4. Antarctic Coffee Beans and Other Musings

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:00

Hello, and welcome to the metal woman podcast. I'm

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:02

your host, Lindsay the boss POS, and I am so excited to be the

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:05

host of the podcast. Thank you all for listening. Thank you, if

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:08

you have already rated the shelf, reading the show, you

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:11

haven't thought rate the show, go tell a friend, you know, the

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:13

whole podcast bill that everyone gives in the beginning. I'm

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:16

doing it too. But anyways, back to this one. Together, we're

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:21

gonna have conversations about what it's like to be a woman in

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:23

the gaming industry, from struggle to success recovering

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:26

it all. To our returning listeners. Thank you so much for

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:29

supporting the show for leaving those reviews, like I said, and

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:32

to new listeners. Welcome. I am so excited to introduce our

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:36

guest this week, we have such an amazing list of guests and this

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:39

one, it totally does not disappoint. She fits the bill

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:43

Chrissa Maya has an illustrious background in gaming, including

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:47

serving on the International Game Developers Association,

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:50

founding Latinos in gaming and previously working at Google

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:53

stadia, Twitch and unity. So that's your roster there.

Lindsay Poss: 00:00:58

Welcome to the show. Chris, thank you so much for coming on.

Lindsay Poss: 00:01:01

And to third, if you just wouldn't mind expanding on a

Lindsay Poss: 00:01:04

little bit of that background I gave, because I think there's a

Lindsay Poss: 00:01:06

lot lot to talk about there. And we'd love to hear more about

Lindsay Poss: 00:01:09

you.

Unknown: 00:01:10

Yeah, well, first off, thank you for having me. Super

Unknown: 00:01:14

cute intro. So let's see, I am in events, marketing in gaming,

Unknown: 00:01:22

I really like focusing on events, community building

Unknown: 00:01:25

social media. So really consumer focused consumer facing

Unknown: 00:01:28

marketing stuff. Latinos and gaming Latin X and gaming,

Unknown: 00:01:33

however you pronounce it or whatever you prefer. We are a

Unknown: 00:01:36

nonprofit dedicated to getting more Latin X books hired in the

Unknown: 00:01:39

gaming industry. And then in terms of my work experience, you

Unknown: 00:01:43

know, I've done everything from being a social media manager to

Unknown: 00:01:47

be head of an event department, you name it, I've been involved

Unknown: 00:01:51

in the consumer marketing focus side of it in some capacity. And

Unknown: 00:01:55

I'm really excited to see kind of like, what goes on next.

Lindsay Poss: 00:01:59

So where did you start? And how did you work up

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:03

to where you are? Now? Social Media Manager is such a caught

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:08

like, I've been there, you know, tech industry jobs, it's it's

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:12

definitely a new thing. I feel like we probably have a lot of

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:16

people listening in who have also done that. But how were you

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:19

able to kind of take that next step? And what opportunities did

Lindsay Poss: 00:02:21

you look forward to get to where you are now.

Unknown: 00:02:25

So I started out in social media management back in,

Unknown: 00:02:28

I'm going to like date myself here, like back in 2012 2013.

Unknown: 00:02:32

Food, don't guess the age. And what I will say is, I didn't

Unknown: 00:02:38

like it, right? Like I, it made me be on social media a lot. And

Unknown: 00:02:42

when you're between the ages of 22 and 23, it's pretty damaging,

Unknown: 00:02:47

to see everybody else winning all the time, and you don't

Unknown: 00:02:49

really feel like you are especially when you're that

Unknown: 00:02:51

young. So I started looking to other things. And I was like,

Unknown: 00:02:55

What do I like doing? Right? Like, I like that I like the

Unknown: 00:02:59

parties I go to I like the games, columns, the taxes, etc.

Unknown: 00:03:02

So I was like, I'm going to be an event manager, being an event

Unknown: 00:03:05

manager is not an easy necessarily not none of these

Unknown: 00:03:08

fields. Forget, you know, like almost all of the gaming

Unknown: 00:03:11

industry is difficult to get into, they expect you to have

Unknown: 00:03:13

pre Vegas experience, they expect you to know the industry.

Unknown: 00:03:16

And as we grow and become more professional, there's an

Unknown: 00:03:19

expectation that you like, are the best of the best, you know,

Unknown: 00:03:22

and so I was entering at a time where it was still a little bit

Unknown: 00:03:26

of the wild wild west. And there was still like a joining of, you

Unknown: 00:03:29

know, this person worked at Google for 15 years, and now

Unknown: 00:03:32

they're working at Twitch kind of kind of energy. So I would do

Unknown: 00:03:37

it on the side, I started as being if you work taxes, you can

Unknown: 00:03:43

get paid for your time at PAX, which covers like maybe your

Unknown: 00:03:47

hotel if you get a cheap one, and you share with a bunch of

Unknown: 00:03:49

friends, or if like depending where you're coming from. And

Unknown: 00:03:52

then you could also get the ticket covered for free. So I

Unknown: 00:03:54

would be an expo hall floor. And then that would also give me the

Unknown: 00:03:58

chance to network. So it was a relatively cheap, and I like

Unknown: 00:04:03

quote marks that one it's a relatively cheaper way to

Unknown: 00:04:06

interact with the gaming developers who were often out on

Unknown: 00:04:09

the show floor. And so I started doing that in 2013. And then in

Unknown: 00:04:13

2015, no, 2013 I started working for a company called well

Unknown: 00:04:18

played. And I was their hospitality manager on the side.

Unknown: 00:04:21

So I still had a full time job I do. And I was also doing a side

Unknown: 00:04:25

gig because my like getting into events full time was not an

Unknown: 00:04:28

entry level position.

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:31

Yeah, give it up. If for those of you who haven't

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:35

been to PAX, there's east west and I know that they've been

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:39

talking about adding some other Oh, I see south on the schedule

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:43

actually. I'm an East Coast or sorry, on East Coast one. But

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:48

for those of you who haven't looked at PAX, it's an it's an

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:50

it's actually a really awesome conference. It's actually where

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:54

I got my start as well. So if it's financially feasible, it's

Lindsay Poss: 00:04:58

it's it's really fun. There's a lot of business that happens

Lindsay Poss: 00:05:01

there. But there's also a lot of fun stuff. So I do recommend it.

Lindsay Poss: 00:05:04

I don't know if you have the same experience, but I, I've

Lindsay Poss: 00:05:07

only been a couple times, but I have enjoyed it.

