Episode 48

gistfile1.txt

Chris Goosen  0:19  
Welcome to the cloud architects podcast, a podcast about cloud technology, and the people using it.

Nicolas Blank  0:26  
The cloud architects podcast is sponsored by Kemp technologies. Choose Kemp to optimize your multi cloud application deployments and simplify multi cloud application management. A single pane of glass for application delivery, Kemp provides a 360 degree view of your entire application environment, and even third party ADCs. Download Kemp 360 for free today at Kemptechnologies.com

Warren du Toit  0:55  
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the post apocalyptic version of the cloud architects podcast. And we have a new co host today. Anna Chu! Welcome back. 

Anna Chu  1:06  
Hey. 

Warren du Toit  1:08  
And again, we have the amazing little wonderful the stupendous, Mr.

Nicolas Blank  1:17  
Nicholas blank.

I was I was waiting. I waited too long. I think I ruined the theatrical effect, but I gotta say that new Chris is a lot better looking than the old Chris. Ah,

Warren du Toit  1:29  
that's for sure. That's what you're gonna

say, Maxie. Same accent story.

Anna Chu  1:40  
Is it? I don't know. I've been told it sounds a bit strange that people ask me if I'm British people.And people ask me.Yeah, but

Nicolas Blank  1:56  
it's a South African if I was from Spain. True Story.

Anna Chu  2:02  
Oh la la

Nicolas Blank  2:04  
la compadre. settled there differences in the accent between that one and this one. But now we got to roll with it.

Anna Chu  2:12  
Well, I am very proud to be your fit like her horse today. I'm not sure how this is gonna go or it might turn to crap. But Oh, well. Let's roll with it.

Warren du Toit  2:25  
Let's go with it.

Cool. So what are we going to talk about today, I think I think something really important is we can talk about I'm not going to say post apocalyptic again, because and it's just going to mess things up. But let's let's go post Ignite. And we look at the technology that Microsoft has brought to the fold for CES. And so using innovations that Microsoft I consider what react is and has done with inspire ignite ready, bold. And I'm going to be using proceeds. That's a big deal. 

Anna Chu  3:02  
That's a huge deal. Yeah, yeah, the event team has done a lot of work and they're really, you know, bullish and proving themselves. So I'm, yeah, I'm really interested in those down. Of course, us as Microsoft were a little bit more forgiving of our own technology. We drink our own Kool Aid. trigger on champagne. Is that was that the time? Um, so yeah, I wonder if, how if What if we're really ready for primetime with CES, I have high hopes, I definitely think that the team will do pull out all the stops to make see is an awesome event and what a great way to like actually be a partner for events, right? Like CES is a is a was already. I think there was a year that Microsoft decided not to be part of CES for whatever reason. But I think it's a lot better to actually be the one pairing the event instead of just being Hey, we're gonna be like a major partner and showcasing our product. But we're actually living it through through the event itself, which is really cool.

Warren du Toit  4:07  
That's super cool. And when it comes to I mean, just just your personal question is, are you looking forward to anything at CES? 

Anna Chu  4:16  
I havenever really been involved because CES is typically consumer thing. I've always worked in the commercials. Yes.

So I if I ever, like the only time I ever look at CES is just as an observer, just as someone who's interested in, you know, what's happening in the Xbox world or Surface devices or any other, you know, mobile mobile devices, right. Um, for me, like I've been spending a lot of time with online events. And I went to Adobe max last week. I've been going to see to Montreal for the last two years and this is the first time that they've done a completely online event. For those of you who don't know what C to Montreal is, it's a collaboration between the month Getting agency for Cirque du Soleil called Sibley and another company I can't remember. But it's all about the collaboration between creativity and commerce. And so they always do a great job of getting amazing speakers. And really great immersive experiences. So I was really curious how they would do that with everything being online. I mean, how immersive Can you be when you're at the same desk that you read email and do teams calls, you know, but they got had some workshops, and one even involve me walking out of my house, and observing like, like noticing what really stood out for me. And I think in this age of, you know, we're still in pandemic work mode. More, and I know that, when we were talking earlier, you were saying that you will starting to feel a bit fatigued from working from home for a while. So like, you do need to get outside and sick get exposed to a completely different environment in order for you to, you know, not only like stay sane and preserve your mental health, but just, you know, just for a little bit of relief, right?

