Episode 05, Doug Collins :: "There is no Plan B."

My guest for this month's episode is Doug Collins.

Aside from being one of the most positive and generous people I’ve ever met, Doug’s UX work spans a variety of industries ranging from the financial world to sports entertainment.

He currently works as the sole UX Engineer at Trust Company of America, in charge of directing every aspect of the company’s online design and user experience presence.

And when he’s not working to make the world an easier place, he can be found hiking, cooking, coding, or writing about his experiences on his blog (URL below).

They say necessity is the mother of invention, and in Doug’s case, as you’ll hear, that’s true. You’ll also hear how he overcame some extremely difficult circumstances through belief, positivity and sheer will.

Here’s where you can find and follow Doug:

Blog: lostmegabites.com

Twitter: @DougCollinsUX

Facebook: dougcollins02

LinkedIn: 5280dougcollins

If you enjoyed this episode, please check out our good friend and sponsor, Stache Studio — a streetwear clothing brand focusing on quality products with a positive message, inspired by the resilience to turn a negative situation into a positive outcome. 

The Stache mantra is  that Even in the darkest times, there is a light revealing prosperity. Find your light and let it guide you through the darkness. Visit https://www.stache.studio/ to check out their incredibly well-designed products and learn more!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello and welcome to making us work to give you X
podcast.
I am your host Joan Anatoliy andour focus here is on folks like
you doing real often unglamorousEurex work in the real world.
You'll hear about theirstruggles their successes and
their journey to and through thetrenches of product design
development and of course userexperience.

(00:30):
Today my guest is Doug Collins.
Aside from being one of the mostpositive and generous people
I've ever met Doug's you workspans a variety of industries
ranging from the financial worldto sports entertainment.
He currently works as the soleU.S.
engineer at Trust Company ofAmerica in charge of directing
every aspect of the company'sonline design and user
experience presence.

(00:53):
They say necessity is the motherof invention and in Doug's case
as you'll hear that's true.
You'll also hear how youovercame some extremely
difficult circumstances throughbelief positivity and sheer
will.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Here's my conversation with Doug Collins
on making us work.
So how are you.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
I'm doing great.
Thanks for having me on.
It's great to be here alwayshappy to get to make some new
connections.
And this is the first time we'vehad a chance to actually talk.
We've had a lot of chattingonline but always good to put a
voice with a face so to speak.

Speaker 4 (01:27):
Yes same here.
Same here.
And you know it's always apleasant surprise to meet
somebody who's sort of as vocalas you know myself I always feel
like I talk too much but Ireally feel like you know we're
sort of like minds when I seeyour commis and I see the advice
that you give people in NewYork's mass community.

Speaker 5 (01:49):
And so I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
I just try to recognize that when I see it
yeah you know for me at leastyou were actually one of my very
first Buick's Twitter followers.
One of the first people I foundon my that was following when I
first got into Twitter and youknow was very pleasantly
surprised to find you on theU.S.
Mashriq community when I wasover there seeing someone who
actually set a good example ofbeing open and available and

(02:13):
looking to help people out wasvery good for me.
I certainly have some experiencebut you know I'm not overly
advanced so to speak certainlynot to the level of career that
you yourself are at.

Speaker 5 (02:27):
You're not like you said you're not new I mean if
they ruled on line is correct.
I mean you've been doing thisfor 18 years.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yeah well so I started doing web development
when I was 15.
Wow.
And just kind of tinkered withit on and off since then I've
been doing freelance projectswork and that type of thing
hasn't always been us focused.
It's really only been over thelast probably seven or so years

(02:55):
they've really got a focus on onus.
So you know very good.
The velvet experience was kindof all over the place too.
It's been a very varied career.

Speaker 5 (03:06):
I mean you started out in development you started
out on the technical side ofthings.
How did you sort of transitionover or slide into as the case
may be you ex work.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
Oh goodness well so initially I just picked up web
development and sort of a hobbyand did some freelance work.
My very first Web site was forone of my friends dads that was
a Web site that was so bad itwas probably not even worth the
money that he actually paid forone or two.

Speaker 6 (03:37):
Yeah.
We'll talk about that with anymore.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
But I kind of stuck with it and actually 2004 I got
a job working with the DenverBroncos.
Very cool.
Yeah it was very fun.
That was kind of my very firstexperience so because I was a
writer for them but I also didweb design work I helped out
actually designing some of theirnewer sections that at that
point in time that was very muchthe world of sort of the new

(04:03):
open Internet where things werereally changing you still wasn't
really talked about or at leastwidely talked about as a
discipline but it was somethingthat you know making the site
accessible and easy to use was avery big important part of the
work we were doing back then.
And I kind of actually tried tomake it as a journalist for a
while from about 2004 to 2009.

(04:25):
I was out there writing anddoing freelance work and that
was a lot of fun.
But in 2009 the economic crisishit full force and in Denver the
Rocky Mountain News shut downwhich meant that the market was
flooded with these writers thatwere very talented had 20 years
of experience and really willingto work for the same prices.

(04:47):
So I ended up working at a callcenter at Nordstrom bank.
Actually at that point in timewhich is the credit division of
Nordstrom and it was just aninteresting job.
I was taking phone eye opening.

Speaker 7 (05:01):
Oh yes.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Well I done customer service work before.
I'd never really worked on thephone so I'd always were kind of
in-store I had been anoperations manager for Circuit
City and that worked retail jobsat Sears and J.C.
Penney's and that sort of thing.
And those sort of interactionsyou know you're there face to
face with someone and there's acertain level of respect for the
most part that you get even thatsort of base level of respect

(05:30):
sort of deteriorates.
Sometimes when you're talking tosomebody on the phone and they
don't have to look you in theeye and say these things and you
hear the terrible thing.

Speaker 7 (05:37):
Yeah I can believe that.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
I will say to you though the Nordstrom customers
were generally really reallyquite nice and actually I think
because the clientele that theynormally serve we probably have
less of that than some callcenters that.
But we are still a credit cardcompany.
And that meant that we had tofollow all the banking rules and
regulations and get and receivevery specific information to

(06:01):
make sure we were making goodnotes on the accounts and sort
of following all of these rulesand at the time what we had kind
of help us guide that was thesite that was made and Microsoft
front page 2004.

Speaker 5 (06:17):
Wow blast from the past.
I remember that.

Speaker 8 (06:19):
Oh my goodness.
Yes.
And not a good bus.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
The person who made it had had obviously they had
done their best but it reallyworked fine and really help us
with their job it took foreverto find even the most basic
information.
You know we had certain types ofnotes that we were making on
account the routinely that we'dhave to type from scratch every
time certain procedures we'dhave to follow that you know if
we couldn't find them quickly wehave a customer on hold for you

(06:47):
know four or five minutes whatwe were looking for these
procedures do this.
NEARY Yeah.
A quick book so what I did was Istarted to make a tool to make
my job easier.
That would allow me to quicklyfind the things that I used most
commonly access the sort ofworkflows and different pieces.
And originally it was just forme I wanted to be good at my

(07:07):
job.
I wanted to keep moving up but Iended up showing it to a friend
who said hey this is great can Iuse that.
And mind you I was building thistool between phone calls using
notepad and nothing else.
So it was a great learningexperience because I had to find
all sorts of different ways tocode things with only notepad.

