On this episode of the Humans of DevOps, Jason Baum is joined by Simone Jo Moore (@simonejomoore), DevOps Institute Ambassador, Senior Consultant, Master Trainer and Speaker. They discuss Simone’s military and HR background, psychology, creativity and the art of DevOps plus more!

Simone’s work involves guiding the digital journey of organisations and individuals in adapting to HumanisingIT. Blending business and technology approaches and frameworks to help us thrive in an ever-changing,
dynamic world. Flourishing humans and exceptional experiences are a result of her active values – people connected, knowledge shared, possibilities discovered and potential realised.

A recognised Top 25 Industry Thought Leader and 2021 Women in DevOps list, Simone is the Editorial Director of ‘The Era of HumanisingIT’ docuseries, contributing author to VeriSM Unwrapped, Applied and ITIL4 High Velocity IT and other international certifications, DevOps Institute eBooks and a contributing reviewer for the European Commission and Cynefin based Field Guide on Managing complexity (and chaos) in times of crisis.

The lightly edited transcript can be found below.

Narrator 00:02
You’re listening to the humans of DevOps podcast, a podcast focused on advancing the Humans of DevOps through skills, knowledge, ideas and learning, or the SKILframework.

Simone J. Moore 00:16
This isn’t just about women, this is just about humans. I would love it one day where we don’t actually use the term women in tech, if we could just talk about humans in tech or human tech, or what that means. That would be the final victory, I think.

Jason Baum 00:33
Hey, everyone, it’s Jason Baum, Director of membership at DevOps Institute, and this is the Humans of DevOps podcast. Thanks so much for coming back and joining us. I am really excited today to be chatting with Simone Joe Moore. Simone is a DOI ambassador, Master Trainer, course developer and professional speaker. And she’s joining us today from the southwest region of France, which is one of my favorite places in the whole wide world. Simone’s work involves guiding the digital journey of organizations and individuals and adapting to humanizing it. A recognized, recognized top 25 industry thought leader and 2021 Woman in DevOps list. Simone is the editorial director of the era of humanizing it Docuseries, contributing author to Vera sim unwrapped, applied and idle for high velocity it and other international certifications. And she’s also a contributor to DevOps Institute ebooks. Simone takes things beyond technology by combining it with our HR organizational change and complementary health background for a deep leadership experience shared through writing, consulting, training, workshops, conferences, podcasts and social media. Simone. Thanks for being on the podcast. Hello, that was a mouthful. You do? You’ve done a lot. My bio would be to two words. Jason Baum

Simone J. Moore 02:04
just got a few decades to go hey, look with a name like that. You don’t need any more use attached to it do?

Jason Baum 02:10
That’s, I’ll go for that. Why not? It’s a man. Thanks for being on the podcast. Really appreciate having you here.

Simone J. Moore 02:17
It’s great. Besides that I got dubbed in.

Jason Baum 02:20
Yeah, exactly. Simone, you don’t sound like you’re from the southwest of France. Where are you originally from?

Simone J. Moore 02:28
I am an Ozzy born and bred.

Jason Baum 02:31
Aussie Ozzy Ozzy. Yeah. Oh, don’t do that. They have to do it. It’s it’s awesome. I love doing it. Because you always know when the Aussies are around. Oh, you

Simone J. Moore 02:43
just have a complete brain connection if you don’t finish.

Jason Baum 02:48
That’s like a shave and a haircut here. I think you don’t know what that is. So there you go. It’s very regional. So, Simone, you said you’re from Australia? How did you go from Australia to the southwest region of France?

Simone J. Moore 03:08
My husband finally retired from his life in the Navy. So once he left there, it meant that we had the opportunity to live wherever we wanted, instead of being told where we were going to be living, which makes a bit of a change, not that we didn’t have good places that we’ve lived. But it’s, you know that the military life does shift around a fair bit, which is a great experience and good fun. But it was just really wonderful. And his background is archaeology and ancient modern history as well. And of course, where else would you want to come but Europe for a lot of that kind of stuff. So by living here, we get to really experience European life, and gives us the chance to explore more than your normal work vacation time gives you.

