Welcome to interface a podcast where we connect technology and culture through conversation. Interface is brought to you by empower at pros, empower is dedicated to attracting, developing, and retaining black talent at pros. Pros helps people and companies outperform by enabling smarter selling in the digital economy. I'm your host, Jennifer Plumer. I'm here today with Sierra Barnes. Hey and Matthew couldn't be with us today. Um, but the three of us are the interface podcast group.
And today our guest is Marcus Manning, Chief Technology Officer at Smart Financial Credit Union. Thank you so much for being with us today.
Thanks for having me.
All right. So, uh, we like to start out with basically, you know, your, your life story. Could you share with us how you got into technology? Was it something you were into as a little kid or you kind of grew into it later in life? Uh, you know, please share your story.
Sure. So it started out, my dad was a computer operator for NASA for 30 years and he brought us to his job one day and we went to a vault. I'm like, well, what is this dad? He's like, well, I can't let you go in there because that's mission control. But I can tell you that this is where I work every day. I said, okay, well, what do you do? He said, well, I program the space shuttle. I'm like, wow my dad has a really, really, really cool job.
So I decided, you know, since he won't let me in this ball and let me see me being the curious person that I am, I'll just learn how computers work. So started putting my first computer together in the garage.
How old were you at that point?
That was around, I'd say that was 16. Yeah. So, and I want, that was the old 2 86 models and I won't date myself, but yeah, so I made a buddy of my, in the garage kind of tinkering and, uh, we, we built our first computer. So that was something that was really interesting to me. So went to college, studied computer science, got a degree in computer science.
Um, I can tell you that was probably one of the toughest things that I've accomplished, cuz I see, okay computer science that really doesn't go together to me. But once I got in and once I started, it was like, okay, this is something that's, it's difficult, it's a challenge. But it's something that I was really intrigued with. So got a bachelor's degree in computer science, uh, with a math minor. And then I started my career out doing contract work. So I did a little bit of coding.
I won't tell you what version, but visual, basic and C and, uh, some C plus plus with AT&T. And then I quickly realized that, you know, Hey, I need some, some people interaction. I mean, it's good to write code. You know, it, it's good to, you know, produce these nice products, but the people interaction is really what I was looking for. You know, how do I marry the technology and the computer science background with the interaction and the people skills that I have.
So I decided to go down the service delivery route. So I went into the network administration, Microsoft certified engineering role. So I was network engineer for about three years. And then one of my mentors said, you know, Hey, are you interested in leadership position? Now, mind you you know, not necessarily fresh outta college, but you know, three years or so outta college. And I was part of a fraternity in college, you know, shout out to the bros.
So I was the president of the organization in college. So I was like, okay, well, yeah, I do have some leadership roles, you know, high school, student council, things of that sort. So, um, but managing a team of 35 with three years of experience, it was again a challenge, but it was one of those things that I was up for. So that's really how I got into a leadership role. Um, and it just so happened to be another African American.
He gave me an opportunity and when he gave me that opportunity to lead the team, That's really where my journey started as far as a leader in the IT industry.
Awesome. Awesome. So describe for our listeners, you know, what does a chief technology officer do? I know perfectly what it's, what the CTO does, but for our listener, please explain kind of like maybe not day to day or, you know, in general, what are your responsibilities?
Sure. Yeah. And, and, and some days, I mean, depending on what fires I have to put out, I don't even know what that looks like. so, but as far as my responsibilities on paper, I'm responsible for the innovation roadmap for the smart financial credit union. I'm also responsible for the IT operations side of the house, uh, for smart financial as well.
So keeping the lights on infrastructure, data centers, digital experience, mobile experience, as well as the day to day operations of keeping the lights on, as I mentioned. Also responsible for the digital roadmap. So as we all know, you know, you, you, you hear digital transformation, you hear crypto, you hear Bitcoin, you hear blockchain, all the nice, cool technologies that's out there where the organization is looking at me. It's like, okay, Marcus, what is that? Do we need it?
Do we need to buy it? Is it gonna work for us? So that's, that's part of my responsibility as well. And then on a DevOps perspective. So we don't have a necessarily, um, a development shop, but I am responsible for the hiring of coders when needed, and then also finding partners that are needed in that space as.
It's it's funny. You talk about being in the technology industry, but like almost every business, right. Has their digital side and someone needs to be, you know, driving the goals of that as well. You know, like obviously like IBM or Facebook is like, oh, this is a technology come cause our product is technology for a bank, um, right.
You know, I'm, I'm assuming that's a large part of your interaction with your customers at this point is through mobile or your website or, you know, whatever these days.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And, and we're at a point now where we really want to, uh, not necessarily be on the bleeding edge, but at least cutting edge. Right. Because you know, it's all about the member and if the member is not happy, there are so many different other opportunities out there. You they'll go across the street, they'll go to wallet or they'll go to Z, they'll go to SoFi. Like why do we even need a financial institution anymore?
There are other technologies that are out there for me. So we need to make sure that we're making that member base happy and be sure that we're providing the tools that they need in order for their member experience to be somewhat pleasant, and rapid as well. So, you know, you don't wanna spend two hours, you know, old school at a teller line when you can just really go online five minutes and off you go. So yeah. Yeah. That digital experience and that innovation piece is extremely important.
Yeah. These days I don't even wanna go to, to the drive through ATM. I'm like, this is takes too long. Like why can't I just,
yeah. Some people's like, don't, don't wanna to a teller just wanna go in and see how much money I have. See if I can go buy the nice bag that I saw.
..So you mention, I think this is a good point I wanna dive into is cuz I think the perception might be that people in technology don't really have people skills, but you actually, you took a pivot, you were like, I, I wanna take advantage of my people skills. Is there more you can share about how your previous experiences you're using today in the role you're in?
Absolutely. And that was something that, again, I, I, I realize early on is that, you know, I do have strong people skills and in order for technology to be of value to any organization, it has to be appropriately articulated.
I mean, if I talk about the bits and the bites and infrastructure as a service and software, as a service, you know, to the average Joe, you know, to the marketing executive, even to the CEO like Marcus, I have no idea what you're talking about, but if you, if you have the ability to articulate that in business terms and help the business really connect the dots. Then that's when you have that aha moment.
Right. So I really figured out that, okay, if I can take, you know, the bits and bites that I know and translate it and articulate that to business outcomes, that's really adding value to any organization. I mean, it could be the grocery store in Kroger's. If you don't know how to work, the KIOSK, you can't buy your groceries.
