Tag: Visibility

Mastering Micro-Learning for Exceptional Technical Writing

Mastering Micro-Learning for Exceptional Technical Writing

Micro-learning has been gaining popularity in recent years as a way to effectively deliver content in short, easily digestible formats. This type of learning is especially well-suited for technical writing, which often covers complex topics that can be difficult to master. In this blog post, we’ll explore how micro-learning can be used to improve technical writing skills and help writers effectively communicate with their audience.

What is Micro-Learning?

Micro-learning is a term used to describe a learning approach that delivers small, bite-sized pieces of information in a manner that is easily digestible and remembered. This approach is designed to help learners focus on one specific topic at a time and retain information more effectively. micro-learning is also well suited for busy professionals who may not have the time to commit to traditional forms of learning, such as attending a live workshop or taking an online course.

Why Use Micro-Learning for Technical Writing?

Technical writing can be a complex skill to master. Writers must be able to effectively communicate complicated information in a way that is easy for their audience to understand. Using micro-learning can help technical writers hone their skills by breaking down complex topics into small, manageable pieces. Additionally, micro-learning is an effective way to deliver training remotely, which can be especially helpful for writers who work remotely or in different locations.

There are four main elements to micro-learning: short duration, focused content, specific learning objectives, and immediate application. When creating micro-learning content for your documentation, it’s important to keep these elements in mind in order to create an effective and memorable learning experience.

Short Duration: The average attention span of an adult human is eight seconds—that’s shorter than the attention span of a goldfish! So when creating micro-learning content for technical writing, it’s important to keep videos, articles, etc., short and sweet

Focused Content: In addition to being short, micro-learning content should be focused on one specific topic or concept. Trying to cover too much ground in one go is a surefire recipe for confusing your audience and achieving nothing in the end.

Specific Learning Objectives: Every piece of micro-learning content should have a specific goal or objective. What do you want your audience to learn from this particular piece of content? Make sure your answer is clear and concise before moving forward.

Immediate Application: The best way to ensure that your audience remembers what they’ve learned is to provide them with an opportunity to immediately apply what they’ve learned. This could be in the form of a quiz at the end of a video or article, or an interactive element built into the content itself.

By breaking down big concepts into manageable chunks, micro-learning can help make technical writing more accessible and less daunting. When applied correctly, micro-learning can help writers master even the most complex subject matter. And because micro-learning content is typically short and focused, it’s easy for busy professionals to fit into their already packed schedules. If you’re looking for a way to improve your technical writing skills, consider incorporating micro-learning into your professional development plan.

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WIT: Making Tech Truly Diverse Calls for New Tactics and Renewed Commitment

 

 

By Brenda Darden Wilkerson

This column is part of a series called “Voices of Women in Tech,” created in collaboration with AnitaB.org, a global enterprise that supports women in technical fields, as well as the organizations that employ them and the academic institutions training the next generation.

So much time, effort, and expense go into fixing tech’s diversity problem — why have we seen so little progress?

The proof of our failure is in the data. The 2017 Top Companies for Women Technologists report, which measured more than 547,000 technologists across 63 organizations, showed a mere 1.2 percent year-over-year increase in the number of women in technical roles. Women’s representation in midlevel, senior, and executive roles saw considerably smaller increases of .2 percent, .6 percent, and 1 percent respectively. 

These numbers are likely far higher than the industry at large, since Top Companies participants are already committed to measuring their progress. For women of color, the numbers are even more disheartening. The meager increases in women’s representation have gone almost entirely to white women and women of Asian descent.

For years, tech companies have followed a similar formula to diversify their workforces. They host affinity groups, they hold sensitivity training, they tweak hiring processes. But all of these efforts have yielded scant benefits. If the tech industry continues to “improve” at the current rate, it will take decades before we reach gender parity, and even longer before our workforce accurately reflects the population at large. Clearly, something’s gotta give.

