SFWoW

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

A friend called me the other day to ask urgently, did I know a dependable, quick web designer for some clients of his? “I used to know a lot, but now I don’t even know where to find one!” he said. Well, I posted to the list asking that question- and received this great list. Please contact me to get added.

Lisa LaTorre
www.llatorre.com
llatorre@inmotionmedia.net

Kimberley Kradel
webdev.kimba.com
kimba@kimba.com

Cate Calson
www.calsongraphics.com
cc@calsongraphics.com

Julia Satovsky
julia@j4design.com
www.j4design.com

Joe Crawford
www.artlung.com
joe@artlung.com

Estelle W.
estelle@weyl.org
evotech.net/blog

Lorene Anderson
webby12342001@yahoo.com
web.LoreneAnderson.com

Janet Fouts
Tatu Digital Media
fouts@tatudigital.com
www.tatudigital.com

Jennifer Melnick Bar-Nahum
Olio Arts
www.olioarts.com
melnick@olioarts.com

January 24th was another in our long string of rainy nights. Nonetheless, as SFWowers showed up for our get-together on the subject of LinkedIn, at WineBarSF, we had to move to a larger table. In attendance: Doris Beers, Teri Gardella, Maritess Hoy, Megan Keane, Ellen (?), Anna Papina, Rebecca Kidder, Erin O’Neill, and myself. It really makes a difference to have those names we see on the list come to life as real people.

We ended up sharing information one-on-one rather than shouting around the table. I
was seated beside Maritess, who I thank for her LinkedIn tips:

• ping people in my network from time to time
• let my contacts know if I am seeking info on a particular company
• participate in the “Answers” section to increase visibility.

Rebecca later added a tip about recommendations

• rather than collect general recs, wait until you have a specific employment target, and then ask for a recommendation directed toward the target.

Needless to say, I began adding to my LinkedIn network right after the get-together!

As Susan Stearman has stated: the event was ultra simple to arrange: I just picked a date, time, and place. Thanks to everyone who showed up - I enjoyed meeting and talking with you all.

Eleanor Beaton

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.

Wowzers made it out from the far corners of San Francisco to attend this year’s WordPress conference- WordCamp 2007- held at my people’s hall- Swedish American Hall. I showed up for the last 3 talks, but others were there earlier and longer. I asked a few Wowzers the following questions. Eleanor (EB) Robyn Tippins (RT), and myself, Anna (AB).

