Season 4 Finale with Madame Architect

A I'm Evelyn Lee. And I'm Janine Chastain. We're collaborating on curated conversations to explore how the industry of architecture is changing.

B Together, we'll find ways to create new solutions to current challenges while elevating the value of architects.

A Welcome to Practice Disrupted.

B Hello, listeners. Hello, Janine.

A Hi, Evelyn. Hi,

B This week, we're celebrating our 80th episode, which is amazing. To help us mark this milestone and the conclusion of our best season yet, we wanted to bring on a special guest to help us out.

A Amy Stone is an architect, a mom of 3, and is currently pursuing an MBA at at Georgia Tech's Scheller College of Business. Amy is a design manager at Gensler and is dedicated to creating sustainable and equitable environments. Her professional work experience includes a variety of building types, including housing, mixed use, adaptive reuse, offices, higher education, and deep green sustainable projects, including the largest living building in the Southeast. Some of you may recognize the name, the Candida Building, which has been highly published about in Architect Magazine. And, also, Amy is a senior editor at Madam Architect and was one of the first to join Madam Architect a few years ago.

B While the seemingly lack of women in architecture has been well documented, women are and have been making waves in all levels of the field. Madam architect is an online magazine celebrating the extraordinary women that shape our world. A magazine designed to break the architect's mold and show young women entering the industry the myriad choices they have in crafting a dynamic, meaningful, and interesting career. We are honored to have them here today to assist us in this conversation.

A Welcome, Amy. We're so glad you're here.

C Janine and Evelyn, hello. Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here.

B Yeah. It's our honor to host you or to have you, moderate this conversation.

A Absolutely. So tell us maybe a little bit about yourself. We read your bio, but we'd love to hear in your own words your role at Madam Architect and what gets you excited about this kind of work.

C Yes. I joined Madame Architect a few years ago and was really in a space of my career where I needed to see what other women were doing that I could relate with. I was, at that time, pursuing my master's in architecture with 2 young children and working at the same time and just needed I felt peerless in a sense. Like I didn't really have many people at Georgia Tech with me who were in my same track or in that same space in my profession. And so I was just very hungry to know, are other people doing this? Are other people taking on this, like, trifecta of just insanity? So I ran across Julia Gamaulina at a a conference. She was speaking to we're doing a Pecha Kucha style presentation about different student groups. We went to Harvard and just talked it was a kind of a convergence of different student groups around the country and focused on women, so women in architecture groups at different schools. And she presented on Madame Architect and was sharing the cases of different women on, like, what are they doing? What have their tracks been? What have their career looked like? What challenges have been unique to them? What have been their highlights? And every interview she mentioned, I was just so hungry for.

C So I reached out to offer to help, and she brought me on. And I've been helping with transcriptions and editing and doing my own interviews, helping with ask the editor questions and just general editorial content, which has been so good for me to have this extended network of women, kind of virtual mentors, and love that I can help expand that, you know, portfolio in a sense of of voices that other women can tap into. So that is my relationship with Madame Architect, and it's phenomenal. It just I feel so much more connected and supported and feel like, yes, there are other people that are doing this. They're just like me. And as you've heard in my bio, I have 3 kids. I have an 10 year old, an 8 year old, and a 1 year old. And I'm working.

C I'm slowly ticking through my MBA, so I still find myself in that space of, you know, always spreading myself pretty thin. I'm constantly finding myself in a space where I'm, you know, striving for more, struggling with, you know, balancing ambition of where I wanna be in my career and, like, long term, what's my guiding north star, how am I trying to get there, with just that tension of the daily, you know, balance of time and effort and energy that it takes to really get there and keeping, you know, all balls juggling and, making sure that the the most important ones really get my priority and attention. So that is where I'm at in my career right now.

A I would say it's very relatable, and I think a lot of women are looking for that. And what's interesting, I think, is Madame Architect is typically a written format. You all interview different architects and tell their stories. And how many have you interviewed so far? Like, what's your number?

C Well, between NextGen and Days With and the feature interviews, we've interviewed over 300 people.

A Wow. Oh, my goodness. And today, we're kinda gonna shift in a new direction where we've invited you all on to move into the audio space with us and and to try and test out doing an interview over podcasting. So thank you for being willing and interested to do this.

C That's right. Well, you 2 are doing phenomenal work with this podcast and breaking into an area that so many people are clearly interested in hearing about, and I think you bring such a unique perspective. So on this interview, I want to talk about you. I wanna hear about your story and your background, your interests, and kind of the trajectory of your career and what insights through all of that, like, you have to offer, especially with all of these insights that you're gaining from the people you interview and talk to. And I know that you have a lot of advice and insights to distill down and offer out, so I'm looking forward to talking to you. So we always love to ask how your interest in architecture first developed. So, Janine, can I start with you? How what brought you into architecture?

