August 14, 2025 • 50 mins
When a chance conversation at a beer bar introduced her to the word “SCADA,” Margarita Rosenkrans had no idea it would spark a career in industrial automation. In this episode, Courtney and Alicia chat with Margarita—Sales Engineer at Inductive Automation—about her path from graduating in the middle of a hiring freeze to thriving in both support and sales engineering roles. We cover her behind-the-scenes insights from OT SCADA CON, the culture and community at Inductive, favorite Ignition features, troubleshooting war stories, and even how she used Ignition’s Maker Edition to build her wedding website. Whether you’re an Ignition pro or just automation-curious, you’ll enjoy this mix of career lessons, tech talk, and personal stories.
Thank you to Inductive Automation for sponsoring this Episode and the recent support of OT SCADA CON - where we were lucky enough to meet Maggie in person!
Find out more about the Ignition Community Conference happening Sept 16 - 18 in Sacramento CA and get your tickets to Level Up! your SCADA game.
__________________________________________________________________
Co-Hosts are Alicia Gilpin Director of Engineering at Process and Controls Engineering LLC, Nikki Gonzales Director of Business Development at Weintek USA, and Courtney Fernandez Robot Master at FAST One Solutions.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ali (00:01):
Welcome to another episode of Automation Ladies.
This one's not going to haveNikki, just because Nikki still
has pneumonia, so let's send hersome good get well vibes.
But we do have Courtney.
And then today's guest isMaggie Rosenkranz, or Margarita,
which is a really cool name.
This episode is sponsored byInductive Automation, and we
just came back from OT SCADA CON.
(00:23):
It's been about a week ofgetting back to the regular
rhythm of things and it's been,I think, tough on everybody,
because we all had lots of funbut also felt like it was unreal
some of it.
I think I'm pretty sure Idissociated like twice during it
just because, like it's just alot bigger than it was last year
and we got really good feedback.
(00:44):
Maggie works for InductiveAutomation.
I love Ignition.
I think I started messing withit in 2014.
And I just remember lovingInductive University because of
just how easy it was to use andit was free for any technician
to get certified and I thoughtthat was like a really amazing
(01:04):
way to just break into themarket and they definitely did
really successfully break in.
It was a full takeover.
Honestly, I don't know if,courtney, if you have anything
you want to say about your recapof OT SCADA CON before we get
into it.
Courtney (01:18):
Yeah, I wasn't ready for it to end.
Like you said, we had a lot offun.
I didn't want to go back to thereal world afterwards Every
single time.
Really, what blows me away isthe fact that there's so much to
know and there's not like oneperson that's going to know
every single thing, like everysubject in that room, and it's
one of the only places where, asa technical person, you can
feel okay, like not knowingstuff, so loved it.
Ali (01:55):
There was lots of brain power in that room for sure.
I love the idea of having Lovedit wouldn't have come to otis
gaycon, because that would beweird.
So everyone that showed up wasjust trying to share what they
already know.
So today's episode is aboutMaggie Rosenkrants.
Can you tell us, Maggie alittle bit about your background
and how you ended up working inindustrial automation?
Maggie (02:20):
I have a background in support.
I graduated with my degree incomputer science in 2020.
And I was just trying to find ajob.
At the time.
There was a hiring freeze, so Iwas just looking for something,
although what brought me intothis industry was a gentleman at
(02:40):
a beer bar.
I was beer tending andgentleman was here.
I was talking to him about myeducation, what I was doing for
school, and he was telling meyou really got to get into SCADA
.
And I was like what he goes?
Yeah, scada, it's like trafficlights.
And I'm like what?
And he kept saying this word,scada.
And I kind of shrugged him offa little bit because I was like
(03:03):
I have no idea what he's talkingabout.
I'm just trying to get mydegree and find a job in
something I don't know.
And I had reached out to someof my peers to be like have you
heard of this word before?
Do you have any idea what thisguy might be talking about?
And everybody around me waslike we have no idea.
It looks very out of the boundsof what we're studying right
(03:23):
now, which is programming andsoftware, and so I didn't try to
pursue that any further.
At the time.
It was within my last twosemesters of school.
So in my last semester I was ina database class and my
professor, Kathy Applebaum, is adeveloper at Inductive
Automation and she let everyoneknow hey, the company I work for
(03:47):
is hiring.
We make a data software and Iwas like I've heard that word
before.
It sounds like a goodopportunity for me.
And at the time there wasactually just an open house and
I had attended the open house.
Travis Kotz gave everyone ademo of Ignition and I saw
(04:07):
buttons lighting up and he madeit sound really exciting.
So I applied and I had gotten ajob in support as a support
engineer.
So that is all my experience inindustrial automation and now I
am a sales engineer.
I've been with the company forfive years.
Ali (04:25):
It used to be rough graduating in 2020.
Because you talk about a hiringfreeze.
Honestly, nobody knew what theywere doing.
They were laying people off,not hiring new people.
And when I graduated it was2010, which was two years after,
(04:46):
basically, the housing bubblecollapsed and we had a pretty
big, I guess, recession.
So it was a similar thing where, like, people weren't sick, but
a lot of people lost theirhomes or a lot of people lost
everything that they had, and sothere was no hiring at that
time.
And if there was hiring, Ididn't have the grades for it.
But what got you into computerscience?
Maggie (05:13):
I had originally started studying biology with no reason
for why I picked biology otherthan just picking a degree.
And from there I had said Well,I don't know what I'm doing
with this degree, let me just dosomething that I do have an
interest in, which is was thedental field.
So I was pursuing dentalhygiene and I wasn't getting the
(05:37):
grades I needed to get into aprogram there.
So I had some talks with my momand she's like just pick
something that you can get somecertification in and just do
that job.
So that led me to x-raytechnician just by random, and
they had a intro to computerscience course requirement and I
took that class and it was very, very entry level.
(06:01):
I think we had used like anArduino to learn the basics of
programming and I was like thisis interesting, it requires a
little bit of math, at least atthe time, a little bit of math
and some logic in my head.
So I said, well, let me get adegree in something that I could
apply to probably variousindustries.
(06:24):
So again, picking a degree thatI didn't have very much
direction in, but I just wanteda degree and I just stuck to it.
My mom pushed me.
She was just like just justfinish your degree, just do
something, and it was aninteresting time studying
computer science.
Ali (06:42):
A lot of people talk about knowing exactly what major they
want to be, and like I'm in yourboat, I was like I have no idea
, and when I picked chemicalengineering, I had no idea what
that really was or what jobsreally looked like at all.
My dad was a real estatedeveloper and before that he
sold timeshare.
So he's a sales guy, and my mompassed her real estate broker
(07:04):
exam in the state of Colorado,but otherwise she was either a
real estate agent or astay-at-home mom, so neither of
them could help me with calculus, and so I would take these
high-level math courses, but Ididn't know what I wanted to do.
I think what I thought aboutwas I didn't want to get a PhD,
I didn't want to get multipledegrees, I wanted something that
I could make money with withinfour years of school, and so
(07:26):
that's why I think I pickedengineering, and then chemical
engineering organic chemistrykilled chemistry for me.
I was like I don't like thisanymore.
I thought I liked chemistryJust kidding, I don't like this.
But I stuck with the major andI was like well, let's see what
happens.
I wish people didn't ask18-year-olds what are you going
to do with your life?
Because we don't know, theydon't know you would have
(07:49):
aspirations, I guess becausesome people are like I knew I
was going to be an engineersince I was five years old.
Well, most people don't havethat inclination.
I don't think, especiallybecause you don't teach kids
every single job type, you justlet them play right.
That's what you should do.
Courtney (08:02):
Now, computer science, I think, is an interesting one
because you had to have had somekind of I don't want to say
natural aptitude towards it butsome kind of enjoyment out of it
.
I think, because as a I meanjust as an engineer I tried to
double major and throw computerscience in there and I failed my
computer science classesbecause they were really hard,
(08:27):
like it's not just math and it'snot just logic, like algorithms
and stuff, it's just reallyit's difficult to grasp and if
you don't have kind of a naturallike tendency to understand
that stuff or enjoy that stuff,it can be really off-putting.
So I'm always impressed bypeople who do computer science
because that's, you know, asdetermined as I was, I could not
do it.
I had to drop it.
Maggie (08:41):
Yeah, I would definitely say the logic is what attracted
me to it, before I had evenpursued computer science.
I recall taking a philosophyclass at the first college I
went to, and it was like this,really basic logic, and that
came really easy to me.
I was like, oh, this isintriguing.
(09:01):
But I didn't connect that tocomputer science until I started
taking that first intro course.
What I struggled with, though,was the math.
I didn't realize how much mathwould be involved in computer
science, and I was that kid whowas in seventh grade taking
remedial math classes.
I had retaken so many mathclasses I should have a math
(09:25):
degree, so that was a bit of astruggle and not all math is the
same.
Courtney (09:30):
So you know I get that I had to redo several math
classes too.
Like discrete math and likearithmetic are not the same math
.
Which one did you find hardest?
Out of curiosity, like becauseall the different kinds of math
pretty much are there incomputer science.
Maggie (09:46):
Definitely statistics.
I really had a hard timereading a problem and
understanding.
What are you really asking mehere?
Ali (09:58):
I did not like statistics either.
Courtney (10:01):
Same.
Well, because it was always aquestion.
Like you know, I don't knowlots of things like population
of foxes versus rabbits andstuff that I just you know.
I'm like I don't care aboutthis, I want to hear about
electricity, yeah iIoT platforms.
Ali (10:27):
You know these companies, from what I've seen, do hire a
lot of people that graduate withcomputer science degrees.
Have you seen the same thing?
Do you know if there's a lotmore people like at Adductive
that also have like computerscience degrees?
Because I think I'm seeing atrend.
I'm not sure.
