Hello, and welcome to boost your employability a day in the life of KPMG's head of marketing I'm delighted to be chatting with Deborah Homewood in this episode, which is part of the CIM marketing club series I'm Johnny Crowley. I'm one of the partnership managers at CIM So marketing club, what is it? So marketing club provides content that's designed to support your learning and actively engage with your professional development and basically keeping you up-to-date with latest trends innovations concepts in the marketing industry So this session is it's going to be a little bit more of an open session So I don't know if you've checked into any of these sessions before but if you checked into a marketing club webinar before This is going to be slightly different in format We're hoping to make it a little bit more interactive and loose around the questions in that obviously I'm reading at the moment. I don't want to make I want to make sure I'm not getting any facts incorrect This session is is going to be open to to questions as ever But rather than doing that at the end we're going to welcome questions throughout So if you've got any questions feel free to drop them into the chat simply hover and click on the Question mark icon on your screen and you can drop your questions into and we'll do our best to to get through those today And also the session is going to be recorded And you can find that later on the CIM marketing club web page And also we're putting it on CIM YouTube channel in about a week's time in case you want to watch that again on demand If you want to share any thoughts about the webinars on any social, please use the hashtag CIM events Right. So before I introduce Deborah I just want to set the scene a little bit because Deborah and I have chatted a couple of times about What we want to achieve from this session and there's a lot we can cover Essentially, we came to the conclusion that it's important to be realistic about a career Particularly in marketing, but also it may extend into a career in a profession So it may be that you feel you have got good enough skills and you know enough now to get a decent job And that's great We're going to talk to you about what will help you be successful and happy in your career as well Which is becoming increasingly more important as people look to balance a good working career with a happy and healthy lifestyle away from job So I'm going to introduce Deborah now and let's say hello Deborah. Thank you. Welcome and Really excited to be chatting with you today. How are you? I'm great. Thank you very much. Show me and thank you for having me on this session I'm hoping to inspire some Interesting questions But yeah, I think it's it's really important that we do these sorts of things and it's really important that CIM supports this Especially from a health and well-being point of view because I know I'm for those that don't realize quite old At the start of my career, this sort of thing didn't really Happen a lot and so I think the fact that we're moving into that space now is really really important for people coming through into the profession Well, glad to have you. I don't think you're old. I'd say you're a spirit and that's exactly why we've got you here So we couldn't we can fire away with some stuff So I've got a bunch of questions initially just to sort of kick But again, just to reiterate, please get your questions in and then I can see that some things are starting to come in already So I will check those out in a sec just to get things moving Currently you're working as head of marketing National markets for KPMG UK So for those of you that aren't aware KPMG is the fourth largest accountancy firm in the world and employs nearly 230,000 people globally, but it's also turned over 23.6 billion Last year that's 23.6 billion so huge organization Tell me what it's like to work for an organization such as KPMG. What's a typical day like? Oh Cricky we could talk for hours just on that question then and there is no typical day Okay, and that is probably part of the joy if I'm going to be honest The national markets piece of KPMG is what we call mid-market So it ranges anything from sort of your startups and scale ups right the way up to your footsie 250 So for us our client portfolio is pretty vast So I and of course I would say this our typical day is that we are talking to such a diverse portfolio of clients From like I say your entrepreneurs that in the garage that are going to be the next big thing the next gym shark right the way up to you know, and the head of Some of our biggest banks and because we want to get their insights into helping The future funding mechanisms coming through so there is no typical day And I think that as anybody that wants to sort of evolve their career with marketing That's actually quite a joyful thing What I would say is there's a typical week and What I do tend to do is start an end of the week on a kind of on a vibe The first bit of the week is that we we talk about Me and my team what's inspiring over the weekend. What do we want to bring into our lives this week? That we can talk about from a business perspective and that can be something as One of one of our content writers talked about mac and cheese for instance. Well, how do you bring that into a business context? Well, then you talk about Logistics and production and the value, you know the cost of living going up and that sort of stuff But then we talk about what's on the rack for the rest of the week And then at the end of the week we sort of celebrate our successes because again coming back to that health and well-being point It's really important when you're working in marketing to understand how far you've come in any given week because To be frank, you're like a whirligig half the time your project managing your juggling your pacifying your stakeholder managing You're coming up with creative ideas. You're doing it all and sometimes you think oh my god I've achieved nothing, but actually just resetting at the end of the week and going Do you know what? We've had a blooming good week this week because we've done this this this miss It just galvanizes us So typical day never typical week start and end with a good thing Brilliant. I think that well-being thing is really important particularly as people are working a lot longer these days Obviously we see the trend of people moving from from industry sector and probably even profession as well So I mean I'm like no no different to anybody else, you know Obviously, I have my peaks and troughs in terms of how I feel in certain days. So yeah I really like the idea of having sort of almost a checkbox exercise to assess, you know What you've done because you know, some of those campaigns can take a long time. Can't they? Yeah, and don't get me wrong marketing can be the most vibrant Filling Exciting joyous thing in your life and don't get me wrong. I I live and breathe this I can't think of anywhere else. I'd rather be but it can be ultimately so frustrating as well I mean when you when you talk about KPMG. Yes, you're right to go for those big stats But because of that we've got a very stable Brand that has to be a dear to that has to and we can't just run off and do all these really Creative campaigns that we'd like to do like disrupt to brands kind of things like that So there's a there's a lot of process that comes into To working for one of the big four Very much like it would be for working for a coca-cola or This share ways or something like that with a younger company a more A smaller outfit. You've probably got a little bit more flexibility. So balancing that I think is really important as well having that Opportunity to balance the frustrations of the week and the the moments of pure pleasure is really important And and and taking time out to to recognize that as well Okay, really, so clearly, you know, there's lots of firm kind of behaviors and knowledge is You've talked a little bit about What it's like to work for large organization But Martin's everywhere and impact all sectors and all industries So can you tell me a little bit about what it was like before you work for a large organization? And if the types of skills behaviors and knowledges You had to apply to that specific time in your life was different um Oh crikey, yes and no, okay If you're doing a campaign the campaign basics stay the same right you you know You start with an idea you look at what you're trying to achieve you go to the business find the objective And you run it right the way through to what your ROI is. There's a standard formula How you interact with the sector or the industry or indeed the stakeholders you're managing Differs wildly, of course it does. So would I say the behaviors are the same? Yes, they are definitely the same Um, and the and there's technical skills, you know, you need are probably the same However, you're going to need in a different balance Depending on the sector or industry you're in for instance, you know, when I worked in the charity sector, you think that Charity is lying fluffy and and you know, are they really doing doing good? actually leveraging stakeholders Leveraging funding leveraging All the the stuff that keeps the good purpose stuff driving through it's really hard man It's not as easy as people think whereas When you're working for a kpm dual a big corporate your budgets are very different So you're you're you're given a little bit more flexibility on that side. So Every skill that you have you deploy on every single piece of campaign or marketing or et cetera, et cetera But it's just in different parameters that you would employ them But I go back to when we had the discussions the other week You know, everybody's a market here. Everybody's a salesperson and those behaviors you need to sort of really Really play through your whole organization and part of our job As marketeers is to really train people to understand that they are brand champions. They are salespeople They're marketeers Doesn't just stop with the person that's got the title marketing because if it did we'd never we'd never achieve anything so You know marketing you need you need an absolute toolkit of skills that go way way beyond The what you would say the teaching skillset and you develop those over time So I know that you said at the start people might be deciding to transfer careers and things like that There's a lot of transferable skills that come into marketing. Yes, you you need the technical stuff Of course, you do but you can learn that What you you really do need is that sort of passion that integrity Resilience these are all you can get these from any kind of job role really you just need an authenticity But I think Really sings through and you know, you see I am marketing stuff is really really important because You should never ever stop learning as individuals we should never stop learning as humans We should never stop learning but more so in marketing because Like I say one my experience rather than age You know, I've kind of I've seen it. I've done it You know all that sort of stuff, but I never stopped learning because there's always something new And that is really important to To think about as somebody coming into the industry or indeed somebody At a midpoint or someone looking to be a leader You need to keep learning to make sure that you keep current and that way we can be the best marketers that we can be Brilliant. So you talked to me I'm glad you mentioned the authenticity bit and the passion because I think you said something like passion Authenticity and diversity equals happiness or something and I loved that because that was kind of I suppose moves into a personal life as well, but also are you Yourself to an organization. So how important is that for you personally but also You surrounding yourself with people within your team or other teams Yeah, it's really it's really important and I don't think any of us really get that right There's always going to be a balance. I mean for me I I go at the extremes of passion.  