pieces, test and learn with the latest information,” advised Tracey. “Failure is often more of a ‘not yet’!” Accessing your creativity and imagination, “optimism and grit – the willingness to hang in there and to get back up when it’s hard and to try again and to not be afraid of failure” is also extremely necessary in Tracey’s view. She believes that parents and teachers need to reinforce these messages. Tracey believes technology and process automation have grown economies in new ways and have created more jobs than have been destroyed. However, the path to entry-level jobs is now not as clear as it was in the past as technology is changing so rapidly. “I used to be able to say go get that degree and then go get that job, but that world is now over,” said Tracey. Technology is now starting to make what humans do more important than what the machines can – while a lot of data can be dealt with now and information more rapidly presented, you are still going to want a human to help “process” what that all really means. As an example, Tracey noted, “We can ask ‘where is my widget selling the best’ and the answer may be ‘Edmonton’, but if we ask ‘why’, the technology cannot necessarily answer that question for us even if it can draw conclusions. Perhaps it is because Edmonton’s population is growing and more people are available to use the product, perhaps our marketing campaign was more effective there, there could be many reasons and it takes people to take data and make sense of it.” Tracey feels that I am a better decision-maker because of all of the things that I do in my life and my other interests – my family, music, arts, technology, education,” taking a more holistic view of life and work. Tracey continued, “Riding my bike also helps with how I think about business. Also, I feel that curiosity is extremely important. If people I am interviewing aren’t asking questions or curious, I am not sure that
they are going to thrive in our environment.” As an enthusiastic and curious life-long learner, Tracey definitely walks the talk. As if all of this wasn’t challenging enough for Tracey, she is “very fortunate to be the mother of seven children” who range in age from three years to twenty-four! When asked about raising different generations in one family, the children “all have each other, they have fun together, but of course, my husband and I do work very, very hard” to help us all create the positives and bonds in such a large family. Tracey obviously has a lot of fun doing whatever she is doing, so when asked about what she looks forward to each day, she responded “to help people and learn to do new things every day. It couldn’t be a better world.” Fun Facts about Tracey Zimmerman l Tracey is married to her amazing husband, Brett, and she loves being outside with her family. l She enjoys long-distance cycling. l She loves to read – reads about a book a week, often on Audible. l
Her favorite color – blue.
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She enjoys watching the “Silicon Valley” series, which she says barely seems like fiction for those like herself who work closely with startups.
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