Geek Girls Guide

I guess we’re on a little bit of a 37signals kick over here at the Geek Girls Guide. Last week, our pal Julie outlined how she and her husband use Basecamp to manage their home remodeling. This week, our newfound friend Nate Burgos of Design Feast shares how 37Signals’ Backpack has helped him keep his inbox cleaner by streamlining his writing and editing process. This article is a great example of how one technology tool (Backpack) can help simplify another (email). I don’t think Nate is alone in wanting to keep the amount of “noise” in his inbox down.

We’ll be posting some more articles around here soon about how to keep your Inbox(es) under control. Let us know if Nate’s post gives you any bright ideas!

Since starting my blog last year, I had been using Gmail to send files to my editor Silvia. The system was simple: State the blog posting number in the email’s subject header, insert pleasant greeting and notification, and attach Word document. Writing is naturally iterative. There were a number of times that I would email another, and sometimes still another, revised version of the same posting. In these instances, the subject header would read USE THIS.

At times I needed to make sure that the latest version was indeed the latest, so I used Gmail’s fast search to track it. This way of sharing and commenting on versions was my workflow for making content to post. But repeating this workflow, with each compounded and buried email in my Sent folder, proved that the system wasn’t the right solution.

Last January, my writing-and-approval system was not only refreshed but also reengineered when I began using Backpack, 37signal’s tool for sharing and organizing information. I thought my immediate choice would be Basecamp, but decided that Backpack was appropriate for my purpose. Backpack allows you to create a Page, however many needed, dedicated to a topic. Each Page serves as a central place to store the stuff pertaining to the topic of that Page, like this for a past topic for a blog entry:

About three years ago, my husband and I started into a relationship-challenger remodeling project on our house. We started in the beginning of the year with grand hopes of finishing it in time to host that year’s family Thanksgiving dinner. (Note my point in the first sentence; that was three years ago.) Outside of the fact that the remodeling is taking forever, it really is going to be pretty sweet when it’s all done.

After a few months of working with some architect-friends of ours, we finally settled on the plans and were ready to start making it happen. Since we remodeled parts of our last house, we thought it was pretty doable but not too crazy. Basically, we’re remodeling 70% of the main floor – relocating the kitchen to a different room (all new appliances, countertops, cabinets), opening up a couple walls, remodeling the living room (install hardwood, remove popcorn ceiling, take down paneling), and add a small mudroom. (Yeah, ok, I guess we are crazy.)

Since we wanted to do most of the work ourselves to save money, we started plugging away on research. As you may know, there’s a lot to figure out when you’re remodeling. Our main priorities: look stunning; do it for cheaper than other similar remodels; and do it as environmentally friendly as possible given the first two points. I was quickly racking up bookmarked eco-friendly remodeling sites and information about appliances while my husband was starting to plan the timeline. Before we knew it, we had both amassed information that was getting lost and not communicated to each other.

So we decided to give 37 Signals’ Basecamp web application a try to see if it would help us get more organized with our project, and it has been fantastic. Basecamp is an online project collaboration tool that allows you to assign tasks, gather feedback, and set milestones – among other features. Since we didn’t want to spend any more money than necessary, we opted for their most basic (free) plan. Included with this version are the following features with examples of how we used them.

Dashboard
The Dashboard is a high-level view of what’s going on with your project. If someone posts something, everyone sees an intro line about what was posted. Included with the intro line is the date of the posting and who posted it.

The following post was authored by our friend, PR professional, and social media guru Gini Dietrich, Chief Executive of Arment Dietrich Public Relations and the author of SpinSucks.com and the BFF’s Beauty Bag Blog:

Hey, geeky readers! One of you asked the question, “are there tips for writing your online bio?” and Nancy and Meghan asked me if I’d give you tips for doing just that.

If you’re using social media to market yourself, your business, or your career online, it is pertinent your online bio be engaging and informative. This is hard to do, especially on Twitter where your bio is limited to 160 characters, but it is possible.

This is my Twitter bio:
CEO of Arment Dietrich. Author of spinsucks.com. Creator of BFF Beauty Bag. Vistage member. Avid cyclist. A foodie. Lover of shoes and wine.

You’ll see I’ve included my career, the two blogs I write (both business and personal), my personal interests, and that I’m a Vistage member because I want to connect with other members across the globe.

Think of it as if you’re introducing everything interesting about yourself in less than 10 seconds. What do you want people to know about you the first time you speak to them? How can you engage with them about your profession, but also as a person? What can you say about yourself in your online bio that intrigues a person to want to learn more?