Maggie (10:39):
Yes, at least during my time in support, the majority of
the team were computer sciencegraduates, not electrical or
mechanical engineering students,and I think that's just because
we're a software company.
And how do you get to softwareengineering or development?
You start at the bottom.
I say bottom in air quotesactually because I think support
(11:06):
is underrated.
Ali (11:07):
What was the name of that professor that worked for
Inductive Kathy Applebaum.
Okay, because, yeah, she saidthat.
You know she worked for a SCADAcompany.
I think that's the easiest wayto say it, because I always
thought that's exactly whatInductive Automation sells.
But I guess the moreover-encompassing word for it is
IIoT platform, because it cando a lot more than just SCADA,
(11:30):
even though SCADA is complicatedenough as it is, but people
don't know what to call it, andso I thought that's what
Ignition was.
It's just a SCADA and it's likeno, it can do MES and it can
tie ERP to MES, so you can doanything with ignition.
Can you talk about what thedifference between ignition is
and like perspective for peoplethat don't know?
Maggie (11:54):
yeah, uh well, Ignition is the platform and Perspective
is just one of the visualizationoptions in Ignition
perspectives.
Um, it's a module that lets youdevelop an app, that's a
web-based application, to doyour real-time or historical or
controls.
Ali (12:15):
How many modules are there?
There seems to be like it grows.
Maggie (12:20):
There's a handful, a couple handfuls I don't recall
the count off the top of my head.
But for visualization there'sPerspective and Vision, and then
there's also reporting.
Ali (12:31):
And I don't know if Courtney's going to be able to
go to that, but me and Nikkihave to go to SPS, so we're
going to miss out.
But like the times that we havegone to it, like we really
enjoyed it, can you talk moreabout like what it is, how it's
(12:52):
changed over the years, becauseI heard like it just keeps
getting bigger.
Maggie (13:00):
And it's still a community conference.
Yeah, so we're going to haveour community conference, ICC,
happening September 16th throughthat's a Tuesday through
Thursday and yeah, it's a, it'sa community conference.
We're going to have lots ofsessions to learn different
angles involving ignition.
There's also some community andnetwork based events that
(13:22):
happen throughout the conference.
So there's table talks wherethere's different departments
hosting a table to host specificdiscussions.
So last year I was in supportand I was a part of the support
table talks where anyone cancome by and ask us anything that
was support-related.
I know sales engineering willhave their own tables as well.
(13:42):
And then some other sessionswe're going to have prove it
sessions.
I'm not sure if you're familiarwith prove it.
I believe there was like aconference a little bit earlier
this year we went yeah, we wentto it, you went to it.
Ali (13:57):
Yeah, we did.
All of automation ladies wentto it.
It was really good.
Maggie (14:03):
Yeah, I heard great things.
So they're bringing that to ICCwhere they're going to have
little sessions, I think, likeOpto 22 is having one of their
own to show some use cases ofignition.
And then another new sectionthis year is the CoLab, and
that's going to beconnection-based activity.
So one of the things happeningthere is the design challenges,
(14:25):
which will be just a miniversion of the Build-a-thon.
So we're still going to havethe Build-a-thon, but then
you're going to have opportunityto come in and take challenges
yourself and there will be aleader board for those.
Ali (14:41):
Can you talk about the Build-a-thon, like how that's
set up and like what is it forpeople that have never heard of
that, because it's kind of anexciting part of ICC.
Courtney (14:51):
And I hear build-a-thon and I get excited
too.
It made me think I'm going tocreate something for more than
just my salary, it should be two.
Ali (14:57):
Battling it out or trying to prove something?
Maggie (15:00):
The build-a-thon is a series of challenges that amount
to the final Buildathon at ICC,and at ICC we have the
Buildathon live, where the twointegrators showcase their
projects to the audience let'stalk about, uh, your personal
(15:27):
life.
Ali (15:28):
I read you recently were just got married.
Maggie (15:31):
I did, and you like did you meet yeah how did you meet
him?
So we met at work.
I met my husband, joe, in thesupport department.
We were just co-workers andthen friends and now we're
married and he is still in thesupport department.
(15:53):
He is the enterprise accountsupport manager and I am now in
sales engineering, so I don'twork that closely together
anymore.
But yeah, we met at work,that's awesome.
We talk a.
Yeah, we met at work, it'sawesome.
We talk a lot about Ignition athome.
We built our wedding websitewith Maker Edition, which is our
Ignition's free community homeversion.
(16:14):
That was an interesting projectand sharing it with my family,
so we just gave our family a URL.
It opened up Perspective ontheir phone so that they could
check out the dates, thelocation we hosted our pictures
there.
So if anybody wants to uploadpictures, there's a link for
that.
And then we also integratedSpotify into it so our family
(16:36):
could just use the website toadd songs for our reception
playlist without having to go toSpotify add songs for our
reception playlist withouthaving to go to Spotify.
So what do you like about doingsales versus support?
So what I like about salesengineering specifically versus
(16:58):
support is being on theproactive side of issues before
they arise.
So I spent a lot of timeremediating issues after the
fact, after things have alreadybeen lost or broken or just
non-functional.
In this role, it's reallyinteresting to be able to talk
with folks and try to preventsomething from happening in the
(17:20):
future, especially when we getto talk about system
architectures, making sure thatthey are set up for success, for
growth in the future, versus ohno, we ran out of space.
I didn't know we were going tohave to size up our server.
Ali (17:37):
The support side.
What are some things that youwish you had known, kind of like
advice for people in support?
I did support, but I did it foran OEM and one of the things
that I would explain to myselfbefore I went into it is that
the people that are asking youfor help are all kinds of levels
.
So don't assume necessarilybecause I would say something
(17:59):
like check the fan and they'relike what does a fan look like?
I'm like, oh my God, so justyou know the level of people, so
I'd have to describe them likeit's circular and it's black
plastic.
Get really into the details ofwhat they're looking for.
What are some of the challengesor things that you wish you had
known as part of giving adviceto people that do software
support?
Maggie (18:21):
I wish I would have been more open to asking the person
I was helping troubleshoot whatdo things really look like on
your side?
It's really difficult totroubleshoot something when you
don't have a remote connection.
And then it's also additionallylike extra stressful when you
don't know what the other sideof their computer looks like and
they're saying I'm plugging inmy device but I'm not able to
(18:42):
connect.
I don't know what's going on,but you don't know what else is
what might be there.
Maybe they have a router or aswitch between their device and
their computer.
You don't know that and thatmakes quite a big of a
difference to your connection.
So I would definitely say bemore open to finding out.
What do things?
Ali (19:00):
look like and even have them send pictures and be like
show me everything you got goingon over there, because then you
could see like okay, there's arouter.
Or like what is this thing?
Courtney (19:11):
uh, point that out okay, and you have to kind of
take them at their word for itwhen you can't see what's really
there, which is like the worstthing to do in support.
Ali (19:21):
Um, because if they knew what was going on they would not
be calling you.
So usually what they think iswrong is not it.
And I've struggled with that,where it's like they've already
decided what they think is wrong, and I mean they care about
making it run whatever it isright, whether it's the software
(19:41):
or whether it's a coffeeroaster, and so they've already
kind of had their biases orwhatever, and they've already
decided what they think is wrong, and so they don't want to
check other things.
And you're like can you justhumor me and just check this
anyway?
And sometimes that's what theyneeded and they're like oh, I
didn't know that mattered.
It's like, yeah, because youalready decided.
You're like who's supportingwho here?
(20:02):
Yeah, definitely.
I learned that troubleshootingjust ends up being asking the
right questions and not reallyknowing the solution you know
right off the bat and being okaywith that.
Have you ever ran into a reallylong one that just like strikes
(20:25):
your mind just because it tookyou so long to like figure it
out, but then you never have togo through that same level of
trouble again because you learnso much from this one worst
support call.
Maggie (20:35):
Yeah, there was one that I recall from my my first year
um in support, and those arealways the most memorable,
because I'm extra stressed out,not only because you got this
big problem, but also becauseI'm new and I don't know if I
know what I'm saying is correct.
There were a handful of issuesthat definitely went on for
(20:57):
months, but this particularissue was an issue where they
were losing historical databecause their storm forward
engine was full and we couldn'tfigure out why is it full?
Why is it not getting throughto the database If you don't
know what?
Our storm forward engine?
It's basically a buffer betweenignition and your database.
It can get full, it can getfull and if it's full you will
(21:21):
lose records.
And we were having a really hardtime figuring out why it was
full, why it was not pushingthrough fast enough, and we
eventually took their Stormboardengine onto an offline gateway
that was not receiving any dataand we imported it and just
waited.
I think we waited a few daysand after a few days the records
(21:42):
did eventually go through.
The problem at the end of theday was just that they were
storing way faster than whattheir throughput was to their
database.
So now I know it's usually notan issue with the engine, it's
usually just an issue with, noteven an issue.
It's just how much are youstoring?
What is the throughput to yourdatabase?
(22:05):
What is that connection to?
Courtney (22:07):
that's a good one so do you guys have some kind of
central repository for all theseissues that you've encountered?
And then like when you startseeing them come up a lot like
what is the what is the tacticfor that?
Because I've seen that handleda few different ways at
different companies, but youstart getting the same customer
(22:29):
support phone call over and overagain.
Maggie (22:32):
You know, I feel like at that point you should initiate
a set of actions like this isbecoming a problem yeah, if it's
, if it's a common issue, that'snot necessarily like a bug with
the software that can be fixedby updating the software.
We will make like a knowledgebase whether it's an internal or
public facing knowledge basefor the team so that they don't
(22:53):
have to go through the beginningsteps again and spend more time
troubleshooting than somethingthat can be easily remediated
with an answer from thatdocument thing that can be
easily remediated with an answerfrom that document.
