We are excited to have Shannon Stamey as our special guest on this month’s WIT podcast.
Before we dive in on the topic, here’s a bit about Shannon:
Shannon Stamey is an Associate Marriage & Family Therapist in San Luis Obispo & Orcutt. She is passionate about helping women who are feeling overwhelmed by burnout, anxiety, depression and/or challenges that arise from transitions of life, such as divorce, to bring balance back to their lives and connect with their authentic selves.
AMFT #112871 – Supervised by Nicole Dolan LMFT #87662
Shannon sat down with me to talk about the importance of understanding our shame and combating both internal shame narratives and shame culture. This is part one of a two-part series on the related topics of shame and burnout. Tune in next moth to hear Shannon’s insights on addressing burnout.
We are excited to have Kellie Phillips as our special guest on this month’s WIT podcast.
Before we dive in on the topic, here’s a bit about Kellie:
Kellie Phillips is an agent with New York Life Insurance now, but prior to last summer, worked in a number of local tech companies over her 30-year career. After graduating with her Bachelor’s degree in Business Management from Kent State University in Ohio, and a few stops along the way, Kellie moved to the Central Coast in 1989. By chance, luck, or some combination, she started her journey in tech with local telecom entrepreneur Jeff Buckingham at Call America in 1990. Back when AT&T’s monopoly was being broken up, before cell phones, personal computers or even public access to the internet. It may sound crazy, but Kellie is convinced it was the best time to be a young woman jumping into the telecom industry, when it felt like all you really needed was a brain in your head and the tenacity to figure sh#t out. Kellie gravitated to the client side of business early, which became her passion. The change from leadership roles in other companies to joining NYL as an agent still allows her to pursue the work she has always enjoyed the most – bringing life changing value – now she just gets to do it for her own clients. After years of mentoring women in business settings, she is focuses on helping them plan and protect their futures. Best job ever, with the exception of raising her 2 kids, Mason & Cate, with the love of her life Randy Myrick. P.S. arguably her favorite job, & most valuable accomplishment.
Kellie sat down with me to talk about the importance of making a realistic financial plan and finding the right people to help you do it:
We are so excited to have Dr. Kristi Harter as our special guest on this month’s WIT podcast. Dr. Kristi is a naturopathic doctor focusing on women’s health in Santa Barbara.
Before we dive in on the topic, here’s a bit about Dr. Harter:
Dr. Kristi Wrightson-Harter graduated with a B.S. in Business Administration from the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina, with a concentration in Restaurant Management. While her classmates were learning about managing the business of restaurants, Dr. Wrightson-Harter was diving into the management of the body—fascinated with the importance of food intake as it relates to optimal health. After several years, Dr. Wrightson-Harter went back to school for therapeutic massage, where she explored the deep connection between the mind and the body. Through this process, Dr. Wrightson-Harter found naturopathic medicine and enrolled in Bastyr University, the world’s leading naturopathic university.
During her schooling at Bastyr, Dr. Wrightson-Harter worked with physicians from Northside Hospital in Atlanta as well as several integrated health clinics in Seattle. This training exposed her to perspectives from both conventional and holistic medicine, creating a more complete protocol of care that employs characteristics from both forms of healing. While getting her Naturopathic Doctorate, Dr. Wrightson realized the importance of educating her patients on health issues related to food and proceeded to get her Master’s in Nutrition. She utilizes this exceptional background in treating her patients: using each person’s unique internal blueprint as the guide for working within the basic principles of health.
While she continues to have an integrated primary care practice, today, Dr. Wrightson-Harter focuses on women’s health, hormonal balancing and anti-aging therapies using an integrative approach.
Dr. Wrightson-Harter is a member of the California Association of Naturopathic Physicians as well as a supporting member of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, the only nationally recognized association for licensed ND’s.
Dr. Kristi sat down with me to talk about the importance of understanding female hormones and their impact on our workplaces. Hear all her insights in the interview below:
Resources:
Here are a few interesting articles that discuss “period policies” in the workplace to think about:
We are so excited to have Ashley Fry as our special guest on this month’s WIT podcast. Ashley was one of our dynamic keynote speakers at our 2019 Women in Tech Dinner. In fact, we got so many great questions, we decided to sit down and explore the topic of male allies a bit more.
Announcement: we’re doing a special drawing this month at our WIT breakfast. On June 5th, 2019 at 4 Cats in SLO, where our WIT breakfast meets, anyone who brings a male ally will be entered into a drawing for a giftcard (one for them and one for their ally). We’ll have a second drawing for male allies who come on their own and know the codeword shared in the podcast.