(07:29):
You're a pioneer.
Oh it was oh it was wonderful itwas fun because they got to work
on a really unique project andis actually something that over
the course of about three orfour years I showed it to my
manager and eventually got achance to pitch it to Nordstrom
bank CEO who liked the idea somuch you said OK go do it now
which I really wasn't preparedfor the right milliwatt Yeah I

(07:51):
was like oh OK well I was quiteready for that and they put me
in charge of creating this sortof new operational replacement
for will be a cold or Quick Bookwhich was the front page guide.
So we ended up doing a customcoding sort of version of that

(08:12):
for all the differentdepartments for customer service
and collections and fraud andthat sort of thing which was my
first real big shift from doingthat sort of customer service
type work to getting into theworld of Unix because it was all
focused on how can we makethings faster for the customer.
And in the end we were able toknock off about an average about
thirty four seconds per callwhich when you take thousands of

(08:34):
calls per day that adds up tohuge.
Yeah.
Millions of dollars a year incost savings.
So I have no idea if it stilluses Nordstrand bank was sold I
think last year too.
I forget the large credit cardcompany and most of the staff
that I worked with was was laidoff or left so I have no idea if
it's still in use back there butI hope it is with a really good

(08:55):
tool and something I was veryproud of.

Speaker 9 (08:57):
It certainly sounds like a pretty massive shift
between where you were where youstarted right and especially the
kind of work that you were doingin your accum and up to then
that's a pretty huge leap.
Yeah directly into not onlycoding and design on a different
level but thinking about.
Usability accessibility and userexperience issues on a whole

(09:20):
different level and what'sreally interesting to me about
that is that I swear to you thisis the third conversation I've
had in about five days wheresomeone has told me a story
about how sort of in the wildwest days of their their careers
they happened upon a situationwhere what they needed didn't
exist so they said OK I guessI'm going to have to build

(09:41):
something right.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
Yeah.
And you know I think that's oneof the main reasons why you see
such varied backgrounds.
Now it's starting to get into USrules because these great ideas
can come from anywhere.
And learning to code andlearning to design to a certain
extent.
Yeah there are some natural borntalent involved but a lot of
that can be can be nurtured andcan be learned.
Absolutely yeah.
There's a really wonderfulopportunity for the people that

(10:04):
are the problem solvers of theworld to get involved and that's
why I'm always encouragingpeople that I see out there to
say you know who say oh you knowI want to get involved I'm not
really sure what I want to do.
Get out there find a problemlearn to solve it start working.
Don't wait.
Start now.

Speaker 9 (10:18):
Absolutely and that's and that's the key right.
That's one of the things thatfrustrates me endlessly is how
discouraged people get aboutapproaching design or
approaching us because they saywell I don't have the experience
for that.
I don't have the education forthat.
Of the chops for that and Ithink that's because the
messages that so many peoplereceive are all about the skill

(10:39):
set they're all about thetechnology they're all about
checking these boxes of OK I'vetaken these steps and now I can
be a professional.
Right.
And the thing that you'retalking about right the story
you just told is the core ofdoing this work.
It's how you think.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
Absolutely and you know I think there's such a
culture of education especiallyin the United States these days
where you know you look at thesejob postings say oh you have to
have a B.A.
HCI or you got that dataanalytics experience that people
look at and they just you gokind of immediately throw those
job openings up when to say wellI don't have that I can't do

(11:15):
that.
Right.
But it's entirely possible toget into this line of work if
you're willing to put in thework yourself.
I have never taken a formalcoding or web design class.
Everything that I've learned hasbeen entirely self-taught.
And I'm very lucky.
I acknowledged to be in theposition that I'm at.
But I think that my personalbasis of being someone who likes

(11:38):
to find problems likes to solveproblems likes to make life
easier for people and likes tosee very good high quality
design is what made mesuccessful with kept me learning
and those skills are out thereand that drive is out there and
so many people have wished thatthey would just take that step
back and say yeah you know I cando that.

(11:59):
It's entirely possible for me toget into it because it is.
You don't have to have that sortof you know set in stone
education.
If he can prove that you can dothe work and understand the
concepts and be successful youthere's absolutely room for you
in the industry.
And you know I think kind ofwhat you're saying with finding
different stories out there.

(12:19):
You know these great ideas cancome from anywhere within the
organization.
That's kind of an incumbent onour employers out there to be
listening for those folks aswell.
Because you know I mean what ifthe CEOs say oh this is a call
center represented them I'm notgoing to listen to him.
I'd still be back taking phonecalls at Nordstrom bank.
Right.

Speaker 5 (12:38):
And it's a big part of the reason he's personally
OK.

Speaker 9 (12:41):
It's a big part of the reason why I try to chime in
on the Mashriq community is thereason I wanted to do this
private Facebook group that Ihave just feel like there's so
much talent out there and someof it is sort of undiscovered
unknown talent.
You know if I hadn't been insituations where people with a

(13:01):
lot of experience and in somecases very sort of high profile
designers in particular took thetime to talk to me and sort of
dispel all the myths that I wascarrying around in my head about
what I was allowed to do.
And you know based on myexperience so far.
Had it not been for that.
I don't know that I would havedone any of the things that I
have done.

(13:21):
And that's just never left meright.
And like you I see a cultureright now that is very intent on
putting people in boxes.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
Yeah absolutely.
And you know as far as puttingpeople in boxes.
Absolutely.
And even within the U.S.
world there are somebody sort ofdifferent boxes that you can try
and put yourself into theresearchers you've got you know
you see you designers you've gotyou know people that are very
specialized and you know doingus testing us testers and even

(13:52):
sort of within that there areall these different sort of
niches and subjoin Rozum youknow you want to focus on the
virtual reality.
You want to work for us withautomobiles that don't have a
lot of that sort of writing andattention around them but have
huge growth potentials as well.
So I don't think it's always badto put yourself in a box.

(14:13):
But there's there's a lot ofopportunity out there if you
want to focus on something butyou never let somebody else
decide for you what you're goingto do with your career or what
you're going to design or whatdirection you're going to be
totally totally selfless.

Speaker 5 (14:25):
Yeah I do you think for instance in your case what
do you think was the combinationof I don't know personal
attributes that led you to thiswas the wrong word the sort of
fearless in saying you know I'mgoing to do this and try this
and you know you went to schoolfor journalism.
You had a job in a call centeryou sort of invented this piece

(14:48):
which was your way into us.
I mean what does it do you thinkthis part of your personality
that sort of allows that.

Speaker 10 (14:54):
Well I think number one then I think the surprise to
really any based sort of skillsyou need for us is you have to
have a desire to make lifeeasier and to help people not
just yourself but really to helpthe world around you.

