(upbeat music) >> Announcer: Live from Orlando, Florida it's theCUBE. Covering Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Brought to you by SiliconANGLE Media. (upbeat music) >> Woman: (clears throat) Here today. >> Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of the Grace Hopper Conference here in Orlando, Florida. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight. We are joined by Josie Gillan and Laurel McLay. They have just launched a new collaboration, Twinovate. Tell our viewers about Twinovate. You are identical twins, I first of all should say his. >> Yes, we are. So Twinovate one in, what it is is Laurel and I are actually mirror twins and I'm left brain, I'm right-handed. Laurel's right brain and she's left-handed. So what I am is, I'm in my previous background is engineering leadership. I've worked at companies like Salesforce, Atlassian, Cloudera. But Laurel and I saw an opportunity with our diverse viewpoints to start a collaboration together. So I'm the left brain twin. I'm logical, I'm problem-solving, and I love nothing more than to get that code compiled. >> And I'm the right brain twin, so I'm creative, language, any of that messy human emotional stuff. I'm a career coach back in New Zealand. And so I love nothing more that helping people with their identity, their uniqueness, and looking at some of the behavioral challenges which might be holding them back. So we looked at the two of us together and we thought, wow, we've got some great stuff and what are we truly passionate about? We're truly passionate about women, particularly in STEM, being able to contribute themselves fully in a way that works for them. To not only their own legacy, but the legacy of who they're collaborating with. >> Now you are here at Grace Hopper, you're running a workshop, and before the cameras were rolling, you were talking about an apology epidemic. Explain what you mean by that. >> Well, if you think about an epidemic, it's something that spreads, and often it spreads without people even realizing it, before it's too late. And so what we realized was that women, and particularly when you're using language like just, I'm sorry, it's only me. If someone gives us a compliment we say, oh, I bought this, this old thing, I got it on sale. And what we realized was the message of that was saying was I don't count, I'm invisible, please put yourself before me. And the challenge about this epidemic is a lot of people don't realize they're saying it. >> Yeah, and some great examples. This is really resonating with people. So I'm actually on a moms in tech Facebook group, and I asked for some stories. And one woman talked about softball practice. And she practices at the same field where men practice. And what she noticed is every time the women dropped a ball or missed a pitch they would say sorry, sorry, and she turned around and looked at the males and the males never, never did that. So why are we apologizing? >> And we have created this cool little sheet we call Apology Bingo that's available on our Facebook page, and it helps people to look at the many times that they might say these words. One of the words that I have realized I say all the time is actually. And even though actually may not sound apologetic in itself, it's absolutely. >> It's a qualifier, it's, right. >> It's qualifier, exactly. And so what we're talking about apologizing, over-explaining and qualifying. >> And that makes you appear a lot less confident, and really can have career-limiting impact. >> Well, I want to talk about the career-limiting impact, but I also just want to ask you about so it's one thing to understand and acknowledge and become aware that you are using this kind of language. How do you eradicate it from your vocabulary? >> So what we talk about in the workshop is little shifts and big calls. So the little shifts are those small things that you can do to catch yourself. And that's at the language level. So for example, there's a Gmail app called Just Not Sorry. >> It's a Chrome plugin. >> And so what you do is, you add that to your Gmail and it will show and underline some of the language in each email which is apologetic. But then I call it the big calls. And that's really two things. The first thing is do you want to start a revolution? Because let's face it, when you turn up previously apologetic and maybe not too troublesome, let's just say, and you start kicking out your unapologetic language, there are going to be potentially some people around there who don't take kindly to that. And they may call you angry or uppity. >> Or even worse (laughs). >> Or even worse, exactly. So I feel it's about people learning and doing some personal development work on themselves to get the courage to that. Not saying that everyone needs to start a revolution, but for those who feel inspired to do it. And for everyone I believe it is a symptom of the I'm not good enough self-worth and we have an interesting take on self-value, don't we, Josie? >> We do. Being an identical twin is very interesting because what we've found is I might get really quite snippy at Laurel and she said to me, well, why are you so