#024: Women in Digital Analytics with Krista Seiden

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[00:00:00] Hi folks this episode is an interesting one. We conceived of the idea and tackled it in a typical manner with lots of booze and bad jokes. But as we began to assemble this for production we started to reflect a bit on the seriousness of this issue. We are very committed to our industry and analytics community being a place for every practitioner as you listen. You’ll probably hear plenty of times where we get it wrong or ignorant or don’t have a good understanding of all the issues and it will be very clear that we are not super comfortable but instead of shy away from the topic and maybe not even released this episode we want to press in. And then our own fault for the way participate in this discussion. It’s too important not to. So in our own imperfect way we present this episode of The Digital Analytics. Welcome to the digital analytics.

[00:00:59] Theory analytics and the occasional guest discussing digital analytics issues of the day. Find them on Facebook at facebook dot com at all with slash and Sexauer. Now. Digital. Analytics power.

[00:01:17] Hello everyone. Welcome to the digital analytics power hour. This is Episode 24 Have you ever listened to this podcast and wondered if anyone else listening was a woman. No. Well that’s very sexist of you. And you should feel terrible unless of course you are a woman then I’m sexist for asking the question. The one thing we can all agree on is that our industry needs more representation by women. They’re awesome and we need more of them so we needed somebody to help us because obviously I’m joined tonight by my cohost Tim Wilson senior partner at analytics demystified. Good day. And of course Jim Kane CEO of Babbage systems and napkin. Hello. And everyone’s used to me by now Michael Houweling from sir’s discovery. But of course world doods. So we need help with this topic. Who better to be our guide for this discussion than the digital analytics association. Rising Star in 2014 and the practitioner of the year 2015 Google’s very own Chris Seiden welcome Krista. Thanks for having me Krista.

[00:02:31] First I’d love to hear how you started into digital analytics. You’ve been in the industry for quite some time. We’ve had you had many roles but everybody’s story is unique I’d love maybe our listeners would probably love to hear yours and have you always been a woman in the industry.

[00:02:48] Or do you think I’ve always been a woman in the industry. But I don’t know maybe it’s important pathway that was different.

[00:02:57] So I got started when I was working at Adobe Systems several years back and I was actually pre Omniture acquisition. And so for Adobe proper and one day I was I was responsible for making dashboards for Shantanu the CEO and I realized that I was getting a lot of the metrics from Omniture but I was going to several different people to pull those metrics for me. And so as somebody curious about the tool I went ahead and went to that team and asked them to teach me what they were doing and I kind of spiraled into an interest for for digital analytics or at the time web analytics and then Adobe acquired Omniture and I was blessed to be able to take pretty much every training course that I wanted from them which was great. I took several courses I learned everything about all of those products. And it really became a career for me. So I did that for few years at Adobe. Then I moved to the Apollo Group where I ran a mobile analytics and social analytics for an internal social work for them and that was great. I did that for about a year and then came over to Google and Google my first two years. I ran an analytics optimization program for the Google forward team as an internal practitioner built out a b testing program scaling from one test all the way up to 50 tests a quarter you know build a solid platform. Google Analytics through Google tag manager and I really enjoyed that and then just about a year ago I moved over to the actual analytics team as an analytics advocate.

[00:04:30] So today I represent the brand out in the industry. There were a lot of conference speaking metal out of you guys. It’s been awesome. And I also run a premium training program. So educational on its way. And it’s been quite quite the journey.

[00:04:45] Have you gotten there yet. Are you close to getting Adobe to adopt Google Analytics as their web analytics platform of choice. You know I’m working pretty hard on it. Okay. Or vice versa.

[00:04:54] I guess I could ask with my tongue in the other cheek and you know if you could name one person that Adobe has made you feel the most marginalized. No. But actually so to kick off sort of just the discussion you know it’s not sort of a question of how is it for a woman in this industry but it is a perspective that we lack right. And I wonder help us see through your eyes when you’re going through your professional career. Are there things that are happening that we could be better aware of how do we kind of promote. I don’t know. This question is going nowhere fast but I hope it does that make any sense.

[00:05:36] What’s it like to be a woman. Yes. But generally that you asking it just are there. I mean I don’t know. Are there differences are there not differences.

