Narrator: You're listening to the humans of DevOps podcast, a

podcast focused on advancing the humans of DevOps through skills,

knowledge, ideas, and learning, or the SK il framework.

Sara Faatz: What the pandemic did was open up our homes to

each other, right, you saw the human side and all of us. And to

me, I think that's one of the silver linings of everything

we've been through because it shows there's so much more

dimension to everybody than just what you do in your day job.

Jason Baum: Hey, everyone, it's Jason Baum, Director of Member

experience at DevOps Institute. And this is the humans of DevOps

podcast. Welcome back. I hope you had another great week. And

if you didn't, that's okay, we're gonna make it a great

week. This week, I like to do that little mantra with myself,

my daughter or wife, we also this is going to be the best

week we've ever had. And each one we really try. And I think

we get close. And you know what, now that we're a few weeks into

spring now, for the northern hemisphere, that means things

are starting to warm up and and start to grow. And I feel like

that's especially coming out of winter, sometimes you have the

the winter blues, I think that's a it's it's a nice time of year,

certainly I look forward to it. Weather getting nicer people

talking to each other, more socializing, you see them

outside, and the COVID, winter is retreating as well, in many

areas across the globe. And I think that's also allowing for

us to interact again, in ways that we really haven't had a

chance to do not just through the winter, but over the past

couple of years. So fittingly, on today's episode, we're taking

a look at the human side of development, and a group of

individuals whose job it is to interact and be social for a

living, which is daunting to some, I think you could say that

would be a little tiring for many. But for I would assume for

DEF rails, it must be something that gets them going in the

morning excited and happy about for a living otherwise, I don't

know how they do it. So we're gonna get into that and more on

today's podcast. And so Dev Rel that's that's a term that's been

tossed around, it's getting, it's becoming more popular, we

hear frequently. But I don't know if many of us know, the

textbook definition. So I, I looked up a bunch, and there's

so many but the one that I found that I really liked is the dev

rel is essentially short for developer relations. And

Developer Relations is pretty much exactly what that means a

marketing policy that prioritizes relationships with

developers. In general society, there's this word known for PR

public relations. And you could essentially say that Dev Rel is

the developer version of this, although that's incredibly

simple. You know, Dev Rel is the marketing technique used to

ensure that your company products and developers

establish a good continuous relationship with the external

developers through mutual communication. And that is very

textbook. So we'll get into the non textbook definition of that

with my guest, Sarah fats. And Sarah is here today. Sarah leads

the developer relations team at progress. With more than 20

years in the software development space. She's built

community partner content and influencer programs from the

ground up. And when she's not working, she likes diving with

sharks running and watching hockey. So she's really leading

a boring life, you could say, you know, diving with sharks.

Who doesn't do that? Right. So Sarah, welcome to the podcast. I

really hope we could talk about sharks, by the way towards the

end of this podcast.

Sara Faatz: Thank you, Jason. Yeah, it's awesome to be here.

And I will talk about sharks all day, every day, if you want to

do that. I also love DevRel. So

Jason Baum: there's that too, right? Yes. Yeah. Well, awesome.

Thanks so much for coming on the podcast, Sarah, and are you

ready to get human?

Sara Faatz: I am ready. Let's do it.

Jason Baum: Let's do it. So let's just start out, so I kind

of defined it. But you've got 20 years of experience in it. How

have you seen dev rel? I didn't even know that developer

relations was really that that? Well, you know what, I actually

watched the movie Office Space the other day. And it's so

funny, because they tried to I feel like define that. Like,

what was what is it that you do here? You know, lying just

sticks out? And so what is it about dev rel? And how have you

seen it evolve? And how do you define that?