snippy at me? And it was like, well, I see things in you that I don't like in myself. And so we have decided let's turn it around. I want to acknowledge in Laurel things I do like in myself and accept the things that, the bad with the good. >> Right, right and we could all learn from that. I mean, it's just a lesson in humanity. >> And one other point I want to make though, with the people might not appreciate this. We're not dropping manners here. Clearly we are not suggesting that you're no longer courteous. What we want to say is save sorry for when it really counts. >> Rebecca: For when you need to apologize. >> Right. >> Absolutely. >> So in terms of the career-limiting factors that we were talking about, what are sort of the unintended consequences of this apologetic behavior? >> Well, I can talk to that. In some of my roles in the past as an engineering leader, I've really focused on maybe more building up my team, collaboration, and sometimes my management may not agree with the way that I'm doing it, right? Now, rather than having a healthy dialogue about why I'm doing it this way and maybe coming to some kind of general agreement, I have in the past tended to say I must be wrong, he or she must be right. And the ironic thing is, with my experience, I meant to bring that in. I meant to bring my experience in. I've heard in reviews that you don't have enough of an opinion. So really I think that was certainly career-limiting for me and something I'm learning how to do much better. >> So at Twinovate you are empowering women in STEM, you are making sure that they feel included, making sure that they feel like they have a voice at the table, making sure that they are, as you said, not apologizing for being women in the workforce. Do you go in and do you work with individuals? Do you work with companies who say we need to help our workforce deal with these issues? >> Absolutely. So in this workshop we just had an hour and it was a packed audience, it was fantastic. So something that I'm really clear about is it's such a privilege being in front of a room, so we want to make sure that it's just not the talking heads, that people look at their own situation, and we give them examples, both professional and personal, because let's face it, that's a big part of it, isn't it? When people are apologetic in their own worlds. And so they all work together at the table to be able to come up and discuss, and we share that as a room. And the workshop capacity is something that we will deal with people one-on-one because that's when I've done this the whole. I think that one of the reasons I am good at uniqueness and identity is because I'm an identical twin. And so I can work with people and nail their specific challenge in a heartbeat. So for me it's about sharing that power of group but also giving the individual attention so people can walk away knowing the stuff that's particularly relevant to them. >> Okay, alright. So how, I mean I think one of the other questions I would have for you is that you're based in Silicon Valley, you're based in Auckland. Is the tech industry similar? How would you describe the different tech industries in your respective countries? >> Look, it's been so interesting, because I do quite a lot of work in New Zealand and Australia, and not just in technology, but also in engineering, which is the other part of STEM, of course. And it's more flipped the other way because I understand the challenges in new Zealand and Australia, I've been having wonderful conversations on the floor here in the last couple of days, and saying, is it true that when you turn up or someone turns up to your offices that they immediately assume you're the receptionist? And they just go, oh my goodness, absolutely. You know, is it true that you have sometimes direct reports who don't like what you say and they'll literally say it's because you're a woman? And they'll go, yes. So I feel that this is a global epidemic. >> It's a challenge, >> It's a challenge, yes. >> They're facing it everywhere. So what is next for Twinovate? Where do you go from here? I mean you're here at Grace Hopper, which is obviously a receptive audience, a vast audience for the message, but what's next for your collaboration? >> Well, as Josie said, we were really quite surprised about how strongly it resonated here today, and we've got some great feedback. We're both got children, but we're both lucky enough to have fathers of those children that are very, very supportive, and so, hey, we've got this great opportunity to see more of each other. I'm coming back in March, we're coming back next year for Grace Hopper, so I'll be coming to the states twice a year and Josie's coming down to New Zealand and Australia at least once a year. And we're just having very limited partnerships with people who want to work with us and we'll look at some public stuff too. >> And maybe a book in the works? >> So I've already written a book. >> Okay. >> But I wrote it about, I was being unapologetic at the time, and this is what I'm really passionate about. So by the time I come back in March, my unapologetic book, which is literally about unapologetic careers and lifestyles will be in our hot little hands. And Josie's contributing to that with a particular Twinovate chapter that we've been working on. >> Excellent, well, Josie, Laurel, thanks so much for joining us. It's been a pleasure having you on the show. And Josie, you're a Cube alum I should have said, too. >> There you go, yes, exactly. >> Great to see you again, Rebecca. >> Well, best of luck to you both. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> We will have more from the Grace Hopper Conference just after this. (upbeat music)

