Conversations With Bacon: Recent Episodes
Conversations With Bacon
Dean Baratta comes on to talk about his fascinating career in working in intelligence, security, and protection. Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is […]
Dean Baratta comes on to talk about his fascinating career in working in intelligence, security, and protection.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats.
As usual, thank you to the fantastic Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for mixing the show!
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Sam Aaron, creator of Sonic Pi comes on to talk about live coding music.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats.
As usual, thank you to the fantastic Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for mixing the show!
Listen
Subscribe
Sam Aaron, creator of Sonic Pi comes on to talk about live coding music. Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available […]
David Spinks from CMX comes on to talk about how to build amazing communities and his brand new book. Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and […]
David Spinks from CMX comes on to talk about how to build amazing communities and his brand new book.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats.
As usual, thank you to the fantastic Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for mixing the show!
Listen
Subscribe
At the heart of every business is people. People though, need to work together to get great results, and this requires the magical balance of business processes, systems, and workflow. The question is: where on earth do you begin in building these systems and workflows? David Jenyns is an expert in building world-class business systems, […]
At the heart of every business is people. People though, need to work together to get great results, and this requires the magical balance of business processes, systems, and workflow.
The question is: where on earth do you begin in building these systems and workflows?
David Jenyns is an expert in building world-class business systems, having written multiple books and hosting his popular Business Processes Simplified podcast.
He comes on Conversations With Bacon to dig into the role of these systems and processes and how to optimize them. If you are running a business, or want to improve the place you work, be sure to check out our discussion!
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats.
As usual, thank you to the fantastic Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for mixing the show!
Listen
Subscribe
Developers are a hot commodity that companies around the world are trying to do business with. Why? Because developers are enormously influential in which technologies are used at companies and how they are used. As such, many companies want to understand developers, their interests, and trends. Christina Voskoglou has a long history of research and […]
Developers are a hot commodity that companies around the world are trying to do business with. Why? Because developers are enormously influential in which technologies are used at companies and how they are used. As such, many companies want to understand developers, their interests, and trends.
Christina Voskoglou has a long history of research and data and is Director of Research at SlashData. She has enormous experience of conducing research and how to convert that research into data that can be practically harnessed.
She comes on Conversations With Bacon to dig into why developers are important, how they measure developer engagement, the changing trends with developers and more. This covers frontend developers, backend developers, devops, devsecops, sre, and much more.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats.
As usual, thank you to the fantastic Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for mixing the show!
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Jillian Hufnagel is a successful business coach working with companies on topics like emotional agility and harmony in the workplace. Once a teacher and executive assistant, she subsequently became a leader in companies driving healthy emotional cultures. One such company is Slim.ai, who I have been working with as a client.
Jillian and I are cut from the same cloth. We are both passionate about the true impact of well designed, effectively led culture, and as such, she was a perfect fit to come on Conversations With Bacon.
We get into a lot of really interesting discussion and topics, which include:
- How company culture is related to workplace success
- The fundamental elements of a great culture
- Why and how leaders determine and define culture
- What makes leaders and teams stay focused on their core missions
- What friction removal really means for day-to-day businesses tasks
- How to operationalize missions, especially the positive ones that can easily be misconstrued
- How to stay grounded in the “important but not urgent” tasks in business and interpersonally
- How to grow as a company while keeping the healthy human spirit in the company
- How to de-escalate situations in the workplace that are possibly based on personal beliefs
Be sure to give this podcast a listen – it is fascinating!
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats.
As usual, thank you to the fantastic Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for mixing the show!
Listen
Subscribe
Jillian Hufnagel is a successful business coach working with companies on topics like emotional agility and harmony in the workplace. Once a teacher and executive assistant, she subsequently became a leader in companies driving healthy emotional cultures. One such company is Slim.ai, who I have been working with as a client. Jillian and I are […]
A while back when I was promoting People Powered, I was invited to go on a podcast all about consulting. As a consultant, it is rare that I get an opportunity to be interviewed about the business itself as opposed to the focus and subject of my work. Little did I know I would be […]
A while back when I was promoting People Powered, I was invited to go on a podcast all about consulting. As a consultant, it is rare that I get an opportunity to be interviewed about the business itself as opposed to the focus and subject of my work. Little did I know I would be interviewed by a consulting mastermind.
Michael Zipursky runs Consulting Success and provides a range of services that help consultants run successful, profitable businesses. Outside of our interview, we became friends and I have learned a huge amount from Michael about what he has learned from working with hundreds of consultants. He has a great resource on How To Start a Consulting Business that I recommend.
