Trac Bannon: A few years ago, I was introduced to Helen Beal through our work with the DevOps Institute. Helen was the Chief Ambassador and I was submitting my credentials for consideration as an ambassador. 

We are both combed-shaped people and naturally had so many topics and passion areas to talk about. What is a comb-shaped person, you may ask?

It’s more likely that you’ve heard the metaphor of a “T-shaped person”. The horizontal bar of the letter “T” represents the breadth of skills in multiple areas… the vertical bar of the “T” represents exceptional depth in one area. T-shaped folks are very very competent in their primary field. Their breadth is a little more shallow though it is this mix that helped “Ts” to collaborate with a wider context.

Well, what, then is a comb-shaped person? The spine of the comb represents competency and awareness in a bunch of topics… much like the horizontal bar for the T-shaped person. Each tooth of the comb is a different area of depth. This is Helen Beal. She is particularly valuable in situations with rapid change… she is that person who can synthesize with many different deep specializations. 

I admire this life force named Helen Beal. We have a shared commitment to technical expertise, continuous learning, and community engagement. But it is her ability to juggle roles and interests that makes me simply a fan girl. It was time to learn more about this Real Technologist. 

Helen was born in Yorkshire in the North of England. The countryside, history, and distinct regional character remind me of Vermont. When she was six, her father left the Royal Air Force and took a job with a civilian airline that included moving the family closer to Gatwick and the international airports.

Her mother was a science teacher, and it was her mother who decided to teach her to read along with her older brother Simon when Helen was barely three… 

Helen Beal: So my mother taught me to read when I was three. I was holding books up when I was one. I held them upside down. I can actually read quite effectively upside down, which is quite handy when you’re opposite someone at a desk or in a restaurant and there aren’t quite enough menus to go around.

Simon is 18 months older than me. And the reason my mother taught me to read at 3 is because she was teaching him and she could see that I was also ready. So she taught us both together.

I’ve always been a bookworm. And that’s kind of my first love really is reading and storytelling and writing with, you know, they’re so intertwined.

And I think at school I was a swot, frankly. I was a nerd. I really enjoyed school. I really enjoyed learning. I was the girl that would finish the maths exercises and ask the maths teacher for more maths, please.

Trac Bannon: You are listening to Real Technologists. I’m your host, Trac Bannon, coming to you from Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. Each week we choose a unique guest behind leading Edge Tech innovation to explore their genuine stories, their true journeys. Technology touches nearly every aspect of our lives. It’s being driven by diverse perspectives and experiences of real humans.

You’re in the right spot to hear about the real technologists reshaping our world. Stay tuned for stories that will give you something to noodle on.

Helen was, and is, a renaissance type with diverse interests. Beyond her love of reading and storytelling, she was interested in nature as well as writing code… like many other real technologists, Helen was exposed to coding at a young age. Helen was seven when her dad brought home a ZX8. She, alongside with her brother Simon, learned to code in BASIC. 

She was not one to stay put in front of a computer. She was a very active kid who loved trampolining and running, as well as being immersed in nature.

Helen Beal: I was that child that had a head in a hedge because I was always looking for caterpillars.

I used to have caterpillars in ice cream tubs along my windowsill and I’d, you know, religiously go out every day and get them the specific leaves that they like to eat.

And, you know, always in hope that they’d get into a cocoon or a chrysalis and I’d get to see them hatch, which they often did, but it’s cool.

Trac Bannon: Listening to Helen describe herself as SWOT, I did a quick Google search and figured out it’s British slang for somebody who studies too much. Helen is a geek who studied very hard and loved her academic work. Helen’s mom taught chemistry and had a reputation for her failed experiments. If I were the betting type, I’d say this is why Helen loved chemistry so much.

Helen Beal: And I got straight A’s at GCSE, which is the set of exams that we take at 16 in the UK. I really like chemistry as well. I wasn’t sure if I maybe wanted to be a doctor.

