The lovely Paul Wayper is again looking for a sponsor to come along to Saturday’s dinner. Those girls who are coming alone, could one of you see it in your heart to ‘sponsor’ Paul? No need to arrive together, I just need to match his name up to yours on my list
From Paul:
I’d still like to come if anyone will sponsor me. I’ll also be a little late as I’ll just be arriving from a day trip to Melbourne at 7PM.
Thanks!
Update at 10am: Claine has offered to sponsor Paul. Thanks! You guys amaze me!
Roberta Cocco ha 41 anni ed è direttore Marketing Centrale di Microsoft e responsabile del progetto futuro@lfemminile che mira a diffondere la consapevolezza che la tecnologia può essere un potente alleato delle donne.
Da futuro@lfemminile è nata la maratona web@lfemminile la cui seconda edizione si tiene oggi, 31 marzo 2009. In programma dibattiti e interviste dedicate alle donne e al tema del gender divide. Tutto on line.
Roberta è mamma di tre bambini e quanto possa essere utile a una donna la tecnologia lo ha sperimentato sulla sua pelle. È lei la prima a credere che le donne dovrebbero essere tra loro più solidali e aiutarsi nel lavoro. Perché in un mondo dominato dagli uomini, l’unico modo per annullare il cosiddetto «gender gap», il rapporto di svantaggio delle donne, è essere di sostegno l’un l’altra.
Cosa rispondi alle donne che sostengono che eventi del genere, rivolti alle donne, non siano necessari?
Le donne sono le prime a censurarsi. Dovrebbero guardare le statistiche: il nostro paese è al 67esimo posto della classifica mondiale del World Economic Forum sulle disparità di genere. Per avere un confronto la Germania è all’11esimo, la Francia al 15esimo. Quando ci sarà una vera parità ne riparliamo.
Per te è stato facile arrivare alla posizione che ricopri oggi?
Lavoro in Microsoft da 18 anni. Ho conquistato tutto un po’ per volta, giorno per giorno. Non è stato immediato e ho sempre dovuto confrontarmi con modelli maschili, ma non mi sono mai adeguata. Una donna non dovrebbe mai trasformarsi in “uoma”. Che brutto termine.
Hai avuto tre bambini, il che non ha interferito con la tua carriera. Hai portato la tua esperienza personale nel progetto futuro@lfemminile?
Sì, perché per le donne è più difficile restare nel mondo del lavoro. Ci sono i sensi di colpa nei confronti dei figli e i pregiudizi di molti colleghi; a volte anche delle colleghe. Voglio dimostrare che è possibile conciliare famiglia e lavoro. Spesso lavoro da casa e purtroppo ancora oggi in molti pensano che stai lavorando solo se ti vedono seduto a una scrivania. Non è così: in mobilità posso leggere e scrivere mail, fare telefonate, partecipare a una riunione. E questo non è il futuro, possiamo già fare tutto in mobilità.
Non solo gli uomini, ma anche non tutte le donne la pensano così.
Sento tante persone lamentarsi del proprio lavoro, dicendo di essere bravissime e sottovalutate. Se lo fossero così tanto ci sarebbe fuori un mondo ad aspettarle. Le donne dovrebbero essere più brave a segnalarsi tra di loro. Le donne devono essere supportate da altre donne. Quando si sceglie per concorso o per merito le donne sono sempre di più. È che sul lavoro si accetta un uomo mediocre, una donna mai. Far carriera è difficile, io i primi anni li ho dedicati esclusivamente al lavoro, ma ho dato e ricevuto tanto. Soprattutto tanti stimoli e opportunità. La mia è davvero un’azienda a misura di donna. Purtroppo non è così dappertutto e parlare di gender divide serve proprio a questo. Parlarne è un dovere di chi crede che la vera parità sia un obiettivo raggiungibile.
Questa intervista è stata rilasciata da Roberta Cocco di Microsoft a Domitilla Ferrari: ringraziamo tutte e due per averci permesso di pubblicarla proprio oggi, 31 marzo 2009, giornata dedicata da Microsoft al Web@lfemminile.
