Only one of the CS analysts is a women (Ann Marcus), and having known her for 25 years, I would venture to say she qualifies as a geek, and would love a conference like She’s Geeky. So I hope she attends.
My friend Susan Mernit is one of founders of this event so I know it will be a great event, and Kaliya Hamlin, who focuses on identity and also facilitates un-conferences is also involved.
Women and Collaboration
Why is this event important to collaboration? You may have noticed that women tend to be more collaborative (and communicative) then men, who are often competitive. This is part of our socialization and early training in this society. It is something I have spent many years un-learning (being a pretty competitive guy). However, I have observed that adding women to most any team makes it work better. They often bring a different (and sometimes more civilized perspective), and can often help teach others (men) on the team how to communicate better with each other and ultimately how to work better either as an in-person or a virtual (distributed) team.
The HICO Geeks
As some of you know I have been doing pro-bono work as an advisor for Sophia’s Garden, a non-profit that has built HICO (the Health In Community Online) for families that have kids with terminal illnesses (obviously a great cause). I have been an advisor for the organization and have been part of the HICO (healing in community online) team. The team is composed of 3 men (Richard, Herb and myself) and three women (Karen, Rebecca and Chuck (yes, Chuck is a women)).
This is an incredible team and everyone seems to have a role that helps us all move forward to the point where Karen and Richard will be doing the first public demo of the prototype 3D environment at the Health 2.0 conference later today.
Karen has been the visionary for the team, Richard and Herb the implementers, Rebecca and Chuck have tried to make a plan and keep us on track, and I have been a source of information on collaboration technologies and best practices. It is this integration of the female geek energies that have made this team exceptional, and able to produce a prototype that may revolutionize the U.S. health care system (which is very broken) with no funding and almost no resources (Thanks to Qwaq for letting us use their technology for the prototype).
So if you’re a female geek, think you’re a geek, aspire to be a geek, or were a female geek in a past life, get to this event. It should be fun. Boy, would I like to be a fly on the wall at this event!
DAVID…only female flies allowed! — Ann 
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