Stephanie Humphrey is the technology contributor to ‘The Harry Show’, hosted by Harry Connick, Jr., and she has also contributed her expertise to other media outlets including Good Morning America, QVC, Fox 29’s Good Day Philadelphia, and NewsOne with Roland Martin. The other passion of this engineer-turned-media personality is helping students and parents understand how to be good digital citizens through her seminar ‘Til Death Do You Tweet.
In this episode, Stephanie shares her advice for people who feel intimidated by technology, how she went from being an engineer in the corporate world to being a tech guru who’s featured in television spots, her advice for using our smartphones in a balanced way, why you should always take a moment to think before you post anything on social media, the alarming statistics about teens and their internet usage, what parents can do to protect their children online, and much more!
Mentioned in this episode:
- Stephanie Humphrey’s ‘Til Death Do You Tweet
- Key Ring App
- AppDetox App
- (OFFTIME) App
- Moment App
- The Human Utility Project
Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Transcript
Hey, hey! It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast! Today, I have tech-life expert, Stephanie Humphrey, here to show you…now, this is so great how technology makes your life easier. I’m not sure that everybody agrees with that but I’m looking forward to hearing what Steph has to say about that.
But Stephanie is the technology contributor to the ‘The Harry Show,’ hosted by Harry Connick, Jr. whom I love. She also has contributed her expertise to other media outlets including, Good Morning America, QVC, Fox 29’s Good Day Philadelphia, and NewsOne with Roland Martin. The other passion of this engineer-turned-media personality is helping students and parents understand how to be good digital citizens through her seminar ‘Til Death Do You Tweet,’ which I’m so excited to hear more about.
Andrea: Steph, it is so good to have you on the Voice of Influence podcast!
Stephanie Humphrey: It’s great to be here, great to be with you!
Andrea: So I’m fascinated that the fact that you were an engineer then you turned into this media personality. What kind of an engineer were you?
Stephanie Humphrey: My degrees are in electrical and telecommunications and networking engineering and I was doing systems engineering for Lockheed Martin for a number of years and just wasn’t happy. You know, cubicle life wasn’t for me and sitting in front of a computer screen 10 hours a day and that whole thing and just corporate structures in general with meetings and org charts and meetings to discuss the meeting. It was just not something that I felt was feeding my soul for lack of better words.
So before I left, I started getting into the “entertainment industry” while I was still there. So I had got an agent, a talent agent and I was acting, modeling, and hosting different things and thought that I could make a career out of that. So I figured I’d give it a shot, so I left my job and was focused on sort of entertainment reporting and red carpet stuff and that type of thing. I quickly realized that that’s a very, very challenging area of the business because there are tons of people trying to do the same thing and lot of actual journalist that do that same thing. So I was making some headway but not much and very, very slowly.
So then in 2011, a mentor of mine just basically broke it down and was like “Why don’t you use what you already have, you know, you’ve got this engineering degrees, you have all this technical expertise and experience, why aren’t you using that? That’s your more niche, you know. I don’t know anybody else that looks like you that could go on television and talk about technology.” And it was crazy because it hadn’t even occurred to me. It really just hadn’t occurred to me until then, but quite literally in that moment I said “Oh, I could be a tech-life expert!” And thus a tech-life expert was born.
Andrea: I love that! You totally didn’t see it, I’m guessing because it didn’t seem extraordinary to you while it’s extraordinary to everybody else.
Stephanie Humphrey: Well, I think that plus, because I spent that whole day after that meeting trying to figure out what the heck I had been doing all this time before this. What I came up with was I had married the idea of being an engineer so closely with what I had done in Corporate America that when I left that, I left it all behind. So I kind of throw the baby out with the bathwater so to speak and had to realize that I was born an engineer. I was an engineer way before I ever stepped into a classroom and that’s what I do. So, you know, how do I make what I do what I was born to do work with this newfound passion that I have in the media industry and you put those two things together and you get a tech-life expert.
Andrea: So what was your process from there? One thing that I love about what you have going on is you say “I’m all over the web at tech-life…” What is it?
