BlogHer - Women in Tech: Technically Women - Comments

BlogHer09. Oh, good.

Virginia DeBolt — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:24:57 -0500

I hope to meet you in Chicago. We'll connect!

Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer CE
Web Teacher
First 50 Words

More thanks and yes, going to BlogHer

cathybrooks — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:57:43 -0500

Another shout-out of thanks from one more of the Technically Women posse. Thanks for the encouragement and support, Virginia! I'll be going to BlogHer (wouldn't miss it!) and hope we'll have a chance to meet!

Cathy

"It is better to die standing, than to live on your knees." -- Dolores Ibarruri

Cathy Brooks
Raconteur and genetically-inclined connector
415-250-2382

Greetings, Technically Women!

Kate_OL_Team — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:35:10 -0500

Excited to explore your site! Will you be joining us at BlogHer in Chicago later this month? We at Office Live are sponsoring the “MicroSpa” in the Missouri. You’ll have to come check it out! We’ll have a makeup artist, hand massage and two back massage techs on hand, tech support, snacks, demo stations, WiFi and places to relax/unwind/blog.

In the meantime, take a look at Office Live WorkSpace for an awesome tool that offers users the ability to create, save, access, and share documents and files online for free (you get 5GB of free storage!).

Hope Office Live will see you there!

Cheers,

Kate

MSFT Office Live Outreach Team

www.workspace.officelive.com

www.facebook.com/officelive

I don't want to get

Virginia DeBolt — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:29:33 -0500

into one of those who's geekier things here; I'm trying to call attention and offer support to a group of women who self-identify as interested in tech (and even more, in business.) Women in Tech is one of my recurring topics on BlogHer. From reading the posts that are up on the site now, I'd say they have something to offer.

Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer CE
Web Teacher
First 50 Words

Oh, thanks for the

Virginia DeBolt — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:28:57 -0500

correction. I saw posts going back 3 months and assumed I only heard about you recently. But I must have heard about you recently because you just launched!

Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer CE
Web Teacher
First 50 Words

Thanks for the post, Virginia

ITSinsider — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:56:12 -0500

Slight correction, though. We just launched last Tuesday, not 3 months ago. :-) Appreciate the support.

Susan Scrupski

Woman, Mom, Grandma, ex-wife, peace-lover, freedom lover, writer

Dear Muddslide:

ITSinsider — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:41:55 -0500

Not sure why one of our founding members, Sandy Kemsley, is not listed on our site yet, but you can find her blogging here: http://bit.ly/1fzVir. I will pit Sandy and Anne against any SV boywonder.

The goal of technicallywomen.com is to highlight
issues our gender (assuming you're on our team) is subjected to in a field predominantly saturated with male influence.

The intersection of geek street cred and female participation in the "soft lines' of the business (i.e., marketing, HR) is something we hope to leverage to raise awareness for the particular challenges we face.
Hope you'll join us.

Susan Scrupski

Woman, Mom, Grandma, ex-wife, peace-lover, freedom lover, writer

First impression of "Technically Women" ...

muddslide — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:03:59 -0500

Another perspective - a more jaundiced one.

These are wonderfully accomplished women but hardly a rounded or representative group of women *in* technology. Is not the choice of "technically" for the blog name not a touch of spin, to invoke an association with technology (still a guy's
world in 2009 - see any org chart or the hagiographic profiles of the latest boy wonder)?

Naturally these gals all list their "Twitter names" first instead of job titles. They choose to represent the social networking movement (and fledgling industry) - an industry that provides a powerful channel for political organizing, current events reporting and customer engagement, but one that's still dominated by PR and marketing folks and that struggles to find a business model.

From my perspective in Silicon Valley, where my long (for SV) career means I've ridden successive waves of "this is the grestest thing known to man" (applications, internet, the enterprise, now Twitter)... anyone who creates content that is helpful, insightful or constructive deserves a hearing. Go forth...Technically Women!

