Identity Woman

Independent Advocate for the Rights and Dignity of our Digital Selves

She's Geeky

20th She's Geeky!!! Jan 29-30th Mountain View

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I’m super excited about the 20th She’s Geeky Unconference coming up January 29th and 30th in Mountain View.
I’m going to be facilitating. So it will be extra fun.
To celebrate our 20th She’s Geeky we are offering a special 20% off ticket price register with the dicount code: MYGIFT20. Can’t commit to two days? The MYGIFT20 code is also valid for one-day registrations. To register go to www.shesgeeky.org.
Here is a flyer for you to print out for your office.
SGBA_2016_Flyer_010616

About She’s Geeky:
Inspiring each other, creating vital networks, and sharing skills are the backbone of our events. Without places to re-energize and networks that support them, women who have done the hard work of developing their skills to work in STEM may drop out after just a few years in their eld. We want to improve the situation of women in STEM elds, increase retention rates, and create a place for women to discuss the topics that are meaningful to them.
Women attending She’s Geeky events nd the inspiration necessary to continue on STEM career paths because they are given the opportunity to present their work, discuss critical issues and build peer networks for support.
We work with and promote existing activities and organizations in regions around the country.
She’s Geeky is a neutral event that supports connection between different geeky cultures by using a format where the agenda is created live at the event by the women in attendance.
It’s more fun with a friend! Please invite your friends who might enjoy She’s Geeky!
Email info@shesgeeky.org for more info on:
• Student and Teacher Discount.
• A limited number of volunteer opportunities are available.
• Sponsorships! Sponsors are eligible for free and discounted tickets. • Group Buys! Got ten or more women who want to attend?

Grace Hopper Celebration and Presentation – Ethical Market Models.

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In mid-October I had the opportunity to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing for the first time.
Here is a link to the paper that I presented – MarketModels-GHC Here are the slides

I also had the pleasure of working on a Birds of a Feather Session with Roshi from Google – she works on their identity team and was the one who asked me work on the session with her along with encouraging me submit a proposal for a lighting talk.
We had a great discussion about the internet of things and considering various ideas about what internet of things things…we might invent and how we might identify ourselves to them.
The conference is really a giant job fair for undergaduate women CS majors. There is not a lot there for mid-career women, all of the ones I spoke to felt this way.  I realize if I was a young woman….at a CS department where most everyone is a man.  Attending this event would make me feel like the whole world opened up…and anything was possible.
The event made me more committed to putting energy into helping She’s Geeky expand and serve more cities and more women and particularly those who are at high risk of leaving the industry – those who have been in the industry for around 10 years.

She's Geeky Seattle: April 26-27

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She’s Geeky is coming to Seattle in April 26-27.

She’s Geeky Logo

I will be heading up to facilitate and am very excited to finally have this event coming to the North West.
She’s Geeky is a kind of magical event where women geeks of all kinds, gaming geeks, linux geeks, fandom geeks, crafting geeks, beekeeping geeks, drupal geeks, raspberry pi geeks, Arduino geeks, geeks in training, come together and hang out learning from each other.
Maybe we can even get some women from my native Vancouver to come down. 🙂

NSTIC and She's Geeky

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I took the opportunity of the women’s technology conference I run (She’s Geeky) to host sessions about NSTIC.  This diagram was drawn.  It articulates the issue of attention and participation based on those in industry and those not “in” industry.

 

Gender Matters in CS & Tech & The World

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I don’t need to say much. This graphic from the New York Times explains it simply  Computer Science and Engineering are getting worse for women and have been for 10 years. These industries are where law and medicine were in the 50’s and 60’s.  I share this fact with people from other industries and they look at me funny and say “really” – YES really. They have believed the myth that technology is a a meritocracy and really progressive.

