Meghan McInverny Wilker

SXSW Panels

Posted on August 27, 2010

Today is the last day of voting for SXSW panels. We’ve already asked you to vote for us (but, if you haven’t, today is your last chance!). But don’t just vote for us — there are tons of awesome panel options to choose from.

How to Vote

  • Visit the SXSW PanelPicker. (Our session is here.)
  • Create an account (it reduces fraudulent voting), but don’t worry: you won’t be added to any mailing lists (unless you want to be!).
  • Click the thumbs-up (or thumbs-down) to vote!

Who to Vote For

Don’t just vote for us! There are a number of great proposals out there. Need some guidance on where to start?

If you’d like to support other Minnesotans, check out this post by Kary Delaria that includes a list of panel submissions from MN.

Or you can check out this list of panels that have caught our eye as we’ve been browsing and voting over the last couple of weeks. These are all people we don’t know IRL, but whose topics looked interesting to us. And that’s what this is all about! Explore, find new topics and help decide what should — or shouldn’t — be at SXSW!

Project Management for Humans (No Robots Allowed)
Organizer: Brett Harned, Happy Cog
    • What is the most effective way to gather project requirements?
    • What’s better for my project, Agile or Waterfall process?
    • How can I manage the process as it transitions from UX to Design, to Development?
    • How can I effectively communicate with and educate my clients on web development process?
    • How do I deal with all of these personalities and keep my focus on the project itself?

The Emerging Role of Social Media in Education
Organizer: Richard Byrne, Free Technology for Teachers
    • How are teachers using social media to bring global perspectives to their classrooms?
    • What are the obstacles teachers face in trying to use social media in their classrooms?
    • How is social media helping teachers create better learning experiences for their students?
    • How are mobile devices being used to increase student and parent engagement in schools?
    • Why aren’t more schools embracing the use of social media by teachers and students?

No Excuse: Web Designers Who Can’t Code
Organizer: Wilson Miner, Rdio Description
    • Why should designers know how to code their designs?
    • How can designers use code skills in increasingly specialized teams.
    • How can designers develop code understanding if their job doesn’t involve writing code?
    • How can hybrid designers work effectively with other developers?
    • Is there a place for developers with design sense?

Successful People-Based Acquisition: Buying People, Not Code
Organizer:  Bill Boebel, Rackspace Hosting  
    • What made this Webmail.us acquisition by Rackspace special?
    • What made employees and founders want to stay on board?
    • How can this be replicated?
    • What other companies have had success with this method and why?
    • What has not worked for other companies?

Viral Marketing with The Oatmeal
Organizer: Matthew Inman, The Oatmeal
    • How do I come up with creative marketing ideas for a boring product?
    • How do I get people to pay attention to my website?
    • I’ve created some rad content – now how do I get people to read it?
    • What’s a good creative process for brainstorming effective viral ideas?
    • How do I make funny things? How do I make things that resonate with an audience?

Girl Developers++: Getting Women Equipped to Ship
Organizer: Sara Chipps, Girl Developer LLC
    • How can we get more female software developers?
    • Why aren’t women comfortable in traditional educational settings when it comes to technology?
    • How can I start an initiative to educate women in technology in my community?
    • What are some of the roadblocks women run into when learning how to code?
    • As a man, how can I help make women feel more at home in the software community?

Startup Success: Entrepreneurial Women Share the Team-Building Secret
Organizer: Rynda Laurel, ryndalaurel.com
    • What is a successful team, and how do you build one?
    • How to be a team leader, and how to determine what your strengths and weaknesses are so you can partner up with those that compliment you.
    • How to use Marketing, PR, Social Media and Networking to find your team and build communities around your startup.
    • How to look at the big picture and build international teams.
    • How we did it and still encourage others to take the plunge.

Social Marketing Lessons Learned on the Farm
Organizer: Nathan Wright, Lava Row
    • What cultural factors make farmers and rural people “naturals” at building community?
    • What can other businesses learn from the up-and-down commodity markets that drive ag and rural business?
    • How do Dust Bowl and Great Depression memories make for better business decisions?
    • How are smaller ag-related businesses effectively leveraging social media?
    • What makes social marketing a good fit for agriculture-based businesses?

Geek Chic of the Week: Widgets!