As such, I was thrilled that he was open to joining me on Conversations With Bacon.
We get into a lot of really interesting discussion and topics, which include:
- How much experience is needed to be a consultant
- How to find clients and business more effectively
- The role of media and publicity in growing a consulting business
- How to approach adversity and challenges, especially when a solo consultant
- How to balance being an expert and being a good listener
- How to structure what your value proposition is and what mistakes people commonly make
- …and much more…
Be sure to give this discussion a listen!
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats.
As usual, thank you to the fantastic Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for mixing the show!
Listen
Subscribe
Recently I was introduced to Coda – a platform that aims to re-invent the document – bridging live data, views, and more to enable people to collaborate more effectively together.
What really struck me, aside from the technology, is how well designed and delivered Coda is. It presents a powerful set of features that requires careful design to be both discoverable and useful.
You can thank Lane Shackleton and his team for much of this work. As the Head Of Product and Design at Coda, I was eager to learn how the sausage was made, and his general approach to building products people love.
As such, I was thrilled that he was open to joining me on Conversations With Bacon.
We get into a lot of really interesting discussion and topics, which include:
- How to balance complex features with simple design
- The role of different visual techniques to interact with information and data
- How practical examples get people to play with and understand new tools
- How to balance existing norms of documents with new ways of collaborating
- How to effectively integrate with other services
- How platforms approach collaboration around both templates as well as documents
- …and much more…
If you are interested in elegant product design and development, whether you use Coda or not, I think you will find a lot of value in this episode. Give it a listen!
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats.
As usual, thank you to the fantastic Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for mixing the show!
Listen
Subscribe
Recently I was introduced to Coda – a platform that aims to re-invent the document – bridging live data, views, and more to enable people to collaborate more effectively together. What really struck me, aside from the technology, is how well designed and delivered Coda is. It presents a powerful set of features that requires […]
I first discovered Allan Dib when I read his book, ‘The One Page Marketing Plan‘. It was refreshing: there weren’t the glitzy, sensationalist, unrealistic techniques that some of the marketing gurus use – it was simple, effective, practical advice.
As such, I knew I wanted to have Allan come on Conversations With Bacon, and I was thrilled when he agreed to it.
Unsurprisingly, we get into a frank, realistic, focused discussion and cut through much of the nonsense ravaging the marketing world.
This includes:
- Allan’s IT background and how he got into marketing.
- His struggles with learning marketing, and how he conquered them.
- The role of data in marketing and how you can learn from it.
- His views on sensationalist marketing gurus and their techniques.
- The risks of short term vs. long term gains.
- The cultural impact of Allan’s Australian heritage on his approach.
- The role of copywriting in great marketing.
- …and much more…
If you are interested in marketing, definitely check out this show!
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats.
As usual, thank you to the fantastic Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for mixing the show!
Listen
Subscribe
I first discovered Allan Dib when I read his book, ‘The One Page Marketing Plan‘. It was refreshing: there weren’t the glitzy, sensationalist, unrealistic techniques that some of the marketing gurus use – it was simple, effective, practical advice. As such, I knew I wanted to have Allan come on Conversations With Bacon, and I […]
Mark Shuttleworth has weaved a fascinating story in his life so far. He founded and sold his company, Thawte, was the first South African in space, created one of the most popular open source projects, Ubuntu, and has built a successful company, Canonical. There is little doubt that his story still has many chapters ahead. […]
Mark Shuttleworth has weaved a fascinating story in his life so far. He founded and sold his company, Thawte, was the first South African in space, created one of the most popular open source projects, Ubuntu, and has built a successful company, Canonical. There is little doubt that his story still has many chapters ahead.
As many of you will know, I used to work for Mark at Canonical, and I learned enormously from him and my colleagues there. As such, I was thrilled to bring him on Conversations With Bacon where we have a rather intimate discussion about how his story has unfolded, the choices he has made, and his experiences so far.
We dig into:
- His experience selling his company and choosing his journey.
- Why he started Ubuntu and how it came together.
- His background and how he got involved in business.
- The role of credibility in the open source world.
- How the business of open source has shifted and adjusted.
- How he has dealt with the pressure of being a notable figure in open source.
- His experience as a South African working in an industry often dominated by Silicon Valley.
- His evaluation of previous decisions, failures, and opportunities.
- The role of an emotional connection with our work and how to make choices.
- …and much more…
This was a fascinating discussion brimming with insight. Well worth a listen!