[00:05:46] Is this the fumbling that is going to happen from three wise ass guys or was retried and not completely Torche ourselves by acknowledging which we haven’t really yet. By moving out that many times leading up to this episode. But we asked Chris to come on to talk about the state of women in analytics and immediately felt horrible about asking her to come on because she was a woman to talk about the state of women in analytics. I feel like we should kind of throw that out and should probably also acknowledge that Christa has sort of set herself up for that because she’s written pretty thoughtfully about the subject. So Crystal will likely if we cheat if we don’t completely alienate her on this show we’ll have her back to talk about something completely non gender related. But tonight we’ve said we’re going to bite the bullet and embrace her gender by that. See there. Now back to the webcast.

[00:06:41] Thank you for everything you just made humbling look awesome.

[00:06:44] No it such a schlep. I’m like there are you but so can we. I

[00:06:51] mean we like to start off maybe like do you’ve got to because you’ve been asked about it so many times but how well can you sort of recap the competing internal debates you had that you try to work out in the linked in post. That will definitely link to. Is that a fair place to to ask you to to start.

[00:07:12] Yeah sure. So I mean that post was really sparked by a couple of events. So in one case I was presenting at a conference and was actually asked during the Q and A part of the keynote session. I was married. That’s a question that you would never get to a male presenter. My fellow male presenter said back at those questions and it was just it was it was very offensive as a woman and you know one of the other things that I pointed out was that I don’t want to necessarily be known as a woman and analytics which I know is kind of what we’re talking about here tonight is going to let him. So maybe I’m the wrong person there but I want to be known as being a strong person.

[00:07:54] I’m a strong speaker a strong practitioner somebody who just really good in my field rather and being known by my gender. So a couple of things that I call out in that post I really thought as a woman I hope that you don’t be intimidated by what is traditionally a male dominated industry. Know I think that we’re pretty good representation here in this podcast 75 25 for what the industry is like but don’t feel Hoback based on your gender I guess you know I attend events get involved get out there speak teach you everything that you can and should do and don’t let gender hold you back. And then I think the other thing that I really hope to get across in that post was that society as a whole needs to move past that gender role bias and that we need to really recognise people based on what they bring to the table and not just because of their gender.

[00:08:47] So let me ask. There are two kinds of mental exercises I went through with leading up to this and one was realizing that my first two managers in analytics were women so I actually came into the field reporting to women and then the second exercise was of kind of my client base sort of counting the genders of the analysts is it still seventy five twenty five. Is there more parity because I I kind of landed about 50 50 and I didn’t want to think about it too much because then I’d have to say why are we having this episode at all. But I don’t think it’s necessarily just about the numbers. I don’t think there necessarily is stats. I mean I guess we can you can look at who’s speaking at conferences but that’s a fair representation of that industry. I mean do you feel like. Not in your role as a woman in your role at Google. I mean you’re bouncing around to a lot of companies and is that do you feel like it’s about 75 25 still maybe not 75 25 maybe 70 30 even 60 40 down on.

[00:09:52] I don’t think there is hard data on it so it’s more that I don’t know I relate already tweeted. I don’t see it being equal yet. I think that there’s still quite a difference in terms of the balance there. Somebody at one of these conferences actually said something interesting to me when you’re talking about this about how the conference is about 70 30 and attendees were talking about robots that’s better than it has been over the last few years. And the OP this person had was well it’s probably because of marketing and sales are moving closer to analytics and marketing and sales and becoming more data driven. And that’s probably why we see more women because they’re coming from marketing and sales. And then you may think that’s maybe fair and may be true but at the same time I also find it a little offensive.

[00:10:40] Well let’s kind of not how you want to solve the problem. Right. And yeah that’s interesting. And Tim I liked that you brought up that your first two bosses were it because actually my best manager I ever had in analytics was also a woman and I learned so much from her as like a lot of my leadership style came from her. And so like I don’t know. Recently I was at a conference where I was on a panel talking to college students.