We've all got to get excitable and oh, let's do all this stuff But I need to have that balance. So when you consider creating a team or you consider an organization you've got to have the sort of The yin and yang and I think more and more as people understand sort of neurodiversity and And more ways that the brain sort of allows us to Compartmentalize and come up with different skills and And be good at certain things and we start to look at job carving as a realistic Way of creating roles for people. I think that that becomes more and more important Because for me, yes, you've got to have passion. You've got to have that authentic voice and not be afraid to stand up and challenge and and be And and and be Real to yourself you've got to bring your whole self every single day because otherwise You're only getting half half a person and what? What does that really help me as a as a manager or kpng as a as a firm if we're only getting half a person Yeah, we can obviously when you know, everything's within reason, but I really love the fact that you can bring Different people together and they spark different discussions and they and thoughts go off in tangential ways And that little bit of a spark can actually create something that's magical And that new campaign can be just Wow And and you don't get that from just being an individual you get that as being part of a network as part of a team and accepting that Everybody's got a part to play in that Absolutely and I suppose What you're touching on there is innovation comes from ideas and bringing people from different backgrounds whether that be social backgrounds ethnicity Age groups and that sort of thing Obviously be working across cross functional teams which which marketers typically do whether they're working for an agency for themselves or Of a large organization. That's needed. So Just kind of some of the questions that are coming in from from our listeners They're asking kind of specifics about Skills and traits and things like that. So when you and I talked before it's so vast. It's very difficult to sort of Say what the top two three or four are but actually I think what we're touching on here is what's important to you And having those kind of values as well in terms of the types of work that you want to undertake an organization. So Has that has that impacted on your career and you know, some of the choices you've made in terms of who you work with or for um Yes, because I'm I'm quite a purpose driven individual I No disrespect to anybody that's working out there at the moment But I I struggle to work for say Tobacco industry or something like that because it doesn't stick well with my values Okay, um, that's not to say that they haven't got great CSR and they're trying to do good things and they've got money back into the economy and I and you know, I hear the economic Um arguments, especially as you you know, you get a little bit longer in the tooth But for me, I've always directed My career towards things that I've really had a passion about So we go back to kpmg.  But I did good every day because I'm speaking to clients who Want to grow their business they want to um have a purpose of their own they want to Um bring economic stability to their community They are the backbone of the uk economy. So by Actually doing my bit Or be it in a massively Huge global network. I am actually driving purpose there. I'm giving value and I think that if I can Go to bed each night and go, do you know what I did a good thing today? Then that for me is is is what you know, we're all sort of here for Really? um But going back to one of those those sort of aspects values and behaviors are something that I would think are inherent Okay And if I'm looking to hire a team around me I think I touch on those things about You know, their passion their resilience their work ethic those sorts of things um The actual nuts and bolts I can teach I can absolutely teach that because I talked to a little bit before about transferable skills. So there's a little bit around that as well about Thinking about what your core values are and what is important to you And and that then directs you into a sector an industry of firm that really aligns with Yourself and that then brings Your true self to the workplace Thank you, and we're getting a few questions around kind of specifically, you know What can I do as a as a graduate or as a student now to to make myself? now Research that both cim has done and something that you and I have talked about is that a lot of people that are graduating from university Have some great skills and enthusiasm, but they're not work ready. Can you talk a little bit about what you mean by that? Yeah, okay, um, and this probably is a little bit of painful hearing for some individuals, but Okay, there's certain things you can do. Um, but I think the starting point of what you shouldn't do really You shouldn't go into the workplace thinking that you're going to become a millionaire overnight You shouldn't go into the workplace thinking that you are deserving of a career in this area Or that you're owed a job and I know that sounds really crappy, but that's the fact of life I mean, I one of my previous roles was working in the apprenticeship sector for Greater Manchester Combined authority And we were seeing graduates there that were doing bar jobs because they'd literally gone through their degree thinking Okay, I'm just a walking to a job That's not the case anymore. Life is too competitive. You have to have these added on Little bits that make you and your CVs stand out Now it's a little bit akin to the whole American model where the the kids that go through schooling there are You know are trained to put the bells and whistles on so that they've got those transferable skills But just because you've worked in a bar or you've worked in top shop or you've worked in M&S or wherever you've worked think about what that means And think about how you could have laid that over your career Because like I said that just in that last bit work ethic is absolutely crucial If I've got somebody that comes in and goes, well, listen, I'm just hungry for this I I know I haven't got that much experience But this is what I did and this is how I did it and this I think is how it would transfer over I go, oh, they've got something about them. If I've got somebody that comes in and goes, you know what? I've got degree in marketing. I know what I'm doing. Come on. Give me a job. I think Sorry, mate. I'm not really that inclined. So it's thinking about you and your brand Because that's really important But what can you do? Well, first of all, you can keep up today But network absolutely that whole adage of it's not what you know, it's who you know is really really important and if you just look at LinkedIn, for instance, look at the the wealth of Information and people out there that are willing to help and support the next generation coming through They're all out there. We're all out there If you reach out to me as a graduate and go, do you know what?  I find it very hard to believe that people that I've got to my level would say no Because we've all been there. We've all wanted that support. We've all needed that encouragement And now it's so blooming competitive, right?  So you have to have that leg up So use those kind of opportunities because it's the only way that you'll get through the door Every I mean we see thousands of CVs. What makes you all special and it's not about putting a Picture on it of you up sailing. I don't I don't need to know that what I need to know is what have you done to date that I can then See fitting into my team and growing my team and being part of that okay, and Kind of leading on to from the network building bit that you mentioned I've had a couple of questions that are fairly similar And somebody's asking about have you ever had imposter syndrome? It's asking about kind of, you know, not having the confidence and and You know to do that kind of thing How did you how did you ever come in?  Everybody has imposter syndrome. Listen.  Okay and there's that little bit of One of the one of my team that works for me. We say all types fake it till you make it, right? So long as you've got the skills, you know your stuff You can get up there and you can do it. Yes, you're gonna have wobbles Of course, you're gonna have wobbles because you're human But I was speaking to an ex co-member. That's our board And he said every single day. I think the hell am I doing here? Why am I giving advice to people and this is like somebody that I Totally respect and he's making massive decisions for a global company. Everybody has imposter syndrome It's really about how you manage it. And if you can stand up and go, do you know what? I am doing my best I have researched this. I know my stuff and then there's a little bit of Gainesmanship in there Then you will win. You will just win and you It's natural, but use it to your advantage. Be vulnerable.  Oh, I know it all Don't be silly. I don't I never get that. I never get that but somebody turning around and going Oh, I'm a little bit worried at the moment. That's authentic. That's real because we all get that so Be real self because people love that Absolutely. So push yourself out of your comfort zone and you know, if you if you are studying in your university or you know, perhaps you're not Give yourself the opportunity to do those things. The only way you're going to overcome some of those fears as you may call them Is to practice those and you'll get better genuinely You've got stuff at uni.  Those all look great on your cb But also they do what you're saying. They push you out your comfort zone, don't they? Even if you do some volunteering pushes you out your comfort zone It's all these little added things that help you whether you know Transferable skills again. I worked in the pub. I did I did I did tilling up, but I also had to Present the latest gin range to the clients who only ever wanted Gordon's but we had to upsell Hendricks This is how I did it When you you've you've presented there so use that it's a present. It's a presenting issue and again come back to these free opportunities like cim Like linkedin line like google garage all these things like there's loads of tricks and tips that you can take That will help you out from that Brilliant. I love that using gin as an analogy something I can relate to So, um What would you say that in terms of your experience? So you you've been a marketer for about 20 years now What experience have you kind of used from day one that's helped you get to to where you are? And I realize that's quite a broad a broad question Okay, what what experience? Okay. Oh god um, well, first of all, I started off as um Oh, well a precocious little brat I suppose so I've always been um, quite stubborn um, so that's a sort of behavior trait that has come with me throughout my throughout my career, but I think um, my My background in horse riding was um a massive sort of influence in how I Take on Disappointment competition. Um, I became more resilient. Um, it's hard. It's hard to um To get to a level of competition where you are You know Challenging yourself and you're going up against people that are older And more experience better than you but it makes you rally into Becoming better and wanting to do more and it hurts. It hurts. You know every day you coming back going I didn't do it and I'm really frustrated and I just want to give up but you don't because that's part of Growing up and I think that those sorts of skills Really helped me at the beginning of my career because I didn't just fall into marketing. I started off in journalism and I loved writing um, and then I went into pr and still loved writing but then kind of started to make that switch into marketing because it offered more opportunity offered more joy offered more diversity and I still take those basics of stubbornness resilience that drive all the way through every single role I've taken because Again, you can you can teach people to do the technical stuff You can't teach those fundamentals um But I think probably my core skill skill is my writing. I love writing I absolutely do and we've got a we've got a really lovely content team um in our current project and they're brilliant and I feel envious of them every single day because they're coming up with fabulous ways of using content and words and and it's just it's magical and um, yeah, I feel a bit jealous about that's the only thing about Going up in your career.  