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats.
Thank you to always rocking Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for mixing the show!
Listen
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There is little doubt that realtime discussion, collaboration, and chat has had a significant impact on businesses and communities. While Slack has risen as a dominant leader, open source powered Mattermost has gone on to grow more and more significantly as a powerful option, and one that arguably puts far more control in the hands of their users.
This is why I was thrilled to bring Ian Tien, CEO of Mattermost on Conversations With Bacon. We don’t just dig into what is happening at Camp Mattermost, but also the broader state of messaging, collaboration, open source, and more.
We dig into:
- What Mattermost is and why it is different
- There is a lot of talk about Microsoft Team’s growth – is it real?
- How open source has played a role in Mattermost and beyond
- What Ian learned in his years at Microsoft and how that impacts creating and delivering value
- How Microsoft went through a cultural change in their relationship with open source
- How Mattermost has approached managing and delivering their product roadmap
- The role of “customer obsession”
- What has been the hardest elements of building a remote company and culture
- The importance of finding what gives you “energy” in the work you do
- …and much more…
This was a really interesting and deep conversation, and we covered a lot of ground. Be sure to check it out!
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats.
Thank you to always rocking Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for mixing the show!
Listen
Subscribe
We are all familiar with the venture capital model: invest money into a company, provide advice and guidance to help them succeed, and work towards a positive exit. Unusual Ventures are taking a very different approach.
Unusual focus on embedding members of their team into their portfolio companies to help deliver results, build in internal skills, and better support their companies. They also provide practical field guides, a complete training academy, and other supporting services.
It is an interesting and…well, unusual…model, and I am thrilled to bring John Vrionis, co-founder of Unusual Ventures onto Conversations With Bacon to dig into this new approach.
We explore:
- What is broken in the current venture model, and how Unusual are hoping to fix it.
- The role and development of content, their field guides, and how they are developed and evolved.
- How the many different components of a vision are balanced and prioritized.
- The importance of hiring good people.
- How the venture capital community has reacted to this new model.
- The impact of COVID-19 on startups.
- The evolution of remote work and how sustainable it is in businesses.
- The balance of empowering your employees while also being able to make decisions.
- The changing power dynamics in venture capital and business, especially as it relates to diversity.
- …and much more…
This was a really interesting and deep conversation, and we covered a lot of ground. Be sure to check it out!
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats.
Thank you to always rocking Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for mixing the show!
Listen
Subscribe
Many of us are striving for growth and success, but we don’t know which levers to yank to get the right results.
This is where Catherine Gray from The Trium Group comes in. She is an expert in a range of tools, such as Enneagrams, to evaluate what kind of personality you have, and then how to apply the right skills development to get the results you want.
Catherine offered to do an Enneagram for me, and it was a fascinating experience and very telling. I honestly thought the notion of a personality test was nonsense, and I was wrong.
As such, I was thrilled to bring Catherine on Conversations With Bacon. We dig into a raft of different areas including:
- What an Enneagram is, how it works, and how to read it.
- We explore my own Enneagram as an example, and what it told us.
- The role of other personality tests, how they work, and if they are effective.
- How to take the results from a test and map out your next set of goals and targets.
- Common challenges leaders face and how they are resolved.
- The role of vulnerability and ego in leadership.
- Guidelines and recommendations from a proven leadership coach.
- And much more…
This is a really informative, illuminating, and insightful discussion. Be sure to give it a listen.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats.
Thank you to always rocking Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for mixing the show!
Listen
Subscribe
For those playing along with Silicon Valley bingo, there is an enormous amount of change going on in startups, venture capital, and beyond. This has been heightened by the impact of COVID-19 on founders, startups, and investors.
David Hornik has been around the investment world for a long time as a general partner at August Capital, creator of The Lobby conference, and a lecturer at Stanford.
I first met David at The Lobby and was taken aback by how different he was from the stereotypical power player VC who is only ever fixated on hyperactive growth. He is a fun, vivacious, creative powerhouse who is able to balance a keen knowledge of business with the reality of how people think, work, and collaborate. While he is focused on getting results he always pulls his work back to the human condition, which unsurprisingly resonates with my perspectives on the world. He is also a hoot to hang out with.
As such, I was thrilled to bring David on Conversations With Bacon. We dig into a raft of different areas including:
- The impact of COVID-19 on hiring, spending, how much runway businesses need.
- The personal impact of COVID-19 on families, hobbies, and commuting.
