Mark Techson

00:00 Hello, everybody. I am so excited to introduce to you my friend, Mark Texson. How are you doing, Mark? I am feeling so good. Every time I get to talk to you, Kent, I'm not just being silly, I'm being for real. I always feel good. You have such good energy, so I'm really good today.

00:14 Yeah, the positive energy, it's one of those things. It's kind of like a fire where if I light your torch, your torch also gets lit, but mine isn't diminished, and in fact, the entire room is brighter. So definitely appreciate that positive energy from you, Mark, and that's

00:32 exactly why I asked you to be the emcee at Epic WebConf, because that's the kind of positive energy I want on stage again and again. So thank you. Let's go. So, yeah, I want people to get to know you a little bit before the conference. I want folks who can't make it to the conference to get to know you a little bit, because they

00:51 won't be able to talk with you in person. And I want other people to be like, huh, maybe I want to make the trip out there to Utah to meet Mark in person. So Mark, could you give us an intro to yourself? Yeah, so my name is Mark. I have been coding in the software industry for a very, very

01:07 long time. I've been in the industry for almost 20 years, and I currently work at Google on the Angular team, and yeah, things are good. I'm a father, I'm a musician, and I really, really love to be on stage and meet people and be at events and just have this amazing experience.

01:25 That is awesome. I didn't realize you were a musician. Do you play or sing or both? Okay, listen, let me tell you a true story. I wish that I could sing. I used to pray that I could sing. I would be like, God, please unlock my vocal cords. Give me something, because I wish that I could sing. But what I actually do is play guitar. I've been playing guitar for a very long time.

01:43 Wow. Hey, that's awesome. You should bring your guitar. I'm sure people would love to hear it. Oh, you know what, Kent? Don't say that, because I might actually take you up on that idea that I'll bring a guitar, you know? I think that's awesome. Acoustic or classical, what kind of guitar do you have and what do you play?

02:00 Yeah, so I have two guitars. I have an electric guitar, which is a Fender Strat that I've had for ages, and then I have a Yamaha Acoustic that I've had also for ages. I bought those guitars back in my early or late 20s, maybe. I'm so far way beyond my 20s and 30s at this

02:18 point. I've been working. I've had a guitar for a long time. Yeah. Hey, that's awesome. Ryan Florence is also going to be there, and he is very much a music maker with a guitar. I found that people who are musically inclined, or there

02:33 seem to be a lot of musically inclined programmers, which I think there's a relationship there for sure. Yeah, there's something about the way music maps and the structure of music and the structure of code that people can make that transition when they start. Because I just started playing guitar until I was about 20, because I had a dream that I was walking through the hills

02:52 of Mexico with a guitar across my shoulders. True story. I had a guitar strapped on, and I was wearing some really tight blue jeans and a tank top. I remember walking through the hills of Mexico, and I woke up, and I was like, oh, I want to play guitar. Then I went to Guitar Center and bought my first guitar the next week.

03:09 Wow. Dude, that sounds like a vision from God. You should play guitar, Mark. That is awesome. Very good. Well, I'm excited to hear you play at the conference if that does happen. I know it's kind of tricky to travel with musical instruments. I've had trouble

03:27 traveling with my piano. Just kidding. But you're going to be on stage as an emcee, and I want to get an idea of what you're thinking about as you're preparing to be an emcee. I've never been an emcee before. I don't know if you have. What are some of the things going

03:44 into getting on that stage? Excellent question. I've emceed a few events, and the thing that I'm always thinking about is how can I boost up the other presenters that will be there that day? I want to make sure that they get this really warm welcome. I think about that a lot. Then I think about the audience and the attendees. How do they

04:04 feel engaged and energized for a day of learning and connecting? When I start to think about that, it's like, okay, how can I serve everybody there? I want to serve the presenters. I want to serve the attendees. I want to make sure the organizers feel like, wow, that was an amazing choice to include Mark in this event. I'm always

04:22 thinking about those three pillars as I'm preparing to emcee any event. I know that the speakers will definitely appreciate that level of preparation. For me, I've spoken

04:34 on many stages and had many emcees. It's very evident the amount of preparation that goes into that, whether there was any preparation at all or if people really dug in and did

04:49 some research. It makes a difference hyping the crowd for the person. It absolutely impacts the quality of talk that the attendees get because the speaker is excited about being on stage. I appreciate that level of commitment.