All of us have to be brave and admit that what we’ve been doing is simply not working. We need to face the real data, scrap fruitless initiatives, and take an entirely new approach. This is no time to give in to diversity fatigue!

Why do so many organizations continue to fail? For some, there’s a gap between the desire to look good and the actual effort that progress requires. But even executives with perfect motivations are finding themselves looking at stagnant diversity stats. And I know this is true, because I’m one of them.

I’m the leader of AnitaB.org, the leading organization devoted to the advancement of women in technology. We host the annual Grace Hopper Celebration, the world’s biggest gathering of women technologists. We administer Top Companies for Women Technologists, the only program that provides a consistent benchmark of the technical workforce across a wide range of industries.

We are, by all rights, true experts in fostering diversity. And yet, looking at our own internal diversity numbers, I could see no other answer: We had not only failed to move the needle, by most measures we had actually regressed. How could we continue to pressure the industry around us for greater diversity when we ourselves were not able to improve as we intended?

Clearly, we need a new approach. Here’s what we’re advocating: First, the change has to start at the very top. When our board of trustees sought a new CEO for our organization — someone to continue the incredible work that Anita Borg herself began in 1997 — they took a very rare step. Not only did they interview me, a black woman technologist, they hired me. By doing so, they were making a clear statement: It was time for this organization to take the necessary steps toward fully recognizing the intersectionality of the women we serve, and of our own team doing that work.

As part of a series of changes under my leadership, we have hired our first HR director. She’s implementing significantly stronger HR policies and procedures to foster more inclusivity and equity, and helping us adjust our hiring practices — where we advertise, how we assemble interview panels, and other tactical steps — to help us attract a more diverse candidate pool. We’re also requiring that every hiring manager assemble a truly inclusive group of prospective employees. 

When we add to our team, leaders must consider candidates with a variety of intersections, including age, gender, race and ability. We’re also focused on capturing our racial and ethnic data more accurately, especially for those team members who identify with more than one group, to better measure our progress.

 

Right now, I’m also personally vetting every hire we make to ensure we’ve drawn from a broad pool, and that we are bringing on talent that truly reflects the richness of the communities we serve. This commitment takes time away from my other projects, but we accept this trade-off because it’s important to set the tone from the top, and because we cannot continue to operate as we always have.

We’re also focusing on promoting and retaining a diverse set of talented employees — because, frankly, we’ve lost some good people who we wanted to keep. As we always tell the companies who work with us, fixing the “leaky pipeline” is not enough. We cannot hire our way out of this problem. We must fix our retention and promotion process, not simply in addition to hiring better, but first and foremost. 

At our core, we’re technologists: Solving problems is what we do best. We need to focus the same skills that have made technology companies the vanguard of economic growth — disruption and innovation — onto the issues that threaten our industry’s progress.

To win the innovation wars, to fill empty seats, to create products that delight customers, change must start with leadership. Visionary leaders need to make bold moves and acknowledge the depth of the issue. We need to throw out initiatives that haven’t made an impact, look at real data, and build a better way forward. Companies that undertake a new approach are the companies that are going to see change.
And it has to start with those of us who do the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion on a daily basis. 

Already, we’ve seen some progress. Our diversity numbers so far this year look very different than they did at the end of 2017. And, as we set a new baseline and measure ourselves against it, we will be better able to identify places where we’ve improved and those where we’ve regressed, codifying our tactics for future gains. We don’t expect everything to work perfectly — there is no silver bullet — but we do expect to take honest and unflinching measurements of what does move the needle.

Fixing tech’s diversity issues is truly personal for me, and for everyone who works at AnitaB.org. As we offer ourselves as an example, we want the companies we work with to know we’re willing to do the same critical work and, as leaders, hold ourselves personally accountable in the same ways that we’re demanding of them. 

Brenda Darden Wilkerson serves as the President and CEO of
AnitaB.org, an organization working to shape public opinion about issues of critical importance to women technologists in academia, industry, and government.