Stephanie Humphrey: The last line of my [crosstalk], “Follow me around the web at TechLifeSteph!
Andrea: Yeah! So did you go out and “OK, tech-life Steph, this is it and I’m gonna go get…every single account is gonna be that. Did you do that right away?
Stephanie Humphrey: Kind of. Actually, it was funny, I was already on social trying to make my way as this TV personality person but when I did change, I changed my Twitter name first. When I did change that to TechLifeSteph, I changed everything. It was funny because I couldn’t get a Gmail account as techlifesteph. I was like “Who else is a techlifesteph in the world?” Like “Come on, it’s so specific,” and I had to get techlifestephanie for my Gmail, but everything else, you know, once I made this switch, I switched everything else over to TechLifeSteph.
Andrea: It’s great obviously for branding and being able to follow you, but I’m kind of jealous. I wish I would have had something like that immediately that I could log on to. OK, so you kind of get started, did you immediately started doing videos or did you start pitching yourself as a tech-life expert to media outlets, or how did this go down?
Stephanie Humphrey: No! It was a process and it was a humbling process, I have to tell you, because I kind of wrongly assumed that because I had all of this “media experience” for that I had reported traffic for a new station, I was a model in QVC, I had hosted red carpets and _____ for movies and interviews, like I have done all these different things. I felt like I had kind of the media training that was required plus I had two engineering degrees. So I figured out the world would pop up at my door and it didn’t happen like that at all. It literally, people were like “So you know, what have you done lately?”
So I started a blog “A Matter of Life and Tech,” and I just wrote so that people could see that I could write and that I could explain technical concepts in a simple way that was relatable and fun and funny sometimes. I did that for a while and I used that as a platform to write for higher profile media platform. So from that I started writing for the _____. I actually originated a column there called “Tech To Go” then pivoted to Ebony.com.
I wrote for them for a couple of years and I was able to do a few pieces for the print magazine as well. And only then was I able to grow to the media outlet, the television outlet and then say “Hey, I’m a writer for Ebony.com, the tech writer for Ebony.com. I’d love to come on and talk about the new iPhone or whatever but it was definitely a process. It wasn’t just as _____ says “She has done these things on TV before plus she’s an engineer, so let’s make here our tech expert.” It didn’t happen that way right away.
Andrea: So what was sort of the timeline of that then?
Stephanie Humphrey: So I’d say, I decided to become a TechLifeSteph in January of 2011. I remember it very distinctly. By the time I got my first appearance on television, it was December of 2012, so it took two years.
Andrea: And were you doing other things at that time for income or how did that work out for you?
Stephanie Humphrey: Yeah, I was still doing traffic reporting. There was a traffic startup in the Philadelphia area called Tango Traffic and they were trying to become kind of like the weather channel for traffic. So it was like 24-hour traffic all day long and I was doing the afternoon drive there for 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. So I was reporting traffic on television and writing for my blog and writing for this other outlets and pitching media outlets and stuff like that in the meantime. So yeah, you got a keeper a hustle; you’ve got to get paid.
Andrea: Yeah! I know that you were driven to leave your job, your 9:00 to 5:00 job and all the constraints that you felt with that as being somebody who’s really creative, is there anything else that was kind of driving you in that? I mean, is there any sort of personal and it sounds like a personal ambition of some kind to be out there in the world and be in front of a camera.
Stephanie Humphrey: That’s the thing, it wasn’t.
Andrea: Really?
Stephanie Humphrey: I was not that kid that was like “I wanna be on TV when I grow up,” or you know in my bedroom mirror with a hair brush as a microphone, I wasn’t that kid. I wasn’t that kid that, you know, was always performing at school or singing in the school plays or on a debate team like none of that and I wouldn’t call myself shy necessarily. I definitely wouldn’t say that I was a shy kid so I didn’t want to be in front or get that type of attention. It just wasn’t my thing. I was like “Hey, I’m gonna build computers and create video games and that’s what I’m gonna do.” I kind of…I don’t want to say sitcom but I guess I kind of was guided by the expectations for me.
