Girls In Tech

If you’re planning to be in New York during Fashion Week, February 11-18, make sure you don’t miss the Chictopia10 Social Influence Summit.  The half-day conference will focus on social media trends that are radically changing the traditional landscape of fashion taste makers.  Chictopia10 will bring together fashion bloggers, social media influencers, media buyers, designers and brand executives to discuss the secrets to social media marketing and its affect on consumers’ interaction with fashion and brands.  What was mostly a one-way ‘we-make-it, they-buy-it’ relationship, is growing into a two-way conversation as fashion bloggers increase in popularity and influence, and social media sites like Chictopia give individuals a platform to celebrate and share their individual style.

Helen Zhu, CEO of Chictopia notes, “We are entering into a new decade where the traditionally exclusive fashion industry will be revolutionized by social media.  This gathering will discuss the changes that will shape the future of this industry.”

The Social Influence Summit will close with a fashion showcase from five independent designers from their upcoming lines, followed by a cocktail party giving everyone a chance to mingle and network.  Representatives from Teen Vogue, Nylon Magazine, The New Yorker, The Gilt Group, Polyvore, Style Bubble, and others will be in attendance.

Saturday, February 13 (2pm – 8pm)

Venue:
Allegra Laviola Gallery
179 East Broadway
New York, NY 10002

View the AGENDA, and REGISTER HERE.

This week, Girls in Tech had a phenomenal turnout at our first annual all-female Catalyst Conference.  When people asked me which panel I enjoyed the most, my answer was truthfully, “All of them.”   That said, as a business development gal, I found Katherine Barr’s workshop on “The Art of Negotiation” the most interesting.

A partner at MDV, Katherine started the workshop by asking the audience to pair up, and assume the arm wrestling position.  (Visualize a full room of 400+ women poised to arm wrestle.)  Next were the instructions: Without speaking to each other, know that each time you move your partner’s arm all the way down, you earn a million dollars.  At this point, it was clear as day to me that we would both see-saw each other’s arms down as quickly as possible to earn the most money.  But my partner didn’t see it that way.  She held her arm firm.  After struggling for a bit, I signaled to her with a smile, and a couple of nods, then loosened my hand, and we were on our way to earning millions.  Surprisingly, others in the audience around us sat at a standstill.

For the next exercise, we received handouts that included a Negotiation Preparation Template and a fictional negotiation scenario that audience pairs role-played.  The preparation template included the below framework to kick-start creative problem solving and brain-storming before entering a negotiation.

1.)    Interests — Identify Yours, Theirs, and Relevant third parties’ interests
– Do your research and know what is important to your counterpart

2.)    Options – What different options meet the various interests of all parties?
– Being CREATIVE is the key to successful negotiations
– Options allow people to move away from cold hard cash, and stubborn positions
– Creative brainstorming opens people up to the possibilities.

3.)    Legitimacy – What objective standards can be used during negotiations to assess fairness?

4.)    Alternatives – Identify the alternatives available if you don’t close this deal
– Knowing your alternatives gives you the power to walk away from the table
– Without alternatives, you may feel trapped and be persuaded into a bad deal

Additional tips to keep in mind during negotiations:

1.) Commitment – Be clear on what you are committing to
2.) Relationship – Be mindful that everything you do before and after the negotiation affects the relationship
3.) Communication – Clearly communicate and test assumptions to understand each other’s interest

What resonated the most about the workshop was Katherine’s emphasis on focusing negotiations on interests rather than positions.  With positions, negotiations tend to be more territorial and ego-based, i.e. if you win, I lose.  When focusing on interests, everyone can walk away feeling like a winner.

Before I head off to New Orleans to ring in the new year, I wanted to bring your attention to some highly effective non-profits that are doing AMAZING work and changing lives of women and children in the US and around the world.  Happy giving and happy new year to everyone!!

Kiva is the first website and online platform to connect lenders and borrowers for micro-finance loans. 82% of Kiva’s loans go to female entrepreneurs.

Samasource was part of the fbFund REV social incubator class of 2009 and uses crowdsourcing to bring dignified, computer-based work to women, youth and refugees living in poverty.

International Justice Mission works to rescue  and assist victims of slavery, sexual exploitation  and other forms of violent oppression.

I should be getting my Mary Lou Retton Halloween costume on right now, but instead, all I can think is — “Wow, I’ve never seen a conference end like that before.” Today marked the 3rd annual Virtual Goods Summit put on by Charles Hudson and David Sachs.  The last panel of the day was on the topic of Payments Infrastructure for Virtual Goods, and Anu Shukla, founder and CEO of Offerpal Media, was an obvious choice for the panel of experts.

Towards the end of the discussion, Charles Hudson, the panel’s moderator, opened up the floor for Q&A.  Michael Arrington of TechCrunch was the first person at the microphone.  He questioned the ethics of offer providers like Offerpal and game publishers like Zynga and accused them of 1.) Knowingly engaging kids who steal their parent’s credit cards to accept offers, 2.) Facilitating scammers who accept offers from Netflix and other advertisers with no real interest or intention to follow-through on the offer, and 3.) Taking advantage of an ecosystem where Facebook and everyone else is going along with the fraud since everyone benefits from it except for the advertiser.

