EP 63: Empowering Women in Tech: A Conversation with Karuana Gatimu

Transcript for this Episode:

INTRODUCTION VOICEOVER: Dive into the world of innovation with us as we unravel the challenges, breakthroughs, and latest trends that are shaping our digital landscape. This is Tech UNMUTED, your guide to the tech revolution.

SANTI: Welcome to another episode of Tech UNMUTED. Man, Terry, I'm excited about today's episode.

TERRY: Oh, I am too, Santi. I think this is great.

SANTI: I don't think we've done an episode this interesting in the history of Tech UNMUTED. We've had some pretty cool stuff, but I really love the topic that we're going to cover today.

TERRY: I agree.

SANTI: This will be excellent.

TERRY: Absolutely.

SANTI: I don't want to really delay this any further. We have with us today a very special guest, somebody who by the way, she may not know this, but I admire very much. I personally think she's one of the best dynamic speakers ever, just me personally. I really like her style. It is the one and only, and I'm bringing her on stage right now. Voila. For those of you who don't know, we have Karuana Gatimu from Microsoft. Welcome to Tech UNMUTED. You're here.

KARUANA: Hello. Thank you so much. You're so kind. I really love being here. I always appreciate being invited to stuff like this. Thanks for having me on your awesome show.

TERRY: Oh, it's great to have you. We really appreciate it, Karuana.

SANTI: I really want to give you an opportunity to because I think folks want to hear from you and those who don't know you, I think want to hear from you as far as who are you? I'm going to let you do that because you'll do a better job than I will. Go for it.

KARUANA: Yes, I am Karuana Gatimu. I do work at Microsoft. I'm the Director of the Microsoft 365 Customer Advocacy Group, and we get to do all sorts of cool stuff. My team delivers adoption.microsoft.com. We handle all of the technical curriculum design for Microsoft 365 with lots of partners inside of Microsoft, but especially when it comes to the events that we run, community days, and we make sure that the Microsoft 365 conference is awesome, and plus so many more that happen. We really are the center of gravity for all of the adoption content for things like Co-pilot and Teams and what have you.

We're a little bit different because we sit in engineering. Sometimes people hear this work and they think, oh, you're in marketing. It's like, no. We sit right next to product engineering. I work in Jeff Teper's organization, collaborative apps and platforms. It's so much fun because we also get to do things like run these huge large scale communities like the Microsoft tech community and the M365 MVP program. We're all about making our products better. I have an amazing team of people who are just the best team I think I've ever been able to work with.

It's a pleasure to lead them. They do such fantastic work and they're super motivated by people, super motivated by helping others a little bit more than we're motivated by the awesome tech we get to share with everyone. It's really my dream job. I have to say I came to Microsoft with a goal of working in engineering and I've been lucky enough to get to do that.

SANTI: You are really living the dream, aren't you?

KARUANA: I really am. I really am. Part of it's timing, right? Because I worked in Microsoft IT. I'm an IT pro by trade and a business solution architect. I'm a technical person. I was the Chief SharePoint Architect for Sketchers before I came to Microsoft. I came to Microsoft to run with a game with a large team of people, their SharePoint implementation. Before it was, when it was still on prem. I worked in IT in Microsoft for a long time, which is fantastic. Awesome people, think about working in IT for 200,000 employees and a huge amount of suppliers and guests that are in that tenent.

Then I managed to start working in Microsoft Teams before public preview. I was there from the very beginning. I moved from IT to Teams engineering when we launched Microsoft Teams and was there for seven years for that whole run through COVID and everything.

TERRY: The pivot from Skype for Business to Teams and, oh yes, that's awesome. You can just hear it in the way you talk about it. You have that passion for what you do. That's exciting to hear somebody-

SANTI: It's contagious.

TERRY: -have the-- it is, it's contagious. Yes.

SANTI: I love that.

KARUANA: It is and people tell me that all the time. It's like, it's not that every single thing I do I love, but I really love who I work with. I love the fact that I get to now travel around the world helping people understand how they get business value from all this tech. I used to think that maybe that topic, excuse me, wasn't that interesting. Come to find out that we need more of that, not less.

TERRY: Yes. Absolutely.

TERRY: That's part of what I love about, I get to go in and talk about our tech and how we work, especially our Microsoft tech with you guys. I didn't think that I would have that because I've grown up in engineering. I've been in engineering for over 30 years, and it's just never thought that I'd get the opportunity to be in front of people like you said, it truly has become a passion. It's what keeps you going.

SANTI: It makes it fun.

KARUANA: On those days that I'm buried in budget spreadsheets and expense reports and stuff like that. I remember then a few short weeks, and because of COVID also, Microsoft figured out that I don't have a degree in computer science. That was not my background. My background is actually in theater and production. At the time of the pandemic, I was that person that could be the bridge between our production staff at Microsoft and Microsoft Teams when we all took all our events virtual. That's also when they realized, oh, she can actually talk on camera. How cool. We need her.

