Jeff Ward  
We really do like to think on a seven generations timeframe. And my my hope is that the the impacts that we're creating through our work through our tech through through an MEP. I won't be around to realize those impacts

Jeff Ma  
Hello, and welcome to love as a business strategy, a podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We're here to talk about business. We want to tackle topics that most business leaders shy away from. We believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. I'm your host, Jeff Ma. And as always, I'm here to have conversations and hear stories from real people, real businesses in real life. And our guest today is a trailblazer in the tech world and an inspiring leader for indigenous entrepreneurship and innovation. I'm thrilled to introduce to you another Jeff, Jeff Ward, and Jeff is the founder and CEO of Animikii  indigenous technology, a leading digital agency that pioneers social innovation, through indigenous technology. And in 2003, Jeff had a vision for an enterprise that will uplift his family communities and indigenous peoples. Today, that vision is an Animikii. He is certified B Corp and CCAB certified indigenous business and this the values that guide Jeff's work are deeply rooted in indigenous knowledge, particularly the seven grandfather teachings from the Anishinaabe culture reflecting a powerful commitment to building meaningful relationships with clients, partners and employees alike, which gets me really excited to talk about web designer, software developer, author and speaker Jeff is also a board member for their Aboriginal peoples television network is multifaceted experience and commitment as community is perhaps most clearly demonstrated in Animikii's social impact statement, the company is dedicated to creating equitable outcomes for Indigenous peoples using technology as a tool for driving social change and economic justice. In 2019, Jeff was also recognized as part of business and Vancouver's top 40 under 40, for his transformative work. So with that, I'd love to welcome Jeff Ward to the conversation. Jeff, how are you doing today?

Jeff Ward  
Great. Thanks for having me.

Jeff Ma  
Yeah, it's wonderful to have you here and just the intro alone. So many exciting things I want to touch. And before I can dive into that, you know, I really just want to hear from you. First. A little bit about your story. I know I'm sure there's many twists and turns to it. But I maybe I'll center it around your passion. What are you passionate about? And what's the story arc that brought you to where you sit with that passion today?

Jeff Ward  
Good question. First, I'll tell you a little bit about where I'm from. And I think this might kind of frame the conversation, my upbringing as well. So yeah, I'm originally from Manitoba, which is in central Canada, and I, my background is on my dad's side, I'm Ojibwe and matey. And on my mom's side, English and Ukrainian. And I grew up participating in, in my culture, attending ceremonies, dancing powwows, and, you know, Making Regalia and growing up with within that community. And, you know, flash forward many, many, many years later, you know, I wanted to actually be a doctor my whole life, and somebody made the mistake to pay me to make a website and family's hopes and dreams of having the first time the doctor went out the window. That led to me going to California and working in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley during the whole.com boom. And as a young person down there, it being a very materialistic capitalistic environment. When I did move back to Canada, I wanted to utilize my skills that I had learned over the past, you know, a few years and to support the communities that I was raised within, and, you know, hopefully create tech technology solutions. And for me, that's websites and software and that kind of thing. Wanted to create those, that tech from a bit of a different perspective, from an indigenous perspective and to support the communities that that I was raised within. And so yes, what I'm passionate about, I'm passionate about using technology, to support indigenous innovators amplify their voices and amplify their impact. And our choice our tool of choice at Animikii  is technology. And so for us that means building websites and apps and products that can and support all of these, you know, social innovators, indigenous innovators. And along the way, also wanting to support young Indigenous people to choose technology and entrepreneurship as a career path. And so, you know, started the company in 2003. And we've always had an indigenous focus. And so we've been able to support people from across north of so called North America or Turtle Island is the as we say, and yeah, that's a kind of answer your question, what I'm passionate about is using tech as a force for good and supporting indigenous peoples and other other groups that have been marginalized through tech as well.

Jeff Ma  
It's amazing. And I have to know, the seven grandfather teachings from the Anishinaabe. I had to ask you before this how to pronounce it. I know I worried I still butcher it. But the the Nisha Nabi culture, if that's close, I really, really, really curious if you could highlight what those teachings are, and then how they how they really reflected to your commitment.