Unknown: 00:05:10

The good consultants are what you make? Yeah, so it's

Unknown: 00:05:15

very true. Right? Like, you can go and just party the whole

Unknown: 00:05:19

time. And like, that's your prerogative, you could also go

Unknown: 00:05:21

and have like, set panels you want to go to because there are

Unknown: 00:05:24

certain game developer that you really admire is going to be

Unknown: 00:05:26

there. And then you could be like, hey, I want to meet you,

Unknown: 00:05:29

like, how do I get on your calendar? Right? Like you could,

Unknown: 00:05:31

that could be your entire purpose, and that one

Unknown: 00:05:33

interaction could carry you really far in this industry,

Unknown: 00:05:36

right? It all really depends on like, how you interact and how

Unknown: 00:05:38

you involve yourself, and really what your goals are. And I know,

Unknown: 00:05:42

it's probably scary, especially if you're younger, because I

Unknown: 00:05:44

remember, I didn't really decide what I wanted to do until I was

Unknown: 00:05:47

2324. But college was started when I was 18. And ended and I

Unknown: 00:05:50

was 21. And so like, for me, it was scary.

Lindsay Poss: 00:05:56

Kind of wild that we go from having an entire

Lindsay Poss: 00:05:58

routine our whole lives from being born and then at 18. It's

Lindsay Poss: 00:06:02

like, oh, just gonna ship you away. Put you somewhere. You're

Lindsay Poss: 00:06:06

gonna just figure it out. Like nobody has any idea what they're

Lindsay Poss: 00:06:09

doing it Lena leave for college or just graduate high school in

Lindsay Poss: 00:06:13

general, because that whole routine immediately disappears

Lindsay Poss: 00:06:15

overnight. When you graduate, just insane. But yeah,

Lindsay Poss: 00:06:20

millennial diatribe,

Unknown: 00:06:21

I think, yeah, it's kind of wild, how heavy the

Unknown: 00:06:26

expectations were on millennials. And if this isn't

Unknown: 00:06:29

just an us thing, I feel bad for Gen Z to like, we come out there

Unknown: 00:06:33

and in the middle of a recession, right. And then they

Unknown: 00:06:36

were like, go find jobs. And I studied political science. And I

Unknown: 00:06:40

remember just being like, where everything's only paying $8 an

Unknown: 00:06:43

hour for Florida. So like, even that was like barely livable,

Unknown: 00:06:47

right? And I just was supposed to do like an unpaid internship,

Unknown: 00:06:51

I was struggling with debt already. Because like, I had to

Unknown: 00:06:55

pay for college to like I didn't necessarily have the funding

Unknown: 00:06:59

some other kids do. And when you think about it, like our

Unknown: 00:07:02

workforce and our work systems that have more like middle, you

Unknown: 00:07:05

know, blue collar, white collar types of jobs, right? If you're

Unknown: 00:07:07

really thinking about those differences, there's classism

Unknown: 00:07:10

there, right? Especially in the gaming industry to get into

Unknown: 00:07:13

gaming, you have to be able to afford, like, the computer I'm

Unknown: 00:07:16

sitting on right now is $1,700. Luckily, it's a work laptop,

Unknown: 00:07:19

right? Like, there's other pieces like being able to afford

Unknown: 00:07:23

to travel being able to afford to play the games. And if you

Unknown: 00:07:27

don't have those bear various of entries down like, oh, yeah,

Unknown: 00:07:32

yeah, it's tough. I feel bad. So one thing I'm going to plug that

Unknown: 00:07:35

annex and given here that we're trying to do is we're trying to

Unknown: 00:07:38

fill those gaps are not the only ones. By the way. I'm like, not

Unknown: 00:07:40

trying to sound like we're taking credit. But there's a lot

Unknown: 00:07:42

of us out there in the DNI space that are doing grants so that we

Unknown: 00:07:46

can help get people funding for what they need to do. So like,

Unknown: 00:07:50

you know, we recently got a guy a new monitor, and he had one

Unknown: 00:07:54

that was 15 years old, and he needed to do to do work,

Lindsay Poss: 00:07:58

right? Yes, you are currently speaking to

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:01

someone who is working on a 2012 MacBook been able to upgrade? It

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:08

is you know what, it is a blessing. It still runs, I have

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:11

a billion things plugged into it. Sometimes the fan gets

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:14

really angry, but we're still going.

Unknown: 00:08:19

I respect you

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:21

know, someone who works in the gaming industry,

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:23

but and I actually do have access to gaming computer, but I

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:27

share it with a partner and it's not in a good spot I have you

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:30

know, it's a whole complicated story. But I guess to sum up,

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:33

one thing that I liked that you said is that you're doing grants

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:36

because I think as millennials and Gen Z years and even older

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:41

generations being saddled with debt anytime I hear the word

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:44

scholarship, or there's certain words terms that make me nervous

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:49

about companies when they offer things. So grants are worried

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:55

that I generally have a good connotation. And I appreciate

Lindsay Poss: 00:08:59

the mission behind a grant behind grant funding as opposed

Lindsay Poss: 00:09:01

to a lot of other forms of funding.

Unknown: 00:09:05

Yeah, yeah, we have one cool thing about our grant

Unknown: 00:09:08

program too. And I agree grant funding is the way to go to be

Unknown: 00:09:12

real, but we are letting some of our people who have raised money

Unknown: 00:09:17

for us who are bigger in the gaming industry and Latinx

Unknown: 00:09:19

decide how we get that money out to right. So one person I'm

Unknown: 00:09:23

going to name Andy Cortes from kind of funny. Yeah, he raised

Unknown: 00:09:26

seven grand for us. That's not That's not chump change that

Unknown: 00:09:29

could set somebody up for I mean, if you gave me seven grand

Unknown: 00:09:33

when I was between the ages of 22 to like 28, it would have

Unknown: 00:09:37

changed my life at the time, right? It would have immensely

Unknown: 00:09:40

helped me and so we're asking him to like let us know. What

Unknown: 00:09:43

does that go to? Right? Do you want to go to a streamer? Do you

Unknown: 00:09:46

want it to go to a content creator? Like how should they

Unknown: 00:09:49

spend it and then that's like the parameters we're not going

Unknown: 00:09:51

to be so like, you can only get this Alienware computer but we

Unknown: 00:09:54

are going to be specific right? And I'm excited because we're

Unknown: 00:09:58

helping foster that like shame of not just networking but like

Unknown: 00:10:02

community building, right? We're having leaders in the space,

Unknown: 00:10:06

build through our tools and make things happen.

