SFWoW

San Francisco Women on the Web: serve, educate, empower

Many of the members of SFWoW are on twitter, using this social media tool to talk to the world, and each other, about what we are doing in our everyday lives around work, home, and tech. Much like the list-serv that is our usual daily communication, twitter has opened up a new method of instant communication for the group in 140 characters. Now that twitter has developed lists, there’s one for SFWoW and you can follow a number of the members here.

Every year around this time, but usually at the end of the month when it is almost too late, I get the Girl Scout cookie jones. Thin Mints, those are my favorites, and everybody else’s too.

And it’s about this time of year that I start posting to the SFWOW email list to see if anyone has spotted a Girl Scout with a cookie stash.

This year though, as March 3rd or so rolled around I came down with a flash of a green box and a faint taste of mint. Ah! Girl Scout Cookie month!

In this neighborhood (Elmwood in Berkeley) I have consistently found the Girl Scouts selling outside of Wells Fargo Bank on the corner of College and Ashby. So today, I went looking for them.

There they were just as expected! Customers were crowded around the table. Luckily there were enough Thin Mints to go around. When the people in front of me collected their stack of boxes and went on down the street I asked “Who is going to wait on me?”

One of the girls piped up, “I am!”

So I got my three boxes of Thin Mints and asked how much were they per box.

“Four dollars per box,” she replied.

“Hmmm, let’s see, four times three is … hmmmm, what is four time three?” I asked.

Her little gears turned and she said “Twelve!”

I had twelve dollars in my wallet, but instead I took out a twenty and two ones. “If I give you this,” showing her the bills, “how much change will you give back to me?”

She replied almost instantly, “I don’t know.”

I looked at her for a second and she flashed her Mom a look. I said “Yes you do. If I give you twenty-two dollars, and the cookies cost twelve … what is twenty-two minus twelve?”

She hesitated for a minute, tried guessing, and then started writing out the math on the table with her fingers. She did her math problem out loud and then said “Ten!”

“Yep!” I said, and then she ran off and got me my change.

This may seem like a silly little thing, making a nine year old figure out how much change I need when her mother is standing at the other end of the table clutching the money bag. But these girls are not just trying to raise money. They are learning about business. They are learning about how to treat customers, sell their product, and yes, do the math!

Every time you allow a girl, or a boy for that matter, to get away with “I don’t know” for an answer, you are doing them a disservice. I’m not a parent, or a teacher, but it’s important that I teach the youngins’ whenever I have the opportunity. And Girl Scout Cookie Month is a great opportunity to be mentor that way.

So make those Girl Scouts use their Customer Service and Sales skills and don’t forget to make them do the math!

A long time ago, sometime during the last election cycle, we banned political discussions on the SFWOW discussion list. It was probably for the best. Threads and discussions would get out of hand, and flame wars would erupt, complete with name calling and time-outs. It was an ugly time. Interesting. But ugly.

But we are now in a new era. It’s not about politics. It’s about technology.

Last week we elected a new President here in the US and although none of us in SFWOW really knows how many in the group think this might be a wonderful thing, I’d be safe to say that more than 50 percent of us do. Now that the election is over, it’s time for everyone to get on the same page and get with the program.

The exciting thing about Barack Obama being elected President is that he is ready to move us in many ways into the future. This is evident in the way he used the technology of the internet and the web during his campaign and in his plans for expanding technology during his administration.

During the campaign, Obama had a presence on the web unlike any politician before him. His web site was not only about him, but filled with facts and figures, policy information and a lot of boring political content. Obama’s web site used every aspect the technology had to offer. He used text messaging and email to announce his VP pick. His daily stump speeches were streamed live, he created a community among his supporters by giving them a place to not only blog about their concerns, but also to network with each other. Within each member’s profile they could also work on the campaign with the nifty “Neighbor to Neighbor” program - calling voters in swing states to garner support and get out the vote from the comfort of your home. Within this community the discussion and networking groups where people could create events, pass along information, and find details on the issues are still viable and will remain so for some time in the future.

Obama also has a youtube channel where the campaign posted stump speeches, television commercials, and interviews with campaign supporters.