But let's be real - these gals are missing a "geek quotient". Women product managers, programmers, VPs of Engineering, et al who are/have been "in" - as opposed to "associated with" - technology will look elsewhere for thought leadership.

Women in Tech: Technically Women

Virginia DeBolt — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 09:39:35 -0500

Welcome Technically Women into the world of women in tech. Technically Women is a fairly new site, organized by an international group of business women who intend to examine the way technology is changing the world of business.

I want to give you a mini-profile of the business women involved in the site. Ten women create the core of Technically Women. When I looked at their About page, the first thing I noticed was that each woman gave her Twitter info first in her profile. Not a job title, not a URL to her business site: a Twitter link. I find that a fascinating clue to what this powerhouse group of women will do to market themselves and their website.

Let's take a quick look at each of the women who make up Technically Women.

First is Cathy Brooks (@CathyBrooks). Cathy runs a site called Other Than That. She's a journalist who writes in places like Bitch Buzz and The Huffington Post. She's worked with Guidewire Group and helped develop the LeWeb3 Conference.

Laura Fitton (@Pistachio) is a Twitter maven who I've written about before and who may already be familiar to BlogHer readers. Her business site is Pistachio Consulting. She's been writing a book called Twitter for Dummies, which looks like it might be ready just about the time BlogHer09 convenes in Chicago. Laura will be speaking at BlogHer09 on a panel called Advanced Social Media, Syndication and Stats.

Maggie Fox (@MaggieFox) is an expert in big business, with experience in working with corporate-sized clients. Her own business, Social Media Group is a large company. She's the CEO and founder. Her past positions include working for New Sun Creative and in broadcasting.

Rachel Happe (@rhappe) moves in the world of enterprise social networking and enterprise software applications. She co-founded a business called The Community Roundtable and writes at The Social Organization. The Social Organization has a backlog of great posts that prompted me to subscribe to the feed for more of what Rachel has to say.

Jennifer Leggio (@mediaphyter) writes for ZDNet's Social Business Blog and is a co-host of Quick-n-Dirty on Blog Talk Radio. Her blog is Media Phyter. I subscribed to this blog, too. I cannot resist a technology blogger, especially one who will tattoo her blog name on the back of her neck.

Adele McAlear (@AdeleMcAlear) runs McAlear Marketing and a blog called Marketing Monster. Adele was a co-founder of Digital Eve way back in 2000. Digital Eve was a early site bring women together around the topic of technology. It offers support and education and has real-world chapters in locations around the world.

Francine McKenna (@retheauditors) comes from re: The Auditors about the accounting industry. Francine is a blogger at The Huffington Post. She's writing a book about the Big 4 audit firms which is tentatively titled The Button-Down Mafia - How the Big 4 Audit Firms Run A Racket on Investors. Francine is the President of McKenna Partners LLC.

Anne Kathrine Petterøe (@yojibee) comes from a background in web design. Her blog is Yojibee, which she tells us is pronounced yo-j-ee-bee. Anne's interests include her work for SAP and the Adobe SAP Alliance.

Marilyn Pratt (@MarilynPratt) also worked for SAP in the SAP Developer Network. Her background is in theater and acting; she once lived in a kibbutz. She blogs at A time to mourn a time to rejoice.... and Greenshow.me.

This brings us near the end of the alphabet and to the final name as a founder of Technically Women.

Susan Scrupski (@ITSinsider) is founder of SoCo Partners, a firm that helps companies with socio-collaborative engagement or adopting social media strategies for business. Susan blogs at IT Insider, where she coins words like "collaborosphere" to explain what her work and interests are all about.

Technically Women is three months old. To date, there are 9 posts on the site. In spite of this modest beginnning, I have high hopes that the women involved will provide interested readers like myself a steady stream of leadership and information. Here's to you, Technically Women, may you grow and prosper.

--
Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer Technology Contributing Editor
Web Teacher
First 50 Words