But I know that we also willspend, you know, time
communicating those commonissues within team meetings and
we have a pretty good amount ofsearch functionality to search
(23:15):
tickets and also within internalconversations to make sure that
you know we're covering ourbases before we're going through
all that grunt work forsomething somebody else has
already figured out.
Courtney (23:26):
So somebody gets charged with recreating that
issue and effectively making awhite paper doc out of it for
everyone.
Maggie (23:33):
Yeah, Usually replication comes into play when
it's a bug and at that point wego through our process to check
with our teams to make surethat we can replicate it and fix
it and put out a fix.
Courtney (23:48):
Out of curiosity I'm wondering how much of your
day-to-day that kind of thingoccupies, like is it a lot?
Is it 10%?
Maggie (24:02):
We can vary.
It just depends on the issueand also one of the things about
support is that tickets don'tstop coming in and we don't
always have the time to dedicateto just replicating an issue,
whether it takes eight plushours.
So a lot of the times we willhave teams dedicated to those
things so that we can get those,get through those and get back
(24:24):
on the queue.
It really varies.
I can't put a percentage behindthat.
Courtney (24:29):
Fair, I felt like sometimes I spent more than half
of my time doing that, so I'malways curious to talk to others
if they feel like they're doingthe same.
Maggie (24:38):
Yeah, that's definitely a common thing that comes up in
support where something doesn'tlook right but maybe you're not
sure because you didn't developthe software, you didn't develop
the module or that componentfor that matter, and we have
channels where we get anopportunity to ask the team, and
then developers are alsowatching those channels and if
they see something in theirsubject area, they will say,
(24:59):
yeah, that's not right, that'snot how that's supposed to work,
or yes, that's intendedbehavior.
Ali (25:03):
This is why what is your favorite part of your new job?
Maggie (25:30):
it's really that prevention, but also the.
You know, the, the I guess incustomer meetings not really's
not really considered networking, but it's the meeting the
customers.
I feel like I'm meeting them asthey are, for their role, so
like if they're a projectmanager.
I'm meeting them for thatrather than I'm meeting them for
(25:50):
a problem.
Oh, that's nice.
There's not a lot ofrelationship happening there, at
least from my experience, and Ithink that's just because I was
a little bit hesitant to F,because I don't want to waste
anybody's time.
You know I'm here to fix aproblem.
Let's do that.
Move on Versus here.
I feel like there's a lot morerelationship building and I
really enjoy that.
Ali (26:12):
How long did you do support before you switched over to
sales?
Maggie (26:16):
So I was a support engineer for two years, and then
I was a manager for two years,and then I switched to sales
engineering.
Ali (26:24):
I imagine that you get calls and you know exactly what
is going on, because you've beenasked that before.
What are some of the commonthings that people call about
that are easy to solve, or is itreally scattered?
Maggie (26:41):
or is it really scattered?
I'd say it's pretty scatteredonly because a lot of the times,
the interpretation of an issuefrom a customer might be very
different from how you deal withthe issue.
They could, you know, say, oh,my perspective screen is broken,
but really all they mean is I'mjust not getting the data I'm
(27:01):
expecting to see.
And that's a very differentconversation.
Going in thinking, oh, I'mgoing to fix something that has,
like a red overlay, a badquality overlay, when really
what you're going to go in thereand do is ask them what is the
data supposed to be?
Where is the source of thatdata?
How is it going in?
And, you know, troubles youfrom a completely different
angle.
Ali (27:22):
Do they mostly let you remote in to their computers?
Maggie (27:26):
yeah, I would say most, let us do that and the ones that
don't?
Ali (27:30):
that's okay, we can work through it, but it is a little
bit more challenging how muchlonger do you think it takes if
you can't actually like remoteinto there Double?
Maggie (27:42):
So on average I would say a ticket could take 45
minutes to an hour and if youcan't remote and maybe it's an
equivalent issue it might takeand it also depends on the
communication.
Might take maybe an hour to anhour and a half.
It really depends on a theissue and be communication.
It really depends on A theissue and B communication.
Ali (28:03):
Okay, I guess we can switch over to sales.
So what are some things thatpeople consider when they're
looking at, like, are youusually selling them a module or
are you selling them onswitching over from a different
platform, or both?
Maggie (28:18):
Yeah, all of the above.
I would say most of myconversations have been.
I know I want to get Ignition,but I don't know what I need and
I don't know how to build it.
I don't know, will I need onegateway or will I need five
gateways?
Which additions do I need?
Standard or edge?
Most of my conversations arelike that, but I have had a
(28:40):
handful where it is like today Ihad one where they were like oh
, we're going from iFix toIgnition, but we need to know
why.
Awesome.
I don't know the cons or Idon't know the pros of the other
ones either, and that was thenice thing about OT's data con
(29:03):
is being able to hear what otherpeople are saying about the
other software.
Ali (29:17):
So ICC, you said it was going to be September 16th
through the 18th um where, whereis it located?
Maggie (29:26):
this year it's loaded located at the safe convention
center.
In past years it's been hostedat the harris center, so this
new location is at least insquare footage.
It's double the size and that'sespecially nice for someone
like me because I'm four foot 10.
I am not very loud in my voice.
(29:47):
So walking into the HarrisCenter and just having a wall of
people and I'm like I don'tknow what to do with myself.
I haven't even learned how tonetwork yet.
That's an incrediblyintimidating environment.
Learned how to network, yetthat's an incredibly
intimidating environment.
Walking into ICC this year, Ifeel like I'm going to be able
(30:08):
to breathe a little bit more,physically and mentally.
I would definitely say that theOT SCADA CON gave me really
good practice and networking towalk into this a little bit more
confidently.
Courtney (30:18):
You have the communication skills necessary
to do the networking.
I think people who don'tcommunicate enough or who are
super intimidated by it strugglea lot.
Ali (30:30):
Do they make everyone that works for inductive like go to
the ICC?
Is that a thing?
Or do they have like somepeople working in the office,
like while everyone's mingling,or do they have like some people
working?
Maggie (30:40):
in the office, like while everyone's mingling, yeah,
so not everyone gets theopportunity to go in support.
I only got to go for about halfthe day, for one of the days,
and this year at least, salesengineering, I believe, is going
in full to the conference, soit'll be definitely a different
experience for me this year.
Ali (31:00):
Yeah, I guess it makes sense to have sales go into that
.
So let's talk about yourexperience at OT SCADA CON.
I was very impressed with yourkaraoke skills.
Can you talk about how it went?
And I saw that, like you know,Dan White was holding the phone
for you, so I think you werestreaming to your husband, which
is awesome.
Maggie (31:18):
Yeah, I had to have my husband there for some support.
I think there was two people inthe entire room that knew the
song I was singing and that'swhat I was nervous about,
because I was like thinkingthey're not gonna get it, but
the ones who got it got it, andI had my husband there for some
support what else did you likeabout the networking?
(31:41):
the networking specifically one.
It was a challenge for me.
The first half of that firstday was really mentally
exhausting for me because I feltlike I was.
That was really like my firsttime fully networking alone and
I feel like I've gone to eventsin the past and I'm just you
(32:04):
know, I will hide behind thebooth, I will stay where I'm
comfortable, I will stay withthe people I'm familiar with.
So this really pushed me out ofmy comfort zone and it really
gave me a good time to reflecton, like what questions should I
be asking?
Because everyone that I ran intoalready knew ignition and if
they had not already been usingIgnition, they were thinking
(32:24):
about Ignition.
So those were some goodopportunities to demo and show
and just like kind of connect alittle bit more personally and
understand like what, what areyou doing?
And then I realized, okay, Ishould be asking what are they
doing?
What does it look like?
So I got a lot of goodinformation on how people are
using Ignition and then alsojust the professional
(32:45):
development.
I feel like I gained justtalking and listening.
Ali (32:51):
If I have to go somewhere by myself to network, I will
just talk myself out of itnormally.
So that's a huge reason why,like Automation Ladies is an
entire like support grouphonestly for me, because if I
don't have Nikki to go there,nikki can just do this stuff on
her own.
She could know absolutelynobody and just talk to anyone.
(33:11):
She can just talk to randompeople on the street or just
anywhere, and I can't do thatbecause I'm too far in my head
and so I mean I commend you foryou know doing OT SCADA CON you
know with nobody to, you know bewith you.
But I'm really glad that youwere able to get like something
positive out of it instead of.
(33:31):
I know that, like Nikki hasbeen to events before and
obviously, like we strive to beas far away from this as
possible, but you know she'sbeen to places where basically
nobody wants to talk to her andso she she wants to talk, like
she has you know her, you knowher talking points, but like
everyone just kind of just wantsto like shrug her off, and so
(33:53):
I'm glad that like yeah, thatthis, this first time you being
on your own, did it like kind ofkill your soul in terms of like
you know what it feels like togo out and like network on your
own, and it's nice that peoplealready knew what ignition is.
But yeah, ignition is reallyfamous in our industry.
So as soon as you say that likeno one's gonna be like, oh, you
work for ignition, like no,like the chances of that are
(34:17):
really really low because, likethe contenders or the
competitors, like they justdon't have anything, they can't
hold a candle, they can't holdanything to ignition.
And you know ignition is justyeah, it took off and it's just
been massively successful.
And so you're in a good spot interms of like not having to
defend your product and yourproduct, you know, in some ways
(34:39):
selling itself and you just kindof helping people guide or
guiding them to what they youknow, what they can be doing and
how to just feel morecomfortable using it, because it
seems like that's kind of likethe biggest part of like the
sales job is like getting themcomfortable with the terminology
that they're going to be usingand what it is all that they're
(35:00):
going to be using and what it isall that they're going to be
using.