[Read more…] about Gender Matters in CS & Tech & The World

She’s Geeky – January 29-31

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SGLogo

She’s Geeky: Connecting Women in Tech
Returning to the Bay Area January 29, 30 & 31, 2010
@ the Computer History Museum in Mountain View
She’s Geeky is just 7 weeks away!   Early Bird Tickets are available for just 2 more weeks until December 20th.
http://shesgeekybayarea3.eventbrite.com/
www.shesgeeky.com
This event is for:
Women Working in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematic Fields.
Women into their gadgets and SciFi Fan’s.
Women students of the sciences, those training to be engineers, aspiring mathematicians and technology professions.
Women who are kernel hackers and all those who aspire to deepen their geekiness by learning how to code the php on their blogs.
Daughters, Nieces and mentees of all of the above
Women who are retired used to work in tech related fields.
What happens?
All the women who attend are invited to create the agenda live the day of the event.
Women can present/share about their area of professional expertise.
Women learn from one another.
Women discuss critical issues affecting them in the digital age.
Women talk about work place and community issues they face.
Women are inspired to follow their passion and believe in their own abilities.
Women find connections and support for their work and vision.
About The Format
She’s Geeky is an unConference (http://www.unconference.net/) where the agenda is created by all participants live the day the event happens.  This format supports peer to peer learning, dialogue about the issues that are top of mind and networking.  In this women’s only environment attendees have the opportunity to see their contribution to their field in a new light and gain confidence to step forward in their lives and careers.
Click here (http://shesgeeky.org/sg/2009/11/twitter-highlights-from-shes-geeky-dc/) for a dip into the Twitter Stream from the November 13 & 14, 2009, sold out, Washington, DC She’s Geeky Event to get a sense of the experience from those who attended!  Or to read answers to the end of day question: ‘As a result of today…’ click here. (http://www.shesgeeky.org/wiki/Sg2009dc:Results)
About She’s Geeky
She’s Geeky convenes to inspire women for the future, providing a gathering space to create enduring communities that foster collaboration and innovation, while promoting initiative and leadership among women tech professionals. Beginning with its resoundingly successful 2007 unConference in Silicon Valley, She’s Geeky attracts women from a broad spectrum of technological specialties, diverse social groups, generations, and levels of expertise. The inclusive quality of She’s Geeky events promotes discussion, furthers cooperation, and encourages learning. She’s Geeky advances systemic change in tech culture by disseminating effective practices to address the challenges of women working in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
She’s Geeky isn’t a “women in tech group” and we don’t have chapters around the country. We are an unConference event that works to connect and promote existing tech groups. Currently  we work with DevChix, LinuxChix, Women 2.0, Girls in Tech, Women Who Tech, Digital Sistas, Girl Geek Dinners, Gaming Angels, the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology.

She’s Geeky: THE UNCONFERENCE Connecting Women in Tech is  returning to the Bay Area January 29, 30 & 31, 2010  @ the Computer History Museum in Mountain View
Early Bird Tickets are available until Friday December 20th.
This event is for:

  • Women Working in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematic Fields.
  • Women into their gadgets and SciFi Fan’s.
  • Women students of the sciences, those training to be engineers, aspiring mathematicians and technology professions.
  • Women who are kernel hackers and all those who aspire to deepen their geekiness by learning how to code the php on their blogs.
  • Daughters, Nieces and mentees of all of the above
  • Women who are retired used to work in tech related fields.

What happens?

  • All the women who attend are invited to create the agenda live the day of the event.
  • Women can present/share about their area of professional expertise.
  • Women learn from one another.
  • Women discuss critical issues affecting them in the digital age.
  • Women talk about work place and community issues they face.
  • Women are inspired to follow their passion and believe in their own abilities.
  • Women find connections and support for their work and vision.

About The Format:
She’s Geeky is an unConference where the agenda is created by all participants live the day the event happens.  This format supports peer to peer learning, dialogue about the issues that are top of mind and networking.  In this women’s only environment attendees have the opportunity to see their contribution to their field in a new light and gain confidence to step forward in their lives and careers.  You can see proposed topics on our wiki.
See a dip into the Twitter Stream from the November 13 & 14, 2009, sold out, Washington, DC  event to get a sense of the experience from those who attended!  Or to read answers to the end of day question: ‘As a result of today…’ click here.
About She’s Geeky:
She’s Geeky convenes to inspire women for the future, providing a gathering space to create enduring communities that foster collaboration and innovation, while promoting initiative and leadership among women tech professionals. Beginning with its resoundingly successful 2007 unConference in Silicon Valley, She’s Geeky attracts women from a broad spectrum of technological specialties, diverse social groups, generations, and levels of expertise. The inclusive quality of She’s Geeky events promotes discussion, furthers cooperation, and encourages learning. She’s Geeky advances systemic change in tech culture by disseminating effective practices to address the challenges of women working in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
If you are a guy please let your women colleagues know about the event. The event is for women only – we have thought a lot about this choice and why we made it – it is decidedly not about be being “anti-male” rather much of it is focused on creating a safe space for women who are geeky who have been shy to express themselves. If this makes you feel uncomfortable you can read more about this nuance and what we are about here.
We have sponsorships available at the community level, individuals and small companies and corporate levels.
We have some cool banners up on our website too.
You can find us on twitter @shesgeeky
You can contact us – info@shesgeeky.org

its that SXSW picking time of year

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200908181123.jpg

This year there are 2200 panels submitted for 300 slots. It is great they are going with community generated ideas for the conference. It is also hard to tell what will be happening in our fast moving industry 7 months from now. PLEASE go to SXSW create an account and then vote for these two 🙂

