Noelle’s Notebook: Lessons Learned in 2021, and BIG News!

Hey there everybody, it is Noelle Silver. I am so very excited to see you guys. I am going to spend the first 30 seconds or so first explaining where I am and what I'm doing, but also waiting to see if, you know, if all of my streams are live because I am leveraging Restream and streaming to about, I don't know, 6 platforms. I think right now I have friends everywhere and I just wanted to make sure that they got a chance to hear my really cool news. Second, so hold on one second to think and check all at the same time. So super excited to be here and welcome to 2022. Of course, I'm in, you know, I'm outside, so you'll hear some background noise. I apologize for that a little bit, but not really because it is what it is. I'll tell you a funny story today. Funny story. I get in my car and I'm dropping off one of my children. As many of you know, I have 4 and I drop off one of my kids and the guy's like, "See you early. See you for early release today because it's a holiday weekend." And I was like, "Oh right, early release. And what time is that?" He says, "Noon." So, and I have plans with my friends at noon anyway. So I am here. In Miami, Florida, and I am sitting at a Starbucks near my son's school, so I'm not incredibly late to pick him up. I know as a child I was always one of the last to get picked up, so I never want my kids to have that, that experience. So I won't take too much of your time, but welcome to Noelle's Notebook. It is a brand new launched series. I'm going to be every single week talking talking to you guys all about, or you all, all about what I am learning, what I have learned, and certainly what's brought me to my big news, which I'll announce in just a few minutes. So thank you so much for joining me. Hi everybody, thank you so much. So if you are catching this on the replay, go ahead and put replay in the chat. If you're catching it live, put live in the chat so I can say hi and see how you are doing. Of course you'll see people in the background, so, and no products that you see other than maybe Starbucks is a product placement. So I wanted to let you know a couple of things that I learned in 2021. So here is some good news. And I'm gonna just keep an eye on the chat as well. So if you have any questions or any comments, please feel free to chime right in. I'm just gonna see, make sure we're good. Hey, Leanne and Jim, what's up? Janice. Okay, cool. I see you guys. My friends are here. Thank you all so much. Okay, cool. So hopefully— oh, and so, so many of my friends, thank you so much for chiming in and listening. Hopefully all is well. And it seems maybe to have frozen. So hopefully, let's see what's going on. Croatia. Wow, we've got so many people here. I'm going to refresh my screen and just make sure that we're still good. Hopefully you all don't mind. Oh, we're still good. Oh, that's a good idea. If we're still good and you can still hear me, you should give me a little thumbs up. That'll make sure that, um, I know that we are still live and rocking. Oh, we're good. Okay. All right. So minute 3:39, um, we confirmed that all systems are go. Um, so I wanted to share with you all a few tips from 2021. One, Of course, we are still in this crazy COVID situation. I have my portable mask, which comes with an N95 mask that goes underneath anyway. Double masking if I can. But one thing that I wanted to share— well, I have 3 things that I want to talk to you about. One, lessons learned from 2021 is that I don't know, I guess I kind of— I did a couple career changes. And one thing that I hear people say all the time is like, I'm not sure I want to move to a new company or change roles, especially if the situation they're in is not good for them. Right. It's not healthy or toxic or doesn't map with the way— like, align with your values. If that becomes true, a lot of people hesitate to leave because they're like, oh my gosh, I just got here, or I've only been in this company a few months. And granted, I have the luxury of having built a brand that precedes me many times, but I decided in 2019, actually, after the fiasco that was my exit from Microsoft, who I now know and continue to love as an MVP in AI. But in 2019, I realized I would not just stay at a company just to stay at a company, just to get a checkmark or something. I wanted to be very transparent and clear about my vision, my goals, what I was trying to do in this world. And go to a company that aligned with that. And so luckily in 2019, NPR was where I ended up heading and leading engineering there. Some of my friends here are listening, are from there. So thank you so much for tuning in. And I learned so much in that. But then I went on a bit of a journey, right? I started looking at companies and going, ah, maybe I could go into academia. And I wasn't scared to try, especially in the season of And I think that's kind of what the great resignation is all about. Like, maybe we don't have to take bad treatment or maybe a leader who doesn't see our potential, right? Maybe we don't have to do that. And so last year, 6 months ago, I joined Red Hat and I love Red Hat. I grew up at Red Hat. I started my career really at IBM, but then was at Red Hat for a few years and it changed how I thought about everything, open source, technology, all of that. And so it was really, really cool. Um, and, and I love the idea of open source technology, how it works, right? Community-driven development, and then putting it into the hands of a company like Red Hat to harden it and make sure that it's ready for enterprise use. Like, it's such a good business model. So when I saw an opportunity to go back there and help lead the data and AI initiatives there, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm totally going. Now, I didn't really think about it, but it turned out ironically that IBM has acquired Red Hat, and acquired Red Hat a few years ago. And so I'm