Courtney (35:02):
Well, do you ever find like I personally found this to
be kind of fun when I workedfor UR, and you know, when you
talk about collaborative robots,like everybody's heard of them,
so like I walk in and I'm readyto like have some talking
points, I've got a whole plan inmind, and you know, obviously
(35:23):
the other person's like oh yeah,I've heard of you are, I've got
three URs, they're all doing awhole bunch of stuff, and then
you're sitting there like great,now what do I talk about for
another 45 minutes?
How do you, where do you pivotwhen you get to that point?
Maggie (35:30):
Usually, yeah, I definitely ran into that that
first day, where they're like,yeah, I'm using ignition for X,
y, z and I'm like, cool, now,what do I say?
But for me personally, what Irealized is I really should be
asking is like how, what are youdoing with it?
How are you doing with it?
Did you create your owncomponents for this thing?
Ali (35:52):
And how can they make it better?
Courtney (35:54):
Yeah, what do you hate about it?
It's an awkward question to ask, but sometimes you just got to
find that stuff, stuff out thatis a good question to ask.
Maggie (36:01):
I'll definitely have to have that in my back pocket for
the next event especially inrobotics, people are super ready
to tell you that stuff too.
Courtney (36:10):
Like if you can't figure out what to talk about.
Ali (36:12):
As soon as you say like hey , I'm here to hear what you
don't like about it, they'reready to talk yeah, is there a
um, like a, a pathway for, yeah,taking that kind of feedback,
you know, up the chain and justbeing like or I think at this
point Ignition's been out for solong that, like, anything that
people did want to improve hasalready been kind of worked on
(36:33):
and like deployed, I think.
But is there a pathway that youknow of for that?
Maggie (36:39):
So one pathway is through our ideas portal where
folks can go in there, submitideas or find ideas and upvote
or comment on it.
The other way is just to open asupport ticket.
Support might not like mesaying that, but me as a support
engineer and also I've donethis as a sales engineer I've
heard the feedback and I playwith whatever it is that they're
(37:02):
wanting to improve or wantingto do something a little bit
differently than what currentlyfunctions.
I play with it.
Does it make sense to me?
Okay, I'll make a request toour development team.
I recently did that for one ofour chart components and I just
asked is this reasonable?
(37:23):
Is this possible?
Is it reasonable?
Yes, is it possible?
Maybe, and then we go fromthere.
So I find that to be really I'mtrying to think of the word,
but I don't want to dismiss thecustomer, the customer's
experience.
I want them to have a goodexperience.
(37:43):
I don't want them to have likegripes about anything with the
software.
Courtney (37:50):
And even though the people on the other side of JIRA
or whatever you guys use, youknow, to open support tickets,
might not want to hear that, youknow, as a solution, but really
there's no other way to likeescalate issues if you haven't
done that step at first, andit's the thing that makes it
visible to everybody.
So the greater good, even ifit's a nuisance.
Ali (38:10):
It seems like Ignition or Inductive.
You know, Automation loves todo community-based events.
They sent you to OT SCADA CON,but I've seen that they just
love getting involved, Like theMaker Edition being free for
people to use and if they canfind a cause, they'll just help
them use the free version of it.
(38:31):
I really like that aboutInductive Automation cause like
they'll just help them use thefree version of it.
I really like that aboutinductive automation.
Is that something that you've,you know, noticed in terms of,
like their involvement in thecommunity as much as possible?
Maggie (38:42):
Definitely definitely something I'm noticing more now
as a sales engineer, I think insupport.
I'm just behind the tickets,I'm just troubleshooting, I'm
just worried about the problems.
I'm not really seeing what'shappening outside of the company
, and now I definitely am seeingthat a little bit more and I
think I'm also just open toseeing that a little bit more.
I've been to a couple collegeevents.
(39:05):
One was a recruiting or notrecruiting, but career fair and
then we are also invited to theuc davis college of engineering
senior capstone.
It's like a fair where all theseniors have their projects out
and they're asking us forfeedback on their projects.
(39:25):
So I think they the companydefinitely does a good job of
being involved with collegestudents, which I wish I would
have been able to be more partof in my college experience.
But I'm here now and I'm tryingto also stay involved in those
sorts of events.
Ali (39:44):
I think college students definitely want to see younger
people, just so they can seethemselves right, like people
that are like not that far intotheir career, hear what they
have to say about the jobs.
So it's definitely reallyhelpful if you can like show up
and like recruit based on justlike your experience.
Yeah, I guess, what's your,what's your overall experience?
I mean, we've talked about kindof you, um, but what is what is
(40:07):
how?
How do you feel about you knowthe entirety of inductive
automation and your co-workersand then you were a manager.
What do you think sets thatapart?
Kind of like your pitch toother people looking for a
forever home in industrialautomation.
Maggie (40:30):
Yeah, I definitely feel like I've been lucky to have
been able to work for a greatcompany right out of college.
I feel like the companydefinitely focuses on growth and
maintaining employees, but whatI mean by that is that Like
keeping them, because it's onething to hire and it's another
(40:51):
thing to like.
Ali (40:52):
Keep yourself, yes, from leaving so.
Maggie (40:56):
I definitely felt like the selection or like the
interview process was gearedtowards finding the best fit
that's, not just the person withthe best technical skills, but
the right personality, the rightenergy and the right
motivations and I definitelytried to keep that alive.
As a manager, I had theopportunity to go into
(41:18):
management through support and Idon't think I would have been
able to have that sort ofopportunity at any other
mainstream company.
I think I would have had toshow a lot more years of
experience in not only thetechnical but also in other
leadership roles, and I had noleadership experience whatsoever
(41:39):
going into this.
All I had was the empoweringwords of my managers at the time
, their encouragement, and thatwas incredibly helpful.
And I definitely feel thatenergy throughout the whole
company with all of thedepartments that I've interacted
with.
So I do feel really lucky andvery happy.
Ali (42:02):
Did you enjoy being a manager?
Maggie (42:17):
big learning curve, really, really big learning
curve.
I really like data and dataanalysis and as a team lead, I
got to do that for my manager orwith my manager, and I thought,
oh, is this all being a manager?
This is great.
That's knowledge.
I would say I wasn't, like,mature enough for that type of
role.
It's a big.
It's a big responsibility tooversee recent grads that are
(42:40):
support engineers or aspiringsupport engineers, and I had a
team upwards of 22 at one point.
That's a lot of people tooversee as well, and I could not
.
I just couldn't keep up, and so, hey, don't feel bad.
Ali (42:55):
I feel like I'm still not, you know, mature enough to be a
CEO.
When I started my company, itwas just me doing what I already
know how to do, and then, whenI started actually delegating
work to other people, likethat's the least fun I've ever
had and I would say that I feelnot cut out for it.
(43:15):
So I know exactly what you mean.
But, yeah, the human aspect,because people are not like
machines.
People have feelings and theycry, especially the feelings
part.
Machines don't have feelings.
They're just like I'm brokenand here's why.
And that's it, humans, it'sjust so much more complicated.
They're just like I'm brokenand here's why.
And that's it, humans, likeit's just so much more
complicated.
And then you have to worry aboutyour relationship with them,
(43:37):
but also their relationship witheach other, and that's even
harder to control because theyhave to work together and then
or maybe they don't like acustomer and you have to deal
with everybody's feelings abouteverybody else.
And I think that's the mostdifficult part is, you know you
can't just talk to people likethey're machines, because they
aren't, and, as simple as thatwould be, it doesn't work like
(44:01):
that and so you really do haveto have a kind of relaxed
personality type, but also justlike not take things that
seriously.
I think, in order for you to bea good manager of a group that
big or bigger than that BecauseI mean, imagine you taking
everything to heart for everylittle problem, like you can't
(44:24):
do that, your heart will blow up.
And so you know, depending onhow much we care about detail or
how much empathy we have, Ithink you could be a leader with
too much empathy, and I saythat as someone who has extreme
amounts of empathy.
My mom is the only one that's alittle bit worse than me.
She doesn't like it when I killspiders.
She has empathy for the spiderand I'm like now I feel bad, but
(44:46):
that thing was gross.
Courtney (44:49):
Managers manage resources and leaders lead.
People know people don't liketo be seen as resources, even if
on a piece of paper they are.
So what you're saying and whatI've been noticing is people
with a higher eq uh tend to do alittle bit better in leadership
roles, because a higher iq isgoing to help you understand why
the machine's broken, but ahigher eq is going to help you
(45:12):
communicate better with thehumans around you.
So the best thing you can do tobe a better leader is raise
your EQ, and I don't know liketoo much empathy is kind of I
like the idea of that because,yeah, you've got to kill the
spider once in a while.
Ali (45:24):
You could go too far into the empathy and then now you're
feeling what you know, all thesenegative things that your
people are feeling, and that's alittle bit too much, because
how are you supposed to be thecollected one to help and I do
really love servant leadership.
That's a huge one, Because ifyou can just help people do the
best job that they can doinstead of tell them all what to
(45:45):
do, but then you have to have aparticular type of working for
you that are already trying todo things on their own.
What are they like?
A self-starter or an initiator?
Those are the best people orthe easiest people.
For servant leadership to bereally effective is you just
have a group of people who arealready trying to do stuff
anyway, versus just being toldyou know, oh, you didn't do this
(46:07):
and you didn't do that and youneed to do all these things.
Maybe they're in the wrong jobif they're not fired up enough
need to do all these things.
Courtney (46:14):
Maybe they're in the wrong job if they're not fired
up enough.
Inductive has a good culture inthat respect, like everybody I
talk to seems to have that drivethat you're talking about.
Maggie (46:25):
Yes, everyone I have interacted with, or that I've
seen, you know through Slack,definitely has that mindset.
I would say as a manager, itwas a little.
It was very difficult to find aview and find that like I don't
know, I still don't know howthey, how you do it, I don't
know how to interview properly,um, ask the right questions so
(46:48):
that you really find that.
Um, I really struggled to getthrough that and you know,
sometimes we, you know I'd havesomeone on the team and they
turned out very differently fromhow they interviewed and I'm
like, oh, what do I do?