Sara Faatz: That's a great question. And it's funny because

you know, and I tell people what I do when they asked me what do

you do for a living? Like I lead a DevRel team, you either get

the blank stare or you get the especially outside of our space,

or you get so is that like customer service? And so really,

you know, deverill has evolved a ton over the last 20 years, the,

the way I like to look at it is that the people on my team,

they're responsible for interacting and being active

engaged members of the community in a very genuine and authentic

way, right. So not, not because they're forced to be there, but

because they truly have a passion for software and

technology, whether it's you know, and I have people on my

team who have different areas of subject matter expertise. And

they all have niches within the community that they spend a lot

of time. While they're in the community and part of the

community, they're advocating for software developers as a

whole. They're also bringing information back to our product

teams to help influence the product so that we, they can

help be the voice of the developer community and say,

this is really what the community needs and wants. And

vice versa, we can, you know, we do share what our products are

about what they do. But, but it's really not the only focus,

right, there's a big chunk of what the team does, which is

that is just about being, again, active, engaged members of the

community, being thought leaders, helping educate people

about software, of all kinds, and not just not just particular

front end frameworks, but things like accessibility and, and

Design for Developers and topics like that, that are, you know,

important in the development lifecycle in general.

Jason Baum: So I, there's so much I want to talk about on

today's podcast, it's so it's so interesting Dev Rel, and, you

know, I feel like, you know, as you said, it's evolved so much.

The first thing I kind of want to address is there's a there's

a stigma, there's a thought, I feel like out there that

developers, engineers, you name it there, it's there. It's not

social people. You know, that there, there are these

introverts that are socially awkward and like to code and

stare at their computers and never come up for air? And if

that's not true,

Sara Faatz: right, oh, no, it's not true. I mean, anything with

anything? Humans, they find their tribe, right. And so when

you even if you are, I actually just just came out of a meeting

where we were talking about, you know, people who are extroverts

versus introverts? And and how does that work? And how do we

work together, even if you are more introverted, there are

still absolutely ways to be part of a community and, and from a

DevRel perspective, most of the people who find themselves in

deverill leaned more towards extraversion, but it's really,

when you find a passion or an excitement for something, none

of that really matters, right? Because what really matters is

that we have this this thing in common. And you can find that

people come out of their holes, and out of there, you know, when

they have something that they that they're excited to talk

about and share.

Jason Baum: Yeah, you know, it's my, myself, I am I would lean

toward I always say I'm a reluctant extrovert. You know, I

can be very extrovert, I can see that. And I can turn it on and

be incredibly social, but then I am usually exhausted.

afterwards. My daughter is like, the, my daughter is very

introverted, I would say in a group setting, but you get her

one on one or get her talking about a topic. And it's I mean,

she could tell you literally everything about frozen. I mean,

a lot stop talking. When you bring up those topics. I get

what you're saying,

Sara Faatz: yeah, yeah, it's funny, my husband's an engineer.

And people will often say that he's very quiet until you get

him talking about boating or fishing, or aerospace or design

or hockey. And our daughter is very much the same way. So she

has, she has a little bit leans a little more towards the

extroverted side, on some things, but she's definitely

more like him with regard to that. So yeah.

Jason Baum: So let's talk about you a little bit. You know, how

did your personal life really like shape those work goals for

you, you know, how did you get into the developer relations

space? To talk about 20 years? Yeah, yeah. I that for with no

social piece to it? Right, right. I mean, imagine that it

looked different.

Sara Faatz: Yeah, that the space has evolved a ton. And when you

look, when I look back at my career, it makes sense now, but

to tell you that I that there was a deliberate path that took

me to where I am right now is, would be a lie. Growing up as a

kid, I was the middle child. And you know, my mom would talk

about how my older brother was great at art. My younger brother

was great at math and science. And she would pause when she

would look at me and she'd say, Sarah, you're really good with

people. And I used to laugh. I used to think it was a total cop

out. And then I realized that she was not wrong in the sense

that that people are it's where I get my energy. It's where I

where my passion is, and I've always had that This huge

passion for, for building community and being part of

something bigger. And then in the, you know, fast forward to

late 90s, when the internet boom was taking place, I fell in love

with technology, I was working for a PR agency. And I remember

coming home and again, you know, remember, my husband's an

aerospace engineer, I come home from work one day, and I am

talking a mile a minute, I'm like, Oh, my gosh, you know, we

learned today that with a quest was putting in an all optical

network, and with just two regeneration points from San

Francisco to DC, they can, you know, transmit the entire

library of congress in like two seconds or something like that.

