Episode 176 – A Chat With Nancy Lyons
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Introducing Nancy Lyons
CEO and co-founder of Clockwork, an enterprise web development company in Minneapolis MN. We’ve known her through the internet for years, and it was a delight to get to talk to her in this episode.
Show Notes
Transcript:
Topher: Hey everybody, welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Topher, your host, and my regular co-host is Nyasha and she’s here.
Nyasha: Hey, I’m Nyasha.
Topher: And I stepped on her introduction, and I’m sorry.
Nyasha: It’s okay.
Topher: Before we get going, I want to say thanks to Nexcess for our hosting, and for sponsoring us. They’re good friends. They’re good hosts. They have some really cool WooCommerce automated testing. I don’t know anybody else that does that. Automated testing is awesome, and will save you time and money. They have a cool Sales Performance Monitor and a plugin performance monitor to keep your store running super fast.
All right, our guest today is Nancy Lyons. Welcome.
Nyasha: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Topher: You’re welcome. The first time I ever heard of you was my wife and I bought a remote ticket to Prestige Home and we put it on TV. So we watched your talk on TV. And as it was going, it was like, is it too late to get there? How many hours is it to Minneapolis? And we decided we probably couldn’t get there before you were done. Then we came back the next year just to meet you and you weren’t there.
Nancy: That’s rude.
Topher: I’ve been mad at you ever since.
Nancy: I’m just glad that you liked the talk. But I feel like we’ve talked off and on over the years on Twitter.
Topher: Yeah.
Nancy: Like when I realized who this podcast was with, I was like, “Oh, I know that guy. He and his wife are like a power couple of WordPress. Power couple.”
Nyasha: Oh, yeah.
Nancy: Right?
Topher: Yeah. Well, we try. Yeah, I thought it was funny because usually I get requests all the time, all the time from office assistants. Hey, my boss is somebody who is so awesome. You really want to have him on your podcast. I’m just so tired of them, I just delete them almost out of hand. I literally was like, “Nancy? Oh, well, yeah, let’s do that.”
Nancy: Sweet. I’m glad I didn’t get deleted. You know, we are on a growth mission, so we have a relatively new, about 18 months chief growth officer. And one of her tactics in the broader marketing plan is just a podcast campaign. So she’s actually working with a booking agency to identify relevant podcasts where, you know, I might be a helpful guest. And then they’re doing the outreach, which is weird for me too. Like, they do the whole media kit, and then they sell me.
So I actually had a recording earlier today even and it’s weird to do a couple of recordings in the same day because then you’re like, did I say this already? Is this menopause? But it’s actually been fun because I’ve met, you know, people with different businesses and different interests and podcasts focused on a wide variety of things. So it’s actually been kind of fun.
Topher: That’s cool. I really enjoy being on podcasts, too. And I too have done it that often, I think, “Oh, did I already say this? Do they want to hear the story again?”
Nancy: Exactly. Right. I think this must be what early-onset dementia is like.
Topher: So tell us who you are and why you’re here, what you do, and WordPress and all that kind of stuff. Where do you live?
Nancy: Sure. Well, I live in Minneapolis. My name is Nancy Lyons, and I am the co-founder and CEO of a company called Clockwork. Clockwork is an experienced design and technology consultancy. A staple of our businesses is WordPress development.
We also in the last couple of years spun out a smaller agile studio called Tempo. And Tempo is… you know, Clockwork does a lot of work for the enterprise and we roll in a lot of customer experience, user experience, and change strategy consulting, and then we actually build the solutions that we collaborate toward with our clients.
And Clockwork has clients like OPTiM, Ameriprise, UnitedHealth, Ecolab, General Motors. Tempo is actually a studio that was built for startups, small and medium businesses using, you know, obviously a very lean approach, a very lean, agile approach to delivery. So we’re delivering much quicker and WordPress is a staple of that business as well.
So I think it speaks to the fact that WordPress is appropriate for the enterprise and WordPress is appropriate for, you know, startups and small businesses. And having the right partner helps you determine the right implementation of WordPress. So we’re in Minneapolis, but we have clients all over.
Nyasha: That is cool.
Topher: Yeah. I really liked the idea of having the smaller, lean agency for the people who need smaller, lean stuff.
Nancy: I mean, it’s been good for us because also what we’re finding is even larger companies that don’t want to invest a ton of dollars in testing an idea will come through the Tempo doors, and we’ll test and run and prototype some of their concepts with them and they’re not going through this giant process and there’s not so many stops and starts in the process. It’s a much quicker experience.
