She Lights the Way
Transcript for Interview with Jen Wike Huger
Nicole Huesman: Hey, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us for this episode of She Lights the Way, where every week we dive into the journeys of unsung women who are doing pretty incredible things and lighting the way for all of us. I'm your host, Nicole Huesman. I had the sincere pleasure of sitting down with Jen Wike Huger, content strategist, editor, consultant, and community builder in the world of open source software.
Jen Wike Huger: Coming into Red Hat and into tech, I was new to it. I didn't study it. I didn't come to it with a technical expertise. So when I came to it as a marketing, editing, community, people person, there were times when I felt out of place, you know, there were times when I felt not good enough because I didn't know the technical. But you know, what I learned is the right people don't care about that and the right people, meaning the people that are really good to work with and to care what they think, are the people who understand, you know, I have the technical chops, you have all this other stuff that, you know, hard skills, soft skills kind of thing. We make this thing beautiful together. I couldn't do it alone, and you couldn't do it alone, and, and that's what makes this thing go.
Nicole Huesman: Jen Wike Huger spent a decade at Red Hat, one of the iconic leaders in open source projects and communities. She was part of the magic behind opensource.com, which, not so long ago, was the go-to resource for unbiased, thoughtful perspectives about all things open source. Its topics were as diverse as its contributors.
In our conversation, Jen and I talk about collaborating with intent, leading with purpose, and finding joy in our world, particularly relevant as we think about our global pandemic and the shift to remote work.
Let's get started.
Nicole Huesman: Jen, it is so wonderful to have you on She Lights the Way. Welcome to the program.
Jen Wike Huger: Thank you so much for having me. It's great talking to you.
Nicole Huesman: Can you talk about where you are today and what your world looks like as we speak?
Jen Wike Huger: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I've been, I've had some time to reflect on that. I'm at the intersection of community and digital marketing. And it's an interesting time, right? Because tech is sort of in this flux, which it always is. But I'm feeling hopeful in 2024. I think the pandemic was rough. Last year was rough. But I'm feeling and I'm hearing and I'm getting vibes that tech is maybe in a healthier place. There's been so much for diversity. There's been so much for remote work, which we know has helped a lot of women, specifically, participate more equally in the tech world. And, I feel like, at least personally, I'm at a good time for getting in touch with my creative side and trying to find out how to bring that forth in this environment of tech, which can be very meeting heavy, slack heavy. So that, that's kind of what I'm thinking about, which is a lot, but …
Nicole Huesman: It's, I think, great to have the opportunity to reflect on where we are in our careers and all of what we've done, and then, what we want to do moving forward. Before we get there, can you talk a little bit about how you got to where you are now, and your journey through the tech world?
Jen Wike Huger: Well, we know that most careers are not a straight line and mine is no different. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Communications with a concentration on Public Relations and a minor in Spanish. So I studied abroad. I lived in New York for a little while. I eventually came back home to my home state of North Carolina and I live in Raleigh.
And so I was doing some freelance editing and I was also considering a career in medicine. I went back to school, I got all of the prereqs to go to nursing school and start there with the ultimate goal to be a physician's assistant. And I, which I feel like if there's any writers listening to this podcast, they might, identify. I started writing again. I started freelance writing and I just got back into that. So it's a love of mine for my entire life. I've loved writing and expressing myself through words.
And so, I switched again, and I went back to editing and writing. And so I eventually got a part-time editing role on opensource.com at Red Hat when it was very young, just a couple years in publication and quickly got transitioned to full time. You know, they were, they were at a great spot, a lot of momentum for growing, but they needed to grow out of their current set of processes, which were very basic and understandably so. They were just getting this thing going and Jeff and Jason were amazing at, you know, getting this thing up and running, proposing this idea, getting approved, having the CEO, Jim Whitehurst, on their side.
But it needed, it needed the next level of go. And so I came in and I am a process / structure person, those are my, a couple of my strong suits. And so I, you know, moved us from pen and paper to Trello. I, moved us from, you know, sort of having a process for how content gets moved through the pipeline and published to having like, this is how we do it. And, you know, we made adjustments, of course, all the time, which is another thing that I really want to focus on in my conversation with you today is collaboration. You know, Red Hat was really big into collaboration. It was one of, you know, lines in their ethos. It was talked about all the time. It was promoted all the time. The managers lived and breathed it.
And when I left Red Hat and I started working as a head of marketing for seed stage startups, I realized it was my turn to bring this to the table because it's hard. I think it can be hard when it isn't pushed every day by management. And it can be hard with remote work. So we're virtual. How do we collaborate? How do we have creativity and the conversations that we need to have in the way that we need to have them over video? I think it's more natural in person. You have body language, you have, you know, you just have this sense of camaraderie.
