Ladies and Gents!
Welcome!
This is the first Webb Side Story interview in 2024!
Thank you for being here!
A lot of you will know that I have had a bit of time out to heal, find, and reinvent myself.
But I am back, I am excited, and I have also reinvented the Tech Trump Card and interviews a little too!
I will explain...
I learnt last year that although everyone loved the Tech Trump Cards and the blog posts, I'm sorry to say that there were a lot of people finding the concept of taking part, really anxiety-inducing, and that's not what I was looking to achieve for sure.
The point of these posts was meant to be that the community (particularly LinkedIn) would see and get to know people in the tech/Microsoft industry who maybe aren't known about, and can find support or be support to others in some form.
I realised that having the Tech 'Top Trump' Cards as the face of the interviews, seemed to give the impression that this was a competition or a way of showing off the best stats. The most important part of these posts is the person being interviewed, and the content of the post, not the Tech Trump Card or its "stats".
So, I have changed them up, and have taken away the numbers. It will now show things about the person in a non-stats way. I am hoping that this will encourage people to join in a little more and feel less anxious about doing so.
Secondly, I won't be having the 'Shout-Outs' at the end of each post, UNLESS the interviewee wants to add them in themselves, as I would like the post to focus on the person... and maybe me a little. Additionally to this reason, I don't want to cause any bad feelings if someone doesn't get a shout-out from the interviewee when they may expect it.
These interviews aren't there to cause bad feelings.
Thirdly, I have also removed the form on my website and will start approaching people myself again through LinkedIn mainly.
And lastly, I won't be doing a new reveal banner for each post like I was last year. I did enjoy doing them but it takes too much time to create them and again, it's about the interview and person more than the reveal of the card.
Oh and obviously as you can see, the card looks different now.
Right, enough of the heavy!
So the moment we have all been waiting for!
2024 Interview and Tech Trump Card V3...............
JAMES CULLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEYYYYYY!!!
Well, I am delighted to say that James is in the same wider team as myself at FSP, and I get to interact and see him quite often.
I have a lot of time for James because he immediately befriended me when I started at the company.
The bit that sticks with me about James, is that he gave me a Teams call the day after my final probation day (which he had in his calendar apparently) to say congrats for making it through probation.
It was so kind of him, and I felt awful after because the whole thing kind of backfired on him slightly. I was in a bit of a state, me being the anxoous gal that I am and not having had my probation meeting yet (which would probably usually give any normal person the idea that they have probably made it through, but not me, I was still traumatised by my two previous job experiences). I was still terrified that maybe I hadn't made it through probation (even though everyone was saying great things about my performance).
He was probably expecting a happy, excited, and relieved Laura, but it wasn't what he found. Bless him. He didn't look prepared for this and looked like he wanted to slowly back away.
I did, however, obviously make it through probation, so it's all good. And James has continued to be a good friend and colleague since.
So I'm very happy that he signed up for an interview and Tech Trump Card because you should all get to know this guy for sure.
He has been in the IT/tech industry for 5 years now and one of those was spent in an IT firm as part of his industrial placement. Before that, he spent two years as a secondary school teacher after graduating from Reading University. I asked James a few questions about his thoughts on the industry, community, his work and himself.
Industry
When asked what his favourite thing about this industry is, James mentioned that "we are at the forefront of a huge amount of change, and there is always something to learn. AI gets a significant amount of attention right now, but there are plenty of other new developments. You’ll never get bored!".
Those who are already embedded within this industry will know that James is correct in saying that there is so much to observe and learn about. It's a relief really that we have such a vibrant and enthusiastic community just waiting for any excuse to share their favourite findings about technology developments and advancements, both Microsoft and non-Microsoft related, so that the rest of us don't have to.
When asked about advice for newcomers to the industry, James offered his insights. "Find what you are passionate about and invest time in learning more about it. It can be easy to feel overwhelmed with everything going on, and finding one unique specialism will help you to concentrate your efforts."
This is absolutely one of the reasons why I wanted to do these interviews and Tech Trump Cards; so that people can gain insight into who is out there sharing passions for the same topics, and may be able to help, inspire, advise or just become friends!
Community
You all know that I LOVE the Microsoft community and I have been pleased to see James get out into the community more and more. James, a while back started a newsletter that he writes and shares on LinkedIn called 'Collab with Culley'. This newsletter incorporates all of James' learnings about the topics he finds most interesting, including 'Collaboration', 'Technology' and various issues in IT. So definitely follow the link above and have a read through some of his articles such as; Reflections on a 'Yamnesty', Making your first steps in IT - the early talent edition, Making sense of change, and many more...
As well as doing the newsletter, James has been interviewed in the Sprint Zero podcast, hosted by the wonderful Jon Russell and Mike Gowland, and has also attended and spoken at the Commsverse conference. He is due to do his next talk at the Scottish Summit this year (2024) and I know for a FACT he will smash it. For those of you interested (and that should be ALL of you!), his talk will be in Meeting Room 8, at 1:45 pm, on Saturday 19th October, and is titled 'Viva la Revolution - Bringing employees on the Copilot journey with Viva Engage'. So go and see it and give James a huge clap from me, as I unfortunately can't make it :(
James has loved meeting so many different people in the community and learning from their expertise. He mentions when being asked what his favourite thing about the community is, that when he was at Commsverse, it was then that he "truly realised how diverse our community was, and how this has contributed to some fantastic innovation along the way". James has even written a post about his thoughts on how important diversity is for collaboration - Why diversity matters for collaboration. He has also written an account of his experience at Commsverse - Into the Commsverse, so go ahead and add that to your to-do list also.