Posted on July 30, 2010

The Geek Girls received this reader question recently:
Eeeeek. Tell me about widgets! Are these like a Flickr badge that I might put on my blog? What are they for? How do they work? What’s in it for me or for the widgetee?

Sincerely,
Wondering about Widgets

So let’s begin a the beginning: what is a widget? A “widget” in the interactive world is typically used to deliver content to a web page or a desktop. They usually involve some sort of feed that goes out and brings back the specified information to the location you want, rather than you going to different locations.

Web Widgets

Web widgets are commonly used, well, on the web. Generally, it’s a box containing information from another site that is embedded on web pages, user profiles (like Facebook, Flickr, and Myspace), and blogs. Below is an example of a widget (provided by Facebook) embedded on a different web site.

Common web widgets include tickers, event countdowns, Twitter feeds, photo galleries, and profile badges. These types of widgets are usually available to the user (you) by embedding them on your site via a set of provided HTML code or JavaScript.

Widgets make it easy to incorporate dynamic content into your site, and make it easy to connect all your profiles together. For example, on your blog or website you could embed a Twitter widget to feature your tweets, a Facebook widget to link to your page or company’s page, and a Flickr widget to feature your pictures. All of these things also ensure that people who are interested in your content are aware of all the different places they can connect with you.

It’s important to note that you can only embed widgets on pages that you have access to add or author the HTML or JavaScript code.

Below is an image showing the process of creating a FourSquare Mayor widget for your location’s site or blog.

Step 3 shows you the snippet of code that you need to embed in your site’s code to display the widget. This may feel far too technical for some of you — luckily some of the new blogging platforms make this really easy. You just drop an HTML component on your page, paste in the code and bam! Easy-easy and you don’t even have to dig into the page code if that’s not your thing.

Desktop Widgets

Desktop widgets run on your local machine: y’know, on the desktop. 😉

These widgets are sometimes called applets because they are like mini-applications running on your computer. These widgets are typically associated with content that the user accesses often, like a clock, calculator, weather feed, or up to the minute stock market results.

On Windows Vista and Windows Live they are found in Microsoft Gadgets; on a Mac, widgets live on the Dashboard (pictured below). By default, there is a dashboard icon in the toolbar; clicking it will reveal the widgets.

Who Wins?

So, why bother with widgets? As a web widget user, you get an easy tool to share the widget maker’s service or product, which in turn generates more traffic or notice for the maker’s product or service. Do you think Twitter would have gotten as big if there was no way to share it within spaces that people were already going to? And what about something like Flickr? Widgets make it easy to feature galleries and share images, but you still have to go to Flickr to upload the actual photos. In the end it’s not taking traffic away, it’s creating traffic by using spaces and sites that people already frequent.

Some desktop widgets exists for the same reason: by downloading a news widget you are interacting with the news outlet’s content and, in some cases, going to their site for additional content. You win by getting the headlines delivered to you, they win by keeping you engaged with their brand and driving traffic to their site. Other desktop widgets (like, say, a desktop lava lamp) are more like phone apps; they’re just for fun.

So, Wondering…I hope we answered your question. Let us know how the widgeting goes.

Email Extensions

Posted on July 13, 2010

A while ago, geeky reader Lorelei from Seattle wrote to ask, “Does the type of email you use matter (yahoo,gmail etc)? A tech guy on NPR seems to think it really says a lot about a person. Thoughts?”

Here’s how I personally feel about this:

1. Your email prefix means more than the extension (e.g. lorelei@ vs. sexygirl27@). Whenever possible, use your name or some variation of your name for your email address. If possible, avoid numbers. Numbers just seem outdated and less professional. If you have an old “unprofessional” email address, go ahead and keep it for personal stuff. You can set up a new one to use for more professional communication.

2. The extension might mean something to some people, but it means less than the prefix. The only extension that seems really outdated is  @aol. @gmail seems more current. @msn, @hotmail and @yahoo are just sort of…whatever.

I think the geekier you are, the more those extensions “mean” to you in the sense that you may pass judgement on people based on them. But reallly? I don’t think I’d refuse an interview to someone just because they had a Yahoo email address. I may, however, think twice if their prefix is krazzygurl1980@. (Man, I hope that’s not someone’s real address, but it probably is. I’m sorry in advance for using you as an example! I’m sure you’re a nice person.)

