Guest Speaker 3 10:06
we offered a lot of the things they were looking for in terms of workforce in terms of existing infrastructure, depth of labor pool,
Guest Speaker 1 10:14
it still took a coordinated push by the company and state and local government.
Guest Speaker 4 10:19
We said one of the ways in which we provide value is by investing in our human capital.
Guest Speaker 1 10:25
Virginia’s bid was the only one that included a new college campus right next door.
Guest Speaker 2 10:30
What was unique about Virginia was its commitment to developing that long term talent pipeline. And Virginia is also a great place to do business. Right?
Rolando Rosas 10:40
That’s right. Virginia is a great place to do business. Our home state, Big ups VA. So you had some a lot of things going on there. We had folks from the government talking about how important this was and people talking about data, amassing data. And I wanted to ask you about this. Obviously, we have the HQ2 in our backyard here. How would you think beyond the fact that it’s not far from Jeff Bezos house? Right? We know he lives in Maryland, across the river. Right? What What would they have done to like, look at where they placed it. And I know you’re you are in the in the loveliest way. A map geek. I love geeking out on maps. So maybe that’s what another thing we have in common. Tell us how some of that would have come together. And they would have said, Oh, yeah, place it in Alexandria versus Loudoun, which would have been even closer than that backyard.
Eva Reid 11:34
Yeah, so they they likely did what’s called a site suitability analysis. And they probably use geographic information systems, which is the tool that I use to basically understand the world. I am a geographer, geographer by training, I am very interested in the kinds of questions that Amazon would have had to ask in order to figure out where to put their their buildings and put their campus. So they would have taken, let me step back for a second. So geographic information systems, one of the first things that I tell people is that it’s an integrating technology. Meaning that we can take data from a lot of different sources. So like they were talking about in the video, getting information from the city from and I will, so I shouldn’t say the city, because technically, it’s a it’s a county. So information from the county information from the state information from surrounding jurisdictions, because that’s what was important things don’t end at the border, we kind of talked about, we talked about the world ending at the border between jurisdictions. And that’s really the way it works. People are traveling in from other parts of Virginia, they’re traveling from DC, and Maryland, et cetera, et cetera. So we’re taking data from all these different sources. And the reason that we are able to combine them in the GIS is because everything has a location, regardless of whether you have an address or not everything exists in a place. And so we can provide an a latitude and longitude, kind of like you learned about in grade school, we use that information that those kinds of data every day to say, well, these are the things that exist here. And these are the things that exist over here. And if we take all these different topics, roads, land information, we take water information we take, they talked about population and the clip, all of that information has location, X, Y, latitude and longitude. So we can put that on a map. And we can say, all right, we’re looking for a place where all of these particular things come together. So a certain kind of population, a certain density, we have to have enough transportation options. All of these things come together. And we say, Okay, in this place, let’s say Loudoun County, for example, we don’t have enough of one or more of these things. So let’s look at some of the other areas of Virginia. And in this case, Arlington County had all the things
Rolando Rosas 14:23
they had copied, they were looking for, I would imagine, maybe they’ve ranked them and said, Hey, this is our number one, thing number two, and number three, versus, you know, being on Loudon, or in, Chicago, or some of the other places that they were looking at as well.
Eva Reid 14:37
Exactly. And the reality is that what we create with the GIS is in some ways, a perfect situation. And so we have to look at some of the things as you say, we have to rank them. So we have to look at is this more important than this other thing and if it is, then we kind of have to tweak the model a little bit, but that So what we’re doing, and we do this, I mean, everybody does this target does it, they when they’re trying to figure out where to put a new target store, they’re doing the same thing. It’s just the variables might be different.
Dave Kelly 15:12
But I’m picturing like a really interesting battleship game where you bored, you have your xyz ticket to get to get in, you’re filling in, and you’re paying attention to the colors and where you might have missed over in the sun.
Eva Reid 15:27
That’s a great way to describe it, because that’s literally what we’re doing. We’re just using instead of, you know, a one, we’re using a larger grid. Right? That’s really the only difference.
Dave Kelly 15:40
So what are some of the other like maybe more obscure data inputs when you’re compiling all of this? So I think we have some of the obvious information. But what some of the information in puts data inputs that are used that maybe the general person like myself isn’t thinking, or considering?
Eva Reid 16:00
Sure, so. So the average person is probably thinking about things, like, you know, is, is there a commercial space? Is there a mixed use space, so when that sort of falls into the zoning land use arena, some of the things that people might not be thinking about that the engineers have to be thinking about our soil type? What, what kind of soil are we building on is this something that’s going to be able to manage to support a structure of the size and the weight, other things that we might have to take into consideration. I know, for example, in some of the models that I’ve had to run, we have to be thinking about what other businesses or facilities exist in that area. And there might be things that are incompatible. For example, when you’re looking at where you want to put a liquor store, you can only put a liquor store within a certain distance of a school, for example, and other things. So you need to take that into consideration as you are, as you are doing that site suitability analysis. So it’s not just looking at what exists, but also what can’t and does not exist.
Rolando Rosas 17:15
So that’s what I would say to my house, not not,
Dave Kelly 17:19
not all, Uber Eats, don’t they just
Rolando Rosas 17:22
deliver? I’m not sure.
Dave Kelly 17:25
But even the I mean, the accuracy of this information is so important. How, how do you? How do you control the accuracy of the data?
