Month: February 2017

By any measure, I had a lot of things going for me ten years ago. I was a high-flying enterprise technology consultant for a great company, the owner of a brand new five bedroom house in Atlanta, and it had scarcely been a year since I’d graduated from college.

I was on 100% travel, so I flew to the client site on Mondays and back home (or wherever) on Thursdays. This was a fabulous opportunity for a single, freshly minted college grad, but after the first hundred or so flights, the novelty started to wear off. It was nice to feel important and face daily professional challenges with a brilliant team of professionals from all over the world, but I couldn’t imagine doing that work for the next twenty years.

I had a small web design operation on the side, which I started after building the first version of my personal website for a class project. It was a great way to amplify the soft skills and extracurricular activities that made me a strong candidate, and I started building similar websites for my ambitious non-technical friends when they saw how well it was working for me. Small business clients found me through word of mouth and before you knew it, my career as an accidental freelancer began in earnest.

I devoted many nights and weekends to that side hustle, and it was the skills I learned while serving my freelance clients that allowed me to change my life when I was unhappy with its direction. After three years of working for The Man—not to mention two anxiety attacks in one weekend that we can talk about some other time—I quit.

This business allowed me to walk away from my job and make a living while I figured out what was next. Most importantly, I decoupled my income from my physical location. This allowed me to go on some wonderful adventures like helping to launch a book publishing startup with Seth Godin and Amazon.com, working with the founding CTO of Mashable.com, living in Argentina, being on national television (iTunes link), and appearing in documentaries. But the greatest benefits were emotional and psychological. I had freedom, agency, and control over my environment. I hadn’t yet arrived at what felt like a calling, but I had the skills to keep the lights on. So I made the decision to optimize my life for freedom and autonomy rather than income, and this changed everything.

I learned that once you cut the cord, you only have to cut it once—I’ve been making a living at the intersection of tech and publishing and media for more than six years now. I still do a bit of tech consulting because it’s fun and yes, lucrative, but also because of the freedom it affords me to build a media company on my own terms and provide thought leadership for my corporate clients.

Technology specifically presents a number of unique challenges and opportunities for folks of color, and it’s not enough to retweet articles about the progress (or lack thereof) in the tech sector as it relates to tech diversity. A lot of the disparities we see in tech aren’t simply a function of racism and discrimination, a large part of it is cultural knowledge and awareness that’s passed along socially and generationally. By discussing these complex topics honestly and regularly, the world of tech becomes less of an insiders club and a diversity of folks can unleash their brilliance in the organizations that need it.

Dev Bootcamp—the original coding school—is doing the work, and their mission is in line with what I care about bringing to my audience: a greater awareness of what’s possible, both personally and professionally. On Wednesday, February 22nd I moderated the Abernathy Black Tech Panel at the Dev Bootcamp HQ on Wall Street in New York City. Joined on the panel by Career Developer Bie Aweh and program alum Chris Coles, we had a wide-ranging discussion about inclusion in tech, the culture of software development, and what we can all do to move the industry forward.

The point of the event and the discussion was to illustrate a range of possibilities for folks looking to transition into tech, regardless of whether they want to write code for a living. Bie isn’t a software engineer, Chris writes code for a living, and I’m somewhere in the middle. In addition to illustrating what life looks like for folks who participate in the 18-week Dev Bootcamp program, we discussed the role of community, belonging, networking, and self-care for historically marginalized talent making a living in tech.

To kick off the program, Ari from WeWork joined me for an a capella rendition of Ebony And Ivory.

WeWork and I connected in 2012 when I spoke at their first Summer Camp in the Adirondacks. This gives me significant street cred when I mention it to WeWork employees, which is hilarious since I spent most of that trip having the time of my life with a handful of my best friends.

WeWork is all about collaboration, as their open floor plans will attest. Coworking spaces have been my saving grace since leaving corporate America, and WeWork’s offices are always teeming with creative professionals and ambitious entrepreneurs. They offer a number of flexible membership options for everyone from people like me who bounce around a lot and simply need wifi and coffee, to growing startups that don’t want to be their own landlord.