It looks to me like, slow down little film, you're not speaking

my language, right. And what I realized was, I also had this

passion for technology. And so to be able to marry the two, I

feel incredibly fortunate to be able to, to talk about, about

technology to be part of technology to be a part of a

community that, you know, as I mentioned, before you find your

tribe, right? I mean, I could, I could talk to you all day about,

about technology and software development, just like I could

talk to you all day about sharks, or hockey for that

matter. So I just feel very, very fortunate that, that my

path took me that way, way. And, and so that's how I got to

Developer Relations space. And it's, it's been pretty magical

since then,

Jason Baum: it was the outreach. So I remember like, listservs

and yeah, gosh, a ame. You know, everyone's a messenger in the

group. Yes. And for the gens ears who are listening to this

podcast probably have like no idea what that even is. You

know, is that where you typically would find people?

Sara Faatz: Oh, yes, yeah, we would find people there. But

more than anything, we found people in person, like the old

fashioned way. So there were, what's that? Right? Especially

the last two years? That's a question. User Groups were a

big, big part of the developer community. And they're still

things like meetups and, and we're finding people in

different ways now. But I was part of Microsoft had had an

organization that they started calling Netta, which was the

International Association. And it was an umbrella organization

that was set up to support user groups around the world. And we

would go and we would talk to people at user groups I was I

was a volunteer for the organization, and talk about

technology, pair up speakers with user groups. And you could

get a user group meeting, you know, some of the larger ones in

the heyday would have 200 people showing up for pizza and soda

and just talking about dotnet, or, you know, C sharp or VB

dotnet, for that matter. So you know, it was super exciting.

And, and that was so we relied you still relied on technology,

some and listservs, like you said, and but actually there I

have some friends who could still tell you what their IC Q

number was, because that was our our chat. But But yeah, I mean,

it was a lot of in person interaction, going to

conferences and events, and then the user groups and meetups. So

yeah,

Jason Baum: I'm wondering, do you think that's going to come

back? Because I feel like there is an itch to get out there.

Breadman mentioned Gen Z, and actually, Gen Z of all the

generations are probably the ones who are going to push for

that in person, right, more than anyone. Yeah,

Sara Faatz: 100%. I do. I think that there are one of the things

we found over the last few years, as we were trying to

still engage with community was that there are a lot of amazing

tools available right now. And we spun up a Twitch channel. And

we're, we're live streaming every day. Throughout the

throughout the week, we have regular shows, we have long

format streams, and engaging with people in chat there is

awesome, but you still cannot replicate the one on one in

person interaction that you get at a conference, we tried to

replicate the hallway tracks through AR VR. We tried all

different ways. And for some reason, when you are in a

digital environment, it's really hard to I think people feel time

constrained. They don't have the the energy that you get when

you're in person. And so I do you think that we'll see a

resurgence of that. And we're already seeing we have a number

of events that we're will be participating in in person in

April and May and the team is super, super excited about that.

Jason Baum: You mentioned VR by the we did an episode on the

metaverse where i i The company Modren actually sent me a an

Oculus, I got to do it for the first time and jump into their

workspace and I have to say it did feel more real than this

which is odd because I for this is this is an audio podcast but

for those listening I am I'm looking at Sarah we are talking

we're having a conversation I could see in real life, if you

will, but it's still 2d. And and when when you get into that

verse world. Even though I'm looking at a cartoon, it felt

more real. Like I was actually there. So it's interesting. I

feel like we have that dual thing going on. Right? We have

that that happening. And it will. Yeah. And then yeah,

jumping back into into reality,

Sara Faatz: we actually replicated the seventh floor of

our office in Sofia, Bulgaria. And it has in, that's more of

our hangout space. We have ping pong tables and all that we

replicated that in a VR world. And we were able to we invited

people in and we played ping pong, we, we threw chairs off

the deck that we balcony, which we obviously wouldn't do in

person. But it was really fun to have that that interaction. I

think the the, the hardest part for us was that, you know, you

talked about the Oculus, everybody has different headsets

and different ways that they engage. And so until we have

more and more unified approach to that, it's going to be harder

to have that but it's definitely exciting. And it does, like you

said it, it helps having, you know, being able to see even if

you can't see their real legs, seeing people look like human is

pretty short of a torso.

