Black Women Know Technology!

This past Thursday I was contacted by Adrienne Graham of "Views From The Top" - Blog Talk Radio Show to speak as a panelist on the topic of Black Women in Technology. Although I was unable to do the show, having missed the correspondence due to working 30 hours in two days on a huge project for a client, I relish in the idea that I was even considered and a blip on the radar. Take a listen-
Audio: Black Women Know Technology

As described on the radio show website, Views From the Top is a radio show that takes a look at the hard hitting issues affecting women in top corporate positions at the top of their game and in the world of entrepreneurship. Guests share their tips and stories of their ascent to the top. These women take no prisoners, make no excuses and play to win.

The Panelists, digitalsista Shireen Mitchell (www.shireenmitchell.com), and Chris Curtis - Web Business Expert, Internet Marketer, and Radio Personality, presented insight to the many sub issues that affect the larger issue of our presence in the industry.

One highlight is when Chris recalled how she contacted an industry magazine to inquire as to why no women of color were represented in the spread. The response given by the editor implied that they didn't know where to look to find women of color who are experts in the field.

I walked away from this discussion realizing that I'm not doing enough. It's great that I'm a Black Woman in this tech space. How ever I am doing myself and others a disservice by being somewhat shy and not making a large enough foot print in the space. I work my 9 - 5, I do my consulting gigs on the side, but my contribution to bringing the fact that WE are here to the forefront is minimal. I can even honestly say that I haven't given this blog the attention that it needs.

As discussed on the show, if you are a Black Woman in tech, it's our responsibility to make it known that we are here to the many non-profits, development communities geared towards women, etc. Some times talking amongst ourselves isn't enough, especially if we are complaining that there aren't enough of us.

So I'm going to charge myself as well as others like me to step it up. You may be working on a team for a large company or in a management position, you need to make yourself known. I'm going to give my 500% to make my imprint and make myself "undeniably worthy" to anyone who wants to engage me and my expertise. As Shireen says, "We are too busy doing the work, and not looking up."

A big Thank You to Adrienne Graham for bringing this discussion to the table. I am so excited to hear from and learn about the two panelists. Being young in the tech industry, I relish in being able to see seasoned women who look like me, that are knowledgeable about computing and making their imprint, so that others like myself know we have a place in this space and we belong here just as much as anyone else.


Audio: Black Women Know Technology

Are we still building a bridge to close the Digital Divide?

So its been a long while and I'm back. Sorry the writing is so sporadic but life has been crazy for me for 2009 - 2010. Since my last entry, I have relocated from NY to Atlanta, and started working full time again as a UI Engineer at a, shall I say, pretty well established company that will soon be saturating the enterprise level social networking market. Which brings me to the title of this post...

During my orientation for my new gig, my team had a chance to sit and chat with the big guy, the big kahuna, the holy grail of the company. He shared some wonderful insights on his goals and expectations for our new team, the direction the company was going in, his incredible rags to riches story, etc. During this moment he asked us if we had any questions for him. One of my colleagues rose to the challenge and asked him his thoughts on helping to bridge the digital divide. He couldn't answer the question. He skated around the issue, drew some similarities to other issues, but he never answered the question.

After that exchange I began to wonder, with all the social networking, mobile computing, and high Apple sales going on in the world, is there still a digital divide? Is anyone even talking about this anymore? Does anyone even care anymore? What are the major tech companies doing , if anything, to continue building the bridge? For the life of me, in my middle class world, I saw no evidence that the gap is indeed still present. Until......

Until I walked into an Apple store last weekend and saw something rather strange. I don't know if anyone else perceived what I believed I was perceiving. As I looked around at the store patrons, I couldn't help but notice the number of minority children standing in front of the display iMacs and Macbooks doing nothing more than listening to music on youtube and browsing facebook. Oh no ...they weren't shopping here....It is quite clear that these children were passing the time in the Apple store to access the internet to stay connected to their little tween worlds. At least that's what I concluded. If that's the case who really knows?

But for arguments sake let's assume it was the case. This would mean that the lack of internet access in largely urban environments have led those without access to seek non-traditional ways to stay connected via the internet. Where the library probably used to be a person lacking access' first stop, may have now turned into a trip to the Apple store in the mall.

