Girls In Tech

As we venture into 2010, I can’t help but get excited about new and innovative internet tools and resources that will launch this year, which will help us become more efficient, effective and productive, both professionally and personally. In 2009, there were certainly a lot of cool tools that served as fantastic resources for my very active lifestyle, and I’m sure that they will continue to be useful in the coming years. Check out my list and please comment on sites and web resources that were useful to you this year!

Be a Better Networker

LinkedIn

Facebook

Squidoo

Ning

Twitter

Organize Your Finances

LearnVest

Mint.com

BillShrink

Find That Perfect Vacation

TripIt

RUBA

Tripwiser

TripCart

TripAdvisor

Kayak

Entertain Yourself

Yelp

Craigslist

DapperUp

Bargain Shop Online

Shopittome

Sale.com

Weardrobe

Chictopia

GiltGroup

Polyvore

It has been found that adolescent girls are uniquely capable of raising the standard of living in developing countries. Girls are the most likely agents of change, as they have so much potential, but are too often invisible to the world & the media. That’s why the Nike Foundation, along with intellectual and financial contributions from the NoVo Foundation created The Girl Effect.
With partners like the United Nations Foundation and the International Center for Research on Women, they are working to bring these girls’ stories to light and raise money and awareness to help change their futures through education.

Why girls? Because when adolescent girls in the developing world have a chance, they can be a strong, powerful force of change for themselves, their families, their communities, their countries, and even the world.

Now here are some statistics that may surprise you:
For example: Did you know that an extra year of primary school raises a girl’s lifetime wages by 10-20% & an extra year of secondary school, by 15-25%?
And that one-fourth of the population in Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa are girls?
If you’d like to help give these girls a chance by joining the Girl Effect movement, you can do so:
Either on their Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/girleffect#/girleffect?v=info
or their website:
http://www.girleffect.org/.

For more statistics, see their factsheet at: http://www.girleffect.org/downloads/TheGirlEffect_FactSheet.pdf

Momologie, a national e-newsletter launched this past week, spearheaded by two gals who practically define “girls in tech.”

Michele Adams and Gia Russo, former editors at Martha Stewart Living, contributors to Fit Pregnancy, and founders of the successful MiGi brand, launched Momologie.com, a free e-newsletter and website where women who subscribe receive a daily message in their e-mail inbox featuring information for busy moms. Topics include home, style, organization, food, celebrations and travel. Momologie was founded on the principal to be a trusted online resource and community for tech savvy moms interested in making the quality of their family life a priority.

The mom-blog craze has captured the attention of even mainstream media and Momologie is a one-stop online mommy mecca. In addition to their web site and newsletter, they can also be found on Facebook and Twitter (@momologie).

Christine Kirk is the Online Communications Director at Murphy O’Brien Public Relations in Los Angeles executing social media campaigns for luxury brands including travel, real estate and food/beverage clients. She also holds the position of PR Manager for the Los Angeles chapter of Girls in Tech. She can be reached at ckirk@murphyobrien.com or @luxuryprgal.

In her new book, ‘Girl on Top: Your Guide to Turning Dating Rules into Career Success,’ Nicole Williams - career coach extraordinaire & best-selling author – shows how some top dating rules can be converted into ways to attain office success & end up on top! A writer for such publications as The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Cosmopolitan,  and The Financial Times Williams takes those rules which women may use to “land a relationship” into ways to excel in one’s career.

The book includes twenty tried & true rules of dating and translates them into positive career tools. Rules such as:  “Have Others Sing Your Praises,” “Keep it Brief,” “Don’t Bash your Ex,” and “Be Willing to Walk Away” take on a new, positive-impacting meaning for your work world. One reader has said Williams’ experienced insight and candid demeanor throughout this guide will leave women empowered to turn that advice into their ideal career.

To read more & see what others are saying about it, go to the book’s website at: www.GirlOnTopBook.com.

Career expert and best selling author Nicole Williams is re-defining the world of work—making it glamorous, entertaining and relevant to modern women. Nicole founded WORKS by Nicole Williams in 2006 with the vision of building the first media and content company focused on career development specifically for the highly dynamic and powerful market of young professional women.