Eva Reid 17:34
Well, you do the best you can, honestly. And the reality is that it’s never 100% Perfect. Anyone that tells you it’s 100% Perfect is either unaware or not telling you the complete truth. So you know, we do these models, we run these models, and we do the best that we can to understand all the various elements. But we really, at some point, there has to be field work that’s done, you have to go out and look at it and do the stress tests and figure out, you know, what can already what can go there. The good news is in a place like Arlington or anywhere, really in Northern Virginia, a lot of that’s already been done. And we can rely on other resources. And that’s particularly important when we’re talking about pandemic times, because there are things that we just can’t do right now, or that are not as safe to do so we have to have other methodologies. But the reality is that everything needs to be vetted in person. And you know, we’ve seen Oh, there was a case, in I think it was in England, in London, where a building just essentially trying to think where it was, but anyway, like a building collapsed, because they didn’t consider the soil type and the structure underneath the ground. And they didn’t consider you know, the weight of the building and all of the et cetera, et cetera. So
Rolando Rosas 19:02
you would think that that would be like, one of those things, can we actually build this here? It’d be a nice place, but is it suitable for money, money, money, doing surveying and whatnot is, you know, cost money, but I guess it would cost more now that the building has gone, right.
Eva Reid 19:20
Yeah. And, I mean, I don’t want to imply that people are doing things improperly, all the time. They’re not it’s just that when it does happen, it goes spectacularly badly. And then we all hear about it. So I think in general, people are doing a really good job of figuring these things out. Obviously, because we have a lot of buildings, it just went all the time. But it I mean, honestly, Money plays into it. And again, anyone that tells you it doesn’t is is ignorant,
Rolando Rosas 19:58
or just not aware What I’m sure that that was probably the case here with Amazon as well when they’re looking at Site selection and Arlington versus Loudon versus Chicago versus St. Louis and other places that wanted to be in the hunt for that. Yeah. And I would again, I think the number one factor I heard this from Scott Galloway, professor at NYU mentioned that this was months, like six or eight months before the final he’s decision was made, he said, all those places that are not within 30 minutes of any of Jeff Bezos house, eliminate yourself now. We have no cap. And he was prophetic. And very true. He’s like, you know, Miami to be nice, but he probably doesn’t, there’s not a lot of stuff there. He’s got his Washington Post here in town and several other things. And home in Maryland, and not one not far from New York City. So those are gonna be very high places on his list. So yeah, non economic factors at play on that one.
Dave Kelly 20:58
And I sure that there’s a lot of areas that are just they’re like, you know, what, it’s okay. It’s okay, that we didn’t win the bid for it, because perhaps it would have been a wish that you wish you hadn’t made.
Eva Reid 21:11
Right. I know. I mean, speaking completely. Unofficially, yes. There are cities that were just like, You know what? I mean, New York ended up in the news. They were just like,
Rolando Rosas 21:24
No, they said, No, well, they didn’t want to give any incentives. And then they ended up going back to New York anyways.
Eva Reid 21:30
Well, right. I mean, it’s, yes. Um, but I think that I think you’re right, Dave, I think that some some cities were just like, This is not feasible for us. And the reality is that, you know, Rolando you talked about it, six months before, six, eight months before, the this professor said, Here’s what I think is gonna happen. Some of these cities have been working on this proposal for years. So, you know, it’s, there’s a lot to it. And I think that’s the other thing that people should understand about this technology is that there are so many, it’s dependent on a lot of things, it’s dependent on people having the technology, it’s depending on the data being available.
Rolando Rosas 22:21
Right. And I want to ask you, or I’m sorry, go ahead.
Eva Reid 22:24
No, I was just gonna say that is that’s a critical piece of it. And that’s the thing that people are like, Oh, can’t you just download the data? And then you can make the map? Well, no, it’s not that easy. It has to be there. And, and, and DC, for example, is really lucky, because we had, you know, and again, I’m speaking unofficially here, but DC has a lot of this information already prepared? Because it’s part of the mission.
Rolando Rosas 22:49
Right, right. So and you’re right in the middle of all the agencies, that would probably be your customers, essentially, of that data structure, they would want a lot of accurate a high level of accuracy when you’re talking about using things for policy decisions. Or in this case, you touched on it a little bit, I want to see whatever you can share with us on how that came together during COVID. Because obviously, nobody was prepared for this type of level of a pandemic, we have oh, yeah, pandemic, you know, with Ebola and SARS. Okay, we did fine this was way beyond anybody’s level of expectation of preparedness. How did that what happened when, when this hit? And how were you guys able to utilize any of this data for for either the public good, or for the agencies involved?
Eva Reid 23:37
This so COVID was a pretty amazing example of how organizations can work together to develop all of this. So I will say, and this is true of many jurisdictions, it’s not just the ones here. Everyone’s probably heard about contact tracing at this point. And the reality is that contract tracing is done all the time. It’s constantly being done for things like food poisoning, and other diseases. And just numerous things like anything that can be transmitted by humans is basically being contact traced all the time. So we’re collecting information from, you know, people calling in to say, you know, I got food poisoning at this restaurant, oh, by the way, five other people did as well. So that data is all coming in to the various health departments. This is basically next level to that. So not only are we doing that contact tracing of reaching out to people or people calling into us, all these health departments, but the health department’s are actually reaching out. They are calling people people are using the various apps that have been created. So there are a number of apps that basically tell you Using proximity sort of detectors, detectors, using proximity, they’re they’re figuring out, like, who’s been exposed, and then contacting those people and saying, Okay, who have you been around all that, that kind of thing. So this is really humans reaching out to other humans and collecting data and then putting it in a big database, and saying, alright, what are the patterns? And the really exciting thing about that is I get to interface with these folks and say, well, we can map this and we can actually see where are these things that are happening, we can see how people are being exposed because they are, you know, they’re showing up at the same supermarkets. And they’re showing up at the same restaurants. And oh, by the way, there’s this park that didn’t like put up barriers. And so people were showing up there or whatever, I that’s not a real example. But those are the kinds of things that that we’re doing. So this is not new. This is just we’ve amped it up to, you know,
Rolando Rosas 26:05
to the next level. Yeah. And you know, what the contact tracing word as a word and words matter? I think in the in the general lexicon wasn’t out there, like it was. If you have not heard of contract tracing, you’ve been living under a rock, right. You know, in this country, especially once you get talking about contract tracing the way they’ve done it other countries, like in China or Japan, or a lot of Asian countries where it’s right on your phone, using that that sensor. Yeah, from your phone to know if you’re close to close to other people that have been infected. And we haven’t used it right. We haven’t utilized it like in other countries. That’s a whole policy thing I don’t want to go into but the fact is, we haven’t utilized it like to the effect, there’s other countries who haven’t been able to bring down their rates a little bit better than we have. But contract tracing. I had no idea because, right, you’re telling, you’re educating us. It’s been around for a long time.
