Nerd Journey: Career Advice for the Technology Professional
John White | Nick Korte
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Build a Career MVP: The Importance of Feedback and Iteration with Daniel Lemire (1/4)
If your career was a product, what would the current release notes say? Just as product managers launch a minimum viable product (MVP) and enhance it based on customer feedback, Daniel Lemire unknowingly began building his career this way starting in high school. This week in episode 323 you’ll hear about Daniel’s early aspirations to be a pilot in the Air Force and the phone call that forced him to change directions. It was a reliance on his faith, his aptitude for computers, and an openness to feedback from friends and teachers that prompted Daniel to study management information systems in college. Follow along as we explore the timeline over which Daniel decided to become an independent consultant, gained technical expertise and experience through building systems to deliver value, and ultimately decided to pursue an advanced degree. With each decision along the way, Daniel chose to take a step forward very much like a product release adds features and enhancements. If you thought of where you are now as a MVP, where could you go from here? Original Recording Date: 03-20-2025 Topics – Meet Daniel Lemire, An Early Deviation from the Plan, Self-Awareness and the Gift of Explanations, A Tinkering Instinct and the Cycle of Confidence, Consulting and a Return to the Familiar, The System Builder, Thoughts on Product Management, Getting an Advanced Degree 2:31 – Meet Daniel Lemire Daniel Lemire is an AI Consultant working for ServiceNow. He gets to speak with senior leaders about the use of artificial intelligence in their organization specific to the ServiceNow platform. It’s a pretty popular topic of conversation these days. Daniel enjoys driving influence and helping organizations create value, and throughout the course of his career, Daniel has learned to calibrate the use of technology against the creation of value. 3:39 – An Early Deviation from the Plan How did Daniel get into technology in the first place? Daniel’s middle school had a computer lab, and he and several others were part of a computer club. In addition to this, Daniel was fortunate to have a computer at home in the early 1990s and play games on it and discuss computers with friends. Going into high school, Daniel wanted to be a pilot. He wanted to attend the Air Force Academy and eventually become an officer. Daniel was working to do everything he could to hit that goal. Daniel tells the story of a phone call from an Air Force recruiter during his sophomore year of high school. During the course of that phone call, Daniel learned he was disqualified from serving in the Air Force because of his asthma. “So immediately I found myself in this position of…if it’s not the Air Force, what are my plans? …Am I just going to go find a school to become a pilot and continue down that path with a different means, or am I going to do something completely different? …Honestly, I kind of threw up my hands, and I said a prayer. I said, ‘God, this is what I wanted to do, and this is not how I thought this was going to go. What should I do?’ And, over the next few weeks, the computer thing became increasingly an area of focus.” – Daniel Lemire Conversations with friends and some teachers helped Daniel realize he had some talent when it came to computers. They encouraged him to spend time in that area. From then on, Daniel would find ways to do different things with a computer because it was something he enjoyed. “Any time you can take something you enjoy and turn that into value is really great.” – Daniel Lemire As a senior in high school, Daniel took a computer maintenance course and learned all about computer hardware. Taking this class provided things to Daniel that he did not know he needed. Daniel was good at using Microsoft Office software and really enjoyed programming after taking a course on it. Daniel also took a typing course from a typewriting teacher. Students took it as if they were using a typewriter. Making 3 errors meant you failed the typing exercise. Daniel says he was not great at not making mistakes back then but understands he would not type at the speed he does now without the experience of taking this course. High school courses set Daniel up nicely to choose a computer-related course of study in college – Management Information Systems (MIS) or Computer Science. When taking tours of potential colleges, Daniel would visit the computer lab on campus and make sure he visited both computer science and business information systems personnel. Since math was not Daniel’s primary interest, the business side of computing was better suited for Daniel. Daniel ended up at the University of North Texas (or UNT). Daniel says one of the biggest benefits of their program was learning both new and older technologies. When he entered UNT in 1999 it was one of only a few colleges that allowed students to work on a mainframe. 8:59 – Self-Awareness and the Gift of Explanations Nick likes the way Daniel handled the setback related to being a pilot and putting his effort into an alternate path. Most people would have had a lot more trouble. Daniel says he didn’t have enough life experience to dissuade himself from taking the next right action. Nick points out Daniel had enough information to select a course of study that fit with his strengths and his interests in the best way. Daniel says self-awareness is not something we talk about enough. “I’m very much a striver. I will do things that are very hard for myself just because I want to accomplish something really big, and there is absolutely a time for taking on those big things. But you also have to do it from the context of…what am I good at, and what can I get started with right here where I am?” – Daniel Lemire Daniel says it wasn’t just his interest in computing that drove him to it. It also had to do with other people’s observations of his interest in it. As a result of both, he was open to pursuing computing in his course of study instead of continuing to search. In high school, students were given some recommendations for future courses of study – something in thr arts, something in science / math / engineering, or some sort of specialization in a different area. Daniel says he was ok at math but really enjoyed physics because it was very conceptual. He would work on math problems and make simple mistakes. “…so being able to capitalize on the part that I was good at in getting into that computing career I think was the other piece of it – knowing that I was good at it and being convinced in the shortest time possible that that was the path for me by being open.” – Daniel Lemire Did someone encourage Daniel to look at both the computer science and management information systems options when he was visiting colleges, or did he naturally investigate both on his own? Daniel listened to the feedback he was getting from high school teachers, and he specifically mentions his typing teacher. Daniel took the typing course as a sophomore in high school, and that teacher recognized his aptitude with computers. Daniel would help her from time to time and would later become her teacher’s aide. In a number of their conversations, the typing teacher would ask about Daniel’s future career plans. Daniel says it was not a coincidence that he had this teacher in his life at the same time the Air Force said no to him. John says around this same time many people might have said they were good with computers, but they likely meant they were good at playing computer games. This is very different than using computers to solve problems and seeing them as systems because you’ve taken the time to understand the internal mechanics of the system. Daniel says having access to computer technology at home what critical in all of this. Daniel tells the story of trying to tweak configuration files on his computer to get a game to run and breaking everything. Daniel’s mother had a friend from church who was able to come over and fix the computer problem. “He could have showed up and been like, ‘Daniel, what an idiot. I can’t believe you would do something like this.’ He could have fixed it and just walked away, but he took the time to sit me down and say, ‘ok, I see what you did here. Now let me explain it to you so that you can understand it.’ It was that taking of the time that really made a difference, and I haven’t forgotten that because we get so tied up in ourselves that we forget what it is to give that kind of a gift to somebody else. That’s an invaluable opportunity, and I learned so much through that and was able to convert that into a win time and again because somebody invested those few minutes in me by explaining something I just didn’t understand.” – Daniel Lemire 16:28 – A Tinkering Instinct and the Cycle of Confidence John says listeners recognize the tinkering instinct, and the experimentation we participate in through it ends up benefitting us. Losing some of the fear of doing irreparable harm to a system allows us to learn even more. Daniel feels this played a big role in his story and has told people he is addicted to the “undo” button. “The further up in the career you get the more likely it is you’ll get yourself in trouble by making a bad decision, but if you’re able to identify those areas where you make mistakes less often or you can set things up in a way that you can make those mistakes without them being harmful…I really think that is a key to success.” – Daniel Lemire Daniel stresses the importance of opportunities for iteration. How often do we put ourselves in situations where we don’t have to get something right the first time so we can take advantage of an opportunity for growth and learning (i.e. a new skill, a new system, etc.)? “Any time you can setup a scenario where you don’t have to get it right the first time, but you c
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