- The design of The Lobby and how he managed to get professionals from a broad range of backgrounds to truly come out of their shells
- How Silicon Valley has shifted and adjusted over the years and the role of ego.
- How much money do you really need, how do you spend it, and how can you annoy financial advisers.
- His love of Broadway and how he supports up and coming shows.
- The role of diversity in business and how to impact systematic racism.
- And much more…
This is a really fun, engaging, and insightful discussion. Be sure to give it a listen.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out, and grab the People Powered Plus pack with free templates, bonus content, and over $2000 of special offers.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for mixing the show!
Listen
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Watch Click here subscribe to the show on YouTube
Emily Musil Church explains the logistics of how XPRIZE ran field trials with thousands of Google Pixel tablets across hundreds of remote villages.
Listen to the full episode here.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out!
Listen
| | | | | |
Watch Click here subscribe to the show on YouTube
Liz McCabe from Stinson Advising discusses the tactical and internal patterns that she sees working with CEOs across many different industries.
Listen to the full episode here.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out!
Listen
| | | | | |
Watch Click here subscribe to the show on YouTube
When I say the word “psychedelics”, you probably think of hazy people tripping on suspicious substances at a Grateful Dead concert. Well, the story is much deeper than this, and it is a very interesting story indeed.
It turns out there has been an enormous amount of research into psychedelics and their role in a variety of illnesses and conditions. So much so, a new revolution is forming to build businesses around a future in which psychedelics could be available on the market.
One person spearheading this revolution is Marik Hazan, founder of Tabula Rasa Ventures. I was thrilled to have Marik come on Conversations With Bacon to dig into the story, the science, the business and more.
In this show we dig into a broad swathe of topics including:
- The impact of psychedelics on mental health, trauma, PTSD, and more
- The culture of psychedelics and how it is changing
- The difference between medical and recreational use of psychedelics
- The role of scientific trials and the data about psychedelics efficacy
- How addictive different psychedelics compounds are
- How the venture and startup market is exploring psychedelics
- The impact of stigma in building credibility around new industries
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out, and grab the People Powered Plus pack with free templates, bonus content, and over $2000 of special offers.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for mixing the show!
Listen
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Watch Click here subscribe to the show on YouTube
In recent years, there has been an explosion in digital marketing. Bold claims of making thousands of dollars a day have been perpetuated by self-proclaimed marketing gurus. It all seems a bit much to my cynical British eye.
This is why I was thrilled to have Mike Dillard come on Conversations With Bacon. Mike has spent years in the trenches running a number of businesses, and when I went on his podcast a little while back, he was a refreshing change from the usual marketing gurus.
In this show we dig into a broad swathe of topics including:
- The importance of data and how to track it to get better results
- The role of copy and how to be a better copywriter
- Email marketing: is it still relevant in a world with too much email?
- Tai Lopez, his approach, and if it works
- The role of logic and emotion in purchasing products and services
- Brand marketing, familiarity, and trust
If you are interesting in marketing, or work in marketing today, you should definitely check out this conversation.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out, and grab the People Powered Plus pack with free templates, bonus content, and over $2000 of special offers.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for mixing the show!
Listen
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Watch Click here subscribe to the show on YouTube
Open Source has seen enormous growth in recent years, and this has shone the light on the security of the many different components in open source systems such as NPM, Linux, Kubernetes, Docker, and Debian. How do we ensure that the rapidly growing library of open source, which is often bundled into stacks, is safe and secure?
To better understand this, Snyk recently published their State Of Open Source Security Report which provides some incredible insight into the recent trends and patterns in open source security.
I read the report and had approximately one billion questions, so I was thrilled to bring Alyssa Miller, Application Security Advocate at Snyk, to come on Conversations With Bacon to talk through some of these questions.
If you are interested in open source, the changing trends and patterns in security, and how we continue to build a safe and secure open source ecosystem, you should definitely give this show a listen.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out, and grab the People Powered Plus pack with free templates, bonus content, and over $2000 of special offers.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for mixing the show!
Listen
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Watch Click here subscribe to the show on YouTube
Zach Abbott from ZBiotics explains how he used crowdfunding to street test the value of his product, the branding, and how he described its use.
Listen to the full episode here.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out!
Listen
| | | | | |
Watch Click here subscribe to the show on YouTube
Jen Wike Huger and Jason Hibbets from opensource.com explains how they review their data and analytics to see how things are performing.
Listen to the full episode here.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out!