Passend zur Republica gibt es wieder ein Girl Geek Dinner in Berlin und wie beim letzten Mal findet es im cofee carma am Ostkreuz statt. Jeder kann teilnehmen, aber Männer können nur dann teilnehmen, wenn sie von einer Frau eingeladen werden. Bitte jeder einmal eintragen und die Herren der Schöpfung bitte im Kommentar hinzuschreiben, welche der Damen sie mitnimmt.
Bei Amiando anmelden:
Retweet:
Termin & Adresse
Datum: Donnerstag den 2.ten April
Start: gegen 19:00
S-Bahn Richtung Ostkreuz und dann Richtung Sonntagsstraße gehen. Die Straße runtergehen (voll mit Bars und Cafes) bis man auf der linken Seite Nummer 30 findet.Wir sind dann im hinteren Raum.
Bitte den Tag ggd_berlin benutzen und bei Fragen bitte Kontakt aufnehmen oder mich via Twitter @nicolede ansprechen.
We had 39 attendees last week and a great presentation by Terrie Depew on being more productive throughout the work day by using Office 2007. Thanks again to Microsoft Services for hosting our first event!
Please stay tuned for details on the next event. In the meantime, if you have ideas on venues, speakers, sponsors, or any questions/feedback, please email info@carolinagirlgeekdinners.com
Thank you to those who attended and we look forward to seeing you again next time! If you were unable to make the premier event, I look forward to seeing you at the second event.
She’s Geeky is coming to Northern Virginia – the DC Area.
April 18th McLean Virginia (Tyson’s Corner). http://www.shesgeeky.org/ Early bird admission is $40 until April 1 – $45 regular until April 11 and $50 after that.
Student admission is $20
It’s spring time and we are ready to get out to have a little fun. We are so happy the first two events were such a success. We hope everyone comes out for this social event, so we can all let our hair down, mingle and have a great time.
I know it was only yesterday I updated the site, but Gillian Easson from NESTA mailed me to let me know about SICAMP. I think it looks fantastic and will be putting in a proposal myself.
Here are the details:
Social Innovation Camp Scotland From Friday 19th to Sunday 21st June 2009 at the Saltire Centre in Glasgow, the Social Innovation Camp will bring together some of the b [...]
Tæknitátan hefur sína þörf fyrir græjur og fallegt dót! Þess vegna ætlum við að tileinka einn fund þessu mikilvæga efni.
Okkur hefur verið boðið til Reykjavik Bags að kynna okkur alíslenskar og svakalega pæjulegar tölvutöskur. Að því loknu liggur leiðin á Sólon þar sem sérfræðingar frá Símanum ætla að sýna okkur nýjustu og flottustu símtækin. Kannski skyggnumst við eitthvað inn í framtíðina líka…
Að þessu loknu er hefðbundin dagskrá með kvöldmat og spjalli.
Sem sagt:
Dagsetningin er 1. apríl.
Mæting klukkan 18:00 hjá Reykjavík Bags, Skólavörðustíg 2.
Síðan færum við okkur niður á Sólon til móts við Símann þar sem við fáum að sjá og skoða flottustu símana í dag.
WEYHEY! I am able to update the Girl Geek Scotland site at long last!
Firstly I want to thank all of you who made it along to our Launch Night in the DCA in Dundee last month. It was great to meet you all and I really enjoyed the night. I hope you did too. I’m also really excited thinking about what the future holds for the Scottish Girl Geeks.
I will update the site with videos and pics as soon as possible. Our editor is currently in &l [...]
The second Reading Girl Geek Dinner of 2009 took place on Monday 23rd March at La Tasca, with delicious tapas and great networking. We can confirm that local networks do work!
Thanks for coming along and making it a success. With 30 geeks and girl geeks based in and around Reading, conversations with new contacts and catching up with old friends made the event most enjoyable.
Special thanks to Symantec for their kind sponsorship and goodie bags for the attendees.
The event was co-hosted by Stuart Stoter, Girl Geek founder Sarah Blow and Mireia Fontbernat.
We look forward to seeing you at the next one on Thursday 23rd April – Stay tuned for registration and details.
