Taylor Desseyn attends the Black Men in Tech Thrive Tech Conference in Fort Lauderdale during hurricane season. The vlog covers panel discussions on allyship and diversity in tech, networking sessions, and reflections on people management from past roles at Vaco and Gunn.
Chapters
Now there was a time when you loved me so. I could've been wrong. Now you need to know. See, I've been a bad, bad, bad, bad man. And I'm in deep. Yeah.
I was like, who is that? Time to walk off a big dinner. Yeah, dude, just big dinners. My body's like, can we just stop with the dinners? That'd be great.
Right? Yeah.
Tell you what, this is like the best venue for a conference. I mean, literally, like on the beach, Fort Lauderdale. It's really about engaging the community. Like, that was kind of like the consistent theme. Like, what is my team going to do to engage the community? And I think it's a fascinating thing because trying to engage a community, when we say community right now, it's engaging the platform, which our platform has over 100,000 developers. So not only am I trying to build community, but I'm also trying to engage as many hundred— as many as 100,000 developers as we have on the platform. It's an interesting problem to solve for sure.
Hey, look who it is!
The world is my oyster this morning. I got 8 hours of sleep, trying to get some work in, dropping the Build in Public newsletter on LinkedIn, responding to some Slacks. It's good to see you, Patrick. Good morning. Good morning. People probably like see my Instagram, they're like, oh, like he gets to go like to the beach and stuff. Like my ass was up at 5:30 this morning. Really should have been five to just get some work done. I barely scratched the surface, and we got to be at the conference in like forty minutes. Now, Grant, the conference is here, but it's not. I don't get to like go sunbathe. I just get to walk by the ocean, which is a lot better than we work in Nashville.
Allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is. Who's here? We're building up.
Some of these people I've like seen my DMs about.
Yeah.
Me too, baby. Let me get you something.
Fresh out the frying pan into the fire.
I beat up.
Music biz number one supplier. Flyer than a piece of paper bearing my name. Got the hottest chick in the game wearing my chain. That's right, ho, ho. Not DOC, but similar to them letters. No one could do it better. I check cheddar like a food inspector. My homie Strick told me, dude, finish your breakfast. So that's what I'mma do. Take you back to the dude with the Lexus. Fast forward to jewels and the necklace. Let me tell you dudes what I do to protect us. Shoot at you actors like movie directors.
1, 2, 3. Good to go. Setting the break. Panel coming up, feeling good. I was supposed to moderate 3 speakers, 2 of them bailed. It looks like, you know, I'll probably be talking a little bit more. This panel is gonna be basically like leading to diverse initiatives, being an ally in tech, and I think it's incredibly important. I think it's a topic nobody really talks about, and I think coming to these conferences like Black Men in Tech and Render, what you realize is that you need to be an ally to individuals, and it's an incredibly important topic to me. It's a subject that It's incredibly important to me, so I'm really excited to present on it with some amazing individuals. So again, blessed to be here, grateful to be here, and I am getting hungry. This— side note— this talk is like right in the middle of lunch, so we're gonna get through it and then I'm gonna eat.
You excited?
Yeah, excited. It's packed.
What we really need to do is look at the core of what's going on within our organizations or with other people. Are we looking at the data? Are we looking at that people are being paid fairly? Are we making sure that people are getting promoted fairly? And we're doing it because it's the right thing to do to make sure that we have the right talent.
I see the issues that are currently taking place. What can I do to put certain steps in place to be able to help these individuals in the workspace to be comfortable? I think that's an important thing as well. Individuals like myself can act like we know where individuals are coming from, and we don't have a sense of empathy. And I think one of the things that I really try to do my best is, is God gave us 2 ears and a mouth for a reason, right? To listen twice as much as we talk. And even on this panel, I want to hear what you all have to say more than what I have to say, because, because I think that's the first step of becoming an ally and also building inclusion and diversity in the workplace. Everybody here wants to network. Everybody here wants to talk to you. You do not need to be scared of that because literally one single conversation can change the trajectory of your career.
Amen.
Black Men in Tech Thrive Tech Conference session 2 is down, done, down, done, down. Anyway, it was great. Um, uh, the energy, the energy was great, questions were great, crowd involvement was fantastic. So we're done. 2 of 2 done. So again, Cam and the team, thank you so much for having me. I'm catching a quick breather at the hotel room for a second, then I go down to watch a few more sessions. And we got dinner, we got the Render ATL after-party tonight. It's gonna be great. Thankful to be here. I've met so many amazing people. Can't wait for this evening and day 2 tomorrow. You know, it's been an interesting first week at work with all the conference travel and then also trying to, to lead a team. Uh, but this is something that I absolutely love doing. This is the first type of opportunity where I've been in a true people management role. So, um, at Vaco, I was a manager for a long time, but one of my friends said it best, I was a manager of emotions. I still had to produce, I still had to do the work. Went over to Gunn, that was an individual contributor role, right? So I was very heads down, just doing me. So this is the first time in my entire career I've been like truly having to delegate and hands off. and not trying to do every single thing. And I'm even finding myself trying to do every single thing. And so we have a great team in place now. But right now it's more about like thinking ahead, thinking 6 months down the road, thinking 3 weeks down the road. And so even like right now, which is, I love working and traveling because my brain actually has time to think because I'm not on calls. Like we got a networking event we're going to here in an hour and a half, a little Render ATL networking event at 10 o'clock.
Nice.
And, which is a little late for me, but I'm gonna go 'cause I love Render, I love Justin. But yeah, this is just really good for me. It gives me the opportunity to think and to kinda like get out of my own head. I'm not in meetings and kinda let my mind wander, which is what I'm trying to do in this role to kinda become more creative. So back to it, probably, I mean, I wanna work until 10 o'clock tonight and then we'll go network a little bit and then pass out.
They been the same since Biggie smacked me at my christening. Watch what you dishing then. Please play it safe 'cause your position on the top is switching right in front of your face. Day 2 of Black Man in Tech Thrive Tech Conference.
Got a little walk in. It's a little mid-morning right now, but got a little walk in.
Feeling good.
Gonna go watch some sessions. Gonna work this afternoon. Uh, but another Great day down in Fort Lauderdale. I mean, look at this view. It's gonna be a great day. Let's get it. Right now, I am going through my text messages to see who I've met at this conference so far and making a note to follow up with them because I think one of the biggest problems that most people do when they get to these conferences is they meet all these people and then like they don't follow up with anybody. Saturday night. We are going out to the VIP speaker dinner last night. I said elevated casual. Oh my God, it's not bad, right? All right, I'm not even a car guy. This is, uh, the vibes are back.
Immaculate.
You gotta get the vlog. You gotta get the vlog. It is 10 o'clock. It is way past my bedtime. I'm sure y'all gonna go till like 1 or 2 AM, but not me. I'm tired. Heck of a time. Cam, the team at Black Man Tank, thank you so much for having me. Blessed to be here. Home to Nashville tomorrow.
