BlogHer - Media & Journalism - Comments

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.

A Network That Could Be A Source Of Pride

Megan Smith — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:50:13 -0500

Hi Michelle,

BET is a network that could be a source of great pride instead of a source of embarrassment and anger.

And Adrienne, I find your experience interesting. It's kind of like twenty-somethings wearing flip flops at Fortune 500 companies. Like you said....sigh...

Megan
BlogHer Contributing Editor, TV/Online Video

Megan's Minute

Sad

Kim Pearson — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:40:31 -0500

This whole episode seems like something made up by Stephen Colbert.

By the way, Weymouth issued a statement this afternoon saying that she had not seen the flyer and would not have approved it. But her explanation is a bit odd:

"We are always looking for new revenue streams," she said, "but we will pursue only avenues that uphold our high standards of journalism. We were planning to do a series of dinners and had requested newsroom participation but with parameters such that we did not in any way compromise our integrity. Sponsorship of events, like advertising in the newspaper, must be at arm's length and cannot imply control over the content or access to our journalists."

So it sounds as if they were planning to have the soirees and charge for them, but now they just won't involve reporters and editors?

Somewhere, Katherine Graham is screaming right now.

KimBlogHer Contributing Editor|Professor Kim|

Clever

Nordette — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:51:23 -0500

That made me chuckle, but also kind of sad. :-)

If we want to keep up with the swift pace of news today, we'd better take more vitamins. LOL.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE & you can find her other stuff through Her 411.

Either spelling

Maria Niles — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:10:23 -0500

Technically either spelling is correct, Nordette though some guidelines suggest flier for handouts and flyer for Radio Flyer wagons.

Also, amazingly, there is already a parody video up on YouTube.

BlogHer Contributing Editor
PopConsumer
Beyond Help

Yeah, a Post-mortem on this

Nordette — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:50:09 -0500

Yeah, a Post-mortem on this one would be good and so apropos for bones, dinosaurs trying to figure out what the hell happend to us, and bone-headed ideas. :-) I smell desperation in the air. And this is the paper of Woodward & Bernstein. It's supposed to break political corruption scandals not pimp power.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE & you can find her other stuff through Her 411.

Maybe old-school hard print

Nordette — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:38:02 -0500

Maybe old-school hard print is a the new way today to hide your strange doings. :-)

Some of the jokes on Twitter about this are amusing.

I usually go with "flyer" for circulars but I keep seeing "flier," and so I've figured this is another word morph in our society.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE & you can find her other stuff through Her 411.

Talk About Bone Headed

Megan Smith — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:32:31 -0500

What a bone headed idea. I mean I know the news business, especially the print business is suffering, but come on...does credibility mean nothing anymore?

Maybe what WaPo should be doing is setting up some salons to figure out why this dumb idea got as far as it did.

Megan
BlogHer Contributing Editor, TV/Online Video

Megan's Minute

I love that they used a flyer to advertise the program

Morra Aarons Mele — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:18:18 -0500

What's more old fashioned than a flyer?

Morra Aarons-Mele
www.womenandwork.org

I'm sad for his family.

CantHardlyWait — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:57:39 -0500

Biological or not, Michael was their father. As bizzare as he was, he was their father. Black, white, cosmetic surgery, no cosmetic surgery, the king of pop, not the king of pop, to those kids... no matter who or what michael jackson was, he was their father.

Respect

Adriennevh — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:44:04 -0500

I worked the show, I worked in the backstage (read parking lot area), where the seat fillers, mosh pit fillers and the 106 and Park pre party people were staged and shuttled over.

I was surprised to see how "undressed" most of them were. If this is an awards show, shouldn't the attire reflect that?

Girls in shorts shorter than any Daisy Dukes I have ever seen. Guys in jeans down around their knees (and these were the seat fillers!).

I understand that the "dress code" of some shows is not quite Oscar's, but it just shouted disrespectful to me.

As I was sitting backstage (I never actually saw the show), I was reading tweets on my phone from East Coast watchers and just sighed.

I have never been a watcher of BET, don't even know if my cable carries it or not, but I guess I am just disappointed that a formerly respectable tv station and awards show has "jumped the shark".