Girls In Tech

 

What started out as a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corporation, as a rival to Youtube with a strange name, is turning out to be quite a force in the world of online entertainment.

Last year, the yet-to-be-named company was already thought of in the Internet industry as almost a joke. The attitude seemed to be that only two networks starting it, NBC Universal and News Corp, was not enough to get it off the ground and that they had no experience building sites or applications. Also, how were they possibly going to compete with Youtube. Well, a lot can happen in a year…

With over 100 content providers, a net profit of $12 million, and forecasts of $70 million in ad revenue in 2008 by Arash Amel (analyst at Screen Digest), Youtube better watch out. What’s amazing is that, with numbers for Youtube being 83M unique viewers compared to 6M for Hulu in September (according to Nielsen reports), Amel still forecasts that both sites will generate about $180M in the US next year. 

Youtube will always be the top destination for user-generated video content. However, for Advertisers that prefer associating products with well-known entertainment brands, Hulu is the place to do it. Pssst, watch out cable tv…

Hulu, a Los Angeles based company, was founded in March 2007, raised $100 million in financing by Providence Equity Partners in August 2007, and went live in March 2008. 

In my last post, I talked about a nightmarish experience of outsourcing the design work for HowLegit? Recovering (quickly) from this experience, I went on a hunt for my engineering team with two things in mind : I would go on referrals primarily, and I would prefer to work with a legitimate company over an individual. Too risky to have someone build your code and then disappear all of a sudden. I posted on Rent-A-Coder and Elance, two sites which allow vendors from all over the world to bid on your project, potentially allowing for great cost savings.  When you are flooded with 10-20 bids as I was, it can be a daunting task to decide on the right one. In the evaluation process, it is as important to assess communication ability and style, as technical skill, especially if you are thinking about working with developing nations like India and China. Also pay attention to the vendor ratings that will give you a sense of customer satisfaction. I ended up going with a firm based out of China, whose CEO worked out of Silicon Valley and made customer service a priority. I had my engineer adviser quiz his engineering team, and I was comfortable with the fact that they were dedicated to getting the work done and that customer satisfaction was very important because they were just starting out and were looking for referrals. (Email me for their name – happy to refer you to them, as I have been very happy and continue to work with them on Phase 2 of the work.)

In the contract phase of outsourcing to a partner, I would say “scope creep” is the biggest concern, in that when you delineate the vendor’s responsibility, make sure to state things you think they will need to take on, in addition to things you know they will. Although this may have the potential to drive up your costs at the start, it will more likely prevent a renegotiation in which the vendor believes that you have underestimated the work and will charge you more going forward. It is also very important that you understand the resourcing: Who will be your project manager? Engineer? QA? UI?  Are you paying lump sum for a combination of these services or will you be billed hourly for each group that is involved. For example, although I had my designs created by another vendor (see my last post, Outsourcing: Lessons Learned Part I , )turns out I still needed UI assistance in refining the pages, building out ones that were incomplete, and converting the whole lot to html (an absolute essential final deliverable for any UI designer). So I ended up buying a combination of engineering services (project manager, engineer, QA) on a monthly basis, and a one-time UI fee for the initial development of the pages.

When dealing with non-English speaking countries like China, make sure you are not paying too much of a premium for English speakers, as you can find them dime a dozen in India and Eastern Europe. It may just take you a little longer to sift through all your options. It is also worthwhile to agree on a “trial period” of a small piece of the project so that you can evalute the technical ablity and communication style. In an outsourced world, not being in the same room or city as your partner makes it much harder to know what’s really going on. Insist on documentation of everything in the form of daily or weekly work reports, bug tracking lists, project plans, etc. You’ll be glad you did.

A final word to the wise on special “social networking” engineering such as Iphone and Facebok apps. As the technology and information around these evolve every day, your regular engineering shop may not have the expertise to develop these, which means that you either have to spend a lot of time teaching your developers how to build one, or you may need to outsource to a specialist. (Silicon Valley is full of them). Before you do that though, make sure you have done your cost-benefit analysis – some platforms are not very developer-friendly, and unless you have something truly outstanding, it may get lost in the sea of others trying to do the same thing as you.