Before we dive in on the topic, here’s a bit about Ashley:
Ashley Fry is currently the VP of Agile Development & Quality at Dassault Systemes, IQMS and also consults with businesses as a Leadership & Organizational Strategist and Scrum Coach. It was in a Tech Support role where Ashley discovered the exhilarating high she received from uncovering and getting to the bottom of bugs. She made her way into product development gaining experience in various roles and ultimately worked her way up to management. Ashley has about 10 years of experience working in fast-paced Agile Scrum environments and has led large product development teams, creating both SaaS and on-premise solutions. Ashley is passionate about creating psychologically safe, experimentation-based work cultures centered around learning, autonomy, and celebrating failure. She is a devout believer that cultivating this type of environment ignites employees’ passion, ownership, and empowerment. Ashley is also a champion for women empowerment and engagement in leadership roles- specializing in tech.
Ashley sat down with me to talk about the importance of male allies—why we need them, how to support them, and pro-tips for becoming one. Hear all her insights in the interview below:
Resources:
During the podcast, Ashley recommended a few resources for becoming and supporting allies:
Hello SLO WIT!
It’s been a bit since we had a post up, so we’re do for a quick update. 2019 is off to a great start for our WIT community. We started a new podcast, changed up the format of our breakfasts, and had an awesome Women in Tech dinner (shoutout to everyone who attended and made it such a success!). We even have a new newsletter focused on women in tech that will be coming to inboxes near you.
For those of you who want the scoop on everything that’s happened, here’s the short recap:
WIT has a new mission statement: To be a resource to women in the central coast community, supporting their pursuit of technical knowledge and careers through empowerment, professional development, and education.
Women in Softec leadership—while we’ve always had dynamic women on the Softec board and in leadership positions over the years, we’re excited to have Victoria Hanna as our president and Kelly Irish as our Vice President this year.
Our annual theme is retention. We’re talking about strategies to retain diverse talent on three levels: personal, organizational, and community.
We’re podcasting! Once a month we do a 15-20 minute podcast episode around a topic. We interview an expert and bring your questions. These get posted so everyone can listen to them prior to our breakfasts. We’re doing our best to pair them with resources and links you can take back to your workplace. Find updates here on our blog, on Soundcloud, or on Facebook.
Breakfasts are no longer interviews, but a discussion of the topic from the podcast. It’s a win-win—we get better audio quality on the interviews and you get more time to connect and discuss the topic.
WIT Newsletter: it’s coming soon! We’ll have a place for you to sign-up to receive emails about our events and get the podcast delivered directly to you inbox.
We’re listening: we want to hear from you—at our breakfasts and lunches, via social media, or through interpretive dance. Don’t be shy about sharing your questions, thoughts, ideas, poems, or insights—our community is why we do what we do.
We’re looking forward to a great year—thanks for being part of our community!
The closing moments of a Startup Weekend are truly all of these things. This weekend I spend 3 very long days at the Startup Weekend at Cal Poly. At the end I was truly Exhilarated by working with smart and dedicated people, Energized by what they can bring to our community and the world, and Exhausted from lack of sleep. For those not aware of the Startup Weekend Movement it is a global program that provides a forum for those that want to explore entrepreneurial ideas with like minded individuals. While the event is held at Cal Poly and the majority of the participants are students the event is open to the public. If you have never experienced one of these I highly recommend them as a bucket list idea.
Keynote
This year started on Friday evening with a keynote from Kyle Wiens CEO of IFixIt. Kyle is always interesting to listen to because he has great storytelling ability and an interesting business. He is a Cal Poly grad and a long time sponsor of the Startup Weekend. Kyle did not fail to deliver energy and inspiration to the event. It was also great to see a local tech company engaged. If the Startup Weekend creates one more Kyle in our community that will a major homerun. After the keynote they play a game of rock, paper, scissors. With the groups joining each other until there are only two groups left. This serves the purpose of mixing the groups up and it does a good job of this. It gets people out of their seats and interacting with each other. Since the group is very techy my only hope is that in the future they consider upgrading the game to the newest version. Here is my upgrade recommendation. Pitches Next in the process are the pitches where each person with an idea gets up and does a 60 second pitch that is summarized and posted on the wall. With about 100 people in the event we ended up with about 50 concepts. This is followed by the chaos of voting and it is truly an inspiration for the State of Florida. Each person has three dots that they attach to the ideas they liked best and at the end of that the votes are tallied and the top 12 concepts are announced. I pitched a concept of an Enterprise Search solution but with only two votes my idea was crushed by others. Only the best survive and that is the way it should be.
Teams
Next came team formation and this is really the magic of the weekend and it is pure chaos. As it approached the end of process there were just a few kids left to be picked for a team and I was one of those. When that was announced Garrett Perkins the evangelist for the Ethic Marketplace invited me to his team. So true to the Startup Weekend best practice nobody is left unengaged not even the Token Old Guy.