Lindsay Poss: 00:10:11

Yeah, I think that's a really important point

Lindsay Poss: 00:10:13

that it's, it's not just a one and done process either. It's

Lindsay Poss: 00:10:17

kind of it builds on itself. And I like it when there's an

Lindsay Poss: 00:10:21

opportunity to also to see things through. Because even if,

Lindsay Poss: 00:10:25

even if you even if the person who said raised money, it's

Lindsay Poss: 00:10:30

really nice to be able to actually know what it's going to

Lindsay Poss: 00:10:33

as well, right, or to at least know that you have the option

Lindsay Poss: 00:10:36

because I can also imagine raising money and not wanting to

Lindsay Poss: 00:10:39

think about it. But it's nice that the either way you can be

Lindsay Poss: 00:10:42

involved in the process from start to finish, whether you

Lindsay Poss: 00:10:45

choose where it goes, or whether you say, this is for you to

Lindsay Poss: 00:10:49

choose you to decide, but I want to, you know, you're kept in the

Lindsay Poss: 00:10:52

loop kind of all the way through, I think that's a really

Lindsay Poss: 00:10:55

unique way of giving. That makes a lot to me. Yeah, so, so good

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:01

thinking I guess. But forward, I do want to talk a little bit

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:09

more about getting into the industry. I know, we've touched

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:13

on a lot of points might my goal coming into this podcast was

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:16

splitting up into getting into the industry, and then talking

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:19

about once you're actually in and we've already kind of

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:21

covered both angles, but I want to take a step back a little bit

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:25

and get more on track with my original the structure I had in

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:29

mind. But I wanted to also share some resources with our

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:32

audience. Because when we had initially Matt, you shared some

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:36

really good research and stories with me, one in particular about

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:40

getting hired and I, I feel like such a millennial slash Gen Z or

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:45

when talk about the job market and all of that, like it's kind

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:49

of a typical refrain, especially during the Great Recession,

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:51

which has come up and so many of my podcasts, but it's hard. I

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:55

actually just recently went through the job market. And I

Lindsay Poss: 00:11:58

applied for over 100 positions and got no callbacks. And yeah,

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:04

it's and I truly don't take that personally. And I'm lucky to

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:08

have that that afforded that fortitude, I guess, because it's

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:11

difficult to not take it personally. But there's so much.

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:16

There's, it's almost like winning the lottery, when you

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:18

just get a job interview at this point. There's so many

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:20

roadblocks in the way. And it's shared a story with me about a

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:24

fake resume that someone had basically optimized for resume

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:28

readers that just had utterly ridiculous bullet points in it,

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:32

like connected with Reed Hoffman on LinkedIn and slid into the

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:35

DMS. And Team coffee maker and shirt team of six was fully

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:39

caffeinated with an Arctic coffee beans ground up to 14

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:42

nanometer particles. And yeah, that fake resume got tons of

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:46

callbacks.

Unknown: 00:12:47

Right.

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:49

And, you know, my real one didn't get as many, but

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:52

it's okay. But the thing that really struck me about that

Lindsay Poss: 00:12:55

resume was the sort of vicious feedback loop or in where that

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:00

person just wrote down that they had software developing

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:02

experience at every major tech company, and therefore got

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:05

callbacks. And that is sort of similar to what you were saying

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:09

earlier about breaking into the industry, and how you needed to

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:13

already have eight years of experience, right? Which doesn't

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:18

really help people. But do you have any words of advice or

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:22

resources or just thoughts on how we could change that or what

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:26

people could do now when they're trying to get in, breaking

Lindsay Poss: 00:13:30

through the system?

Unknown: 00:13:31

I think people need to let go of some of their

Unknown: 00:13:34

preconceived biases about younger hires and newer hires.

Unknown: 00:13:38

And I've been a hiring manager more than once in my time in the

Unknown: 00:13:42

gaming industry. And like, I was, so I hired like, literally

Unknown: 00:13:48

a year ago, I was hiring for two different roles. And one of

Unknown: 00:13:52

them. You know, I did interview a lot of younger candidates, I

Unknown: 00:13:57

did interview a lot of. So here's another problem, and I'm

Unknown: 00:14:01

just going in different directions, but feel free to

Unknown: 00:14:03

stop me. One of the major problems, I

Lindsay Poss: 00:14:04

love it. I love changing.

