Muse and Metrics S5 EP9 — Coding for Good with Brandi Jimmar [Guest Bio, Summary, Audio and Transcript]

Guest Bio

Brandi Jimmar is the founder and CEO of Smile Mods, a company focused on offering a wide range of technological solutions, including website and app development, clerical skills training, and smart home development. With her company, Brandi aims to simplify and enhance business operations through innovative technology.

Her background includes over a decade of experience in customer service and a strong interest in computer hardware, reflecting her commitment to integrating technology into everyday business practices. Brandi’s entrepreneurial journey with Smile Mods is driven by her passion for technology and her desire to make a positive impact on businesses.

In addition to her professional achievements, Brandi is a dedicated wife and mother to three boys. Her personal life is filled with activities related to sports, comics, superheroes, and video games, highlighting her engagement in family-oriented pursuits.

Brandi’s commitment to community service is evident in her past volunteer work at adult daycare centers and nursing homes. She is also actively pursuing further education in Information Technology, demonstrating her dedication to lifelong learning and staying up-to-date with advancements in her field.

Brandi Jimmar represents a blend of technical acumen, entrepreneurial spirit, and a strong commitment to family and community.

Summary

Key Highlights:

1. Brandi Jimmar’s Tech Journey and Smile Mods:

• Brandi Jimmar, CEO and founder of Smile Mods and Google Women Techmakers Ambassador, shares her lifelong passion for technology.
• Talks about the evolution of Smile Mods, a versatile company handling a wide range of tech needs, from business IT solutions to custom gaming PCs.

2. Role in Women Techmakers and Community Engagement:

• Describes her recent involvement with Women Techmakers, focusing on community-building and empowering women in tech.
• Highlights her participation in International Women’s Day events and other tech community initiatives.

3. Challenges and Resilience in Tech:

• Brandi discusses overcoming challenges in the tech industry, emphasizing the importance of resilience and embracing failure as part of the learning process.
• Reflects on the difficulties faced as a business owner and the lessons learned through these experiences.

4. Educational Background and Self-Taught Expertise:

• Shares her unconventional educational path in technology, highlighting her self-taught expertise and continuous learning through certifications.
• Mentions her current studies and the value of practical experience in her tech journey.

5. Vision for the Future of Smile Mods:

• Envisions Smile Mods as a ‘jack of all trades’ in tech, aiming to tackle unique and innovative challenges.
• Discusses upcoming ventures in smart home technology and server platform development.

6. Family Life and Balancing Personal Commitments:

• Opens up about being a mother and managing family life alongside her professional endeavors.
• Discusses the importance of work-life balance and integrating family values into her business philosophy.

7. Advocacy for Education and Technology Accessibility:

• Expresses a deep commitment to education and making technology accessible to diverse groups, including the elderly and children.
• Shares plans for nonprofit initiatives aimed at increasing tech awareness and skills among various community segments.

Conclusion:

In this episode of “Muse and Metrics,” Brandi Jimmar provides an inspiring account of her journey in the tech world, from a self-taught enthusiast to a successful entrepreneur and advocate. As a leader and innovator, she underscores the significance of education, community engagement, and the empowerment of women in technology. Her story is a powerful reminder of the impact of perseverance, creativity, and a commitment to making technology accessible and inclusive for all.

Listen Now

Transcript

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

00;00;05;29–00;00;17;11
Philippa Burgess
Hello and welcome to Muse and Metrics. This is your host Philippa Burgess. This is season five episode nine. And today’s topic is Coding for Good.

00;00;17;14–00;00;30;26
Brandi Jimmar
My name is Brandi Jimmar. I am one of Google’s many women and tech ambassadors. I am also the CEO and founder of my company Smile Mods and I’m excited to be here to share my journey with you guys today.

00;00;31;04–00;00;35;06
Philippa Burgess
Love it. Welcome. Let’s just talk about how long you’ve been involved in women’s tech makers.

00;00;35;07–00;01;00;05
Brandi Jimmar
Honestly, I’ve only been involved for about a year. I have done and been involved in so many different things in this one year that I’ve been a part of them. I did do my own event for IWD, International Women’s Day that went off success. I’ve helped others get their events together for International Women’s Day. There is another event that they’re having.

00;01;00;06–00;01;13;17
Brandi Jimmar
This one is based. Those are a part of the LGBTQ community. Among them are technology that’s happening in Toronto at the end of this month. So I’m planning on going to that. So there’s this one little small year has been great.

00;01;13;20–00;01;17;20
Philippa Burgess
What brought you? What inspired you to get involved in tech?

00;01;17;23–00;01;37;24
Brandi Jimmar
man, I’ve been doing tech. I can honestly say about all my life. The sad thing is I’d like to kind of joke that I got the kind of typical tech story that people in my age range kind of have. We kind of knew how to work the VCR for our grandparents, and it was like magic. But that’s really what kind of got it started because they thought that I had just done this miraculous thing.

00;01;37;26–00;01;59;23
Brandi Jimmar
I want to get deeper involved with computers and technology. And so what I actually started doing grammar school, we were have early dismissals. Some days I would get at it like 1145 sometime around there. My parents would still be at work. So my father’s mother, she was a computer teacher very early on, and she was teaching on before Apple was Apple was Macintosh.

00;01;59;25–00;02;20;06
Brandi Jimmar
And before it was an apple, it was a rainbow parrot. You know, way back then. But she was teaching that class. And so around like second or third grade, I was sitting in on that class with like eighth graders. So very quickly, at a very young age, I was able to learn what a Google system was, learn how to type, understand products like Microsoft Word.

00;02;20;08–00;02;24;15
Brandi Jimmar
So I just caught on very quickly at a young age and took off running from there.

00;02;24;17–00;02;43;25
Philippa Burgess
For those who don’t know Gooey, it’s the graphic user interface. And I found myself asking that question when I was social, chatting with an Uber driver and he’s like, blah, blah, blah, blah, gooey. And I was like, Let’s do it. yeah, okay. Graphical user interface. But you know, foundational terms. I think that’s one thing about being part of a community and learning something is starting to learn those language and those acronyms.

00;02;43;27–00;03;04;08
Philippa Burgess
And that’s great when you can get an early start. I think it really speaks to the power of the people that we look up to, the people we admire, the people who teach us, and the role of role models. So where do you go from there? You’ve got you’ve got that grandma who’s obviously very competent.

00;03;04;10–00;03;21;18
Brandi Jimmar
Yeah, it’s after that, but still very young. So they weren’t really teaching I.T. or computers, you know, a second or third grade. So I kind of just taught myself. Like, of course, we had a computer in the house. So with her being a computer teacher, kind of just teach me small things on the inside. She taught me how to type.

00;03;21;19–00;03;42;03
Brandi Jimmar
She actually taught me what Google was. I had no clue what Google was until she told me just getting kind of like I would like to call it back in work from her at a very young age. Once I got to high school learning how to type and creating websites back before we had all these miraculous tools that helps us create websites.

00;03;42;04–00;03;59;29
Brandi Jimmar
You literally had notepad and you had to code on notepad and you had to save it as an email. We then had like there was it the color wheel you had to read, not necessarily remember, but you had to know color code and different things of that nature. So once I got to high school, that became a requirement to graduate.

00;04;00;02–00;04;19;27
Brandi Jimmar
So I took all those classes, all four years in high school, then after that, funny thing is I switched gears. I didn’t study that in college. I went to college for graphic arts and I guess I just needed a break for a while. But I honestly just found myself lacking passion in my life. So I actually just started small.