Next Time: Getting Started: Building the Site

Kaamna Dhawan had a colorful career in corporate America before realizing that the intersection of technology and human interaction is where her passions lie. And no one makes human interaction as fascinating as celebrities do! As the founder and CEO of HowLegit.com, she brings in experience from running 4 successful social networks and a continuing restlessness for learning and entrepreneurship. Kaamna is now seven months pregnant, and just moved across the world to Sydney, Australia, proving that technology has truly removed all barriers against productivity and connectivity. She misses the Bay Area and her interactions with Girls in Tech and secretly stalks the organization through the website and Facebook!

1.)  BUILD YOUR PROFESSIONAL NETWORK

• Offline Networking
• Creating a presence on professional social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook
• Purchasing a card scanner to keep track of the contacts you meet at networking events
• Create an industry blog, make yourself an expert at something relevant to your career (so that you’ll be known as a “go-to” person for that topic)
• Always send an email to people you meet later that day or the next day, so that they can remember you and can keep you in their database

2.) INITIAL STEPS TO ENSURE THAT YOU WILL DO WELL AT YOUR JOB

• Research
• Assign a mentor
• Understanding and knowing the communities that you are serving
• Building a targeted contact list
• Know your resources
• Meet everyone internally and externally

3.)  APPEARANCE

Professionalism and dress are very important. It’s the “first impression” people get when they interview you, when you walk into the boardroom, or when you give a client presentation. It makes you feel good about yourself and psychologically helps you feel more confident. I recommend purchasing staple items such as suits and mixing in colorful blouses and accessories such as bracelets and earrings. You have to show off YOUR style, even if you have to wear suits every single day.

4.)  SALARY NEGOTIATION STRATEGY

• Understand what the market rates are for your position within the industry that you work for and ask for 20-30 % more. The worst that employers can say is “that’s too high, let’s negotiate.”
• Be humble yet confident. Make sure that employers realize that you are grateful to be there and that you will be a very dedicated and loyal employee should they offer you the job, but also let them know what you are worth by talking about what you (can) bring to the table outside of the basic line items within the job description. You’re an asset to the team and you have to let that shine.

5.) BORED? UNDERPAID? WHAT DO YOU DO?

Communication is key. You should hold a one-on-one conversation with your boss and ask for more challenging projects and responsibilities. Once your prove yourself and do exceptionally well on these projects than the employer will give you a raise or you might have to ask for one based on concrete, positive results and metrics that were produced during a specific time period and presented to the employer.

Professor Muhammad Yunus

The Tech Awards, an annual humanitarian awards program organized by The Tech Museum of Innovation, will be honoring 25 Laureates from all around the world for their achievements in education, equality, environment, economic development and health. Their philanthropic contributions will be recognized at the annual Tech Awards Gala on Thursday, November 12th, in San Jose, CA.

Winning projects to be featured at The Tech Awards include the Portable Light Project, which creates new ways to provide energy, and Build Change, a program that trains builders and homeowners to build earthquake-resistant houses in developing countries. Professor Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank, will receive this year’s James C. Morgan Global Humanitarian Award for his thought leadership in the micro-lending space.

For more information on The Tech Awards, please visit www.techawards.org.

 

We are excited to finally announce our official Los Angeles launch party. Come and join us as we kick off our LA launch on Thursday, December 4th at 7:30PM at the Causecast Headquarters in Santa Monica, CA.

The tech scene in Los Angeles is thriving and growing in a robust manner and Girls  in Tech is excited to be a part of that growth. We are thrilled to be partnering with the following companies for this event, Causecast, Stardoll, Converdge, GamerVixens, and Women & Wine. We will be doing a little mixing, a little mingling, and celebrating the women and companies in Los Angeles that are making a difference in the world of technology and innovation. 

Please RSVP for this event at robyn@girlsintech.net.

Looking forward to it!

Robyn

Executive Director, Girls in Tech LA

 

The worlds of Web 1.0 and 2.0 will be coming together on Thursday, December, 11th, 2008 for the Digital Family Reunion ‘08 Holiday Party. It will be a wonderful blend of Southern California technology and business communities with attendees from all the major industries, media, entertainment, finance, publishing, education, venture funding, and many more. This event will be about creating a platform for the different tech generations and companies in these different industries to come together to ignite new relationships and rekindle old ones. As well as, forecasting and kicking off 2009 with new possibilities in all these industries.