Um, it's a little bit tough for me to ask as well But is there anything that you wish you were better at and if so, what is that? Oh god Yeah, I wish I was better at um At processes Definitely. I'm I'm I'm great at creative. I'm great at blue sky thinking but processes data reporting all that sort of stuff That is really really important Bores me silly now I'll do it because we all have to do things in a job going back to that whole when you graduate You think of everything sunshine and roses. It isn't we all have to do things that we hate Um, but yeah, I really do wish that I had a bit more of a joy in that um Because the whole The whole bits of that I find so dull I really do and I wish you wish I didn't because that's the science behind marketing. That is how you Convince What I call the being counters the people who give you your budget, you know your boards that this really matters It affects the bottom line that marketing is an utterly crucial part of the mix when making any business decision um Now I can talk to it. Of course I can um, but actually getting that data Oh, yeah, I just I do wish I was better at that that proves that you know, you can be successful in marketing and um You don't have an interest in all of it or perhaps It doesn't necessarily play to your strengths and and that kind of touches on the fact that nobody's perfect Absolutely, and it goes back to that point about job carving I know that I have a weakness in that area. So as a hiring manager, I have to fill that gap You know and and that's you know, that's a given And surrounding yourself with people that make you look good as part of being a manager, right? but When we go back to this whole idea of neurodiversity And the way that I think that careers are going to go um, not You know, not too far in the future here when we talk about job carving We're looking at what skills do we need and what type of persona? What kind of neurodiverse individual will fit those skills and that gap? And we create a role for that person as opposed to Creating a role and a person trying to fill it because you will always get people like me who are generalists For want of a better phraseology But but don't don't like doing those things are not very good at it So why persevere with that when there are individuals that absolutely love that side of it and actually Bring together a bigger network of individuals into a team that make it far better far more robust and far more successful And in understanding who you are as a person would help you make some of those decisions and come to some of those realizations and You and I have probably done countless Exercises when you start the new organization or maybe in your own time where you look at what type of person you are and you know In the old days that you to call it introvert extrovert, but it's more than that. Isn't it it's playing to some other's friends Yeah, and you might not know what that is.   What's the weakness the opportunity the sweat sort of thing and if you put you As that what you're trying to get your SWOT analysis and you say well, I love that Oh, I'm going to be honest. We really hate that and stuff like that You can actually work out what kind of role you want to be playing and that's really important because You might see something that's really interesting on paper or that's got a big shiny salary attached to it or something like that, but Don't always go for that go for the thing that's going to bring you joy You do this for so many hours in your life You're you know, you work at this you get a career in it. There will always be Something else around the corner. Don't always just jump at something because you think you should do it because you really want to because You're not being true to yourself if you don't and more over you're probably not going to Get any joy from that role at all because you're not you're trying to put a square peg in a round hole whereas The round pegs out there still wanting that job and Well, that's a person If you're going to fake it so you make it there's no point in faking it and faking it So I'm just asking about working in a in a B2B environment So using engines in marketing in the last few years around B2B marketing and and What advice would you give to somebody working in B2B marketing? Okay, well, I'd say stop thinking about B2B to start because ultimately As we move through that whole cycle, we're actually seeing more B2C or indeed B2I Sort of techniques coming into play because Yes, you are a business trying to attract Another business, but are you trying to attract a business or are you trying to attract a buyer within that business? So actually turning that psychology on its head and appeal to the buyer as opposed to the business Makes you more successful So stop thinking in terms of B2B, B2C, etc. Think of B2I or B2Me because I think it really switches The ideas and your your campaign will become a very different beast really and You know what people buy off people They don't buy off businesses. They don't you know, they they yes, they like the brand They like the service that they offer, but ultimately it's we're humans. We connect together as individuals um, so there's very few Companies that are pure pure B2B these days Okay. Thank you. Um, somebody's saying they absolutely love your vibe. So Um And they want to know what your favorite campaign has been and why?  Well, you're probably might hate me now. I'm a Manchester City fan Um way before they got the money. Please don't judge me. Um, and I worked on um a lot of their campaign around um Getting their training ground up with community facilities So I did a lot of the community engagement around there with the club with the community that we were Looking to on board with a lot of individuals. We used art. We used poetry. We used photography We sport we used all these different levers to bring everybody together to have a voice and I think that was one of my favorite campaigns because I was a little bit star struck and It was really successful So and that's goes back to purpose as well because we were doing things the right way for the right reasons So that was really good. Um, I do wish that I'd worked on some more disruptive type brands So like can you imagine being around at the start of innocent drinks and things like that? I mean, they must have had a bore, right? Um, I do wish that I'd I'd been around that sort of vibe. Um, but You know what like say that experience rather than age. I've worked on an awful lot of stuff And I'm very very privileged to have done that but I think That's the joy of marketing you get to do that Whether you're doing it in a small scale or a big scale Marketing can influence everything Really and so long as you believe that in your soul that there is a place for marketing In every single business decision You can wiggle your way in there and you can make your presence felt on any type of campaign Whether like I say it's a community engagement one or it's a big out of office Out of home. Sorry big Shiny dance the campaign Anything you can Want to get involved in you can do as a marketer because essentially you're a project manager, aren't you? You've got all these different Skills and techniques up your sleeves that you can apply to anything.   You are creative. You can write you can do digital You can social post you can do all these wonderful things. So don't limit yourself. Just push your way in there Good answer. Thank you. Um, so rolling back a little bit Um, probably about 20 years What was your first job in in marketing and um, should I talk a little bit about how you got into that? Because you had a bit of a career change Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I started I started in journalism and then went into pr I suppose my first real Marketing role was with a very small agency in Manchester and um, I was an account manager uh for Gleason Homes and um I was very young and very enthusiastic and I did everything from the brochure creation to the print to the advertising which You know, you guys won't know any of this Horror that you had to create bromides and you had to send them to the Paper and they could get corrupted because they were like little pieces of film and stuff like that. This is very old Um, but part of that was doing the show homes as well And we had to do show home openings and we had to design all the the invitations and all the The signs, you know, you see it a side of the roads and all that sort of stuff and then you have to put on a big event to welcome people You know, whether that be with little mimosas or little cupcakes and things like that and That was my first taste of marketing really doing the whole thing and it was just brilliant because yeah, you're in that completely Another frenzy because you had targets to get so many people through the door and all that sort of stuff It was how do you do it? But getting that creative spark about how do we generate that? How do we get the thoughtful? How do we do this? How do we do that to being there on the day? and you know Being part of the events team handing stuff out to so actually having to Go in fancy dress because the the big bloody stuff mouse that we Has to attend didn't didn't arrive and so then all I was like, well, who's going to dress up as the mouse?  That's that's the joy of marketing as well that Inevitably something will go wrong But you you you have contingencies, but that was my first taste and I just thought you know what this is my magnificent you can be You you can have that absolute joy of not one single day being the same, but having still that that absolute creative and influence over Over your day and that just it was a it was like mind blown absolutely mind blown Um, and yeah, and I never stayed away from it brilliant brilliant. So was it the costume or was it the was it the job that? I love the way how that that's so hands-on, you know and probably so far removed from from what people starting out in marketing is Is today, but it just And shows how it how it's transition Yeah, but I also think that that you know, you say that it's it's transition from and how it is today, but There's no such thing as a new idea and and you know that sort of experiential stuff that We were doing back in the day that will come back around because as we start to keep that Digital movement going forward. Yes, there's always going to be a place for digital now, but I think that that sort of That personal touch the experiential stuff will start to come back again It's a bit like print isn't it print died, but print will come back as well You know, it always does it's secular So that's why I always think that Keeping yourself fresh and keeping learning. Yes, you might be a digital marketer now But make sure that you understand the basics of traditional marketing as well Make sure that you understand the basics of event management Make sure you understand the basics of how media work, etc Because you don't know when you're going to need that because things do come back full circle and there's also the other thing that When you are in a small organization, you say that things have moved on you know We were in a Several hundred million pound organization, but we still stuff in Duff envelopes because there's no one else to do it You know organizations are lean now. Aren't they you you don't have that? Opportunities have a post room and at this and at that and the other and the other You know a lot of this sort of stuff falls down to marketing But I strongly believe that if there's a job to be done then every single person on the team should be able to do it And that that's me myself included. I eat why I will dress up as a mouse other things somebody's asking about types of qualifications that you might need and and specifically they've mentioned masters and an mba So if you're gluten somebody Let's say a graduate Would you look for that and how favorable is that because obviously it's very costly and time-consuming for people to Do these things? Yeah, well, there's two things there isn't there you go to a good employer. They're going to put you through it if you really want to So why take that cost on yourself?  