A I think that my parents had a big influence on my interest in architecture. Growing up in the Southeast, they were frequently taking me to cities that have such risk rich history of historic buildings, and just iconic sites where things happened in American history. And so I spent a lot of time in Washington, DC, in Charleston. I visited Savannah. I grew up in Richmond. And so I just had such great access to buildings that, you know, are iconic in that early part of American history. And so at that point in my young adolescent part of my career, I was thinking about historic preservation. But I knew from an early point that I was really interested in understanding interior spaces and buildings and cities and how could I contribute or play a role in shaping them.

C That's awesome. Tell me where you're from.

A I grew up in Richmond. And so, you know, we have such a deep history. And I, I remember always thinking about how could Richmond become a city like Charleston where its historic footprint was elevated into, kind of a more prominent iconic city on the East Coast, basically.

C That's, that's really interesting. We were just in DC and trying to really show my kids, like, how much history is there and how much there is to learn from. So what a great, like, lab to be in to really educate yourself. You said you got more interested in interior. So did you pursue that route in school or after school?

A I did not get a chance to pursue it in school. I think that if I could do it again, I probably would gravitate more towards interiors. I went into a standard architecture program, and I think that probably a focus in interiors would have been my sweet spot.

C Evelyn, what about you? How did you get your like, what was your first interest into architecture?

B Mine started super young. I was one of those people who knew in elementary school, like, I wanted to be an architect. And I think it was because it was in 4th grade, and the teacher asked us to draw our houses and everyone drew an elevation, like normal people. And I decided to, like, start drawing and plan to, like, describe the spaces. And then I and then I don't I don't know, you know, I would go grocery shopping every Sunday after church with my family, and I found that those like, there's old Victorian house plans or there's, like, magazines with all those Victorian house plans in it. And I would always ask my parents if I could just buy it and flip through the the magazine. And then, it wasn't until high school that Antoine came and built a local or designed our local library. So that was kind of, a a bigger introduction into that process, which really was addressing to me.

B But it it really spurred and started for whatever reason at an early age, and it was because of not even a love of space. Well, I guess floor plans translated into space, but it was really just for me, it was like the dollhouse that the floor plan was. I don't know if that makes sense, but just like imagining what type of life you could have looking at floor plans of various different houses.

C Yeah. That's amazing that so early on, you had that understanding of it and wanted to read more into it. So you both followed your interest to school. And I went through the, you know, challenge that architecture school is, which, you know, we could talk a lot about what you learned in architecture school, but I wanna know what you learned about yourself through that process. And I know that, you know, if you pursued your MBA too, what did you learn about yourself in, you know, in both of those instances?

A Yeah. This is a really interesting question because I think that when I was in architecture studio, I I couldn't see the lessons that I was learning. It was only when I went and got my MBA and went through that rigorous process that I was able to look back at my time during undergraduate studio and kind of see where those really deep inflection points had happened. You know, it's hard it's hard to see it when you're in it, but I think going through that second really intense education was helpful in reflecting on that.

C I wanna know too, with both schools being so challenging, what propelled you from architecture to an MBA? What was that connection?

A I remember really vividly taking a break from architecture studio one day, and we have this really cool courtyard outside of the studio environment where people would go sit. And I was just sitting there one day and I just I knew at that moment, I was like, I really want to go for my MBA. And I think I was in maybe 2nd year of architecture studio because I just I could just feel that I wasn't gelling. I never really loved studio. Like, I always loved my seminar classes, and I loved the community of architecture, but I never really felt passionate and in love with architecture studio, the, like, core piece of the education. And I knew that eventually I was gonna wanna go get business degree. I just didn't know how. But I could tell from where my strengths were naturally that I was a natural leader.

A I knew that I was interested in business. My dad is entrepreneurship, and I just couldn't quite connect the dots in terms of formal architecture studio being enough for me.

C I think that entrepreneurship and architecture school both have creative threads and that you have to understand complex systems and components coming together and that you it doesn't just have to come into the shape of buildings, but it can be in the shape of business. But, Janine, that's interesting to me that, like, 2nd year studio, and you already knew it. How long was the gap between architecture school and your MBA?

A That's a good question. I I finished with my BARC in 2009, and I started my master's program in 2013. So I had worked enough. I was I had been out in practice enough to know and I think that also, like, when I had gone out and practiced, I went in in the middle of the recession, so it was like it further ingrained in me that I wanted to pursue an additional education to not be in the same situation that I found myself in when I left architecture school and couldn't find a job because that degree on it on its own at that moment in time wasn't enough to

C That's right.

A Start a career. And I was like, well, I never wanna be in that boat again. So I should go get this degree that's gonna really make me valuable and self sufficient.

C There almost has not been, like, one interview that I have done where the recession has not come up as some sort of career shaking moment and really helping people propel themselves into that second interest, into that other realm of something tangential that actually ends up, like, really growing legs and being a solid place to be. So thanks for telling about that. Evelyn, I wanna hear about you too. What did you learn first about yourself while you studied architecture?