You know, I was always a smart kid, good in math and science so it was kind of expected that I would go into a field like that and get a “good job,” and make some good money and just live my life basically like normal people do I suppose. I don’t think it wasn’t that I didn’t think I could do it, I just never considered it. I never even considered like TV was something…I think like a lot of us who watch TV and you think those people on TV you’re just light years away from the rest of us and you just don’t even think that that’s something you could do or inspired to do.
I say, it’s divine because I didn’t choose this. I’m a person of faith and clearly God had a plan for me that I didn’t know about at the time. But once it was revealed to me, I felt compelled to be obedient to it. So even in those moments when I was nervous and have an anxiety attacks thinking about the idea that I’m about to walk away from this six-figure job, you know, and all of that. Even through all of that and then just the ups and down of this business and freelance life and being broke most of the time, I’ve just really kept in the front of my mind the obedience to this vision that I was given and that’s kind of how I guided my career since then.
Andrea: Do you mind sharing what that vision look like or how you came to see it and feel that divine calling?
Stephanie Humphrey: At first when I was, you know, “I’m gonna be a tech-life expert,” I thought maybe I might write. I figured, you know, I could build something myself and I did with the blog and maybe kind of grow that. You know how people monetize blog and become fulltime bloggers and get advertisers and stuff like that. I thought maybe I might do that and then maybe I might get to write for Mashable or TechCrunch, those are really popular tech publications. Maybe I get to contribute to one of those outlets and become known as someone in the tech space as a writer and an expert.
I figured maybe that could lead to television every so often when the new iPhone came out or something somebody might say “Hey, you wanna come and talk about that.” I really had no idea it would lead me to Good Morning America, you what I mean like that. Eventually, I think as I kept kind of growing and getting higher profile things that became a goal. I’m sitting here and looking at my vision board right now and it’s on my vision board you know. At the time, I was a big fan of the Today Show and I was just like “Oh my God,” I didn’t know anybody but I was “I wanna be on with Matt and Kathie.” So that was kind of the thing, I felt like “If I could get on the Today Show that would be like the ultimate goal or whatever.”
So, once I kind of fixed my mind to that and this has only been in the last I’d say maybe two years, two and a half year, but once I kind of fixed my mind on that, that’s where I headed, that’s the direction I pointed myself. I know it wasn’t going to be just the direct from Fox 29 to Good Morning America, I knew there would need to be some steps in between and you take those steps and you do what you have to do but that was the goal. That has always been the goal.
Andrea: So now that you have achieved that particular goal, are they going to have you back, do you know? I assume that that’s possible.
Stephanie Humphrey: I am very hopeful. Well, this was like part one of that goal and the ultimate goal is to be under contract with Good Morning America. I want to be their technology and social media correspondent. I think they need someone there that is able to talk about tech on a daily basis because there’s always something that a hack or virus or a new device launch or something like that. So this is kind of part one of that goal. Well, I guess last year was part one because I had done two tape interviews with them that they incorporated into their segments.
So you saw me for like a couple of seconds and then the goal from that was to get in studio live, which I was able to do this month. So now, it’s to get more reps and get invited back and I think we’re on track with that because they actually reached out to me for the in studio piece. Once you’re on their radar that kind of changes the game a little bit too. So I do expect to be back sooner or later and be able to accumulate enough on air appearances to where I can then have a conversation with their talent department about a permanent position.
Andrea: OK, so that was going to be my other question “what’s on your vision’s next if you already got this GMA thing figured out.” So that is the next vision for your vision board ha?
Stephanie Humphrey: Absolutely, the contract! The contract, the contract.
Andrea: That sounds wonderful! OK, I know that you not only talk about tech being easy and help makes our life easier, let’s just talk about that for a second because I know that there’s a lot of people who feel like tech has not made their lives easier simply because they get overwhelmed by it, there’s too many options, and all that sort of things. So what’s your message to somebody like that who’s saying “Wait a second, I’m not sure if that’s much easier.”