And then I struggled withbalancing the empathy and then
you know, firmness with you knowyou need to improve here.
Ali (47:11):
So know you need to improve here, so awesome.
Can you talk about uh, wherepeople can contact?
Maggie (47:21):
you.
If they have questions, youknow about you, or?
Yeah, definitely.
Um, I would say linkedin is theplace to be.
There is only one of me,margarita rosencrans with an s.
At least, from what I saw,there was only one of me.
Thanks for having me.
Ali (47:38):
Thank you so much.
Everyone should go to ICC.
Welcome to another episode of Automation Ladies.
This one's not going to haveNikki, just because Nikki still
has pneumonia, so let's send hersome good get well vibes.
But we do have Courtney.
And then today's guest isMaggie Rosenkranz, or Margarita,
which is a really cool name.
This episode is sponsored byInductive Automation, and we
just came back from OT SCADA CON.
(00:23):
It's been about a week ofgetting back to the regular
rhythm of things and it's been,I think, tough on everybody,
because we all had lots of funbut also felt like it was unreal
some of it.
I think I'm pretty sure Idissociated like twice during it
just because, like it's just alot bigger than it was last year
and we got really good feedback.
(00:44):
Maggie works for InductiveAutomation.
I love Ignition.
I think I started messing withit in 2014.
And I just remember lovingInductive University because of
just how easy it was to use andit was free for any technician
to get certified and I thoughtthat was like a really amazing
(01:04):
way to just break into themarket and they definitely did
really successfully break in.
It was a full takeover.
Honestly, I don't know if,courtney, if you have anything
you want to say about your recapof OT SCADA CON before we get
into it.
Courtney (01:18):
Yeah, I wasn't ready for it to end.
Like you said, we had a lot offun.
I didn't want to go back to thereal world afterwards Every
single time.
Really, what blows me away isthe fact that there's so much to
know and there's not like oneperson that's going to know
every single thing, like everysubject in that room, and it's
one of the only places where, asa technical person, you can
feel okay, like not knowingstuff, so loved it.
Ali (01:55):
There was lots of brain power in that room for sure.
I love the idea of having Lovedit wouldn't have come to otis
gaycon, because that would beweird.
So everyone that showed up wasjust trying to share what they
already know.
So today's episode is aboutMaggie Rosenkrants.
Can you tell us, Maggie alittle bit about your background
and how you ended up working inindustrial automation?
Maggie (02:20):
I have a background in support.
I graduated with my degree incomputer science in 2020.
And I was just trying to find ajob.
At the time.
There was a hiring freeze, so Iwas just looking for something,
although what brought me intothis industry was a gentleman at
(02:40):
a beer bar.
I was beer tending andgentleman was here.
I was talking to him about myeducation, what I was doing for
school, and he was telling meyou really got to get into SCADA
.
And I was like what he goes?
Yeah, scada, it's like trafficlights.
And I'm like what?
And he kept saying this word,scada.
And I kind of shrugged him offa little bit because I was like
(03:03):
I have no idea what he's talkingabout.
I'm just trying to get mydegree and find a job in
something I don't know.
And I had reached out to someof my peers to be like have you
heard of this word before?
Do you have any idea what thisguy might be talking about?
And everybody around me waslike we have no idea.
It looks very out of the boundsof what we're studying right
(03:23):
now, which is programming andsoftware, and so I didn't try to
pursue that any further.
At the time.
It was within my last twosemesters of school.
So in my last semester I was ina database class and my
professor, Kathy Applebaum, is adeveloper at Inductive
Automation and she let everyoneknow hey, the company I work for
(03:47):
is hiring.
We make a data software and Iwas like I've heard that word
before.
It sounds like a goodopportunity for me.
And at the time there wasactually just an open house and
I had attended the open house.
Travis Kotz gave everyone ademo of Ignition and I saw
(04:07):
buttons lighting up and he madeit sound really exciting.
So I applied and I had gotten ajob in support as a support
engineer.
So that is all my experience inindustrial automation and now I
am a sales engineer.
I've been with the company forfive years.
Ali (04:25):
It used to be rough graduating in 2020.
Because you talk about a hiringfreeze.
Honestly, nobody knew what theywere doing.
They were laying people off,not hiring new people.
And when I graduated it was2010, which was two years after,
(04:46):
basically, the housing bubblecollapsed and we had a pretty
big, I guess, recession.
So it was a similar thing where, like, people weren't sick, but
a lot of people lost theirhomes or a lot of people lost
everything that they had, and sothere was no hiring at that
time.
And if there was hiring, Ididn't have the grades for it.
But what got you into computerscience?
Maggie (05:13):
I had originally started studying biology with no reason
for why I picked biology otherthan just picking a degree.
And from there I had said Well,I don't know what I'm doing
with this degree, let me just dosomething that I do have an
interest in, which is was thedental field.
So I was pursuing dentalhygiene and I wasn't getting the
(05:37):
grades I needed to get into aprogram there.
So I had some talks with my momand she's like just pick
something that you can get somecertification in and just do
that job.
So that led me to x-raytechnician just by random, and
they had a intro to computerscience course requirement and I
took that class and it was very, very entry level.
(06:01):
I think we had used like anArduino to learn the basics of
programming and I was like thisis interesting, it requires a
little bit of math, at least atthe time, a little bit of math
and some logic in my head.
So I said, well, let me get adegree in something that I could
apply to probably variousindustries.
(06:24):
So again, picking a degree thatI didn't have very much
direction in, but I just wanteda degree and I just stuck to it.
My mom pushed me.
She was just like just justfinish your degree, just do
something, and it was aninteresting time studying
computer science.
Ali (06:42):
A lot of people talk about knowing exactly what major they
want to be, and like I'm in yourboat, I was like I have no idea
, and when I picked chemicalengineering, I had no idea what
that really was or what jobsreally looked like at all.
My dad was a real estatedeveloper and before that he
sold timeshare.
So he's a sales guy, and my mompassed her real estate broker
(07:04):
exam in the state of Colorado,but otherwise she was either a
real estate agent or astay-at-home mom, so neither of
them could help me with calculus, and so I would take these
high-level math courses, but Ididn't know what I wanted to do.
I think what I thought aboutwas I didn't want to get a PhD,
I didn't want to get multipledegrees, I wanted something that
I could make money with withinfour years of school, and so
(07:26):
that's why I think I pickedengineering, and then chemical
engineering organic chemistrykilled chemistry for me.
I was like I don't like thisanymore.
I thought I liked chemistryJust kidding, I don't like this.
But I stuck with the major andI was like well, let's see what
happens.
I wish people didn't ask18-year-olds what are you going
to do with your life?
Because we don't know, theydon't know you would have
(07:49):
aspirations, I guess becausesome people are like I knew I
was going to be an engineersince I was five years old.
Well, most people don't havethat inclination.
I don't think, especiallybecause you don't teach kids
every single job type, you justlet them play right.
That's what you should do.
Courtney (08:02):
Now, computer science, I think, is an interesting one
because you had to have had somekind of I don't want to say
natural aptitude towards it butsome kind of enjoyment out of it
.
I think, because as a I meanjust as an engineer I tried to
double major and throw computerscience in there and I failed my
computer science classesbecause they were really hard,
(08:27):
like it's not just math and it'snot just logic, like algorithms
and stuff, it's just reallyit's difficult to grasp and if
you don't have kind of a naturallike tendency to understand
that stuff or enjoy that stuff,it can be really off-putting.
So I'm always impressed bypeople who do computer science
because that's, you know, asdetermined as I was, I could not
do it.
I had to drop it.
Maggie (08:41):
Yeah, I would definitely say the logic is what attracted
me to it, before I had evenpursued computer science.
I recall taking a philosophyclass at the first college I
went to, and it was like this,really basic logic, and that
came really easy to me.
I was like, oh, this isintriguing.
(09:01):
But I didn't connect that tocomputer science until I started
taking that first intro course.
What I struggled with, though,was the math.
I didn't realize how much mathwould be involved in computer
science, and I was that kid whowas in seventh grade taking
remedial math classes.
I had retaken so many mathclasses I should have a math
(09:25):
degree, so that was a bit of astruggle and not all math is the
same.
Courtney (09:30):
So you know I get that I had to redo several math
classes too.
Like discrete math and likearithmetic are not the same math
.
Which one did you find hardest?
Out of curiosity, like becauseall the different kinds of math
pretty much are there incomputer science.
Maggie (09:46):
Definitely statistics.
I really had a hard timereading a problem and
understanding.
What are you really asking mehere?
Ali (09:58):
I did not like statistics either.
Courtney (10:01):
Same.
Well, because it was always aquestion.
Like you know, I don't knowlots of things like population
of foxes versus rabbits andstuff that I just you know.
I'm like I don't care aboutthis, I want to hear about
electricity, yeah iIoT platforms.
Ali (10:27):
You know these companies, from what I've seen, do hire a
lot of people that graduate withcomputer science degrees.
Have you seen the same thing?
Do you know if there's a lotmore people like at Adductive
that also have like computerscience degrees?
Because I think I'm seeing atrend.
I'm not sure.
Maggie (10:39):
Yes, at least during my time in support, the majority of
the team were computer sciencegraduates, not electrical or
mechanical engineering students,and I think that's just because
we're a software company.
And how do you get to softwareengineering or development?
You start at the bottom.
I say bottom in air quotesactually because I think support
(11:06):
is underrated.
Ali (11:07):
What was the name of that professor that worked for
Inductive Kathy Applebaum.
Okay, because, yeah, she saidthat.
You know she worked for a SCADAcompany.
I think that's the easiest wayto say it, because I always
thought that's exactly whatInductive Automation sells.