Dev Bootcamp’s HQ on Wall Street is a short walk from WeWork’s Fulton Center location, where they are offering a free Hot Desk membership for the month of March for everyone who attended the event. Interested humans should email fultoncenter@wework.com for more information on how to sign up.

The reason I sought out Jopwell for this event is because of their story, what they stand for, and the crucial role they play for people of color. This isn’t just about qualified candidates being able to pay rent, it’s about historically marginalized professionals building the generational wealth previously unavailable. Working for famous companies that pay well is a badge of honor, sure, but what I care about is my friends putting their children through college.

Jopwell is a career resources platform created by and for people of color—Ryan and Porter are two black men who left prestigious investment banking roles to help corporations recruit and retain diverse talent. Some of the nation’s most well-respected institutions from Y Combinator to Andreessen Horowitz and Kapor Capital have backed their efforts and for the past three years they’ve been connecting Black, Latino/Hispanic, and Native American students and professionals to opportunities at over 50 of America’s leading companies across a variety of industries who are actively seeking to hire diverse candidates.

One of the reasons folks of color are poorly represented in many industries isn’t simply because recruiting, interviewing, and hiring practices need an overhaul—it’s also because many diverse candidates don’t feel like applying is worth their time. Searching for jobs in a competitive industry with the economy in turmoil is inherently unpleasant as it is, and can feel like an exercise in futility.

The beauty of Jopwell lies in the promise: applying for a role through their platform ensures your application is considered. Not only do they help you identify interesting roles, they offer an array of networking, skill-building, and recruiting events to serve their community. To boot, they’ve got a content platform called The Well that surfaces stories and insights from industry insiders.

Jopwell was recently recognized by Fast Company as one of the most innovative companies of 2017 and Talent Manager Nadia was on hand to share what 50,000 active members already know—Jopwell takes a lot of the pain out of the job hunt for people of color. Email [email protected] if you have questions about the platform and opportunities, and you can sign up here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos by Vonecia Carswell Photography.

Speed might seem like the goal when executing on a new project, but speed for the sake of speed? Almost certainly not.

Moving quickly might allow you to gain market share and announce to the world that you mean business, but reckless forward motion can undermine your project and necessitate costly damage control.

A few well-placed steps forward at a brisk and sustainable pace might be better in the long run than a flat-out sprint. Alas, there’s no universal rubric for calibrating the appropriate rate of progress, but deciding at the outset how speed is defined on your project is certainly worthwhile.

I’m co-hosting a dinner tonight with Christine Lai and Nikita Mitchell in midtown NYC at 7pm and we have a couple spots left. If you fancy a nice evening with a few ballers, drop me a note.

It’s part of a dinner series for folks from all walks of life to meet and connect and build. I’ve met friends, collaborators and most importantly fellow FSU alums at dinners in the past.

Groups that have previously attended:

• Empact
• Global Shapers
• Hive
• Kairos Society
• ProInspire
• StartingBloc
• Summit
• The Feast
• Thousand Network

You know, your run-of-the-mill overachievers and world-shapers. Dinner will be a break-even ($49) prix-fixe situation at Industry Kitchen. Ping me if you or someone we should know has a slight deficit in the amazing dinner plans department this evening.

Stay balling, friends.

The more I grow and heal and cultivate a posture of openness in my life, the more I find myself moved by small gestures of kindness and thoughtfulness. (Back when I was on Facebook, the videos of soldiers coming home and surprising their children at home/school left me emotionally incapacitated in the best way possible.)

I’m feeling a bit under the weather after producing an event yesterday and offered a disclaimer to someone I’m meeting with tomorrow that I won’t be in peak form. He—another straight black male—responded that whatever parts of myself I can muster will be just fine.

The world could use a bit more of this, and I’m grateful for the reminder that interrogating our ideas of what comprises black masculinity is worthwhile. However we want to show up is fine, and there’s nothing wrong with being soft and gentle and open.

Just as importantly…I needed that.

On Wednesday, February 22nd at 6:00pm, Abernathy is doing an event with Dev Bootcamp in New York City. It’s the Abernathy Black Tech Panel: Destiny, Technology & Empowerment and will feature a panel discussion about how high-demand technology skills, lifelong learning, and investing in education are tools for empowerment.