Topher: Yeah. I noticed LinkedIn says you’ve been running an agency for 21 years now.
Nancy: Hmm.
Topher: I am someone who has been around the agency trail a lot. Especially in the last few years, agencies are struggling to keep people employed lately. Are you still happy with that? I’m not asking if you’re happy if you did it. Are you still happy continuing to do it? Do you see you doing it till you’re 80?
Nancy: I’m barely gonna breathe till I’m 80. So that’s an interesting question. First of all, Clockwork wasn’t our first rodeo. So we had done this before. We actually started-
Topher: I’m sorry. Who’s we?
Nancy: Oh, sure. I have business partners, and I’ve been with them for 175 years. That’s what it feels like, speaking about, you know, something. They actually started up an internet service provider in 1994.
Topher: Oh, wow.
Nancy: And that is how I met them, and ultimately became a partner and the president of that company, which was… Is it okay if we have dogs in the hallway, this hallway chats?
Nyasha: Yeah, of course. We love dogs.
Nancy: He picks now to bark, right?
Topher: Yeah.
Nancy: Sorry about him. That’s Nacho. And he’s very, very, very vocal. I didn’t think for a minute that he would be backing. My apologies. Anyway. So we started in internet service provider in ’94, ’95, built the first website for a commercial client in 1995, sold that company in 2001. We had had an investor prior to that, and worked with that investor pretty heavily, and then walked away from that started Clockwork in January of 2002.
And we called it a startover instead of a startup. We sort of had a better idea of how we wanted to operate. And we’ve evolved over those 21 years. We started out as a web dev shop. And I think the distinction, relative to what you said, is I don’t consider us an agency. When we started we were… I mean, you know, the term is subjective. You can see an agency the way you want to and I’ll see the way I want to.
But when we first started, we were competing with advertising agencies. And advertising agencies saw digital as the bastard stepchild, right? It’s something we put in the basement. There’s too sad, sad developers down there, and we throw creative ideas at them and they execute in line with our expectations and deliver something that maybe is functional but not user-friendly, and maybe delivers on business requirements.
We build software and change businesses. We’re doing a lot. So we don’t do digital marketing. We don’t do banner ads. We’re not doing pay-per-click stuff. We’re not doing any of that. We are doing consulting around customer experience and user experience, product development.
We have a change enablement practice, which makes us different because technology changes big businesses. Businesses are fundamentally changed when we build the solutions for them, right? So we are helping our clients think through how to bring their workforce along to ensure the success of these products. So that’s a little different than what we see in your average dev shop.
But over the years, we have evolved from being considered an agency to really being a consultancy. And now we see ourselves competing with some of the big three. We see us invited to tables where we’re also seeing Slalom or Accenture. And we do as much thinking and innovation work, strategy work as we do development work. So it’s a little different.
Do I love it? Do I see myself doing it forever? I’ll tell you, I don’t see myself working for anybody else for a while. And there’s a reason for that. I think the reason we’ve been around for 21 years is we don’t have a holding company trying to tell us… you know, I mean, we’re still… I mean, I know you can relate to this. I’m going to assume that you can both relate to this, but tell me if you can’t. You’ve been doing it so long, you know what’s up, right?
Topher: Yeah.
Nancy: And some force comes in and acquires the organization, that changes everything because suddenly they’re less concerned about quality, more concerned about bottom line, or less concerned about security, more concerned about budget, or the sale itself.
I mean, my God, when we were acquired the last time, I remember sitting in rooms where all they cared about was the sales pipeline and the closed sales. Not whether or not we could actually deliver the work, not whether or not we had the right people in the right seats to deliver on the promises.
Topher: Yeah, the money.
Nancy: It was all about the money. And that’s just not who we’ve ever been. And you know this too. I mean, I hate to keep saying we’re both old, but come on, we’re both old for the internet. We’ve been around for a long time. I’m like the grandma in internet years. And you know that there’s a lot of people out there that still deliver vapor, that still talk a lot of air, but couldn’t actually execute if their lives depended on it, that don’t understand the nuances of the technology. We are not those people.
And I think that 21 years with this company alone, but that, you know, 26 or seven years cumulatively is really quite something and valuable to our clients. And the fact that we enjoy delivering makes us different. And we enjoy the success that our clients experience as a result of our relationship. That also makes us different.