Jason Baum: Yeah, right. Yeah, you know, what's interesting, I

feel like what I was trying to nail down when I was in there,

trying to figure it all out what is what is what what is missing

still. And it's the ability to like, so I'm a community builder

networker, by trade as well. And it's the ability to tap someone

on the shoulder while they're in mid conversation, literally

interrupt them and jump in, or have your own conversation that

still doesn't exist. And that is an in person thing. We I don't

think we'll ever be able to who knows, we probably

Sara Faatz: Yeah, well think about it, too. When you're at a

conference, and people are having a conversation in the

hallway. If you walk up to people who are talking, you can

tell by their features, if it's okay to jump in, or if it's more

of a private conversation, and an AR VR world. It's really, I

mean, I remember feeling so incredibly rude because I

actually walked through one of my co workers. And, and yeah,

for

Jason Baum: that you can actually for those, listen, you

can actually walk through someone that is a real thing.

That's not like,

Sara Faatz: right, and it's awful when you do it cuz I'm

like, Oh my gosh, that was so rude. I would never walk through

somebody in person, but couldn't see their you can't see their

expressions or their body language. So I think once that

is, is to a point where where we can replicate that, then it's

gonna get really real.

Jason Baum: You can see hand movements. So if you're really

did anger them, I think you'd get a gesture. True. Today's

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trial activation. So that's some of the the progress progress is

making. What other initiatives is progress doing that you're

most proud of that focus on the human side of software?

Sara Faatz: Yeah, you know, progress is one of the things

that I'm proud of is that we really do put people first not

just our employees, but but people in general, which is,

which is amazing. You know, with all the things that are going on

in Ukraine right now, progress has committed to donating

$100,000 to the World Health Organization, emergency appeal

for Ukraine. But on top of that, my team last week did a live

stream where it was a charity to benefit the same organization,

where we talked about we actually talked about the human

side of software. We talked about gaps, not you know,

knowledge gaps, and how to fix them, gender gaps, all of those

kinds of things. We talked about how to research new

technologies, all of that, but what was really exciting to me

was that the community came together and donated over $5,000

to that organization.

Jason Baum: Congratulations on that. Thank you. It's fantastic.

Sara Faatz: Yeah, I mean, it's it's it was one of those one of

those days where I think everybody was there were tears

on on the Livestream, because we felt like we were really

honestly doing something that hopefully will make a difference

in people's lives. And again, talking about your tribe and

bringing people together. This was a community endeavor. Right,

this wasn't you know, we were hosting it, but the community

came together and did that. And that's that really, it just, it

was a pretty amazing feeling to be part of something like that.

So, you know, from the human side, those kinds of things are

great. We have scholarships, you know, the progress women in STEM

series of scholarships, which is fantastic. Mary Kay scholarship

and women for STEM as part of that it's a $10,000.04 year

renewable scholarship for women in Massachusetts, because our

corporate headquarters are based there. And we just announced one

in India as well. So yeah, I mean, it's when we think about

how progress responds to the world, and thinks about as a as

an organization, and a corporation thinks about the

humans, who are part of everything, it really it's

exciting to me to be part of something like that. Yeah,

Jason Baum: that's that sounds great. And yet a company that

doesn't keep its head in the sand isn't afraid to get into

what's going on in the world. I think it's I think that's really

important. And we all have a role to play, right?

Sara Faatz: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, I think

one of the things that pandemic has shown us all is that there

is a human side to everything that we do, right. I mean, I, I

was a remote employee for I joke that I was remote before remote

was cool. But I was a remote employee before you came here to

hit Yeah. And it's before COVID hit, you know, it was I used to,

I'm sure you saw, I'm sure probably all of your listeners,

listeners saw the gentleman who did that interview a few years

back on television, then his child comes in on a little

Walker, and, you know, he's trying to get them out. If you

had asked my daughter, what I look like, when I was on a call,

it was usually it's gonna be you know, like, hand gestures, you

know, I'm on the phone, whispering and all of those

things. And what the pandemic did was open up, open up our

homes to each other. Right, you saw, you saw the human side and

all of us. And, and, to me, I think that's one of the silver

linings of everything we've been through, because it shows that

people are, there's so much more dimension to everybody than just

what you do in your day job.