Case in point, the young man in this Youtube video is clearly at the Apple store in the mall, doing a lip synced rendition of a Black Eyed Peas Song:



Why couldn't this young man do this at home? Could he possibly be in the percentage of minorities without internet access in the home? Well technically since he achieved the goal of making his video and broadcasting it to almost a million viewers, he has access right?

SO does this mean the gap has been closed because the internet can be accessed, even though it is not in the home per say? Has the criteria changed for what qualifies that gap and the need to keep building the bridge changed at all?

Well I'm going to do a little research and report back my findings. Stay tuned!

Jill of all trades Master of nothing?

I'd like to consider myself a well rounded person. I have a plethora of programming languages and web technologies in my daily arsenal that I pull from. In fact, if I gave you my resume the second page is just a list of skill sets, which I think is pretty common these days. One thing you will notice about my skill set is that none of them list that I am an expert. I range from intermediate to advanced, but not yet an expert.

Some time ago a dev buddy of mine, in jest, told me that I was a Jill of all trades, and a Master at nothing. I had never really quite thought of myself in that light and wasn't quite sure if I should take offense to the comment. This conversation recently, re-entered my mind when I found myself under tremendous self-pressure to learn the next hottest thing, the next big web dev or programming trend. I immediately went out and purchased books on various development languages and made a list of all the things I need to learn, and learn fast, in order to keep my skill set sharp and up to date. Once I looked at this list, I felt overwhelmed. A slight panic came over me and I asked myself "When am I going to have the time to learn and gain a sufficient experience in these new tools, amidst my duties as a budding entrepreneur, President of a Sorority Chapter, Division CEO of a start up company (not my own), contract work, and a host of affiliations in other associations and organizations, family obligations, etc.?? Better yet, how am I going to learn the new things and keep sharp with whats already established in my skill set ? I still haven't figured an answer to my question.

What it does lead me to question, is it better to be a Master of a few skill sets? or Intermediate to advanced on a wide range of skill sets that you can tap into when necessary? My personality and habits suggest that I'm better at being Jill. I get bored very easily and I don't like to be pigeon hold into one area. I once read an article in .net magazine that said the days of the Gurus and Rock stars are over...true? (I don't wanna be a Guru or Rockstar anyway cause I'm a WEB DIVA)

If you look into your repertoire are you a Jack or Jill? Or do you prefer being a Guru/Rock star?

I personally feel that its better to be the Jack or Jill. To me it shows that you area well rounded, unafraid to branch out into new mediums, learn fairly quickly, can wear many hats within in a team if needed, and make it appoint to stay abreast of all emerging technology. Not to mention that you can apply for a front-end dev job or a back-end dev job.

So bottom line, my post today is to ask the question, is it really necessary to master one thing when you can have a good handle on everything?

Shameless Plug ...

Ok sooo on the left under my profile it  says that I'm an Entrepreneur ... Let me take a moment to toot my own horn.

In September 2008 I launched eGreekSites.com. 

What is eGreekSites.com you ask?  We are focused on creating aesthetically pleasing and easy to maintain websites for Sororities & Fraternities.  

I decide to launch this company because it was evident that the three most popular companies in this niche market didn't have solutions that worked for Historically Black, Latino and Multi-Cultural organizations at the undergraduate or graduate level.

Truth be told ... our organizations don't need all the extra fluff and we most certainly aren't going to pay some company $30 bucks a month to keep a website that you have no absolute control over. Especially when the company  doesn't understand the culture of these organizations so how can you  accurately service them?

These Non-white organizations typically don't have Sorority houses and chapters with 60+ members are in few occurrence. Chapter members are nor managed online. Its still snail mail and paper checks to pay dues!

Anyhoo ... I looked through the client list of these companies and I didn't see any non-white sororities or fraternities. So I saw my chance to carve out my place in the world!

For a one time fee, our clients get complete site design and development inside a robust content management system.  They totally own their domain name and hosting space.

Our clients don't have to worry that if they miss a monthly payment their site will be shut off with out their control.

So if you are reading my blog and you belong to any greek organization feel free to check us out and forward our contact info to your chapter!

To the Topic at hand ...

