Episode 6 - Ladies Learning Code and HackerYou with Heather Payne
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Intro/Theme Music: "Noise in my Head" by Clarknova from the album "Annexia"
Voice-over bed music: "The mark has been made" by Nine Inch Nails from the album "The Fragile", Disc 2 (Right).
I first met Heather a few years ago when she worked at Drake International. She was running a job search workshop that I attended. We connected on Linked-In and now a few years later I stumbled back upon her profile. I was very excited to see what she was up to and wanted to talk to her about it.
I had arranged to meet with Heather after lunch on a weekday. It ended up falling on a day where I had alot going on at work, but I was able to depart the office just in time. I quickly made my way up town on my bike, to the building where the Ladies Learning Code office is located.
I arrived and headed upstairs to the LLC office. Heather was in there, diligently working away. She saw me, smiled and came to let me in.
We exchanged hellos and how are you doings, talked a bit about the space and other goings on. She warned me that a fringe festival was going on, on the floor below us and that we might want to record in another location in the building, so we headed downstairs. She led me to a phone booth type enclosure which was barely big enough for both of us, but it was the only thing really available. There were people at desks right on the other side of the glass, along the corridor, on phones or walking between offices. Truly open-concept.
Unfortunately I had forgotten my proper headphones and wasn't able to do a reliable sound check. I was reminded of a quote one of my old college professors told me about when she mentored some military recruiters on computers and they had no mouse-pads, one of them shouted: "improvise and adapt!" and they grabbed sheets of paper to use instead. So I used the headphones I had. There was also no room for a mic stand, so I had no choice but to hold the mic with my outstretched arm, up in the air between us, as still as I could manage. An interesting endurance test, for sure. Fortunately despite all this, the recording came out sounding good.
The interview went really well, I almost didn't even need to ask any prepared questions as Heather was very articulate and insightful. She made it very easy and I can't thank her enough. Her story is both interesting and inspiring and she gave some great advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.
It was my pleasure to interview Heather and I hope the connect as many interested parties with her as possible to help make Ladies Learning Code and Hacker You a great success.
References and Links:
www.ladieslearningcode.com
www.girlslearningcode.com
www.hackeryou.com
www.hackeryou.com/blog
www.twitter.com/heatherpayne
www.pyladies.com