Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Well, welcome.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: Welcome to the Speak Your Power Now podcast, a show that empowers women through the transformational art of communication. I'm your host, Cheryl Clark, and I invite you to join us on a journey of self discovery, empowerment, and personal growth. You know, I always say I'm just a girl from the Bronx. I learned a couple of tools along the way, and I'm here to better with you. So this weekly podcast is going to be a source of practical tips, inspiring stories, and transformational insight that's going to help you break through to any self doubt. So our mission is simple here. We're going to help you speak your Power Now because your voice matters. So subscribe now, and let's dive into the world of Speak Your Power Now, where your empowerment begins with your voice.
[00:00:53] Speaker C: Once again, we are back here with another episode of Speak Your Power Now. And I am your host. I'm a girl from the Bronx. Learned a little bit of tools along the way, and I'm here to teach them to am. You know how we usually start because we have an exciting guest with us today. She's a trailblazer in the tech world. So ladies, buckle up, because she's getting ready to come to you with some tools. But before we do that, you know, we always go in to our Declaration, and our Declaration grounds us. The Declaration brings us into balance. The Declaration brings us into a space where we can begin to enter in and be open for what we're going to hear. So let's go forth on. Today, I want you to take a nice, long, full, deep breath in your nostrils and exhale that out.
I want you to repeat silently to yourself after me. Today I reclaim my power of purpose. Today I declare that I have unshakable faith and confidence in my uniqueness. Today I declare that I will not live in fear, but with power, love, and a sound mind. Today, I declare that I always communicate with words to empower myself and others. Today I declare to always honor myself by living in the present and living powerfully in each moment. Amen. All right, well, thank you so much for that. And remember that you're going to take that Declare your day. We're all about communication here. So as you declare it, you understand that this is your opportunity. It's all in your words. Well, like I said, we have an exciting guest with us today. She's a trailblazer in her own right, and I'm going to read a little bit about who she is. Her name is Naomi Jordan Cook. She is a seasoned tech professional with over 15 years of experience. She served as the co founder and CMO of the Virtual Globe Consulting Group. Her passion lies in creating, building, and maintaining online platforms as she excels, expanding brand visibility, and driving engagement to increase at will donations and sale for her clients in a digital space she has co authored a book called The Cyber Church today Online Marketing Tools for the 21st Century. She also holds a Master's of Science degree in Internet Technology and has obtained several certificates in Internet Marketing, web development, computer programs, and list goes on and on. She also has a National Institute standard of technology at the US. Department of Commerce. And she has I would say Naomi has launched she also has launched Digital Future Fellowship program through her company. She's an innovator and she has had the opportunity to research her marketing research students with African businesses, empowering them to complete the global marketing and utilizing ecommerce in a digital strategy way. She also has begun to do expertise in implementing digital technology and e commerce systems and contributes to drive the economic growth and underserved communities. I want you to go ahead and put your hands together right now and welcome my friend, my sister, Naomi Jordan Cook.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Hi, thank you so much for having me.
[00:04:42] Speaker C: Absolutely.
It's my pleasure to have you here. Well, here on this platform, Naomi, we really are thrilled to have you because I call you the tech guru, the tech trailblazer for women around the world. Can you just tell us a little bit about how you started in this journey in the tech industry?
[00:05:04] Speaker A: Okay, so how I started with my journey, I started at a very young age, probably when with being a young mom getting married at a very early age. And my parents told me, go to school for technology. Computers are the way. And it was more like, okay, I'll do it. So I started this back in 2001, and this is when we only had AOL dial up, which was like the new phenomenon that was out there. And every time you went on the Internet, it was like all these porn sites came up and we had our people saying, the Internet is the devil, but we were fortunate to have to be part of a community that was saying, no, this is the future and this is where you want to be at. So started with going to school for computer programming, taking computer classes, and finding my niche within the tech field at that time, which I started to fall in love with web development. Remembering building my first website off of HTML, coding off of Notepad, and those that know a little bit what I'm saying, you will be like, oh, yeah, that's going way back if you're coding off of Notepad, but learning how to code and creating my CSS files. And that's how I started getting into that field. And at first, I didn't see it being so valuable at that moment, but down the line as people and as I started to engage with people, people were like, oh, you build website. And it was like, yeah, but can't anyone do that? Anyone can do that. And then finding out like, no, everyone can't do that. So one of the things that God had graced me is showing how easy technology building platforms can be if you just put your mind to wow.