Right. Well, I can go behind there and say, you know, Hey, do control out, delete control C. And the cashier's gonna look at, like mark says, I have no idea what you're talking well, if you go in, if you do the barcode and you scan this and then your payment's gonna come up, that makes more sense to them.
So once I got to that point, I found that there was a niche because I've talked to people that on somewhat the cusp of being very, very, very brilliant, but they can't hold the too many conversation. And then I've talked to some people that were used car salesman that know absolutely nothing about technology. So like, okay, there's, there's a niche. Yeah. That I think I could feel. And that's really where I kind of, uh, hit my stride.
If you will, how do you play that middle man to where you can understand the technology and even deliver on the technology, but you have the ability to articulate and connect the dots and really add that business value and articulate that. So that's, that's really where I got the joy out of working with technology.
Awesome.
I had a quick question. I, I wanna go back a little bit to your college experience and you said you majored in in computer science and minor than math. Did you find that there were other people of color, specifically black people that you went to school with? What, what was that experience like? Were you like the only one or the one of two or three?
yes. So I would say initially I was the only one and, you know, I, I, I don't wanna stereotype, but as you guys can imagine all colors and cultures outside of African Americans, I experienced, and I, I, I think there, well, I know there's a reason for that, but to answer your question, no, I was, I was the only one in a lot of my courses. And as a matter of fact, it's, it's interesting because the African American that I did see in my classes, it was probably my junior year.
His name is James Rogers. And if he hears this, he's gonna laugh. He's like, mark, you still remember that? And that's been several many years ago. I was like, yes, I'm not the only one here. There is somebody else that's going to this journey with me. So, no, I, I did not see very American. I don't even know a lot of African Americans that have a computer science degree with a math minor and has continued along that path.
And I know some people that took computer science classes and like, okay, you know, Marcus, that's not for me. Or they did get a, you know, network administration certificate or things of that sort. So I am seeing that there has been progress made, but when I went through college, no, I, I was the only one in the majority of my classes throughout my, my entire stay there.
Did you have a support system being that way that, that, you know, some group that you leaned on? So when you were kind of feeling like the only, or that, that kind of every now and then you need a boost. I mean, but you know, did you have someone you could reach out to for.
And actually it was, it was, it was my dad at the time, you know, he, he was still alive and I, you know, I even went to talk to the professor, but the professor couldn't necessarily relate to where I was coming from and what I was going through. And I, I could give you and it's, it's like it was yesterday. So again, I'm, I'm dating myself, but I used to have to go to the computer lab because I, I didn't have a computer back in those days.
You know, some, some of the other students did and a lot of the students that were in my classes, they were already working in the Austin area. Some worked for Motorola, others worked for Dell. So they would take classes because their company sent them back. Well, I'm the traditional 18 year old college student, you know, wonder where my next meal's gonna come from. No, I don't have a computer.
So there, there were times when I actually had to go to the computer lab at two and three in the morning just to go and get my outputs. And a lot of my peers that I was socially active with didn't really understand that I was like, man, it's three o'clock in the morning and you have to go to the computer lab. I'm like, yeah, well, this output is due on Monday morning. I don't have a computer here in my room. So yes, I don't, I don't have a choice. So luckily those resources was there for me.
And that's one of the pieces that was somewhat difficult for me because I didn't have that support system. And I didn't have others that could relate to what I was going through, but, you know, it was one of those things. It's, it's tough. And you know, when the, when the tough, when the things get tough to tough get going.
So it's one of the things that I look back on and say, Hey, I'm glad that I was able to accomplish that based on the circumstances, didn't make excuses of course, but you know, fall through it and, and got to where I am today.
Yeah. I love that. Yeah. That lends to the whole, you know, there's some journeys that you have to take by yourself, we do, there's nobody gonna be there to, you know, push you along or people won't understand or relate. And it's like, well, this is something that I want to do. So I gotta make sure that, you know, I take care of what needs to be taken care of.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Yeah. And, and it sounds like, cuz you, you did mention, and we're not gonna be publishing the video part, but, uh, you did indicate that you were part of a historically black fraternity. So I'm assuming, uh, maybe not within your major, somewhere on your university, you had, you know, a community to, to spending your extracurricular
what did you, what did you really wanna say?
I did have a, a, a strong support system and you can take the word strong. How, how you wanna see you fit. Um, yes I did. From a social aspect. I did have a strong support community there, not only with my organization, but because of the demographics of the university that we attended, you know, of course it wasn't at H B C U, and the population was probably, if I had to guess, I'd probably say less than 10%.
So one thing that I did, um, notice is that we did stick together because there were not a lot of us there, so we needed to stick together in order for us to be successful. And it's, it's interesting. Just the way of the world is today. I mean things with the social injustice and black lives matters, things of that sort, the crux of what we were going through at that time is probably magnified a thousand times more today, but same similar story, right?
Yeah. And if you look back even past my days, if we look back in history, it almost seems like it's, it's, it's cyclical. Right. And it's, it's kind of sad. Yes. But you know, it's, it's, it's, it's where we are and we're, we're gonna keep on keeping on. So, but answer your question. Yes. I, I did have a very strong support system and it's funny because my dad always had a saying, son, if you're gonna do something, give it 100%.
Said. Okay. Well, some of the things I kind of, uh, I wouldn't say I went overboard, but when I studied, I studied 100% when I socialized, I socialized 100%. Yes. So whenever you commit to, go all out.,
well, I mean, and the lesson is there for listeners that, you know, maybe headed to school and they're very focused on this. And I kind of had the same convers with my daughter who's in grad school now is, you know, you need to make time for your studies and you absolutely need to stress out, but that is definitely gonna be a stress need to have a social life or some outlet. To, um, you know, to stress relief or, you know, to relax on the weekend. I think at work we call it what recharging.
Oh, okay. Yes. Recharge days,
PROS calls it, recharge recharge days, you know, you know, find a way to reset yourself. So, you know, you were having a lot of fun, but it had a purpose you might not have made it through if you had not had this is true.
Well, yeah, that's, that's a good point. Yep. Yep. Yep. I like to call it boundaries, you know, just make sure we don't go out of bounds either way. You don't have to study all the time, but you don't have to socialize all the time either. Right. So let's, let's find a happy boundaries there.
So I always think it's interesting as a black people, we always, whatever setting, whatever setting we're in, if we always tend to find our tribe, I know that at pros, we have a group of black ladies who we have our own little zoom chat and we kind of, you know, get together.