Idea Evolution
The idea evolution is always an interesting process. Everyone looks at the challenges and goals differently based on their life experiences. From that diversity that the team gets its strength but it also causes tension in a fast paced evolving environment.As one of the people that brings up lots of the challenges it can be difficult for those possessed with the vision but the team always seems to find the balance. I like working with people that are smarter than I am and that was certainly true in this team. Working with brilliant people on tough problems is tons of fun.
Judging
Before discussing judging I have to disclose my bias. I thought the team I worked with was clearly better than the other groups although in the same breath I have to say that all the teams did great work. Having served as a judge before I know how hard it is to compare highly diverse proposals so reasonable people can disagree and I have more than a little bias toward our team. I do not believe in the everyone is winner concept because without failure we have no growth. These people are about to enter the business community and they will change the world and it will be better off because of them. I was really disappointed in the level of community involvement in the final presentation and it is something that we can do better on. Our community and the tech community in specific needs to celebrate these people and this process because
as a community we get what we celebrate
If nothing else our team should have got honorable mention as the only team in uniform on Veterans Day. I am extremely proud of the work this team did on the important issue of conscious consumerism. I am excited to see them talk about taking this forward and they have the right stuff to change the world with this one.
What’s Next
Startup Weekends are a global program with hundreds of thousands of participants. On average 12% of the ideas pitched go on to some advanced stage of business formation. Here locally because of the support from Cal Poly and the Tech Business community our rate is much much higher. Often business survival is compared to baseball batting averages so the global batting average is .120, SLO is much higher probably .350 or so and I am batting .500 with a ball in the air with faith that this one could go over the wall. It has a couple of evangelists and a team of incredibly smart people aligned on the mission. Ethic Marketplace could be something important to our community and the world.
Watch for these Businesses in 2018!
Poly Peels
Tulum Cosmetics
Poly Talent
EleVate
Openspace VR
Obodo
Female Synergies
Health Block
Spiced
OMO
Ethic Marketplace
Why I do this?
Okay so I am a little crazy and that helps explain some of this but there is much more. To me this is a form of giving back to my community and I have been an advocate for Tech Entrepreneurs forever. Many of my peers give back as speakers, which is something I hate doing. Others serve as mentors, which is another way you can give back, and the the team experiences are much better because of that service to community. My choice is to have the deep experience of working in the trenches with the team as they bring innovation and the entrepreneurial spirit to our community. These teams are a critical element in the high quality of life we enjoy. We have to continue to innovate and create new business so we can live locally and compete globally with a quality of life I want for my family and community. This is my 9th Startup Weekend and every time I learn from the team I work with and hopefully I contribute back. I love the fact that we are celebrating the Entrepreneurial Spirit in our community. Cal Poly and several community minded businesses and individuals have engineered a full ecosystem that starts with Startup Weekend, flows to the Hatchery and Hot House and ultimately to our tech business community. These new businesses create head of household jobs that improve our standard of living. I cannot think of anything better I could do over a weekend than help this exist in our community.
Shout Outs
No article about Startup Weekends would be right without shout outs to the people that make it happen. That has to start with the Cal Poly Entrepreneurs (CPE) Club currently lead by Sierra Scolaro and the event lead Alistair Schwab. The entire team from this organization are just amazing. They coordinate everything and while nothing is ever perfect this event is as close as it gets. The energy and attention to details makes a complex event seen simple. The sponsors contribute the treasure needed to bring this to the community but one sponsor has to be called out and that is Guayaki. They actually provide the energy and some might even say the caffeine to fuel the teams. Our shout outs cannot be complete without without mentioning the mentors. These experts volunteer their time and help all the groups in their specific specialty. Here they are:
Elan Timmons
Nick Fisher
Zachary Sharpell
Lorelei Sibet
Carol Kerwin
Pankaj Kumar
Chris Rollins
Chip Besse
Lynn Metcalf
Elan Timmons
Nick Fisher
Zachary Sharpell
Lorelei Sibet
Pankaj Kumar
About the Author:
Bob Dumouchel is a serial tech entrepreneur with four successful tech startups and three spectacular failures (batting average .571). Bob has been a Softec Member since inception, served as the Softec President twice, and served on the Board of Directors for over 20 years, and his businesses has been Softec Sponsors forever. Bob is a Senior Data Scientist at Systems & Marketing Solution a Google Ads Agency that creates unfair advantage for clients in PPC, SEO, and Social Media. Bob founded the Regional CEO Roundtables and ran the program for the first 11 years.
Footnotes:
I was sick earlier in the week and was still recovering so my energy level was not what it normally is. As a result of that I did not get around to talking to all the other groups and I did go home 3 hours early on Saturday, which I felt bad about. I got 5 hours of sleep that day compared to the normal of about 3. As everyone on the team agreed sleep is grossly overrated 😉 I have written about this in great detail in past years so I would refer you to http://softec.org/startup-weekend-2016/ for more details.