>> Commentator: Live from Palo Alto, it's theCUBE, covering Women Transforming Technology 2017, brought to you by VMware. >> Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of Women Transforming Technology here in sunny Palo Alto at the VMware conference. I am Rebecca Knight, your host. I'm joined by Josie Gillan. She is the Senior Director of Engineering at Cloudera and a passionate advocate for getting more women into technology. Josie, thanks so much for joining us. >> Thank you very much for inviting me. Pleasure to be here. >> So I want to start out by asking a question that should be obvious but it may not be. Why do we need more women in technology? >> Right, so that's the classic question and I think I probably would have the classic answer which is just so many studies have shown that diversity results in much better products, much better ideas and we've found numerous stories where products were developed by mostly white males and they just have actually alienated many, many of their customers, right? So it's definitely that we need to have that diversity and I think 50%, 51% I think actually, of the population is women, right? So let's not disregard half of them. I just think women have a lot to offer and a lot to add. It's a generalization, but women generally are more collaborative and supportive so it's the right thing to do and obviously the numbers in tech are just so far skewed off what the actual numbers and population are that it's time to continue to do something about it, but it's hard. >> I want to talk to you about what you just said about women in their approach to work, their approach to being on a team. You said they're more collaborative. You were talking a little bit earlier about EQ and the importance of EQ. Can you comment on the perspective that women bring and the approach that they take to being on a team that is different in your experience? >> It's just that women are generally probably, again I'm really generalizing here, but the way that women network with each other and support each other and generally want to touch and connect, I think that's a lot of what it is about networking. So for example, again this is not all women, but in 101s and meeting with your fellow peers, I think connection is really important and building the relationships and probably being a little more vulnerable I think is really important rather than the stoic I'm here to get what I need. I think women generally tend to say, "Okay, what can we get together?" And I think that's a natural trait that women have, but again purely generalizing. >> In terms of Silicon Valley, you've been around at a lot of different companies. You built your career here. Is it better? Now also particularly now at a time where we are hearing so many horrible stories about overt sexism, everything from subtle biases to overt sexism and sexual harassment. What's it like? Tell us the tales from the trenches. Do you have? >> Well, first of all, I think you were going to start to say, "Is it getting better?" >> Rebecca: Yeah. (laughs) >> Unfortunately it's not and there's a lot of studies to show that. What I think is changing though is that we are talking about it more and more starting with I guess it was two years ago and there was this grassroots effort after one of the Grace Hopper Conferences to get companies to actually publicize their diversity data so I think that's number one, right? That we're actually getting companies to say what their numbers are, both for gender and people of color, right? >> Rebecca: So the first step is really awareness that there could be a problem. >> Exactly. And then that there's a lot of companies investing in and obviously hiring a diversity inclusion leader. I've been at Atlassian before I came to Cloudera and Atlassian is a great company, got some really good two CEOs who really believed in diversity but again like other companies, the numbers were pretty, pretty bad. And it was in Australia too, probably you knew that. I actually moved to Australia for a year and I think it was very young. It was not only not so diverse on the gender but also very young which is again very common in tech companies, but they've gone and hired a diversity inclusion leader and she's doing an amazing job at bringing in more programs, getting awareness out there and trying to make a difference, but it's not an easy job. I think she's doing amazing. I think our folks at Cloudera are doing amazing. Salesforce is doing amazing. There's awareness but it's a very difficult issue. >> So that's the hiring part of it, it's bringing more women