Jason Baum 04:00
I imagine you did a lot of travel. And I know you have a military background as well. And so I guess you had your choice because you must have been to many, many places. So tell us a little bit about your military background and just your kind of career path because it’s, you’re now the second person I’ve spoken to on this podcast who had a military background and ended up in DevOps. So I’m just curious how that happens.

Simone J. Moore 04:29
Oh, it was really great because I love listening to all the podcasts. And when I heard Hope mention her background, I just nearly went snap. Very similar indeed. From that perspective.

Jason Baum 04:43
That’s right, third-person sorry, third-person I forgot.

Simone J. Moore 04:46
So it was actually when I was listening to hurts because I also started in signals in the army. And as she was describing as well, I’ve played possum in the ceilings under the desks and so on with the cables and That kind of thing. So it’s really kind of cool to hear it. And that’s also to I think my love affair with technology came in very early on, you know, the technology has really shifted, it’s been quite a journey learning to type from a manual typewriter to telex machines, and Marie code, pap exes, and all that other stuff, as well as satellite equipment more. So I think, you know, as my career progressed through service and support, now, as a consultant, Coach and Trainer, I just zoom along with everyone else. But it’s pretty amazing what we’ve done. I think, technology-wise, we’re really trying to rediscover our humanity, because when I got into the civilian jobs, and I started in telecommunications, which was hilarious because they wanted me in reception and secretarial roles because I could type at 98 words per minute and 100% accuracy. But all I wanted to do was the more techy things like fiber optics, and some submarine cabling projects and stuff like that. But now remember, there was one time and was telco company I was working with, and I was they had a telex machine, because they used to get all sorts of threats and stuffs quite a, you know, a few decades ago for those that remember telex machines. But they used to have the ticket tapes, like he used to see on the movies with the stock exchange the little tapes and with all the holes in it, well, that happens to be called married code. And I was there reading the ticker tape from it because the print ribbon, they incremented run out, but you know, codes code, it’s a language. So it’s just one of those skills that I had from my military time that you end up bringing into, you know, the civilian space. My whole career has certainly been one of reprogramming and re languaging. Myself, I guess, but not necessarily code if that makes sense.

Jason Baum 07:03
Yeah, we all kind of evolve right? As time goes by, and you take on different shapes and do different things. And I guess that’s what makes life more interesting. You know, what challenges did you face along your journey?

Simone J. Moore 07:21
I think I’m probably in that early part of my career. The most difficult thing was like a lot of the women we look up to in the history of tech as well, you know, it even back in the 1800s, starting with Ada Lovelace, I mean, here you are got the daughter of Lord Byron, you know, the biggest poet in from whatever family circumstance, her mother really pushed her into mathematics and science, because didn’t want her to have or go towards the artistic bent that her father had. And she ends up, you know, creating this amazing system and the way to look at computing. And in fact, she even described her own approaches to poetical science. Now, whether that was something from her father, I don’t know, but it’s also to as an analyst, or a metaphysician, so she’s even thinking, you know, beyond what she thought her computer could actually do. And then you’ve got other people like Grace Hopper, Hey, she’s Navy military gal can’t, you know, can’t go past who she is either. And she’s also another inspiration for me, because of that Morse code, and Marie code, and all those other elements that are in there, but I think one of the others that really inspired me from a female perspective in tech was Hetty Lamarr. Now, most people only think of her as a Hollywood actress, or I may know her as a Hollywood actress. They don’t realize that, in fact, in fact, I was just watching one of her movies yesterday, it was really interesting, watching her do all the Hollywood things. And yet behind this is an inventor and contributed a science that’s really fabulous. You know, she co-invented an early version of what we call that frequency hopping, spread spectrum, which for me was all that whole communications, this is guidance and GPS thing. This is what a lot of Bluetooth is built on even now was her stuff. So that was all related to my work. So I think even the other thing about Lamar that I find fabulous is that you don’t have to be a techie to be in tech. I mean, she had no formal training and she was primarily self-taught. So working in her spare time because it was hobbies or her inventions. You know, she really improved things for others and we work with what these women, you know, created. So I think when I think about my challenges, I think about their challenges and what they were also still able to do, because we still face those in many ways. Things have improved, yet some things haven’t quite shifted.