Jason Baum: Definitely, I couldn't subscribe to that more.

I think a lot of us feel that way. And certainly, I mean, the

theme of this podcast, you know, the humans of DevOps, we don't

talk. Tech here. We don't we don't get into, you know, too,

too technical. We talk human, we talk about the issues that are

going on. So yeah, I think we speak the same language. Yeah,

we kind of touched on this a little bit. But, you know, we

talked about how it was, what about today? You know, how has

accessibility played into the human side of development today?

Sara Faatz: Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. I mean, when you

think about, and again, I'm gonna go back to the pandemic,

there were, prior to the pandemic, we had apps that were

apps of convenience, right, you know, it was, it was convenient

to order my groceries ahead of time, or order a cup of coffee,

or even engage with my doctor, it was, you could do that on

your phone, on a mobile device, when the pandemic hits, some of

those things that were apps of convenience, all of a sudden

became apps of necessity. And, and one of the things that that

did is open up the understanding that if we don't democratize our

apps, they're not going to be able to be, you know, these apps

of necessity won't be usable by, you know, one in five people

have a disability of some sort, and every single one of us will

have a disability at some point in our lives, right. So that

could just be you know, that you, you know, you broke your

arm, right, it could be that you had your eyes dilated, and

you're wearing those big, you know, dark glasses, and you

can't see things very well. But what that showed us is that our

reliance on reliance on technology gets as that becomes

more ubiquitous with with the world we're living in. It's that

much more imperative that we are thinking and developing with an

accessibility mindset first. And I think for developers, it's

hard because sometimes you say accessibility, and there's this

overwhelming sense of, oh, my gosh, what does that mean? What

how do I really do that? But it's things like thinking about,

you know, pinch and zoom and making sure that we're able to

do that, thinking about the time limits on forms that they're

creating, right, and making sure that if somebody has a has a

disability, that means that they need to take more time to fill

out that form, that we're not time limiting them by, you know,

that we're giving a generous amount of time. So it's all of

those things that I think that again, silver lining of the

pandemic has pushed us to really start thinking about, how do we

make sure that that everybody can use The technology that

we're creating. Yeah, I

Jason Baum: love what you just said. And I think that goes back

to even the previous question and answer is, we're actually

taking time and thinking about what people need and want and

it's not pushed to the, you know, for the longest time, it

just would be. We don't have time to think about that stuff,

right? We need to think about everything. We need to make

money, we need to think about everything else. And we ignore

people. And right people are the ones. headcount used to be how

you describe staff, you know, like, right, even even staff,

it's the people who work for you. Right,

Sara Faatz: right. 100%? Yeah, yeah. Actually, we believe that

so much progress that our human resources team is actually

called the people team, like we don't, we don't think about it

as human resources. It is they are the people team, they're

there to talk and help our people and which is a pretty

awesome mindset, I think.

Jason Baum: I think so too. I think it's about time that we

made that shift. You know, we talked to someone who told me,

like, for the longest time in their career, they weren't

allowed to talk about themselves. I was like, Wow,

that's fascinating. And it's like, we I feel like we're

making that pivot. Right now. We're, you know, each generation

each time here, we you constantly go through these

shifts and changes. And I think this is a big one, that in a few

years from now, we're going to look back and say this was this

was a big change in workforce.

Sara Faatz: Right, right. 100% agree with that. Yeah.

Jason Baum: So what are some steps that organizations can

take to improve developer relations?

Sara Faatz: You know, I think, I think thinking about developer

relations as as a unnecessary discipline, that it's hard to

measure. So let me let me back up. One of the things when

people talk about developer relations for a long time, there

was this, it was kind of in this nebulous area, should it be part

of a sales organization? Should it be part of the marketing

organization? Where does it live? And when you you know, you

were talking about headcount? Initially, people were like, if

we can't justify the spend that it costs to have people on staff

who are subject matter experts and traveling to conferences,

and then you know what, maybe we just disband it and get rid of

it. What people what we've had to learn on our end is, how do

we measure what we do? Right? And how do we? So when you think

about how can an organization improve their developer

relations? First, they have to understand why they're doing it.