It’s time for another Belfast Girl Geek Dinner. We’re meeting at Madison’s in Botanic on FRIDAY APRIL 3rd. The dinner will begin at 7:30pm. The fabulous Leeanne Lowe has arranged for us a 2-course meal for £16.95, and we have pre-booked a set amount of seats.
Please register now so that we can update the restaurant booking if necessary. Please use the comments form below to register your attendance. If you have any questions or comments, please send them to martharo [at] microsoft.com.
Please note that attendees at this dinner will be paying for their own dinner and drinks. They are sending us the sample menu & I’ll post it here when it’s ready.
See you in Belfast! And thanks so much to Leeanne for all the help!
I’m writing a VERY BELATED Ada Lovelace Day post, only to realise that we don’t actually have an aggregated list of all our past TGGD speakers. Would anyone be interested in volunteering to take this on? All we need to do is set up a separate page on the wiki, and I think it would be very helpful!
If you’re able to help out, please leave a comment or send me an email maggie AT socialmediagroup DOT com.
Thanks!
Update: Special thanks to Teresa Almeida, Jessie Bonisteel and Marce Bylinska for volunteering to take this on! Stayed tuned – as soon as the list is compiled, we’ll let everyone know where it is.
Created by Suw Charman-Anderson, to help promote women in technology, it is a day dedicated to blogging about women who are admired and successful within technology. Brilliant idea Suw and I'm delighted to see that it has really taken off and seen some great support.
I thought I'd pick a few of my favourite posts to share with you.
She’s Geeky is coming to Northern Virginia – the DC Area.
April 18th McLean Virginia (Tyson’s Corner). http://www.shesgeeky.org/
Early bird admission is $40 until April 1 – $45 regular until April 11 and $50 after that.
Student admission is $20
We are inviting women from a divers range of industries together for a day of interactive learning and industry cross pollination.
To us Geekiness is self defined – from those with advanced degrees in mathematics, science and engineering. To skilled programmers who are in large enterprises, government or startups. To women who have taught themselves how to code the PHP on their side bars on their blog or just super enthusiastic users of technology.
Each city has a different mix of technologies – DC has a variety of fields
* the nonprofit and advocacy sectors,
* government, defense, aerospace, and intelligence
* Web portals – like AOL
* startups innovating
The sessions are put forward by the women who attend the event – and are diverse. They include expert topics about their particular expertise, hosting conversations about issues of interest both technical and personal (like how to balance work and family), exploring start-up ideas, introductions or deep dives to different programming languages or frameworks, sharing stories about what it was like to work in the early days of the industry, introduction to public speaking and many others.
Beginning at 9 AM each day, we start with a blank wall and, in less than an hour, through a highly participative process, create a full day, multi-track conference agenda that is relevant and inspiring to everyone there.
From there, we go to separate areas or rooms assigned to each topic. The session can be a presentation, inquiry about a question or discussion about an issue or technical field. or. One participant volunteers to record the proceedings.
The notes from each session are collected in the newsroom, then a book is compiled with all the notes from the conference and distributed to everyone who attended.
—————–
Sponsorship opportunities for both small and large companies are available too.
If you have questions you can e-mail us at info@shesgeeky.org
Ποιοί και τι:
18.00-18.30: Προσέλευση.
18.30-18.35: Καλωσόρισμα στο 8ο Girl Geek Dinner από τη Δέσποινα Μπακιρτζή.
18.35-18.50: Tastefull.wordpress.com η Βίκη Κουμάντου, θα μας ταξιδέψει σε ελληνικές και διεθνείς γευσιγνωσίες και θα μοιραστεί μαζί μας online, τις γαστρονομικές της εμπειρίες.
18.50-19.10: «Το Internet στην Ελλάδα σήμερα»: η Δρ Έλλη Παγουρτζή, Πρόεδρος του Διοικητικού Συμβουλίου της ειδικής υπηρεσίας ΠΑΡΑΤΗΡΗΤΗΡΙΟ για την Κοινωνία της Πληροφορίας του υπουργείου Οικονομικών, μία γυναίκα με μεγάλη επιτυχημένη επαγγελματική εμπειρία θα μας ενημερώσει για τα τελευταία στοιχεία της εξέλιξης του Internet στην Ελλάδα, καταθέτοντας και την δική της προσωπική άποψη, για τη θέση των Ελληνίδων απέναντι στην τεχνολογία και το επιχειρείν!