Resources

Lifehacker brings up a good point in their post: there are times when what’s most important is to have your own domain. Like my address @meghanwilker.com vs. my address @gmail.com. If you own a small business, it adds to your credibility to have an email address at your own domain instead of one through a free service.

Again, it depends on your audience. Most muggles could care less about what kind of email address you have, so if you’re selling teddy bears on eBay it probably doesn’t matter. But, if you’re looking for venture capital in Silicon Valley, it’s a different story.

Hope that helps! Now let’s just hope krazzygurl1980 doesn’t come after me…

The Problem With Pink

Posted on April 28, 2010

This weekend, I posted on Facebook and Twitter that my daughter and I “had a discussion about ‘boy colors’ and ‘girl colors’ today. I tried to explain that there are just ‘colors’. She wouldn’t hear of it! While she also admits to liking ‘boy colors’, it still rubs me the wrong way. Our first ideological disagreement!”

The reactions got me thinking. I’m posting it here because, if you stay with me ’til the end, you’ll see how it relates to technology.

Bear with me. I’m a wordy lady.

Boy Colors and Girl Colors

What I wanted to write back to everyone that responded to me on Facebook and Twitter (but instead turned into this blog post), was this: what bothered me about what my daughter said was not that she liked the color pink, but that at four years old she had learned that ALL the other colors (aside from pink and purple) “belonged” to boys. This attitude — that certain things are “for” boys and “for” girls isn’t as innocent or funny as it might seem. It’s a mindset that builds on itself and leads us to treat boys and girls differently, to have different expectations for them, leads them to believe that certain choices are better (read: more appropriate) for them than others and leads us, in adulthood to believe things about women and men that simply aren’t true.

While mulling that over this week, I’ve also been looking for inspiration for decorating the kids’ bedroom. Yep, my son and daughter are going to share a room, at least until they’re old enough to complain about it. (Then, one of them will move to the spare bedroom in the basement.)

In looking for decorating ideas, I was struck by how everything — everything — is divided into stuff for boys, and stuff for girls. Girls’ stuff is pink pink pink pink pink (OMG with the pink!), and maybe some purple or yellow. Theme-wise, it’s animals, flowers, princesses and the like. Overall, it’s all very soft.

Boys’ stuff is every color that isn’t pink or purple. Boys also = robots, trains, cars. Boy stuff is  — in color and subject matter — BOLD.

Boy Toys & Girl Toys

Shopping for kids’ birthday parties over the past year, I’ve noticed that the toy aisles are divided, too. There are boy toys and girl toys. Boy toys are robots, trains, and cars. In other words, things to do. Girl toys are dolls, pets, cooking and cleaning stuff. In other words, things to take care of. (By the way, this really pissed me off when I tried to buy a pack of play food for a boy we know loves cooking in a toy kitchen. The only available containers were pink and purple. What?!)

Now, hey. I’m not begrudging anyone their pink. In fact, I’ve been known to enjoy the color myself. I just don’t want that to be the only option.

My daughter has princess stuff, dolls, and a play kitchen. But, she also has a toolbox and a train set. Last Saturday, she wore a pink dress and glittery shoes to a rocket class at the local science museum.

My son has trucks and loses his mind with glee when he sees a motorcycle drive by, but one of his favorite things to do is to give a bottle to his baby doll and put her to bed. The little kisses he gives that doll make my heart explode.

I’m not saying that like, “Oh, look at me — I’ve figured out how to break gender stereotypes.” But, I have made a conscious effort to create balance in our house. My daughter has a toolbox because I intentionally bought it for her. My son plays with a doll because I offered it as a choice that was equal to anything else he could choose. If all we offer our kids are toys that are prescribed for their gender, that’s all they’ll ever choose. And who could blame them? Their job as children is to learn about the world around them; what are we teaching them with all of this?

Further proof of my point? While working on this blog post, this story about the new Iron Man 2 toys at Burger King came through my Twitter feed. They’re offering “four lifestyle accessories for girls and four action-packed toys for boys.” Awesome.

Where I Get to the Technology Part

A friend gave me some gentle teasing about my Facebook comment above because my current profile photo on Facebook is computer engineer Barbie (hello pink and stereotypes!). But, I LOVE that there is a computer engineer Barbie and that she wears pink. It’s cool because the stereotype that computer engineers can’t be feminine is just as lame as anything else. Get it? You can be both. Nobody “owns” it either way. (Pamela Fox nailed this idea at Ignite Sydney this year.)

