API CHAMPION of the WORLD

I was supposed to write every 4 days but one opportunity lead to another and I know have a new job. I am now the API Champion for the car division at my company. This is an amazing opportunity and is at the cutting edge of technology especially for a large organization. I am responsible for building out the developer portal, building an internal developer program, creating demos and use cases for API's and of course building a set of governance standards.

An API provides access to data to build cool applications. For the last 6 weeks, I've been reading, building and studying API models, implementations patterns, and best practices. I have a new website apichampion.com that points to my linkedin profile now but later I'll probably have a blog with some cool design patterns and best practices.

As I am settling in I'm going to start blogging again every seven days.

lets have a talk about fear

let me tell you about fear


what does fear do? For me I know when I was younger I missed a significant number of opportunities I missed because I let fear take over and control me. I am a relationship builder, a seeker of challenges and continuous learner. What does that mean to me as an individual?

For me, I love talking to people, I love learning how to run marathons even though I never ran in any competitive sense, I love building apps(mobile, web, machine learning) even though I was a sociology major in undergrad , I love building businesses and solving problems for the underserved through technology. I would go so far as to say I love learning EVERYTHING.  I can say these ideas now because I refused to let my fear own me.

I think back of all the times people reinforced fear in me, "how did you become a technology leader with a major in sociology?", "you weren't academically prepared for this institution", "we can't work on our resumes at work" or "don't take these projects so personally" which is then followed up in 30 days with "I don't believe you are passionate enough about this job".

some people might say "one day ben just said enough" but that's not true at all. I had to talk to people I had to be coached, mentored ask for help, ask for feedback, demand feedback, follow up with people and rely on my strengths. Growing and building is a daily process.

I also have to remind myself and be reminded that everything I have ever been really successful or passionate had a huge fear component. take the fear you have and learn to control it, shape it and own it.

Building a Customer Vector for Oppressed Communities

Innovation in oppressed communities is not about building social programs. Innovation is about selling goods and services, building jobs, and changing the idea that oppressed communities do not need the need technology. Connected X, IoT, robowriters, automated trading and machine learning are technologies that I have a great interest.  I am a continuous learner its a core value and not a hobby. I am fortunate to recognize learning as a key value because my family, schools, friends etc supported me and instilled an importance on learning and working hard.

A shift in mindset needs to occur more frequently in the innovation community. I will throw on my product manager hat and build  a customer journey map along with some customer vectors to predict some future outcomes of oppressed people in regard to the newest technologies such as machine learning, IoT etc and I would argue that there will be MORE people interested in these technologies who look like me act like me and care as much as me. The question that haunts my brain now is how do I build innovations to further encourage this thinking? How do I support and provide responsibility for disruptive technologies to communities that need them now and in the future?

I acknowledge I busted my once every four day window. I'll try not to let that happen again.

Build solutions that make you angry

As a product manager, entrepreneur, technologist, and person of color this statement alone make me angry. How do I build something that solves my anger when a) my anger wasn't properly channeled until my thirties and b) I didn't have the financial resources to approach a solution until my 40's?

I went to a small liberal arts college* which I love, met my wife, and eventually learned to channel my anger. I felt encouraged to build solutions to address my anger - but I didn't know this until I was in my 30's. 

My father and mother said study what you can to make yourself a lawyer and get a job. My professors and counselors said study what makes you happy and the job will come. See the conflict? 

I started as a computer science/math major, failed a few classes and didn't know how to ask for help. I became a sociology major. I studied what made me happy which was oppression in all its nasty forms. My grades were pretty low so becoming a lawyer with a bunch of student loan debt wasn't going to happen. I understood computers enough so I became an analyst/system admin/security professional and the interviews were rough. Questions like "what did you study in college?”  “oppression within society?" never went over well. 

Sociology taught me to look at problems from a macro and micro level. Business school taught me that there is a solution to every problem.

As I said in the beginning a well-funded CEO of a major startup told me to build solutions for what makes me angry. What makes me angry is that most kids are only getting an hour of computer science training a week if that. What makes me angry is that the expectation is that the kids will go home and learn more. BUT you have to remember a large portions of kids that look like me or my wife DONT have INTERNET so HOW can they learn more at home?  So I'm building a solution that doesn't require the internet to learn about computers and coding. What makes me angry is that I and the team I am apart of will have to beg money to build this solution with minimal if any financial gains which only increases my anger.

Innovation of the Oppressed - An Introduction

Validating results for innovation models for oppressed peoples. I argue  if there are different ways to teach market and sell to oppressed peoples then innovation models are different too. This blog is dedicate to building innovation in oppressed communities. Innovations like machine learning, IoT, connected X, mobile etc will be discussed.