19.10-19.30: “Search in Web2.0 and beyond”, η Ελένη Μιλτσακάκη κάτοχος Phd στη γλωσσολογία υπολογιστών, συνεργάτης του Πανεπιστημίου της Πενσυλβάνια στην Αμερική, έρχεται στην Ελλάδα, ειδικά για τα Girl Geek Dinners, για να μας αποκαλύψει το beyond searching του Web 2.0!
19.30-19.40: Ten Minutes Pitching: ” Converting still images to video i.e. Animoto!”, η Βίκυ Κολοβού και η Alice Κοροβέση θα μας παρουσιάσουν μία απλή και έξυπνη εφαρμογή το Animoto, με το οποίο πολύ γρήγορα και εύκολα μπορούμε να φτιάξουμε το δικό μας video.
Οι συμμετέχοντες:
Κατά βάση γυναίκες, αλλά και άνδρες (προτιμούμε να συνοδεύονται από γυναίκα), maximum μέχρι 100 συμμετέχοντες.
Κόστος συμμετοχής: ΔΩΡΕΑΝ
Dress code: be yourself Ο στόχος:
το networking γυναικών και η ενημέρωσή τους για τις νέες τεχνολογίες, τις καινοτομίες, το Internet και η διάδοση νέων, φρέσκων ιδεών και οραμάτων!
14th April 2009 :: cosmic news, sci-fi fans, space for another 30 people has materialised due to a rip in the space-time continuum, or something, so we’ve just added these tickets — set your diaries to stun come!
We’re in orbit over the April 2009 London Girl Geek event which we’re holding jointly with the groovy individuals at SCI-FI-LONDON who are also kindly sponsoring the event to be held at the Apollo West End Theatre on Regent Street.
The event will commence at 6.00pm for a 6.30pm start with talks on sci-fi film and fiction from the below speakers. The event will flow on to the cinema bar afterwards, and films will be showing from 7.45pm if any attendees wish to book separately. On which, Girl Geeks attending this event are eligible for a 10% discount on SCI-FI-LONDON cinema tickets that evening, just quote London Girl Geeks!
As per details from the SCI-FI-LONDON website (do visit to learn more about what’s happening during their annual festival taking place from 29th April to 4th May), speakers will include:
Dr Rachel Armstrong :: Dr Armstrong trained as a doctor at both Cambridge and Oxford and is a qualified General Practitioner, however, her career as a doctor has been far from conventional. Her concern for patients disfigured by the scars of leprosy led her on a journey that questioned assumptions about what ‘normal’ human anatomy is, or indeed, whether there is anything ‘natural’ about us at all. Dr Armstrong will present a resume of her adventures in practical Science Fiction over the last ten years, revealing a shocking portrait of human identity through the work of radical performance artists and leading to her current work that challenges notions of ‘life’ itself. [Warning: Not for the squeamish or easily morally outraged.]
Additional Speaker :: TBA
Many thanks to Sara & Louis from SCI-FI-LONDON for arranging the space and making things happen!
Full Details:
Date & Time: Thursday, 30th April 2009, 6:00 for 6.30pm
End Time: The event will finish at 8.00pm, with those interested flowing on to the cinema bar for more conversations
Venue: Apollo West End Theatre, 19 Regent Street, see Directions for more details!
Hosted by: Girl Geek Dinners and SCI-FI-LONDON
Food & Drink: Light dips and drinks provided courtesy of SCI-FI-LONDON
Subject for the evening: Girl Geeks in Practical Science Fiction
Format: Reception, two short talks, conversation.
Capacity: 90 people
Attendees: As ever, boy geeks are welcome to attend if invited by a girl geek although on this occasion we do stress that there are few and limited spaces so more boy geeks = less girl geeks.
Flies are true acrobats in the air. They can hover and even fly backwards! Therefore, for our development of small, flapping, aircraft we can learn a lot from them.