Honestly, despite my hand-wringing over my daughter’s color comment, there are lots of positive things going on for girls these days. Adventurous, popular characters like Dora the Explorer give me some hope. But, what about the boys? How long will my son play with a doll before other boys accuse him of acting like a girl? (And — gasp! — is there a bigger insult than to be called a girl?!)

I guess I’m having a moment where I find it striking and bothersome that we divide our boys and girls so early on and then wonder why those stereotypes persist into adulthood — why there aren’t more female computer programmers or male nurses or why women make .77 for every dollar a man earns, even in advanced-degree careers. 

Or how about why companies who appoint women to corporate directorships have unchanged or slightly worse stock peformance, despite the fact that evidence shows that “companies with high numbers of female directors, metrics such as return on equity, return on sales, and return on invested capital are substantially higher than at companies with very few or no female directors.” (quote from the Harvard Business Review) Translation: investors don’t believe women can lead.

My point is that those ideas start somewhere. They start small, and they start early. We soothe ourselves by saying “Oh, boys and girls are just different,” as a way to justify these strange little boxes we are putting them in at such a young age.

Who knows, maybe boys and girls aren’t as different as we think they are. There’s probably no way to definitively know what is the result of nature and what is the result of nurture. But I believe it’s a mistake for us, as a culture, to teach our children that girls aren’t bold and boys aren’t caregivers by only offering them choices that reflect those ideas. As silly as it may sound, it starts with something as simple as “boy colors” and “girl colors.”

I’d like to see us give our kids more credit than that. We’ll all be better for it in the future.

In the meantime, I still don’t know what to do with my kids’ bedroom.

Social Media After a Layoff, by Laura Wadzinski

Posted on April 9, 2010

A few months ago, I had a conversation with Laura, whom I’ve worked with in the past, about her recent job search experience. She had been part of a layoff, and her description of how social media had played into her job search struck me as something the Geek Girls Guide audience might be interested in. Sure, there’s the requisite “using LinkedIn to network” kind of angle, but what was truly unique to me was how social media (namely the Group feature on both Facebook and LinkedIn) had allowed this group of people to remain connected with each other long after the layoff was over.

In my own past, I’ve worked at a couple of advertising agencies where layoffs are a part of life. Lose a big client, and everyone braces themselves for the axe to fall. After a day of layoffs, both those who were let go and those who weren’t would generally meet at a bar somewhere and commisserate. And that’s about where it would end.

But that was before social media gave us the ability to organize ourselves on the fly. And Laura’s story illustrates how a group of people — like the ones let go from her company — can self-organize to continue to provide support to each other long after the layoff.

One of the books I highly recommend to anyone interested in learning more about what social media from a sociological (vs. tactical) perspective is Clay Shirky’s “Here Comes Everybody.” (Nancy likes to make fun of my for my Shirky fangirl tendencies, but what can I say?! Dude is brilliant.) The subtitle of his book is “The Power of Organizing Without Organizations” and Laura’s story below illustrates that point perfectly.

——————————————

This fall I suddenly and unexpectedly lost my job when my position as an interactive marketing planner was eliminated as part of a massive layoff.  As you would imagine (or maybe you know) the days immediately following were extremely confusing and humbling.  I know how to maximize every minute of a 50-hour week job and manage a household, but I felt paralyzed and unsure how to prioritize what to do first, next, or not at all after the layoff.

I began telling myself that I was well-equipped to attack the impending job search.  After all, a job search is the equivalent of developing a marketing plan, of which I’ve spent the bulk of my career in practice. Furthermore, in my most recent position, I was responsible for developing online media strategy (including the use of social networks) for executive recruitment at my company.  So I kept telling myself “I know how to work this thing”.  Then I’d freeze up again.

Within a few days I had my resume updated and was ready to start connecting with my network of friends and former colleagues to help me identify job leads.  The support, information and leads I have received from my established networks on Facebook and LinkedIn have been, and continue to be, incredibly beneficial.

