Where a book meets a Google Map.. A literary mashup.
I love this Edwardian photo. Seriously dreamy.
Oldie, but goodie. The Scala Girls Choir sing ‘I Touch Myself’
Geeky, but he has way too much time on his hands.
Jebus bless Jazz Biscuit. When I get a hankering for very bad, bad things like greasy chips that make me feel good, I can live vicariously through K.C.’s chipper cam. Also, JB has updated his super-handy Creative Commons Image Search tool.
I didn’t take part in the Creative Camp talk entitled ‘Women In Technology: Grabbing the Blogosphere by the Balls’. Here are some of the ideas that I was planning to speak on.
The title of this topic has two distinct and different strands. Two subtle themes that branch off and build into discussions all their own. Firstly, the participation of females in technical roles and the secondly, women in blogging. You see, these topics really are separate. Some women in technology keep blogs, but not all women in blogging are necessarily into technology. And why should they be?
Women in Technology: ”Participation rates are at X%, let’s try super hard to shoot for Y%. M’kay?!”
Time and time again, the proportion of women working in technology is played like a game of percentages. The obsessive numbers game is demeaning to women already working in the field. Technology is the application of disciplined engineering to solve a problem. The impulse that kicks off the creative journey into technology is curiosity. Ask any child that pulls apart their toys why they do it, and they’ll retort to the effect of “to see what happens”. Curiosity, pure and simple. Adding rules about how the curiosity of children ought to to be doctored to meet numbers that make the PC faction feel good about themselves, amounts to wholesale societal manipulation.
What we ought to be doing as a society is encouraging children from all walks of life and all socio-economic backgrounds to question known precedents, be it in Politics, the Arts or Sciences. Questioning known principles and pulling apart the systems that we use to deliver education, justice, parenting, engineered solutions and every other convention of life pushes us into new ground. Challenging places, past perceived boundaries. This is motivated not by chalking up numbers on a gender scoreboard, but by opening paths for the children of today to pursue.
So, what’s the Secret Sauce? It has to include the provision of positive role models, quality education from tot to teen and community support mechanisms. There’s no easy solution to build a generation of children willing to challenge perceived norms. Curiosity ought to be nurtured. I want to see generations of engineers. Engineers of political science, engineers of education, engineers of parenting, engineers of software development. Is not the core practice of engineering the solution of problems? Does society not deserve the cold eye of reason bent on solving inequalities? Don’t close the problem of under-representation of women in technology into a neat little silo. Hasn’t that been done enough? Are you complicit?
Women and Blogging: “You Need To Be Like X To Be Taken Seriously”
Blogging is an act of expression just like fashioning a sculpture, telling a story or dancing the samba. We each possess our own unique style. Some like to unearth the fallacies that people artfully hide to get on in life, while others help us celebrate the little things in life - the importance of detail.
Expression is all about externalising your beliefs. Those bells that sing to you, help your moral compass, and guide your humour. Stylistically, I like to blog neutral. I don’t harbour any ambition to follow a herd. I simply want to write material that I’d love to read. And isn’t that the primary motivation of a writer? And, returning to my geek instincts, that love of taximonising behaviour, isn’t blogging just a kind-of writing?
But, nowadays, there are talking heads telling women to assume different voices so we can be taken seriously as writers. They tell us to adapt our commentaries, so they fit little boxes of masculinity. Just so the outside world will take us seriously. Is not this the greatest act of advocacy for separating the gender roles of writers? For sexism in a Wordpress edit box? As we brave our way deeper into the gender question, shouldn’t we question what why certain sectors of our society are advocating that women use soapbox artifices when expressing themselves? Why the nanny state advice? What’s in it for them?
Edit: Coherence fix
Damien raises an interesting point about Jaiku and something that I’ve been trumpeting over the last six months or so. It’s all about where the conversation is happening. And right now, that’s on Twitter. The Jaiku Irish contingent can complain, but even they’re admitting that Twitter is beating Jaiku when it comes to the range and depth of contacts. How? Well, aren’t they the ones that are painfully kicking off this Twitter v Jaiku discussion at least once a week? Over on Twitter, amongst my list of contacts I don’t hear similar moans. As I said, Jaiku is the Luxembourg of microblogging. It may have superior features, but who wants to up roots and move their permanently?
The Bird’s Eye View function in Window’s Live Local maps has just been expanded to include six new areas - Cork, Carlow, Limerick, Galway, Navan and Wexford. The maps are quite detailed and precise enough to pick out cars and bikes.
Here’s the Bird’s Eye View in action over my small village back in Limerick.
Also, don’t forget the upcoming Irish Microsoft Technology Conference. It’s well worth attending. Lots of tech brain candy will be on show and experts will give some great talks on Microsoft technology like LINQ, Sharepoint and Visual Studio 2008.
WePlay, a new sports social network for young athletes coming soon.
Suspended animation using sewer gas? Could Ripley take it, d’ya think?
Auctomatic and the Collison brothers make frontpage of the Irish Times.
Demo of the upcoming ‘ABC3D’ book by designer Marion Bataille.
Anyone else have warm, fuzzy feelings for DeGrassi Junior High? Thanks to Angela for reminding me of it.
News is just hitting the wires that the grand old dame of technology news, CNet is cutting 120 jobs or 10% of it’s workforce effective immediately. This news comes just a couple of weeks after Jana Partners, a shareholder activism group won a court appeal in Delaware for the right to nominate several people to the CNet board. The International Business Times prints what it claims is an internal memo sent to employees announcing the job cuts. Strategic realignment is cited as the reason for the job cuts.
Based on that business analysis, today, we are making significant changes to the organization. This includes the very difficult decision to make a workforce reduction that will affect 10 percent of our U.S. workforce or about 120 people. These changes allow the company to put greater focus on its leading brands, as well as help drive efficiencies throughout the business.
What do you make of the CNet news? Is it still as relevant today in a world where Valleywag, Techcrunch and Techmeme exist?
I finally get around to saying thanks to Elly for organising the Random Drinks meetup last Saturday night at O’Neill’s on Suffolk Street. Thanks Elly for blogging, twittering and buying balloons - the three prerequisites for organising Random Drinks. Kinda like a Tweetup, but without food. Lots of chat and laughter were swapped and, erm, photos taken.
I met lots of really great people there:
Elly, George, Suzy, Red Mum, Laura,
Techcrunch is reporting that Auctomatic, the Limerick-based auction and inventory management company has just been acquired by Canadian firm Live Current Media. The press release is here.
Congratulations to the Auctomatic team. They’ve achieved very high levels of success on their own terms. They’ve done it all on their own, set up and worked out of San Francisco. They’ve shown the Irish tech startups how to do it in style and let’s see who’s up to the task of following in their footsteps.
The future is bright for Patrick, John and the rest of the Auctomatic team. With the exuberance of youth, I’m sure that they are only getting started and that we can expect to see so many bigger and brighter things down the line from them.
Great post by Damien on how to deal with media interviews. Pro advice for free. Redlinking him, even though he’s already in your feed readers. It’s that good. Now, someone break his fingers.
Nialler9 lists who he thinks will be in the Electric Picnic lineup.
Microsoft are releasing a beta of their Windows Live Contacts API.
So, maybe those one-bed apartments weren’t all that small.