Jason Baum 10:11
Yeah, it’s like you learn history, right? You said your husband was, you know, an architect and historian and had a story and type background to and history just learn from mistakes, right? And you’re supposed to not repeat them, even though many times we do, because we’re flawed. And we’re human. We talked about that. But yeah,

Simone J. Moore 10:32
I think we’re getting better at being more visible and being more transparent about women in STEM and women in tech. And I think we are now focusing more on helping younger women like earlier on from school to be more interested. And yeah, I mean, I didn’t even start I think school computing-wise, odd who can remember back to Fortran and COBOL? Not many. But that’s what you know, they were the first programming languages that I got to have a looking at, and I must have been in my mid-teens at that point. So it wasn’t early enough yet.

Jason Baum 11:09
I don’t use Do you still think there are challenges or roadblocks for women in tech? today?

Simone J. Moore 11:14
Yeah, absolutely. I think there were eroding them little by little. One of the great things I saw there was a women tech conference a couple of weeks ago, that was just so fantabulous to be be at that we had, you know, men are on the program as well. And the men actually supporting the women in tech voices. And I think that’s a big part of it, that this isn’t just about women, this is just about humans. So I think that when we come back to the point, I would love it one day where we don’t actually use the term women in tech. If we could just talk about humans in tech, or human tech, or what that means. That will be the final victory, I think in terms of yeah, there’s history, and it’s great history. And there’s a lot of women I’m so proud of to be inspired by. But yeah, when we don’t have to say that phrase, then I think we’ve made it. Yeah, we’re

Jason Baum 12:14
all just people. We’re all just humans, trying to trying to get by, do the best we can. It’s something that you were talking about what the you know, the Hollywood actress, it got me thinking, you know, many people think, and probably wrongly that things are just black and white, right? That’s how we always are programmed to think I think it’s some people as our left brain and some people our right brain, you can’t combine the two. And, you know, you’re as you’re talking and giving examples, I’m thinking about that concept. And you know, the combination of of that creative mind with a mathematical mind is something quite interesting. And and that you could still be an artist and Intertek?

Simone J. Moore 13:01
Absolutely a lot, you just have to look at great graphic artists’ careers. I mean, that’s definitely one way of doing it. Look at all the work we can do with digital photography. You look at the way for example, the art world uses tech to X-ray and validate, you know, primary pieces of work of art and make sure that they are the real thing. You know, we can use technology in so many ways in the art world, but it goes the opposite way too. I mean, I was never great at maths, I always did want to be the astronomer, I loved things like string theory, and I just really love all of that stuff. But my math was never great. So you look for alternate ways to move around that, you know, my, my jaw nearly hit the floor when I actually passed my, you know, managers for finance stuff at university. I actually got a credit instead of just a part. So weird how the hell did that happen when math is not my strong suit. But what I actually discovered and through training others is it really is the way we think it really is about that creative process of coming at things from different perspectives. We all have a natural creative spirit, we all like to evolve our skills. It’s just the way we approach work, the way we live the way we play. As long as we’ve got the right environment, and we’ve got the guidance to reconnect with that. Even the Phoenix Project is art. It’s a novel and it creates a visceral reaction. It connects you with the story. I think, you know, storytelling is one of our biggest creative arts that we have in tech that we need to take more advantage of for sure.

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Simone J. Moore 15:35
Interacting with something, isn’t it, it’s when your medium, whether it’s emotion, or it’s paint, or it’s voice, or it’s writing, it’s that moment of interacting with something that creates the data that we need, the context in which it happens that where we can be amazing at solving stuff.

Jason Baum 15:59
And eliciting a response to I think, is the other piece of it too, right. I mean, that’s, that’s us, that’s our representation of something. And that elicits a response.

Simone J. Moore 16:11
And letting go of pre-judged expectation, that’s a really critical thing. You know, in DevOps as well, we need that safe to fail environment, we need the psychological safe space to play and you know, that that’s all part of being creative, you know, and allowing that process to occur.