Arrington’s question/accusation splashed water on the faces of the end-of-day crowd, and Anu Shukla jumped at the opportunity to address his points, which she referred to as “shit, double shit and triple shit”.  She stated that 1.) In her two years of managing customer service calls, she had received roughly five complaints from parents whose children accepted offers without their consent and were charged for an offer as a result. 2.) Netflix and other savvy advertisers have been using offer payment systems for years and continue to do so because it has shown to be an acquisition source with high retention rates.  She further stated that advertisers know their metrics better than a journalist would.  And, 3.) Anu defended Facebook and stated that Facebook is all about the user experience, and as recently as July, issued new advertising guidelines to clean up the companies who were clearly taking advantage of the system.

Anu received the biggest and most enthusiastic round of applause I saw in my two days at the event.  And that ladies and gentleman, was the very lively end to VGS09.   This will be a fun one to watch on YouTube when it’s up.

Girls in Tech was on the scene yesterday as Virtual Goods Summit 2009 kicked off with VGS University.  Hundreds of people came out to the half day seminar to learn from case studies and presentations by Linden Lab, Mochi Media, IMVU, Gaia Online, Ning, Viximo, Shufflebrain and others.

The afternoon panel on the Payments Landscape featuring SuperRewards, TrialPay, BOKU, PlaySpan, and ORCA garnered a packed ballroom.  Charles Hudson, host of VGS09, moderated the panel and asked whether it’s a good or bad thing that the payments space is so chockfull of players.  Not surprisingly, the panel thought it was a good thing – and that it speaks to the vast potential opportunity for virtual goods in games.  They also agreed that the need for payment solution providers is high since payments are complex, requiring relationships with often hundreds of banks and wireless carriers if you take into account the international landscape.  Then there’s the sticky issue of fraud and security.  Finally, there’s scale of economies, and the idea that a game producer should concentrate on making great games instead of getting caught up with building a payment solution.  Overall, more payment providers means more choice for game publishers, and more pressure for payment providers to deliver better products and customer service.

The panel shared the following statistics: For free to play games on social networks, virtual goods conversion for those who actually pay is 3-4%. This of course varies depending on the virality and engagement quality of the game.  Lex Bayer from PlaySpan suggested that for each daily active user associated with a game on a social network, there is ten dollars of annual revenue potential.  Therefore, if you have five million DAU’s your potential revenue is $50 million in annual revenue.  Not shabby.

Big revenue potential and a young market makes for great energy, an eagerness for learning, sharing, and collaborating, with a good measure of competition and creativity thrown in.  This is going to be one good summit.  Join us today for part two of the third annual Virtual Goods Summit taking place today at the Westin in downtown San Francisco.  And stick around for the after party that Girls in Tech is co-hosting with Offerpal at Harlot nightclub!

Online dating is a hot industry, one that’s known to generate recurring subscription revenue allowing companies like eHarmony and Match.com to make roughly a million dollars a day.  Together, eHarmony and Match.com claim responsibility for over 120,000 marriages since 1995.  Call me a cynic (or pragmatist), but how about publishing data on the number of couples who are still together?  A study of the endurance of relationships that started online versus offline, and on one site versus another, would be fascinating.

This week Girls in Tech delved into the virtual dating space with a panel on the evolution of online dating featuring three of the hottest online dating sites.  Brian Phillips, CEO of Thread, Simon Tisminezky, CEO of SpeedDate.com, and Alex Mehr, Co-CEO and co-founder of Zoosk, exchanged friendly fire as they talked up the advantages of their matchmaking sites.

While Thread is the first dating site built entirely on the Facebook Connect platform, Zoosk boasts the world’s largest social dating community with 40 million users.  The three dating sites use a mix of free, freemium, and subscription models, with Zoosk testing the popularity of virtual gifts as a second stream of revenue.  Sending a dozen roses for $10 might give users the extra edge they need to make a good impression.  Or it might come across as a semi-desperate attempt to buy affection.

Rachel Sarah, author & blogger for Single Mom Seeking and a Match.com contributor, rounded out the panel with her expertise on how to build the perfect Match.com profile.  Quick tip: Write a positive profile that leaves out negativity and details about your last relationship!

Throughout the evening it was clear that the big game changer in online dating is the use of social networks to help people find the right match with minimal work.  As Brian Phillips noted, two-thirds of all marriages happen between friends of friends, making social networks a natural platform for matchmaking.  Across the board, the new online dating sites attract more men than women, partially due to the “hunter” mindset of men.  With women as early adopters of social networking, the numbers might start evening out.

I’ll leave you with one final tip from Rachel Sarah, a Match.com profile consultant, who has logged over one hundred Match dates:  Don’t dismiss someone right off the bat!  A great tip overall, whether or not you’re in the market for a mate.