Unknown: 00:14:08

The major in the gaming industry is it's mostly white

Unknown: 00:14:11

men 74%. Like I'm pulling the stat from literally Google

Unknown: 00:14:15

because my coworker of mine, and I were like, what is it? And

Unknown: 00:14:19

it's between 70 to 77% is white men, right? So they're

Unknown: 00:14:23

surrounding themselves with themselves. And this is like,

Unknown: 00:14:26

there's nothing necessarily insidious about that. You know,

Unknown: 00:14:29

it's you know, right. But then when they're like, Who do we go

Unknown: 00:14:31

to hire? Right? Where do we go to do this, like today? I was in

Unknown: 00:14:34

a conversation with a group of people. And we were talking

Unknown: 00:14:38

about who do we bring on for this like, big prestigious thing

Unknown: 00:14:40

next, and it was like, there were 10 candidates, and most of

Unknown: 00:14:45

them were white men brought in by white men, or a white, you

Unknown: 00:14:50

know, yeah, you know, right. So, I was the one that brought on

Unknown: 00:14:55

and for what it's worth, one of the people did try to bring on

Unknown: 00:14:58

Hispanic men. But different on, I brought on two women of

Unknown: 00:15:02

diverse backgrounds, because and I look really hard and they're,

Unknown: 00:15:05

they're a little bit more junior compared to the other

Unknown: 00:15:07

candidates. But I think that's okay. Because I think that it's

Unknown: 00:15:10

really important to, to grow people into the roles to give

Unknown: 00:15:14

them the opportunities to grow. If you're not, if you don't have

Unknown: 00:15:16

the bandwidth and time to train people that you really need to

Unknown: 00:15:19

talk to your company about, like, giving you more headcount

Unknown: 00:15:21

in general, right. And also, I think it's okay to create a role

Unknown: 00:15:26

and train somebody how to be really good in that role, so

Unknown: 00:15:29

that they can advance their career, taking those types of

Unknown: 00:15:31

risks may seem scary, but it's important that we start doing so

Unknown: 00:15:34

or we're gonna continue with this. It's 2021. And we're,

Unknown: 00:15:37

we're literally majority men, majority white men. And so I

Unknown: 00:15:41

think that the only way this will change is you take risks,

Unknown: 00:15:43

as a hiring manager, if you look out and recommend people that

Unknown: 00:15:47

you might not have thought of before, if you think a little

Unknown: 00:15:49

bit outside the box, and if you give people positions of power

Unknown: 00:15:52

leadership, I was recently working with a company. And

Unknown: 00:15:56

there were a lot of women who felt they had no leadership

Unknown: 00:15:58

opportunities internally, right. And the there was a lot of like,

Unknown: 00:16:03

little, you know, groups that were helping manage, like, the

Unknown: 00:16:07

brand, right? Diversity, and I was like, You should take these

Unknown: 00:16:10

young women who don't have, you know, they've been here for five

Unknown: 00:16:13

years, but they're, you know, 25, they're younger, and you

Unknown: 00:16:16

give them the opportunity by putting them in a leadership

Unknown: 00:16:19

role and saying, This is what we need to accomplish, we will be

Unknown: 00:16:23

here to mentor you. Let's figure it out. And that's how you help

Unknown: 00:16:26

develop leaders within your organization and help lift them

Unknown: 00:16:28

up. But if we're not willing to do it internally, if we're not

Unknown: 00:16:30

willing to do it on hiring practices, we will continue to

Unknown: 00:16:33

see a mostly majority white male audience of not even audiences,

Unknown: 00:16:38

you know, faces when gaming and reality is played, like the 50%

Unknown: 00:16:43

of like, 48 to 52%, depending on what you're looking at

Unknown: 00:16:46

statistics of gamers are women. So, you know,

Lindsay Poss: 00:16:52

right? Well against the whole, if you keep

Lindsay Poss: 00:16:54

doing what you've always done, you're going to keep getting

Lindsay Poss: 00:16:57

what you've always got, which is a very metaphorical I don't know

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:05

if that's the right word, but it's very short way of saying

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:07

that. Something's got to change. Right. I totally agree with

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:11

that. I actually was just reading a book. Are you familiar

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:14

with the AI researcher? Janelle Shane? Yes, yes. Yeah. So I was

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:19

just reading her book, total plug for her. But she's a great

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:22

blog called ai ai weirdness. And she released a book called, you

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:26

look like a thing, and I love you. And it's a great book. And

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:28

she actually talks specifically about resume readers and bots

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:31

built to read resumes. And one of them I can't remember who

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:36

exactly what this this story was. But basically, one of them

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:40

found that the highest likelihood, highest piece of

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:44

information that was most likely to get you hired, was to be

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:48

named Jared. It was like, every bot learned that that name,

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:54

which is a predominantly white male name, somehow made it

Lindsay Poss: 00:17:59

through the hiring process more often than a lot of people with

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:03

a lot of other different qualifications, which I find

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:06

very funny. And speaks to this issue. And I think, Well, I

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:11

think one of the things that you raise a good point on is that

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:13

employers themselves do have due diligence to actually spend the

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:18

time on these types of things. And I don't think we have a

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:22

culture that encourages that. Now, from this fake resume

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:26

article, one of the things that was amazing was this person kept

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:28

getting callbacks. And they kept saying name one thing on the

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:31

resume that you found interesting. And almost none of

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:34

the hiring managers or none of the hiring managers he spoke

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:36

with, could name any one thing from that resume. So clearly,

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:40

they're just getting recommendations based on certain

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:43

things and the whole ethical issue with AI and how it's built

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:46

and how resume readers are built. And it winds up hurting

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:49

very specific communities, especially for people in women

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:53

of color. And then especially they're women of color. So,

Lindsay Poss: 00:18:57

yeah, just this whole cyclical thing.

Unknown: 00:19:01

It's cyclical. Yeah. Another good book, I added,

Unknown: 00:19:04

while you were talking, I ended up with my Kindle, because I

Unknown: 00:19:07

just I just like having a lot to read. And I'm supposed to read

Unknown: 00:19:09

100 bucks by the end of the year, and I'm at 83. Oh, wow,

Unknown: 00:19:12

that like Peter unthread topia is a really good book about Sun

Unknown: 00:19:18

Valley. Yeah, I think maybe we might have discussed this. I'm

Unknown: 00:19:20

not sure. But it's definitely one of those interesting reads.

Unknown: 00:19:23

And the first couple of pages is like, we set ourselves and

Unknown: 00:19:27

evening as part of tech, right. But we set our failure by some

Unknown: 00:19:31

of the first images being a pornographic image of a woman.

Unknown: 00:19:33

Oh, yeah. My boy who did not consent to it, right. And

Unknown: 00:19:37

everybody was fine with it, because it was a roomful of

Unknown: 00:19:40

1970s, white, you know, half high college students, right, I

Unknown: 00:19:44

think there, but it's developed. And it's one piece of a whole

Unknown: 00:19:47

puzzle that has put us in this uncomfortable position of like,

Unknown: 00:19:51

you know, not being able to fight back and not being able to

Unknown: 00:19:55

like, if you really think about it, too, we build the workday we

Unknown: 00:20:00

Build HR structures, we've built communication styles around the

Unknown: 00:20:04

preferences of our white male colleagues. And so when people

Unknown: 00:20:08

minorities come in, and when women come in and try to either

Unknown: 00:20:11

have the same communication style or are different, there

Unknown: 00:20:14

can be a real problem and how they are perceived. And I have

Unknown: 00:20:19

this like little chart that you can find. It's like, you know,

Unknown: 00:20:23

when a woman of color enters the space, and it's like, she is

Unknown: 00:20:26

celebrated a lot is like the first couple of months, because

Unknown: 00:20:29

she's done this, like, excellent job at uplifting and everybody

Unknown: 00:20:32

loves her. And she's great. And she's awesome. And then a couple

Unknown: 00:20:35

of months later, it's like, she's starting to notice the

Unknown: 00:20:39

problems in the company. And she's calling them out because

Unknown: 00:20:41

she's the only woman of color and leadership. And then she

Unknown: 00:20:43

exits the company, whether by choice or by force, because they

Unknown: 00:20:47

didn't understand her, they don't like being called out for

Unknown: 00:20:49

their shit. And it is, like I share it in groups of women all

Unknown: 00:20:53

the time. Like, there's a ton of diversity groups. Every single

Unknown: 00:20:56

time without fail, a woman's like, holy shit has happened to

Unknown: 00:20:59

me. And it's such a shame.