And if we need to, you know, vent or we wanna celebrate somebody, it's like you all we always tend to find a group of people that we can all relate to each other, you know, in a way that no matter how many friends you make, how well, you know, the other, there's just a certain experience that we have that you can't always relate to other people. And we tend to find it could be two or three of us. And that's your little, your little tribe of people. It's like, I, I get where you're coming from.
I totally understand your experience lean on me if you need to.
Absolutely. And it, and it's funny. I mean, sometimes it's intentional, but other times it's not right.
So I was out at a golf tournament here recently, and it just so happened that uh, person I was playing with, he was part of, and I won't hold him to it, but he's part of a different fraternity and it ended up, we were riding in the cart together and, you know, we were talking and laughing and, you know, hopefully the others didn't get offended, but to your points here, it's just that, I don't know if it's just, we kind of gravitate towards each other.
Yeah. Or it's like, okay, well, I have, you know, kind of a partner in crime, somebody I can stand shoulder to shoulder with now I'm not out here by myself. Correct. So, and again, it wasn't intentional, but I thought about it after the fact I'm like, wow, I spent most of my time with him and on a golf course, that's not very common,
not very common. Yeah.
Well, in our last episode, Siara's heat check had to do with codifying and, and, and, and kind of putting on that face that you have at work. And I think it's just having a safe space where you can kind of relax and be like, yeah, you know, I'm, I'm Tru I'm gonna be, you're gonna get a hundred percent who I am right now. Yeah. Cause I need to relax and, and give that to you instead.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And, and I can tell you, um, another friend of mine and I have a lot of stories, which is a good thing. We were talking in my office and she happened to know that I'm in omega and she was like, Marcus, um, they're not gonna see that gold boots party you are. I said, no, they're, they're not they're somebody could tell I was having one of those days. It's good to have somebody that we could laugh about it. Could joke about it.
Correct. And I can decompress and then I can go back in the game. Right? Absolutely.
You get me, you get you. Exactly.
Yes. That's exactly right. Yeah. That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
So I wanna ask you, uh, what is your definition of success? Do you think you've hit that yet? Like when you graduated, you know, college and you were like, this is what I'm gonna do, you know, you kind of said you were inspired by NASA and you obviously didn't go that route, but. You are a CTO of a, of a, of a bank. Like, what is your definition? Success, have you hit that yet?
That, that's a great question. Um, in my mind, I would say that I have not, but I I've always been an achiever. I mean, I always think that there's more, you know, not, not that I'm chasing the dollar, but that there's, there just always seems like that there is more so when you, you take one step, it's like, okay, well I've climbed this mountain, but there are higher mountains that are far ahead of me.
So, you know, we'll celebrate this one, but we need to hit the trail because there's a bigger mountain to climb. So there's a bigger mountain to climb. So what that looks like, um, I don't know what that next bigger mountain is, but I can tell you that I'm not satisfied. I've I've never been a person that has been satisfied, you know?
Yes. I've had a lot of accomplishments and I've been very blessed to have those accomplishments, but I know that there's something else and sometimes it's revealed and sometimes it's not, sometimes you learn it as you walk that journey or as you're climbing this mile, you learn it. Okay. There's another mile that's coming, but I need to get this one first. So, um, to answer your question, as far as success is concerned, I think it's, it's, it's three things.
I think financial success is extremely important. And I think it's one of those things that the African American community has been reluctant to talk about that I have some ideas why, but I'm not really sure why it's, you know, a conversation of, you know, Hey, let's, let's stay away from that. Cause I can tell you a lot of the financial success I've had so far is because I've listened to other people and it hasn't been African American.
And when I have these conversations now with folks in my immediate circle, I'm having that because I want them to know, Hey, this is how you get to being financial successful. Yes. This, this is you hone your skills. You make sure that you're marketable. You learn about the stock market. You learn about 401ks. You learn about RAs. You learn about money markets. I don't know about you guys, but growing up at the dinner table, those were not the things that would, that we, that we talked about.
So I'm trying to break that ceiling, if you will, to start having those conversations with my people, because if you don't know better, you don't do that. You don't do better. So to me, that's, that's kind of one of the, the, the key pillars of success. Um, the second part of that is I think your morals and your values need to marry your profession. And a lot of people wouldn't necessarily agree with that.
But I think who you are at home is who you should be at work is who you should be in your community. I don't think that we should have to paint a picture, have to be careful with my words, but I don't think we should have to put a mask on when we go to work. I don't think we should hide the real us. Of course, you know, we don't want to be the person that's fitting the stereotype that people have of African Americans. Of course.
I mean, we know that we can get a little loud and we can get a little, um, let see, what about daughter? Call it? passionate. That's another one. Passionate. Yeah. When you get passionate, you get, yeah, I like, I know, I know. I know. So, you know, those stereotypes that are put on us, we wanna make sure that we, you know, try to steer away from those, but also bring your true, authentic self and bringing your true, authentic self with you everywhere that you go, including in the workplace.
And then I think the third piece of that is. I am a big person of having a peace of mind. Cuz a lot of times, if you don't have a peace of mind, then you can't be the most productive person that you can be. Now, what that means for you may be something different from what it means for me, sometimes a peace of mind to me is just kind of getting away, you know, Hey Marcus, we're going to lunch today. Well, no, you guys go ahead. I'm gonna go to lunch by myself today.
Nothing, nothing, nothing against a group. Marcus just wants to be Marcus and just kind of, you know, regroup, decompress and have a peace of mind. So I, I think that's what success really looks like.
I totally agree with all those Marcus. Are you an introvert? Would you consider yourself an introvert?
That's a great question. And it's interesting because I I've taken, you know, the Myers Bri and the disc profile and every one of them, I fall either directly in the middle, or I'm short on the extrovert side and heavy on the introvert side. So I would say it depends.
I think Jenny and I both identify as introverts and people around us don't believe us when we tell them that.
No, no way. I'm like, well, it just, it just depends.
Yeah. I'm very much a, uh, I, I need my downtime to recharge. There's a lot of noise, a lot going on if it's chaotic. I mean, even from my family and my husband understands, he's like, okay, my mama needs to She needs, he needs minute. I'm like, if I can, if I could just have 20 minutes, I just need to bring it down and then I can, you know, rejoin the conversation.
Um, I think that recognizing those things about yourself is definitely a part of being successful because you can be pulled in a million different, you know, directions and being able to say, you know what, I think I just need to take a minute for my own wellbeing. That's really important.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
That kind of goes into, you talked about, you mentioned Myers Brigg. Have you done any formal, like executive coaching to this point, or would you recommend those sorts of things to help you with your interactions with, you know, the other leaders at your company or your peers?
