I will have a new, full time role starting in April: Developer Evangelist at SendGrid 

How do I feel about it?  Amazing!

What will I be doing?

I will help developers adopt SendGrid as a platform to help them be more productive.  How?  By helping them focus more on their app and less on email.  This will take shape as I attend conferences, meetups, hackathons and network with startups in the Bay area.

I will be part of the Developer Relations teams at SendGrid which is currently four strong (five counting myself).  I will build awareness, customer relationships and cool apps with SendGrid to showcase the power of the platform.  I will help to improve and documentation, resources and social content around the product.

Am I leaving San Francisco?

While SendGrid is based in Boulder, Colorado and I will visit the offices frequently, I will stay right here in the Bay area.  What you will see is an increase in my attendance to even more local events that are developer focused.

What is SendGrid anyway?  

It’s an email platform for developers to improve the number of emails that get delivered to the inboxes of their customers.  What type of emails?  Transactional ones — for example, one of SendGrid’s clients is Pinterest.  Every time someone repins an item of yours, you get an email notification about it (unless you’ve adjusted the settings).  Well, in the case of Pinterest developers, they don’t have to spend hours building out and then maintaining an email system to send out those notifications.  Instead Pinterest hands off the notification emails to SendGrid’s servers to do the heavy lifting of getting all those emails into customer inbox’s.

Added benefits for the developers include analytics on delivered, opened and bounced email plus clicks.  There are actually several API’s including the event API, the parse API, newsletter API and more!

What is a Developer Evangelist?

When I redesigned my site here at ButYourAGirl.com a few months ago, I wanted to think of a new tagline that represented my passion, skills and experience.  What did people remember about me?  Well from technology to hair to moving to San Francisco, it’s my contagious enthusiasm!  Combine that evangelical skill with a target audience of developers and you have the role of developer evangelist!

Now wait a minute Adria!  Aren’t you a consultant?  

Haven’t you been helping companies solve all sorts of problems for the last six years?

Yes, that is true.  I have been a problem-solver-for-hire since 2006 helping companies big and small with technology, the cloud, email management, social content strategy and more but — since last year, I have been seeking something more tangible.  Something I could point to and say, “I was a part of that.  I built that.  I created that.”  Last year I wasn’t really sure what that looked like.  I explored a lot of different options.

Over time, I took a look around my circle of friends, peers and mentors.  I examined what they did for work and how they spent their free time.  I know I looked up to Scott Hanselman, a friend and mentor of mine.  Scott works at Microsoft and while for many years I thought this was like working on the Star Wars Death Star, I finally took a look from a different angle and realized how much Scott enjoyed his work and how he was participating in things that mattered to him.  He’s been making his Hanselminutes podcast for several years, started up a new podcast called This Developer’s Life

I also took at look at Sasha Laundy (in the yellow), a friend of my roommate’s had been making some nice moves as well.  Not only had she been cutting it up at Twillio, her Women Who Code group was doing an amazing number of events with solid attendance.  She’s now moved to working at Codeacademy in NYC doing what she’s most passionate about: education.

Through these new lenses of people employed full time by their employer yet making things happen, I decided that working for someone else wasn’t the the problem after all but finding the right company to work for was.

You can maintain your identity, values and a balance between life and work.

Once I was able to process that, I began exploring what I loved most about consulting and looking for a job that would allow me to do those as often as possible.  I saw Eric Koger, CEO of ModCloth, speak a couple weeks back on how startups should go about building their dream teams.  On the panel with Eric was:

• Julie Hartz of EventBrite
• Rick Marini, Founder of BranchOut
• Christian Wiklund, CoFounder of Skout

and Liz Gannes of AllThingsD was the moderator.  My biggest takeaway was something that Eric said about halfway through and that was to let talented people focus on their, “genius-level skills” like they do for the founder of ModCloth Susan (who is also his wife).  Susan isn’t burdened with administrative tasks; she focuses on what she does best – finding amazing pieces and artists that match the style and essence of the ModCloth brand.

