Women TechMakers 2016
Today I got to attend the Women TechMakers event, hosted at the Google headquarters in Mountain View, California.
Women TechMakers is a global team of Googlers whose mission is to empower women in technology by providing resources to develop industry needed skillsets and creating community in which women can connect, be inspired and encourage each other to realize their passions.
The event today was filled to the brim with a number of talks.
There were talks by the organizations that invest in education for women interested in learning how to code:
There was a panel comprised of cofounders and CEOs of the local bay area companies:
There was a talk by Kathy Pham of US Digital Service about all the exciting advancements that are happening in the government IT space. The most memorable quote from her has been:"We are already being paid by so many people a huge amount of money, we should try to deliver the best we can"
My favorite talk of the day was a "fireside chat" with Ruth Porat (Chief Financial Officer of Alphabet), hosted by Mary Grove - a Director of Google for Entrepreneurs.
I could quote her all evening long, but my favorite nuggets of wisdom from her were:
- There is no balance in work-life balance phrase. Don't mislead yourself into thinking that you could find a balance. I think that a word "mix" is more appropriate. A visual analogy is a kaleidoscope, where pieces of different colors are work and life. Sometimes you'll get more pieces of one color and sometimes of another.
- Provide updates about what you are working on often. Because the absence of information is filled with dirt. That's what I tell my kids whenever they come home after midnight: even though they were just late coming home from a party, in my mind they were lying somewhere dead. So find an effective way to give frequent updates to your manager about what you are working on. Guys do that.
- Think, don't process. One quality that I'm looking for in somebody I'm thinking of sponsoring is whether they challenge me with ideas. Think big.
- In evaluating a company, especially in the difficult times of a potential bubble right now, think whether it's a company or it's just a product.
And on, and on, and on :-) My pen was literally flying across the page when she was talking. The cofounder of Sliced Bread Design who was sitting next to me, expressed the "fireside chat" with absolutely incredible graphical notes (new technique I learned about today!)
The final session of the day was by Obi Felton - Product Manager Director responsible for getting the moonshots of Google X to real products. She spoke on the most unexpected topic for me - the culture of failure. Apparently only 3% of the projects at Google X get through the first Eval stage of the pipeline. And the number gets progressively less throughout the stages. So she was talking about the importance of creating a culture in which failure is acceptable, failure is viewed as a learning opportunity and a stepping stone, in which killing projects is a good thing.
While a good thing, it's also an incredibly hard thing to do. Here are her steps on how to train yourself to be brave to be able to face the fear of failure:
The event also had 2 technical parts: designing with Sprint and a progressive web apps code lab. I decided to go for the designing workshop where we brainstormed ideas on an app that would help with conserving water -- a vital topic in California. Unfortunately, we have gone through only the first 3 steps of Sprint methodology, and stopped at the 4th one - one of the most exciting ones for an engineer - actually building a prototype! :-) Regardless, it was an incredible brainstorming exercise and I'm glad I got to experience it:
At such events I like to collect recommendations for great books to read. Here's my list from today:
The Crossroads of Should and Must: Find and Follow Your Passion
Half the Sky
The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future
Btw, if anybody is interested in connecting on GoodReads - this is me.
Throughout the day I got to meet a number of women from different organizations. One observation that stood out this time around for me was that the number of women who have switched into programming from other disciplines: who have gotten a degree in another field, but then decided to go into programming or who have worked in other fields before, but then decided to try out coding. In light of only 20% of CS and engineering graduates being female, those are incredible news. The highlight of my day was a girl, a former book illustrator, who was telling me how similar art design and coding are and how underestimated the creativity part of coding is!
I'm always weary about going to women in tech events. I'm worried about already having a pile of work to do, that would only increase in my absence, about having to sit through a number of talks and talk to a number of strangers, but I always leave such events inspired by the stories of the incredible women and the work they are doing and the impact they are having on this world. Rock on!