If someone follows me on Twitter and I don’t follow them back, it’s usually one of three reasons: 1) They don’t have a photo as their avatar; 2) Their bio says something self-serving; or 3) They don’t have a bio at all.

When I say their bio is self-serving, an example is, “I’m looking for new friends; DM me!” or “I work at company X and I want to make new friends so I can leave my job.” You’d be surprised – these are real examples! And, as a business owner, a reason someone would be fired if I found that second one as their bio. Leave the negativity and derogatory statements at the door. Think of this as your own personal billboard; what do you want people to know about you every time they drive past your billboard?

Go ahead. Write your bio. See what works and change what doesn’t work. You’ll find the right mix…and then you’ll change it up every once in a while to engage with different groups of people.

Gini Dietrich is the founder and chief executive officer of Arment Dietrich, Inc., a public relations firm she built on three key values: Client service, results, and entrepreneurial spirit.

The following post was submitted by Kristi McKinney, who provides her perspective on being a young, geeky working woman. We love having guest Geek Girls contribute their thoughts. If you’re interested in writing an article for us, please let us know!

As society’s use of — and affinity for — technology has grown, so too has the idea of who uses, manages, and can fix our vast array of gadgets. This field, hobby, and obsession is undoubtedly dominated by men. But what about the women who do make technology their passion, their obsession, and their careers?

I can tell you that I’ve had to shrug cutely and pretend I can’t fix a problem many more times than I’ve been permitted to fix one. As a woman, I’m often brushed aside when anything technical comes up. Why? Because the stereotype of a computer geek is that they’re tall skinny guys with thick glasses, they’re antisocial and they own one of those USB drink coolers. They love WOW, Nethack, and cheese doodles. But just as that stereotype does not fit all male geeks, the gender of the stereotype is also wrong.

I’m a woman and a geek; those are not mutually exclusive. I actually know things about computers and technology. Break out your defibrillator, a new era of geeks is upon us. We’re women and we do know what we’re talking about. For some of us, our primary occupation has nothing to do with our tech obsessions, while others are closing the gender gap and becoming wonderfully geeky professionals. I was a grad student until not too long ago. I now write web content. Though my job doesn’t require me to be coding or even anything very technical, I end up doing it anyway for a variety of reasons, but not easily. I’m met with skepticism when I announce I can fix the problem at hand.

So what does this mean for us geeky girls? It means we’re endlessly doubted and the geeky tech guys that work at our offices think we’re marginal at best. We face the same challenges that women in the workplace have always faced, but with a little extra ammo.

What should we do? Persist. The next time you can fix something, but no one wants to listen to you, try harder. Make your knowledge known and never be ashamed of it. Don’t worry that you don’t know everything. Be confident and believe in yourself; if you do, others will start to believe in you too.

Kristi McKinney, Geek

Kristi McKinney currently works at Forte, LLC, writing and managing MyWayForward.com. She recently received her MA in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Minnesota where she studied Russian journalism. Kristi has had many geeky odd jobs over the years, including helping to write content and build web pages for the University of Minnesota Cancer Center. Kristi received her BA in Communication and English with a minor in Russian from the University of North Dakota.

Geeky reader Jamie in St. Paul submitted the following question recently: “Could you talk a little about google ads and google ad words? What’s the difference and how does it work? I have a basic idea but I’d like to learn more.”

I know enough about the topic to be dangerous, but contacted fellow girl geek and search engine maven Nina Hale to give a more expert explanation. She was kind enough to submit the following explanation of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. From Google Adwords and beyond!

What is PPC and how does it work?

Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) is the practice of bidding on specific keywords when they are typed into search engines. You bid in an auction system for an ad to show based upon the keyword, channel, time-of-day, geographic location, or other factors. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad. Common ad networks are Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, MSN adCenter, and more recently Facebook social targeting.

The advantages of PPC:

the ability to launch, modify, and stop rapidly,
the ability to get onto the front page of search engines,
the ability to take searchers to a very specific landing page of your choice,
the ability to easily measure leads and revenue from the channel.

The disadvantages of PPC:

the market is mature and generally has efficient competition,
you must be able to effectively convert your visitors,
unlike natural search—it costs money for each click and once you stop funding it, it’s over. Meaning that natural search takes a lot of time to optimize, but once you’ve done it right, there is a half-life of benefit (but that also goes away).
PPC can be complex to manage which may require outside help.