Stephanie Humphrey: Well, I would say just, you know, take a breath. I get it. I do this every day and it’s overwhelming for me sometimes as well. But take a breath and think about those things you do every day, you know, whether it’s the grocery store or something with the kids or whatever you’re doing for work like those things that you do every day, think about how they could be easier and there’s probably a tech solution for that.
So just start small with what you’re doing every day like say for instance, I can remember the first thing I ever talk about with my first TV appearance. I used to carry around this separate wallet, like an entire separate wallet for all of my rewards cards like for Giant, Ulta, and Sephora like I had those little plastic rewards cards because I didn’t want to look like a janitor with them all on my keychain. I would carry them around in this little Chopard wallet, and whenever I was in the store and I need a reward card, I had to go into this wallet and dig through it and find the one for that store. You know, it was a pain on the butt.
When I found this app called Herring Rewards that lets you scan your rewards cards into the app and save them there and then you take your phone and the people in the store can scan it that was life-changing, honestly. It really was, because it was like “Oh my God!” Now, my purse is lighter because I don’t need a separate little wallet and I had at least like 20 or 30 of them. It was just like “Wow!” You know, this simple, simple thing has saved me time, has made me more efficient, and has saved me money because if there’s a coupon attached to the reward card at any given time that would pop up as well.
You may not know that, it would just have a little piece of plastic and they scan it, they may not tell you that. But when you scan it through your phone if there’s a coupon there that would show up as well, so you could save a couple of bucks, you know what I mean. That was when I kind of really solidify it in my head that this is a tool for us. This is a tool. It’s here for us. You don’t have to be the first person to have all the latest gadgets and do that, but you can start with wherever you are with whatever kind of phone you have and use it for the things that you need to make easier, you know, just start there.
Andrea: Yeah. I think cell phones were kind of a thing when I was in college but then early 2000s, cell phones were starting to come into play and I had noticed I didn’t have anything to do with it, nothing. I didn’t want to have anything to with it then until I went to another college that was kind of far away and I was going to be driving a lot and I thought “OK, I’m gonna go for this.” I went ahead and got a cell phone when I was like 27 years old and now, I live on it.
Stephanie Humphrey: Exactly!
Andrea: I mean, I don’t live on it but I do work on it all of the time. I think that the key of course is somehow figuring out the boundaries of that and try not to let it over take my time when I shouldn’t be, my time and attention I guess. But do you have any thoughts about or suggestions that you want to share with us about our phones and how we can be more diligent about using those for good in our lives and not letting them turn into something that’s negative?
Stephanie Humphrey: Right! I would say if you are someone who can’t kind of regulate that whole thing, there are apps you can put on your phone to kind of make it so that you can’t use it for a little while. AppDetox app is one of them, OFFTIME app is one of them, and Moment app is one of them; so they will actually track your device usage because I think we probably all use our phone a lot more than we think we do. If you need to take a break, you can set the app so that it will allow you in the phone for a little while. So if it comes to that maybe that’s what you need to try to get yourself on a schedule and not be so attached to the device all the time.
I would just say also think before you post anything. It literally takes like 2 seconds to just read it again, “What do I need to post this for? Who was this for? What is my goal? What do I hope to achieve in posting this?” I do that. I mean, you and I have brands to protect I guess, so we have to do a little more mindful about it. I think most people do but even if I didn’t, I always take that extra beat before I post anything just to make sure that it’s going to be helpful and that I fact checked it.
Andrea: That’s a good point.
Stephanie Humphrey: Seriously, I refuse to post anything that I haven’t read thoroughly, you know, I’m not posting quickly based on just the title of an article. I won’t post anything I haven’t read and even if there’s something in there that looks a little sketchy to me, you know, I’ll check a couple of other websites. I’ll check notes or something like that to make sure that this is really what’s happening. I think that’s really, really important especially now just because of the amount of “fake news” that’s going around. It’s just like people, you know, they find stuff that falls in line with their own beliefs and then they just share it without worrying about it. You know, if nothing else, think before you post and fact check if necessary.
