Automate mini series: Amanda Beaton

Why This Automate Series Exists

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Automation Ladies, the only podcast we know of where girls talk about industrial automation. Okay, welcome to another automate special series episode. We are catching up with our friend Amanda Beaton from Siemens. It has been a while, but if you didn't catch her earlier episode, we did a live episode at Manufacturing in America in Detroit, probably like four years ago now. I don't know how long that was. Three. It's been a while. Yeah. It's been a while. And so if you haven't caught uh listened to one of the previous episodes in the Automate series, basically what I decided to do because uh I at Automate can never see everything I want to. I never have time to go to the talks. Um and so I looked at all the speakers and invited the ones I thought were interesting, uh friendly uh or friends of mine to come on the show and tell us what I missed or what I am going to be missing, uh, not being able to make it to their talks. So last year I actually for the first time did get a chance to attend Education Day uh at Automate, which is a really cool section for a day that brings in teachers um and people involved in the education space. And um I believe that that is is is your talk tied to that this year, okay. So I would also venture to guess that many people that go to automate um that are not involved in the education space don't get get a chance to hear these uh these talks and these discussions. And so I'm gonna, yeah, we'll spend the next 20 minutes-ish uh telling people whatever cool stuff you're gonna be talking about. Um and so that's really yeah, we won't do a full on also go reference, go uh to automationladies.io. You can find Amanda's uh guest profile and you'll be able to see her old episode there as well. And you can get her full background and you know story there, and then we'll kind of focus this uh on the automate stuff. So, Amanda, thank you so much for joining me. Welcome. Thank you for putting up with uh whatever A V issues we just had for the last like 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

No worries, no worries.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

How are you?

SPEAKER_00 2:09

I'm good. I'm excited to go to Chicago next week.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Yeah, it's it's coming up fast. Uh we're only what like four days away from from me flying out on Sunday, right? Yeah, so oh, also congratulations. The ladies and I noticed that you have uh you had a work anniversary recently. You've been with Siemens for 23 years.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Oh wow, I didn't even did I notice that. Yeah, I I knew the date was around now or the early June. I don't even think I saw it on LinkedIn. Who knows?

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Well, LinkedIn told us or told yeah, somebody. Yeah, yeah, 23 years. Yep. Congratulations. It uh must be a testament to um Siemens being a good company to work for, I think, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Yeah, it's it's cool because it's such a big company with so many locations, so it's weird to stay with one company for that long, I think, nowadays. And it comes across as probably really strange, but I've done all the jobs and worked in all the locations, not really, but a lot and a lot of different functions. And so I I like it. I enjoy what I do.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Very cool. I think actually a lot of us like I graduated around a time where everybody was just like getting laid off, and having lots of years of experience at the same place or doing the same thing was like a disadvantage because it's hard to get hard, can't be harder to get a job uh in that kind of job market if you have like you don't have a lot of variable skills. Uh but that's working at a company like Siemens doesn't mean that you do the same job for 23 years. You you have so many opportunities to learn and grow that it's really not, it's like a career within a company rather than doing one job for a long time. But I I I used to like that's what I wanted was to work someplace like for my entire career. I thought that's what people like that's what my grandparents did. Uh it seems ideal. You get to like get really good at what you do and learn everything and know everything, and then you know, do that until you retire, and then life slapped me in the face was like, nope, that's not how it works. Like, and then I worked in sales, so it was also just I felt like I can't relax, like I can never relax. I'm gonna need to be on my toes all the time. Uh, and now I work for a company where I could probably see myself working there for a really, really long time.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Anyway, no, same with manufacturing. I felt like I could never relax in manufacturing and loved it, but had to move on for manufacturing and project management, program management, and lots of jobs in between with marketing and set up an apprenticeship program. And now I've been doing some form of education or training for about 10 years. So it's clearly my favorite job, my favorite position. So I don't think they can move me out of this one specifically, like this one. I just keep hanging on to it.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

I think I feel like also, well, at least from what I know, from what I see, the companies in our space that do have an education specific role, it seems like those people are have been doing them for a while. Like they're really well known in that capacity, and they I don't see a lot of turnover in those people that I do know, other than like maybe I guess Christelle just recently like joined A3. Yeah, ABB, which is super cool. Yeah. But anyway, to the to our audience that doesn't know you, if you can give us a quick introduction and tell us what you do, and then we can kind of go into what you're gonna be talking about at Automate, that would be great.

