DevelopMEnt Month at Nuance is about spending an hour (or two!) learning about a new topic or diving deeper into a familiar one. Throughout the month of January, Nuance subject matter experts got the chance to flex their presentation skills and outside speakers shared their knowledge on topics around technology, leadership, and more. In this blog, learn about Nuance’s career development philosophy and how these recent live sessions impacted attendees.
Lissandra Lopez joined Nuance in 2019 and works as the Senior Manger of Talent and Organizational Development. She is passionate about learning, organizational development, diversity and inclusion, and empowering individuals to reach their full potential. She has a BA in Economics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and an MBA in Organizational Leadership from Simmons College. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with her familia, reading, traveling and volunteering in her community.
Here at Nuance, we’re on the cutting edge in conversational AI and ambient intelligence – and we also have a passionate and collaborative culture that encourages continuous learning and a growth mindset in all that we do. Each day, we help our employees find new ways to innovate, feed their curiosities, diversify their skills sets, build their confidence, and push themselves out of their comfort zones. We believe that our employees own their careers, and managers support them along the way. We embrace career development and believe that “up is not the only way” – there are plenty of opportunities to learn and grow from experiences and others. Whatever career paths employees choose to go down, we want them to feel supported and equipped with the tools and resources they need to be successful.
Christopher, Senior Principal Software Engineer, recently said in a Built in Boston article – “Nuance is a place where you decide where to go with your career.” We offer many ways employees can develop and constantly improve – using our provided learning resources, participating in our global Mentoring Matters program, building their internal networks, exploring development opportunities such as lateral moves and stretch assignments, and learning from each other every day. The opportunities to learn, grow, and develop are endless!
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, said “Don’t be a know it all, be a learn it all.”
One of the many ways we build a learning culture here at Nuance is through our DevelopMEnt Month program, offered several times a year. Employees can sign up for as many interactive live sessions as they like to learn about various topics facilitated by passionate and knowledgeable internal and external subject matter experts. DevelopMEnt Month is a great way for employees to upskill, learn about technical subjects, see our Nuance products in action, and get inspired by their colleagues’ (interesting!) career paths. Employees with no prior knowledge can “dip their foot in the pool” to learn about new areas, because they’re designed so everyone can understand the basics and feel included. Presenters get valuable experience practicing their teaching skills and employees identify experts to connect with if questions arise. Plus, all sessions are recorded so employees can watch them anytime.
Another successful DevelopMEnt month finished up last month – learn about some of the sessions offered and read what a few employees had to say:
Pluralsight Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA)
Cybersecurity consultant and author, Dr. Lyron H. Andrews, discussed key characteristics, origin, and justification of ZTA. He explored the logical components of a ZTA, identified the underlying technology that enables zero trust, and reviewed use cases of how it is applied.
“Dr. Lyron H. Andrews completely validated all the time-consuming rigor and due diligence that Nuance has been applying across the company to ensure that we meet the highest security standards.” ~Rebecca, Senior Manager, Central Research
Microsoft Teams Roadmap
Senior Customer Success Manager at Microsoft, Rich Roseman, discussed use cases and features regarding meetings, live events, webinars, functionality of breakout rooms, and what’s new/coming soon.
“The Microsoft Teams Roadmap session exceeded my expectations! This session helped me see how me and my team can utilize Microsoft Teams more effectively in our roles. It is great to see how Microsoft is committed to the needs of their customers. I am grateful that Nuance has development sessions focused on propelling our teams and business forward, with an emphasis on improving our productivity.” ~Dawn, Learning & Development Specialist (mentee in the Mentoring Matters program)
Business Agility, the real objective
Most people are familiar with how Agile frameworks like Scrum and Kanban can be applied at the team level, this session focused on the Agile mindset, and how it can be applied at the enterprise level to improve customer satisfaction, time to market, and quality. This session was facilitated by Joseph and John who are both Senior Principal Scrum Masters at Nuance.
“This session was structured to make the topic ‘universal’ to any functional area, not just software development. The material on the Agile mindset was very relatable to leading a team or function. I’m excited to start applying the framework within my team to solve problems and adapt to change!” ~Troy, Senior Manager Project Management (mentor and mentee in the Mentoring Matters program)
Mix Part II – Backend Functionality using Microsoft Power Automate
In the Mix Part I session held in May, Karima, Principal Conversational AI Advocate at Nuance reviewed the basics of our Mix tool to build a working calendar bot. In Mix Part II, she showed the participants how to get into Mix for the first time all the way through having a deployed bot that connects to their backend data. This end-to-end process was done with no coding using Power Automate!
“This session gave me a better understanding of how to design and develop a bot using Natural Language Understanding (NLU) along with interactive voice response (IVRs) to create an application programming interface (API). The travel app that Karima demonstrated, along with her videos, was helpful and informative – it allowed me to see how to build the conversational flow. I would like to implement this concept into our Information Technology department so we can streamline our processes with newly hired employees.” ~Peter, Senior IT End User Services Specialist
In a rapidly changing world, we encourage our employees to stay curious, be life-long learners, and foster a growth mindset with a focus on continuous development. We aim to make learning a part of our everyday work so employees feel empowered, confident, challenged, and knowledgeable. Our DevelopMEnt Month provides everyone with the chance to learn and teach, and we look forward to the next one!