B I actually loved studio, but but there was this innate understanding that I was, like, never gonna be the best designer. And there's this and it it took me a while actually to come to terms with it. Because I think if you think of if you think about, like, how meaningful studio is and and where you want to compete or where you want to show up and do your best with an architecture school. I I actually really had this big personal struggle with it, and I I tried to leverage my understanding of technology and tools and my ability to learn technology quicker, as a as a way to differentiate myself through that process. But I I think I knew way back then that I was never going to be a designer. But I was one of those people who, like, I set a goal and I there's a path and I needed to get through the path to finish it. So, like, not pursuing architecture after grad school is, like, never or after my undergrad and then my grad school at Saric was, like, never a question for me.

C You realized you're a finisher and that once you're on a track, you've gotta stick with it.

B I I was. It was because it because having a goal and reaching that goal was so much easier. Like, it's it was easier for me to manage in my mind and kind of in professional development and what I was taught about my career arc and, like, not having a goal and having to explore.

C I love this.

B Which I think for a lot of, like, people is, like, when they think about stepping away from architecture, that becomes, like, the difficult part of of that career transition. But yeah. Sorry, Amy.

C No. No interruptions for me. It's just interesting that, like, you both of you had these insights of, like, this this isn't completely me. I like it, and I'm glad I pursued this interest, but, like, this isn't the full cookie. Like, there's something else that is part of this recipe. And, Evelyn, similar to you, I I like architecture. I really enjoy it. There's a lot of you know, parts of it that I completely connect with and other parts, like, I just have to get through.

C And there I did kind of had that same realization. Like, I wanna be a finisher. Like, I wanna get through this, and I wanna get that licensure. I want the AIA behind my name. You know? Like, there's that aspect of wanting to stick with the track that other people are very much, like, okay stepping away from and not doing the full, like, closeout of it. And so, I think that's a a very valid and good insight to realize, like, yes. I'm a finisher, and there's more. And maybe that's tiring.

C Evelyn, do you feel like once you kind of had insight of, like, I wanna finish this, but I also know I want, like, this MBA aspect. Like, how did you reconcile those 2?

B Yeah. I I mean, for me, it was like I didn't know I wanted to get an MBA my 2nd year. Like, Janine, for me, the MBA was kind of an active break for me to reassess my career. Like, I okay. I've I've done that. I did licensure, and now I have no idea what I wanted to do next, and it was just like the right time at the right place in my life for me. Right there, I had no external commitments that was kindly keeping me from making that decision. I could choose to go to an MBA school wherever I I got in.

B I had you know, I have I know, like, family, no children, no husband. It was just a good time to to take a break to reassess and completely break actually from architecture and the AIA altogether. And my biggest lesson there was that I missed the profession. So I took a complete break. I stepped away. I said, I'm not gonna be part of any green building clubs, any, like, real estate or development programs. Like, I don't like, that's not for me. You know? And I tried, like, the management consulting track.

B I looked at the people doing, you know, the marketing club. I started in UCLA before I transferred to the Presidio. So the entertainment industry, of course, is big in Los Angeles. And I kind of played around with, like, all of those areas, and I was just like, whatever I have to do, I have to come back kind of to the built environment and and to architecture because I some I missed it. So that that was a key moment for me, but then it was still didn't necessarily answer the question, like,

C I would finish my master's of architecture knowing exactly which field and, like, market sector I wanted to be in and kind of was hoping that my master's would help me with that or give me some time to let it bake. And I finished, and I was still just, like, not sure and still open to opportunities. And it's probably a common perception that you'll have it all figured out by the time you graduate or by the time you're done with x. And to know that, like, nope. It just helps you be prepared. It helps the doors be open, and that's okay. Great. Like, take it forward with whatever way it goes, but, Evelyn, totally valid with it.

C Also, like, the insights of, like, I miss it, and this is how I think now. I still wanna be a part of it even if it is in a different role. So talked about interest in architecture and school. I wanna know kind of the short synopsis of the trajectory of your career. How'd you get started? What's been the middle? And where are you in your career today? Which is still a very much like an active, growing, long trajectory ahead kind of career. So what's the snapshot so far, Evelyn? I'll start with you. After your MBA, where did things end up taking you?

B Yeah. So I did, like, a I did a mid career MBA for you. So for me, the MBA was, again, kind of a step away to kind of reanalyze where I was in my career. It was actually through the MBA that I realized that one of my most meaningful and memorable studios that I went through was in my grad school. And it it was scenario and strategic planning, and it was at the time when the Valley was for instance, and this is the not the most glamorous one, but, like, the valley collects all the city's trash. So is there a way that they could leverage that relationship into a positive one for them? The flip side is, like, Los Angeles Parks and Rec own all the parks and, like, the like, the majority of parks and recreation is in the Los Angeles and not the valley. So it was a really interesting exploration of city systems, but also strategic and scenario planning, which ultimately led to my work at MK Think as a strategist leading the strategist group. I left there to go, work with a friend and brokerage on the consulting side of brokerage to focus a lot more on workplace, and then decided, you know, I'm I I don't like the selling aspects.