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:02

Yes, I was actually going to bring up that

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:04

exact graphic, I will absolutely be linking to it in the show

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:07

notes. Because I think it's so important to little tangents on

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:11

your tangents. The first is I always, always, always share

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:14

that story from Boto Growtopia. And my absolute favorite thing

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:17

was the male researcher who said exactly, Oh, we didn't think it

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:20

was a problem, because there's no women there. So how could it

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:22

be a problem? Nobody in the room saw as a problem. You are

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:27

literally in the wrong room. That's the issue. Sorry, I

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:31

thought that that was so funny. And secondly, 83 books is very

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:35

impressive on the year, my yearly goals always 60. And any

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:38

if any of the readers would like book recommendations, reach out

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:42

to Chris or me. Big books. Yeah. Broto is a good one. And also

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:50

the ethical algorithm. Very good one, if you're into okay. Yeah,

Lindsay Poss: 00:21:54

if you're into reading, I try to I try to read a minimum of five

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:00

learning books, educational books per year, you know,

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:03

memoirs, or science books or something. Five out of the 6060s

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:07

like my magic number for the year. I tried to make five of

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:10

them educational, and the ethical algorithm has been in

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:13

there. And Janelle, Shane's book, you look like a thing, and

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:16

I love you, which follows up her incredible blog very well. But

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:19

anyways, I know that we talked about gaming.

Unknown: 00:22:24

Right, yeah. There's an intertwining there, right. It's

Unknown: 00:22:27

the same sort of energy, the same sort of like, it's built

Unknown: 00:22:31

off of a certain image of like, what technology nerd nerd

Unknown: 00:22:36

fandoms, etc, was the sort of gatekeeping kind of thing but

Unknown: 00:22:40

that still happens to this day.

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:43

Even office temperatures, that that's one

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:45

thing that always astounded me, the office temperature is set so

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:48

that men are comfortable. So I've had jobs where I'm wearing

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:52

slippers and Snuggies and all kinds of things because men

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:55

typically Well, in pre COVID times, and even now, but I don't

Lindsay Poss: 00:22:59

know if men are actually physiologically warmer, it

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:02

certainly feels like it. I'm sure if that's true. Typically

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:05

wearing pants and long sleeve shirts, button ups, sport coats,

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:09

so the office temperature is typically set to cater to that.

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:13

And if you're a woman in the summertime, who has the the joy

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:19

of wearing a dress when it's hot outside, you also get the joy of

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:22

absolutely freezing inside all day. Because yeah, every office

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:26

temperature is set in the 60s, Decatur, so very far. At least

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:31

the work from home offices will have that problem, you know,

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:34

right. Other issues. Chris, what has your experience been as a

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:38

minority woman in the gaming industry? What types of things

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:42

and experience look,

Unknown: 00:23:45

I have learned through my time in gaming because I I'm

Unknown: 00:23:49

a millennial, right? So I'm 31 years old. And when I was in,

Unknown: 00:23:54

you ain't yourself?

Lindsay Poss: 00:23:55

Nobody. Nobody

Unknown: 00:24:00

will call um, you can? Yeah, I was like, Why hide? It

Unknown: 00:24:05

was what's gonna happen. I'm not gonna cry it out. So I'm gonna

Unknown: 00:24:09

use this as an example. And I talked about her in so many

Unknown: 00:24:12

podcasts, but she hasn't. She hasn't picked up on it yet. So I

Unknown: 00:24:15

in college, ran the FSU League of Legends club, I went to

Unknown: 00:24:17

Florida State, I'm accidentally wearing my college stuff like

Unknown: 00:24:20

that, because I'm at home. And I was running the club and I was

Unknown: 00:24:25

one of the only girls there Right. And, you know, another

Unknown: 00:24:28

girl joins the fray and her name was Sloane. And I was so

Unknown: 00:24:32

protective of my space. I was like, not a real gamer. She

Unknown: 00:24:36

thought this I was really ugly. Like it was not pretty how I act

Unknown: 00:24:39

with this girl. And now of course she's one of my best

Unknown: 00:24:42

friends. She also works in the gaming industry, but I had to

Unknown: 00:24:46

over time in gaming, learn the love and respect that other

Unknown: 00:24:50

women bring to the table and I will say that some of my biggest

Unknown: 00:24:53

allies in gaming are women, right? Are women who sit and

Unknown: 00:24:57

understand or respect the every job I leave it You know, I, I

Unknown: 00:25:01

bring with me some incredible women that I would kill to work

Unknown: 00:25:05

with ever again, like, you know, one of my old bosses when I was

Unknown: 00:25:08

working with Google studios, Nicole colop, one of the best

Unknown: 00:25:12

event managers in the business, just crazy good at what she

Unknown: 00:25:14

does, right. And, you know, I learned so much from her. But

Unknown: 00:25:18

you know, like, there's also limited jobs right in that room

Unknown: 00:25:21

coat market feels like there's some of the jobs, right. So if

Unknown: 00:25:23

Nicole and I were in the job market, at the same time, I

Unknown: 00:25:26

might go up against her. And in fact, I've gone up against other

Unknown: 00:25:29

women in this industry, or other people, this industry for jobs,

Unknown: 00:25:32

but I, I'm so respectful of the fact that like, she could get it

Unknown: 00:25:36

like, I love that, right. And that's not somebody I was when I

Unknown: 00:25:39

was younger. And then it might also be you were a young woman

Unknown: 00:25:42

and a teenager thing, and you grew up, but either way, in

Unknown: 00:25:45

terms of how I'm treated overall, it's better, it used to

Unknown: 00:25:50

be a lot worse. It's improving, it used to be really bad. Is it

Unknown: 00:25:54

perfect? No, do I want young women that are exiting college

Unknown: 00:25:58

to get treated the way I have, or still sometimes do? Not at

Unknown: 00:26:03

all. And I think it's important that I, as an older woman in

Unknown: 00:26:06

this industry, use my voice to help to help these young women,

Unknown: 00:26:12

because if I don't speak up, and it is on them, the onus is often

Unknown: 00:26:16

on their careers, because when you do speak out, and we have

Unknown: 00:26:19

seen the effects on some people, right, your career can be

Unknown: 00:26:22

damaged, it can be ruined, and a good good things could

Unknown: 00:26:25

negatively happen. So for me, it is it is imperative that I do

Unknown: 00:26:30

what I can to say, Hey, she deserves an opportunity, hey,

Unknown: 00:26:33

she deserves to be in the room, hey, she deserves to be spoken

Unknown: 00:26:36

for, I will always try to be as a gala terian as possible, and

Unknown: 00:26:38

I've messed it up, don't get me wrong, like I've definitely shot

Unknown: 00:26:43

myself in the foot. But I really want to be there for women. And

Unknown: 00:26:48

recently, I went to the esports business conference in Las

Unknown: 00:26:52

Vegas. And there was a young woman there that was traveling

Unknown: 00:26:55

by herself. And I just was an absolute shock that she was at

Unknown: 00:27:01

the same conference, I went to an after party, that like

Unknown: 00:27:05

there's no door guard, there was nothing and this was months ago,

Unknown: 00:27:08

okay, it's just like October. I know.