One of the activities in my research group is to simulate air flow around flapping wings in order to better understand the performance of insect flight. Approximating the solution to the physical flow equations
with mathematical techniques, we can compute flight performance quantities, such as lift and drag. Since these are time and memory space intensive computations, efficiency is of utmost importance.
With the insights obtained from analyzing the flow solution of the simulation, we hope to contribute to the design of Delfly Micro – a tiny flapping micro air vehicle developed at the faculty of Aerospace Engineering of Delft University of Technology. Delfly Micro is the smallest in the Delfly series. While the original Delfly has a 20 cm wing span, Delfly Micro only has 5 cm wing span. Due to the small wings aerodynamic performance is very important.
Speaker Bio:
Prof.dr.drs.ir. Hester Bijl is full professor Computational Aerodynamics at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering of Delft University of Technology. She studied Applied Math in Delft, as well as English in Leiden. After her studies she decided to become a PhD-student in Delft, developing a new method for the computation of flows with both high and low speeds regions. After her PhD she worked a little less than two years as management consultant for The Boston Consulting Group. Since October 1999 she works at the Aerospace Engineering faculty in Delft, starting as assistant professor. In april 2006 she was appointed full professor – the first female professor at the Aerospace Engineering Faculty of the TU Delft. As department chair, Hester now is a member of the management team of the Faculty. She has a partner and two sons (6 and 7 years old).
Ykkur er boðið á frumsýningu mánudaginn 23. mars kl.17:00 að Engjateig 9, salnum á neðstu hæð.
Frumsýnt verður kynningarmyndband sem UT-konur, félag kvenna í upplýsingatækni hafa gert.
Myndbandinu er ætlað að gefa innsýn í líf og störf kvenna sem starfa innan tölvu- og upplýsingatækninnar.
Tilgangur myndbandsins er að vekja áhuga ungra stúlkna á möguleikum og fjölbreytileika þeirra starfa sem bjóðast í faginu, en myndbandið verður sýnt á kynningum í framhaldsskólum og víðar á næstunni.
Tekin eru viðtöl við konur sem starfa á ólíkum sviðum innan fagsins og vonumst við þannig til að gefa áhugaverða sýn á fagið og þau störf sem í boði eru.
Í myndbandinu koma fram:
Ari Kristinn Jónsson, HR Björk Ragnarsdóttir, Alcan Elín Elísabet Torfadóttir, Calidris Halla Kolbeinsdóttir, NOVA Harpa Einarsdóttir, CCP Helga Waage, Mobilitus Jónheiður Ísleifsdóttir, Íslensk Erfðagreining Sigrún Eva Ármannsdóttir, Eskill Sigrún Þöll Þorsteinsdóttir, Kögun Sirrý Hallgrímsdóttir, SJÁ Þórdís Þórsdóttir, Íbúðalánasjóður
Allir velkomnir og sjálfsagt að bjóða unga fólkinu í kringum ykkur með.
Stjórn UT-kvenna: Þóra Halldórsdóttir, formaður Dísa Anderiman Hrönn Þormóðsdóttir Marta Kristín Lárusdóttir Sigríður M. Björgvinsdóttir Steinunn M. Sigurbjörnsdóttir
It’s less than a week to Girl Geek Day. Many people have emailed asking do they need to sign up, plain answer is no, I just asked that folks do so that I have an idea of numbers. Don’t worry if you haven’t.
Some information, it’s going to be a very informal day. Mostly foscused on discussion groups. I have added a timetable, if folks want to add in a topic, discussion, something they want to show off and explain to people. Please do. One suggestion was 20 slides in five minuets, how do you think you’d do ? Perhaps there is a topic you’d like to discuss, put it up there, maybe others would like to talk about it.
This day was just something I decided to put out there, I hope folks come along and actively take part in it. Thanks
In the past Nottingham Girl Geek Dinners has had some excellent guest speakers including:
Simona Tassinari
A Software Engineer in the Shared Technology Group at Rare Ltd, a UK-based videogame developer, will do a short presentation about the development process for games and what it is like to work at Rare. After completing an Honours Degree in Computer Science in Italy at the “Università di Bologna” in 2003, Simona spent over a year in Amsterdam, working on an immersive virtual reality system for medical purposes, implementing the renderer and various modules. In 2005 Simona joined Rare in the Shared Technology Group, where she works on the R1 SDK, Rare’s internal middleware solution, especially focusing on the math library, the preview pipeline for art content, and supporting games teams. The R1 SDK has been used for the recently released titles “Viva Piñata” and the Xbox360 launch titles “Kameo: Elements of Power” and “Perfect Dark Zero”.