Amanda’s Role Bridging School And Industry

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Sure. Uh my name is Amanda Beaton. I work for Siemens, been there for a while. Uh I manage a program in the US called Siemens Cooperates with Education. And my role there is to bring our automation technologies into classrooms and labs. So I kind of bridge the gap between industry and academia by helping instructors, educators, whether they're high school, community college, university professors, everything in between, uh, have access to Siemens technologies through product trainings and accessing products through discounts, and we have curriculum, micro-credentials, and lots of benefits for educators to access with work with Siemens. Um before that, I did lots of different jobs, like I said, like everybody else. So engineering, manufacturing, uh, marketing, lots of different stuff. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

So what is your talk gonna be on this year that you're that you're giving at the Education Day?

Celebrating A3 Educator Of The Year

SPEAKER_00 6:21

That's funny. My talk is not about me or Siemens at all. It's about the Educator of the Year Award. So we get the chance to sponsor the Educator of the Year with A3, which is cool because it's really just celebrating the work that educators do. And I promote or I kind of introduce what Siemens does a tiny bit and just say, hey, we have benefits for education and we should you should take advantage of it. Siemens on the floor. But really, it's about the educators that are nominated for the award across the country, again, high school, college, university. And one gets voted on and wins from the education committee at A3. And he's from Lake Superior State University in Michigan, and a part of Michigan that I didn't know existed, which is like north of north of north of the UP. It's like this far from Canada. And so it's it's it's a magical place. Uh his name is Jim Dever Prasad. I've been trying to get that right before next week. And uh he's wonderful. He's been in robotics education for over 40 years and set up the first robotics bachelor's degree at Lake State a long time ago. And because he's been teaching robotics and automation automation manufacturing for so long, he was using like overhead slides and things to teach robotics and all the different manufacturing concepts, which is super cool, and like photocopying things. And he has there's really funny stories from the former students, but those former students learned starting 40, 35, 30 years ago. So they're successful in their own careers in robotics and automation and have gone on to mentor and teach other students as well. So it's just this cool cycle of all the things that Jim has done and the career that he's made with the connections he's made at the school, and then how those people have just scaled and multiplied the effect. So it's a really cool story.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Oh wow, that's amazing. Yeah, I guess came across the Educator of the Year award thing um whenever uh Danny Murphy won it. Yeah, maybe what, three years ago or something like that?

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Jarrett Williams was last year and dating was the year before.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Yeah. So and the reason I guess that it kind of caught my attention is because I followed Danny on social media and he does a lot of like cool videos from his classroom. And um, Allie had hired a couple of people from his class to intern for her. Um, and so that's kind of how I like found out about the award, and then yeah, getting to attend last year uh was super cool.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Yeah, Danny was a wonderful story because I don't know if you remember his story, but he he started out as a homeless high school student and had a shop instructor kind of mentor him and get him into the trades, which started that effect of a career, and he just has wonderful stories to tell. And he's so passionate, as you can see on LinkedIn and all of his videos. So he's a good follow. I I really enjoy Danny, and Jared's the same. Jared's wonderful, goes in homeless, so it's not as big of a tearjerker. So it's he didn't start from the bottom, but but Jared has done amazing things, and I get Jimmy D, as they call him, he's a completely different story with his 40 years of experience, and it's it's just hilarious to get the little snippets from students and from his peers because everybody reads their resume that A3 puts out and says, you know, oh, here's Jim's resume and robotics, blah, blah, blah. He secured funding and did this great stuff. But I get little quotes and snippets from all the students and former and current, and get to read those in front of. I hope, yeah, Jim won't watch this hopefully before next week. But I get to read those in front of the audience and you know, kind of make it more personal and kept connect with everybody connect with the Jim so well. So it's really fun.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Yeah, we probably unfortunately won't be able to put this out until after automate. Um so this is more of a hey, you missed it, but here's you know, here's what you missed kind of a series. We were gonna try to do like more leading up, but life's been life's just been a lot schedules and everything. So cool. Um thankfully, automate really for me or for us is kind of just like an it's an all we're always thinking about it, whether it's the one coming up or you know, we'll be digesting what we learned, what we found, what we, you know, things that we did this year for a while after, right? So thankfully, automate, like I mean, the crew at A3, they were like, Yeah, we don't, you know, it doesn't matter if it comes out before or after. We're always prepping for the next one, getting people to put it on their calendar for next year. And this is definitely one of those shows that is like permanently a staple in our calendar.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Right.

