SIME Talks 6: Women and the Tech World – is it a bad marriage?

Ada Lovelace is quite the lady of her times. Yes, she is.

If you are wondering who this person is, you might probably not be the only one trying to squeeze the “history- remembering- side” of your brain and coming up with an empty look. For the records, she is the first computer programmer in modern history (would you be surprised if the first programming language was called Ada) that many don’t probably know or have heard of. Actually, women and computers are very much steeped in history. In 1942 the ENIAC was programmed not by men but by six women. Grace Hopper, a woman inspired the development of the COBOL programming language. Fast forward a little bit later, and we are left wondering what went quite wrong in between.

Now give it a deeper thought; pick any “World’s 100 most powerful women” list et al, and you will find, amidst life influencing celebrities and social workers, women who run Fortune 100 companies, women who run countries (Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany for instance) wielding top management skills, and managing the high pressure jobs with a family life to balance, clearly a set of folks who conveniently negate the oh-so popular “women cannot handle high pressure jobs” excuse. Similarly take a listing of tech / digital companies (start ups or otherwise) that have been founded, co-founded or managed by women, and you get the feeling that women who want to be in the tech scene are very much there, but there is still work to be done within our minds to accept them as they come, welcoming their diversity, which could possibly be the reason why there is still clear shortage in their active participation. The same can however be said with men who want to get into the nursing industry for instance, which probably could mean, genetically men and women are suited only for certain kind of industries, but that goes against rational thinking doesn’t it? Discussions have loomed far and wide but the answers have simply dried up on us.

The matter gets complex when you add in a factor called culture. Women from traditional and developing societies are quite much caught in between protecting “what’s considered right” in the culture compared to “what she really wants to do”. Not that the tech scene is tabooed or looked down upon, but it is just unprecedented: not in the culture, not in the history books, and hence considered outlandish, shocking and ridiculous for a woman to pursue such a dream. Partly, we have fiction writers and movie makers to blame the stereotyping. We hardly find women to be the chief computer scientist creating millions of code lines that prevent the aliens attacking the Earth in Hollywood, do we? Movements like “Ada Lovelace Day” by Suw Charman-Anderson, a calling to all bloggers to blog about women in the tech scene who have inspired them on 24th of March this year was definitely a great inspiration for the crowd. (Would be interesting though to analyze how many women compared to men did the pledging and blogging on the actual day)

At SIME, we have had Esther Dyson (SIME Stockholm 2007) the queen of the US internet, Anne Wegelius (SIME Stockholm 2007) Head of Programming SVT Sweden, Eva Lindqvist (SIME 2006), Jeniffer L Schenker (SIME Barcelona, 2009) amongst others carrying the women tech flag high, but yes its true, the numbers don’t even warrant a comparison with the number of men speakers. It goes without saying that women get more inspired seeing other women in the tech scene as compared to men being inspired by other men. Let us all take a moment to celebrate the women in the tech scene, salute their spirit and give them all the support we can, for this industry would not be hurt with fresh ideas, a fresh mindset and some diverse thinking that they can bring in with them.

Influences from:
Tech Crunch UK Geek n Rolla, Guardian’s Naomi Alderman’s, Paul Walsh , The Athena Factor by Harvard Business School

SIME Talks 5 – Nostalgia Edition: Dave Sifry, founder Technorati, Offbeatguides: "Love what you do"

We love knowledge. We love inspiration. And we love to have fun. When we meet like minded people who believe in exactly the same, and more so radiate and live it as part of their lifestyle, its quite special. And that’s exactly what Dave Sifry encapsulates, and to us he is the perfect SIME icon.

Dave is well known as the guy who “gave relevance and created order in an otherwise chaotic blogosphere” through Technorati, the blog search and ranking engine. At present he is involved in something extremely cool within the travel industry through Offbeatguides, a do-it-yourself-travel guide service. And of course there are numerous other cool companies that he is/was a part of creating, developing and growing.

[ Dave's crunchbase profile, blog, twitter,flickr ]

Clearly the man has always believed in following his gut and passion when it comes to making decisions and going “for the kill”. And that’s exactly how the interview style is (thanks Radon!), very candid, open, filled with a lot of laughs and at the end, a simple take home message, “love what you do”. Yes, its something so simple to believe but complex to find in oneself. And if you are a manager in a big corporation or an entrepreneur trying to find your first million, we tell you to find the passion and the love, and do it Dave style.

Thanks Dave, you are an inspiration. See you at SIME 09.

SIME Talks 4: Bjorn Falkevik "There is no prime time on the internet, there is only prime space"

Again, a catchy headline, a poignant one that very nicely captures the pulse of the internet. The net is such a vast medium that it’s about finding your prime spot unlike the traditional media that works by the prime time funda. And clearly being “always on” through the internet holds sway and makes it a no brainer for companies to embrace the web by encouraging dialogues and starting a conversation.

SIME caught up with Bjorn Falkevik, a man who has been doing a phenomenal job in the live streaming and after production scene in Scandinavia. In fact he has been the viewing lens for us to many interesting events and conferences, be it the Tech Crunch Talks in Scandinavia, or the Disruptive Media Conferences, or those numerous talk shows, he has made sure the internet audience is never left behind. You can read more about him here, watch his Bambuser streams here, his flickr streams here.

The crux of the interview is:

- Find your prime spot on the internet. Invest time, energy and work over time to find your niche. And build a campaign around it.
- Audience who are participating in your live streaming are of much greater value than those who tune in after the “show” . The value of each participating audience grows exponentially in micro media as compared to mass media, so find ways to keep them engaged, hooked and compelled to view your content.
- And finally there is no secret social media recipe. It’s all about building compelling content and a storyline. The ultimate seller is interesting content and that will always be the holy grail of media.

Thanks Bjorn.

SIME Talks 3: Henrik Ahlen – "Dear Company X, think Videos"

SIME caught up with Henrik Ahlen, a man running around Stockholm with a big placard that says “Dear Corporate Client X, have you been thinking about videos?” . And surprisingly (or not) people do stand up, listen to him and have started thinking about online video and its benefits. Henrik also runs the TedX Stockholm chapter along with Fredrik and Teo Haren (2 other great visionaries from Sweden in the web scene) and has his heart and soul totally devoted to videos.

The essence of the interview is:

• start a dialogue with video
• spread the knowledge in places where your target market is. Do not expect them to look for it.
• have compelling and relevant content. No direct selling
• And finally, lets try to find more innovative monetization models together.

Thanks Henrik. And hope we find some answers at SIME in the workshop sessions together.