00:00:00 Speaker 0: Hey, everybody. I am so excited to be joined by my friend Shirley Wu. Say hi, Shirley.

00:00:05 Speaker 1: Hi. Hi, everyone. Hi, Kent.

00:00:08 Speaker 0: Hi. All right. So Shirley and I go back pretty far, actually. I think we first met on Twitter, as where I meet most of my friends these days, or X as it is now called, but it was Twitter back then. And then we met in person. I wanna say, I'm pretty sure I've got a picture of us

00:00:29 at Fluent Conf, like 2017 or something.

00:00:32 Speaker 1: I think React Rally 2017. I've never been to Fluent Conf.

00:00:37 Speaker 0: Oh, okay, so it wasn't that 1. Yeah, so, but it was around that time. And actually, I'm finding with lots of these conversations I'm having with people that I met them first on Twitter and then met them first in person at a conference. And so there's something there, I guess.

00:00:55 Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I actually don't remember the Twitter part, but I remember very well the React Rally part and you being 1 of the nicest people I've ever met. So thank you so much for having me here.

00:01:05 Speaker 0: Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, you know, I was probably 1 of your adoring fans on Twitter that you didn't know anything about. And, but I'm so glad that we've developed this friendship now. And it's just been a total pleasure to know you and get to know you. I'd like the audience to get to know you a little bit as well. Could you introduce

00:01:25 yourself to us?

00:01:26 Speaker 1: Yeah, so hello again, My name is Shirley Wu. I am a, I've come up with a new intro for myself. I am a Chinese American artist, software engineer, data visualization designer. And then I think the rest is like, I'm trying

00:01:46 to remember this bio I made for myself. Keynote speaker and published author. I think we're the last 2. Yeah. Awesome.

00:01:57 Speaker 0: That's great. Yeah. List all of those accolades. That's super cool. Yeah. You have accomplished a lot of really cool things and I want to dive into some of those things. So, let's start a little bit further back from where you're at now. So, how did you get into web dev?

00:02:17 Speaker 1: Yeah, So I actually, I feel like maybe I've told you this before, Ket, but I actually studied business in college. And about my junior year, I was starting to realize that my personality is not built for finance

00:02:38 and investment banking. And so I started taking computer science classes on the side for fun. And I really clicked with CS. And by the end of my junior year, I was like, by the summer, actually, I was like, I think I want to try and get a software

00:02:58 job. And so I dedicated all my senior year to CS classes and I just so happened to get a, I mean, I'm making it sound easy, but it was a lot of work. But by the end of my senior year, I was really

00:03:18 fortunate and I was able to get 2 offers for front-end engineering jobs. And at the time that was because I had been doing art since my childhood. I have been part of a graphic design club in college, and I definitely did not have the experience for a

00:03:39 back-end engineer. And so the 2 companies that took an interest in me was like, you're going to be a front-end engineer. And I was like, cool, I'm just desperate for a job. I'm 22, and I'm about to graduate. But that actually turned out to be an amazing coincidence, like when

00:03:59 universes just kind of align correctly. And I ended up at a big data company as a front-end engineer at a time when D3, the JavaScript library, was just in its infancy. And my manager asked me if I would be interested

00:04:19 in exploring that. And it just so happened to be like this perfect combination of everything I love, which is math and especially geometry, code and art and design. And so that's how I got into WebDem.

00:04:38 Speaker 0: Well, that is such a fun story. I love the really unique stories, not to like diminish people's stories that are very typical. Like I went to college, I got a CS degree, you know. But like, I really find it inspiring when people decide, you know what, what I'm doing is not working and I'm gonna make this leap

00:04:59 over here. And I'm so glad that it worked out. Thank you. Because you have made a really positive impact on the ecosystem, especially with regard to data visualization. So you gave a talk recently at the most recent React Rally that I will

00:05:19 never forget. It was really, I wonder, I don't know if the recordings are up yet. I'm gonna go find that later, but super, super good talk. So if you're watching this now, like pause it and go look up Shirley's talk at React Rally 2023. It was very good. But in that talk, you talk about how you are, you

00:05:39 have always really been interested in art. And when was it that you really discovered that you could combine art with computer science?