We were so excited to have Lori Jordan as our special guest at this month’s WIT breakfast.
Lori Jordan moved to San Luis Obispo in 2012 after living in Los Angeles for ten years. Before this she was in San Francisco after leaving San Luis Obispo in 1998. Lori graduated from Cal Poly with a B.S. in Recreation Administration and a specialized concentration in Industrial Engineering.
Straight out of school, Lori worked for local SLO radio stations as the Promotions Director. She moved to San Francisco in 1998 where she found her place at OpenTV. A Start-up with under 100 employees, Lori experienced the growth and eventual IPO of the company while serving as Product Manager, Tools. After working at two more start-ups in SF, Lori eventually moved to Los Angeles in 2002 where she worked for Yahoo!, Movielink, Netflix and Paramount Pictures. She mostly focused on the new market of Digital Distribution for film and TV.
While at Paramount Pictures, Lori was inspired to start a business in the digital content space, so did just this with her husband. Red Staple focused on creating and delivering interactive movies, albums and books to the iTunes platform. She also started a company in the knitting and fiber industry, Yarn Pop, which she ultimately sold in 2015.
Today, Lori works at the Cal Poly, Center For Innovation & Entrepreneurship where she heads up programs and the Summer Accelerator as the Director of Student Innovation Programs.
Hear Lori’s insights on startups, creating culture, and developing innovation by checking out the track below:
Note: Thanks for your patience with our audio quality. We’re grassroots and meeting in a coffee shop, so some noise slips through—but we feel the information is just to important not to post.
Looking for information on upcoming events? Have a speaker you’d like to nominate? Want to support local women in tech? Follow us on Facebook!
We were so excited to have Judy Mahan was our special guest at this month’s WIT breakfast.
Judy Mahan has a dual role as the Incubator Director for the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the SLO HotHouse, and the Director of the Cal Poly Small Business Development Center (“SBDC”). At the SLO HotHouse, she leads the programming to assist in the business development of the twenty-one current incubating companies. On the SBDC side, Judy manages the pool of 24 expert consultants who support SBDC clients. With her experience as a corporate and securities attorney, Judy also provides legal guidance to more than 135 company clients within the SLO County SBDC network.
After graduating with a J.D. from the University of Paris X Law School, in France, Judy pursued an LLM in International Tax Law at Golden Gate University, San Francisco. She immediately began her career as an associate attorney for DLA Piper (formerly Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich, LLP) in Palo Alto. During her time in Silicon Valley, she represented tech startups in venture financings, as well as institutional investors in private equity and debt transactions. She also represented companies in public offerings (IPOs), and has experience in general licensing and commercial transactions, including mergers and acquisitions.
Judy has led a number of mutli-million dollar deals, including the IPO for Salon Media Group, Maxtor Corporation’s acquisition of Quantum’s computer hard disk line of business, and a number of acquisitions for Finisar Corporation, the world’s largest supplier of optical communication components and subsystems.
With her inquisitive personality, Judy’s career has been interspersed with a few adventures to the pacific region: one year in Vanuatu as a Senior Manager of Trust and Corporate Services, and another in the Federated States of Micronesia (“FSM”) as the Special Assistant to the President of FSM.
Hear Judy’s insights on starting a business, starting over, and calling out sexism by checking out the track below:
Note: Thanks for your patience with our audio quality. We’re grassroots and meeting in a coffee shop, so some noise slips through—but we feel the information is just to important not to post.
Looking for information on upcoming events? Have a speaker you’d like to nominate? Want to support local women in tech? Follow us on Facebook!
An Epic Event for All Ages We invite you and your kids to celebrate our 10th Annual Student Robotics EXPO on Monday, September 24 from 5:30-8:30pm at the Alex Madonna Inn Expo Center. This year we have named a theme for our event:
“Robots and Sports”
Participants and teams will dress up and decorate their booth. Prizes awarded for best in theme! We are expecting to exceed last year’s attendance which was 800 attendees. We will have many booths, the Drone Arena, another food truck, and more fun! Visit our Robotics event page for all the details.
Like a TED talk with Beer! TechBrew has been a Softec staple for over ten years. With two locations you are sure to find a TechBrew that matches your schedule and is conveniently located.
SMV TechBrew Reboot
The Santa Maria TechBrew was recently rebooted with a new day and location. Occurring on the 4th Monday of each month, you can find us conveniently located right off of Betteravia, in Santa Maria at Figueroa Mountain Brewing Company in the attached Me-N-Ed’s restaurant area.
Schedule
SLO TechBrew – 2nd Monday of each month at 5PM – SLO Grillhouse
SMV TechBrew – 4th Monday of each month at 5PM – Figueroa Mtn