[00:07:06] Speaker C: Wow. So what was the pivotal moment that you actually shaped your career? Said, hey, I'm going in tech when.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: I moved to California, and we're not going to talk about that story, cheryl because we had a business going on.
[00:07:22] Speaker C: We had a business together. Let me tell you, naomi not only doubles as the tech guru, I've known Naomi since I was 14. And to see her growth, that's why I needed her on this show. We've been friends for a long time. We've been sister friends for a long time. And I've seen her and I'm getting goosebumps, and I'm getting kind of, like, choked up a little bit because I've seen her take something that I used to call, oh, you build website. She's cheryl I don't just build websites.
I'm a marketer.
She made her stance known in the community. So for that, I'm proud of you. That your voice. You got clear about your voice.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: Well, also, it was such a confusion because they used to say you're a web designer, and web designer and web development is two different things. I don't do web design, but I can develop. Now, it may have design capabilities and some design technology in there, but it's missing, which a lot of people don't give credit to web designers. Web designers, when it comes to now, the word here is branding, brand design. They basically know how to work with color palettes, working with the mood. And usually that work is what I take and develop the platform with the web designer. So back then, people be like, you design websites? I was like, no, I don't design websites. I develop a website. I work with coding.
[00:08:50] Speaker C: Now, listen here, ladies. This is what it talks about. Clear communication speaking. Your power now is saying, this is my lane, and she is staying clear in her lane. And this is how you get to the bag, ladies. This is how you get to getting your own voice being heard. This is how you get to the point where you understand that you can't shift what I know. I'm saying, this is who I am, and that's what I love, that you've created that lane. Naomi and thank you for continuing to not waver off your standard and who you are on the planet. Thank you for that.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: Thank you. You're welcome for that.
[00:09:31] Speaker C: Now, getting back to that question, what was the pivotal moment? You said it was California, but go ahead.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: Yes, I moved to California, and I was really looking for a job.
And a lot of the jobs that I was looking for, because I was such a young mom, I couldn't really go for those jobs because at the time, they were all the way out in the Bay Area or they were out somewhere else, which caused me time and travel. And I had young children, so I really had to find something that was either local, that was someone that was really looking to take me on and to work with me, or start to create my own path and figure out ways to work from home. So I started working from home, working with different church ministries, working with different people on supporting them and building their platform. Taking $500 here, taking $1,000 here, and then answering phone calls really was part of that movement of where we had the virtual assistants that started to come out. And this was back in 2005 where Skype became very it started to really be such a big movement because now you started to see that the world was flat. It wasn't like, we can connect to someone here from India. We can connect to someone from here. And my pivotal point was when I was given a task on a particular project, and I will be working. I remember it was one time it was like I didn't sleep for literally two days because I could not get a particular code to work on a platform. And I was up doing something, or someone messaged me over Skype saying, I'm a web developer, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like you're a web developer. I'm a web developer. Well, long story short, we wind up connecting, and I wind up asking him to help me with a particular code, and he was out of India. And when that happened, I was just like, yo, I could take on so many projects, and I don't have to do as much work. And before I was one of those developers like, no, you got to see my signature in here. You got to see my tagging in here. But I started to take on more web projects on and started to build teams around the world and was still able to charge affordable price for web development. I started supporting other web developers, helping them to build plugins for different types of platforms. I was working with all types of open source platforms back then, and that's how this all came about, of starting my own business and all back from 2007. And it just took off from one level to another level.
[00:12:31] Speaker C: Wow. So you said something, and I had to jot it down. You said, I found the pivotal point, too, was the challenges of a mom, young children. She was doing everything. That sounds familiar. Probably you do, ladies, we always doing everything. So I saw what I heard was you just took the S that I don't believe in, that S for superwoman on the chest. You turned it around for support, and you started teens. Is that what happened?
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Yes, that's exactly what happened. And all off of a conversation that someone just Skyped me and said that they were a web developer. And I believe that that was God talking to me because at that time and this person had to Skype me. It was like three, four a. M. I'm telling you it was like two to three days, like nonstop of just working on one particular area of a code that I was building out and I could not get it to work. Like textbooks and the internet at that time wasn't as sophisticated as it is right now. I was on so many different web platforms trying to figure out how to get a particular code to work and I mean this person came in and figured it out less than an hour or two and I wind up giving this person like $10 and they were so thankful for it. Wow, $10 just to fix a particular area that was taking me over 48 hours to figure it out of what I was making a mistake on and then just dialoguing and just asking and saying well, what else is this missing? Or what else is that? And I believe I wind up finishing that project but I wind up coming back to another project where I had a similar situation and I started learning from them but I realized I can start making money by having them do it. And that's how I started doing of having working with overseas people, of helping me with developing platforms and it was really because I would just get stuck. And then I started going to different marketing conferences and then people started talking about this whole new phenomenon of outsourcing. I'm like, oh, that's what I'm doing, outsourcing.