But I guess the moreover-encompassing word for it is
IIoT platform, because it cando a lot more than just SCADA,
(11:30):
even though SCADA is complicatedenough as it is, but people
don't know what to call it, andso I thought that's what
Ignition was.
It's just a SCADA and it's likeno, it can do MES and it can
tie ERP to MES, so you can doanything with ignition.
Can you talk about what thedifference between ignition is
and like perspective for peoplethat don't know?
Maggie (11:54):
yeah, uh well, Ignition is the platform and Perspective
is just one of the visualizationoptions in Ignition
perspectives.
Um, it's a module that lets youdevelop an app, that's a
web-based application, to doyour real-time or historical or
controls.
Ali (12:15):
How many modules are there?
There seems to be like it grows.
Maggie (12:20):
There's a handful, a couple handfuls I don't recall
the count off the top of my head.
But for visualization there'sPerspective and Vision, and then
there's also reporting.
Ali (12:31):
And I don't know if Courtney's going to be able to
go to that, but me and Nikkihave to go to SPS, so we're
going to miss out.
But like the times that we havegone to it, like we really
enjoyed it, can you talk moreabout like what it is, how it's
(12:52):
changed over the years, becauseI heard like it just keeps
getting bigger.
Maggie (13:00):
And it's still a community conference.
Yeah, so we're going to haveour community conference, ICC,
happening September 16th throughthat's a Tuesday through
Thursday and yeah, it's a, it'sa community conference.
We're going to have lots ofsessions to learn different
angles involving ignition.
There's also some community andnetwork based events that
(13:22):
happen throughout the conference.
So there's table talks wherethere's different departments
hosting a table to host specificdiscussions.
So last year I was in supportand I was a part of the support
table talks where anyone cancome by and ask us anything that
was support-related.
I know sales engineering willhave their own tables as well.
(13:42):
And then some other sessionswe're going to have prove it
sessions.
I'm not sure if you're familiarwith prove it.
I believe there was like aconference a little bit earlier
this year we went yeah, we wentto it, you went to it.
Ali (13:57):
Yeah, we did.
All of automation ladies wentto it.
It was really good.
Maggie (14:03):
Yeah, I heard great things.
So they're bringing that to ICCwhere they're going to have
little sessions, I think, likeOpto 22 is having one of their
own to show some use cases ofignition.
And then another new sectionthis year is the CoLab, and
that's going to beconnection-based activity.
So one of the things happeningthere is the design challenges,
(14:25):
which will be just a miniversion of the Build-a-thon.
So we're still going to havethe Build-a-thon, but then
you're going to have opportunityto come in and take challenges
yourself and there will be aleader board for those.
Ali (14:41):
Can you talk about the Build-a-thon, like how that's
set up and like what is it forpeople that have never heard of
that, because it's kind of anexciting part of ICC.
Courtney (14:51):
And I hear build-a-thon and I get excited
too.
It made me think I'm going tocreate something for more than
just my salary, it should be two.
Ali (14:57):
Battling it out or trying to prove something?
Maggie (15:00):
The build-a-thon is a series of challenges that amount
to the final Buildathon at ICC,and at ICC we have the
Buildathon live, where the twointegrators showcase their
projects to the audience let'stalk about, uh, your personal
(15:27):
life.
Ali (15:28):
I read you recently were just got married.
Maggie (15:31):
I did, and you like did you meet yeah how did you meet
him?
So we met at work.
I met my husband, joe, in thesupport department.
We were just co-workers andthen friends and now we're
married and he is still in thesupport department.
(15:53):
He is the enterprise accountsupport manager and I am now in
sales engineering, so I don'twork that closely together
anymore.
But yeah, we met at work,that's awesome.
We talk a.
Yeah, we met at work, it'sawesome.
We talk a lot about Ignition athome.
We built our wedding websitewith Maker Edition, which is our
Ignition's free community homeversion.
(16:14):
That was an interesting projectand sharing it with my family,
so we just gave our family a URL.
It opened up Perspective ontheir phone so that they could
check out the dates, thelocation we hosted our pictures
there.
So if anybody wants to uploadpictures, there's a link for
that.
And then we also integratedSpotify into it so our family
(16:36):
could just use the website toadd songs for our reception
playlist without having to go toSpotify add songs for our
reception playlist withouthaving to go to Spotify.
So what do you like about doingsales versus support?
So what I like about salesengineering specifically versus
(16:58):
support is being on theproactive side of issues before
they arise.
So I spent a lot of timeremediating issues after the
fact, after things have alreadybeen lost or broken or just
non-functional.
In this role, it's reallyinteresting to be able to talk
with folks and try to preventsomething from happening in the
(17:20):
future, especially when we getto talk about system
architectures, making sure thatthey are set up for success, for
growth in the future, versus ohno, we ran out of space.
I didn't know we were going tohave to size up our server.
Ali (17:37):
The support side.
What are some things that youwish you had known, kind of like
advice for people in support?
I did support, but I did it foran OEM and one of the things
that I would explain to myselfbefore I went into it is that
the people that are asking youfor help are all kinds of levels
.
So don't assume necessarilybecause I would say something
(17:59):
like check the fan and they'relike what does a fan look like?
I'm like, oh my God, so justyou know the level of people, so
I'd have to describe them likeit's circular and it's black
plastic.
Get really into the details ofwhat they're looking for.
What are some of the challengesor things that you wish you had
known as part of giving adviceto people that do software
support?
Maggie (18:21):
I wish I would have been more open to asking the person
I was helping troubleshoot whatdo things really look like on
your side?
It's really difficult totroubleshoot something when you
don't have a remote connection.
And then it's also additionallylike extra stressful when you
don't know what the other sideof their computer looks like and
they're saying I'm plugging inmy device but I'm not able to
(18:42):
connect.
I don't know what's going on,but you don't know what else is
what might be there.
Maybe they have a router or aswitch between their device and
their computer.
You don't know that and thatmakes quite a big of a
difference to your connection.
So I would definitely say bemore open to finding out.
What do things?
Ali (19:00):
look like and even have them send pictures and be like
show me everything you got goingon over there, because then you
could see like okay, there's arouter.
Or like what is this thing?
Courtney (19:11):
uh, point that out okay, and you have to kind of
take them at their word for itwhen you can't see what's really
there, which is like the worstthing to do in support.
Ali (19:21):
Um, because if they knew what was going on they would not
be calling you.
So usually what they think iswrong is not it.
And I've struggled with that,where it's like they've already
decided what they think is wrong, and I mean they care about
making it run whatever it isright, whether it's the software
(19:41):
or whether it's a coffeeroaster, and so they've already
kind of had their biases orwhatever, and they've already
decided what they think is wrong, and so they don't want to
check other things.
And you're like can you justhumor me and just check this
anyway?
And sometimes that's what theyneeded and they're like oh, I
didn't know that mattered.
It's like, yeah, because youalready decided.
You're like who's supportingwho here?
(20:02):
Yeah, definitely.
I learned that troubleshootingjust ends up being asking the
right questions and not reallyknowing the solution you know
right off the bat and being okaywith that.
Have you ever ran into a reallylong one that just like strikes
(20:25):
your mind just because it tookyou so long to like figure it
out, but then you never have togo through that same level of
trouble again because you learnso much from this one worst
support call.
Maggie (20:35):
Yeah, there was one that I recall from my my first year
um in support, and those arealways the most memorable,
because I'm extra stressed out,not only because you got this
big problem, but also becauseI'm new and I don't know if I
know what I'm saying is correct.
There were a handful of issuesthat definitely went on for
(20:57):
months, but this particularissue was an issue where they
were losing historical databecause their storm forward
engine was full and we couldn'tfigure out why is it full?
Why is it not getting throughto the database If you don't
know what?
Our storm forward engine?
It's basically a buffer betweenignition and your database.
It can get full, it can getfull and if it's full you will
(21:21):
lose records.
And we were having a really hardtime figuring out why it was
full, why it was not pushingthrough fast enough, and we
eventually took their Stormboardengine onto an offline gateway
that was not receiving any dataand we imported it and just
waited.
I think we waited a few daysand after a few days the records
(21:42):
did eventually go through.
The problem at the end of theday was just that they were
storing way faster than whattheir throughput was to their
database.
So now I know it's usually notan issue with the engine, it's
usually just an issue with, noteven an issue.
It's just how much are youstoring?
What is the throughput to yourdatabase?
(22:05):
What is that connection to?
Courtney (22:07):
that's a good one so do you guys have some kind of
central repository for all theseissues that you've encountered?
And then like when you startseeing them come up a lot like
what is the what is the tacticfor that?
Because I've seen that handleda few different ways at
different companies, but youstart getting the same customer
(22:29):
support phone call over and overagain.
Maggie (22:32):
You know, I feel like at that point you should initiate
a set of actions like this isbecoming a problem yeah, if it's
, if it's a common issue, that'snot necessarily like a bug with
the software that can be fixedby updating the software.
We will make like a knowledgebase whether it's an internal or
public facing knowledge basefor the team so that they don't
(22:53):
have to go through the beginningsteps again and spend more time
troubleshooting than somethingthat can be easily remediated
with an answer from thatdocument thing that can be
easily remediated with an answerfrom that document.
But I know that we also willspend, you know, time
communicating those commonissues within team meetings and
we have a pretty good amount ofsearch functionality to search
(23:15):
tickets and also within internalconversations to make sure that
you know we're covering ourbases before we're going through
all that grunt work forsomething somebody else has
already figured out.
Courtney (23:26):
So somebody gets charged with recreating that
issue and effectively making awhite paper doc out of it for
everyone.
Maggie (23:33):
Yeah, Usually replication comes into play when
it's a bug and at that point wego through our process to check
with our teams to make surethat we can replicate it and fix
it and put out a fix.
Courtney (23:48):
Out of curiosity I'm wondering how much of your
day-to-day that kind of thingoccupies, like is it a lot?