00:05:48 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's such a great question. And thank you so much for being in the audience for that and being so supportive of that. I'm a huge fan of yours, Kent. And so the feeling is mutual about how amazing you are. And also just all of the positive vibes you gave me afterwards, because that was a

00:06:08 hard talk to give.

00:06:10 Speaker 0: Oh, yeah.

00:06:11 Speaker 1: And I'm so happy it was received the way it was. But I have been wanting to be an artist since I was 4 years old. And I gave up on that dream sometime in my teenage years, probably my most cynical years. And then I think

00:06:31 that the way I fell into data visualization was almost very natural. I think maybe my manager at this time saw something in me that was like I was bursting and itching to do something creative. He knew about my design background, not a formal design background, but like the informal club things. And so he kind of just like handed me the

00:06:51 opportunity and I didn't even recognize it at the time about how perfect of a fit it was. And then as the years went on, where I eventually quit my full-time job and then I went off to work on my own. And as I was working on my own, the reason why I was interested in that was because I wanted to see all the different kinds of projects that were out

00:07:11 there. And as I got to go more and more into data visualization, the first thing I realized is that data visualization is the closest thing. I like to say this is the closest thing to art that I can still get tech companies to pay me for.

00:07:31 And then once I realized that, I also, I think as part of realizing that I got the opportunity to work with an art museum on their data. And it was the first time that I had been given like completely creative free reign of their like, do whatever visual form you want to so I got the opportunity to do data art

00:07:53 and that that was the moment in which I was like I think this was 2018 and that was a moment in which I was like I just re-remembered my four-year-old self's dream, and I want to make this a reality now. And so I think it was a very slow years and years,

00:08:14 years of denying that also, Years of being like, there's no financial stability in art. And that's not a smart decision. And years of denying and then eventually like slowly coming back around. And then in 2021,

00:08:34 I went and did a grad program for art and technology. And I just graduated. Here I am.

00:08:42 Speaker 0: Yeah. Congratulations or congratulations.

00:08:47 Speaker 1: I appreciate that.

00:08:50 Speaker 0: I'm definitely that. But that's awesome. I love hearing that story. Now there very well could be people who are listening who are like, oh my gosh, I used to want to be an artist, and then I found out that you can't make any money doing that, so I had to pivot. So what advice would you give this person,

00:09:11 or even maybe the person who thought they might be into art and never really, you know, tried, what advice would you give them on like skills they can develop or things that they can try to kind of explore that area of themselves?

00:09:25 Speaker 1: Well, first, I want to say that I don't feel qualified at all to give this advice. The proportion of which I'm getting paid for art is like near 0. And my living is still based off of my software engineering background.

00:09:45 So having said that, I think everybody should take whatever I say with huge grains of salt But I do think well actually flip this around Kent which is like have you Because you're you're you're a very creative person You have to be very creative to make all of these

00:10:05 different courses, to put together the talks that you do. Have you ever wanted to do more artistic things? I don't think we've ever talked about this.

00:10:17 Speaker 0: No, no. So, when I was a kid, I would draw pictures for my mom and all of that stuff, like everybody. And I found out pretty quickly that I'm not a very good artist, At least in drawing and stuff. Like I just can't get my hands to do what

00:10:37 I want them to in that context. And so, there was a short time when I was actually into anime. I say, everybody calls it anime. That is not how it's said, it's anime. But anyway, so I was into Naruto was actually my anime of choice

00:10:58 for a little while. And so I would draw characters from Naruto. And I really enjoyed that, and I actually feel like my art wasn't terribly bad, but eventually I just kind of, I got into video editing, and then I started doing, you know, computer art sort of in a video medium. And so yeah, as far

00:11:18 as like my modern creativity, I would say that I shy away from anything that resembles making things look good, like from a design perspective and stuff, just because it requires a lot of time for me to figure out how to make something look good. Like I can

00:11:38 look at something and I know that doesn't look good, but I don't know how to fix it. So yeah, that's been a struggle for me.