Yeah, here I haven't, but we did have, um, it was part of Gallup and we did have, uh, personalized executive coaches when I was with T DCU. So I spent about five years with an executive coach and, uh, I, I would say that that was a very beneficial five years for me, because there are some things that are identified that we aren't necessarily aware of. Sierra, you mentioned self-awareness, but I also think others perception of you is important.
Not that, not that you're trying to change who you are, but you need to know, especially at the executive level, you need to know what message you're sending and you need to know how that message is being received. And the only way you can know that is, is, is through feedback. So that coaching and interaction with my peers was a good tool for me to use that feedback, to understand that, you know, Hey, this communication loop is not just one way. It, it needs to be a sender and a receiver.
And then also too. I mean, I, I, I have a, a theory that we learned about balconies and basements as well. Right? So basically what that means is when you're at your absolute pinnacle, when you're, when you're hitting your groove, if you will, what are those balconies where, Hey, I'm in my zone and I'm, I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm knocking it outta the park. Well, we also have some basements as well. Right.
And a lot of times we tried or not try to ignore them, but those are things that we don't necessarily want to entertain, cuz no matter really wants to hear the bad side right. Of you. I mean, none of us are perfect. Right?
So when those things are brought to your attention, you know, Hey Marcus, you could have done this a little better or Hey Marcus in the meeting you came across a little brass or, you know, Hey Marcus, in the meeting, you know, you mentioned this and you were very passionate about it, you know? So it, it's good to know that not that it would change in behavior, but it it's it's least good to know and have that awareness.
How do you, um, I don't wanna say react because that's not, how do you manage through those basement? You know, I don't know what to call them.
We'll call it situations. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and I can tell, and, um, I'll just be honest and transparent because that's just how I am. There are some people that you deal with, you know, that we're gonna go to that basement area, just because it's
sounds like Jenni identifies with this.
I love that you acknowledge that cause I think, everyone wants to be professional. Right. And so you're like, well, professional means, you know, and maybe you're always thinking the balcony, I'm always striving you to be the balcony, but based on that statement and based on some of my experiences, sometimes, you know, absolutely right.
We we've, we've gotta dip into this cuz you know, whatever my goal is and whatever their goal is for us to work together we've and to kind of compromise, gotta go to the basement.
Yes. I identify with that. It's just, you know, certain people are certain situations, you know, and we're kind of dealing with this now, Jenny and I, um, on a particular project, but you know, you try really hard to be, um, cordial. You try really hard to, you know, be a team player and then sometimes it just gets to the point of okay here. This is kind of what it is and you're just gonna have to deal. We can deal with it after I say the thing and then we'll just take it from there. yeah,
yeah, yeah. So, sorry. Sorry. I, I interrupted with all my laughing, but yeah, I was,
I think we all go through it and sometimes people try to sweep it under the rug as if it doesn't exist or it's not there. And I'm a big fan of let's call it what it is and let's tackle it head on. So if there's a difficult person that I know back to your questions Sierra, that I know I'm gonna have to deal with today, I have to mentally prepare myself. Yes. Like, okay. I, I, before I even walk in the room, I know where this is going.
So I have to be extra cautious on some of the things I say and how I say them. And it gets to a point where. I have a goal in mind. What is our goal when we lead this room? Right? And if it's to, you know, achieve a project deadline, once that's done that, I'm done. There's no small talk. Hey, how the kid, none of that. , let's not sugar coat it. Let, let's take off that mask. It's not play games. We came here to make a decision decision was made, enjoy your day. Right. I'm gonna enjoy my day.
So, so when I have those basement moments, I, I, I try to be as, as short as I can and to the point, and, you know, with all due respect and professionalism, of course, but the, uh, the small talk and the chitter chatter that's no, that's, that's not what we're here to do. And we're yeah.
Yeah. And I'm, I'm like a first line manager. And one of the, one of the lessons that I knew, I was like, I have to work on this is I would wanna fill up that empty space. Like if you would say something kind of awkward or like you know, maybe you're, maybe you're giving someone some feedback about, you know, their performance or you're asking someone do something they clearly don't wanna do.
At first like, I, I I'd kind of bring it in like, you know, as an example, your performance, you know, your performance was bad and then they just stare at you and, and I would be like, okay, well, you know, I try to fill it in. And I was like, no, no, no, you have to let, 'em sit with that empty space. To let, let them know, like I'm telling you this for a reason. And, and so, yeah, I guess that just never goes away. So
yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's the awkward silence, right? Yeah. And, and, and it's funny, because again, I told you guys, I have a lot of stories, so, and if my mom hears it, she's gonna kill me. But my mom is like the worst when it comes to awkward silence, she will try to find conversations. So how's the weather. It's fine, mom, how was your day? It was good. So how was the weather? It's it's still fine 2 minutes later. But some people are uncomfortable with that.
I was so uncomfortable and I would just be like, okay, well, yeah, I'll do the next thing, blah, blah, blah. But you did, you know, I, and I, you you'd undercut the message with, okay, well, that was bad, but I really like this thing you did, but that, that wasn't the point. The goal of the conversation was to be like, no, we, we need to talk about this issue. So yeah. Yeah. You gotta stay on task. Yep. So, what advice would you give to up and comers who, um, wanna get into technology?
Maybe wanna be a future CTO?
I would say number one, stick to the course, cuz you know, as I mentioned early on it's it's, it's not an easy path. Not, not at all. I mean, you guys are close to that circle and you guys, you know, are in the IT space as well. You have to consistently learn. So you, if, if, if you think that, you know, Hey, I'm an accountant, I learn accounting practices in 1985. I'll do this until the rest of my careers over that. That's not gonna happen.
So you have to be a, a constant learner and you have to be able to adapt to change as well. I mean, we, we see change in our world every day and some people are comfortable with change and others are not. So I would say, you know, stay resilient, stay the chorus. The adaptable to change. And one other thing that I didn't get this piece of advice, but I learned it is try to understand your business as much as possible. When I was with the airline Gordon Baton was the CEO at the time.
And he said that his, his brother wanted to run a watch company. And the first thing he asked him was, was, do you know how a watch works? He was like, well, no. It's like, well, how are you gonna run a watch company? If you don't know how a watch works? So, you know, how are you gonna provide solid technical solutions to a business that you don't know how it operates? Right. So I would say, try to learn the bus.