SANTI: Awesome.

KARUANA: She's technical and she actually can be a technical story editor, hey. It's brought that stuff that I actually thought I left behind, before back into my world. Now my team runs the community studio. We have Coffee in the Cloud and Mondays at Microsoft, we produce original content as well as syndicating content created by our MVPs and other people. Now it's really my dream job now. It was awesome before, but now a lot of this stuff we do, I don't know that everybody knows that we do it. It doesn't need to be about us, but that it's out there, right?

The Mondays at Microsoft show is out there. You can get all of the upcoming news and events that Coffee in the Cloud is out there. You can learn about doing adoption work and user enablement. I always like to tell people about these resources because I don't see other companies putting as much into free resources as Microsoft does. Now it's more important than ever.

SANTI: Yes.

TERRY: We're going to have to get a list of those from you and make sure we've got them at the end of the podcast. We'll put them in. Absolutely, because that's exciting. I want to make sure I'm following everything and I'm sure everybody out there does as well.

SANTI: You said a couple of words that are Terry and I's favorite words, which is co-pilot and Teams in the same sentence.

KARUANA: So exciting, right?

SANTI: It's hot. Teams is hot right now. It's amazing how much traction it's gotten, how much attention it gets. Obviously, Fusion Connect is a Teams operator. By the way, according to Microsoft, we're in top three. They said it, not I, so I'm running with it.

KARUANA: I would.

TERRY: Top three internationally.

KARUANA: That's amazing.

TERRY: Yes, it's great.

KARUANA: That's a hard one too, by the way, kudos to you for going through the growing pains that we had in that space. I know there's a lot of features that we've delivered. There's a lot of feedback that we've taken. I know, Terry, you're passionate about the new Call Queue app that's coming, all that work. If you've managed to do that, that's because you're diligent and determined people.

TERRY: We are, and we're committed to it. You know what? It's surprising a lot of companies, when you give that feedback, especially somebody as big, Microsoft is a name. My parents know Microsoft.

SANTI: Yes, exactly.

TERRY: It's a name that everybody knows. That you all take that feedback from us as operators and work with us and our clients to grow the products. We see those changes occur. Teams gets updated so often. I actually had to do a full M365 update this week because it said, hey, you need to update. It tells you in every piece of software. It's so great how everything's integrated now with Teams and Outlook and Word and Excel. Everything's integrated. When you lay Copilot on top of it and let it run between everything, oh my gosh, it makes it so much better for business.

KARUANA: It is. I will say just to strike that humble note that sometimes people are like, would you stop updating it? The pace of change has been really difficult. If your audience isn't checking the M365 roadmap site on a pretty regular basis, especially if they're in IT or in user enablement, it's really important because the constant flow of features is this idea of continuous improvement and continuous delivery, CICD, very common IT term. In the real world at Microsoft at scale it's a big thing.

That roadmap is really where we try to make sure that people have advanced warning of this, and in the message center in their admin experience. I really encourage IT admins to share that information with their trainers and their user adoption people. There's even a little tool inside the Teams admin center called Advisor. It'll build you a team, it'll create you a plan. You can actually sync the admin center to that team and plan so you can have conversations about what features are coming. I think that's really important. I had a little bit of a hand in creating that because that information in the admin center is great, but there's lots of people who need it that aren't in the admin center and you frankly don't want in there.

SANTI: Oh, absolutely.

KARUANA: How do you take that information about all the new things that are coming in Teams or Copilot or Office or anything, and get it into the hands of people who are really setting the expectations of people and helping them? Hopefully in a community of practice, like a Teams team or a Viva Engage community, you need to get them that data. That's the way. I have a video about that on my channel, by the way, on Copilot in the cloud. There's a video about the integration of message center and all of that good stuff so people can find that.

A lot of people don't know you can do that and they get worried about rights and things like that. Making sure that they get the most out of the new Teams. Hopefully everybody has moved to the new Teams, right?

TERRY: Yes. Moved to the new Teams, still working on the new Outlook. there's-- You mentioned the roadmap and there's actually a feature that I've been waiting on. There's a feature I'm waiting on to come into the new Outlook and it's on the roadmap.

KARUANA: That's right.

TERRY: I can keep track of it. They've pulled it in a couple months, which is great.

KARUANA: Yes.

TERRY: I see that. That's an exciting thing to see those changes coming and know when to expect them.

SANTI: Yes, and we have a standing call here, actually. A monthly standing call. There's a group of us, we get together. A couple of people from TERRY's team, myself from product marketing. What we do is we literally look at the monthly upcoming features in Teams and we condense it so that we can then push it out. Actually, one of Terry's engineers, Drew, does a great job. He'll condense it to a point where it can be consumed by the rest of the company so that everybody sees what's coming on the pike and it's fabulous. It's a standing call every month. We just go on that.

