Geeking Out Live: The One Where We Give a Sh*t About IWD with Colleen Coll, Reese Lee, Imma Valls, and Josh Lee
Episode Description
Key Takeaways
- With many companies scaling back DEI programs, conversations about gender equity are more important than ever.
- Seeing women in technical and leadership roles encourages others to enter and stay in the field.
- Men and women alike should use their privilege to advocate for and uplift women
- There's a difference between supportive and performative males. Performative males want to be "seen" doing the right things, but aren't actually supporting women in the workplace.
- Men who use their privilege to support women should not be put on a pedestal; that should be the bare minimum and something that should be done by default
- Don't wait until you're "ready" (we never feel fully ready). There's always someone less qualified than you who will apply for jobs/pursue speaking opportunities/scholarships/etc., so why not take a chance and put yourself out there?
- Don't be afraid to reach out to women to mentor/guide them; sometimes they may be too shy/scared to reach out
Chapters
00:08 Intro
00:29 Guest intros
06:24 Why is IWD important?
11:20 Name one woman who inspires you
22:24 What can women do to support other women in the workplace?
31:43 Name one man who inspires you
42:55 What can men do to support other men in the workplace
51:48 What are some workplace inequalities that need to be fixed
58:22 What advice do you have for women entering tech?
About our guests
Colleen Coll
"Allow myself to introduce...myself." - Austin Powers
Ever feel like you're juggling flaming torches planning events—trying to keep all the details in the air while something’s always about to catch fire? Yep, she's been there. Events have a way of throwing curveballs, and when tech and tools aren’t playing nice, chaos can easily take over.
That’s where Colleen Coll comes in. She love turning event madness into magic. Whether it’s on-site event coverage using digital media, live reporting, or behind-the-scenes management, she makes sure everything runs like clockwork. She's also a huge fan of using There.App, which simplifies on-location event management by keeping everyone in sync and streamlining the entire process, so no detail gets lost in the shuffle.
From tech conferences to startup launches, I capture the moments that matter and keep things smooth, whether it's happening live or behind the scenes. And when she's not on the ground, she's writing—blogs, articles, and ghostwriting for tech leaders to tell the bigger story behind the event, brand, or mission.
Find Colleen on:
Reese Lee
Reese Lee (she/her) is a Senior Developer Relations Engineer at New Relic, where she enables users on open source technologies such as OpenTelemetry. She has spoken on various topics related to OpenTelemetry, and maintains and creates community resources aimed at OTel end users. She is super into anything paranormal, and enjoys sci-fi and traveling.
Find Reese on:
Imma Valls
Imma is a Developer Advocate at Grafana Labs. She loves simplifying and sharing knowledge on Observability, OpenTelemetry, and Cloud Native accessible. Her mission is to create high-value technical content while driving the adoption of best practices within the community. As a community organizer and ally, she's passionate about building inclusive communities and events where underrepresented people in tech can confidently share their stories and knowledge. Knowledge isn't static; it's an asset that multiplies when shared.
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Josh Lee
Josh is a Developer Advocate at Altinity, where he applies his observability and engineering background to ClickHouse use cases. He has over 15 years of experience in developing and leading software projects for various clients and industries. Josh is also a speaker and a contributor to the OpenTelemetry and CNCF communities, sharing his insights and best practices on topics such as distributed tracing. He is always eager to learn new things and explore new challenges, and he strives to create elegant and innovative solutions that take into account the nuances and correlations of complex problems.
Find Josh on:
Find Geeking Out on
- All of our social channels are on bio.site/geekingout
- All of Adriana's social channels are on bio.site/adrianavillela