Not that you have to be an expert, but try to learn the business as, as much as you can. And then another piece of advice is, uh, it's interesting. It's kind of our resounding theme is find that support system. You know, if, if, if there's a Marcus out there that you can call and say, you know, Hey Marcus, what was your journey? Or these are some of the things that I'm going up against. What advice do you have.
I would say, try to find some type of peer group and they're, they're much more prevalent today than they were when I came outta school. So there there's more opportunities that are there, which is great, but I'd definitely say, find, find that support system as well.
Yeah, totally agree. It definitely makes things makes these easier or like, like we said before, ha ha have your village that you can go kind of yeah. Um, reach out to for advice or just even vent about, Hey, I was frustrated about this thing. Okay. So there's been a lot of talk in the industry today about diversity and inclusion and the amount of, uh, representation in companies.
And I think everyone pretty much agrees that there should be more rep representation, but my question is, what action, what should people actually be doing to get us there? Do you have any opinions on that?
I do. I do. So prior to leaving, uh, TD E C U, I was part of the DEI council. I was actually an officer on the DEI council. And, um, we, we had these type of conversations and it's interesting now because the CEO of T D E C U is an African American. Um, he just got appointed maybe six or seven months ago and he and I would have conversations. And one of our board members, it's interesting out of 12, 15 board members, you only have one African American speaking of DEI.
So anyway, we, we would have those type of conversations and the advice, or not necessarily the advice, but I, I think action is the key word. And you mentioned it, Jennifer. I think action is the key word. We can give you, I can give you numbers. I can give you statistics until the colleges come home. Right? I mean, we can put analytics around it. We can put machine learning around it. Hey, we predict in, you know, year 2025, there'll be 5%. I get all of that. But what are we doing today?
And you know, some of the conversations that we've had, I haven't had a lot here, but in my previous roles, Marcus walks in the boardroom and I look around and Marcus is the only one there. And it's been like that for years. Not just something that happened yesterday or Marcus walks in the boardroom and there is another person across the table. Then we don't see him anymore for six months. But another person of African American doesn't show up across the table.
It's someone else that has filled that role or, or taken in that seat. So when you talk about equity, If we lose one, then I would think we should add one, right? I mean, that's, that's my opinion, but you know, maybe somebody has some fuzzy math and they add things differently than what I do, maybe they do. But I think, um, taking action and really putting metrics around what you're gonna, what you say you're gonna do and what did you actually do?
Just like, you know, we have our year end goals, let's make DEI a year end goal, you know? Yes. You know, we have projections, we have forecasts, you know, we're trying to meet certain amount of numbers. We're trying to make sure that, you know, our retention rate is at this particular amount. We're trying to make sure our assets are growing at this particular amount. Well, what about our DEI committee? What about how, how many African Americans do we have in this particular role?
Or how many do we want? You know, and a lot of times it's just conversation. Well, You put metrics and goals around everything else you wanna accomplish. Right? Why can't we put metrics and goals around DEI? So that was, that was one of the things that we really talked about. And I think we're making progress not as quickly as I'd like to see it, but I do think that we are making progress in pocket.
So to answer your question, I think putting metrics around that and measuring it, just like you do the rest of your KPIs for the organization. I think that needs to be part of that as well. Yeah. A second to that is I think there needs to be mentor mentee programs formal. I mean, I, I know that, you know, in some of my social circles, I may have a mentee or I may have someone that, you know, Hey Marcus, my son is going through school. He's having a tough time, true story.
And you know, computer science may not be for him. And see, we know, tell me, give me a call because I, I I've been in his shoes. I've been down that past and it's gonna pay off, but you need to persevere. So in my outer circles, I think that that exists. But in the workplace, you know, if somebody, you guys probably experience more than I do, you. We don't have a program.
If I have somebody that comes in fresh outta college to where, okay, Hey Marcus, you're gonna be assigned his mentor or, Hey, you know, your first 90 days, you need to identify somebody in the organization that's gonna mentor you. And I I'd like to see that more of a, a formal structured program, as opposed to, you know, oh, Hey, by the way, you know, we have a junior programmer coming in, he came from an H B, C U Marcus, can you go?
So it's like, okay, here we go with this inclusion and thing again. Right. You know, Marcus, you're one, he's one can know each other.
You should know each other.
No, you know this? No.
Yeah. That's exactly right. So, you know, regardless of whether it's African American or not, I, I think that there needs to be some type of mentor, preferably, but if not, at least some type of structured program in place.
Yeah,
I think this all goes back to the conversation of just be intentional. I, I understand it's such a hot topic and like, I get it. But I think for us who are the black employees and who have seen, you know, this mass Exodus, you know, of, of black people, or just not being able to see enough of us that look like us around, it's like, yeah, this was a hot topic, but what are you actually doing?
Even if I come and bring you a suggestion, you decide whether or not you want to take that, you know, that advice and do anything about it. So then now I feel deflated. I feel like, you know, my voice, you know, isn't heard my, my opinion isn't valued and then it just repeats this cycle. And I just want leaders to take ownership of this and be intentional. Just be intentional about what you're doing.
Absolutely. And I, I, I think it takes courage too, especially being, uh, an African American executive. Um, if you're not comfortable in your own skin and I've seen it happen before, you're so accustomed to getting in line and so accustomed to doing what's expected of me. Well, you should have expectations of yourself as well. And this, again, this is Marcus's personal opinion.
That's a great point.
I've always been the one that, you know, God has blessed me to be a blessing. And, you know, even though I'm a trailblazer, I need to look back and it's, it's, it's a quote that we had in my social organization, um, lifting as we climb. Right. So as, as, as I climb, I'm looking back and seeing who else I can, I can pull up with me because we're all walking down this, this, this same journey or this same road.
I love that. That's very, very true.
Yeah, totally agree. And things like, um, I mean, Sierra, you mentioned that the great resignation, and we also talked about I introverts vs extroverts and I think a, a mentorship program. Right. I think that would, you know, obviously benefit everybody. Like I think everyone. And I think extra, you know, I'm not an extrovert, but I'm assuming extrovert just going up to people and just ask 'em advice all the time.
You know, and it's a little harder for, for us people that don't like to reach out so much to find someone to connect with and having that structure so that everyone gets a chance and builds up that confidence and the re the reason why people don't think Sierra and I are introverts is because we've kind of just keep putting our through experience the other ways we're like, okay, well, this is how we circumvent that.