KARUANA: Absolutely. You can also take our monthly What's New blog that we post in the Teams blog and syndicate that as a little more what's happened and what you're talking about as what's coming. I like to put those two things together. The folks, we spend a lot of time making sure in Teams that, that information is available. If you get there from the help experience, it also breaks it down by Windows, iOS, Android, Mac, so that you can see, depending on the type of user community that you have. Teams was and remains the center of a collaboration experience. It has transformed so much over time.

I hope that people are getting even more from it. I think they're going to see some more changes that are coming as we march towards Microsoft Ignite in November that people can get excited about. I'll get to be there and talk to people about that. There'll be lots of good news. If you're not coming there, you can catch it online or come and see us at European SharePoint Conference or one of our other community days. We just want people to feel like they're getting value and that they understand how to have this technology, Teams and Copilot make their lives better, right?

SANTI: Yes, agreed.

KARUANA: It's about really actually achieving more. That's not some slogan on a slide someplace.

SANTI: No, facts.

KARUANA: Thousands of us get up every morning, really wanting people to be able to achieve more in whatever is their goal, their dream. I'm already living the dream. I'm cool. How can we help other people? I think really thinking more about, a little less about productivity and a little more about growth of the business that you're in would be a great way to start moving this narrative forward. I do think sometimes people are so focused on productivity that maybe people feel like everybody's focused on doing more with less. It's not actually about that. It's doing quality work. It's being able to do important work.

SANTI: That's a good point.

KARUANA: It's being able to really grow your business in ways that are more effective and efficient. That's what Teams and Copilot and AI are actually for.

SANTI: Oh, yes. That's a great point.

TERRY: Absolutely. That's something that we talk to clients about all the time is by building these efficiencies, you're not-- and people, oh, well, automation's going to take everybody-- it's going to take away jobs. No, it's going to build that efficiency so that you can focus on what makes your business money.

KARUANA: Absolutely.

TERRY: You let your teams focus on what they enjoy.

KARUANA: Exactly. Now there is an impact on the workforce. I talk about workforce transformation all the time. That's why those free tools, like the content that we have on Microsoft Learn, everything that we put together on adoption.microsoft.com is there for people to take the opportunity to improve their individual skills. If you're not enjoying what you're doing in this business right now, if you're in tech, now's the time to pivot. There's so much content and so much need for people who can do that business solution architecture work, be deep in the technology, but understand its impact on business.

There's definitely those jobs that are out there. It does take that will of the individual as well, but also companies like Microsoft and others when you're rolling this out, really making that content available to people, using things like Microsoft Learn and Viva Learning to do that so that people can grow their skills because they will need to grow their skills.

SANTI: They will forcefully.

KARUANA: We all had to learn Teams as we moved from Skype for Business. We had to learn the cloud when it was created. We had to learn how to deal with these cell phones and this computer that we carry around in our back pocket. We have to keep learning and that's the skillset that people really need to have.

SANTI: That is so true, that is so true. We all have to become masters at the prompt now. That's just the truth.

TERRY: At the prompt, yes.

SANTI: Yes, at the prompt.

KARUANA: Oh, yes, and even if you're not a master, I don't want to stress people out. You don't have to be a master. You don't need to know how to go to Copilot Labs and look a prompt up that we've mastered. We will help you figure that out. The difference is your natural language of how you phrase things, you don't have to move things around because of search terms and what have you. It's not like that. That natural language interface is just going to get better and better. You can say exactly what you want and type that into that prompt area. Of course, those of us who are technical, we're going to go further.

We're going to understand how that works at an API level. We're going to build applications. We're going to build solutions and what have you. The average person, I always tell people start on mobile, download the Copilot app on your phone and start playing around with it. It's free, right? Get comfortable with it and learn how you can really have this thing help you in your day so that it's not this free-floating AI anxiety, which I feel like I'm a therapist for its scale at this point. It's a good thing I studied psychology in school, not only for page management. People have a lot of free-floating anxiety and when you have that, you can't learn and that's what we need to be doing.

SANTI: That's awesome. That's awesome. Terry and I could talk about Teams forever because we love teams, but I want to pivot.

KARUANA: Love Teams.

SANTI: I know we love Teams, but-

KARUANA: We're both wearing the team's color on today. Did you notice?

TERRY: I did. I noticed that.

SANTI: I do want to pivot because I know for a fact that there's one topic that's near and dear to your heart. This is really one of the reasons why you and I connected at the New York Community Days and talked about was because Terry and I believe in this topic a lot. In fact, we support these communities. I'm referring to the impact that women have had in IT. I know that's a big topic for you.

KARUANA: Yes.