Right. So the purpose for for our team is, you know, to be

that conduit between the developers and developer

community and our product teams and our organization in a

really, again, natural, natural way, right? And being being the

voice for for the community, even if it's not necessarily

popular with what the general thinking, Is it from an

organizational perspective, and vice versa? How do we kind of

have that two way conversation? So we sat down and really

thought, how do we, how do we measure this so that it's not

just a collection of vanity metrics, but it shows value to

the business, while also showing value to the community? And so

the one thing that we really thought about is, is that

engagement, right, I don't, I don't care if we're reaching 4

million people, if really, what I really need is to have

engagement with this core group of developers, who are I'm

providing valuable value to them and vice versa, right. So we

look at, we look at engagement rates, we look at how many chat

messages are we exchanging, we stopped using our social

channels as megaphones to just yell at people. And we actually

have conversations with people. So I think thinking about and

truly understanding why you're doing Developer Relations is and

what your expected value is from that is probably the first step

that most of us organizations can take, you know, knowing your

why knowing your purpose.

Jason Baum: Yeah, that's knowing your purpose. You know, we

talked about accessibility, right? And then and into what

you just said, I mean, there's also that trust factor that you

got to build, right, you got to be authentic with what you're

saying. And so we talked about accessibility, what about

sustainability? How does that play into the human side of

development?

Sara Faatz: Yeah, I mean, I think it goes back to genuinely

being in any community if you're not genuine to your beliefs and

your you won't be successful a community will sniff that out.

The faking it just because it's popular is not, you know,

Jason Baum: yeah. You know, when someone's not authentic, right.

Sara Faatz: So, you know, from a sustainability perspective, we

progress itself has taken a step back and looked at things like

when we're sending out prizes, you know, are we are we are we

being good stewards of the environment and making sure that

we are You know, or do we have excessive packaging? Or we, you

know, are there simple ways that we could send out prizes or

awards or community gifts without, without hurting the

environment? Or they're, you know, we take a step back, and

we look at that. I think that, you know, we've done some things

within our office spaces, and we're looking at different ways,

especially, you know, as we return to office in some form or

fashion, are there ways that we can be provide access to, to

office space without access? Right. So, you know, so I think

that, from a sustainability perspective, it really goes back

to truly thinking about what your beliefs are, knowing your

purpose there, and, and not just talking about it, but doing it.

So, you know, we try very hard we to walk the walk as much as

we were talking the talk

Jason Baum: actions very much often are louder than words,

right? Absolutely. Yep. Yep. So what does the sustainable and

accessible future in tech look like?

Sara Faatz: That is a great question. So I think, you know,

an accessible future in tech means rethinking, obviously,

coming to coming to the development table with it and

accessibility. First mindset. But that also means when we're

teaching and training developers from an early stage, that we're

also building that into the process, because I think, as I

mentioned, when you bring accessibility to the table, to

somebody who's been doing this for years, I think there's this

overwhelming sense of, I don't know how to do that. Right. And

and it really is, there's, there are a lot of very basic things,

you know, and part of that's just an education thing, and

that education is actually the same answer for sustainability.

Right. I think that, that educating developers on what,

how do we build sustainable software? How do we build? How

are the environments that we're working in sustainable? How are

we thinking about how we're engaging the community, and, and

all of that comes back down to, to education, right. And so if

we, we take a step back, and I think the younger generations

have an advantage at this point, because I think this is

something that's more part of our, our culture. But I think

for people who, who are in the have been in business for a

while and established in their careers, it's really just kind

of taking a reset. And looking at both of those things. It's

not that they didn't care about them before, but there wasn't

this intersection between our personal beliefs and our actual

subject matter expertise, right. So I think as our world blends

and, and work in home, and personal, all become one, as we

look at the human, as a, as a whole, in a, you know, three

dimensional existence. I think that that's where that education

and training becomes really important.