00:11:46 Speaker 1: So I actually really, really relate to that. And it's, it's really interesting to hear people that are clearly very creative tell themselves that they're not creative just because we're not doing illustrations. Like I feel like when we think of art, I have this kind of, I'm hard

00:12:06 on myself because in high school, and I also really appreciate how you brought up your childhood because I feel like We very rarely talk about all the things that we've done as children that really kind of, you know, contribute to who we are today. And I have a very similar story to you in

00:12:26 that, like, I loved drawing as a kid. Then I found Photoshop. Then I found, then I was taught Dreamweaver, and then that's actually how I got to designing websites in my high school years, and that was the creative, my creative outlet. And I think that I took art all through my high school years, I got pretty decent at

00:12:46 still life, but I feel like I have a Lot of what you described which is that I would imagine something in my head and that's not what comes out through my hand Yeah, and then and then somehow I spent like More than a

00:13:06 decade beating myself up for the fact that I don't think I draw well And and I do really think that it's because when a lot of things us think about art we think about fine art and we think about paintings and we think about like Renaissance masters and being able to like, you know, render everything

00:13:28 photorealistically or Like even just being able to have your own illustration style. Or even like you said about all the things about design. And I do think that if that is, you know, if someone, if that is the art that someone wants to pursue, that's

00:13:48 absolutely amazing. But I also do think that we need to give ourselves credit for the fact that as front-end engineers, we're implicitly creative in the jobs that we do. We have to think about design decisions. Even if we're not designers, we have to think about all of that. So I want to kind of put that out

00:14:08 there first that, you know, I think we're doing art, not, not in the way that we might think of art, but I do think we're doing art and creative things all the time in our job. Having said that, again, I don't think I can give advice of how for anyone to

00:14:29 get into art, because I feel like everybody has their own different stories and where they're coming from and what they want to do with art. But I can share my story, which is that I think I spent a really long time being like, oh, I'm not a good artist, so I obviously can't make a living off

00:14:49 of that. And what I realized, what I was saying, is that I'm not a good drawer. I'm not good at, or I'm not as good as people that make money doing illustrations and animations. But what

00:15:09 I do have is a very strong foundation in technical skill. And that's why I chose to go to an art and technology program that like, you know, that acknowledges my technical background and tries to apply that to the creative things I do. And

00:15:29 instead of just like a straight up fine arts program. And so now the things I do is I'm not drawing, or at least my hand is not drawing, but I'm getting machines to draw for me, or I'm getting motors and like micro sensors or micro controllers to do things for me that does have an artistic

00:15:49 expression. And I've been thinking a lot about, like, what does art mean? And I think for me personally, it's very much about putting my perspective and my story and my opinions out there. And like whatever medium I use does not matter as much as those stories. So this is

00:16:09 a very long-winded way to say, like, I think we're all artists in some way. We're just maybe not making capital A art in the capital A art world. But I guess if someone wants to transition into it as a career, I think you're in a good place because I've been learning that

00:16:29 art takes a lot of money and does not pay you much. But you have to use a lot of money for it to make physical things and invest in classes and invest time and then you probably won't have that much monetary return. So having almost everybody I know

00:16:50 has a. Everybody I know has a side gig, like every artist I know, practicing artists have a side gig, whether that's being a teacher, a lot of them are professors or like they make, they substitute or they supplement their income in some other way.

00:17:10 And I think that being an engineer and a web developer is probably the best time to money ratio that you can have.

00:17:21 Speaker 0: Yeah, it is a really good time to money ratio. That's fair. Hopefully it stays that way. I don't know, the economy has been kind of funny. Yeah. Yeah, I actually wanna branch off of this idea just a little bit, maybe in kind of an odd direction, but do you like, I think that it's

00:17:41 a shame that people have to supplement what they enjoy doing, right? Like, wouldn't it be nice if the world, like everybody could just do what they enjoy to do. I feel like they would be better at their craft or whatever it is that they're doing. And it's just a shame that what people enjoy doesn't always equate very

00:18:01 well to what they can make money doing. That Venn diagram doesn't like overlap very well for everything. Do you think that we are in for a future where that's not going to be a problem with the advancements in technology and everything?

