Tag: UX engineer. design mentor

Maurice Cherry:
All right. Tell us who you are and what you do.

Adekunle Oduye:
Hello. My name is Adekunle Oduye. I am a UX engineer based out of Brooklyn, New York. Currently right now I am working at MailChimp building design systems.

Maurice Cherry:
Although I heard that MailChimp had expanded out into New York. How long ago you’ve been there?

Adekunle Oduye:
I’ve been there, it’s going to be two years. So they actually have a Brooklyn office. It’s smaller than the one in Atlanta, but it’s a pretty good amount of people.

Maurice Cherry:
Nice. Did you get a chance to come to the office?

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah. I went to Ponce City Market, which I think, I compare it to Chelsea Markets for people that are from New York. But yeah, it’s pretty cool. The people are pretty good. The food is pretty amazing. I, I think every time I left, I felt full and also wanting to come back.

Maurice Cherry:
I love that office space that they have in Ponce City Market, although I think the last I heard, they were about to move out of it because the company’s gotten bigger. So they’re moving to a different space, I think in another part of town.

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah, that’s correct. I’m not too familiar, but from what I’ve heard from the people that are down there, it seems like they have to walk down the BeltLine. I don’t know if it’s 10 minutes or whatever, but yeah, they’re going to be moving. I don’t know when it’s going to happen, but it’s probably in the near features.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. How’s your year been going so far?

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah. My year has been pretty good. I’ve been taking the easy since last year. I think last year was hectic for everyone. But I think for me, what I was trying to do is stay busy. So I was doing a bunch of stuff, side projects, and doing some freelancing, and reading a lot, and whatnot. So, this year is just like, I’m just taking it easy and establishing some of my hobbies that I haven’t been doing in a while, so it’s been pretty good.

Maurice Cherry:
One thing I remember from our last interview is that you’re a painter. Did you take that up last year?

Adekunle Oduye:
I did one painting, but I did drawing because it’s … I think with me the painting, I feel like I’ve lost a lot of my skills because I feel like a lot of my work recently is mostly on the computer. So I’ve been doing a lot of drawing. In 2019, I did a couple of drawing classes. So I went to the museum and was drawing. Also, we had critique sessions. Yeah, I’m trying to do baby steps where I try to draw something every day and get back into it. But hopefully this summer, I’m going to have dedicated time where I just get lost in that.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. Nice. What else did you learn about yourself over the past year? I feel like everyone is starting to come out of this with some new personal revelation about themselves.

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah. I think for me, there was a lot going on last year, and I was like, it was making me very anxious and worrisome. I got into a lot of stoicism. For those who don’t know, stoicism is basically ancient philosophy, and it gives you a way of living. I think one of the most common things they have talked about is that how you want to focus on things you can control. I think that was helpful because I think not only in life, but at work, there’s some stuff that bothers you whatnot, but you have to really focus on, what can you control? If you can’t control it, then you shouldn’t really worry about it, if that makes sense.

Maurice Cherry:
No, that makes a lot of sense. I think it’s a really helpful tactic in general. Certainly it’s actually a piece of advice I’ve given a lot of people this year that have started working remotely is to focus on the stuff that you can control. Because you’re thrust back home and it’s not exactly the work environment and you have to adjust to that, just focus on the things you can control. You can control how you respond to things. You can control your reactions, things of that nature.

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah, exactly. I think that actually helped me with a lot of being more proactive rather than reactive because a lot of the stuff is like, if something happens or let’s say someone says something to you, you can’t really control that, but you can control how you response to it or how you’re going to move forward. I think that’s been my response and my mentality since last year. I think it has been very helpful because things always happen, especially with work where sometimes you can go through reorg, and people are not seeing eye to eye, but I think always look back and say, all right, what can I do better? What can I do to help people? I think that’s been very helpful, but also it keeps me grounded.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. Speaking of work, what does a regular day look like for you at MailChimp?

Adekunle Oduye:
A lot of it revolves around maintaining current designed system that’s being used in the product. So, some days I could be responding to people that have questions around like the design system, other days I could be building components. Currently right now, I’m mostly focusing on prototyping. So prototyping patterns, and seeing how we can establish these pre-built guidelines and patterns that designers and engineers can use when they’re building out features.

Maurice Cherry:
Now, I want to talk a little bit about design systems. I feel like that’s something that personally, I’ve really only heard fairly recently. Can you talk about what a design system is, and how it’s different from say, a style guide or a brand guide or something like that?

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah, for sure. A design system is basically a collection of components, patterns, and guidelines for a product. So, any product you see from Facebook to Google or whatever like that, they have a specific set of design systems. The whole idea is that you create these peed built Lego blocks for UI so that people can take certain pieces and start building the whole user experience or application of natural product. The difference between design system and style guy is that I would say the design system is the umbrella, and it includes the style guy and the style guy would define the more atomic levels of the design systems. So, your type holography, how your buttons are going to look, where are the colors, and whatnot. Basically from those foundation styles you go build to your components, or you build your patterns and whatnot.

Maurice Cherry:
Now is a design system important when it comes to a product like MailChimp?

Adekunle Oduye:
Well, it’s important because as your product grows, there’s supposed to be a lot of tech debt, but also in some cases, there might not be a cohesive UI experience overall. So the whole idea of design system is to making sure that the product is scalable, it’s accessible, and is performing. One case scenario would be like if I am a product engineer and I want to build a feature, rather than building it from scratch, they could use a design system that will help them build the actual user flow much quickly and faster.

Maurice Cherry:
Okay. So it’s almost like a, I was going to say like a kit or a tool box or something. It makes the development a lot easier because you’re pulling from all these pre-designed elements that you can slot into place, or use to quickly prototype or make something.

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah, pretty much. It’s not only specific to engineers, but it could be useful for designers. There’s even more in the case where they do for contractors. There are many ways you could use the actual design system. I think the best design systems are the ones that are inclusive and are be able to use by many different people.

Maurice Cherry:
Even for content strategists, that would be … I guess I could see that, if there certain tone or certain passages, like error messages or something like that, like microcopy, that kind of thing.

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah, pretty much. We actually have one content style guide that we have, and I think it’s super important because I look at it as like, people are not visiting your product because of the UI, they’re visiting because of the content, and whatnot. So, having a consistent way of doing content is super important.

Maurice Cherry:
Gotcha. Gotcha. I was curious about that because at the startup that I’m currently at, they’re focusing pretty heavily on design systems, but we don’t have a brand guide, or a style guide. There are certain types of things that they want to do branching out with content and other media and stuff, but we don’t have that sort of structure in place to make sure that the things we’re creating are cohesive to the rest of the brand or something. I’m glad that you mentioned that, it’s sort of an umbrella for these other things because I know when I’ve tried to explain it, they look at me like I’ve got an arm growing out of my forehead or something. So, I feel like I know I’m on the right track here, is not the same thing, but it’s similar. Okay, gotcha.

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah. I would also add that, I always compare it to building a house, you don’t want to start making your own screws and all this other stuff. So, usually you have some case where you’re like, all right, we have all these different pieces, and you can put them together to fit or solve any problem that you want to face. It just makes your life easier. You don’t have to focus on two things at once.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. I remember when we first talked on Revision Path, which for those listening was seven years ago, Adekunle was episode 21. At that time, you were just about to start at NASDAQ. I think it was maybe the day before your first day or something like that. Do you remember what your time was like there?

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah. It was definitely an interesting experience. I would say that was probably my first real corporate job, so I didn’t know what to expect. I can say I definitely learned a lot. I encountered with a lot of great people and different people. I think it’s something that I use to this day because I was part of a large product design team is one of 30 of us. I’ve learned a lot. I learned a lot about front end development. I learned a lot about research. I learned about how to talk to executives. So, it was definitely a good experience there. I think I was there for three and a half years, which is the longest-

Maurice Cherry:
Wow.

Adekunle Oduye:
… time I spent with one employer. So, it was a fulfilling experience.

Maurice Cherry:
After that, you were at Justworks for a minute. Actually we just had someone on the show, Sabrina Hall, well, she’s at Justworks now. But you were at Justworks for a minute. And then after that you were at Sloan Kettering. When you think back on those two experiences, what do you remember?

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah. I think those two experience was probably how I learned what I wanted to do. When I was at Justworks, I was really figuring out what I want to do because it was like, I think a lot of times like, company want to put you in a box. I remember when I was doing an interview, they were like, “Are you more of a designer or developer?” I was like, I wanted to get the job, so I was like, “I’m a designer,” but I was like, “I’m doing both.” I think that’s where I really learned what I wanted to do because I think even when I was there, I was probably one of the more technical product designers. It was hard to do both when you’re working on three different squads, so it was a good learning lesson.

Adekunle Oduye:
I think what I’ve taken away from there was that I want to be in a place where I was able to use both my design and development skills. Another was I really wanted to focus more on design systems. And then at Sloan Kettering, that was probably the second time I was more of a lead for a project. So I was leading the design system efforts there, which I really enjoyed starting from the ground up. I did a lot of user interviews, and was able to work with people and build it from the ground up and creating that foundation. Yeah, it was definitely hard work because people that I’ve worked in design centers tend to know there’s so many things you have to do. There was just me by myself working on it and getting some part-time help from some of the engineers. So I realized when I was there, it was understanding that you have to have a team to build something great because it’s so much work has to go into it.

Adekunle Oduye:
Another was around alignment because I think when I was there, I was working on design systems, but there was other departments that are working on design systems. I think it was harder because I don’t think we were aligned on what the design system should be. So, that was one of the takeaways I learned where it’s like making sure you’re aligned, and making sure that your design system is inclusive, and people can see it, use it, and also provide some feedback was super important. Yeah, I think those experience definitely shaped me and understand what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it.

Maurice Cherry:
It looks like your career focus has really shifted over time. You started out back when you were about to start at NASDAQ, you started out with front-end. From there as you went to other places, you shifted to UX, then to product. Now you’re, at least what it sounds like from the work of doing a MailChimp, back to front-end. Talk to me about that. What caused those shifts as you progressed in your career?

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah. I think it’s more a case of what I’m curious on. I think one of the things I promised myself when I was starting out was that I wanted to take any idea from start to finish. So, that means from the design standpoint, I want to be able to do the research and understand who our users are, also understand the business, and what would be beneficial to the business. How do they make money? And then from the UI standpoint, it was to really understand what makes good product UI, and how we can make it cohesive, and whatnot. And then midway through my career, I learned that, all right, you could design the best mock up, but if you can’t build it or if it’s hard to build, then it’s probably not going to look exactly like it would look when you’re designing it. So that’s where I started really understanding the technical side, even how the internet works and how the browser works, and what is possible, and how to make performance applications and websites.

Adekunle Oduye:
I would say it was a curious from the start to the end of building something out. I enjoy it. I think often times, you look at the stuff I’ve done, even you look at the actual job titles I had in the past, which stand from print designer, web designer, front-end developer, product designer, design technologist, UX engineer, front engineer. It’s a lot, but I feel like for me, it’s I’m curious in learning how to build products from start to finish. I think over each of those job titles, I’ve learned so much, and it’s helped me to really understand what I want to do and how I want to do it.

Maurice Cherry:
Now, back also when we did your first interview, I remember you told me a piece of career advice that you give to other designers. You said to always study your craft, do you still stand by that?

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah, for sure. I think it’s something that never ends. I double down to the case where you have to study the basics before you start to do anything that’s more complex. It reminds me of when I was in an art school, where I was like, I want to do a painting. But I think one of my teachers was like, “You have to learn how to draw first because that’s the foundation.” I think it’s the same with design and engineering, whereas with design, you have to really understand typography, color theory, spacing, line, and et cetera. With engineering, it’s more in the case of understanding design patterns, and variables, and functions, and whatnot. If you understand that core, then you pretty much could do anything. It’s similar case of programming. You understand one programming language, you could probably program anything else, you just have to figure out the syntax. I think that’s what I always communicate to people often.

Maurice Cherry:
Is there any other advice that you would add to that just based off your experience over the past seven years?

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah, for sure. I think one thing I mentioned before is, don’t allow people to put you in a box. Oftentimes, I hear people go like, you’re just a designer, so you only should focus on design, or you’re a developer, you only should focus on developer. But I think the people that are going to stand out and be great teammates are the ones that have experience in multiple disciplines. I’ve seen people, like designers that are very good with writing copy, and I think that’s a skill that I wish I had, but it’s something that’s great to have when you’re being part of a team. I think it just helps with overall personal growth and always pushing yourself to do something different because I think oftentimes, you can get very comfortable with, I been doing design for 20 years, I’m just going to keep on doing it.

Adekunle Oduye:
I feel my design career has helped me become a better developer, and I would say vice versa too. Yeah, I would say don’t let people put in a box and always explore different disciplines and whatnot. The second thing I would add would be to making sure that people are very proactive with how they want their career to go because I think oftentimes, people think about, I’m at this job and I’m only doing this, and I’m going to do this. But I think how I envisioned it was, I want to be able to do this and this. This was when I first started out. I wanted to always make sure that my current job or role is pushing me forward to that actual goal I had. I think going in that way, maybe right where the focus on like, all right, what I’m doing today is this helpful. If it’s not pushing you forward, then I had to talk to my manager, or I figure out, what were some ways I could build on those skills and whatnot? So, I would say those are the two additions I had.

Maurice Cherry:
Nice. I want to go into mentoring. I noticed from looking at your LinkedIn that you’ve been working with this organization called Springboard as a UX mentor. You’ve been doing that for almost three years now. Talk to me about that.

Adekunle Oduye:
Springboard is basically a bootcamp that’s run online where anyone that is interested in becoming a product designer, and I think they expand it to software engineering, but I work on the UX side of things, but anyone can take this course. It’s about say six to eight months long. You basically are learning a lot about the foundations of UX and UI, and you get paired with a mentor. So, each week you talk with your mentor about the stuff you’ve done, and if you have any questions or whatnot. Yeah, I’ve been doing it for three years and I probably had 10 plus mentees. One of my ways of teaching them is always using experiences from my past, which I feel like that’s a better way of telling a story rather than just saying like, you need to do this because X, Y, and Z. Yeah.

Adekunle Oduye:
I would say it helped me to really get good at explaining my process because usually the mentees were always ask like, “Why should I do this over that?” Probably four or five years ago, I’d have been like, “Well, because that’s how I learned it.” But now I’m better at explaining why should you use one technique over the other and what makes good design. Also, I think be able to critique is a skill that I needed to improve on. Yeah, it’s been overall a good experience.

Maurice Cherry:
It’s so interesting hearing you talk about mentoring and then just juxtaposing that with our interview from so long ago on how you were just starting out. It’s great to hear your growth in that area. What do you really gain from being a mentor? What does it give you?

Adekunle Oduye:
I would say that the first thing is just giving back, paying it forward because even what you said is, from when I was seven years ago, I was pretty much into anything, I was more a designer, and I wanted to get into product and whatnot. The reason how I got to this point was like, I had a lot of people that allowed me to ask questions, and allow me to pick their brain in order for me to get better. So my idea would be to paint that forward. So I think that would be the first thing. The second thing as I mentioned is that, it’s more in the case of learning how to communicate and talk about your process. I realized that as you spend more time in this industry, you’re going to work with a lot of designers, technical folks, non-technical folks.

Adekunle Oduye:
I think one of the key things is to be able to communicate your ideas and thoughts to multiple people. I think mentorship is definitely one of them because I definitely had specific cases where people ask me questions about color theory, or design systems, or whatnot, and I always had to make sure that I was able to explain in a way where they could understand. Yeah, I think overall, it’s been pretty good. I feel like it’s something that I’m able to empower people, and hopefully they can accomplish their goals and dreams and whatnot.

Maurice Cherry:
I keep referencing our interview just because I’m struck as you talk just how different things have changed just, even hearing in how you carry yourself has changed. You mentioned back then you really wanted to speak at conferences, which you’ve done since then. What are some of the events that you’ve spoken at?

Adekunle Oduye:
From our conversation, the year after that was my first conference talk, which was CSS Conference, which was probably one of the most terrifying, but best things I’ve done. The reason why I say that is because I did my talk and I re-wrote my talk the night before because I was so nervous and whatnot. But I think, again, that was like, I probably would never do that again, but it’s a learning lesson and whatnot. But yeah, it’s been pretty good. I’ve been able to speak at some of the conference that I always wanted to go to. So, some of them has been clarity. I did an event part, did smashing magazine, and went to a smashing meets and whatnot. I’m around at 30 40, which is wild.

Adekunle Oduye:
I think last year I spoke at the most conferences I’d done ever because I think everything was remote, so it was pretty good stuff. But yeah, it’s something that I’m glad I did because I think, even back then when I was looking at it, I was very fearful of public speaking. I think usually a lot of people are scared of public speaking. For me, I decided to, I got to face this fear head on. So the best way to do was to get up on stage and talk about something. But yeah, it’s been a great experience. I’ve met so many great people along the way that’s helped me become a better speaker, better developer, better designer, overall good person. But yeah, I hope to continue doing that in the future. I don’t know when in-person is going to come back, but it’s going to come back probably next year or something like that. Yeah.

Maurice Cherry:
It feels like some places are even trying to bring stuff back this year. Maybe they’re waiting until the fall and the winter. I know I’ve gotten some invites to actually San Francisco Design Week. As we’re recording the San Francisco Design Week, I got invited for that. They were like, you can come in-person if you want. I’m like, that’s next month. I don’t think I’m going to be there for that, but I appreciate the invite. They’ll allow it virtually. To your point about so many events going virtual last year, I spoke a ton last year for that same reason. I could just log on here at the house and be on a panel or give a talk or something like that.

Maurice Cherry:
I wonder if that’s going to really continue as we move forward because I went to a lot of new events that honestly just took advantage of the current situation to be able to put an event on, doing it online means you don’t have to worry about a venue, or insurance costs, or things of that nature. You can just set up a series of Zoom calls or whatever. I hope that continues in the future because I think that’s made these types of conferences a lot more accessible for more people.

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah, for sure. I think that was one thing I’ve learned when I was attending [inaudible 00:28:51] last year. They had a thing where we were doing networking, speed, dating sort of. I remember I was talking to a bunch of people. Some people were from Russia, they were like, yeah, I was always wanted to go to one, but I can never go because I couldn’t afford it. So, I agree that it … I think hopefully they have some hybrid where they can do both. But I like it. I feel like I spoke to more people in virtual conferences, or network with more people in virtual conferences than real life because-

Maurice Cherry:
Really?

Adekunle Oduye:
… it actually forced me to speak to new people, which is interesting.

Maurice Cherry:
That’s interesting. I don’t know what the first in-person conference is going to be that I attend. If they have it in-person this year, I may go to Black in Design in Boston. Well, actually it’s a Cambridge, but close enough in Boston. I may go to that, if they do it in-person this year. I’ve missed that kind of in-person camaraderie. I don’t know, we are able to network with people after talks. You could talk to people in the hall and stuff like that. I’ve missed those kinds of spontaneous connections because I did a bunch of talks last year, and the one thing was, once my talk was over, that was it. I closed the laptop and I’m like, okay, now what? Wait for the honorarium to come in and print, which is not bad, but that sort of in-person networking thing.

Maurice Cherry:
I think it’s still going to take a while, but I’ve started already seeing some events. Actually funny enough last year, our design live, I think was going to have an event here in Atlanta. They were asking me about, not about speaking, I think they wanted me to help out as a media partner or something. I was like, it is very irresponsible for you to have an in-person conference in Atlanta in the middle of a pandemic. They ended up doing it online. I don’t know if they’re going to come back down here or not, but we’ll see. I just hope that more of these virtual events stick around, and that some of these events that had to go virtual at least offer that up as an option moving forward because I got to go to so many things that I otherwise would not have been able to go to. But because it was online, I could just pay my money, get a ticket, log on, boom, boom, boom. It was pretty easy.

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah, I agree. I think speaking wise, I think I was doing, at one point, it was three weeks. In a month, I was having three talks. Most, it was same talk. But I would never have done that if it was after traveling, whatnot. So I think it made it easy for me to do those talks and also improve on them because usually what I do is each time I do the talk, I’ve changed a specific thing and figure out what works and what doesn’t work. I get feedback from the actual conference. Yeah, I think it was pretty good. I would like to do more in the future. I also be about the actual in-person ones because I think some of the best memories is talking with people, and just chatting, and grabbing dinner, and just meeting new people, and whatnot.

Adekunle Oduye:
But yeah, I think hopefully we go back to something that’s more like, you have hybrid model where some conferences are virtual and other conferences are more of hybrid model. So I think hopefully … But yeah, I’m excited for that.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. One thing that I usually will ask guests on the show is where they see themselves in five years. I’m curious, when you think back to when we did our interview, when you think back to that, what did you think you were going to be doing in five years?

Adekunle Oduye:
Wow. I think when I was looking back, I think I actually wanted to be some of sort of director, or product design director, or whatnot and just leading a team and whatnot. But yeah, that’s definitely not going to happen. I think things I learned that it was like, I think at one job … Yeah. I think when I was at NASDAQ, I was managing a person, and also doing icy work. I think managing is important role, but it’s probably not right for me because it’s … I like the craft of it. I think you also feel like, not manage, but I like leading. I think there’s a difference between those two. You can be a leader and not be a manager, which I was like, okay, I could do that. Even in the more technical fields, you have some ICS that are more managers, you have ICS that are more of directors and directing projects and what not. So I think it allows for more flexibility and whatnot. You said five years, right?

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah.

Adekunle Oduye:
I mean, I wouldn’t even know because if you told me seven years ago I’ll be where I am today, I’d be like, you’re lying. Yeah, I think my goal is to definitely do more mentorship. I would like to have some mentorship program. It’s for people that would like to get into more of the design engineering, which is both basically a designer engineer, in that roam because I know there’s not a lot of resources around that. You have to be a designer or the engineer. So I’m trying to create this community that’s more of a case of these hybrid thinkers and whatnot. I think doing more teaching, mentorship, and whatnot, I think that would be my goal.

Adekunle Oduye:
But yeah, that’s hard because like I said, back in the day, I had a whole list, and even prior to that, I wanted to be an art director for a magazine publishing company, and things have changed a lot. So, I try not to make too much of a long-term goal, but hopefully I’m doing more teaching and mentorship.

Maurice Cherry:
I like that the idea of doing a design engineer hybrid community because I think we’re starting to see, at least I know, I’m starting to see a lot more of that in tech. The place where I’m at currently, for example, is largely, I think it’s mostly engineers. But a lot of the engineers are operating in a hybrid sort of thing. So they’re an engineer, but they’re also on our growth team, or they’re an engineer and they might also be doing maybe something more like DevOps or infrastructure. That’s not so much front-end type stuff. I think that’s something that you’re starting to see more of this melding of skills, particularly with startups that try to stay small and lean. They usually want to have a bunch of hybrids that can do multiple roles as opposed to a particular specialist that can come in and only does one thing, and that’s it.

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah. I think you’re right. It’s becoming more of a thing. I think 10 years ago, was the case of we only want you to do one thing, but I think organizations are starting to see the benefits of having these hybrids because they not only could do two things, but they could also collaborate with different people, and also take ideas from concept to completion in a timely fashion. So, it’s definitely going to be more in the future. Again, there’s not many resources dedicated for these individuals because I think how we communicate is like, you have to pick one over the other. I always though, it was like, you don’t have to pick one or the other, you could do both.

Adekunle Oduye:
I’ve been doing it for 10 years. Even if they hire me for one thing, I always end up doing the other thing. So, it’s definitely going to take off and hopefully it becomes a thing where people, not only in career, but also in school are like, I could become a design engineer and whatnot.

Maurice Cherry:
What do you spend time on when you’re not working?

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah. I’ve been spending a lot of time, either drawing and picking random hobbies. So actually for some reason, I bought a lock picking set and I enjoy doing that. Again, I’m not going to do it to rob anyone. Yeah, trying to do more stuff that’s doesn’t require a computer. So hopefully in the future, I could do pick up like woodworking and some other things. But yeah, I enjoy more tangible, actual building stuff because I think definitely last year told me where I was like, I need to spend less time on a computer, especially with all the Zoom meetings and whatnot. I used to do when I was younger around art painting and even doing something that was sculptures, but again, I’m trying to do a baby step, so I’m going to start with drawing and then hopefully graduate to the more complex ones.

Maurice Cherry:
I remember seeing something, I think it was a study or something, it was talking about the rise in video conferencing and how it’s increasing carbon emissions overall because of the, I guess the carbon footprint of doing video conferencing versus, say meeting up in-person or something like that, which is honestly something that I didn’t really think about at all. If anything, I was like, well, if we’re not traveling, then yes, carbon emissions would go down because you’re not in planes or trains or automobiles or something like that. But I was reading this study and it was saying that one hour of video conferencing, puts out, I think up to 1,000 grams of carbon dioxide, and it requires up to 12 liters of water. But if you turn your camera off, you reduce that footprint by 90 something percent, which is ridiculous.

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah. It’s amazing because I think a lot of people think like, I’m not really increasing my footprint because it’s all digital, but you have to understand there’s servers, and those servers require power. So the more you do, the more energy is on use and whatnot. Yeah, I think hopefully you figure out how to decrease that because I think, especially moving forward, there’s going to be cases where a lot of companies and whatnot are going to be more of a hybrid model and it’s going to be more video conferencing and whatnot. So hopefully, we figure out ways to optimize it overall.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. It’s an interesting thing because I know I’ve heard that around like cryptocurrency because I’ve heard folks talk about how Bitcoin is actually really bad for the environment. When I first heard that, I said, well, how is a digital currency bad for the environment? Then I looked into it in terms of the data processing that’s used to mine for Bitcoin uses a lot of electricity, and any production of electricity has a carbon footprint, a water footprint, a land footprint. So, all of that can cause environmental damage overall. And then when you look at, how many gigabytes of data are we using between YouTube, and Zoom, and Facebook, and Instagram, and Twitter, and TikTok. Lord knows how many other platforms and stuff. I don’t know how this veered off into environmentalism, but I just … I don’t know, it’s something that you’ve mentioned that had me think about that particular study. So maybe somebody that’s listening, they can look into that if they want to.

Adekunle Oduye:
No, I think it’s important because I think a lot of people thought, I’m not really doing much because I’m at home and I’m watching videos or doing this, but there’s always straight offs, and there’s always some sort of footprint. Even me, I had to learn about this. I was like, that doesn’t really make sense. But if you think about it, the more technology you use, the more servers we need, and also the more metals we need. So it’s just, there’s a compound effect to all this stuff we do. I think it’s good and more people are aware of it. Hopefully that awareness translates to people creating products that are quicker, faster performance and whatnot.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah, hopefully so. The next video meeting I have, I’m going to turn the camera off and tell them I’m saving the environment. See if that works. I think it’ll work. I’m going to try it out.

Adekunle Oduye:
You’re like, I’m trying to save the planet, so I will keep it off.

Maurice Cherry:
What do you wish you would have been told about this industry when you first started?

Adekunle Oduye:
I think the first one had been around burnout because I think earlier in my career, I was like, I’m going to work all the time. I’m going to use every framework, every tool, and whatnot. I would say I probably been burnt out a lot of times because I wanted to learn it all and use it all. So I wish someone told me, was like, don’t focus your time on learning new things, focus your time on building. Let’s say, if I wanted to learn Python, I would say early in my career, I probably would read a book and go through a bunch of video courses on it. But me now, I would be like, all right, what project am I building? Is Python the right tool for it? Somebody [inaudible 00:42:24] it was like, all these technologies and whatever like that, think of them as building tools, so like a screwdriver, a hammer and whatnot.

Adekunle Oduye:
The best way to learn how to use a hammer is that, if you’re feeling like, say building a house, and you always have to ask the question is like, am I using the right tool? Because if I’m building a house, then do I need a flame thrower? Again, a flame thrower is probably not a tool, but it’s one of the tools in your tool sets. You have to figure out which tool is best for the job. I think that would have been super helpful because I definitely burned myself out with learning random things and whatnot.

Adekunle Oduye:
The second thing is that, because I think a lot of times people look at the tech industry as, it must have been so great, and all these companies are perfect. I was like, yeah, none of these companies are perfect. All of them have their problems. They’re basically same as like humans. There’s no perfect human, is the case of has everyone has their own problems and you have to figure out which company is worth your time and effort because I think a lot of times, I see it where I hear people that are coming to school like, my dream company is working at this company. And then there’s always some news that comes out about a company and their bad practices and whatnot. So, I would always say there’s no one great company. Also, don’t put these companies on a pedestal because I think a lot of times, you say like, you work at Google or Facebook. I think a lot of times, people put those people that work there above everyone else.

Adekunle Oduye:
But I wouldn’t say that’s the case because I think there’s a lot of companies that are not as big and are not located in SF or New York that are doing some great work. So I think that’s the thing I’ve learned being in this industry for 10 years.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. I think that’s the truth, there is no such thing as a perfect tech company. They all are culpable in some way. I think we’ve certainly seen that, Jesus, over the past five years, look at some of the really big tech companies like Facebook and Google and Twitter, and how they’ve managed to now be wrapped up into our everyday politics, and even the democracy of this country, and everything. Aside from the fact that their tools are being used as these platforms for misinformation, then you look at the hiring practices or the management practices, or … It’s so weird.

Maurice Cherry:
I guess I could give this as an example, I’m not under NDA. My last employer, for example, was very woke. It’s what you would call a woke employer. I will not name this employer, you know the name of the employer, Adekunle, the folks who are listening probably know the name of it. I will not mention the name of it, however, this place really prided itself on being very open and transparent and things of that nature. I can tell you, it could not have been further from the truth behind the scenes. I mean, lying, gaslighting, all sorts of stuff, it was a mess. I mean, it’s been reported in the news. I don’t have to name the company, you all know which company I’m talking about, but it’s a mess.

Maurice Cherry:
Now, it’s a like shell of its former self, which is really unfortunate. I want to see the company succeed, but there no perfect tech companies, we’re all humans at the end of the day.

Adekunle Oduye:
I’ve heard so many things that I’ve been part of, especially last year when there was a lot of talk about the black experience in tech and how companies are like, no, we’re inclusive and whatnot. And then there’s individual saying, no, because they’ve done X, Y, and Z and blah, blah, blah. So it’s always making sure that, again, you don’t put these companies in pedestals and understand the fact. I would add this to where it’s safe, making sure that you produce your own content, and have your own side hustle, just in case, because again, I see some messed up things that changed the way I think about working at a company.

Adekunle Oduye:
The one scenario I was going to, I’m going to use, I’m not going to name the company. But I was working at this company and this person was at, she’s worked there for 10 years and whatnot, and I remember going through a rotation, they were like, here, we’re a family. Everyone loves us. We’re here for you. And then one day they basically fired her on … They told her on a Wednesday that her last day would be Friday and she was crying. She was like, “I don’t know what I’m going to do and whatnot.” That was a wake-up call because I was like, I never want to be in that position where a company fires me and I have no game plan after that. Yeah, that would be another advice I’ll give people is, always have some sort of side hustle.

Adekunle Oduye:
I wouldn’t say having a million of them, but like for me, I do the mentorship, I do conquer speaking, write articles and books and whatnot. So, even if I get fired from my day job, I’ll be able to survive.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. Always have a plan B, absolutely. At this point in your career, how do you define success?

Adekunle Oduye:
I define success with two things. The first thing would be freedom. The idea of being able to work on what I want to work on, or work the way I want to work and whatnot, and also work with the people I want to work with. The second thing would be around happiness because I think an idea is, you have to be happy. I think there’s been a change with how people think about success because people sometimes think like, I could have all this money, but if you don’t have your health and you have no one to share with, then you’re not going to be happy. So I think I always focus on making sure that I’m free to do whatever I want to do, and I’m happy.

Adekunle Oduye:
I’ll add a third thing where is like, I am pushing myself to best level possible because I always think about, can I be better? Can I do different things and whatnot? The one thing I want to do is I want to have no regrets when I get older because I was scared of whatnot. What I was mentioning before was like, doing speaking engagements, I was terrified. I was like, I’m tired of feeling scared, let me just face this fear head on. So I would say those three things are probably how I define success.

Maurice Cherry:
Given that definition of success, what do you appreciate the most about your life right now?

Adekunle Oduye:
The first thing is I’m healthy. I know we went through a pandemic and current still in one, and I would say health is probably one of the top thing because you’re able to do so many things, if you have some good health. So, that would be the first thing. I think the second thing is understanding what I want to do out of life, or how I want to do it. I think, as I mentioned before, during the time I was between those two jobs, I really figured out what I want to do, how I want to do it. I think that made it easy because now any other opportunity comes my way, I know if it’s right for me or not night for me from the moment I hear about it.

Adekunle Oduye:
There’s a lot of people that are older than me, they’re like, don’t know what they want to do and whatnot. But I think for me, that’s been something that helps me push forward. But also I know when to say no and when to say yes to certain things because it has to fall under those criteria. But yeah.

Maurice Cherry:
What haven’t you done yet that you want to do?

Adekunle Oduye:
The one thing I wanted to do is hopefully do a startup, start my own startup in the future. I know this is probably a cliche answer from someone that’s working in tech, but I think that’s something that I want to just try out and see if I could do it and whatnot, and see if it’s something feasible but for me. But I think that’s the thing I probably want to do within the next 10 years. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t work, it’d be a learning lesson. But I think overall looking back at what I’ve learned in the past 10 years, the idea of taking the idea from concept to completion, I was like, well, I think I’m set up to be a CEO one day, not for a big company, but just do my own thing and providing some sort of product. So, I don’t know if it’s going to be tech related or shoot. It might be something that’s physical, but-

Maurice Cherry:
It could be lock picking.

Adekunle Oduye:
That’s my thing. I’m trying to think of, how can I turn this into a product? But yeah, hopefully something comes along my way that I’m super passionate about, and I can use my skills. Also, there’s a group of people that I can provide a service to. Yeah, hopefully-

Maurice Cherry:
Nice.

Adekunle Oduye:
That happens.

Maurice Cherry:
Well, just to wrap things up here, where can our audience find out more about you and your work and everything and follow you online?

Adekunle Oduye:
You can follow me at adekunleoduye.com. My site is really old, but it’s going to be updated in the next couple of weeks. You’ll find me in any social media, specifically my first name and last name. So, it shouldn’t be that hard. I don’t know if I’m the only Adekunle Oduye, but I’m the only one online, so I’m going to market it. Yeah, just that find me on those channels.

Maurice Cherry:
Sounds good. Well, Adekunle Oduye, thank you so much for coming back on Revision Path, and for giving us an update. As I said to you before we started recording, I listened back to our first interview, and the change in just how you are talking about your work, how you’re carrying yourself as a person from that interview to this interview is like night and day. I can really tell that you’ve grown up and matured in this industry. You’ve learned some things, and you’re taking that out into the work that you’re doing, and out into the world by mentoring other people and really paying it forward. So, it’s really been a pleasure for me to see your development over these past few years. I’m glad to see that you’re mentoring and helping out the next generation while still working in this industry and trying to make a difference. So, thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate it.

Adekunle Oduye:
Yeah. Thanks again for having me. I am hopeful that anyone that’s listening to this one and also the past interview I did, motivates them, they’re like, you don’t have to be perfect, and anyone can do it. Yeah, I appreciate it. Keep on doing this.