Jason Baum: You know, for those who listened to the podcast, I

often bring up my daughter, and parenting because I feel like

many things that we deal with in issues that we deal with in the

workforce, or just in life can often go just go back to a

parenting skill 100%. And I think about, so my daughter's

four and a half. She misses a cut off. So she'll, she has

another, you know, year to go for kindergarten. But we're

teaching them the transition, right? She's in preschool or pre

K. And it's a very hard transition of home school, how

you act in two different environments. It's so

interesting, because it's like, telling someone who has no frame

of reference that they can't act a certain way in one area is a

very, it's like, what, why I don't get it. And I feel like as

a society, we don't get it either. It's like we're trying

to basically unlearn some of that, too. I think it's good

that we're going through this, because it does seem silly that

of course, you can't like scream out in the middle of a lesson at

school and you're not going to go around work telling at the

most personal thing about you that might be incriminating or

weird, or I don't know, like, you're just there's just things

you don't say, right. But there are things that we can share and

there and we shouldn't be human. Right.

Sara Faatz: Yeah, yeah. Because at the end of the day, we are

all human right? And when you start can look at I think this

is probably an hopefully the next step in the evolution in

the changes that are happening in society, I think, when we can

stop and understand that everybody has human right and

see their vulnerabilities and see who they are. We also can

start to understand intent, right? So by understanding

intent, you you aren't necessarily going to be offended

by something that somebody said over here because you understand

where they're coming from. Right and so and but I also agree with

you as a parent, yes, there are things you know, my I mentioned

to you, I think, hockey I love watching hockey. My daughter is

a is an ice hockey player. She's actually we actually leave next

week for Philadelphia. She's playing in the US, USA Hockey

national. Oh, wow, that's awesome. And yeah, thank you

good luck to her. Thank you. We're super excited about that.

But you know, as a, as an athlete, and even growing up,

she's been playing hockey since she was four. She has been

around hockey, she heard some things in the locker room, you

know, with the older kids, and now she is an older kid. But I,

we've always said, there's a time and a place for things

right, you know, and so you do, you do still have to have

boundaries? There's no question about that. But to think that

any of us is just what we do at work, or just what we do at home

is very silly. And I think, again, the pandemic has opened

up, you and I are sitting here and I'm seeing, you know, the

inside of your office, you're seeing mine, usually I would

have it's spring break here. So I had to let everybody know, you

and I are talking. So please don't come into the office. But

you know, they're usually there's a dog who walks in, or

my daughter who checks in or something along those lines. So,

you know, I think that those, we do have to find that balance.

Jason Baum: Definitely. And I think that we are and I think

we're all trying to figure it out together. And it's, it is

goes back to what we were saying before, this is a very unique

time, and I hope it changes a lot of things.

Sara Faatz: And I think it requires grace. Right? It

requires us not to just give each other grace but to to

expect you to give and get grace, right, you know, when we

are the beauty of humans is that we are all flawed as well.

Right? And so understanding that, and that goes back to I

think my comment about intent as flawed humans, not everybody is

set out to to do or say something that might offend you.

You know, and so being able to take a step back and say okay,

we are all nobody's perfect. How do we you know, how do we move

forward and talk as humans?

Jason Baum: Absolutely, it's seeing the lens from someone

else's viewpoint, seeing it through someone else's lens and

Pathak leadership being you know, just being an empathetic

person. Empathy is so important we talked about on this podcast

actually right before we left for the holidays and the new

year and I thought that was a great way to end the year and

yeah, set out this year myself, you know, making the effort of

leading with empathy and I think for all of us figuring out how

you know we can be empathetic peoples is very important. So

that that now will transition the sharks just like that, I

believe in transition. Yeah, so So let's go back to that that

bio and you're swimming with sharks. So is this like legit

swimming with so I've done the like, you dive down and there's

the steel cage or whatever, you know, all separating you. Is

this like, is this that

Sara Faatz: or this is this is real, like diving underwater

with sharks. So my, my husband and I have been divers for a

long time. And actually our daughter is a divers, she her

10th birthday, she got certified to dive. And we, I It's funny

when I go out on a boat, and I see a shark on the surface. I

don't think oh, you know what, I should jump in with that. But we

seek out dive trips where we can actually go diving with sharks.