B Like, so much of what I do is selling my services to brokers and then selling, my services twice to the clients. So I went to look for something in house and I landed at Slack Technologies. And that has been a really interesting perspective for me to have in terms of having lived in the architecture world and knowing how we welcome and mentor and develop our people within architecture and looking at that parallel to how they do it in tech and seeing where there's actual opportunities for us to to innovate and and understanding why tech is able to innovate so much faster than our profession. So that's been an interesting kind of parallel there, and and that's where I am now. So I'm I'm at Slack. We got acquired by Salesforce. So I'm bridging both companies right now.

C And running a great podcast with Janine. So when did that start?

B That started during the pandemic. Right, Janine? So

A Like, right at the beginning.

B Right at the beginning.

C Well, you we'll use this as a bridge to go from Evelyn to Janine because now we're at this common shared story of running you know, Evelyn, you're in your profession architecture world. Do you wanna talk about the gap between your b arc, your MBA, and then what happened after?

A So the beginning was when I was launched into my career coming out of school as the newly elected president of the AIAS. And that was basically started as a volunteer role while I was still in undergrad. I was very active with the chapter. I had run for a national position and got on the board of directors as the South quad director representing all the chapters in the Southeast. And I had run a or it wasn't a national, but it was like a regional conference for the southeast in Charlotte. And then, basically, I decided to run for national president. And to do that, you have to go to the annual conference. You have to give a speech in front of a roomful of students.

A You know, you have to network and campaign, and then you get elected. And so it was a a really big deal to have to put yourself out there. Kinda terrifying for most people to, like, get up there and do a 5 minute speech in front of, like, almost, you know, 800 students, your peers. But basically, when I was elected, it just transformed my life because I had this amazing opportunity after school

C to move

A to Washington DC, and I worked out at the AIANational office in the AIAS office, which is, like, within the building. And it's a standalone organization, and I was running, you know, it's like a $1,000,000 operating budget, and we had a board of directors. We had all these members. So kind of like running a business. It's except it's a nonprofit. And I had a really amazing chance to work with all of the national leaders from the AIA, the ACSA, NAB, NCARB, and I and I got to sit in these rooms with executive leaders from all these organizations. And I felt like that was very informative to taking this person who naturally has an interest in leadership and then being put into these environments where she's allowed to grow. She has a voice, and they treat her like an equal in these conversations.

A And they really welcomed me and challenged me to step into opportunities to speak and share my voice. Then after that ended, I went back into practice, and it was radically different. It was like where in this experience, they had built me up and I felt like I had a voice, going back into practice was like going back down to the bottom and losing your voice and not being treated as an equal and having to go back up this, like, hierarchy and practice about where you are in your career. And that transition was brutal. And paired with it, there was the recession, which made it even harder and just, like, bouncing around. So long story short, I think the middle piece is definitely the MBA and the decision to go for the MBA while working full time in San Francisco. And like you, Amy, I couldn't do it full time. I had to work and have an income, so I was going 40 hours a week plus into the city to do my job.

A And then after hours and on weekends and over the summer, I would take the bus back to Oakland and go to class at night. And doing the MBA was very enriching. It was something that I enjoyed a lot, and it was really hard. Basically, it took 4 years to complete. And so graduating with my MBA was probably one of my proudest moments. And then it's basically launched me to where I am now, which is being able to run my own business. And and parallel to running my own business, Evelyn and I collaborate on the podcast. Tell me a

C little bit more about your business, Janine, because you just summed up an entire, like, phase of your career and, like, and now I have a business.

A I yeah. So I think throughout my MBA, I knew I wanted to start a business. I knew I wanted to figure out my career and make it something that was meaningful to me. So I used this 4 years to really figure it out and to experiment and come up with the concept. One of the last classes I took during my MBA was actually, a presentation of my business concept to my classmates. And what it is is a management consulting business, and I'm working with architects. I'm leveraging all of the knowledge that I've gained through the education, through working with AIS now and into my career. And, basically, I'm using that to help other architects become leaders in how they're managing their firms.

A I'm looking at the part that's not the studio, but the the business management around the studio and the skills that are often overlooked in the training and education process and helping leaders feel more confident in those areas.

C Have you 2 told the story of how you've met and how this podcast came into being? It's been

A a while. We've Yes. It's been

B a while. And I don't know. I I can never recall when we actually met in person. And then the evolution, I I think, us being close friends actually happened a lot later after that first meeting. Right?

C How did you 2 meet?

A Through the AIA. That I

B mean, that's a yes. I remember hearing people people kept coming up and telling me, you need to meet this person, Janine. And then I think people kept coming up, Janine, and telling you, you need this meet this person, Evelyn. Yeah. And then we finally met. And it wasn't until you, like, made your way through various different ways through the recession and whatever to the Bay Area that we, like, that we actually, like, started having more regular conversations.