Funding PPC

As the advertiser, you identify how much you’re willing to pay if someone clicks on your ad, and you compete in an auction system with other advertisers who are also bidding on those keywords. You can specify a maximum cost-per-click (CPC) for each keyword that will trigger an ad. A product that costs a lot of money and has a short time to purchase might be highly competitive. “Residential drug treatment” may cost $31 for each click. But “mouthguard for braces” might only cost $0.30 per click. But, even if you offer the highest bid you are not guaranteed the top listing; there is a complex system of ranking based upon a large number of variables.

You can set budget limits on campaigns for mere dollars a day, or go as high as the available volume of searches supports. You can also define geographic locations, times of the day, or where on the search result page you prefer to have your ad show.

Measuring PPC

Since you can track which keyword produces a lead or sale for your company, you should be able to know what CPC and conversion rate will make you money. For example: if you determine that the keyword “mouth guards” sells $400 for each 100 clicks, you should be able to set a maximum cost you’re willing to pay for each click. All the networks use credit card billing and most of them charge you after the fact rather than having you pre-fund your account.

Brand Considerations in PPC

Because part of natural search optimization (SEO) requires a site to have keywords in the page copy that someone has searched on, PPC allows you to portray a more appropriate brand image. For example, if someone searches for a “fat farm,” and you want your website to come up in natural search, the word “fat farm” has to be very apparent in the page content. In paid search you can have an ad trigger from the keyword “fat farm” but the ad and your website could say “luxury weight loss resort.”

PPC Channels “search vs content” Networks

Most of the PPC ad networks have multiple channels: search networks and content networks. Search networks show ads on actual search engines, so they are based upon someone typing the keyword into a search box – clearly a pre-qualification to sales. Content networks are web pages where the keywords or keyword themes are present in the copy. Hence someone might be reading about the topic on another web site and see your ad. Clickthrough rates for the content networks are much lower, and have variable results based upon the industry and target.

Facebook PPC

Facebook social ads are a middle zone that falls into what is called behavioral targeting (BT). You identify interests people have listed on their profiles or updates, and if it’s in the Facebook database, you can show ads to that interest group. I’m a member of a Star Trek group on Facebook and had an ad shown to me for a Star Trek t-shirt, which I promptly bought. The Facebook database is currently not as extensive as it could be, and word is that they are working to expand this.

Types of ads on PPC

While text ads are most common, most networks now offer image ads, mobile ads, and listings on local maps as options.

When to Use PPC Advertising.

PPC Advertising does not grow demand, it captures demand that is there. It should have higher close rates because people are further down on the funnel. If there are people who are actively searching for what you sell, PPC is an excellent source of advertising.

You have to be able to close. If you don’t have an efficient manner on your website to get people to buy or start an inquiry process with you, you need to start there. It’s the “lead a horse to water” idea, if there’s nothing for them to drink, you wasted your money.

You have to be able to measure. If you can’t measure what happens on the website once people get there from a paid ad, it is going to be very hard to justify continuing the program. You can measure engagement in terms of time spent on the site, page views, etc., as well as actual sales and leads. Conversion rates for landing pages on PPC average 3.84% for in-house management of PPC, and 5.4% for outsourced managed PPC. (source: “MarketingSherpa Landing Page Handbook – second ed. 2008” Covers both B2C, B2B)

If you’re thinking about a long-term natural search investment, PPC is a good starting point. You can use this to show that search does create leads or sales for the company. Or you may find that it doesn’t convert and that you either need a redesign, better call to action, or different form of advertising. Natural search also takes a long time to really take hold, depending upon the competition on the first page.

If the natural search competition is too intense, PPC can work well. Sometimes you just can’t get past the Wikipedia’s of the world, the huge directories that have been putting $100,000 annually into natural search optimization, or the millions of fans who have been linking to a site. However this works in reverse, if there is a very competitive term, chances are there are lots of companies willing to pay a lot of money for a paid ad.

If you want to get a message up fast, such as in response to an article about your company, PPC is an excellent way to launch immediately.

PPC is a good way to test new designs or sales offers. Since you can direct traffic precisely to a page, you can do A/B tests to bring in traffic, test the response, then turn off the ad.

When not to use PPC Advertising.

If you want to grow demand, search is going to be more expensive and have worse results. They are better channels for building your brand. Sometimes you have a product that no one knows about and there is no exact demand for it. In this case, you can’t even target a keyword that fits. In this case turn to PR or media.

If you have a product that has a long research process, or is an “ambition” item, PPC may be hard. For example, lots of people want to liquidate their lives and escape to Mexico to live simply, but not many do it. Lots of them may be searching at 11pm after they’ve had a bad day at work. So spending lots of money for PPC ads about cheap Mexican property may get you tons of clicks and zero sales. Low conversion rates and high interest can be an opportunity for natural search where the long-term investment will result in “free clicks.”