00:18:18 Speaker 1: Oh, what a juicy topic you've hit, like exactly. So I feel like there's 2 parts to that. The first part that you, to the question you just asked, and first part is like capitalism, right? Capitalism and like the obsession our society has with use and being

00:18:38 useful and about how, I think if the thing we love doing is useful, that's amazing, because that's now in alignment. But then it took me a long time to admit to myself that the thing that I enjoy the most does not make me money because society does not find it useful.

00:18:58 And what does it mean to be, Oh, I'm going on a rant here on my cell phone. No,

00:19:03 Speaker 0: you're not. Let's move it.

00:19:06 Speaker 1: And it's very interesting to think about what society finds useful. I mean, like, I think that tech does a lot of really helpful things, but tech also does a lot of. Unnecessary things, but but there is because there is a direct connection between the

00:19:27 code we write and the profit, like being able to sell a piece of software for something is direct, like it's very close to the money. And so I think we associate use with how quickly can we get money. And also

00:19:47 how quickly is it does it become useful in our lives? And I think that art does not have such a direct tie. It's like very intangible value, right? Like you, I think there's people that see a piece of art and connect with it and they'll buy it because they connect with it. But then there are pieces of art that are social commentary

00:20:07 that are like oftentimes very difficult social commentary and people don't necessarily want to buy that. So like I think I think like there's no direct use. There's like no straight line between art and like money. And so I think that that's what makes it really hard.

00:20:28 And that's a rant with like no conclusion. That's just a what we as a society have chosen to value versus not value and find use and not use in. But then there's a second part to that question that you had that was so interesting that I don't know the answer to

00:20:48 what you said about technological advancements and whether that allows us to do more of what we would enjoy. And I feel like that's a really difficult question that I have some vague guesses. And I would

00:21:08 actually be very curious to hear what you think, Ken, about all of that.

00:21:14 Speaker 0: Yeah, I think that over the history of the world, we have increased in our amount of leisure time as a general populace, right? So before the advancements in agriculture, we were just hunting and gathering constantly. And if you like took a break for a day to

00:21:34 just chill or go to Disneyland, then like you would starve. So I think that this is just a tale as old as time that technology does give us more of what we want to be able to spend our time doing. But somehow we're still working 40 hours a week. And I think that we are

00:21:54 a little insatiable for how much we can accumulate as far as wealth is concerned. And so I do think that it is possible. We could get to a Star Trek-like future where you literally just do whatever you want. There is no money. It's just like, you know, if you want to search the galaxy and be part of this

00:22:14 Starfleet and everything, then like go for it. That'll be fun. But if you wanna just have a grape farm, or a vineyard or whatever, then you can do that too. Like it's, I do hope that the technological advancements with AI and robots and all of that stuff could potentially get us to there.

00:22:34 But I kind of feel like there are scarier directions that could go as well. And so I am cautiously, I don't I'm somewhere between optimistic and pessimistic. I'm like, right. I'm cautiously neutral. I guess

00:22:52 Speaker 1: I really, really appreciate that answer. I guess the question I would have is like oh what is the percentage of the population that gets to enjoy that I think that's always yeah because I think that I you're absolutely right and I agree with you that technological advancements have given leisure

00:23:12 time, but not at an equal distribution across the population. And like going from, you said hunter-gatherer to agriculture, but then from agriculture to the industrial revolution, and then from the industrial to the computer age.

00:23:32 And all of those, I think some of us, and we definitely, I benefit from this, that I'm in a job where I could even remotely consider, you know, pursuing art. But like, But at

00:23:52 each of those revolutions, there's a whole subset of the population that never got to see that leisure because They were the ones working to enable that free time and that revolution. And so I guess my answer to build off of

00:24:12 yours is, I do think it will happen, and I think it's been happening. And perhaps the answer is that if the first from hunter-gatherer to agriculture allow for like this amount of population to have leisure and then agricultural to industrial maybe like

00:24:32 a lot this much And then and then and then maybe it's all increasing. Maybe. I'm also very cynical. So That's the optimistic side. And I think the pessimistic

00:24:53 side is that it could just exacerbate the wealth gap we have around the world already. That was not a fun answer.