Dev Bootcamp was the original coding school—or “short-term, immersive developer bootcamp” as it were—and I’m excited to be working with them. Joining me on this panel will be Bie Aweh and Christopher Coles, a career developer with Dev Bootcamp and an alum of the program respectively.

The event is free, doors open at 6pm, and I hope to see you there.

For most savvy marketers with great products and services, it’s the storytelling—not the offering—that needs the most work. Instead of racing to the bottom by competing on price and minutiae, we should tell better stories.

To make an effort is commendable, but deciding ahead of time that something will be done is different.

As I’ve heard it said, if you commit then you only have to decide once.

A quote:

“The future of the negro in this country is precisely as bright or as dark as the future of the country. It is entirely up to the American people whether or not they’re going to try and find out in their own hearts why it was necessary to have a nigger in the first place place.

Because I’m not a nigger. I am a man. But if you think I’m a nigger, it means you need it. And you’ve gotta to find out why. And the future of the country depends on that.”

—James Balwdin

Clayton Banks in the Executive Director of Silicon Harlem, and not enough people know about the vital work that he and his team have been doing over the past five years. I’ve gotten to know Clayton over the past few months and I’m always impressed by his humility and influence in the Harlem community.

Over the past couple years, internet kiosks have popped up all over New York City, and there’s an interesting story behind why there are so many of these in Harlem. I sat down with Clayton this evening for the story. Below is an unedited transcript of our conversation.

“So LinkNYC is an initiative that’s being driven by a company called Intersection. And that company negotiated with the city and bid with the city to be able to deploy a gigabit speed outdoor network that is bringing internet to all communities throughout New York City. And in that contemplation, Silicon Harlem and myself and Bruce Lincoln my cofounder were able to testify at City Hall on behalf of LinkNYC. Because LinkNYC of course was in our opinion something needed in East Harlem, Central Harlem, and all throughout Upper Manhattan because many of our residents don’t have high speed. Some of them have zero speed because they don’t have broadband.

So we felt upper manhattan was an important area for these kiosks to be deployed. And typically with technology it’s deployed downtown first and then is slowly works its way up to uptown and the boroughs. By being at the table, by testifying, by getting to know them really well, we actually brought the prototypes of the LinkNYC into Harlem at MIST Harlem at one of our events so that they could get feedback from the community before they deployed. This was in 2015.

So we’ve been at this for a while. They took the time to come uptown to really understand and it was all because we were pushing for it. We really believed in it and when you go to one of these kiosks, it’s the fastest internet connection anywhere, meaning whether it’s your home or your office, your phone, the kiosk, within 200 feet, is the fastest you’ll ever get.

So you fast forward to where we are in 2017, and you look at the complete deployment of LinkNYC kiosks: Upper Manhattan—Harlem in particular—has more kiosks than any other part of New York City. There’s over 100 kiosks deployed in Harlem. Everywhere you walk, you can run into these kiosks—there’s four on Adam Clayton Powell and 125th street. So you’re looking at a real commitment by the city and by Intersection and certainly to some degree Silicon Harlem to ensure that these are available to our community.

Furthermore, they’re starting to use those kiosks to help build community. To help build the pride, build the ongoing culture that resides in Harlem, and what’s wonderful about that is we’ve been able to negotiate with them to put up a Black History Month pictorial of black inventors, famous legendary black leaders on those kiosks. And they’re putting up a new individual every single day. So this is a way to expose our history to millions and millions of people.

And oh by the way, over a million people have registered on those kiosks. When you go to log on to the wifi, you have to put in your email. So when they track that, over a million people have done it. That’s no small thing. So it’s a successful rollout.”

—Clayton Banks
Executive Director, Silicon Harlem

I’ve never been to a DMV that filled me with joy, nor have I enjoyed a subway ride that was invigorating or relaxing. This isn’t surprising because those outcomes aren’t the point.

On the other hand, I’ve never left Serengeti in Harlem or Neta in Greenwich Village without a deep sense of gratitude for the experience of life. This is also unsurprising because that is precisely the point.

The good news is that we can infuse our products, meetings and places of work and with more meaning, joy, and delight by optimizing them for our hearts and minds, rather than just our bodies.