Girls in Tech is excited to be a part of this event. We will have an opportunity be on the Host Committee, as well as, showcase Girls in Tech on site. Most important, all Girls in Tech members will have an opportunity to come to the event with a discounted rate for tickets. You can purchase tickets at www.digitalfamilyreunion.net and use the discount code (DFR09). Can’t wait!

Digital Family Reunion ‘08 Holiday Party

Skirball Cultural Center

Thursday, December 11, 2008 

5:00pm – 10:00pm

2701 Sepulveda Blvd.

Los Angeles California 90049 (view map) 

Girls in Tech presents its first ever, “Developer Forum” at hi5 in San Francisco on November 19th from 1:00pm – 5:00pm, followed by a cocktail party.

We’re really excited to be producing this event, alongside, hi5, Intel, RealTimeMatrix, Slide, MySpace, GLAM, RockYou, Mochi Media, Photobucket, ThoughtWorks, Watercooler and iLike. This will be a casual, yet interactive engagement of developers, designers and engineers throughout the Silicon Valley and beyond. This afternoon event will highlight hot button topics in the development and engineering space such as unique languages – Ruby, PHP, Perl, Java, Python, OpenSocial, new application trends, monetization of applications and platforms, and design and build options.

We hope that you will be able to join us for a lively panel discussion, a few “un-conference” workshops presented by industry experts and of course, drinks and eats.

Please RSVP by emailing adriana@girlsintech.net

Here’s a couple links to some articles of interest about women in tech.

To address the gender problem within the IT industry, many are looking at the problem of image; to many young women, working in IT is not at the top of their career lists….According to a recent survey, carried out by Research in Motion (RIM), almost 90 per cent of girls aged between 11 and 16 think that using technology is ‘cool’ and is a regular topic of conversation with friends. more

To establish a heightened female presence in the tech world, a group of women called the “girl geeks” are getting together and arranging “Girl Geek Dinners” across the world. more

And wow Intel, where did you get them outfits?

Taken at an Intel Party Via

In my last post, I talked about developing the Business Case and Marketing Plan for my celebrity news site, HowLegit?. Once the academic part was done, it was time for the rubber to hit the road and to make the site happen. Out of thin air, it felt like!

Having worked on social networks before, I was familiar with the general framework and basic elements of a web community. In a most un-Web 2.0 way, I sat down with a piece of paper and drew out each page I needed on the site with its general purpose and features. I listed everything that came to mind from “User Profile” (obvious) to “No user search results” (less obvious). This un-techy scrapbook became my guideline for the functionality of the site for our first launch. I realized that it’s impossible to think of everything, and that I would  inevitably be modifying what happens on a particular page as I go into design or development. This is where speed needed to compensate for 100% accuracy.

On to resourcing: Depending on the skill level, time availability and interest of your team, (and depending on whether or not you have a team), you will need to figure out who is doing what. In my case, I had a team of advisers, including an engineer and a marketing guy, who would meet with me weekly, but I needed to outsource the actual work. From how I saw it, I needed a UI designer first and  a team of engineers to start building the site. Because this was a celebrity site, and because the visual elements were tantamount to the site’s success, I wanted to find a designer I could work closely with and meet face to face on a regular basis. I hopped onto our beloved Craigslist and posted a job for a UI designer. I whittled down the project to the pages that would need distinct designing (homepage, submission page, article page, registration, user profile, and template for other pages) and figured the development team could take it from there. I didn’t post a price initially but waited for interested parties to contact me, and give me an estimate based on the project I described to them. Each potential vendor was asked to sign an NDA before we discussed the project in length. A good generic NDA is easily available on the web. I entertained about 6 proposals, and finally settled on an individual, rather than a company, for the price of $2000, to design 5 pages, and deliver the project within a month.

I went with him because of a gut feeling that he understood the look and feel I was talking about. However, it is imperative to support that gut with an iron-clad contract at the start, stating the complete nature of the work, timelines, milestones, payment schedule, and recourse for incomplete work. Most companies will  have a contract,  but when dealing with an individual, you have to make sure you have something that will hold up in court. I didn’t (Mistake number 1). We agreed over email that that the payment would be made in thirds over the month, and we signed a sheet of paper (prepared by him) stating that he had received payment for the expected portion of the work. It didn’t cover me at all for what would happen if he decided he just didn’t want to do it, and changed his phone number and ignored my emails. But I was so wrapped up in the “vision” of the site, that I didn’t think about sealing all the legal holes at the time.