Listen
| | | | | |
Watch Click here subscribe to the show on YouTube
Unless you have been living under a rock, you are probably familiar with Meetup. They have become the epicenter of how people organize local and online gatherings and have become a fixture for many people and organizations.
David Siegel, CEO of Meetup, comes on Conversations With Bacon to dig into a broad range of topics. We discuss how the company has changed, where the future of communities is, the impact of COVID-19 on getting people together, his approach to leadership and growth, and much more.
This is a really fun and engaging conversation, in large part due to David’s authenticity and openness. There is no carefully crafted PR speak here: this is a genuine, frank, and open conversation, which makes for really compelling listening…and learning.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out, and grab the People Powered Plus pack with free templates, bonus content, and over $2000 of special offers.
Thank you to Marius Quabeck and NerdZoom Media for mixing the show!
Listen
| | | | | |
Watch Click here subscribe to the show on YouTube
Jason Warner, CTO of GitHub, talks about how he would recommend to get started in the tech industry.
Listen to the full episode here.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out!
Listen
| | | | | |
Watch Click here subscribe to the show on YouTube
Millions of people around the world have limited access to reliable, secure financial tools. This creates a vicious circle that keeps many people in poverty when they are faced with limitations in how they store, transfer, and send money. Unfortunately, this also disproportionately impacts women and can dramatically impact the ability for regional innovation and building businesses.
To help resolve this, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have been investing in building a series of projects to make financial inclusion a reality. One such project is Mojaloop, an Open Source platform for enabling secure and dependable financial transactions.
I am thrilled to bring Miller Abel, Deputy Director and Principal Technologist at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on to Conversations With Bacon to talk about their approach to cracking the challenge of building financial inclusion. Miller has been fundamentally involved in the architecture, funding, and development of Mojaloop, and he shares the fascinating story of how they understood and delivered a pragmatic platform to make a difference.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out!
Listen
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Watch Click here subscribe to the show on YouTube
Todd Lewis, founder of All Things Open talks about how important it was to them to become a B Corp, primarily to set an example of standards of practice that they and other people can live by.
Listen to the full episode here.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out!
Listen
| | | | | |
Watch Click here subscribe to the show on YouTube
Kate Drane from Techstars shares the startup accelerator program – Techstars For Life.
Listen to the full episode here.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out!
Listen
| | | | | |
Watch Click here subscribe to the show on YouTube
Work/Life Balance. How is yours? Good? Decent? Middling?
Let’s be honest, most of us suck at it. Well, David Finkel doesn’t.
David is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author of 11 books and CEO of Maui Mastermind. His new book, The Freedom Formula: How to Succeed in Business Without Sacrificing Your Family, Health, or Life is all about striking this Work/Life balance right, and I thought he would be a great guest to come onto the podcast.
Oh, and he was. I love guests like David, who take an insightful approach to their work, but based on a foundation of honest, frank work. My BS radar didn’t go off at all with this one.
In this episode of Conversations With Bacon, we get into a range of areas, including:
- Why working longer and harder doesn’t pay off (and what actually does)
- Why the 80-20 principle doesn’t go far enough (and how to take it to its most productive extreme)
- How to operationalize the work/life balance
- How to escape the “time and effort” economy
- How to structure the day and week to reclaim five or more hours each week in usable blocks
- What strategies to utilize to recover time and attention from distractions
There is a lot in this for all of you. Definitely give it a listen. Enjoy!
By the way, communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out!
Thanks to my friends at Nerdzoom for editing the show!
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Jeff Atwood discusses the tools in Discourse that help keep conversations organized and easily accessible.
Listen to the full episode here.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out!
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Angela Brown of The Linux Foundation discusses what contributes to the energy and the core elements of a great event.
Listen to the full episode here.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out!
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Would you pay $30 a month for an email service, especially when Gmail is entirely free? I do.
A while back I started using a service called Superhuman. It provides a blisteringly fast, keyboard-driven, experience for email power users. Their value prop is simple: the value of your time saved in email is worth far more than the fee you pay for their service.
Part of Superhuman’s current success is based on that they clearly know the market their product is designed for. This is because they developed a Product/Market Fit Engine, which they shared publicly. Their approach works: they have designed a product their users love, and their engine has enabled them to identify the features their most valuable users want.
Rahul Vohra is the CEO of Superhuman and he comes on Conversations With Bacon to dig into all of this. We delve into:
- Their approach to designing and delivering Superhuman
- Their product/market fit approach and how it was built
- The role of game theory and gamification in building products people love
- Their on-boarding experience (and how it differs from other companies)
- How they have used email effectively for product education and training
- We even get into the survivability of startups with COVID-19
This is a really interesting discussion. If you are interested in product, marketing, or business, it is well worth a listen.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out!