Eva Reid 27:01
It really has. And it was kind of exciting to me to see. I mean, I knew about it. Again, I’m a geographer, this is the kind of thing we do. But it was exciting to me to say, I mean, it was horrifying, but also exciting, because I’m thinking to myself, Oh, my gosh, this is actually real time. We are doing this real time. And, and as you say, we could be using sensors to figure all this out. And as you said, I mean, there are policy issues with this. There’s privacy concerns there. You know, like
Dave Kelly 27:39
it’s a little scary for the folks that have privacy concerns for sure. Like, how is this data used for actual policy making?
Eva Reid 27:49
So anytime we’re using information like this, we are aggregating it, meaning we are taking groups of data and analyzing it by group. Okay. Okay. So, so I want to make that really clear the individual data at this point. And this is pretty typical. Even without COVID individual data are never shared. They’re used by the health department, because, you know, obviously, we need to call people and say, Hey, you may have been exposed. But when we are actually doing the analysis, and we’re doing things like figuring out where to place an Amazon building, or even just to say like, these are the COVID numbers, we’re always grouping our data in a way that will anonymize it. So that we’re not sharing personal information about Eva, Dave and Rolando. Right,
Dave Kelly 28:47
it makes me feel a little bit better. A little bit better.
Eva Reid 28:51
No one. I’m glad you I’m glad you said that. Because this is something that we as people using data are very concerned about and aware of, and don’t want to share information by mistake. We, you know, the times that it’s happened, the federal government has released social security numbers by mistake. It’s not happened because someone wanted it to it’s happened. Well, there are bad actors, certainly. But the people working with the data are very concerned about maintaining privacy. That is just I just, if I could make everyone aware of anything out of this whole podcast, I would want people to really understand that we are not sitting here going, ooh, how can I use this? We’re saying, Oh, how can I use this in a way that is appropriate?
Rolando Rosas 29:45
Let’s see. So, so from a government perspective, the reality is that there’s a lot that goes into keeping privacy in check from an individual person clip so that individual information is not exposed and used or misused.
Eva Reid 30:05
Exactly. And I, you know, certainly I can’t speak to everyone’s implementation. But generally speaking, you know, there are multiple firewalls, there are procedures in place, you know, to address the human factor, because I think that’s an important conversation in all of this. Only certain people are allowed to have access, you know, and then none of this information, you know, there’s a whole lot that goes into just the security piece of this, before we even do any sort of analysis. You know, and I, certainly we never want data to get out. But I think the past examples that we’ve seen in the news, have really helped us to shape our security policies. And again, I’m saying our I mean, the data world in general.
Rolando Rosas 31:03
Well, that’s it is a new world. And isn’t it really a completely new world, and part of the new world that I wanted to ask about, and I’m gonna, I’m gonna bring back some video, reach into an archive here, where you were talking a little bit about, about about your experiences about the new world and how women are blazing a trail and in technology, and how things are changing in the in the workplace. So as well as in the technology sector. And I want to Ori, can you bring that video up? So we can share that with? And you’ve probably seen this already. What the, the first one
Eva Reid 31:52
comes down to it, really what I do is I build communities. That’s what I do. Yes, I build datasets, I work with the Metropolitan Police Department, and I help them develop their crime datasets, and I help them develop datasets to identify why certain crimes are happening in certain areas. And I work with our Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. And I help them to I do training for them, and I help them build their data sets. And really, what I’m doing is I’m building community.
Rolando Rosas 32:30
Awesome. I want to know more about this building community, and how Homeland Security Police and there’s people at the end of it, right, that they’re making decisions about so I want to hear more about this community building. What what’s that about?
Eva Reid 32:47
I’m gonna say, first, that it’s a passion of mine. And I think the reason that it is a passion of mine is because, well, community is at the base of everything, right? We’re, we’re constantly building community, even from the time we’re little babies, you know, we have our little friends and, and that builds our sort of safety community and allows us to learn and you know, develop ourselves as human beings. So I think that it’s just something for me, that is part of who I am. I realized very early on in my career, and this is before I was even working with Homeland Security, or any of those folks. I learned very early on in my career, that the only way to get things done was to meet people and talk to people and ask for help. So in order to do that, I had to meet people, and I had to get outside my comfort zone. And I really had to. Well, like I said, I just had to meet people, and I had to not only meet them, but I had to keep those contacts and and nurture those contacts. So that, you know, five years from now, when I’m coming back around to the same project, I can say, hey, remember when we were working on this thing together? Right? I need hope again, you know, I have this new thing that came out of some work that I did. And I wanted to share that with you. And I think that’s the really important piece of community is that it’s not two way or that it is two way rather, we talked about networking a lot. And I feel like networking is so just it’s it’s very, like this, and community is more like this. And we are connecting with each other in different ways, and we’re trying to make connections between different people. And all of that work helps us to do our jobs
Rolando Rosas 34:54
and Did COVID make that job harder. Yeah, in any way because you can’t You just walk over from your office over to DHS, you can’t just say, I’ll be over there meet you for lunch and or go over to HHS for whatever reason. So yeah, we, we could discuss this matter, you know, tomorrow, whatever. So it did so made it more complicated.