SANTI: What I wanted to do was, I want to take this opportunity to bring on stage two of our very own, who I consider amazing women who are in IT as well, right? They're part of Fusion Connect's family. Let's meet. Welcome to the stage. We have our own Staci and Samantha. I'm going to let them introduce themselves, because again, they'll do a better job than I will. Ladies, welcome to the conversation.

STACI: Thanks, Santi.

SAMANTHA: Yes, thanks for having us.

STACI: I'll let Samantha go first. Samantha comes before Staci alphabetically.

SAMANTHA: That's true. I have both ways, the first name and the last name.

TERRY: First and last name, you come as well.

SAMANTHA: Yes, I do.

STACI: There you go.

SAMANTHA: Come first alphabetically. Hi, everybody. Thanks for having me here today, guys. Samantha Batzel. I am a Strategic Sales Manager here at Fusion Connect. We work directly, I work directly in the channel sector of our company. I have been in IT for about 11 years, started in the cell phone business. I have moved on from cell phones to PR eyes and sip sessions to VoIP systems to selling operator connect into Microsoft Teams, wrapped around with a little sprinkle of other technology as well, but excited to be here today. Thanks, you guys.

SANTI: Welcome.

TERRY: Thanks.

SANTI: Go ahead, Staci.

STACI: Thanks. First of all, thanks, Santi and Terry, for having me. I've been begging to be on this podcast forever. Now that we have Karuana and Samantha I finally got invited. Thank you for that. I'm Staci Corbett. I lead the channel marketing efforts at Future Connect. I'm Santi's colleague on the marketing team. I've been here about three years, but I've been working in the tech space probably for about 14 years but most of that time has been in marketing.

SANTI: Welcome aboard. Glad to have you all join us and Staci, finally joining us. You're always welcome.

KARUANA: Y'all are just popular, right?

SANTI: Oh, yes. Yes, they are. Staci’s like my bestie here at marketing. Don't let her get to you. Listen, I do want to say something, though. Staci and Sam are involved also with certain organizations that focus on what women do in IT. I just wanted them to give an opportunity to speak about that because I know you guys are very active, and I think that's important. Why don't you tell us about those organizations that you work with?

SAMANTHA: Yes, sure. I am currently a board member with the Alliance of Channel Women. I chair the DEI committee for the same organization. The purpose of Alliance of Channel Women is really just to highlight and uplift women that are in the IT channel specifically. We do everything from philanthropy to education to getting companies like Fusion Connect to come and be sponsors and advocates and allies for women in tech as well.

SANTI: You used the term there that I want to point out, ally for women, because ACW. is not only for women to be members. I am a member of ACW, a proud member of the ACW. community, and I'm excited to be an ally of ACW. and all of the women in technology. Like I say, I've been in technology for 30 years or more now, and I've had women work with me and for me forever. It's just having women in IT. I've seen it grow. I've seen it evolve. It's exciting to see more and more faces. It's still not there enough yet, but it's exciting to see more and more faces of women in IT and having peers and people that we know we can work with every day.

KARUANA: I love these organizations. I've worked with lots of them over the course of my career. I love what you just said there, Terry. I really want people to think of this topic as a bit of a continuum. There's always more work to do, of course. We have come a long way. The good works of organizations like Staci, the one that you and Sam participated in, and Terry that you are in as well. There's so many others that are out there in the community doing this good work that we're moving this conversation and inclusion forward. I was reminded of this because I saw a short the other day.

I don't remember which service I was scrolling, but it was about a woman who was in engineering school back in the '60s. When the school she was on a full ride and when the school found out she was going to get married, they took her scholarship away because she was going to get married. They're like, "Well, why should we pay for you to go to school? You're getting married. You're not going to do anything. Not going to do anything." They're boys, right? She had a professor at the engineering school she was attending who went and fought with them and got her scholarship back.

Maybe that doesn't happen as much anymore, but the power of allyship, the power of having a community to also help absorb that body blow, because I know a lot of women who where you may be in the, geographically, maybe you still do feel like the only woman. You can join these organizations and feel like you're a part of something, and be welcomed because there's room for everyone in our business. The diversity of thought is so important, not just a race and gender thing, and orientation, things like that. It really is about having that diversity of perspective on how we go out this crazy stuff called technology, whether it's Teams or Copilot or AI or whatever. Right. I just love that. I like to think of us in that bigger continuum because things are better, but there's still lots of work to do.

STACI: Yes, absolutely.

SANTI: Sam, I think you're also involved with another organization, right?

SAMANTHA: Yes. Staci and I are both involved, I think, with the same ones but we're both involved with women of the channel. We were both nominated. Staci, I'm going to take your flame here. We were both nominated for women in the channel this past year for 2024, which is exciting nomination. Then I'm also involved in the Alliance of Channel Women. I am a co-chair for the Education Committee. Santi, I think that's where we had our fun at because back in May the Education Committee on Alliance of Channel Women, we actually do webinars every month.