Warren du Toit  6:15  
Yeah, hundred percent Look, I mean, I guess, we've tried to replicate the stuff that it is that we do on a daily basis, but from home, so, you know, got a gym, or you have a spinning machine or I don't know, you know, just those little things that you try to replicate. I mean, the kids, you know, joining meetings and sort of virtual, virtual and Roblox games and things like that. But you're right. I mean, there's, there's only so much that you can mean, there's some sort of interaction that sort of has to happen, but it's not, you can't necessarily get

Nicolas Blank  6:53  
away actually, you get such digital fatigue, that you don't care, you don't care about how amazing the content is, you get to the point where I just want to be in the same room as another human being, and talk to them and see them and see the the pale blue blue light of another screen.

Anna Chu  7:12  
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's really it's, it's really, really tough. And I think we've said it many times that COVID-19 is kind of like everyone's digital transformation officer, I everyone's had to like, be pushed into digital, kicking and screaming and set. The same applies for online events. And one thing I've been thinking about is, have the objectives of events changed. Because now that we move to online, let's think about this, right? As I look at the metrics for ignite 2020. And compare that to our metrics for 2019. We, in person event, we looked at things like how many people turn up? How many registrations do we get? We looked at things like that, now,

Warren du Toit  8:01  
we're completely blown up.

Anna Chu  8:03  
Yeah, totally blown out. Like, like, like, a lot. I'm, like, 10 times just a little under 10. x, you know, just crazy. But there's a couple of things behind that we might be event free. And typically ignite, you have to pay like two grand also, to for the price of admission. We've also looked at, you know, session scans to get a sense of like, how many people actually attended sessions? Well, when you are logging in to, to a session, right? Is that person really there is not a captive audience a distracted by, like, they could have three other tabs open on their browser, that, yeah, it'd be a source of distraction, let alone what's happening in their home. Now, you could also argue that, you know, we weren't able to capture people walking out of those rooms. But as someone who used to stand by that door, didn't really I mean, you just have like, maybe 10 1215 depending on the room, like really point 01 percent of the people in the room. But attention spans really difficult. And the other thing too, is something that is been really on my mind is these events have always been technical training events, right? So how do we do this online when people's attention spans are so limited? And I mean, you you've seen this at Ignite, like, we've always done like 45 minutes, 75 minutes session breakouts. We didn't do that for our online event. Like we did 20 minutes, 30 minute things. So is that going to help people get the technical depth that they need to be successful in their jobs? I'm really interested in how technical training organizations pivoting like have you guys seen anything? Have you guys seen major changes? They're

Warren du Toit  10:07  
not really not not remind me look Hi. For me it's also an there's an excitement factor. I'm going to the the person who led the session afterwards, and having a chat to them saying that was amazing or seeing what sort of shirt they were wearing, because I suppose he gave you some sort of indication of what the kind of person what that person was like. Whereas now, let's say it's pre recorded. They're wearing a shirt that Microsoft told them to it, or how rehearsed wasn't actually. Um, so it was, I think leading to my next question is when it comes to the virtual table sessions and the social virtual sessions that you tried to have it ignited at work?