I think one thing for managers, tech companies, everyone to be aware of in this new wave of remote work is collaboration cannot be ignored or put on the second tier. It's critical for people feeling loyal to the company, loyal to the project, you know, committed to the project as though they can get good work done with their team.
And you can't just assume that everyone is going to figure it out. You know, you've got to give people some guidelines, some structure there, and just some motivation to, to really bring that to the table. Because I think the other thing too is that when you don't do that, things can flip towards silos.
Going all the way back, that was where the magic was with opensource.com and at Red Hat. And I specifically on our team, and I know other teams had this too, but we moved the needle. From 1 article a day to 3 articles a day. From a handful of writers to thousands of writers. And granted, this was over the course of several years, but we really, I mean, our numbers were up and to the right. And that was because we had this collaboration. We would review everything we were doing. We would get feedback. We would adjust. We were data-driven, but we were also talking and having fun and being creative. And working with people.
So, I did that for 10 years and then eventually, you know, decided to broaden my horizons, do some new things, and did the head of marketing role for a seed stage startup. And that was really good for me. I feel like I learned a lot from that. And there was a lot of, you know, just kind of that entrepreneurial spirit, bootstrapping, you know, lean startup kind of vibes that I loved.
Nicole Huesman: I'd love to explore more this emphasis on collaboration because I, too, think that is so important, especially when you're working hybrid or remote. Can you dive into some of the specifics about what worked, you know, in that magical team for opensource.com?
Jen Wike Huger: Right, not exciting but just so true is, have an agenda. You would not be surprised how many times people say, “Oh, we know what we're going to talk about. We know what this meeting is about. We know what we're going to do.” But the magic that really, Jason and Jeff were adamant about, I remember, you know, this, they always had this process and they taught me this process and I took this forward with me, and we all made it mandatory is, have an agenda and have a light, at least, understanding, especially if you're working with community, but even if it was our internal team of who is leading this meeting, who is contributing to this meeting and who might just be listening in. Everybody knows their role. Everybody knows other people's roles. And so, you're not, it's not even just about time management, which it does help with that, but it's about having the right conversation for this moment. And getting something out of it that moves you forward. You know, that's what I loved about working on that team and I want to bring into my next role is, we were always moving things forward. It always felt like forward momentum. And if we felt stuck, we investigated that and we talked about it with each other.
So then, when we moved remote, you know, pandemic happened, we didn't go back to the office, we implemented some things to help us do this remotely. You know, on a video and you're not together, you know, I think if you can have your agenda set, your roles set, your agenda written out a little bit more, you know, so a little bit more about, What does this agenda line mean? What, what are we trying to do here? What's the goal here? What are some notes that Jen already has here?
Having people look at the agenda early. I know that people, especially those who have back-to-back meetings, they're moving fast. It's hard for them to want to do this, but having people, you know, not just have the agenda, but you need to look at the agenda before the meeting.
We would also have a Monday meeting for the team that was like Around the Horn is what we called it. What's happening this week, you know, from an HR perspective, from a business perspective, from, you know, a team schedule perspective. And then what's everybody working on? Does everybody sort of, does that make sense to everyone? Anybody have questions? Anybody have needs from other folks? Does anybody have news that they want to share?
And then we would do a little quote of the day so that it was kind of like a fun little, you know, team building. And we would do that every Monday and everybody looked forward to it to kind of set the pace for the week.
And then we also had one-on-ones, of course, with our manager and we followed the same rules, which I've seen one-on-ones be pretty terrible because they don't have an agenda. The person who's talking with their manager doesn't know what to expect. I've even seen a manager have this sense of almost like burden and pressure because they are leading this meeting, but there's no agenda and they're not, you know, they just came out of a meeting. They're just trying to do the right thing and have a one-on-one with you. And the collaboration isn't there. It’s nice, but what are you really honestly doing to get something out of this, to move the business forward? I think you're honestly doing your team a disservice when you aren't also moving the business goals forward, the projects forward, the programs forward, addressing people's real daily needs.
You know, I'd say another thing is allowing people to have further conversations off the call, which is where this host comes in. You know, we would always have, Matt is running the meeting, Jen is running the meeting and you're in charge of, okay, guys, great, take that offline after the call. It's not like a reprimand thing, but it's like this meeting, you know, we have to keep it on track and we would call it, what do we call it? We would call it rabbit hole. And then we would, we would have like a safe word, like jellyfish.