1. Do you like barbecue?
   • EB: I can count on one hand the times I have had it - so it was a nice alternative.
   • RT: Um… yes
   • AB: I missed the brisket. Guess I counted on there being leftovers. This time, there were boxes and boxes of water, which, in a pinch, I would prefer.
2. How long have you been in wordpress, what version do you have?
   • EB: My blogs are completely hosted by WordPress - use the template and
     the domain name. First started Oct 2006.
   • RT: I’ve been a user since Dec of 05, when I took my Blogger blog and placed it there. I have not yet upgraded to 2.0 on my main blog, but I have several blogs and each are running diff versions (naughty girl LOL).
   • AB: I got started last year, it was still in the 1.X versions. I took my blogger blog, moved it to my old HTML-style website, and ended up incorporating some applications (haiku database) into WordPress- that was my ultimate hack, and it totally worked! Now I’m on 2.0 but need to upgrade.
3. Why do you prefer WordPress?
   • EB: I don’t come from the “tech”/web world, and this was my first foray into it Did a lot of research, checking out blogs and I liked the ones on WordPress - also my first blog is a sound blog, and so I had to consider what would be the best way of presenting audio…at the time (Oct 2006) WordPress had a relationship with Odeo, and it was very easy for me to just plop into that system.
     Let me say that Wordpress makes it very easy for initial blogmakers. I am not a programmer or developer, and my attention is limited in terms of exploring add-ons, widgets, and so forth. I want an easy way to present straightforward content.
   • RT: I love the fact that WordPress is simple to install, simple to use and has so many plugins and themes readily available. Akismet is also a favorite of mine. It just can’t be beat.
   • AB: I’m part of an MU on Movable Type, so that’s my only real comparison. I love WP because - for the author’s interface, it reads from a database it’s far faster responding time. I also like to adjust and tweak the sidebars and add widgets, mess with the stylesheets, and all that is much more approachable in WordPress. Also very easy to install. The admin UI is also great.
4. Best widget/plug-in?
   • RT: Adsense Deluxe is my current favorite. It allows you to place adsense within a post and is the only way, I’ve seen, to use Google referral products within the text of a post (which is much more natural).
   • AB: I do love Akismet. I am kind of addicted to SnapIt, the little pop-up preview of where a link will go. I know that “recent comments” and the Flickr RSS feed on my sidebar probably had the biggest impact, as widgets go. I haven’t put in Ultimate Tag Warrior though I’ve been hearing about it forever.
5. Biggest annoyance with the UI
   • RT: For the longest time if you were using the Rich Text editor, YouTube videos (or any video, for that matter) could not be embedded. That is fixed in 2.0 because it’s very easy to flip back and to between code and Rich Text editor. As well, the silly decision to make all uploaded images a thumbnail is really annoying. However, it is a small price to pay for such great software. No one is going to like everything, I suppose…
   • EB: One of Liz’s comments was that as she was interviewing people, some asked her what needed to be fixed….(ie - does it need to be fixed?) Since I am not yet a power user, I don’t yet have need for some of the sophisticated aspects of the UI.
   • AB: Even in 2.0 the rich text toggle annoys me. When I install it I have to make sure to set the setting off. Also, the thumbnail image being the default, and pasting into my image code. I too was annoyed with the way youtube tags rendered, and ended up switching from youtube (with original content) to Vidavee. But in all those are little things- the ease of installation and the open architecture is great. Also so much faster, as an author, than Moveable Type.
6. Favorite bit of the talk geek-wise (what was new to you, what you learned, etc.)
   • RT: I enjoyed Jeremy Wright’s talk as his focus was on serving your readers and not your pocketbook, but Lorelle was amazing as well. As always though, my fav part was the Tshirt
   • EB: Wordcamp seemed to do a very good job of presenting to an audience which ranged from the neophyte to the professional tekkie. Favorites: Matt Cutts SEO tips…JohnDvorak and Om Malik (I know their names, and hearing them in person was great - a lot of wisdom, smarts, and a lot of laughing from the audience)….Liz Danzico, Hyper cog.
     Lorelle is a natural performer - and she did bring up some pretty basic and useful thoughts.
     For me, the information kinda prods me to take my blogs to the next level. To think about broader effectiveness .
   • AB: I liked hearing, during the developer talk, where they wanted to go with it, and what their favorite aspects of the software were. I feel, after a year, that there can be a lot of improvements, so it’s ncie to know the vision and general direction.
   • EB: One of Liz’s comments was that as she was interviewing people, some
     asked her what needed to be fixed….(ie - does it need to be fixed?)
     Since I am not yet a power user, I don’t yet have need for some of the
     sophisticated aspects of the UI.
7. Your blogs?
   • RT:sleepyblogger.com and gamingandtech.com
   • AB: banane.com, this one, Adventures in Email Marketing, and setup the SF WoW site as a CMS version (sorry Matt) using WordPress.
   • EB:
     http://alingeringstillness.wordpress.com
     http://exuberate.wordpress.com

wo

So I got a free exhibit pass via the Mobile Monday yahoo group and decided that Tuesday was my day to visit the Web 2.0 Expo event.

The event was a bit of a yawner if you ask me. I don’t see the paradigm shift that many people are talking about; it just seem likes a new branding of the same all stuff; some of it will make money and most of it will burn out in a flame of dust.

In the am. I sat through all the presentations. Not much to say about them. I had seen 2 of the 3 launchpad companies already Tellme and Vidoop. I did get the special invitation to signup for Vidoop at their booth but haven’t had a chance to do it yet. Their thing is a secure login using visuals rather than keystrokes. Tellme was just acquired by MSFT and they do voice search services that are pretty good. Eric Schmidt talked about Google’s acquisition of Double Click - ho hum.
The exhibits were open in the pm. It was difficult to tell what a lot of the companies were really doing. There were several booths showing corporate Wiki applications and they all looked the same to me. I agree that Wikis can be a great corporate groupware tool; but is that all there is to Web2.0?
And some of those companies need real marketing help — one booth only had the company name with no indication of what they do and no one really interested in telling me about it. Lots of the booth signage was really not informative.
Another interesting note - I haven’t seen so many free t-shirt giveaways since the height of the dot-com boom. And there were fun giveaway toys at a lot of booths. An ominous sign.

Unfortunately I was not at the event on Monday so I missed the opportunity to boo and walk out on the Spock demo - unbelievable that MCPs are still willing to show their stripes in SF these days; but there is no accounting for cluelessness among the supposed-Digerati.

I never heard of Spock but apparently they won the voting for the best Launchpad for Monday. Imagine that. On Tuesday the realtime voting count was available but not on Monday so they announced it on Tuesday. That was when I first heard the name but no one was talking about the demo, as far as I heard.