Eva Reid 35:17
It really did. Because I think that we’re still doing a lot of that what you were just talking about, we’re still doing that, you know, hey, I need help with this, or I’m doing this and I need your input. That’s, that’s still happening. Because, you know, we’re using all these different technologies to do that. I think the piece that has become very difficult is those sort of in between moments, where, you know, we’re just kind of chit chatting, and we’re not talking about necessarily those super important things. We’re just making those connections, and we’re developing that.
Dave Kelly 35:57
So are there any examples or stories that you can share how you were able to kind of overcome some of those obstacles?
Eva Reid 36:05
Absolutely. Um, so one of the things that I do with my consulting business is I was running networking, community building event. And I know, I know
Dave Kelly 36:15
what your words can go together. I like how you can I liked how you talked about networking, it is kind of like this. Yeah, community is this, but you don’t have this without this, right?
Eva Reid 36:25
You have to you have to do this. And so I was running events where, and these were particularly for women in tech. And we were doing these events, partly because women in tech aren’t as visible many times. So we were trying to at least become visible to each other. And so it was important that we were meeting in person. So COVID happens, and I’ve been running all these events at local businesses, you know, restaurants and all this kind of thing. And we can’t do that anymore. And everyone’s like, well, we can’t meet in person, anyone anymore. What’s gonna happen? Well, the good news is that I was running part of my consulting business using Zoom anyway. And I thought to myself, well, you know, what, Zoom has the option for you know, however many I think, is 100. People, you know, we could have 100 people on one call, right? So I literally just said, Look, I need to pause for a month, so I can get my ish together and figure out how I’m going to do this. But let’s not stop, let’s take this online. And it No, it’s not going to be the same. I mean, that’s the thing, I think we really have to consider that it is not the same, but we can still connect, and we can still build and continue to build and develop our community.
Rolando Rosas 37:52
Well, I think that, you know, even though that the physical aspect of being near somebody and talking, I enjoy that part, I’ve probably seen, like my mom more than I have, or my sister. And, you know, they both live in Florida. And so, you know, I would see them periodically through the year, but I’ve seen them way more than I ever have. So it does help build some of those connections that you’re talking about, especially if you’re talking about it from a government to government perspective, or government to business perspective.
Eva Reid 38:29
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, again, there’s no, there’s no complete substitute for being in person, but we do the best we can, right. I mean, it’s kind of what we were saying before. I too, have seen many people more now that were virtual that I have, because we’re making more of an effort, really, I mean, that’s what it comes down to. It’s not even just that we have the technology, we’re just making more of an effort.
Dave Kelly 38:59
And that effort goes back, you know, earlier when we were chatting, you said something about, and then people started turning on their cameras more. And I think a lot of us, even though we have the technology before turning on the cameras, yeah, no, I mean, let’s face it, video has been around for 20 years, and different forms, different ways of transmitting it. But it was always available in one way or another. But we were so shy. Yeah, we didn’t turn it on. Yes. So it’s nice. I think this has pushed people to a to a place where they’ll be comfortable with it. And they kind of want it a little bit more.
Eva Reid 39:33
Agreed. 100%. I mean, I will be the first person to say that I am not a super fan of being on video all the time, but I’ve gotten comfortable with it. Because I’ve had to.
Rolando Rosas 39:49
I wonder if that’s also a generational thing. You know, like if you were to talk to the kids, so to speak. Oh, you’re on social media. Yeah. So Do
Eva Reid 40:01
my little cousins, they don’t care. Let’s FaceTime.
Rolando Rosas 40:08
Yeah, I would hear FaceTime like, now, I have to do it before pandemic, you know, because you have to for business or whatever, but I don’t have to I don’t have to. But now it’s it’s it’s become more routine. So it’s not like Yes. You know, back in the day oh FaceTime. Okay, right.
Eva Reid 40:24
And I think I think the routineness of it is kind of nice. In a way, it’s just, as you say, it’s made it easier. It’s also just given us it’s taken away some of the ick factor. So yeah, for sure
Rolando Rosas 40:38
worked out, I also want to share a story that you were in from that same footage, that you were talking about an example of a, I think it’s a colleague or a female that that couldn’t take time off. And I want to ask you about it on Sure. On the other side, all right, Ori go ahead and queue that up.
Eva Reid 40:59
Don’t say I build community. I’m a facilitator, really. But we build community, we get together we talk, we talk about the issues that are happening in our community, both as women and as GIS professionals, and just people trying to do good in the world. I had another instance where I was at work and DC government doing whatever it was that I was doing. And I had someone come up to me and said, You know what, I’m afraid to take time off to take care of my family. What do you mean, you’re afraid to take time off, you have leave, you can take leave, and you should just put in for leave. And she said, No, I’m afraid to take time off. I’m the only woman on my team. And I’m afraid if I take time off, I’m going to look like I’m not doing my job. That’s a problem. We have things in place that allow us to take time off and to take care of our families. We have sick leave, we have annual leave, we have all these things. But if you don’t feel comfortable on your team, enough to say I need to take time off. That’s a problem.
Rolando Rosas 42:11
So I wanted to ask you about this because this resonated with me. And in so many different ways. There’s a human aspect here that I’m just so curious as to how other people are freaking forget about work for a moment. How are you managing as a person with this, what’s going on in the world, you know, it’s changed a lot of things. You know, work and home are very blended, because it’s all there for a lot of folks that are working from home. If you have kids, you used to take them to school now they’re depending on the county they’re in, they may be hybrid, they may be all at home, or, or a little bit of both. And a lot has changed since 2018, since that was shot. And I wanted to ask you what, how other folks like yourselves or other basically women that may be raising a kid managing, especially during this time, based on what we just saw here that women are afraid to take off it. Let’s face it, technology is a male dominated industry. And because of that it can be challenging for for females just flat out. It’s just a fact. Yeah. And I wanted to see what the impact of COVID has had for those kinds of women that probably were in that same boat in 2018. And now facing the same thing in 2021.