I put a lot of thought in to what to put forward this year knowing it would be 9 months out. One of the trends that is just starting to emerge is identity verification – my hunch is that by March this will be a topic getting a lot of attention and worth exploring at SXSW.

Who are you? Identity trends on the Social Web.

“On the Internet Nobody Knows You’re a Dog” Is this famous New Yorker cartoon still true? Twitter is doing verified accounts. Facebook claims everyone using their “real name” gives strong social validation ‘proof’. Equifax is validating age with information cards (digital tokens). We will explore the current trends and their implications for the future.

  1. What is identity?
  2. Why are people doing identity validation?
  3. Who is doing identity validation?
  4. Why are websites seeking people who have had their identities validated?
  5. Is identity validation improving the web?
  6. What are the current open standards in this space?
  7. Are approaches by men and women different about idnetity presentation and validation?
  8. What kinds of businesses are requiring online identity validation for customers?
  9. Is identity validation going to squish “free speech”?
  10. How is this trend changing the web?

With my She’s Geeky hat on: What Guys are Doing to Get More Girls in Tech!

The point of this is to get beyond the women say there are issues in the field and guys say there isn’t – to have guys who know there is an issue and are proactively doing constructive stuff to address it.

Many tech fields have a low percentage of women. If you are a guy do you wonder what you can do about it? Learn about successful strategies and proactive approaches for supporting women you work with and participate in community with. We will even cover some well-intentioned efforts that have gone awry.

  1. How many women by percentage participate in different technical fields?
  2. Why does it matter that they are underrepresented in these fields?
  3. What are the cultural norms that men and women have about performance and self-promotion?
  4. What is Male Programmer Privilege?
  5. What can a guy do who has a sister that is math/science inclined but being steered away from the field?
  6. How have the men on the panel improved things in their workplaces?
  7. How have the men on the panel addressed the challenges that arise in open communities? (that is where you don’t have a boss that fires people for inappropriate behavior/comments)
  8. What are the qualities of a workplace that is friendly for women?
  9. How to go beyond tokenism in workplaces, communities and conferences?
  10. How to encourage women more?

Other interesting Preso/panels covering Identity topics:

The Politics & Economics of Identity Put forward by my friend Liza Sabature of Culture Kitchen and the Daily Gotham Identity Politics” has always been left to the realm of feminist, civil rights activists, aka “minority politics”. This panel will explore the social and political ramifications of the business of identity and reputation. We will talk about the good, the bad and the ugly and what social entrepreneurs, businesses and digital activists are doing to impact this new economy.

  1. What is identity?
  2. What is reputation?
  3. What is privacy?
  4. How have big business historical monetized privacy?
  5. How social media works on identity and reputation?
  6. Online surveillance in the US : DMCA, FISA, Patriot Act
  7. Facebook BEACON : a study on how not to spy on people for fun and profit
  8. Google Adsense or Spysense?
  9. What are Vendor-Relationship Management systems?
  10. Will we need “Identity Management Systems” instead of VRMs?

Distributed Identity: API’s of the Semantic Web Without much conscious thought, most of us have built identities across the web. We fill in profiles, upload photos, videos, reviews and bookmarks. This session will explore the practical use of Social Graph API and YQL to build new types of user experience combining identity discovery and data portability.

Online Gatekeeping: Who Died and Made You King? by Liz Burr As the web becomes more open via social networks, we’re adopting new rules of communication. But who creates these rules? How much does class, race and gender figure into social media policing? We’ll discuss how identity affects social networks, as well as look at how online communities police themselves as participation expands.

  1. Which groups are in control of what is worth sharing via social media?
  2. Are the under-25 community using social media differently?
  3. How do we recognize and confront social media ‘gatekeepers’?
  4. Is our behavior in online communities merely a reflection of offline stereotypes and experiences?
  5. What is the impact of the amplification of social stereotypes online on under-represented groups?
  6. How do we integrate previously, under-represented groups into this more social world?
  7. Is there really such a thing as a “digital ghetto”? If so, is it our responsiblity to combat it?