As tactically-focused as I tried to be, there were moments when I couldn’t get through checking my pages without being brought to tears.  Somebody I knew well, or even casually would tell me how sorry they were, tell me I was talented, offer up where they had connections, or ask for my resume so they could pass it along.  The thoughts, the kindness, the offers affected me profoundly. The support and validation from my professional and social networks was as important as the job leads themselves.  I expected some of the kind words and support.  My networks are full of my friends.

What I did not expect was the creation and appearance of a unique group on both Facebook and LinkedIn.  The groups were created by, and for, those individuals that were part of the layoff.  I joined the groups, and would describe them as part job lead swap, and part support group.  When a member comes across a job lead that isn’t a fit for them, they post it.  Usually with an accompanying offer of an introduction to their connection and/or a recommendation.

Recruiters and curious outsiders began requesting entrance to the group and it was put to vote. Some people felt that the more accessible and visible our job search content was, the better (really great point).  However, a majority voted for the Facebook group to stay closed so that we had a confidential and mutually understood place to go, so regardless of whether that day we needed a job lead, a place to vent, or a discussion thread about how to best navigate our severance benefits, it was a safe place to be.  If an unrecognized request to join came through, the group administrator sent it out to the group so someone could vouch.  There actually was a recruiter that got in on the first couple of days before the vote and she graciously announced that she would leave and connect with us on Linked In. We did vote to open the Linked In group to anyone who wanted to help with leads and connections.

The most important thing I learned about using social media in my job search is how powerful it is in delivering qualified job leads.  It helped me avoid the atrophy of sifting through hundreds of openings that were not interesting, or that weren’t a good fit or that I didn’t have a connection to help me get in.  When I did pursue leads, I was going in for my interviews with a recommendation from the connection who had posted the lead.

I also was reminded why I love working in the interactive media space.  It is filled with so many smart, supportive, generous, creative people.  Thank you.

Laura Wadzinski is a Client Services Manager at The Lacek Group.  She has led strategic planning and project management both on the agency side and on the corporate side.

Ada Lovelace Day, Part II: An Ode to Nancy Lyons

Posted on March 24, 2010

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to celebrate women in technology and science. Learn more at FindingAda.com and check out a list and a map of all the other blog posts around the world!

Last year, Nancy wrote an embarassingly glowing post about me for Ada Lovelace Day. And she doesnt know I’m doing this, but I owe her back. Big time.

Here’s the deal: I literally would not be where I am today without Nancy Lyons. Forgive me in advance, but this is a long story.

When we met, Nancy was President of Bitstream Underground, an ISP and web development shop in Minneapolis. I was working in account services at a marketing agency, finishing my Bachelor’s Degree at night at the University of Minnesota. I majored in Advertising (copywriting was my focus) because it’s essentially the “family business” and I didn’t know what else to do. In all honesty, I was a little lost (like most people in their 20s, I guess).

The company I worked for had invested in Bitstream and Nancy came to talk to the account services team about how we could best work with her team. She told us about the company, what they did, their culture, their philosophy, how they worked. I was awestruck. The only thought I remember having when I left that room was, “I have got to work for that woman.” I immediately sent her an email that said something like, “I am in love with Bitstream and I want to marry it.” She replied that it was important to her that Bitstream stay single. A correspondence ensued over the next few months in which I relentlessly pursued her for a job and she relentlessly tried to blow me off. At one point she said, “You have got to stop spamming me.” So I couriered a can of SPAM to her office. And that’s how I got my first real interview.

What she gave me when she eventually gave me a job was a chance. Nancy didn’t look at me and see all the things I hadn’t done yet — she looked at me and saw my potential more than anyone else in my life (including me) ever had.

When I started working for her, I had a lot to learn. Like, a lot. But, I did it. I figured it all out and in doing so, I found my calling.

Over the last ten years, Nancy and I have developed a remarkable friendship. If you’ve ever met us, or seen us speak, you know we’re pretty different. Not entirely opposites, but different in many ways. The difference in our approach to things has taught me more than I can probably write here. (Plus, I’m Irish. We’re not an emotive bunch, this is hard for me.)

