Proposed Topics for She's Geeky

We are blending conference models. On Monday we will have pre-programmed sessions. 

Tuesday it will be pure Open Space. We will make the agenda the day it happens.

Please post the following below: your ideas for what you want to present or see presented, questions you have, and discussions you think are essential.

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What do you want to discuss? This is your conference. Here are some ideas: 

Brainstorming tech tools that would really make a difference in life:

Hardware, software, gadgets, communication, etc.  Examples

Negotiating Salary and the Social Costs:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/29/AR2007072900827.html?hpid=topnews

Hardware hacked/hacks by women:

Show us your boards, gadgets, devices. Hardware workshops.

Software Engineering in the Small:

Software engineering principles and methodologies have long been the purview of large organizations' development projects (typically found in government applications). However, there are a growing number of smaller organizations looking to apply the methodologies associated with software engineering to small-scale software development.

How women are perceived in tech companies:

Do your male coworkers assume you must be in Sales rather than Engineering?  Or do they treat you just the same as their male colleagues?  Are there ways a woman can alter the way their male coworkers interact with them?

Selling your technology to the government:

Each year the federal government aims to have 23% of contracts set aside for small business with a 5% goal for contracts awarded to woman-owned small businesses.  A review of ways to market your goods and services to the government and steps to make it happen.

Hands-on tech skill exchange:

Show and tell something nifty you know how to do. Demystify by demonstrating. (Liz Henry)

Meddling in the affairs of wikis:

An overview of popular wiki communities and software. (Liz Henry)

Technical interview skills:

Find out what interviewers are looking for in a technical interview.  (Ellen Spertus)

So you didn't major in computer science?

How to get a computer science education years or decades after earning a bachelor's degree in an unrelated field.  (Ellen Spertus)

Geeky readings/stand-up comedy:

• Excerpt from She's Such a Geek: Women Write about Science, Technology & Other Nerdy Stuff (Ellen Spertus)

 

Successfully fighting sexism:

Techniques for fighting overt or subtle sexism in the workplace, school, or online.  Bring your favorite success stories and ideas or any problems you don't know how to solve.  (Ellen Spertus)

Seeking Research Participants!

I'm a professor of Women's Studies who specializes in gender and technologies issues. I'm conducting a research project on the ways in which women working in IT negotiate feminine and geek identities in their everyday lives. I'll be attending the conference and hope that some of you will be interested in speaking to me about your experiences. (Rhiannon Bury, rbury@athabascau.ca)

Skill and expertise exchange:

Hands-on session. Pair up or join a small group who want to learn to use, or teach, a specific tool or skill.

Open Source:

1. Using open source software and finding good engineers regardless of who they are
2. Open Licensing for Content
3. Open sources vs. closed source costs
4. Open design philosophy for building a company or product

Low rates of women in Open Source development:

1. 2% of open source developers are women
2. Some factors include: risk taking in software development, open source community conventions, modes of tech space communication, etc.

Ageism vs. Focusing on getting women over the first or second time hump to the point of being true serial entrepreneurs:

1. First or second time entrepreneurial needs
2. Support and funding networks for first/second times
3. Age limiting factors in an industry obsessed with youth and the tendency of many women to wait until later in life to “take the risk” of starting something

Life balance in an industry with 24/7 demands:

        Tai Chi demonstration (Alexandra Carmichael)

Is there such a thing as a feminist technology?

1. What does being a feminist and a technologist imply?
2. How does approaching technology as a feminist support social change?
3. Being successful in the tech world?

Language and communication differences between men and women:

1. Understanding what’s happening around you; knowing more can lead to more success

Technology for social purpose goals:

1. Women’s participating in non-profit tech is 50% (far higher than in open source or general technology development)
2. Using and adapting social web tools for social purposes
3. If you are in commercial tech development and want to volunteer for social tech non-profits, how do you engage with them

Speaker’s training and the importance of speaking in leadership:

1. Tentatively: speaker training with Lura Dolas
2. Leadership and speaking as a opportunity maker for women
3. Practical places to speak, the Speaker’s wiki and other helpful tools for speaking

Usability and making technology for the sake of people:

1. Usability is often something women do in an organization or on a project, with many male engineers actually coding the product.
2. Discuss how to work within the typical dynamics to make your product more usable.
3. Extreme usability: 1 usability person + 1 engineer can change the world
4. Making technology for people: why do we care? what can we do? who are the people and who are the technologists?

Life Extension: Good News, Bad News, Weird News

For those interested in personal life extension, the news is complex. We all have busy lives and wish that effective life extension could be as easy as taking a vitamin pill, "One A Day for Longevity." Unfortunately, a quick fix is not an option today, but there is good news. Learn what you can do today to add healthy years to your life. This talk will review some of the more popular life extension approaches — every year gained offers the benefit of yet another year of advances in longevity research. (Chris Peterson)