in. What about the culture too? We were talking earlier too about the supportive environment and supportive leadership. What will it take for a big cultural shift in the technology industry? >> So when I came back, basically this is my story, is I'm from New Zealand originally but I've lived over here, I moved to America in '98 and worked for several different companies, Oracle, Salesforce and thought always hey I wouldn't mind going back home and being closer to my family so we actually moved to Sydney for a year and that's where I worked for Atlassian which was a really interesting experience, but it made me realize that the bay area was home and I think the culture of Silicon Valley is something that you can't get outside of Silicon Valley. >> For better or for worse. >> For better or for worse but again, back to that collaboration, in Sydney there's not that many tech companies, right? So I didn't find that collaboration. These kinds of events were very, very rare and especially in engineering, right? I could meet people who worked for the Google office in Sydney, but they're more in nontechnical roles. I mean, there were some. So when I came back, it was really important for me to find a company that again, as you mentioned, had that high EQ and a really good culture and what I mean by that is not it's got a free lunch. Cloudera has free lunches, but that's not what attracted me to Cloudera. What attracted me to Cloudera was talking to my manager is the SVP of Engineering and my peers are all VPs of Engineering and it was the conversation in the interviews that really were conversations and just very, very respectful and it wasn't all about this is what I do and this is what you must do. It was about a collaborative conversation. And one thing I really got from talking with both my manager and my peers was that they really were out to support each other. And one thing I think is amazing about the culture we have at Cloudera is that what will happen is I'm leading quality, performance, build and infrastructure and quality is at the top of our list at the moment. We can always improve on quality and we had an extraordinary developer in one of my peer's teams who wanted to come and help with quality problems. Now normally what would happen is the development VP might say, "I don't want to leave him." >> Yes, there are silos. >> But he was like, the development VP was, "Well, really sad to lose him, "but this is a much bigger problem and I'm going to help him. "I'm going to help him move." And I think that is a really interesting leaderships style that isn't prevalent throughout Silicon Valley which is I'm going to do what's good for the company and the overall good of the company and just what's right rather than particularly my own. >> Rebecca: My department, my unit. >> My own turf, yeah. And what we want to do at Cloudera is bring that further through the chains because as a company, as it's growing, we've got many different product teams and we want to make sure that that collaboration goes across the development managers, the quality engineering managers to really learn from each other and support each other. Your question is how do we, that to me is very, very important and I think we need to start talking about it and we need to showcase companies that do it well. We've actually gone through one of those personality tests or it wasn't actually a personality test, what drives you whether it's more strategic or problem solving, people are into the process, and I think those are really good things to do so that you can all work to communicate with each other and work with each other. >> You mentioned earlier that one of the things about working in Sydney that struck you is that conferences like this one, the Women Transforming Technology, are rare. Why are they so important do you think? >> Oh right. I've been to the Grace Hopper Conference four times. You're so used to being the minority. You're so used to being the minority and it's fantastic to come to a conference like that where you're not the minority anymore. And I think one thing that's extraordinary, have you been to the Grace Hopper Conference? >> Rebecca: I have, I was there in Houston in October. >> One thing that I find extraordinary about the Grace Hopper is the camaraderie. And you'll be lining up to get a coffee and just the people that you'll start a conversation and I've actually made some really, really great friends from Grace Hopper that I still keep in contact with and it's the networking and oh hang on a minute, she's having the same problem I'm having. >> Are these professional problems that you're facing or are these strategic? >> A bit of both. It could be technical problems. A lot of it's how do I get a team to collaborate on something. It's how do I overcome my imposter syndrome? How do I be a good leader? And the connections you make. I really feel that you can truly be yourself and I love what Cara was just saying before about being authentic and being genuine. I think something like Grace Hopper is somewhere where you can truly, truly feel authentic and genuine. The thing for me is it always gives me a great