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If you have been around open source and security, you will have likely heard of Mårten Mickos.
Previously CEO of MySQL (which sold to Sun for $1billion), then leading Eucalyptus Systems, and now CEO of HackerOne, Mårten is one of the most accomplished leaders in technology. He been a consistent fixture, not just because of his success, but also his tonality and approach.
I was thrilled to bring Mårten on Conversations With Bacon to explore his career, approach, and how he is enable a more scalable, “hackered powered” approach to security.
In this show we get into a broad range of topics, including:
- How he got involved in entrepreneurship and built is sea legs.
- How he wrestled with early challenges and failures in is career.
- How to strike the right balance of power and influence when joining a new company as CEO.
- What “hacker powered security” is, how it works, and how it is changing the industry.
- How HackerOne has approached changing the cultural norms of security.
- How HackerOne approached the US government to engage in community-driven security and deliver over 12,000 vulnerabilities.
- The public perception of hackers and what it means today.
- What motives and drives hackers.
If you are interested in technology, entrepreneurship, or security, there is plenty in here to dig your teeth into.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out, and grab the People Powered Plus pack with free templates, bonus content, and over $2000 of special offers.
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Curiosity. We all know what it is, but where does it come from? What is the purpose of curiosity and how does it play a role in our work, our future goals, and more? How can we harness curiosity without it becoming a distraction.
On this episode of Conversations With Bacon, Dr. Diane Hamilton joins me to dig into curiosity. She is a nationally syndicated radio host, award-winning speaker, author, and educator and a leader in the fields of leadership, sales, marketing, management, engagement, personality, curiosity, and motivation. She has explored how to unpick curiosity to better understand the role it plays in our lives.
If you are interested in the psychology of what makes us curious, be sure to check out this episode!
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out!
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Coaching is a strange and interesting concept to most people. We often hear about executives hiring coaches, and many of them rave how about how useful they are, but what do coaches really do? Why is it so valuable? What kind of insight to coaches provide, and could it be useful to you?
Liz McCabe knows what she is doing. Previously a consultant at McKinsey, she has been coaching a range of executive clients for some time as part of her business, Stinson Advising. She has a strong foundation, having studied at both Harvard and Stanford. Of course, if she went to Wolverhampton University, it would have been the ultimate honor.
The reason I wanted to get Liz on Conversations With Bacon, was partially to delve behind the scenes of coaching, but more specifically, and I think more importantly, to share her perspectives on effective leadership.
Liz is a remarkably accessible, engaging, and down to earth person. She has tremendous insight about a vast range of areas in leadership and management. She doesn’t wrap her insight in buzzwords and BS, she applies practical, logical insight and the right level of emotional support (and pressure) to get results. Her tenor and approach is really remarkable. There is no other way of putting it: she is fantastic, and I am thrilled she came on so you can get to know her too. This is a really fascinating and insightful discussion for everyone, not just people in executive roles.
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out!
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The story of opensource.com is a fascinating one. The goal was simple: create an online magazine, packed with content, tutorials, and news, and focused on open source fans and professionals. The result: millions of page views, and hundreds of articles created by volunteers.
It is the community manager and content marketers dream. How on earth do you create a community of people who spend hours crafting high quality content for you? and delivering a remarkably popular online presence?
Well, this success story has been driven by a number of people but Jason Hibbets and Jen Wike Huger have been central to it. In this episode of Conversations With Bacon, Jen and Jason come on to share not just how they have helped shape opensource.com, but how they have designed an editorial process, attracted community members, created incentives and rewards, used data effectively, created a balance between the parent company (Red Hat) and the community, and much more.
If you are focused on building content and communities, there is an enormous amount of insight in this discussion!
Communities are changing the way we do business. Discover a concrete framework for building powerful, productive communities and integrating them into your business. My new book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out!
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I know what you are thinking. Probiotics? Those disgusting looking things that are floating in the bottom of Kombucha? Kinda.
Zach Abbott and his startup, ZBiotics, has engineered a probiotic that doesn’t just provide relief from a soul-destroying hangover, but also has a multitude of other uses. Zach is firmly of the belief that probiotics can play a powerful role in the world, and this is his first of many applications for his technology.
