Tech's Always Been Sexy!

I had to reverse myself.

On a recent Sunday evening, I was asked to speak to a group, the Rewriting the Code Black Wings, a group for Black women in technology and engineering majors. During my talk, I made a comment, "I worked in tech when it was not sexy. Before developers held celebrity status. When geeky people in the trenches of IT weren't celebrated on TV shows, but mocked in comic strips."

I awoke the next morning, revisiting the great conversation the evening before. I suddenly stopped and had an AH-HA moment: Linda, tech has really always been sexy. It's always been so cool to automate, to leverage technology to do cool things. Millennials didn't make tech cool; all of us have.

My Journey in Tech: Bow Techa-Wow-Wow!

My tech career kicked off when my sister asked me what I was going to do with my life and I said, "I have a job as an office manager in a glass company and we get to drink beer on Fridays." She was like, "so um, no, that's not a plan." She connected me with Kelly Temp Services to get hired as a computer operator at a local hospital. I told her, "I don't know anything about computers." She told me I'd be taught, no worries.

That was one of the first catalysts for my tech career. On my first day, I was exposed to a decollator, to sort big reports we had to provide to functions within the hospital, and a loud cool room with a vented floor, fans and machines whirring, tape machines spinning, giant disk drives and a card reader. I was overwhelmed but intrigued.

I was hazed as I was handed a stack of punch cards and told to NEVER drop them or get them out of order. "We won't be able to reboot our systems." In one choreographed move, my trainer moved to hand the cards to me and dropped them! My heart sank into my stomach. Everyone laughed raucously and showed me the little cheat colors they put onto each card. For the millennial or Gen Z who hasn't Googled the homework, there were programs and data saved on these punch cards which would be processed by the card reader to run systems. Get those cards out of order, rip them, drop them...you're going to have a long evening. And if it wasn't your first time dropping cards, it was likely your last for that company.

Over the next few days, I learned how to run backups on our Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) systems (PDP 11/44, 8350s). They were enormous, heavy, VERY sensitive disks. I had to pull them out of the machines, replace with a backup pack, run the backup process to backup the data, and then ever so gently, unload the disk pack, load the other back into the machine and place the disk backup on the rack. Any small bump or slip as you loaded or unloaded the pack could inflict damage onto the disks. And you would know RIGHT AWAY as when you spun up the drive, you would hear a funny noise, or, pick up on the unforgettable aroma of a burning smell. If that hit your nostrils, your night was ruined. And thunderstorms??? Forget about it! If there were thunderstorms or warnings, you shut down the system because the surge would FRY your disks, and that's bad for everyone.

After I learned how to navigate operations, I was fortunate to have a mentor in a manager who taught me and other operators how to smash out Digital Command Language (DCL) to automate reports, processes and all manner of things. It was incredibly fun and I quickly became quite proficient at DCL. I was exposed to OpenVMS and eventually gained enough expertise to bounce systems up and down without fear, upgrade the O/S and create cluster systems. It felt incredible to have this knowledge and the business folks all around you were in awe of your skills. It was these skills that led me to my next role, the second and biggest catalyst for my career: Systems Support at DowElanco.

SEQUENT, PROFS and LAN, Oh My!

I was fortunate enough to land a job at DowElanco, a 60/40 merger of Dow Chemical and Eli Lilly, as a VAX systems operator, supporting the R&D community. Around this time was when I started experiencing bias in IT. Until then, I had worked for geeky cool eager people who just loved to watch systems do cool things. I was in the big time now, in a large IT organization. I was thrust into a situation with a male peer who had less experience but was well liked by my the operations manager, also a male. However, all of the tumult aside, I learned more innovative techniques of running systems and got to be a part of building a computer room in a new building, which was a phenomenal experience. I was exposed to Sequent machines, running UNIX, and I attended classes to learn more UNIX. Soon, my helpdesk job expanded to serve as first level support for the PROFS email system (IBM), CICS, SAP R1 and...THE LAN. (queue the choir of angels here). We moved from PROFS email system to a token ring local area network (LAN). Oh yeah, it sounds hot, doesn't it? :-) There was a huge host of us in IT, hungry to learn more, working late, going out for beers, pizza and tequila shots to swap stories of irate users and tricks we learned to solve problems. I was given the opportunity to create a three day course for scientists to teach them how to use VAX systems more effectively. What you may not know about scientists is that they will read every manual and search for every fix to address issues themselves before they call a helpdesk. Thus, another VAX enthusiast and I trained scientists to help them with their daily work, we wrote manuals and tip sheets. Instructing crazy smart scientists on how to use systems? It was amazing. The siren call of how to leverage tech to improve processes was loud, sweet and persistent. We couldn't resist it!