A The thing that stood out in my mind was when you finished your MBA and you moved up to the Bay Area, we started meeting more regularly, And we would, like, check-in and have lunch or coffee or whatever. And I just felt like that kinda kept happening, and we had a couple different opportunities where we were, like, trying to figure out what was the thing that we were gonna collaborate on. But it was really in that last year before I left, and I knew I was gonna be we were both thinking about, like, how do we ramp up our little small business ideas? And we started meeting more regularly and going for coffee. Do you remember that? Right.

B And I was so I was just like, how is gonna be so hard to be a consultant in the architecture world because architects don't like to pay consultants anything. Like, it really like, I'm really concerned. I'm really concerned. And part of it was because I wanted to make practice of architecture a thing, and that was, like, the literally and I still, almost to this day, continues to be what's holding me back from, like, jumping ship my myself and, like, moving moving fully into practice of architecture as a mechanism to help individuals and firms think more broadly about how to remain relevant and other services that they could be offering to expand their practice. So Janine and I were both interested in helping firms in different but complimentary ways. And, yeah, I do remember. I was just like, you know, I like, I do like, I don't know. Just warning you how hard it might be to start this up.

C So you were a consultant to Janine about Yeah. Evelyn, you sounded like a consultant to Janine about consulting. Where you're just like, let me tell you how this is gonna be. So through this friendship and longer conversations, it sounds like it wasn't just this idea of a podcast that brought you together. It was a kind of shared interests and then a slow friendship. And then what got you started? We're like, we gotta take this to a broader audience. This conversation is so important.

B Yeah. It it was also just honestly, Mark LePage and I had been talking separately for a while, and I asked him he I mean, he got into the podcast game so early. I think Entre Architects has, I don't know, over 400, 500, a ridiculous number of podcasts behind them already. And I I asked him one day about it and but but be like, the architect in me is, like, I don't wanna put anything out into the world unless I know I can do it of a certain quality. Right? And he told me how like, what it takes to produce a show and put it out there. And I was like, oh, I don't really have time to learn all of that. So I'll shelve this for a little bit. Like, maybe not like, now is not the right time.

B And then he launched the gay mole media network, and he reached out to me saying, would you like to be a part of it? I can help you on the production side. And then I said,

C and you

B can you can ask Janine about this because I don't listen to podcasts regularly. Even to this day, like, not nearly as much as she does, I do not consume podcasts, like, with as much enthusiasm as Janine does. So everything I learned about podcasting, I've learned from Janine. But I was just like, I don't wanna do this on my own. I have like, I'm not a listener, so I need a partner in this. So I I thought of Janine immediately.

A I wanna add to this because, Amy, I think something you said at the beginning of this conversation about what got you involved with Madam and looking for those other people in the world that, like, you could have conversations about the specific challenges you were facing. Similarly, I think Evelyn and I became fast friends because we had a values alignment. And, like, the things that we were trying to navigate and figure out were very similar. Like, the fact that she had gone for her MBA and was trying to figure out, like, how to put it into use in her career, or the fact that she was so deeply ingrained in the AIA like I was, or the fact that she also is very ambitious and wanted to be a leader and was figuring out what did that mean for her. So like and I was talking to Leah Baer, who's a really good friend of ours too. And she was saying, sometimes I, like, look up and I just, you know, I don't see people doing the same thing as me. And, and it makes me question myself. And I, and I was telling her, I was like, yeah, Leah.

A But, like, if you think about it, like, you, me and Evelyn, we're kind of like in this we we're the unique people in this space doing what we're doing, and we're defining the path. The reason it's hard to find those other people is there aren't that many. And if they are, they're so few that it's hard to find them. So I felt like I recognized the opportunity to work with Evelyn as a way to figure out my own journey and to complement each other on the things that we cared about changing in the profession.

C Well, that kind of leads to a question I wanted to ask, which is what kind of impact are you looking to have with this podcast? Is there a core mission that you have with why you're creating this production?

B So I've always been a writer.

A I'm much

B better at write I have this distinct memory of being I think it was a second or third year, and one of my professors, a lover, Jorey, was just like, I have this 5th year thesis student who's having problem with his thesis. Can you help them grammatically, like, get through this? Anyways, so I have always been I've been somewhat of a prolific writer. I wrote for Inhabitat before, like, writing for blogs was a thing, and people knew you could actually make a living off of it. And for me, the podcast was kind of another medium to reach a bigger audience about I wouldn't say it's been a desperate plea, but just kind of about a a plea that I see as a need for the architecture profession even for traditional practice to evolve to remain relevant. My hope is that the architecture profession can, like, continues to thrive in in the future in whatever form it takes, but I don't think it's going to survive if we move forward in its current state.

C Mhmm.

B And that's kind of a a big statement to make, but that's been kind of core to my belief for my years at MK Think so for well over, like, almost 10 years now.

C Mhmm. What about you, Janine?