00;04;20;04–00;04;37;29
Brandi Jimmar
I taught myself how to code. I taught myself how to build websites. I went on my own and got my own certifications, placing them out of pocket myself. So I don’t have a what I like to call traditional background. Then I just didn’t go to school at all. I got a degree and now I went a different way and I did that for a reason.

00;04;38;02–00;04;58;22
Brandi Jimmar
I did try to study it in college for a little while. I had a professor though, and not in a bad way at a professor that told me that in a class full of women that getting into the I.T. field was going to be extremely hard for us because we are women. And and he told the truth. He wasn’t trying to be malicious or anything.

00;04;58;22–00;05;18;13
Brandi Jimmar
You know, it wasn’t like I am, man, you all are women. Wasn’t like that. He was being. So I took his honesty and I say, well, instead of looking for a seat at the table, I’m just going to build my own table. And so it took a long time, but that’s what pushed me to build my company. What it is today is smile, what I.

00;05;18;15–00;05;45;17
Philippa Burgess
Can resonate with that on so many levels. One, I think that actually the intersection of the creative and the science is so important because actually I’m sure actually what you do today, that graphic design background plays into it because you make beautiful things. There’s a back end, there’s a front end, and we’re seeing this sort of intersectional I come from an intersection, all of the creative arts and storytelling, and that’s what I do now.

00;05;45;20–00;06;13;01
Philippa Burgess
That has become sort of my front end of being in tech. Is that like bring this background I have. I still am working very hard to be very confident in what I’m doing as in programing in spatial data science. And my work and my studies are kind of leading me in a direction that has a tech focus but wants to focus on resiliency and disaster planning and disaster recovery.

00;06;13;04–00;06;47;26
Philippa Burgess
And there’s that side of it. But also in these interviews that I’m doing, I have to say that many people that I’m interviewing come from psychology backgrounds, sociology backgrounds, things that are sometimes later went into another tech degree or the cert. I talked to people who are absolutely self self-trained. I love that. I also, when I did corporate in the entertainment industry, and then I started my own company because I similarly felt that there wasn’t a table that I wanted to sit out.

00;06;47;28–00;07;04;15
Philippa Burgess
There was a lot of tables that I saw, and I was very sensitive to corporate culture and wanting to be in cultures that I appreciate it. Now, I will say in my little journey, because it was a little more creative focused, I also was queen of the part time jobs. So it did sit at a lot of tables.

00;07;04;15–00;07;19;10
Philippa Burgess
But as a guest, I just was like, I’m popping in, I’m helping out. You’re going to give me a small paycheck, which enables me to do the other things I’m doing in my life. But everybody knew I was capable and smart enough to do the job. They ask me to do that. I had other things to do then.

00;07;19;10–00;07;36;06
Philippa Burgess
So I also were like, I did a lot of flex work, for example, like with lawyers and paralegal stuff. So it’s like you have a case, you need me, I can work late, I can work weekends, no problem. You don’t have a case, you don’t need me. I’ve got other things to do. And that worked out great because they knew that I was off building my own little creative business.

00;07;36;08–00;07;57;27
Philippa Burgess
But I was on call to do whatever they needed to do and it paid well. And so I think that being a business owner is incredibly challenging. I mean, it is. It is. I love it is to be admired. But having sat at that table and owned that table, I can also say that there’s so many things that you’re juggling as a business owner.

00;07;58;00–00;08;22;06
Brandi Jimmar
Absolutely. When you own a business, you’re you can have other departments and other people that you hire and help, but honestly, you’re everything you you’re the owner, good CEO, you’re at your marketing, you’re the finance office, you know, you’re your critical control, You’re you’re everything customer service, You are everything. We are the business. So I tell everybody this and I had to learn this.

00;08;22;06–00;08;40;08
Brandi Jimmar
Honestly, I had to learn this. I have a way more respect for business owners now, because I’ll be honest, I had a very immature mindset. I’m like UPS. These are people that think they’re great at everything. Now that I’m in those shoes, I’m like, okay, no, this is different. This this is that. They’re they’re not ugly people.

00;08;40;09–00;08;55;02
Brandi Jimmar
No, no. They deserve the attitude that they have because they they work really, really, really, really hard. It’s literally the the epitome of the phrase blood, sweat and tears literally in every word.

00;08;55;05–00;09;12;29
Philippa Burgess
And there are tears not only in being a business owner, but I was recently on an interview and I got a question in the chat and it said, This is a serious question. This is not a joke. Did you cry when you were learning the software? To which I answered, I not only cried, I have more gray hairs that I’ve since covered because of it.

00;09;12;29–00;09;42;04
Philippa Burgess
But yes, these learning curves that we’re on can be difficult. They can be really challenging to do things we’ve never done before and to take on responsibilities we haven’t done before. But I think part of it, I would also say there’s a certain sense of what I’ll call educational trauma that I’ve seen people have. And I think if you don’t have educational trauma, you’ll work through the tears, you’ll work through the blood, you’ll work through the sweat, you get to the other side of it.

00;09;42;06–00;10;02;08
Philippa Burgess
I think where I see people have unresolved educational trauma, that first sign of difficulty comes in and it all those bad memories of bad teachers, not that they were dumb or had any like I think a lot of what happens, I see people take it on like I’m not smart enough and it’s like, no, you just weren’t taught well.

00;10;02;11–00;10;27;06
Philippa Burgess
You didn’t have that opportunity to learn and then because you were missing foundational pieces that came back later where you were missing chunks, that, that, that then reinforced that trauma. And so now you’ve got this first sign of difficulty. And those are the people who run for the hills are like, I can’t do this because all of this input that they had had and this how they self interpreted is I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough.

00;10;27;06–00;10;35;05
Philippa Burgess
And that could also be echoed by people in their environment that they then get these challenges and don’t have the fortitude to work through them.

00;10;35;10–00;10;36;28
Brandi Jimmar
Absolutely.

00;10;37;00–00;11;01;19
Philippa Burgess
Whereas when you’ve had a good foundation and then this this difficulty happens, we have to kind of go deep within ourselves going, all right, difficult. Don’t know what I’m doing, but I’ll figure it out or I’ll ask for help or I will learn how to work through that. So they think it really kind of separates kind of where people can thrive and where people kind of fall apart and just be like, No, this is not for me.

00;11;01;22–00;11;20;06
Brandi Jimmar
Absolutely. I tell myself, I don’t care if you have to cry through it. I don’t care if you complain the whole entire time, and that’s fine, but we’re going to get through it. It doesn’t matter where where we start is, is where we end, How we get there. Always doesn’t matter if you cried the whole time, that’s okay.

00;11;20;08–00;11;43;07
Brandi Jimmar
But you got there. So it’s if you have that type of mentality that, okay, look, it’s not going to be easy. I’m going to cry. I cry every time I have to learn the coding language and every single time, like, as much as I love creating websites, if I had to choose what’s my passion, I love creating websites for people, but at the same time I hate coding, I hate it.

00;11;43;10–00;11;56;18
Brandi Jimmar
So but it’s it’s one of those it’s like I cry every time I look at it, but I love to do it and I know what I want my end goal to be. So I’ll just cry. I could play through it, but I would get to the end. I’m a reach. My goal.

00;11;56;20–00;12;19;05
Philippa Burgess
I love that and I do the same thing. I’m very much it takes me a minute to sit down and say, okay, actually yesterday I was doing magic my phone over and it had my document in it and I was showing off a map that I made with some data. And before I had this assignment, maybe like two weeks ago, I was like, I don’t know how to do this project.