P.s. Some photos used in this post were taken from the wtm16 twitter channel.
Women TechMakers is a global team of Googlers whose mission is to empower women in technology by providing resources to develop industry needed skillsets and creating community in which women can connect, be inspired and encourage each other to realize their passions.
The event today was filled to the brim with a number of talks.
There were talks by the organizations that invest in education for women interested in learning how to code:
There was a panel comprised of cofounders and CEOs of the local bay area companies:
There was a talk by Kathy Pham of US Digital Service about all the exciting advancements that are happening in the government IT space. The most memorable quote from her has been:"We are already being paid by so many people a huge amount of money, we should try to deliver the best we can"
My favorite talk of the day was a "fireside chat" with Ruth Porat (Chief Financial Officer of Alphabet), hosted by Mary Grove - a Director of Google for Entrepreneurs.
I could quote her all evening long, but my favorite nuggets of wisdom from her were:
- There is no balance in work-life balance phrase. Don't mislead yourself into thinking that you could find a balance. I think that a word "mix" is more appropriate. A visual analogy is a kaleidoscope, where pieces of different colors are work and life. Sometimes you'll get more pieces of one color and sometimes of another.
- Provide updates about what you are working on often. Because the absence of information is filled with dirt. That's what I tell my kids whenever they come home after midnight: even though they were just late coming home from a party, in my mind they were lying somewhere dead. So find an effective way to give frequent updates to your manager about what you are working on. Guys do that.
- Think, don't process. One quality that I'm looking for in somebody I'm thinking of sponsoring is whether they challenge me with ideas. Think big.
- In evaluating a company, especially in the difficult times of a potential bubble right now, think whether it's a company or it's just a product.
And on, and on, and on :-) My pen was literally flying across the page when she was talking. The cofounder of Sliced Bread Design who was sitting next to me, expressed the "fireside chat" with absolutely incredible graphical notes (new technique I learned about today!)
The final session of the day was by Obi Felton - Product Manager Director responsible for getting the moonshots of Google X to real products. She spoke on the most unexpected topic for me - the culture of failure. Apparently only 3% of the projects at Google X get through the first Eval stage of the pipeline. And the number gets progressively less throughout the stages. So she was talking about the importance of creating a culture in which failure is acceptable, failure is viewed as a learning opportunity and a stepping stone, in which killing projects is a good thing.
While a good thing, it's also an incredibly hard thing to do. Here are her steps on how to train yourself to be brave to be able to face the fear of failure:
The event also had 2 technical parts: designing with Sprint and a progressive web apps code lab. I decided to go for the designing workshop where we brainstormed ideas on an app that would help with conserving water -- a vital topic in California. Unfortunately, we have gone through only the first 3 steps of Sprint methodology, and stopped at the 4th one - one of the most exciting ones for an engineer - actually building a prototype! :-) Regardless, it was an incredible brainstorming exercise and I'm glad I got to experience it:
At such events I like to collect recommendations for great books to read. Here's my list from today:
The Crossroads of Should and Must: Find and Follow Your Passion
Half the Sky
The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future
Btw, if anybody is interested in connecting on GoodReads - this is me.
Throughout the day I got to meet a number of women from different organizations. One observation that stood out this time around for me was that the number of women who have switched into programming from other disciplines: who have gotten a degree in another field, but then decided to go into programming or who have worked in other fields before, but then decided to try out coding. In light of only 20% of CS and engineering graduates being female, those are incredible news. The highlight of my day was a girl, a former book illustrator, who was telling me how similar art design and coding are and how underestimated the creativity part of coding is!
I'm always weary about going to women in tech events. I'm worried about already having a pile of work to do, that would only increase in my absence, about having to sit through a number of talks and talk to a number of strangers, but I always leave such events inspired by the stories of the incredible women and the work they are doing and the impact they are having on this world. Rock on!
P.s. Some photos used in this post were taken from the wtm16 twitter channel.