00:25:04 Speaker 0: No, I think it's very interesting. And I definitely wasn't expecting our conversation to go this direction, but I'm glad that it did because I think it's pretty interesting to consider. Maybe to loop it back around to something that's more practical or applicable to people listening. What do you

00:25:24 think people can do to make sure that they're a part of this, whatever revolution that we will be experiencing next.

00:25:33 Speaker 1: Oh, what a fascinating question. And would you define for me what being a part of the revolution means to you?

00:25:45 Speaker 0: Yeah, that's a good question to throw back at me. So, I think the fact is that each 1 of us individually has very limited power to make a very big impact on that wealth gap and things. And we will have more power

00:26:05 if we are on the right side of that, right? If we are the ones who are able to accumulate the wealth and then do some good with that. And so I guess to be a part of that would be to make sure that we are not left behind as

00:26:26 the industry changes. And then to like find ways to use the wealth that we accumulate or the skills that we accumulate to hopefully bring more people over to this side of the wealth gap, I guess.

00:26:46 Speaker 1: Yeah. I was trying to buy time for my answer. And I appreciate it what you said. And again, I feel like it breaks down to 2 sides of like not being left behind technically and also not being left behind ethically

00:27:06 or morally. Which I think is very interesting is like what I got from the answer that you just gave. And I certainly feel the like pressure of being left behind technically. I think in my 20s, the pace at which our industry goes was really exciting. And now that I'm not in my 20s,

00:27:27 I'm feeling tired. More easily. And I still find the pace really exciting, but also a little bit daunting. So I really do feel that like, especially as someone that, you know, like took a 2 year step back

00:27:47 from the industry and back from coding and barely coded other than like Arduino, which you know, no, right? That's that's coding.

00:27:57 Speaker 0: It's much

00:27:57 Speaker 1: more hardware. Like it's much more like circuitry than it is. There's little bits of code anyways. So taking a step back and then coming back in is both really exciting and daunting. And I don't know if I have a really good answer for that of like, what does it mean to not get left

00:28:17 behind technically? And I've been thinking a lot about like, now that I've been in this industry for more than decade, I had to come to terms with the fact that the skill sets that I have gained in my 20s, and that has sustained me financially via client projects is not

00:28:37 necessarily the skill sets that will last me for the next, let's say, 3 decades that I choose to hopefully work. And so what are the skill sets that make sense for me to... What are the new skill sets that make sense for me to gain and what are the skill

00:28:58 sets that make sense for me to maintain And what are the ones that I can purge because I only have so much brain space, presumably. And or, you know, purge Not voluntarily, but my brain involuntarily.

00:29:18 Speaker 0: Garbage collection.

00:29:19 Speaker 1: Yeah. And I don't have a perfect answer for that. Other than that, I think it's really interesting as a thought exercise because it also includes looking at where the industry is going. And certainly I do feel like a lot of our industry is, and the

00:29:39 world is very, or at least the Western affluent world, is very excited about AI. Like, we've been excited about AI for the last, however long we've, at least the last decade, I know. And now in the last year and a half, we've been ultra excited about AI. And

00:30:00 I do think that what I have seen with a lot of the newest technologies are much more convincing than what I've seen in the past decade. And I do think it's something I need to enter like and fold into my skillset. I'm also

00:30:22 cynical about it. I also don't know if it's just a fad. This has also become a tangent to say, I think at the end of the day, we should just keep doing what we're good at. Like, I'm not going to switch

00:30:42 like a 180 and become like an AI and like machine learning and LLM specialist. I'm still gonna maintain what I used to do and then fold that in. So that's the technical side and the ethical side. We're thinking about that a lot because

00:31:02 what does it mean to give money? What does it mean to be charitable? And what is the actual impact of that? I don't know. And What, like, is it about giving

00:31:22 money or is it about giving skill sets? And is it much more about learning and, or sorry, is it much more about teaching and Bringing more people in to what we do. That's

00:31:42 that's something that I have been thinking a lot about and I don't have a good conclusion, but I do feel like if there is a model for that, I do think that Sarah, like Sarah Drasner, I think she does an amazing job at, which is I think bringing people,

00:32:04 just like she just so casually gives out opportunities to like people that might not ever have had opportunities. Like for me, like the reason why we got to meet in person, the reason why I even got to give a talk at React Rally, which was the

00:32:24 talk that got me the opportunity to give more talks, was because Sarah just casually recommended me to the team.