00;12;19;07–00;12;46;11
Philippa Burgess
Like, I understand the task, but I don’t know how to do this project. And obviously there’s a learning transformation that the teacher had designed, and I have learned, if anything, I trust the process it took me three days, three full days, and I had not started early enough that she gave us two weeks, but I didn’t even open it until Thursday and it was due on after holiday week and it was going to be due Tuesday morning and I but I started Friday and I continued Saturday and I continued Sunday.

00;12;46;11–00;13;21;17
Philippa Burgess
And it was just it was like, Whoa, this is a bear. But I’ll figure it out. And I was super pleased with the result. I came out the other side of like, this is exciting. I figured it out. I got I got to where we got to and just to give some context to the project, it was basically our goal was we’re doing just customizations, we’re learning how to take data and, and use either model builder or our PI or pi, which was the they are python and then or we’re using pi.

00;13;21;17–00;13;42;14
Philippa Burgess
Charmin is my first time using charm. I’d heard about it, I installed it and I just never kind of opened it and actually got started. So it was this actually my, my project ended up being just kind of chaotic because my, I looked at other students, they sort of picked one and kind of went with it and I had all three, but I almost went to one and then hit a wall and I was like, okay, let’s try the other one.

00;13;42;16–00;14;02;12
Philippa Burgess
And then saw the problem hit a wall. And then it was like, Let’s go to the other one, solve the problem. But I, but I got there and I got to experiment with, with all three. And I, but I guess it’s an and the particular project we were using a school in earthquake data in Los Angeles to do a prioritization for earthquake retrofitting.

00;14;02;16–00;14;26;09
Philippa Burgess
So we were looking to create buffers around the data of like what’s a one mile buffer around all the schools? And then which schools? And then each earthquake fault also has levels of how potentially hazardous it’s going to be. And then we had to identify which were the highest risk schools, secondary third and fourth in terms of making recommendations for what would be the the like color code.

00;14;26;12–00;14;46;26
Philippa Burgess
You know what what how they should prioritize a retrofit of L.A. schools based on very simple, simple data. But that was what we were doing. And it’s there. There were not tiers on this one. There were tears and learning the original software. And I was so I was so blessed. Things can sometimes work out just without you over planning them.

00;14;46;26–00;15;07;07
Philippa Burgess
They just worked out. I had two really wonderful clients that I was working with, and both the projects is wrapped their work with me last August and I started in this gift certificate program. It’s the one year program at my university. I just finished a master’s in urban planning, and the part of urban planning that I fell in love with was the GIS, the data, the data visualization.

00;15;07;09–00;15;23;10
Philippa Burgess
And I learned that climate impact is real. And I just kind of saw this opportunity to take urban planning where I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with urban planning. I just super interested in it. And I had now had a master’s degree in it, but I wanted to take it further. And the data science just like was like, Ooh, I want to do that.

00;15;23;17–00;15;41;18
Philippa Burgess
And I could tell in my courses with my cohort, all of us went quarter to quarter to quarter to quarter where no breaks and we all kind of went through together for four semesters. And when we did our data science class or Big data and I was the one who loved it, loved coding. R loved just figuring it out.

00;15;41;26–00;16;01;27
Philippa Burgess
And I hadn’t realized the professor had really created a lot of scripts for that. We were just supposed to hit, run, run, hit, run. And I’m sitting there kind of rewriting the whole thing. They had us in a tight cohort and having to go to his office hours saying, Help, I’m stuck. And he’s like, okay, you’ve done like we were supposed to do, but clearly you’re interested in those and you’re good at this.

00;16;01;29–00;16;21;24
Philippa Burgess
But part of this came from exactly what you were saying about I was in college coding HTML. That’s where I started. I fell in love with tech kind of in college. And when I was in in under my undergrad, I was like, You could build a website. That’s so cool. I want to learn how to do this. And so, yeah, I started with a demo that was that was the foundation.

00;16;21;24–00;16;42;19
Philippa Burgess
So it’s all there. And even now that we’re doing this Python customization course that I’m doing, I’m finding that I it’s there. I went through the beginner class and I was like, Yeah, she’s having to do some tutorials just to kind of get everybody on the same level. And I was like, All right, past beginner. I did the intermediate class and I’m like, Yep, I’m past this.

00;16;42;19–00;16;47;03
Philippa Burgess
So it was like, okay, this self study that I’ve been doing is kind of paying off.

00;16;47;05–00;16;48;13
Brandi Jimmar

00;16;48;15–00;17;08;29
Philippa Burgess
And we are. And in the end when I was in that urban planning piece, I was out of all my cohort classmates, I was the one who they would come to to ask for help on the, on the, the programing and the data visualization. I clearly stood out among my classmates was like that was my that was my thing.

00;17;09;02–00;17;28;08
Philippa Burgess
And so I’ve been super joyful to sort of proceed. And then once I started the one year program, I realized I would need a lot more than one year to really get where I needed to go. And I think it just made sense to me to sign up for this like a full second masters, which is what I’m in right now in Human Security and geospatial intelligence.

00;17;28;08–00;17;51;03
Philippa Burgess
So it’s within the same school of spatial Data Science or the Spatial Sciences Institute, and it is an application in human insecurity. And geospatial intelligence is basically we have satellites that run around our earth and they take pictures all the time. And so it’s like, how do we use that data or how do we use drone imagery and other things in terms of So that’s kind of where I’ve landed.

00;17;51;03–00;18;17;15
Philippa Burgess
So I have another year and a half and I’m just there’s so much I want to learn. I’m interested in this huge learning journey lately. You as a business owner are also in your own learning journey because you’re constantly having to take on things like, for example, I’m in a now and this semester I’m in a project management course and I’m looking at and I was like, I’ve done project management my whole life and I’ve never called it project management.

00;18;17;17–00;18;45;21
Brandi Jimmar
It’s weird when you how can I explain it? Because I kind of understand exactly what you’re saying. My dad told me when I went to college, he was telling me like, you need to get into project management as if I had no clue what he was talking about either. I got into corporate, maybe about I want to say two years ago I was working downtown Chicago, working for a corporate company, and they had me kind of take lead on different projects.

00;18;45;21–00;19;13;00
Brandi Jimmar
We we were building an app for a gas company to basically show people how to get lower rates on their electricity bill. I was in charge of a lot of different projects, come to find out, you know, just like feel like, this is project management. I wish somebody will tell me I would do this a long time ago, I would have been called myself this, you know, So it’s, it’s funny like and so you’re taking, like I said, the nontraditional path.

00;19;13;02–00;19;19;10
Brandi Jimmar
You know, you kind of learn that I’ve been doing this all along and it’s actually a kind of cool confidence boost, if you ask me.

00;19;19;12–00;19;42;29
Philippa Burgess
Yes. So within our program, I was not some along the way who has the keys to the Coursera, Google certificates and sort of so I got that scholarship. So I’m in the Coursera, Google certificates, and I’ve opened up all eight of them or there’s nine. I actually I feel like I do the I.T. job, just as you dubbed the I.T. support job.

00;19;42;29–00;19;45;22
Philippa Burgess
That’s one of the certificates for family.

00;19;45;24–00;19;48;05
Brandi Jimmar
I hope.

00;19;48;07–00;20;02;22
Philippa Burgess
I’m with my mom right now. And I had surgery and then she had surgery in the summer of surgeries. And there was a point where I could not leave, like she was not ready to return to independent living. And now she’s almost there, save for the fact that she got a new TV and she cannot work the remote.

