Today is the first day of the problogger.net 31 days to a better blog project.
When I started this blog a year ago this week I as unsure of what it would become. I knew I wanted to write about women in business, technology and about my experiences as an online MBA student. So far I have been pretty scattered in my writing. I don’t mind since I’m having fun and seem to be attracting readers. However it’s always good to set down some roots and be focused on whoever may be reading this.
I started this blog in order to talk about technology as it pertains to women, especially in the relam of management and information technology. My goal is to inform as well as foster discussion between IT professionals that are female and those that are aiming to become IT professionals.
Did you know that there are less women in IT than there were ten years ago? Can you belive that it’s nearly ten hers now since the dot com bubble busted? What happened to all of those women? Why am I only one of a handful of female technologists in my company? Are you?
I would like to be able to help more women get into technology. The best way for me to do that is to talk about my own experiences and my own love of what I do.
When I started working as a technologist it was just a job. Now when look back at the past 7 years I see how much I learned about business and how companies need IT in order to build and grow there business. I do have a cheesy passion for what I do even if it’s not there every day. At some point my job stopped being a job and started being a career and here I am today.
For more about what it is I do I will be updating my profile page.
We all have a passion for something and if you are a girl geek or tech diva yourself I would love to hear from you.
The Tech Diva: leading women back to IT.
RSS Feed
7 Comments
Monday, April 6, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Great post! I think a lot of women have turned to other careers in science over the last 7-10 years, such as medicine and public health. Friends in med school tell me that now over 50% of their incoming class was female!
I am one of those geeky girls who loves just about everything, so I have yet to find that ONE thing that makes me spin in my office chair and go weeeeeeeee! But, I’m waiting for that ah-ha moment!
Tuesday, April 7, 2009 at 1:41 am
I hope this project is a success. I for one, would like to see more women involved in tech careers. As the world becomes ever more emeshed in the information economy, tech careers will become ever more important at all levels.
And just on the silly side, it might help some of those arrogant scruffy IT b****ds to get exposed to a little estrogen on a regular basis.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009 at 9:46 am
I’m in technology for over 10 years and witnessed it all as a woman. I believe the office should be diversified, but sometimes women are there own worse enemy.
They don’t support each other like the guys do. We need more mentoring programs for women.
But there are still many barriers to knock down. Especially when people come from different countries/cultures. That has to be addressed also.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009 at 1:01 pm
I love software development, and I’m trying to connect with more women techies. Hi!
I’m trying to think of ways I can help get more women into tech. Here’s what I have so far:
* Be more visible in my tech community (Ruby) – go to meetups, answer questions on mailing lists, speak at conferences, help organize events, introduce myself to any and all women I see while doing these things.
* Have a tech-focused blog. I managed to avoid this for ten years!
* Volunteer to teach programming. There are lots of summer camps and programs for girls that include programming. I’m also thinking about starting a monthly Ruby tutoring night in San Francisco and making it super beginner-friendly.
I’d love to hear your ideas too.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Wow, everyone. Thanks so much for the great feedback. Everyone has such great ideas.
I am going to talk more this week about building a support system and getting out of the “one of the guys” mode that we often have to be in.
Keep the comments coming, I love to hear your ideas!!!
Friday, July 24, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Hi,
I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot lately and this has brought me to your blog. I have been in IT for 20 years, always in hands-on technical roles, and I have long wondered where all the women are, and why so few young women are coming into the technical side of the business. At the IT services company where I work as a consultant all the office admin staff are female, but of the 100+ consultants there is me and one junior – who I encourage as much as I can and I hope she stays with it!
My theory is that girls (I say girls, because I mean highschool) see how the boys get all obsessed about computers, and competitive in that way boys do, and they think “I’m interested, but not *that* interested, so there’s no room for me”.
This saddens me because I believe that I bring something to tech work that is a little different to the guys. I’m only interested in something when I can see a practical application, I keep my focus on what the user/organisation really needs, I am aware of costs, I love a good piece of technology as much as the next geek, but I don’t believe its cleverness justifies it’s implementation – it’s got to be *right* too. I also believe thoroughly in documentation, standards, planning for the future and building stable systems.
I have worked with a few women along the years and I do think that some of these traits are on the female side of the spectrum. So that’s why IT needs women…
But as well as that it’s a great job! In 20 years I’ve lived in 5 different countries and I never have trouble finding a job. A good techie can always find work.
Anyway this turned into a long comment. Keep up the good work!
Thursday, August 6, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Hi Carol,
thanks so much for commenting on this. I agree that our education system limits what young women will be interested in, even today. I know that I was always taught that computers, cars and anything mechanical was for “boys” and everything else was girly. I fought against the norm only because my grandfather worked for Bell Atlantic when we were kids and taught us all how to use the computer. He also noticed that of myself and my two brothers, I was the one who caught on the most. So I was lucky enough to be nurtured into learning more about it. Though most of my learning happened at home until college. High School was still one of those places where boys played with toys and girls chased after them.
Thanks for the encouragement and while I have been on hiatus for a while I will be back soon with more to talk about.
-Erica