Search is ok, but riskier for “pain points” because the customer is higher in the funnel when they don’t really know what they need to fix the problem. The lead time is longer as they research, and harder to attribute the lead to the original search terms.

Nina Hale, Geek

Nina Hale is Principal of Nina Hale Consulting, a Minneapolis search engine marketing agency that works with brands such as Edina Realty, Lifetouch Portrait Studios, Red Wing Shoes, and the Hazelden Foundation.

The following article was written by a former co-worker of mine, Cindy Lord. While it doesn’t relate directly to technology, it does relate to women’s underrepresentation in another field: advertising creative. For that reason, I thought it would be interesting to post here as well. One of her references is also one of my favorite recent articles about women in leadership postions: Women and the labyrinth of leadership. Harvard Business Review, September 2007. (It’s a subscription-only site, but if you can get your hands on a print copy or can get access to the online version, I’d highly recommend it.)

Cindy’s obervations are fascinating; especially if you’re a fan of Mad Men and watch it thinking, “Wow, look how different it used to be!” In many ways, yes. But there are many things that still need changing. And it’s worth taking a critical look at. My fellow Geek Girl, Nancy Lyons, has some parallel opinions relating to Interactive/technology companies which she’ll be sharing here soon. In the meantime, enjoy Cindy’s article and if you’re ever interested in being a guest author on the Geek Girls Guide, please let us know!

Boy-bias: an open letter to industry leaders

This is the unedited version of the article. The edited version appeared in the July/August edition of Admap. Admap is the world’s primary source of strategies for effective advertising, marketing and research. To subscribe, visit www.admapmagazine.com.

After seeing the umpteenth cover of Creativity magazine featuring self-satisfied, casual-but-sophisticated guys, I got very grumpy. I rarely see a female face gracing the cover of this magazine. It is always the same guys. Well they are technically all unique individuals, but the same type of guys – kind of like Stepford creatives.

Well, as a girl with an evidentiary bent, I decided to validate my hastily-drawn conclusion about Creativity’s boy-bias. I quickly surveyed the last 12 covers and did a body count.

Featured on the cover of Creativity magazine, February 2007 – January 2008

Men	45
Awards (one award did appear to have boobs)	6
Women	5
Wrestlers (not included in “men” numbers)	5
Caveman	1

Based on this data, women are tied with “wrestlers,” in terms of image frequency. And it is worth noting that out of the five women featured, only one is actually in advertising, three are clients, and one is in film.

So what’s the deal? No one can seriously mount the argument that women are not creative or that they don’t have sufficient leadership capabilities (apologies here of course, to Neil French, former creative head of WPP, who had the spectacularly bad judgment to share publicly his real opinion about women in the ad business: “Women don’t make it to the top because they don’t deserve to. They’re crap.”¹

The sad truth is that Creativity is simply reflecting the creative advertising business it covers.

According to a 2005 report from the United States Equal Opportunity Commission (the most recent report available), women account for 65% of all advertising agency employees, but only 47% of officers and managers; and the disparity no doubt grows at the most senior levels. The real question here is not why doesn’t Creativity magazine feature more women, but why are there not more women in prominent roles in advertising in general, and creative departments in particular?

Based on available research and my own 15+ years of observation, the following provides my take on the drivers of this continued inequity. There is no silver bullet. This is truly a multifaceted issue with many causes, including the following.

The Boys Club Matters. Being liked by, and to some degree, “like” the guys in charge is important. Human nature dictates that people tend to like to spend time with those who are similar to themselves (homophily), so boys beget boys.² Additionally, that affinity is often developed outside business hours. Women, particularly women with children, are simply less likely to prioritize these encounters, due to other demands or interests.

The Johnny Bravo Suit is a 40L. For those who don’t recall, Greg Brady auditioned for the part of rock ‘n’ roller Johnny Bravo on an episode of the TV series The Brady Bunch. He got the part but was dismayed to find out that he only won because he literally fit the pre-made Johnny Bravo suit of clothes. To some degree the ad industry does the same thing when it comes to senior positions. We don’t just fill them, we cast them. We channel what we think our clients would expect to see in the role of a CEO or an ECD or a President and we unconsciously cast to those specifications – tall, of a certain age, good-looking, designer eyewear, double-extra-bonus-points for an accent and, of course, male. Our subconscious hypothesis is that a man will somehow be taken more seriously and be more persuasive with our senior, mostly male, clients.