Nicole Huesman: That's great. Right.
Jen Wike Huger: This conversation matters. Because I think that's the other thing. All conversations matter. When you make somebody feel like what they need to talk about is irrelevant or not, they're not important. That's not good either, right? Everybody needs to say what they need to say, but to have a culling of that and then the right time, right place.
Nicole Huesman: That's great. So, you know, one of the things that I heard through what you said that's really resonating with me is being intentional, and I think you can take that into, how does it manifest in our personal lives and in our professional lives?
Jen Wike Huger: It's very intentional. You're not just having the one-on-one because HR says you need one-on-ones with your people. It's not just having the weekly meeting to have it. And when we saw management change at Red Hat, that changed. It depends on the intentionality of the person in charge.
So, I totally agree. There's so much intention that can only come from paying attention, you know, in a special way that infuses the ideas, the checklist, the guidelines with momentum and fuel and results.
Nicole Huesman: We all have, you know, challenges or difficult situations that we face. Can you talk a little bit about some of the challenges along the way?
Jen Wike Huger: Yeah. So, you know, coming into Red Hat and into tech, I was new to it. I didn't study it. I didn't come to it with a technical expertise. So when I came to it as a marketing, editing, community, people person, there were times when I felt out of place, you know, there were times when I felt not good enough because I didn't know the technical. But you know, what I learned is the right people don't care about that and the right people, meaning the people that are really good to work with and to care what they think are the people who understand, you know, I have the technical chops. You have all this other stuff that, you know, hard skills, soft skills, kind of thing. We make this thing beautiful together.
Nicole Huesman: Yeah.
Jen Wike Huger: I couldn't do it alone and you couldn't do it alone. And, and that's what makes this thing go.
I think in tech, there are gatekeepers and there are people who, want to feel better about themselves because they have the technical chops and you don't. So that creeps in, right? You have, you see that on the periphery or you see that happen to someone and you sort of, you know, get a little bit like fear, is my self-worth or my, you know, worth in this career going to be lessened because I don't have that?
And of course, I learned a lot of technical. I learned Linux and all of that, over time. So that was definitely a challenge for me. It's funny. I don't like to really call it Imposter's Syndrome because I feel like it's a little different, but it touches on that, and I just, you know, always want to say to all the people who feel that way, you can't be all things and you shouldn't be all things. You should be you and you should bring your skills and talents. Even if you could learn the technical stuff, which of course you could, you don't want to, and that's okay. I don't want to. I love what I love. And that's even where I am now, where after 15 years of doing this, I have a ton of skills, so okay, what are the things I actually don't want to bring to the table because that's not really where I'm getting joy?
Nicole Huesman: Right.
Jen Wike Huger: Joy, I think is my big word for 2024.
Nicole Huesman: Mine as well. I think, you know, we talked a little earlier about being at a point where we're, you know, reevaluating, or at least, you know, hey, where do we want to go next, right? And learning that, you know, I'm not a coder, right? And, that's actually okay because I bring these other skill sets, like you, a journalism background, right? I think I've always been at the intersection of humanity and technology, right?
Jen Wike Huger: And we need that.
Nicole Huesman: Yes, absolutely. Right. Yeah.
Jen Wike Huger: We don’t want people who have that talent to say, “Oh, well, that's not good enough.” Because we need that. Especially now with AI getting big, we need people who are our people people and our humanity people to be our barometers, give us their insights, give us their thoughts, stay on that side of things while also understanding technology.
’Cause I think that you just hit on something else that like I had to figure out, which is just because I don't want to be a coder doesn't mean I don't understand code.
Nicole Huesman: Right.
Jen Wike Huger: I understand code. I understand what it does. I understand the technology of the products that I am helping market and sell. This doesn't mean I have to be the one creating the product.
And so, I think that there's a gate right there that, you know, some people still like to keep. “Well, if you can't write the script, then, you know, you're not really, you don't really get it.” And I understand that to a degree. My husband is a software engineer and I understand that to a degree in terms of he's explained some things to me that I'm like, “Wow, with that better technical understanding, I will do a better job at this job.” So, I think it's important, you know, still on the humanity side, on the creative side, on the marketing side to, of course, deeply understand as much as you can the product and the technical stuff, but it doesn't mean you have to be that. And so, you know, this is part of the reason why I did learn Linux and I did take a couple of coding classes, and, you know, studied it to a degree because I do think that's important still. And I think that's where maybe some of the gatekeepers’ fear is just to try to understand both sides.