Nicole is the author of two bestselling books; Wildly Sophisticated: A Bold New Attitude for Career Success (2004) and Earn What You’re Worth (2005), published by Penguin Group Inc. Her latest book Girl on Top, was recently purchased by Hachette Book Group and will be published October 12, 2009.

For more about Nicole Williams, find her at: www.NicoleWilliams.com.

Last month it was that time of year again: Panel Picker Voting for the Annual South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) conference in Austin, TX. Sound familiar? Check out fellow GIT blogger Kristine Gloria’s post about it here: http://girlsintech.net/2009/08/31/girls-in-tech-at-sxsw-2010/

Each year the public votes online for which proposed panels should make it through to being accepted for the conference. I submitted a panel proposal, titled “Impact of Women in Technology”. Whether the panel makes it through to the final round and becomes an official SXSWi panel or not, I do want to share some of my thoughts on the subject, as well as hear everyone else’s and get some great discussion going on this.

For all you girls out there, was there a female presence that got you excited about tech? Maybe it was a mother, sister, aunt, or friend. Perhaps someone well respected in technology today, like Social Media Strategist Erica O’Grady, or Ad-Village CEO Marissa Louie for example?

If you do have an example like this, what about them or their journey in the tech world inspired or empowered you to pursue your dreams? How important do you think their roles are as pillars of Women in Technology to the future of Women in Tech? For me, two of those people are Tekzilla Co-Host & Gadget Guru Veronica Belmont, & New media producer and star of “The Guild”, Felicia Day. These two women are strong willed, have shown great initiative in their respective spaces, and have become pioneers and tastemakers in the fields of Journalism & New Media.

How have women influenced and changed the face of technology as we know it? This includes anything even remotely tech related, whether it be Journalism, Gaming, PR, Marketing, Social media, & more. Are there any famous cases of companies or brands that have seen great success due to Women in Technology? What issues as a Girl in Tech have you had to face? What issues have other women who’ve made a major impact in technology had to face on their paths to success? What would you tell younger or newer women entering the tech space to help them overcome these hurdles and encourage growth of the amount of women in the tech field?

Why are women in tech important to you, or the Tech Space in general?
I hope this post serves as some great food for thought, & would love to hear everyone’s thoughts and discussion (preferably in the comments below) about this!

Thanks!

Catherine Kaputa, author of The Female Brand: Using the Female Mindset to Succeed in Business, has some great tips about how to maximize your strengths as a woman in business. She urges women to “stop trying to act like men in the workplace” and instead to utilize our innate strong points at every opportunity. She lists 5 business-savvy aptitudes that women tend to have in abundance.

Aptitude # 1: Social Perception.
Aptitude # 2: People Power.
Aptitude # 3: Communication Agility.
Aptitude # 4: Vibrant Visual Identity.
Aptitude # 5: Leadership that Includes and Empowers.

“Such a leadership style will result in loyal, committed, hardworking colleagues and employees and will give you a distinct advantage and reputation as a problem solver.”

Her tips especially apply to leaders of technical teams, where close collaboration, tight deadlines, and frustrating specification changes can create major interpersonal tension.

Read more details on her blog.

August 28, 2009
7:00 pm	to	9:00 pm

We are gearing up for tonight’s ‘The Road to Development: Women Leading the Charge‘ panel and in addition the Santa Cruz Chapter of Girls in Tech is excited to announce our August event:

New Media: Who is Today’s Modern Woman?

Please join us in welcoming a few of the women who are shaping the way we are seen in the media today.

This event will be a panel on how new media is painting the modern woman. The panel will be a great opportunity to share experiences and inform others of what it’s like being a female in the new media world.

Speakers for this months event include:

*Eileen Rivera, Revision 3

*Neha Tiwari, Neha Tiwari Pvt. Ltd. & Rad on the Web

*Irina Slutsky, Geek Entertainment TV

*Sarah Austin, Pop17

*Kirsten Sanford, TWIS – This Week in Science

Mary Duan, Reporter for the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, will be moderating the panel.

The event will be held on Friday, August 28th from 7 – 9 PM at NextSpace.

Please RSVP here: http://git.eventbrite.com

In reading all of the blogs that have been posted about women’s meager presence at the top of corporate organizations, I was compelled to follow through with a conversation my daughter and I had: The deterioration of the traditional communal Greek society as so many American self-centric views permeate the television channels here.