[00:11:07] And so I’m trying to get all of these college kids interested in careers in analytics and the predominant number of people in the room were women. And I was like How can I convince these women this is such a great industry. You need to be in this industry we need you in analytics. And I don’t know look like from your perspective Krista are there barriers. Did you talk to people and they say I don’t know if I want to get into analytics. Do people view it a certain way because it is very skewed towards men historically but how can we break down the barriers that make them attractive to everybody.

[00:11:46] Yeah I think that’s a great question and I think that it’s amazing that both of you have had really strong female bosses and leadership in the past and analytics. I’ve had some really great managers none of whom have been women.

[00:12:00] And so you know perhaps my my viewpoint is a little skewed there. I don’t I don’t know too many women managers in analytics field at least within my sphere of influence and friends and in networks. So I think that’s really cool. But in terms of getting more women interested into analytics I I think that part of it might be that analytics is seen to be you know a kind of a technical fields. And that that is scary maybe to some younger women who are coming in and are like well I don’t know if I want to you know go into engineering if they’re trying to figure out what they’re doing and college if they want to go into computer science or go down that path of the more technical route. And I think that maybe that’s an education thing maybe we need to help the industry understand a little bit more that there’s different types of analysts and there’s different roles that you can play in the industry and that you know anybody can fill any of these roles. But if you’re less comfortable on the technical side there’s more of the business analysis side. And if you’re more comfortable on the technical side then that’s definitely the way they go. Yeah I know.

[00:13:09] That’s interesting. If you think of like STEM right there’s all a concerted effort for the stem world to get better gender balance. What I was kind of hearing you say was Well if there’s some young girl and my daughter and she’s saying I don’t really want to do science and technology that’s not really what I want to do analytics falls in this kind of weird tweeners space where it’s got technical and it’s got business and there’s a risk that though so shy away from technical that they’ll not not because they’re women just because they’re just fundamentally aren’t interested in technical that it’s a little bit more nuance to say this is this really rich space where you have to have this broad set of skills and need to be able to be right brain and left brain and it’s just a tougher thing to sell in to anyone. I guess I don’t know that I’m as bothered by it. It’s marketers who are drifting towards it because nobody started in this career. Nobody who’s over 30 started out in analytics so everybody came from somewhere and I came from technical writing to him came from sales so you have to come from somewhere. So we’re getting better representation somewhere and there’s enough analytics there for somebody to be drawn to it. You just want to make sure that door is open if they say Yup I want to step in that direction. It’s not going to show up at a conference and have scantily clad women you know dancing and alcoves at an after party. That was a shock to me.

[00:14:45] Had conferences so it was absolutely a very prominent conference where one of the parties had oh people who were there were either incredibly uncomfortable which was me or were incredibly into it in which case my opinion of those people plummeted.

[00:15:03] But I don’t know Jim you have anything to say.

[00:15:07] I have a hard time having a good perspective on this one because and to do be 75 percent of napkins analysts or girls in it’s always kind of been that ratio and it just hired the best people for the job. I mean I don’t have a whole lot to say. I mean the one thing I would be curious about is coming from a background of enterprise sales. There was both the lack of representation and a respectful culture for female salespeople to really be able to develop their own skills and not have to kind of align with a bunch of douche bro sales guy stuff and that’s changing a little bit now. But you know again big big sales teams tend to be female unfriendly even if they’re very talented at their work. What I would wonder is there’s definitely to some extent a lack of representation especially at the more senior level in our industry for Ruffino else. But I’ve never really felt the same level of cultural misalignment. And frankly I didn’t fit in in big sales teams either. You know I was a skinny guy who likes to make dick jokes like I just didn’t fit in with the big big hardware sales guys. So the easiest way to put it is this came out of any metrics conference. This whole concept I don’t go to a single trade show or conference other metrics where people who are sharing best practices trying to hook each other up it’s like a very kind of forgiving and respectful way to hook each other up in a professional.

[00:16:34] Yes. Yes. Crystal Meth. That’s exactly what I’m talking about.

[00:16:38] No like if when I’m at a retail conference if someone did something that worked they’re going to sell that idea to get a job somewhere else they’re not going to take you out for a beer and take you through how to be a better you know retail paid search guy or whatever it is. I just find our industry is particularly respectful to all comers it’s global. But again I’m a boy I don’t know whether it’s culturally respectful to female analysts in the same way. What

[00:17:04] I’m curious about how those to you have. I mean that’s the thing we’re Christe is like the one that’s like Yeah you’d think that. But my god the number who do she guys she’s managed to cross paths with is staggering. Yeah.