Speaker 11 (15:08):
And I think at a base level that's kind of the
basic thing that sort of led meto get into it because I saw a
system that simply wasn'tworking.
You know I decided that I wasgoing to make something better
and something that I could notonly use myself but share with
my co-workers.
And beyond that I think there'san intense curiosity and a

(15:29):
willingness to always belearning.
As with anything in the techworld are our paradigms are
constantly shifting everything'sconstantly changing as people.
If you go on twitter and searchfor us you get a thousand
articles just and you know thetop 100 results.
There's always new researchbeing done there's always new

(15:49):
writing.
So that curiosity to learn anddedication to stand going to
learn and teach myself and sortof stay at the forefront of
technology to learn you know thebest ways that I can help people
and to keep my my skills and mycareer fresh.
And I think finally just adetermination that you know you

(16:10):
have a good the need to stickwith it.
You know this idea that I hadwas killed officially for time
by people at Nordstrom.

Speaker 3 (16:19):
And I just refuse to take no for an answer.
I didn't skirt the rules and Iwasn't doing anything I wasn't
supposed to be doing.
But it was very determined thatI knew that I had something that
was valuable to add and I wasn'tgoing to give up until I was
able to make other people seethe value.
I know the way that I put it itfirst made it sound like an

(16:41):
overnight success but it was notan overnight success.
Nothing nothing ever.
Yeah no no no.
I think a lot of peopleespecially see people that are
new in the next world andthey'll say oh you know this
person got there without puttingin a whole lot of work must be
super easy.
It's not easy but it is worthit.
It was one of those things whereI stuck with it.
And it took probably three yearsfour years before it was finally

(17:05):
approved and I was given the OKto go ahead with it.

Speaker 7 (17:08):
CONAN Did you hear what reason that was given.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
Well I want to acknowledge first that some of
these no's were for very validreasons.
The very first know that I heardwas because it wasn't an
approved tool within the companyso I was using something that I
created that hadn't been vettedby our I.T.
department that sort of thing.

(17:35):
And I understand that from ahigh tea you know sort of
security perspective of why theywould be wary of that.
But I also knew there wasn'tanything in there that was
really going to cause anypotential issues.
There wasn't even any I can'teven do any real javascript at
that point.
It was all pretty much straightbasic DML and CSSA wasn't
exposed to any outside network.

(17:56):
So that was kind of the firstfirst sort of know that I got
the second no that I got wasactually after I started sharing
and been given the OK by mymanager to share it.
So we did have a sort of a homefor it to live on.
So I was essentially sharing itfrom my computer giving people
my IP address and saying if yougo to this IP address flash

(18:17):
fashion platform is what I endedup calling in.
And you know going there you canuse the tool whenever I'm I'm in
the office and my computer isturned on and they didn't like
that very much.
Again I understand that but thatwas as much of a way to share
that tool and get some eyeballsbehind it and get some momentum
going towards it and get peopleto really buy into it.

(18:38):
So they kept going you know fromthere it became an issue of
wealth if not everyone can useit and nobody should use it
yourself included.

Speaker 7 (18:49):
So sort of you didn't bring enough chewing gum for
everyone.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
Yes.
So and then I think the the lastno escaping me.
But it was more along the samesecurity lines of what I had
talked about before.

Speaker 4 (19:05):
Sony's one of these businesses you just got back up
and said yeah but I was alwaysable to find a way to sort of
weasel myself back in.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
And that wasn't because well I was a little bit
because I was just sort ofdetermined about things.
But it was off because the valueof the idea.
Right.
Everybody who saw this tool inpractice liked it loved it
wanted it work.
They just couldn't figure outhow to get it to work.
And part of that was because thecall center rep.
I didn't have access to thepeople in our I.T.

(19:36):
department to our developmentmanagers that sort of thing.
So you know this was an ideathat came up by this failed
journalist in Haïti sittingthere on the phone making
between calls.
So there was a lot of a lot ofreticence with this.
Yeah exactly.
And the funny thing was is thatmy dad had actually worked for

(19:56):
Nordstrom bank for probably 20years before I started working
there was very close to 20years.
I think it might have been 20when he finally passed on but
there are people in the buildingthat had known me since I was
knee high to a grasshopper.
So while I wasn't totallyunknown and I think maybe that
helped a little bit.
I still didn't know the rightpeople in the organization to
get this idea sort of up theladder.

Speaker 9 (20:19):
Yeah.
How much curiosity do you thinkany of that is you.

Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah I think so.
You know technology is seen askind of a young man's game.
And now that my hair is startingto fall away a little bit
especially with the I've gotI've got a five month old at
home who is accelerating theprocess.

Speaker 7 (20:38):
But it's absolutely an adventure right.

Speaker 3 (20:42):
Oh absolutely.
He's a wonderful kid and a greatadventure.
But you know the hair issticking around.
I'm starting to starting tothink about that and I've had
conversations that my mother inlaw has a Q A tester for a
medical device company companiesshe's in her 60s.
There are people that most ofthe people that I work with here
at the Trust Company of Americaare or are older than me and our

(21:03):
development team.
So I think there's this sort ofview that as a young man's game
but as sort of the younger andthat sort of started the game
are getting older were startingto become a much more receptive
to the wisdom of a change iscertainly right.

Speaker 10 (21:19):
But I still think if you have two people you know
somebody on the job is 20 andsomebody on the job is 60 times
you know the the job is going togo to that 20 year old.
And I think that's theperception.
You know technology is beingsomething for a younger
generation.
I don't think that that's that'sright by any stretch of the
imagination.

(21:40):
But I think that that's thereality that a lot of people
face.
And that's one of the reasonswhy people who are getting to us
I say push as hard as you can onyour career because by the time
you want to be where you want tobe by the time you get to 40
because there is no guaranteesthat you're going to get
promoted on you know Pastonsecurity you know the way things
used to be.

Speaker 5 (21:58):
Certainly isn't there anymore.
There's a large part of theearly days of my career that I
attribute really to sort of theconcern of youth.

Speaker 9 (22:09):
You don't believe that believing that you're right
because I was at an ad agencywhen this little thing called
the Internet came along and Icould not convince any of these
old men who ran the place thatthis Internet thing was anything
more than a passing fad.

(22:30):
Right.
Right.
They just they just weren'tbuying it.
So I just sort of felt like wellOK I'll show you this.

Speaker 7 (22:38):
I jumped off the cliff.
In retrospect I probably wouldhave done differently.
About 900 ways but.
Oh absolutely.

Speaker 9 (22:45):
I think that that belief to your point is
tremendously important.
And there are days you know Iwas pursuant to me answering
questions or trying to fuele-mails.
I don't have nearly enough asmuch time as I would like for
that stuff man.
I just feel like.
I always want to be a voice outthere saying no.

(23:06):
Do it.
Believe in it to believe in itand believe in it do it right.

Speaker 3 (23:09):
And any you ask yourself the question Well you
know I don't know if I shouldknow the answer is yes just go
right here and here in Bronco'scountry we're all we're all
Elway fans in his famous sayingwhen he brought Peyton Manning
on board is that there is noPlan B.
Right.
We're going for the Super Bowl.
We're all in on Peyton Manningand if it doesn't work out it's

(23:31):
going to be a rough few years.
Right.
You know fortunately havinggrown up in Denver and worked
for the Broncos being a prophetand it worked out.
But I think you have to havesort of that mentality sometimes
you know especially when gettinginto a creative field that you
need to go all in.
You need to have that.
OK.
I'm going to make this work ornot but I'm going to give it my

(23:52):
best shot.
And I don't have a fallbackplan.
And that was certainly somethingfor me when I was at Nordstrom
where I was I was in my fallbackplan poison ivy.