Eileen Brown
Gave apresentation on how women who work in the Technology industry feel about working in IT. The results from the Microsoft commissioned survey are surprising – especially the comments by women, about women. Eileen Brown talked about her unconventional route into IT and discusses the survey results.Eileen joined Microsoft in 2001 as a Systems Engineer, initially focusing on Mission Critical Windows before moving to the Exchange team. She now manages the team of IT Professional Evangelists and is responsible for Messaging, Collaboration and Productivity technologies.
Susan Hallam
An internet marketing strategy consultant and trainer will be talking about search engine optimisation – improving your visibility in the search engine results. She will talk about best practice thinking and guidelines for improving your rankings in the natural search results.Susan is an independent business consultant specialising in web marketing strategy and tactics, customer relationship management and the business impact of emerging Internet technologies.
Rachel Jacobs
From Active Ingredient, Rachel presented on "Ere Be Dragons". A game that maps unknown territories, controlled by the heart beat of players as they walk around the city, resulting in an interactive installation.Active Ingredient create art works, using everything from household chemistry to emerging technologies. Thier artwork explores the relationship between real and imaginary digital spaces attempting to unlock everyday magic from the rigid systems of new media.
Gerry Emmerson
From "Accelerate Nottingham" – Nottingham's bid to win the Digital challenge.
Gillian Hunter
From Aardmaan – "Cities of the Future – Fact or Fantasy?" – opening a discussion about technology, women and how they can make an impact on all kinds of planning!Gillian is an experienced sales and marketing professional (and girl geek) and has headed up huge international bids and tenders for large telco and construction companies.
After a long hiatus the Nottingham Girl Geek Dinners are back. First on the cards is this sparkly new website, just in time for Ada Lovelace day. But more on that later.
Next we want to get regular meetings up and running again, so we are looking at possible venues, speakers and sponsors. If you have any suggestions for the above then please get in touch.
Ένα event με αμιγώς γυναίκες ομιλήτριες, ήταν το 7ο GGD, που έγινε, για πρώτη φορά, στην Internet area του καταστήματος Public, στην καρδιά της Αθήνας, στην πλατεία Συντάγματος. Ο χώρος άρχισε να γεμίζει από πολύ νωρίς και γέμισε πραγματικά ασφυκτικά, όχι μόνο από το κοινό, αλλά και από δημοσιογράφους καναλιών και εντύπων, φωτογράφους και κάμερες, που είχαν έρθει για να καλύψουν το γεγονός!
Τις ομιλίες άνοιξε η Κατερίνα Καραγιάννη, η οποία παρουσίασε την πρωτοποριακή ιδέα, για τα ελληνικά δεδομένα, το Days4u.gr, δηλαδή τα δώρα εμπειρίας online. Η Κατερίνα έκανε μία αναλυτική παρουσίαση για το πώς γεννήθηκε η ιδέα, πώς υλοποιήθηκε και τι απήχηση έχει σήμερα, ενώ αναφέρθηκε και στα προβλήματα, που αντιμετώπισε (και σε ορισμένες περιπτώσεις συνεχίζει να αντιμετωπίζει), όπως για παράδειγμα η ελληνική γραφειοκρατία και ο φόβος των καταναλωτών να κάνουν αγορές online.
Στη συνέχεια, η Φιόνα Μουζακίτη και η Δέσποινα Σταύρου παρουσίασαν το Arteshop.gr και μας είπαν πώς αποφάσισαν να “μεταφέρουν” μία κανονική γκαλερί στο Internet. Η έξυπνη ιδέα τους, εκθέτει τα έργα Ελλήνων καλλιτεχνών και προωθεί την δουλειά τους, χωρίς το υψηλό κόστος των συμβατικών γκαλερί, ενώ φυσικά, οι ενδιαφερόμενοι μπορούν να τα αγοράζουν μέσω Internet. Μάλιστα, το γεγονός ότι η gallery υπάρχει και στην Αγγλική γλώσσα, βοηθάει στο άνοιγμα της αγοράς με αποτέλεσμα, όπως μας είπαν η Φιόνα και η Δέσποινα, να υπάρχουν αγοραστές ακόμα και από την Αμερική!