And now we kind of feel comfortable in those situations, but it took a while to get there. Yeah. And, and, uh, a mentorship program would help that. And just really help, you know, as a, as a, as a development manager, I can see something that tends to happen is the person that's really good at solving a particular set of problems just kinda, they keep giving the ball to that person. Right. Keep fixing this, keep fixing.
and it could be cuz of time or whatever, but there's other people out there that are capable of doing it. It's just that they don't feel as comfortable kind of, you know, putting their hand up or getting there.
And so through mentorship or, or someone recognizing, or having that conversation with them, like, Hey, this is how, you know, I know you're interested, you know, they can talk about their goals or where they wanna see themselves in five years based on that, you know, you need to get more involved in things. So, you know, how do you kind of slowly even conversations, like talk to your manager about what you wanna do.
Some people, you know, sometimes the one on ones, people are mentioning things to me and they're like, yeah, I don't even under, how did this person do that? Well, I was like, well, first thing they did was they talked to their manager and then, then the manager helped them.
So, you know, people take that for granted, especially when you you've been in, you know, you've got several years of experience, like yeah, of course everybody knows that, but no, if you're fr you know, if you're someone who's family isn't in this industry or you're, you know, they don't, they, you know, they're not in technology or they're not in careers that have this kind of ladder or you're you're, you know, you're fresh outta school. You, these are things you don't know. Like, yeah.
I can't imagine. I can't, I was pretty dumb when I came outta school. it took me a while to figure out a lot of stuff. So, yeah.
Yeah. And I, I think, I, I think that's a very important point. One other thing that I would recommend is, is, is volunteer for projects and volunteer for things outside of your normal scope. And a lot of times people don't know that, right? Because we come in and I can speak my myself, okay. This is my job description. This is what's expected of me. I'm gonna knock it outta the park. And I'm gonna just stay in my box and do this all day, every day.
I'm gonna do great at it, but that's what I'm gonna do because that's, what's expected of me. And I'd say probably midway through my career. I didn't really realize that, Hey, it's okay to start asking questions. It's okay to start looking around and seeing what's going on around you, as opposed to coming in, put your head down, you know, with your blinders on doing the job to the best of your ability then going home.
So I think if you have kind of that horizontal view of what's going on around you, I think that helps as well.
Yeah. Yeah. People think, um, yeah, cause I was kinda like heads down. I'm just gonna do what I'm doing. But when I got the confidence to start being like, why are we doing this? Like this? Or shouldn't we do that's really when people were like, oh, well yeah, you got opinions. Okay. Let's yes. Why don't you do this? And why don't you do that? And then I saw, you know, my career start to kind grow.
Yeah. And I think that's, that's really where you start showing the value that you have. Right. And I think that that's where the leadership skills come in at as well, because. You're not afraid to, you know, somewhat disturb the apple card, if there's a better way of doing it. Hey, Jim, by all means, tell us, you know, let's do it. That's, that's what we're looking for. That's how we got to where we are today.
So, yeah. Yeah. You know, and I think about people on my team where people I've worked with in the past, you know, it's like, oh, why is this person, all this complaining be like, you know what? They do know what they're talking about. So let me listen to them or let's try things their way. And then yeah. Obviously the team, you know, grows and gets better because of those things.
Yeah. And I can tell you too, back to the, kind of the, the D E and I conversation. I, I think that it's very challenging for us to educate anyone that's not African American, especially in the workplace, because there are some things that we have gone through that I can explain it to we're blue in the face. And some people either they won't get it or they will pretend like they don't get it or they'll just fed out, say, okay, that can't be true. Well, I, I'm not making this up.
I mean, if, if, if you're willing to listen and truly listen with the filters that you have on, if you could lower those. And I think it's, it's, it's deep rooted, right? Because a lot of times you're a product of your environment. And if people who aren't African American don't interact with African Americans, all they do is see stereotypes and they watch YouTube videos and make TikTok videos. And, oh, this is what they must be like.
Correct.
That's, that's a challenge for me. Uh, especially having those type of conversations in the workplace because people already come to the table with a preconceived notion of how you're supposed to be. And when you show them something differently, then you're the exception as opposed to the norm. I'm like, well, no. Yeah, yeah. This is how we are. There are plenty of us, us. Yeah. It's, it's not just me, right? It's not just the error. It's not just, there are plenty of us.
You just don't give us the opportunity. And you're not willing to have those conversations. So that's, that's one of the things we talked about, you know, satisfaction. That's one of the things that I'm trying to break that ceiling now, and it's not just a numbers thing and it's not just an equity thing. I think there's some things that's so systemic and so deep rooted. It's gonna have to take those tough conversation. Now, if I get fired, I'm gonna call you guys and see if you need get. Yeah.
.In the meantime, I'm gonna keep trying, trying to break that barrier.
And that was really, yeah. That's that was kind of where the idea for the podcast came as well. I was like, there's a lot of black people in technology, but no, one's really think, you know, cuz the answer always is, well, we can't find the people in technology it's too hard to find them. So I was like,
I'm not, I'm not buying that one have
yeah. So just and, and normalize. Right. We know, right? Yes. But, um, normalizing to, to America. Yeah. Of that. This is no different than anything else. Like you're always gonna think of athletes and musicians, but no, this, we do check too. We do accounting.
We do everything
I told to have another story for you. So we're in a meeting, true story. Here it is. I'll show it to you. A guy comes with me, he's like, Hey Marcus, is that a super bowl ring? I said, no, it's not a super bowl ring. It's a computer science degree ring. Oh, wow. I mean, it, I don't, I don't think again, back to that, you know, systemic, I don't want to call it racism, but systemic way of thinking.
Yes.
So UN it's kind of like an unconscious bias that comes out, right? Correct.
So he, he saw nothing wrong with asking me that question. Yeah. And several people would probably see nothing wrong with, with asking me that question. Another guy told me, you know, Hey Marcus, you kind of dressed like tiger woods today. Yeah.
Oh really?
No. Yeah. So some of these board room conversations that I've had, and it's one of those where, okay, I hear you , I'm not gonna address it right now, but we talking about those balconies earlier. I'm not gonna address it right now, but yeah. We'll have a conversation after this one, John,
you know, it's such a hard burden to bear also because I remember when, you know, the UN the unfortunate death of George Floyd, and there was all of these conversations that companies were having with their employees about how they're feeling and and I felt, and I know a couple of friends of mine who one, they were even in a workplace where their leaders were letting them openly talk about it. Right.
The burden of having to either recount your experience or trying to educate someone or having to tell people, like, when you say this, this is how it makes me feel. It's like that constant thing. And I'm just like, I am exhausted. Yeah. I want you to go and find an article to go read about this or go find a book or something. I cannot also live the experience and then also have to carry the burden of educating you about my experience also. Absolutely.
