It’s tough to convince hundreds of high school girls that they should consider a career in technology. Even though they spend their days sending text messages and friending friends on Facebook, they care little about the intricate technological system that makes it all work.
I don’t blame them. I never cared how my TV worked and I spent endless hours watching it. When it didn’t work we just threw a slipper at it and for some reason that would make the fuzzy stuff on the screen disappear. That is until my sisters and I hit it with something harder, a clog maybe I don’t remember for sure, and the thing just went black.
Anyway, I digress.
Yesterday I spoke at a local all-girls catholic school called Padua Academy about women and technology. Being a product of the New York City public schools, you better believe I was feeling like a fish out of water when I got up to speak and scanned hundreds of uniformed girls staring at me so intently.
I followed several employees of Cisco Systems Inc. that were there to donate $10,000 plus worth of equipment to the school as part of a partnership with Delaware State University to provide technological training to schools across the state.
I was there to tell the girls why it might be a good idea to consider IT as a profession even though I knew most of them considered technology nerdy. How do I know this? Come on, are you kidding.
Just to make sure I asked the girls to raise their hands if they thought tech was geeky. I promised they wouldn’t get in trouble, and sure enough, the majority of hands went up in the room.
I presented a brief Power Point presentation, partly based on an MSNBC.com column I wrote, (padua-women-in-it-11.ppt) and tried to make a case for girl tech power! OK, I got some giggles, prompting me to think I had toilet paper stuck to my shoe or something. You know how high school girls can be.
You knew I would get some eye rolls and giggles, and I knew I would to, but I’m hoping some of them realized they were huge consumers of technology and if IT was nerdy then they were nerdy too.
The point I made that seemed to get the most attention was how more women and minorities in IT could actually lead to better technology.
I didn’t want to belittle the great things men in technology have done thus far. “I love my iPhone,” I told them, but research shows that diversity in design groups helps boost innovation.
From my MSNBC.com story:
“With the men sometimes, they’re trying to see who can pee the highest on the hydrant,” she Renee Davias, a software-applications director at a New York-based law firm, speaking metaphorically, of course. “Women are much more matter-of-fact, more collaborative.”
and
“One of the biggest criticisms of technology today is that user interfaces are poor,” explains Bill Hardgrave, a professor of information systems at the University of Arkansas. Men, he says, largely don’t do a great job making the products easier to use because they concentrate more on the “geek” factor of technology. “I think women have more of an intuitive sense of designing interfaces.”
I got to speak with some girls one-on-one after the event, and I was excited that they were excited about my talk. One girl told me she couldn’t wait to sign up for the new training program at her school, and others said they wanted to find out more. Many also confided to me that they planned on careers outside of IT, including the law, medicine, etc., but they realized how technology intersected almost every profession and that they’d need to understand it. It definitely makes you feel good to meet so many smart young women.
We just need more of the smart ones to consider IT, no? What do you all think? Do we need more women in IT?
March 5th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
My wife works in a Business Analyst role in technology. Two of her co-workers are female (50%!) and her current manager on this consulting gig is female. More women are going into technology, but the encouragement is still needed.
The bigger issue of people going into technology, I think, is that companies have consistently demonstrated that technology work done in the US isn’t important — it is less costly to have the work done on other parts of the globe.
That may be a good decision (although technology needs to be a core competency for products…), but it does nothing for a high school student going to College and deciding to take Computer Science…why would they want to? They put their time and work at immediate risk of outsourcing. And companies wonder why there is a dearth of talent in technology.
Until we get technology back as a viable career, it is a tough sell for anyone looking at it.
March 5th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
I work for a company that is woman owned. Not only that but the majority of employees are women as well. Oh, and we’re a tech company specializing in open source technologies.
Thinking back to my high school days, I would have never thought about a career in technology. My family only got a computer a year before I graduated high school. Just a few short years later and I graduated from college with a degree in Technical Communication. Had I know in high school that I could have a career in IT, I would have done a lot of things differently. So thanks for inspiring young women to get involved in IT. Even in this horrible economy, it’s still one of the few fields that is growing consistently. I know from working with a talented group of women that chicks definitely have what it takes to work in IT. Comparing with past jobs, I feel like working with female developers definitely takes the process to a different level. We’re a more cohesive team. It’s a truly collaborative environment. (yes we have men on the team and no I’m not dogging them one bit) But it’s hard to find women who are just as qualified as men in IT fields. So yes, we do need more. I agree with what you said: diversity adds to the creative process. (And yes I do think programming is a creative process)
To all the successful women in IT out there: keep encouraging young women to get in technology. Let’s face it, most IT departments and software apps could use a woman’s touch.
March 6th, 2009 at 3:39 am
You are my favorite jounalist. Your work is excellent. You may someday become weary of hearing me praise you. Perhaps not because you are an intelligent person.
Now why is it when you write of women you must include minorities as well?
‘The point I made that seemed to get the most attention was how more women and minorities in IT could actually lead to better technology.’
Above everything else in our great country, it is truely the individual freedom that we have that seperates all Americans from the rest of the world. This has been the truth since the Civil War ended and the freedom of America truely began.
Being a white man, of course I neglected to say that woman recieved the right to vote long afterward.
The point I am making is the fences that are between the many singled out groups such as whites, men, woman, african-americans, and perhaps any other conglomerate of individuals is only as high as we continue to make them.
To comment on your original question, from my own experience the best decision makers I have known are either woman, or men who are confident in the ability of women who are assertive and confident in their resolve. I’ve worked with women who make their gender abundantly clear. They tend to be the least productive.
If you are in business, it is the work at hand that must have precedence. your customers require all your attention with out distraction.
Men or women who are intelligent and capable are the one’s who are able to concentrate on the objective at hand.
In my mind, as diluted as it is, I must say that with all regards to one’s intellect, it is truely the ability to focus on objectives with reasonable assurance of resolution that makes a far better employee.
Emotions, color, sex, political party, nationality, sexual preference and religion aside, the most successful people are people who never add a brick to that fence between us all.
Think about it.
March 10th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
I have recently discovered, as a woman in my late 40s, that I am a geek. I’m proud to be a geek. I love technology and hope to find a new career soon that involves IT somehow. I seem to have a knack for it, but, unfortunately, I am coming to the tech table late, without the education in computer science I need.
I’m working to catch up, learning HTML and other tech skills, finding out how I can transfer my existing skills; I sure wish the possibilities had been presented and made more attractive when I was younger, though. I’m glad you’re encouraging young women to consider technology as part of their career paths.