A I think there's 3 drivers on this one for me. Number 1 is the hope that we can educate the profession about other ways to think about areas that people just take for granted and are continuing to perpetuate in the way they operate. Like, really teaching them ideas that are outside what they have been exposed to so that they recognize that there's so much more possibility than what they're considering. 2nd, I think it's a research experiment and trying to, like, go out and find these different leaders who are doing things differently and to identify who they are and to really ask them, like, what are you doing different? So that's been really fun to just pull in all these people into this kinda, like, incubator of ideas. And 3rd, I think what has stuck with me, and I think anybody who's listened to the show long enough might recognize that, like, when I started the podcast, like, I I felt like I was so frustrated because I had felt like my voice had been taken away in my professional roles. And I was pretty angry and like I had to work through that and like coming out of it, running my own business, having freedom on the podcast, I feel like I've gained my voice back. But I also feel a deep responsibility to the people who are working in practice right now that are out there listening right now that don't feel like they're being heard in their firm or in the industry. And I wanna create space for those people to be heard.

A And if I can say it and make an impact by actually talking about it in a public way, then I feel like I'm helping somebody out there who feels like their power has been taken away.

C I like that personal arc that you're bringing into about I mean, it is hard when you go like you said, the challenge of going from being AIAS president and then going to a very voiceless, unrespected position where people maybe make the assumption that you have to have a lot of years of experience to really have a voice, but saying no. Like, I have a valid voice now, and I want it to be heard. Well, those are all. It's an interesting, I don't know, conglomeration of goals and and missions for this podcast, which is so interesting that you're coming from different perspectives in in the way that it'll play out. So I can see some common threads, and I can see some variants so that you have, I don't know, ways to push and pull the conversations and get, yeah, that research and the information that you're pulling from your interviewers.

B It's also interesting to see, like, what our listeners actually like. Mhmm. Janine and I will get off of a call. She'll, like or I'll bring on somebody and Janine's like, Evelyn, I don't know how well that conversation went. And it'll turn out to be, like like, really well received. And the the flip side has happened to you. I was like, oh, Janine, I totally wasn't digging that conversation, and then, like but our listeners do. So I I for me, it's definitely been a learning experience in terms of, like, under understanding what's resonating in the moment right now and, like, how to have conversations to begin to move things forward in a meaningful way.

C I relate with that from a madam architect standpoint because we can look at the analytics of, like, what's taking off and what's getting a lot of responses. And something that will just start as like, oh, this is a good idea. Like, sure. We should do this. Ask the editor section. Like, why not? Let's answer some questions, pull people for what they want. We created the answers, put them out there, and those kind of posts got so much engagement. Not just clicks, but, like, the comments, the circulation of conversation around it.

C There's there'll be interviews that, you know, kind of seem not generic because I truly think, like, the interviews are featuring a unique story in each case. But you can see threads with if if you're in a demographic that's like, oh, this is a group of women. They're mid career, and they might fall into, you know, a very large demographic like that. But then that interview will get so much interaction. It's like, what is something in the conversation or in their story is really helping people connect with the content, and and we look for that too. It's just complete surprise sometimes where where it comes and from unexpected sources. So, like, I get that.

B Yeah.

C Tell me in, like, 10 words or less, your biggest highlight so far of podcast. Ginny, we'll start with you.

A I think a really big highlight was when Brooke Scarpa came on the podcast, and we were interviewing them. It was like a couple it was like the day before Christmas or something like that, and we were interviewing them. And and just to be able to get on here and interview them and feel like they wanted to be on the podcast was so cool. And then when the episode aired, we had a really great response, and I think that's it just helped me see how far our podcast had come to be able to have them willing and interested to come on the show. It was like a big moment.

C Evelyn, what's been a highlight for you?

B For me, it it's interesting to hear you talk about Madame Architects and metrics because I feel like podcast metrics are much more ambiguous to actually figure out, you know, where people are coming from. There's multiple it's not we can't do the collective click on the website because there's so many different platforms that people can be listening through. Like, I need to figure out a way. Like, the the tech geek in me wants to figure out a way to, like, get a live download, of each stream and, like, dump it into Tableau dashboard and and, like, get the overall picture, but I don't have the time for that. So what really what really absolutely makes my, not only my day, but my entire week is when we hear from anyone, like, literally anyone. I don't care if you are, like, a student or if you are somebody who is retiring like, on the retirement end of practice. Just hearing, like, how one area of a particular episode made an impact on them, that always makes my week. If I'm having a really bad week, hearing from any of our listeners is just absolutely amazing because it means that we're making meaningful impact.

C Y'all. Right, Evelyn? Leave a review. This is yours. Oh, yes. This is your plug now.

B Yeah. It means so much.

C Evelyn and Janine. Send in comments. That's great. What have been the biggest challenges?

A On the podcast or what?

C We'll talk about podcast. Yeah. With this creation because I'm interviewing about Practice Disrupted, so I wanna hear, what's your biggest challenge for the podcast?