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WIT: Women In Tech: Educated, Ambitious And Underpaid

 

By Laurence Bradford , CONTRIBUTOR of Forbes.com

As Women’s History Month nears its close in 2018, many people have been reflecting on the struggles women have faced in the past and the strides they are making toward changing the future.

Tech is one area of specific interest here, as it’s a place where women have traditionally been under-represented. But is that changing too?

Let’s find out. Using data from several large tech surveys, I’ll examine the current state of women in tech and see where things stand.

More Women Are Learning To Code Than Ever

 

While tech has historically been a male-dominated industry, there’s a new generation of women who aren’t intimidated by that fact. According to HackerRank’s Women in Tech report, women now represent the highest number of new CS grads and junior developers (53%) entering the workforce.

What’s more, women often learn to code as young teenagers: almost as many women learned before the age of 16 as men who did the same.

Further illustrating the evidence for the shifting demographics of coding as a profession, twice as many women as men have been coding two years or less. Once these women enter the workforce, we will likely see other statistics continue to shift as well.

The tides are turning, but for now, men still vastly outnumber women in tech careers. As an example, look at the demographics of the respondents to Stack Overflow’s 2018 developer survey: nearly 93% were male.

(But There Is Still A Gender Pay Gap In Computing)

Many industries still suffer from a gender pay gap, despite rising public awareness of the issue. Tech is one of them.

In fact, according to LiveStories’ data for the Computer and Mathematical category, the pay gap was actually worse in 2016 than it had been in 2005. Their numbers are based on income statistics from the United States Census Bureau. Women in computers in 2005 earned 87% as much as their male counterparts, but by 2016, it had fallen to 85%.

Women Prioritize The Skills Employers Want

 

As the data demonstrates, women in tech are overwhelmingly practical.

They tend to pursue proficiency in the languages most in-demand and valued by employers.

Specifically, the top 5 programming languages that most women have proficiency in are,
Java (69%)
JavaScript (63%)
C (61%)
C++ (53%)
Python (45%)

These are the exact same languages that companies value most in front-end, back-end and full-stack developers.

(But Women Are More Likely To Hold Junior Positions)

 

Despite the fact that women have skills in demand by employers, Hackerrank found that women of all ages were more likely to hold junior positions than their male counterparts. The difference was especially striking for women over 35, who were 3.5x more likely to be in junior roles.

It’s unclear whether women are being passed over for promotions out of implicit bias or because of life events–like having children–that stall the journey into senior positions.

However, there are plenty of inspiring women out there who demonstrate that you can have multiple life paths–like Vidya Srinivasan, who defied workplace stereotypes while pregnant and then successfully integrated back to work after maternity leave.

Furthermore, tech companies who are willing to offer fertility benefits like egg freezing enable women to pursue their professional goals during the crucial growth years, without sacrificing family if that’s something they want in the future.

What Women Value In The Workplace

 

As part of Stack Overflow’s annual survey, they ask participating developers what they prioritize while searching for a job. The most popular answers differ when broken down by gender.

When assessing a prospective job, women say their highest priorities are company culture and opportunities for professional development, while men say their highest priorities are compensation and working with specific technologies.

The fact that women actively seek out professional development opportunities shows that there is desire among women to progress to higher roles. They simply need companies who will support their quest to do so.


Laurence Bradford is a product manager at Teachable and the creator of Learn to Code With Me, a blog and podcast for those wanting to transition into a tech career later in life.

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WIT: Why Are There Few Women in Tech? Watch a Recruiting Session

 

 

By Jessi Hempel of Wired

EACH AUTUMN, BUSINESSES flock to elite universities like Harvard and Stanford to recruit engineers for their first post-university jobs.

Curious students pile into classrooms to hear recruiters deliver their best pitches. These are the first moments when prospective employees size up a company’s culture, and assess whether they can see themselves reflected in its future.

More often than not, this is the moment when these companies screw up, according to new research.