So, do I want to do this forever? No, because where there is a job, there are people and people are starting to be the hardest part about technology. But I can’t see myself doing it for anybody else anytime soon. So there you go. I think we may find some of the same things we found 25 years ago. And that is it’s really hard to compete when the holding companies own all the talent. You know, when the big monsters own all the talent, it’s hard to compete.
The wage inflation situation that we’re all experiencing is happening because of, you know, the talent wars that are occurring. And it’s hard to create sustainable businesses in the shadow of all of that.
Topher: Yeah.
Nancy: I’m a windbag. Sorry.
Topher: No, that’s all right.
Nyasha: That is okay.
Topher: That is exactly what I was looking for. Do you ever go to WordCamp anymore?
Nancy: I haven’t. I haven’t but I’m not opposed to it. I’m not opposed to it. I go where I’m asked to speak because I like to have a job. I like to be put to work. It’s fun. It’s fun. And you know, I don’t talk about tech hardly at all. I’m really talking about motivating people.
I’m doing a talk on Thursday for the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association, and that talk is about not fearing the robots. Like get in the driver’s seat and stop being afraid. You know, because most of the conversations about developing technology, emerging technologies are ridiculous. Like the idea that we’re suddenly going to be in a sequel to repo man just blows my mind.
Topher: That leads me to my next thing. You do a lot of things besides run an agency. I have an email newsletter, and it’s about 1/10 the length of yours. So I know how long it takes to put something like that together. How do you manage to fit all that in?
Nancy: Well, with help. I mean, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have help. I do have help. I have a secret weapon. Her name is Liz. And Liz helps me with it. Now, I do write it. I do conceive of the ideas. But I’ll tell you between Liz and Nathan, Nathan is the… he’s the proofer. He looks for my typos. So if you ever see a typo in that newsletter, just call Nathan out and I’ll have him drawn and quartered.
I mean, I have a great team. I mean, nothing good happens because of one person, right? I’m grateful that I have a subscriber base for the newsletter. The newsletter I do because I love it and I hear from people every month when I send it out. I really try to make it meaningful and helpful. So that is of just a personal joy.
The book writing is about credibility, but also because I have something to say. It’s like, you know, I wrote that book “Work Like a Boss”, and honestly, it’s a love letter to everybody who just can’t get their feet under them, you know, in the workplace, because the whole book was about having agency and self-empowerment and self-awareness.
Because I think unless you work for yourself, you witness how often people just sort of throw their hands up and act powerless. I don’t think we’re living in a time where anybody can afford to sit in their lack of power and hope things improve.
Nyasha: Yes. That’s amazing. I want to add, like you said earlier that you’re old, you’re not. What you are is a powerful force of awesomeness. And I have to learn from you because you hit on so many things I’m looking for. I want my own business. I want my own agency. I really don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this for other people. I think it takes a wise and powerful person to realize that and know that and to execute it like you’re doing. Like, with the time and everything, I know you have your secret weapon, but I just think it’s amazing. It is amazing what you’re doing.
Nancy: You’re kind. I have a great team. I have a great team. And honestly, I mean, what you’ve just said is exactly sort of my career path in that I’ve always been too much. I’ve always been a windbag. I’ve always been too masculine. So I don’t fit the lady business mold. I’ve always been too opinionated. Right?
So working in a typical situation, there just were never any welcome mats thrown out for me when I was, you know, on the job hunt. When I talk to young folks, I’m reminded of how often I was told I was too much. “You’re too much. You’re too big. You’re too loud, too opinionated, too dyke-y, too all sorts of things.
And I think we’re living in a time where we have to start embracing people’s toos because that’s what makes them exceptional. And it’s exceptional people that are going to help us evolve our businesses and get them to the next level. So I really believe that the traditional ways of work just don’t work anymore. And that’s why work is so broken. That’s why we have quiet quitting. That’s why everybody’s in an existential crisis. That’s why we still want to be taking a nap post-pandemic.
But we live in a system of capitalism. So many of these systems have to be dismantled. But unless we get together and agree to do that, we’re stuck in it. So how do we make the best of it? And I think that’s the opportunity we have.
I don’t necessarily subscribe to the American dream because it’s hustle and hard. It’s exhausting. I mean, unless you’re Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk, and unless you’re privileged and White, and you have wealth or whatever, I don’t think the fairy tale is true for everybody. But I do think if you have gumption and hustle, you can carve out enough of a dream for yourself to have a decent quality of life.