Anna Chu  10:48  
Yeah, I'll tell you what Hawks. Um, yeah. Last time, when we spoke, I was talking about how it was a bit of an experiment. I thought it went really well. The feedback that we got from the table talks was like, Oh, my gosh, I could have sat in these table talks all day, we had repeat customers, we had people coming back, like Table to Table Talk, I had my coffee, I woke up early stayed up late in order to be part of as many of them as I could. And people really love the free flowing conversation. They've really loved that, you know, they had a place where they could have that hallway conversation, that you typically have big conferences. And while they was an agenda, it was super loose. It was more like, hey, like, this is going to be a table talk about application development. Got a couple of people here, like, let's find out in the room, like what people are interested in building what you're building right now. You know, just have a chat, though. The main complaint I had was that 30 minutes is too short. And I agree with that. I'm sorry, I'm hoping we can expand that. I'm very interested in like, any advice or any tips that people might have. So any listeners to this podcast, just, you know, message me on on Twitter, at underscore HQ, if you've got any ideas of how you've seen networking done well, especially a really big events, right, like, like, the Ignite reached like hundreds of thousands of people. So trying to do intimate networking can be very difficult. But I'm very excited about Microsoft Teams and the breakout room functionalities. And maybe we can do it that way. Yeah, yeah, that would be really fun. I see online events to and they have used the breakout room functionality. I think the difference the challenge with that from from that event is that not everyone went into the breakout rooms like me included guilty, because I was planning on just passively listening. And so if you were pushing l had allocated, he would go into breakout rooms, some would be more full than others. So I don't know, it's just one of those things that we need to take into consideration.

Nicolas Blank  13:11  
You realize you celebrating something that was successful there? And it was because it had interaction? And we weren't just being statically presented at? And yeah, that's sweet. We love interacting. And we had a conference and we weren't just watching slide off the slide off the slide deck by

Anna Chu  13:32  
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was a, I think it was the best solution for Yes, what you said there, like driving interaction and connections. I have no idea whether people like started connecting with other people in that check table talk one on one afterwards. I don't have a way of measuring that. Nor do I want to, like be so you know, big brother about it. Right? Like, we kind of have to leave things to be organic. So yeah, um, but we shall say, Oh, I also did one in Japanese Actually, I didn't personally but I was like, you know, what, like, the people community is also very local. Right? And with the Japanese, they need to connect with people who speak their language. English is not their mother tongue, right? Or something that they feel super comfortable speaking in, and so interact like, so they won't feel 100% comfortable interacting in, in a in a format like that, where the predominant language is English. And so I sat in on the the Japanese one. I don't understand a lick of Japanese, but I just observed and people will, like, turn the cameras on. They turn the cameras on. They unmuted themselves. It was awesome. You know, like, I think, like, if you look at all the sessions, we did, we did breakouts, We did them in in teams live events, you had the interaction in the chat, you didn't see anyone's faces. Like, one thing I did, and I kept doing it was I turned on together mode for myself, took a screenshot of that, paste it in the chat window. And but and of course, if people don't know, or you don't turn on together mode for everybody, you do it for yourself. So you can see everyone in that beautiful format. And so it was a little bit, it was two things. One, I was showcasing a feature of teams through Table Table, as a good corporate citizen and a fan of Microsoft Teams. And secondly, I was really motivating people to actually turn on the cameras unmute their microphone, so they can see themselves in together mode, and start and stop just giving them a little signal, say, Hey, this is the permissible thing to do, you don't have to, but if you want to be involved in this way, you know, join in. So I think you have to like Softly, softly let people feel comfortable. With an interactive mode, like I learned a lot from doing unconferences in the in person event 2019. Certainly some people gave us feedback that there were some dominant voices and dominant personalities, which is fine. But you have to make sure that as a facilitator, you acknowledge that and play a role in pivoting and making sure that everybody has a chance to speak if they want the opportunity, you know, so I think we did a really good job of using technology to to advantage to facilitate who

Warren du Toit  16:46  
at least it other than us, you know, how you get these common meeting mistakes, or the common things that happened inside of meetings or like you're on mute. Or you know, your cameras or whatever the case may be is which leads me to the next thing is who runs Microsoft Instagram, because that's, that is hilarious. Instagram, it's really funny. It's like, something you haven't heard in three hours, or whatever the case is, and it's always like this, this random meme about something bad you do. What's the funniest thing you've done on a meeting? Like in the last month?