B Oh, you know what? Actually, it's a really big challenge right now, and it's something that we are going to be exploring more in the next season, is, we are getting a lot more firms reaching out to us, and we are struggling with everything that's going that has gone on with SHOP and everything that's going on with SIREC, and there's even stuff going on abroad with RIBA about, like, how do we verify these firms are doing what they're say they say they are doing, or even if we're bringing them on for something like advances in technology, how are we making sure that these firms are treating their people well too before we bring them on?

C Yep. We have the same challenge of

A So if you guys

B figure that out

C truly betting. Sometimes, what we've had a solution of having an advisory board for MetaMarkitect and kind of floating our ideas with them as, like, board of directors. And, like, if we have a question, we we float it to them, or, like, what do y'all think about this? And that just has a a wider net to be able to gather more insight and intel that otherwise we wouldn't be connected to. So that's that's one approach. Board of directors or advisory board, not necessarily that they're for controlling your content or, you know, pushing you in any direction you don't want to go, but trusted people that you can talk to to help keep you connected for intel like that. Janine, biggest challenge?

A You know, we do this on top of our jobs. So, you know, just to be fair to us, like, we put a ton of time into this and sometimes we're up against the constraints of time. And so we do have to let perfectionism go sometimes.

C Alright. I wanna go through a rapid fire, set of questions, and I wanna know who you are admiring right now. I'll flip back and forth between you 2 with these so we don't have to do each person on every question. So, Janine, who are you admiring right now?

A Absolutely Brene Brown. I love her. I listen and read all of the content she produces.

C I just listened to her last night. She kept me company. And then I flipped over to Soul Super Soul with Oprah just to hear Brene Brown talk some more.

B Oh, great.

C Evelyn, what is something that you wish you knew starting out your career that you know now?

B So I I say this a lot. I'll say it again. It's a journey, y'all, not, like, a destination. I am 40 how old am I? I'm 42, and I'm still, like, figuring out what my next steps are. I don't know if I'm gonna be, like, a a Slack or Salesforce lifer. I don't know what's in that card. So I'm I'm having conversations about making practice of architecture a thing. But it's absolutely a journey, and there's people along the way that can help you just find your community.

C Janine, what is some really valid advice that you have gotten in your career that you think is worth sharing?

A I think that the things that intimidate us or make us nervous or afraid or feel uncomfortable are actually the things that are really worth pushing ourselves through. You know, I think when we can get past our fears, sometimes those things are the barrier you need to break in order to get to the next level.

C Evelyn, we usually ask what the, like, what advice people have when they're starting their career because we have so many young readers with Madame Architect, but you might not have young readers or listeners with this podcast, maybe people who are more business minded. But just considering your audience, what advice do you want to put out there?

B Don't ever be afraid of reaching out to anyone for any reason. I think via phone call, via email, via LinkedIn, do so in a meaningful way. Like, don't say, hey, can we connect? I get a lot of that. You might wanna say, like, hey, I'm interested in connecting because of y. Would you like to have a conversation about x? And, like, yes. I would always love to have a conversation about x. So, if you're whether you're exploring new lines of service, whether you're trying to find a new client, whether or not you wanna follow a different trajectory path, especially if you're a student, always lead with, I'm a student in school right now, and I just want to learn more about you. Opens the door to so many conversations, and you never know where those conversations are gonna take you.

C Absolutely. Okay. Final question for both of you that I really wanna know. In your trajectory of doing this podcast, what has been your biggest insight, takeaway, lesson learned, something that has just really left an impression on you that you did not know that you would learn at the start of this?

B I'm gonna I'm gonna go first so Janine can't steal my answer. No. Really, that there that this podcast has been so meaningful to so many people. I think we knew we had a community out there, but we just had no idea how large that community was.

C Awesome.

B So that as somebody who's tends to be pessimistic on the outlook of architects' ability to change and evolve, this podcast has really provided me with a light of, like, optimism for the future of the profession.

C I love that.

A I think I've had to reassess my perspective because when I started the podcast, I was die hard in the camp of the emerging professional. Like, I saw things from the point of view of the emerging professional, and I was just all in on advocating for that. But as the podcast has grown, I've, of course, been in the role of growing my business, which has shifted my perspective towards more empathy and understanding on the owner firm owner perspective. And I think I'm grappling with where that push and pull happens between the needs of an owner versus the needs of the emerging professional and how there's a little give and take in both sides of that, and reassessing where I was previously, like, really rigid about what I thought. Now trying to come up with a argument that has positive outcomes for both sides. It's not all black and white.

C Well, I think the the work y'all are doing and just creating a space for women in architecture to talk about business, like, just that tagline is so enthralling and so exciting, and, clearly, I'm biased as an architect getting an MBA that I'm like, oh, let's keep talking about this. I wanna know all of your insights from school and from the podcast. And I just think it's such an, great act of generosity, like, knowing that you do this on top of your jobs and that you are putting this resource out there and making connections happen and recording conversations for people to grow their own insights. And and I hope to check back in next season, season 5. That's incredible. So check back in next season and to see where things are going and how things are continuing to evolve. So thank you both for letting me be a part of the conversation and to interview you both and your stories, and, I'm looking forward to what's ahead.