OpenID: Identity is the platform is put forward by Chis Messina.
I have to say it is really great to have this be put forward so plainly and simply – to “get religion” about user-centric tdentity and its central role in shaping the fugure the social web.

Ignore the hype over social networking platforms and web OS’s! The platform of the social web is identity. Facebook and Twitter Connect are just the beginning of the era of user-centric identity. I’ll go beyond the basics of OpenID and learn how to effectively incorporate internet identity into your apps.

Your Online Identity After Death and Digital Wills

If you died tomorrow, would someone take care of your internet accounts? How do you tell subscribers the blogger has died? Every day people die and no one can access their email. Let’s explore what can be done to manage your online identity after you pass on.

  1. What usually happens to email accounts when a person dies? Policies for Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and AOL
  2. What about WordPress.com and Blogger for digital policies concerning the death of a blogger?
  3. Do You have a digital will setup?
  4. Products and services to manage digital wills, electronic correspondence after death and auto replies.
  5. Grief, “You Have Mail” and online memorial services.
  6. Who owns blog content after the death of a blogger?
  7. How to calculate the worth of your website or blog.
  8. How can you manage your online accounts and passwords for easy access after you pass?
  9. What are some recent legal examples of online account ownership disagreements?
  10. How to keep your passwords safe?

How to Benefit from 1-Click Identity Providers by Luke Shepard from Facebook.

Sites across the Web are opening up to support open identity platforms, such as OpenID. How can companies at scale and those with large user bases successfully work with open standards including OpenID, Activity Streams and new social markup language specs? Can companies survive the challenges of incorporating OpenID into their websites?

  1. Are there any success stories with OpenID?
  2. What does the OpenID user experience look like?
  3. Who has implemented OpenID?
  4. What have been some of the failures of OpenID?
  5. What is OpenID?
  6. What are the user benefits of OpenID?
  7. How can websites educate users about open protocols?
  8. What are the privacy concerns around OpenID?
  9. What kind of user data is made available to sites when they implement OpenID?
  10. What will it take for OpenID to become mainstream?

Crime Scene: Digital Identity Theft


SXSW – Hula Hut edition of Social Web TV

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Lots has happened here at SXSW – The previous post is what i put up on my blog was what we posted on the screen during the OpenID – Oauth and the Enterprise session. hash tag #sxswid
The next session that afternoon in the same room on Open Spec development was very entertaining and I will be writing about it more this week. Hash tag #sxswos
Yesterday after the She’s Geeky Lunch I headed out to the Hula Hut for the OpenID lunch – I couldn’t help but noticing when I arrived that i was the only woman at the table 🙂 – it is one of the reasons I gave my blog its name – because in 2005 after working in the user-centric identity field for a year of going to meetings with the guys working on it I was the only woman I ever saw at a meeting about the topic.
Following that I hung out on the deck of the Hula Hut and talked with Dave Morin, David Recordon, Chris Messina, Josh Elman, Joseph Smarr, John McCrae the Gowally guy and others who were in and out.
While there Josh and I started talking about one of the things I blogged about the Facebook post I did from Day one of SXSW.

I am not sure if Facebook understands that having people use their “Real Names” is not actually what creates authenticity – the issue has been on the web is not “who you are in real life” but the inability to have online persona’s that are persistent over time and context. The investment into these and the ability to have them be useful has not been solved until recently.

It was decided this would be a good topic for Social Web TV so we recorded it on the spot.

I also got to invite folks to the Internet Identity Workshop happening May 18-20th in Mountain View.

Identity Panel & Lunch at SXSW

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I am really excited to be heading to Austin tomorrow for SXSW Interactive. After attending for 2 years in a row I didn’t attend last year and watched as all the tweets went by – wishing I was there.
I am facilitating a panel on Sunday morning 11:30 – it should be a lively one. OpenID, Oauth, Data Portability and the Enterprise.
It will be moderated by me, Identity Woman and include these find panelists, Bob Blakely The Burton Group, Danny Kolke Etelos, Inc., Joseph Smarr Chief Platform Architect, Plaxo Inc

The debate over identity, data and authentication is gaining ground in the social networking world. The more difficult discussion regarding enterprises and Web 2.0 has yet to start. Businesses realize that they must protect the data of their company, employees and customers. Join brave leaders from several Web Application companies that are beginning the discussion, “Are OpenID and OAuth good for the enterprise?”