Unknown: 00:27:16

I got hit on twice at this party. And I just, I was not,

Unknown: 00:27:23

I'm not there to be hit on I'm not on LinkedIn to be hit on I'm

Unknown: 00:27:26

not posting on my professional, whatever Twitter to be hit on.

Unknown: 00:27:30

Like, sure, I might post a photo of myself but even still not

Unknown: 00:27:33

asking to be hit on if you see me on a dating profile, feel

Unknown: 00:27:36

free to send me you know, a DM right, but I'm not there for

Unknown: 00:27:40

that. Right. And so it really annoyed me that it was two older

Unknown: 00:27:43

gentlemen as well. So it wasn't like, you know, some young new

Unknown: 00:27:46

to the industry there. They were older men who clearly lived

Unknown: 00:27:49

establish the space who clearly have enough money to take

Unknown: 00:27:52

themselves to a $2,000 ticketed event in Vegas. And and it

Unknown: 00:27:56

really rubbed me the wrong way. Because this girl was here alone

Unknown: 00:28:00

and she didn't know anybody. And she came hoping to make friends.

Unknown: 00:28:02

And she's younger the industry too. And the whole time I kept

Unknown: 00:28:05

thinking of how one awesome badass girl she was like badass

Unknown: 00:28:09

bitch like crazy cool that you're there for to how scared I

Unknown: 00:28:12

was for her. And that really sucks to feel right. But it's

Unknown: 00:28:15

unfortunately not wrong. We've heard multiple stories of women

Unknown: 00:28:18

being refeed meets him movements allegations. Yeah, absolutely.

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:22

Yeah. Well, it's just so weird. To think I forget

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:26

where it was recently. And I thought wow, for the first time

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:29

ever, I'm actually not worried. I'm completely comfortable.

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:34

What? What a concept, you know, that that has not in and that

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:39

was a very specific situation, I'm struggling to remember

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:42

exactly what it was. But it's what you're talking about. It's

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:44

almost like you're always there's always a guard up, which

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:47

also doesn't help with with a professional career. And I don't

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:52

mean that in the sense that it's an individual's faults, if they

Lindsay Poss: 00:28:56

have that guard up. And they can't really express themselves

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:00

or freely say what they wish to say or present new ideas. I was

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:04

in a position in a company where when I would present new ideas

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:07

to a superior, he said, I'm likely I'll probably say yes to

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:12

all of your ideas, because you remind me of my daughter. And it

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:16

just it was so disheartening, because I did not see that kind

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:20

of sentiment from my male colleagues, first of all. And

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:23

second of all, I don't want to my ideas to be valued because of

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:28

a woman I want them to be valued because they're good ideas and

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:32

the same way backward. I wouldn't want to be approached

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:35

at a business conference because I'm attractive but because I'm

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:38

interesting and had something interesting to say or write or

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:42

you just wanted to get to know a stranger because they're also in

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:45

the gaming industry. And that right guard can be detrimental

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:49

to your own career but without it you subject yourself to so

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:54

many comments and things and situations. It's it's an

Lindsay Poss: 00:29:59

impossible choice. off really?

Unknown: 00:30:01

Yeah. I got like thinking of that conference, but

Unknown: 00:30:05

I feel bad your conference organizers if you hear me, I

Unknown: 00:30:08

don't think you are bad people. But let's talk about diversity

Unknown: 00:30:11

and how you bring it to a conference. We were I was in a

Unknown: 00:30:14

panel with like the VP of like Dignitas, like Aaron Ashley

Unknown: 00:30:17

Simon, who is incredible women, like every single woman on the

Unknown: 00:30:20

panel was really cool. 90% of our attendees were women. We

Unknown: 00:30:24

have three men in that room. And at the very end of it, some guy

Unknown: 00:30:28

is like, let's give credit to the men that are here. And of

Unknown: 00:30:32

course, this beautifully gentle saw on the stage with us was

Unknown: 00:30:34

like, yeah, and they all start coughing. And I'm like, Are you

Unknown: 00:30:37

serious? You were plotting the bare minimum right now you

Unknown: 00:30:40

showed up? You got out of bed like i

Lindsay Poss: 00:30:44

The bar is beneath the floor. You don't even know

Lindsay Poss: 00:30:48

you're stepping over it.

Unknown: 00:30:50

Yeah, there's a picture of me on Twitter making a very

Unknown: 00:30:52

clearly like disgusted face at like that exact moment

Unknown: 00:30:55

happening. It's a really awful like I developed a billion chip

Unknown: 00:30:58

on it. But it was just like, just not I was so annoyed. I was

Unknown: 00:31:01

like this. And then of course, a bunch of men start showing up

Unknown: 00:31:03

because the next panel happens to have somebody from who knows

Unknown: 00:31:06

what they're and like, I wish one that we didn't have to only

Unknown: 00:31:10

be on panels about diversity, I have marketing experience, I am

Unknown: 00:31:15

an event manager, I have built audiences, I have built

Unknown: 00:31:18

companies from the ground up, I do not need to only be on

Unknown: 00:31:21

diversity panels. So I wish people would stop asking for

Unknown: 00:31:23

just those, and to show up and learn about diversity, at least,

Unknown: 00:31:27

like learn what it is to be diverse learn. Like there was a

Unknown: 00:31:30

diversity. There was like a charity panel that was being

Unknown: 00:31:33

held. And all the people on that panel, right met and I was like,

Unknown: 00:31:37

whoa, wait, I run a non for profit, where it was my advice,

Unknown: 00:31:40

right? And anything that's be petty. And so you could have

Unknown: 00:31:43

done a ton of other incredible people for nonprofits. But what

Unknown: 00:31:46

I'm saying is, sometimes there's not thought process behind how

Unknown: 00:31:50

we activate and how we do things. And we really need to

Unknown: 00:31:53

sit down and do the homework, you know, especially for my

Unknown: 00:31:55

white colleagues, it is your responsibility to put in that

Unknown: 00:31:59

extra energy and extra effort. And they're like, oh, but that's

Unknown: 00:32:02

all like learning, you know, whatever. Like, I have to make

Unknown: 00:32:06

sure that I'm acting in a very specific way to not anger

Unknown: 00:32:10

somebody and not come across as intimidating or aggressive.

Unknown: 00:32:14

Because then I lose positioning and power right? In my speech.

Unknown: 00:32:19

And then I my credit is taken away. And I'm the spicy Latina.