big confidence. I just feel great after these conferences and I'm inspired to just go back and really continue to move the needle. >> This is a women's conference. It's mostly women attending. If you could send a message to the men of Silicon Valley, what would it be? If you could just gather all of them in a room and say give them some advice about either helping a young woman in her career or just hey fellas know this. >> I think the big advice is listen, right? Were you at the Grace Hopper Conference two years ago? >> Rebecca: No I wasn't, I missed that one. >> I'm not sure if you heard about the male allies panel, but it was interesting because basically there's a male allies panel which was done with all good intention, but it got a lot of flak because why the hell am I flaking about the space and what the people who were on the panel did which was really interesting is they actually created a second panel the next day and said, "Okay, we're going to shut up. "We're going to listen." And it's really quite hard. For all of us in technology, we're all used to solving problems and we want to have our say and to get them to be quiet and listen is so important and not try and solve the problem, just try and understand and Cara was just saying that before, right, about some of the stuff that's going on with Uber and everything is some of the males she talks to say, "But I don't see it." Well of course you don't see it because you're not experiencing it, right? So listen, talk to women and make it very clear that it's a safe space and that you're just here to listen and you're not going to try and solve the problem, but try and get an understanding because they're in a very, very different space than we are. >> The story that's going on with Uber, it is depressing as a woman, as a woman in technology in Silicon Valley particularly just a couple of years after the Ellen Pao lawsuit. Are you hopeful that things will get better? >> I'm hopeful things will get better. It's brave women like Susan who are they telling their stories. We need to support each other and really support people like Susan who were brave enough to say that and obviously now because she's done it, a lot of other people are coming forward and Uber has to take some responsibility and has to do something so I'm hopeful it's getting better because we're talking about it a lot more, but it's a very, very difficult situation and the more we talk about it and there's people who are a lot smarter than me and a lot different, who are very experienced in this kind of social issue to be able to figure out how the hell we address this, but a lot of it is to get the conversation going and as I said to listen. >> If you could give a piece of advice to the younger version of you, that young girl in New Zealand dreaming of a career in technology, you mentioned imposter syndrome, what would you say? >> Getting back to Cara's talk, she talked about don't worry so much about what people think of you. >> Oh that's so hard though, it's so hard. >> And I remember gosh in my early days in my career, I was sitting there and I can't say anything. I really want to say something but I'm going to look stupid and it's like be curious. I think that's my best advice. What I love when I'm interviewing, I've done a lot interviewing of college grads and what I'll do is see what questions they ask so I think you don't have to have all the answers and you don't have to show I'm the best Java programmer there is, but oh tell me about this and I really love that your company does this and how do you approach this kind of problem? And just their thirst for knowledge and that curiosity and their eagerness to learn, I think it's really important to ask questions. And I think that's a good way to get over the imposter syndrome because you're not necessarily coming up as like I'm trying to be an expert on something, it's like I'm trying to contribute to conversation and help me understand and I think it's a really good way to get people out there and getting people talking. >> So be curious, don't care so much what people think of you. >> Josie: Right, right. >> You don't have to be the smartest person at the table. >> And build your network and especially if you see somebody in a meeting that handled a particular situation very well, I think it's really great to be able to go up to them afterwards and say, "Look, I loved how you said that. "Can you maybe chat to me about how you came up with that? "'Cause I'd love to learn from you." There's a lot of this talk about mentorship and I think it's really true that Sheryl Sandberg says it's not really the best way to say, "Could you be my mentor please?" But to actually just say, "I love this." >> Ask for advice. >> Ask for advice and very few women would say, "I don't want to talk about that." Most women are like, "Wow that's great," and want to be able to help out the younger generation. >> Josie Gillan, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a pleasure talking to you. >> Thank you so much. >> I'm Rebecca Knight for theCUBE in our coverage of Women Transforming Technology. We'll be right back. (modern techno music)