Really didn't realizing that I was outsourcing and then really having the support from my parents and my family that was saying, yes, it's okay to outsource, this is your business, they're contractors of you. And really starting to understand even with.
[00:15:05] Speaker C: That particular business model that's so phenomenal. I had another question, but I think I'll move to the second question. I want to talk about this because it's such a prevalent thing in the tech world that the tech industry is so historically male dominant. And so with your representation as women, what are some of the challenges that you have faced and overcome in this tech career?
[00:15:35] Speaker A: It is very heavy male dominant and it is not speaking as a woman of color. With black we only make about no more than about 2% to 3%. And I know we're climbing up but in the tech industry it's a very small majority of us that is in the tech field.
I've had experience and been brought on different types of tech projects where they want to make me as the technical writer. Well, I'm more than a technical writer. I can also code and a lot of times it's just I think in certain community consciousness I'm going to put it like that, is that they automatically think that the woman should act like a secretary when it's group projects or we're more the organizer which we are.
And didn't really mind taking on the role. But when you're being discounted or your ideas are not being displayed, or someone takes your ideas and reframe it as though it's their idea and add something, you're like, wait a minute. That was something that over the years, I really had to learn how to speak up for myself because there wasn't no one else in the room that will speak up for me. And these will be majority of white men, white men, and maybe one or two men of color that is there. And I am the only woman that is there.
And maybe another woman. And I'm just thinking about different projects that I was on. Maybe another woman who really didn't care about technology but was there because she was brought in or she was for whatever reason, but really seeing that dynamics or having a man because you're sitting here helping to set up servers. They expect you to lift up the server to do the exact same job. And then you have me like and I'm like, no, I don't mind. I'll lift a server.
It's fine.
I pushed out an eight pounder.
[00:17:49] Speaker C: Let's get it right. Let's get it straight.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: If I had to lift up a server to walk it down the basement to show you that I'm more capable to do this, then I'm fine with it. It shouldn't have to be like that. But it's just the consciousness.
And I'm going to say this is a world consciousness that we live in. I mean, when I go overseas is very male dominant. They will speak over you.
They will discount what you say. They will reframe it, they will rephrase it. And you got to say, no, you're not going to do that. And then sometimes there's times where I've just recently, in the last couple of years is calling out what it is like, no, you're not going to do that. You're doing that because, oh, no, I'm not doing that as a woman. It's because no, you're doing it because I am a woman. And I'm here, and I'm speaking about now you want to challenge where I went to school. Now you want to challenge my expertise and how much do I know about configurations. Now you want to challenge my knowledge. You have not challenged anyone in this room space, but you want to challenge me. What is the problem? So I've learned how to start to speak up more when I see that or when say, why are you asking me this? Because you didn't ask this person when this person came and asked the question. But now you want to ask the question of where I'm from. So those are some of the things that is placed. But I'm happy to say that we are having more women of color that are getting more in the space and that is getting more into the leadership role. This is why we need to have more of us in the leadership role to speak on these things and to show other corporations and group dynamics on how we need to properly collaborate.
[00:19:42] Speaker C: This is good and you really did a good segue into the other question is the power of communication. Because here in the podcast, we talk a lot about speaking, your power, not the effect of communication. And I know that even the tech part of the world, communication, the Internet, you're always communicating. So as your role in the career, in a tech world, it sounds like you've had a lot of success in your career. So tell us, how did your communication play in your success in this area?
[00:20:22] Speaker A: First of all, I have to say this. Being a black woman, having a strong black father, having a strong black husband, and now having a strong black son, that takes a lot of seeing how to make sure your voice is being heard and when to speak. And when I say when to speak, I'm not saying as a way of putting us down because years ago I used to speak on everything and in certain things I've learned, thanks to my mother and my grandmother, say, Naomi, leave that alone right now. You'll have your time to speak on it. Just watch, watch. And I learned how to communicate and to watch what is really being communicated at that time. And I've learned what is my battle and what is my stand. If it's not stand, I do not want to speak on that unless I'm going to be accountable and responsible to see it through. So I've learned that over the years, when it comes to building and listen, I've had people come to me and I mean, there's clients that comes. I mean, I have a client now that said, oh, we're bringing another marketing team. I'm not threatened by it. Ask me all the questions, say whatever. I've had this, go right ahead, do that.