They've delivered against ROI etc I'd be more inclined to see them than somebody that's got a degree that hasn't got their experience So it very much depends again on your personal brand and how you present yourself MBAs are really interesting because I think we're seeing now a a distinct shift in the way that marketing is viewed by Um by c-suites now I think we are now part of the c-suite conversation, which is is about blooming time, right? Um, I'm what c-suite is oh, sorry So c-suite is your your kind of chief executive chief operating officer your chief financial officer So your chief marketing officer now forms part of that what we call c-suite. So it's your decision makers at the top of the tree Traditionally, that's not always been the case, especially with smaller organizations um And if they did have a voice at that table, it was minimized a little by some louder voices But I think now that Marketing is being seen as very influential in that bottom line discussion So if you think about something like cyber for instance Everybody knows that we've got to protect our organizations against cybercrime But your cto your chief technology officer might say oh what we need to put in a 14 stage Authentication process in order to safeguard this that and the other Whereas your cmo your chief marketing officer would say well just one second there if you do that you're going to have no Organization to safeguard because your customers will go where there is a better customer experience So I think that marketing is now being seen as an advisory and an influencer at that top table, which is really Um, which is really interesting and really important Um So getting back to the mba. Do I think that that's important? Yes, because if you can have And a traditional mba looks up all of that buying power looks up all those seats at the table Do I think that I would only recruit someone with an mba? Absolutely not. No um It's more about you your experience and it's about that connectivity that personality that um that vibe I get from you and I I make sure that I always personally interview every single member of my team Whether it's at last stage first stage whatever because I need to make sure that they fit with the team that the personality mix As well as the skills mix is absolutely spot on and that's more important to me as a hiring manager Really, thank you. Um, someone's asking quite a specific question. That's um clearly quite personal to them But everybody will come across this in in their lives probably and they're asking about how they go about getting a promotion Okay, um Wow. Yeah Do you know what? Sometimes it's easier just to ask the males this question because females are not very good at this We're getting better got to say but um, it's it's a really tricky one. I think it's part of Knowing your worth for a start. Um, I would also Do some pranks because as I say as a female You're not very good sometimes as selling yourself and it might be that you're mailing You're not very good at selling yourself either. Let's not be gender bias on this But what really helps is when I go back to that initial start of our journey together today I said about the the start of the week and the end of the week Document your wins document your successes. Whether it's on spreadsheet. It's just in the notebook Whatever because if you start to collect those things when you start doing your reviews And I mean your appraisals or whatever your your company or your your future company will call them You can start to use that as evidence as to where you've made a difference And when you start to see where you've made that evidence base You kind of go, do you know what? I do deserve a promotion.  I was this but this year. I've got um, I've done adobe photoshop training. I've done You know Digital marketing 101. I've done this. I've done that. So you've got fresh skills to bring to the table to show that your worth has gone up Look at what the competition are doing What you know what where where is they benchmarking themselves and going with an open conversation But don't go in with emotion. That's the worst thing you can do Just go in with the facts and say this is what I believe and if you get pushed back you say, okay Back on to you. What do I need to do? What three things? Do I need to do to get me to that level within six months within a year so that you have got A journey to to to go towards If that doesn't make sense to you or you find that an appetizing or you you don't agree and you've got you've got Options haven't you you can either continue with where you are or you can look to other areas of employment or you can You know look to other areas within the same business but at least you've got the option and you've got the The evidence to back that up brilliant good answer um So how do you learn some of the things that you're not good at you talked about some of the things that you don't like Um, I suppose this is a little bit about motivation as well How do you learn them? Um For me it's about Okay, like I say, I don't I don't really like data. I don't however. I've got a really great um performance marketing manager who actually loves data and he makes sense of it for me So he he Puts it into a language that is appropriate for me. So we've worked together quite a long time So he makes it interesting. So all of a sudden I want to learn about it I want to understand how that should influence my decision making so it's finding tricks and tips that help you to To find that way through the dislike now that could be a tech talk It could be you see I am training it could be just speaking to a mentor It could be Just reaching out to a colleague and seeing how they repackage those things. There are various ways that you can do that but Look, we've got to be you you've got to be realistic There are going to be things in your career in your daily life that you don't like and You know what you're human and that's fine Just so long as you recognize that sometimes you just have to put your big girl knickers on and Suck it up really and just get on with it If you find it's a weakness and that it's a it's going to damage your output Then that's where proper proper training comes in and I think that that's the difference of whether it's just a dislike Or whether it's something that's actually lacking and I think only you as an individual would know that Okay, thank you So we hear a lot a bit about digital skills and how important they are And Is that important when you're if your friends lie in writing for example And we see a lot of jobs these days where you're expected to have skills in both areas Can you is it is a is an example is it either in your in your career or within your team where you've got people who Are flexible or perhaps have multi skills? Yes, absolutely So in my in my team, I've got some well What have I got? I probably say I do err on the side of more generalists because with a a passion or a leading one area because That allows me to get a bit of free training for the team as well So if you've got a content writer that can actually do film editing or Podcasts they can actually train other areas of the team to do some of that as well So that's that's called de-risking your team because if someone's on holiday or they're absent through illness or they leave or something like that All of that IP hasn't left with them. So for me Um, yes, I think there there are areas where there is some very very specific roles that need to be filled That can't be done by a generalist Um But in the main I tend to go with people that have got a passion for one aspect But can do bits of others or at least are willing to learn bits of others as well Thank you So if you get to one thing to boost your employability What would that be now? I'm saying that you're probably not trying to boost your employability, but this goes back to Um, well, yeah, okay. Let's talk about lifelong learning Yes I have lifelong learning is is crucial and um You know, I I've mentioned TED talks I'm a big fan of those right because I just think that you get you get some really great nuggets from that Um, I do use your uh, CRM facilities quite often. Um, I do go to Conferences and exhibitions where there are Um, like-minded peers and more senior individuals than me so that can get their experience One thing I've really found Important to me as I go up through my career It's not necessarily on the skills for marketing, but it's the skills for being a leader Is um, securing a couple of mentors because you get a really great insight into Where your weaknesses are as as a leader so I think It's really important that you have Uh an ability to self reflect and be self aware, but you can only do that within a certain Level you you know, you've got a blocker on yourself. You don't know whether you actually do that really well You might think you do you might actually not so things like 360 degree appraisals those sorts of things are really important um I I have recently gone through a sort of a process of looking that Moving into a slightly different job. Um as a client experience lead and I had to sort of Justify my existence there and it's It really is about What makes me the individual I am And this is I'm talking generically not just me me. Um And I think that that Ability to be authentic and to be myself and to be given the opportunity To be authentic is really important to me and my career and fortunately. I've always worked with Organisations that have allowed me to do that um, so from that point of view, I think that that makes That's boosted my employability In a way that I I kind of haven't realised until I was a little bit later in my career Okay, brilliant. Um, now we probably have one last So time for one last question and and we talked at the top about the importance of well-being and happiness So I think it's it's only it's very important to to deal with that now So we're talking about stresses now. I'm not suggesting that you get stressed in your job But there are parts of stressful situations that we all feel and in our job What do you do to manage situations like that? Um, okay. So the first thing that you should know is that I've got three border collies So, um, if ever I get really really stressed, I just take time out I I take them around. Well, I say around the block. I live on a farm So around the block for me is like a mile walk.  It's it's in your head constantly. You're thinking god, I've got to get that right Oh my god, that's spelling error. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god And you start to distill it down and it becomes this thing that's like constantly on your shoulders It's like this devil But what I say to my team around that and and I try to do it myself is that look we're not saving babies Okay, and you know, some people are saving babies and they have every every right to be stressed But if you're just putting out an invite for an event and there's a little bit of a type on it Yeah, okay, it doesn't look great But nobody's dying. Nobody's we're not saving babies. We're just just we configure what does that mean in the grand scheme of things Take a breath and put it right Everyone will forgive you for making an error. You're human So just take a breath and that's the sort of aspect of stress that we We find uncontrollable sometimes we don't take enough time out to to just think Really what why does it matter? Because we get so Involved in the process now I'm not suggesting for one minute that you're unprofessional about anything. Oh, it doesn't matter, you know Be be aware of it correct it Apologize if you need to but but don't Don't let it eat you up And if you do start to get to that point where you feel like it is eating you up take time out Just take a breath whatever works for you whether it's fitness whether it's going for a walk whether it's just You know go for a nap Talking it through with someone Just take time for you now. I'm I'm terrible at this I don't take enough me time. I work too many hours and it's sort of like do as I say not as I you know No, do as I say not as I do I'm absolutely shocking for it But what I think is really important Is again to celebrate those successes because once you celebrate the successes the little Losses don't become that big and it just resets you and quite frankly. Yes, you will have stressful days You really will but working a career in marketing gives you so much happiness So much joy that you won't gain a lot of careers. So, you know, we're the lucky ones to be honest Great answers that good advice as well Sadly that is all we've got time for and we said before we came on on air that We would probably went out of time because there's lots to talk about and thanks for everybody for questions in there I just want to talk about the next marketing club webinar series, which is Called make an impact with a standout personal brand. So we talked a little bit about personal brand today So maybe that's something you want to check out and that'll be at 6 30 or wednesday the 20th of april And that's with debba Ogden And she will explore how managing your personal brand can help build confidence and improve impact and boost your career as well So it's an extension of what we talked about today And you can find further details on that on cim website where you can also register for the session as well So once again, um, I want to say thank you very much to everybody listening also Thanks debba. That was amazing Love to have you on there. Um, sadly there's a few more questions that we didn't get answered but hopefully guys can check in at some point in the future and Feel free to ask the questions again. And um, it'd be great to get those answers We will be emailing you actually a short survey from from today's webinar So it'd be great to hear some feedback where you thought this was interesting But he didn't um, it only takes a couple of minutes and it's all anonymous if you if you put in some responses in there That helps us build up an understanding of what is interesting to you And and we can build on that and put future events together and get certain speakers in there Maybe you want to hear more from debba? I certainly do. Um, and we could we could Potentially get her back on I'm sure I could have that discussion Um, so that leaves me once again. Just say thanks debba loved it It's been amazing chatting to you and thank you everybody else for for joining. Um in the meantime, take care everybody and have a good rest of your day


Welcome to Avogadro's Deli. We're going to use the recipes for two sandwiches to understand mole ratios in molecules. The recipe for a water sandwich is that it contains two slices of bread or hydrogen atoms and one slice of ham or oxygen atom per sandwich. So if we look at that in terms of moles, we know that if we have one mole of water, we have two moles of hydrogen and one mole of oxygen, even though we only have one mole of water. Similarly, we have one sandwich. We have two pieces of bread and one slice of ham. That makes one sandwich. So when you're thinking about mole ratios, if you think of it as a molecule as being a sandwich, you can see how it can have different moles of a component, but still only make up one total mole. Similarly, we have the recipe for a sulfuric acid sandwich where we have two slices of bread, again the hydrogen atoms, one slice of Swiss cheese which can represent our sulfur atom, and four slices of ham to represent our oxygen atoms. So again, even though we only have one sandwich, we have multiple components. And so even though we only have one mole of sulfuric acid, we would have two moles of hydrogen, one mole of sulfur, and four moles of oxygen.


Hello, everyone. My name is Tim, and this is the Circuit Python weekly meeting for December the 12th, 2022. This is the time of week where we get together to talk about all things Circuit Python. Again, my name is Tim. I'm sponsored by Adafruit to work on Circuit Python. Circuit Python is a version of Python that's designed to run on tiny computers called microcontrollers. The development of Circuit Python is primarily sponsored by Adafruit, so if you want to support Adafruit and Circuit Python, consider purchasing hardware from adafruit.com. This meeting is hosted on the Adafruit Discord server. You can join anytime by going to adafruit.com. We hold a meeting in the Circuit Python Dev text channel as well as the Circuit Python voice channel. This meeting typically happens on Mondays at 2 p.m. Eastern time, 11 a.m. Pacific time, except when that coincides with the U.S. holiday. In the notes document, there's a link to a calendar that you can view online or add to your favorite calendar app. We'll also send notifications about the upcoming meetings via Discord, so if you'd like to receive those notifications, you can ask us to add you to that Circuit Pythonistas Discord role. I'll mention it again at the wrap-up, but just a heads up. Next week's meeting is normal time and date, and then the following week, I believe, is the week we are off, and then the one after that is when we have the change to the Tuesday, just like this was saying, for the U.S. holiday. Upcoming scheduling, if you need reminders, take a look at that calendar linked in the docs. Speaking of the doc, the notes document to a company, excuse me, there is a notes document that a company is the meeting. This is a Google doc. This is pinned in the Discord channel if you need to get access to it. The notes document contains time stamps that go along with the video, so you can use the document to view only the parts of the video that interest you most. The meeting tends to run 45-60 minutes, so this gives you the option to skip around. After each meeting, we post a link to the next meeting's notes document in the Circuit Python Dev channel over there on the Adafruit Discord. Check the pinned messages to always find the latest notes doc, and you can always add your notes to that throughout the week as well. Once that gets pinned, the new one is created following the meeting, you can of course add your notes for next week, starting whenever that's up. Go ahead and do that throughout the week if you like. The meeting structure, the meeting is going to be held in five parts. The first part is going to be community news. This is going to be a look at all things Circuit Python and Python on hardware in the community. The preview of the Python on microcontrollers newsletter. The second part is the state of Circuit Python, the libraries, and Blinka. This is a statistical overview of the entire project. It's a chance to look at the project by the numbers, separate from what we're all up to. The third part and the first of our two round robins is the hug reports section. Hug reports is an opportunity to highlight the good things folks are doing. Take some time to recognize folks in our community and beyond for good stuff that you have seen them do. The fourth part and the second of our two round robins is the status updates section. During status updates, this is an opportunity to sync up on what you've been up to for the week. Take a couple of minutes, tell us about what you've been doing since the last meeting for the last week and what you plan on doing for the next week until the next meeting. The fifth part and final part of the meeting is in the weeds. In the weeds is an opportunity for more long form discussions. These discussions can come out of status updates or they can be stuff identified ahead of time as too long or in depth for status updates. So if you've got topics for in the weeds, go ahead and scroll down to the bottom of that dock and get those added just as soon as you come up with them. And then we'll go over whatever topics are there to close out the meeting. So that covers how the meeting will go. So first up, we are going to look at community news. So let me get there and get a timestamp for us. And first in community news this week is the Circuit Python 8.0.0 beta 5 was released. So beta 5 has been released. It's relatively stable, but there will be further additions, fixes and changes before the final release. There are links here to the Adafruit blog as well as GitHub if you would like to check out the release notes or anything else related to that new release. Please do, if you have projects and things that run Circuit Python, please do try out the new release if you have a chance and let us know over on Discord or in issues or somewhere on GitHub if you have trouble with any particular project. And of course, thanks to the folks who will try that out for us. And an early hard report thanks to Dan for making the new release. Next up in community news, we've got a video interview with Guido van Rossum. This is titled Python and the Future of Programming. A recent interview by Lex Friedman, Guido van Rossum, Python and the Future of Programming. And there is a link here to watch that interview over on YouTube. So check that out if that sounds interesting to you. Next up is a Korg synthesizer that uses a Raspberry Pi. This is the Wave State synthesizer. Korg created this device and showed it. It's a spiritual successor to the legendary Wave Station synthesizer from 1990. This device was first on display at NAMM last month. According to information from sonicstate.com, the WT hardware, Wave State hardware, is based on a Raspberry Pi. And there is a video that's linked here in the dock as well as the newsletter for this week that shows somebody taking apart one of these devices. And indeed, it does look like a Raspberry compute module is in there. So that's definitely super cool to see that. Next up in community news still, this is tutorial pages on the Adafruit learn system or user pages, I should say. So a relatively recent feature added to the Adafruit learn system is the ability to create user pages. This is a new way to add your own content for make this allows you to use the same technology that are in the Adafruit learning system to publish your own tutorials and guides on the internet. This week highlighted in the newsletter are some user pages created by community member Joey Castillo. And in particular, it is a NeoPixel powered Christmas tree that has an Adafruit LCD feather wing. There's an implementation of a one button UI for scrolling it to turn on and off. And it uses the circuit pythons deep sleep feature to save as much power as possible when the tree is in the off state. And there are links here to Macedon as well as those user pages on the learn site. And then two more items in community news to round it out. These are a couple projects from the week, a couple things that caught my eye. The first one is a bit of a wacky keyboard, which I'm always kind of a sucker for. This is titled the ultimate Unicode input device. It has 18 physical switches, which you can flip on and off, which represent 18 bytes of binary and then a single send button.  