00;20;02;29–00;20;16;18
Philippa Burgess
And so I’m like, I still can’t leave. I love my mom. I’ll stay as long as she needs me. But it’s like it’s like the technical stuff is why. And she’s like still having trouble with her phone. And I’m like, every another, every other way. She’s fine.

00;20;16;20–00;20;42;04
Brandi Jimmar
My mom got an iPhone and she literally just came over to iPhone and she before that and I’m not a person I say team Android team by phone. I’m just like, Hey, whenever you like this, would you like? If you ask me, it’s all the same thing. But she had so many more questions for me was she was I had an Android phone that she has an iPhone.

00;20;42;06–00;20;56;19
Brandi Jimmar
She asks me no questions at all. She’s like, This thing is so simple. I wish I would have did this a long time ago. And me and my brothers are like, Yeah, we tried to tell you, Wow, So it’s not easy. So maybe now we’ll try a different brand of a TV that might help you out.

00;20;56;22–00;21;15;12
Philippa Burgess
Well, I think the thing is we went with the one that has YouTube and cable, and she loves the YouTube, but I have to get her the show that she wants. But all her favorite shows live on YouTube or live on the smart TV, whereas she likes the news and other things, but the cable actually doesn’t have the breadth.

00;21;15;12–00;21;37;15
Philippa Burgess
So ultimately, I think she’s got the right TV, but it’s there. There’s some work to do there. And actually it is because I spend time with older parents now that that was sort of the transition that I went through in the pandemic and I’m grateful for it is I realize actually one of the modules. So, I mean, these are the eight modules that I did open up, you know, ones project management.

00;21;37;15–00;22;02;16
Philippa Burgess
There’s data analysis, there’s advanced data analysis, there’s user experience. And I feel like a lot of these are experience. I appreciate that. They’re like, Hey, we’re thinking about more people. When we do design. We’re thinking across cultures, we’re thinking across race or of the new cross gender is we’re thinking across abilities. But I don’t think they’re really thinking as well as they need to across age.

00;22;02;18–00;22;22;24
Philippa Burgess
I really see that there’s a huge my parents my parents are in their mid eighties and I am their tech support in a way that the VCR was you know is we’re just like we talk about that with magic and I do think that a lot of the user experiences that I see my parents go through, it’s not inclusive.

00;22;22;27–00;22;53;04
Brandi Jimmar
Not not at all. I think, how can I explain this? I have three boys, and so I’m pretty sure any parent kind of understands the harmfulness of screen time. I believe just like with children, with older people, I believe is kind of overstimulated. It’s too much. And that just simple enough, like prime example, like you said, with your mom with like, well, my mom mainly just watches YouTube.

00;22;53;07–00;23;18;26
Brandi Jimmar
Yeah. Actually, I think there needs to be a TV that’s just dedicated to YouTube, especially where you have older people that kinda they get overwhelmed with. They have so many features. Again, just like children. So I kind of feel I agree with you when you say like it’s not across all ages. I do think and wish that we had more technology that geared towards older people, children.

00;23;18;28–00;23;26;12
Brandi Jimmar
I feel like a lot of stuff that is just very, very overstimulating and it could be overwhelming.

00;23;26;14–00;23;30;22
Philippa Burgess
Yeah. So that’s where I. That’s where I come in.

00;23;30;24–00;23;31;29
Brandi Jimmar
Exactly.

00;23;32;01–00;23;39;19
Philippa Burgess
And and as a parent, I think there’s a lot that you’re looking at related to how your kids interact with technology.

00;23;39;21–00;24;01;16
Brandi Jimmar
Yeah. So in our house, you know, technology is a thing. You know, we’re I call ourselves a nerdy family, you know, with a family that you’ll see cars playing in Walmart where that we’re family. Like, why is there a group of spider people here? But because of that, like, each one of my children have a love of technology just in a different type of way.

00;24;01;18–00;24;26;05
Brandi Jimmar
So what we really try to do is just kind of steer them and have them understand the good and the bad. Like my youngest right now, he’s learning the dangers of chat chatbots because everybody every parent knows roadblocks play roadblocks. And sometimes, you know, he thinks that the people that he’s talking to, our kids like him. And, you know, we’re teaching him like, you know, hey, you know, you don’t know.

00;24;26;05–00;24;41;29
Brandi Jimmar
This might not be a kid, this might be an adult. So you have those type of things that, you know, we’re kind of in the midst of my oldest. You know, he’s ready to start coding. He’s ready to stare at the screen for 24 seven. And I’m just like, You’re not ready for that life. You don’t understand my middle child.

00;24;41;29–00;24;59;05
Brandi Jimmar
He’s involved in Maddie. He loves making models for Minecraft. So it’s those kind of small things. Again, I we talked about before that happened in the background, and I’m hoping that when they start to learn of this school, they’re already way ahead of the game. That’s the hope.

00;24;59;07–00;25;13;16
Philippa Burgess
That’s great. Yeah. And that’s and that’s interesting that they’re all at different stages and they’re all learning the pros and the cons of where they’re they’re at and, and sort of how to and how to stay safe. I mean safety is a big concern.

00;25;13;19–00;25;32;28
Brandi Jimmar
Absolutely. Not even just for children, for elderly, elderly people, too, because I don’t know how many spam calls my grandma gets or emails and it’ll be something as small as, you know, hey, your gas bill is overdue or something like that. And she thinks that she has to send this random number money and it’s like, Hey, grandma, you got to.

00;25;33;00–00;25;51;12
Brandi Jimmar
Did you didn’t read the whole thing. You know, you paid your gas bill last month. You don’t got to do it right now, just the next week, you know, So you have those different things going on. Even with again, my oldest son is always called the amount it says is free and says it’s free. It says free. And the first thing I tell him all the time, everything on the Internet is a lie.

00;25;51;14–00;26;04;03
Brandi Jimmar
Everything. So if it says it’s free, they are lying to you. It is not free. You got to pay something. I don’t care. It might be a solo you don’t even know. So it’s Safety is extremely important when it comes to dealing with technology.

00;26;04;06–00;26;23;25
Philippa Burgess
Yes, I had an incident when I was with my dad where one day he clicked on an ad that was totally targeted to him because it’s a show that he would watch. That was from the 1960s. And so, you know, he saw something, he clicked on it and an alarm went off and it was really loud and real.

00;26;23;27–00;26;43;29
Philippa Burgess
And he freaked out. And then it had call this number and we can fix this. And so he called me into the, ah, into his office and I immediately just shut off the sound and, and you know, muted his computer. And then it was like, okay, what’s the the thing? And then I just Googled the number and it was like spam.

00;26;43;29–00;26;49;24
Philippa Burgess
Like it was clear that it was. And then I just shut the window and problem solved.

00;26;49;26–00;26;51;12
Brandi Jimmar
Get magic.

00;26;51;15–00;27;09;08
Philippa Burgess
But yeah, but just the sound. He just, you know, and, and then the sort of the and then there was another one where they got him on the phone and it was like and for some reason they felt like it was one of those like, you know, we’ve charged you, but we’ll refund you and then, we over refunded you.

00;27;09;08–00;27;26;02
Philippa Burgess
So you got to send us the money back and gift cards. And he literally went for it. He was literally going out the door to go buy the gift cards with the guy on the phone. And I was like, I’m coming with you. It was mad at me when I was like, Stop. He’s like, No, no, no. I was like the guy, you know, they’ve over.

00;27;26;09–00;27;45;01
Philippa Burgess
And I was like, And finally I was able to get him to hang up. And then I really like, Who are you talking to? Okay, let’s Google that. Let’s call them with call the real number. It was like he was in a trance. It was like it was weird how hook, line and sinker. He was just in the zone with this guy and like, the guy wouldn’t let him off the phone.