Eva Reid 43:33
Yeah, so I will kind of I’ll give you my example. I don’t have kids, but I have an elderly mother. And I hate calling her that because she doesn’t seem elderly to me to be the first person to be like, look it’s hard. My mom, like, let’s see. Everything was great during COVID. Well, okay, so one of the things that I had to do, my mom has a number of different health issues. Plus she’s over 65. So she is in for several reasons, the highest, like highest risk. You know, like, before you get to the point where you’re in the hospital already, right? Um, she was fine, but we were really concerned that she would get it. She’s very susceptible to viruses and whatever. So I started going shopping for her, and I started taking her to medical appointments, and that was a lot and I was 100% Happy to do it. But I had to negotiate that with my boss. And I’m lucky because I am fairly senior in my office. I have a reasonable boss, and he’s really my bosses are very reasonable. I don’t want to I don’t I want to disparage them at all. My bosses are very reasonable, but there is a feeling in my office about you should be working. And if you’re not working, like what are you doing? And set that aside, I had to negotiate with my boss and say, Look, this is what I have to be able to do to take care of my family right now. And I think that’s true for anyone, regardless of who your family is what your family looks like. And I think as a woman in tech, I’m always and I’ve talked to other women about this, I’m always thinking about how I am being perceived by other people. So I was trying to be extremely explicit with my supervisor and say, Look, I am not just, you know, faffing around doing whatever, I’m taking my mom to this appointment, and I will be on the call, I will be in the car, but I’ll be on the call. And it’s ridiculous. Like, did I really need to be on that meet in that meeting. But I felt like I had to, because otherwise I wasn’t doing enough. And I literally, she’s not on my team. But I know someone who had a baby recently, and was feeling like, oh, my gosh, I need to be doing whatever, you just had a baby.
Rolando Rosas 46:27
A very difficult thing to do.
Eva Reid 46:30
Under the best of circumstances, right. And here we are in the middle of COVID. Like you’ve just created a life and you’re worried about taking time off, like you should be taking time off. But we’re not. We’re constantly I mean, it’s, as a woman, as a person of color, like you have so many sort of hurdles. And one of them is just being like everybody else. And in order to be like everyone else, you have to work two, three times as hard. And it’s exhausting. It’s exhausting. And I’m lucky, I have again, my boss was very accommodating, he said, You don’t need to, like do FMLA or anything, just a Family Medical Leave Act. You don’t have to do anything special. Just you have my blessing to take off what you need. And that’s what I needed to hear. And so what, go ahead, sorry,
Rolando Rosas 47:34
I was just gonna say it sounds like a little bit like you’re saying, there needs to be some communication there. And so be in a dialogue. There may be some apprehension there, because you know, you got to tell your boss, hey, I’m really trying to take care of my elderly mom, my, my, my mother, I mean, your mom,
Dave Kelly 47:53
mom over 65.
Rolando Rosas 47:57
And, you know, I’d like to be able to do that. But really, I, I don’t want to, I don’t want you to think that I’m you know, I’m gaming. Right? Exactly. Gaming playing Call of Duty or something like that. Exactly. And it’s good to have understanding bosses that whether whether the same would reply if you’re male or female, but I know, for women in tech, it’s especially doubly challenging, because you know, they’re just smaller numbers. And you’re trying to, you know, make your put your name out there trying to move up the ladder. And it can be doubly challenging if you’re having to raise your family, and you’re, you know, carrying all that on your shoulders.
Eva Reid 48:38
It is it very much is and I think you know, I hear it time and time again to I’m lucky, I work in a fairly reasonable organization that, you know, maybe could do a better job, as an organization have explicitly saying, if you need to do this, you need to do this. And you can take the time, and that’s why you have it. So they should be more explicit about it. But I have a fairly respectful organization that allows me to take that time and offers me a good amount of leave. But I hear time and again, people saying like, Oh, well, I took time off and then I got all this flak for it, particularly women getting flack for taking the time off when they get back and then having to justify Well, I was taking care of my kid. Right,
Dave Kelly 49:32
you know, the situation the situation is opened the eyes up of everyone saying you know what we truly are in this together. We need to be understanding and sensitive that everybody has a very unique situation. And let’s not judged let’s not discriminate. Let’s help everybody help each other to take care of their families. And then reassure them that hey, we’re still we still have this business. This relationship and we trust that you’re going to come back 100%. Yes. And continuing to be part of the team.
Eva Reid 50:06
Yes. And that is, unfortunately, what is not always happening, and it’s not happening enough. And I think, you know, people ask me a lot of times, particularly men, and they say, Well, what can I be doing to help support the women in my office? Well, when they, you know, when someone asks for time off, or says, you know, I won’t be here, because I have to take care of XYZ, say, that’s great. You should do that. And we will, what the
Rolando Rosas 50:37
past to pick up the slack, right, we’ve all
Dave Kelly 50:41
we’ve all, we’ve all worked for someone that made you feel like you were doing something wrong for leaving on time, or showing up on time, or taking a couple of vacation days that have been allotted to you. Right? I’m glad that I’m not in that situation.
Rolando Rosas 50:56
I’ve been there. I’ve worked for an organization prior to this, where people would stay as long as possible in the office beyond the normal time to see who was going to be the last one out. And, you know, in other countries, I know in Germany, for example, there, it’s totally the opposite. They are out of there. And they will go to restaurants after work on a Tuesday where they’re barely any people at restaurants here in the US at that time. And so you could see a packed restaurant on a Tuesday, Wednesday, just like we would on a Friday or Saturday because people the culture, the mindset is such that it’s bad to be in the office all night long, or as long as you need to be or as long as possible, rather than let’s go out. Let’s get some fresh air. Let’s go have some some drinks. Let’s go. Let’s do human beings.