Following there will be a Lunch for all those who want to continue the conversation – you can RSVP here.
There is a Project VRM Breakfast on Saturday morning (we figured that at least that morning people would be able/willing to get up early).
Monday for lunch I am inviting women interested in learning more about She’s Geeky to get together.
I will be tweeting away – and this is a good way to find me while I am there just DM me.
I will do some schedule browsing and post sessions related to identity tomorrow.

She's Geeky #4 is happening in Northern Virginia (DC Area)

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She's Geeky
I am really pleased to announce that She’s Geeky #4 is happening in Northern Virginia (DC Area) Saturday April 18th. Registration is Open.
It is at LMI’s facilities in McLean (they donated the space). There is one drawback – it isn’t on a metro 🙁 We have a wiki up to help people coordinate rides. We plan to have an event in DC proper (on a metro line) before the end of the year (likely many months from now if not until the fall). By holding events both in and outside the city, we hope to bridge the gap between the two tech communities.
She’s Geeky in Mountain View covered a really diverse range of toipcs all
* from beekeeping to gunshot detection
* from twitter use to hardware hacking
* from personal finance to government 2.O
* from tweeking wordpress to advanced coding in ruby
I expect the same fantastic range in DC with more women from fields that we have less of in the Bay Area – defense, intelligence, aerospace, nptech, government 2.0.
We are actively looking for sponsors and accepting donations so that we can give discount scholarships to students and unemployed women.

She's Geeky end of January

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I didn’t get that much of a vacation between christmas and New Years because I was working on She’s Geeky. We are doing it a gain the women’s technology conference – this year I think we have better timing January 30-31 (not being a week off from the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing).
We had a lot of fun last year and I think this year we will have even more. The Computer History Museum is going to show us a movie they have about Ada Lovelace (the first programmer).
So why this conference? A few reasons:
When the first BlogHer came a long I was soooo excited because I thought it was going to be all girl geeks – cause all the bloggers I knew worked in technology. Well, it wasn’t it was full of wonderful women but they were, fashion models, and horse back riders, and cooks and just lots of things but no where near a majority of them were geeky women.
I love the identity community. I would say some of my best friends are among you. At the same there are very few women, so few I can almost count them on two hands. This is ok, it isn’t going to change and I am not complaining. I did think about once in a blue moon I thought it would be a lot of fun to hang out with just women working in techie fields and learn about what they do. When you get out into more specialized and niche areas the number of women seems to go down. Last year (fall 2007) a woman who works in firmware came to the conference who thought she knew all the women who worked in her industry – turns out she met two more at the event. These new contacts have been really important to her. Supporting women finding women working in or in near by fields is one of the reasons for this conference.
Eugene Kim wrote a great post last year about She’s Geeky and the patterns that it embodies for collaboration.
Last year we had women arrive after reading the article that was in the SJ Mercury News who were retired. This year we hope to reach more of these women out reaching via the Computer History Museum. It was amazing to meet these women and hear their stories.
We are working with almost all the different women in technology groups to spread the word – Women 2.0, Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners, Gaming Angels, LinuxChix, DevChix, Anita Borg Institute….The number of them is amazing – She’s Geeky is NOT a women in technology organization – we are just an event an unconference for peer to peer learning amongst women from a whole range of technology communities.
WE have a ton of links for different useful things about the event – today and tomorrow Tues and Wednesday are our blogging days so if you feel inspired these are the days post about it happening :).
Video from last year‘s event.
In physical paper form Posters 8.5×11 & Post Cards
Twitter http://www.twitter.com/Shesgeeky
Upcoming Yahoo!
Facebook Group
LinkedIn Group
Links to images for blog posting.
Little Rectangle – http://www.kaliyasblogs.net/shesgeeky/SGlittle.jpg
Big Bubble color – http://www.kaliyasblogs.net/shesgeeky/forwebcolor.jpg
Big Bublbe black and white – http://www.kaliyasblogs.net/shesgeeky/ShesGeekyforweb.jpg

Gearing up for She's Geeky NYC

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Side Bar for the She's Geeky Conferences

It is that She’s Geeky time of year again.
This time we are having a conference on the East Coast Dec 5-7
We are having a full day of unconference fun on Dec 6th with a cocktail party the evening before and a bonus day of nerding out on Sunday the 7th. We have a Bailout Program too 🙂
We will have a 2.5 day conference Thursday to Saturday January 29-31 in Mounatain View.