We take those webinars and our lovely board team sets a schedule for the webinars and what they want to see that month. Then we come up with topics, titles and people, panels to participate in that webinar. In May, Santi and I did a AI webinar.

SANTI: That's right.

SAMANTHA: We talked about copilot. We talked about all things AI and where it's coming. I learned a lot about Expresso. It's great. If you guys want to see that lovely webinar, it is out there. You can find it on the Alliance of Channel website, LinkedIn. Check that out.

SANTI: That's because I created a custom chat GPT that shows you how to make the perfect espresso.

SAMANTHA: Absolutely.

SANTI: That's what I love.

[crosstalk]

STACI: I love that one.

KARUANA: These are the scenarios that are going to help people actually understand. Really, you laugh at that but actually, I love those demos because people need to go from this random AI anxiety, aligning it with Skynet and the end of the world to actual useful things.

SANTI: That's right.

KARUANA: I asked the other night, give me some additional ways to make an apple pie, how to make an apple pie for my friends. We're going to dinner on Saturday. It gave me a bunch of different common variations on the recipes. I didn't have to even go search for it. It just found the most important common recipes. I always tell folks that if you are surrounded by technology, but if we don't actually use it, it's like the coffee pot that can brew your coffee for you but you never put the time in. Put the time in, let it brew your coffee for you. It's transformative. Take it from me. I'm an addict.

SAMANTHA: You don't need to go to Starbucks every day. You don't need to.

KARUANA: No, you really don't. No, you don't. No you don't.

SAMANTHA: No one tell my husband that. No one tell my husband.

STACI: That's just among us.

KARUANA: That's just among us.

SANTI: That's right.

STACI: Absolutely.

SANTI: Listen, I know I know that each of you probably have your personal story being a woman in the IT field. I want to be I want to give you guys an opportunity to share some of that because I know for a fact that not only will you have some personal achievements that you can share as a woman, but I'm sure there's been mentors who have helped you along the way. Maybe you're also now mentoring someone else. I think women who are looking, especially young women who are trying to-- they're just out of high school, they're working on their degrees, they're looking to get into this field.

I really think that when they start to hear from technologists like yourselves and the journeys that you guys have had, I think it's inspiring for them. I just want to take a moment to give the three of you an opportunity to just talk a little bit about what's your journey been like as a woman in this industry? What are some of the aspiring things that you think could help a woman who's looking to get into this industry? Karuana, maybe you could kick us off with your own thoughts on this.

KARUANA: Oh, I've had so many people, women in there and allies helped me along the way. I really want folks to, find the volume switch in your head for your imposter syndrome and just turn that stuff down. There is a place for everyone in this business. It doesn't matter whether you're more creative or less creative or you like to code or you don't, or you're excited by building deals or SharePoint sites. Whatever it is that you might like to do be up for the adventure. It's a journey, not a destination. I think that sometimes people, the younger women that I mentor, I think they think there's a ladder to be climbed and it's more like a path to be explored.

I like people because I think they put a lot of pressure on themselves. It's unnecessary. The community, whatever industry you happen to be in, find the community of like-minded individuals and different individuals. Find that community that you can be a part of, because my career was materially impacted by my participation in the community. All the SharePoint Saturdays I did for free, I did them because it was fun and the people were fun and I could practice talking and I built my professional skills.

Have some joy in what you're doing, because that in and of itself helps propel you forward. I have a long list of people that I could sit here and think for just the small things that they said to me that gave me confidence when I was feeling like I wasn't fitting in, and that what I had to say wasn't important. That maybe I needed to change who I was to be successful. I couldn't have been more wrong about those things. It's my uniqueness that has made me successful. I don't think people are told that enough. I think they think there's this cookie cutter of a tech person that you need to be.

If you don't fit in that, whether you're male or female, that somehow that's not for you. I strongly disagree with that. Fly your own flag there and find the people who appreciate it because if you're around a bunch of people who don't appreciate that, then you're probably hanging out with the wrong people.

TERRY: Agreed. If everybody were the same, the world would be boring.

KARUANA: Super boring.

SANTI: That is true.

KARUANA: It would feel safer to some folks, right?

TERRY: It would.

KARUANA: Some folks are threatened by uniqueness, by diversity, by strong minded individuals that they feel like they can't control. There's a whole nother narrative about this out there. I'm just saying own your own. Don't be influenced by those who would take away the very uniqueness or make you come up with a different solution than someone else. Even just specifically as a technologist, you're going to be better the more unique you are.

SANTI: Yes, that is so true. That is so true. Staci, you want to chime in? Staci has so much passion for this. I know she does in her heart.