Nicole Huesman: Right. Right. And you know, what I've also found is that there are very few folks who understand both sides or can seek to understand enough the technical side such that it can be communicated why that's important to everyone else.
So, Jen, of all of your experiences, what do you think has been, are you either the proudest of, or has been the most rewarding?
Jen Wike Huger: Yeah. Gosh, I've had so many great experiences, honestly, and worked with so many fantastic people. I would say at Red Hat and on the opensource.com team, it was creating this editorial process that is still used today. Well, I should take that back. It's not still used today because opensource.com was closed earlier this year and transported over to opensource.net with the Open Source Initiative, which is wonderful that they've taken it over. So they are, of course, not using the same process that I had in place, but it was used up until the end. And so there's a lot of pride for me there, that that worked for so well for so long for, you know, a group of people that was a revolving door, you know, there were different new people that would come in and use it and it would work for them. So that feels good.
And then the community side there, you know, talking with hundreds of writers every month and nurturing them and finding out about their walks of life. I mean, we had writers with all different backgrounds from all over the world, some English speaking, some not. And it was just a really like neat experience to meet so many people in that way.
And then, over the past couple of years, you know, I've worked with some really great people, Mike Purcell, Nathaniel McCollum and Nick Vidal is over at the Open Source Initiative right now. And he was the community manager and he reported to me at Prophian. And we just had the best time and he's still out there being awesome. And, you know, it was just one of those relationships where it's just, you know, marketing and community comes together. And when they really get each other, you can create some really great content that really connects to the audience, which was what opensource.com was all about, which is ingrained in me, which is, you know, solve a problem that the user has, bottom line. And if you're not doing that, then you're not really helping. And if you're not really helping, what are you doing? So, we got that, we understood that, and that was awesome. And then I worked with a DevRel at AppMap, the last place I was, and he got that too.
Nicole Huesman: So, for you, what’s next? What are you thinking about in this next year? What seems most exciting to you?
Jen Wike Huger: I've been, you know, just really enjoying my life, which makes me think, do we work to live or do we live to work? What are we doing here? And, you know, just really going into this new year with that intentionality to find the next thing for me that is a balance of work life. And I know people say that all the time and it's prevalent, which is great. You know, we want that to be prevalent, but you also don't want to whitewash things with it. I think it's easy to check boxes and say that this is work life balance when it's actually not because, and I think the barometer is joy. Where am I on the joy barometer? And how much of it in a week do I need to feel like I'm living a good life. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's not going to be perfect, right? There's going to be some weeks that are less and more and, and hopefully things even out over time.
Nicole Huesman: Yeah. You're just such energy and positive light, and I can't wait to see where you go with this and what you do next.
And yeah, the whole work life thing. Absolutely. It resonates with me what you've said, right? It goes up, it goes down, but as long as you're happy in what it is you're doing, whether it's personal, professional, it ebbs and flows, right?
Jen Wike Huger: It does. And to your point earlier, like that collaboration and intentionality, if you're able to bring that to your job, I feel like it does add a lot to the joy barometer, you know, if you can find that, create that, I think that that's a big sort of what I'm looking for in the next as well.
And, having your support, thank you so much for supporting me and talking with me and thinking of me, and supporting other people out there. It's so nice to hear other people's stories and, you know, just feel supported.
Nicole Huesman: Oh, well, Jen, it has been an absolute pleasure.
And so, let's end with this one. What does She Lights the Way mean to you?
Jen Wike Huger: You know, I really, I was describing to my husband, I was like, I'm going to be on this podcast and it's about this. It's just what, what I've loved to do in my career, which I just think is hugely valuable, which is sharing other people's stories. I like how the focus is: What have you done to light the way? And what do you recommend to light the way? And how does listening to this light your way as a listener? That's what it means to me.
Nicole Huesman: Thank you, Jen. And thank you so much for being here. I have had so much fun.
Jen Wike Huger: Yes, this was great. I would love to come back.
Nicole Huesman: Yes, please do.
Jen Wike Huger: You know, I can't wait to listen.
Nicole Huesman: Absolutely. Yes. And we will continue this conversation on another episode. So there you go. And can't wait to see what you do in 2024.
Jen Wike Huger: Thank you so much, Nicole. It was great talking to you.
Nicole Huesman: Thanks so much for listening to my conversation with Jen Wike Huger, content strategist, editor, community builder, and consultant. You can learn more about Jen and her work, check out her new consulting business, and connect with her at her website, jen.io.
Thinking about our conversation, I'd love to hear what resonated most with you and how you can apply these insights to benefit you and those around you. By taking even the smallest steps we can light the way for ourselves and others.
See you next time!