So I went into my A levels, which is what we do between 16 and 18 in the UK. And I did chemistry, French and English. I still didn’t know which direction I was going to go in… was it going to be science? Was it going to be creative?

Trac Bannon: Ultimately, this creative soul opted for a major in English Literature and Language, attending Royal Holloway, University of London. This was her mother’s Alma mater and is known for strong academic programs, especially in English and Literature. When she visited the campus, she fell in love with its beauty and charm. Like mother, like daughter, seems to fit. It didn’t hurt that her brother, Simon, would also be attending. 

Helen’s decision to major in language was influenced by her lifelong passion for reading, storytelling, and writing. Despite her strong performance in STEM subjects, she ultimately chose to pursue her love for the creative arts. Though a college degree is enriching, her time at university was filled with personal exploration. 

Helen Beal: Honestly think I was a bit too busy at college having fun. I mean, I did doing an English degree, you’ve got to know that there aren’t many lectures anyway… because a lot of it is reading and I still managed to miss quite a lot of lectures.

I think that was probably the most rebellious phase of my life and I remember being conscious that it was probably the most carefree I would ever be. 

Trac Bannon: For someone like Helen with such a rich love of reading, her studies at Royal Halloway did take an unexpected toll that took years to overcome. 

Helen Beal: After university I found it really difficult to read. I lost my love of reading because we had to read so much with such a critical eye that… for a while afterwards I couldn’t read a book without sort of unpicking it as I read it. I think I just had a decent break from it. I probably didn’t read a lot for like a year or two, and then it was just enough to kind of break that neurological cycle or whatever it was that I’d created.

Trac Bannon: When it was time to move on from college, Helen didn’t know what to do with that new degree. She did not want to be a journalist because of the high cost and competition for getting the perfect scoop. She was also keenly aware of publishing having a reputation as an old boys network. At 21, she decided that she wasn’t ready to be a novelist. 

Helen didn’t exactly have a roadmap laid out for her career. Her strategy was more like “let’s see where the wind takes me” kind of plan. She wasn’t picky, just eager to get her hands dirty, diving into the world of temp jobs, mainly floating around the tech firms. Her willingness to temp with tech firms landed her an eventual role with IBM. 

A temporary position to open up while somebody named Shelly Watson was on holiday for two weeks. During that time, her boss, Jess Miller, needed an assistant. Helen stepped up. She seized the opportunity. In Helen’s words, she just “kept on going and that’s how she fell into the tech field”. Her time at IBM gave her the foundational tools she would need to become one of today’s leading online technical community leaders.

Helen Beal: I did an English degree and then went to work for IBM and I started in sales. And I enjoyed the job because it was, you know, technology. And that was exciting and it paid quite well. So that was good just coming out of university.

But I kind of realized that actually I’m quite introverted. So actually being in sales was kind of… weird. But it was really good for me because it made me get out of my comfort zone and it made me more of a people person. And I found that to be successful at selling, you needed to listen a lot and that an introvert can do and is quite happy… and it’s quite an effective way of getting relationships built. So I think what happened was that experience of a decade or so of selling and then managing a team of sellers… taught me about networking. And really when you’re building a community, what you’re doing is you’re inviting people to participate in a large federated distributed team and sort of huddle around activities that you all have a common interest in.

So yeah, the community building was a complete accident.

Trac Bannon: Helen is an accidental community leader. In retrospect, it seems inevitable that her combination of skills and experiences would take her on this journey. Helen is an introvert with a voice and a passion for helping others. She is now the Chief Ambassador for the DevOps Institute, as well as being one of the founders of the Value Stream Management Consortium. Both are highly influential organizations in today’s modern software practices domain. 

From IBM, Helen made her way to a company called Digital Union, following a friend and workmate, Patrick Lawton. Patty had worked as an IBM partner, and they struck up a working relationship. When Patty decided to start his own business, he asked Helen to get involved. She realized she didn’t want to be a small fish in a big pond anymore, and made the leap. It was an exciting time during the dot com bubble. It was nearing the millennium change. Internet companies were on the rise and speculation was rampant. She learned the ins and outs of driving a startup and being a jack of all trades. This is probably where she really cut her teeth on being able to spin so many plates at one time. 