05:06 As an organizer who has to make these selections on who's going to be on that stage, it means a lot to me that you would dedicate so much time and attention to that. Thank you. Absolutely. I'm glad to do it.

05:20 While we're at the conference, I want people who are not there to feel like they have an opportunity to participate in at least the knowledge sharing and stuff. There's only so much they can do by not being in person. That's why we're having this conversation

05:37 so they can get to know you a little bit. For the folks who are there, I am sure many of them will be excited to talk with you. I know that you'll be excited to talk with other attendees there. I want to know what are the sorts of things that you would like people to come up and talk with you about and what are some of the things you're hoping to talk with other people about?

05:57 Great. If we're talking about technical things, you can always talk to me about web development in general because I used to teach web development as a part of my career. I've worked as a web developer. Even though I'm on the Angular team now, it's still web development. You can always ask me about that. You can ask me a lot also about AI and then what do you

06:15 do in terms of your career with AI. I've been doing so much research and growing. I can tell you the honest truth about what I'm doing to prepare myself for a career where AI is a part of that story. Then if you want to talk about parenting, I'm very transparent on Twitter about just

06:31 how parenting works for me. I can share things that I've gone through with a kid who's really in tune with his emotions. He's a very sensitive kid. I know that that changes the dynamic when you have kids who are a little bit more sensitive. We can talk about that.

06:46 We can always talk about music, video games, and movies. That's a pretty wide gamut. If you just want to say hi, because I would love to meet you folks out there. If you want to say hi, just come and say hi. I would love to say hi and meet you, take pictures, do whatever you like.

07:01 Awesome. I appreciate how open and willing you are to chat with people. I'm looking forward to seeing you in the hallway track just with a bunch of people, making everybody feel welcome and happy to be there.

07:15 Since we do have a little bit more time, I wanted to give you this opportunity to not really pitch, but talk about the Good Morning series that you've been doing on Twitter. I don't know whether you've published it to other social media as well. Why don't you

07:32 tell us a little bit about that? I want to ask you about it. Sure. I do a web series called Good Morning as a part of the Good Branding. There's Good Morning with Mark, and then there's Good Question with Mark. These are two areas where I just like to spend time sharing my life experience and sharing lots of encouragement.

07:49 Good Morning with Mark is somewhere between 60 seconds and two-minute motivational videos. It's just going to tell a story and help you feel better about yourself. I really do want people to feel better because I think we're too hard on ourselves. Then Good Question is where people write in and ask me questions about their career, about

08:05 life, and then I try to answer with whatever I can. If I can be helpful, I try to be helpful. I love that. Are you looking for questions right now? Where do people submit questions? Excellent. I'm on all social media. You can find me on YouTube at Mark Texan, Instagram

08:21 at Mark Texan, TikTok, threads everywhere on Mark Texan. If you can find me wherever, even on Twitter, find me there. If you just reply and ask a question, I am so happy to help. Please write questions in because then it makes it really great for me to have some ways to share more information and thoughts with you friends.

08:39 That's fabulous. I definitely recommend a follow of Mark Texan wherever you're on social media because that positivity from Good Morning is just a really, really great way to start the day, the week, and everything. Thank you, Mark, for everything that you do in the community.

08:57 Thank you so much for coming out to Utah. I'm super excited to have you there and to see you there again. Other folks don't know this, but Mark and I met, I think it was the first time in ng-conf last year. And just super, super awesome to see you in person.

09:15 So I'm looking forward to seeing you again coming up in April. So thanks so much for coming out. And it's great chatting with you today, Mark. Yeah, I appreciate that. Thanks for having me. And I'm looking forward to seeing you folks in person at Epic Conf. Get your tickets. Come to Epic Conf because it's going to be fantastic. Awesome. Thank you so much, Mark. See everybody there.