B Yeah. No, Amy. So we're actually for our listeners, we're actually bringing back Amy in season 5. I think she has so much to offer. Not not, like, mother of 3, but, like, the the timing of, like, I I can't wait to dig into the timing of, like, all of the decisions that you made at your point in your career because you pursued your m mark while you already had children, and then that was, you know, before your MBA. So that's for me, that's like a whole another level of difficulty in your career path, so I can't wait to explore that. But, Janine, did you wanna talk about a few of the other things we have coming in season 5?

A Yeah. We also wanna get into asking more about what Madame Architect's doing and, you know, your role there as a volunteer or is it a volunteer? Volunteer role and

C Same as y'all.

A Same, like, what are you learning?

C Full time job.

A I I do think it's amazing. You've got the MARC and the now you're going for the MBA. So there's I have a lot of questions about all of all of that. And if our listeners are interested, you can dive into the archives of Madame Architect. You can follow them on social media at madame architect or visit madamearchitect.org, to read past articles and learn about the amazing women that they've been interviewing. And as Evelyn said, we will be bringing Amy back in season 5. We also have other really interesting conversations. We we picked up a thread on women in season 4 for women's history month, and we have a couple other really prominent women that are coming on.

A We're finally gonna get to our mother's episode that we've been talking about for a while. We also have Tiara Hughes coming on from the first five hundred and other key guests from the industry that will be helping us continue this conversation about disruption and change.

B And we're gonna continue to add to our diversity series by bringing on some Latin architects to have a conversation about their experience in the profession.

A I've been having fun recently going back. And now that we have, like, 80 episodes, like, trying to catalog playlists for our listeners. So, like, if you're interested in technology, we have an entire series. If you go check out our social media on practice of art, you can find, like, the technology playlist series. We have the architecture and playlist series. We have our diversity series. There's so many threads within the show. So if you're only interested in a specific topic, you can go back and find the episodes that really resonate on that topic.

B Yeah. So thank you all for tuning in. Leave us a rating and review over on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps us out a lot. And as I said earlier, it makes our week, not just our day. Sponsorships help us with the cost of producing the show, so be sure to contact us if you're interested. We will be taking a brief break, so feel free to visit old episodes in the meantime, but we will be back in July.

A Hi, disruptors. Janine here. Season 4 of this disrupted has been our biggest season yet. Thank you so much for helping us grow our podcast and our small businesses. We couldn't have done it without you. I hope that you've enjoyed the lineup of speakers that we've hosted this season who have helped us explore entrepreneurship, new business strategies and practice, the role of the architect in our cities, and the potential for technology in our work. I wanted to share a few stats about this season that I'm really proud of. This season, we crossed 17,000 unique downloads.

A Of our 20 episodes this season, we had over 21 women on the show, and we celebrated Women's History Month. This brings our grand total of female guests over the lifespan of the show to over 60 across 4 seasons 80 episodes. We're also really proud that we've had over 50 historically underrepresented voices on the show as experts in business, technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship in our industry. We'll be taking a short break before season 5 starts. If you're looking for new content, you may wanna revisit some of our past episode in the archives. I've started publishing our top 10 most downloaded episodes every month. As you know, our episodes can jump from topic to topic, and I always find it interesting to see what's most downloaded and what our listeners really enjoy. So as of June 1, 2022, here are our top 10 most downloaded episodes.

A Episode 1, practice shifts. Episode 67, architecture and the future of workplace, episode 68, the 2022 AIA AIA Whitney m Young Junior Honor Award winners, Riding the Vortex, episode 2, the next generation of practice, episode 10, organizational design process and innovation, episode 47, talent development and practice, episode 65, training confidence and technical detailing, episode 29, taking the leap from architecture into tech, episode 51, designing a culture of mentorship, and episode 42, building a great place to work. Keep an eye out on our social media for updates in the future. We also post playlists on Instagram, including our technology series, our architecture and series, and our diversity series. If you enjoy what we're creating, please drop us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or a rating over on Spotify, or reach out to us on social media. We always enjoy hearing from you. If you wanna participate in discussions about these types of topics, consider joining us in the POA lab, or reach out to us about speaking engagements. Evelyn and I are heading to a 22 in Chicago in June and the Entre Architect Annual Meeting in Austin this November.

A We're working on season 5, and we're really looking forward to bringing on the next set of speakers to help us push this conversation forward. If you're interested, we're looking for details on what that You can contact me for information and details on what that involves. For those waiting on new content, please check back in mid to late July 2022. We'll be bringing you a new season with fresh content, new ideas, and more talented thought leaders. Thank you so much for making season 4 the best season yet. We look forward to seeing you soon.