At the moment James is gaining experience attending and talking at events, but he
hopes to one day run his own series of events. He tells me that he has run events before and knows how complex it can be, but I have my fingers crossed for you James. I would attend. So let me know when and where, and to everyone else, WATCH THIS SPACE!
Finally, to wrap up the community-related questions, I asked what advice James would give this time to new people joining or wanting to join the community and his response was; "Sometimes you just have to be 10% braver, especially if you are considering speaking at your first event. You will often have much more expertise than you give yourself credit for and everyone has to start somewhere."
I like that, you "just have to be 10% braver".
Work-life
Moving onto work-life... as I mentioned above, James works in the same wider team as me at FSP. I know I love it at FSP, so I wanted to know what James' thoughts were on the company also.
James' favourite application is Viva Engage. He is widely known for it at FSP and hopefully, the community is coming to acknowledge his love for it too. He is always encouraging us at work to use it more and is a great champion for what he believes is possibly an "under-appreciated" platform, but a great tool that helps to "bring people together and to share knowledge". His ultimate goal is to "help run an organisation where people are treated well and where staff feel like they have a voice." He, like a lot of us, has previously been in environments where this hasn't been the case, and so he wants to ensure that his impact adds value to the workplace "by helping to create an environment where staff matter and feel cared for".
Luckily for us, FSP has a fantastic culture and is always working hard to ensure that its employees, as well as clients, are happy and looked after. When I asked James what his favourite thing about the company was, he said that "we are trusted at FSP, and not micromanaged. Leadership have faith in our ability to get work done and to a high standard and because of this, it does!" I wholeheartedly agree with this and appreciate that trust.
James enjoys having the freedom to learn more about his field and showing others new innovations or developments. We often have a weekly showcase hour where colleagues can share some of their knowledge and James has taken part in this several times, which we are grateful for. He puts time into this activity because he believes that "we can’t be expected to know about every single development every day, so it’s nice to see colleagues benefit when we can show them things that have changed or improved".
Well said James.
Working from home
Nowadays, a lot more of us are working from home rather than sitting in the office 5 days a week and I just wondered how James felt about it.
James claims that working from home allows him to have his own routine and get "a bit more time to focus on things like fitness and wellbeing". He even mentions when asked what his dream home office would like, that it would be "very sleek and minimalist with some nice Japanese artwork dotted around". I think this would allow a person to focus on their well-being for sure as it sounds quite calm and zenny James. Very nice, I hope you get to have that one day.
At work, many of our colleagues have a joke and a giggle on calls. Teams is now how we generally communicate for the most part like a lot of companies. With the playful culture and vibe in mind, I wanted to know what James' choice of song would be if Teams meetings had WWE-like wrestler entrance songs. His response was "Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins!". But James then follows his choice with "Although hopefully the other participants don’t feel like they are entering the danger zone when I’m in the room…!". Great song choice James, but you have to OWN the song and not worry about scaring the other participants!
Personality
I've decided to display the fun questions in a Q & A format rather than with my thoughts because you will get more of a sense of James I think that way. I can promise you the answers do give a good sense of James indeed.
James, on the Tech Trump Card, you said your superpower is 'Making complex ideas easy'. If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?
"Flying. I always loved flying when I was little and was in the Air Cadets when I was a teenager. I would love to be able to fly myself!"
You also said on the card that your motto is “If you’re going through hell, keep going”, why?
"It’s a famous Winston Churchill quote that I’ve appreciated for a while now. I went through a very challenging period a few years ago and I’m immensely proud of myself that I kept on with it and saw it through to the end – quotes like this helped get me through it."
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
"I wanted to be a fighter jet pilot – until I realised I was becoming too tall! My head would have stuck out of the cockpit…"
What do you think is the greatest invention in your lifetime?
"I think AI was already around before I was born, but it has evolved so much in recent years that it practically feels like a new invention. There is a lot of hype around it – and I think some of this is misplaced – but when it works it has a huge amount of potential."
Do you collect anything?
"I love film, and I’ve got a large collection of films at home ready for an evening in!"
If you could swap lives with any fictional character for a day, who would it be and why?
"Ash Ketchum. I loved Pokemon when I was growing up and it would be very cool having my own real Pokemon!"
If your life was a movie, what would its title be, and who would play you?
"Not sure about the title – I’d argue there hasn’t been enough source material just yet!! But I think the actor would have to be Alex George – there is a bit of a visual similarity going on there from what I used to be told!"
What was the first thing you remember saving up money to buy on your own?
"I saved up for a holiday to Wales with my friends when I was growing up. We had a great time near Twywn and we had many nice memories – although I’m keen to forget us having to slide down Mount Snowdon sitting down once we realised we wouldn’t be able to scale it!"
I want to thank James for taking part and for being the first interviewee of 2024.
Do follow James on LinkedIn and subscribe to his newsletter.
Thank you all for reading/listening!
Keep an eye out for the next Interview and Tech Trump Card!
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