Andrea: That’s a really good point. Even though you and I have businesses built around our brands, you know our lives are truly built around that as well. I mean, like there’s an expression of who we are in some way, and so it’s still seems really important that whether you have a personal brand online and what not or just tied to a business or not, you still have a personal branding, you still have a reputation.
Stephanie Humphrey: Absolutely, and that’s what I try to get across to the young people that I speak to and it’s like “Listen, you know, whether you care or not, whether you choose to do anything about it or not, you have this brand and everything you’re posting becomes a part of that. So you have to make a decision on whether or not you want people to see this thing about you or this other thing about you. It’s really up to you, and it really does come down to the difference between a tweet or _____ posts.”
It’s really important for us all to be very mindful of that because even if you don’t have a business tied to a brand, you still maybe work for somebody and that employer could fire you as well if they find something objectionable on your social that doesn’t align with their company vision or something you say could be considered a threat and you could go to jail for it. As the laws of our country start to catch up like internet usage, you know, we’re going to see a lot more instances where people have to face real consequences with the stuff that they post. So it’s so important to think first before you hit submit or send.
Andrea: I noticed some statistics on your website about kids and their use of tech; could you share some of those with us because I think that’s really important for us to be aware of?
Stephanie Humphrey: It’s like 95% of all people own a cell phone and then of that, 71% on a smart phone, young people were a big part of that. You know, 95% of students go online daily.
Andrea: This is in the US?
Stephanie Humphrey: Yes. This was a from a few research studies. This was conducted on students in the United States and literally almost every young person in the country goes online at some point daily, you know, so that’s one thing. All of these teenagers are having access to the internet which is just information overload and then we’re looking at 43% of students have been bullied. So almost half, almost one in two students have been bullied online or have had something happened to them online where they felt threatened or unsafe.
You know, 70% of students feel that cyber bullying is a problem so that’s almost three quarters of everyone that’s online. They’re seeing this, watching it and whether their choosing to get engaged or not or come to somebody’s aid or assistance or not, a lot of students see this as a big problem. So, we as adults are the ones that or we’re trying to get these numbers back down because in what I found in speaking to young people is that they don’t really understand that part of it.
They’re very technically proficient and you know, we all say “Oh my God, she was born with a smart phone on their hand and she was swiping in stuff when she was 2.” They know the ‘how,’ they’re very technically proficient, but they really don’t sort of extrapolate it beyond the how to start thinking about the why. You know, “Why am I posting this, what could happen if I post this? What effect might this post have on other people around me?” That just doesn’t occur to them.
Andrea: Right. It’s hard for them at a young age to be able to conceptualize that anyway let alone having a phone on their hand that could truly be weapon.
Stephanie Humphrey: Exactly!
Andrea: Well, I know that you have a program that helps parents and kids with this. I would love to hear a little bit about that. I know that I want to take this course that you have because our kids are just that age where they’re starting to want to get on social media. My daughter is almost 11 years old and “Friends are on social media, why can’t I be?” You know, “You can use my Snapchat account, dear, but don’t you dare add anybody,” because she accidentally added somebody that she didn’t mean to thinking it was a friend. So there’s all these things that I’m just like “Oh my gosh, we’re opening at these huge kind of rooms,” and so I’m sure that I’m not the only person listening to this podcast and that’s asking, OK, Steph, tell us what to do?
Stephanie Humphrey: Well, first of all for what is worth in my personal opinion, I think you’re doing the right thing. I think 10, or 11 is just too young. I just don’t think they’re equipped to handle the responsibility of accepting friend request or not, managing their privacy settings on their own, like the time spent on each network. I just don’t think 10 or 11 is old enough to handle that type of responsibility. It breaks my heart when I hear parents that say their 10 year old already has an Instagram or is already on Facebook. I’m like “No, it’s too young, they don’t need it yet. They’ll be fine, even if all their friends are doing it or whatever, they’ll be fine.”
Technically, the minimal age is 13 for all the net. They’re supposed to be at least 13 to have an account on any of the social network, but that’s a big problem. There’s no way really police that and so you have 10 year olds that are interacting in the same space as adults and it’s just not appropriate. It’s just not. So ‘Til Death Do You Tweet is my seminar, and it is for parents and students. The students version gets done live in schools, community centers, churches, or other organizations; and it starts out by helping young people understand the concept of their personal brand.