I held values close to my heart and it paid off.

One thing that has been important to me if I ever were going to work for another company full time is the culture.  After visiting Zappos in 2010 with Mig Pascual late one Saturday evening after Blogworld in Las Vegas, I realized people could still be happy at work.  As Mig named off the ten core values at Zappos, I saw his eyes saying, “I love my job and I’m supremely happy to be here”.  I asked myself how I could find a company that I could feel that happ about.  The Zappos Culture Book simply reinforced this reading story after story from employees who had been with the company two, three, eight, nine, ten years.  Could I find the same thing in the tech sector?  In a startup?  I knew from then on that how people felt at work still mattered.  I continued to consult for companies but never forgot the look in Mig’s eyes that night.

Was I asking too much?  How does one find a unicorn anyway?  Shouldn’t I just buckle down and do the work regardless of the culture?

It wasn’t until last November that I experienced something similar as I had with Mig but this time it was Emmanuel from SendGrid telling me about his experience.  I was impressed that he’d had such a positive experience in seeing the culture of the company transform in a short period of time.  Accountability throughout a company and putting development first is important in a company that well…develops!

I network with the intent to build good connections with people doing interesting things.  I am happy to announce here on my blog that for the first time in six years, I am accepting a full time position with a company!

What’s next?

With a narrow focus on building value through communication at SendGrid, I will be spending a lot more time programming in rails, php and other languages.

You’ll still see me around the Bay area and at conferences so make sure to stop me and say hello!

Do you drool each time a news story is posted on the front page of TechCrunch?

Would you like to live in the fast lane covering new technology startups and product launches?

If you’re a college student living in the San Francisco area, you may just be lucky enough to land the opportunity of a lifetime!

TechCrunch is looking for 3 full-time college interns to help them grow CrunchBase, a directory of tech companies, investors and all the important folks they cover in their articles.  CrunchBase is managed by TechCrunch editors and content is submitted by people and companies.

The Details

Requirements: Passionate about technology, the Internet, startups, business models.  Outstanding research and writing skills.

Why you want this: Invaluable learning opportunity and networking connections

Location: TechCrunch’s San Fransisco headquarters

Compensation: Paid internship of $2,500 per month

Duration: 10 week commitment

Start Date: Mid June 2011

Why Do An Internship?

Internships are certainly a great way to explore employment options but out here in San Francisco and in the tech world especially, you can lay the foundation for your career with the right handshake.   Take every opportunity seriously and you can begin to build an amazing network of people who will be there, ready and willing to step up for you.  Make your time count and become known for the quality of your work.

To Apply

As I move back into my role as a technology consultant solving problems for companies, I’m beginning to get questions such as,

“Do you know someone who does XYZ?”

so I’m going to start posting groups of jobs here at ButYoureAGirl.com to help people get connected with good opportunities.

All jobs are in San Francisco unless otherwise noted.  Feel free to send job leads and questions to me via my contact page.  If it’s a good fit for my readers, I’ll post it.  If you have a question about one of the jobs, I’ll do my best to answer it or get you connected to the person who reached out to me!

Note: Images did not come with the job postings.  I added those in for a bit of eye candy and do not reflect the actual job environment!

1. Mac Desktop Support

Our client is a top tier marketing firm located in San Francisco. Currently we have an opening for a Help Desk Analyst supporting internal users in a MAC and Windows environment. In this role, you will be accountable for the day-to-day operations, monitoring, troubleshooting, automation, and configuration of applications and supporting hardware, software, and operational needs of laptop and desktop systems.  Contract to Hire.  $50,000.