A big thanks to our panelists for opening up to us about the inner-workings of online dating.  And special thanks to Melinda Maximova, founder and matchmaker at Perfect Search, for moderating the event.

If you have online dating experiences or tips to share, feel free to add a comment.

Today Twitter is announcing their foray into two things we love — wine and Room to Read .  As part of their Corporate Social Innovation initiative, Twitter has chosen Room To Read, an organization that promotes literacy in some of the poorest regions  of  the  world,  to be their first charity partner.  The creation of the Fledgling Initiative will produce a new wine label called Fledgling Wine in partnership with San Francisco Do-it-Yourself winery Crushpad, with proceeds going to Room To Read.

Twitter staff will participate in making a Pinot Noir and a Chardonnay with Crushpad and the public is invited to pre-purchase bottles of the wine, follow the wine-making process on Twitter, and possibly even participate in its creation at Crushpad’s 50,000 square foot urban winery in the Dogpatch district of  San Francisco.

To kick off the Twitter-Room To Read-Crushpad first of its kind initiative, come join the proud partners and Girls in Tech at  Room To Read’s Annual Fundraiser and Gala taking place tonight at the SF War Memorial.  A few tickets are still available, inclusive of sumptuous food and wine, live music, and a live auction, which will include some very limited edition wines! Buy tickets here for $50, VIP $125, or at the door for $75.   See you all there!

This weekend, Girls in Tech held our first Annual Retreat in Santa Cruz.  The day was packed full of hands-on learning sessions, starting with a Social Media Boot Camp with JD Lasica, a leading expert on social media and founder of socialmedia.biz.  JD shared best practices for businesses engaging in social media and identified leading campaigns that have been successful.

Photo credit: Seana Norvell

Kristin Schaefer and Bronwyn Saglimbeni got us out of our chairs and led an interactive and powerful Public Speaking Workshop.  Here are a few of the tips and tactics they shared with us on being a good speaker

1. Be a great story-teller and keep it conversational (people love to hear stories!)
2. Pick a person or several people to talk to (engages the audience)
3. Fewer words are more powerful (avoid fillers i.e. um, like, you know, I think…)
4. Use the physical space you have (don’t be rooted to one spot)
5. Keep an open, active, pose and free your hands to express yourself as you talk
6. Be authentic (Who are you and what are you here to do?)

Our keynote speaker was Megan Smith, VP of New Business Development at Google and General Manager of Google.Org.  Megan talked about the power of data and interconnection to change the world.  She gave us several examples including how the connection of data has been used to:

1.)    Track public health issues – Using Google Health, Google is able to see the correlation between the number of searches on a particular health term such as “flu”, and reports from the CDC on flu numbers.
2.)    Power people’s ability to advance civil liberties. (by making information available in countries where the media is tightly controlled)
3.)    Help the environment.  Google .org’s PowerMeter is a free electricity usage monitoring tool that people can use to review their power usage.

In summarizing the trait that has allowed Megan to be amazingly successful in her career, her good friend, David Hoffman, volunteered that “When faced with challenges, she believes there has to be a way.”

After the keynote, Gina Bauman and Elizabeth Weil of Institutional Venture Partners gave us a quick overview of the venture capital space.  And to close out the day Priya Ganapati sat down with Plantronics’ VP of Innovation, Joyce Shimizu.  Joyce shared the following tips on being a successful leader:

1.)    Be responsive to Change
2.)    Learn how to fly the plane, as well as land it (be able to set the 30,000 ft vision)
3.)    For work life/balance: Keep a short list of priorities, and enjoy the journey, don’t just concentrate on the destination.

Big thanks to all of our amazing speakers and to Seana Norvell, Managing Director of our Santa Cruz chapter, for organized an awesome first annual GIT retreat.

Two-thirds of the 770 million illiterate people in the developing world are girls and women.  Room to Read has awarded long-term scholarships to nearly 7,000 girls.  Last year, 1.2 million books were checked out from 7,000 libraries established by Room to Read.

Girls in Tech is proud to be a media sponsor for Room to Read’s annual fundraiser and gala, taking place at the beautiful San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center.  Come join us for a great cause and a fabulous evening filled with live music, a lively auction with John Wood, and sumptuous food and wine in a gorgeous setting.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, Green Room
401 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102

5:30 – 6:30 p.m. VIP Recption with John Wood and Erin Ganju
6:30 – 8:30 p.m. General Reception – silent and live auctions, music, presentations, wine and hor

Purchase tickets here
VIP Tickets: $125
General Reception Tickets Advance Purchase: $50
Purchase at the Door: $75

Today, Everything Channel’s CRN Magazine announced their list for the Top 100 Women in the Channel. The honorees were chosen based on their accomplishments as executives and their power of influence over the technology channel. The accompanying article on ChannelWeb gives readers a glimpse into each woman’s goals for the year, the executives they admire, and the female role models they look to.  Honorees include women from Cisco, AMD, Autodesk, EMC, Microsoft, Oracle, Western Digital, VMWare and more!

Congratulations to all these amazing women for working hard to make strong professional gains in the male-heavy world of technology!