So I thought that was really funny, interesting thing. There's links there to a different blog as well as Hackaday. And there are videos of that in action, if that's the kind of thing that you find amusing like I do. And the last one this week, which I also couldn't bring myself to not put in here was a barcode clock using the Pimeroni Badger 2040 that runs with MicroPython. So this is a fast updating E-ink display. And this person who has posted information about this to Twitter has created a clock, which simply just cycles through the seconds of the day. But the nifty part about this is it also displays the time as a barcode. So if you scan the barcode at any given second, it will tell you what time of the day it is. So this is kind of interesting to watch the time tick by and see how it affects the barcode. So lots of great stuff. All of these items and many more came from the newsletter, which I will timestamp for that as well and then tell you about. This is all from the CircuitPython weekly newsletter. It's a community run newsletter that's emailed every Tuesday. The complete archives are available on AdafruitDaily.com. It highlights the latest in Python on hardware related news from around the web, including CircuitPython, Python, and MicroPython developments. To contribute your news or projects, you can either edit next week's draft on GitHub, submit a pull request with your changes. You can also tag a tweet with hashtag CircuitPython on Twitter or email to cpnews at Adafruit.com. And of course, thank you to our very own Anne B for collecting all of these great things for us to look through each week in the newsletter. That gets us to the end of community news. And next up, it will be the state of CircuitPython, the libraries and Blinka. Let me get to the right spot in my dock here. So this is a quantitative overview of the entire project. It's going to give us a chance to look at the health of the project separate from what we're all up to. We'll talk about the project overall and then separately discuss the core, the libraries, and Blinka. So first up, I will tell you about the overall stats for this week. This week across all CircuitPython projects, we had 23 pull requests merged from 17 authors. A couple of the authors whose names I don't recognize as being frequent contributors, perhaps these folks are newer or less frequent contributors, or perhaps I could just be mistaken, but those names this week that stood out to me were S-OL, Evil Dave 666, Pontus O, Boran Roni, Cassane Ho, Boolean Matak, and Vladak. Those were the names again of folks that might be newer or less frequent contributors, so thank you to them. And of course, thank you to all the rest of our more regular contributors as well. For those 23 pull requests, there were seven reviewers in there, so those do look like all the usual suspects, so thanks of course to our normal reviewers, members of the team here. Appreciate all of those folks as usual. We had in issues, there were 18 issues closed by nine people with 18 opened by 14 people, so net even on issues, but they are churning. We're getting opens and closes to keep stuff moving, so this is all good. Next up, I will hand it over to Scott to tell us about the core, if that's all right, Scott? Sure. Thanks for running the meeting, Tim. And I scrolled right by it. For the core, we had 16 pull requests merged from 13 different authors, so thank you to all of our authors. Boolean Matak, Pontus O, our Boran Roni are look like new names to me, so thank you to those folks. We had three reviewers, so we're always looking for more reviewers. We have 19 open pull requests and drafts are now marked, so thank you. I believe Tectric did that. If I'm wrong, please correct me. So we have 19 open pull requests, eight are drafts, so we have 11 open that are non-drafts, which is pretty good. And the oldest two are about 300 days old, so we should take a look at those and figure out what to do about them. Issues-wise, for the core, we had 13 closed issues by five people and 11 opened by 10 people, so again, we're kind of, oh, Dan marked the drafts by hand, this time at least. So thank you to all of the folks that are involved in issues. We have a total of 578 open. We categorize those to prioritize for the Adafruit-funded folks that work on Circuit Python, and we have zero open issues for 73x, which means 73 is pretty good. And we have 13 open issues on 8.0, which is significantly down from the 20 plus that we had last week, so that's been really good in making lots of progress on 8.0, which is good and helped to have it out in January. And then we have 508 open long-term issues as well. Three don't have a milestone, so those are the ones that we will need to take a look at and categorize, so that's it for the core. Excellent, thanks Scott. And next up will be the section covering the libraries. Ordinarily, this section is read by Katny, but she was unable to join us today, so I'll read the libraries section. So this section covers all libraries, which are hosted on GitHub under the name of Adafruit underscore CircuitPython underscore, and then there will be a library name following that. These are all the Python layer of code that allows Circuit Python to interact with various different pieces of hardware, sensors, and things of that nature. This week in library land, we had seven pull requests merged by five authors, a couple of those same names that I mentioned before look like newer contributors on the library side of things. And then for those seven pull requests, we had six reviewers this week, and again those do look like the usual suspects. So thank you to all of our authors and reviewers for the week. Other stats in library land we do have, I should say, 42 pull requests that are open. Over the week, we had five closed issues by four people with six opened issues by four people. There are currently 589 open issues of those 97 are marked as good first issues. And to go along with that, I will mention if you're interested in getting involved with development, the libraries is one of the best, most easiest places where you can do that. There is a website dedicated to that if you go to circuitpython.org. There's all sorts of information there about how to contribute and what kinds of things you can start working on if you do want to contribute. If you're interested in this information and more, check out that page at circuitpython.org. You'll find all the open PRs as well as open issues and a list of library infrastructure issues. If you're looking to contribute, that's a great place to start. The issues can be sorted by label, so you can search for good first issue if you're just getting started, or if you are a bit beyond the basic steps, you can also filter those on bug or enhancement. If you need help, there is a guide for contributing with Git and GitHub. We're always happy to help folks that want to get started. If you do need help beyond what is in the guide, you can always join us on Discord and ask for help there. There's plenty of folks who are always willing to help folks contribute. If that is something that you think you'd like to do, please do get involved. We're definitely happy to always see new folks coming on board. That is it for the library section. Next up is the section covering Blinka. I don't see Melissa in there, so I'll read the Blinka section. Let me get scrolled. We do have the PIPIs. I already passed it up. I'll do my timestamp and do Blinka. We'll do the PIPI stats next week for the libraries. I forgot those. That one's on me. For Blinka this week, though, we did have no action in Blinka Land. Zero poor requests merged by zero authors and zero reviewers. There are 10 open poor requests, including a couple newer looks like a few of those are about 10 days or so old in terms of the Blinka PRs. Across all the Blinka issues, there were zero issues closed by zero people for the week and one new issue opened by a single person. There are 87 current issues open across Blinka. The PIPI downloads for the last week for Blinka are 22,598, and then the Pi Wheels downloads for the last month are 7,327. There are 100 boards currently supported by Blinka. We just crossed the 100 board milestone for Blinka, so that's very exciting. That brings us to the end of the status report section, which gets us to the first of our two round robins, the hug reports section. Hug reports, to reiterate, this is a chance for folks to highlight members of the Circle Python community and beyond for doing awesome things. I'll start and then we'll go down the list alphabetically or as names appear in the notes document. We'll give everyone a chance to participate. Your text only or missing the meeting, but you have some hug reports. Go ahead and note those in the document and I'll read them as we get to your turn in the list. I will start out this week with hug reports. Let me get a timestamp here. My hug reports for this week. Thank you to C Grover, who published some helpful color utilities in the community bundle a while back, and shared some example code that uses those to create some interesting gradients this weekend in the Discord, as well as showing how to integrate those with vector IO shapes. I think there's lots of interesting stuff possible based on some of these examples that C Grover has shared as well as the utilities that they made. So thanks for that. Also hug reports this week. Thank you to Dan Jeff and anybody else putting hard work into the get EMV effort. Definitely really appreciate all the effort that's going into that. I think that's a really good move forward for us with accessing secret variables. So thanks to all the folks working on that. And then last one for me this week is a group hug. So next up, I will pass it over to C Grover. If you want to tell us your hug reports. Yeah. First, I'd like to thank Katny and UFO me guy for recommending pie charm. I was kind of a stubborn converter from Adam. And since they pulled the rug out from under us, then I had to move to pie charm. But the documentation for the setup and usage really made a big difference. And it took me about a week to get used to pie charm. But I've seen improvements in my workflow already. So thank you for that. I'd like to recognize DJ Devon for some of the innovative work that he's been doing and openly discussing and documenting it. He's doing some pretty cool stuff. And I like looking at his innovation and the artistic approach that he's taking. Again, to foamy guy for thought provoking sessions. The stream to build gradient color fills for display IO shapes helped me to break some log jams in my concepts for the approach I was taking on the pallet slice wrapper project. So thanks. So it's great to hear. Thanks C Grover. Next up, I will pass it over to Dan. Okay, thank you. So over the weekend, we started seeing a continuous integration problem on GitHub actions, which was kind of confusing. And I'd like to thank micro dev and Jeff for working on this really weekend or at least taking a look at it and micro dev proposed several fixes for it as well. It was hard to understand. Thanks to Jeff, who's been working on OS dot get in kind of over and over again, revising it some of the time because I brought up some ideas. So thanks for your patience with my suggestions. And thanks to catney. The GitHub security issue came up and we had to deal with it and catney and I kind of split up the responsibility for that. So thanks to catney for that. Okay. All