We did an amazing trip to Cocos Island, where it was during a an

off year for sharks in Cocos Island. But on one dive, we saw

five different species of sharks and and we're sitting in this or

we were underwater and kind of on this rock ledge. And we have

a tiger shark swims through, which was a big shark. It was a

massive shark and it was one of those ones where you just he let

you know that he he commanded respect. Just so but we saw I'd

say yeah. hammerheads black tip, white tip Galapagos sharks, blue

gloves, a shark and then the the tiger shark. Which was, it was

just an incredible experience. One of those things that I will

never forget. We did a trip to Galapagos where we had hundreds

of schooling hammerheads below us. And then when we were out on

I think we're at either wolf or Darwin Island, you would go and

just again, hold on to the rocks as hammerheads swim by and this

goes back to my I wouldn't jump in with them. But I I do crazy

things when I swim underwater and you're not supposed to hold

your breath underwater, right when you're diving. If you're

moving in within the water column, but I was sitting there

and I this Hammerhead is swimming towards me and I

thought and they're very skittish, right they so they're

very scared by your bubbles. So I thought I wonder if I don't

exhale, exhale my bubbles. How close will this Hammerhead get

to me? Just not like a normal thought that most people have.

But I did and I I mean, he came my husband got an amazing

picture of of the Hammerhead it was it was beautiful. But it

came probably two feet in front of me before I thought what am I

doing and I excelled my bubbles and you know, you know swam away

but

Jason Baum: I'm like freaking out as you're Tell me this like

I could feel my heart racing. That's that is. Wow. Well, good

for you. I don't think I could do that.

Sara Faatz: No, you know what there's so graceful underwater

and going back to intent. You know, as we're talking. I mean,

sharks have to have such a bad rap and there are there are some

that are definitely the tiger shark. I did not want to mess

with and we had one dive in the Bahamas where it was a dusk die,

which is great because you can they feed so everything's

feeding at that point. So you see a lot of a lot of life you

Jason Baum: jumped into the water with feeding shark with

sharks that were like, oh,

Sara Faatz: yeah, everything is feeding but yeah, there was a

there was a bull shark who was swimming just he was started to

circle as we were finishing our safety stopped and we thought,

you know, I think it's probably time to get out like this is not

what we want to mess with. But we've been on some incredible I

like I said, I could talk about this forever the dive diving

with sharks. It's just, it's incredible. Yeah,

Jason Baum: that's that sounds. That does sound incredible.

Also, I think I I like panic. Just just hearing you say, I

went on a my honeymoon was in Fiji. And every day at the

resort, you get a little notice. And we went snorkeling because

they finally convinced us to go and we went and it's beautiful.

I mean, the full wreaths on touched. And then we get home.

And you know, in the newsletter it said, you know, swim with

friendly reef sharks. So we're friendly here. What do we know?

And we get home and it Shark Week. And they're like the the

actual world's most dangerous shark. And guess what the most

human attacks whatever is the Fijian reef shark. Okay. Better.

We didn't know that. Exactly, exactly. We're coming up at the

end of the podcast. And I like to ask one thought provoking,

usually personal question. So today's question for you is,

what's something that everyone in your industry should stop or

start doing?

Sara Faatz: You know, I think I've said it probably a couple

times here. But I definitely would say, from the developer

perspective, I would, I would pause and approach all of your,

all of your applications with an accessibility first mindset. I

would broaden your scope and understanding of your audience.

So a lot of times when people think about who am I creating

this application for, they think about, you know, personas, and

they, you know, demographics, and all of that, but really

understand that humans are the ones who are using our software,

and understand that humans do have impairments or limitations

that we need to be developing for, so that we can democratize

applications across the board.

Jason Baum: Awesome. Sara, thank you so much for joining me on

today's episode, I had a lot of fun talking to you about the

topics. And I feel like we could talk all day about Dev Rel but

also shark. So thanks so much for coming on.

Sara Faatz: Thank you so much. I

Jason Baum: really appreciate it. And thank you for listening

to this episode of the humans of DevOps Podcast. I'm going to end

this episode the same way I always do encouraging you to

become a member of DevOps Institute to get access to even

more great resources just like this one. Until next time, stay

safe, stay healthy, and most of all, stay human, live long and

prosper.

Narrator: Thanks for listening to this episode of the humans of

DevOps podcast. Don't forget to join our global community to get

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