The day after the election the Obama camp launched Change.Gov, a web site where it is shown that the President-Elect wants to use technology to engage the American public in the workings of the government. Currently there are two important parts of the site, the blog which publishes the important daily news of the President-Elect, and a section where you can apply for jobs in the Obama administration. There is also a section for you to let the President-Elect know what you want for the country.

Obama has also said that he wants to appoint a Chief Technology Officer as well as get true broadband to every community in the country.

Two of the goals from the technology plan posted on BarackObama.com:

Protect the Openness of the Internet: A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.

Bring Government into the 21st Century: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will use technology to reform government and improve the exchange of information between the federal government and citizens while ensuring the security of our networks. Obama and Biden believe in the American people and in their intelligence, expertise, and ability and willingness to give and to give back to make government work better. Obama will appoint the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century. The CTO will ensure the safety of our networks and will lead an interagency effort, working with chief technology and chief information officers of each of the federal agencies, to ensure that they use best-in-class technologies and share best practices.

Whatever happens, I think we’re all looking forward to as much transparency in our government that the Internet will allow.

What do other people think about the Obama Administration and technology? Will this create new business opportunities in technology for women? Will it help with individual communication with our government? What are your thoughts?

On the SFWOW email group, we have a few different subjects where we can post messages. This is to facilitate email filters more than anything, as some subjects are more interesting to some rather than others.

Recently the (community) posts came under a little debate. There are too many of them. So everyone has chimed in on what kind of posts we’d like to see more of and what kind of posts we’d like to see less of. In response to that thread, I wrote my own little history of the (community):

I’ve been on this list since 1995 when it was known as sf-webgrrls. In the beginning the list was all about UNIX and Networking in the IP sense of the word and html tags. Our web browsers were Netscape and Mosaic. Web sites were gray. Hardrives had 256 megs of storage space. Information was saved on floppies. Pine was the email client of choice. Marketing wasn’t even a topic of discussion and all the women on the list were hardcore tech oriented people and this list was a much needed list as women were few and far between in the NOCs of the Bay Area.

Then web site design became an issue, testing web sites to see if they would crash became a concept, then marketing products via web sites, then web site launches, product launches, party invitations, and The Webbies. Oh, and who could forget connectivity and bandwidth? Everyone was incredibly busy, working 12, 14 hour days everyday, and spending a lot of money. And how do you create a nested table? Do I need a home router?

Then 2000 happened (for me) and 2001 (for others). I got layed off, you got layed off. Are we scared yet? Have we lost our homes yet? Are we moving out of the area? How long can I eek out on unemployment? How can I transition into another line of work? Is there still enough work out there to go freelance? But it was all good, wasn’t it? Does anyone have a workaround for the MSG in top ramen?

Suddenly we went from an incredibly headdy place to a very weird place. And it was rather sudden. There were days when this list was a real lifeline for some of us - keeping us connected to a group of somewhat like-minded people going through similar circumstances. (community), which used to be (off topic), posts were more frequent. (Tech) became less important because a lot of us weren’t working. Out in the world, Tech itself was stagnating, languishing in the ethers.

It’s only been in the last year that jobs have been starting to ramp up here in The Bay Area. Still nowhere near pre-2000 levels, Craigslist has had a lot of tech postings in the last year compared to the four years prior. I can remember the days not so long ago when an entire week’s worth of job postings showed up on the front page of the software/qa/dba section of craigslist.

(community) is what got us through the downtime. I enjoy being able to give travel advice and info (and plugging my site in the process). I like having a place to ask for a recommendation for housesitters (I am one!), restaurants to take clients, office space for rent, roommates needed (or how to get rid of one), and ok, a really good nail salon. It’s important to be able to ask your peers for these recs. Asking somehwere else, well, those folks just don’t know me like you all do.

So what’s the point, you may be asking yourself? This is a cyclical list. To get back to our tech roots will take a little conscious effort. I also agree with Andreas who posted a response to this thread, that a lot of the questions I have these days are business related. But I think there is still a lot more tech to be discussed.

So, if you are new, welcome to the list! If it isn’t what you expected then make it so. It’s your list after all.