right. Thanks, Dan. Next up is DJ Devon three who's text only. So I'll read their hug reports. Following that actually is D glad who's text only as well, which I'll read in the next one. If you want to get ready will be Jeff, you'll be after these two that I read. So back to DJ Devon three first though, hug reports from DJ Devon to catney for an excellent Macedon API guide. Hug report for Liz for hosting show and tell for her awesome vlog on and for her awesome vlog on modular MIDI music melody maker. Hug report for foamy guy me for teaching new things every week. The learning never stops. And then last one from DJ Devon three is a hug report for Jeff for excellent chat GPT demo in circuit Python on last week's show and tell next up is David cloud. Let me get a timestamp who is text only and has a group hug for everybody. And now I will pass it over to you, Jeff. Hello, where's that other mute button? I have a group hug and I want to thank Dan for patiently working through the giddy and V changes with me. I guess we're both being super patient with each other during this time. It's been a bit of a slog, but we'll get it done soon. And that's what I have. Thank you. All righty. Thanks, Jeff. Next up is catney who is missing the meeting today. Catney has a hug for maker Melissa for helping with a really difficult pin outs page in an upcoming product guide helped looks like Melissa helped out with initial info went over it and made further edits as needed to make it solid. Hug report again from catney. This one's to Liz for being a great partner in crime or maybe not crime but learning and for always being able to answer questions and for me to bounce ideas and things off of a hug reports. Well, catney mentions as always, I'm certain that I'm forgetting folks. So of course thanks to anybody who may have been forgotten not listed here and they group hug for everyone. So thanks to catney for those. And next up is Scott. Hello. First a hug report to micro dev for helping me get the ULP going. I had basically like given up on getting it working and then micro dev gave me an example that worked and I figured out what my problems were with my example. So thanks to micro dev for giving me that little push and getting me over the hump on getting the ULP going. I think it's a kind of a neat thing. So I'm kind of excited about it. ULP is short for the ultra low power processor on the ESP32 S2 and S3 chips. There's also one on the ESP32 but it's not a risk five core which is more interesting to me. Thanks to Jeff Blur for tommolifying the environment settings and hug report to anecdote for further NDNS testing. I know that I've been kind of ignoring all that stuff but I do appreciate anecdote of really living on the edge and pushing it to its limits and documenting where it falls over. So that's it for me. All righty. Thanks Scott. Next up in rounding out the hug reports is TechTrick who's text only. So I'll read. This week TechTrick has hug report for Paul Cutler for having TechTrick on the Circuit Python show talking about continuous integration and CircuitPythonica project and a second thanks for letting me record letting me re-record part of the podcast for accuracy and then a group hug. So thanks to TechTrick for those and do be sure I don't think it was mentioned anywhere else but do be sure to check out that version of the podcast which was released I think even earlier today perhaps with TechTrick on there. So that rounds out the hug reports. Next up will be the status updates. So as a reminder status updates is our time to sync up on what we're doing. Take a few moments to tell us what you've been working on since the last week, last week's meeting and what you'll be working on until next week's meeting. This is a good opportunity to provide tips and tricks relevant to what people are working on if a discussion does become too much or too long we can always move it down to in the weeds section. So this is another one of the round robin sections I'll begin and then we'll just go down the list as the names appear in the notes doc which should be mostly alphabetical but we'll just follow the doc even if it's not quite. So first up my status updates for the week. I last week worked on MPY building a specific branch from a library PR which requires a couple of tools to be set up and running I didn't have those in my new environment yet so I kind of got myself back up and running to be able to build those MPR files excuse me MPY files. Specifically I was attempting to test a PR for the Ethernet library there was something in there that I think I had seen in the past maybe behave differently in MPY so I wanted to make sure to test it in a actual compiled one rather than just the Python one so I got that all set up and did the testing last week. Last week I also implemented the set root group functionality inside of Blinka display IO so this is a recent API change in the core and I have now put out the PR to update Blinka to behave the same as the core now does and then the other stuff that I was getting into last week is a bit of learning about color theory and adapting some CPython code that I found that generates gradients to work with CircuitPython and display IO. There were both linear and poly linear gradients on the page that I found both of those are implemented and working in CircuitPython I just put them in a basic bitmap for now but I think there are other interesting ways you can make use of them once you've got your palette generated. The last one which was in that resource was called a bezier curve gradient and so I want to work on implementing that one this week and converting it over to CircuitPython so that we can use it and then put some time into figuring out the best way to share what I've come up with. I think it's display IO is kind of the primary thing that I'm intending to use it with but I think possibly it could have other uses like maybe neopixels or other situations where you could be outputting color so fun stuff going on there all the way around and then I don't necessarily know what I'll be getting into beyond that for the week so that's all I've got this week on status updates so next up I will send it over to Cgrover. Well let's see I've been working on a palette slice wrapper class that I talked about last week a little bit that's the a class that will take a display IO palette and treat it more like a list so that you can do inserts and deal with things like slice objects so that you can manipulate the palette just like you would with a list so this week's progress was including transparency content along with the color content so the next thing to do with that though would be to look at some of the functionality that may be needed to make it look even more like a list for append and insert and extend in some of those extra functions so I'm about ready to make the alpha repo public but I want to do some additional tests so I won't be embarrassed when I release that anyway I'll post a link to a demo that shows the an image that was that has a palette of about 256 colors and no transparency but it runs through a bunch of random slices of it and gives a pretty good example of how well it works and then I've got a side project that I'm working on out in the workshop to duplicate a broken wind chime that we have and it's something that was in my wife's family for quite a few years and it's something that is it makes a lot of noise in the neighborhood so we certainly want to get it back up on the back porch you make it stronger going to make it brighter than it was in terms of the colors and materials but the best part is going to be selecting the tune that it's going to play and so I was thinking about classical music or something in a major key and I think we may use something in a minor key just to scare the squirrels away something like that a friend of mine suggested that we tune it to play happy birthday but I think there may be a city ordinance against that thank you thank you see grover sounds like a quite the interesting project for sure next up is dan okay thank you all right so last wednesday I released circuit python 800 beta 5 which had like more than 80 call requests in it I'm going to do try to do beta 6 quite soon because it'll have the incompatible that changes we're changing dot end to a kind of a restricted subset of toml to be settings dot toml for various reasons including that it's really hard to create files that begin with dot on a couple of different operating systems and also to make the syntax be a little more a little more like python in terms of quoting and things like that meanwhile I've been just working on a to a bug fixes I investigated some bugs some are no longer problems so I just closed them some were pushed I pushed a xx or later because they don't need to be fixed for 80 or can't be fixed for 80 I fixed a couple of minor ones and I've got some other ones in the works working on some things and also awaiting hearing from the original posters we are now down to 13 issues as was mentioned earlier which is terrific that really looks a lot more like the light of the end of the tunnel compared with the 30 that we had a few weeks ago so I also besides fixing those bugs I've been reviewing other folks PRs making some suggestions on those and I wrote up an issue that we're having with a continuous integration as I mentioned in hug reports I didn't fix it but Rocker Dev and Jeff are working on fixing it okay thanks thank you Dan yeah next up is DJ Devon who's text only so I'll read um DJ Devon says showed off the cutie pie parent BFF on show and tell it's a great little grounding board for le g led projects found some more problems with the tr cowbell and beta testing uh yeah and beta testing shipments are going to be delayed from that uh stemma qt port doesn't work so not going to bother soldering the connector to the boards um DJ Devon did confirm that itc works there's a workaround for using itc on pins 10 and 11 only which is not what they had in mind when designing it um got an ender s3 excuse me ender 3 s1 pro 3d printer DJ Devon got 3d printer going this week started designing an orange cap for the eta fruit step switches uh took seven iterations before getting one that fits and works right not thinking about designing my own step switches from scratch that are more like the original tr 808 switches uh the step switch model I got from CAD parts doesn't have functional doesn't have a functional switch mechanism specifically it's miss missing the center nub that presses the switch uh so be aware that it's a cosmic cosmetic only 3d file floating around for excuse me which is fine for adding to pc pcb designs for a 3d view uh but not for 3d printing of course if you're expecting to actually be able to use it um redesigning it into a working version that's not just cosmetic uh hoping to pr the working stl file in eta fruits cad parts uh github this week the first thing I've ever designed for a 3d printer this was the first thing I've ever designed for a 3d printer so cool uh DJ Devon getting involved in uh some 3d modeling this week for the first time uh and then the uh there is a picture of the component if anybody's interested in the image of that 3d model uh and then the last bullet point here for um status updates for DJ Devon says switching back and forth between learning fusion 360 3d printing and designing the modular tr cowbell version 1.3 using smd components it's been a busy week all right next up is uh david gload I believe I said that right but if not I apologize and I'll have to have you remind me but I know you told us a couple of weeks back so hopefully I got that one right uh david this week says uh for this week gave a gemma m0 mouse jiggler to a co-worker uh maybe they'll try to adapt it uh to circuit python code uh installed circuit python on my new lowland boards the c3 mini versions 