Later I heard about it from the 2 women at the Women 2.0 stand. My first encounter at their stand was with a Frenchman who was trying to understand why there would be a need for such an organization and claiming that there wouldn’t be a need in France (which I quickly corrected for him, having worked at 2 french companies in my last 2 jobs)

After he walked away, the Spock demo came up. I told the women that this was a perfect explanation for why we need organizations like SFWoW and Women 2.0 and they should be talking about their disgust at the demo and how it simply strengthens their commitment to their organization.

Next up for me is NAB in Las Vegas, its bound to be more interesting.

Wednesday night, SFWoW hosted its first-ever recruiting party: CANWOW! The CANWOW (Career Advancement for Women on the Web) goal was to assist our skilled and talented women in the Bay Area move up into higher level jobs in the technology industry.

From my very biased opinion, it was a huge success! Recruiters and hiring managers mingled and chatted with SFWoW members and guests in the private room of the Bubble Lounge. Business cards were exchanged, champagne was drunk, and networking relationships were established.

For me personally, I was energized and inspired to be in a room with so many successful and supportive women. I think the Bay Area really is a unique and special place where all of us geeky, techie women can support and encourage each other as we advance through our careers.

A special thanks to Rebecca Kidder, SFWoW Vice President, and Anna Billstrom, SFWoW President, for their crazy energy and dedication to make this event a reality. And thank you to all of the volunteers who helped organize the event, and who volunteered that night.

And thank you again to our wonderful sponsors, WordPress and Tatu Digital! We are grateful for companies who support and value diversity in the technology industry!

Check out more pictures from the night, and if you were at the event, please add a comment about what you thought of the evening.

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

A former colleague at IBM sent me this article today about the first woman to win the Turing Award. Frances Allen pioneered compiler optimization at IBM, and has, over the years, been recognized as an IBM Fellow and inducted to the WITI Hall of Fame.

Reading this article made me think back to my experiences at IBM and the female role models I had there. In my very first job out of college, the first five managers in the chain of command, all the way to the vice president level, were women. Over my five years at IBM, I worked with some amazing female engineers. Like Frances Allen, many of them joined IBM back before there were computer science departments at universities. But IBM sought them out and trained because they were looking for smart and talented people where-ever they might be.

Today, IBM and most other companies have changed how they recruit. They generally don’t offer intensive computer programming training courses, and instead look for people already with the skills they need to dive into the work. As recently as 15 years ago, IBM was still sending new employees off to three-month training courses before they started work. Now, employees get a day of orientation.

Companies are employing who the universities are graduating out of their computer science and related departments. IBM doesn’t have to be as creative as they were when Frances was graduating from school, when the distributed pamphlets called “My Fair Ladies.” There are always CS grads pouring out of school.

But the grads coming out of those schools are generally boys, and I can see how companies like IBM have changed their strategies. They used to say, “Let’s go find smart women and educate them to be programmers.” Now they say, “Let try to convince girls that they want to be CS majors in college so we can hire them as programmers when they graduate.”

Thanks to the WoWsers who came out in the rain last night for the Resume Roundtable at the Orbit Room!! We had a solid bunch of old-school WoWsers and some list newbies, with a good mix of those established in tech sector/online jobs, and others looking to return to the field.

Susan Stearman, former SF WoW Director and marketing guru, gave a talk on resume hints, do’s and don’ts. Probably one of the best reminders she gave was that the purpose of the resume was to get the interview, not tell a life story! She also stressed that the resume is to be about you- don’t waste space talking about what a company you worked for does- talk about what you did for that company.

Other key points:
* Use accomplishment statements
* Put relevant experiences towards the top of the resume
* Use a proper balance between black and white space on the paper
* Don’t obsess about your wording- focus on talking about achievements
* Cover the last 8-10 years of work experience
* Do not print date of B.A. (or don’t give the employer an opp to discriminate based on age)

Those were just a few of Susan’s helpful tips. Thanks, Susan!

We then moved to the resume trade portion of the evening, where WoWsers traded resumes to critique, red pens and all! This phase generated a lot of great feedback- for active job seekers and for those of us who just want to stay current.

Many thanks to the following WoWsers- notably Susan Stearman for, well, steering us in the right direction! And kudos to Rebecca for launching the whole event, as a lead up to SF WoW’s CANWOW recruitment event (free with rsvp). Watch the SFWoW site for event details and ticket info for the Interview Tips panel, scheduled for 2/28 (buy tickets here).

To close it out, I received valuable feedback from the event- both from employed WoWsers who came to the workshop from a hiring/managerial perspective, and also from ladies who have gotten recent feedback on resumes from prospective employers.

Thanks again! Off to edit-

Bethany

Update: added photos here.

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.