Nancy believes in leadership through service and I see her live that value every day. Her job is often thankless, and she handles it with grace. She has a generous heart and is truly concerned with the well-being of those who work with and for her. She turns the spotlight on those around her far more often than she shines it on herself. She’s passionate (if you’ve seen us speak, you know what I’m talking about). She’s taught me that you don’t always need to say everything you know. You can have confidence in your own abilities without having to prove yourself to anyone else. You can write your own rules for how to run a company, how to work, how to live. I admire her passion, her intelligence, her unwavering concern for other people. As a business owner, she puts people before profit. Doing the right thing is more important to her than doing the easy thing. She’s incredibly smart about business and technology but posesses sharp emotional intelligence and an ability to read a room and adjust her delivery to the needs of her audience. She speaks her mind fearlessly even when she knows that what she’s saying might piss people off. She doesn’t apologize for being who she is. Also, for a girl, she’s pretty good with computer stuff.

Ada Lovelace Day is about acknowledging the women in technology who have literally shaped our lives. And if you ask me how I got where I am today I can point directly to the moment that Nancy offered me that job at Bitstream and say, “There. See that? Right there, and because of that person, is how I got here.”

I don’t know that I tell her thank you enough. So, hey Nancy: thank you.

Future Tense

Posted on March 23, 2010

We were on Future Tense this morning, which was pretty cool! I listen to that show every morning while eating breakfast and getting ready to head into the office, so I had a bit of a fangirl moment interacting with Jon Gordon. He talked with Nancy and me — and Jennifer Bohmbach — about Ada Lovelace Day tomorrow.

Check out the audio that aired this morning, or you can also listen to our unedited conversation with Jon (y’know, the one with more ums and ahs).

mp3 file here.

On a Mac, hold down the control key and click and select “Save Link As…” and save the mp3 somewhere on your computer.
On a PC, right click and select Save Target As… (in IE) or Save Link As… (in Firefox) and save the mp3 somewhere on your computer.

When you open the file, it should launch your preferred audio player.

Keep an eye on this blog, and FindingAda.com for a worldwide day of blogging about women in technology.

Oh, and in the long version of our conversation with Jon I reference this presentation from Ignite Sydney, “I’m a Barbie Girl…in a CS World.” I really love its message about being yourself, whether or not that matches who people think you “should” be — check it out:

DIY Web Tools

Posted on February 23, 2010

Geeky reader Allison from St. Paul wrote to ask, “My uncle, a retired lawyer, is thinking of offering his services to students, helping them get into law school (and figure out if it’s even what they want). 2 questions: 1. any suggestions on how to build a simple website, and more importantly, optimize it so it shows up in google searches? 2. if he were to try some grassroots Facebook marketing, would you suggest a Group or a Fan page?”

Great questions! Sometimes, when you’re just getting started on a new idea, you have to do things yourself for little to no cost. Here are some thoughts:

DIY Website

For a quick and simple site, my favorite tool is Weebly — even for the least tech-savvy person, it’s a great tool. Your uncle could easily build a small site himself; they have some excellent templates to start with. If he likes it after playing with it a bit, he can upgrade to a Pro account and use his own URL (www.hisname.com instead of hisname.weebly.com). That’s a great place to start, especially if his business is just starting out. If things really start to take off, he can invest in a custom web design. (He can have someone create and install custom design templates into Weebly.)

Here’s a post that Nancy did about inexpensive sites (including Weebly) in ’08.

SEO

As long as he’s creating a clean HTML site (which Weebly does) he’ll get indexed by Google. He may want or need to just figure out which keywords to focus on. Google has a keyword research tool; using that, he can check to see how many searches are done with particular words or phrases. The more searches are done on a given word, the more competition there will be to be a top result for that word.

Getting ranked by Google in organic search results takes time; the algorithm considers how long a site has been around and how many other sites link to that site in addition to how relevant the site is to what the user is searching for (which is where the keyword stuff comes in). So, you either have to be patient or consider buying AdWords if you want to show up in search results right away.

Here’s a post Nina Hale wrote for us in ’08 on Pay-Per-Click advertising.

Facebook: Pages vs. Groups

For Facebook marketing, there’s a few things he might consider: first, Facebook Ads are pretty cheap and he could test them out to drive traffic to his website and see if he gets leads from it.

As far as a Page vs. a Group, for what he’s doing I’d suggest a Page. (There is talk that Groups will start to act more like Pages in the future — meaning activity will be more visible, but for right now Pages are the way to go. Especially for a business; a Group is really more appropriate if you want to create a community.)

