Technology and Teenage Night Owls

It's 11:51p.m. and my middle teen, Kyle, has just celebrated his 17th birthday. This morning I thoughtfully (or so I thought) handed him a new Ipod shuffle and a good headset for the gym so he could leave his LG Fusic phone with MP3 and video etc. etc. safe at home. While he loaded his gift with his favorite music he had on his laptop he dropped downstairs to play Jade Empire on his (actually MY. See next blog on female gamers) Xbox and then back to his room, check email, talk to friends on IM, and before he knows it it's now 1:20 a.m. Out goes the lights but not the "connectivity". Within seconds soemone is calling him or texting him on the phone. 2:10a.m., off it goes again.

What has the tech industry, that you and I as parents helped develop, done to our teens. We've actually messed with their circadian rhythm. By virtue of their developmental cycle teens have dealt with this problem as far back as anyone can remember but now we've made staying connected so simple and addictive (just look at the popularity of World of Warcraft, Facebook, and Live Messenger) that we're throwing the internal clock toward later sleep times. The 24/7 connectivity further exasperates the issue.

It is clear we as parents have to take control of the situation and the article at:
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6894556

goes into great detail what changes you can easily make to modify the sleep ritual and further details the light and melatonin therapies that can be used to reprogram your teens body clock.

As technology leaders, perhaps it is profound that we are fiercely protective of our children but yet we have developed and marketed that which now deprives them of their precious and essential sleep (in fact a teen should get 9,5 hours a night). Certainly they have no problem sleeping almost 14 hours on a weekend morning but it doesn't make up for the huge block of hours missing from their daily requirements and does nothing to help restore their proper circadian rhythm.

So where does that leave us. Well the suggestions are there and as parents common sense seems to be the order of the day, but I'd like someone to tell me how much luck I'm going to have removing cell phones and laptops from my 14 year old daughter, the birthday boy and my, in one week, 19 year old son. I can quite accurately predict the outcome: gregarious laughter as my boys, who can bench press more than I care to think about, play "toss the mommy" while reminding me I am in no position to negotiate, or declaring how hilarious it is watch me while I'm trying to be serious/mad at them.

My husband had the right idea decades ago: just reprogram them (he's a coder of course)!

So ladies, it looks like the future of our teens may be up to us! According to recent research we control the market so let's start making the changes necessary to protect our own sanity!

UK DIGI GIRLZ Camp- 200 attendees!!!! Way to go Microsoft UK

This is directly "from the desk" of Eileen Brown and her team who held the Digi Girlz Camp experience just 2 short months ago. I encourage you all to look to this for ideas for your own camp. I am amazed at the growing interest in this program. Please let Microsoft know you appreciate this endeavor by posting your comments here. Read on for another inspiring story:



On Friday 22nd June, 200 girls aged between 13 – 15 came to Microsoft campus in the UK for a day of fun and education ). I will be honest, the idea of organising a day for 200 school girls was slightly daunting but what a day! The girls were so much fun and really inspiring - it was refreshing to spend time with a group of young people who really embraced the opportunity to visit the Microsoft Campus, and I am under no illusions that we achieved our goal for the day. Our objectives were to:

Help to redress the gender imbalance in the IT industry by reaching out to 200 x girls between the age of 12 to 15 and encourage them to think differently about a career in IT. This includes IT services, marketing and sales.

We had Katie Ledger from the BBC as master of ceremonies, the systems magician from innocent drinks, demos from Windows Live, Popfly, robots, the first Lego league, XBOX 360, Zune and Movie Maker demonstrations. We offered and organised trips round the Microsoft Technology Centre where 80 girls were shown the latest in Technology. There was a workshop activity in the afternoon in conjunction with Computer Clubs 4 Girls (CC4G) using movie maker to create a 2 minute promotional video for the XBOX 360 or the Creative Zen, and a shoutathon to decide the winners (who won Digital cameras or Creative Zen V+ players)

This event was an experiment in the UK and I realise that we faced a certain amount of ambiguity regarding the organisation and planning, however, it was an overwhelming success and that is thanks to the enthusiasm and commitment of 70 volunteers who had given up their day – a number of very excited girls commented on how much they enjoyed the day and they were blown away by the prizes.

Courtesy of and written by:

Eileen Brown l Manager, IT Pro Evangelist team l Developer & Platform Group l Microsoft UK.