Student Tours And Siemens Tech Showcase

SPEAKER_00 10:46

And it's it's cool because there's the Educator Day and the award announcement. But Siemens has a really big booth where students take the tours through so they get to experience all these technologies and all the things we're presenting to industry, so they do the student tours, and then there's a big mogul showcase, which is that's a little bit of a surprise, but it's not really a surprise that Siemens is driving a truck up there that is you know a semi-truck digitalization experience. So students will get to see that and take a tour, and everybody there can. And it's literally a semi-truck that does a whole digital thread experience from start to finish. So that'll be different and kind of cool. So there's Educator Day and the award and all that stuff, but then the student tours through the larger Siemens booth and the Siemens Mobile experience they get the chance to take apart, and that's that's really neat because they'll see some cool stuff, right? I mean, I give a quick talk and do a presentation, but they're the real content and the real meat's gonna be out on the shop the floor on all the technology.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Yeah. Do you um now? I'm gonna talk, I guess, just a little bit about kind of the education stuff

The Real Talent Gap Is Awareness

SPEAKER_01 11:53

in in general. Do you feel like it's going well uh to get more and more of these programs into schools? Are we, you know, getting where we want to go? Are we having growth in these programs in the right places? How do you feel like the general state of education is for our our industry at the moment?

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Yeah, it's it's getting better, as you know. I mean, uh content creators like yourself and and influencers are helping with that awareness problem. We talk so long about this talent shortage or skills gap, and we repeat it over and over, and industry repeats it. You know, we have a talent problem, and schools say we don't know what industry wants. And it is helping. And that's why I love what you guys do with just helping with that connection and that awareness. And that's really where our problem is, right? With with parents, with students, just the awareness piece of what's out there and high demand careers and the fact that you don't need a four-year degree anymore, that you can get this wonderful high-paying career with much less than a four-year degree. So I appreciate all of the work that you guys do for just that awareness piece because you know, I I can't do all of it myself. So it's wonderful to see all of the champions out there putting out the content like you and like Danny Murphy. So doing a great job closing that that gap and helping with the awareness piece, and even for the parents and the students that don't know these things exist.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

So not to do it. I hadn't really thought about that in terms of the parents need to know.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

And yeah, I honestly I I've I've never like really known how much we reach students at like because uh, you know, it's kind of an industry show, and you know, we go to the trade shows and stuff. Um, but I I never get a lot of time to spend at the the student like areas, um, because I unfortunately, fortunately or unfortunately have an actual job also, and it's not education related. Um at WinTech right now, we do try, uh, we don't we're not big enough to really have a department for that or anything, but we are um trying to support you know education in schools as much as we can also, um, particularly just because also our full software is free, so anybody can use it. You don't actually have to buy anything, you can learn how to program HMIs um on real industrial, you know, software that anybody would use in industry uh one way or the other. But we I feel like we kind of like, like you said, we all know that the the talent gap and skill shortage, and I think we all talk at each other about it a lot. But like, are we reaching the people that actually need to hear it? Which is not us, it's the people that don't know. And and so, like we do this show kind of like inside of our like for me, it's like kind of inside of my job. It's it's connections that I make at work or through LinkedIn that I get a chance to talk to and learn from, and so on. Um, but the ladies now that produce our show and help around uh managing OT Skatacon and my schedule and whatnot, we have three young ladies that work for us. They're in their 20s and they don't really know anything about the automation industry, it's new to them, but they listen to all of the stuff and they're learning and they're learning a lot. And they were like, hey, Nikki, we have an idea. Like, what if we do a TikTok content from our perspective about automation? Because we're learning so much and like we're interested and we think it's cool. Uh, and so we haven't, I don't think we've started that yet, but that is on the agenda for the automation ladies to have some kind of like beginner style content from somebody that is just learning it through like being around. Um and and so yeah, I don't know what that I forget what they said, something like automation for dummies. I was like, we have a whole series of books here, so maybe not that, but something like it's it's just I've always enjoyed sharing what I'm learning. I feel like I don't need to be an expert to share something. If I just learn something, like there may be somebody else that's like, yeah, okay, cool, I can learn that too. Um, but yeah, we don't I don't really know very much about like social media other than like we do, like I use LinkedIn, but like somebody like Danny, he's so good at like putting kind of like the TikTok style content out there that I think that probably catches uh a lot of attention from the people that should see it, right? Outside the industry or or people that are looking for education options.

Reaching Students With Short-Form Video

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Um, if if if you could wave a magic wand and get content that you think would actually really reach students or make them interested, what would it be? Do you have any ideas?