That is it's such a, and I don't think I'm ready for that level. yeah. Marcus, I will get there one day, but right now I'm just like, no,
yeah. It's. It's tough. I mean, those sort of things always take me by surprise. Um, and I actually did a, a presentation for Grace Hopper or a workshop where it was like, you just need to be prepared at some point in your professional career someone's gonna say something really inappropriate to you and you just need to practice beforehand what you say so that, yeah. Cause it could just throw you off.
Right. Cause you're like I'm in this meeting and it just says something completely outta left field. Now I can't even, I'm thinking about that instead of thinking about what's in the meeting. So just preparing yourself for that.
Yeah. Yeah. And I, and again, I don't want to, you know, inundate you guys with stories, but these are the things that stick in my mind. And some of these stories happened, you know, 10, 15 years ago. Yeah. I remember when Obama was elected, we were in a meeting. I, it seemed like it was yesterday and this guy was pretty high up in the organization. He said, well, Marcus, we don't have any chocolate donuts today for Mr. Obama. He said this in a meeting. And
oh my God.
And, and I, yeah, and I, I do commend my, my supervisor at the time. And if he's listening to this, he knows exactly what I'm talking about. He came to my office after that meeting, he said, are you okay? I said, I'm okay, but I wanna know what are you gonna do about it? Because I'm gonna do something about it. If you got right. And no, no, no. Let me, let me take care of, let me take care of it.
so, um, I don't know what they did to take care of, but the guy came back to my office and, you know, he apologized it. Wasn't sincere. I can see in the, I wanted to tell him, get out of my office, but, you know, I just told him, thank you for coming by. And the CIO at the time came by my office, you know, Hey Marcus cause I heard about what happened, you know, that's, that's unacceptable.
And you know, if there's anything you want to do legally, I said, well, no, I, I don't, I don't think that's necessary at this point. But, you know, it, it did make me feel good that at least my supervisor had my back and then my supervisor, supervisor, which was the CIO. Yeah. He, you know, and, and maybe they didn't have my back, but at least they addressed it. It wasn't one of those to where we're just gonna ignore that, come and act like it didn't happen and, you know, off we go. Right. So,
yeah. And that, that's a good to, to mention allyship too, cuz since we, since we, I think before George Floyd, people weren't talking about this as openly, right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so if something like that ha had happened at work, I might not necessarily go to my manager and say, Hey, you know, right. This happened to me and I don't think it's right. I don't think I would've done that. So the fact that this is kind of more of an open conversation now.
Yes. And you know, based on what I'm hearing, you know, you know, this is not accepted. And I feel like there would be some sort, I don't know what the process would be, but like I said, someone's gonna go talk to someone about it and do something that, that is the benefit. And just knowing, you know, you know, where people stand on that. And, and I don't think I would've ever gone to a manager about something like that before, you know, less two summers ago.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
absolutely. Just another, another thing that we carry on our back, we just move on, you know, with your day and try to act like it didn't bother you.
Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, again, I think that support system is very important and me not having a lot of African Americans, you know, around me to have those conversations. Cause I couldn't have that conversation with anybody else at the time because they, they wouldn't have understood. Even if my supervisor didn't understand, I wouldn't have had the ability to make him understand. Yes, I could articulate what just happened here. But what I'm feeling right now.
There's no way I can explain yeah. That to you because you, you, you won't get it.
Yeah. Any requests here or should we move on to the heat check? Okay. So heat check is where we share something in the news or something that we were involved in or experienced that is exciting us in technology or culture. So, Marcus, do you have anything you'd like to share with us?
I have some projects that we're working on, but no, we, we're not gonna go there. um, one thing that I am proud of is that I do commend you guys for having these type of activities, forums, podcasts. Cause I, I, I think it helps. It helps me and I think it's gonna help others as well. Especially the people who are listening. They're gonna know that, Hey, I'm not the only one that's going through this type of ordeal. So commend you guys for that.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Yeah. And as far as any publications are concerned, uh, let's just say not yet. I, I have a couple of things that, that, that are in the woodworks and, uh, you guys will probably hear something soon, but nothing here as far as publication.
Oh, come on. We can't get like a first come on. Could we get a sneak peek? Heard it here first on the interface podcast.
If you wanna
y'all gonna get me in trouble, you know that
you can let us know and we will definitely we'll put that in our heat check for the, the following episode as soon as we find out.
Okay. Absolutely. We can do that. We'll keep, we'll keep you out of trouble for now. Do a good of getting myself in trouble.
Sierra, do you have one for today. You want me to go next?
I I'm happy to share. Um, so mine is very culture and it's not even technically black culture, but I'm very excited. Don't shoot me. But Adele is back. Okay. I, as black people, we can appreciate good music and my girl is bad.
I'm still appreciate appreciating Bruno Mars and Anderson Paaks
that too oh my God. Her, her, she had like a one night only thing on CBS. I went out and bought an antenna for my TV so that I could tune in to CBS to watch her. And I told my family. I am nonexistent for the next two hours because Adele did it already come on. It came on last night. It was
last night I forth of the interview. It was, it was good. I'm not a big fan, like Sierra, but I, it was good. The pieces that I saw, it was pretty good.
I mean the voice and just her story from her divorce and how she's, you know, managing the co-parenting and all of that. I was just like, thank you, girl. Thank you. I'm so glad you're back. So that is my that's my little random heat check for today. I'm excited. I'm waiting for the album to drop
and I, and I know it was about her, but I mean, do you guys understand how just magnificent Oprah is? I mean, did, did you it was probably interesting coming from me, but just her personality, her interviewing skills, just her empathy. She's just. Yeah, she's outta sight.
Oprah is one of those people that just, just looking at the span of her career and how she has taken every lesson that she's learned and just capitalized on the, and, and not just even from the financial perspective, but how she's been able to help people have certain conversations, her interview style. It seems like every interview now that she's, everybody says, you're trying to make me cry. That's like her that's like her key thing, but yeah, she's, she is sure.
Show on a regular basis. I just rather, I just rather watch ID, just rather watch YouTube content on the Marvel universe. that's that's just me. That's the kind of nerd I am.
We get you. We get you
hundred percent respect to Oprah. I would definitely faint. If I ever met, met her in person.
She's a legend for sure.
We should end it on yours. mine is um, so we talked about a, a few weeks ago about the cost of computing and, and, you know, it's actually, you know, the energy hog it is. Well, I found an article on the news stack written by David Castle, which is which programming languages use the least electricity.
