Girls In Tech

The annual SXSW (South By Southwest) festival in Austin kicks off this week, and I’ll be attending for the first time. Suffice it to say that while I’m very excited, I’ve also heard enough about the event to know it’s quite a chaotic scene. So I tapped into the wealth of information available online for advice on getting the most out of the event. If you’re a first-timer, check out these tips from from veteran attendees:

- Plan your sessions: There is a seemingly endless number of sessions to attend, and they’re scattered all over the place. Put together a calendar of must-attend sessions and map it out so you know the best route to get from one point to another.

- But factor in some spontaneity: Commit to a few sessions/events but otherwise be open to the unexpected. Keep an eye on Twitter for realtime activities that crop up.

- Get to know the layout of the conference center and surrounding area: If you’re arriving early, walk around the conference center and familiarize yourself with the landscape.

- Cross-pollinate: Don’t settle into groups of people you already know. Get outside of your comfort zone and meet new people. Be outgoing and introduce yourself to strangers. Veteran attendees say that SXSW is the easiest place to meet people.

- Attend parties: Believe it or not, parties are the best place to network. Good business contacts are often forged at SXSW parties. But if you drink alcohol, pace yourself (for obvious reasons).

- Bring extra battery juice: Available power outlets are scarce so make sure you have extenders and/or extra batteries for all your gadgets.

- Get plenty of sleep before and after: The bottom line is that you’re not going to get a lot of sleep while you’re at SXSW. So stock up on sleep before and after.

- Drink plenty of water: It’s all fun and games until someone gets dehydrated and faints.

- Bring Tylenol and/or aspirin: This is critical if you plan on imbibing alcohol but a nice-have even if you don’t. The event is loud and crowded; this may be enough to induce a headache.

- Pack a first-aid kit: If you get a small boo-boo, don’t count on the availability of band-aids.

- Wear comfortable attire and shoes: During the month of March, Austin is typically warm during the day and cold at night, so wear layers. The vibe is casual, so an outfit of jeans and a t-shirt is perfectly acceptable. Also, since you’ll be walking a lot, wear shoes that won’t give you blisters and sore feet.

- Pack food and/or plan on going off-site: The conference center does not offer a wide array of food.

Additional information:

- Click here for information and maps for getting around SXSW.

- Here’s the official SXSW guide for first-timers.

- Check out the top FAQs on the official SXSW site.

- View the complete SXSW schedule of sessions and events here.

- Click here to view the Interactive schedule.

- Click here to view the Film schedule.

- Click here to view the Music schedule.

- Download the official SXSW mobile app, which “allows you to view/build your schedule, see a map of what’s happening and how to get there, navigate the tradeshow, stay connected to the social world and more!”

Sources:

* The Unofficial SXSW Survival Guide by David Armano

* Your SXSW Survival Guide by Aaron Brazell

* SXSW Survival Guide 2010 by Jake McKee

* Rock Insider’s Survival Guide To SXSW 2009 by JAX

Any other important advice us first-timers should know? And hey, if you’re going to be at SXSW this year and want to meet up, let me know! Email me: bnguyen@boingo.com. Cheers!

Tags: Austin, Baochi Nguyen, sxsw, tips
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If you’re in the area, please stop by Cisco’s San Jose campus building 9 for a Cisco event in honor of the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day!

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Follow me @AlliStrouse

This weekend, I participated in a Design Thinking Worship at the d school at Stanford University. The d school started five years ago with the mission to bring people together to teach the design thinking method and create an environment for people work together to solve big problems.

This Saturday, from 9am to 2pm, Stanford design school students taught a group of 85 people from all walks of life (engineering, medicine, business, the humanities, and education…both university and non-university affiliated) the process of design thinking….

1. Empathy

2. Define

3. Ideate

4. Prototype

5. Test

We applied the above design thinking method to bring improvements to the airport boarding process.