[00:17:18] They’re going around. We’re in Australia. And I had a guy walk up to me after my presentation who basically said You’re hot and I’m going to marry you. So they responded excuse me and this is a professional conference and then he just followed it up with the idea didn’t care I was hot. And he walked away. I told him to integrate his API up his own back and that’s what I would’ve said. That would have been good. I was so shocked at the time that I didn’t have a good comeback.

[00:17:47] But I mean can you imagine if chris to your credit you’ve now you’ve been in the industry for a while you’re comfortable on stage you’re comfortable in a crowd. I can’t even imagine if that was some analysts who had been in the job for six months or nine months and they’d gotten Sitten to send to a conference so probably wasn’t speaking and some guy walks up and says that like just represent because that was my reaction when that happened. I said Are you kidding. Like what Rock did that guy crawl out from under on the one hand like Oh that would never happen. And of course that was you. Well yeah that’s kind of what happened in Amsterdam and that’s kind of what’s happened. You know so there’s probably starting to march down the feminism writ large path. But like what moron would actually think in any setting any time after 1992 that could be that oblivious to appropriate behavior or 92 that was ok.

[00:18:49] Am I being cruel. Well I’ll try to think of the last time that I oh last time it happened to you.

[00:18:55] Yeah licencee proposed to me right after I got off stage one time. But that’s the only person I knew he was joking.

[00:19:04] So you had to Jim’s point earlier. I do think and agree that our industry is very welcoming animal and that you know people who are new to conferences especially something like geometrics everybody is there to network to share ideas and best practices and they’re all very open to all of the new people who are coming and I think that’s amazing. I don’t think that that necessarily means that people have moved past some of the kind of gender roles that I’ve felt more recently in Amsterdam in Australia. You know another another thing that happened to me also in Australia. Why is somebody saying you know I knew I recognized you. But I couldn’t put my finger on it. So I Googled your name and I figured out you were the GTM coarsen. Schachter You know it’s it’s nice to see that you’re more than just a talking head you know just to think that somebody on camera you teaching a course is probably just a pain talking head. That was that was pretty offensive to me as well. But yeah I don’t know it’s kind of hard for me to tie the two worlds together because I do think that our industry is so welcoming.

[00:20:18] And at the same time I’ve unfortunately felt some non welcoming comments I’m trying to think of a company in the analytics space that kind of tends to do highly produced videos with professional actors and actors. If only I could think of. Wait a minute. You really do hate Adobe now don’t you.

[00:20:43] I had mayor say I can’t.

[00:20:45] So I guess there’s I mean there’s the conferences but then there’s also what’s really happening in companies and I guess that’s another one where I my personal you know when I was client side it seemed like I was fantastic. Companies are specifically one fantastic company and it seemed like completely a non issue. And it was a company that was very very engineering heavy it not that there wasn’t some degree besides money and some degree of whatever sexism occurring here and there but overall as a company it seemed fairly restive and lightened on that front. And I guess I don’t know if any of us have great insight into the state of pick your after your typical large company and as analysts we have to struggle so hard to build relationships with the business as it is. I could see take the stereotypical take feminine qualities of being a listener relation whatever. When probably I’m being sexist right now. No I think there’s been plenty of literatures that could be an asset of saying yes I can establish relationships. I can listen a little better. I can be responsive but at the same time is that potentially also that battle of stuck with not having credibility because there’s latent sexism in the group that I’m trying to build credibility and rapport and build relationships with.

[00:22:20] So I mean I think made a couple of good points. I’ve worked in companies as an analyst where it’s been a fairly even split. Men and women and I’ve also worked on teams where it was five guys and me. So I’ve seen both sides. I do think that at the lower levels there is a much more even split but I think as you move your way up the ladder you see a lot fewer women in leadership positions and in analytics and tech and business in general. But I have actually been on the side of things where I’ve been told hey you know in a meeting with engineers don’t say something like this because they will think that you’re stupid and you know I don’t think that any of the guys in those meetings were told the same thing.