STACI: I do. I also have a funny story too, because this definitely wasn't the path that I paved for myself. In fact, I like to tell people how I got into STEM specifically, not even the IT industry is because in seventh grade, my teacher said, "Hey, you're good at math, you're going to be the captain of the math team." I was like, "What? What are you talking about?" I was like, "Well, okay." I am, I'm very good at math. Then I went to college and I changed my major five times. The second semester of my junior year, the advisor got sick of me. She's like, "You got to declare a major. You got to graduate at some point."

She said, "What do you like?" I said, "Math." Now, I have a math degree. I went down this path of people telling me what I was good at for a while and going back to school. As I think about it in hindsight, they were pouring into me from the seventh grade saying, look, you would be great at this. Finally, when my parents got sick of paying for me to go to college over and over and over again, I got into advertising, but I've always been in advertising and marketing in a tech space. That STEM background with all of this schooling that I've done prepared me to be a technology marketer.

One of my bigger passions, I love empowering women, specifically younger women. We just had a member of our team start that's 24. I love talking to her every single day and saying, "Hey, look, this is how you position yourself for success." Even before that, where I spend a lot of my time is actually in high schools. I am the president of the PTA. I'm on the school's principal advisory council. What I do there is really do a lot of advocacy for diversity and for inclusion for these young girls so that they don't have to be me in their mid-20s having people say, "That's enough schooling, get a job."

I'm trying to I'm talking to them about non-traditional STEM careers. I think mine is non-traditional. I'm a marketer, but I'm in tech, but I'm still a technologist. Just getting them to open their minds and see the possibilities so that they can start defining their path a little bit earlier than I did.

SANTI: That is fantastic. I know it is. I'm like, I didn't know this about Staci.

SAMANTHA: She's a total overachiever, president of the PTA, volunteers for this group here, has an awesome job. Yes.

STACI: I just don't like sleep. I think that whole-

SANTI: She doesn't sleep.

STACI: I don't like sleep.

SAMANTHA: I don't sleep either. This is the pot calling the kettle black, please. I'm on the board. I volunteer. I have a side hustle. I do-

STACI: There we go.

TERRY: I can actually tell you the last time that I was talking to Stacia two o'clock in the morning, it was Tuesday night, if I'm not mistaken. We were chatting in teams at 2 AM, and I'm finally like, "Staci, shouldn't we be, it's time to go to bed. Go to bed."

STACI: Yes. I do pay a little more attention to self-care now. I have to say, I do pay a little more attention to it.

SANTI: Same here.

KARUANA: It's important.

SANTI: Yes. Sam, I know you've had your own journey. You want to share some of that with us?

SAMANTHA: Yes, I would. I never thought I would be in technology. That was not even my full scope of anything when I went to college. I wanted to be a nurse at one point. I guess that's STEM. I did want to be in technology, but that was more medical field. I wanted to be a nurse and then I want to be a marriage and family counselor. I decided to absolutely no on that because I cannot look at families and tell them what not to do without holding my mouth shut. I was like, that one's not the one. I've got too much to say. Then I graduated from college with a bachelor's in psychology, which is fitting because people intrigue me.

That is a very fitting way that way. What do you do with a bachelor's in psychology in 2010? Not much, not much. That's how I fell into technology. I started at AT&T selling cell phones and moved up the ladder there, and got into management and really enjoyed the aspect of teaching people on how to sell, and how to utilize technology for the good, because there's a good behind technology and there's a bad behind technology. We always have to remember that. Then I took a big leap and moved to South Dakota from Ohio. That one was fun. I went into, I want to say, whole nother world because they do business different in both places.

I had to start to learn a new way of doing business and sales. I was selling PRIs and fiber and internet connectivity there. I did really well but it was outside sales. You're going out and meeting business sales. I actually really enjoyed it. I would call South Dakota a gentleman handshake type of state. They live in that, if you're not from here type of style, hey, if I say I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it. It's very interesting learning the challenges of living in that environment, which took me into a whole nother space of jumping into the, I want to say the Microsoft Teams world and going into the full work from home environment, which was great.

What I've learned, because I feel like there's three different paths there. I went from a retail environment to an outside sales environment, to being in my home every day. The thing that I've learned the most is you have to make connections with people to keep your passions flowing, especially in an environment when you're at home all the time. If you're not connecting, if you're not networking, if you're not embracing the changes and the challenges that come with being in those different environments, you're going to begin to get stale in your career. I just think that keeping ahead of that and moving forward on any path that you have is going to help you get to those next steps.

Technology, seriously, it seems like it can be scary, but it's not. It's not one bit. That would be my advice to any person, younger person, thinking about it. It's just that it changes a lot. If you can be on board with that, then I think at any point, you'll be a perfect fit. There's plenty of space in different divisions to fit here, from TERRY being a cloud solution architect VP, and STACI being in marketing, and Santi being in marketing, and me being in sales. We're all different roles, and we're all fitting together and we work together, and it's a good environment. I just think that staying in those lanes is great for anybody's success.