now in two of the companies that started my career. And so I just all in, right? Started talking to my customers. Some of you are here communicating to customers and, and just really having a good time doing what I know and love and talking about artificial intelligence, trustworthy AI ethics. As you know, as you all know or may know, I am very excited about. But then also talking about the future, right? And what businesses, predictive businesses or predictive enterprises look like and how it's achievable for more people today. So I'm doing what I love, right? All is well. And then an opportunity comes within IBM, right? So it's kind of like a transfer. And that is where my big news is. So I wanted to share with you all, you know, like I got an opportunity and it was just a whisper, a whisper of a friend who came to me and said, I think you'd be great in this role. And sometimes people say that to us and we're like, there's no way I could do that, right? Many times we do that. Oh, there's no way I can take that role. Oh, I, I'm not ready for that. I just got here. I can't leave. I can't, you know, we make excuses up in our mind, valid or not. Like, some are very valid reasons to not do it, but some are just us being scared or worried or having imposter syndrome. Right? So someone planted a little seed in me and said, you should think about this. You should think about going and taking this opportunity. And so I did. And so I started a conversation that led to— and granted, I'm not looking like— I actually put in my mind #unpoachable when I joined Red Hat because I love Red Hat so much. I love the culture, the people. I mean, there are people there that are still there since I left in 2011, right? And they are doing incredible things. And I just wanted to be part of that. And then, so this opportunity had to encompass that work. And of course it did. And so I ended up over a 6-month period talking for some of you, there's apparently Restream had a couple connection issues. So I don't know what platforms it was on. It just said one of your connections So sorry if that is the case. But what I ended up doing is interviewing and researching and kind of going after this role. And after many, many, many conversations, I ended up getting an offer. And so today I am super excited to share with you. Are you ready? Some of you might know already because I kind of let it out, I think, in a keynote last year. But I am IBM's newest AI executive. So I have joined the IBM Consulting organization as an executive focused globally on making artificial intelligence real for customers, right? I have so many times talked about the dream of AI and the art of the possible. And then I wanted to get, you know, in those roles, I was not in a position to actually do the work, to actually implement, to bring the vision that I would talk about on their stages, in their boardrooms, in front of their executives at executive briefings, I could never actually take it to the step of like, okay, let's do this thing. And so I recently, just earlier this year, accepted that offer and I'm now one of their executives. And I mean, I just want to share with you how many things came together on my list of things I wanted to do with my life in this opportunity. One, of course, I don't know if you know this, but there's a great organization called Reboot Representation, and they did a study of organizations and leadership specifically in technology and women, and specifically women of color, and where they sit and how we represent. And that representation was dismal. It was in the single digits, right? But in leadership, especially executive leadership, Latinas are less than 1%. It almost makes me cry. You know me, I always cry in my lives. But oh my goodness, less than 1% of women in positions, in executive positions, are female. So it fueled my desire to be able to operate in this way, to not only be an example to people that this is possible, but also to hold that door open. Right, to say, when I'm building teams, when I'm creating solutions for customers, to remind them the value and criticalness of building inclusive teams, and that those inclusive teams need to represent the diverse culture of our world. And, um, yes, it includes Latinas, it includes introverts, it includes, you know, it's not just ethnic diversity, gender diversity, it's neurodiversity, right? It's making sure that you have an empathetic understanding team that is thinking bigger than the intended outcome of the AI that you're building. And I'll talk a lot about that this year. But, but yeah, so needless to say, when that happened, I knew that I was taking on something. Of course, it would be hard. And of course, it would be bigger and better than anything I've ever done before. Right? You all know, like, level it up, go big or go home, or wait, go big or go bigger. So that's me. But The good news is, of course, it's close to my heart. This year I've also taken on a few board memberships. You guys will hear more about that. So I've taken on a leadership role on a couple of very critical boards in the same area of increasing and building inclusive engineering orgs globally. And of course, all of this while, you know, I posted on Twitter the other day, like, I can have my cake and eat it too and make more cake. And of course, I probably ate too much cake over the holidays, but I'm getting back to it. Don't you worry. Oh, okay. So side note for my friends out there, I did register to run the Disney Marathon this year. So if you all— I think there might be a few spots left if anyone wants to join me. But I am going to be running that. I have— I, a few years before or a few years ago when my right before my last, my fourth child was born, I ran 5 consecutive Disney Princess half marathons. And in that 5th year, they named me a Perfect Princess, which I don't know, I just kind of like. I think that's really cool. But I have done that. You know, one of the