Topics not usually heard at a tech conference – Courage and Global Warming

This morning at WITI Cindy Solomon gave a keynote on courage – what it is and how to bring it into your work and life. It was quite introspective not a typical talk at any of the tech conferences I go to.
At lunch we had a talk about climate change – we got the science talk from a ‘government scientist’ this was really boring since Al Gore did the best PPT ever on the topic and made it a movie. I didn’t need to have a science lecture. It was very refreshing though to have this topic raised. I have never heard it spoken about at a tech conference (except for Planetwork). If other tech conferences could learn something from WITI is that topics related to inner work – like self-reflection, personal development and leadership and that topics related to the outer world like Climate Change have a place in the mix of topics.
You know I think combining these two would be a great theme for the tech industry to consider – “Courage to face Global Warming” Anyways.
At lunch I had a good conversation with Sumi Panchal from San Jose. She shared with me some of the ‘origin stories’ of WITI. This information helped me understand way more about what this whole scene was about. It reminds me of the importance of story telling for organizational culture formation and the transference.
WITI was founded in 1989 and in part to support women who were working in regular professions, medical, dentel, legal etc. who had no training really in computers but now found them coming into their work place. WITI was a place to go and learn about them.