1. Empathy: Groups of 5 participants interviewed a handful of people who had both good and bad flying experiences

2. Define: We huddled and brainstormed what the main issues were by analyzing what the interviewees said, did, thought and felt. We narrowed this down to one main issue for us to solve

3. Ideate: We came up with ideas to solve the problem

4. Prototype: We created a physical prototype of what our solution would look like

5. Test: We shared our prototype with our interviewees and got their feedback

It is rare to be in an environment where you are encouraged at all times to think creatively and have no boundaries in your ideas for innovation. Anyone who wants to tap into their creative minds and brainstorm with other creative people, I encourage you to look into workshops at the d school Click here to learn more about the d school workshops.

Here are some photos from the event:

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I’ll be speaking at SXSWi for Ignite Austin, and would love to incorporate some of your thoughts into the talk! The topic of my talk will be “Women. Technology. 2011.”

I’m looking for thoughts on where you think women will be in technology, innovation and entrepreneurship, or where you want them to be, 10 years from now. I also would like to push the discussion to the global scene, not just focused on the US.

Please leave a comment, or email me at kate@girlsintech.net. I’d love submissions today, but can take them up until Wednesday.

Thanks!

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The GIT Gives Back Program: Our First Event! Dress for Success

Girls in Tech has just started an awesome new program called the “GIT Gives Back.” Through this new program, GIT is going to coordinate one community outreach activity a month for GIT members and volunteers to participate in. This new initiative is adding a dimension to the ways GIT supports women in our community. In addition, this is a great opportunity for GIT members to bond, mingle and network in a rewarding way.

GIT will be hosting one charity a month, so please stay tuned for monthly details.

Drum roll please… our first GIT Give Back Event!

GIT Gives Back Program:

Event #1: GIT Gives Back Dress for Success

What is Dress for Success?

The mission of Dress for Success is to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.

Founded in New York City in 1997, Dress for Success is an international not-for-profit organization offering services designed to help our clients find jobs and remain employed. Each Dress for Success client receives one suit when she has a job interview and can return for a second suit or separates when she finds work. Read more here…

When: Saturday, March 12, 2011

# Volunteer Openings: We have only 10 volunteer spots, so if you are interested please rsvp to sanfrancisco@girlsintech.net with “GIT Gives Back Dress for Success” in the headline as soon as possible

Where: Dress for Success San Francisco

500 Sutter St (at Powell)

Suite 218

San Francisco, CA 94102

• MUNI lines 2 and 3 stop right in front of our building.

• Take BART at Powell Station or any bus line that runs on Market St or Geary Street and walk up Powell to Sutter St.

• Nearest parking garage is at 450 Sutter Street.

• Metered parking in Union Square is crowded and expensive.

• We are a few doors down from Lori’s Diner on the corner.

Project Day Overview:

I. Welcome Session

II. Inventory: Help update our clothing and accessory displays

III. Clothing Drive: Greet donors, sort & tally new donations

IV. Wrap Up: 10 minute Q&A and information about upcoming events and volunteer opportunities at Dress for Success SF

RSVP: We have only 10 volunteer spots, so if you are interested please rsvp to sanfrancisco@girlsintech.net with “GIT Gives Back Dress for Success” in the headline as soon as possible

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The San Francisco Chapter is thrilled to announce that Marissa Louie has been added as a panelist for next week’s PR for Startups event.

Marissa Louie brings the dual perspective of a startup entrepreneur (Dilemma, HeroEx, AD Village) and a PR and marketing consultant (Double Dutch, RateItAll, Trumpet, Compute.org). Her work has been featured in publications including TechCrunch, Mashable, VentureBeat, ReadWriteWeb, TheNextWeb, BusinessWeek, Forbes, Huffington Post, and Shape Magazine.

As a reminder, the PR for Startups event will be held on Tuesday, March 8th at the Founder’s Den and features a panel of experts who will discuss how PR can play a role in growing your business. The final panelist lineup includes:

• Scott McGrew of NBC Bay Area and ‘Press: Here’
• Andrew Sinkov, Vice President of Marketing for Evernote
• Tracey Parry, Vice President of Airfoil Public Relations
• Marissa Louie, Serial Entrepreneur /Co-Founder & CEO at Dilemma
• Moderater: Kym McNicholas of Forbes.com

Tickets for the event are still available but selling out fast. To reserve your spot, register at http://gitprforstartups.eventbrite.com/

If you have any questions you would like to submit in advance or during the event, please tweet them to @christine1oneto or @luciagia or text them to: 650-283-8008

Tags: Andrew Sinkov, girls in tech, Kym McNicholas, Marissa Louie, PR, public relations, Scott McGrew, startups, Tracey Parry
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Building software is messy. It is highly complex, difficult to predict, and is wraught with pitfalls and challenges. Software projects are known for underdelivering to the needs of the customer, missing deadlines, and coming in way over budget.