If that's what you want to do, you go ahead and you do that. But I've learned to know what is my stance with clients and what I'm a stand for with them in that particular environment. And you know, Professor Cheryl, you've seen me in action with this. There's a lot of things I could speak on, but I just like because if I'm going to speak to that, I got to be accountable for it and I'm not willing to be accountable for it.
[00:22:12] Speaker C: You dropped so many gems. I was writing it down. So the thing that I want you to elaborate a little bit on, because effective strategies and communication, your strategies, you said, I learned how to lend my voice and to learn how to speak on the things and learned when I do speak and I lend my voice to it, how do you get heard? That's my question.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: So I feel how I get heard is by knowing what I'm accountable for. And this is something that I learned about and it took me a while, and I learned this maybe about ten years ago, because you're going to come to me and you're going to ask me questions about different types of technology platforms. You're going to ask me about this. You're going to ask me, hey, I'm working with this particular contractor and I'm going to lend you my expertise. And then if I feel like there's something wrong, I'd be like, you go back and you tell them. And I could stand strong with that. But if you have someone else that has no experience and they're just going off of the mood of it and next thing you know, you could find yourself up in a lawsuit because of not knowing that that's not their domain or their expertise of what they're accountable for. I've learned that know what for me, of what matter, which matter is my family. What mattered to me is my career. What mattered to me is my passion. What matters to me is the thing that brings me joy. And as long as those things around me are not being stepped on when I'm dealing with different people's worlds and being of who they are, we're cool. We're cool in the game. I love it.
[00:24:01] Speaker C: You're not wavering on your standards. You're not wavering on what brings you happiness. And you're moving in that. And if you're not being heard, I don't think you have a fear of walking away.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: Oh, no.
I've learned that whatever is mine is mine. And whatever God has given me dominion over is what I have dominion over. Now I'm dealing with working with my adult children.
God has given me. But God is also teaching me about how to release and really let go. We think we know about what release and let go is. But baby, I can tell you this. When you got some grown children, that is where you really learn. So the release and the let go part, it's a total different situation when it's your girlfriend, your sister, your husband, because usually it's like they have a listening, they hear you and you're just going to say, well, I trust God because you know God for yourself and God got your back. Okay. But when it's your children, it's that whole thing of that internal questioning of the release and the let go. And it's like, okay, God, do they know God? Like, how I know God?
What are they doing? That's that whole releasing let go? Listen.
[00:25:28] Speaker C: I love it.
I wanted to make sure I get this in. You have such success around your big advocate for gender diversity and inclusion and tech and stuff of that nature. You did so much work. Can you tell us about your advocacy work and the impact that you aim to have to achieve?
[00:25:48] Speaker A: Yes. So I am part of the black churches for Digital Equity, where my church, Zoe Ministries, is part of.
And I'm also part of the Pan African women of Faith rewriting the narrative using digital technology.
And one of the things that oh, and I'm also part of the women and girls descendant of enslavement of the Americans and Caribbean organization out of the UN. So I'm part of those three organization, and they all deal with some area of digital equity and digital access for all. Basically, in this country, there is a digital divide that we've seen, and we've seen it more than ever before during the pandemic. We've seen that people are telling us their mobile device is their internet service. That is not your internet service. We've seen children doing homework off of one tablet in their households where there's schools that are supposed to provide tablets or computers, proper laptops for each child. So we've seen this. I've seen this. I've heard the stories. I've been to DC to advocate for this, that we need to have proper internet service.
There's no reason where I live that I have high speed internet. But the moment I drive 5 miles down into another community that looks like us, people of color, my phone is still dropping. I can't search the internet. Why is that? Because we need to have proper internet services. There is churches out there that are suffering.
I don't like calling them the mom and pop, but there are churches that are suffering that don't have proper internet or digital infrastructures in their community. So that is one of the things that I advocate about. I advocate that for digital equity and digital access for all. I advocate that our women, our children, our girls, we all need to have access to proper skill sets so that we can provide proper jobs in this world.