And I don’t think that’s true across the board. I hate generalizing. There are certainly people who want things that will never experience them because of their lived experience or their status in life or whatever. But I do think it’s possible to have a decent quality of life and not work for the man.
Nyasha: Oh, I love it. I love it. I love it. Yes. Embracing people’s toos. I’m writing that down. I’ll credit you but I’m writing it down.
Nancy: All right, thanks.
Nyasha: Oh, wonderful.
Nancy: What about you? What’s going on with you all? What’s happening? Are you still doing your publication? Is it HeroPress? Yes. Yes.
Topher: HeroPress. Yes.
Nancy: How’s it going?
Topher: Still going.
Nancy: Nice.
Topher: It changes every few years. So it’ll be nine this year.
Nancy: Wow.
Topher: Just a long time to have anything going on the internet.
Nancy: Anything. Truly.
Topher: Ny and I used to both work at the same agency-
Nancy: Oh, wow.
Topher: …and both have been laid off several times in the last year.
Nancy: No.
Topher: I mentioned agencies are having a hard time keeping people on board. So at the moment, I’m doing my own thing. I’ve been making videos for years about WordPress, about kind of anything. So kind of a niche. I’m good at it. So I hung up my shingle right before WordCamp US. It’s going all right. I’ve got a few clients doing video. I’m making most of my money just building websites for small places. But the video thing is growing and that’s pretty cool.
Nancy: That’s cool.
Topher: Yeah. I hope so. I’m enjoying being my own boss. I’m not even making remotely what I was making when I had a job. So that’s kind of tough. But it’ll come. It’s starting up. It’s only been like three months.
Nancy: Well, I should get your info from you so that I can keep that stuff in mind.
Topher: Yeah. Ny, what are you doing these days?
Nyasha: Well, me and Topher were laid off by the same company.
Nancy: I’m sorry.
Nyasha: No, it’s okay. Topher, when you said several layoffs, I don’t… Topher is such a strong, great person as well because the one layoff from this company nearly broke me. So I’m like, If I had several layoffs, I don’t know what I would do.” But that’s not him. I know what I would do. You gotta keep going. But-
Topher: Three and nine months.
Nyasha: I hate that. And I think a lot of what Nancy said is why… it’s people aren’t embracing people. People don’t have agency. People don’t feel… they don’t feel like people at these jobs. I had a lot of reflection. At first, I looked for work, I was like, I cannot not work. That was my first time ever getting laid off, fired anything like that ever in my life.
So I started doing freelance work, which was awesome. It restored my faith in myself as a web developer because I had lost faith in myself after that layoff. It was like, you can do this yourself. Why are you waiting on somebody? So that’s why a lot of what you said really, really, really, really connected with me. I also got a job with LinkedIn as an instructor there. So I actually got to go record my first course, which teaching WordPress blogs will be out in January.
Nancy: That’s awesome.
Nyasha: Thank you. I was in California. And I still got to do my WordPress stuff. I was a keynote speaker at WordCamp Rochester. I was hanging out with Topher and Cate.
Nancy: Nice.
Nyasha: So I kept myself busy and I kept myself working. And it really was an experience. It was like, you can do this yourself. I really want to start my own business. That’s something I’m planning for the new year. I want to be my own person. Because at the end of the day, if everything collapses around me, I want it to be… I mean, sometimes it’s just going to be random acts of the universe, I guess. But if something collapses around me in terms of income, I want it to be mainly on me. I don’t want to depend on anybody else for income anymore unless they’re a client. So I got a new job and I am working for someone again, but again, in the next year, I’m trying to have my own business.
Topher: Demands.
Nyasha: I’m working for the main demands. But I’m trying to have my own business and make my own income. LinkedIn has actually been a big part of that. They give you a lot of agency there and pay you.
Nancy: That’s great.
Nyasha: I am very optimistic for the next year. I wasn’t at all and now I am. So I’m happy about the future and I’m ready to kick some butt.
Nancy: No, that’s awesome. That’s awesome.
Nyasha: Thank you.
Nancy: I mean, I just heard from a financial expert at a thing I spoke at last week, and they were saying there’s a lot of talk of recession, but recessions historically don’t happen in an election year. So the administration, the current administration, but the government overall has an incentive to not let us, you know, move any lower than we’ve moved.