Anna Chu  17:26  
Ah, I've been using the snap snap camera filters are using playing with that. I actually have and I could put a cat on my head on it. Let me see if I could do I could miss a cat one as a whole bunch of them. I could I haven't done anything. I have Oh, this one's gonna be interesting. Oh my gosh, I can be a on this is going away. Oh, look, I'm a Halloween bride. This better make the blooper reel.

Nicolas Blank  18:13  
I'm not so sure about the blooper reel. I think this is gonna make mainstream.

Warren du Toit  18:19  
mainstream.

Anna Chu  18:21  
Yes. I mean, look at this. Look at these cheekbones. It looks amazing. I haven't know I feel like I'm pretty good at teams etiquette. And I think I don't know why it's just been drilled into me to, you know, oh, one thing I will say I don't think it's so much mistakes. I think using teams to have meetings is just has really helped introverts because if that like this couple of things. One, the raise hand feature is excellent. Because, yes. You know, Nicole with 2050 people, and you just can't get a word in edgewise. So the right hand features is great for that. Also, you can see through too intense as someone is trying to say something because you can see that little avatar profile picture like flash purple. So hey, like there's audio being detected on their microphone. So maybe they're trying to say something. And so if you visually you see that you like, hey, Nate, do you want to do it looks like you have something?

Nicolas Blank  19:30  
I'm sorry. Thank you. Yes.

Anna Chu  19:36  
quesion All right. There we go.

Um, so yeah, I think it's been really good in driving people to, you know, be more inclusive of all the different voices in the room. Yeah, yeah. Um,

Warren du Toit  20:01  
You want to say something?

Nicolas Blank  20:05  
Well, you know, for the fact that you're looking so blue today, wine, I don't know what you've done with your camera. But don't do it again. It's fine. You know what we can talk and calibrated afterwards? Magic?

So yeah, we keep on talking about COVID and the success of Ignite. And what is the next one gonna look like was ignite never going to end because we used to have a show called ignited chirp. So what do we have not we have an everlasting ignite

Anna Chu  20:37  
FCM never ending story No, um,

Nicolas Blank  20:40  
do we even one? Is ignite still special if it never ends?

Anna Chu  20:45  
Yeah, I well okay this.is it's coming, there is gonna be another ignite happening in March. That's all I can communicate in terms of time frame right now. So

Warren du Toit  20:59  
you heard it here, folks all much.

Anna Chu  21:04  
I think where what the future of digital events will be interesting. I don't really nor we one thing that is very clear from the conversations we've been having the planning team is we want to do more to drive local engagement. I mentioned the experiment we did with a Japanese Table Talk. And we certainly want to do more to reach out to our Asia Pacific audiences, because I think they felt a little left out with the English centric content just fine. We just need to do a better job of reaching people in different languages, right. And that's inclusive of Spanish, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, whatever it may be, right. So we want to do more of that. And perhaps we need and but it's just not, it's not just the language thing, like localization is about translated the tire experience. And like, I website, the Register button, like the clothes cache, everything, it's a lot more than just the content. So and also culturally, for some coaches, like they need that. I haven't delved deep into this. But we need to consider cultural differences as well. It's not just a straight up AI language translation. chozo isn't perfect, either. So we're thinking about that. Um, but I think something I was alluding to earlier, in terms of, you know, the content now being shorter. And technical readiness, we also have to think about on demand event strategy, too, because going back to what you were saying, around fatigue. And this, there's a lot of content and to expect people to tune in for like eight hours straight, 12 hours straight, 2448 hours straight is not really healthy. So we want to motivate people to go at their own pace, especially when the content gets very technically deep, like level 300 400 level, right? I've been thinking about that. So there's an on demand piece of that. But how many times like would you also be motivated to go if that was pre recorded, and there was no one there to like guide you. So I'm thinking about interaction styles to there's a lot to think about. Um, I know that in the last podcast we did together talking about ignite, we were I was using the analogy of television for our content, which is very true, like we had to operate like this clockwork. But is that at compromising? The longer form content that people need to help them be better developers? Better IT professionals? Right. So yeah, curious on your on your thoughts about, you know, how we could, you know, still help people get hands on with technology in this work from home setting, you know? Yeah. But on that, on that, I will say we launched a new feature, and I was I couldn't talk about it. Now, last episode. In the tech community, it's the video hub. So we've got hundreds of videos and interactive demos. So click through demos. So that kind of talks to a little bit of technical readiness. If you go to the tech community tech community.microsoft.com, and garter the top navigation cord community hubs, we have a new video and you'll see lots of video content. And also if you you know love SharePoint love Azure and you go to the actual as you can community hub SharePoint community hub, you'll see the latest videos that have come in from the video have served up to you on that landing page. So you don't have to like go specifically to the video hub to find it, we will recommend content view based on the community hub you're in. So that's a new feature that we pushed out to hopefully help people with getting familiar with with, you know, the new announcements and the new products and new features coming. So yeah, yeah. So we're always ever expanding the features that we have on the tech community. 