We have an entire conversation before they even get to Twitter whatever about your personal brand and how it gets represented in person, in writing online and what can happen if you don’t manage it in a positive way. And then we kind of get into the idea because when talking about personal brand, you may write something or send an email to somebody that you didn’t mean to and it has a damaging effect.
You might not make the best first impression on somebody when you met them in person but you got a chance to talk to them overtime and they get to know you and they can kind of change that attitude they had about you. But when we’re talking about online, it’s so immediate and can be so damaging _____ that that’s why we focus on social media because that’s the quickest, easiest, you know, most expeditious way to just completely destroy your brand is one tweet, one post. I mean, we have adults that haven’t recovered from that one tweet that got them fired five years ago.
So it’s really imperative to help them understand that you have this thing that you know, responsible for, this personal brand. It’s yours, it belongs to you, you can do whatever you want with it; however, this is what can happen. It goes beyond just not being able to get a job although we talk about that, or not getting into a college, we talk about that. But it also, you know, credits and sex thing that is a felony in some states and cyber bullying, and are you prepared to be OK with the responsibility of possibility having a hint in someone suicide.
I mean, that’s where at right now, “Are you OK with that, can you handle that? Do you even want to have that be a possibility, you know, what I mean? So you got to think before you post.” But then we give them tips on how to maintain a personal brand online, what should your profile picture look like, what should your bio look like, what type of pictures should you be posting, or what are your privacy settings look like; so it gives them I think enough information to now make an informed decision. Whereas before, they could say that they didn’t know and I’m telling you when I tell them these things, the eyes get big and mouths fell open and they’re like “Oh my God I never…”
I have a ton of inbox messages and tweets and things of students of like “I just didn’t even know. I didn’t even think about it. I had no idea.” So they really don’t know, and I think parents make a mistake of thinking that their kids are just being disrespectful or intentionally belligerent. They think they’re posting these stuffs on purpose I think to just get a rise out of people and you know “Why are you doing that? That was so stupid. What made you think you could…” You know what I mean? Their parents can’t understand why they do it. You know, why are kids chewing on iPads right now? Who knows? They’re kids and that’s what kids do. But what you add in the reach of the internet, now it becomes this phenomenon that everybody is like “Oh my God I can’t believe it.” I’m like “Come on, you probably chewed on something you didn’t have any business chewing on when you were younger too, just see what would happen.”
We all have those things that we didn’t have a spotlight on and it was shared with a million people but the internet and the behavior of the internet is what makes it seem like kids these days are crazier than us or just less thoughtful or whatever adults seemed to think about. But they’re not, they’re really not. They’re still kids. They just want to be popular. They want to get as many likes as possible. Some people are bullies; some people get bullied like all of that has been the same across time.
The tools are different now and you can’t send your kids out in the internet world without the understanding of how the tools are suppose to work. And that’s learned behavior, just like they had to learn how to add adult filter, to a photo in Snapchat. They have to also learn auto learn what responsibility means as it relates to the internet and social media as well. So it’s all learned behavior and what is obvious to me is that they’re not getting that because parents are afraid and they don’t know that much about it themselves. So how are they teaching their child about it? “It changes every day and it’s so different. I don’t know what to do and he’s on his phone like seven hours a day and he doesn’t want to talk to me.” I get it but you have to do it. This needs to be one more thing that becomes a part of childhood, the same as you teach your kids to share and be kind to others and you know, pay your taxes.
Andrea: Cross the street.
Stephanie Humphrey: Exactly! It becomes that next thing and that whole line up of stuff that you have to teach your kids. So for parents, we start by talking about why the internet is different, what about the internet makes it seem like kids these days are so different. There are four pillars that I get into and then we do social media rundown. So we talk about the more popular apps and networks that your kids are on right now.
Andrea: Oh it’s so helpful.
