Joel: So, this is the part where the guest nerd of the week would, uh, drop some brilliance into your head. And then you would be like, “I got to listen to this episode” and, uh, then we would jump into the intro and all that stuff. But, uh, no, guest nerd this week, it’s just me.

Let’s just get into it. 

My name is Joel and I’m a recovering nerd. I’ve spent the last 25 years bouncing between creative jobs and technical teams. I worked at places like Nickelodeon to NASA and a few other places that started with different letters.

I was one of the first couple hundred people podcasting back in the early aughts until I accidentally became an IT analyst. Thankfully, someone in the government said, “Hey, you’re a nerd that talks good.” And that spun me off into the world of startups, branding, and marketing, for the same sort of researchers and startup founders that I used to hang out with. 

Today, I help technical people learn how to get noticed, get remembered, and get results.

On Nerds That Talk Good, I want to help you do the same. I talk with some of the greatest technical communicators, facilitators, and thinkers that I know who are behind the big brands and the tech talk that just works. 

No guest nerd this week. It is a, the holiday week. So I’m going to take the next couple of weeks off before we get back into recording some new interviews. I haven’t even really properly introduced myself to you guys. 

Cause I just jumped into some really amazing interviews with some some awesome guests nerds. We’re going to keep that up over the next couple of weeks. But this is my opportunity to introduce myself, say, thank you for listening. I launched Nerds That Talk Good as a result of the book that I’m working on, some great conversations I was having. 

And I said, you know what? I should probably record this. And and share these conversations, these brilliant nerds with people. I rushed it out there and you guys have just been amazing. I’m not hitting great, huge, gigantic numbers, but I’m pulling in, a couple hundred every week, 20-30 every day and it’s amazing. 

So what I would first ask you is if you’re listening. Reach out to me, go to LinkedIn. Shoot me an email, [email protected]. Is where you can find me, or you can go to nerdthattalksgood.com. I would love to know what drew you. I would love to know what you’ve gotten out of these first couple conversations. Because that is going to help me find this shows voice and also find how to serve you the best.

 For those of you who don’t know me, my name’s Joel Benge at rhymes was Stonehenge. I am a recovering nerd. And I ended up helping nerds and the story to that is fun. I thought I’d share that with you today as a little bit of a holiday present. I got my start in theater education and video games, and I was working at a video game company. Here in Baltimore doing tech support and video game testing and from one help desk to another, I thought, you know what? 

I could probably I could probably just get certifications and become an IT guy. This was before the Dotcom bubble burst. So I ended up going to NASA and actually working. Working the help desk there for a summer job and it was really cool. My, my name to fame is I unjammed a printer in the warehouse, massive size clean room that they built Hubble in. That was pretty cool. 

And then I ended up just doing help desk stuff and I bounced around. Some systems engineering and building servers and networking and policy and compliance. And eventually I’m working for the power company here in Baltimore as a compliance person. 

I decided I was going to go back to school and I started to study a dual major in Homeland Security and information security. Wasn’t even cyber at the time. And my wife and I have been together forever since high school. 

I know all of her friends. I know their families, so we’re having a picnic for one of my wife’s friends. The friend’s father comes up to me and we’re talking and. I said, “what are you doing nowadays?” He goes, ” I just got out of the army. I’m working for the working for the. Government. What are you doing?” 

I said, “well, I’m doing policy compliance for the information security group here in Baltimore. But I’m trying to finish my degree in Homeland security and information security that I got this class coming up called “cyber security.” Don’t even know what that is.”

And he says, “that’s interesting. Cause I worked for the Department of Homeland Security information, security group, and we’re hiring compliance people.” And he was he was a by the books army guy. And he he was like, I can’t help you out. I can’t give you an inside. Inside edge, but I will look at your resume.” 

So we worked on my resume, sent it over. This is when they were just standing up the department of Homeland security. And they were basically hiring anybody who had any InfoSec, any information, security experience, and then they were gonna interview you and figure out what to do with you. So my resume got in front of the compliance director and the new director of cybersecurity strategy. And he said to me, ” Hey you’ve got all this theater, this education you worked for Nickelodeon, you were in a very early podcaster. 

Why do you want to be a compliance person? Wouldn’t you rather be a communications guy?” 

I said, “what’s the difference?” He says, “compliance lives in Excel and communication lives in Word.” And I said, “oh I can do that. Theater school dropout. I do word stuff. Real good.”