00;27;45;01–00;27;51;11
Philippa Burgess
And finally, when I was able to, like, break the trance, was he like, Whoa, like, what did I just do? What did I just get into?

00;27;51;13–00;28;10;25
Brandi Jimmar
If you ask me, I’m a weird I’m a very, very, very, very weird thinker. So I’m the type person that think like, you know, wow, he was probably on the phone. There probably was like a high pitched sound or something like that going on in the background that he could hear but not hear that probably kept him on the phone.

00;28;10;25–00;28;34;07
Brandi Jimmar
I feel like people do weird stuff like that as they do. So it’s I’m happy you were able to intervene and everything is okay. But I’ve heard that story, especially with the the gift cards. It’s like, first of all, like and I don’t challenge anybody to do this. There’s like you guys had to come up with, in this case, the gift cards again this all now but it’s sad to say that a lot of elderly people get hooked on hooked on that.

00;28;34;07–00;28;41;19
Brandi Jimmar
And I’m happy that you were able to, you know it to be with your family and not get caught up in that because that I can only imagine the disaster that would have been.

00;28;41;21–00;29;08;27
Philippa Burgess
Yeah. And you know, they’re on fixed income. There’s not, you know, an infinite bucket of money to pull from if these mistakes are made. I mean and so it’s it definitely is. Yeah. They’re targeted. So not only is the user experience not as as friendly as it could be, but they’re they’re targets for these kind of scams. And I think that there’s an honesty, obviously, to your grandmother who wants to pay the bill and wants to make sure she’s on time and not getting in trouble.

00;29;08;27–00;29;21;24
Philippa Burgess
And, you know, my parents are the same way. They’ve always live their life. And I want to be honest and straightforward and, you know, not owe anybody anything. And so it’s you know, they’re they’re quick to attention, sort of make things right.

00;29;21;26–00;29;58;27
Brandi Jimmar
Absolutely. Absolutely. So I do wish for a better user experience. Which is it? That’s one of the projects that by and large is working on. We’re trying to branch off into now for profits and so we got one kind of started car hire further, faster, and the whole purpose of hire further faster is knowledge base. It’s like, let’s be honest, if you if you’re an elderly person, if you could go to bingo, I feel like you can come here, get some awareness about different technology that might actually be threatening to you.

00;29;59;00–00;30;24;11
Brandi Jimmar
Not only just resources like that, teaching children, basic I.T. infrastructures, fundamentals and things like that. Because the way I see it, the direction that the world is going into to things that will never die out, which is technology, transportation and health care. So because I understand that I want people to have resources and knowledge to be able to continue to go on and make it into the world.

00;30;24;16–00;30;43;11
Brandi Jimmar
Because one thing I kind of took to heart with it years ago, my grandfather passed away. My grandmother didn’t know how to do something as simple as go pour money at the A.T.M.. She didn’t she didn’t know how to do it. And so it’s small things like that that I want to have available for people like this. We don’t know how to do it.

00;30;43;11–00;31;00;25
Brandi Jimmar
Don’t feel. But you come here, we’ll teach you like we’ll have examples, we’ll have PowerPoints, we have videos like we don’t have to stay, not knowing. And I know that, you know, as your parents get older, things like that, they rely, of course, on their younger children. And sometimes that gets harder. You know, we’re trying to I’m trying to run a company.

00;31;00;25–00;31;14;10
Brandi Jimmar
I have children. I have a whole field. My life is chaos. You know, sometimes, mom, I quit getting. But what I can do is I could drop you off with this class where you can learn how to pull money out of yourself.

00;31;14;12–00;31;36;18
Philippa Burgess
Yeah. Knowing that those resources are available and making that accessible is is key. And I love that you’re doing that. And I think sometimes it is those most basic things that we do. We don’t know how to do them. We don’t even know where to start, and then we don’t even know who to ask or, you know, and like I said, or it’s just our immediate family are the only ones that we can kind of go to.

00;31;36;18–00;32;08;15
Philippa Burgess
And so knowing that there’s these other resources that can help, that’s that’s fantastic. And I’m I know that nonprofits need the they do good work, but they also need that technology help. I was just reading about data with nonprofits and how data analysis can be applied to, you know, as a volunteer opportunity to, you know, for for people who are gaining their data analysis chops that they can, you know, connect with nonprofits in a great way to build their portfolio and apply their newly gained skills.

00;32;08;17–00;32;10;14
Brandi Jimmar
And so in that work.

00;32;10;16–00;32;32;09
Philippa Burgess
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So I get back to more like, what does smile models do where, you know, what’s your vision for the company you started? This company you’re growing, you’re serving, you’re learning how to wear all these hats and and growing. And now, you know, sort of there’s every role in the company. Are you building a team and you’re building your book of business?

00;32;32;12–00;32;34;26
Philippa Burgess
So, yeah, just tell me more about the company.

00;32;34;28–00;33;01;08
Brandi Jimmar
Okay. Well, smile, Smiles, does everything with a smile that literally we do any and everything from how business is. Bill faster productivity all the way to custom gaming PCs. That’s why I chose the name Smile Mods because we could we modify everything. So right now my vision for smile mods is to be the company that’s a jack of all trades.

00;33;01;11–00;33;32;14
Brandi Jimmar
And if you want my honest opinion, I want to kind of grow an infrastructure that is kind of like the Wal-Mart of technology. If I could so loosely say it like that. If you want a custom PC built, you can stop and smile. That’s if you you know, if you need to know, I need to know how much I don’t know how to budget my business on the computer.

00;33;32;14–00;33;56;28
Brandi Jimmar
Okay. Well, you could use Excel. I’ll teach you how to use Excel. Or what I could do is I have a team of people that will do it for you. Like a prime example. Right now, one of our biggest contract is with a school bus company called t of transportation. We are over all their i.t stuff. Everyday we run their bus trackers, camera systems of their productivity management, like where we control all of that.

00;33;57;00–00;34;18;29
Brandi Jimmar
The biggest thing right now my next venture for smile mods once that’s kind of going in completing is getting into smart homes. That’s a little bit the next venture was my last we’re going to do now develop as a smart homes so I do I don’t have a big team. It’s just me and my and my wife. So I honestly.

00;34;19;01–00;34;51;01
Brandi Jimmar
Am I building the team? Yes. Because as grows, I’m going to need help. I’m a firm believer that if I’m the smartest person in the room, that’s a problem. So that’s that’s my vision for Smile Miles, to kind of be like me, Jack of all trades. That’s any and everything that’s related to technology. I am developing my own server platform so I could host and manage my own websites myself and not have to go to third parties such as like Go Daddy or Amazon list, things like that.

00;34;51;03–00;35;12;05
Brandi Jimmar
I’m also like, so we’re building custom pieces, but not just like regular gaming pieces. Like, I have a PC gaming kit. No, if you called me and you say, Hey, I want a computer that is submerged in water, that’s exactly what I want. I can build it and it’s fully functional running. You could be like, wait, you could build computer submerged in water?

00;35;12;07–00;35;33;07
Brandi Jimmar
Yes, because I studied technology and I know what liquid to put it in and not real water. But yes, like I said, I want it to be like me, want to be a jack of all trades. And with that being the track of all trades, I want to branch off into any and everything to provide resources for everyone, especially people like me, that go the untraditional route.