SANTI: Yes, that's actually great. That's great advice, especially for folks who are looking to get into this. It can be scary, and that's very encouraging. Thank you, Sam. I want to try and bring this close to a wrap here, but I don't want to end without touching on encouraging diversity. The importance of diversity in technical teams, in this technologist space. Maybe even sharing some strategies to help foster that, to make sure that it is an inclusive workspace, that women are front and center, and recognized for the work they're doing, that kind of thing.

I know Staci's very involved with the whole, hey, let's drive diversity and inclusion with the different organizations that she works with. I want Staci, is there anything that you can help, maybe somebody who's looking at becoming a little bit more diversified or they want to be more intentional because you do have to be intentional. To me, this is not something that's just a check in the box. That's not how this works, but maybe they need some help strategizing or any encouragement that you can give them, that'd be great if you want to share something.

STACI: Yes, sure. I think that companies specifically need to intentionally approach DEI. A lot of people promote diversity and inclusion and equity, and they have no idea what it really means because diversity really is just a number. Look at your team. Are there two Black folks, two White folks, two Hispanic folks? Is your team diverse? Inclusion is how those people, those diverse people in your group feel. Do they feel welcome? Do they feel empowered? I think that companies need to be intentional about the practices that they put in place to make these folks feel like they are part of the team because at the end of the day, it's cool to say that you're diverse just because you've hired all of these different people, but really valuing their inputs and doing intentional things to ensure that you are getting those inputs is really where you're going to move the needle.

The thing about it is a lot of companies have really good intentions and they want to promote these things and they don't know where to start. I just say, start somewhere. For our company, for example, we are silver sponsors of the Alliance of Channel Women. Now, I bet if you ask most of the guys at our company if they knew what the Alliance of Channel Women are, their answer might be no. The point is the company is starting somewhere. It's my job and Sam's job, and we have another team member, Ashley, who's also on the board to take the knowledge that we know and share. The company's sponsored from here and we're the feet on the street, and we get the folks on our team involved so that message does start to spread. Then we can promote more and more and more activities to make sure that the company comes together in a diverse and inclusive way.

SANTI: That's fantastic. I've never heard somebody explain inclusion that way. My light bulb just went off because you're right, diversity is that check in the box, which is how I start off.

TERRY: Exactly, and inclusion.

SANTI: That whole inclusion piece where that check in the box actually matters. Yes, thank you for that. I had not, yes.

TERRY: Yes, I think Karuana wanted to say something.

KARUANA: No, I just, I loved everything you said. That was amazing. Also, I think as leaders in this space, one of the things that's incumbent upon us is to keep having the conversation about what this means to people, including the people who aren't traditionally thought of as in a diverse population. One of the lessons learned, I feel, that people have started to learn in this DEI space is not really being willing to take feedback about their approach. I think the folks who are most successful at driving awesome and intentional DEI programs are inclusive of everyone. They really work with allies.

They really talk about the merit-based methodology that they have. They really talk about making sure that everybody can feel included and do meaningful work. This isn't minimizing the work that needs to be done to diversify our populations in tech. I do think sometimes we get really excited about doing this work and people can feel left out. That feeling can happen amongst a lot of different types of folks. How people feel. For me and my team, I start with things like making sure people, I'm just ruthless about making sure people have 5 or 10 minute breaks in between their meetings.

I'm ruthless about putting your family first. I'm constantly talking about my hashtag is people first. Always talking about that to elevate the actual lived experience of everyone on my team. Then as I go to hire, I look for those different elements and I think about the culture of the team that I'm driving. We can all create more inclusion and equity in the teams that we lead. Even if our companies haven't quite got there yet to figure out how to have a more formal program. It's in our hands how included people feel because there's a lot of research on the in-groups and the out-groups and how that can affect creativity and productivity.

It's all out there. I want us to think really broadly about that as people come into this business because poor communication about diversity, equity, inclusion has a cost for those of us who've been doing this work a long time, and also for people who are new to the work. Being mindful about how as a leader you show up about it and making it safe for people to ask any question they have. Really, we do, I have to say at Microsoft, we do that really well. We lead a lot of conversations in our communities about difficult topics, obviously after George Floyd was murdered we had panels internally how to talk about these things.

Some of those conversations were uncomfortable but it brought us all closer together because it was safe enough for people to ask a question. Like why is it offensive to say X, Y or Z? It's just, I think that trust really matters in an organization around that.

STACI: Yes, I just want to add really quick, Santi because Karuana made me think of something. It is about those micro actions that each one of us can do. Speak folks' names in rooms that they're not in. Everybody can do that. Everybody can say, you know what, I really think Sam would be great at this in a room that Sam doesn't even know she's being discussed in. That is a super small action that each one of us can do to bring other groups into the fold.