SPEAKER_00 16:20

No, that's a fantastic idea. And I I say that coming of as a parent with teenagers, right? I mean, they make fun of me because I call it like the TikTok or something.

unknown 16:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

But I think Danny's getting that as he spends so much time with college age or even high school age kids. Yeah. So he he's learning how they digest information and consume information, and that's why he's putting it out in that format. And maybe he's getting help. Maybe he used to maybe had somebody teach him how to do the TikTok. And so he was able to, you know, approach the right audience. But that's a fantastic idea, honestly. I mean, we we walk students through, and I think it's important that we show it's not like our automation technologies are replacing human jobs or they're not going away, but these layers of IoT and edge and AR are layering on top of it and AI and all these cool things about technology, but they have to come to the show to see that and understand it. And it's like a thing in person or come to a webinar or come to a Siemens event. Cool. I mean, they're not, they're not gonna see that if they're scrolling on their their TikTok or whatever they're on, you know. Yeah, they're not scrolling LinkedIn like we are, so yeah. Yeah, they're not at all. So I I think that's wonderful in a format they consume because they are. I mean, there's I just think there's such a lack of awareness and lack of connection with what students could do with a very high-demand career training. And we have all these accelerated trainings out there for exactly you mentioned their software that teaches you real industrial skills for free. You know, take advantage of that. You can almost learn on your own at this point.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

What are some of the, I guess, are there uh you said micro-credentials and things like that. Can you give us a little bit of an overview or or any tips of like what sort of, yeah, what what those programs are that you guys have?

Micro-Credentials And A New Hiring Lens

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Yeah, we found it a lot of schools were getting funding, uh, whether it's National Standards Foundation or, you know, some sort of state funding when students earn industry credentials. So we created, and it's funny because my German counterparts is all over Europe, but especially in Germany, they act like in the US on this wild, wild west of credentials and certificates and certifications because they're like, you just create things and then you just show down to the entire nation. I'm like, well, yeah, they they want credentials, they want badges, they want certificates to show that they understand industry stuff. So we have the ability to do that based on our content that's out there, you know, create some credentials based on the content and make that accessible for students. So students and instructors can earn and instructors can earn CEUs for their you know licensing and all that stuff, or they're just required. And students can earn micro-credentials, badges, certificates of completion that are recognized by seamens and employers that are free and they're just based on automation, basics, programming, advanced automation, diagnostics, different badges built in there. And it's just it started out as a poll from education saying, hey, we can get a hundred bucks per kid per certificate if you put these out. And so we created them and put them out, made them available.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Well, I feel like the big tech giants, like the, you know, have been doing that sort of stuff for a for a long time, right? And like software industry and stuff like that. Like you can get all these, uh like I don't know, machine learning, you know, definitely hydro credential and and stuff like that. But like not something commonly I've seen in our industry.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

So even large education, right? Like Harvard or MIT, you can get like a Harvard certificate or badge or something like that. Those those are free as well. So it's a trend. And there are talks of are we hiring four-year degreed engineers anymore, or are we looking at a different pool of people with credentials and badges and these micro learnings that are out there who've done some self-learning and maybe even working hands-on more so than the theory-based education that we're used to in the four-year environment. And it's, you know, the kids who break stuff, and that's how they learn. And yeah, maybe it's a different pool that we're starting to recruit from for our own engineering needs.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

That's actually really cool because I think, yeah, it shows like you have to have some kind of self-initiative to choose to take, get these extra credentials or to use that path. I think the other thing is, yeah, like the technology is moving so fast that to wait for a four-year university to change their program to be relevant.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

I think it's becoming harder and harder to completely obsolete. I mean, every every program is just by the time you're entering and exiting, we know it's obsolete. I mean, they can how to think or how to problem solve, and that's important, and that's great. But yeah, the technology itself is completely out of date.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Wow. Well, that's super cool. I feel like we maybe should do a deep dive on that on another occasion sometime. Like I I now have tons of like things swirling around in my brain when it comes to that. But our time is

Takeaways And How To Stay Connected

SPEAKER_01 21:18

about up. So thank you so much, Amanda. I really appreciate you coming on, giving us um a look into uh, I guess the the Educator of the Year program. And people should pay attention to that every year. Even if you're not involved in the education, just follow the person that won the award because they're clearly making a huge impact on their community, um, whether it's from a long history or just a cool way that they're doing things. And I think all of us, even if it's not, you know, if education isn't part of your job, you can still do a little bit here and there to try to support the people that are, you know, trying to get the word out there. Uh and obviously our entire industry knows we need it. We need these people to come in, we need them to like what we do, we need them to be interested in learning it. So uh Amanda, always a pleasure. Thank you so much. And I hope to catch you, I hope to run into you next week.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Thank you for the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Absolutely. You have a great day. Bye. Thank you for listening to Automation Ladies. If you like our content and you want to stay in touch, please connect with us on LinkedIn, follow the show page, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and you can send us a message or a copy on our website, automationladies.io. We look forward to getting an audio. Our producer is also.