• Provide technical support to internal users with in a Microsoft, Apple, Adobe products environment
• Troubleshoot hardware, software and networking issues on Mac and PC
• Utilize ticketing system to respond to Help Desk calls and problem tickets
• Image and deploy mac and PC hardware as well as track assets from onboarding to deprovisioning; lifecycle management
• Produce clear and concise documentation and procedures for administration tasks
• Assist the Desktop team to perform installations, configurations, upgrade tasks and basic repairs.
• Maintain password security, data integrity, and file system security for the desktop environment.
• Create, maintain and delete user accounts (Windows Active Directory, VPN, Voicemail, etc.)
• Support and troubleshooting of printers, copiers and fax machines.
• Add and configure users in Cisco Call Manager and Unity system
• Support, troubleshoot video editing software such as Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Cinema 4D
• Support software development environments
• Knowledge  with LAN network administration
• Knowledge with Exchange 2007
• Experience with systems monitoring, management and auditing tools

Company: Funded Startup - Job Link

2. IT Network and Account Manager

In this position, you will manage all office Information Technology hardware, software, telephony and networking; and deliver office productivity solutions and support to internal employees. You will be responsible for IT management, product selection, implementation and asset tracking.  You will manage all third party vendors and oversee service delivery.  Full Time.  $75,000 – $85,000

• Exchange Administration, maintain corporate directory, and email account assignments
• Administer office LAN / WAN, including switches, VLANs, wireless, and internet services.  Manage bandwidth within office and all external connectivity.
• Administer VoIP and telephony services.
• Administer office servers and manage system access rights.
• Perform or oversee all office technology move, add, and change activity.  Coordinate activities and support with office managers in San Francisco and NY offices.
• Act as single point of contact for third party service providers.
• Troubleshoot and resolve service issues within agreed-upon turnaround time.
• Track and manage all technology assets including software licenses, hardware, and employee workstations / laptops.
• Perform day-to-day technology activities of development and server administration.
• Assess and recommend technology solutions for purchase.
• Recommend platform, network, and other technology requirements to improve service delivery and / lower service cost.
• Prepare and manage to annual budgets.

Company: Funded Startup - Job Link

3. Director of Technology

Reporting to the Head of School, manages IT infrastructure supporting all academic, administrative and development functions of the school.  Supervises direct staff of 3 and coordinates with Academic Technology Coordinator and the Academic Dean.

The school is a dual platform environment. The network consists primarily of HP Proliant servers running Windows 2008 Server in a VMWare environment with a Hitachi SAN with 8 Terrabytes of storage.  Distribution is through a Cisco based campus wide gigabit Fiber-optic backbone supporting wired and wireless access for approx.  230 workstations.

The school will implement a campus wide 1 to 1 iPad program in the fall of 2011.  The successful candidate will have experience in an academic environment and demonstrated success in technology administration and project management.  Ability to communicate and work collaboratively with varying levels of technical sophistication is very important.

Candidates should let us know of their interest as soon as possible by submitting a résumé, the names and contact information for three references, and letter of intent describing their experience, their interest in the position, and their potential contributions to the school.

Company: San Francisco University High School - Job link

4. Software Engineer

Company Sharethrough - Job link

5. Software Engineer -Dev Ops

Company Sharethrough - Job link

I met @ruthkalinka at SXSW.  She is full of bubbles!

I had a chance to talk with Ruth this week about her passion and we identified 3 roles Ruth could play in your next project:

1. Conversationalist
2. Conference Evangalist
3. Design Strategist

Her passion for wine and the food industry was discussed.  In the last year, she has gone from wine n00b to understanding how different regions affect the taste of the wine.

Ruth is detail orientated, a bit “Type A” and loves people!

She’s in Philly but is able to work with you from anywhere

My twitter friend @wr3n works in technology but has a secret passion for nature.  She wants to be a park ranger at a national forest and give tours.

I think she would be great at it because she’s detailed orientated.  I could see her rescuing animals, putting out forest fires and maintaining a communications station with her dog at her side.

She recently went on vacation and watched a massive crane migration.

Ren can manage your redundant drive arrays and your nature preserve.

Want to take your blog to the next level?

Find out first hand from successful Black Bloggers what you need to do to take your blog from a distracting hobby to a platform that delivers your message and builds your credibility.  If your content is unique and provides true value then you have the potential to generate revenue and qualified leads too!

