Hannah (Feldman) Hunt’s Post

When you slay a client engagement #wednesdayvibes

I had the opportunity to speak at AFCEA Indiana's Innovation & Technology Summit yesterday. Besides being on a fantastic panel regarding Data Analytics with Jason Venner, RIMS-CRMP-FED Gavan Burke and Matt Webster, I also had the opportunity to give a talk on "Data as a Product" and the emphasis on a product mindset when working with data. I wanted to share it out in hopes it is interesting to you all! As an example, I used Spotify and Taylor Swift songs as a bounded data domain during my talk. Spotify knows I love Taylor Swift. They know how often I listen to Taylor Swift and which albums (Taylor's Versions only, come on people!). Spotify can take the operational data of providing Taylor's Version of the say, the 1989 album to its users, and generate insights into the amount of Taylor I listen to, recommend more Taylor-related content, and recommend similar artists. So next time you listen to Taylor Swift, remember you are generating and consuming data from your music stream provider! #dataasaproduct #datadomains #taylorswift #afcea #productmindset MetroStar

Excited to pretend to be a Hoosier with this fun AFCEA crew! MetroStar

When I look at enterprise platforms across the DoD and federal government, I see a consistent fatal flaw that needs to be mitigated in order to make those products to be successful: every feature or iteration needs to be tied to some sort of user-focused outcome. Even if it's not a feature users "see" (like CVE mitigations), keeping the platform secure and running is in itself supporting the user. Improving the onboarding experience through self-service outcomes, increasing security posture (both compliance and "real" security), enhancing automation across account provisioning, and having greater fidelity into cost and spend metrics need to be aligned towards setting users up for success...truly treating platform as a product.

I often get frustrated with the job title Solution Architect. It implies that person knows the solution to everything and doesn’t need to engage with users to understand real problems. While identifying solutions and how to implement them is important, what is even more important is understanding the problem and how that problem impacts the user. Only then, with enough fidelity, can you start to define the outcomes to solve those problems. This can be accomplished for any technological problem, because at the end of the day, there are users and consumers of whatever architecture you put in place, so it’s absolutely paramount you bring in users from the beginning. Otherwise, you’ll have the world’s best boondoggle that doesn’t actually solve anything. #usercentered #outcomesoveroutputs #discovery

What is everyone’s Halloween costume? I was thinking of going as something really scary… a security assessor who is reviewing a mainframe piece of DoD software that hasn’t been reviewed in 3 years. Spooky stuff! #halloween #cybersecurityawarenessmonth #spoopy

I'm super jazzed to have joined MetroStar! This company has a huge bias for action and belief in taking risks that has been absolutely electrifying. Can't wait to continue to do great things with such an amazing group of people 🤗

One of the biggest aspects of any organization I look to join surrounds culture. How does this organization interact with their employees? Do employees have autonomy and are they given the freedom to execute on strategy? Does the company value self-organizing teams and uplifting those around them? How do they align their organization against shared priorities? Would I feel like I'm adding value and given the space to excel? As I was thinking about leaving government and reflecting on answers to these questions, I found that MetroStar checked all those boxes. I saw an organization that cared immensely about culture, values, and its people, and I saw a clear vision and strategy for success. So, with all that said, I'm excited to start with them tomorrow as a Distinguished Technical Fellow (Sr. Director) and begin this new journey! #peoplefirst #justshipit #culture

Sean Rowland dropped off "Trillion Dollar Coach" at my desk during my last week with the Army. Written by Googlers Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle, they talk about one of the best Silicon Valley coaches of all time, Bill Campbell, and how he supported the growth of companies like Google, Apple, Intuit, Facebook, and others. This book is amazing; its fundamental thesis is that the best leaders are those who coach their teams, and that they don't instill top-down, command-and-control-type directives. It's about the people, truly. I wanted to share some of the biggest insights from this book before I gear up for my next role: 1. The top priority of any manager is the well-being and success of their people. 2. The manager's job is to run a decision-making process that ensures all perspectives get heard and considered, and if necessary, to break ties and make the decision. 3. Listen to people with your full and undivided attention. 4. Don't tell people what to do; offer stories and help guide them to the best decisions for them. 5. Believe in people more than they believe in themselves, and push them to be more courageous. 6. When faced with a problem, the first step is to ensure the right team is in place and working on it. 7. When things are going bad, teams are looking for even more loyalty, commitment, and decisiveness from their leaders. 8. To care about people, you need to care about people. 9. Help people. Be generous with your time, connections, and other resources. 10. Identify the biggest problem, the "elephant in the room," bring it front and center, and tackle it first. I've had some amazing coaches and support in my career, especially Angelica Phaneuf Matt Nelson Kevin Chrapaty Vinod S. Christopher Pittman Leonhardt Koepsell Tory Cuff Lily Zeleke who've helped me grow as a leader. #servantleadership #coaching #peoplefirst #askquestions #compassion #vulnerability

That’s a wrap!