TERRY: I wish I'd brought Mary Claire on here for that input.

STACI: Yes, like that, like that.

SANTI: Yes.

KARUANA: That really matters because that's the antidote to mansplaining and people taking credit from your work. I feel very confident that nobody's going to take credit from my work at Microsoft because I have a lot of friends who say my name. It's one of the reasons that I've had a good career there is because people have but I've also invested in them.

SANTI: Exactly.

KARUANA: I've invested in those relationships. I think, Samantha it goes back to what you were saying about really connecting with people and making relationships, which by the way is what AI is for. To give you more time to make human connections. I want AI to go do my expense report so that I can actually get to know Staci and Samantha more.

STACI: Please.

KARUANA: [crosstalk] about that. That's what I need it to do. It's coming. I'm telling you. On its way, on its way to you this fall.

STACI: Tomorrow, please would be great.

SANTI: ASAP.

STACI: Would be the best.

KARUANA: I just do the bane of my existence.

TERRY: Mine has been on my screen all day long where I've been trying to do pieces of it in between.

KARUANA: I know, it is so annoying.

STACI: It is the worst.

SAMANTHA: There has to be a better way.

KARUANA: There is, there is a better way.

SANTI: I just want to say, first of all, I want to say thank you to all the ladies here, really. Especially Karuana, thank you for being our guest on Tech UNMUTED. Seriously, to me it was I really consider it a blessing. That's how I see it to have you guys on this podcast and to hear your perspectives, because I know it helps me. I know Terry feels the same. We need more of these conversations, I think. They're fun to have. It's actually a fun and exciting topic. I know that she's going to kill me for doing this, but we're talking about inclusion, and I want to include somebody who is very important to this podcast. She hates being on camera, but she's always camera ready and that is Melissa.

I don't want to close without saying thank you. Melissa is our behind-the-scenes producer. She keeps us on track. She helps us get these things published. She does the social media posting. She's been literally by our side since we launched this podcast day one, over a year ago. We can't have this podcast without Melissa. I just wanted to stop for a minute, bring her on screen, and say thank you, because we have another woman in IT who's making this possible. Thank you, Melissa. You are a rock star.

KARUANA: Thank you to all the producers for the win. I love it. Go girls, awesome.

SANTI: Folks, thank you for joining us today. Please subscribe, like and share so you don't miss another episode. Karuana, what's the best way to find you, LinkedIn?

KARUANA: Yes, absolutely.

TERRY: I'm excited because I get to see you in about a month because, as you said, Microsoft Ignite's coming up. We're all excited. Melissa's going to be there.

MELISSA: I will be there, yes.

SANTI: I'm going to Spain, sorry.

TERRY: You're going to Spain.

[crosstalk]

STACI: You’re not going to Chicago in November? That's hilarious.

SANTI: Exactly.

STACI: I'm not going to Spain.

SANTI: I'll be there. I'm excited.

TERRY: I've got to track you down. I've got to make sure I see you when we're there. I just want to make sure everybody, if you're out there, go look at Fusion's website, look at Microsoft, go to Ignite. Ignite has an entire virtual section as well. Work with us. I want to make sure everybody knows that I'm excited to see you there. I'm excited for all of us to get together. I'll get to see everybody here throughout the next few months, so it's exciting.

KARUANA: We'll do an amazing Ignite pre-day on Mondays at Microsoft. People can find that also on my LinkedIn feed or Microsoft community on LinkedIn. You can stay up to date we have all the links and blogs across AI and modern work and Power Platform and Dynamics and all our events. If you want to stay up to date with what's going on in the Microsoft world, that's the place to do it. Melissa, if you're coming to Chicago, I'll introduce you to all our cool production staff.

MELISSA: Yes, please do. That'd be awesome.

KARUANA: Maybe you could come backstage with us. It'd be really fun.

MELISSA: Yes.

TERRY: Oh, that'd be awesome.

MELISSA: Yes, please.

KARUANA: Absolutely.

SANTI: It's fantastic.

TERRY: All right.

SANTI: Folks, thank you for joining today. Thank you, ladies.

MELISSA: Thanks for having us.

KARUANA: Thank you.

SANTI: This is my virtual heart for all of you. All right, there you go.

[laughter]

SANTI: Until next time, stay curious, stay connected. Bye, folks.

TERRY: Bye-bye.

MELISSA: Bye.

STACI: Thank you, Santi.

SAMANTHA: Bye-bye.

CLOSING VOICEOVER: Thanks for diving into the tech world with us today. Don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell icon to never miss an episode of Tech UNMUTED. Stay curious, stay connected.

Episode Credits:

Produced by: Fusion Connect