Jason Baum 16:30
And the lens, we used to talk about the lens, the lens, seeing things through a certain lens, and whether you know, you can set that lens aside, which is incredibly difficult or perhaps see through other people’s lenses. Gosh, we can talk about that is

Simone J. Moore 16:46
always subjective, always negative, you know, but you know, the experience the viewer has. So think of it in terms of the experience the customer have, or that the relationship between Dev and Ops that they have with each other, the person that’s experiencing it, their view is just as precious as what you create, whether you’re creating the code or the service itself, or the product. But you know, sharing that story with an artist, whoever did that creation, when you sharing your experience of what you seal that story, it brings out other emotions, and it brings out other understanding. So it’ll often lead to new thoughts or ways of seeing new inspiration for other work. So ultimately, it’s really, this art is an ongoing conversation between lots of different elements of being.

Jason Baum 17:39
And we should even mention, you are an artist, I don’t know if we actually have established that you are a photographer and just recently, you had a major accomplishment of being on a cover of a book, your

Simone J. Moore 17:54
is so very, very exciting. In fact, it’s the second time but with a few years apart. But this is amazing. I love it, because the author is a modern writer as well in crime thriller, and a lot of it is to do with tech. So I really can’t wait to get my nose into that one. Really enjoy. But it’s so cool, really to see your work in public. And would it be so cool if that’s the way Service Desk guys felt or the way dev guys felt? You know, that that little piece of code, that little thing that they created? And seeing it in action? And knowing that while people are enjoying that people make it’s making a difference?

Jason Baum 18:37
Definitely. I would think you would feel pretty encouraged. If you had that. You kind of mentioned it. But you have a background in complementary health. You kind of briefly just mentioned the combination of psychology and tech. Do you want to expand a little bit more on that? How what was your background? I think kind of to two pieces of this, you have an HR background, and you have that complementary health background, how has that helped to contribute to where you are today in DevOps?

Simone J. Moore 19:11
I think amazingly, so because I, you know, a key figure DevOps, for all that we have our automation and measuring and, and that kind of thing, culture is always going to be at the forefront. And that’s because of people. There’s something I’ve always said around that, which is the fact that you know when we look at the skyline of an organization, you know, how it’s shaped and how it looks. That’s really a reflection of the business culture and the society context in which the business sits. And at the very heart of that is also the understanding that changes in the culture of the business are actually a reflection of the changes within the people And when you think about it from that perspective, what we’re really doing is changing the way people work, it’s the people that are making the change. And as a result of that, that’s going to enhance the business or not depending on how they change. And that will shape the skyline of the organization or how it’s seen by society and how it’s seen by its customers. And I think when we talk about living in this VUCA world, you know, that volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world, having the HR background and complementary health toolbox, if you like, of techniques and approaches, I find that it’s, we can shift that thinking dynamic. So it’s not just about vanquishing the volatility we’re in but it’s also being vibrant. They like two sides of the coin. So and there’s also that flip between not just uprooting the uncertainty, but going to something and saying, Okay, we’re a bit uncertain, but wow, how unreal, you know, to be able to discover stuff still, you know, there’s still more that we can figure out. And also to, from trying to conquer complexity to be crazy passionate about solving the unknowns. And I think, rather than attacking ambiguity, because it’s that gray space, well, the thing is real life does live in the gray space. You mentioned black and white. So really, it’s about, you know, revealing and reveling, instead of ambiguity looking for the astounding. So, yeah, that’s I like to look at those sides of the coin is shifting that thinking. You know, a couple have been about two and a half. Gosh, nearly three decades ago, I first brought out a stressless workshop that I did internally for my support teams. And it included things like teaching them hand reflexology, you know, pressing the acupressure points and your hand for certain things you know, just come back from lunch and feeling a bit tired. Or I’ve got the headache and there’s you know, a little point on there to rub for the headache.