Jeff Ward  
Yeah, yep, wearing the shirt. podcast listeners won't be able to see but love, truth, respect, wisdom, courage, honesty, and humility. And, you know, we will try to so this is a, a teaching a framework for really, for people to live a life of, I mean, our teachings, we call it mean up a mountain or living a good life. And there's a lot of teachings some other things you may have heard of, like the medicine wheel, and these values, and just so many teachings and concepts that, you know, these teachings, you know, these are the English words for these teachings. But behind each of these, there's really a lifetime of learning of, of these teachings that I'll spend the rest of my life continuing to learn, as I kind of, you know, reclaim my language and in my culture, and learn from from knowledge keepers. And so for each of these, these words, there's entire knowledge systems and teachings around like, there's an animal connected for, for each, each of them. There are stories there there are these, you know, sort of, yeah, there's so there's so much to it to kind of just, you know, list the seven of them, there's just so much of a Yeah, a knowledge. I don't know, keeping their knowledge structure. So, you know, so these are cultural teachings from my culture, Anishinaabe culture, or Ojibwe culture. And so when it came time to, you know, grow my company, and thinking about, okay, you know, most companies, they'll do the, you know, the four day off site retreat, and they'll figure out what's our mission and our vision, and they'll figure out their values, and they'll maybe vote on the values or whatever, and figure out, you know, what, just pick pick some things that, you know, we want to stand for, as a company, well, for me, I said, you know, let's, let's use this traditional knowledge framework and see how we can apply these values into our day to day or day to day as, as a tech company, as an indigenous focus company. And, you know, love is one of the the values, one of the teachings that sort of weave all of them together. And so yeah, we've we've centered love in our company, and we talk about love quite a bit. You know, it's not uncommon for us to have these conversations internally to write about it, to share it with, with our partners and our customers and the world. And so yeah, we're trying to find ways to decolonize business and bring some of these indigenous values to, to the workplace into policy and to technology.

Jeff Ma  
That's amazing. And I can't help but wonder like, can you give some examples, some more like, tangibility around what you need and the vision behind decolonizing technology and applying this like change? Because I think we all in this world understand at least our own view of what technology as a whole is, it's just a word that has so many meanings already. But then to combine it with kind of applying the cultural element and kind of making a change to the way it is now. What what, what is it today and what are you hoping to change it into?

Jeff Ward  
Yeah, it's a good point on the word technology because it does, you know, have a lot of baggage to There's a lot of different perspectives to it when you use a kind of broad term like that. I mean, for us as an indigenous focused technology company, we're trying to change the narrative, and hopefully be a good example of like, when an indigenous tech company is and really share with the world that indigenous people have always been technologists, we've always been inventors and scientists and and, you know, and, and now we make web apps and design data systems and, and even on the note of data, like we've data is not a new concept. To us, like there's there's data on the land, and then his data and stories, and there's data in how we, you know, in our, in our regalia, and our cultural teachings, and this kind of thing. So, really trying to get people thinking a little bit differently about technology, just just in general and indigenous people's contributions to technology. And we're trying to enter as a community out there of, you know, emerging bright indigenous technologists that are really leading the change in so many different ways. And for for us in the tech that we build, I mean, a lot of technology out there, speaking specifically about like, the kind of tech that we build to web apps and software and that kind of thing. You know, there's a lot of division and separation and transactional nature to Tech where, you know, the people element, the people behind the tech, maybe are aren't as visible or, or, or it isn't as obvious are those conversations? And what would I find interesting about this emergence of AI and all these conversations that are coming out is you know, what the harm in the bias the things that are built into, into tech, like, like AI, for example, that can cause harm when you have, when you just think that if we imagine that tech is just, you know, zeros and ones, and you know, you know, something that a human didn't design, like, that's where the harm I think, can can fall. And so we really try to center people in humans in, in, in our technology decisions. And for us, that starts with love. And we're building a platform focused around indigenous data sovereignty. And it's the only platform that we know about that has love baked in from the ground up that has indigenous worldview baked into the technology decisions that we make from the ground up. And so for us, that means, you know, which partners are we supporting? You know, which features do we build? Where's the technology hosted? Which technology solutions do do we choose? And yeah, we filter those decisions through love, but also through through all of our, all of our values as well.