Right now, every basis of what we see that is around you starts with some type of piece of technology or some type of digital transformation or transaction that takes place. The mug that comes from a software, a program, an equipment that is built to produce that mug. Now, when we look at this and we look at factories, we look at who's working these jobs, it's usually us that is working these jobs. The sad part is this, because AI is here, those jobs are being replaced right now. All those people that was working the toll booth, they're being replaced. So now we got to provide skill sets and we got to get our people educated in trans technology, transportational technology, agribusiness, agritech agriculture. We got to get into manufacturing technology, mining tech. We need to get into art tech. But I always tell everyone it starts from the basis of having digital technology at your fingertips and understanding the basis.
[00:29:23] Speaker C: Didn'T I tell you that she was going to be a fireball?
She's a trailblazer. Some of these things, we got to have her back, because this is something that's so needed in our community. Firstly, the information that you're giving is so important for us to understand that there are people that the gap is so large now, the little pieces that we can do is begin to fill in the gap, and you're part of that gap filler. So I want to thank you so much, Naomi Jordan Cook, for coming on. But I usually end with three fireball questions. I'm just going to pop at you.
So what is your favorite tech, gadget or app?
[00:30:07] Speaker A: Okay. Right now?
Okay, so my favorite tech gadget app, I'm just going to go to the one that I always play anytime I'm bored is Royal. It's like a matching type of game or something like that.
[00:30:23] Speaker C: So you get your mind off you do little games.
[00:30:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I do toy blast. Tomb Blast. Yeah. That's how I lost my Facebook page.
Roll pack with gaming.
[00:30:38] Speaker C: All right. Is there really a book or a podcast that greatly influenced your career?
[00:30:46] Speaker A: There's a couple.
So one that I have really been working with, one with my coach, with Manifestation, the Manifestation podcast as well as the one with it talks about new age of science. I'm like a little geek when it comes to science and stuff.
[00:31:12] Speaker C: All right, so if you had a chance to have dinner with any tech pioneer living or historical, who would it be?
[00:31:20] Speaker A: Okay. This person is not into tech, but I would love to sit down and to have dinner and to ask questions will be Oprah Winfrey. Just magnificent.
[00:31:32] Speaker C: Let's do this together.
[00:31:34] Speaker A: Just the magnificent work that she does globally.
[00:31:39] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh.
[00:31:41] Speaker A: It's amazing.
We're global citizens. So being in a global community, the impact that you can make, that's just the one person.
[00:31:54] Speaker C: I totally agree.
I want to say thank you, Naomi Jordan Cook. Didn't I told you she was going to give fantastic insight? So tell the people how they can connect with you, what you're doing, if any thoughts about what you're doing, if they can give some encouragement to your advocacy, your website, whatever you want to give them right now. And that'd be great.
[00:32:18] Speaker A: So first I have to say thank you so much for this opportunity.
I am super excited. I am starting my AI journey, which I'm starting to film this actually today, where I am doing an AI journey on building out a mobile application. Is it possible to use AI and teach yourself? So I'm going to be doing that journey of taking it from one area from scratch. But you can follow me@thevgcgroup.com or you can go to Naomicook.com or all my social media handles is all the same. Naomijordancook. Naomi. N-A-O-M-I. Like the Bible. Jordan. J-O-R-D-A-N cook. C-O-O-K. Well, all right.
[00:33:08] Speaker C: We want to thank Naomi Jordan Cook for being a fantastic guest. I know you learned some things, ladies, I want to wrap up with. Understand there's some wisdom here. Take what you can. There's certain little things that we can learn. From everyone. Take just one little tidbit and then make today the greatest day. Make today the moment. Be grateful for what you have, because, like Naomi just shared, there's such a divide with the people around the world. So I want you to connect and keep it connected. Speak your power now. Remember, sometimes your life is defined by one single moment. Let that moment be today. Peace and God bless.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: Well, thank you for tuning in to another empowering episode of Speak Your Power Now podcast. We hope you found inspiration and valuable insight on your journey of self expression. Remember, the power of communication is in your hands. And by honing on to this skill, you're going to unlock a world of possibilities. Your journey doesn't end here. Stay connected with us on social media, where we are going to continue the conversation and share your own stories of empowerment. So if you enjoyed this episode today.
[00:34:28] Speaker C: Don'T forget to hit us up.
[00:34:29] Speaker B: Subscribe, leave your review and share it with your friends. Also, feel free to share your thoughts with any questions or ideas you may have for future episodes. Together, we're going to build a community of confident communicators. As we wrap up, always remember that your voice has power to inspire, to uplift, and to encourage and change. Keep speaking your truth and empowering yourself and embrace the power within. Until next time. Remember, your life is defined by one single moment.
[00:35:02] Speaker C: Let that moment be too healing.
