Encouraging those in the tech community to be “their authentic self” and championing them to learn and speak up, regardless of technical level; Lisa Clark discusses how the IT industry could be more diverse.
Lisa had no technical background and no previous interest in tech when she got her first job within a small managed service provider as maternity cover. She was impressed with the level of support towards her learning from colleagues.
Engaging Lisa with technology helped her role as a Project Manager. Before this job, Lisa had no idea about the vast number of opportunities, roles, progression and skills-needed in tech.
Even if an applicant was not technically minded or had no previous tech knowledge, they could still thrive in this industry. So, despite previously having no interest in tech, the encouragement from her co-workers helped her find her passion for technology, which has led her to stay in the industry for ten years.
“So, I had two really, really great guys that I worked with who became my friends. They would spend time with me to help me learn. I remember we would sit in the meeting room and would use the whiteboard to help me visualise these technical concepts – that’s where I learned about virtualisation, networking, storage, and more.”
Now, Lisa is a senior principal engineering technologist at Dell Technologies and is a part of the global engineering outreach specialist team (GEOS for short). They are the field-facing arm of Dell’s product management teams. This position means she has the chance to work across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa on a variety of different tasks.
The team is there to help with enablement for sales, pre-sales, partners and customer feedback. Besides the many skills this role requires, it also gives the GEOS team the chance to be creative by producing content such as blogs, videos, podcasts etc. to support engagement and understanding in the technology.
“We’re also there to evangelise our products which is quite cool because that involves creating content. I have a podcast called Lisa at The Edge, where I’ll talk about all things Microsoft Hybrid Cloud as well as career development. I really enjoy this area of my role as it encourages people to step outside their comfort zone, learn something new, and share it with the community.”
Attributing her passion for technology to the support of others at the start of her career, Lisa now enjoys being the person to help others by sharing her knowledge and experience. A particularly rewarding part of being in the industry for Lisa is that she enjoys watching people step out of their comfort zones and learn something new.
Sharing her knowledge with the community, customers and others has highlighted that she enjoys tech because of the people – which goes against the stereotype that a techie isn’t a “people person”.
As a Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional), Lisa shares her passion and expertise with the community via podcasts, blogs and speaking at community events. Lisa sees the value in awards like the MVP. It is another way of encouraging people from different ranges of technical abilities to feel welcome in the industry, as not everyone may have the support Lisa enjoyed after falling into tech.
While she had two colleagues who recognised her other valuable skills, the desire to learn and the value she would bring; others tried to shut down her learning, causing Lisa to question her value to the industry.
“Their spending time with me and bringing me up to speed on technology was so valuable and welcome because I always really like to understand things that I’m talking about. But then I also experienced other engineers who would frequently say things like ‘this is too technical for you, or you don’t need to know the details’. If I didn’t have those people who supported me and took the time to teach me and answer all my questions, I don’t know how I would have got past that.”
Now, Lisa has seen a shift in attitudes and thinks that this idea that people don’t want to share knowledge is changing. Lisa explained that back when she started, engineers had to be seen as the experts in their field and had to know absolutely everything.
So, when asking questions to gain their knowledge and insight it could have been threatening to them. Even though Lisa was trying to understand IT from a project perspective and help her communicate with her customers, it did cause some to get their backs up. Fortunately, the industry has now progressed to a culture of sharing and encouragement.
What can we do to help diversity according to Lisa?
- Hiring and nurturing
The GEOS team is proactive in trying to attract and retain more women in the team. GEOS management have found that quite often they don’t have the number of women or minority applicants they would like for their open roles. This can be down to the idea that women lack confidence in comparison to men when putting themselves forward for a job. “Men can tick 3/10 boxes and apply for it, whereas (this is a big generalisation) women can tick 7/10 boxes and won’t apply as they feel they aren’t the right fit.”
But changing your language in how you write your job roles can help encourage women or other minorities, and so the team have been working on this. Also, trying to remove barriers by not specifying that you need a technical degree for certain positions can really help. Nurturing people once they are in the business, such as through mentoring, or employee resource groups like Dell’s Women in Action can also help support women to pursue a long career in tech.
2. Representation
Representation is so important. Early on in Lisa’s career, after going to a few women in tech events, Lisa did not feel comfortable or part of that community. The focus was quite often on returning to work after maternity leave and the challenges which that presents, or being a very technical person in the industry “a proper techie”. As Lisa was neither, she struggled to relate to a lot of the content and the people there.
“The importance of seeing others you can relate to, whether it is gender, race, religion, anyone with the same vibe, personality or likes can’t be understated. Sometimes I think we undervalue the impact of seeing women stand up on stage sharing their expertise, rather than always focusing on being a woman in tech.”
3. Being yourself
There is still a stereotype of what people in tech should look like, what kind of personalities they have or what they’re into outside of work – like assuming everyone is into gaming. This can sometimes make it hard for those who don’t identify with this stereotype.
For instance, Lisa likes to game every now and again, but she also enjoys horses and being terrible at yoga. Being a multifaced person means that sometimes she does struggle to fit in. But as she has grown older and gained more experience, she has realised that being her authentic self is much more important and valuable than trying to conform with others.
Finally, Lisa now champions others into the tech industry, by encouraging everyone to share their knowledge and build each other up.
“Building each other up and providing positive and constructive feedback, as well as just giving people compliments and support can really help. Regardless of who you are, but especially if you are in a position of privilege, if you see someone doing really well, tell them! If you see someone with a great skill, put them forward for opportunities to increase their visibility. Just encourage one another!”
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