SFWoW

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

How interesting that it took the weather to get us all talking. I loved the small insights into individual lives. And the reassurance that at least those reporting in came through OK.

I promised a post on the Facebook Beacon situation and here it is. The simplest explanation is that Facebook suddenly began publishing their users’ non-Facebook web actions without asking their users’ permission or providing a way to opt out. Not only annoying, but also a breach of its own privacy policy. I checked a number of technical and marketing organization sites, and this article provides the best explanation of how the information was collected, what was done with it, who else was involved, and what is still going on.

The sudden publication of everything one did was scary, annoying, and embarrassing. Facebook listened to users and the press and turned off the automatic publication pretty quickly. Some of the other sites where actions were captured set up clear and granular opt out processes. Some didn’t. The information is still being collected and used by Facebook and other sites. Still other sites are planning on joining in (as of mid-December). It is not just information about Facebook members that is being collected, but in information about everyone who visits the various sites. Some of the information is aggregated, but some of it includes clear personal information.

Web Beacons are not new — they show up in most anti-spyware reports as “tracking cookies.” The technical purpose is to be able to use just one cookie for complex sites. The less spoken-of use is to track what visitors to web sites are doing. What makes them scary to security types is that they are put on one’s computer silently and they can do a lot more than just collect information and send it silently back to the mother ship. They can interact with other cookies and can carry out executables.

From a marketing perspective, tracking cookies permit sites to gather good user information and provide better marketing and user services.

Those who are most touchy about privacy issues don’t want any information gathered without their permission and object to all cookies. Just to make everyone nervous, there was an incident in 2005 when the NSA “accidentally” (who knows?) dropped tracking cookies from its public website. The FTC (which runs the Do Not Call List) is currently being asked by privacy activists to establish a Do Not Track List.

What does this have to do with SF-WOW? It is my sense that about half our membership is placing cookies and beacons that the other half is trying to remove. I think it would be fascinating to hear both sides.

I would also love to hear both from those who write Facebook applications (is security something you think about?) and those who use them (who do you trust? Do you have a Secret Crush?)

Next topic — teleclasses and podcasts - compare and contrast. I have asked a couple of people to contribute and will add to that list as the first few posts come through. Do let me know whether you would be more likely to read a note from a practitioner or an interview.

Stay Dry.

Recap of 2/28 Interview Panel
We had a great WoWser turnout this week to the Interview Panel event held at the Craft Gym! The panel of experts did not disappoint, and we all came away with a keen appreciation of how preparation leads to interview success. As a project manager, this should not have been a surprise to me – “plan & prepare” is my mantra! Sure enough, these actions are keys to success in acing the interview process and landing the job.

Irene Marshall, (http://www.toolsfortransition.com/) a career coach of many hats, started the evening by discussing the criteria, methods of contact, and types of interviews we are likely to encounter. Irene’s straightforward breakdown made it easy to understand how to best present oneself at each phase in the interview process.

Sarah Kidder, etiquette trainer extraordinaire, reminded us how important the seemingly small things can be. How we dress, speak, and carry ourselves play as big a role in landing the job as our qualifications.

Alicia Streight, career specialist and technical recruiter with K-Force, provided savvy interview techniques and shared valuable insight into the minds of recruiters and interviewers.

Key tips that will set you apart from the pack:

• Remember that you’re interviewing the company, too! Demonstrate your interest and commitment by researching the company in advance and asking questions.
• Wear a suit – even if your interview falls on “Casual Friday!”
• By the time you reach the interview phase, interviewers already know you can do the job. Now is your opportunity to let them get to know you and why you are the right person for the job.
• Send a hand-written thank you note to your interviewers. Sure, you can also send an email, but the personalized note will make you a stand-out.
• Make sure your references know about your job search and will say good things about you.

These are just a few of the many valuable points learned from an incredible evening.

Many thanks to Rebecca Kidder for organizing and moderating the event, to Susan Stearman for leading the volunteer effort, and to the Craft Gym for graciously hosting our gathering.

A reminder that SFWoW is hosting the CANWOW recruitment event next week. Details and RSVP on the sfwow.org site.

Thanks again to all who made the event possible, and to the attendees who asked such amazing questions!

See you at the next event!
–Lee Sahlaney
photo credit: banane

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.