Nicolas Blank  25:35  
And it's a double edged sword, though, because the content is fantastic, not taking away from that, I think we've gone from, because in physical events, we had the constraints of what we could do physically in terms of walking from one session to another. And I could only physically talk to so many presenters and look at the T shirts per day. And I feel like from a content point of view, we've gone from ignite, which was the fire hose to a digital only format, which is now several sets of tidal waves. And I don't think we need to navigate there, we don't have the guidance that says, in your role in your job in your persona. This is how much or how little you need to do what you need to do.

Anna Chu  26:25  
Yeah, like, Are you saying you don't know what the minimum you know, table stakes are to be a certain level of certain expertise.

Nicolas Blank  26:37  
I'm saying this so much content that I could if I just look at the the folks that are followed from the the Azure group, the Azure AD group and office 365 group. And I could do nothing but consume content, eight hours a day, excluding the stuff that has been added to community. And then there's the video content, which I play at normal speed, and I don't fast forward, plus some of the most amazing podcasts that are out at the moment. Like, I don't have enough hours in my day to consume content and work.

Anna Chu  27:16  
Hmm, yes. Yes, that's very true.

Warren du Toit  27:19  
hasn't been hasn't always been like that, though. Like, because now you just

Nicolas Blank  27:26  
multiply Oh,

Warren du Toit  27:29  
yeah, but you're forced to consume it that way. Now, because if we had to have sort of a said, we have to think back a little bit you'd ignore could be your week of lateness from work. But now what happens is you've got that sort of context switching that has to happen sort of, in between, so I completely understand what you're saying. But also at the same token, we, like we were forced to take those days and dedicate them to something, whereas now you don't. And maybe, maybe that's our issue is I mean, like, I know, you know, as if he, they, they say quite a bit is make time for your, your personal learning and your growth and, you know, you know, like, sort of take time out of the day, because they understand exactly how many meetings somebody will put in your calendar if they could. So maybe that's something that we, we suppose need to say, Okay, well, can we just break out like a two hour? I mean, is it possible, you break out two hours in your day and say, Okay, well, this is exactly what I'm gonna look at. Um, so the fire hose becomes just a little bit smaller. We have to adapt to, I suppose. But it's like you say, you, you are limited to physically, you walked into the room, and that was where you were for that hour. So maybe that's what you sort of need to do, I guess?