Tech companies have employed a host of tactics to help lift the scant number of women and minorities who work within their ranks, like anti-bias training, affinity groups, and software that scans job postings for gendered language. Yet the numbers remain dire. Of men with science, technology engineering, or math (STEM) degrees, 40 percent work in technical careers; only 26 percent of women with STEM degrees do. That means that qualified women are turning away from the field before they even get started.

Some of the problems start in these preliminary recruiting sessions, which routinely discourage women from applying at all, according to a paper published in February by Alison Wynn, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and Stanford sociology professor Shelley Correll.

In 2012 and 2013, researchers attended 84 introductory sessions held by 66 companies at an elite West Coast university. (They never explicitly name Stanford, but…) Roughly a quarter of attendees at these one-hour sessions were women, on average. The researchers documented an unwelcoming environment for these women, including sexist jokes and imagery, geeky references, a competitive environment, and an absence of women engineers—all of which intimidated or alienated female recruits. “We hear from companies there’s a pipeline problem, that there just aren’t enough people applying for jobs. This is one area where they are able to influence that,” says Wynn. They just don’t.

The chilling effect, according to Wynn, starts with the people companies send to staff recruiting sessions. As students entered, women were often setting up refreshments or raffles and doling out the swag in the back; the presenters were often men, and they rarely introduced the recruiters. If the company sent a female engineer, according to the paper, she often had no speaking role; alternatively, her role was to speak about the company’s culture, while her male peer tackled the tech challenges. Of the sessions Wynn’s research team observed, only 22 percent featured female engineers talking about technical work. When those women did speak, according to the sessions observed, male presenters tended to interrupt them.

Similarly, the follow-up question-and-answer periods were often dominated by male students who commandeered the time, using it to show off their own deep technical know-how in a familiar one-upmanship. Rather than acting as a facilitator for these sessions, male presenters were often drawn into a competitive volley. Wynn and Correll describe one session in which men asked 19 questions and women asked none. Of the five presenters, the two men fielded all the questions while the two female engineers spoke very little; finally, a female recruiter jumped in at the end with application instructions. This clearly didn’t entice female attendees. Of the 51 men attending, only one left the room during the q&a. Four of the 15 women left.

The paper also describes recruiters using gender stereotypes. One online gaming company showed a slide of a woman wearing a red, skin-tight dress and holding a burning poker card to represent its product. Another company, which makes software to help construct computer graphics, only showed pictures of men—astronauts, computer technicians, soldiers. Presentations were often replete with pop-culture images intended to help them relate to students, but that furthered gender stereotypes. One internet startup, for example, showed an image of Gangnam style music videos that featured a male artist surrounded by scantily clad women.

In an attempt to appear approachable, presenters often made comments that disparaged women or depicted them as sexualized objects, rather than talented technical colleagues. For example, in one session, a man mentioned the “better gender ratio” at the company’s Los Angeles office compared with its Silicon Valley office. “I had no girlfriends at [University Name], but now I’m married,” he said, suggesting that the better odds had helped get him hitched.
This type of informal banter occasionally devolved into overtly sexualized comments. One presenter from a small startup mentioned porn a couple of times. Another, when talking about a project that would allow banking on ships, suggested that sailors needed access to cash for prostitutes.

The few sessions that featured women speaking on technical subjects had fewer such problems. When these women spoke on technical issues—and connected those issues to real-world impact—female students were much more engaged. In these sessions, female students asked questions 65 percent of the time, compared with 36 percent of the sessions without these features.

While the Stanford research looks explicitly at gender, its findings have broader implications. Namely: First impressions are everything. To attract a more diverse workforce, companies need to present themselves as diverse communities of professionals. Wynn says she’s presented this research to recruiters and people within tech firms. “They’re astonished. They often just don’t know what’s going on in their recruiting sessions,” she says. Knowing where your problems lie is the first step to eradicating them before they block your pipeline.

 

What do think tech companies could do better when recruiting women? Tell us about it in the comments below!

