is something that, you know, as more countries adopt it and as it gets supported and accepted so much more, I think it’s going to be, you know, fantastic. Like I think it’s really going to to help people at home. And now we’re reaching this point where, unfortunately, due to the cost of living, you have both parents having to work.

00;53;21;10–00;53;40;19
Lisa Cao
I don’t think people are really able to live off just one salary anymore. And with that comes so many different questions of who’s going to take on what. It’s just not feasible for one person to do both roles anymore. And you know, if you have two people in the household, you’re going to have to be a split of things anyways.

00;53;40;21–00;54;04;05
Lisa Cao
And that’s just the way that it is. It’s unfair otherwise and, you know, sometimes that doesn’t necessarily have to look like you do dishes every single, you know, Wednesday and Tuesday, Thursday. But instead it looks like, okay, a couple of years we’re going to focus on your career and I’ll take on the brunt a couple of years. We’re going to trade it off, you know, and there’s so many different lifestyles out there these days that, you know, people can really move at their own pace.

00;54;04;05–00;54;25;25
Lisa Cao
It’s just the acceptance of the people around them That can be a setback sometimes. And hopefully, you know, we can push through that, which is what I’m hoping for as well. You know, there are a lot of amazing men out there who would be great fathers and but we then kind of stigmatize it in our society sometimes, unfortunately, amongst other men as well.

00;54;25;27–00;54;57;09
Lisa Cao
Right. And I think that’s something that needs to be addressed directly. You know, women’s issues are men’s issues and men’s issues are women’s issues. Right. The pressure that one gender feels oftentimes can be alleviated through the other gender. And that’s something that we need to look at really holistically. Again, it’s bringing this very, like engineering perspective to relationships and to life where it’s just like, you know, how can we postmortem this in a blameless way and just bring in a solution without really thinking about the identity politics, politics around it?

00;54;57;16–00;55;06;16
Lisa Cao
Because that’s just what we want is a solution at the end. It’s not to to bring an ego. It’s not to feel power, even if it might be tempting to to bring that in sometimes.

00;55;06;18–00;55;25;02
Philippa Burgess
Yeah. And I just I say that just from a point of view of, you know, as an I get this, I’m doing more in the intelligence community. I just joined an organization. I was part of a women’s networking like Happy Hour that was online. And a lot of the women were saying like that they don’t the men aren’t aren’t running the kids, the doctors appointments.

00;55;25;04–00;55;45;11
Philippa Burgess
And so and then I was also doing an Air Force recruitment thing where women were like, well, we’re treated completely equally at the office. It’s like, yes, but you’re not treated equally at home. And this is the problem. And so it’s great that there’s sort of this perceived gender equality where women are getting all these same promotional opportunities as men and they’re sort of narrowing those pay gaps.

00;55;45;14–00;56;04;06
Philippa Burgess
But to make it so that when a man says, hey, I got to leave today, I got I got to pick up my kid from school today, that that’s normalized. You know, and I’ll I’ll I’ll pick up finish whatever I need to do or I’ll come in early. You know that men get as much flexibility or I got to leave the Saturdays.

00;56;04;07–00;56;11;29
Philippa Burgess
I got to be the one taking the kids to the doctor, whatever it is like. That sort of gender parity, I think, is that next level. We’re not there yet.

00;56;12;01–00;56;34;08
Lisa Cao
Yeah, and I think that also can lead into more granular things in the workplace too, of not just having more women leaders, but also having more male leaders who are capable of emotional labor and, you know, really mentorship in the same way that respect women, too. I you know, some of my best mentors have been men in the field who have really uplifted me.

00;56;34;08–00;56;59;03
Lisa Cao
Some of my worst mentors have also been men in the field who have put me down and who have really said some nasty things to me. And I find that when we’re able to distribute, you know, expectations a little bit more evenly, instead of just like flocking to the first female leader that we see and expecting to take on the emotional labor of everybody who’s a female in the work place, that’s just a ridiculous expectation to have to.

00;56;59;06–00;57;19;24
Lisa Cao
And, you know, when I first started Data Time, one of the things that was most magical about it was I we were five women doing this grassroots organization. I think people loved that we were in all like woman committee. And then as the years went by, we introduced more men into our committee, but still cut the mandate of, you know, being like a women’s based event.

00;57;19;26–00;57;45;05
Lisa Cao
And I think a lot of like initial pushback to that was, you know, well, it’s so magical to have a woman in your community, but it’s like, well, we’re draining the community if we’re only taking the female leaders that are in there and then forcing them to do this extra like 10 hours of work per week, like if there’s men who want to contribute and who are capable of doing it and who share the vision, let them be part of it.

00;57;45;05–00;58;10;13
Lisa Cao
Like, why would I? Well, why would I turn down the help and you know, how can we reward and incentivize that in the same way there’s an awareness to I think a lot of us as women tech makers or who are women software engineers, we deal with either being in fully, you know, women tech groups where I think it’s a very specifically designated safe place and being the only woman in a male space right.

00;58;10;16–00;58;39;26
Lisa Cao
I have two different groups in that sense who are tech focused. There’s my women’s coding groups and then there’s me hanging out at a bar with my friends who are all men. And it’s like, why do I have this expectation of safety and comfort and emotional labor in one environment but not the other? And how can I bring more awareness into the other and bring that sort of, you know, advocacy in a way that then creates a safer environment between the both of them?

00;58;39;26–00;58;55;20
Lisa Cao
Right. It’s a tricky position to be in sometimes, but that that’s just kind of the reality of also being a woman. Take me here is not really, you know, always being in women’s spaces, but also acknowledging that 99% of the time we’re in men spaces as well.

00;58;55;23–00;59;09;19
Philippa Burgess
Yeah, Yeah. And so those are all things that are important to talk about. And I’m glad that we’re talking about them here. This has been excellent. Thank you so much. Let me just have you sort of wrap up some sort of final words.

00;59;09;22–00;59;35;00
Lisa Cao
Sure. Thank you so much for having me. I’ve really enjoyed being part of this journey. I we’ve talked about so many different topics. my last piece of advice to anybody listening to this is just to kind of embrace the journey. You know, I think, you know, you’ve really said it best and I’ve kind of designated as well, where there’s so many different facets of your life that come into play, but you don’t necessarily think about during the journey.

00;59;35;02–00;59;51;19
Lisa Cao
And, you know, you might think that something is a waste of time, like or just like the side thing that won’t come into play. But it really does make a difference later. And you might not necessarily see it, but trust that it will come together. And if not that, then trust that you will make it come together in some way.

00;59;51;26–00;59;54;22
Lisa Cao
And that’s a really beautiful thing too, to trust yourself.