So I see that as being a positive. So we don’t have to panic, we can focus on the stuff that matters. I think when there’s all this chatter in the ether about the state of the economy, we start to plan for something that isn’t real. That can make us less bold, I think. I don’t think we have to… We don’t have to put on our life jackets because the planes are not going to crash.
I think that’s an important thing to keep sort of close to your chest as you think about starting a new business. Like you don’t have to be afraid because everything’s not gonna fall apart next year.
Nyasha: Oh, that’s so good to hear. Thank you.
Nancy: But I mean, if it does, you did not hear that from me.
Nyasha: Well, it’s because I tried.
Nancy: There we go. Sorry, I was wrong.
Topher: I was actually kind of surprised by the number of WordPress layoffs in the last couple years. Because in 2008 when the recession hit, web stuff boomed. There was so much work because you couldn’t give it away. I mean, you couldn’t pay people enough. The same sort of thing kind of happened with COVID. When everybody went home and locked themselves away, you could still do your web stuff. And this kept going. But then after COVID is when things kind of started to fall apart. And every hosting company and agency I know has laid somebody off.
Nancy: We haven’t. But I will tell you, our crappy year was last year. 2022 was awful. And I think it has a lot to do with pipeline and sales cycles, right? What we saw was a lot of clients got real quiet in the midst of the pandemic. We took advantage of some programs just like everybody else did, and thank God.
I mean, I used to say the government has never helped me ever and I can’t say that anymore because they did. And I’m grateful for it. Though, I wish there weren’t so many people that didn’t need it that gamed the system and created such a quagmire, because who knows how those programs will show up the next time.
But what we did do while we were having a really crappy year, because our clients didn’t know what to expect, and so they got real tentative, and they shut down in our pipeline, had been a little slim during COVID. So it was the sales cycle, right? It was COVID got real slow, everybody was very quiet, clients pulled back. So our pipelines started to dwindle and the cycle came full circle, and the work that we would have done in ’22 just wasn’t there.
But what we did do over the course of COVID that we had started actually pre-COVID was really putting on… you know, getting the training, putting in place the tools so that we could compete with consultancies versus agencies. And that has been like a seven or eight-year journey with a huge piece of that effort and energy happening in the midst of COVID.
And then in ’22, without really having the financial security I would have wanted, I very deliberately hired a chief growth officer and expanded my sales team. Historically… you know, you mentioned a little bit ago that I’ve been doing this for 21 years. The majority of those 21 years, I was sales, and I had one salesperson. And now I have, in my sales department for the first time in my life, or the life of this company, I have one, two, three, four, five people.
Topher: Wow.
Nancy: And that has changed the trajectory of my organization, really taking a leap and investing in sales and investing in a comprehensive sales and marketing strategy and sticking to it and positioning. We also got real, real, real clear on our positioning and who we work for, and what we do for them. You know, regulated industries has always been our space. But we got super clear on financial services, health care, insurance, and manufacturing. And because of that clarity and that strategy, we’re having one of the best years we’ve ever had.
And I don’t like to say that because I certainly network with other agency leaders, consultancy, practice leaders, etc, and I know what’s happening out there. And it’s feast or famine, and I feel horrible about it. You know, we certainly share work. Like we have contractors that we use that come from my network, come from our network of dev shops that have been hit hard.
I definitely think we’re constantly looking at how we can be a good neighbor. And yet it’s hard to hear those stories. It’s really hard to hear what’s happening in the industry right now. And it makes me wonder, like, you know, what’s next? Because I think it would be a sad, sad day if, very much like the ISP space, if the big behemoths came in to monopolize the space.
Topher: Oh, yeah.
Nancy: I think that would be true for the web space too. I think it would be tragic.
Topher: It’s funny talking about what you do during COVID. I recently bought a car, like two weeks ago.
Nancy: Nice.
Topher: And tiny dealership, they had 35 cars, four people in the office. And before we left, I said, “Can I use your bathroom?” And was like, “Sure, go through that door.” And it was a huge warehouse. I mean, the warehouse was bigger than the whole lot. And right in the middle, it was one thing: A 35 foot RV. I said, “What is this?” He goes, “COVID.” They had to do something. They weren’t selling cars. He bought it to renovate and sell.
Nancy: Wow.
Topher: Everybody’s got this thing now when you say, Sorry, hands up to COVID.