Eva Reid 51:50
exactly, we’re not robots.
Rolando Rosas 51:53
As much as we want to be. We’re not we’re definitely not.
Eva Reid 51:55
Yeah. And I think that’s the thing of it is like, we all want to do a good job. I mean, yes, there’s the occasional person that like doesn’t care. But I think most of us want to do our jobs. And I mean, most of us, like all of us, men, women, however you identify, we all want to do a good job. And we’re just doing our best, right? And we need to support each other. And that I think that’s so important. That’s the key is supporting each other. And it goes back to my whole point about community, we can’t build the community, if we’re not supporting each other, we’re not building each other up. And if we’re doing stupid crap, like, excuse my language, but if we’re doing stupid crap, like tearing each other down and telling people that we’re not doing our jobs are going behind other people’s backs. And I mean, I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen it all. I’ve, thankfully, not always been the recipient of it, but I’ve had really horrible stuff done to me not at my current job and not in the recent past. But
Rolando Rosas 52:59
I’m sure people can relate, right? everywhere, every anywhere where there’s people gathered together. Yeah, some of this right.
Eva Reid 53:06
Yes. So you know, be good to each other.
Rolando Rosas 53:10
Right. That’s, that’s a that’s a really good, uh, you know, you’ve nailed it. That’s that I want to, I want to end on that. Because it’s, uh, I like positive notes. And I think a lot of folks that are out there have hopefully received that whether you’re watching this live or you’re watching this on the playback, but before we completely end, I want to ask you a couple rapid fire questions. God, okay. Right. These are these are there’s no wrong answer. It’s just your answer. So Ori we ready for this one? All right, so let’s start with so because we want people to know even a little bit more. So if they want to know you a little bit more, we’re asking you some sort of a couple personal questions. Just just you know, just see what you think. What is your favorite musical group or musician?
Eva Reid 53:59
Do I have to pick one?
Rolando Rosas 54:01
If you have more than again, there’s no right answer.
Eva Reid 54:04
Um, I have been listening to a lot of really random stuff. I will say, Oh, God, I can’t even remember the name of the group right now.
Dave Kelly 54:15
Rolando thinks these are softball questions.
Rolando Rosas 54:20
Do you have an 80s 90s bands 70s You know what genre you like, you know,
Eva Reid 54:27
I like stuff. And this is gonna sound totally dorky. I like stuff that has a good beat and you can dance to it in your kitchen. Okay. I mean, there’s been a lot of Pink lately, and I don’t know that she’s my favorite. But I you know,
Rolando Rosas 54:47
like Pink. So it’s not your favorite, but you’re like Pink. I like
Eva Reid 54:51
but the thing is like, this is the worst question to ask me. It’s like asking me my favorite movie.
Dave Kelly 54:57
That’s a question two
Eva Reid 54:59
go Why’d Yeah, so I’ll just go with pink for lack of thinking of another one. You know, but I’ve really enjoyed music. I guess that’s my answer.
Rolando Rosas 55:09
Right? Okay, cool. We’ll take that. Well, we’ll pencil all
Eva Reid 55:12
kinds of music, classical, alternative, rock, you name it.
Rolando Rosas 55:17
All right, Pink plus,
Eva Reid 55:19
plus. She’s kind of a badass. So
Rolando Rosas 55:23
she’s, she’s, you know, strong, strong woman, right? What is your favorite app on your phone right now?
Eva Reid 55:40
Ah Instagram.
Rolando Rosas 55:41
Oh, that’s a first. I don’t think we’ve had anybody say any of the. So no, somebody said LinkedIn. But yes, I consider Instagram more of your traditional social media. And you’re the first one to
Eva Reid 55:57
I mean, you know, me, I like LinkedIn a lot. And I use it a lot. And I’m there. So you know, feel free to connect and all that. But Instagram is has just been such a nice way to connect with people without all of the stuff. Like there’s some, there’s some bad actors there too. But generally speaking, yes. A little bit less. And generally speaking, it’s, it’s a lot more happiness.
Rolando Rosas 56:29
Yeah. Okay. I’ll take your word for it.
Eva Reid 56:33
At least in my Instagram.
Rolando Rosas 56:36
I’ll take your word for it. Well, you know, people like to post you know, they’re there a lot of exotic vacations, and I’m over here, and I’m over there and having a good time. And I’m breaking, I’m opening up a bottle and all this kind of stuff, right?
Eva Reid 56:53
I’m thinking is my dog, my food and my garden.
Dave Kelly 56:57
So I’m not I’m not on Instagram, yet. I’m this close to doing it. But one of my childhood friends had shared with me something where he had made a post. And it was just a musician that we loved back in the 80s, early 90s. had liked what he had said, because it was a lyric to one of his songs. And I said Did he Did he liked your post, he said, I talked to all the hip hop guys that we love back in the 80s. I’m like, that’s kind of feel good. He’s like, I love it. He’s like, it’s fun. So if I jump on there, and I started talking to some of my childhood musician, heroes, and I get some responses that’ll probably make my day.
Eva Reid 57:35
I can’t remember if it was Instagram or Twitter. I hate Twitter. By the way, I’m on it because I need to be but I hate it. But Mark Hamill liked one of my posts. Really? Yes. Luke Skywalker, first crush,
Dave Kelly 57:49
may the force be with you.
Rolando Rosas 57:52
Let’s see. Let’s see a bit we’re throwing them. Okay, let’s go by Heidi Klum liked something on LinkedIn. That was cool. That was cool. I was like that’s pretty cool. That’s all right. So yeah. All right. That’s cool. Yeah, it can be cool when somebody famous like that, like, Oh my god. Thanks. So my post. Awesome.