Speaker 10 (24:04):
So I knew that I was either going to succeed with
what I was doing and sort ofthis new test you X or Elmore or
I was just going to stay where Iwas I didn't really have have
any other choice.
And in the end I really didn'thave any choice but to succeed.
And I think that that sort ofyou know plan B mentality really
helped me push my idea forwardbecause I knew that if I was

(24:27):
going to make it into sort ofthe better life that I wanted
for myself that that was themost likely route and the route
that I had the skills andopportunity.

Speaker 5 (24:38):
How much fear was wrapped up in that.
At least at times where you weresort of in transition or
couldn't quite see the roadahead.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
Well a lot of fear.
You know for me that aspect ofthe story I don't always talk
about and employment interviewsis that I was I was homeless for
part of it was part of that timewhen I was working at Nordstrom.

Speaker 12 (25:00):
No kidding.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:01):
It's not that I had you know any sort of drug or
substance abuse issues or amental problems was a lot of
people associate with beinghomeless.
I just made some bad choices.
Sure I should say that thatended up being good.
I actually met my wife shortlyafter I created my first version
of this project and I didn'tknow obviously she was going to
be my wife at the time she wasin Colorado studying Divinity at

(25:23):
the school of theology anddecided that she didn't want to
do that and about six monthsafter I met her she said I'm
going back to California.
Fortunately for me Nordstrom hadanother office in California
that was about an hour and ahalf away from where my future
wife was living at the time.
I just sort of picked up andleft thinking OK well you know

(25:43):
I'll stay with her for a coupleof weeks and you know find a
place to be out there notknowing just how horribly
expensive it is to live inCalifornia.
Yeah.
And was just never able you knowhad someone working a very low
paying low wage job with livingexpenses and that type of thing
was just never able to save upenough money to actually get

(26:05):
into place.

Speaker 13 (26:06):
Being homeless is expensive and often those
realize just how expensive itcan be.
Where did you stay.
I slept in my car quite a bit.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
It was a 1998 Ford Escort.
It's not exactly the roomy Ed..
Yeah I slept in my car quite abit.
You know when I could afford ahotel which was maybe about half
the nights I'd stay there andand if I was lucky enough to be
able to go see my girlfriend andstay her place which didn't
happen often our work scheduleswere kind of crazy and she was

(26:38):
an hour and a half away fromwhere I was working.
I'd spend a night or two at herplace but it was you know it was
something that there was a lotof fear involved with it.
And there was a lot of this sortof.
I have one chance and oneopportunity to make this work.
And I saw that that tool andthat trade is the ticket out of
what I was doing and it wouldhave been very easy for me to

(26:59):
say no I'm going to focus onjust making up the call center
you know make a few extradollars here and you sort of
advance that customer servicecareer.

Speaker 10 (27:08):
But I have the will to stick with it as I'm not
proud of obviously of the timethat he's been homeless.
I don't think anybody ever is.
But I think it's a good story toshare to tell people that you
know regardless of where you arenow you know things can work
out.
That's right.
You know obviously I made it mycareer the woman that I chased
to California eventually chasedback to Colorado or at least

(27:29):
drug her back to Colorado andand we ended up married we had a
kid.

Speaker 3 (27:35):
The I'm I'm in an excellent career now with a
great company and wonderfulpeers and a great future in
front of me and I own my ownhouse which is great.

Speaker 9 (27:46):
So all of this I mean it is an obvious testament to to
belief to sticking with it.
I mean you know you say maybeit's not something to be proud
of.
In a way it is OK because thereare plenty of moments in life in
general not just talking careersin life right that will knock
the wind out of you.
Oh absolutely.
And the only way you ever getanything good is by finding some

(28:11):
way to sort of hang onto thatbelief and work through it and
push and say no this is it I'mgoing to make this happen.
And it's the most cliche thingin the book right.
The only time you fail is whenyou give up.
But I think it's a reallyimportant lesson as well because
it's easy to get disheartenedit's easy to get frustrated it's

(28:32):
easy to feel like this is nevergoing to happen for me.
But I think as long as you sortof power forward by and large is
just not true what you want isout there right and you have to
take advantage of thoseopportunities around you even in
those moments that knocked thewind out of you.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
Is there's still opportunity there's still a
chance for you know for me.
Yes I was living out of my carand not in that position wanted
to be in but I had a ton of timeon my hands and I spent that
time working on what was a 7year old laptop.
In 2000 9 2001.
You know building up my webdevelopment skills I go to

(29:11):
Starbucks or McDonald's and siton their Wi-Fi and probably know
the staff for you know three orfour hours learn what I needed
to earn and study what I canstudy when I was at work to try
and still sort of the next stepof that piece.

Speaker 11 (29:24):
So if you look around you and say even in these
moments of darkness so to speakthere's there's those those
pinpricks of light that you cansee and those opportunities that
you have.
There's always a way forward andyou need to stick with it and
you need to believe in yourself.
And if I take anything from thattime in my life it's that lesson

(29:47):
of.
You're absolutely right.
Nobody can stop you but you.
There's always a possibility ofsuccess until you give up.

Speaker 5 (29:55):
That's right.
And that's been certainly beenmy experience as well and if you
do anything long enough.
Right.
I mean you've been doing thisfor a while.
I've been doing this for a whilebut you also meet a great number
of people in my case from a lotof different countries who have
overcome some unbelievablecircumstances to short of

(30:16):
finding themselves in theprofessional world and not only
get there and make it work butexcel OK become you know the top
of their game.

Speaker 10 (30:25):
It's a be the variety that's out there in that
respect isn't it.
Yeah yeah and you know I'm suremuch better than I do.
You know I had the opportunityto travel to different places
and speak in quite a fewdifferent countries.
I'm sure you've seen quite a bitmore for me.
I'm a bit hamstrung because I'mstuck in Denver and I'm a I'm a
team of one.
There's nobody else on my team.

(30:47):
It's just me down with one ofthe reasons why I got involved
with the online community andfound you and found your mastery
and found all my you know myTwitter friends.
And you know what users do intheir community.

Speaker 4 (31:02):
Sure.
What a gift that is.

Speaker 3 (31:03):
Oh absolutely.
It's so it's so differentlearning a skill these days
because there's all this pouredout there.
You know if I was trying tolearn a new trade back in 1960
1970 it would be probablywhatever books I could find at
the library and whatever peoplewithin a few mile radius that I
have and skills to teach me andbuild that up.
Now there's so much that's outthere.

(31:23):
There's no excuse for notlearning on your own.
I mean you have that support andyou have that guidance.

Speaker 5 (31:28):
I agree.
And I think there's also a traitthat people carry from designers
to actors to developers toeverything in between.
There's a natural hunger that'sbuilt into these folks and you
know where they're just notresting.
And I think that's important.
You know it's it's just neverfeel like OK when I got this

(31:51):
right I've been doing this longenough and I'm established now.
And well I got this I don't needto know anymore.