And they have like statistics where they, um, they just, they ran the same benchmarks against multiple languages to see which ones consume the most energy, which ones finished in the least amount of time. And which used the most data. So C and C plus plus, and ADA pretty much rust are all pretty good. Javas doing pretty good. And, uh, I, I wrote notes on this. I did it again.
it just made some pretty, uh, good points about, um, procedural languages versus interpreted languages and how, how they perform on this.
So who's the energy hog?
Pearl, Pearl is last on the list. Pythons not doing very well either is, is looking bad. So, um, pretty interesting. And so, and you might need to write if depending on the architecture of whatever you're writing and where it's gonna be, that might be a consideration about, you know, you how much money I'm gonna spend on electricity or yeah. You know, performance is the obvious one. Yeah. Right. We're always concerned about that.
So that one, I was kind of research cause you, you kind of already know, but, um, I never had seen a list of this is consuming this many joules I haven't even heard anyone mention a joule in a whole oh yeah.
I haven't heard that in a while.
Yeah. That's been a long time. Wow.
so I was like, wow. I don't even know really what one jewel means, but C consumed one joule while Pearl consumed 79.58 joules. On this set of benchmarks that they're in. So it's pretty cool. Wow.
Okay. So I, I, I do have one now that you guys have shared yours. So, um, do you guys have any Bitcoin as part of your portfolio?
Not yet.
Not yet, yet. Not yet.
We just, actually, a few episodes back. We had a guest on who were telling us about cryptocurrency and
yeah, we thought we were gonna talk about cloud computing and he was like, no, correct. I wanna talk about bitcoin.
And we were, and we were all like leaned in, like, yes. Tell us more, tell us more.
so we, we were in our board meeting and one of our board members seems like, okay, Marcus so we want you to give a presentation on blockchain in our next board meeting. It's like, oh, okay, sure. not a problem,
how much time to the next board meeting.
It's in December. So I, I still have some time, yeah. IBM has a, a pretty good, uh, blockchain solution that they're using. So mm-hmm , but that's, it's, it's just interesting at this point in time. So, and like I said, I mean, blockchain didn't exist five years ago, so we gotta be on the con continuous learning curve iPhones didn't exist 20 years ago. Right.
It's crazy.
Yeah. And, and then you talk about, so, and what policies need to be updated based on that's my, my thing is like, when, when you start being a, you know, on the, the verge right of new technology, but all of our processes and legislators kind of based on things that we, we were doing 50 years ago.
Yeah. Where we're now. So, I mean, because as you guys can imagine financial institutions are highly, highly regulated. There's mm-hmm. There's really not a whole lot of regulation around cryptocurrency right now. So, I mean, it's like everybody's doing what they want to do, how they want to do it. And people are making a lot of money off of it.
So is that sort of a, um, is there a trepidation with going into these new technologies for someone like a financial institution, where again, everything is very regulated. We've had the same regulations for a while. Very few updates. Is that sort of like tread lightly, even though they're interested
and it is, I think that's a great way of putting it. As I mentioned earlier, we're not bleeding edge. I would say we're somewhat cutting edge, but those are some of the hurdles that we have because we have what's called examiners and they actually come in, um, from the state as well as from the, uh, national credit union association. So there, there are compliance rules that we have to abide by in order to operate. Right. And if we're not, then they can come in and shut us down.
So if we come to them and say, you know, Hey yeah, we have Bitcoin ATMs and our branches and they're probably gonna what you talking about?
again, getting yourself in trouble.
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I told you I'd do a good job. I
see. Really, I've seen those Bitcoin ATMs, like in the local gas station. I'm like, who is going? Are people really going to ATM for Bitcoin?
Yes. People are paying for supplies and goods and services with Bitcoins. There was a Congressman I think in New York said that he wants his paycheck in Bitcoin. Yeah. In Bitcoin. I don't know if it's true or not, but I read that article. Wow. Yeah it's weird.
Absolutely. Mm-hmm I have a funny story about Donnie Simpson. Do you remember Donnie Simpson? The radio host?
Yes.
B E T Donny Simpson.
Hello.
So, okay. We're all. I'm not showing my age.
this is how old was I? Maybe I was 25. Anyway, he had a contest on the radio where he was given away maybe a computer or something. So he was like, oh, since this is based on a computer. I'm not gonna do the 10th caller. I'm just gonna, you know, whoever calls in and tells me the first five prime numbers, I'm gonna give it away too.
Well, first I called in and I think that one of the first five prime, like, I don't even know anymore, but I think, I think they said one, which one is not a prime number. And, and Donny said, so was like, yeah, you get the computer.
Why is your answer key Donny. That was not, it,
it was a morning show. So I was on my way to work. And I was like, I was like, he this computer to someone that doesn't even know the prime numbers. So, and this is like, oh God, this is probably like, Year 2000, maybe 2001. Oh wow. Somehow I found his email address, which everyone didn't have email address. You couldn't just go to their social media, just put, yeah. I found an email address or the email address of the show and I type, I'll tell
you sometimes I get these move and I'm like, I'm gonna tell this person . And I was like, I really appreciate that you're supporting students, you know, and I, and I'm not by any means saying you need to take this man's prize away, but we value basketball players and, and actors and artists, and we don't treat people in technology the same or, you know, scholars the same way that answer was wrong.
classic. Jenni Plummer. I love it. I love to know this who you've always been.
I didn't hear the next morning's morning show, but apparently he did read the letter. Oh, no worry. Oh, wow. so it was like, did you send, cause I think he just used my first name. He's like, did you send Donny Simpson an email? I was like, yes.
that is hilarious.
Oh my goodness. Yes.
I love it. I'm that kind of nerd? Did you have any more stories, Marcus?
No, I think that's, that's it for today.
All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us. How could people reach you if they wanna get in contact?
So my LinkedIn, um, Marcus Mann, you can search me there. Um, not a big social media person for, I mean, I wouldn't say obvious reasons, but me being on the technology side and on the security side, I just kind of have to be careful. So LinkedIn would probably probably be the best way.
Awesome. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you to our listeners for listening. If you wanna reach out to us, you can reach us interfacepodcast@pros.com. If I got anything wrong or you wanna, you know, same way I send her Donnie Simpson. You do her. If you don't like
something,
I said, you can email interfacepodcast@pros.com. You enjoyed this conversation we encourage you to go out and find someone to talk to and have your own conversation. Bye.