Nicolas Blank  28:54  
Yeah, I'd like some, some guidance on this so that we could share with like, we've had to teach digital netiquette. Right. So don't Yeah, don't schedule an appointment for an hour and a half or an hour. Because you know, people need space to be human. So make it 45 minutes. Yeah, those are skills that we we don't naturally have, because the calendars and an hour block. It'd be good if we could give some guidance in terms of how did you laugh in digital age where there's so much content, but at the same time, I still need to do my day job. But the content is really very relevant to my job. But I can't spend 12 hours a day consuming content and I can't spend 12 hours a day doing my job because neither one is actually healthy. And then I work from home. My life is a mess. COVID Yeah. 2020 about

Anna Chu  29:46  
Yeah, yeah. So taking the an out the fire hose analogy. You got to lay it pipes. Right and evaluate it. You got to figure out like hey, like how, where am I going to divide my time, your time is like a pie chart. And you figure out how much time you want to spend with your family, how much time you want to spend with work, and then you and how much time you want to spend on learning. And figure out, you know, what that looks like in your day. Like exercise as well. And that's us. Like I, I feel one thing I've I'm trying to do, and I fall off the wagon, every so often is prioritize workouts in the morning. So this morning, I did my workout I, I'm using an app, and it makes me do a bunch of, you know, things today on Monday was like, but you know, I did it, and I feel so much better for it. I worked out, I took my shower, I got ready, I turned on my camera did this podcast. And you have to when you when I say lay your pots, it also is another way of saying define your boundaries. So if you are wanting to work nine to five, it is strictly nine to five, you do not take a meeting at eight, you do not take a meeting at six. That is like that is when you work. And I think Don does this really well don't asaka a lot of people, I encourage everyone to like be very clear on your boundaries and do not do not make exceptions unless it really is an exception. Exceptional situation. But then like, then you've got things in lieu. So if you are going to take that 8am meeting then you finished up at four. Right? You've got you are in control of your and your calendar. So stick to it.

Nicolas Blank  31:50  
That's good. Scrap brass. Yeah.

Anna Chu  31:55  
Yeah. And also, like go back to like, your, your New Year's resolutions. I know, it was very weird back, like, you know, pre COVID. But, um, like I had a mission to read more books to see. And I know, it's very vague. And I'm definitely reading more books than I did the previous year. But I have like, I'm actually refinishing them. Can you believe I never used to finish books. But if you have goals for yourself, set aside time to achieve them. Whether it is like to be healthier or to like ferociously read more. allocate time to do it. Because if you don't prioritize time and actually plan to do it, you will never get it done. Something else will always steal your time. It's usually work.

Nicolas Blank  32:43  
Yeah.

Anna Chu  32:45  
Still still more of a time than any email? Yeah, email,

Warren du Toit  32:51  
emails, terrible emails thing for me. Yeah, email is one thing I'm always behind. I know what

Anna Chu  33:02  
I turned off my email notifications. And I've done that for the last five years, and I've never looked back. Like, it doesn't make a difference. You don't? Like, what's the point? What's the, like, you're also setting bad examples if you are responding immediately. Right.

Warren du Toit  33:21  
Like for sure. It's a very good point.

Anna Chu  33:24  
Yeah, yeah, like 4am in the morning. 1am in the morning, what are some ridiculous out like you also causing anxiety, other personnel around who thinks Oh, shit, like, I shouldn't be doing this? I should be responding. I should be working. No, no. I think we all have a responsibility to drive better work life balance to everybody. And sadly, you know, if you're causing work for someone, you are causing someone else's anxiety, too. So

Nicolas Blank  33:55  
Wow. I think this has been the deepest show that we've done for a while.

Anna Chu  34:01  
Hey, why don't we

Warren du Toit  34:05  
take away a whole bunch of things? Yes. Like, do not email me tweet it.

Anna Chu  34:11  
And I will respond to when I want to when I wake up set notifications on my Twitter either because it was a point where I'm like, I'm getting inundated. I do not want to like be like a squirrel and just like, just Sure. Attention to like the latest thing someone tweeted at me. I don't need that. I'm, like away.