Stephanie Humphrey: Yeah, it’s associated with those and then we get into a little bit of the consequences with parents as well, because I don’t think they know. You know, I’m like “Is sex thing a felony in your state, do you know if it is or not? Can your child be _____ as an adult?” If you have a son and a young lady sends him a picture and her parents decide that it’s not OK and they want to make an _____ of him you know. Are you prepared for what could happen, for the potential consequences that your 17 year old maybe on a sex offender registry for the rest of his life?” So it’s just that deep, you know.
And then we get parents resources, lots of resources on how to start that conversation, how to continue it, you know, if they feel like they need sort of restrictive apps or technology to sort of manage what their kids are doing right now until they can learn to be better digital citizens, so you leave with a ton of resources. That seminar actually, it gets down _____ and stuff like that but I’m launching my online course this month. I’m super excited about it because I did as much as I can to make it seem like you’re actually taking the seminar from me, because I think a lot of what is effective about it is that conversation, you know, what I mean?
So I wanted it to feel like I was actually talking to you and trying to kind of walk you through this and that I was there every step. So, I basically just deconstructed the seminar that I do in person for parents. I broke it down into nine modules and I got on camera and I delivered those modules as if I was talking to a parent. There will be information that comes up on the screen that you can follow along. But yeah, it just kind of walk you through the entire presentation and gives you all of that same information, but now you can do it in the comfort of your own home. You can always go back to it. You can take each module individually and take your time to get through all them and literally digest that information.
Andrea: I think that you said that it’s launching soon so whenever you’re listening to this broadcast, we’re publishing it on January 22nd, so does that mean that anybody could just go to your website and find it right away?
Stephanie Humphrey: Absolutely! Yeah, if you scroll down to services on the website, there’s a link to register. You can pre-enroll now. I think by the time this podcast airs, it should be live though, but yeah, there’s a link on the website.
Andrea: Awesome! OK and the website, why don’t you just tell us the website name again?
Stephanie Humphrey: www.tildeathdoyoutweet.com
Andrea: www.tildeathdoyoutweet.com and we’ll definitely have that in the show notes so that you can go click and buy right away, because if you’re like me, you’re going to want to. OK, Steph, I have one more question for you.
Stephanie Humphrey: OK
Andrea: Hopefully this isn’t proprietary information, but if you can create any tech device to solve a problem that you see in the world right now what would you create?
Stephanie Humphrey: Hmmm, that’s a great question. Man, let me think, let me think, and let me think. Well there’s a couple that I really like right now. There’s an app that collects spare change that helps people with bail. I don’t know the stat exactly but like half the people in prisons right now are only there because they couldn’t afford the bail to get out before the trial, you know what I mean? It might have been the cheapest 200 or 300 bucks, but they just didn’t have it.
So there’s an app created and the name of it escapes me, but there’s an app out right now that I believe you can round up your bank account to the next dollar whatever and it takes that spare change and then helps people with bail just something like that. A young lady named Tiffany, (I can’t think of her last name), but she created an app to help the resident in Detroit paid their water bills but I believe it’s now nationwide with anybody that needs help with their utilities called the Human Utility project. So I love when they use technology for the greater social good, because I think lately that’s where we need to be focusing our efforts.
We need that type of innovation as well but we also need to be using tech in a way that’s going to advance society as a whole. I love to see apps and technology like that. You know, there’s a little kid over in Africa, he made a soccer ball that you can kick around and then it will generate enough electricity to keep your lights on through the night.
Andrea: Ahhh that’s so cool!
Stephanie Humphrey: Exactly, just like little stuff like that. It’s just like “Man, if we’re only scratching the surface on what we’re able to do and how we would be able to help hundreds and thousands of people with something as simple as a soccer ball.” So if I was looking to invent something, it would be along those lines, something that was kind of socially relevant and something that would help the greater good.
Andrea: Love it! Thank you so much, Steph! Thank you for your voice of influence in the world, in helping us to harness the power of tech to do good.
Stephanie Humphrey: Absolutely! Thank you so much for having me.
Andrea: Alright! Awesome!
END