Την σκυτάλη πήρε η Ξένια Κούρτογλου, Πρόεδρος και Διευθύνουσα Σύμβουλος της εταιρείας ερευνών Focus Bari, η οποία αφού ανέλυσε τη διείσδυση του Internet σε όλα τα κοινά (ανά κοινωνικό, οικονομικό και ηλικιακό επίπεδο) στην Ελλάδα, στη συνέχεια αναφέρθηκε σε ένα κατεξοχήν γυναικείο θέμα: «Γυναίκα και Καριέρα», παρουσιάζοντας μία πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα έρευνα της Focus Bari: Πώς αντιμετωπίζει το οικογενειακό, φιλικό, επαγγελματικό και κοινωνικό περιβάλλον μία γυναίκα καριέρας, πώς έχουν αλλάξει τα κοινωνικά δεδομένα και τι πρέπει να προσέχει μία σύγχρονη νέα γυναίκα που έχει αποφασίσει να κάνει μία επαγγελματική καριέρα.
Στο τελευταίο μέρος, γνωστό και ως Ten minutes pitching, η Μαριλού Τζεμπελίκου έδειξε με πολύ απλά βήματα, πώς μπορούμε όλοι να ανοίξουμε ένα λογαριασμό στο flickr για να ανεβάζουμε τις φωτογραφίες μας, και η Βίκη Κολοβού έκανε μία εξαιρετική και λεπτομερή παρουσίαση διαφόρων εντυπωσιακών αλλά και χρηστικών εφαρμογών, την οποία μπορείτε να βρείτε εδώ.
Λίγο πριν μεταφερθούμε στο πολύ cool bar του Public, για food and drinks, αρκετή κουβέντα και εποικοδομητικό networking, όλοι οι συμμετέχοντες παρέλαβαν μία τσάντα με δώρα, ευγενική προσφορά από τα Public stores!
Ευχαριστούμε θερμά όλους τους ανθρώπους των Public stores, για την υποστήριξή τους και την εντυπωσιακή φιλοξενία τους!
Περισσότερες φωτογραφίες του 7ου Girl Geek Dinner μπορείτε να βρείτε εδώ.
We have a Dublin dinner getting scheduled for April with a fantastic speaker, but thought we might do an informal meetup next week as well just to catch up.
At this meetup we’ll be discussing having a regular, monthly informal meetup for Dublin as well.
We’ll be at the top of the Long Stone Pub (http://www.thelongstone.com/location.html) at 7pm on Tuesday March 24th , and I’ll bring along a sign so people can find us easily.
Please leave your name in the comments below if you’ll be attending. See you on Tuesday.
In session three last week, we covered the following:
Topic: Grooving and Improving
o Handling Q&A
o Techniques for self-improvment
o Critiquing your own performance
o Finding your honest feedback crowd
Here are some notes that might be useful for everyone:
Handling Q&A
First the important decisions:
Will you save time for questions? Sometimes taking questions aren’t an option
Will you allow questions during the talk? For some people or for unfamiliar topics, it can throw you off.
Will you pause during the talk at sensible points in the talk to ask for questions?
What will you say if there aren’t any questions? Do you have a filler or do you just say thanks, bye?
ALWAYS repeat the question. ALWAYS.
Handling “I don’t know”:
Admit when you don’t know!
Respond with, “I don’t know, but I can find out / will post answers on my blog / will e-mail you the answer / etc.”
Rephrase the question, maybe you misunderstood
Redirect the question: “Does anyone here know?” “Ooh, we’re out of time – lets answer that next time!”
Stall for time using water, note rustling, and obvious pauses to give yourself some more time to think through.
Some dos and don’ts:
Don’t get defensive. Don’t even bristle – people can smell it.