Speaker 10 (31:56):
I mean you can't you have to keep learning now and
you have to keep pushingyourself to learn.
It's not easy to say I'm goingto learn something new every
day.
But if you're going to be inthis sort of industry where the
technology behind what we do isconstantly evolving that the
best minds at the forefront ofwhere we work are constantly new
people emerging with new ideas.

(32:17):
If you make that decision thatI'm I'm fine where you're going
to stagnate and your skills aregoing to get old and you know
eventually it'll be hard to keepyour product and yourself sort
of relevant.
Which is why you know the firstthing that I do I'm very lucky
in that my my morning standupsfor work are about almost

(32:38):
exactly an hour after I come in.
And that first hour is alwaysdedicated of course to catching
up on emails and whatever elsehas built up overnight.
But also finding something thatI can learn that day and whether
it's an article that I read orsomebody that I talk to some
sort of communicationinteraction.
I always make sure that I findat least one new thing every

(32:59):
day.
And you know that's that's thededication I've made to myself
to keep learning at least a 15minute investment if I'm lucky
and have nothing else to do.
What's happened very often.
Right.
But you know maybe I could spendyou know 45 minutes an hour on
it if I'm lucky that day.
But that's built into part of myroutine and that's something I
always recommend that peoplebuild in that time to build your

(33:22):
toolset so that you are stayingin front speaker routine.

Speaker 5 (33:25):
How much of a set structured routine do you follow
during the day and during theweek.

Speaker 3 (33:30):
Well it's sort of interesting here at Trust
Company of America.
The only U.S.
engineers.
So a lot of my routine is verymuch determined by me.
I have a lot of freedom which isgreat in some respects and
terrifying in other people a lotof people don't realize how hard
it is to be self directed.

(33:50):
It's a challenge.
And I think having that routineis a big part of it.
So you know we have certainmeetings that come throughout
the week that are alwaysscheduled.
But sort of the nature of whatwe've been doing.
We had an old product thatessentially was a desktop
application that we were portingover to this new web app that we

(34:11):
have that we're almost done withthat we're literally finishing
up sort of the last few featureson that we're getting done.
So a lot of this work I've beenable to sort of be routine and
say OK this is work that iscoming from our old system where
a lot of usability knowns.
So to speak or are there we knowwhat our customers like we know
what our customers don't like.
We've been able to talk withthem.
It's not like building a newfeature where you're starting

(34:33):
completely from scratch HomeGround Zero.
Absolutely.
So you have built in thoseprocesses to say OK when we were
bringing a feature over from youknow our old application what do
I need to do I need to talk toour customers talk to our
relationship managers find outwhat they like what they don't
like what's necessary to bringover and then get into my design
process.

(34:54):
Really going anywhere from thelow skilled design all the way
through are you know supportingour development and the
appointment process sort ofsteps within there.
But I've said that routine formyself just based off of what's
worked well and it's certainlybeen trial and error with our
new features we're starting toget quite a few of those.
And it's it's been a challengebecause we are working on new

(35:15):
functionality.
You have the unknown unknown youdon't know you don't know what
else is up there.
Yeah and especially in afinancial app world there's so
much competition that there's alot of differing theories on
what works best and why that itbecomes hard to sort of separate
some of that out and you have tospend some time doing it and

(35:36):
it's harder to have thatroutine.

Speaker 5 (35:38):
So how do you get to the truth in those instances.

Speaker 3 (35:41):
Well you know I think the first thing is I always ask
why are you doing this rightnow.
Because I was reading one ofyour Facebook posts about
portfolios last night.
And you know answering thatfirst question of first and
foremost why was this work donein the first place.

Speaker 7 (35:59):
Why should I care about.
Right

Speaker 3 (36:00):
exactly.
Why should I care about this.
And you have to ask yourself thesame question Why should my
customers care about this.
Why are we doing this.
What goal are we trying to sell.
And then you have to figure outOK well well how are you going
to do this.
What with tools and resources.
Do I have available at mydisposal.
They're going to help me towardsthat solution.
And sometimes depending upon youknow your text back or where

(36:20):
you're working you'll have quitea few more tools in them where
you will have in other placesyou know for me I'm a bit
hamstrung in that we don't havemuch in the way of of analytics
so I can't go into our oldapplication and say you know
look at some of the analyticsand say you know this is a
potential place for pain.
It has to be a lot of bynecessity getting in front of

(36:43):
users and talking with themwhich I still think is the best
way to do it anyway becausethat's a big Blindspot
otherwise.

Speaker 10 (36:50):
And I don't think you can do us really without
getting in front of your yourusers.
That has to be part of the coreof the process.
If you're not talking to usersthey're really doing you iWork
and you're guessing right.

Speaker 7 (37:04):
You are right.
You really are.
No matter what you call it'sdefinitely.

Speaker 10 (37:10):
And it's one of those things where you know
especially when we talked aboutworking ahead in our
organization what's been a bigdrive for us is sort of get
ahead of our backlog and try andfigure out what the features
they have coming down the pipe.
If I'm not involved early enoughand they're coming to me you
know a day before we get intoour refinement areas and saying
hey you know we have thisparticular issue that we've run

(37:30):
across or you know we didn'tthink to involve you.
Now we need your opinion and Ican make an educated guess about
you know what sort of mightwork.
But I'm always there to tellthem.
I really appreciate beinginvolved that got to get this
Dimmy earlier because I can't dothe research and work that I
need to make sure that I'mgiving a good suggestion unless
I have enough time to actuallywork on it.

(37:51):
Realistically for new featuresone or two days is not nearly
enough time especially given thescope and size of what we work
on.

Speaker 5 (37:59):
Now when you do get the chance to interface with
actual users how does thathappen.
How does it work.

Speaker 10 (38:04):
So we have about 180 different registered investment
advisors that are directclients.
And they talk directly with ourrelationship managers which is a
group that's kind of responsiblefor helping them with our web
app and answering sort of anyquestions so we get a lot of
feedback you know coming fromour clients through our EMS and

(38:25):
if there's something inparticular there that I find
relevant to a project that I'vebeen working on or you know
perhaps a future feature that Iknow will be we'll be working on
it's very easy for me to go tomy arm and say hey really
appreciate this feedback.
This is something that's veryrelevant to what we're doing.
Can I get some time with theclient to dock with them and
they'll help me arrangesomething where we can actually
go in and talk with those folks.

Speaker 3 (38:46):
That's excellent.
Oh absolutely.
It's a huge advantage in thisindustry that we have a very
captive audience.
We have people in a very smallcaptive audience.
I mean 180 yeah.

Speaker 5 (38:58):
Rias we have certainly thousands of users but
180s sort of differentorganizations that have bought
in to us and very specific aswell because obesity is very
specific and very contextual andvery targeted.

Speaker 10 (39:12):
Absolutely.
And the people are with usbecause they want to be with us.
You know they chose us and chosefor a reason.
So it's very easy for us toreach out and say hey you want
to be a part of making thisbetter.
And the response is almostalways a resounding yes.
And I'd love to be involved.
You know I think sometimesespecially in business there's
that sort of a thought that youknow maybe testing is annoying

(39:32):
our customers.

Speaker 11 (39:35):
You know it's it's going to detract from our
relationship and it never does.
People want to help.
They want to make those piecesof their life.