In the “old” days of software development, we embraced lengthy documentation and formalized process which was supposed to alleviate unknowns, isolate risk, and produce better software. But even with the best planning, our projects would fail.

What we found over time is that the software you build is really only as good as your understanding of what the customer needs on a project. And your ability to adapt and change to your customer’s changing business needs and requirements are key to your success.

So in software development, we employ “agile” strategies for managing changing customer needs. In general, these strategies help us embrace change and build better, more successful software for our customers.

But as it is with life, embracing change is often easier said than done. Growing pains are inevitable any time we are challenged or pushed in a way that forces us to adapt. Ultimately our success in life and in our work depends on our ability to be agile; to think fast and make improvements along the way. Yet everything in us fights change every step of the way.

Personally, I’m feeling some of these pains at the moment and finding myself longingly looking back to the times when everything was more concrete and defined. In software development, we have an “Agile Manifesto” which helps guide us:

We value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

Upon reflecting on the Agile Manifesto, it made me think that we could really all use a similar manifesto for guiding our lives and helping us embrace that inevitable change. In life or in business, change is coming. What is your manifesto?

Here’s mine:

I value:

Meaningful and impactful progress over completed action items and to do lists
Facing issues and conflicts head on over being comfortable and avoiding conflict
Challenging myself to work outside of my comfort zone over doing work that I’m naturally great at
Detaching from the outcome over feeling bound to a specific plan or outcome

Posted in All Chapters, Boise | 1 Comment »

On my ongoing quest to find the perfect mentorship, there comes along some really outstanding opportunities (not perfect for me) that  I can share with our Girls in Tech readers.  This is one of them.  Get this: Win a chance to be a key player in an upcoming women’s business owners’ team-building seminar~

For anyone who wishes to participate and try to “win” this:  Please note that there is a deadline for women entrepreneurs to apply for the consultation and opportunity to play a feature role in this webinar I am about to describe: deadline: this Friday, March 4th. You can download the application by visiting http://www.giveme5.com/events#232. Completed forms can then be e-mailed to Michael Fravel at mfravel@wipp.org. All submissions will be reviewed but only one woman business owner will be chosen.

Here’s the skinny on the seminar:

Lourdes Martin-Rosa, American Express OPEN Advisor on Government Contracting and Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP), has nearly 20 years of federal contracting experience under her belt and will be able to provide all webinar participants with valuable information for accessing and winning contracts.  As the fourth part of the special hour-long, one-on-one mentorship webinars they have been promoting recently, Martin-Rosa will help one woman business owner develop an effective strategy for teaming.  This series is part of the Give Me5 Program – a national program by American Express OPEN and WIPP to help female business owners by giving them access and helping them win their share of government contracts.

What you’ll learn about in this seminar:

For both small and midsize businesses, developing a subcontracting and teaming plan is a key to being able to bid competitively on federal contracts. In this consultation session, Lourdes works with a selected business owner to put together an effective strategy for teaming and finding the right partners for bidding on contracting opportunities including:

• How midsize businesses can use small businesses
to gain a competitive advantage

• How small businesses can market their unique value proposition
to possible teaming partners.

Here are the details to simply register & attend:

Give Me 5 “Ready For Prime Time”: How to Leverage Teaming Arrangements

Date: Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Time: 3-4 p.m. ET / 12 p.m.-1 p.m. PT

Where: Virtual
If you would like to know more about the contest, the webinar, WIPP or the Give5 Program, go here.  — Good luck!

Tags: American Express OPEN, Give Me5, mentorship, webinars, WIPP
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