From Digital Union. Helen transitioned to a company then called Real Solutions. This is where Helen Beal got her hands on with the AS400. At the time, it was a popular mid range service for small businesses or for departments within larger enterprises. Eventually, Real Solutions was bought by a company called ImTech. 

Some would call Helen lucky, though I see there’s no such thing as luck. Luck is simply when opportunity and preparedness meet. The purchase of Real Solutions was one of those opportunities, and Helen seized it. 

Helen Beal: So Real Solutions were bought by Mtech while I was there, Mtech were a Dutch company, quite an interesting company actually, they made like things like home security and boat security, all sorts of different pies they had their fingers in. But yeah, so I had some shares… when Mtech bought Real Solutions, I was lucky enough to make a little bit of cash. So I thought it was time for me to have a little career break at that point. And get back to the thing that I felt that I should really be doing with my life, which was writing novels, um, which I had been doing in the evenings. But I actually intended to take a year out and one of the first things I did was I drove an ambulance to Mongolia with one of my close school friends, Victoria. 

Trac Bannon: Just four months into her year off, Helen was approached by MidVision. A former colleague, Mark Holder, was working with Lloyds Banking Group. Lloyds had developed a deployment automation system and needed help with their sales strategy. He made the connection and Helen stepped into a role with MidVision Limited. 

This project inadvertently led her to the world of DevOps and locked in a new course for her tech destiny. Her growing reputation led her to the DevOps community and ultimately the DevOps Institute and that role of Chief Global Ambassador. 

Helen is both left brain and right brain. Each time we speak, I’m always inspired and in awe of how both hemispheres of the brain are fighting against one another in such a beautiful, wonderful way. One of the leading voices in DevOps has also written three novels and a book of short stories. 

Helen chose to self publish her novels after exploring the traditional publishing route. This was during the rise of eReaders like Kindle, and the market heavily favored certain genres and celebrity memoirs.

Her first novel was titled “30 Seconds Before Midnight”. It’s a contemporary retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, set in the UK one summer at an imaginary place called Bestwood based on a renowned estate located in West Sussex, England called Goodwood. 

As she described it to me, I was mesmerized, confused, and understood why publishers may have strayed away.

Helen Beal: So I set this book in the menagerie in a fictional Goodwood that I called Bestwood. And the narrator is a giant land tortoise called Herbert. So this was quite confusing for publishers because it was a very adult novel because the premise was that the groundkeeper and his daughter, Bob and Stella, were about to be displaced because the old aristocratic family had gone and they had been replaced by some rock and roll people.

So it’s a very sex, drugs and rock and roll book narrated by a giant land tortoise retelling a Greek myth. So that was quite puzzling, I think, for the publishers.

Trac Bannon: Her second book is called Rich in Small Things. It’s a fictionalized account about Helen’s experiences driving to Mongolia in the ambulance with her friend. This spirit of adventure and embracing the richness of life’s experiences doesn’t just manifest in her literary pursuits. 

It reflects in her personal life, particularly in her relationship with her life partner. 

Helen’s journey with her partner Matt, much like her journey to Mongolia, is a testament to the shared paths and values that define their bond. 

Helen Beal: I think I was probably a bit of a serial monogamist during my 20s. And then I think my 30s were probably defined by singledom. No one particularly serious. And then When I was 40, I got together with one of my best friends who is currently upstairs on his own call. Uh, he works in our industry. He works at Akamai. So, so yeah, it took me a while to find him, but I’m very happy that I eventually did.

Trac Bannon: Helen is so authentic and caring. We navigated a topic that some of my close family and friends are not comfortable with, the intentional decision to not have children. Helen and Matt have made that decision and keep their focus on embracing who they have in their lives, their love of Costa Rica, nature, and their pets. 

Helen Beal: We are child free, quite consciously child free.

