Geeking Out with Trish Fontanilla – Part 1

0:00:07 - Rachel Murray Happy, sweaty, happy sweaty summer.

0:00:13 - Felicia Jadczak You're right. Yes, I'm great, I am great. I just think it is hot and my brain is shutting off Because, in case anyone was noticing, we started recording and I was like what am I supposed to say right now? But you know what we talk about embracing the awkward at SGO. So here I am embracing it.

0:00:32 - Rachel Murray You're supposed to be welcoming our lovely listeners. Yes, we'll welcome them, all four of them. No, I'm kidding, there's more than four.

0:00:39 - Felicia Jadczak There's more than four. There's at least five.

0:00:41 - Rachel Murray Come on, hi mom. No, definitely not mom, actually, that's true yeah no parents, definitely no parents. How's your summer been?

0:00:52 - Felicia Jadczak It's been like a summer. To be honest, it feels like it's been very slow to get started and then it's been raining a lot and now it's really hot and it's also been really cold, so I don't know. I think it's going to be a weird summer overall, but I'm just trying to take some time and do things that you can only do in the summer here in Massachusetts, because summer is fleeting. So getting outside and gardening and kayaking and doing stuff like that, well, that's very lovely.

0:01:20 - Rachel Murray Yeah, Meanwhile I'm ranting and raving over here. Can I share?

0:01:24 - Felicia Jadczak Can I share my rant?

0:01:25 - Rachel Murray Yes, I was about to say about what? Let's hear it. Yeah, so the New York Times wrote this article, so we're recording this in July, so it came out just a little bit ago and it asked the question have employees lost the power and are employers gaining the power back at companies? And I had very strong feelings about this. It seems to me as though companies never actually relinquished power. They just provided more services and money to employees. To me, that doesn't equate to relinquishing any sort of power or control. Ceo pay rates are still at epic levels. It's not like they were like, oh, I'm going to give. There might be one or two CEOs out there that have done that, but for the most part, ceos were not like, oh, I'm going to relinquish my salary to give it to the masses of my employees. So I'm just really annoyed with that headline because I think it's very misleading. And then to see that the power quote unquote is that they're just basically making life worse for employees.

0:02:38 - Felicia Jadczak I think it's sort of an interesting subtext to the whole title and article right, because one of the things that we talk about a lot as a CEO is our mission, which is abolishing inequity in the workplace, and I think it's such a great example of it because it's like why do companies need to have such power and control over people? Anyway, you and I were just talking the other day about the utter wildness that is the fact that health insurance is tied to jobs, because why is that the case? It doesn't have to be, and so why does it have to be? This us versus them discussion, fueled by these pieces in the news that pits employees versus employers. Why can't it be a collaborative approach as opposed to a oh, you have power with the great resignation. Oh no, now we have to take it back and rip it out of your hands and it's just. It's such a very aggressive way of thinking about everything that I do not enjoy.

And I'm not here for it.

0:03:39 - Rachel Murray It's a very patriarchal, white supremacist, dominating, aggressive approach, and it's also like that I think about like the time to like. The switch was flipped in the summer of 2020. And now the powers flipped the switch back, or they flipped the switch. Whichever way they switched the flip, they switched it back. It just seems to me like we're in this place where nothing much has changed and folks like us who are doing the CEI work are getting blamed for not making company cultures change.

0:04:22 - Felicia Jadczak Yeah 100% Like oh it's our fault that nothing has changed. But first of all, it change takes time.

0:04:30 - Rachel Murray First of all.

0:04:31 - Felicia Jadczak Second of all, not something that you can expect to ignore for decades, if not centuries. Then all of a sudden throw some money. You know a few groups or people and then expect sweeping changes to happen.

0:04:45 - Rachel Murray Without any real work and commitment to from the people that are within the company. Because one of the things I love that we say is the work isn't the workshop. The work has to be done outside of the workshop. So we can provide the tools and the skills, but it's up to the individuals, ideally those that are in power, who will take those in and show up in a way for their employees that feels more meaningful. So that's my rant.

0:05:10 - Felicia Jadczak No, I mean yeah, I'm here for the rant. We just chatted with someone from our community earlier who was like hey, our company was all for work from home and now they're like never mind changed your minds, everyone's got to come back in. And that's not a unique situation. That's happening again and again across all sorts of industries. I think it was some big insurance company actually was just in the news saying that they have a new CEO. The previous CEO had said you know, anyone can work from anywhere. So people like change their lives, they move, they have houses, they left, they're not near corporate headquarters anymore, and now there's a new person in power who is shocker. Oh wait man.

0:05:50 - Rachel Murray And he's like not all white men.

0:05:54 - Felicia Jadczak But back to the office and people are like, no, who can?

0:05:58 - Rachel Murray do that and it's just like oh, and look, I get it. I understand that there is a purpose to being with someone, with your colleagues, with your team in person. I just wish that it weren't so black and white for folks, that it would be more thoughtful. And I will say that we do have some clients that are really taking that to heart and that they are recognizing that it is a really tricky thing and they're really trying to honor the fact that there are different needs for different folks. And on the flip side, there are companies that are straight up just like making these blanket statements and it doesn't necessarily make sense, and what we're seeing is not only is there just a huge frustration from employees, but there's also a waste of time, there's a waste of money, there's a waste of gas resources.

0:06:47 - Felicia Jadczak We're talking about climate change right now and a waste of productivity. Honestly think about the time commuting if you're going to an office versus working from home.

Right now I work from home. Well, we all work from home. We're a remote first company and my work, commute is I walk up two flights of stairs, yes, and I start working, and a lot of times, honestly, I'm on my phone in my quote unquote personal space. So I'm still working right. So I am way more productive now than I've ever been when we were living in Boston, working in an office, and I would commute anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, sometimes more, depending on traffic, the tea, the weather, what was going on. And then that's time out of your day that is just wasted.

0:07:36 - Rachel Murray Absolutely. And then, on the flip side, there are people who can't work from home, who don't have those resources who absolutely need to work in an office and those people should be accommodated, for it's like you.

And then there are the folks that I feel really bad for, the young folks that are just coming into the workforce in this way and they don't necessarily have. They haven't been socialized in a way that the rest of us have. They're in this other sort of weird sort of place. And then even folks who are new to an organization, and we even see that in our tiny company. It's challenging.

0:08:09 - Felicia Jadczak Yeah.

0:08:10 - Rachel Murray So there's a lot of factors that go into it. Where I struggle are the people who are just like no, we have these. It's the blank it's the Exactly.

0:08:19 - Felicia Jadczak It's the lack of nuanced understanding that not everyone has the same challenges, privileges, situations, desires, yeah, and I think that's what I mean. Adam Grant actually has has been talking a lot about this dynamic and I think it's either his research or he's he's been talking about researchers that's come out recently that basically talks about how, for folks who are younger and earlier in their careers, being in an office physically is crucial for them. Yes, because they get to learn, socialize, get mentorship, all that good stuff, build those relationships, et cetera, and network Interstage phases in their careers and higher levels, maybe older, et cetera, more experienced. Being at home is actually really great for them and being in the office is not great for them. So it's really challenging because there isn't actually a good solution, because one size does not fit all and what's really beneficial for one group of people is actually not for another group and what's beneficial for the other group is not beneficial for the first group. So that's why I really feel like having flexibility is so important, because then you can say like, okay, we're giving a little bit of everything to everyone.

And I know, when I worked at a large company before and I worked in an office but I could work from home sometimes and I had more flexibility on that front Like it was great because some days I would go in and I'd be like I'm literally the only person on my floor who is physically here today and I could either decide to say, great, I'm going to, like you know, put on some roller skates and roller skate around, or I'm going to, like, enjoy the quiet or whatever, or I'd be like you know what, I'm going to work for a little bit, take advantage of some snacks, some AC, that I'm going to go home and hang out and do my work there. But having the ability to make those choices is so key and obviously it's also very different depending on what kind of job you're in and the industry. You know, if you're a cook at a restaurant, you're obviously not going to be working from home, probably so yeah that's different there.

0:10:17 - Rachel Murray And I love that because I think you maximize that if you expand that. Rather, what I like about that is that it's true for every aspect of it. That's literally the work that we're talking about is like you can have a person be so much more productive if you provide flexible solutions for them. So the workspace is the one thing, but obviously there's a million other things that we talk about too that are related to this work. That is the heart of it is like treat people the way they should be treated and they want to be treated rather, and you can go so much further and you can create a really wonderful, productive, healthy, non-toxic, inclusive, equitable workplace. And it takes work and, honestly, it can take more than three years, especially if you're not even doing it right.

0:11:07 - Felicia Jadczak Yeah, exactly Exactly, and you know, and the other aspect, too that I want to just bring up is that it's not just about saying let's give everyone what they want, because that isn't actually the answer. Yeah, it's about being understanding and offering options in that flexibility, and also sometimes providing some structure or some guidance or boundaries or some bumper rails, because what I have seen and you can sort of apply anything to this right, like giving feedback you know how do we work with each other, whatever. If we swing too far in one direction, it doesn't work for people, because if we say, oh, like, for example, if I'm like, hey, I'm hard of hearing and I need captions on everything and I need X by Z, like, I do need that, right, it's accessibility, but do I need it in all situations? No, do you need it for all situations because you don't have the same challenges as I do? No, so we have to understand, like, when is it critical? When is it nice to have? When is it we don't actually need it for this situation, but for this other one we will, because I was just watching the bear. Have you seen the bear? Or I haven't yet, but I know about it. Okay, so I have my husband and I, steve and I were catching up on season one. We hadn't seen it, so we just finished season one and season two has just come out, which is why we're like let's catch up on the show.

And so the whole premise is it's like this you know, back of house, like little restaurant, and they're trying to like you know, the guy is trying to make it something bigger and everything. And we just first of all, like have been laughing through the whole show because there's a lot of stuff that's accurate about what it is like to work in the restaurant industry and for, like you know, fast, casual, kind of stuff. And then there's a lot of stuff where it's just off the walls and it's not realistic at all. But it seems realistic for people who may not know how it works, and Steve worked in this very similar kind of environment. So the whole time we're like why are they doing this? Like why are they doing this? It doesn't make any sense.

But the reason I bring it up is because there's one character who is the baker and he's he bakes all the bread and then at one point they're like hey, we could actually save money if we outsource bread baking and you don't bake the bread anymore and it's like cool, cool, cool, everyone gets on board, they outsource bread making. So from a business standpoint I'm watching it I'm like, well, why is this guy still have a job here? Because now he literally has no purpose. So, but the guy, the main chef, is like okay, why don't you start looking into making desserts? Cool, also, a great way to think about your employees, right, like you don't have to let go of someone who's a good employee. You can figure out where else can they slot into.

But then he just basically spends the entire season like messing around with making stuff. And Steve was has just been ranting because he's like, if you're like I'm not going to, this was a bakery, they would have told him like, because he comes up at the end of the season, it's like I just realized, like it'll be better if it's yeast, not cake flour, and it's like that's the most basic thing. And if you were a bakery, they would have told you that on day one. But they've literally just been paying this man's salary, health benefits, he's working, he messes up, he like does a whole thing, it's. I won't get into all the details, but it was just such an interesting dynamic to think about the fact that it's like there is a business that needs to run right, and so there has to be a balance between what does the business need and what do employees need, and I'm not by any stretch of the imagination, saying that the business is more important than employees or vice versa.

But it is a balance and I think that is sometimes lost in this conversation and you and I talked about this a lot too right when I think that the balance needs to keep in mind that what the business needs can change if we look at it with an equitable, inclusive lens. But sometimes this baker was like I want to bake donuts and it's like, well, cool, but the shop is a sandwich shop and that's not what they are doing. Right. So is it? The employee needs, the business needs, and there's a happy medium where you can come together and like say, great, make donuts and we'll sell them at the shop, right.

But anyway, I'm going way off the rails with this analogy. The show is also off the rails. If anyone watches it and wants to learn more about what it's really like to work in fast cash flow, that they got wrong, let me know. But yeah, it's just something I think about a lot, because I do think that, going back to what you were saying earlier on, like the power dynamic, it has to be a balance and there has to be a recognition that one size will not fit all.

0:15:33 - Rachel Murray So that's right. I couldn't agree with you more. I think you're totally right. The business still needs to run, obviously, because you know why. Employees still want to get paid. So, yes, yeah, there just has to be reasonable balance, and that's the key. So, woof, well, we went long. I'm like what a rant. All right, wow, we ranted it up For anyone that's still listening.

0:15:54 - Felicia Jadczak Well, you know what? I think it's very pertinent because our guests for today. Our conversation also ran long with her, I know it's true, maybe it.

Just. This is the vibe that we have with our guests. But Do you want to spill the beans? Let's spill the beans. So our guest today was a long time friend of STO, a personal friend, someone who's been in our radar network all the good things. Her name is Trish Fontanilla. She's a consultant community expert and we had just so much fun. So, spoiler alert, we did two parts and there probably could be more. We talked about the patriarchy names, colonizing names, romance novels, boston startup scenes, so much more, and so, yeah, we definitely continued the conversation.

0:16:42 - Rachel Murray It was so fun that in two weeks spoiler alert we're going to actually it's going to be a video as well. It's going to be on YouTube. The three of us will be on YouTube on video.

0:16:52 - Felicia Jadczak And I will say we didn't plan it to be video. So if you want to see Rachel, me and Trish in our natural environments, Our natural habitat, our natural habitat in the wild. No prep, no makeup, no making sure our backgrounds are perfectly placed.

0:17:08 - Rachel Murray You can definitely check out that video. I can never get my pictures to be perfectly straight. It probably drives some people absolutely crazy.

0:17:15 - Felicia Jadczak Oh, you know what? I don't think I would have noticed that if you.

0:17:18 - Rachel Murray Oh, that's surprising, because you're such an eagle eye. I know, I see it. Well it's pretty good to me. You think, ok, maybe it's OK, maybe it's OK, maybe I'm being extra nice.

0:17:25 - Felicia Jadczak Well, listeners, keep that eye out for part two. You tell us if you think Rachel's pictures are straight.

0:17:31 - Rachel Murray Yes, share your thoughts On to Trish, on to Trish.

0:17:38 - Felicia Jadczak All right, we are excited for today's chat, so I'm just going to get right into it. I usually say hi Rachel, hi Felicia, but OK, and then we already said that, so we did it. Our guest today is Trish Fontenia. Actually, no, I keep from this. Pernas in that Montanilla, is that right, trish?

0:17:56 - Trish Fontanilla Fontanilla. I mean yes, if we're going to go with what my father decided Americans would like to hear when they came to this country. It was Fontenia, yes.

0:18:07 - Felicia Jadczak What do you like to hear? I guess is the question.

0:18:10 - Trish Fontanilla I like to hear that because I grew up with that. But it is kind of funny when people that are Filipino or Spanish because you know, philippines was colonized let's talk about that for a second. But I mean, it's a Spanish last name they sometimes say it a different way and I'm like, well, I don't mind them saying it. But when I introduce myself I say Trish Fontenilla.

0:18:31 - Felicia Jadczak So OK, well, I haven't even finished your introduction, but thank you for that?

0:18:35 - Trish Fontanilla That's a great question and we already talked about I drop colonizers already at the beginning.

0:18:39 - Rachel Murray I know it's like we did it Well. Trish Trish, it was wonderful speaking with you. Have a lovely. We did it.

0:18:46 - Felicia Jadczak And hello and goodbye.

0:18:48 - Rachel Murray Yes.

0:18:48 - Felicia Jadczak We've got a lot to talk about. So Trish Fontenilla community and CX consultant mentor, hype woman friend, hello Welcome. Thank you so much for joining us and already dropping knowledge.

0:18:58 - Rachel Murray And also what is a CX consultant?

0:19:02 - Trish Fontanilla What is a CX consultant? First of all, thank you so much for having me. I mean, we just saw each other in person at your first in person SEO events since pre-pandemic and so prehistoric times Boop, boop, prehistoric before times, as I like to call it and I'm so excited to be doing this, and thank you so much for asking me to be on the show.

0:19:28 - Felicia Jadczak Oh god, it's been like a long time coming, to be honest.

0:19:31 - Trish Fontanilla I don't know if we haven't had you on before now, to be really frank but here we are. So good, we're here now, and that's what matters, but we're here now.

0:19:40 - Felicia Jadczak And we have so many questions for you and I know there's going to be so much to get into. But before we do that, I actually wanted to follow up on the whole name thing. We just went through Because it is funny how that works. So my husband's last name is Kola Shelley, but his family also says Kola Selly and I just wanted to ask you really quickly because what I've noticed is when I'm driving and Siri tells me that I have an incoming text or call from my husband, she switches how she pronounces his name and it really messes with my brain because I'm like the AI also switches. So I'm curious if AI pronounces your name differently sometimes.

0:20:19 - Trish Fontanilla I have not tried, but I will report back when it happens.

0:20:23 - Felicia Jadczak I'm assuming, look out for it.

0:20:25 - Trish Fontanilla It's so funny because my dad did switch it to be phonetic. But people want to either respect it or they got it the way newscasters do. I keep in saying toglish, but Spanish should be Spanglish. Spanglish is the term that people use where they're like today we are looking at Hurricane Rosalita and then it just goes into this weird thing. It's like what did you just do there? But they think that they're trying to be authentic, but they go on this weird impersonation of an accent. So even me, when people ask me OK, how is it supposed to be said? And I've asked my mother this and she's like I don't know, like that wasn't my last name, it's supposed to be like fontanilla. So it's actually not the double L and then the F sounds a little like a P. This is too much, and as much as I love everybody reclaiming their names, I know that's a whole thing I can't claim a name that I've actually never heard been spoken in my existence. So I don't know what to say. Listen.

0:21:27 - Felicia Jadczak I hear that, because it's complicated, my last name technically should well, actually my whole name technically should be pronounced some variation of Felicia Yadchik, and I'm like that's not me, I'm sorry, like it's just not a person that I recognize, so I get it.

0:21:43 - Rachel Murray I will just chime in here to say that I have the easiest name. No, no, no, I mean, but yeah you're going to say it's actually variations there. Rochelle, I get Rochelle, rochelle, rochelle. And I will tell you that my husband's last name is Baseman and he wishes that he had my last name. So anytime we make like a reservation or restaurant or whatever, he goes by Mark Murray, really, because he can't even handle his own last name.

0:22:09 - Felicia Jadczak Alter Ego, Mark Murray.

0:22:10 - Rachel Murray Yeah, exactly, he's like a superman.

0:22:11 - Trish Fontanilla I also love that he's taking your last name.

0:22:15 - Rachel Murray Like, I mean he's lazy, I mean he would never do the whole like actually legally changing it, which is a whole other topic of conversation. Someone like blew my mind. What did they say? I feel like it was a couple of months ago where, like none of us have like the go-ahead fellowship.

0:22:32 - Felicia Jadczak No, no, I was just sorry. I was for those of you who were listening. I'm like making facial gestures, because it was a podcast interview. I don't recall who, but someone said like no woman has like a matriarchal last name, yes, and I was like wait, I do because I have my mom's.

0:22:47 - Rachel Murray I was like oh wait, no, she got her dad. Oh shit, never mind.

0:22:50 - Trish Fontanilla Well, I do have a handful of friends that when they got married they combined their last names. I mean, it's still two men's last names, but still they created a new name which you know, as at least have Z is from some perspective, we have a portmanteau, that's true.

0:23:08 - Rachel Murray Because we have Merman oh, legally, but no, because that's just ridiculous. Anybody who goes through the effort of like doing all of that they did it legally.

0:23:18 - Felicia Jadczak That's amazing, I'm like and I'm too lazy.

0:23:22 - Rachel Murray Yeah, like I don't care.

0:23:25 - Felicia Jadczak Well, the funny side story we had an in person event last night and my parents were supposed to come and this is a whole other topic for a whole other podcast but, yes, my husband and my dad had the same name, so there was a name tag that said Steve Jadsak and Rachel actually was like amazing and you're like, no, it's just, this is what I talk about in therapy, so thanks, Also.

0:23:49 - Trish Fontanilla I mean if people that are listening want a suggestion. Although it's, it's kind of a spoiler, I did recently read a romance novel where the guy took the woman's last name in order to gain her trust and like, say like I, you are running this relationship and how can I make you more comfortable? And he took her last name and I was like this is the stuff that romance.

People think romance novels are like Fabio and it's like. No, I'm creating a space for you to trust me and be saved, and I'll take your name and like what else do you want me to do? He became a stay at home dad because she said she wanted to work. It was this whole what's the name.

0:24:27 - Rachel Murray All right, sir.

0:24:29 - Trish Fontanilla Do you know the name? I have the name, but I don't want to tell people because I've essentially given up the ending of a while You're going to separate, because I'm intrigued. Yeah, and it's like I think it's either happens in the last chapter or it's in the epilogue, and so you won't even know until you're like at the end, oh wow. Still I don't want to help.

0:24:48 - Rachel Murray People are like they're like I'm 10% of this book and you were in the book for me. Well, there's actually a bookstore nearby where I live called Meet Cute and it's like a feminist romance bookstore. So I guarantee that book. It's like. I know it's kind of wild Like the yeah.

0:25:07 - Felicia Jadczak Yeah, I bet you, whatever this book is, they have it I already know Like I would bet money yeah.

0:25:11 - Rachel Murray Look at your face. Come, come visit. You got to play some day. Is it in the bookstore?

0:25:19 - Trish Fontanilla Can I say in the bookstore yes, I think they would let you.

0:25:22 - Rachel Murray They actually have events in the bookstore. I was like, should we have an SGO event in the bookstore? I think the answer is yes.

0:25:29 - Trish Fontanilla And on Nantucket there is a bookstore that has a loft above it and I spoke at a conference there and it has an industrial kitchen, and so they did a dinner there as well. And all the walls are lined with books and it has an industrial. It's owned by it's woman owned, so it is one of the founders of Cisco Brewing. One of her other things that she's invested is in this bookstore that has a loft that you can host events in or you can stay in.

0:25:56 - Felicia Jadczak So Lovely, amazing. There you go. My dream we didn't even get.

0:26:02 - Rachel Murray I love that we're so far in and we didn't. I didn't get my question answer. I mean, I know it's the ex-consult.

0:26:08 - Felicia Jadczak I mean clearly, priorities are happening.

0:26:12 - Trish Fontanilla I actually purposely didn't answer that because I'm like wait, should I answer that now or should it be like when I'm telling a story of some sort?

0:26:20 - Rachel Murray Your journey, your journey story, because you've got a journey, so maybe we just let's put a pin. Let's journey it up. Let's hear Trish's origin story.

0:26:31 - Trish Fontanilla Do you have my regular origin story? You're my villain origin story.

0:26:35 - Felicia Jadczak Yeah, why do I have to choose? I don't have. I'm feeling Same more.

0:26:41 - Trish Fontanilla I always show some Ashley Lucas shout out who's the executive director. At Wentworth we were talking about, I actually mentioned she had never seen the evil chart and so I was like, oh, I feel like I generally am like chaotic, neutral, but sometimes what's the evil chart? I understand.

I think, the century is lawful, lawful, good, lawful, good, lawful evil. I'm like when I'm evil, I'm lawful evil. I'm never like chaotic evil, but it tells me that. But because I have the face of a small child, people don't expect it and so I feel like I take up different parts of the chart, trish of all trades, different kinds of chaos, whether good and evil. So, yeah, hold on, Hold on. I literally had, I wrote, literally had to Google this. So is this related to Dungeons and Dragons?

0:27:27 - Rachel Murray If it is, it's been co -opted by the internet. I mean, I'm not sure if it's related to Dungeons and Dragons.

0:27:32 - Trish Fontanilla I mean I'm not sure if it's related to Dungeons and Dragons, but it's been co-opted by the internet Social media world.

0:27:40 - Rachel Murray I think it might be related.

0:27:43 - Felicia Jadczak Oh my God, no wonder like when I talk about it some men are like oh Sorry, I'm just laughing because not that long ago, but when I still lived in Boston and was, I guess, single One night a mutual friend of ours actually trashed Molly we decided that we were going to learn how to play Dungeons and Dragons to meet men. And we went to there's like a gaming bookstore in Boston or at least there was and we like went and tried to buy Dungeons and Dragons and we discovered that it is not in fact a board game but it's very complicated and we gave up pretty immediately.

0:28:19 - Trish Fontanilla So that was my failed foray into that world, one that is amazing to small public plug for Molly funds SEO podcast episode, which you can go wherever you listen to podcasts, love, we have to talk about you we cannot we have to get back to this.

0:28:36 - Felicia Jadczak We just asked the question that we prep because I and I do want to learn more about the villain stuff, but you have been in the Boston startup scene forever. I want to hear about your journey. I want to hear about your villain origin journey. Whichever place you want to start with, we need to start and talk about it. We have to get this before we finish this podcast. Yeah, Okay.

0:28:55 - Trish Fontanilla So my origin story specific to the Boston startup scene, so I will make it. I will like zoom in on that. So I'm actually a career transition or, or, if you are Marty constant, who I love, I'm a agile careerist. So I have found different paths in my career where I've been really interested in something I want to give back. So, okay, boston startup scene. So the start of the Boston startup scene for me actually was a little app called Yelp. For the first time in my career, I've been using it for a long time and I've been using it for a long time and it actually was a little app called Yelp.

For people that don't know what Yelp is, I'm not going to assume right now in the universe. It is a review website. People like to rate five star restaurants, but they also like to give five stars to McDonald's that they really like and go to a M when they're drunk. Oh, and you had started in Boston around 2006, 2007. It used to have this forum where people would talk about anything about the Boston event to. I got into it cause I was trying to donate my hair and I was like, oh, does anyone know any free stylists that would cut my hair If I donate it, blah blah. But you could also put who wants to grab dinner tonight and you would randomly grab dinner with whoever. I think one of my first ones was 10 people I'd never met in my entire life, was not connected to through college in Chinatown, and we shared a meal and no one was chaotic, evil or even neutral. Like everyone was wonderful.

0:30:22 - Rachel Murray Wow, yeah, like no, I hate that I have to pause. I am so sorry, but like I just have to just ask you about this, like, do you think that that is something that could happen today in this?

0:30:32 - Trish Fontanilla wild.

0:30:33 - Rachel Murray I agree. Okay, good, that's all I'm gonna put myself back.

0:30:36 - Trish Fontanilla Unless it is a very niche. I went to the dinner group events last night, which they have a women of color event and they have a men of color event, and if they had or even, as you know, like if I was in a place that there was some sort of affinity already. And then the second step is having dinner. Yes, but Yelp was like anybody that had access to an email address. It's like today going into a Reddit forum and saying who wants to have dinner and then randomly having dinner with 10 Redditors which, like, if they're highly ranked might be cool, but if they don't have an avatar and they haven't responded, like might be shady, as F Isn't this just like such a hallmark of, like the early 2000s.

0:31:20 - Felicia Jadczak I feel like we all did this in some format and that's even.

0:31:25 - Trish Fontanilla I even have, like other things, boston startup scene where I was just had pen pals on the internet and stuff. But so all those people, all of us had, you know, nine to five jobs and we were hanging on Yelp forums at work when we weren't supposed to, at the evenings, et cetera, and I had this picture. I'd organized date auction actually at flashes RIP flashes. The sign is still in downtown Boston. They had really amazing garlic fries in back bay. But we had this event and everybody in the picture is now either an entrepreneur or potentially in the VC world or a start-up. But we all at the time had these nine to five jobs. My nine to five job was I worked at Emerson college in their living learning communities and then at Berkeley College of Music and then I think at the time I had like part of my face not with the mole listeners, there's a mole in my face. If you saw the mole you're like that might be Trish. My username was obviously Trish the dish Hot dish coming at you, trish the dish.

0:32:24 - Rachel Murray Oh my God, yes, I know, I had not.

0:32:27 - Felicia Jadczak I know I was never talked about that.

0:32:31 - Trish Fontanilla I thought we had, but maybe not. My jaw is dropped.

0:32:34 - Felicia Jadczak It's dropped. I'm like shooketh right now Shooketh.

0:32:40 - Rachel Murray Shooketh I as well.

0:32:43 - Trish Fontanilla Okay, all right. Yeah, so Trish is in the same place.

0:32:45 - Felicia Jadczak I mean we're already friends. Everyone called him cemented.

0:32:50 - Rachel Murray For the listeners. They may not know why we're all friends here right now.

0:32:53 - Felicia Jadczak My username has been Thelish the dish too, forever and well, side story, it's because I don't know. If this is true for you with your, maybe this is your villain origin story start here. But for me, my villain origin story start is with this name, because when I was in high school, people would make fun of me by calling me that. They'd be like bullish good dish and like be really rude to me and like all the boys would, like you know, be terrible boys. And so then when I went into college and it was like early days of instant messaging and like you know, aim and all that stuff, and I had to like come up with my new name. I chose it to like take back the power and like reclaim my identity. So that's how I came up with that name, but, yeah, wild.

0:33:36 - Trish Fontanilla So it's so funny that they use that to tease you because Trish the dish back back in the day was like for hot girls.

0:33:44 - Rachel Murray Exactly that's what I would have as true Right. Well, just to be clear, I was not hot.

0:33:49 - Felicia Jadczak That was the whole point. I just kind of make sure.

0:33:51 - Trish Fontanilla Maybe it was, I don't know where I'm like yeah, are you sure they said it in a negative way, or was it in the tone?

0:33:59 - Felicia Jadczak Again, it's like a whole other podcast episode of like therapy sessions.

But yeah, actually, and I will say and why it was traumatizing beyond that was because when I was much, much younger, when I was like four or five, my parents would call me foolish dish as like a term of endearment. So when these boys started coming up with it when I was like 14, 15, it was like traumatizing on multiple levels for me. But anyway I have reclaimed it and it's like my username now. So if you see a foolish dish on the internet, probably me, but maybe also trash the dish could be you?

0:34:32 - Trish Fontanilla Yeah, so there's multiple trash dishes in the universe because it is one of the I think it's one of the origins of she's a dish because obviously they rhyme. But I started getting called it by Carla, who's one of my high school friends, because of Mallrats, which is a Kevin Smith movie. But the story with the dish in Mallrats is she is a young woman that has lots of sex and journals about it, and so that's why they call her Trish the dish. That was not me. If my mom decides to do this for any future employees.

Like just finding out, mom it was not my experience, the problem being so, trish is also, as another small word, bubble. Trish is my legal name. People often think it's Patricia or Trisha, et cetera, and so what do you do with a name that's already a nickname? You make it longer again and so they're like okay, we're not just gonna call if everyone has a nickname. You can't just be Trish because that's your real name. So you're now Trish the dish.

So in high school I had things that said the dish on my like. We had like a Panther Squad which was like a cheering squad, but not really a cheering squad. We wore shirts and just like we're woo girls, and it says the dish on the back and my favorite number. And so high school it was kind of when it happened. And then, yelp, I was like, well, I'm reviewing food, so why not Trish the dish? Hot dish, coming at ya, here's some goss tea, whatever. So that's how I and everyone around and everyone in the community knew me as the dish. And then it was funny because then they moved to first name, last initial, and everyone got so mad because they wanted to keep their usernames and I'm like do I do Trish TD, or do I do like Trish F or like what do I do? Because people, everyone knew me as Trish the dish, so it was a whole situation Going back on a track, going back into the railroad yard. I guess where we were going. So, yeah, so Yelp, so everybody's in startups.

So at the time I was working in higher ed, a friend of mine shout out to I'm also a shout out queen, so I just shout out everybody Kibir Hammarjani. He had a nine to five and he had all such amazing ideas. But, as a lot of startup folks know, timing is everything. So he essentially had a version of like Kickstarter and Patreon, but in like the early 2000s and that was his startup idea. He was working with musicians and if you donated to a musician you could be a part of their CD, you could be a part in a music video, you could do a party, et cetera, and so he had sent me. So he had multiple startup ideas. So he had sent me his alpha. So if people don't know this terminology beta tester you probably heard. Alpha is like here's an idea and some sketches and early things Me. I did not know what that was, so he sent me an alpha of one of his startup projects. I sent him like three pages of feedback.

I was like, hey, when I went to your website I thought if I clicked on this it would go to these three things. And then I was disappointed and basically did an entire what people do in customer user interviews of how does it make you feel, where did you think it was going? And I feel like you should work in startups somehow. And I was like that sounds terrifying. You have to go raise money, you have no health insurance, like this is nothing that I was taught in my universe.

But just hanging out with him and going to tech events in Boston there used to be a whiskey Fridays at the field, which is closed, and there is a coworking space called Beta House and folks and entrepreneurs would go to that. But I just started getting kind of immersed in the Boston startup scene going to events. Laura Fitton, who was at 140, which was acquired by HubSpot and now she's off in her own she started sending me community manager things because I didn't know what I wanted to be and people were like go to events, you make people feel welcome, you want to build a community, you should consider community roles, and so I got so excited about all this startup stuff I was doing. I was at Berkeley at the time and just gave my boss notice because I was like I'm really excited about these things. Also, kavya, I had gone to a music festival and sat in a field for a very long time in part of life. So in combination with me going, to all these startup events and as you do.

I actually was in a meeting with her and I blurted out after I came back from the music festival. I blurted out I don't think I could work here anymore. And both of us looked at each other as if a third person in the room had said it Like did you hear that? And I was like, oh, it came out of my body, just going against again networking all these folks getting like kind of side gigs and things, and so I'm originally from New Jersey and I'd be getting kind of freelancies, small things, but not enough to like why am I here in Boston if I'm doing things remotely and doing these little things? Let me go back and live in my mom's basement. I had already like mapped out an entire web series about living in my mom's basement. She had an orange velvet couch that was covered with plastic hashtag tell me you're from an immigrant family without telling me you're from an immigrant family.

Oh, my God, hilarious, and I ended up. So I ended working there in January of 2011, was hustling, hustling, hustling, decided, bags packed, leaving Boston. Let me go to one of the this last big event, and it was a event called Ruby Riot, which was supposed to be this kind of like reverse networking event. And then, instead of going there and asking people for help, you would go and say, hey, how can I be helpful to you? And so I went to that event. I was tweeting about it pre-event. It got some traction because of its kind of unique pitch, I think in the Herald or the globe, and so it was like 10x the number of attendees I thought was gonna be there. So it was supposed to be at scholars, but then people started going to other bars around Boston because it would just get full and I had seen this on Twitter.

And to stand out, because I was still looking for some side jobs that potentially I could do remotely from Jersey, I ripped a paper out of my notebook that I had in my bag and I used my headphones to tie it around my neck like a little sandwich sign and I was like internet, what should I put?

And Georgie Cohen, radio Free Georgie on the internet was like, oh, you should kind of tie into development even though you're not a developer. So I wrote something like Trisha the trade for hire I'm not a developer, but my awesomeness still validates or something kind of geeky like that and people were just taking pictures of me at the event or like Trisha's looking for a job, whatever. A little bit prior to the events, david Glofflin, who was my former boss he's now out in the universe, founder of VSNAP Saw it. He tweeted to me and said, hey, we should meet up. I clicked into his profile, expanded it. He had a very tiny picture that when you clicked on it was still very tiny and I was like, okay, cool, and like five tweets. And so I'm like all right, dude from the internet that says we should meet up, that seems like sketch in retrospect, like the.

0:41:27 - Felicia Jadczak I don't know what it is about the tiny picture that expands into a tiny picture, yeah.

0:41:35 - Trish Fontanilla It's like something you can also visually see, like you've done that before when you were like trying to scope out someone. You're like come on, it's so pixelated and I'm trying to like look at you, that is just so shady, so I'll be at the event. You can come up to me at the event. I look like my picture that when you click on it it is also a big picture of me, so I get into the event. Finally, I'm walking around the sandwich time. People are taking pictures. This guy comes up to me, doesn't acknowledge at all. I think actually Chateau Connor introduced us. It's like this is Dave. You should talk to him. He's in the startup world. He doesn't mention having reached out to me on Twitter at all. He pulls out a cocktail napkin and he's like this is where I see asynchronous video going in the next 10 years Starts to draw in this cocktail napkin and I'm like okay, who is this dude? We actually get interrupted Morgan first.

Another entrepreneur who's now out of New York, used to be in Boston is like you should really talk to Dave about work. And so I start talking to Dave again, because these two people that I trust have said you should talk to him, and he's like hey, we should meet at my office sometime this week if you're looking for a blah blah. So he follows up on Twitter. He says, hey, meet me in my office by the way, there's no signage at the front because I haven't gotten it yet it's on New Bray Street and just say all the stuff that, like, I did it. But I advise people not to do, essentially. But I told three friends I was going. I gave them his name. I'm like two people said that they trusted him, so let me go. I go to meet with them.

A few days later, 10 minutes in, he offers me a job to be the first employee at his startup. And I'm like this has been a no pants. Can I think about it? Can you give me an offer letter? Because I'd worked in? I read in all these places where, like this is not how you get jobs. And then I started to explore all of our LinkedIn connections and people are like he's a really solid dude. His last startup he sold to PayPal. He's like legit, he gets. He got into a mass challenge. And then I mistakenly told someone I'm thinking of staying in Boston now on Twitter and Chad comes in and he's like oh, did you get that job with Dave? And so I immediately I remember being in Peter Pit in Brookline slash, austin, and talking to the owner and being like hold on a second and me messaging Dave and being like, hey, by the way, I'm in, just in case you hear from anywhere else, I'm in for this startup, and that was in 2011 and the rest.

Wow what was the startup called? So he's called VSNAP. It was a video, okay, so you just said that, sorry, yeah, one-to-one video messaging platform. Investors told us that people would never record videos if they weren't wearing makeup and dressed up and like video wasn't a thing.

0:44:18 - Felicia Jadczak Honestly like ahead of its time for real.

0:44:21 - Trish Fontanilla Like you imagine, if VSNAP had like launched like the year before, covid In 2018.

Oh, absolutely Every week of the pandemic, someone was like don't you wish you were at that start? I'm like at that point I would have been a decade in and I would have been Scrooge McDucking into like money because first employee, so I had. You know, I was getting paid in like the low 30s, as you know. First employee pre first employee, pre-funding Pretty sure he was paying me from whatever money you know paypal had given him because we hadn't raised them, we hadn't even raised any angel money yet it was pre-funding, pre-product and I was like I'm leaving Boston if I don't have a job. And he was like all right, you're on, you're in. And sent me like an offer letter and it's the most hilarious, I was hoping that we would exit so that we would be on a tech crunch stage at some point and I would get to pull out the letter because it's so we don't have our health insurance planned yet, but we're getting there and like.

I don't have equity plan yet, but I'm going to build a World Series team and surround you with six. Like it's just this whole hilarious that if someone showed it to me now I'd be like this is a period mid-skate. Like this is not a real comedy.

0:45:31 - Felicia Jadczak You'd be like don't sign that letter please. Yeah, yeah.

0:45:36 - Trish Fontanilla But I was just like. He's a very charismatic person. I believed in video. Prior to that, I had had a show called why Not Boston. That was like a Wayne's World show about why you should stay in Boston.

That but you didn't take your advice you were trying to get out, I know. I know we had a whole ethical thing of like should I be recording this show if I'm potentially leaving Boston? So it was interesting. During that time I recorded over 15,000 one-to-one video messages. So like hi, rachel, it was great to see you at South by Southwest. Like you know, south by was actually one of our highest I went through by myself, was our highest sign updates, and at the time I was sending a one-to-one video message to anybody that followed us and looking at their profile and mentioning it to be like hey, rachel, oh, I can't believe you're on SF. Like I love this bookstore called Meek U Maybe you heard it. Like I wouldn't really personalize them to the point where people are like, what is that? Like I've never had a personalized video sent to me from a brand before. Yeah, and it would like blow people's minds and then they reshare it, you know.

So how long were you there? For A little over three years, wow. I left in October of 2014 and then they closed in March of 2015. Oh, bummer, yeah, so I had gone to startup institute to be their global director of community and Dave actually was very lovely and came in like the week they announced they were closing because I had hired somebody out of SI and he told the students there like this is what happens when a startup fails. Startups are amazing and they're wonderful and they're grand, but here's what happens when it fails. And so that was real fun to talk about failure, a bunch in a sea of people that were doing really well at that time. And now I'm like so glad. I do not regret anything. I do wish I slept more and didn't work seven days a week for the first couple of years, but it was more fulfilling I talk about.

This is like another side tangent about like health, your physical health. So my nine to five I had a nine to five I read job, but it was so stressful to me because it wasn't where I was supposed to be in my life, to the point where I was having heart palpitations sometimes when I was stressed out. So again nine to five Monday to Friday computer left at work, no work. When I get home job, heart palpitations. Go work at VSNAP, start working 60, 70 hours a week and there's like, oh, did you get like a great new job? That's really fulfilling you and I'm like I'm actually working more, but I am so excited about what I'm working on that the harbor, like the stress, the Sunday scaries, all that stuff is gone and that's a thing that you should go work 70 hours.

But even the doctor was like. You seem like a completely different human and some of the health stuff that you were having is now gone. So I'm like this is you spend so much time in a place you have to again? You don't have to obsess over it like I did, but the importance of liking your job impacts you physically. Yes, totally.

Totally agree Wow that's awesome, and then I did it a little too much and burned down. So yeah, that's not. 70 hours a week isn't sustainable. We know that for sure.

0:49:04 - Rachel Murray Wait what Startup life, but it is great to know that you loved it right. You found something that you really connected with, that you really just dug into and that you it's exactly that, Like your mindset shifted to a place where it was like excitement and not fear or boredom or anxiety. That's just beautiful. And now you're doing your own thing.

0:49:34 - Trish Fontanilla You're like I am doing my own thing. I mean I'm doing my other thing in collaboration with other. A lot of other things yeah I'm doing Generally doing my own thing.

0:49:45 - Rachel Murray Can I ask you now about CX? Yeah, customer Customer experience. Customer experience yes.

0:49:54 - Trish Fontanilla For me, customer experience and it's a relatively new term, it's about 20 years old it kind of came on the scene when e-commerce came about in the universe because prior to that, you know, we just bought things and didn't return them because it was too much effort. And then people NPS, Net Promoter, Score came in the universe and it's like, oh cool, we could get extra points from people brand wise if we created these really delightful experiences. So for different people it's different things. For me, customer experience is a giant umbrella over the organization and when I do customer journey mapping, it is pre-sale all the way to a year out plus, however you want to think about it, and impacts every single department and figuring out all the things like what tools do people use? What do employees need to do. I also like to do employee experience. I think this is really important on startup scale because it's like, okay, cool, this is a really great delightful experience. But Rachel needs to be in the office 12 hours a day, three days a week, in order to create this really delightful experience.

0:51:00 - Felicia Jadczak Totally.

0:51:00 - Trish Fontanilla So you need to get rid of that. But can we hire new people or is there a threshold where it impacts that? So that stuff is super, super interesting to me and I didn't realize what it was for a really long time. And this goes out to the writers or former fiction writers out there. My degree is actually in writing. I went to Emerson, so it's writing, literature and publishing, and I minored in psychology and performance studies.

I talked to people that are in the creative world about how to transfer their skills and for me, you know, customer journey map is much like mapping out a story or novel and your customer is the hero and all the little things that happen along the way. There's secondary, tertiary characters, there's your website, the way people click on buttons, the way people interact with you in events, and all of those little touch points get your hero to the end, which, like you know, if you think about the product journey and how people buy things, like it's the same thing, but you're just swapping things out. So I'm super obsessed with that and I got into it when I was at VSNAP as the first employee. Just you know, when you're bigger than you are, info at went to me, social Media at went to me, my email to me, all the emails went to me and, being thinking about how we were going to hire in the future, I'm like, okay, let me map out all the things our customers experience so that we can figure out how to make it the best and also figure out when to hire somebody, so that I don't go banana pants McGee, because I'm doing all the things.

So now in my consultant life, I do a lot of journey mapping for startups. People consider it like startup therapy, because I do like to have the CEO in the room, I do like to have different people in the room and as you're mapping out that journey, you get to see how individuals contribute to all the little things that you don't normally get to see. But you also, you know, sometimes I've had this feedback from the CEO like I didn't realize the team was doing that much work around that thing, or teammates being like you did that I'm doing that too. We're duplicating efforts. So it is this like really interesting thing, especially for startups that are scaling, because you hire these subject matter experts, you're not necessarily in the same room trying to make things together. I hired, you, go run off and do this and you're, all you know, tethered to the middle, but you run off and then you'd always get together. So that is like the CX part of the work that I do now.

0:53:27 - Felicia Jadczak So much is resonating with, like our experiences too, and you know we've always said from the SEO perspective, especially around our community events, that we want people to have an excellent experience from before they even sign up for a ticket to after they leave. So I just felt like I was nodding along to everything we're saying. Yeah, but that actually brings up another question I have. Well, I have so many questions. I do want to talk more about where that village and origin came into play with what you just talked about, but we can put a pen in that for now, because I want to talk more about customer slash community, because correct me if I'm wrong you know you are super deeply involved in both spaces, like community work as well as the customer experience you just described, but it's not necessarily like a one to one overlap. So I'm curious if you could talk more about that. And just even if you want to talk about some of the communities that you have been involved in or are currently involved in.

0:54:20 - Trish Fontanilla Sure, yeah, I think one of the biggest, I would say right, I feel like, do you feel like sometimes you're talking at Instagram? Talk, I'm like the biggest red flag.

0:54:31 - Felicia Jadczak I mean I'm in.

0:54:32 - Trish Fontanilla Tick tock, talk for me right now.

0:54:34 - Felicia Jadczak Tick tock talk.

0:54:36 - Trish Fontanilla So funny. So I would say it's a red flag. But oftentimes, as what I love about a consultant being a consultant is, you can kind of leave when you like, sort of within the parameters of a contract, and so what I always like to do is I always like to ask people. You know, how do you think about community? And a lot of the time the people that reach out to me are CEOs or CMOs and for them they're just thinking about the customer, which is their focus, and it totally makes sense. But for a lot of what? For me, community is something bigger than yourself. Again, thinking about you know, a lot of companies think that they're the hero and it's like you're not the hero. The customer is the hero. You are a tool on the utility belt. You're not the belt. There's other things on the utility belt. You're one thing that they use sometimes and a lot of companies right now are like what's they're going to be in the community? All of our customers are going to want to be in the community and I was actually talking to a group of funders this week and someone brought up they had bought a lawn chair and the company and said join the lawn chair community. It's like who is in this lawn chair community unless it is like a high aficionado of lawn chairs, if you made it a home living or an outdoor community and you can talk about multiple things that make sense. So for me there is a brand community, which is a community of customers. You know there are communities that are just for support tickets and that can be a community of sorts where community members are helping each other. But I differentiate marketing community, as marketing is one to many, so it's usually the company into the customers and community is many to many, so not only as the company talking to the community. The community members are talking to each other. They're helping each other and forming relationships. And that is the thing you know.

When going back to Yelp is I was like I would one of the biggest like shout from the rooftop people about Yelp because of the people I met through the platform and it wasn't even around food things right, so they were kind of doing that the beginning of we'll have these forums. They don't. Obviously there's rules, you can't bully people, et cetera, but we're not going to limit these forums to just food. People that eat food also like to go out and go kayaking. They like to go skydiving, they like to get tattoos and they get cut their haircut, like there's all these other things, and that's how you know the review started to go out into these different places outside of you know restaurants is because these people are whole humans that have other things that they're leading their lives and doing, and so I think community for me is what is the greater purpose of what you're doing, so that there are people that aren't paying customers or folks that are outside of that can be involved in your community. So that's like how I see community versus customer experience. Customer experience is really just the main focus is on a customer or prospect, whereas community can be broader than that.

So I'll use an example. So Freight Farms is a company I used to work at. They're still around the universe and amazing 40-foot shipping containers, although I think they have different versions now, but when I was there it was 40-foot shipping containers that had been upcycled to become vertical hydroponic farms. So no soil, using LED lights, using nutrients you can run it off your phone but you had to seed and help them grow and then you also had to harvest, but everything else it was automation. I was inside a freight container. So there are farmers the people that used the Freight Farms but the farmers also had to get permission from governments.

I'm like those are part of our, and I use the word ecosystem, too, instead of community. So for me personally, I generally use community, but I'm talking internally. I'll be like this is our community, so I'll talk about customers. But ecosystem who are the different people that we need to interact with? So there's a government, because there's a lot of antiquated what farming actually is laws up there and I think a lot of people that are in cannabis will agree with this as well Like there are so many different things that impact these industries that are not.

I remember one farmer being like they're asking me about manure and it's like there's not even soil in this. We're not doing anything with manure. So there's the government. There's people that got freight firms and we're working with restaurants. So restaurant community is part of the freight farms ecosystem. We have seeds to plant. The things that go into the freight farms, seeds stores and other farms that are doing agriculture in South of the universe are part of our community. We are using IoT sensors Internet of Things sensors so technology, companies and people that are interested in sensors are part of our community.

So having all these different relationships out there is really helpful when you're thinking about it, especially when you're a startup, because you don't have access to funds to make an event happen. So you partner up with any of the people that I just mentioned and kind of make stuff around that. So I think that is and having those relationships so that when your customers come to you and you're like, who should I buy seeds from or give me some best practices on how to sell to restaurants it's like, oh, we have those relationships and we actually can help you with that. And they're like, oh, I trust you. This is amazing. What else can I buy from you because you're so great?

And obviously that's not always. That is, you know, you can't just be super hippie Like I want to be out there in the universe. Capitalism needs to happen. So there needs to be some retention there, there needs to be something that is within the customer atmosphere. But you know, investing in these relationships and putting that social capital in the universe is, I think you know, and a really important piece of community that people don't always again, they don't want to talk about your product all the time. Your product is such a small part of their lives and their journey.

1:00:27 - Rachel Murray Trish, we are one million percent going to need to do a part two.

1:00:31 - Felicia Jadczak Yeah, we were chatting on the back and we're like we need a part two.

1:00:34 - Rachel Murray Yeah, because there's no ifs, ands or buts around it, because I was like I have a follow up question for Trish that is a little bit self serving, which is and this might be the last question then like seriously, we have to do another one, like we'll get on the books, like right after we hit the stop button on this one. But I was curious to hear your thoughts around community when it comes to the workplace.

Yes, it's all serving, but I'm curious yeah it's evolved so aggressively since the pandemic and it continues to, and I just wanted to get your thoughts on, like, what is happening with the ecosystem and community and really reaching out and having to like, do the CEOs still understand that, like, this is an ecosystem and that they do not?

1:01:14 - Felicia Jadczak That's what I've been getting. I want to hear, but I also want to just say, if this needs to be like a taster for your answer, yes, and then we'll like flush it out. Oh, like a tater, I just feel like we could talk for like an hour just about that question, and I can see you're like ready to go with answers. Yeah, yeah, it'll be in a moose bush.

1:01:31 - Trish Fontanilla Yeah, I mean I think I said this on LinkedIn the other day that people are starting to realize that employee experience and employee community did not magically come with an office Like it wasn't, like the sink and the drawers and things. Community doesn't just happen. There needs to be facilitators, there needs to be different levels of engagement, there needs to be things that are accessible in a variety of different ways to people. And they stopped many of them stopped doing that during the pandemic because and they thought it was okay but I was like no, people weren't asking about some of that stuff because they were worried about all the stuff at home. They were worried about homeschooling, they were worried about being in a five hundred square foot apartment with someone they just married and their three dogs that they didn't realize was always going to be a thing or three cats or six animals. I don't know All those things. So I think it's such an interesting.

I think there's always been an employee experience communities in a way. I think it kind of lives more in the ERG universe versus the grander employee experience. But I think now I think you know y'all probably have seen this more than I have of folks be like wait a minute. Hr is different from people, ops is different from employee, branding is different from employee experience, like there's all these different things, that that happens and people thought it was a natural thing because everybody was in one place. And then the pandemic happened. I was like wait, why is retention off? Why are people leaving and what's going and realizing, oh wait, and I think some of them haven't even had a eureka moment yet because they're like wait, let's put it's thrown back in the office and then maybe everything will be better.

1:03:19 - Rachel Murray It's like yeah, that's accurate.

1:03:24 - Felicia Jadczak Like did you record a CEO Like yes, I agree.

1:03:29 - Rachel Murray And a friend of mine just told me that they're starting to have they were told before that you know it's going to be known was to have to come in the office, but now they're starting like Power Tuesdays where everyone comes. It's just a very interesting choice of words to call everybody in the office Power Tuesdays.

1:03:46 - Felicia Jadczak I was like didn't sit right with me, or like tying it to performance reviews.

1:03:50 - Rachel Murray Anyway oh my gosh Okay.

1:03:53 - Felicia Jadczak So much to talk about.

1:03:54 - Rachel Murray Is it really like and like? We got through literally two questions in our list, so good for us.

1:04:00 - Felicia Jadczak And we have a lot more listeners, yeah.

1:04:01 - Rachel Murray So we might have this might be a five part series. I don't know what's going to happen.

1:04:05 - Felicia Jadczak While we figure out part two briefly, where can people find you if they can't get enough of you and they don't want to wait for?

1:04:11 - Trish Fontanilla part two Sure, so I'm on LinkedIn Trish Wantonilla, so my username there is Trish F, because I wanted to make it easier for the universe. If you want to connect with me, please personalize your LinkedIn request and you have to say at least one amazing thing about she Geeks Out.

I'm here for that and then I'll share it with y'all. And then I'm on Instagram, which is mostly food but is also kayaking. Boston hot takes on a lot of different things in my stories. I'm kind of still on Twitter. I had that soft spot from the universe, but it's kind of dwindling.

1:04:52 - Rachel Murray I think we're working on deleting ours. Yeah, I know.

1:04:56 - Trish Fontanilla It's so sad because I've become friends with so many people through Twitter and I've gotten so much business through Twitter, but now LinkedIn is kind of where I live and I am not on. I'm on Facebook but I will never get any of your messages. If you ever message me on Facebook, Same so yeah. And then Trish of All Trades is my website, but also realize I have other talents. When you go to my website and you're like someone, use a Squarespace template, you have things to do I have other talents.

That's right. You will not be judged on.

1:05:32 - Rachel Murray Well, you'll be judged on your excellent taste in using Squarespace. This is not a Squarespace sponsored episodes. I don't know why I'm like Squarespace anymore, like all the other pods out there, anyway.

1:05:43 - Felicia Jadczak Squarespace. If you're listening, we could use some advertising. Yeah.

1:05:47 - Trish Fontanilla GeoCities are a tripod.

1:05:49 - Rachel Murray MySpace. Someone's read? I was someone referenced Friendster the other day. Anyway, god, anyway.

1:05:55 - Felicia Jadczak Well, we have more to talk about. Yes, thank you. More to come.

1:06:01 - Rachel Murray That was fun, it was. That was a good time that was a really good time. It's so good, as you know, that just all you got to do is wait for two weeks, just two little tiny weeks. Your August is just the best.

1:06:14 - Felicia Jadczak And because we are all on the time machine, if you're doing like a one, two punch in part two has already come out just like. Are you going? So just keep going.

1:06:23 - Rachel Murray You do you, if you're on a long run I encourage that. I love a good pod during a long run and then what'll happen is we're going to make you laugh, and so what'll happen is you'll be smiling and then people will pass you by and they'll think that you're smiling at them and maybe you are, but it's really that you're just laughing at this ridiculous podcast episode.

1:06:43 - Felicia Jadczak In a pre COVID world, when I used to actually go to a physical gym, I would listen to podcasts that would make me laugh, including our own, because I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. I just really like to listen to ourselves. But while that's a different discussion for a different time, and I would often start laughing and then realize that people were looking at me.

1:07:03 - Rachel Murray Yep, exactly, it's fine, it's fine. Well, we have. So just a few things that are coming up. We have our. We took a webinar break in August because August, but in September we are back. We have the integrating embodiment and somatics into your DEI work. I believe Fatima is going to be doing that webinar. It's going to be amazing. We also have our get a job you love. Virtual summit is happening in September and then we have an Ask SGO live webinar in October. So stay tuned for all of that.

1:07:35 - Felicia Jadczak Yeah, if you have anything else, just check out shegeeksoutcom for any and all of our upcoming events. But thank you so much for listening, especially if you made it through this whole thing, because it was a lot. We appreciate it. Please don't forget to rate, share and subscribe. It really makes a huge difference in the reach of this podcast and, by extension, our work. Make sure to tune in for the next episode with Trish in two weeks if you are listening to this in a timely fashion, yay.

1:08:01 - Rachel Murray And if you're looking to further your own knowledge and gain support alongside other incredible people, please don't forget to join our fabulous free community. We got a welcoming, built in support system, granted in the values of diversity, equity, inclusion, which matters so much. You will have access to bonus episodes, additional resources, courses, webinars, coaching and so much more. So check us out. Rise togethershegeeksoutcom. And that is all she wrote. Bye, bye.

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