Navigating technology- Julie Yack's Blog
How do we nurture juniors into seniors when AI is doing the heavy lifting? Not junior employees. Junior work. AI may not eliminate junior employees. But it s absolutely coming for junior work. And I m not sure we ve thought enough about what else disappears when that work does. The first drafts. The basic research. The simple [ ]
The strange obsession with brand new conference sessions Every CFP season, I notice the same request. Priority will be given to sessions that have never been presented before. Every time I read it, I pause. Not because I think it s completely wrong. Because I think it s interesting. It s one of the few places where we [ ]
Every few years, technology gives us a new label. Client/server. Cloud. Mobile. Low code. AI. We spend years debating what each one means, who it s for, and whether it s going to replace whatever came before it. Then enough time passes that we can finally step back and see where it fits in the bigger story. [ ]
If AI makes a team 20% more productive, what should we do with the 20%? Some would say the obvious answer is headcount reduction. Maybe that s the right answer in some situations. Every organization has different goals, different financial realities, and different obligations to shareholders, employees, and customers. But why do we often jump to [ ]
Sometimes the biggest things in our lives begin so quietly that we don t recognize them until years later. I was terrified. It was my first professional certification exam. I remember the fear more clearly than I remember the exam itself. Looking back, that seems almost ridiculous. I ve spent much of my career since then teaching [ ]
Bad Ass Bitches and assumed authority At DynamicsCon we had our panel called Bad Ass Bitches. The title wasn t accidental. We chose it. We knew it would get attention, and we knew exactly what conversation we wanted to have. The session was about confidence, careers, leadership, and what it means to own your space in [ ]
I can t point to a single moment when I started noticing it. There wasn t one presentation, one LinkedIn post, or one conversation that suddenly made me concerned. It was more like watching the tide come in. A hundred small moments over the past few years. Someone confidently sharing information they hadn t verified. Someone presenting an [ ]
I was boarding a flight when I met a retired college president waiting in the same boarding line. She was one of those people who can extract your entire life story while standing in an airport line. By the time we reached the gate, she knew about my business, my community work, my speaking career, [ ]
Beyond AI AdoptionWe’ll Hold the Door Open May was a busy month. I spent time in Washington, DC, talking with policymakers and advocates about AI. I attended DynamicsCon in Las Vegas. Later in the month, I traveled to Portorož, Slovenia, for Dynamics Minds. Somewhere in between, I celebrated another birthday. That last part feels more [ ]
In May, I’ll be in three very different rooms. First stop is Global App Economy Conference 2026 in DC, with ACT The App Association. This isn’t a typical conference. It’s policy conversations, followed by meetings on the Hill and in federal offices. We’re there representing small and mid-sized tech businesses. The conversations span broadband access, workforce [ ]