Fortunately, it didn’t get to that. I found that this gentleman was fun and creative, which is exactly what I wanted, but a little irresponsible when it came to deadlines. I played along, believing that these arty types were erratic and giving him the benefit of the doubt since I liked the way the work was going. The real red flag came up when he asked for an advance on the last payment because he needed to pay his rent. I admit to trying to wonder why a man with a family was incapable of planning ahead to make sure basic payments like rent were taken care of and I can’t deny that the thought of his young daughter influenced my decision to help him out. BIG MISTAKE (Mistake number 2). It was extremely unprofessional on his part to ask me to consider his personal problems in our hitherto professional relationship, but it wasn’t necessary for me oblige either. Whether it was out of the compassion that is the plight of women, or what any good human being would have done, I agreed and wrote out a cheque when 1/3rd of the work was yet to be done. Naturally I was concerned that he would take the money and run, leaving me with 5 incomplete web pages and a very bruised ego. He showed up to the next meeting, and the next, but when it came to the delivery of the final product (files converted to html that could be translated by the developers into web pages), I had to chase him up for a month because 70% of the files he sent me didn’t work, and eventually ended up paying someone else to do the final conversion off of a pdf prototype of the pages.

Lesson learned was not “don’t help people out when they need it”, but “make sure that you have covered your own a$$ by documenting what has to be delivered and when”. When I wrote him that final cheque, I should have had him sign a document acknowledging his receipt, laying out expectations of deliverables and timelines, that would hold water had I needed to take legal action. Instead, all I could do at this point was write him stinker emails and contemplate putting my story up on Yelp! (I didn’t, but am willing to share his name with anyone who believes they might be in danger of  hiring him or someone like him).

Next up: Outsourcing – Lessons Learned Part II.

Kaamna Dhawan had a colorful career in corporate America before realizing that the intersection of technology and human interaction is where her passions lie. And no one makes human interaction as fascinating as celebrities do! As the founder and CEO of HowLegit.com, she brings in experience from running 4 successful social networks and a continuing restlessness for learning and entrepreneurship. Kaamna is now seven months pregnant, and just moved across the world to Sydney, Australia, proving that technology has truly removed all barriers against productivity and connectivity. She misses the Bay Area and her interactions with Girls in Tech and secretly stalks the organization through the website and Facebook!

Understanding that I should have written this post a while ago, I’m posting now because it’s better late than never. RealClearPolitics has shown to be the most up-to-date, honest and factual reporting system on the web around the 2008 election. Since, as of late, there is so much uncertainty about electoral college votes, who will actually turn up to the polls and how much Sarah Palin will continue to spend on her non-Alaskan wardrobe, this source is the way to go.

At 3:16pm PST on November 4th the poll average on RealClearPolitics.com show that Obama is up 52.1 over McCain’s 44.5 with Obama having a +7.6 lead. The generic congressional vote shows that Democrats are up 47.6 over Republicans’ 39.6, giving Democrats a +9.0 lead.

A very comprehensive website, RealClearPolitics.com’s blog highlights topics such as McCain’s public memo that slams Obama’s celebrity status or “agressive” campaigns ads, last minute rallying, and O’Reilly going off on McClellan. The public knows that this race is not a friendly one. The last round in this boxing match is on and topics featured on political blogs such as this one show that things aren’t going to get any easier.

As displayed on RealClearPolitics.com, it was founded in 2000 by John McIntyre and Tom Bevan, Chicago-based RealClearPolitics.com (RCP) has become one of America’s premier independent political web sites. Updated every morning and throughout the day, RCP culls and publishes the best commentary, news, polling data, and links to important resources from all points of the political compass and covering all the important issues of the day. RealClearPolitics has become a trusted filter for anyone interested in politics.

RCP’s political commentary, election analysis and polling averages have been featured in national media outlets including The New York Times, FOX News, CNN, The Economist, Investor’s Business Daily, The Chicago Sun-Times and many, many more.