Lauren has this great idea, which is to start an SF WoW blog, and here I get to write the very first post! She asked me about the history of San Francisco Women on the Web (SF WoW- not to be confused with World of Warcraft) and how the group has changed since its beginning. Relevant topic now because it’s quite a lively debate on the list- those who remember it as a golden era of burgeoning technology, and those like me who have a love/hate relationship with that time.

We started before anybody would confuse us with World of Warcraft, for one. I remember the conversation where we came up with the name- Valerie Hoecke, who basically founded the group told us what the trademark lawyer had said about creating a name: it should be something specific to SF, and about the internet, something basically recognizeable, but still unique. Anyways, it was a huge improvement on the old name: SF WebGrrls. Growl- we’re nasty, hot, webmistressy girls! If you typed one wrong letter, that’s what you would get too. We got in a debate with the mothership in NYC (all of the nationwide WebGrrls did) about charging membership dues, and being for-profit. Valerie had the great idea of ceding and going for non-profit status. This was all in 1998. At that point, we’d had a few years of happy WebGrrl activities, and then we morphed into SF WoW.

The High Point

We were pretty much self-running at the point we transitioned, so I don’t remember, organizationally, any real shift. We had immensely successful programs: Top 25 Women on the Web was a 4-year running award ceremony, and PIMs (Platform Indepenedent Mixers) were as big as Pink Parties when they started. Along with that, there was a flip side. Flaky volunteers abounded, flamewars on the list, racial-political-etc. issues came up and swarmed around us. Cat discussions filled up your inbox… like kitty litter. We had a series of HTML workshops for teaching those that wanted to get into the next big thing: the internet (w00t!). Though most of us who started knew HTML already. I got in a great Perl study group that met every Monday at Bean There in Lower Haight, and we plowed through Randal Schwartz’s Learning Pearl. 30 peope RSVP’d to attend and only 5 made it. Flakiness abounded.

The Low Point

The Dot Com Bomb ripped our heart out, and the last thing we wanted to do was organize parties around the technology that ruined our bank account. Some things kept running in this period- PIMs, renamed Scrappies (scrappily organized), which is the photo above- myself and Ali Nufire in 2004, at Metropol. I remember one steering crew meeting when a director was leaving, and we offered to give her a bottle of wine as a parting gift. “Can you give me a Safeway coupon so I can buy groceries?” I can’t resist that story, as it’s a great anecdote, but not really … truthful. Sure, she said that, but then again, her and a few other list members were sad casualties of the pairing down and de-fluffing of tech companies (another post entirely). As one longterm SF Wowzer (that’s the thing you call someone in SF WoW, or just “Wowzer”) Andreas said, and he’s a guy, “There are always jobs for good people.” So sure, there was a huge falloff in jobs during 2001-3, but that doesn’t mean that the list floundered. More like, it quieted, focussed, and yet still managed to keep running.

Now

Two years ago, we decided to spend the existing assets of SF WoW on a series of parties. The idea was to invest capital in the group, to rejuvenate it or have at least a nice swan song. It ended up rejuvenating. Our Annual Party, on (or near) January 15th, 2005, we spent some cash on a nice restaurant, catering, and wine, and had one of the best event turnouts since Top 25. I heard, over and over that night, how people were glad ‘SF WoW is back’.

We also moved the list to Yahoo Groups and managed to survive Bush’s election. We had some very articulate, verbal pro-Bush supporters on the list so for about two years so the list became completely wrapped up in political turmoil. Our able volunteers managed to get the list over to Yahoo and prohibit political posts. Yep, that’s right. We agreed to disagree and just not talk about it! Even now, despite what goes on, people still chime in with “… and I’m so glad we got rid of politics” haha. Now the list is searchable- which is truly great. We have increased by 600 subscribers, from 1200 in the “low point”. I don’t actually know the numbers when we moved to SF WoW (someone please comment who knows) but it may have been in the 800s.

Not to be totally ingenuous- I recently posted on the list a long email about how bad I thought our discussions were getting “cats, nails, yoghurt”, and asked for members to re-examine why they were on a women’s networking and business list. Basically, to recommit to the mission. That has started some very interesting threads that I hope will carry over to this blog for those in the extended SF WoW community to read and contribute.