Don’t be afraid to ask for more details – lots of speakers answer questions they weren’t even asked because they didn’t clarify. And the question asker is too polite to stop you in the middle, so they let you finish and then say, “Okay thanks but actually my question was…”
Do compliment good and thoughtful questions.
Don’t compliment every question though!
Do give prizes for good questions – this sometimes helps with shy audiences.
Do go find people who asked tough questions in the bar later to discuss further.
Don’t be afraid to buy time by drinking water or flipping through your notes.
Do beware of hypothetical questions – they are often weak attempts at disguising an agenda.
Do ask for examples if you don’t understand the question
Do acknowledge comments and move on.
Some excellent responses to hecklers:
“You seem to know a lot about this topic. Would you have a few minutes after this to chat & compare notes?”
“You’ve asked a lot of great questions. I need to move on and answer a few other audience members, but would you come chat with me afterwards please?”
“I value/respect/appreciate your opinion, but I respectfully disagree. And you know what? That’s okay!”
“Is your concern around X?” (good for someone who seems to have a hidden issue/agenda)
If all else fails, you can fake the “Oh, sorry, the guys in the back are giving me the time signal, gotta run. Thanks!”
There aren’t a lot of resources around answering tough questions. One book is In the Line of Fire: How to Handle Tough Questions When It Counts by Jerry Weissman.
Techniques for Self-Improvement
1) When you’re watching other speakers, pretend you’re critiquing yourself. Notice which words they repeat over and over, which phrases they repeat over and over. Write them down & see if you do that too.
Common culprits include:
Um
Like
So
Or something like that
There you go
You see
2) Try changing your voice pitch and tone. Do this to get rid of monotonous speech or to just try altering your sound. This can add interesting dramatic effects or can make your speech more impactful. But you must try this at home first, try it in front of a camera or voice recorder. If this sounds faked it will not work.
3) Try using storytelling techniques such as giving different characters different voices or using background sounds. This is normally not appropriate for describing code or demoing an application, but may lend a unique touch to a keynote or high-level talk. Again if you don’t practice this first, you’ll sound silly and forced.
4) Try injecting dramatic pauses to create anticipation, create drama, and give interesting effects. Pausing can be incredibly effective for helping people to refocus on your subject and building an audience’s interest.
Critiquing Your Own Performance:
My number one technique for critiquing is to keep a journal. Nothing extravagant. In fact it’s best if it’s small and can fit in your purse or laptop bag, like a small moleskine.
Write down things like:
How you feel before a talk
How you think the talk went
Feedback you received from attendees
Followups you need to do with attendees or things you said you’d post on your blog
Impressions you have of other speakers when you watch them
Anything else that springs to mind
Another great exercise is “Pick a word.” Pick a word, any word, preferably one you use too much. Get a rubberband or a board game buzzer. Practice your talk, and any time you say the word or phrase, snap the rubber band around your wrist or hit the game buzzer hard. This will draw your attention to how often you use it and allow you to be more conscious of using the word/phrase.
Finding Your Honest Feedback Crowd:
There are a lot of great ways to find people to help you obtain useful and honest feedback for your talks. Some suggestions are:
Websites like meetup.com or other “birds of a feather” group meeting websites
Friends but be careful: your friends love you and sometimes don’t want to hurt your feelings. Be really cautious about using friends to get feedback. Also if they’re non-technical friends, they may not be able to give you reasonable feedback on the technical parts of your presentation.
Colleagues at work
Your immediate manager – this can be a great option if you approach it the right way. Good managers are often very open to their employees wanting to improve professional skills. You can phrase this something like, “I noticed our team could use some education around X. I’d love to deliver that material to them, but it would be great if we could have some 1:1 coaching sessions so that I do a great job.”
Professional speaking groups like Toastmasters
Groups of peers, such as groups like this speaking series
Other speakers or wannabe speakers you’ve met at community events. It’s really easy to go up to someone at a BarCamp and say, “These talks have been great today. Do you ever talk at events like these? I’m working on my own speaking skills, let me know if you would be interested in meeting up some time and practicing?”
The last thing that came up was a question around good presentation websites and other resources. Here are a few:
