From Studio Arts Major to Technical Writer: My Unlikely Journey into Cybersecurity
Learn about the path that led Cmd’s Head of Culture & Communications from liberal arts to Lululemon and eventually into the field of cybersecurity.
By Mara Savina Lantz, Head of Culture & Communications at Cmd
Whoami?
Hey there! My name’s Mara and I’m the person behind virtually all of the writing (public-facing and behind the scenes) associated with the Cmd brand, from website copy to help center articles, internal process documentation to social media. I’m extraordinarily passionate about getting the chance to share all of the wonderful, groundbreaking work our team is up to.
Given that so much of the work our team does is funnelled through me, I thought it’d be interesting to tell you all a bit more about the human behind our words. After all, my career path so far has been anything but linear. So how did I end up as managing culture and communications for a cybersecurity startup?
An alternative approach to education
When I think about what led me here, so much of it comes back to where I chose to obtain my bachelor’s degree. I attended a small liberal arts school called Hampshire College in picturesque Western Massachusetts.
I chose this school specifically because of the way they allowed their students to shape their own path through higher education. When I began my college search, I had a lot of anxiety about choosing just one major. In high school, I was a straight-A student who had already fallen in love with a myriad of different subjects…how was I supposed to put on blinders and only study one thing? So I found a school where I wouldn’t have to. Instead, I would be able to design my own concentration, free from the oppressively rigid structure of more traditional colleges and universities.
I learned so much during my time in college. Beyond picking up new skills, my time in school taught me how to think and engage with the world around me. It was where I really learned to remain critical of my own viewpoints, how to remain open to my beliefs growing and evolving over time. I had always been an exemplary student, but it goes far deeper than that — I’m a voracious learner. Educational environments have always been a bit of a safe haven for me due to my naturally insatiable curiosity to read, research, and discuss. That love of learning is what’s drawn me to explore so many different industries and roles throughout my career so far.
While at Hampshire, I designed my concentration around the intersection of psychology, studio art, and art history with a smattering of creative writing and theater thrown in for good measure. I’ve always been obsessed with trying to understand the human mind. In my opinion, everyone acts rationally. Those who are quick to write off another’s actions as irrational or crazy are missing out on the opportunity to explore how that person’s unique circumstances (their background, previous experiences, neural pathways, etc) converged to prompt them to take that particular action. I see psychology as a fascinating attempt to quantify life’s most unquantifiable moments.
My exploration of drawing allowed me a physical way to engage with my psychology studies. My figure drawings were an outlet for me to explore what I was learning about the human condition and our experience of the mind/body connection. Never one to back down from a challenge, I became endlessly fascinated with drawing the most traditionally difficult parts of figure drawings: hands and feet.
Experiencing technical innovation at Lululemon
When you think of Lululemon, “technology” probably isn’t the first word to pop into your head. But it was while I was working for the company back in 2013 that I first discovered my interest in tech. I worked out of the flagship store in the heart of downtown Vancouver, the second Lululemon store ever built. With the corporate headquarters nearby, this metropolitan location served as the testing ground for new business operations initiatives that corporate considers rolling out to the hundreds of stores located all around the world.
While there, I got to test all manner of new initiatives. One week, they’d put different types of lightbulbs in each of the fitting rooms to see how lighting affected customer experience and satisfaction. Once they experimented with something they called a “digital pants wall,” a series of TV screens that replaced physical mannequins in an effort to show how the various pant styles looked on a body as the model strutted around in place.
One of my favorite projects was when they prepared to overhaul their approach to managing physical inventory using RFID sensors on each of the hangtags. This project, which they tested exclusively in two stores (including ours) for over a year, was eventually rolled out to all the local Vancouver stores and then to the stores around the world, completely transforming many of the day-to-day operations of the company.
My time at Lululemon was my first taste of the ins and outs of the iteration process in tech startups. I got to see a project like the RFID initiative evolve from initial concept to finalized implementation through regular testing and feedback cycles. It’s also where I was first exposed to what it takes to put together a multi-pronged communication strategy (internal to help with the change management process and external to share the company’s forward-thinking projects with the world).
Returning to my love of writing
A few years later, I had an epiphany: fear had been holding me back from pursuing the work I most wanted to do. I wanted to be a professional writer. I wasn’t sure what kind of writing I wanted to do; I just knew that I enjoyed writing more than most and had a knack for crafting a compelling narrative. My time at Lululemon had opened my eyes to the power of a great brand identity, so I set a vision that I’d find a way to channel my passion for writing into a career where I could help influence the creation of a brand.
To gain experience writing professionally, I started hustling on the side. At the time, I was doing business development for a creative agency that designed marketing collateral for the real estate industry. I saw a need for an in-house copywriter (as we were hiring contract writers at astronomical rates) and managed to argue my way into the position. I spoke with a friend who ran a media agency and managed to get myself a part-time gig as an event correspondent, going to local events and writing recaps for their blog. I researched which online publications had open submission policies and started writing all kinds of articles on topics like self help, yoga, and relationships to get some published digital content under my belt.