Black Women working in Technology. It seems to be quite the anomaly. At the current moment if you did a google search on that very phrase, you will see an organization called AAWIT: African American Women in Technology. But beyond that the titles seem to refer to how Black Women are using technology to increase their personal lives and achieve success, but nothing to suggest that Black Women are responsible for making or developing the many tools from web applications, mobile applications, social media sites, etc. That so much of the world uses on a daily basis.

There is nothing to suggest that we are at the fore front or even slightly in the middle of cutting edge technologies like User Interface Design, Rich Internet Applications, Cloud Computing, Web 2.0/3.0 Development , Internet Security, IT/Networking, Computing, Business Intelligence, etc.

My question is why?

I began to ask this question when I attended Drupalcon Boston in 2008. I walked into the convention center and I saw no one that looked like me. And the faces staring back at me wouldn't figure that I was there for the same reason they were. To learn and perfect my craft, to feed my passion. At that moment, I never felt so alone in my life among a sea of people who like me spend endless hours on the computer developing, creating, and zoning out to learn whatever new javascript or PHP library that has hit the scene.

I walked around aimlessly, finally putting on my Drupalcon badge but still in shock that there were no other Black Women at this conference. BUT WAIT... low and behold.....I thought my eyes were deceiving me. There she was sitting in the corner with her laptop, all alone just as I was. I mustered up the courage to walk over and say "HI!". From that moment on we stuck together for the remainder of the conference. Out of over 500 people there were just the two of us. During the lunch break we discussed the fact that we were the only "African-American" persons at the conference. All the other shades of brown were of foreign decent. Indian, Asian, and African.

At one point during our lunch the founder of Drupal, Dries Buytaert, and another attendee sat at a table next to us to have lunch as well. In my mind I thought, "I wonder if he thinks we are here for Drupalcon? I wonder if he realizes that, yes, Black women use Drupal too." Silly questions, probably. But it definitely crossed my mind.

Later in the day was the Drupalcon keynote address. At this moment I looked across the sea of people that spanned the ridiculously large convention center room and began to cry. My heart broke as Google Executive were talking about the Google Summer of Code and introducing the participants, one of which happened to be as young as 9. These children were being praised for their intelligence, their brilliance, and the sheer fact that at such a young age they are amongst the best and the brightest in computing. All I could think was "Where are MY people?" Where were the little black girls and boys who have the brilliance and the talent to spend the summer working on Open Source projects sponsored by Drupal, Adobe, and Google? When is the opportunity presented to that little black girl living in the ghetto that has the mental capacity and ability to stand with her peers in this severely secluded and segregated computational environment?

Again, my heart was breaking. I could barely focus and I was fighting the tears as some attendees typed furiously around me and others fought to grab sockets to charge their laptops.
The moment was bitter but also sweet. I had to pause and realize that I had walked down the path less chosen and I should be proud that I am one of the 2% within an industry of nearly 3 million.

As I moved through the rest of the conference, with every step I promised myself that I would spend my life trying to increase that number.

Why be a Guru, when you can be a DIVA! A Web Diva that is ...

Greetings all you nerds, nerds with swag, urban geeks, geek chix, etc! My first order of business as I start this blog is to coin a new term ... start a new trend so to speak. I'm going to give you the formal definition of a Web Diva.

Web Diva: a woman of rare, outstanding talent in the world of Internet technology. She is a recognized leader in some field or of some movement; She isn't your average geeky chick because she has style and swag. She magically balances the geek side of herself with her inner Prima Donna.

Do you know her? Have you seen her? Sure you have .. she's that one sista' that may you see at the clubs, has an active social life, a killer wardrobe and a mean shoe game. Oh and she keeps her hair tight.

...and if you've ever said anything to her at all, it most likely was ..."How do I fix my computer?"

Ive come up with term for all of us out there who don't subscribe to the traditional images of what a female nerd may look like. Exhibit A:

For those of us who care just as much about the latest styles and hair trends just as much as we care about the latest architectural pattern used in software engineering. You know?!? We like to balance things out. The best of both worlds!! I mean just because I have two degrees in Computer Science and Math, must I look like Ugly Betty?




I prefer to look exactly how I feel on the inside FAB-U-LOUS!

So if you can relate to being a Web Diva, I need you to let the computing community know there is a new "Title" in town!