Nancy: I mean, COVID changed all of us, right? I’m resentful if I have to wear pants now. I have more social anxiety than I’ve ever had in my life. I don’t like putting out… You know, like tomorrow… I’m thinking about my tomorrow. I have a speaking engagement in the morning. And then I have an event where I’m introducing the speaker. For both of those things, I’m going to have to think about what I wear. And I can’t tell you about how resentful I get about spending energy trying to fit in in spaces, when the truth is I could wear jeans and boots and be fine. But that’s not the world we live in. I mean, trust me, I’m with you. We are people of the internet. We do not dress to impress. We dress for comfort. I know it’s true.
Topher: Right.
Nancy: And yet because of my role in the spaces that I have to be in, it’s not always true. I have to be a chameleon, right? My preference is my genic slacker, get up and you know, where I’m like, Yeah, that sounds good. But I’m only going to get invited into those rooms that may hire me if I show up in a way that they’re comfortable with. And, you know, therein lies the dilemma. I wish I could be Mark Zuckerberg and just… I mean, not entirely. Not all of him, but just not have to care.
Nyasha: I’m with you. Gosh, you are hitting so many things I’ve been thinking about. I’m like, Yes. Like you can ask Topher. I come to WordCamps and I always dress up. And I change a lot of people. Some people notices I change at least twice a day.
Nancy: Oh, sure.
Nyasha: I have many things in a day, day outfits, and my hair is always done. And sometimes I’ll even put on makeup. That’s how I present in the community because I might need something, I might need an opportunity, I might need something. And I’ve been taught that I have to dress up or I won’t be taken too seriously, especially being a woman and a woman of color. And Topher and I we get on this… like you saw me earlier. I have on a yoga cap-
Nancy: I love it.
Nyasha: …and I have a T-shirt and I have a pajama bottoms. Like that’s how I am. 99% of the time that’s how I am. But when I go to WordCamps and I’m out and about, I’m putting on my dressy clothes, and I’m like a fashionista. And that’s not me at all. So yeah, you’re right. Like to get in these spaces, the things we do. But gosh, why do we have to sacrifice comfort all the time?
Nancy: I think it’s different for women. I think you hit the nail on the head. I think it’s different for women. It’s different for women of color. I’m a queer woman. I think it’s different for us, right? We already are breaking the rules. We’re already not exempted. They’re already doing us a favor letting us in this room. So we don’t want to really rock the boat too much farther.
And I think that’s how I was trained. Like you gotta try, you gotta try or they’re not going to take you seriously. And I am getting to the age where I’m like, You know what? Don’t take me seriously. It’s fine. You’ll live to regret it.
Nyasha: Oh, yeah. I love it.
Topher: You’re really great. We should have you on our podcast.
Nyasha: Yes.
Nancy: That’s an awesome idea. You should invite me to a WordCamp. That’s what I’m thinking. Sounds like you have more fun.
Topher: We’re gonna have in Grand Rapids.
Nancy: You tried at one point.
Topher: Yeah. And just didn’t have the inertia. We might try again next year. We considered having a Midwest WordCamp. Sort of Grand Rapids, Chicago, Detroit, Lansing, that kind of thing. It’d be fun to have you come down.
Nancy: I’d love it. I mean, I grew up in Michigan in the Upper Peninsula and I went to Grand Valley for like a minute and a half. So when I was going to college, I supported myself in college by waiting tables, by being a food server and my first food service job was with Marie Catrib’s at Marie Lebanese deli, which was the first one was in Houghton and then it was in Marquette, Michigan. So Marie and her husband Fred, may they both rest… well, I really don’t care about Fred. But Marie I hope she rest in peace.
She was just a lovely mentor and influence in my life. I developed a friendship with her. Actually, I have these very fond memories of doing nature walks with her and her talking about her culture and how she met her husband and how she married her husband and how different it was for her to be a Lebanese woman.
She taught me a lot about the world at a time when I was really young and didn’t really have the cultural view. I understood that there were other countries and I didn’t understand how they operate. Yeah, that perspective. Exactly. I know that Marie’s still exists in Grand Rapids, right? Isn’t it still there?
Topher: Oh, yeah.
Nancy: Because her son Fuad took it over. And he was a tyke. He was a little boy when… and he would come to the restaurant after school and get in the way and whine a lot. But now he’s a grown man running the restaurant. I understand that they maintain all of her recipes. So if I have my druthers, I would like you’d have WordCamp in Grand Rapids, so I can come and eat at Marie’s.
Topher: Marie’s is gone now.
Nancy: Bummer.