Is it 10%?
Maggie (24:02):
We can vary.
It just depends on the issueand also one of the things about
support is that tickets don'tstop coming in and we don't
always have the time to dedicateto just replicating an issue,
whether it takes eight plushours.
So a lot of the times we willhave teams dedicated to those
things so that we can get those,get through those and get back
(24:24):
on the queue.
It really varies.
I can't put a percentage behindthat.
Courtney (24:29):
Fair, I felt like sometimes I spent more than half
of my time doing that, so I'malways curious to talk to others
if they feel like they're doingthe same.
Maggie (24:38):
Yeah, that's definitely a common thing that comes up in
support where something doesn'tlook right but maybe you're not
sure because you didn't developthe software, you didn't develop
the module or that componentfor that matter, and we have
channels where we get anopportunity to ask the team, and
then developers are alsowatching those channels and if
they see something in theirsubject area, they will say,
(24:59):
yeah, that's not right, that'snot how that's supposed to work,
or yes, that's intendedbehavior.
Ali (25:03):
This is why what is your favorite part of your new job?
Maggie (25:30):
it's really that prevention, but also the.
You know, the, the I guess incustomer meetings not really's
not really considered networking, but it's the meeting the
customers.
I feel like I'm meeting them asthey are, for their role, so
like if they're a projectmanager.
I'm meeting them for thatrather than I'm meeting them for
(25:50):
a problem.
Oh, that's nice.
There's not a lot ofrelationship happening there, at
least from my experience, and Ithink that's just because I was
a little bit hesitant to F,because I don't want to waste
anybody's time.
You know I'm here to fix aproblem.
Let's do that.
Move on Versus here.
I feel like there's a lot morerelationship building and I
really enjoy that.
Ali (26:12):
How long did you do support before you switched over to
sales?
Maggie (26:16):
So I was a support engineer for two years, and then
I was a manager for two years,and then I switched to sales
engineering.
Ali (26:24):
I imagine that you get calls and you know exactly what
is going on, because you've beenasked that before.
What are some of the commonthings that people call about
that are easy to solve, or is itreally scattered?
Maggie (26:41):
or is it really scattered?
I'd say it's pretty scatteredonly because a lot of the times,
the interpretation of an issuefrom a customer might be very
different from how you deal withthe issue.
They could, you know, say, oh,my perspective screen is broken,
but really all they mean is I'mjust not getting the data I'm
(27:01):
expecting to see.
And that's a very differentconversation.
Going in thinking, oh, I'mgoing to fix something that has,
like a red overlay, a badquality overlay, when really
what you're going to go in thereand do is ask them what is the
data supposed to be?
Where is the source of thatdata?
How is it going in?
And, you know, troubles youfrom a completely different
angle.
Ali (27:22):
Do they mostly let you remote in to their computers?
Maggie (27:26):
yeah, I would say most, let us do that and the ones that
don't?
Ali (27:30):
that's okay, we can work through it, but it is a little
bit more challenging how muchlonger do you think it takes if
you can't actually like remoteinto there Double?
Maggie (27:42):
So on average I would say a ticket could take 45
minutes to an hour and if youcan't remote and maybe it's an
equivalent issue it might takeand it also depends on the
communication.
Might take maybe an hour to anhour and a half.
It really depends on a theissue and be communication.
It really depends on A theissue and B communication.
Ali (28:03):
Okay, I guess we can switch over to sales.
So what are some things thatpeople consider when they're
looking at, like, are youusually selling them a module or
are you selling them onswitching over from a different
platform, or both?
Maggie (28:18):
Yeah, all of the above.
I would say most of myconversations have been.
I know I want to get Ignition,but I don't know what I need and
I don't know how to build it.
I don't know, will I need onegateway or will I need five
gateways?
Which additions do I need?
Standard or edge?
Most of my conversations arelike that, but I have had a
(28:40):
handful where it is like today Ihad one where they were like oh
, we're going from iFix toIgnition, but we need to know
why.
Awesome.
I don't know the cons or Idon't know the pros of the other
ones either, and that was thenice thing about OT's data con
(29:03):
is being able to hear what otherpeople are saying about the
other software.
Ali (29:17):
So ICC, you said it was going to be September 16th
through the 18th um where, whereis it located?
Maggie (29:26):
this year it's loaded located at the safe convention
center.
In past years it's been hostedat the harris center, so this
new location is at least insquare footage.
It's double the size and that'sespecially nice for someone
like me because I'm four foot 10.
I am not very loud in my voice.
(29:47):
So walking into the HarrisCenter and just having a wall of
people and I'm like I don'tknow what to do with myself.
I haven't even learned how tonetwork yet.
That's an incrediblyintimidating environment.
Learned how to network, yetthat's an incredibly
intimidating environment.
Walking into ICC this year, Ifeel like I'm going to be able
(30:08):
to breathe a little bit more,physically and mentally.
I would definitely say that theOT SCADA CON gave me really
good practice and networking towalk into this a little bit more
confidently.
Courtney (30:18):
You have the communication skills necessary
to do the networking.
I think people who don'tcommunicate enough or who are
super intimidated by it strugglea lot.
Ali (30:30):
Do they make everyone that works for inductive like go to
the ICC?
Is that a thing?
Or do they have like somepeople working in the office,
like while everyone's mingling,or do they have like some people
working?
Maggie (30:40):
in the office, like while everyone's mingling, yeah,
so not everyone gets theopportunity to go in support.
I only got to go for about halfthe day, for one of the days,
and this year at least, salesengineering, I believe, is going
in full to the conference, soit'll be definitely a different
experience for me this year.
Ali (31:00):
Yeah, I guess it makes sense to have sales go into that
.
So let's talk about yourexperience at OT SCADA CON.
I was very impressed with yourkaraoke skills.
Can you talk about how it went?
And I saw that, like you know,Dan White was holding the phone
for you, so I think you werestreaming to your husband, which
is awesome.
Maggie (31:18):
Yeah, I had to have my husband there for some support.
I think there was two people inthe entire room that knew the
song I was singing and that'swhat I was nervous about,
because I was like thinkingthey're not gonna get it, but
the ones who got it got it, andI had my husband there for some
support what else did you likeabout the networking?
(31:41):
the networking specifically one.
It was a challenge for me.
The first half of that firstday was really mentally
exhausting for me because I feltlike I was.
That was really like my firsttime fully networking alone and
I feel like I've gone to eventsin the past and I'm just you
(32:04):
know, I will hide behind thebooth, I will stay where I'm
comfortable, I will stay withthe people I'm familiar with.
So this really pushed me out ofmy comfort zone and it really
gave me a good time to reflecton, like what questions should I
be asking?
Because everyone that I ran intoalready knew ignition and if
they had not already been usingIgnition, they were thinking
(32:24):
about Ignition.
So those were some goodopportunities to demo and show
and just like kind of connect alittle bit more personally and
understand like what, what areyou doing?
And then I realized, okay, Ishould be asking what are they
doing?
What does it look like?
So I got a lot of goodinformation on how people are
using Ignition and then alsojust the professional
(32:45):
development.
I feel like I gained justtalking and listening.
Ali (32:51):
If I have to go somewhere by myself to network, I will
just talk myself out of itnormally.
So that's a huge reason why,like Automation Ladies is an
entire like support grouphonestly for me, because if I
don't have Nikki to go there,nikki can just do this stuff on
her own.
She could know absolutelynobody and just talk to anyone.
(33:11):
She can just talk to randompeople on the street or just
anywhere, and I can't do thatbecause I'm too far in my head
and so I mean I commend you foryou know doing OT SCADA CON you
know with nobody to, you know bewith you.
But I'm really glad that youwere able to get like something
positive out of it instead of.
(33:31):
I know that, like Nikki hasbeen to events before and
obviously, like we strive to beas far away from this as
possible, but you know she'sbeen to places where basically
nobody wants to talk to her andso she she wants to talk, like
she has you know her, you knowher talking points, but like
everyone just kind of just wantsto like shrug her off, and so
(33:53):
I'm glad that like yeah, thatthis, this first time you being
on your own, did it like kind ofkill your soul in terms of like
you know what it feels like togo out and like network on your
own, and it's nice that peoplealready knew what ignition is.
But yeah, ignition is reallyfamous in our industry.
So as soon as you say that likeno one's gonna be like, oh, you
work for ignition, like no,like the chances of that are
(34:17):
really really low because, likethe contenders or the
competitors, like they justdon't have anything, they can't
hold a candle, they can't holdanything to ignition.
And you know ignition is justyeah, it took off and it's just
been massively successful.
And so you're in a good spot interms of like not having to
defend your product and yourproduct, you know, in some ways
(34:39):
selling itself and you just kindof helping people guide or
guiding them to what they youknow, what they can be doing and
how to just feel morecomfortable using it, because it
seems like that's kind of likethe biggest part of like the
sales job is like getting themcomfortable with the terminology
that they're going to be usingand what it is all that they're
(35:00):
going to be using and what it isall that they're going to be
using.
Courtney (35:02):
Well, do you ever find like I personally found this to
be kind of fun when I workedfor UR, and you know, when you
talk about collaborative robots,like everybody's heard of them,
so like I walk in and I'm readyto like have some talking
points, I've got a whole plan inmind, and you know, obviously
(35:23):
the other person's like oh yeah,I've heard of you are, I've got
three URs, they're all doing awhole bunch of stuff, and then
you're sitting there like great,now what do I talk about for
another 45 minutes?
How do you, where do you pivotwhen you get to that point?
Maggie (35:30):
Usually, yeah, I definitely ran into that that
first day, where they're like,yeah, I'm using ignition for X,
y, z and I'm like, cool, now,what do I say?
But for me personally, what Irealized is I really should be
asking is like how, what are youdoing with it?
How are you doing with it?