Though I am currently living in Greece, about fifteen years ago I moved to Cyprus for two years. There, I observed the ironic strength that women had in a segregated society:

1. Women sitting in the back of the church—economic class did not matter
2. Women being relegated to the kitchen after dinner so the men could sit back and relax
3. Women being required to hang the clothes out

Things that seemed awful from a capitalist woman’s perspective became an eye-opener as to why we American women lack so much power in the present structure of corporate organizations. We have been taught to go it alone. The suburban mentality prevails. The female collective has been discouraged and looked down upon in many instances. We compete with our female counterparts as capitalism dictates, but in doing so we have lost our golden rod. Whereas the Greek Cypriot women, as a collective, helped each other hang out their clothes, their underwear; they chatted in the kitchen about great ideas, recipes and best practice cooking techniques. They finished their work as a collective and had time for their children. That was power. That was their golden rod, because they controlled the food quality, health and hygiene quality and believe it or not, at the back of the church, they were the observers of everything—which speaks to the issue of minimizing community crime—they learned behaviors and kept the community in check. Upon leaving Cyprus, I never felt sorry for women of tradition again. I, instead, learned to respect their often silent, but collective power.

Fast forward, and all I can say is that online organizations like GIT seem to have arisen out of our need to bond, and like the traditional kitchen, our chatting place can become a place that creates recipes of change that can wield power. Then, we might actually see the presence of more women at the top of F500 companies—that are founded by women!

July 28, 2009
7:00 pm	to	9:00 pm

The Santa Cruz Chapter of Girls in Tech is proud to announce our next event:

The Road to Development: Women Leading the Charge

Join us for a panel of female developers, an evening of networking and refreshments!

We are bringing together a few women in the software development community who come from different backgrounds to discuss how they found themselves to be women in development, why they love what they do, barriers they have broken, etc.

The speakers for this event include:
*Margaret Rosas, Founder & Chief Strategist at Quiddities Dev, Inc
*Lila Tretikov, CIO at SugarCRM
*Lynn LaVallee, Front End Engineer at Outspark
*Andrea Mangini, Senior Experience Design Lead, Adobe Creative Suites & Web Services
*Dietlind L Gerloff, PhD, Asst Prof Biomolecular Engineering, UCSC School of Engineering

The event will be held from 7 – 9 PM on Tuesday, July 28th at NextSpace.

Please RSVP here: http://gitsc.eventbrite.com/

This is a guest blog post by Boston member Tyler Putterman.  Tyler is currently working for Other Side Group, a social media and marketing strategy consulting firm located in Boston. Her full bio can be found here.

As women, we are powerful figures. Not only have we infiltrated the industries previously dominated by men, we are influencing and advancing technology. Everyday women are making strides, breaking records, and accomplishing even more than before.  We are constantly pushing forward, but take a look back and see how women have influenced technology in the past.

In a modern society where gender barriers are being crossed daily, we tend to think of items such as vacuum cleaners, washing machines and dishwashers as icons of domesticity.  Many of us, myself included, curse the very sight of the dreaded Hoover. However, it was women who inspired the advancements of such technologies.

One of the first vacuum brands, Bissell, was taken over by Anna Bissell after her husband passed away, and become one of the most powerful business women of that time. Even the automatic dishwasher was invented by a woman who wanted a machine that could wash faster without chipping the dishes.

With these technologies, women were able to have leisure time, and develop hobbies, skills, and a social network. The very vacuum you shun is also in a sense a symbol of advancement for women. Now, these technological advancements don’t affect just women, as we assume many roles beyond housekeeper, but they were influenced by women in a time when it was considered the woman’s responsibility to maintain house.

Even the job types are changing to accommodate the change lives of women. There are many jobs that allow telecommuting, so a woman can still have a career while maintaining the traditional nuclear family, if so desired. Now, especially in the communication age with knowledge and advice at our fingertips, we are more informed and empowered. Instead of consulting others, we have the ability to research and gain knowledge for ourselves. We can learn from credible sources, we can hear opinions, and even get professional feedback.

As we continue to shape the future of technology, we can look back on how women have impacted technology and advancement in the past. It would be a far stretch now to say that the vacuum is the key to women’s equality, because eventually the advancements become obsolete, and we work towards something else.