Zach comes on Conversations With Bacon and we get into how he created his probiotic, the science behind it, how he developed and tested it, and how he and his team brought it to market. Zach also shares his creative use of crowdfunding, building a biosciences business, and more. This is a fascinating conversation that unpicks an exciting future: tuning probiotics for a broad range of uses to benefit society, including, but not limited to improving the morning after a little too much of the sauce the night before.
If you are interested in science and business, this is a great discussion to listen in on.
Remember, my new book ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, is out now, available in Audible, Hardcover, and Kindle formats. Be sure to check it out!
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Events are a core element of how businesses engaging with the world. Whether you are attending, speaking at, or organizing an event, you need to have your event game down. The question is: what really goes into a great event, and what is the balance of content, networking, venue, and other ingredients that make events succeed?
Angela Brown should know: she is one of the most talented people in the events business. Leading events at The Linux Foundation, Angela and her team run a broad range of events, all over the world, from small gatherings to conferences spanning tens of thousands. This includes the Open Source Summit, KubeCon, and many.
In this episode of Conversations With Bacon, we unpack Angela’s experience and explore topics including:
- The core elements of a great event.
- The ingredients in great content and speakers at events.
- The role events play in fostering a more diverse and inclusive ecosystem.
- How Angela has evolved her approach over the years, and the role of feedback.
- How data drives events, and how attendee interests vary around the world.
- How to design events for people new to an industry as well as industry veterans.
- And much more…
Be sure to also check my book, ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’, published by HarperCollins Leadership and available now.
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GitHub has seen a startling level of growth. With over 31 million developers spread across 96 million repositories, it has become the quite literal hub for how people build technology (and was recently acquired by Microsoft for $7.5 billion). Throughout this remarkable growth, GitHub has continued to evolve as a product and platform, and the fit and finish of a reliable, consistent product has been a staple of GitHub throughout the years.
Jason Warner is SVP of Technology at GitHub and is tasked delivering this engineering consistency. Jason and I used to work on the engineering management team at Canonical before he went to Heroku and then ultimately GitHub.
In this episode of Conversations With Bacon, we get into a truly fascinating discussion about not just how GitHub builds GitHub, but also Jason’s philosophy, experience, and perspective when it comes to effective leadership.
We discuss how GitHub evaluate’s future features, how they gather customer/user feedback, how Jason structures his team and bridges product and engineering, what he believes truly great leadership looks like, and where the future of technology leadership is going.
Since I have started doing Conversations With Bacon, this conversation with Jason is one of my favorites: there is so much in here that I think will be interesting and insightful for you folks. If you are interested in technology and leadership, and especially if you are curious about hot the GitHub machine works, this one is well worth a listen. Enjoy!
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In recent years, developers have become an increasingly important audience for organizations to build relationships with. Not only are developers actively building technology, but they are also often helping to shape decisions inside of businesses that cover product, awareness, and beyond.
As such, Developer Relations has become an increasing focus for many organizations. How though, do you build real relationships with developers?
Mary Thengvall has been actively involved in Developer Relations for a number of years in her experience at O’Reilly, Chef, Sparkpost, and as an independent consultant. She is the author of The Business Value Of Developer Relations and maintains DevRel Weekly.
In this episode of Conversations With Bacon, we unpick what Developer Relations is, Mary’s ascent in the industry, and how this work can and should be integrated into a business. Mary also shares her perspectives on what success looks like, how technical DevRel people should be, where this work should ideally report, and much more.
A really fascinating discussion and well worth a listen!
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Building collaborative online platforms is hard. To make a platform that is truly compelling, and rewards the right kind of behavior and teamwork, requires a careful balance of effective design, workflow, and understanding the psychology of how people work together.
Jeff Atwood has an enormous amount of experience doing precisely this. Not only was he the co-founder of Stack Overflow (and later Stack Exchange), but he is also the founder of Discourse, an enormously popular Open Source platform for online discussions.
In this episode of Conversations With Bacon we get into the evolution of online communities, how they have grown, and Jeff’s approach to the design and structure of the systems he has worked on. We delve into Slack vs. forums (and where they are most appropriately used), how Discourse has designed a platform where capabilities are earned, different cultural approaches to communication, and much more.
There is so much insight in this discussion from Jeff, and it is well worth a listen.
Oh, and by the way, Jeff endorsed my new book ‘People Powered: How communities can supercharge your business, brand, and teams’. Be sure to check it out!
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What does bioscience innovation, sustainable pet food, and Shark Tank have in common? Ryan Bethencourt, that’s who.