WIL&T FEATURE PROFILE Margo Day - Microsoft

As promised we are starting a weekly feature to highlight amazing women leaders. Our first, Margo Day, was a panelist at the WIL&T session at WPC in Denver. Talk about unpretentious and thoughtful. Even in a meeting months before meeting her in person it was obvious how sincere and passionate she is about helping women advance by looking for avenues that will produce gains not just here in North America but on a global basis. She has some solid ideas and I hope she will continue to work with the WILT IAMCP committee to advance these efforts. I am proud to have met Margo and those she has mentored and will mentor will undoubtedly come to understand what an easy going and brilliant individual she is. Her is a perfect example of "working your way" to the top.

Here is our first WIL&T Woman of the Week:

Margo L. Day
Regional Vice President, U.S. SMS&P Group
Microsoft Corporation

Margo Day is the Vice President for Small and Midmarket Solutions and Partners in the West Region for Microsoft Corporation. Margo is responsible for the marketing and sale of Microsoft products and services to small and medium-sized business customers in the Western United States. In addition, she is responsible for ensuring the overall health of the Microsoft partner ecosystem, as well as deepening the managed partner relationships, in the region.

Margo recently served as vice president of the U.S. Partner Group, where she was responsible for developing the U.S. partner strategy, management, and program execution for over 200,000 partners, including System Integrators, ISVs, the reseller channel (VARs, Direct Marketers, Outbound, Distributors), System Builders, Learning Solutions partners and Small Business Specialists.

Margo joined Microsoft in 2001. Prior to that, she was the Executive Vice President of Strategy and General Manager of North America at SoftQuad Software, Ltd., a company engaged in XML ebusiness solutions. Preceding that, she was Vice President and Managing Director of Go2Net, where she was responsible for the HyperMart Business Unit, a leading small business e-commerce solutions-hosting community with more than one million members. Before moving to Go2Net, Margo spent seven years at Lotus Development Corporation, where she held increasingly senior roles, including Senior Director for North American SMB Sales and Field Marketing, Director of Enterprise Sales, and Director of U.S. Business Partner Sales. Her experience also includes three years at Microrim as Director of Channel Sales and four years as General Manager of a Software City franchise. Margo brings more than 22 years of technology management expertise in business development, partnership development, sales and marketing.

Digi Girlz - Microsoft's IT camp for girls

http://www.microsoft.com/about/diversity/programs/camps.mspx Digi Girlz web site

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2007/aug07/08-15digigirlz.mspx?rss_fdn=Top+Stories Hot off the press August 15, 2007


Microsoft was a natural to lead this initiative as part of their overall program for "Diversity and Inclusion" and have been doing so since 2000. The new site is a welcome addition and the content includes expected features such as photos and an explanation of the program but an unexpected find was a few pod casts and surprisingly they offer the camp in a one day and multi day format. This is a great way to reach as many girls as possible.

I happen to know for a fact that the listed camps on this site aren't the only ones taking place. In fact in a blog coming later tonight I will post information on the Digi Girlz camp run in the UK with the participation of none other than Eileen Brown. I also know Canada has hosted one out of Mississauga and I am hoping to track down camps in other regions of the world (if you know o one please contact me).

All in all their approach is on IT only (well its what they do best!!) but I loved their methodology of allowing girls to actually shadow a high profile employee for a day, meet with younger IT staff AND interns which gives them people they can truly relate to.

The most moving testimonial to the human compassion of women in IT and lessons that were learned by all was the story of Laurie Logan who had suffered a debilitating heart attack and had to relearn the most basic things in life. After starting her own amazing she attended the camp and not only did she learn how much Microsoft goes out of their way to create accessibility for everyone, she also had a profound affect on other camp attendees and ended up testing Vista speech software that turned into free software to help her in her mandate to assist others through her publication. In fact I was so busy at WPC I didn't have the opportunity to attend anything that featured Allison Watson BUT I am positive I saw Allison with Laurie at WPC or it was definitely mentioned in one of her presentations. Talk about making people with disabilities feel special. But I'm not surprised. Don't forget, its women leading the way.... Microsoft women
and they DO CARE!