Want to submit feedback about this panel?  Send an email to inter@sxsw.com

Thanks to Anjuan and Amani for the video recording and production help!

Panelists

Maurice Cherry @mauricecherry (SXSW Panel organizer)

J. Smith @jbrotherlove

Gina McAuley @BWBConference

Deanna “DeDe” Sutton @clutchmagazine

The discussion was about taking your blog to the next level.  From hobby to professional.  This included monetizing blogs, networking outside your blog topic, trying out new themes and functionality. It was great!

Gina Maculey of Blogging While Brown

Deanna illustrated how she tries out new things to see what works and what doesn’t.  She saw some blogs were using Seesmic which allowed you to leave video comments. She added this, excited to see what sort of movie comments her readers would leave. Turns out her readers weren’t that hot on the technology.

Gina talked a lot about the disenfranchisement of Blacks in blogging and how they need to realize the huge potential to earn money via content. She covered direct ads on the blog, funding for political blogs, funding for 501c3 and direct solicitation.  I hear Gina on this because after I heard Angel speak at last year’s Blogging While Brown, I stepped up and began testing out ways to monetize my blog.

Do Only Black Bloggers Care About Getting Paid?

I see a comment on my blog saying something to the effect “Are these Black blogging issues only?”

No they’re not.  Compensation for skill/time/value is a huge discussion in terms of content.  Especially content created on the web.  Women are also a group that isn’t compensated equally to what men make.  People are taking real life inequalities to the web.  This doesn’t have to be so.  The first step to equality is to discuss the imbalance.  The second step is to plan.  The third step is to act.

Summary

The panel was wonderful!  Full of detailed stories, passion and solid advice.  I was tweeting up a storm and will grab those tweets to insert here.

After the session, there was a big line at the microphone of people who had comments and questions. Baratunde was up first and thanked Maurice and the panel for the session. If you don’t know him, he’s a pretty big deal on the internet, on television and in real life work so I’m going to grab his bio from his site:

Baratunde exists at the intersection of comedy, politics and technology. His official duties include Web & Politics editor at The Onion, co-founder of Jack & Jill Politics and host of PopSci’s Future Of on Science Channel. Basically, he’s a smart, funny, extremely handsome dude.

I Belong Here

I saw a lot of people I had met at other conferences and that was really, really nice since I originally hated going to conferences.  Why did I hate them?  Because I went to conferences where everyone seemed to be socially awkward and not like me.  I felt unwelcome and out of my element.  This is a common feeling for women and Brown people in technology.

While googling, I couldn’t find any stories or posts on Black people or minorities feeling excluded or alienated from technology conferences.  I talked to two women last year who were in tech, active in social media, had serious technical skills and had attended conferences where they not only were in the minority but got that sort of “Why are you here?” type look.  It’s a hard look to face but talking with other women and Brown people has made it so much easier for me that now I simply look back and smile thinking, “I belong here.”

Adria Richards (me) and Corvida Raven

Faith Dow

Twanna Hines and Nichelle Stephens

Adria Richards (me), Twanna Hines, Anjuan Simmons, Liz Burr

Today we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.  I am so very grateful for the work he did to challenge the status quo and draw worldwide attention to the problems Brown people in America faced.

Today I share this music video from Common and Will.i.am, “I Have A Dream”

As I shared on Twitter today, my family is new to the word, “freedom”.  My grandfather was a sharecropper and according to my mom, my great grandfather was a slave.  This means my dad and his siblings were the first to really have “opportunties”.  On my mom’s side (she’s the Jewish one), her great grandparents came from Poland.  My grandparents were born in NYC, grew up, met each other, got married and lived the “American dream” but not before my grandfather and all his siblings changed their last names from Jepnick to Richards in hopes of avoiding discrimination for being Jewish (anti-semitism),

I am grateful I have the freedom to truly pursue what makes me happy.  I thank the people before me who stood up for those of us who could not find our voices (or who had not been born yet!).

