all right soundcheck
great so great to be here curious is
probably not the first word that comes
to mind when you think of Millennials
we’re described as narcissistic
self-entitled and tech obsessed but I’d
like to think that we’re just living in
a vastly different world than that of
our parents the workplace gives us a
really bad rep we’re called job hoppers
and regarded as not disciplined but in
reality it’s because we’re exposed to
the Information Age the internet keeps
inundating us with new information and
stimulus and what that has created is a
generation of maximizers and job hoppers
my dad has three jobs his entire career
at the age of 29 I’m on to my fifth at
this rate I will have had 30 jobs by the
time I’m his age but the truth is
curiosity is what fuels me to change
jobs cities and industries
what separates all generation from the
previous generation is a sense of
possibilities and endless opportunities
and let’s get real there is no sure
thing anymore job markets are volatile
new economies are emerging Millennials
are forced to keep processing new
information in a changing environment
you either evolve or die when I
graduated from college I faced the
recession my hopes of going into the
safe and linear path of becoming a
lawyer we’re gone because say goodbye to
job security as a result faced with this
harsh reality I pivoted to a new area
called product management and in a way
my own career shift
body is a paradigm shift that it applies
to many of us Millennials today are no
longer chasing stability instead we’re
following what we’re following
opportunities technology has also
enabled and hurt our own sense of
curiosity today when we’re stumped we
look to our phones for answers googling
is just as ubiquitous as knowledge
seeking but what lies at the end of
Google search is not understanding it’s
just someone else’s answers our brains
have become hacked into mistaking that
hard numbers scientific proofs Wikipedia
articles hold understanding to something
but curiosity is so much more than that
curiosity is a return to sense of
inquiry science a scientific inquiry
Socratic method an introspective
understanding the Internet is vast but
shallow and the greatest danger of the
modern world is wading in the shallows
and losing our depth I’m afraid that
we’re losing our ability to deep think
what I miss most about my liberal arts
education is an ability to fixate on one
topic deconstruct it and evaluate it
from multiple points of view before
assembling it all back together with my
own interpretation and opinion there was
no right answer but I was curious and I
found out what was true for ourselves
and I found my own truth without going
to the Internet coming from a liberal
arts background and having made my way
into tech I oftentimes feel different I
look around in a meeting and I realized
gee I make the only woman in here I’m
the only person with a non-technical
background we have no no fat tech
a diversity issue and this comes as no
surprise because 18% of all computer
science majors in the United States are
women women are consistently
underrepresented in technical roles as
well as executive positions
this type of hostile environment with
microaggressions and a sense of being
different breeds the imposter syndrome
the imposter syndrome is a term for high
achieving women who often feel like
frauds and hey I’m one of them I often
times trivialize my own success and
achievements for luck and timing you
know maybe I’m not invited here because
someone read my blog post or following
me on Twitter but not because I really
earned it or owned my success and the
media coins this term impostor syndrome
as if it’s a disease we have to be cured
of but what if the impostor syndrome can
benefit us the way I see it being
impostor isn’t all that bad
feeling like an impostor means you are
humble you’re self-aware and you’re
constantly seeking new stimuli and
skills to learn and with curiosity we
can face our impostor syndrome and make
it work for us
instead of feeling fear and anxiety and
being paralyzed to do something ask
yourself the following questions that is
my inner voice telling me and how can I
talk back to my inner critic how does
this skill going to help me in some way
shape or form curiosity has helped me
make peace with my own impostor syndrome
and I no longer look at it as a deficit
it’s actually an asset because being an
impostor means I am self-aware to know
what I don’t know which is the
definition of second degree ignorance me
why in uncertain times
there is constant change and tumultuous
change in our markets and daily lives
and I think it’s a run for us to remind
ourselves that it’s okay to not know all
the answers one of my favorite
photographers DNR vus who photographed
people in marginal lives said the thing
that’s important to know is that you
never know and you’re always sort of
feeling your way around feeling your way
around G is not powerful because we can
admit that we don’t know now since we’re
always treading on the cusp of the
unknown my role as a product manager
didn’t exist ten years ago and there’s
really no hard job description for it
I’m constantly treading on the cusp of
the unknown as a product manager I
innovate and iterate on new products so
for example a facebook PM is someone who
designs the look and feel of your
newsfeed there’s a playbook for me to go
by for something that hasn’t been done
before and there’s also no product
management school that I can go to you