Breaking into the tech startup scene
After a year of side hustle, I’d built up enough experience that it seemed time to quit my job and freelance while I attempted to find my first full time job in the field of writing. By day, I gained experience content marketing by managing blogs and social media accounts for a few clients. By night, I’d spend countless hours writing inventive cover letters tailored to specific roles at companies I was interested in.
My hard work paid off. My inventive cover letters managed to land me quite a few first-round interviews…but these interviews rarely materialized into job offers. I’d pour my heart and soul into the conversations. I’d get my hopes up after receiving positive feedback in the room, only for the familiar email to wind its way into my inbox that thanked me so much for applying but politely informed me that they’d decided to go in a different direction. No one was willing to take a chance on me so early into my writing career. But I knew it’d only take one company, the right company, to get my foot in the door. So I kept going.
Eventually, I landed a dream role: Content & Community Manager for ShareDesk, a tech startup building SaaS products to support the coworking movement. I was initially hired to focus on content marketing projects in the form of blog posts, social media content, and newsletters. Over my nearly two years, I became the public voice of the brand.
Getting the chance to work in a startup environment was a real game-changer for me. As someone who naturally over-thinks her decisions, deciding on a course of action in spite of the constant ambiguity that surrounded me pushed me out of my comfort zone in the best ways. I fell in love with the fast pace, wearing multiple hats, being surrounded by thinkers from diverse backgrounds, and exploring the opportunity to take on new challenges left and right.
One particularly influential challenge came when I took over running our tech support. While keeping my content projects in the air, I got up to speed as the liaison between our customers experiencing issues with our software and our in-house team troubleshooting the root cause and pushing fixes into production. At first, I simply relayed the information our customers were telling us verbatim to the developers, leaving them to figure out the problems and then just tell me what the customers needed to know. But, as I got more and more comfortable with fielding these requests, I began playing detective. I’d break down the subtext of their inquiries, considering what I knew about problems others were experiencing and what I knew about how the feature had been initially built. I’d decide on a hypothesis about where there might be a flaw in the logic of our codebase, allowing me to pass a much more specific message onto our developers about where they should investigate. I became a much more integrated part of the QA process than I ever thought I would be.
My time managing tech support was an enriching experience, one that opened me up to new facets of my professional interests. But ultimately, it also took over more and more of my time until my content projects became something I scrambled to complete in between shooting off emails to customers in various states of frustrated. And slowly but surely, getting further and further away from writing and content strategy really began to take its toll on me. As the newness of my technical support duties wore off, I realized my lasting love of content was calling me to return.
New opportunities come knocking
At the end of December 2017 Milun Tesovic, the Expa partner in charge of Vancouver projects, reached out to me. He’d found my old profile through AngelList and was looking for a technical writer for one of the stealth mode projects. Intrigued, I reached out to find out more and was asked to come in for an interview.
It was during that meeting I heard more about the opportunity — a chance to join a cybersecurity startup on the precipice of emerging from two years in stealth mode. They were already fielding interest from some large enterprise organizations through word of mouth connections, but had very little in the way of marketing collateral or product education that they could pass along. Based on my background, Milun thought I could be a good fit to help build out Cmd’s foundational materials. When I mentioned interest in exploring the opportunity, he brought Cmd’s CEO Jake into the conversation.
Right off the bat, Jake broke all of the cybersecurity stereotypes I found I had hanging around in my head. He was incredibly jovial, talked a mile a minute, and exuded a potent mix of authenticity and passion when discussing what the team has achieved so far and where they want to go. I told him I knew next to nothing about cybersecurity but that I loved learning new things and he assured me that I’d be able to get up to speed in no time. Within a few days of my interview, I had a job offer in my hand. I was heading into a new role as a technical writer for Cmd.
Where I am today
It’s been about seven months since I started working with the team here at Cmd. If I’m being totally honest, those first few weeks were rough. It was like trying to sip from a firehose. My learner brain was incredibly activated, while my natural risk aversion tendencies were running overtime trying to convince me I’d made a huge mistake. It was one of the hardest transitions I’ve ever made, as it felt like learning a foreign language through immersion while also picking up the ins and outs of how this particular startup operated and forming connections with my new team members.
But here I am, successfully on the other side of the transition. Not only did I manage to get up to speed, but I’ve come to see how my unique path into tech and into the cybersecurity industry contributes to our company’s culture, brand identity, and operations. And this is only the beginning.
Interested in connecting with me and hearing more? Find me on LinkedIn. I’m always down to chat with others (especially women looking to break into tech!) And make sure to follow the Cmd blog to learn more about what we’re up to at Cmd.