Unknown: 00:32:22

Right? And that's a shame. And that's to say, sorry, I went a

Unknown: 00:32:25

little a little bit of a tear. But

Lindsay Poss: 00:32:27

no, don't apologize for that. Because

Lindsay Poss: 00:32:29

there's so many good points in there. And I was actually

Lindsay Poss: 00:32:31

fortunate enough to have some of the women from Dignitas on a

Lindsay Poss: 00:32:35

couple weeks ago. And we specifically talked about

Lindsay Poss: 00:32:38

panels. It wasn't it wasn't Aaron Ashley Simon, although I'm

Lindsay Poss: 00:32:41

very familiar with her work. And she truly seems lovely. I have

Lindsay Poss: 00:32:44

not had the pleasure of meeting her. But I absolutely take your

Lindsay Poss: 00:32:47

and everyone else's word that she's great. But we spoke about

Lindsay Poss: 00:32:51

this exact problem and how often panels that are all women panels

Lindsay Poss: 00:32:56

are called and all women panel where they could be called the

Lindsay Poss: 00:32:59

marketing panel or the community development panel or a nonprofit

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:04

panel. There's no reason why you can't have a panel of all women

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:07

who are just all experts, these plenty of panels of all men who

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:10

are just experts so and that it's funny that you bring that

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:13

up in the context of being on a panel with someone from

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:16

Dignitas. Because the Dignitas people had the exact same

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:19

sentiment about being on their own panels and sharing those

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:23

experiences with other women. Hey, guys, like we're just here,

Lindsay Poss: 00:33:27

because we're good at what we do. Not because of our gender,

Unknown: 00:33:32

right? Like, think about it right now. Like one of

Unknown: 00:33:34

the best people in community management in this moment is

Unknown: 00:33:37

Victoria Tria, right. She's the among us account. She started at

Unknown: 00:33:40

kitfox games, she's grown her social media presence in the

Unknown: 00:33:43

presence of everything she's worked on by millions on some of

Unknown: 00:33:47

them, right. And we need to take her seriously on that level. And

Unknown: 00:33:51

she shouldn't just be speaking at women's conferences. And I,

Unknown: 00:33:54

she is a great example. But she's not the only one who's

Unknown: 00:33:56

doing badass work. And I really want us to, like, bring more of

Unknown: 00:34:00

us to the front, not just women, but like diverse people, people

Unknown: 00:34:03

that are other, you know, representations, like diversity

Unknown: 00:34:07

is, of course, more than just women race. Sorry.

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:11

Oh, no, you're fine. That's what I was wanting

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:13

to say. I know this is not called the metal woman podcast.

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:16

But the goal is to actually be talking about diversity

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:20

inclusion in a much broader level for everyone to be able to

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:25

relate to and understand and learn from. So. I appreciate

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:29

that you bring up that point because I do think it's

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:31

important to note that everyone benefits from diversity. It is

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:35

not just the people you bring in and lift up. There is no

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:39

situation in which bringing more voices or collaborating more or

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:44

including more people winds up with a bad result. Whereas if

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:49

you have all the same type of person, we have seen what the

Lindsay Poss: 00:34:52

result is over and over.

Unknown: 00:34:56

And you can clubhouse what it was like super bag

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:00

Did for maybe a month it was, oh, gosh, what an

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:05

experience

Unknown: 00:35:06

over and over again, I could memorize some of those

Unknown: 00:35:09

people speeches and be like, Hi, I'm blank. Like, like, like, you

Unknown: 00:35:13

know what I mean? Like, we need to give the microphone to so

Unknown: 00:35:17

many other people. And so for Latin X and gaming, for example,

Unknown: 00:35:20

like I do talks for us, but I also starting, you know, not

Unknown: 00:35:23

starting, I can't offer opportunities to the rest of the

Unknown: 00:35:26

team, to other staff to other people that are involved,

Unknown: 00:35:29

because I really, like I'm not the only Latino story. I'm not

Unknown: 00:35:32

the only Latina woman in the industry. And you can hear from

Unknown: 00:35:35

me all the time. There's there's other people out there, you can

Unknown: 00:35:37

hear him too.

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:38

Can you tell me a little bit more about Latinos or

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:42

Latin x in gaming? What what the organization does? Why you

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:45

start, I think why you started is a little obvious, but I still

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:48

would love to hear more of the origin story what you do with

Lindsay Poss: 00:35:51

it. All that good stuff.

Unknown: 00:35:54

Yeah, yeah. So like next and gaming started,

Unknown: 00:35:56

because, obviously, right, like, we didn't have a support

Unknown: 00:35:58

network, the way like GDC happens every year. And there

Unknown: 00:36:01

was like women's game meetup Lacson games meetup Latinx.

Unknown: 00:36:04

Game, like, whistle tumbleweed, like we were never really like

Unknown: 00:36:08

around. So I started it with, you know, a couple of other

Unknown: 00:36:11

people because I wanted us to be around. So it started as just a

Unknown: 00:36:15

community and like a side thing. And I like put a lot of heart

Unknown: 00:36:18

and soul into it. I really love building communities. I really

Unknown: 00:36:21

love building groups of people together that have common

Unknown: 00:36:23

experiences, which is why I started FSU League of Legends

Unknown: 00:36:26

when I was like 19. And so what happened was that one days, one

Unknown: 00:36:34

of our mentors to that her Mita, who was at 90 of the time and

Unknown: 00:36:37

now runs her own company, it was like, why don't I just give you

Unknown: 00:36:41

guys some money and you become an NPO? And it was like, let's

Unknown: 00:36:44

make a decision. Like, are we ready to start doing this. So

Unknown: 00:36:48

what we offer is grants, which I've mentioned like that we're

Unknown: 00:36:50

trying to help you kind of bridge those gaps. We're going

Unknown: 00:36:53

to be we have other partnerships in the works. But we do do a

Unknown: 00:36:57

career fair every year. And we also do a Hispanic Heritage

Unknown: 00:37:01

Month celebration every year. So those are our three main

Unknown: 00:37:03

features. But that doesn't mean that we're not branching out and

Unknown: 00:37:06

doing other things. There's definitely a lot more to come.

Unknown: 00:37:08

And if anybody's interested in working with us, our email is

Unknown: 00:37:10

contact at Lonex and gaming, liberal comm. And you can reach

Unknown: 00:37:14

us through there.

Lindsay Poss: 00:37:16

I was going to specifically ask our listeners

Lindsay Poss: 00:37:18

to get involved if they wanted to. Definitely google it. But if

Lindsay Poss: 00:37:23

you also are looking for work, yes, contact, contact Chris,

Lindsay Poss: 00:37:27

Chris and team. Can you tell me some of what you guys have done

Lindsay Poss: 00:37:31

what you're proudest of? What you can brag about, because I

Lindsay Poss: 00:37:34

love hearing women brag about stuff.