Ryan is a pretty accomplished guy. He has studied business and biotech, molecular biopharmaceuticals, genetics, and brain tumor angiogenesis at Cambridge, Berkeley, Warwick, Stanford, and Yale. Oh, and he went on Shark Tank and raised $550k from Mark Cuban.
Ryan’s passion for biosciences took him to be an investment partner for Babel Ventures, a $26m fund focused on investing in emerging biotech companies (including Occamz Razor, Nebia, Vitagene, CUE, Forever labs, California Dreamin, Zbiotics and Finless Food) sin Seed and Series A. He is also an advisor to companies and organizations including UCSF Health Hub, Memphis Meats, Berkeley Ultrasound, The Thiel Foundation, Vitro Labs, and many others.
Most recently though, he formed Wild Earth, a company producing sustainably produced pet food. He took his company onto Shark Tank and raised one of the largest amounts for his season. He works weekly with Mark Cuban.
In this episode of Conversations With Bacon we get into how innovation has evolved in biosciences, the role of the credit crunch, the horror show that is the pet food production industry, how Ryan and his team have approached growing better food (and the R&D and more), and where the future of biosciences lies. Oh, and of course, we delve into his experience of going on Shark Tank, behind the scenes, and what it is like to work with Mark Cuban. This is a really fascinating look into what the future of food looks like.
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Back in 2014, I worked at the XPRIZE Foundation, and we launched the Global Learning XPRIZE. This $15 million competition, funded by Elon Musk among others, challenged teams to build an Android tablet application that teaches kids how to read, write, and perform arithmetic, all without the aid of a teacher within 18 months. The competition showed the potential of how technology can help to bring education to 250million+ kids around the world.
Fast forward to 2019 and the prize was awarded to Team onebillion and Team KitKit School, with all entries showing incredible results in learning across literacy, maths, and beyond. What’s more, all the entries have been open sourced on GitHub.
Emily Musil Church is the director of the prize, and was involved at every step of the way from shaping the competition, to running the field trials in Tanzania, and more. She is one of the most incredible people I have ever worked with.
In this episode of Conversations With Bacon we get into the nature of the competition, the logistics of running field trials with thousands of Google Pixel tablets across hundreds of remote villages, how the teams competed and collaborated together, the broader impact of education beyond merely learning, the open sourcing of the entries, and much more. This is a really fascinating and inspiring conversation!
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Kate Drane is a bit of an enigma. She helped launch hundreds of crowdfunding projects at Indiegogo (in fact, I worked with her on the Ubuntu Edge and Global Learning XPRIZE campaigns). She has helped connect hundreds of startups to expertise, capital, and customers at Techstars, and is a beer fan who co-founded a canning business called The Can Van.
There is one clear thread through her career: providing more efficient and better access for innovators, no matter what background they come from or what they want to create. Oh, and drinking great beer. She is fantastic and does great work.
In this episode of Conversations With Bacon we unpack her experiences of getting started in this work, her work facilitating broader access to information, funding, and people, what it was like to be at Indiegogo through the teenage years of crowdfunding, how she works to support startups, the experience of entrepreneurship from different backgrounds, and more.
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Today I am excited to launch my brand new podcast, Conversations With Bacon!
The idea is simple: when I think back over my career, the times I have learned the most, and had the most fun learning, has been getting into detailed, interesting discussions with interesting people from all walks of life. This exchange of ideas and experience is often fascinating, and presents new ways for me to think about my own work and projects.
My aim with Conversations With Bacon is to bring on a wide range of people to explore the ideas and experiences that have shaped their work and lives. I don’t just want to discuss what they work on, I want to get into the driving forces behind their thinking and approach. The aim of all of this is to give you an interesting discussion for you to be a fly on the wall listening to, and hopefully glean some new ideas for yourself. There will be new shows about every three weeks.
For this first show, I am thrilled to bring on Todd Lewis, who created the All Things Open conference in Raleigh in 2012. He has gone on to grow the event from 600 attendees in their first year to over 4000 attendees last year. Todd is a bit of a renaissance man when it comes to events, and in this first episode of the podcast we explore what goes into great events, how to get the right balance of content and taking care of sponsors, building an open marketplace of (often contrasting ideas), and what Todd has learned over the years as he has refined his craft.
Listen to the show below, and I would love to hear your feedback for how I can improve it, and which guests you think would be interesting to bring on. Like anything, this is a learning experience, and it will take time to get the show format and content perfected: your help will help me get there faster!
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