Jason Baum 22:11
Teach me this

Simone J. Moore 22:13
just fascinating stuff. But I mean, it’s all science-based. It’s just that you know, three decades ago and you know, they so just got to the next call, get to next call, get to the next call. But your body naturally goes to do this anyway, it’s part of the neuroscience your brains are always looking for I need to feel better, what can I do to feel better, and so the body’s naturally doing it anyway. But back then they thought it was all Frou Frou and fluffy and two out there because it came from complementary health, rather than standard science, so to speak was standard medical. But now it’s all considered de rigueur, now we’re doing mindfulness, we’re doing meditations, we’re doing all sorts of things. So I’m really happy to see a lot of stuff that I was kind of doing a long time ago. But now being part of the well-being programs, you know, mental health being talked about out in the open, that it’s not about being ill or being well, or, you know, this is something that needs to be dealt with no differently to, you know, if we hurt her leg, or whatever the case might be, you know, it’s something that needs to be dealt with. And there are different approaches to do that. So it has to be built in as part of the whole thing. And helping people build their resilience. Now, you know, I can’t tell you how to be resilient, I can’t teach you to be resilient. What I can do is provide you with the environment, and the tools, and the techniques and things for you to have available to you for when you need them. You know that that’s what we need to be doing. Having that empathy, compassion, going beyond emotional intelligence, having the agility in a good leader knows how to deal with the Messy emotions, not just the good ones.

Jason Baum 24:07
Yeah, we talk about actually the past couple of podcasts we’ve actually kind of grappled with some of these topics, these concepts with Dr. Mark Peters. We spoke about baby steps, and I related it to the movie. What About Bob, which is one of my all-time favorites with Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss and Richard Dreyfuss plays a psychiatrist and he’s teaching the concept to Bill Murray about baby steps. And it’s obvious it’s a made-up book and it’s a made-up concept but not really I mean it’s what we talk about like the little encouragement just do the little things first and then you get to you know, you get to the big accomplishment or we on another podcast, talked about encouragement and encouragement as a form of motivation and not You know, it’s that whole blameless culture, right? It’s not assigning blame and not motivating through, through calling out when someone does something bad, but it’s encouraging when they’re doing something that is taking the right steps when they’re on their way, giving positive reinforcement. These are all long time to be

Simone J. Moore 25:19
most complimentary. If that sort of thing data things we need to be encouraging for sure.

Jason Baum 25:23
Yes, definitely. So along your journey, you know, did you What advice did you receive? Or what advice did you wish you had gotten? That could have helped you today?

Simone J. Moore 25:37
Wow, that’s a big question. Is

Jason Baum 25:39
it I like to ask really tough questions.

Simone J. Moore 25:45
It makes me think about so when I was 13, what should I have known? What would I have liked to have known them? Um, I probably would have tried. I probably would have found a tutor in mathematics.

Jason Baum 26:02
Yeah, me too. I’m really poor at math. Really great English. But yeah, but there’s a right and left brain.

Simone J. Moore 26:09
Yeah. But, you know, this is the interesting thing. I’m so good at analyzing stuff. You give me a graph, you give me the pictorials. And I can pull that thing to shreds, right? Give it to me in give me the same data in a box. And I’m going to look at these numbers and go, okay. So it is really strange, isn’t it? Again, it’s just the way we perceive our world.

Jason Baum 26:33
I like to think I’m a logical person, but math, for whatever reason, it just stumps me.

Simone J. Moore 26:38
Yeah, I don’t know about all those missing x’s, that that drives me crazy. But, you know, again, it’s the exploratory side curiosity. I think what I really would have enjoyed most and I say enjoy because it would have lifted a lot of the angst and a lot of the traumas, would have been to understand some of these techniques and tools and methods for helping me through various things and become resilient. earlier. You know, everything goes through this time in place. I mean, really, what can you change? I wouldn’t be who I am now, if I didn’t have the journey I had. So what would I change? I know because then I would be a different me right now. That’s a timeline travel out.