Speaker 9 (39:41):
They've bought into better could not agree more and
I'm going to tell you even atthis point I still don't
understand what that reticenceis really about.
There's a year to go across thatline and involve customers and
like you said I think there'sfear that it's going to somehow
damage your relationship and Igot to tell you I still don't
get it.

Speaker 7 (40:02):
I'm pushing 50 and I still don't understand that.

Speaker 10 (40:09):
I was it's and I don't really know what it is
either.
I think you know for me in oneaspect or another pretty much
throughout my entire career I'vebeen talking with people you
know I've been obviously backtalked about working on the
phones with Nordstrom.
You know I worked as a customerservice for a long time so have
those communications skills totalk with people and sort of get
my point across and I feel verycomfortable with that.

(40:29):
But I think people who haven'thad that sort of getting in
front of the clients experiencethem at any level are hesitant
because they don't want to hackoff their customer base.
I understand that because youknow obviously Lessingham when a
deal is upset your customers.

(40:49):
But I think that there's thisequation especially in American
society that they sort of askfor handing over some of your
your personal private time isnecessarily something that's
going to be negatively received.
It is a kind of theory that'ssort of embedded in and in our

(41:10):
society.
And it's not always that way.
But you don't know that it's notthat way unless you actually are
going out and trying to stop itCuthbert yeah right.

Speaker 5 (41:17):
I think people are you know in most cases people
are itching to tell you whatcould make their lives easier.
I mean it's interesting thatyou're talking about financial
industry.
For instance I had an experiencewith a very large insurance
organization same situation theyhad agents all over the country
and we suspected in the veryfirst meeting what I usually do

(41:39):
is I make them walk me through aprocess in boxes and arrows like
tell me how someone gets in.
Then they do this.
Take me through their day and wedid a real quick rough diagram.

Speaker 9 (41:49):
And we needed to erase the White Board three
times in order to complete it.
And I thought OK this is this isonly one workflow it's a very
basic part of this person's workday because we wanted to start
with the theme that they spend80 percent of their time doing
it.
And three of us sort of lookedat each other and said OK
there's there's a story here.

(42:09):
And they were reluctant about itbut they did finally say OK
we'll set you up with you knowdifferent agents in different
areas and you can have theseconversations some of them in
person and some of them wereremote.
To a person when they describedthe process to us we're able to
use the same white board to mapit out.
You know what they were afterand what they really needed.

(42:31):
It would have been a quarter ofthat space.

Speaker 7 (42:34):
Now you know once not 3.x life through the competition
you have to that is ok.
Think about how much money andhow much effort how many people
are involved.

Speaker 9 (42:45):
In all these extra steps.
From a purely financialperspective had we not asked
this question OK here's whereyou are.
And when that happens the sortof light bulb goes off and I
guess what I'm getting to is inyour opinion.
How do you go about telling thatstory upfront before you have

(43:06):
that interaction before you canprove to a client hey this is
worthwhile is really going tobenefit you.
All right.
In some meaningful way how doyou had that conversation in a
way that they're more receptiveto it right.

Speaker 10 (43:18):
I mean you have to be able to show some sort of
tangible result and you have tobe able to have shown some sort
of historical success or atleast potential for historical
success that that's relevant tothe client.
I think you U.S.
is similar groups in sort of thesame sort of want a lot of times

(43:39):
is a lot of artistic work at andthere is certainly some artistic
work that was done with us butit's seen as sort of the sort of
very floaty ethereal thing thatthat sort of hard to pin of
value to you but if you can showthat there's a value to it and
not just a subjective value andan object of value that's the
way I've found to get the by andin the end.

(44:01):
When I was working for Nordstrombank and pitching that that
first system I was you know cameup with the calculation I did
some tests on my own to say youknow based upon how fast I am
and what I'm working on when Iuse the system I averaged 24
seconds per call faster thanwhen I don't use the system.
And if you extrapolate that outover our 300 call center workers

(44:23):
you know 365 days a yearwhatever the hourly rate was it
was a multimillion dollartimesaving proposition and that
took it from being you know thisidea of a guy that was sitting
there at his computer andbetween phone calls just working
on something they had been toldnot to work on and moved it

(44:48):
from.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
From that to being something that was worthwhile
doing and showing that valueespecially tonight CEO is what
got them to say OK that's it.
That's what we're looking for.
Go do it go make it happen.

Speaker 5 (44:58):
Right.
And this is always my mantra.
OK.
You have to find a way to have aconversation about dollars and
cents.
Absolutely right.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
Because it changes the temperature in the room
almost instantly that thatrealization that what you're
doing affects their bottom lineis a very stark one.
Yeah.
And it's one of those thingswhere you're right you can.
You can feel physically feel themood of the room change when you
start talking about dollars andcents especially with with
stakeholders that are reallyinvolved with you know looking

(45:28):
out for those sort of bottomline numbers.

Speaker 4 (45:31):
Yeah I mean I can't tell you how many times I've
seen that right you a room andyou've got and let's say you
know maybe four or fivestakeholders executives usually
at the beginning sitting at thetable right.
At least for them are not payingattention to a word that I'm
saying OK look they're lookingdown at their phones they're
scribbling on a notepad.
You know I'm walking around theroom so I can see what they're

(45:53):
doing.
Right.
Whatever are we done yet.

Speaker 9 (45:57):
And the minute the minute I trot out a figure that
either represents cost savingsor potential profit or potential
market share pursue and asyou're all of a sudden the three
heads go up right like what didhe just say.
And I also believe that one ofthe things that a lot of us
don't think about often enoughand I learned this much later in

(46:21):
my career that I wish I had.
But there's a high degree ofself-interest in everything
that's happening within anorganization.
So for every one of those folksat the table yeah they're all
there for the business certainlyat the same time.
I think you also have to figureout how it connects to their
world personally.
Right.
Right.
What's hanging over their head.

(46:42):
What pressures are they dealingwith.
What problems are theyexperiencing that they
personally just would like tosee gone so that their stress
level impresses me.

Speaker 10 (46:51):
Yeah I think that one really good way to kind of
reflect that was there was aDilbert cartoon I used to read
Dilbert when I was in my earlyteens which shows you how much
of a nerd I could be but hey wegot that thing a go.

Speaker 8 (47:05):
That's great.
I love it.

Speaker 10 (47:06):
Got Adam hilarious at any age but there was a
script that I remember readingthat was essentially saying that
employment used to be like aChristianity model where if you
were good in your employmentlife you be rewarded in the
afterlife of retire.

Speaker 13 (47:22):
Now it's more of like a Hindu model that if
you're good at your current jobyou'll be reincarnated into a
better job.

Speaker 7 (47:29):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
And that's that's stuck with me because you have
to make these things relevant toindividuals.
It's the lack of loyalty thatsome companies have shown to the
individual that's really beenreflected a lot in the
workforce.
Whether or not we like that iscompletely another conversation
entirely.
But unless you're able to makethings relevant to the people
sitting in front of you and notthe business of the whole you're

(47:53):
never going to capture theirattention.

