“The Bee2Bee Network was created to bridge the gap between education and industry.  As an Agile Software Development Center of Excellence, our goal is to teach, empower and transform a new generation of student team members with a conscious focus on respect, kindness, collaboration and inclusion as we prepare them for in-demand careers in technology.  Similarly, our platform is exclusively offered by invitation only to featured businesses which also share our core values and principles of kindness, collaboration, inclusion and impeccable customer service.  As the original pioneer in the virtual shopping industry, we have the experience and practical know-how to help any luxury brand create an immersive profit center by connecting them to consumers which are looking for their products and services via our unique virtual shopping platform.”

As a software professional with over 50 years of experience, I strongly endorse exposure to the ‘soft’ skills in software professionals. 50 years ago a single individual was all that was needed to produce valuable software. It now requires teams of individuals that need to work closely together. For any team respect, kindness, and collaboration are key attributes of individual team members. Now, these attributes are even more important as we see diverse cultural backgrounds in team members. The work that Yasmine Clarke is doing in this area with young professionals will have a positive impact on working conditions for everyone.

Hello Yasmine,

Like you I believe that a focus on “People and Collaboration over Process and Tools” is the most important value in the Agile world. Many people and organizations believe that starting to work in an agile process (like Scrum) will do miracles for their workforce and the productivity. And although the fast cycled Scrum process helps in improving the lives of people, it isn’t the secret to better lives, more joy while working or more productivity. Actually, Scrum does do zero to help with these things. What the Scrum process does do is to signal when things are wrong. All meetings in Scrum are geared towards either working together as a team (backlog refinement and Sprint planning) or to find issues in this collaboration (daily Scrum and the Review & Retrospective). It is essential that all participants in the Scrum process learn the importance of the collaboration and actively practice their communication and collaboration skills. For engineers: away with cubicles and headphones! For managers: away with status meetings and command & control.

When people ask me what I do for a living, I sometimes laugh before telling them I teach adults the things I think they should have learned as children—communication, collaboration, how to work together as a team and most importantly—respect. While these attributes seem natural for me, I found they do not come naturally to many people in today’s workforce.

The American workplace is undergoing a mass migration away from focusing on individual contributors where the heroes reign and moving toward a workplace that fosters an environment where people can think out of the box and creativity is valued. No longer are we line workers punching a time clock, but we are learning to use analytical thinking skills on a daily basis to professionally challenge peers to work collectively to deliver the best work products, to share ideas to inspire others to create and to develop teams where every individual is as equally as important as every other member of the team–regardless of background and experience. Each one of us has strengths we bring to a team, and it is through learning, understanding and appreciating those we work with that we truly come to expand our gifts and allow others to strengthen any gaps. We do not fear mistakes and failure, but rather we embrace a fail fast mentality to learn and grow. And lastly, we celebrate our successes and failures together as a team.

As a Coordinator of Internships at Valencia for 8 years, I have had the pleasure of developing relationships with numerous employer partners and their associates, but you have risen above as one of our signature employers due to your passion for teaching and your willingness to develop an experience for our Marketing, Programming and Web-Development interns that is second to none. You have gone above and beyond for our students and for this, we are grateful.

Again, I thank you very much for your continued partnership with us – we value your participation in our program very highly.

I have also gained the confidence to start my own business.

After my 2-year degree, my first “real world” experience in the field of technology and software was with The Bee2Bee Network. Through immense hands-on experience, I was able to fully grasp the process and understanding of the Agile Methodology that I still use today when working on high-scaled projects and for roughly 80% of my Bachelor’s degree program at UCF. While in this program, I was able to successfully launch a business, get Google Adwords certified, meet and work with clients one-on-one, and attended a conference for a data analytics company named Qlik, in which we met and took photos with the CEO. When the program ended, not only was I experienced, but also I was confident. I was confident to sit down across any CEO or client and have a conversation about anything without feeling any form of intimidation. From being in the industry and running my company for 4+ years, I can truly say that this program impacted my life and where I am today and I am blessed to have met Yasmine Clarke and everyone at The Bee2Bee Network.

During my time with The Bee2Bee Network, I received valuable exposure to various in-demand technologies.  Our current education system is broken and does not introduce these valuable skills which are needed for many jobs in today’s working environment. If it was not for the Bee2Bee Network helping me, I would not be where I am today where I am building my career in the Tech Industry.

I’m currently interning at the Bee2Bee Network, specifically with their Virtual Marketplace, and it has been a great experience thus far. Yasmine has provided me with valuable experience, knowledge, and skills that I can apply currently and in the future as I pursue a degree in the Arts. During the internship hours, and even after, Yasmine is present and helpful: she gives me new tasks weekly, checks the ongoing activities every day and is always available for explanations, and updates me on the status of things surrounding the project so I feel included and valued especially when she asks for my opinion/input. Things that I have valued most about my internship include, but not limited to, the nice and supportive working environment and the commitment to providing an excellent service to the communities within Sarasota.