Thought for the day: They can build the international spacestation

But someone can't create a biodegradable chip (have to protect our environment) to tell us when to change a diaper? You know why. Because men don't change them often enough for it to be a national crisis (yet)

A good idea gone (really) bad - IBM Girls' Camp

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=44749

Another article in as many days confirms what everyone seems to know now about the lack of females in the IT sector, especially graduating ones. So what did IBM do? They tried an "IT camp" for teens. The link above is a not very positive review about the methodology used and I can understand why. What does smashing a nitrogen dipped flower have to do with becoming the next Allison Watson or Eileen Brown unless its meant to show how they can capture that image, fine tune it in Picture It 9.0 express or capture it on a Mobile 6 enabled phone and drop it instantly into a livespace site. Something about intriguing them into entering the IT field seems horribly misguided, albeit a valiant effort. But let's reveiw the article (linked to from the one above, describing the event in more detail:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2172907,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594

Now the story comes across in a completely different light and revealed, in wonderful detail, that this camp was, in fact, very well thought out. What the women at IBM did was show these girls that science and technology are intertwined and that by opening their minds and walking away from their IM's for a few minutes, may provide them with a life altering pereception of what we as IT people already know, IT can be a mesmerizing and rewarding opportunity. But they went one step further. They opened them up to experiencing business challenges, working with models, as teams, trying to deal with building safe bridges while under tight budget constraints. Note: they covered marketing, architecture, project management, programming, design and engineering in that one week. So??? They allowed for any number of potential career opportunities to take hold. As one girl realized she wasn't so big on the technical side but showed signs of marketing savvy. Very smart.

What I paticularly appreciated was that they knew from their research that "girls want to make a difference for humanity". Accept it or not we are by nature nurturing rather than taking the "projectiles and blowing things up just because scenario". Given the state of our planet that counterbalance is probably more important than ever. When given the opportunity, most of the girls picked the nitrogen dipped flower over dipping the balloon, and then chose not to smash it into a million pieces.

In the end, realistically, they realize that one week of camp is not going to change the girl's lives and therefore the staff actually goes one step further by keeping in touch with the girls via email during the school year, in the hopes of keeping that initial spark going.

This leads me to an even more important point at the beginning of the "real"article, the event was billed as EX.I.T.E. (Exploring Interests in Technology and Engineering). So the reviewer lead us astray from a very important piece of information. This was not just about IT.

What was the matter with the first guy? Never mind. Shame on me for almost letting this obviously erroneous (in my view) take on this event almost jade the people who count on a sound review of events in our global community. 50 lashes with a wet noodle for me.

Oh and by the way this was a link on the second article and is the one I referred to in an earlier posting that talks about Microsoft's Eileen Brown and the hugely successful Tech ED WILT luncheon. If you missed it earlier then click below. It is well worth the read:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2153718,00.asp

LESSON: Do your own research and ALWAYS dig a little further. READ between the lines and then see if there are more articles related to the original. Luckily the first one lead to the second. Had I not clicked on that link I would have propogated one man's poorly conceived view of this camp. As a matter of fact its one reason the internet's information highway has to be driven with caution by us all.

Tech Ed 2007 WILT NEW VIDEO - Better viewing

http://captussolutions.com/virtualteched/WIT-Tech-500K.wmv

Eileen has given me this new link for you to better view their jaw dropping session at Tech Ed 2007.

Seeing is believing.

Efficiency - How Microsoft's Female Executives Get The Job Done

I saw firsthand recently how efficient the Microsoft machine was recently at WPC in Denver. I had the pleasure of either working with or being on a panel with some of Microsoft's top female brass. They are smart, classy and above all extremely personable. But what I noticed was that they were not alone. In a demanding position such as theirs it would make sense that they are sought after all the time for a myriad of issues both menial and extremely critical. This does not even touch on the extensive travel, speaking engagements and other meetings many of these key people do on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Given the deluge of email that must build up hourly it simply would not make sense to expect them to handle this all on their own and be effective leaders. So what was once just the bastion of male executives has become the standard for female executives at Microsoft, an executive assistant. These women and men (yes I received a call from him so I can vouch for this) are even more important today than in any other time. In one way its ironic because the IT revolution was supposed to make life easier to manage. It has except it also has given people more ways to reach you, perhaps a little too easily and therefore the other edge of the sword is that everyone and his brother can ping you to their heart's content. So to balance this all out the EA's have become as integral to these women as having a PDA.