Warren du Toit  34:34  
Which I guess is another question that we could we could probably pose since we're on this subject is the subject of social media. Oh, yeah. And has has the social media effect changed? Because, and obviously, in some ways, it's the only way that you can communicate with those peers or those people that you would see, but have people become more liberal now. And Is it like, every single morning somebody wakes up and they post a photo of something that they would have never had done post? I mean, previous before code. So like, you know, they would get to the office and then they tell somebody about it. But now that they're not going to the office, they're telling the whole world about it. And then it says, Have you noticed there's been like a slight shift in who's posting what and why they're posting it. And I posted this, I think, to be perfectly honest with you and become a bit of a sort of like a social media hermit moment. And I don't like a completely. I'm not sure why. Yeah, social media butterfly in the family, not me. But um, have you noticed a change in what you want? I guess,

Anna Chu  35:51  
I, I've noticed the chain, I there's, I've noticed a lot of different things a lot. I've noticed people take and delete Facebook. One, I've noticed people just completely like, go on that end of the spectrum. And that may be because of, you know, that recent documentary on Netflix. This dilemma, I'll highly recommend people watch. It. I've also seen Yes, on the other end people post more. I go in waves between posting a lot or posting less. I, I've noticed that, you know, people just miss people and interactions. And yes, you're right. It's a little, like hanging out in the in the office, like cafeteria or in the kitchen. You know, like, there's like, that's just completely pure randomness as someone else walks in while you're making a cup of tea. And then you have a chance to do them, right. Um, but I've also been like, you know what, I'm just going to, like, post a selfie of myself with my morning cup of coffee. And hopefully that, you know, and I'm trying to send some positive vibes out there. So people have a great morning, you know, like, and I have no idea. But I'm glad you do. Someone might roll their eyes and Gosh, like, geez, but that's fine. That's fine. I couldn't meet me. I want like, I'm not doing it incessantly. I'm just like, Hey, I just want to stay alert to people and see how everyone's doing because I miss everyone you know? So yeah, I like it's really hard. I definitely feel like there's a bit of there's there are people who are opting out and there are people who are like all in I'm going to be all social and I'm going to share all my like, you know, thoughts onto the internet which can be dangerous.

Warren du Toit  37:48  
Dangerous, so dangerous. Let's delete that. But the damage is done, right? Yeah, yeah. damages. I mean, there are some people that cannot show their faces. Like around anyway. We've had the kind of no it happens everywhere. I guess really. But we've had like, a couple of social media influencers stars or TV personalities that just some problems they get some somebody posts something bad on tik tok. They are gone. Oh, yeah.

Anna Chu  38:23  
Oh, gosh. Yeah. There's been so many warnings from 2020. Oh, like it has been the volumes in turn up to 13. I tell you what, like, there's been a lot of things that I've learned Personally, I feel like this, which has been a reckoning on many, many things. And yes, it was probably the, the medicine we all needed to take. But you know, I have like I'm Look, I'm hopeful that we're going to come out the other end is all more enlightened individuals, enlightened humans who have a better appreciation of community, have a have exercise deeper empathy is one thing that I have spent the last two weeks doing is a lot of introspection. I was watching a session delivered by Malcolm Gladwell is a journalist. He's Canadian, American, many things. And he had a very, very interesting take on deep empathy. In terms of, you know, you don't really like when I was taught in school, what empathy was. They translated that as being able to walk a mile in someone's shoes. But the problem with that is that I'm imagining what it's like to walk in worn shoes on Nicholas's shoe. If I haven't actually sat down to speak to you individually understand your points of view, your perspectives, your experiences, your influences. I do not really understand you deeply. Right. And I think Especially given the current climate and what's going to happen next week with the US election, it is even more important to exercise that and put your biases aside, right? And so next time you see that what you perceive as a crazy Facebook post or social media post, have a think about that person and you may not have a full understanding as to why they did that, that they may be having a mental breakdown. We're all under massive amounts of stress. And we're not very good at expressing it or maybe too good at expressing. You know, I think if we have all exercise that well and being a bit more perceptive, I think we're all going to come out of this the other end that a human being so you're right Nicholas's has been the most deep episode you'll ever have on the cloud pockets, fix it

Nicolas Blank  40:54  
book. Yeah, yeah. But I think it's, it's necessary because I shows not just about technology, it's about the people in it. And we, we desperately need each other. And I've been looking at my Facebook feed, and especially my American friends. And I've seen things that I've, as a non American I've looked at, and I see such depth of emotion on so many topics, and especially the politically charged ones and direct challenges to unfriend me if you don't like this and and I just think that is, there's so much space available that we need to give, in terms of this empathy topic, we need to figure out how, how do I how do I support a person? Or how do I just let them be when things are difficult, and other expressing things on a political topic, and they've got left to deal with and family and, and work? And it's, it's not an easy world at the moment in COVID?