And so I came on board as the principal cybersecurity communication manager at headquarters, for the cybersecurity program, helping to humanize some of the policy communications, coordinating the awareness across the department, I’m writing those memos up to Congress, providing the bullets for the executive secretariat. And did that for about seven years. Until that same hiring manager came back. He had, gone to work for the White House for a little while. 

Finished his PhD. And he said, ” I’ve got this company. I’m really having a hard time explaining what we do. We’ve we built a cybersecurity tool based on my thesis.” And I said what is it. And he said it’s a self defending artificial intelligence, multimodal network using the behavior of eusocial insects.” 

I said, “huh?”

“It’s an ant swarm algorithm that predicts where you’re going to be hacked next.” 

And I said, “we could work on that messaging just a little bit.”

So, I came on board as director of communications and marketing. Helped to position the product work directly with the developers. Did some marketing. And we had a great run at it. Accidentally invented a card game to explain his thesis in about 40 seconds with my son. 

That’s a story that I share in in my workshops. 

And we had a great time. We unfortunately ran out of funds. And I ended up in marketing agencies and my primary customers were, you guessed it cybersecurity companies and the federal government and government services. So I spent a lot of time in those roles, and then I spent a lot of time out of those roles, helping those people talk. The reason I launched my, my consulting and what I do is I work with those companies. 

The reason I launched that is because I realized your typical marketing agency is not always serving the client the best. If the client hasn’t first done a lot of introspective work on their own messaging. And so I accidentally designed another card game. It’s called the MessageDeck. It is the basis of my workshops and I use that as a tool to trick and work with the smart people in the company, to find the best marketing angles, because especially when you’re doing technical communications, when you’re doing B2B software, SaaS even services from a technical level, If you abdicate your responsibility for messaging and marketing, just to the marketing people. I’m giving it air quotes, kind of those arts and crafts people. You’re not getting the best connection to the technology. 

So what I do is I help companies build alignment across their teams at all different levels and create great messaging. And so out of that came the MessageDeck. And it’s a tool that I use. It’s a card deck that I make available and sell so that you can do your own marketing and your own messaging development. 

And from that somebody said, “you know what? You ought to be able. To sell these things and create a video.” So I started writing the script for the video. I got about 10 pages in and I said, “oh crap, I’m writing a book.” So the book. Is going to be called, Be a Nerd That Talks Good. It’s going to be coming out sometime in the Spring. 

I’m working on the final edits for that, layout and and then the marketing plan. And through that I’ve interviewed such amazing people. So you’ve listened to some of these these interviews I’ve had Joel Klettke on. He provided a quote for the book and we had a great conversation and I thought, you know what? 

I should probably record these and start releasing them as podcast episodes.

So that is the show. If you stuck with me here now, I guess we’re 10 minutes in, this is going to be a short episode. If you stuck with me I just wanted to tell you that’s the root of the of the program, but I can’t do this without you guys. 

And my goal here is really to help technical people, founders, product teams, even just researchers. To figure out how to be better communicators.

Because I think especially the way the world is going, experts are not always viewed in the best light. 

And sometimes we’re viewed with a little bit of skepticism. And if we can really connect with our audiences and if we can really tell stories that lead them to the technical details. And make them really want to learn more. I think that’s my goal. That is the ultimate. So again, thank you for listening. I really have not promoted the show that much I’m surprised that so many of you have listened. 

It warms my heart. It’s a great holiday. A gift to me; a great way to end the year. And so my gift to you is I’m going to continue doing this, but I need your help. So I would love for you to head over to nerds that talk good.com/podcast. If you’re a technical communicator, you want to share, share your story, share your perspective. 

If you have challenges with your messaging, I’m going to start doing some shows where we can maybe do some messaging tear downs, or we do some live message therapy sessions. I would love to do that. My gift to you.

Check out the cards, check out the book, check out everything. Connect with me on LinkedIn. I am Joel M Benge again, Benge like Stonehenge. 

Catch up with me in a couple of weeks when I have a new batch of great interviews, I’ve got some awesome ones lined up. We just gotta thaw everybody out from the holidays. Thank you so much. Let’s hit that outtro. 

If you want links to the resources mentioned on the show, head on over to the episode page. And for information on booking a message therapy workshop, getting your hands on the MessageDeck, to check out my upcoming book, or just buy me a coffee, go to nerdthattalksgood.com/podcast. 

 Until next time, happy messaging.

 Remember, you don’t have to speak well. You only gotta learn how to talk good.