Prompted by this debate, I also just wrote my own blog post on how I got into this industry and how those factors could be used to encourage the next generation of female developers.

http://ciara-byrne.typepad.com/ceo_seeks_startup/2009/04/one-woman-in-tech-and-why-we-need-more-.html

I don’t think it’s that interesting to talk about this topic that much. I’d rather build great technologies, organize/propose conference sessions, and otherwise have women included in constructive ways, than just bitch about a lack of women. But I recognize that having a discussion to figure it out is important.

That said, there are many other things that will get women into engineering and conference speaking slots, than those I mentioned. But the comment was already getting too long with examples.

It’s really just a matter of rethinking how you do something. Like folding your hands together.. notice one thumb is on top and that’s how you do it.. comfortably. But if you redo it, with the other thumb on top, it feels weird for a second. But it’s not hard, and that’s about what is required here to get more women involved. Just rethinking, and getting muscle memory around the differences so they seem normal.

I had a number of reactions to the panel, having started several startups, and hired many women engineers.

First, while some of the women there seem to have started real engineering efforts, most seemed more geared to media.

The fact that none of these women came up with a solution in an hour is telling, because it says they don’t have experience with what engineering is, what you do to hire women into it, and what to to do manage the issue long term in a company. These women are marketing, media and PR, or consulting in UX, but I doubt any of them has directly hired and managed women engineers.

One thing you learn real fast if you do is that male engineers tend to overstate their skills and accomplishments (not all but many) and women engineers tend to understate. So when you hire, you have to adjust up or down.

Some of the most kick-ass engineers I’ve ever hired are women, beating the pants off the men. But they are modest about their skillsets. Part of this is men are often willing to claim skills they barely know because they used them a little, whereas most women are uncomfortable doing this, and in fact unless they know everything there is to know about a language, a framework, a platform, a database, an OS, they will be direct about stating the things they know and don’t.

You have to compensate for men and women, or you’ll only hire men, thinking they know more when they are equally qualified.

Second, if your ad says: We’re looking for a rock-star kick-ass take-us-to-the-moon engineer, no women will apply. Again, you are asking women to go to a place they don’t usually go to: a place where they boast about what they don’t know, a place of perfection which no one can achieve. Make the ad about skills and then go out and ask for referrals for women that you know through people who fit. There aren’t that many women engineers out there and you’ll likely need to get a personal referral.

Third, don’t start with an all male team. No woman wants to be the only one. Start with a man and a woman and try to hire a couple more including women, to balance things, starting a diverse trend from the beginning.

Lastly, why do you want women on your building team? You want some women and some men, some diversity of backgrounds, ethnicities and experiences, because the products you build will just be *so much* better. Your team will embody more closely all the different perspectives of your user base and more thoughtfully provide for them. You will have a much higher chance of success.

Re women as speakers? Same issues, different implementations to solve for this. Men will ask to speak. Women don’t usually. You have to seek out the few women who can talk about a particular topic. Conf organizers can do what Hugh does at SXSW which is to tell panel moderators that they must have some women on their panels. In other words, spread the problem and solution to the edges.

You could use the Speaker’s wiki or similar to find women in topics:

http://www.socialtext.net/speakers/index.cgi?the_speaker_s_wiki

By searching for “CEO” or “founder” + “topic” or whatever you think you need for your panel and then ask around about the speaking style and message.

Women also don’t speak as much and there isn’t a lot of feedback after speaking. To solve for this, I’ve helped arrange a number of speaker’s training at event’s like She’s Geeky or as stand alone events to give women some experience so they feel more confident and are more successful at conveying their message.

Also, holding events on weekends or evenings is problematic because if women have families, you are cutting into kidtime. Many more men are willing to sacrifice this so if you schedule things a certain way, you’ll wipe out the women and favor the men with that.

One more thing, watching this video:
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/04/23/235768/video-bitchbuzz-founder-discusses-role-of-women-in-it.htm

it was very clear to me that they had no idea where women are who are real technologists, how to get women speakers, or what the problems are in an engineering room, why women speakers are harder to find, what is needed to get women speakers, etc. They were at the beginning of identifying the problem.

I’d suggest next time to try to seed a panel with women VPEng’s and CTOs, women CEOs who’ve raised money, women who have programmed conferences. They actually know the challenges and know why we need women in a concrete way. Just talking about just wanting more women without anything real and experiential behind it has been done for years and we actually know how to fix these issues.