00;35;33;09–00;36;10;00
Philippa Burgess
So you really do bring creativity into tech because you’re going to take things that honestly haven’t been done before and let’s get it done, figure it out. If it can be done, we and our team can figure out how to do that. Now, we also might have to give you an appropriate invoice for that. But, you know, there’s challenges that we’re willing to take on that other people who have more set frameworks probably are saying no about that outside of our lane and your whole lane is what’s let’s do the cool things that that need to be done and that we will modify it for you and really do custom custom technology.

00;36;10;03–00;36;29;08
Brandi Jimmar
Exactly. Another venture I would study and into is how to make your picture on t shirts. When you scan it, it brings like a video up on your phone. I saw there’s another company that does it. They’re called Marathon Clothing. That’s my next move and I’m leaving the next one to do it. So just layer the exactly what you said.

00;36;29;08–00;36;32;16
Brandi Jimmar
I’m bringing creativity to take it.

00;36;32;18–00;36;45;20
Philippa Burgess
Which is essential because that’s ultimately how tech succeeds, because it does the next thing that we’ve all not thought about. And then when we see it, we’re like, that’s the most obvious thing. But why didn’t none of us think about that before?

00;36;45;23–00;37;02;10
Brandi Jimmar
Exactly. But every idea is crazy. Until it is done, there’s no longer crazy. I’m pretty sure when, you know, Amazon was like, Well, hey, we’re going to be a service that delivers packages. I’m pretty sure nobody thought that it will be what it is today.

00;37;02;12–00;37;28;13
Philippa Burgess
No. And and it was built on the foundation of several failed initiatives. They tried and it didn’t work. And they tried and it didn’t work and they tried. And then something worked and then something. And so then you have to also I think that’s part of creativity is the willingness to fail, the willingness to experiment, the willingness to risk and just try things and iterate.

00;37;28;15–00;37;52;13
Philippa Burgess
And that’s one of the things I was just doing. One of my project management modules, and we’re talking like the difference of, of a linear style or a iterative style. And I think in just how I work creatively, I’m an iterative person. I want to, you know, it says, you know, with things that have been done before and it’s the same process, then you just do the one step at a time because you know exactly what the steps are.

00;37;52;15–00;38;04;13
Philippa Burgess
But when you’re iterating and you don’t even know what the next step is until you get your first product prototype together or get some initial feedback and then you sort of say, okay, now I see what I can do next.

00;38;04;15–00;38;14;17
Brandi Jimmar
Absolutely. You don’t learn unless you fail. You have you have to fail. It’s inevitable. If you don’t fail, you, there’s no way you’re learning.

00;38;14;19–00;38;41;10
Philippa Burgess
And going back to the tears and the frustrations of failing because sometimes that’s not without an emotional impact. I think that a lot of it is having the emotional fortitude to just sort of work through that and to be in those uncomfortable places. And then it leads me to my favorite quote, which is if it was easy, everybody would do it.

00;38;41;12–00;39;01;16
Philippa Burgess
And I love the fact that when I’m going through something difficult and I’m learning something and it’s hard, I bless that hard. We talked about you being from Chicago and that I have said to people, bless your weather, because if not for your weather, 44 million other people would live in Chicago because it’s a beautiful city and it’s got so much going on.

00;39;01;18–00;39;22;05
Philippa Burgess
And great culture, great arts, great history, great community, great culture, Like I love Chicago, but you are your weather actually protects you from the rest of us all descending and moving to your city. And so in some ways, you know, it ends up being a more livable city because it’s not inundated with the rest of the country.

00;39;22;08–00;39;23;15
Brandi Jimmar
Absolutely.

00;39;23;17–00;39;29;02
Philippa Burgess
And so sometimes it’s like you have to bless the things that are difficult because they actually serve you.

00;39;29;04–00;39;53;23
Brandi Jimmar
I think, you know, with me, if you if you see me in a high stressful moment, you will be like, my God, she’s going to quit. She hates this. And if I honestly were to ask myself, I would probably tell myself, like, yeah, that’s exactly what you’re about to do. But I think deep down inside, like, really, really deep, I enjoy the challenge because I keep coming back to it.

00;39;54;00–00;40;16;25
Brandi Jimmar
I don’t let it go. And so, you know, if you got to be honest with yourself sometimes, like, okay, like I’m just frustrated right now because I can’t figure it out. I really do love this. I don’t hated the world is not about to explode. It’s okay. You know, I in this journey, the one thing I try to still learn as not mastered, I’m still to embrace my failures.

00;40;16;28–00;40;40;03
Brandi Jimmar
It took a very long time for Smile Miles to get where it is today. Smile. Mods used to just be a thought that I had of seeing what I was stupid and it transformed to a dream. And now here it is reality. So you know, embrace failure. It’s okay. Just just cry through that. Tell everybody. I even tell my son that he’s frustrated.

00;40;40;03–00;41;10;19
Brandi Jimmar
Just cry through that. You’ll be okay. Yes. So it’s it. Make I feel like it makes me stronger in the end sometimes. We don’t know that because we get so caught up in our emotions because we just want it to happen and we just want to work right now and you sit back and actually think about it and you look at your journey, you actually get to see like, you know, no, I, I used to kind of just scoot at my school time to crawl in my car and turn to walk, and now I’m running.

00;41;10;19–00;41;27;10
Brandi Jimmar
And now you can’t stop me. And it’s so those take some time and just be grateful for where you are, because when you are grateful for where you are, you can see where you came from. And I feel like sometimes that will propel you. It gives you that push that’s necessary to keep going.

00;41;27;12–00;41;58;16
Philippa Burgess
Now. And I think that comes back to that inner dialog that you can sort of be, because I think tears are a confrontation between expectations and reality. And you’re just and the tears are there to to own that. Okay. Reality is, is my house here? I not where I want to be. And I just I’m tearful for it because I just I’m so frustrated because my expectation and reality are are miles apart here.

00;41;58;18–00;42;19;22
Philippa Burgess
But I think it’s the inner dialog, the end that you say kind of going back in to pulling it up for ourselves deeply to say, even though I look like I’m going to quit in this moment, I’m not going to quit because I know my inner resilience, I know my big picture commitment and that I think a lot of what you said.

00;42;19;22–00;42;43;06
Philippa Burgess
Also, there’s another phrase which you realize, you know, it’s not about it. It’s about your commitment. It’s not about how you feel about your commitment at any time in that journey. And so you is on as you hold on to this is what I’m committed to. We can have all sorts of uncomfortable feelings within that commitment.

00;42;43;08–00;42;52;18
Brandi Jimmar
Absolutely. Absolutely. I view my business like my marriage is good because we like it, because we don’t like it. But guess what? You’re in it.

00;42;52;21–00;43;10;10
Philippa Burgess
I always feel like sometimes with jobs, they can change their mind at any time. We no longer have budget for this department. We no longer like what you’re doing here. So I think for me, where I’m at right now, I like that stability. I like kind of I don’t know what happens after 18 months, but I do know where I am now.

00;43;10;10–00;43;23;20
Philippa Burgess
And I just I really appreciate that security, because within that, I feel like I can be more creative. I can now it’s like, let’s play with content, let’s play with stories, Let’s let’s see what I can do kind of creatively. Let’s, let’s dig deep into like, what I can learn.

00;43;23;22–00;43;49;07
Brandi Jimmar
I love it, I love it. And I school for me was I don’t want to say it was challenging. It was challenging. I don’t want to say the word, but it was. But now I take everything, not necessarily day by day, but I that’s exactly what I do. I take it day by day. I’m the type of person, if you would think, because I you know, on a business, it’s like you always have a lot on your plate.