Nyasha: Oh, I was gonna say invite me.
Nancy: She made the best food. We’ve lived on it. The best food. It was so good. So amazing. And then she passed away from cancer. And I never got to see her again and thank her. And she divorced her husband. She left her husband somewhere in there.
Topher: Which is why you don’t care.
Nancy: Yeah. I mean, it was a very traditional Lebanese relationship. It may even have been arranged if I remember correctly or forced upon her. I don’t want to speak out of school about somebody else’s family. But you know, I mean, it was interesting to hear. And you saw how he treated her. She was just like furniture. But she was the brains of the operation. So it was fascinating.
Topher: Yeah, that would be fascinating to watch.
Nyasha: We should look into it and see if their son does any pop-ups every now and again. I know a lot of restaurants who closed especially during COVID they still pop up sometimes. And if they do, you all call me. Topher knows [inaudible 00:37:02] anywhere, I will be there.
Nancy: We can go together.
Nyasha: Yes, I love Lebanese food.
Topher: Such a foodie.
Nyasha: Yes.
Nancy: Me too. I do too. I love love. That was my first foray into Lebanese food. And it was hardcore. She made her own pita. We would sit and watch a little pita puff that she made. She was amazing. We both went to WordCamp Asia in Thailand and the food was good. It was pretty diverse.
The hotel we stayed at had a very, very expensive breakfast buffet. I mean, it was multiple rooms and it had a large British section. So you can get beans on toast and stuff like that.
Nancy: Wow.
Topher: It was interesting.
Nyasha: It was amazing. I have not eaten food that good since then. So Topher I’m in a crisis.
Topher: Oh, no. You know, they have Thai restaurants in the U.S..
Nyasha: Yeah, but it’s not the same. I went to my usual Thai spot and I wanted to cry.
Nancy: You were ruined.
Nyasha: I was.
Nancy: It’s what travel does—ruins us.
Topher: Here in Grand Rapids, our favorite Indian place is actually a Nepali place run by a guy from Bhutan.
Nancy: Yum.
Topher: So the food’s pretty diverse. But it’s really-
Nancy: Grand Rapids is a great town.
Topher: Oh, it’s so different.
Nancy: I believe it.
Topher: You should come back. It’s so… You know about ArtPrize, right?
Nancy: I don’t know, do I?
Topher: Oh, ArtPrize has been around for about 10 years now. It’s the world’s largest art competition that has a prize. And they give away $2 million every summer.
Nancy: What?
Topher: And the entire city is filled with art on the streets, in the stores, in the halls of buildings, there’s music, there’s food. And it goes on for a month.
Nancy: I had no idea.
Topher: Yeah. So it’s kind of end of August through September. And it’s fantastic.
Nancy: I gotta check it out, for sure.
Topher: Yeah, yeah.
Nancy: Are you inviting me to Grand Rapids? That’s what I’m hearing.
Topher: Yes, you’re hearing that.
Nancy: “Please come and visit.”
Topher: In addition, every year, we have a festival of the arts, and one of the arts is culinary.
Nancy: Oh, wow.
Topher: We have various festivals through the year. We have Polish festival, Italian festival, etc. But during Festival of the Arts, all of them get out their food carts. So there’s the Polish cart and the Italian cart and the Baha’i temple always has chicken on a stick. It’s just everybody. The Lutherans have a donut truck.
Nancy: Oh, I love it.
Topher: It’s amazing.
Nancy: Sounds like a fat girl’s dream. I’m in. I love all of it.
Topher: All right. So we’ve been doing this for 45 minutes now.
Nancy: Have we made people sick of us yet?
Topher: I don’t know. We’ll see what the comments are.
Nyasha: Never.
Topher: I’ve never had a comment on the podcast, so-
Nancy: You haven’t?
Topher: No.
Nancy: That’s good. That’s gonna be good. Because people only talk when they have something bad to say.
Topher: Oh, yeah.
Nyasha: Oh, yeah.
Nancy: Great. I do an announcement on email list every time we release one, and we get over 50% open on newsletter one. That’s about it.
Nancy: That’s awesome.
Topher: So that’s pretty good. All right. I’m gonna read the outro. This has been an episode of Hallway Chats, part of the HeroPress Network. Your hosts were Nyasha Green and Topher DeRosia. We’d like to thank Sophia DeRosia for the music, and Nexcess for hosting our network. If you liked this episode, please subscribe and mention us on social media.