Yes, women in math and science edu matter, but there are a lot of women out there now with real experience, and you can do something to change things right now, if you know how to manage the problem either in the engineering room or in the conf. without having to start with 5 yr olds doing math.

mary

I think its the best person for the job and thats it. If there is not enough women then this is a problem for education and therefore maybe a great panel for an education conference but not a geek one.

As someone who has worked in the tech industy for a long time I have never seen it as an issue. The last contract I worked on for a major telecoms there was an almost 50 50 split between men and women.

I enjoyed the other speakers and am looking forward to getting my hands on all the slides (Jof Arnolds would be good to have ).

I think the name of the event was a little misleading as there was not much geek to the day and if its done again next year I would go in an instant if it was geared more towards geeks and not so much startups.

I would of loved to see more on finding founders, marketing, other sources of investment, how investing works (what are the different rounds of funding are etc), how to split company shares and that sort of thing.

and this is the Brains part of the blog:
http://brainsbeauty.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/reminder-prize-draw-win-net-a-portercom-lookbook/

math sums…

There are actually much more women in the internet industry then some of the conferences seem to imply, if you look at most speakers and line-up (Geek ‘n Rolla was a great exception!) . Thenextwomen.com have been writing about women leading, investing and founding companies in the internet industry since October 2008, and there is still plenty to report about. We have built a database of female internet heroes, and have published some of it on the website.

Women start businesses twice the rate as men, the hurdle to high growth is access to finance, network, and leadership. Many organisations and networks (like astia.org) address this issue, and it is encouraging how many women want to participate in these programmes to make the next step.

Personally, my oldest daughter just started a magazine called Brains+ Beauty. I have no clue how she know so much about fashion, but I am glad that she also participates this weekend in the international Math competition in Frankfurt.

regards,

Simone Brummelhuis

In my own opinion there will always be professions and industries that are more dominated by a particular gender than the other, it’s a part of life. There are professions that are male dominated and others that are female dominated as a result of the natural nature of gender.

If women want to get into the tech/IT world they are welcome, no one’s saying no to them. In my opinion it is dominated by men because of the high technical knowledge and ability required which to be honest most women don’t or can’t be asked to put themselves through. Am not saying that women don’t possess the technical ability required, they do just like men. Its more the case that women cant be “arsed”.

From personal experience while studying technology there were 30 males and 10 females and only 1 female made it through to the final stages. The other 29 dropped out to study business, fashion etc complaining that it was too hard for them to study technology. Amongst the complaints I got was “this is not for women”, “women are meant to be pretty heads not geeks”, “too hard for a woman” etc. So why the complain about the low number of women in tech? if women want to be more dominant in the tech world it is simple, do what men do and pursue a career in technology, don’t drop out, see it through all the ups and downs after all you all want to be like men.

I get the feeling women always want to compete with men in all levels. Do you see men wanting to compete with women in women-only or women-specific professions or fields? The answer is no.

Why do we have more women in nursing? It’s a simple answer because more women study nursing. So if more women want to get into tech/IT then the same process should be applied.

Enough of the moans and grunts by women about being marginalised in the tech world. I’ll be happy if more women are in tech it adds a whole new angle and diversity to it.

To sum it all up “ITS DOWN TO EDUCATION”

Thanks.

“I believe it’s a cultural issue…. Can we have ‘balance in tech’? Sure, perhaps in 50 years, just when we are hitting the equal numbers of men and women in the government. Once again, it will all come down to education.”

Let’s talk about it again then

However, it’s now being sidetracked to an extent with people more interested in Milo and his opinion than the subject itself. His opinion doesn’t appear to be any more informed than anyone else’s which limits it to being just another opinion. You can’t blame him for being somewhat inflammatory given the vast number of people who seem to want to rise to the bait.

For those who weren’t there, the best point was made by an Indian guy from the floor who said that if we were in India the debate wouldn’t even happen since it’s 50-50 there. When asked why, he said it was most likely due to the way that girls are encouraged equally through the education system in the more science-oriented subjects.

In my opinion we could have replaced the hour-long debate and subsequent fallout with a 30 second talk from him. Job done. Next subject please.

Back to the current situation : yes, there aren’t as many women in tech as men. And no, it’s not a problem, it’s just the way things are. Don’t worry, be happy.