Did you create your owncomponents for this thing?
Ali (35:52):
And how can they make it better?
Courtney (35:54):
Yeah, what do you hate about it?
It's an awkward question to ask, but sometimes you just got to
find that stuff, stuff out thatis a good question to ask.
Maggie (36:01):
I'll definitely have to have that in my back pocket for
the next event especially inrobotics, people are super ready
to tell you that stuff too.
Courtney (36:10):
Like if you can't figure out what to talk about.
Ali (36:12):
As soon as you say like hey , I'm here to hear what you
don't like about it, they'reready to talk yeah, is there a
um, like a, a pathway for, yeah,taking that kind of feedback,
you know, up the chain and justbeing like or I think at this
point Ignition's been out for solong that, like, anything that
people did want to improve hasalready been kind of worked on
(36:33):
and like deployed, I think.
But is there a pathway that youknow of for that?
Maggie (36:39):
So one pathway is through our ideas portal where
folks can go in there, submitideas or find ideas and upvote
or comment on it.
The other way is just to open asupport ticket.
Support might not like mesaying that, but me as a support
engineer and also I've donethis as a sales engineer I've
heard the feedback and I playwith whatever it is that they're
(37:02):
wanting to improve or wantingto do something a little bit
differently than what currentlyfunctions.
I play with it.
Does it make sense to me?
Okay, I'll make a request toour development team.
I recently did that for one ofour chart components and I just
asked is this reasonable?
(37:23):
Is this possible?
Is it reasonable?
Yes, is it possible?
Maybe, and then we go fromthere.
So I find that to be really I'mtrying to think of the word,
but I don't want to dismiss thecustomer, the customer's
experience.
I want them to have a goodexperience.
(37:43):
I don't want them to have likegripes about anything with the
software.
Courtney (37:50):
And even though the people on the other side of JIRA
or whatever you guys use, youknow, to open support tickets,
might not want to hear that, youknow, as a solution, but really
there's no other way to likeescalate issues if you haven't
done that step at first, andit's the thing that makes it
visible to everybody.
So the greater good, even ifit's a nuisance.
Ali (38:10):
It seems like Ignition or Inductive.
You know, Automation loves todo community-based events.
They sent you to OT SCADA CON,but I've seen that they just
love getting involved, Like theMaker Edition being free for
people to use and if they canfind a cause, they'll just help
them use the free version of it.
(38:31):
I really like that aboutInductive Automation cause like
they'll just help them use thefree version of it.
I really like that aboutinductive automation.
Is that something that you've,you know, noticed in terms of,
like their involvement in thecommunity as much as possible?
Maggie (38:42):
Definitely definitely something I'm noticing more now
as a sales engineer, I think insupport.
I'm just behind the tickets,I'm just troubleshooting, I'm
just worried about the problems.
I'm not really seeing what'shappening outside of the company
, and now I definitely am seeingthat a little bit more and I
think I'm also just open toseeing that a little bit more.
I've been to a couple collegeevents.
(39:05):
One was a recruiting or notrecruiting, but career fair and
then we are also invited to theuc davis college of engineering
senior capstone.
It's like a fair where all theseniors have their projects out
and they're asking us forfeedback on their projects.
(39:25):
So I think they the companydefinitely does a good job of
being involved with collegestudents, which I wish I would
have been able to be more partof in my college experience.
But I'm here now and I'm tryingto also stay involved in those
sorts of events.
Ali (39:44):
I think college students definitely want to see younger
people, just so they can seethemselves right, like people
that are like not that far intotheir career, hear what they
have to say about the jobs.
So it's definitely reallyhelpful if you can like show up
and like recruit based on justlike your experience.
Yeah, I guess, what's your,what's your overall experience?
I mean, we've talked about kindof you, um, but what is what is
(40:07):
how?
How do you feel about you knowthe entirety of inductive
automation and your co-workersand then you were a manager.
What do you think sets thatapart?
Kind of like your pitch toother people looking for a
forever home in industrialautomation.
Maggie (40:30):
Yeah, I definitely feel like I've been lucky to have
been able to work for a greatcompany right out of college.
I feel like the companydefinitely focuses on growth and
maintaining employees, but whatI mean by that is that Like
keeping them, because it's onething to hire and it's another
(40:51):
thing to like.
Ali (40:52):
Keep yourself, yes, from leaving so.
Maggie (40:56):
I definitely felt like the selection or like the
interview process was gearedtowards finding the best fit
that's, not just the person withthe best technical skills, but
the right personality, the rightenergy and the right
motivations and I definitelytried to keep that alive.
As a manager, I had theopportunity to go into
(41:18):
management through support and Idon't think I would have been
able to have that sort ofopportunity at any other
mainstream company.
I think I would have had toshow a lot more years of
experience in not only thetechnical but also in other
leadership roles, and I had noleadership experience whatsoever
(41:39):
going into this.
All I had was the empoweringwords of my managers at the time
, their encouragement, and thatwas incredibly helpful.
And I definitely feel thatenergy throughout the whole
company with all of thedepartments that I've interacted
with.
So I do feel really lucky andvery happy.
Ali (42:02):
Did you enjoy being a manager?
Maggie (42:17):
big learning curve, really, really big learning
curve.
I really like data and dataanalysis and as a team lead, I
got to do that for my manager orwith my manager, and I thought,
oh, is this all being a manager?
This is great.
That's knowledge.
I would say I wasn't, like,mature enough for that type of
role.
It's a big.
It's a big responsibility tooversee recent grads that are
(42:40):
support engineers or aspiringsupport engineers, and I had a
team upwards of 22 at one point.
That's a lot of people tooversee as well, and I could not
.
I just couldn't keep up, and so, hey, don't feel bad.
Ali (42:55):
I feel like I'm still not, you know, mature enough to be a
CEO.
When I started my company, itwas just me doing what I already
know how to do, and then, whenI started actually delegating
work to other people, likethat's the least fun I've ever
had and I would say that I feelnot cut out for it.
(43:15):
So I know exactly what you mean.
But, yeah, the human aspect,because people are not like
machines.
People have feelings and theycry, especially the feelings
part.
Machines don't have feelings.
They're just like I'm brokenand here's why.
And that's it, humans, it'sjust so much more complicated.
They're just like I'm brokenand here's why.
And that's it, humans, likeit's just so much more
complicated.
And then you have to worry aboutyour relationship with them,
(43:37):
but also their relationship witheach other, and that's even
harder to control because theyhave to work together and then
or maybe they don't like acustomer and you have to deal
with everybody's feelings abouteverybody else.
And I think that's the mostdifficult part is, you know you
can't just talk to people likethey're machines, because they
aren't, and, as simple as thatwould be, it doesn't work like
(44:01):
that and so you really do haveto have a kind of relaxed
personality type, but also justlike not take things that
seriously.
I think, in order for you to bea good manager of a group that
big or bigger than that BecauseI mean, imagine you taking
everything to heart for everylittle problem, like you can't
(44:24):
do that, your heart will blow up.
And so you know, depending onhow much we care about detail or
how much empathy we have, Ithink you could be a leader with
too much empathy, and I saythat as someone who has extreme
amounts of empathy.
My mom is the only one that's alittle bit worse than me.
She doesn't like it when I killspiders.
She has empathy for the spiderand I'm like now I feel bad, but
(44:46):
that thing was gross.
Courtney (44:49):
Managers manage resources and leaders lead.
People know people don't liketo be seen as resources, even if
on a piece of paper they are.
So what you're saying and whatI've been noticing is people
with a higher eq uh tend to do alittle bit better in leadership
roles, because a higher iq isgoing to help you understand why
the machine's broken, but ahigher eq is going to help you
(45:12):
communicate better with thehumans around you.
So the best thing you can do tobe a better leader is raise
your EQ, and I don't know liketoo much empathy is kind of I
like the idea of that because,yeah, you've got to kill the
spider once in a while.
Ali (45:24):
You could go too far into the empathy and then now you're
feeling what you know, all thesenegative things that your
people are feeling, and that's alittle bit too much, because
how are you supposed to be thecollected one to help and I do
really love servant leadership.
That's a huge one, Because ifyou can just help people do the
best job that they can doinstead of tell them all what to
(45:45):
do, but then you have to have aparticular type of working for
you that are already trying todo things on their own.
What are they like?
A self-starter or an initiator?
Those are the best people orthe easiest people.
For servant leadership to bereally effective is you just
have a group of people who arealready trying to do stuff
anyway, versus just being toldyou know, oh, you didn't do this
(46:07):
and you didn't do that and youneed to do all these things.
Maybe they're in the wrong jobif they're not fired up enough
need to do all these things.
Courtney (46:14):
Maybe they're in the wrong job if they're not fired
up enough.
Inductive has a good culture inthat respect, like everybody I
talk to seems to have that drivethat you're talking about.
Maggie (46:25):
Yes, everyone I have interacted with, or that I've
seen, you know through Slack,definitely has that mindset.
I would say as a manager, itwas a little.
It was very difficult to find aview and find that like I don't
know, I still don't know howthey, how you do it, I don't
know how to interview properly,um, ask the right questions so
(46:48):
that you really find that.
Um, I really struggled to getthrough that and you know,
sometimes we, you know I'd havesomeone on the team and they
turned out very differently fromhow they interviewed and I'm
like, oh, what do I do?
And then I struggled withbalancing the empathy and then
you know, firmness with you knowyou need to improve here.
Ali (47:11):
So know you need to improve here, so awesome.
Can you talk about uh, wherepeople can contact?
Maggie (47:21):
you.
If they have questions, youknow about you, or?
Yeah, definitely.
Um, I would say linkedin is theplace to be.
There is only one of me,margarita rosencrans with an s.
At least, from what I saw,there was only one of me.
Thanks for having me.
Ali (47:38):
Thank you so much.
Everyone should go to ICC.
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