The lifestyle is a bitch (or fabulous – depending on your POV). Shooting in Europe for two weeks, editing in New York for three…you can be on the road a lot and in crisis mode for the balance. This makes it hard for those who want to prioritize anything besides their jobs to choose this path for the long haul. My observation is that women with kids are more likely than men with kids to prioritize spending time with their kids and are less likely to accept this lifestyle. I know plenty of “ad dads” with stay-at-home wives; I can count the number of “ad moms” with stay-at-home husbands on one hand (OK, one finger).

Communication Style Bias. Research shows that women are penalized for assertive verbal communications and self-promotion, while men are not.³ This creates a conundrum for women in this industry…they need to present their ideas with great confidence (because, hey, if they don’t think it’s a great idea, why should anyone else), yet this great display of confidence can trigger negative feelings and perceptions by challenging deeply ingrained beliefs about female decorum.

The Curse of Subjectivity. Our business is spectacularly subjective. We rely heavily on individual judgment when selecting one particular idea over another. There is evidence that suggests work done by women is evaluated less favorably than work done by men.⁴ The implication here is that there may be systematic, unconscious bias toward anointing the men as brilliant and the women as mediocre. We are not, thank goodness, portfolio managers who can simply compare our highly quantified returns at the end of each quarter and assess merit dispassionately.

What no one wants to acknowledge. Please don’t send me buckets of hate email on this one, but my observation is that women are often simply outmaneuvered by men for senior positions. We can be a bit naïve sometimes. We actually believe what we are told – that if we do a great job, collaborate with others and have clients that love us, we will advance. We don’t necessarily see what men see – that this is a game. A game to be won. And while us ladies are thinking about some value-add idea for a client, the men are schmoozing and positioning themselves like crazy to the powers that be.

Conquering the Bias

This bias needs to be overcome. With women making the vast majority of consumer purchases, agencies ignore them at their peril. Here are three things that we can start doing right now.

Set targets for women in senior leadership and track progress toward these goals. In corporate America, the companies that have been most successful at integrating women into senior management have literally identified improvement targets and tracked their progress over time. On an even larger scale, Norway recently implemented a law requiring 40% of non-executive company directors be female. I understand Norway is still in business. These goals can be at the holding company level to allow for idiosyncrasies at individual agencies. And the goals and progress reports should be made public. Think of it as the space race for girls.

Challenge the definition of what a successful “ad man” looks like. We need to burn in effigy the image of “that guy” we all carry around in our heads and realize that brilliant thinkers come in all shapes and sizes – one of them might even look like an overweight 38 year old woman (let’s talk about the prejudice against the overweight in this industry another day).

Get a life. Agencies need to drop their bias against individuals, male or female, who make the mistake of professing any substantial interests or commitments outside work – including their own families. It is expected that the promises we make to our clients and co-workers will be kept. We break them only under the most egregious of circumstances. Yet we routinely expect agency employees to break personal commitments. There is no reason we can’t apply some of our creative energy to negotiating these barriers to achieve a win-win for all parties. It is reasonable for someone to want to preserve a promise to their child or their spouse or themselves. It is the request that is unreasonable. Start practicing now: Generation Y is around the corner and they think differently about these things.

Now is the time. Agencies are challenged on many fronts. We cannot afford to continue seriously under-leveraging the resources that walk our very halls. So get off your asses and get to it. And do it even though the women you promote may not laugh at your jokes, or hang out late into the evening at your favorite bars, or make you feel always completely comfortable.

¹ T. Leonard: Advertising chief loses job over French maid and sexist insults. Daily Telegraph, October 2005.
² S J Broyles and J M Grow: Creative women in advertising agencies: why so few ”babes in boyland”? Journal of Consumer Marketing Volume 25, No 1, 2008.
³ A Eagly and L Carli: Women and the labyrinth of leadership. Harvard Business Review, September 2007.
⁴ Ibid.

Cindy has worked in the advertising industry for almost 20 years and has done tours of duty at Ogilvy & Mather, EURO RSCG, J. Walter Thompson and, most recently, Martin/Williams in Minneapolis where she was a VP, Group Planning Director. You can contact Cindy at [email protected].

guest author

How Backpack Made Me Like Gmail More, by Nate Burgos

When uncertain about which web tool is good for you, sign up for a trial

Email can only go so far in organizing information (Duh?)

Ease into the more “robust” version of a web-based tool

Backpack promotes proactive documentation

How to Manage House Projects with Basecamp, by Julie Horton

Writing Your Online Bio by Gini Dietrich

What Do I Know? by Kristi McKinney

Pay-Per-Click Advertising, by Nina Hale