The end result? They are able to be effective and people do get listened to and issues are dealt with because someone can filter the important from the less so and ensure what really needs their attention that particular day gets it. I also think that allows them to remain very focused on business issues that affect us all. That doesn't mean there is an iron curtain in the way. And by the way I have received emails back from these people directly and very promptly because I treat their time with the utmost respect and only contacted them on something I knew was of relative interest to them and that they believed in. Okay confession time: One time I did get angry with a "stupid" run around issue that was inexcusable to me and lo and behold I fired off an email: issue was corrected in two hours (after 3 weeks of pleading and begging).

Lesson: As women we often are so used to multitasking that we forget that to be as effective as leaders we should take a tip for our male counterparts and from Microsoft's women leaders and work at "layering" our accessibility. If we work in a smaller environment that can be hard but I actually found that by using tools like Microsoft Groove, the people and projects that are critical to me are positioned so that I am alerted the minute anything comes up and needs my attention and I then check my email when I see fit. This is the quickest and most inexpensive but extremely effective tool I use. Sharepoint Server is the next tool I would put into the mix for firms with a larger office and tasks that need controlling but more on that another time. What else do I do. I have and am still learning to use outside services for certain functions that are just eating up my productivity. I have taken shirts (mine)to the cleaner for pressing cleaning and to closing my computer in the evening for a few hours (okay that's going to take a long time to learn). I also keep my pocket pc with me and that allows me to be anywhere and still be in touch without lugging around a laptop. I see many women with them but not nearly enough. It's an investment you will never regret. I don't rush back to the office after lunch or a meeting. I can reposition meetings and update appts. and documents but more importantly I can be mobile the entire day and never be out of range to deal with the people who are dependent on me.

If you happen to be in a larger environment, sit down with your boss and start looking at what you do, how you do it and how much of your time is deal with interruptions that would be best filtered out of your day. If making certain goals and deadlines is critical to your job then this makes even more sense to review. When you can dissect your day and find another 15-25% of your time that can be gained by using other human resources for certain tasks then you also stand a better chance of becoming the leader you always aspired to.

The Channel's Most Powerful Women

The August 2007 edition of Var Business magazine highlights 50 top executives in the IT industry. The group includes Microsoft's Allison Watson, which should come as no surprise especially given the work she has again accomplished in the last 12 months. I wish it would have been the cover story but suffice to say it tells us that the industry is at least realizing that women are a great asset here and we ought to take note of this rather large contingent and make sure that word gets around. "Lead by example" is a saying that may inspire more women to take up the challenge and pursue this path of excellence. I was struck by the text under one Angie Wong, CEO of OJO Technology, "and still managed to raise twin boys". Silly sexist statement but then again there is a truth to be told. While many men don't have to balance work and responsibilities to children, and then some still can't "hack it" under pressure, who then better to rise to the challenges of this industry than someone who can correct a major marketing problem and explain the Pythagorean theorem to their teen without batting a mascara laden eyelash.

Facebook for WIL&T hosted by Eileen Brown

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=3233790416

Eileen started this group out of the UK. I hooked into it today. I like their idea of the Geek Dinner. Now there's a novel concept for women!

This is an open group so no invite needed.

Tech Ed 2007 and Eileen Brown

Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/eileen_brown/
Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/Industry_Insiders/

Eileen Brown came to my attention as the moderator of the very successful WIL&T luncheon at Tech Ed 2007. I contacted her to get help in pulling together as many resources for our own WIL&T session at WPC 2007 including our group on the WPC site. Eileen, whose own story is just unbelievable in its roots, pulled together a great amount of research which she shares along with the panelists, in a video at Tech Ed and sent this to me as well a few broadcast links she has done.

Eileen is typical of what we need in this global community, someone who readily gives what she has so carefully taken her own time putting together and without a thought happily shares with everyone in order to give us a window into what we need to look at. Below I have put these resources links for your own previewing. What I learned confirmed what I believed to be true. BUT what I really found amazing was the stories of the panelists, one of whom I met at WPC, Lisa Coleman. Again here is someone who wants to help spread the message and does so gladly and with no hesitation.

Eileen has let me know in no uncertain terms that she believes in this initiative and we look forward to having her input as we forge ahead.