Eva Reid 58:15
Cool. And it can be someone famous, like in your field, too. Yeah, I’ve had that happen. And that was, I felt like a rock star that day. Yeah. And we’ve remained friends. So that’s kind of cool.
Rolando Rosas 58:28
Oh, nice. Nice. Nice. Nice. Nice. She knows who she is. I think Oh, yeah. Okay. She’s probably watching you right now.
Eva Reid 58:37
She probably is. And I’ll tell her. You know, that person that was you
Rolando Rosas 58:43
will leave her anonymous for the show. But she knows you know, who you are, you
Eva Reid 58:47
know, to tell people that how you you know, it’s important. It’s how people
Rolando Rosas 58:52
right, cool. Cool. And two more for you. Okay, favorite food?
Eva Reid 58:58
Pizza. New York pizza, New
Rolando Rosas 59:00
York. Oh, you can’t really this is one of those things that I I’m so dying to like once things get a little more normal. up into the city, having good slice of pizza.
Eva Reid 59:13
The Pizza Box. Bleecker Street.
Rolando Rosas 59:17
I haven’t heard of them Bleecker.
Dave Kelly 59:21
If you know, you know if you know,
Rolando Rosas 59:25
they in the city or because there’s a lot of people in Brooklyn will say the Brooklyn has got the best, right? You know that Brooklyn,
Eva Reid 59:33
Bleecker Street, just off Sixth Avenue. towards the east side.
Rolando Rosas 59:40
I used to live out near Coney Island back in the day and there’s some really good pizza of joints out there that I’m sure could give Bleecker Street to run for the money.
Eva Reid 59:50
Yeah, I’m sure. We love what we grew up with. Right,
Rolando Rosas 59:55
right. Absolutely. No, I can’t. I can’t argue with you. There’s actually I’ll tell you I’ll fly There’s a couple of good pizza places that we found around here that I wouldn’t say they’re New York pizza, but where we are, I’ll take them. They’re pretty good substitutes for New York pizza. We’ll have to we’ll have to share with Share, share online. Last one for you. Your preferred method of communication is a multiple choice. You’ve got email, you’ve got text, phone call, instant message or a DM,
Eva Reid 1:00:28
text or instant message of whatever sort. Yeah, I’m pretty flexible. I you know, I prefer text message. I mean, honestly. Okay. I don’t love the whole like phone. I hate talking on the phone. Don’t ask me why I do it for my job. I’ve never liked it. It’s part of being an introvert. And no one ever believes I’m an introvert, but I am i I’m an introvert. I don’t like the phone. You and I’ve had this conversation before Ro. In the before times, in the before times. Yeah. So I’m an introvert. I don’t like the phone, if I have to. It’s a text message. Partly because I’m always worried that I’m like interrupting people. So I don’t want to call them and be like, hey, and then they’re like, can I call you back? So I prefer text message. I can have like insane text message conversations. Um, instant message is hard. Because there’s the boundaries are bad with that. Yeah, like my text messages. I can just be like, I’m not answering. But you can see if I’m online. And people are like, Hey, I’m like, I’m in the middle of a call right now, you know, so people don’t have good boundaries. And then they’ll like message you and like, keep messaging you until you respond. So I sometimes just have to shut whatever it is off. Because
Rolando Rosas 1:02:06
I left my computer on my phone is off my computer. It’s running. So it’ll say online, it’s four or five in the morning. But there’s nobody there to get a response. Right. You got that? Right. Well, Eva, I really appreciate you coming on today a lot of knowledge and insight into the tech space and data and how that comes together with communities. And talking about we actually could spend two more hours easily on any of these things diversity and, and leadership and women’s role in the workforce. Sure, we will have you on again. So that maybe we could do like a follow up on after a really things calm down to see you know, post post COVID Did anything change with the Way agencies are connecting with people and building community because I’m fascinated about data. Data informs us, it tells us essentially what to do and use it for predictive reasons. So
Eva Reid 1:03:09
I love love to I would love to do it. And I’ve had such a good time today. So thank you. I’m honored to be asked number one.
Rolando Rosas 1:03:17
Thank you. Really. You’re so kind when and when things when things do get back to normal. We’ll we’ll have some lunch or something like that. I don’t know. All right. Awesome. Awesome. Dave. Let’s jump right into the last couple of bits here.
Dave Kelly 1:03:35
I almost forgot. I almost forgot.
Eva Reid 1:03:37
I’m trying to know the answer this wait before.
Rolando Rosas 1:03:39
Wait. If people want to follow you, Eva, what should they do? Where can they go? Where can they check you out?
Eva Reid 1:03:49
All right. So LinkedIn. I’m really easy to find just search for my name, you will see my face. Put a note in when you request to connect telling me why you’re trying to connect with me. I do not answer generic. I want to join your LinkedIn network,
Dave Kelly 1:04:09
your network.
Eva Reid 1:04:12
Because it’s not a network anyway. So LinkedIn, and then also my website, EvaReidConsulting.com I have all my events on there. You can sign up for my newsletter. I do not spam you with 8000 things. It’s purely like this is information that you need to know. So
Rolando Rosas 1:04:35
Terrific. Terrific. So go ahead and check her out. LinkedIn, look on our website EvaReidConsulting.com and make sure you send a note if it’s on LinkedIn otherwise and ain’t happening.
Eva Reid 1:04:50
You will sit in purgatory in my queue. No seriously though, like it’s about building a relationship is not just about making that connection. It’s about having a conversation. And for me, that is key. And plus, I’d like to know how you found me really.
Rolando Rosas 1:05:11
All good stuff. I can’t disagree with any of that. All good stuff. So thank you, Eva. And what we want to do before we jump to the trivia Dave, we just want to remind folks, if you’ve loved this content, you want more of Eva, you want her to come on, again, you want content like this, or something else that you think is of interest, let us know subscribe, like, hit all the bells and whistles and all the buttons, because we also Dave release content that is not on our regular Tuesday podcast schedule, like nuggets, insights, and some other behind the scenes stuff, where we’re going to be coming out with that soon, and some bloopers and a few other things. You’ll only get to see that if you subscribe, and you get notified. Otherwise, you have no idea we came up with that stuff. All right. So let’s go to that trivia. I want to know too, because I have no clue what the right answer is.
