I’m not technical, but I work in tech. And I love it.

In a country with accelerated tech growth, how important it is to remember the importance of human interaction and ‘soft skills’ in the workplace?

Sarrah Jayne, Human Skills Lead.

I’ll be honest, I don’t come from a technical background. The industries I’ve spent the majority of my life in have nothing to do with technology; so imagine my surprise when I show up to a tech conference and feel more at home than I have in any other conference space.

I was at Code Camp Wellington, an annual conference notching up its fourth year.

I had applied to speak at code camp after a few of our Dev Academy students mentioned how useful they had found it. I thought it would be a great opportunity to put my very limited public speaking skills to the test.

My nervousness the morning of Code Camp was not so much because of the talk but because in spite of being pretty extroverted I have always felt super awkward in a conference environment. Networking has always been something I avoided because I cringe at that awkward moment where your not sure if a conversation has run its course or the endless stream of small talk that circles from weather to the lunch selection back to weather again.

But this seemed different. It was really cold that day, the Wellington southerly was in full swing, so the warm welcome into the Xero offices was soothing to my soul. I arrived during morning tea and was greeted with a bustling crowd of people munching away on sausage rolls. The vegan options were clearly marked and I was easily bustling from one conversation to another without much awkwardness.

I have to admit that a lot of my ease was because there were so many Dev Academy graduates in the space that every second face was familiar to me. It was humbling to consider the impact we’ve had on the tech community here in the capital.

The first speaker I saw was Rachel Collingridge who told a delightful story of her experience in teams and what she had seen through her experience in sports teams, tech teams and her current team at Xero.

There was a picture of a petri dish to represent culture (an analogy I think is really worth exploring) and she named culture as the lowest common denominator of behaviour in your team. She talked about feedback, growth mindset, and strategy, I looked around delighted to see some of my past and present students hearing these concepts echoed from someone other than me — and from an industry professional! Win!

Then there was a talk on Storytelling by the delightful David Thomsen, he walked us through why stories are so powerful and culturally important before diving into some popular movies and the less obvious lessons they might hold for us.

Next up on my list was Aaron Hodder with his talk about minimising digital cruelty. He was funny, engaging and the truths he hit us with landed with me in a way that I have never considered before.

He talked about algorithmic cruelty and gave some brutal examples of when algorithms are more cruel than kind. For example, when asking Siri what to do about sexual assault, Siri responds “that’s not a problem” or when Facebook displays a picture of your daughter who passed away the year before covered in balloons and streamers because that was your most popular post from the year before.

He spoke in detail about everyone wanting their website to be ‘delightful’ but what about the user? What if they don’t want to be delighted? When the rent is due and the WINZ payment hasn’t come through I don’t want to be delighted. If it’s an emergency and I want to find the details fast, I don’t need to be distracted by your beautiful aesthetics.

He talked about accessibility and used the term Hostile Architecture to describe an online environment that is hostile to the user if they don’t fit the particular user story. Some of his suggested strategies for how we deal with these problems were to move away from user stories and into real life profiling, real personas at their best and at their worst and to use crisis stories to surface the worst case scenario.

I came away from this talk delighted that someone had found a language to describe the unease I feel around AI and algorithms and their lack of empathy in very real, very vulnerable, human situations.

I then absorbed what my good friend and Dev Academy graduate Cliff Robinson had to say about his previous career as a lawyer and how that relates to client engagement in developing software.

I’m always grateful when I come across humans who love research and data and have the ability to mix that with human experience. As someone who struggles to remember any relevant studies to back anything up, I find this very impressive.

The time had arrived for me to take the stage and somewhere along the way, my nerves had evaporated — I was so absorbed in every speaker, that suddenly what I had to say no longer felt filled with dread.

My talk was about the learning journey that we go on throughout a career in tech (or any industry). I talked about having a growth mindset and other conditions for learning such as having a curious, adaptable mind that questions everything, including the stories we tell ourselves.

I shared stories about students I have seen come through Dev Academy and the successes and failures that made them successful. As a true facilitator at heart, I also encouraged the audience to talk to each other and to share a time when they felt like their learning curve was at its steepest, what they learned from that and how it felt for them.

I touched on the importance of feedback and staying in a growth mindset and how imposter syndrome can hold us back from learning because we need to feel safe to make mistakes and learn from them.

Finally, I encouraged everyone to ask themselves the question: “am I learning?” every day as a practice to stay aware of our learning patterns and behaviours and to avoid becoming complacent about personal growth.

I also managed to create a new word — a beautiful word that rolls elegantly off the tongue: VAGILE. I haven’t copyright’d it yet, so go ahead and combine values and agile for your own entertainment.

The final speaker, Chis Cormack gave us a lesson in Te Reo Māori in the context of tech. Ka pai Chris! That was awesome!

All and all it was a really enjoyable event and I would highly recommend it to anyone starting out in the industry and as an inclusive conference to attend for a newbie who is not sure yet where they fit in the tech industry.

If you’d like to continue your learning and meet people from the tech community, you’re in luck. Here at Dev Academy, we host monthly Human Skills Meetups in Auckland and Wellington and the best bit? You’re invited!

Hop in and take a look

Auckland:

https://www.meetup.com/Enspiral-Dev-Academy-AKL/events/wmtwvqyzgbmc/

Wellington:

https://www.meetup.com/Enspiral-Dev-Academy-Meetup/events/fvjvtqyzgbdc/