[00:23:04] But it would have been helpfully coached in that way.

[00:23:06] Somebody who sort of had the good intention but yeah I mean it is certainly a good intention and I’m sure that it helped me in that situation to take that advice. But you know why you know why do we have to be in situations like that in the first place.

[00:23:25] Can’t we all be credible just because we’re smart enough to work at these companies and smart enough to be on these teams and these products are ready.

[00:23:33] That’s why it’s called casual racism and casual sexism and not on purpose asshole. Right. Like someone someone just spins something because they think it’s appropriate to you when it’s not particularly appropriate. I was actually wondering if we could go back to the statement you made earlier about because I would guess that as a senior practitioner you have all kinds of people asking for your advice as a prominent female analyst. You have a lot of girls starting their careers asking you questions you touched earlier on the fact that the engineering work that the technical piece of being an analyst can be a turnoff to female practitioners is that a thing.

[00:24:12] So I don’t know if it’s you know a thing in particular I think that the idea of being technical can be scary because generally who you are in meetings with are you know a bunch of male engineers. And I think for some women that can be intimidating. It’s never really been too intimidating for me. But I don’t think that I’m necessarily the norm there am I. You know I’ve met and talked with a lot of women who do get intimidated in those situations how we get past that it’s you know it’s it’s hard. It’s people taking it on themselves companies teams managers taking on themselves to try to make and encourage a really inclusive environment and how you do that without seeming sexist in the first place. Well I think that we have noticed here the this podcast that’s pretty difficult.

[00:25:01] Yeah you know what it was difficult figuring out what beverage to drink on the podcast what’s your beverage of choice Krista you know that’s a great question. So I’d say in the past two years or so I’ve really taken a liking to scotch and I would actually let a man’s drink.

[00:25:24] While I was probably drink it with a lot of myself. All right. Just like my friend like a lady does. Oh oh.

[00:25:32] I mean I drink my scotch neat. So I actually decided a while back that I wanted to drink scotch out of the metrics in Berlin and I was out with Jim Stern and a few other people and they were drinking scotch and they were having you know great conversations about this corruption. It seemed to be like a conversation starter and kind of like a boys club. I was the only girl there and I was drinking a mandarin vodka soda.

[00:26:05] I didn’t really feel so sorry I was I’ve kind of been that.

[00:26:10] This is something that I wanted to explore. It took me another year or two before I was ready to try it out. Used to kind of make me crazy even the smell of it and then I happened to be at a afterparty for a conference and it sponsored up in Byron I had told a couple of my friends that they really wanted to try to learn Scott. And so he did. It’s got Stacy right there and I walked away with it being able to stand on abortion. And that from there really developed a taste for it. But I do think that it is absolutely seen as the strength and that one of the right one of the biggest reasons that I wanted to think it was so that I could have conversations and be part of the boys club.

[00:26:50] You don’t have to drink scotch to be part of the man’s club to be an analytics. But since Macker SCIAF who a lot of people know in the industry and his wife. Not defining her as his wife and being sexist but I’m just drawn the chain.

[00:27:06] To Heather Green the author of whiskey distilled a populist guide to the water of life. It’s interesting when you start thinking about women in traditionally male dominated things. I got that book right after it came out. So if you’re at all interested in Scotch and whiskies and when it has an E and when it doesn’t and the history and the background and how to even set up a tasting it’s a fantastic book. But she actually talks about that early on in the book about hey I was in Scotland you know I knew Scotch had this thing that it’s a man’s drink and she’s like honestly that it’s got such a perception as that that women don’t even give a shot. And plus if they do give it a shot then they’re looked at kind of funny and one of her many missions I think is to kind to change that. So there’s a book plug to check it out. Oh you’re getting coffee for subjecting yourself to this.

[00:28:02] Also a leg of and fand and it is as a stout beverage. So you got into drinking scotch just because of Jim Stern. Basically yeah. And now almost every time I see a demonstration we have some scotch together that’s all.