Dave Kelly 1:06:08
All right. So we are definitely throwing this over to you Eva. So two truths and a lie. What do you think are the two truths? And what do you think is the lie?
Eva Reid 1:06:20
I’m totally gonna get this wrong. But I think that the lie is number two, I don’t think the entire world’s population can fit into the state of Texas. I mean, I guess my question is, how close do I have to stand next to everybody?
Rolando Rosas 1:06:35
Okay, that’s gonna be important, especially for today. Three is kind of subjective, subjective, it is subjective, but I’m gonna put my money on three Kubler Kahn was most famous. Um, you have? Yeah.
Eva Reid 1:06:51
So I have questions about that one.
Rolando Rosas 1:06:54
Was he around during that time? He was. Maybe he was. Dave, what do you say?
Dave Kelly 1:07:01
I just hope number one is the lie so that you can read that as perfectly as I did.
Rolando Rosas 1:07:07
All right. All right. All in the pause. We’re all waiting here to see what the right answer is. True. Okay. So it’s in the Philippines. Look at that. I went Oh, okay. So it’s, uh, let me read it for those that are listening to us. The truth here is that there is an island within a lake on an island within a lake on an island.
Eva Reid 1:07:36
It’s all about the pods. Do they
Dave Kelly 1:07:39
get 5g?
Rolando Rosas 1:07:41
I don’t know. Did they get 5g? Oh, I’ve been told. Our producer says yes, they actually get 5g in that location. Sweet. Let’s go.
Dave Kelly 1:07:51
Maybe that’s the maybe that’s where you work from home. When you relocate. That’s where I would go.
Rolando Rosas 1:07:56
And Okay, number two, all is also true. entire world’s population can fit into the state of Texas, the entire world were in me just read this if the entire world were a densely populated as densely populated as New York City, the whole population of 7 billion people would only cover 250,000 in their about square miles. That means the entire world could fit into the state of Texas. Interesting. There you go. Wow.
Eva Reid 1:08:33
I have some thoughts about that.
Rolando Rosas 1:08:36
drop some knowledge.
Eva Reid 1:08:38
No, I mean, more like, do I really want to be close to that many people that close? Like I grew up in New York City. I know what that’s like,
Rolando Rosas 1:08:49
on a busy day, Manhattan, you know, three or four o’clock in the afternoon or even in the morning? Oh my god. That’s a lot of people.
Eva Reid 1:08:56
I’m thinking like, what comes to my mind is the subway.
Rolando Rosas 1:09:02
line two. All right. A lot of and last, there we go. Kubla Khan was the Okay, so it’s false. coupla con was the most famous Silk Road traveler. So that is a false statement. It was Marco Polo during the 1200s up until the early 1300s was actually the most famous trader known for traveling to China’s yuan or is it yuan or one? How do you pronounce that Henri Yuan Empire when he was 17 becoming part of the government of Kubla Khan returning with great wealth and spreading accurate information about China so Marco Polo, polo polo Well, there you have it, Dave. It was number three.
Eva Reid 1:09:56
I you know, I did have questions because I was like, I don’t think Kubla Khan actually was a traitor. But well, you know, whatever.
Rolando Rosas 1:10:04
Yeah, well, close enough. Right. But clearly it was, I liked it Ori. Thank you for the question. It was awesome. I love I love not knowing you sometimes I do kind of know, because I did a little bit of research, but in this case, it was all already in the gang. So thank you very much for that. We do have before, before we go, Eva, do you want to say anything else?
Eva Reid 1:10:27
Oh, gosh, I think I’m gonna go with my previous statement. And, you know, reach out and connect to people that you you know, maybe have already connected with but haven’t talked to you in a while, this is a really good opportunity to do that. I have a great download that’s going up on my website in the next probably the next day or so that talks about how to do that and some tips for you, too. Get your get your community building on. So be good to know each other, and, you know, talk to each other. And if you connect with me on LinkedIn, I might even send it to you before it goes live.
Rolando Rosas 1:11:07
with a note. We will check that out. And before we completely turn the lights off here, while I’m being told we have some announcements on our upcoming show, or show or shows or shows Ori. Okay, cool. Let’s put it up. Oh, here we go. Here’s the slate. Oh, I love this. So we’ve got next week, we’ve got a Draft Day Special. Okay, so yes, it’s it’s a lot of guys, just Dave and I picking our draft picks because the NFL draft is around the corner. All right. And so we’re going to do our own kind of draft picks our tech draft picks. In honor of the Draft Day, we’ve got a I think Dave one of the most two fascinating conversations that we’ve had in a long time. One with Adam of IBM, who is going to break down some cryptocurrency and what hap what’s going on with cryptocurrency and where it’s going so Adam Australia, in on the fourth of May 4, we’ve got Sasha Sagan, we had a very interesting conversation with Sasha. And we’ll be airing that may 4. He’s from PC Magazine, on the best places to work remotely in 2021. So a very interesting topic hot on everybody’s mind, especially now that people can work anywhere around the world, especially if you’re a knowledge worker. Obviously, if you’re a factory worker, that’s certainly not the case. But if you’re a knowledge worker, you can work anywhere where you have good internet. So
Dave Kelly 1:12:43
we got some awesome shows coming up Rolando really looking forward to the next couple of weeks here.
Rolando Rosas 1:12:48
Me too. Me too good stuff. Right. And yes, well, again, we want to thank Eva Reid. And we want to thank all of you for tuning in today and we will see you the next time.
Outro 1:13:01
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