Google in Double Shocker
August 27, 2008 at 12:25 am
Just back from the 2nd Dublin Girl Geeks Dinner. Pics are here. A more serious affair than last time, but enjoyable nonetheless. 30 odd or so turned up at the lovely Herb Street Restaurant in South Docks. Herb Street is next door to the Ely and they looked after us very well.
We decided to have a topic to talk about this evening and the topic was “Furthering Your Career”. Everyone around the room introduced themselves and what they do and why they were here, and the overriding message was “I’m one woman on a team of 30 men” or 20, or 14, or whatever. Why is this the case? I really don’t understand it when there are so many varying roles available to women in technology.
Some mentioned how they earn less than their male counterparts. One take on this is that women are not as good at promoting themselves as men and asking what they want. Kevin Lyda from Google (yes! a man!) mentioned a book he came across called “What Colour is Your Parachute” which is all about how to negotiate yourself some good money when going for a job.
I was interested to know from Sigmar Recruitment who sponsored the wine (cheers!) if they could put some Irish slant on the earnings figures from the A List Apart survey on the internet (see recent blog). That sparked a comment from one of the Google people there that Yahoo! do a good salary survey that is broken down by country. You can check that here.
Update: here’s an interesting post on the questions asked by Google and Microsoft in interviews. If you know anyone working for these companies, they are very intelligent indeed!
And in a second Google shocker of the evening, I met someone else from Google who - wait for it - actually gave me her business card which contained phone number, email address, the works! I’ve never ever met anyone from Google who has done such a thing! She must be either very high up in Google or…. faking it! But the card seems real enough and if anyone wants the details I’ll be happy to pass on!
I enjoyed this evening, met some good people who I haven’t met before, and am glad I attended. Next one I’d like to have a more fun theme. And on to fun… do you all know there’s a Tweet Up happening at the Electric Picnic on Saturday at 12 noon. More details on @peterd’s blog here.
Night now.
Girl Geek Dinner Dublin : 26 August
August 15, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Girl Geek Dinners are a chance for ladies in technology to get together, enjoy some nice food and drinks, and have fun meeting other women in their field.
Now it’s a fairly loose definition of technology here! Are you wondering if you qualify as a geek?
I’d say if you work on a computer or find yourself online for 50% of your waking hours, and you are an active reader/contributor to blogs, and perhaps you use some of the following tools to make your life easier:
- basecamp
- highrise
- delicio.us
- flickr/pix.ie
- wordpress
- gmail
- aib online banking
- this is a list of my most used tools folks!
Then you might well be a geek and not even know it. If that’s the case, you should definitely come along and meet others who share your interests and have an all round enjoyable night out in Dublin on 26 August.
Are you wondering if you qualify as a lady?
Hmm… you may well have a beard (because men are allowed to come). But you must be chaperoned by a real lady.
You could be a durty foul-mouthed ho, but that’s OK too because this is Ireland and there are varying perceptions of what is a lady.
So if you tick yes to box a and box b, then go on over to the Girl Geek Dinner Dublin site and register your interest. Do it quick because there’s a limit on places due to the intimate surroundings of Herbst restaurant.
Now to book that hair appointment….
Girl Geek Dinner Dublin
February 25, 2008 at 11:20 pm
** UPDATE: RTE1 News at 6 slotted in between the African elephants and the Father Ted on Craggy Island celebrations was me, Martha Rotter, Anna Nelson and Clare Dillon chatting as only we can chat about how great it is to be a Woman Working in Technology! If you blinked you missed it **
The 1st one is happening on Wed in Odessa Club and once again, our lovely friends at Microsoft should take a bow for organising and providing. Thank you in advance! For the record, while I am attending, I am in fact a sub section of the group: a chic geek!
I’ve been giving it a bit of thought about why these events are taking place all over the world. They were started by Sarah Blow, London Geek Girl Number 1 and their purpose is:
To provide a welcoming atmosphere and a platform for learning in an informal environment, to make technology accessible and to be of interest to all age groups and all people, particularly women. It is an opportunity for like-minded ‘girls’ to talk about technology over food and drinks.
The event is sponsored by Microsoft and is part of an initiative to get the females in technology together and get them communicating and creating their own communities.
Looking at the Geek Girl sites around the world, I’m excited to be involved with something that’s so new and global; keen to catch up with local Twitter buddies and meet some new faces (ie. those who are working for companies that ensure they are Too Busy to engage in any of this Twitter loveliness but who will be able to make it for this after hours dinner); and just a little sceptical as to where it’s all going to go. The other geek dinners around the world tend to have a speaker, but am not sure that’s so appealing to me. I’m a Chic Geek so not so sure I could hack listening to someone talk about an aspect of gaming or the finer points of a programming language…does there need to be a structure?
There is a bit of underlying yuckyness that I’m detecting about the geek dinners being used by recruiters for hiring purposes. One of the highlights of the Toronto round-up of their January dinner is that Savvica is hiring. Wuppy do. I hate it when good networking events get hijacked by recruiters.
But on the plus side, I’ve always thought that while there are a number of female only networking groups, we never truly get to network on the same level as men because they have all those golf, rugby and other sporting dalliances. Please don’t comment below about how women can have them too - no, we don’t. So I’ve never had a problem with female-only networking groups because they just bring our opportunities up to an equal number with the men. Now this girl geek thing is good because I don’t know that many guy geeks who do the golf thing (God the alliteration in this is killing me… I should go work for The Sun). So if it gives us a little peg up, then that’s all well and good.