Speaker 5 (47:55):
I agree.
I have another question for youthat I probably should have
asked myself better but it justhit me and then I want to get to
some some hotseat stuff but Isee since I looked at your
profile before this I know thatyou sort of came up in
journalism and writing.
What I'm interested in hearingyour take on the connection

(48:16):
between language and good designgood user experience and also
the ability as a as a creativeprofessional.
Any kind and I includedevelopers in this to be able to
write okay to express yourselfin that way.
In your mind do you think thatthere are.
Threads that run through allthat where the journalism

(48:37):
background the writingbackground the command of
language.
Is an asset.
And if so how.

Speaker 10 (48:42):
Absolutely.
I think you know there's kind ofa core skill set that you need
in order to be a and effectivetechnology professional and
specifically if it's aneffective U.S.
professional and one of thosereal set of sort of courses
being a good communicator we arein such a unique position
because we sit at sort of themiddle of so many different

(49:05):
pieces of our business we'retalking to a variety of
different stakeholders so wemight be talking to the people
directly talking with ourcustomers or people they're
looking out production areawhatever the case might be and
we're talking to our ourdevelopers and we're talking to
our associates and we're talkingto our customers and we have
this sort of unique opportunityto sort of synthesize all that

(49:27):
information and be that sort ofa communication warehouse and
really move things forwardwithin the organization for our
customers.
So you know you have to be ableto do that to be successful.

Speaker 11 (49:43):
I think that that that communication skill that
ability to synthesize thatinformation handed off to the
right people and keep thingsmoving forward is what really
separates good professionalsfrom great professionals.
You know I also think thatstudying journalism was
important for me because ittaught me how to write and so

(50:03):
much of corporate life isunfortunately writing e-mails.
It's my job before this I wasworking for a company called
Hollin Square Group which wascontracted out permanently to
another company called for winsinteractive may make interactive
digital signage.

(50:24):
So if you've ever gone to a ahotel and walked up to the big
touchscreen sign that showed youwhere you could go for breakfast
or you know when flights wereleaving and that sort of thing.
That's the kind of design I wascreating and the kind of signage
it was I was developing and theywould have us working at any
given time.
I think the fewest amount ofprojects I ever had.

(50:45):
Once they got fully ramped upwas 40 and the most I ever had
was approaching 100 with 100different clients.

Speaker 12 (50:53):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
And so on any given day I was spending six hours
writing e-mails in two hoursdesigning developing actually
doing work.
And it was great because theyhad so much practice getting in
those those communication skillsand learning how to communicate
more with sort of those highvalue high class customers.

(51:17):
But obviously quite a bit ofchallenge and especially a
challenge.
If I was good writer and wasn'tsomething that I felt
comfortable doing so.
Absolutely.
You need to be comfortablewriting and you need be
comfortable expressing yourselfor you're going to find yourself
in some really hard situation.

Speaker 5 (51:35):
Yeah I agree.
I think the connection is sortof apples to apples right.
I think that you have to be ableto have some command of language
and I don't mean you have to beyou know Ernest Hemingway of
user experience.
You simply have to be able tospeak plainly and clearly in a
way that people understand itright.

Speaker 3 (51:54):
I think the best rule that you can give anybody for
writing those e-mails is fivesentences or less.
Yeah.
If he can't explain what you'retrying to explain in five
sentences or less it shouldn'tbe an e-mail should be a
conversation right.

Speaker 7 (52:06):
It's a good rule to adopt that because I write for
bowse e-mails.

Speaker 5 (52:12):
I mean I really do catch myself and I think oh my
god no it's going to read allthis.

Speaker 8 (52:16):
No.
Yeah.
It's sort of the nature ofe-mail we get.

Speaker 3 (52:21):
You know you get those five minute e-mails you go
OK x y z i know what I need andI'm doing.
You get the e-mail are two pageslong and you revert back to that
sort of web mentality of I'mgoing to scan through here to
find out what I need and discardthe other 90 percent of what's
on that page.
Exactly.
So yeah I mean it's one of thosethings where the rule that I
follow that and I was taught byone of my co-workers when I was

(52:46):
working at at Nordstrom that hasserved me tremendously well it's
the one that I always pass on toanyone who's asking you about
skills for writing businessemails and in business
communication in general.

Speaker 5 (52:58):
It's an excellent rule.
And honestly I'm going to adoptit from this point forward.

Speaker 7 (53:04):
I'll hold you to that if I get an email that's more
than five sentences from me I'mjust going to pick up the phone
and give you a call.
We need to talk e-mails.
You know Joe what's the bill.

Speaker 3 (53:22):
Do we need to talk.

Speaker 8 (53:24):
Like when you get your graded paper back and as a
frowny face on it please see ourthe big the big red question
mark was the one I always got.
What do you mean Big Red questedbark.

Speaker 7 (53:37):
How to fix that.

Speaker 5 (53:41):
I went to school with a guy and I'll never forget
this.
We had one instructor particularwho would just throw out the
strangest sort of non sequiturswhen you'd ask for feedback or
direction.
And I remember he came back totable one time and he goes my
favorite kind of comment is theuncomment and I was sure what

(54:04):
I'm supposed to do with this.
There's just a weird situationyou know you never knew how to
react or what it was you'resupposed to do.

Speaker 3 (54:11):
All right well especially when you're supposed
to fix those those mistakesright the first draft and they
give you back that rough draftwith those sort of you know a
great question marks I don'tallow them to do on it and you
go OK well I guess I could giveit a try.
I was very lucky to go to aschool that Devlin high school
in Denver which sat out to theJaguars out there but it was a

(54:34):
school that was very very deepin teaching students how to
write and how to critically readand evaluate information which I
think is excellent is you knowkind of on that communication
thing.
You know what are the piecesthat we need to know and never
start too early on that.

Speaker 5 (54:50):
Agreed agreed agreed agreed.
So let me ask you some quickHASI questions for you on the
spot a little bit.

Speaker 9 (54:59):
Absolutely.
Acronyms yes or no.

Speaker 8 (55:01):
Oh I can't send acronyms.
We have so many I meanespecially here and are in our
universe.

Speaker 3 (55:10):
We have acronyms for everything in the tech world and
everything in the financialworld.
And when those two worldscollide.
I had no idea what but he wastalking about my first probably
three weeks here because nobodywould tell me what the acronyms
were it was probably a littlemore vivid than I should have
been and asking about them andhow I should know this.

Speaker 5 (55:26):
So that's my problem with them in general.
You instantly make people feeldumb and embarrassed to sort of
ask what's going on it's likeyou know you're in some
exclusive club that they're not.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
Yeah and you know for me I'm someone that hates ask
for help which has been both ablessing and a curse.
Keeping with that that it alwaystakes me probably three or four
times of hearing the acronymbefore I go.
I don't know what this is.

Speaker 5 (55:52):
Yeah.
No kidding.
What word or phrase do you sayway too much.

Speaker 8 (55:58):
That's not a bad choice.
When my mom pointed out to methe other day I say that a lot.

Speaker 3 (56:05):
If I had a catchphrase that would be a bad
choice I wanted my day just sayit's a good choice of life.
Well it may not be a good choicebut it's not a bad one.

Speaker 7 (56:14):
As for diplomatic.