with a certificate and a track mark
instead my role is to keep staying
curious and enabling my team of
engineers user researchers designers
marketers to keep asking new questions
and course-correcting as we iterate
towards one direction and finding
something else is more interesting so we
probe in another direction what I love
about David Foster Wallace’s quote in
his commencement speech this is water is
it rhymes us that curiosity is so much
more than ourselves it’s also having an
awareness outside of ourselves towards
other people and the invisible forces at
play he said it is the real value of a
real education it has almost nothing to
do with knowledge and everything to do
with simple awareness
awareness of what is so real and
essential so hidden in plain sight all
around us all the time that we have to
keep reminding ourselves over and over
again this is water this is water
reminding yourself this is water keeps
you humble and in the growth mindset as
a product manager I don’t hold the
answers that’s not my job but my job is
to keep asking the right questions and
probe into interesting new directions
for my team and together we collaborate
on solving technical and product and
user experience problems that we never
imagined we could have solved being
curious and remind yourself this is
water unlocks impossible routes it may
feel impossible right now for you to be
sitting here as a lawyer and how do I
become an iOS developer tomorrow but
asking the right questions will unlock
that path staying focused in how you
arrive to an answer will lead you down
unconventional paths and opportunities I
am really glad that I didn’t have all
the answers when I started in my own
career and I’m glad that I’ve had to
keep reminding myself that we haven’t
all figured it out and that this is
water this is water whether you’re
graduating from college starting a new
job or planning a career shift remember
that curiosity is a gift that lies
within all of us it may feel really
overwhelming right now to face so many
options and uncertainty the curiosity is
a compass that lies within us and it
will guide us through turbulent times an
unchartered territory
curiosity reminds us that it’s okay to
not know that it’s okay to probe deeper
and that it’s okay to feel like an
impulse
sometimes learning is forever
and curiosity never goes away it’s the
gift of childhood wonder so next time
you feel like you don’t know something
put away your phone and ask yourself
what am I tried to understand how can I
break it down and try to interpret it in
my own way because that way you’ll
really be able to deep think instead of
waiting in the shallows stay curious
stay hungry and stay humble thank you
[Applause]
great so great to be here curious is
probably not the first word that comes
to mind when you think of Millennials
we’re described as narcissistic
self-entitled and tech obsessed but I’d
like to think that we’re just living in
a vastly different world than that of
our parents the workplace gives us a
really bad rep we’re called job hoppers
and regarded as not disciplined but in
reality it’s because we’re exposed to
the Information Age the internet keeps
inundating us with new information and
stimulus and what that has created is a
generation of maximizers and job hoppers
my dad has three jobs his entire career
at the age of 29 I’m on to my fifth at
this rate I will have had 30 jobs by the
time I’m his age but the truth is
curiosity is what fuels me to change
jobs cities and industries
what separates all generation from the
previous generation is a sense of
possibilities and endless opportunities
and let’s get real there is no sure
thing anymore job markets are volatile
new economies are emerging Millennials
are forced to keep processing new
information in a changing environment
you either evolve or die when I
graduated from college I faced the
recession my hopes of going into the
safe and linear path of becoming a
lawyer we’re gone because say goodbye to
job security as a result faced with this
harsh reality I pivoted to a new area
called product management and in a way
my own career shift
body is a paradigm shift that it applies
to many of us Millennials today are no
longer chasing stability instead we’re
following what we’re following
opportunities technology has also
enabled and hurt our own sense of
curiosity today when we’re stumped we
look to our phones for answers googling
is just as ubiquitous as knowledge
seeking but what lies at the end of
Google search is not understanding it’s
just someone else’s answers our brains
have become hacked into mistaking that
hard numbers scientific proofs Wikipedia
articles hold understanding to something
but curiosity is so much more than that
curiosity is a return to sense of
inquiry science a scientific inquiry
Socratic method an introspective
understanding the Internet is vast but
shallow and the greatest danger of the
modern world is wading in the shallows
and losing our depth I’m afraid that
we’re losing our ability to deep think
what I miss most about my liberal arts
education is an ability to fixate on one
topic deconstruct it and evaluate it
from multiple points of view before
assembling it all back together with my
own interpretation and opinion there was
no right answer but I was curious and I
found out what was true for ourselves
and I found my own truth without going
to the Internet coming from a liberal
arts background and having made my way