Anna Chu  42:06  
It's not Yeah. It's brought a lot of things to the fore. I mean, like, while learning, I feel like I've learned a lot about people's challenges, like some people, I've learned about people's health issues, physical health issues, people have come out and talked about, you know, that they have bipolar, or ADHD. And I'm also learning that, you know, for some people, they really don't want to be fully transparent about their sexuality, or, you know, the gender that they most associate themselves with. That is totally their call. It's just, it's, it's really opened my eyes this year. And maybe I knew about this stuff, I just didn't delve deeper into it. But this year, I'm definitely much more in sharing with people and not like me, and nor should they be. And I should seek, like, seek to be super curious about it. But only with that mission to write. Like, I don't want to look at people like as museum artifacts, I want to look at people as human beings, and just so I can have better relationships with them, you know? So, yeah, 

Nicolas Blank  43:36  
so let me try and condense that and ask you to summarize that into and it doesn't matter how many there are, it's a top 1235 skills. What do you think, as people in the professions that we are in being technology focused, being people focused? What are the skills that we need right now? And if we don't have those skills, how do we build those skills?

Anna Chu  44:05  
I think a skill that everyone needs to work on is self awareness. I think that underpins a lot of things, self awareness, because it is you are in control of of yourself. Right? But are you aware of how you're, what you're doing affects other people? Like, even the whole, you know, responding to email at midnight, is, is that you need to be aware of how that action is impacting the person on the other end of the email, right? Same goes for your posts on social media. It might be just you venting the how's it making other people feel? It's also like how do you spend your time if your family or your colleagues see burning the midnight oil? Is that is that a good example you're setting for your kids or for you colleagues and that kind of goes back to empathy a little bit too, because people need to like it. It's a self awareness in terms of how your, your actions and your words impacting others, but but also deeply understanding the other end, like who is this person and how my actions impacting them. So, yeah,

Nicolas Blank  45:26  
that's stunning. The speaking of empathy, we want to respect your time. Getting to the Thai LAO,

Warren du Toit  45:32  
look at that. Hey, geez. Yeah, really quickly. A really good Yes. Yeah. I really missed you guys. For ages. Oh, we missed you, too. Oh,

Anna Chu  45:44  
it's just hard right now, sir. I hope you're all staying well and staying healthy. And, you know, drawing your boundaries, if he goes to take one piece of homework away from this is to, you know, line your boundary so that you can better respect your time and in turn respect thistime

Warren du Toit  46:03  
reject the meetings man, Chelsea? No. No, no, no meetings are allowed to recruit more than three times. Yeah.

Anna Chu  46:15  
That's tough when way in planning parties or events. But I think I should take that principle put a little Asterix on it. Like some exceptions apply. Yeah, no, you're right. You're right.

Nicolas Blank  46:30  
We have loved this format. And we'd love to have you on again, as a co host. And you you are part of the furniture now. So we're going to have to have you on as host and get you to grill someone with us and, and and be proud of the show.

Anna Chu  46:49  
What I always love talking to you guys, and I hope everyone who listens to podcasts got something out of today. So thank you. 

Warren du Toit  47:00  
I think they definitely did. Thanks,

everyone. Before you go, we just wanted to say thank you for listening. We really enjoyed putting this podcast together for you every two weeks, please visit us at the architects cloud. Alternatively, drop us a tweet. We'd love to hear what you have to say @TheCloudArch.