[00:28:19] That does remind me there’s other old old parallels to this up. I’ll throw it out. So any Duke I’m not a big follower of poker I don’t really play. So I’m only vaguely aware when it’s on but she’s kind of a little bit of a wall. She’s a legend. I think in the professional poker world and it was like I remember hearing the story years ago how she kind of got into it because of her brother and she actually got into it very much because she has an analytical mind. But there was a recent podcast episode Noot podcast from NPR Shankar Vedantam The Hidden Brain where he talked to her and it’s interesting listening to you taught Krista. He talked about the stereotype effect. And so he was talking about a little broader than just sexism. But another case where she was sitting at the World Championship of Poker Tournament of Champions final table you know she was the only female at the table with eight or nine guys and how on the one hand intimidating on how there was a certain level of sexism at play and how it both threw her like she got rattled and talked about at a break being a complete trainwreck based on how she was being treated in the same time kind of turned it around and said oh I can play against that stereotype and kind of use it as a motivator which I don’t know that I’d put you at the Duke level from that skewed of an industry or necessarily that major of a stage.

[00:29:45] But it does seem like there are more and more sort of pockets of examples out there and it does sort of feel like in analytics the bars not that high. Like

[00:29:55] I feel like we need to be aware of it cognizant of it watching out and aggressively correcting people who don’t seem to be. I mean honestly if you’d pointed out that guy I would have gone and said something to them.

[00:30:09] Oh wow that sounds bad to see it it need you. Michael shining.

[00:30:15] It’s more I want to go into like really like you’re a fucking idiot. Like what. Yeah.

[00:30:20] I cannot fathom the mind boggles and it maybe is because that’s just not an experience that any of us ever had coming off a stage at a conference and then getting a remark or a comment like that you know.

[00:30:32] Yeah I mean it kind of calls into question like do we need at conferences do we need some kind of like a code of conduct and in fact it’s odd that we have to have a code of conduct for because these types of events says I was actually talking to my boss about this and he mentioned that he’s never even realized that this could be an issue because he himself never faced it.

[00:30:53] Despite how many exchanges he’s been on and just again if you go a conference and you say no one’s allowed to say anything uncomfortable and do see you know that the three of you would be allowed.

[00:31:05] I wouldn’t be allowed out. I wouldn’t be allowed to talk.

[00:31:07] That’s for sure.

[00:31:11] There’s going to be someone like that in every single show right. I think the interesting thing just comes back to you know we project forward 10 years there will be certain disciplines and actually I would be kind of wondering if Data Science would come up as kind of the companion discipline to digital analytics and there seems to be a different vibe and different level of representation to female data scientists in that particular industry as there is in ours. Go for 15 years what’s the ratio going to be what’s the culture going to be like. Where was the glass ceiling place. Was there one. And I think that in our particular discipline some people’s minds need to change. As I mentioned earlier I think it’s a. It’s a more forgiving industry and some of the other ones. But if we go forward 50 years are still going to be indicative a conference asking if you’re married. So we went down.

[00:32:04] But even beyond the conferences I mean I guess it’s probably fair to say this is Episode 24 along about Episode 12 or 13 as we were recording. We reached out to somebody prominent in the industry who was like Hey can you come on and at some point we’ll get him on. And he kind of threw out. You haven’t had any women on. And I would say that one comment is pretty much now constantly hung over our. I mean since then we’ve had we’ve had women on not to talk about women in analytics we’ve got multiple women who have agreed to come on. We haven’t managed to make it scheduling just because they’re solid people in the industry but saying I’m helping to fill your quota.

[00:32:46] You’re right. Well you are not hurting that you’re crazy.

[00:32:51] The level of I mean this probably gets to the entire affirmative action. I mean it definitely gets into a large large large issue but it was a fair point that were saying hey we want to talk about data governance like well you know Donald it’s out there talking about data governance. Let’s get John Lovett on. We want to talk to someone in Europe about analytics in Europe well what Mathias Bettag is available so I think there’s a fair outside of conferences and not to say that there were not there are not topics we have not covered where the first name that came to mind wasn’t a male.

