Real Technologists

Trac Bannon: It's so crazy how I meet many of the Real Technologists. Sometimes it's through professional meetings, other times it's through LinkedIn.  No doubt you've heard of a game called 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.' It demonstrates the concept of six degrees of separation, which suggests that any two people on earth are six or fewer social connections apart. Well, in the world of Real Te...

I generally don't make cold calls, at least when it comes to inviting folks to be on Real Technologists. Jess Szmajda and I crossed paths through our online cybersecurity and cloud computing networks. She's a general manager at AWS leading Network Firewall and Firewall management business. Previously, she was the GM for the VPN practice. With her online profile saying she's located in Washington,...

We are approaching the midway point for Season 2 of Real Technologists. Senior, Pokie, and I wanted to take a moment to thank you and reflect on the past year. During Season 1, we learned that our eyes were bigger than our stomachs, so to speak. We had decided on an aggressive schedule of weekly podcasts. And like our guests, we learned a big lesson and had to pivot.  This Season, Season 2, i...

Trac Bannon: When Julie Holdren, co founder of DC based Watering Hole AI joined our call, I immediately noticed stylish designer glasses with a popped collar. That lasted for only a few moments. Julie had a ton of connection and bandwidth issues. So after disconnecting and switching networks, Senior asked Julie and I to talk "cameras off". I'm glad we had those first few minutes visually... pleasa...

Trac Bannon:  John Kaufhold is one of those super smart people... you know the ones... when you read their LinkedIn profile and do a little googling, their achievements and academic records are phenomenal. I was initially a bit shy about reaching out to talk with him.  I'm a techie. I'm not a data scientist though I'd like to think that I'm math and AI adjacent. John's contact informatio...

Trac Bannon:  A few years ago, I was introduced to Helen Beal through our work with the DevOps Institute. Helen was the Chief Ambassador and I was submitting my credentials for consideration as an ambassador.  We are both combed-shaped people and naturally had so many topics and passion areas to talk about. What is a comb-shaped person, you may ask? It's more likely that you've heard the...

🎙️ Free access to “Real Technologists” on your favorite podcast platforms: bit.ly/realtech-on-all-podcast-platforms 📌 Bob : Ok, Trac , let’s check your levels Trac: Check 1-2, Check 1-2, Season 1 Episode 20, Check 1-2 Bob: Ok, levels sound great; make sure you are set to record individual tracks Trac: Roger, got it. Bob: Ok, I’ll fade out and see you kids later, have fun  Trac:  Thanks,...

Doing our normal timeboxed guest research on SBI's Chief Technology Officer, Tracy Edwards, was both difficult and curious.  Why curious? Prior to 2018, this Tracy Edwards spent her career more focused on humans and not technology. Once exposed to the idea of product management and bridging the divide between business and tech, she completely reinvented herself and her career, pivoting to pro...

I'm noticing a few core traits in the many guests I've hosted for the Real Technologist podcast. Authenticity and a willingness to say yes. This rings true for guest Jonathan Rivers. He was recommended to me as somebody who absolutely is passionate about making opportunities for others.  Talking with each guest is filled with surprises and challenges my own preconceived notions. Jonathan Rive...

The incredible Jennifer Ives has become a champion for the Real Technologist podcast. She's been introducing me to an Uber broad set of deep technical experts of all different shapes and sizes. Given Jennifer's depth in AI and her new company, Watering Hole AI, it came as no surprise when she introduced me to Dr. Rebecca Bilbro. Dr. Bilbro is the founder and CTO of an AI firm called Rotational Lab...

Leyla Samiee is another amazing real technologist that I met through Shutterstock CTO, Sejal Amin. Lately, I've been pretty amazed watching how networks grow organically and even more excited at the incredible humans willing to share their true stories, their genuine journeys.  Genuine is probably the most descriptive, single word I can use to describe Leyla. The first time we spoke, she had...

I was introduced to Jennifer Ives through a mutual colleague, Sejal Amin. Sejal is one of the growing alumni of the Real Technologist podcast. Sagel and I were discussing how to move the needle from mentoring to refocusing on sponsoring others. What's the difference? Mentoring is often talking, teaching and strategizing. Sponsoring means taking steps to make opportunities. Sponsoring means investi...