00:32:36 Speaker 0: She is great.

00:32:37 Speaker 1: Yeah, she's amazing. And I think that that's where I'll end that really long rant. I'm sorry I don't give you direct answers.

00:32:48 Speaker 0: No, no, this is great. It actually, this is what, see, we can talk about like, what's 2 plus 2? And you know, it has a very definitive answer, but I think that these types of conversations are much more interesting because they make you think. And I like what you said about the 2 parts of this. And 1 thing I wanted to add to the first part

00:33:08 of like your skill sets and everything is, I'm glad that you said you're not just gonna pivot totally and go, I'm gonna be an AI developer now. I saw a lot of people make that mistake with Web 3. That same mistake has been made in other technologies in the past as well. And so I think from that angle,

00:33:29 it's better to try and incorporate those things into your existing skill set than to drop your existing skill set and jump over. That's not always the case. I'm sure when Flash was killed by Apple, it was probably a good idea to jump off of flash at that point. But I think

00:33:49 like, it's less about, you should be less about technology, specific technologies and a little bit more about the use cases that those technologies solve, right? Integrate, like find ways that you can integrate the new thing into those use cases that you're solving. Think more about the use cases than you do about the technologies

00:34:09 and you'll be fine. So yeah, sorry, go ahead.

00:34:12 Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, I was gonna say I love that and I 100% agree with that, which is that I've always found all those like fights about React versus Angular versus Vue versus any other new framework, those fights I found always very silly. I don't know who I'm shading by saying that, but

00:34:33 I because to me all of these framework, all of those frameworks have always just been another tool in our toolbox. And it's like you said, it's just how we try, how we choose to use those tools to do what we would like. And for me, how that's kind of changed a little bit since I've pivoted more into art is that for me

00:34:53 now, if making art is about telling a story, then it just becomes what is the right medium for that story? Is it software? Is it hardware? Is it Vue? Is it React? Is it actually, you know, different sensors? And so for me, I guess it's been much more about like just collecting all the tools. And like, I love

00:35:13 being able to go deep on a few tools, but then having the breadth of tools and breadth of knowledge has been really amazing. And so I think AI is interesting because it's a new tool. And I think that it's a tool worth investing time in, but it's only 1 tool as of right now in our toolboxes.

00:35:31 Speaker 0: Yes, yeah, bravo. I completely agree. Thank you. So the second thing that you talked about being the ethical side, I'm so glad that you brought that up too. So I think When we talk about like what is You know closing the wealth gap ethically

00:35:51 and everything. What does that mean? Is it just giving money? I mean, there's that phrase, you know You can feed a man a fish or like give a man a fish you feed him for a day Whatever if they're starving then they probably need the fish and they need the fishing lessons. So like, I think that there is something to be said for a combination of

00:36:12 those approaches. And so I do think that donating money and resources is a really worthwhile thing and people should be doing that if they're not, if they have the means to do so. And then as far as teaching, I

00:36:32 do really, I mean, obviously this is very self-serving because I'm a teacher and that's what I do, but there's a reason that I do it and I think it's because it's a really important thing for helping other people to jump out of their, whatever circumstances they're in.