Your uncle may even want to consider just doing a Page and skipping the “real” web site — as soon as he’s got 25 Fans (which could be friends and family to start) he create a custom URL (like www.facebook.com/hisname) and he could just refer people directly there to contact him. To set up a custom URL for a Page, visit www.facebook.com/username.

I’d think that referrals would be a big source of business for him at first so, honestly, I think starting with a Facebook page and building referrals from there (and maybe also supplementing with some Facebook ads that drive traffic to that Page) would be a great, very low investment place to start!

Geek Camps for Minnesota Girls (and Boys!)

Posted on February 18, 2010

Geeky reader Sandra from Minneapolis said, “I heard a provocative rumor that you have, or will be starting, a summer camp for school age girls.  I have a soon to be eight-year-old daughter who is crazy into computers and I’d love to give her some extracurricular opportunities.  Are the rumors true?”

My, that is a provocative (and awesome) rumor. I wish it was true!

At this point, we are focused more on adults and working professionals and have not ventured into much content for young girls. Not that we don’t have the desire, but with full-time jobs and both of us with young kids at home — we have to focus or risk going crazy.

With that said, here’s what I know about right now for geeky kid camps in Minnesota:

Computer Camps for Girls in MN

DigiGirlz: High tech camps by Microsoft. There don’t appear to be any Minnesota camps running right now, but this may be a good spot to keep an eye on.

Digital Media Academy (U of M): Sadly, all of the kid sessions are currently closed, but it might be something to keep in mind for the future.

Eagles Summer Camp (Science Technology Engineering Arts Math (STEAM) Focus): This appears to be free for all Minnesota students entering grades 6, 7, or 8.

Geek Squad Summer Academy: Camps run by Best Buy and Geek Squad employees on a variety of techie topics.

Giant Camps (Online Camps): For ages 10-17

iD Tech Camp (Macalester College): For boys and girls 7-17.

Science Museum of Minnesota: I have my four-year-old daughter signed up for a rocket class this spring!

Help Us, Readers!

Do you know of any computer camp opportunities for girls in MN (or any other state, for that matter)? Let’s get our girls to geek out this summer!

iPad Leakage

Posted on January 27, 2010

There’s a lot of chatter about the iPad today, and not just about its features. Many people are commenting on, and joking about, the name (iTampon is currently a trending topic on Twitter). For 50% of us, the word “pad” means something other than a notebook.

Upon hearing the name, I tweeted: “I refuse to say iPad; sounds like a feminine product. I’m calling it iTab. So there, Jobs!”

Most women in my Twitter stream were either tweeting something similar, or giving me the “Amen, sister.” Meanwhile, comments like this started cropping up from the dudes:

  • seem to be the only one who’s not shocked/grossed out by the name and will go as far as to say it was the only real choice. –@rett
  • sorry, women, you don’t own the word “pad”. – @lolife

It’s not surprising that many (if not most) men are baffled about why anyone would be weirded out by the name iPad. It makes sense because they’ve never (I hope) used a pad and they don’t have any associations with that word. Sadly, I’m having no luck thinking up a parallel product name that men might think was odd but that women wouldn’t care about. (iJockstrap? Nah. iNutpunch? Uh, no. iMorningwood? Hrm.)

So, let’s be clear: is the name iPad going to prevent me from buying this product? No. But it does tell me that it’s unlikely that any women were involved in the naming of this product. (My other favorite example of a product name I’m pretty sure no women weighed in on: the Ford Probe.)

Tellingly, Apple’s promotional video for the iPad contains not. one. woman. It features interviews with the men who developed it, and action shots of male hand models using it. I don’t know, maybe it was hard to find women willing to star in a film called iPad. (I can’t imagine why.)

So, here’s the deal: I’m not offended. I just think it’s interesting that Apple picked a loaded (for women) term for their new product, and it’s strange that they couldn’t be bothered to show even ONE woman using it. And yet, we (and our wallets) will be crucial to its success. But, hell, for all I know this was all intentional. The folks at Apple are no fools when it comes to marketing, and in an “any publicity is good publicity” world, Apple is crushing it today.

All of this just reminds me of how much I’m looking forward to the day when there are more women involved in the development and creation of tech products. After all, we’re already buying and using them at nearly the same rate as our male counterparts.