I think there’s room in the world for choosing that different path and for it to being equally valid, which I think is sometimes tough in a society that is so patriarchal and that is so pronatal.

The conversation about me being child free is not one I have with my mother. I know what her opinion is on it. My parents have been amazing. They’ve given me all the tools to feel really confident and capable in my life.

I’m really grateful for everything they’ve done for me, but this part of my life, I don’t think is quite what they’d hoped.

We have two gorgeous cats, they’re called Morpho and Oro. We love Costa Rica, we’re very lucky that Matt shares my love of being outdoors in the natural world, and love of cats, so we’re totally enslavened to our cats. We call one the Empress, that’s mine, Morpho, and one the Goddess, which is his, Oro. 

Trac Bannon: Remember that precocious child with her head in the hedgerow looking for caterpillars? She has continued to love nature and is deeply invested. It is not just a personal hobby; helen volunteers as a park ranger at a national nature reserve called Kingley Vale. 

She is also passionate about Gaia, our planet. It partly influenced her decision to not have children. The Earth’s resources are finite, and Helen believes overpopulation will exacerbate environmental issues, including global warming and habitat loss.

Helen is such a deep thinker that she constantly surprises me and pushes me to expand my opinions. Helen and I do share quite a bit of common ground, not the least of which is wanting there to be rich acceptance of one another. 

 We also share a love of community building… 

Helen Beal: It’s one of the greatest gifts I think in my life is just being able to live in a time where we’re able to connect to people like us.

everywhere around the world, so you can find your tribe and they don’t have to be in your village. And that for me is really exciting. I have friends locally as well, but it’s just really nice to be able to kind of globally network with all these incredible people.

Trac Bannon: Did I mention that Helen is a role model for me? She is an amazing plate spinner, never letting one fall and always looking for other ways to grow. She is finishing a master’s degree in creative writing. In parallel, she’s working on a PhD proposal for creative writing that will start within the next year. 

Helen’s origin story and life journey teach us so much…

Maintain curiosity and keep learning. Be open to opportunities. Trust the journey.

Helen Beal: I remember hitting 30. And at 30, it was almost like the scales fell off my eyes and I suddenly felt like, okay, with who I was, it was like, I think the 20s were quite an anxious time and we wanted to be thinner and prettier and cleverer and more successful and richer and all of those sort of things.

And when I got to 30, it was like, do you know what? You’re, you’re fine. Just carry on. When I hit 40, I think I was just really happy to be with Matt and just kind of like gone, yeah, that’s been, you’ve had a great time, but it’s now it’s time to, you found him, just embrace that whole, you know, the intimacy, the emotional intimacy that you can create in a couple.

Um, so yeah, 50 is next June for me. Loving yourself and caring for yourself, I think is probably the foundation to having a good life and forgiving yourself and giving yourself a break and not working yourself to the bone… and finding the things you enjoy and allowing yourself to have mistakes and make mistakes is good. And I think, I think I’d probably just say to the, my younger self, yeah, just, just do what you’re doing and just keep your mind open for the doors that are opening and the opportunities that present themselves. I think probably the only thing I would have told myself is to set more boundaries and put up with less crap from people at certain times of my life.

Trac Bannon: And that’s a wrap for today’s episode of Real Technologists. I want to thank my guest, Helen Beal for sharing her story. Your insights and experiences are truly inspiring. I’m grateful for the opportunity to share them with the audience. This podcast is a Sourced Network production and updates are available weekly on your favorite audio streaming platform. Just search for real technologists and consider subscribing. Special thanks to our executive producer, Mark Miller, for making this show possible. Our editor and sound engineer, Pokie Huang has done an amazing job bringing this story to life. Thank you both. The music for today’s episode was provided by Blue Dot Sessions, and we use Descript for spoken text editing and audacity for the soundscaping. The show distribution platform is provided by CaptivateFM making it easy for our listeners to find and enjoy the show. 

That’s all for today, folks. This is Trac Bannon. Don’t forget to tune in next week for another intriguing episode of Real Technologists and something new to noodle on.