Ada Lovelace Day & the OTW
Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology.
OTW and Web 2.0
I want to talk a little about women excelling in the use of technology. Fans tend to be early adopters; if we see something we can use, we grab it with both hands and make it work for us. We're making a series of 'products' (Fanlore, Transformative Works and Cultures, & The Archive of Our Own) and we're achieving those goals through sophisticated use of web technology. We're using these tools to communicate, recruit, build and network. We work across multiple platforms (Basecamp, Campfire, Wiki, Google Code, IM, Email, Doodle, GoToMeeting) to get what we need, and to do what we want.
We're a large, fluid organisation (the Accessibility, Design, & Technology Committee had approximately 150 volunteers over the last year) and our people range from core members who seem to be present all the time (cyborgs!) to volunteers who, despite their busy lives, find time to dip in and contribute an hour here and there. We have members from all over the world with different availability, skills and needs - and we make it work
We communicate individually and globally via email. We maintain databases, servers and the access requirements of a large pool of volunteers. We manage an entire non-profit organisation with large, varied committees using a project management tool and calendar polls (thank goodness for time zone support). We hold meetings in chat rooms where we workshop and exchange ideas. We develop policies communally via shared 'whiteboards' and do complex planning and development (Archive of Our Own) via Wiki. We chat informally via every IM system in existence; podcast training videos, and manage an entire software development system.
Made of awesome :)
Excellence in Technology
We are quite possibly the biggest women-run open source project on the web; we're programming, administering, designing, consulting, documenting and project managing a HUGE tech-related series of projects. We're also making friends, practicing valuable skills, teaching each other and sharing our fannish joy. We're in the process of building an open source software package that will be capable of hosting hundreds of thousands of stories with a bunch of features tailored to the needs of a fannish community and we're over half way there.
Since mid-2007 we've gone from purely theoretical to recruiting Designers, Coders, SysAdmins and Testers to launching a Beta Archive with over 200 Beta users. In that time we've had the amazing support of creative, talented people who've inspired, planned, coded, tested, given feedback and managed this project. This year we plan to do even more.
Finding heroes
For me, this has been a chance to do exactly what I want to be doing professionally and personally. I am not a programmer or a hardware expert. I can design software under pressure and will cheerfully administer systems if they need me. I have worked as a tech Journalist (briefly) and I work professionally as a Business Systems Analyst / Quality Assurance Tester / IT project manager and I am frequently the 'OMG fix it now!' person. The OTW has given me a place to practice these skills, expand them, and do so in an environment that values them highly. Even more important, it has given me a pool of women I love working with; women with technical skills, women who can plan, women with keen analytical minds, and women who are passionate, skilful communicators (often all at once).
I joined the project in early 2008 when the public Roadmap came out. It said to me 'these people have thought about this a lot and have a plan' and I wanted to support it. I'm frequently blown away by the level of forethought demonstrated by the people working on the Archive -- we get to the next point and yet again I see evidence of careful planning. I have to point at Naomi right now; we talk about 'hero projects' where one person's energy and drive make amazing things happen and Naomi is the hero around whom this project coalesced. It reminds me anything is possible, and we are the 'someone' in 'someone should do something.' I like being that someone, I get joy and energy from it, and when I walk away I want to come back and do more.
Going forward
We’re in our second term now (we count the first, mad 18 months in 2007-08 as the first term); we have more infrastructure and we have a lot of goals we want to meet. The Archive of Our Own is in closed Beta and we’re looking to add more features, refine what we have so far, open up membership and eventually get to the point where we can release OTW-Archive as an open source package.
Are you interested?
OTW and Web 2.0
I want to talk a little about women excelling in the use of technology. Fans tend to be early adopters; if we see something we can use, we grab it with both hands and make it work for us. We're making a series of 'products' (Fanlore, Transformative Works and Cultures, & The Archive of Our Own) and we're achieving those goals through sophisticated use of web technology. We're using these tools to communicate, recruit, build and network. We work across multiple platforms (Basecamp, Campfire, Wiki, Google Code, IM, Email, Doodle, GoToMeeting) to get what we need, and to do what we want.
We're a large, fluid organisation (the Accessibility, Design, & Technology Committee had approximately 150 volunteers over the last year) and our people range from core members who seem to be present all the time (cyborgs!) to volunteers who, despite their busy lives, find time to dip in and contribute an hour here and there. We have members from all over the world with different availability, skills and needs - and we make it work
We communicate individually and globally via email. We maintain databases, servers and the access requirements of a large pool of volunteers. We manage an entire non-profit organisation with large, varied committees using a project management tool and calendar polls (thank goodness for time zone support). We hold meetings in chat rooms where we workshop and exchange ideas. We develop policies communally via shared 'whiteboards' and do complex planning and development (Archive of Our Own) via Wiki. We chat informally via every IM system in existence; podcast training videos, and manage an entire software development system.
Made of awesome :)
Excellence in Technology
We are quite possibly the biggest women-run open source project on the web; we're programming, administering, designing, consulting, documenting and project managing a HUGE tech-related series of projects. We're also making friends, practicing valuable skills, teaching each other and sharing our fannish joy. We're in the process of building an open source software package that will be capable of hosting hundreds of thousands of stories with a bunch of features tailored to the needs of a fannish community and we're over half way there.
Since mid-2007 we've gone from purely theoretical to recruiting Designers, Coders, SysAdmins and Testers to launching a Beta Archive with over 200 Beta users. In that time we've had the amazing support of creative, talented people who've inspired, planned, coded, tested, given feedback and managed this project. This year we plan to do even more.
Finding heroes
For me, this has been a chance to do exactly what I want to be doing professionally and personally. I am not a programmer or a hardware expert. I can design software under pressure and will cheerfully administer systems if they need me. I have worked as a tech Journalist (briefly) and I work professionally as a Business Systems Analyst / Quality Assurance Tester / IT project manager and I am frequently the 'OMG fix it now!' person. The OTW has given me a place to practice these skills, expand them, and do so in an environment that values them highly. Even more important, it has given me a pool of women I love working with; women with technical skills, women who can plan, women with keen analytical minds, and women who are passionate, skilful communicators (often all at once).
I joined the project in early 2008 when the public Roadmap came out. It said to me 'these people have thought about this a lot and have a plan' and I wanted to support it. I'm frequently blown away by the level of forethought demonstrated by the people working on the Archive -- we get to the next point and yet again I see evidence of careful planning. I have to point at Naomi right now; we talk about 'hero projects' where one person's energy and drive make amazing things happen and Naomi is the hero around whom this project coalesced. It reminds me anything is possible, and we are the 'someone' in 'someone should do something.' I like being that someone, I get joy and energy from it, and when I walk away I want to come back and do more.
Going forward
We’re in our second term now (we count the first, mad 18 months in 2007-08 as the first term); we have more infrastructure and we have a lot of goals we want to meet. The Archive of Our Own is in closed Beta and we’re looking to add more features, refine what we have so far, open up membership and eventually get to the point where we can release OTW-Archive as an open source package.
Are you interested?
- Can you write code? We want you!
- Don’t know how to code, but want to learn? We want you!