Trac Bannon:   To be honest, I don't remember when or how I was introduced to Duena Blomstrom. I do know that throughout the lockdowns, we began randomly hopping on calls together and chatting. It really helped us navigate the seeming melees that embrace the globe during the lockdowns.  We are constantly finding strong deep topics that focus on humans. We've debated gender affirming care...

My friend and mentor, Mark Miller, recently introduced me to Shannon Lietz. She joined our global journalist pool for a cybersecurity and open source podcast called "It's 5:05."  Mark gushed about Shannon going as far as saying, Shannon coined the term DevSecOps. Okay. To be fair, everyone knows Patrick Debaux coined DevOps, but neither Google nor ChatGPT agreed on where the term DevSecOps or...

It's kind of funny, our first conversation was when I was a guest on Chris and Nikki's podcast called Resilient Cyber. How did they meet? Well, the same way that I met Chris Hughes, on LinkedIn. Yep. It is a real thing. We met on a professional social networking platform. For about two years, we've floated in and out of each other's networks and have an ever-growing set of real connections. In get...

Trac Bannon:   I've got to share with you that I did not expect the Real Technologist podcast to stretch me in so many dimensions. And if I'm being genuinely open and honest, there was no way to anticipate the impact on my husband, my sound engineer, my best friend, Bob.  You see, Bob joins each recording session to check on our sound levels. He also runs a second audio capture stream in...

You would think that as a software architect that focuses on DevSecOps and being secure by design, that I would've attended an RSA conference before 2022. What is RSAC? It's the preeminent cybersecurity conference in the world. 2022 was my first, and I was hooked from the time I landed. This conference is known for its sense of community and inclusion and the willingness of industry cybersecurity...

I consider Robin Yeman a friend, though our story starts out with me being awestruck after listening to Robin present at the DevOps Enterprise Summit in 2019. She was among an impressive list of speakers that year including Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Rosalind Radcliffe, and Jonathan Smart.  In her role as a Senior Technical Fellow at Lockheed Martin, Robin partnered with Northrop Grumman Fellow, Su...

I was introduced to Adrienne Shulman through our mutual involvement with the DevOps community. We had an immediate sense of camaraderie and purpose looking to inspire the next generation of technologists. Adrienne, in particular, is passionate about the need for more women developers. We had lengthy discussions on Slack about different dimensions of this problem. You see, Adrienne spent many years...

It’s so interesting to me, how social media platforms and industry groups can facilitate new friendships and enhance networking.  We all hear that it is possible, though when you take a step back, how many relationships have you grown this way?  It takes deliberate effort and an openness to reach out to others. This is how I met Sejal Amin, the current CTO of Shutterstock.  By comme...

My friend and mentor, Mark Miller, tagged me on a LinkedIn post.  Then he  shot me a link on Slack a few months ago.  His words?  “This is someone you have to talk to, Trac”  That person?  Lani Rosales. Mark was right.  I navigated to her LinkedIn profile and found myself laughing aloud.  Here is the wildly smart and tech savvy Chief Operating Officer for Th...

Being a part of a community means investing time to grow the community. You've got to keep a pulse on the voices, ideas, and themes, and look for way to continuously contribute. Sometimes, it could be a blog post, other times, maybe an open dialogue. I was organizing a panel on DevSecOps and CyberSecurity in government and looking for a well balanced set of experts. The panel's list was shaping up...

My first exposure to Caroline Wong was in 2021. It was the height of the pandemic lockdowns, and we were brought together virtually, to discuss mentoring in technology. I was instantly drawn to her focus on happiness and on avoiding toxicity.  She's wicked smart, having received a degree in electrical engineering and computer science from UC Berkeley. When you meet her, when you hear her, it'...

When I met Katy Craig in 2017, it was in her role as a cyber security pro. She was working for Deloitte focusing on DoD and more specifically, the Navy.  Given her cool and matter of fact countenance, she struck me as a natural for identifying and mitigating risk. More importantly was her handling of issues that struck. She is level headed and her delivery is often as even and level as her op...

Full transcript and resources for this episode : https://realtechnologists.org/ Jennifer Leggio is a fixture in the Cybersecurity industry. She's a no-nonsense communicator and that makes her perfect for her role in marketing, security solutions, and building communities.  Jennifer has an honest approach to discussing security which has become her trademark. Jennifer is legendary in her push...