[00:33:28] But it’s kind of a legitimate where I feel like we’ve done a little bit of handwringing saying What the fuck you know what. Why is that happening to us now. I’ve got a little bit of a theory that the industry is rapidly growing and we are sometimes saying that the industry 10 or 15 years ago a lot of times people were trying to bring on our more the middle aged people who have wound up in consulting or agencies where they’re a little more free to talk. So it may be more of kind of a asynchronous time issue but I probably spent more brain cycles beating my liberal self up about why wife what is going on there. So I think it goes beyond conferences if that’s happening in companies where they’re saying well you know we happily would have promoted a woman into the leadership position but gee we honestly looked at the candidate pool and there were eight men and one woman. And as it turned out one of the men turned out to be the best candidate. Is

[00:34:38] there a level of well some of this is a time thing in five years we listened back to this and say it’s laughable you guys didn’t realise that that hurdle had already been crossed or not yet and I think that there are significantly fewer women who are well known for their specialties in the industry and you know that’s probably cause they haven’t necessarily been given much respect or a global stage in the past and that’s why those names still don’t come to mind. But I also think that is just talk here of women overall so you’re naturally going to have four men come to mind when you’re talking about a variety of topics but once you said you were saying earlier that you sort of felt like it the more it the more junior levels.

[00:35:23] If we don’t say it’s the junior levels because they can’t progress if it’s the more junior levels there’s a little bit more parity because the gender mix of those entering the industry is getting to a more balanced spot than it will come. I don’t know. I’m not claiming that’s going to happen.

[00:35:47] Just one of them and I think what it is it’s driven for. For me anyway is just some heightened awareness of just trying to be more cognizant of the fact that hey yeah male like save for our podcast specifically it is interesting we have not had as many women guests as men guests and it was sort of eye opening and now we do think about it we try to be more aware but I don’t know. I mean Krista you’re kind of carrying a heavy load in this conversation because you’re representing all women to at the same time there is a heavy load.

[00:36:26] Well I think there are a lot of awesome analysts out there who are women who are up and coming who are going to be leaders in our industry and all that we can do to help them along their way and get them to those places of leadership and industry visibility that we can. I think that’s that’s kind of what our job is and I’m excited about it. Those women are out there and we just got to get them. You know we just got to bring them up and get more exposure and visibility.

[00:36:56] Other women know this is a great industry for you not just for guys the other kind of data point I have is by the way it’s Wednesdays and Columbus and we’re getting pretty damn close to 50/50 with the gender mix at those events. And a lot of that I actually see is because we’ve got some of the connections the universities so a lot of times are students who were kind of interested in this face. And luckily we have professors who are supporting it saying if you’re interested you should go there. So that’s another one of those where I look at it and say man it’s coming.

[00:37:27] Well listen we we have run up on our time limit but let’s go around the horn and maybe just share thoughts and impressions not necessarily hey what did you learn Chris or what have you learned. No it’s not really that kind of podcasts but I think there’s some interesting takeaways I think for all for least us from the show. But let’s let’s go run around and see what people are thinking I’ll say.

[00:37:49] For me this continues to be the murkiest topic. I feel like we got the last resolution. This is one where I have more than ever before. Would love to have people. Oh let me be honest I’m about to have some women chime in on the Facebook page or privately and say you’re way off base. Your perception of it’s head in the right direction still a little bit of an issue we need to be aware. That’s kind of where I feel like we landed. If there are people out there saying holy cow specifically as a female analyst what Krista her conference experiences happened to me once a quarter in my job which hopefully is a get the hell out of that job. Like that’s just not good and right. But I’m I now feel like we definitely put Chris in an unfair spot of being taking the responsibility of representing all women in analytics. I don’t know. I don’t know where we are and how much we should continue to wring our hands about it.

[00:38:52] Yeah you know I I think that Pierpoint the future is bright. I think that there’s a lot more gender equality coming into the industry and that has definitely led by university and just that the younger generation entering the workforce. But I do think we still have a long way to go. And I think that this past hour we realize that there is no one answer to this problem or I don’t know if we would consider it a problem or what we even call it because in some ways it seems like there are issues that need to be tackled and others it seems like equality is right on the horizon. I think the biggest takeaway for me here is really that we need a lot of people a lot of women a lot of men to kind of stand up and be the spokespersons for equality and for just making sure that the best person is getting recognition and getting the jobs and promotions and events and don’t bring gender into that equation.