Thank you Dr. King

You’ve been hearing me talk about Zendesk.  Now I’m going to share with you what I’ve been working on!

I’m happy to announce the webinars are now public and you can check out the list of Zendesk webinars for January on the blog.

These webinars showcase how companies increase customer satisfaction while streamlining their support process using Zendesk. It’s been one of my foundation tools as a technology consultant so I was excited to help spread the message by holding live webinars!

Who’s Using Zendesk?

Companies big and small. Twitter uses Zendesk because, as you can imagine, they get a ton of questions from the Twitter community. Zendesk isn’t just for tech companies that are “web 2.0″.

Businesses focused on health, law, education, construction and even yoga are using Zendesk to effectively manage incoming questions and requests from their customers.

What’s In A Zendesk Webinar?

The webinars will show you how to use Zendesk, add popular integrations from  other cloud apps and how to go about customizing Zendesk to fit your needs. Since I’m running them, there won’t be any of that dry, boring sort of delivery. These are fun!

In the coming months, you will see webinars on Yammer, JIRA, 37Signals, SurveyGizmo, Get Satisfaction and more! We’re also doing a special series called, “Welcome to Zendesk” to help you get familiar with helpdesk practices and workflows.

What is Zendesk?

It’s a tool for your business.

Many of us answer questions from customers.  Right?

Most of us do this via email or by phone.  This works for a while until the business starts growing and then we start falling behind.  This is also a problem where someone who was working with a customer goes on vacation and all their email correspondence is sitting there in their Inbox.

Zendesk centralizes your communications with customers so you can quickly and accurately help them.  This is the core of customer service!

My Experience with Zendesk

I personally have been using the desk for a year to manage requests from my IT clients.  At first, I wasn’t sure if my clients would accept the new system but they quickly began sending requests for help!

For those of you who watch my live show at AskAdria, I did two shows involving Zendesk.  The first on in April had to do with a t-shirt they sent me (see video to watch my feedback on tech t-shirts that don’t fit women).  The second show evaluated Zendesk as a tool make you a tech support hero because when a tool makes your job effortless, you should say thank you!

Why You’ll Love Zendesk

If you’re a fan of David Allen’s GTD methodology or have been to Merlin Mann’s 43folders site, you know “Inbox Zero” can be something of a myth like finding a cheesburger eating unicorn on rollerskates.

Zendesk works as the central nervous system of your business allowing you to keep track of sales, support and development requests.

If Zendesk were an apartment, we would be showing you how to setup a fabulous flat that would be featured in apartment therapy!

There are other companies in the helpdesk market like Kayako, Cerberus and what not but Zendesk excels due to their streamlined functionality, clean design, extensive use of API and oh yeah, awesomeness!

Working With Zendesk

I’d also like to share that working with Zendesk rocks!  The people who make up the team are just entirely too much fun!  Not only that, they are seriously focused on making it easy to deliver great customer service.  I had the opportunity to visit Zendesk headquarters in San Francisco after Blogworld in late October and then again in December for the holiday party.

Zendesk is hiring so take a look and see if you could be the next uber funky developer to join the team!



Photo credit: adria.richards, Laughing Squid, etnika, adamjackson1984

I am sharing the following email correspondence to illustrate how some people have no clue that their energy is so negative that even I don’t want to associate with them.  No longer willing to spend time with emotional vampires and people who play mind games, I’ve tried, for several years now, to tell “Chuck T” (name changed for privacy), that I simply do not and will not interact with him.

Hopefully today…he gets it

Adria Richards

So the moral of the story is that you should continue to give people second chances but strike them out at 3.   What he wants is to use my skills for his gain.  I have decided that investing in any “causes” associated with this guy are a disservice to the people “receiving” the services and a disservice to myself because I can do a whole lot more when I’m surrounded by positive, motivated people.

Remember, People don’t change. What you observe: is.

Don’t hang around and “hope” people you work with will change. Establish your boundaries and deflect toxic folks like this.

Photo Credit: Chris Halford