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WIT: Mixing friendship and business: What women in tech can do better

 

by Monica Harrington for GeekWire

I joined Microsoft 30 years ago, worked there 11 years, was CMO for two successful companies and one that wasn’t, and then quit tech to focus on reproductive health. I did that for many years, and had some impact as an advocate and elected official (and was named a Woman of Courage by the University of Washington in 2016 for my efforts). But now I’m returning to tech.
Why?

Because at heart, I’m a geek and I miss it. Through high school, my math scores were always higher than my language scores and despite the fact that I got no encouragement to go into a technical field, I somehow wandered in a side door, built a career in tech, and I miss it.

I also think we need more senior women like myself in tech. The numbers tell the story. During my early years in tech, women held 35 percent of computing jobs; by 2013, women held only 26 percent. We’re missing senior level women, we’re missing women mentors, and we’re missing young women who see a future for themselves in tech.
The situation’s bad and getting worse and it didn’t need to be this way.

Back in the late 80s and early 90s, when I was working at Microsoft at a pretty junior level, I built friendships with a group of soon-to-be high-powered women who were capable of doing insane, wonderful things in tech. (I also worked with a lot of terrific men, but that’s a different column.). As we took on more senior roles, our friendships flourished, but we often kept those friendships under the radar.

Now that we’re in our 50s, none of my closest circle of ten women friends from that era are still in tech. OK, one is, kind of. In fact, she sits on the board of one of Seattle’s most important tech companies. That’s pretty powerful. But her day job is spent running a nonprofit. Another sits on the board of Berkshire Hathaway (apparently, Warren thinks she’s very smart), but again, not really a tech role.

Meanwhile, many of the men I know from that era are engaged in venture capital, starting new businesses, mentoring startups, and generally staying engaged in tech.

A recent Pew survey suggests why that happens:

Basically, women in tech have it tough. It’s hard to be tough and assertive in a mixed crowd without triggering the “bitch” reaction. We’re also super sensitive about mixing friendship and business.

If you want to be taken seriously in a male-dominated field (as I was, and as many of my female colleagues were), it can be hard to let down your guard and relax into your strengths, especially if those strengths are perceived as feminine. A strength

I’ve come to recognize in many of the women I’ve come to know and admire is how to be a good and dear friend while also adhering to high standards of ethics and excellence in the workplace.

“I believe women are too often reluctant to promote the women they’ve met in business because when we become friends with women we like and admire, we then feel compromised about mixing that friendship with business.”

I don’t think women need to act like men to be successful. But I do think women need to act more like men to help other women be more successful. What I am painfully aware of is that men are better at connecting in business and promoting qualified friends. They don’t suffer the same qualms about mixing friendship and business.

When you’re building companies, it’s super helpful to draw on the talents of people you both like and respect. And often, that means drawing on the talents of friends.

I believe women are too often reluctant to promote the women they’ve met in business because when we become friends with women we like and admire, we then feel compromised about mixing that friendship with business. Too often, women won’t put forth another woman friend for an opportunity unless she’s the most qualified person on the planet. Meanwhile, the men aren’t worried about that and they promote opportunities regularly to their friends as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Recommending people throughout your network is the lifeblood of an effective venture capitalist.

In my return to tech, I’m committed to assertively mixing friendship and business, and to helping friends I’ve met in business – women and men – who are great at what they do, be part of what it is I’m doing.

If I got to know you at work, and I found you to be smart, innovative, reliable, and just generally a kickass person to be around, I don’t want to hold it against you professionally that we became friends. We all need to embrace the fact that many of the same qualities that make for a great friendship also make for great business relationships.

And to my men friends from several decades of a life in tech, thanks for setting an example of how you treat your friends.

Some of my best work experiences have come about because you had no qualms about recommending me despite that fact that somewhere along the road we became good friends.

Monica Harrington is a startup veteran (Valve, Picnik), women’s health advocate, and now CMO of Exro Technologies.