into tech I oftentimes feel different I
look around in a meeting and I realized
gee I make the only woman in here I’m
the only person with a non-technical
background we have no no fat tech
a diversity issue and this comes as no
surprise because 18% of all computer
science majors in the United States are
women women are consistently
underrepresented in technical roles as
well as executive positions
this type of hostile environment with
microaggressions and a sense of being
different breeds the imposter syndrome
the imposter syndrome is a term for high
achieving women who often feel like
frauds and hey I’m one of them I often
times trivialize my own success and
achievements for luck and timing you
know maybe I’m not invited here because
someone read my blog post or following
me on Twitter but not because I really
earned it or owned my success and the
media coins this term impostor syndrome
as if it’s a disease we have to be cured
of but what if the impostor syndrome can
benefit us the way I see it being
impostor isn’t all that bad
feeling like an impostor means you are
humble you’re self-aware and you’re
constantly seeking new stimuli and
skills to learn and with curiosity we
can face our impostor syndrome and make
it work for us
instead of feeling fear and anxiety and
being paralyzed to do something ask
yourself the following questions that is
my inner voice telling me and how can I
talk back to my inner critic how does
this skill going to help me in some way
shape or form curiosity has helped me
make peace with my own impostor syndrome
and I no longer look at it as a deficit
it’s actually an asset because being an
impostor means I am self-aware to know
what I don’t know which is the
definition of second degree ignorance me
why in uncertain times
there is constant change and tumultuous
change in our markets and daily lives
and I think it’s a run for us to remind
ourselves that it’s okay to not know all
the answers one of my favorite
photographers DNR vus who photographed
people in marginal lives said the thing
that’s important to know is that you
never know and you’re always sort of
feeling your way around feeling your way
around G is not powerful because we can
admit that we don’t know now since we’re
always treading on the cusp of the
unknown my role as a product manager
didn’t exist ten years ago and there’s
really no hard job description for it
I’m constantly treading on the cusp of
the unknown as a product manager I
innovate and iterate on new products so
for example a facebook PM is someone who
designs the look and feel of your
newsfeed there’s a playbook for me to go
by for something that hasn’t been done
before and there’s also no product
management school that I can go to you
with a certificate and a track mark
instead my role is to keep staying
curious and enabling my team of
engineers user researchers designers
marketers to keep asking new questions
and course-correcting as we iterate
towards one direction and finding
something else is more interesting so we
probe in another direction what I love
about David Foster Wallace’s quote in
his commencement speech this is water is
it rhymes us that curiosity is so much
more than ourselves it’s also having an
awareness outside of ourselves towards
other people and the invisible forces at
play he said it is the real value of a
real education it has almost nothing to
do with knowledge and everything to do
with simple awareness
awareness of what is so real and
essential so hidden in plain sight all
around us all the time that we have to
keep reminding ourselves over and over
again this is water this is water
reminding yourself this is water keeps
you humble and in the growth mindset as
a product manager I don’t hold the
answers that’s not my job but my job is
to keep asking the right questions and
probe into interesting new directions
for my team and together we collaborate
on solving technical and product and
user experience problems that we never
imagined we could have solved being
curious and remind yourself this is
water unlocks impossible routes it may
feel impossible right now for you to be
sitting here as a lawyer and how do I
become an iOS developer tomorrow but
asking the right questions will unlock
that path staying focused in how you
arrive to an answer will lead you down
unconventional paths and opportunities I
am really glad that I didn’t have all
the answers when I started in my own
career and I’m glad that I’ve had to
keep reminding myself that we haven’t
all figured it out and that this is
water this is water whether you’re
graduating from college starting a new
job or planning a career shift remember
that curiosity is a gift that lies
within all of us it may feel really
overwhelming right now to face so many
options and uncertainty the curiosity is
a compass that lies within us and it
will guide us through turbulent times an
unchartered territory
curiosity reminds us that it’s okay to
not know that it’s okay to probe deeper
and that it’s okay to feel like an
impulse
sometimes learning is forever
and curiosity never goes away it’s the
gift of childhood wonder so next time
you feel like you don’t know something
put away your phone and ask yourself
what am I tried to understand how can I
break it down and try to interpret it in
my own way because that way you’ll
really be able to deep think instead of
waiting in the shallows stay curious
stay hungry and stay humble thank you
[Applause]
Please follow and like us: