Introduction
Welcome to the Mavens do it Better podcast. And now, your host Heather Newman.
Heather Newman
Okie dokie we are live. Hello everyone, here we are again for another Mavens do it Better podcast, where we interview extraordinary experts who bring a light to our world. You're gonna say it better than I do. But I have Ryan Duguid. Dear friend, colleague, on today who is, will you say "world" for us? In Iraqi?
Ryan Duguid
"Wor-old." Yeah, there you go.
Heather Newman
(laughing) Perfect!
Ryan Duguid
I am an extraordinary gentleman of the world. Others do it better than me, but you know, we'll try. We'll see how long we can keep it going for the duration.
Heather Newman
Perfect. That's so good.
Ryan Duguid
So, my mom will listen in and say speak in it. It doesn't do like that anymore.
Heather Newman
Oh, hi Ryan's mom. Your son is awesome, by the way, so yay. Well, cool. Well, Ryan and I have known each other for a long, long time. Worked together, played together at Microsoft and various and sundry companies that we both have worked for. And he is one of my favorite people. And he's got a beautiful tech mind and he is super creative and doing all kinds of things. So, I just wanted to have you on and chit chat about kind of, we all are in the middle of the pandemic, and, but also chugging along.
Ryan Duguid
I shouldn't smile, it's a pandemic.
Heather Newman
I know. It's so bizarre. I wanted to have you on because we've been trying to do this for a while so I'm excited, and I take it you're doing everything from home right now, yeah?
Ryan Duguid
I am indeed. You know, we were the first and best in America here in Seattle, and, you know, that I think led to us being the ones who went to stay at home. I don't know if San Francisco technically did that first but at scale, people staying at home, companies - huge thanks to the major employers around here. You know, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and the likes, all went out early with working from home. And schools went early, and it's playing out, right? Much like California, you can see the results. There's still a long way to go, I think. But yeah, I'm doing my part. I do go out for a walk once a day with the family - go for a four-mile walk around the neighborhood. And we all stay like in separate formation you know, six feet apart - two meters apart for the metric folks. It's kind of funny walking down the middle of the road when you're passing other people, but yeah, it's a novel time for sure.
Heather Newman
Yeah, absolutely. How is it going with the kids at home? I mean, you deal with the kids at home a lot anyway, but how's the school stuff going?
Ryan Duguid
Yeah, you know, I'll go officially on record with it. I've got one kid who is geeking out a big way. He's a planner, a scheduler, and he's got it all mapped out. He's doing the schoolwork, then the lacrosse wall ball, then the bass practice and the singing lesson. Then he's going for a four-mile run and he's doing all that. And I've got the other one who, you know, school's not his favorite pastime, I would say, so he's been resisting it a bit, but at the same time, he's been, you know, the skateboard, the scooter, the mountain bike, working on the balance tricks. He's out on the trampoline, backflip front flip, 360s. He's got a trampoline skis he built himself and a trampoline skateboard. So, he took a skateboard. He stripped the wheels off, he taped all off and he practices on that, and then he made his own skateboard. He got a block of wood. Cut it out, drilled it out, and he's built his own skateboard and put the old wheels off the other one on. So, they're both doing their thing you know? But adjustment, probably like everyone, the first couple of weeks is like a ring around dance all day. So, like, do you mind not doing that? And then of course Poor Emily's like, "you jokers aren't supposed to be here during the day. I'm supposed to have peace and quiet right?" Fun and games.
Heather Newman
Yeah, for sure. So, we met I don't even know how long ago....
Ryan Duguid
2000 and blahdy-blah. 2008 I think
Heather Newman
Yeah.
Ryan Duguid
So, 12 years ago.
Heather Newman
Ryan was on the Enterprise Content Management team at Microsoft.
Ryan Duguid
I think I WAS the Enterprise Content Management team at Microsoft. No, that's not true. Me, Evan Richmond, and Jean Paul, right? That was a tight combo, that was.
Heather Newman
Yeah. You know who I actually talked to you the other day? Not too long ago was Christian Finn.
Ryan Duguid
I had beers with Christian Finn Just before the COVID shutdown. First time we'd seen each other in a long, long time.
Heather Newman
Wow, I think we must have talked around the same time because it was same-same for us. So, it was nice to see him.
Ryan Duguid
Yeah, he showed me pictures of his house burning down. That was a bit scary.
Heather Newman
Crazy. Wild. I was like, what happened? I'm so sorry. That's just absolutely bananas. But yeah, gosh, and that team. Goodness, we did a lot. I worked for Ryan and helped him produce a lot of events at Microsoft, where we went around to a lot of -
Ryan Duguid
Arma -
Heather Newman
Yeah. Arma.
Ryan Duguid
The records crew.
Heather Newman
Yes, the records. Third Party stuff. It was like E2.0. The Gobain Conference.
Ryan Duguid
Forgot that one.
Heather Newman
I'm trying to pull out - so KM World, Aim, which I was a board member on, you know, and you've been part of that.
Ryan Duguid
Almost a board member - they didn't select me in the end. Almost. I am not beset about it or anything because I feel like I could have added some value there. But you know....
Heather Newman
I was not happy.
Ryan Duguid
Hey, you know who we should mention too, just because we're going through the crew is Tricia Bush.
Heather Newman
Yeah, absolutely Tricia Bush. She's so great. I haven't talked to her in a long while as well. But Christian mentioned her, and I was like, yeah, and Justin Chandoo.
Ryan Duguid
Oh, yeah, Mr. Chandoo.
Heather Newman
I haven't talked to him in forever. So, you're a technology Maven. You've been in and around technology working at Nintex and Microsoft. Tell us about your humble start, back in the day, like how about some origin story? Way Back.
Ryan Duguid
Humble start. So, I'm a technology person and have to look sophisticated so I'll do this with my glasses for those who can see. Now I'll take those off for a bit. We'll put them back as we get into the good stuff. So, let’s do the Who am I, Right? Origin story stuff. Because of the funny accent that we're joking about, I'll throw one in here for Alison as well, "Chunky Monkey." So, I'm from Scotland, as you can tell by the accent, and also because the accent will come and go, you'll be thinking "he hasn't lived there his entire life" and so I've been around the world a little bit. And the origin story is such that I grew up in Scotland and then headed to New Zealand in my teenage years. And the biggest part of the origin story is my father, who actually would have been his 77th birthday in April if he was still with us. April 5, so just a few days gone by. But he was the most ballsy person I know in the world, right? In 1985, he decided that he was Tired of Cold War Europe. And if you weren't living there it's be a hard thing to understand, and he had a small family, two kids, and he wanted them to grow up and survive. So, he decided to be as far away from that as possible and moved us to New Zealand. And in this day and age people are probably like, Oh, yes, New Zealand. New Zealand's fantastic. It's a flight - $2000. In 1985 it wasn't quite that easy. And so much so that the plane had to stop in Hawaii on the way there because it didn't have enough fuel capacity to go all the way from Los Angeles. And he took us there knowing he could never go back. Or at least in his mind, like that was a one-way ticket back then. And you know, here's a pretty modest guy, he's in the printing industry, blue collar worker, and so it's not like it was easy you know, a highly skilled laborer or that had a job. He worked for years to get us the ticket there. And that was a big game changer for me and gave me a global perspective. It exposed me to different cultures. And I don't think I've traveled the world as much since if it hadn't been for that I might have just still be holed up in Edinburgh, looking at my lovely castle and thinking the world was magnificent. So that's sort of the cultural part of who I am. Family guy, I have a wonderful wife Emily, two kids, Jackson and Andrew (13 and 12-year-old), and I have an amazing set of friends - like yourself. I like working in the software industry. I love product. I love trying to find ways to make the world a better place through the use of software, right? And by pastime, just come off of earlier actually training on my wee bicycle, but I like cycling, mountain biking, road biking, and I love skiing. I'm a little gutted that the season's cut short right now. I had this epic season last year where I skied 55 days.
Heather Newman
Wow.
Ryan Duguid
I've never done anything like that in my life. And I was up to 41. And I was going strong. And I was like, Yes! No - shutdown. First World problem that one is. And then, also a bit of a Pilates fan, which is I know something everyone does. And not that I've qualified out with the training hours, but I am a certified balanced body Pilates instructor as well. So that's the non-work stuff. And then the work stuff is, you know, a bit of everything, but I'll pause there. You should ask some questions and we should discuss some more stuff. That's a bit of how I got here. And I'm somewhere in my 40s. Right?
Heather Newman
Me as well. There you go. I love learning so much about friends and people that are awesome in my life. I'm always like, oh, what a nice story about your dad.
Ryan Duguid
I should show you - watch this. I'll do a wee thing just because it's like videos and stuff. Here he is.
Heather Newman
Oh, my goodness! Wait, you say something because the camera will go back to you.
Ryan Duguid
The camera will go back to me now. Here we go. This is me and my dad. Right? And I'm sporting at the moment, this beard is an homage to him like that. So, there you go.
Heather Newman
I love it.
Ryan Duguid
I think you know a lot of people do that. They're like, you look like your dad and stuff. And people are like, No, no, no. I'm actually quite proud. I think the older I get the more I look like him probably. That's okay. I'm happy with that. I like that.
Heather Newman
Oh, that's awesome. So many people I know that I care about born on the fifth of April. So, you I know, obviously New Zealand. When did you start working for - what was the trajectory that brought you to Microsoft and when did you start working at Microsoft?
Ryan Duguid
Oh yeah. So, Jesus, so - short version? Then long version, because you sent me those magical questions, right? Somewhere in there you've got the turning points and you know what have you. So, the long version will hit at that point, but the short version is someone gave me a very strong recommendation into Microsoft New Zealand at a time where I was thinking, I'd lived in San Francisco for a couple of years. Corner of Jackson and Jones, Knob Hill, you know? The swanky part of town, right on the cable car, actually. So, I know the Ding Ding really well. Emily and I, we moved back to New Zealand, got married, and we kind of felt like we wanted to have more to explore. Happy to be back in New Zealand and hanging out with family but we had more to do. And I was kind of the one holding things up, right? Because she worked for Hewlett Packard in San Francisco and they were happy to bring her back when the time was right. And I was the guy that just bounced around working in small New Zealand companies. And it's quite hard for those who are in America don't quite understand. But if you haven't gone to a fancy American college, and you haven't worked for a known company it's not easy to get into this, and so I figured I should do something about that. And lo and behold, a friend said, hey, there's this job at Microsoft that's a good fit. What we call a TSP, various flavors of that, but a technology solution provider. The rest of world calls it a sales engineer, right? And I got in from noodling around with SharePoint and associated technologies. I had been a Microsoft supporter for a long time. My academic background and early career is much more Unix and Java based. But I'd made that switch. And so for me, it was like, it was a dream come true, like, you know, biggest software company in the world, and it was my ticket to go work in America again, which was kind of always the dream for me. You know, like work for a major company, build software that's used by billions of people, and have a big impact. And so, I worked for them. And I had this genius idea that, you know, if I worked for them, and I was really good and proved myself over five years, someone might want me at Redmond. And it turns out that 18 months later, someone did want me in Redmond. And lo and behold, it all went from there.
Heather Newman
Yeah. Wow. And a mutual friend of ours. Chris Johnson.
Ryan Duguid
That's the long version of the story. Chris Johnson.
Heather Newman
Hey Chris - hey CJ. But you and he kind of had a trajectory together for a bit and still do, I think, right?
Ryan Duguid
Probably for the rest of time, I'd suggest. Yes, you know, he's the godfather of Jackson, my first child, and we were best man at each other's weddings. And we met in 1995, right, so 20-25 years ago now, at the back of a lecture theater in Victoria University in Wellington. And it turns out, he and I were both kind of rejects who'd gone and done other things and come back around to deciding, you know, we wanted to do computer science, and we had to study math as part of that. So, there's a bunch of like, you know, first year nerdy types sitting at the front. And me and him sitting up in the back. And, you know, he just had this kind of style about him. And it's comical, so I wish I had a picture of it. So, they had like, this kind of scrappy old t-shirt. He's wearing these white pants made of material, don't what we call it America - we call it Terry towel where I come from, but it's just like, kinda, it's like those sheets you had as a kid with the kind of looped...
Heather Newman
Okay, terry cloth.
Ryan Duguid
Yeah, he had white terry cloth pants.
Heather Newman
Wow.
Ryan Duguid
And he had this satchel that was started by a guy who'd been in jail. And I guess that was X23 had something to do with his number or stamp or whatever. And he'd made good with this leather goods company. And that was like this $450 bag, and I'm like, Man, this guy has got chops. And we just got talking and it went from there. And so, I got him a job in a company that got him into a thing that go onto Microsoft. And he's the guy that pulled me into Microsoft. And then the comical part was he got the job up here in Seattle. And he headed on his way. He's actually traveling with Vicki right through South America to head up here. And by the time he got here, he called me up. How's it going? I'm like, I've got a job there, too. I'll see you in six weeks.
Heather Newman
I didn't know that story. That's great. It's fun how we have friends that we carry each other along. You know what I mean?
Ryan Duguid
I'm fascinated by that, right? Yeah. I always want to look for the points in life, like the defining moments. And then the reality is there's so many you make trillions of choices, right? Every day. Always look for the people and the moments in time where, like, all that hadn't happened, you know, and in both directions, right? Sometimes like to look at how I've influenced other people's lives and things like that. So, you know, I wouldn't be here if he hadn't found that opportunity and pulled me into and you know, so it's Yeah, those sort of big shifts like where are you in life? Who was behind those? It's always fascinating to examine.
Heather Newman
So, we've worked together, oh my gosh, we worked together for so long and so closely, you know, doing all those events and stuff, and then you worked for a long while at Nintex as well. Yeah. Tell everybody about that. Me as well. I love that. I mean, the sparks, right? It's like what takes you there, and sometimes I think it's cool to pinpoint them and that's something I love talking about on the show as well with people. And I think it's also sometimes like the little things that we gloss over and we don't remember but those actually have a huge trajectory on our lives sometimes too - even if they're small, you know? Yeah, so I've just finished up eight years at Nintex. It's quite a strange world for me. Because, you know, work to me, I go all in and Nintex in particular, you know, the company the brand the product became a large part of my identity. I kind of felt as Brett and Brian moved on as the founders that in some part, it was on me to carry, you know, forward like almost like founder 2.0 or something like that. And so, it's still a strange world for me. I've been out for just a few weeks now, and I keep finding myself sending things to people like, Hey, did you see this on TechCrunch? Right or whatever, like, why am I still looking at that? It was time for me to do something new. Why am I still looking at wacky workflow stuff? But I think part of that is that Nintex was a really unique fit for me, in part because before I went to Nintex, I actually had an idea came about in a flight to Houston one time. I had this idea for cloud workflow, right? Like the time was just right. This is like 2010 or something like that. SASS is on the rise and you know, and there's just this massive integration kind of problem coming and not data point to point stuff, but how business entities right, this is the best way I can describe it. And if anyone out there as a better term. I'd love to hear it, but like business entities are like, you know, people and customers and clients and projects and facilities and you know, you name it, assets, whatever. Business entities have a life cycle, right? They're born, they live in they die, and you need to manage that. And those entities are affected by so many different systems, they interact with so many different systems, and data moves around, people make decisions, and so I had this vision for this thing. And one option was go do it myself. And the other option was, hey, there's these guys at Nintex. Right, like Brett and Brian, who heard, it's an amazing company. And it's grown really well. And I think they need to go in this direction. So, show it to them and turns out it's just you know, beautiful timing, right? But the driver behind that is that I'm an efficiency geek. If you watch me in the morning in the kitchen, you'd be like, that's quite precise, what he's doing there, right? Like minimum number of steps and how I can optimize everything and grind the coffee while I get the milk and unload the dishwasher and things like that, and take a spoonful of oatmeal or porridge where I come from, by the way, and so it's just a perfect fit. And so, it's strange to get used to the idea of going to do something different, but I think we all need to do that from time to time. And after eight years, I felt like it was time for me to do that. You know, it's like We got the Seattle thing, right? The people at Nintex have got this right? Alain and Neil and Eric the CEO, and hundreds of engineers, like they know what they're doing now. And they know where they need to take it. And I felt like it was time for me to go help some other crowd do something interesting, right? Yeah, absolutely. That's so cool. And I know it's a lot of the old guard of like Brett and Brian and folks that came up and created companies - ISVs - independent software vendors -
Ryan Duguid
Such a weird term. Software companies.
Heather Newman
Yeah. And having onboarded the first 60 back in 2001. And then sort of that was, they were part of the next world, you know, of folks that came in. And then, eventually off and gone and done other things. It's like, with Hyperfish, and then their Live Tiles and then you know, people have different companies that they've spun off and everything. But it's cool also that we all kind of stay connected even if we're not talking every day, you know, like, we're all kind of like, oh, who's doing what and whatever and you kind of ask people to go along to the next thing. I love that you took a look at what you were doing and said, Okay, it's time for something new, you know? And that's exciting. So, kind of in front of you is a path that hasn't been written yet.
Ryan Duguid
It's exciting and scary. It's funny but see, here's the thing, right? And this was this was part of the challenge with it. It's a family. Right? And if I take my time at Microsoft, and project that out 15 years, right? And I'm you know, 40? So, it's a big chunk of my life hanging out with these people. And it's a double-edged sword, right? Because in part is your safe, happy place? Right. And I think this is something everybody needs to think through and what drives and motivates them. And then in part, you have other days where you're like, I gotta - I can't just stay here forever, right? Events are virtual now but the last big physical one I went to, you know, in Vegas, right? Which one is it? That's Ignite, right? Yeah. No -
Heather Newman
Inspire was in Vegas.
Ryan Duguid
Inspire. That's the one where us at Nintex generously gave them that conference name. And I was hanging out with Scott Jamison, right? I went to one of the parties and you know, the Live Tiles guys, they were doing their band, and everything was awesome. But I was sitting there, and I was like, Man, this is like 10 years, almost to the date since SharePoint conference. 2009 there, right? And I'm like, it's the same people. And it's weirding me out a little bit. And I went back to my room, I stopped, and Scott was coming down. He'd left and he's coming. He's like, I'm going back in. And neither of us got back there, we started talking about stuff and kind of get to the point where, and this is one of your defining moments, right? We're both sort of like, it's probably time to be done with this SharePoint thing, right? Like there's, you know, we've done our part and there's other things we should probably go do now. And there's plenty of people there keeping the dream alive. And I like checking in on it from time to time. I like to see Jeremy posting about the, you know, master data stuff being available in the graph API. I'm like, thank god like Jesus this has only taken 10 years, right? But no, I need to put that, that's another part of life and it's time to go try something different.
Heather Newman
All right. Is there a sneak peek? What's coming?
Ryan Duguid
A sneak peek? Nah, stay tuned day. Yeah, there's things brewing. And you know, it's definitely gonna be not Microsoft stuff in the traditional sense. It's pretty hard to work anywhere these days that's not using Azure in some capacity, right? I think you know my days as a regional director, I think that's sort of coming to an end now. And really just getting focused on product. And as much as I think my job as a product leader is always made easier by the fact that I'm technical. Not as much as it used to be, but I'm technical. I think it is time to just really focus on product and the more time, like towards the end of my time at Nintex, in the last couple of years, spent more and more time just really stepping back, right? I mean, for those who followed me along the way, you know, Chief evangelist, right? It `allowed me to step back and look and work kind of on the business as opposed to in it, and spend a lot of time looking at how things go from, because all of us technical folks, are like You can build anything, right? And many things are built that go nowhere. And I don't have time left in my life to build things that go nowhere, right? And so, the things I build have to have an impact. They have to be purposeful and meaningful. And to drive that, you really have to look at how you build, how you take that to your product marketing team, how you work with your overall marketing team on the messaging and the positioning, and how it aligns to your brand. You have to work out how you drive sales readiness, how you get the sales team pumped up and out there pushing it, you've got to work on the high level story in the market through the evangelism side of the business. Then there's pricing and packaging, there's so many aspects to it that I think early in my Nintex career was very, very product centric, right? Like, just get the right thing built the right way. And then you sort of wake up at some point and go, Oh, yeah, all that other stuff, right? And you're lucky, or I was lucky anyway, at Nintex, that there were people paying attention to that. But I really feel that sort of the back half of my career Nintex was really focused as a product leader on being more aggressive and driving that, as opposed to being inwardly focused on getting the right thing built. And I think it is a journey, right? Because we were re-platforming - we were building a whole new - Nintex used to ship DVDs, right? And we have to pick up a close provider, so you gotta go inward for a while. But finding that point to make that shift is quite crucial.
Heather Newman
And you're also a really heavy-duty marketer. You are. Being someone that does that on a daily basis too, for someone who is very product centric, your marketing brain is big. And I think we always had a lot of -
Ryan Duguid
Thank you.
Heather Newman
Well, you know, it is.
Ryan Duguid
Working people like yourself made that more apparent with time, right? As I said in part, it's actually part of the Nintex journey. Along the way, for my sins I sort of took ownership of products marketing, myself and another great SharePoint guy from the past Alberto Sutton. At some point, he and I had to divide and conquer, right? So, we're both sort of doing the same thing with different parts of the product portfolio. And, for anyone who's been in a company that's grown, I joined at 80 employees, I left at 500 and something, and you have to change and adapt and evolve in how you structure the business. And so, we had the portfolio split. He had workflow, I had forums and what have you, and eventually we sort of had to say Well, that's not going to scale, and so you take marketing, I mean, like, truly, like corporate brand, advanced, you name it. And that's a lot. And I'm going to take product management, but I'm also going to take product marketing, because right now, I really want to make sure the stories we tell are on the money, right? And although we weren't great, there was definitely at that point where I kind of look at stuff and go, you know what? The story here is so good, right? And this is really where you want to be as a product person, the story is so good, the product's so good that we don't need to make things up, right? Like we don't need fancy words and lots of copy and all that kind of thing. We just need to say "Nintex: best workflow for SharePoint." Delivered through forums and workflow and connectivity to other systems. And we were like, get your messaging and positioning framework out, and be tight.
Heather Newman
Yeah. And repeat it over and over again: workflow for everyone, or you know, like, all these different things I remember when it came out and I was like, Oh, my God, that looks amazing!
Ryan Duguid
And what everybody wants to do is funny with that stuff. Because everybody's like Why is the copy on the website different from the flyer at the conference? And just like someone felt like they had to create some different thing. And I'm like, No, just like, create that. And I tell you what, I do quite a bit of advisory work these days as well, right? Like, it's amazing how people fight the basics. Sit down, write a messaging and positioning framework, make it tight, make it truthful. And if it takes you more than a day, something's wrong, and come back and see me. And then everything emanates from that.
Heather Newman
Yup.,
Ryan Duguid
And you say the same words over and over again. And I think it's been promising because Microsoft is changed, right? Granted, but back in your day, my day, I mean, it was about content. Let's create more content, because that's what we're paid to do. No, you're not paid to do content. You're paid to articulate the value proposition to the market such that they'll exchange their dollars for your benefits.
Heather Newman
It's all about telling stories, right? What business problems you solve. Figure out what your messaging is. Don't make it too long.
Ryan Duguid
Yeah
Heather Newman
Repeat it over and over again.
Ryan Duguid
You know the guys, I'll do a shout out for them because they've helped me quite a bit along the way, virtually and actually some face to face time as well. A company called Drift, right? You'll all know them because it's that wee robot that pops up on websites everywhere.
Heather Newman
Oh, yeah.
Ryan Duguid
David Cancel and Elias, and Gerhardt who's moved on since (to Privy I think it is). But these guys really push that story. It's just like Tell stories, be authentic, know the problems you're solving. You know old school product marketing, old school product management, and to me it's a breath of fresh air, right? I'm like Be like that, you know? It's not hard. Not rocket science. You can read all the books and should read all the books in the world. But then synthesize it and then just do your thing, right?
Heather Newman
Yeah, yeah, I like the Donald Miller Storybrand stuff. I like his methodology and that it's the hero's journey. It's like Joseph Campbell, it's like, you know, Aristotle.
Ryan Duguid
Yeah, we've been telling the same story since the dawn of time.
Heather Newman
Kind of - you know? They meet, they fall in love, they fight. Well, you know what I mean. Things have gotten awfully complicated and noisy.
Ryan Duguid
I like the Heroes and Villains song. I'll bring that up all the time. Like, you know, who's the villain here? Like the villain is in efficient process, okay. And our hero, the citizen developer, is setting up to slay the inefficient process.
Heather Newman
Absolutely.
Ryan Duguid
How do we put them at the center of you know, like that?
Heather Newman
I know. So, the Little Golden Books? You know those kids' books? So, it's like that to me, okay, let's open this up and let's tell the story. Or the Choose Your Own Adventure novels, I guess. But yeah. Do you know those still have a copyright and you're not allowed to say that phrase in anything?
Ryan Duguid
Did you ever do the thing where you sort of have like five fingers in the book, just in case you don't like where you get?
Heather Newman
Totally! Like NO I didn't want that one. And then yeah, you go back. Absolutely. I loved that as a kid for sure. You and I are similar in our generation as far as how we grew up, in very obviously different countries, but yeah. I think you and I have talked before about some of that stuff. You had a London stint too, right?
Ryan Duguid
Mm, yeah. I didn't give you the cities, because I was making notes of those earlier. So, I'll give you the actual lived in/worked in, and then there's a couple other places that are sort of near and dear as well. So obviously, Edinburgh, although that was kind of after the fact, right? Cuz I left there. I wasn't working there when I was 12. That's for sure. But Edinburgh. Worked with the Bank of Scotland there for a while when I was traveling, backpacking around, but Wellington down in New Zealand. From Wellington, I went to New York (feel for the people in New York right now). From New York, I went to London, and here that journey is quite funny. So, my now wife who wasn't then, she moved from Wellington to Rotterdam. And the whole New York hypothesis was It's closer than New Zealand. And she wasn't expecting me by the way, she was probably not counting on me chasing around the world. And then once I'd kind of, you know, got to New York and flung her over (we'd hung out for a little bit), then I'm like London's closer than New York. I told the guys I was working for, I'm like, I think we should have a London office, you know? And then from there to San Francisco. That was driven by Emily. She got the job with Hewlett Packard, and I was really happy to follow and support her with that. Then back to Wellington, then up to Seattle. But then with the Nintex connection, I spent at least two of the last eight years of my life in either Melbourne or Kuala Lumpur. And amazing friends, you know, near and dear, that's a bummer. You know, one of the biggest challenges leaving Nintex is like It's gonna be hard to see those people. Yeah, so I've bounced around a wee bit. And I was supposed to be in Seattle for three years - and it's been almost 13.
Heather Newman
Wow.
Ryan Duguid
So, this is a nice place, you know?
Heather Newman
Yes, it is. I lived there for 10 and went to college UDub. So yeah, my big hearts for Seattle and New York and London, and all the places you mentioned. And Hey, Emily.
Ryan Duguid
Yeah, she's out there somewhere, but I told them, I was like, Dad's recording. Don't come walking like past. I'm surprised I haven't seen a small child.
Heather Newman
Yeah, it's like that on all the calls right now. And even before I was like, you know what? The kid comes in or the dog comes in or, you know, I work from home. I've been working from home since 2006. So, to me, it's like stuff happens. And sometimes a siren goes off when it goes by and you know what? I'm not in a soundproof studio. I produce this myself. With Annelise, of course - shout out to Annelise - I don't produce it myself. She's the producer, but I record them, you know, so it's one of those things.
Ryan Duguid
The dogs cracked me up. I've got two dogs in my whole life. My first one - I inherited the second one, but my first one, she and I went through the training. She's a border collie, so I invested heavily as did my parents probably as well. But I've had super well-trained dogs, you know, and well socialized around other dogs. They're not jumping up on everybody in different places and barking and so I'm quite particular about it. I'm like, I like my dogs well trained and un-well-trained dogs to me is not the dog's fault. So, I tend to have issues with dog owners not dogs. The barking thing cracks me up. The only time my dog was trained to bark was because my grandmother lived with us. And my dog was trained to bark if someone came within a certain proximity of the house during the day, so my grandmother would know. But that was about it. And so sometimes I'm like, who are these people? And can they not train their dogs? (imitating barking) Oh, sorry, I've got dog in the background. It's funny, though, because now everybody's got a dog in the background or something. Right? Like, yes, that's the new normal.
Heather Newman
Absolutely. It certainly is. Oh, my goodness. I'm trying to think of what else to ask you, but I think we've been talking for a really long time and I'm so happy about it, because I just needed to catch up with you anyway.
Ryan Duguid
You can make charts, right? So, there's one I have to give you, right? Because we talked about my dad and we talked about CJ, and I mentioned wife and kids and things. Those are all good. But one of your questions you talked about was origin story and stuff. So probably the quick version of the other person that most of it kind of originates around, right. So, by the connection I didn't make, I talked about living in San Francisco, but the connection there is my grandmother's sister, who moved there in 1940s. End of the war.
Heather Newman
Wow.
Ryan Duguid
And I come from quite a small family. Lots of only children and stuff. And so, my grandmother's sister she raised three kids there, so I have three sort of second cousins or however you want to pick it, and always had this affinity for the place. First time I visited there was 1981, when there was just orchards and stuff. She lived in Redwood City up in the hills, right near Joe Montana. That was our claim to fame. And I grew up on 49er swag and all that kind of thing. Now I'm a Seahawks person by the way, but you know I was okay with the 49 years being like that> And on the way back from traveling around Europe, so I went in 1994 backpacking around and stuff, and I came back partway through studies and stopped in San Francisco and stayed with cousin Will. And cousin Will has been hippie, artist, phenomenal guy with an incredible life story and his partner Rebecca. I stayed with them in Oakland in this old converted fire station. And I'll tell you what, it's like shady-ass part of town. And, we hung out and they just like right place, right time, right people, have gotten into the software world when the software world was recognizing user experience was a thing. And the artists could potentially help with that. And so, he got himself this gig as creative director at Intuit, working on Quicken. And he was showing me all the stuff he was doing to try and make software easy to use, and he's like, You should get into software and if you get into software, you could, you know, come back to San Francisco and I could probably help you out and stuff. And I was like, right, that's it. And I went back, and I cancelled a bunch of classes, and I signed up for computer science and I finished a psychology degree. And I have two papers short of an Arts degree in philosophy. But I did the computer science thing and, but you know, the coolest experience, because, you know, we talk about those moments? The thing I love is if you can share that back later on, and it was incredible for me to be able to, you know, having moved up, and I kind of alluded to, you know, with the Microsoft thing, like, Hey, you sort of put this in motion. But to get to a point in my life where I say, you know, because of that moment, that's what got me into software. That's what made me want to go work at Microsoft, to work on stuff that touched millions, hundreds of millions of people, that led me into Nintex, that led to my career and my financial well-being and stuff. And I'd like This is because of You, right? Because we did this thing. And he doesn't have - Oh, actually that's not true. I was going to say he doesn't have kids, but he has a kid. But you know that's from a whole other story. So, I feel like he's sort of like my surrogate dad, right? Hopefully feels the same way about me, and so it's really rewarding to be able to say, like, much like I did with my dad before he passed as well. Like this wouldn't have happened without you making your choices in life, so yeah, that's kind of the real origin story for the software thing.
Heather Newman
That's usually my last question - the spark question. And maybe you just answered it. Who seats you in today - who you are - that moment, that person, that place, that thing, book, whatever? It sounds like Cousin Will is that for you in many ways. Yeah. Cousin Will Tate, the artist known as. And oh yeah, the other one is Emily, right? Because somewhere along the way, when I met her, when I was trying to impress her right? And one night she says to me (and this was super early on when we're getting to know each other). We'd been working on our project together and that had wrapped up, and so we're kind of hanging out but she's like What's your purpose? And I'm like, Man, I better have a good answer to this, otherwise I'm hosed. Because that was like pretty important to her. Working a nonprofit organization and trying to drive change in the world, and here's me like, well my purpose is kind of making money and stuff. It's a bit tragic, but actually it took me back to my roots. Like I was working, just kind of billable software guy, right? Enjoying the benefits of that. And it got me back to the whole hypothesis, which was, I'm not the person that's out front in the world. I'm not a traditional leader. I'm not a public profile guy. I don't go seeking that out. But I always felt like in the background I could drive change, and my feeling was with software is that if you could do something that just gave lots of people a little bit of time back or made them a little happier or a little less frustrated, then you could have scalable impact on the world. And so I figure if your software hits like say, Nintex, you know, eight, eight and a half thousand customers when I left, probably using the product, the platform, to build things, and any of those customers and through the department channel, you're going to get to millions of people. But they're building things that touch other people, right? And so, your impact is in the hundreds of millions. And if hundreds of millions of people every day, go home happier, spend more time with a family, advance the cure for COVID, help people out who are starving in developing countries. You know, whatever it happens to be - whatever they do, if you can empower them to do what they do better both at work and in their life, then you're on a winner, right? And I feel privileged to be able to work in software to have that opportunity. And it pushed me towards that. That was kind of some somewhat my answer back then. And so, hope it obviously worked, right? Yeah, absolutely. That's great. Note to self. No, seriously, what is your purpose is a big one. And it's great that you had a good answer.
Ryan Duguid
Then I had to deliver on it, right? That was a problem.
Heather Newman
I think you're doing alright there Mr. Duguid. Plus, your name is Duguid. "Doo-gid."
Ryan Duguid
Oh, you can't do that to it. "DU-gid."
Heather Newman
Yeah, come on.
Ryan Duguid
You know well enough.
Heather Newman
I know. I'm playing.
Ryan Duguid
My dad's friend growing up, his name was Raymond Toogood, and so at school they were "do good" and "too good," right? Yeah.
Heather Newman
That's fantastic.
Ryan Duguid
I think Raymond's still around - like he lives in South Africa or something like that.
Heather Newman
That's wonderful. Oh, goodness. So, there's always a chapter to be written, and for sure a chapter to be written for all of us in this bananas time we're in.
Ryan Duguid
Yeah. Well, we should do another one of these when I can talk more about what's being authored for the next phase.
Heather Newman
Yeah.
Ryan Duguid
Another product journey along the way. We can do one of those... not again, not that I want to be sort of the industry guy and all that thing, but I love talking product. And I reckon your audience, phenomenal group of people. You know, there's gonna be some good conversations there. And you know enough folks to get on to give you different flavors of that. And I think, to me, the world needs products. Good product management, and it needs it now. And the more those of us who've been fortunate doing that can contribute back to the next generation and stuff, the better. Right? Maybe that's our next one.
Heather Newman
Yeah. All right. 100% I love it. Great idea.
Ryan Duguid
Sounds good.
Heather Newman
Let's do it. Yay! Thanks for being on.
Ryan Duguid
Thanks for having me. That took far too long.
Heather Newman
And being such a great friend, you and Emily, and love to the boys as well. So yeah, that's really good.
Ryan Duguid
All right. Take care, be safe. Stay at home.
Heather Newman
Yeah, absolutely. You too. Wash the hands. All that stuff.
Ryan Duguid
Wash the hands. 20 seconds. Happy birthday.
Heather Newman
Yes. I forgot we were on the podcast for a second. I was like, Oh, wait a minute.
Ryan Duguid
And another thing. And another thing. One more thing only, single thing, right? Yes. There you go.
Heather Newman
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you, darling. Appreciate it.
Ryan Duguid
Take care.
Heather Newman
Everybody, that has been another episode of the Mavens do it Better podcast with Ryan Duguid, and here's to another big beautiful day on the blue spinning sphere, and here's to a safer day and a better day for all of us coming soon. So, thank you. Bye everybody. The original music on this podcast was created by Jesse case.