1 and 2.1 the s2 mini the s3 and the s2 pico uh which has got a 128 by 32 OLED display uh testing some new accessories uh 32 by 64 OLED uh proposing a PR to add support for 32 by 64 OLED inside the display i o ssd 1306 library and there's a link to a PR there uh making a lego dumb terminal for the 32 by 64 screen and there's a link to an issue there um which I will definitely check out later I'm getting interested in lego so that seems kind of cool to me uh for next week david says uh try to apply eta fruit 5 by 5 neopixel grid bff learn guide to the eight by eight rgb shield uh to scroll text like liz and jeff have done um try to apply the bluetooth tv zapper learn guide to an ir control shield uh need to build the ir translator to let my google tv remote turn off my beamer all right uh and then next up is jeff so i will send it over to him hello again so last week i finished the guide for the next keyboard which is published in the eta fruit learning system we took a 10 year old guide done for arduino on a very classic keyboard and rewrote it for circuit python and that was a lot of fun i continued the work on os.gid env which has turned into a bit of a slog i think we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel keep you posted i papered over a poorly understood pico w bug by adding an extra one second delay at startup i don't have a board that exhibits this problem neither does dan so we went with a delay that we knew was safe and would get these folks running again and i fixed a bug that could cost crashes at soft reset time on expressive boards by shutting down ssl sockets in a well-defined manner uh this week number one is definitely getting the os.gid env wrapped up and then catney and i will work through how to upgrade a guide that was using the dot env and then we will hand that off to eva to get the guides that have been published thus far updated and then after that i will get back to the other 800 blocking bugs i've not picked out the next bug uh in personal stuff our 18 year old super's head gasket is failing it's been our single car since our good car was totaled in 2021 uh somebody hit it while driving recklessly down the street hit our car and totaled it that was fun uh and then found out that the car that we'd like which is a Prius has at least a six month wait um so we're on a waiting list at our local dealership hopefully we don't end up a zero car family it's not super easy in this city but we're not 100 sure what we're going to do in the meantime and that's what's up with me right thanks jeff i got my fingers crossed over here on the car situation for you next up is catney who was unable to make the meeting today so i'll read catney says last week put the i spy guide into moderation started the event countdown timer guide which is a collaboration with noe and liz this week catney says finish up the countdown timer guide add a new board definition with a board dot button for the latest revision of the feather rp 2040 and if this gets finished up uh next will be miscellaneous or other guide from the list or both so thank you to catney for sharing some notes in here and then next up is paul cutler who's missing the meeting so i'll read paul says new episode of the circuit python show is out today with tech trick uh who shares how circuit python uses continuing integration and his circuit pythonica project uh and then next up is scott hello um so in terms of when i'm around i'm out on wednesday to travel we're flying back to michigan where my wife's family is um and then i'm working four more days thursday friday monday tuesday and then the 21st which is next wednesday i'll be taking off through the new year i might try to do well if i have time i might do some other stuff but no promises um and then i'll be back on the third with the meeting and uh i'll work for michigan tuesday wednesday thursday and then we travel on friday the sixth so that's kind of my holiday plans um before i go before i stop working my goal is to wrap up this espu op testing and the the api that i did it's a rework of the coprock api that was already added um i'm pretty interested and excited about it i've got some tooling now where you take a c a main dot c file and it produces kind of a self-contained python file that like loads the code for you and and does all that stuff which is pretty neat um so i want to get the pr baseline for stuff that for that stuff in and that's blocking 8.0 because that's an api change um and then i'm going to port that tooling uh refine the tooling for the ulp but i also want to reuse some of that for the stem of g0 that i have which is a kind of a stem coprocessor thing as well um for the testing for the ulp i need to make sure that deep sleep is not broken with it um deep sleep on the s3 is currently broken because of the ulp just being enabled even if though it's not used i gotta figure out why that is um so that's my main goal and then two other random things one is if you are using web workflow on the esp um last week i fixed some responsiveness responsiveness issues it was like pretty slow and kind of frustrating and then i fixed the issue and it was like much nicer to use so that's that was great that happened uh early last week um and then on the personal side i have a backup computer here that has like lots of hard drives in it with data and i was upgrading it to um a new Ryzen thing because i had a spare motherboard and that it's not coming up and it's been really frustrating um it like powers on sometimes and i thought the memory was bad because it powered up without the memory in but then i like went to plug in a usb drive with you know some linux on it so that i could get it working and it completely shut down and now it doesn't power on again um and i ordered like a new power supply for it so it's going to power supply um so that's been frustrating and i don't have time to fix it before i go on vacation so it's just going to sit here yeah computers i know right it's fun but always work yeah yeah like if any if folks have systems they use that just do it for you now might be the time that i'm most amenable to it so if you have suggestions for how to back up data locally and like remotely do another place uh let me know all right all right thanks scott um next up and i believe yep rounding out our status updates section is tectric who's text only this week so i'll read tectric says last week began some backlogged improvements and fixes for adabot adding draft pr status to the pr is listed announcing updates to the community bundle patching fix for the bundle creation ci appears to be failing for the community bundle worked on updates to the composite actions used by the library ci those updates to that composite actions were updating versions of actions like set up python to current versions addressing deprecation warnings for steps in the ci will bring those fixes to blinka and the core as needed um tectric also mentions mysteriously still doing okay with the advent of code and c it's pointers all the way down and then for next next week tectric says beginning to wind down as my grad course comes to an end with the final and as excuse me to an end with the final and the holidays approach please feel free to tag me if the ci breaks and i'll be happy to spring back and fix it working to close out relevant open prs and leave it in a working state before disconnecting later this month beginning to make up my excuse me circuit pythonicas everything has arrived on time going to build them and ship so that they can arrive before the holiday and that gets us to the end of the status updates section so our fifth and final section for this meeting is the in the weeds section in the weeds is an opportunity for more long form discussions that either come out of status updates or were identified ahead of time as too long for status updates if you've gotten in the weeds topic please make sure they get added to the notes document um there is one here so if anybody has another one in mind please go ahead and add that while we're talking about the first one um the first one that we do have is from uh micro dev uh i don't see micro dev in the voice channel so i'll read this one out but of course folks can follow along with this in the note stock as well so uh mic oh it didn't read far enough ahead it says missing meeting right there so micro dev says um they would like to discuss uh this issue i'll link that in the chat here as well uh this is an issue on the core four five five four four five five four is the issue uh issue number yep uh it was a suggestion to add count on alarm as a replacement for count i o um it looks like the open question maybe is how kind of filling in um based on shorthand but i think the question is how should the api work only adding count i o dot counter which takes an alarm object is option one add count i o counter alarm and move sleep functions to sleep dot light sleep uh in sleep dot deep sleep so option two was that one adding the counter and then moving the sleep functions and then option c that's listed is add alarm dot count on alarm that takes an alarm uh and i will really admit i don't do much with the deep sleep so i definitely don't have any thoughts on that does anybody else have thoughts or ideas around this issue well he didn't suggest alarm dot count alarm so you know right now alarm has pin alarm and time alarm in it so i'm not sure i don't think i wouldn't replace count i o with an alarm because there are plenty of uses for it that don't alarm you involve alarming people do use it to count things i think i think it's i think we'll just follow up on this issue i'd like to know more details about what they're trying to do and i suspect that actually the ulp could be enough like if you need something to wake up and increment something uh like the ulp might be just fine nice um i mean they they obviously know that because micro dev added the first version so uh yeah i would just say like i looked at the issue and it's it doesn't have a concrete example in my mind so i'd like i'll just follow up there okay okay wait for some more and for there all right um and that was our only item for in the weeds no new ones have appeared so i will assume nobody has anything else um which gets us to the very very last part the wrap up which i will read over here so this has been the circuit python weekly meeting for december the 12th thank you to everyone who participated uh if you want to help support adafruit and circuit python and those of us that work on circuit python please consider purchasing hardware from the adafruit shop at adafruit.com uh as a reminder the video this meeting will get released on youtube at youtube.com slash adafruit the podcast will be made available on major podcast services uh it will also be featured in the python for microcontrollers newsletter visit adafruitdaily.com to subscribe to that uh the as i mentioned before the next meeting next week's meeting on the 19th is at the normal time 2 p.m eastern 11 a.m pacific on monday uh the following week however this is your your early warning for that the following week is the week we're off and then the week following that is uh when it gets moved to the tuesday so we've got a couple of changed meetings upcoming after next week which will be at the normal time on the 19th um so keep that in mind get that in your calendar if you need this meeting has been held on the adafruit discord which you can join by going to adafruit.it slash discord um if you want to get notified about the meetings please ask to be added to the circuit python easter's roll uh we'll ping that roll whenever the meeting does change and those notifications will still come for those upcoming meetings as well that i mentioned so thank you to everyone again who participated that's going to be it for now thanks everyone and have a good week