Speaker 3 (56:16):
Absolutely.
And that's one of the thingsthat you know communication wise
I'm very good at being adiplomat.
Being a peacemaker and findingareas that you know we all have
common ground on which leads toa lot of phrases like That's not
a bad choice.

Speaker 7 (56:31):
One down to two things from you Doug this is
fantastic.

Speaker 14 (56:37):
Well I think you're slowly closing the gap between
things I learned from using theword for me.

Speaker 7 (56:42):
Have a few thousand more to go with whether or not
bad habits tell me somethingthat you are not good at at all.

Speaker 3 (56:53):
Oh man.
I mean the list of things I'mnot good at would fill several
thousand books.

Speaker 13 (56:58):
Let me rephrase something that you've had to do
more than once that you're notgood at that stuff because we
were just talking about I wantto talk about that asking for
help that we already kind oftalked about.

Speaker 3 (57:12):
So for me I'd have to say it's basketball I'm a
terrible basketball player.
I'm usually good at just aboutany sport that I pick up.
I have always had this kind ofnatural athletic ability.
I can not make a shot to save mylife.
And I'm I'm five six and threequarters.
It's important to get that threequarters up there in my life.

Speaker 8 (57:30):
And that does not make itself very good for
basketball.

Speaker 4 (57:37):
I'm 5 foot 6 inch shrinking and I am infinitely
worse.

Speaker 8 (57:41):
Ever be at best if I ever play a horse.

Speaker 7 (57:45):
A game of horses leads we know we have a way to
kill off a couple of hours soI'm going through a day.

Speaker 8 (57:51):
I mean all your strengths right know what you're
good and do it and for you and Iwill stay will stay away from
basketball has great strength.

Speaker 5 (58:01):
What is one thing you do.
One talent that you have thatnobody knows about you.

Speaker 3 (58:07):
I share my talents a lot and probably more than I
should.
I'm sure people are.
There are people out there myfriends and family who probably
want me to stop trying but Ithink by my talent that I'm most
proud of that I think that fewpeople know about photography.

(58:28):
I was a video journalist when Iworked with the Broncos.
I was down on the sideline forthe game with the camera which
was a lot of fun in that sort ofsparked an interest in me and it
actually took years actually.
When I got this job I was ableto buy my first real
professional camera and startworking toward getting better at
that crap.
For that was whatever I could dowith my phone.
Essentially we don't always lenditself to great pictures but

(58:51):
with a lot of practicecomposition and looking for
those those opportunities wouldcertainly help build some
skills.
So I've got my I've got my nicelittle now.
I think I'm actually listed onInstagram as a crappy Denver
photog.
Yes because I guess I just howmuch I a skill in regard.
But I know pushed by my photosup there and have a little

(59:15):
community of people that followme around and occasionally like
what I do which is which isalways heartening yeah very
cool.

Speaker 5 (59:21):
Yeah that's pretty cool.
So last question.
What is your prediction for theDenver Broncos this year.

Speaker 8 (59:28):
Oh my goodness.
We're going downhill in a hurry.
You know I'm a Cleveland.
Yeah well that's true.
Well hey we've got the we've gotthe guy is our backup who might
be our starter soon who wasn'tgood enough to be the Cleveland
Browns starting quarterback.
Brock Osweiler.
So I mean you know that's that'snever a good sign.
What is it.

Speaker 3 (59:49):
And I should say Trevor Trevor Symeon a bit
hamstring the offensive line hasbeen rough especially we lost a
couple of offensive tackles anda backup offensive tackle
against San Diego.
We were down three out of ourfive topflight out so I told my
wife before the season startedwe'd be lucky to get to 6 and
12.
And you know when we got up intothe power rankings you know

(01:00:11):
after the first four weeks werea number three or four in some
of those power rankings I saidwe're going to go downhill in a
hurry.

Speaker 14 (01:00:17):
We've been so I'll stick with that 6 and 12
prediction as much as I don'tlike it.
But I think given where thingscould end up that might be
optimistic.

Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
So fingers crossed.
Go Broncos.
I still love them always lovethem but that's that's what I
have to predict.
We must have hoped.
Yeah there's always theCleveland Browns are proof
there's always hope there'sstill that any fan in that
Cleveland Stadium.

Speaker 14 (01:00:42):
Hope springs eternal.

Speaker 4 (01:00:44):
I consider myself you know saying that we'll see I'm
teaching my kids a lesson.
You know when you're loyal tosomething and to you have to
stick to your convictions andyou know win or lose you can't
just only like winners and allthat good stuff right.
I don't know if I believe it.
But that's what I say.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
Well you know with the five month old in the house
I'm starting to think about allthose different lessons I need
to learn to teach.

Speaker 14 (01:01:06):
And so this year I just want to completely turn off
the Broncos and for that reasonI'm like No this will be a good
I have older they flip on the TVand scream it for an hour and a
half two hours before the apathysets in.
It will be missed Bermel.
Yeah exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
Hopefully hopefully I can really use myself some of
that extra extra screening tothe TV.
Pretty sure that doesn't makefor a very healthy environment
growing up out of work.

Speaker 14 (01:01:32):
I get rid of this one.
Yeah exactly.

Speaker 5 (01:01:35):
Well sir I truly enjoyed this conversation.
I enjoyed talking to you.
And I think that you areabsolutely a positive force in
the online communities that Ihave seen in in general I think
there is a definite shortage ofpeople in the world who are
willing to be overly generouswith their time with their

(01:01:55):
stories with their experiencesand with their advice.
And I salute you for doing that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
Yeah.
Thanks very much for having meon.
This was a great conversation Ireally enjoyed.
And I hope we'll get a chance totalk a bit more.
You're a wonderful fourth yearself forgood.
And you know I'm great to beassociated with that and kind of
along the same lines of anybodyyou know once ask me any
questions or get involved withme or if I can help anybody out
there who is looking to getstarted or grow their career

(01:02:22):
feel free to reach out to me.
You know Doug at Denver youExter dot com my e-mail address
you can find me on Twitter at 5280 underscore C S and obviously
on the U.S.
gas mastery community which iscommunity out U.S.
DOT Dotcom is just Doug.
I really want to be as helpfulas I can and hopefully after
listening to me for an hour Ifeel a little bit more

(01:02:44):
approachable feel free to pleasefeel free to reach out with
whatever I can do for you andJoe.
Thanks again for having me.
It's been an absolute pleasureand to be involved with somebody
who's as experienced andknowledgeable as you and to
receive such kind words a realgift to me.
I appreciate your time and thankyou so much just for inviting me
to be a part of this.

Speaker 4 (01:03:04):
Absolutely.
Pleasure was all mine.

Speaker 14 (01:03:06):
Thank you very much Joe.
All right take care my friend.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
That wraps up this edition of making us work.
Thanks for listening and I hopehearing these stories provides
some useful perspective andencouragement.
Along with a reminder thatyou're not alone out there.
Before I go I want you to knowthat you can find shows and
links to the things mentionedduring our conversation by
visiting give good you X.comslash podcast.

(01:03:31):
You'll also find links to moreUS resources on the web and
social media along with ways tocontact me if you're interested
in sharing your own story here.

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
Until next time this is Jonah Toli reminding you that
it's people like you who make uswork.