What do you think of her recommendations for women in technology? Tell us in the comments below?

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Weekly Round up 1/26/18

 

Montana?! Hey, Roy Cooper! Are you seeing this?
Montana Becomes First State To Set Its Own Net Neutrality Rules.

I’m guessing they haven’t done the obvious and hired more women…
What has Tech done to fix its harrassment problem?


See above…
The tech industry needs one million workers now.

What, was he all out of Tide Pods?
iPhone battery explodes after Chinese man bites it.

You know, if she and Angela Merkel were to team up, Trump would sh*t himself.
Theresa May warns tech firms over terror content.

Why haven’t we patented this?!
Cancer could soon be spotted by technology ‘several months’ before it occurs.

Oh sure, NOW they’re paying attention. After the racist, Russian loving idiot is already planted in the White House. Good thinking, guys.
Tech Is Starting to Lose Its War on Journalism.

 

I find it hard to believe Retail has come to its senses about anything…
The Retail Industry Has Come To Its Senses On Technology.

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WIT: 5 Ways Women in Tech Can Take Action in 2018

 

 

By Rana el Kaliouby Co-founder and CEO, Affectiva as Featured on Inc.com

I just got back from attending CES 2018 in Las Vegas where over 180,000 people descended on the city to discuss all things tech. At Affectiva, we are spending more time in the automotive space as car companies look to capture driver and occupant state to improve safety and optimize the in-cab experience in autonomous vehicles. So CES was THE place to be to meet with existing and prospective automotive partners. And busy it was. I was in back-to-back meetings all day on Tuesday: eight meetings altogether. Twenty-four men. Only one woman besides myself. I attended a panel on the future of intelligent cars: all (white) males.

The lack of women on stage was a recurring theme at the conference: the keynote addresses were overwhelmingly male and so was the speaker lineup for the Consumer Telematics Show, prompting the hashtag #CESSoMale. As co-founder and CEO of an AI company, I am used to there not being many women in the room especially in AI. But still, the notable absence of women on stage and in meetings, with everything going on around us, felt surreal.

Later that evening, I was fortunate to be invited to an intimate “Women in Tech” dinner hosted by Peggy Johnson, Executive Vice President, Business Development at Microsoft and Microsoft Ventures. For what it’s worth, I was recommended for the dinner by a male colleague who is in tech investing – so yes, there are AMAZING guys out there who are advocates for women!

A role model for women in tech, Peggy spent many years at Qualcomm before joining Microsoft as one of CEO Satya Nadella’s first hires. The other women at the dinner were equally accomplished. In fact, this was the most women tech investors I’d ever met in one place. There were also women founders of very successful startups in the mobility and media space as well as heads of products and business development at billion dollar companies. That none of these women were on the CES stage baffled me. It baffled all of us at that table.

I attend a fair amount of these “women events” but this one was different. Just a couple of nights before, Oprah Winfrey had given an inspiring speech – a call to action to women (and men) to speak their truths especially as it relates to inequality in all its forms. As we went around the table sharing what we are excited about in 2018, I felt an incredible sense of optimism. There was also consensus that it was time for action. Trending hashtags are not enough.

The conversation inspired me define five actionable things that I feel inspired to take on in 2018:

1. De-stigmatize Emotions.

At dinner, we had a heated debate about whether it’s OK for women to show their emotions at work. I was surprised that the women at the table were split on this. Several felt it hurts our careers and is downright “unprofessional”. Others challenged this: why is it OK for men (take Steve Jobs for example) to express their frustration by yelling and swearing at others, but it is not OK for women to express their frustration say through tears? Why is it that the emotional male leader is seen as assertive and powerful, whereas an emotional female leader is seen as weak?
I’ve spent my career giving computers the ability to recognize human emotions, so I know very well the stigma around emotions. It is why, in 2009 when we were spinning out of MIT Media Lab, my co-founder Professor Rosalind Picard and I avoided the word “emotions” in our company name and early pitch decks. But it is 2018 and the world has changed. There is now increased recognition that emotions drive people to act and are so critical, not just in the culture of an organization but also in how companies choose to engage with their users. It is time that we de-stigmatized emotion and as Jack Ma, Founder and Chairman of Alibaba puts it, celebrate what makes us human: our capacity for passion, compassion, understanding.