Jeff Ma  
Very cool. I feel like there's, you have the social change, side of the conversation that I'm hearing come through, there's also the kind of, and they're connected, but there's also like the business and the the actual, I guess, application within to your technology and your applications. Like, can you, I guess, describe a little bit more of like, how this how this mission plays out as a company, I know, you mentioned there's the the seven values written on your shirt, which is very handy. But is that is that more so? Playing through how the employees treat themselves and their work first? Is it more so your, you know, your spearhead into the the world and how you how you present yourself as a as a positioning in the marketplace, as well? Or is it all of the above? Where does it where does it really root itself in?

Jeff Ward  
I think that's the key word there is just root like we, if this is our base for everything, any decision we make, you know, when you're so like values aligned, and, and the team is, you know, aligned with those values and our partners and you know, we talked about it, we you know, when that's at the core of everything, it's that sort of connective tissue that weaves everything together. But yeah, I think, you know, how do we how does it practically look, you know, we, you know, during, at the beginning of the pandemic, we, you know, I thought I was sending everybody home for two weeks. They work from home, and certainly didn't have a, you know, a pandemic policy or things like this. And, you know, we're all we're all afraid. What does this mean for us as individuals, for our families for our Health and for our business as well, and how do we support each other? And we didn't have a policy for that, but but we did have love as a value. And so going into pandemic, it's like, okay, what is the loving thing to do, you can just ask yourself that, and it guides, guides everything. And so, you know, we spent extra time, you know, caring for our team, ensuring that time was spent for the team to be able to care for each other. And that we had time to sit with elders and bring in people to our team to, you know, virtually to support each other and, you know, listening to our elders, you know, talking about how to show up with love for each other, you know, we asked one of our elders, and they said, you know, why don't you set up a, you know, a check in system like a health buddy system where, you know, people who would regularly you know, make time for coffee chickens syrup throughout the week, and that kind of thing. And, and looking at flexibility, you know, everybody's work and home life became intertwined. And, and really leaning back on indigenous teachings around how people and families and communities would work together, it was never separated, where you have, you know, a two hour commute to go to a cubicle and sit there and your family is at home and being cared by somebody, by somebody else. It's, you know, the children and the kids and the family and the people that we care for that we're always involved in the right and so on Zoom, we see, you know, we saw a lot of kids show up in in zoom calls, and you know, and we embrace that, we said, you know, what, we're going to be in each other's homes, let's, what's the loving thing to do, let's make sure that we can allow, you know, for this to happen, so like, when kids show up, like, I'll often be the one to put on, like emojis and like, the filters to, like, entertain the kids like, things stop. And it's like, all focused on on the kids. And parents and others that that care care for others, you know, we, we increased our flexibility, you know, we have all kinds of different types of leave now. Where people can have, like, the goal was maximum flexibility, so that people can feel supported in their work and working from home. And we've kept that, you know, even post pandemic, and we've even added to it, adding more flexibility so that people can, you know, switch to a point eight position or a point six and move back and back and forth. And, you know, do compressed work weeks and four day work weeks, and you know, all these kinds of things. So really just kind of, okay, what's the loving thing to do, if we're all going to be needing the flexibility, you need to add additional support and care, let's just go with it. And, and, you know, go as far as we can, and hopefully set example for, for others that are looking to be a little bit more community minded and love based practice.

Jeff Ma  
I love that. It's a great example. And I think it's one of those things that I think people might hear as a story and understand a surface level, we may not understand also all the work that goes into sustaining these things, I feel like, I'll speak from my experience. So I'd love your take on it. It's that, especially in business, and in work, I mean, we're all still human. And they're all there are a lot of, you know, misunderstandings, shortcomings, performance issues, and all these things that make it very still real to be human and in business and in technology, and all these things. And I find that the loving thing to do is always the way to go. But it also requires everyone else to input, like love back into the equation, right? There's an element of it being easy. It's like I have all this flexible time and all these things, and if there's not the relationship and trust, to like, also reciprocate back to the company, and back to the leaders, and back to the colleagues kind of love from from there. And I've seen that it's easy to have some folks maybe lose their way a little bit. Maybe have it, you know, not, not intentionally, but maybe get complacent in it or take advantage of, of the loving kind of policies that get put into place. Have you experienced anything like that? Or have you been able to address anything like that as in your journey as you, you know, continue to try to do the loving thing, you know, I imagine you might run across some circumstances like that.

Jeff Ward  
Yeah, so we think about social enterprise because we're we operate is a B Corp. We're the first indigenous B Corp in Canada and the second in North America. And so we think about social enterprise. And that word in itself, social and enterprise can almost seem at odds with each other, right? Like you've got You know the impact that you want to have, but then you've also got to operate a sustainable business that, you know, is, you know, profitable, that generates revenue, so that you can have the impact that you want to have. And so the concept that that we like to think about is the wings of a bird. And you need both sides of those things for the bird to like, not just only fly in circles. And yeah, over the years, I leaned more on the impact side and some years, I've leaned more on the financial side, to the detriment of the other side kind of thing. And if you're only focusing on one, so you know, you really just want to balance that so you're flying more more straight rather than kind of teeter tottering and leaning in this direction, that direction. But sometimes, sometimes we we need to lean on one direction, or the other. And in particular, going into pandemic, yeah, we leaned more on on the impact side on, you know, on the love side. And you know, even just the name of the book, the podcast love as a business strategy, though, that also is a bit of at odds with each other, right. And so again, it is that balance. So we talk about the wings of bird philosophy, we have an article on our blog, all about that it's in our strategic plan, we talk about we center all of these things, and in the bird, it's more than just, you know, left and right wing, we talk about where the heart is, and where the leadership is, and where the tail is, you know, the kind of rubber the, you know, the steer, steer, and that kind of thing. Yeah, if folks are interested to learn more about her or philosophy around that, yeah, cuz sometimes you do need to lean one side or the other side a little bit a little bit more. And I think the more that you just normalize those conversations with the team, normalize talking about love normalized, talking about impact and sustainability, financial sustainability, like we do open book as well, we share our revenue numbers and that kind of thing. So these are all active conversations that we have. So that, hopefully he doesn't get to that place where, you know, people are feeling like they're, they're taking being taken advantage of, or that they're taking advantage of, of, you know, company resources and time or that kind of thing.

Jeff Ma  
Absolutely, that makes that makes sense. And I feel like Eve especially in technology, working in those types of environments, you know, the nature of the projects, the nature of the deadlines, and needs, I think naturally can create a number of obstacles and stressors and things like that, that I think really, really, I imagine, benefit from kind of the culture that you that you built, that you kind of aspire to continue building like, Do you have any anecdotes around? Specifically being in technology and why it's different? I know, you've worked, you know, in Silicon Valley, or in the West Coast? What what's notably different What have you been intentional about being different when it comes to working technology that this mindset,

Jeff Ward  
working technology with the mindset,

Jeff Ma  
or like doing technology project mean, it's a technology company, and you come from, you know, you learned from, I guess, the environments that, you know, are prevalent in the West Coast, things like that. What are you doing different differently in terms of like, specifically, technology, or your approach to doing technology projects? With this with this mindset and culture?

Jeff Ward  
Yeah. I mean, another one of our values is humility. And, you know, I think big tech and tech, you know, tech technologists, you know, there's maybe a bit of like, we have all the answers, and we're going to design all these systems for people are just going to use them, and they're going to think it's awesome. And we're going to do no harm and you know, but the reality is a lot, a lot of tech is built without consulting the communities that that who will be using these technologies and so for us, with, you know, an indigenous focus to our work, we have a very comprehensive process that we start with any of our projects and our partners from a place of humility, where we say came for working with knowledge keepers, with community, community, people who are coming to us for the tech side of it, you know, we can be the experts there. Sure. But when it comes to the why, and the how, like those conversations, we're gonna let are the communities that we support lead us, they're the experts, they know, you know, their context, the their communities the best and so, you know, we go through our pathfinding process where we actually talk about values and we actually say here's an image these values are these cool Do you want to we want to weave these in is by Soviets from an initiative of a community may, you know, but we work with so many other communities that are not, you know, don't have our seven valleys. And so we say, Hey, what are your values? How do we weave that into the technology that we're going to build? And we talked about, you know, essentially risk mitigation of like, you know, what happens if, if the tech isn't going to meet your values, you know, whatever the specifics are, and then we have like a response to that. And we write all of this in before a line of code is even written. We talk about all this stuff. And we talk about other aspects within indigenous contexts around like United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, how are we going to respond to these in Canada, we have the calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. And so a lot of these things, I think, if if people went to another, say, software tech company, to build this tackler, those things aren't going to be centered maybe as much as we would center them. And so we baked that into our process, even before a line of code is written.

Jeff Ma  
That's awesome. That's, that's the kind of stuff that I don't, you know, we're living in a world that's in a way rapidly becoming more aware and pathetic understanding and desiring of, of change, social change, and otherwise, but at the same time, we live in a world that's kind of more capitalistic than has ever been. And also more about the bottom line has ever been in, in seeing you kind of bridge that gap. And finding a way forward is really, really impressive. Because it's, it seems to be at odds.

Jeff Ward  
Absolutely, yeah, they say, you hear people say that data is the new oil. And so there's, like you say, from that capitalistic perspective, you know, companies, you know, they're looking to harvest data and extract in from indigenous communities perspective, you know, we've had colonial groups, extract a lot from us, and in, you know, now continuing through through data, and surveillance and data surveillance and other other aspects. You know, it's, it's building the tech, the tech that we build through our, through our product and through through our services is, you know, how do we how do we mitigate that risk? How do we ensure that data is owned, and, you know, controlled and possessed and even designed by the indigenous groups that we support? And of course, you know, we talk about our values and indigenous worldview through through all of that.

Jeff Ma  
It's inspiring. Okay, so one last topic here is what's what's next for yourself? For Nikki? And kind of what's the, I don't know, you pick three year, five year, whatever generational vision of success for you?

Jeff Ward  
Well, it's awesome. You mentioned generational vision, because that is something that we talk about, from an indigenous perspective, there's the seven generations teaching that, you know, decisions from seven generations ago, we're realizing the effects and the impacts of those today, and the decisions and actions that we we put now, into into our day to day into our communities, and our people will be impacted seven generations from now. And so we really do like to think on seven generations, timeframe. And my, my hope is that the the impacts that we're creating through our work through our tech through through an MEP, I won't be around to realize those impacts, you know, and, you know, so So really just thinking, when you think on a large longer scale like that, you it helps Yeah, it helps guide and, and these teachings are, you know, millennia old, the seven teachings and so we know that they're going to be relevant seven generations from now. And so, technology is going to change, the tools that we use are going to change, we're seeing this, you know, with with crypto and web three, and AI and all of these things, there's going to be new things come and go. But what's not going to change is love, what's not going to change our seven values, indigenous teachings. And so, you know, we know that if we weave these, these values into everything we do that there's going to be some some longevity. Now in a bit more of a shorter timeframe. I mean, we celebrate 20 years in business this year. Congratulations. Thank you. And I looked it up and 20 years is is about a generation. So we're already one generation into the seven generations of potential impact that we have. And and we're really, you know, we feels like every Time, especially now that I'm out traveling more in the community, every time I get out in the world people, I'm hearing kind of echoes and ripples of the impacts that we're having. And it's wonderful to see. And we have seven years of social impact reports on our site. So every year we've we've, we've published a an impact report. And this year, because our sevens, we centered around all of our seven valleys, so you can literally go there and see love. Here's the things that we did. So I mentioned a couple of those things today, if people are interested to learn more about how we from a practical policy perspective, people ops for effective what do we do, you know, we have the humility, we've got respect, we've got all our values there. And so, you know, we're trying to document the impact that we have. And, you know, part of you mentioned at the beginning, our social impact statement, like for me, I see technology as a way for indigenous peoples, to use technology for to create economic impact and to create equitable outcomes for Indigenous peoples. And so for me, the shorter term, the three, five, etc, year, this has been about bringing indigenous tech to the world. This is about bringing indigenous value. This is about infusing in weaving in indigenous values into tech and hopefully being a good example of how we can try to do tech differently, how we can decolonize tech how we can decolonize business, and we values in and center love.

Jeff Ma  
beautifully put, Jeff, I really appreciate you for taking the time today and sharing your story and the inspiring journey of Nikki and all the things you're doing there. So thank you so much for this time.

Jeff Ward  
Yeah. Thanks, Jeff. Appreciate it.

Jeff Ma  
Thank you, also to our listeners for continuing to check us out. Please look at the book if you haven't love as a business strategy. As always in please subscribe, rate, the podcast do all those things, because it helps us out a lot. And so with that, I hope you all have a wonderful week and we'll see you next time.