other— so I mentioned I have a couple lessons. One is go to where your values are served, to where you can serve the most in the world. And don't be afraid. Like, do your due diligence. Think carefully. Make cognizant, mindful choices, don't let fear hold you possible because I just proved to myself, oh my God, that I could do something that I had a dream of doing but never actually saw a path to get into. Um, is to set deadlines, but not really deadlines, to put yourself in a place of commitment it's really hard to get out of for something that you care about. So me getting in shape and, um, you know, kind of resetting and rebooting, um, from a physical perspective and fitness perspective, that's something I wanted to do. So what did I do? I found out the Disney Princess Half Marathon was coming up, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I can train. So if you want to follow my journey, you can find me on Instagram. I'll be doing stories about it every day about what I'm doing to train and how I'm going to get prepared in 6 weeks before the race.. But that's part of it, right? Set some kind of, you know, something that makes it very hard for you to say no to that opportunity, right? Very hard for you to not do the thing you've committed to do for yourself. And then, you know, lastly, of course, I have to go get my son, so I'm gonna skedaddle. But lastly, I wanted to share in 2021, I don't— I had a lot of different people in my life. I had a lot of different types of people, customers, colleagues, and some— and of course, I have to thank my, my manager at Red Hat who really gave me the opportunity to take this role at IBM. He didn't have to. It was one of those internal move things that really required his input, and I just joined Red Hat, right? So it really required him to see my potential and act on it. And so many times I watch other people get promoted and hired on their potential while I watch people like me, people of color, brown people, Black people, they only get those same opportunities on performance, right? They say, "You have to do the work first and then we'll give it to you." I don't see that same thing. And so having someone like Chuck, thank you so much, see my potential and give me the opportunity, let me spread my wings so that I can go do this thing. I couldn't be more grateful. So the last thing I wanted to tell you about, you know, some of the experiences over the last year was that there were some people, Chuck being one of them, that were very supportive, that were very empathetic, that were very kind. And I wanted to work really hard to do right by them, right, in my life, whether it's personal or professional. But there were other people that didn't. And there were people that were very un— I'll just say they didn't have that empathy of like, wow, you must be in a really tough spot having to deal with COVID and all of these different strains, having 4 kids at home, a high-risk dad at home, a high-risk son who has special needs, and managing all of that and continuing to do well in your career. And yeah, it's excruciatingly difficult at times. But it's even harder when the people you work with or the people that you confide in don't like give you, cut you some slack, right? Or like, you know, are just intolerant. And so I encourage you as part of my lesson one, I not only of course felt like, man, could you not just look around and see my life is crazy and I'm doing the best I can? So realize that other people are probably in my same boat.. But also for those of us who are overwhelmed, I try to, I leverage this book. It's a really great book. If you haven't read it, it's called Nonviolent Communication. And it's, it's kind of like Gandhi-esque, right? Like, how do you communicate in a way that doesn't trigger people, that doesn't make them upset, feel afraid, get defensive? And it's an art, this kind of communication style. So I, I love that book. There's a workbook. I kind of work through things. But how do I say something to my child, for example, that doesn't make it sound like, because I told you so, right? Like, that sounds like I actually care about the outcome and I want the best for them. And I think that that same communication style is so critical in work, in, in professional relationships and entrepreneurship. So much, so much. So I wanted to share with you, no matter what side you're on, the side that's like, oh my gosh, my life is crazy. I wish someone would just look at me and go, it's okay, no matter what. And then on the other side of being someone going, I can't believe, you know, you were 5 minutes late for this meeting, right? Like, let's just be a little kinder. We're not back to normal, right? There's some of us that are still very much in the thick of dealing with this world that sometimes closes school at a moment's notice. So, so just think about that. I hope you all are well. I am so excited to just announce this. You'll see me update my LinkedIn. I got a box, so I'm going to open that tomorrow. It's got my executive stuff in it. I don't know. So, so excited. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure chatting with you all. I will every week spend about 15 minutes talking to you about the lessons I've learned, the stuff I've taken down in my notebook over the years in my career. It'll be everything from how to build your brand to how to, you know, navigate your career the way I have. If you choose to take some tips from that notebook, as well as all the things that I'm learning in artificial intelligence and things that I'm doing with my local community. So I hope you'll stay listening and watching and, you know, say yes to any of these invites that come up. If you're catching this on the replay, thank you so much for taking the time. If you're live with me, I have a friend. So many of you, thank you so much for being here and have a great weekend and don't forget to kiss those you love. Talk to you later. Bye.