2. More Women Camaraderie and Support for Each Other

Enough of the queen bee syndrome. When a woman on your team or in your network comes up with an idea, make sure she gets credit for it. If you are in a meeting and a fellow woman gets cut off, stand up for her, for instance by saying “I’m actually interested in hearing the rest of what Zoe has to say – Zoe please continue”. Share and amplify the success stories of other women – this is not a zero sum game! Also, be generous with your connections. Vouch for women on your team and women in your network. Make introductions, help them get on company boards and on stage. Help them expand their responsibilities and celebrate their successes. I especially look forward to supporting the awesome women on Affectiva’s team.

3. Partner With The Men Who Get it And Challenge Those Don’t.

But this isn’t just about women supporting each other. Men play a crucial role here too. Collaborate with and reinforce those men who get it; challenge those who don’t. I have been fortunate to have amazing male mentors and advisors who celebrate women in tech. On a personal level, these men celebrate my successes and cheer me on when it is challenging. These men care about gender parity and focus on that with intention – routinely recommending women in their network to event organizers and company boards. I am also lucky to work with team members who are strong advocates for getting more women in STEM. Even though Affectiva is co-founded by two women scientists, our science and engineering teams are still predominantly male. This is something we recognize and are actively working on. Forest Handford, Engineering Manager at Affectiva has put guidelines that insure that gender (and other biases) don’t creep into our interviewing process. In one case, Forest advocated for hiring a female intern. He reminded everyone that male candidates often over inflate their abilities while women generally undervalue their abilities. Over the past year, with Forest’s leadership, we have been able to attract four female interns; up from one the prior year.  

4. Be The Leader You Want To See.

Be you. Own the leadership style that makes you you. If you are an empathetic leader by nature, embrace that. Your team is better for it. I personally believe in bringing your whole self to work and being open and transparent, even vulnerable. I believe that builds trust, loyalty, and a sense of belonging and passion. All these things that are fundamental in the office.  Challenge gender norms. For instance, it should be ok for both men and women to talk about their kids and other non-related aspects of their life at work. 

5. Life Begins At The End Of Your Comfort Zone.

Get out there. Build your personal brand. Get on stage, even if if it is outside of your comfort zone. Not because you are a woman, but because you are an expert on what you do. Reach out to events where you think there should be more women speakers and make recommendations. I personally do a lot of speaking engagements in tech, but am committed to getting more involved on the automotive tech stage. 
This is the year of action. There are not enough women in AI. We need to start a network of women who are in that field in academia, business, and investment. My goal for 2018 is to identify those women, reach out to them, support them and perhaps host an event for Women in AI. If that interests you, please reach out to me and let’s make something happen.

What do you think about these suggestions for taking action for women in tech? Sound off in the comments below!

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Weekly Round Up 1/19/18

 

 


I love my Nook and my iPad for reading, nothing will ever beat the smell of a new book.
How Technology Is (and Isn’t) Changing Our Reading Habits

 


White Collar Automation for the win!!
7 Technology Trends That Will Dominate 2018

 


They can’t stop the Government from deporting people who’ve been here for 30 years, but the Tech industry wants to focus on the spouses of the dreamers?
Tech Industry Urges U.S. to Keep Work Permits for H-1B Spouses.

 

Wait, what?
Microsoft tops Thomson Reuters top 100 global tech leaders list.

 

They’re gonna cure us of our iPhone addiction too…

‘Time well spent’ is shaping up to be tech’s next big debate.

 

They can’t agree on a budget and our kids are eating Tide Pods, but yeah, Washington is gonna close the digital divide.
Washington’s next big tech battle: closing the country’s digital divide.