Unknown: 00:37:37

I love that we have over four no over 5 billion

Unknown: 00:37:42

views of our content all made by Latin X creators, and X folks

Unknown: 00:37:47

showing off their art showing off their speed runs showing off

Unknown: 00:37:50

everything like, oh, 5 million views is no, that's pretty cool.

Unknown: 00:37:55

We also have had 30 people hired in the past year through our

Unknown: 00:37:59

channels and network resources. And it was it means that there

Unknown: 00:38:04

are 30 more people here that may not have been here before. And

Unknown: 00:38:08

voices 30 more voices. And I guess another great achievement

Unknown: 00:38:13

is is that we kind of brag about him. I don't think he ever was

Unknown: 00:38:18

so Fernando Reyes Medina is one of our co founders and he just

Unknown: 00:38:22

got Forbes 30 under 30. And it's an incredible accomplishment.

Unknown: 00:38:26

Yeah, because he came from nothing. He used to do dance

Unknown: 00:38:29

instructing classes so he could pay for college because he was

Unknown: 00:38:32

very poor in Mexico City. And now look at him and he's 30

Unknown: 00:38:35

under 30 He's launching Halo like that's the type of

Unknown: 00:38:37

inspirational story that like Latino kids need to hear that

Unknown: 00:38:40

you can in fact get here. It's a lot of work. But you can get

Unknown: 00:38:44

right.

Lindsay Poss: 00:38:45

Yeah, I think well that is that's so great. And

Lindsay Poss: 00:38:48

congratulations to him and congratulations to you for

Lindsay Poss: 00:38:50

building what sounds like a really awesome and not only

Lindsay Poss: 00:38:53

awesome but fun team. Like you guys actually might have some

Lindsay Poss: 00:38:58

fun on these projects and like actually like each other which

Lindsay Poss: 00:39:00

is the NOC to be up interesting. So

Unknown: 00:39:08

now cut through MPO is because we talked about this

Unknown: 00:39:11

before the programming, but we both lived in DC. And I Oh God

Unknown: 00:39:15

it's like mercenaries for hire NPO edition. Like it's crazy how

Unknown: 00:39:20

just wild some of these people are. But yeah,

Lindsay Poss: 00:39:22

that's exactly the experience that I'm referencing.

Lindsay Poss: 00:39:25

Someone who worked in DC and left it for a reason, I suppose

Lindsay Poss: 00:39:32

you could say it was very fun while it lasted. But it it it's

Lindsay Poss: 00:39:38

MPOs can be a really crazy world. Honestly,

Unknown: 00:39:42

thank you. I think they really think

Lindsay Poss: 00:39:45

well, things like playing video games actually

Lindsay Poss: 00:39:48

like a pretty good preparation. You know, because it's either

Lindsay Poss: 00:39:52

you're the one endlessly trying to do something and not getting

Lindsay Poss: 00:39:54

the result that you'd like to get. Or you're the one who's

Lindsay Poss: 00:39:59

trying to break in and be in a in a guild or clan or something

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:04

where you need to learn a little bit, but nobody is patient

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:07

enough to teach you anything or give you advice. So very gently

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:12

applicable experience. So just really quick to summarize for

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:16

all of our listeners, we talked a little bit about getting into

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:19

the industry per set, it started for her at 23 ish, sort of

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:25

started with you figuring out what you wanted to do and what

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:27

you liked and working off of that. I know, that sounds

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:31

simple, but it's definitely not that simple. There's a lot of

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:34

barriers to go through between resume readers and not having

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:39

the right people in the room and not having the right people to

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:42

uplift your voice even when they are in the room. And it can be

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:46

really tough out there. And once you're in the industry, we

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:50

talked a little bit about how hard it is, again, to get your

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:52

voice heard, but how important it is to be able to stand up for

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:54

yourself. And in a way that's possible. I don't think either

Lindsay Poss: 00:40:58

one of us would advocate for people losing a livelihood if

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:01

they didn't want to. But in ways that you are able to stand up

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:06

for yourself, I think that's a very encouraged thing to do. So

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:12

yeah, and then we finally talked about vs awesome organization,

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:16

Latinos flashlight next in gaming history, check it out a

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:19

lot of events and resources and grant money, and a lot of really

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:23

cool stories. So anyone needs an uplifting story, go read

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:29

Fernando's biography.

Unknown: 00:41:30

Yeah, seriously.

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:33

I like to end every episode on a little moment

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:36

of reflection. So this is the chance kind of to look back at

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:40

what you've done, what maybe you've liked, what you haven't

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:42

liked, what has worked, what hasn't worked, and just share

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:45

with our listeners, what one thing you would like to tell

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:48

your younger self about getting into the gaming industry and

Lindsay Poss: 00:41:51

being successful,

Unknown: 00:41:53

your failures are as much as part of your success as

Unknown: 00:41:57

your win. Don't be sad that you've failed, learn from it.

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:01

You know, failure is something that's come up in

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:03

these moments or reflection more than once. And it's a real skill

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:06

to be able to embrace it. And to come out on top of it.

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:10

Particularly for women and people of color. It can be very

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:13

difficult because that the barriers are so much greater. So

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:17

the chance of failure is so much higher, but don't give up. Yeah,

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:23

though, Chris, thank you so much for coming on. This was so much

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:26

fun. I I have only gotten to speak with you a couple times.

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:30

But I can truly say that each time has been a very fun

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:33

experience and a little bit of bellyaching never hurt, I think

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:36

it's, it's good. It's good to talk about these things and to

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:41

highlight the negative sometimes and highlight what some of the

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:45

real problems are out there. Cuz there's no way they're gonna get

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:47

solved unless we acknowledge them. So I appreciate your

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:50

willingness to be open and to talk about subjects. And to

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:54

bring especially perspective from a woman in color, and I

Lindsay Poss: 00:42:57

hope that everyone who's learning learns, listens and

Lindsay Poss: 00:43:00

learns with an open mind. So that's the one thing we could

Lindsay Poss: 00:43:04

all use more of, I think.

Unknown: 00:43:06

Yeah, completely agreed. And thank you so much

Unknown: 00:43:09

for having me. Experiment if

Lindsay Poss: 00:43:13

you haven't already. Leave us five star

Lindsay Poss: 00:43:15

rating and review. And come listen again next week when I'm

Lindsay Poss: 00:43:19

sure we will have another fun conversation.