00;43;49;07–00;44;11;19
Brandi Jimmar
But I’m the person that if I have too much on my plate, I get overwhelmed. So I have to kind of just take things one second, one minute at a time. But I can say that I can appreciate the education that I do get because I just finished a semester of school. So I’m I have a completely given up on that.

00;44;11;19–00;44;37;14
Brandi Jimmar
I just go at my own pace. But what I would do is I in between time, I get like certifications, like crazy, like, like we’ll talk about Coursera. I’m like, I do the exact same thing. So but I do do that. So it’s, it’s great. I will have to say all in all is great and education is extremely important, especially, I’ll be honest for for me, your education because like it was a granted for my people, it was a grant for my ancestors.

00;44;37;14–00;44;54;01
Brandi Jimmar
So it was like I’m not going to traditional. So it’s but I will get the knowledge that I need. I’m not going to let their lives just fail. I have a I don’t know how many greats. There’s a lot of great, great, great, great, great, great cousins. She helped fight for women’s voting rights. I didn’t know that I learned that our ancestry.

00;44;54;01–00;45;04;03
Brandi Jimmar
So, you know, that’s what there’s a how can I go for greatness? I can’t just let that be nothing. So education is valuable here in this house.

00;45;04;06–00;45;35;25
Philippa Burgess
And I do data science. And when I was doing my urban planning and data science, the numbers play out and just show that the more education you have, the more income you have. It’s just a fact and that there’s a direct correlation between now into what you were saying about being an African-American woman and the history there. Honestly, a huge part of my urban planning degree was learning about racism that I didn’t understand because I would just go naively in my head just with this idea of like, I’m not a racist, but I didn’t understand what it meant.

00;45;35;25–00;46;10;09
Philippa Burgess
Like, I didn’t understand how much difficulty and suffering and how much our cities are engineered the way they are. And on this sort of racist basis, and especially when we had white flight and the suburbs and how the urban centers were just destroyed and purposefully. And it was just a huge thing that in my consciousness and now that it’s become in my consciousness, I can’t not want to do something to be helpful around it, you know, even if it’s helping more people understand how did we get here.

00;46;10;11–00;46;25;14
Brandi Jimmar
Absolutely. I actually appreciate you saying that really respectfully because you know the one thing that I’ve learned is that people don’t know, you know, and as long as we don’t know, we’ll never be able to fix the problem.

00;46;25;17–00;46;41;04
Philippa Burgess
There’s a fabulous book out there called The Color of Law, and it really talks about how law was used in urban planning to create the ghetto, create the urban poor, create these divisions.

00;46;41;07–00;46;47;02
Brandi Jimmar
I’ve heard about this book. I need to read it literally. This is the fifth time I’ve heard about this book. I need to go get it.

00;46;47;04–00;47;06;16
Philippa Burgess
Well, I’m a big since the thing that’s gotten me through graduate school has been audio, so I do audible. And you can just also listen to it. It’s a big that’s I like because we have so much reading in grad school I have discovered Microsoft Edge for PDFs and I just say read it to me, read aloud and I get through so much more reading.

00;47;06;16–00;47;17;26
Philippa Burgess
So if you do want to pick up a book or a Kindle, go for it. But if you also just want to hit play, I have definitely adopted my my love for Audible. I get through a lot more content that way.

00;47;17;29–00;47;19;26
Brandi Jimmar
Therefore.

00;47;19;29–00;47;43;15
Philippa Burgess
It’s a great book and it really just explains a lot about, you know, how we’re here today and then a lot. And I think even like people talk, I mean, we can get into a whole other conversation about this, but I think, you know, people talk about reparations and with the reparations, to me, my view is needs to happen with a reinvestment in cities and communities.

00;47;43;17–00;48;08;25
Philippa Burgess
It needs to be money into communities. It needs to be money into education. Sometimes when like a lot of traumas happen to adults through their whole life, it’s really hard to fix. And then you get a drug addiction, you get criminal records, you get all these other stuff. It’s really hard to fix that. But if you can start with the youth and educate and support and help the next generation, you’re in a lot better place.

00;48;08;27–00;48;28;04
Brandi Jimmar
Absolutely. Absolutely. Sometimes when I’m going through my own and I just kind of you know, it, depending on where you’ve been to kind of, you know, you see a lot of abandoned buildings and things like that. I used to wonder like, who owns this building? Why do they just let it just let it be like this. I take care of your property.

00;48;28;04–00;48;53;20
Brandi Jimmar
And then I learned that a lot of banks own these buildings and that the banks are not allowing people to buy, to build, to fix this. So it’s. Well, once I’m slowly learning like the whole bigger domino effect, it’s just like a lot of things were probably set up that way on purpose to probably discourage certain groups of people.

00;48;53;22–00;49;10;12
Brandi Jimmar
Hence why I’m doing higher, faster, further. I want there to be resources. It’s like, it’s okay, I know what’s happening over here, but look over here. There’s still hope. We can still build, we can still create change. We can still create a whole different future.

00;49;10;14–00;49;31;11
Philippa Burgess
Yes. And that also what I the positive that I got out of it is by seeing that it’s so engineered, you can re-engineer it. And that’s why I come back to, you know, to empower communities, to educate communities, to fund communities. It really is community is the power, community is the base. And to get it coming up from a community.

00;49;31;11–00;49;53;13
Philippa Burgess
And that’s really understanding stakeholder engagement and really just there’s a lot that can be done there. I think another issue that we’re seeing coming up lately in the conversation is that more cities are becoming aware of this disconnect of a good neighborhood, a bad neighborhood, and saying, hey, as a city, how can we do our part to make things better?

00;49;53;13–00;50;30;00
Philippa Burgess
And one of the inequities is trees. Trees are a huge thing. If you want to know the difference between a good neighborhood and what’s considered a not good neighborhood, it’s trees. And and that they they clean the air, they provide shade. And the the issues you have is there if someone is in an owner occupied building, they typically care for their and plant their own trees on their property and the city because they pay higher taxes and have a voice with the city because they live there and they own it, get the trees planted, they tend to have more open space and parks and things around them.

00;50;30;02–00;51;03;04
Philippa Burgess
And the a lot of the the poor neighborhoods are renter occupied. And so the those owners don’t put trees there. Those residents have no voice with the city to get trees put in there. And so now what’s happening is the cities are kind of saying, we’re embracing diversity, equity, inclusion, we’re embracing, you know, seeing this disconnection. And so if you read, for example, the Denver City plan, they’re really talking about like, wow, we’re like seeing for the first time there’s these disconnected neighborhoods that don’t have complete sidewalks and are lacking in tree cover.

00;51;03;06–00;51;26;19
Philippa Burgess
So we’re to go in and we’re going to fix this. And then the residents and this is not only in Denver, but in a number of other cities are really upset about this. And the cities like, well, we’re trying to make your environment nicer. And they’re like, Yeah, but you’re now outpacing us for our own neighborhood. You’re ripping at the fabric of our community because we’re a tight neighborhood and we understand we’re disadvantaged and we have limited resources, but we’re here.

00;51;26;22–00;51;37;13
Philippa Burgess
And if you come in and make this nicer, we don’t really trust you. You’ve never been good to us in the past. How is this actually improving the quality of our lives? Because we’re renters and we’re easily displaced events.

00;51;37;13–00;51;44;06
Brandi Jimmar
In fact as well. You kind of understand what happens a little bit in the background and watch it unfold. And that’s crazy, isn’t it?

00;51;44;06–00;51;45;13
Philippa Burgess
And that’s today.

00;51;45;16–00;51;54;19
Brandi Jimmar
Yeah, that that’s as wild to me. And this like, change hasn’t gone too far, but we’re going to get there. We’re almost there.

00;51;54;19–00;52;17;00
Philippa Burgess
Well, I think that that’s why these conversations are really, really important to have and to to just sort of point to and say, hey, this, these things are real. And and there are some really good resources, too. If people want to understand a bit more of the issues and where we came from and and and why this is and these are conversations that I want to be part of.

00;52;17;02–00;52;39;25
Brandi Jimmar
With, that’s the the importance of research, wanting to gain knowledge, you know, because to me, it’s not just going to fight Sky, you know. So it’s is this as the power of it and I wish that more of us would do it to gain an understanding because again, once we understand, once we 100% fully understand what exactly the problem is, then we know how to handle it.

00;52;39;28–00;52;51;10
Brandi Jimmar
But I feel like as long as everybody kind of doesn’t do their research, doesn’t gain any knowledge, we all just kind of have opinions and we can’t really attack the problem properly.

00;52;51;13–00;53;12;10
Philippa Burgess
Yeah. And what we also learn is that there’s a thing called the wicked problems, and they’re they’re there are no easy answers. And we talk about even like, do we add more trees and make these places nicer? Do we add that metro and make it more convenient for people to get to work? Or do we? But then we have to take into the cost of people’s security and stability and there’s the rent increase.

00;53;12;10–00;53;34;17
Philippa Burgess
And, you know, is there anything the government can do to kind of step in and help the situation, or is it just free market? And so all of these things can evolve to a category of wicked problems. And another wicked problems is that the more money you have, the cleaner environment you live in and the less money you have, the more that you’re willing to locate yourself next to industry and other things that have toxins and other things.

00;53;34;17–00;54;03;23
Philippa Burgess
And so we then end up with all these health disparities. And so so there’s there’s many ways. And so with the of a wicked problem, there are no easy answers. But to sort of start to understand the different stakeholders, the different point of views, the different issues, and then just start chipping away at them slowly, there’s never going to be one right answer, but there’s going to be little things that can be done collectively that can start to whittle away at these wicked problems.

00;54;03;25–00;54;05;29
Brandi Jimmar
Absolutely.

00;54;06;01–00;54;32;05
Philippa Burgess
So it’s and I think for like what you said and I think this all comes back to it because it’s a different kind of wicked problem. But the idea of women, women in the workforce, women of color, and just understanding like where we feel like we fit into the corporate chessboard. And I think that’s one of the things that when I first started this program, there was a lot of eagerness that I had to sort of rejoin the workforce.

00;54;32;08–00;54;41;15
Philippa Burgess
And as I’ve gone, I’m like, You know what? I’m going back and see to see what can I do on my own creatively and sort of build my own table.

00;54;41;17–00;54;42;10
Brandi Jimmar
Exactly.

00;54;42;16–00;55;01;25
Philippa Burgess
And then if my table wants to sit next to someone else’s table and, you know, that’s another thing. But I realized, like, it just it doesn’t serve me. Just show up being sort of so humble in a way that sort of says, I’ll do anything and I’ll move anywhere you want me to be. Now I’m like, Wait, no, I’ve taken on this new commitment in my life.

00;55;01;27–00;55;22;01
Philippa Burgess
It’s always been there. But now, like I said, I just have this heightened awareness and this role and responsibility with my parents. And so I look at jobs and I’m like, You want me to come into your office? Well, it’s there. No way. It just doesn’t work that it’s going to be either next to my mom’s house or next to my dad’s house when they live on opposite sides of the country.

00;55;22;04–00;55;42;00
Philippa Burgess
And so I’m now realizing, like, how much if I want to just be in integrity with my own commitments, how much I have to write my own ticket and and essentially create my own path. So I honor and respect you’re doing the same thing and saying, Hey, you know what this is? This is the culture that I want to create.

00;55;42;00–00;56;08;23
Philippa Burgess
These are the problems I want to solve. This is the job that I want to do. This is the people that I want to do it with. This is the people I want to do it for. And then I have this freedom to work with these nonprofits as I choose for hire for their. FOSTER And that you can solve these interesting problems that it sounds like, you know, other companies aren’t going to necessarily give you that flexibility, that freedom, that support to do that.

00;56;08;25–00;56;39;18
Brandi Jimmar
Absolutely. Exercise as a fly. absolutely. You know I’ve I love my freedom more than anything. You know, and especially kind of that kind of especially being a parent. I’m a very, very, very much involved. I like to kind of be at everything and different things like that. So a lot of challenges I have, you know, working for others before I was working for myself was I didn’t have the flexibility nor the freedom that I needed.

00;56;39;20–00;57;05;28
Brandi Jimmar
So it’s wonderful when you just learn how much control you actually have over your life. But I will say this we do have a lot more opportunities here today than back in the day, you know, So I kind of understand that as well. You know, my mom, you know, sometimes she’ll be like, you do so much. I don’t know how you’re able to do this, because I would have been crazy, you guys as kids, you know, trying to do everything that you’re doing.

00;57;06;01–00;57;12;14
Brandi Jimmar
But I had to understand and realize that back then she didn’t have all the opportunities that are here present here today.

00;57;12;16–00;57;55;25
Philippa Burgess
So that is true. And I feel like, for example, being a woman maker, ambassador, I am so incredibly grateful for this opportunity that we have this opportunity network with each other to collaborate creatively, to to learn from each other, to share resources and opportunities. It’s been an amazing thing for me, especially as I was new in my owning my identity and tech, owning my identity and and having them affirm that and then put me in a community with all of these brilliant minds and that we can get to know each other and then have this amazing mentor support has just been something that I just I so value.

00;57;55;27–00;58;16;10
Brandi Jimmar
Absolutely. I love women tech makers. I’m hoping to be able to I’m actually hoping that that will be the majority of my team when I go into smart homes, creative design and smart house because I feel like, you know, the community just has so many different women from so many different parts of the world that have different backgrounds.

00;58;16;10–00;58;31;01
Brandi Jimmar
And I feel like every literally every single woman that is a part of women tech makers can bring something to the table. And so far, that’s exactly what I learned. Every single person has been different from A to Z, and I love that about the community more than anything.

00;58;31;03–00;58;52;09
Philippa Burgess
It’s very much so. And yet also very bright, very kind, very generous, very much committed to seeing the world be a better place, bringing other people up. Definitely the ability to just want to help and and want to inspire other people.

00;58;52;11–00;58;53;24
Brandi Jimmar
Absolutely. Absolutely.

00;58;53;27–00;59;03;19
Philippa Burgess
And bringing everybody along with us. And I think that’s that’s where we’re, you know, given that privilege to be the spokespeople.

00;59;03;21–00;59;05;13
Brandi Jimmar
Absolutely. Yes.

00;59;05;15–00;59;10;26
Philippa Burgess
So as we wrap it up, give me a some highlights from some of the events that you produced, because you.

00;59;11;01–00;59;34;10
Brandi Jimmar
Owe me. And so I will have to say my biggest highlight would have to be from International Women’s Day. We had a really, really good turnout. I think I, I honestly I went from having almost no speakers for this event. I was going to be the only speaker until like kind of getting closer and closer to the midnight hour.

00;59;34;10–00;59;54;11
Brandi Jimmar
People’s availability started to open up and I was able to kind of get a lot of traction. So if you would be honest with you, the fact that the event actually happened is my highlight advice to anybody. Don’t take no for an answer. That’s that’s always my clothes on, saying don’t take no for an answer.