 

 

Preach!!
Sundar Pichai Google CEO Sundar Pichai: Digital technology must empower workers, not alienate them.

 

 

A nice idea but, I draw the line at having to but my dog an iPhone.
Pet tech can entertain some 4-legged family members.

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WIT: We all must think about ‘balance of tech’ – Randi Zuckerberg

 

By Peter Hamilton of the Irish Times

“Nobody ever came up with an idea that was going to change the world when they were 24/7 glued to their phone”, Randi Zuckerberg, an entrepreneur and former Facebook employee, has told delegates at a conference.

Speaking at the Pendulum Summit, a conference in Dublin’s convention centre, Ms Zuckerberg said that “we all have to think about the balance of tech”, warning that while it can do incredible things, it doesn’t spur entrepreneurship by itself.

An older sister of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Randi began her career in digital marketing at advertising agency Ogilvy before joining the social media giant in its infancy.

She told the conference about the company’s ‘hackathon’ events, where “every few months everyone at the company was invited to pull an all nighter…there was one rule, you could not work on something that was related to anything you did on your day job.”

Ms Zuckerberg herself came up with the Facebook Live idea at one of those Hackathons. While the first ever transmission was only watched by two people the idea ultimately became a success after Katy Perry launched a world tour on the platform and “politicians from around the world saw an opportunity to speak directly to their constituents” with Barack Obama becoming an early adopter.

Ms Zuckerberg quit the company after the successes of Facebook Live because of a “complicated relationship with both tech and Silicon Valley”.

“On one hand I loved being part of a company like Facebook that was changing the world, I loved being in Silicon Valley where everywhere you walk people are talking about solving big problems. I hated being the only woman in the room for 10 years,” she said.

“Even today, my best advice for young women going into technology, is to have a mans name like Randi.

“I had a growing complicated relationship between the huge digital divide we see in the world. We live in a world today where some of us have amazing access to technology and advice and business and speakers. All of us in this room we are so lucky and then right in our back yard’s are millions of people who don’t even have WiFi access, and millions of people who are going to be left behind from this new economy and for me, I had trouble sitting with that.

“Some of the very tools we were working on and creating, they were used very differently by the world then how we dreamed they’d be used. For example, I remember waking up during the time of the Arab Spring and feeling so proud, waking up every morning thinking, wow, we’ve given a voice to everyone.

“And then I woke up the day after this last election in the United States and thought, wow, we gave a voice to everyone. It’s complicated,” she added.

Ms Zuckerberg is now the chief executive of Zuckerberg Media, a company she founded, and has just finished writing 30 episodes of a television show based on a children’s book she has written called “Dot”.

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Weekly Round Up 1/12/18

 

 

Again?! Steve Jobs may have been a tyrant when it came to the details but, this sh*t rarely happened on his watch.

Yet another macOS High Sierra bug: Unlock App Store system preferences with any password.


With all the Technology surrounding these guys, you’d think they’d pay better attention to the world around them. I mean, I know they live in a bubble, but c’mon!Data Sheet—Darkness Hits CES Amid the Tech Backlash.

 

And my hometown made the list! Charlotte NC for the win!
Tech’s New Hotbeds: Cities With Fastest Growth In STEM Jobs Are Far From Silicon Valley.

Wait, does this mean no more Jitterbug?!
Tech for the elderly is a growing area, but founders should think more about whether their gadget will be used.

 

I think Steve would be more worried about the lack of leadership in his company right now, actually.
The ‘father of the iPod’ says tech addiction would worry Steve Jobs if he were alive today.

 

What, bribes don’t work on Congress anymore? Since when?!
Tech executives join more than 100 business leaders calling on Congress to move quickly on DACA.

 

You know, when I was a kid, I remember my parents writing to Captain Kangaroo and asking him to cut his programming in half so I’d watch less. SMH
Kids and Smartphones: Should Tech Companies or Parents Set the Limits?

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