00:36:52 So you talked about Sarah Drasner, love Sarah, she's fantastic. And what you said was that she gives people opportunities, but she doesn't just give them, the results of those opportunities. Like you did have to submit your talk and get approved. And you had to give your talk. And it had to be good. So I think

00:37:13 that giving people The opportunities is really important. And then 1 of the things that I am just, I need to say thank you to the people watching because you have access to this material because you paid for a license to Epic Web. And so much of Epic Web is free. There's just an enormous

00:37:33 amount of the material there that is free. And that's because this is part of my mission to help make the world a better place to quality software. And not everybody who can do that has the money to buy this. And so those of you who are watching this now who got a license to Epic Web, you make it possible for me to do that. So thank you so

00:37:53 much for that. So yeah, I completely agree. We should look for opportunities to both give the fish and teach how to fish. And I think that is a way that we can help angle us in the right direction in the future. So, well, Shirley,

00:38:13 this has just been a wonderful conversation. We are getting down to the last bit of it. This totally didn't go the direction I was expecting, but I'm super glad that it went the direct, this is why I actually do these conversations this way, because I think it ends up being better anyway. So Was there anything that you wanted to talk about that we didn't get to discuss?

00:38:34 Speaker 1: Oh, I was just about to say, I love that we spent 40 minutes talking and we didn't cover anything about my work. And I and I mean that genuinely because I think the best kinds of friendships is where we are aware of each other's work and what we do, but we have much more to go off of than just

00:38:54 our work and we can talk about other things too. So I really, really appreciated this opportunity to just talk to you and hang. And I don't know if you're now talking to Epic web dev viewers, if you're

00:39:14 interested in my work, I guess you can find it at Shirleywood.studio because I literally did not say anything about it.

00:39:22 Speaker 0: Yes, I was just going to say, you and I know each other well and I know your work, but the people watching probably don't. Why don't you give us like just 5 minutes or however long about like what your work is so that folks who are interested can go look into it further.

00:39:42 Speaker 1: I actually was really glad that we didn't have to talk about it because I don't know how to describe my work thesis. I guess if I was to try, it's not I started my work. OK, so I started with data visualizations for the Web. If you've ever seen a visualization of Hamilton,

00:40:02 the musical, That 1 is probably the best example of web-based data visualizations I've done. And so I like to describe it as visualizations that push the boundaries of the web

00:40:22 is kind of the things that I enjoy doing. And since I've gone back to grad school, my focus has been trying to figure out how to bring those data stories out of the screen and into the physical world so that you can kind of like work, walk through them and experience them with

00:40:43 your whole body instead of like just our eyes and our thumbs. And so I actually don't know how to describe those.

00:40:55 Speaker 0: So here's what I would suggest. I'm sure you've got some like videos or pictures and things on your site. But you gave some really awesome videos in that talk, in the React Rally talk. So, and it's otherwise a very awesome and inspiring talk as well. So I just point people over there

00:41:15 for sure.

00:41:16 Speaker 1: Thank you. You just watched 45 minutes of me and Kent talking and now you can watch 45 minutes of me just me talking.

00:41:27 Speaker 0: Seriously people, Let me just be a little bit more clear. Go watch Shirley's talk, it will change you. It is very, very good. So I'll make sure that we get a link to that. If it's not online yet, I'll get it on there once we have that. So.

00:41:44 Speaker 1: Thank you so much.

00:41:45 Speaker 0: Yeah, thank you Shirley. So what is a way for people, like what is something that, like you're consulting right now, right? So like is there something that people might need your consulting services for?

00:42:00 Speaker 1: Oh, thank you so much. So I love doing client work. And so essentially any of the things that you see in my portfolio that you might see in my talk, if you want something along those lines, if you have

00:42:20 a huge data set and you don't know how to tell the story, or if you have a small data set and you don't know how to reach the right audience, those are the kinds of things I love working with you on. If you have engineering problems around visualizations, D3, how to incorporate that with React or Vue or any of those frameworks. Also,

00:42:40 software architecture, also the kind of things that I love thinking about. So feel free to contact me, and thank you so much for giving me this platform, Ken.

00:42:53 Speaker 0: Absolutely, thank you so much Shirley. This has just been so lovely. I'm gonna stop the recording here in a second and then I'm gonna just chat with you some more. This is fun. Thanks everybody for tuning in and we'll see you later.

00:43:06 Speaker 1: Thank you.