The Web, Social Media and Mobile Apps

It was impressive to watch the Dow Chemical Ag business, at this time now Dow AgroSciences LLC, evolve to adopt the intranet, build internet sites and launch social media channels and mobile apps. After I left my helpdesk role, I moved into Manufacturing Operations where I was encouraged to use my expertise to build intranet bridges to share data with the Dow Chemical mothership. We formed intranet councils, we had workshops, created Microsoft Frontpage User Expertise groups and prided ourselves on learning the jedi of webdev software at the time, Macromedia's Dreamweaver. I bought multiple books from the Nielsen Norman Group on Usability. Soon I was invited to serve in internet specialist role, which led to greater opportunities. My life revolved around what I could unlock in tech. Over time, that fearlessness and passion led me to the role where I would lead the development of the first mobile application for the US Ag business, write social media and global data privacy policy and train a global network of internal webmasters. I led the architecture of large scale websites and mobile apps with database backends that captured crop yield data, provided advocacy for molecules or training for pest control companies to install and sell our products. When I learned scrum methodology for the development of mobile apps, I fell in love with Agile. (I still love Agile). Even when we had denial of service attacks, unexpected outages or challenges with our CMS, you know, if I'm honest, I still had fun.

These early experiences enabled me to lead global digital IT organizations in Fortune 200 companies where I built multi-million dollar headless eCommerce applications with Heroku, node js, Zuora and Salesforce apps. I learned to capitalize sprints - something I had never imagined I would do. I was able to travel to Helsinki, Finland with my team and test-drive a mobile application with officials from the Finnish Ministry of Defense! Yes, you read that correctly. Those early days where I was nervous about my lack of knowledge ultimately led me to a role leading a School of IT for the largest singularly accredited community college in the United States. I was able to partner with AWS to introduce an excellent comprehensive Cloud program, evolve a software development program and expose faculty to new tech and new opportunities. What some may classify as "olden times tech" forged a pathway to my Chief Impact Officer role at Reboot Representation today.

Millennials didn't make Tech Sexy; it was always sexy!

What's my point? I was wrong to say that I worked in tech "before it was sexy." It was always sexy and will remain so. We have watched tech evolve from server administration to Cloud. From lines of complex code to no code solutions. We are witness to an industry that will be revolutionized by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Educators and industry are FINALLY realizing that computer science is a degree, not the moniker for all things tech because tech is broad and deep: IoT, User Experience, Cloud, Cybersecurity, Containerization, AI, Machine Learning. It's digital equity, fluency and marketing. It's incredible. To borrow from a rather large Scottish character from an Austin Powers movie, tech is "dead sexy!"

What does this mean for the COBOL Cowboy or the Techtrotter?

Almost 10 years ago, Mark Zuckerberg told the audience at a Stanford event: “I want to stress the importance of being young and technical. Young people are just smarter.” First, seriously? You said that? Dude! We have different timelines and experiences. Being young is certainly a thing in tech as you are learning the latest. But there's more to tech than just knowing how to smash python or Rust or rock out Terraform. You must understand problem-solving, strategy, critical-thinking and be able to partner with people from around the nation or world. Having experience with more mature technology shouldn't classify you as too old, just more wise, with vision.

What does it mean for those who are just starting out?

Tech is ubiquitous to all industries. Every company is a tech company these days. It's exciting for any and all who wish to learn technology. No matter your age, gender, sexual orientation or race. If you have passion for problem-solving and for learning, you'll thrive in tech. You'll love it.