She's Geeky is Going Great

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So we are in the thick of She’s Geeky a women’s tech (un)conference. Today was ‘pre-programmed’ with a range of great sessions. Tomorrow is going to be the Open Space day. We have a range of amazing good sessions that are proposed and more will emerge tomorrow.
We have many sponsors to thank for making this day a reality.
We also had a great travel/scholarship sponsorship – from MyStrands that paid for Beth Kanter, Liza Sabater, and Elizabeth Perry to be here.
THANK YOU!!!!
Foundation Sponsors:
Google
Microsoft

MyStrands
Yahoo!
 
Supporting Sponsors:
Live World
Plaxo

meebo
Mozilla
 
Nonprofit Organizations:
NTEN: Nonprofit Technology Network
MobileActive.org
Compumentor / TechSoup
Planetwork
 
Startups and Consultancies:
Atlassian
Purple Tornado
Citizen Agency
Vidoop
Blue Oxen Associates
Quiddities
box.net
 
Covered Communications
Ustream
WooMeOver
Veodia
Vogele and Associates
Foldier
 
Media Sponsors:
DevChix
LinuxChix
Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
DigitalWoman
WebGrrls
Society of Women Engineers
SXSW
Skirt

She's Geeky: An Women's Tech (un)conference

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I am producing another unconference this fall. It is for women working in technology called She’s Geeky. It is October 22-23 in Mountain View at the Computer History Museum.

I would encourage you all to let women you know in tech know about the event either via e-mail or blogging.
I am working with a great organizing team including Mary Hodder from Dabble, Susan Mernit from Yahoo!, Julia French from Covered Communications, Deb Roby a BlogHer Blogger, Melanie Swan, Heather Vesent from the Purple Tornado and Laurie Rae.
We have three simple goals with the event.

  • Exchange skills and learning from women from diverse fields of technology.
  • Discuss topics about women and technology.
  • Connect the diverse range of women in technology, computing, entrepreneurship, funding, hardware, open source, nonprofit and any other technical geeky fields.

What is the value of coming? It should be a great networking opportunity to meet other interesting women who you or your company might do business with. In this format you will get to learn more then you would just having interesting meetings in a hallway like you do at typical conferences that cost a lot more.
We have aimed to make it affordable and accessible for women costing $125 (until Sept 30). We have some great sponsors so far to help make up the difference Google, The Nonprofit Technology Network, Atlassian, Purple Tornado, Citizen Agency and are actively looking for other sponsors who would like to contribute to the event. Please contact me if you are interested.
It is an event where women can get exposed to new and different skills in industry niches they don’t normally work in. The unconference format is a perfect format to build community and relationships across niches. – I talked to a developer yesterday who was one of 12 women developers out of 600 people attending Ruby Conf. It can be lonely in one little niche – reaching out to women who share technical passion but are not in your niche is a needed thing.
I love the Identity Community and have lots of friends here. There are also not that many women in our little field. I have been really lucky to hang out in a few tech niches (Web 2.0, Open Source, NonProfit Tech) I noticed that there was often very little overlap between the people in these communities so part of the goal is to mix between niches and hopefully create some new friendship and business opportunities.
I personally have had very few ‘issues’ in being a women working in the industry – in fact it has been great. I also have been hanging out on several women in technology mailing lists and I feel really lucky to be in a community with a healthy culture that is welcoming and encouraging. This is not always the case.
With this event we have an opportunity with an all women’s space to dive deeper into the issues arising for women working in this field. The timing is opportune on the heals of the O’Reilly Women in Technology series that is running this month. There is a lot of intense commenting following those articles regarding the issues raised. In open space we do the same thing but face-to-face. My article was posted today: Process Geekiness: The Role of Face-to-Face Collaboration in Thriving Tech Communities

There is another fact about women in technology that inspired me to pull this event together. Many women who work in technology do so ‘accidently’ and therefore don’t have formal training in the sector – creating opportunities for next steps to deepen knowledge and skills on a career path is especially important. So the skill sharing is an opportunity for us accidental tech workers to learn something new and broaden horizons for next steps on a career path is another goal for She’s Geeky.
You can’t just show up and present anywhere – you can at She’s Geeky. At regular conferences and the other women in tech programs have formal themes, committees and selection processes. This is a great opportunity to show up and try something out.
If you are a women working in tech please join us if you can.