[00:39:50] I was quieter than usual today. I struggle with this one. You know again it’s a difficult one for me because you know I’m a boy. I’m also a CEO. So like I don’t I don’t have to. I get to do whatever I want. And like I don’t have to go through stuff but when I think it with the Canadian analytics community some of the most visible members of the community are women. You know we’ve got Julie in Toronto. We’ve got Tilly Kubek here in Ottawa and most of the organizers of the metrics in Canada are female analysts.

[00:40:20] So the thing I thought was the most interesting of today is that regardless of how not tolerant just kind of accepting our industry is businesses in general are still a little bit. Don Draper You know and no matter how progressive I personally think our industry is people need to wrap their heads a little bit around the fact that it is a gender agnostic business environment not not just an analytics one you know I think for yeah for me I think there’s a couple of things I learned tonight I didn’t know before.

[00:40:52] One is that I did not realize that our industry could walk up to someone after speaking to a conference and say some of the things that you’ve experienced Chris which is just appalling and that that’s going on just that troubles me. And then the other thing is I think what you said. Sometimes we’re close and sometimes we’re far away. But there’s a lot of good things happening. And I think it’s really on all of us to be aware and to drive more of that it’s not a hey Kristie yeah you keep working on this whole women analytics thing. It’s not your job. It’s all of our jobs as somebody who you know leads a practice of analysts. That’s something I think about all the time how do I get the best talent and best talent is men and women. And how do I make an attractive place for them to work. How do I get them to really be their best professionally. And it doesn’t really matter their gender anyway.

[00:41:51] So these are the kinds of things I’m taking away and I think you know as hard and and frankly as awkward as we made the discussion tonight Krista thank you so much for taking the time. It’s certainly not something that’s like easy to talk about at all. And you yourself being a pretty amazing analyst in your own right. Thank you for shouldering that load and kind of helping us see some of that other perspective and helping us learn from it. And obviously if you’re listening today and you want to talk a little more about this we’d really encourage you to get to us on Facebook or Twitter or in the measure slack. I think this is a conversation that is certainly not over because we’re not we’re not done solving this problem. It’s certainly not something we can do in the space of a podcast but you know our industry is a place for everyone. And the more inclusive and the more equal that we can be I think the better outcomes we can provide for our clients and our customers in our companies. So we’d love to hear from you of course as always. Krista thank you so much for coming on the show. Next time we’re at a conference together leg of Yealands on on us only up to the 16 year because we know we’re not. Well maybe Tim could buy you. What do they do at 21.

[00:43:11] No. Anyways the 16 year lag of it is outstanding in my opinion. That’s like the quality of average to me anyway so hopefully next time we can we can share scotch. But for my cohost Tim Wilson and Jim Cain keep measuring.

[00:43:29] Thanks for listening. And don’t forget to join the conversation on Facebook. We welcome your comments and questions the dot com with slash and Onizuka now or on Twitter.

[00:43:44] Smart guys want to fit in. They’ve made up a term to live. Our lives. Don’t worry.

[00:43:52] Give me a chance. OK. Let me wind it all up. I love that line. Yes I think you’re right.

[00:44:04] Oh yeah. Yeah. You were born a man that I am.

[00:44:10] Oh my God. OK. We’re going to start.

[00:44:14] I didn’t spend nine months growing a great mustache so I could have to do stuff like that. It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever said on the show.

[00:44:25] That it’s unprecedented. I’ve never gotten a gift for appearing on this podcast. The podcast I have my Netflix documentaries. That’s how we maintain equilibrium. When I get Windows 10 install you’re all going to be sorry. Because no one ever said no quick. To say something.

[00:44:53] So you only just say half a word. So Tim can just kick the ball and run in the end.

[00:44:59] I know I talk a time and I feel like I’ve mounted like seven so far more than normal. You’re just carrying that weight liberal guilt. So it’s definitely. I wasn’t I need a woman’s opinion. 30 seconds it was like a day spa. And you just caught how much Jim has held it in check for an hour and 20 minutes.

[00:45:34] I’m going to guess it rhymes with never walking so we’ll do anything.

[00:45:40] Robert.

 

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