Take an hour and listen to this session. Unfortunately we don't have the best video feed (looking into getting it for our WIL&T web site), but just sit back and listen. A picture is worth a thousand words but in this case cranking up your speakers will be worth a whole lot more.

Tech Ed 2007
http://www.virtualteched.com/Videos/WIT-Tech-100K.wmv

Radio podcast
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/04/2007_25_fri.shtml

Thank you Eileen. You're a real motivation to techies everywhere!

SMB Nation WILT

I am excited to announce we have received and accepted an invitation to speak again on the WILT mission on Monday October 1, 2007 at SMB Nation (on Microsoft's campus). Our session will be during the lunch hour and I hope any of you that are planning to once again attend SMB Nation will make sure to join us for this event. If you need details on the conference you will find them at:
http://www.smbnation.com/

A huge thank you to Beatrice Mulzer who was quick on the mark to get us in before this opportunity slipped us by.

The IT Attraction Factor

Yesterday I read an article about the petroleum industry in British Columbia, Canada and their plight to get skilled workers in an environment that much like the tech industry is realizing an increasingly unmanageable shortage. As with many other situations they figured if they threw more money at the workers the problems would disappear. And as such people are finally waking up to the fact that this is not working. Why? It's more simple than you'd think. These people were not connecting with the community, the "workplace" was lacking in providing current and prospective workers with a social environment that not only gave them the connectivity they desired to keep them they were not clear at all on what it was that motivated them in the first place , and in the short term they were and are leaving or not even attracted to the positions in an way whatsoever. Even heaping on more money wasn't having any positive impact.



The IT industry is looking down the same rabbit hole. A shortage of over 3 million IT workers is looming in the next few years and as a partner in an IT firm we see the shortage and how it is affecting business opportunities and growth all over. This in turn slows down the adoption of new technology and increasing productivity. Worse I see the pillaging that goes on of skilled workers in our industry. It's accepted but its of no benefit to the consumer nor partners in the long run.



The sadder issue is that in the IT industry the last thing you need is skilled workers and in some cases leaders leaving the pack to move onto something more satisfying. Interestingly and disheartening is the number of women leaving our industry is on the increase again, enough to have articles popping up everywhere trying to decipher the problem and offering up nothing in the way of solutions. Most of these are being written by men who were frankly not even aware of the issue, but were curious enough to tackle the topic. Thank you. Your curiosity is a valid support of our mission.


In an industry that is developing technology to make our lives easier, to increase productivity, to keep us connected and with possibilities for any number of careers in so many business segments even beyond IT firms themselves, women are waving the white flag and disappearing and we can't seem to attract new ones in any significant numbers, nor do we really have solid recruitment programs in place. Actually the bigger picture tells us we haven't got the courses out there either to fill the large numbers required to satisfy our employer hungry market with specifically skilled IT people, based on rising demands from buyers of this technology.

So with all these issues where do we begin? First let's identify and pinpoint the real problems and put some careful thought as to who and what we need to address. That's where the WIL&T group comes in. Working with industry leaders at Microsoft who see the picture much in the same vein way we do and who are as affected by the results as their partners, we will start to look at current research and with partner and employee participants from all over the globe and from every IT sector, we can develop a plan to help the industry take corrective measures to remedy the tide of departures and display the wonderful opportunities the industry gives to females of all ages. Moreover we can change the way we work and find ways to take advantage of technology to give us what technology has always meant to provide us with , time to be ourselves.

Rising Stars and CIO Top 50

It certainly came as no surprise to read that our own Lora Gernon is a rising star according to Channel Web Network:

http://www.crn.com/womeninthechannel/;jsessionid=KL4E4OABBUIJKQSNDLPSKH0CJUNN2JVN

Lora is no wall flower. Her style is forward and thoughtful and she is certainly reason to celebrate and highlight her as a leading female in a very tough tech industry.

Click on all the links to get an eye opening perspective on our female leaders. The timing tells us that we are making waves but we still could use more Lora's to make a dent in the upper decks!

CONGRATULATIONS LORA!!

The Motto!

Every group needs a motto and for me this says it all:

TECHNOLOGY HAS NO LIMITS....................NEITHER DO YOU!

So what are we waiting for? We aren't! We're already here to support, guide, mentor, push. You name it and we'll do it, all in the name of helping all women step up. But we will do it thoughtfully and with good planning,.................. and we won't be afraid to ask for directions