Jason Baum 27:32
Yeah, no string theory. Here we go. Oh, that was a great answer. I think that might have been one of the best answers. I’ve gotten on that question. So what’s okay, let’s, let’s ask another really hard one. For some people. I don’t know. Maybe you’ll have the answer right away. But what’s one unique, unique thing to you? Once one unique thing that nobody knows about you that maybe you’ve never told? For general public consumption? Yeah, yeah. No, you’re that’s you’re not getting away with that one. Got a tough give us something.

Simone J. Moore 28:10
Oh, that okay. That they generally wouldn’t know. I’m, I’m pretty much an open book. During the time now. I’m, I’m fairly transparent. Um, I don’t have any tattoos. I escaped the military without tattoos. That’s impressive. Yeah. Especially with some of the guys that I used to hang you. Absolutely.

Jason Baum 28:35
So you’re telling me at some point, I think we were talking about you know, escapism and hobbies and things like that we, you know, we’ve been kind of putting ourselves into I think these days with the pandemic and trying to say, we’ll talk about mindfulness and talking about trying to keep yourself sane in a really tough time when I think we’re all going to have a little bit of trauma after this one. You know, being the pandemic, I’ve been pouring myself into music I love music. That’s my go-to what is your go-to?

Simone J. Moore 29:13
More often than not, and I think it’s a habit I built from when I was a kid, or maybe it was built into me from my grandparents or whatever because didn’t have iPhones back then. So we read a lot. No Kindles, no iPhones. So I used to pour myself into books and I love sci-fi fantasy. Absolutely love sci-fi fantasy and McCaffrey’s Dragon series was just brilliant for me. And when she finally got gets to the point of how when they discover the technology and that could have helped them and it just loves it all and historical fiction so that was probably my go-to because you can be in that world or escape into that world and I guess movies do that as well. A lot. So, yeah, music too. Any anything that takes my brain away from actually having to process anything to do with work?

Jason Baum 30:13
Isn’t music just great for that? Music is like, I think one of the greatest escapes and ever and it’s so interesting because like you were saying with art like there’s so much of it. And so and it’s also different. And it all speaks to you differently. I was talking to

Simone J. Moore 30:30
who’s your favorite or what’s your favorite music to go to?

Jason Baum 30:34
What’s my favorite music type genre? Yeah. I mean, I think I’m more a Brock than anything else. But I’m into it all. I love it all.

Narrator 30:46
Yeah,

Simone J. Moore 30:46
definitely the eclectic mix. I like that. I like jazz and I like a lot. You know, I love my, my Billie Holiday. Josephine Baker’s, you know, even Tallulah Bankhead had a really interesting voice. Libby Holman was another torch singer. She’s really she was really cool as well. So and, yeah,

Jason Baum 31:09
I talked about the blues on this podcast, we talked about Buddy Guy, and I’m a big Steve Winwood fan, and I’m a big Clapton fan.

Simone J. Moore 31:16
And, you know, an interesting thing is only about an hour from where I live is Josephine Baker’s Chateau Chateau Milan’s. So it’s, you know, dedicated to her where she was and how she brought up her rainbow tribe and all the rest of it. And it also has a little-known fact. It also has in their her history, about her work with the resistance during World War Two with the French. She actually received the quadriga from the President. So

Jason Baum 31:51
with some of the best add-in

Simone J. Moore 31:53
her snuggled it out in her sheet music.

Jason Baum 31:56
Well, I really appreciate you being on the podcast today, Simone, it was really great getting to know you and talking about everything from string theory to HR psychology, and the military. And I think we threw in some DevOps in there too.

Simone J. Moore 32:16
DevOps is always there.

Jason Baum 32:17
That’s right. I really appreciate you coming on.

Simone J. Moore 32:21
Thank you so much. Thanks. It’s been really cool. And thank

Jason Baum 32:25
you for listening to this episode of the humans of DevOps Podcast. I’m going to end this podcast the same as I always do, encouraging you to become a premium member of DevOps Institute to get access to even more great resources just like this one. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and most of all, stay human, live long and prosper.

Narrator 32:46
Thanks for listening to this episode of the humans of DevOps podcast. Don’t forget to join our global community to get access to even more great resources like this. Until next time, remember, you are part of something bigger than yourself. You belong