Overly Protected Packaging
May 31, 2009· by Kaeri Zandate
When we received our first order of the new QWANtify pens, I opened the shipping package with anticipation and then dismay. . .
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From the QWANtify Blogs
Would boys make better IT employees than girls?
May 31, 2009· by Kacie Conroy
In my GET IT presentations, I ask each group if they think boys would be better than girls in an IT job. Until last week I never had a single girl say yes. Between the two GET IT presentations I completed in the last week I suddenly had 3 girls think boys would be better. When asked why they said “yes”, they commonly stated the following responses:
Boys play video games a lot.
Boys are always on the computer.
Boys are just better at that kind of thing.
I was surprised that the first comment made the girls think that is what makes a good IT employee. To me, it shows that we still have work to do in terms of educating young girls about IT careers. I know plenty of people who love and excel at video games but wouldn’t be instant IT experts. Happily, after the program was complete nearly 85% said they were interested in an IT career. That’s progress in the right direction but we still need to keep at it to continue to break the stereotype. If you have daughters, nieces, or know middle school aged girls, ask them the same question and see what they say. I think this may be getting at the core reason why the numbers of women in IT are so low.
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!$#@%^ Linux
May 31, 2009· by Paul Eggerling-Boeck
I’ve been working lately on setting up Ubuntu linux on my home and work computers with mixed success. On one hand, I love how much faster many things are than XP/Vista. On the other hand, I’ve struggled mightily in a couple different areas to do things that XP/Vista do pretty well out of the box. I know, I know, you get what you pay for in many cases. I was really looking forward to getting going in Linux and sticking it to ‘the man’ by dumping Windows altogether, but I’ve found a great degree of truth in what a wise friend once said. After his own initial foray into Linux he posited that “Linux is free … If your time is worthless.” I was hoping, given all I’ve read about Ubuntu, that I would be able to prove him wrong with that distro, but alas, he was right. Crap.
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Laughter to Avoid Sickness
May 22, 2009· by Greg Mattlin
Every year, there is more evidence that your thoughts, moods, emotions, and belief system have a fundamental impact on the body’s basic health and healing mechanisms. Yes, it’s true, laughing cures sickness. Doctors have estimated that almost 85% of all human illnesses are curable by the body’s own healing system. Building a positive focus in your life plays a huge role in supporting the body’s immune system and laughing really does help. Are you laughing yet?
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Are our Competitors Short Sighted or Am I a Bad Business Person?
May 15, 2009· by Tammy Adler
I’m confused by our competitors.
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University of Whitewater Mentoring
May 11, 2009· by Tammy Adler
Many people know in the past I have mentored Madison Area Technical College women students in the information technology field.
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What happened to April?
May 1, 2009· by Paul Eggerling-Boeck
So yeah, here it is, May 1 already. I think I worked more in the month of April than in any single month of my career. I guess I’m not surprised that I didn’t have a blog entry for April given the fact that all of the time I’ve had when I wasn’t either working or taking care of my kids was spent sleeping. Now that things have calmed down a bit at work, I plan on getting back into the new things I was planning on learning like Ruby, Maven, Spring, and oh yeah, I’ve added Linux to the list.
Here’s hoping for a more relaxed May.
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Women in IT - The Gender Battle Continues
April 30, 2009· by Kacie Conroy
A friend of mine who is very involved in the Rails community shared a very interesting story. We talk often about the numbers of women in IT and are both committed to helping raise awareness of IT in women. A few weeks ago a Ruby Rails conference held in San Francisco had a presenter which used very suggestive images of women. I’ll post the link of the presentation below and ask for comments. Both sides are charged. Many women, as well as a fair number of men, are upset that these images were used. It objectifies women and certainly makes them feel alienated amongst their male co-workers. However, there is just as strong of a reaction from the other side. They range from “everyone else is stupid”, “let it go and move on”, to “this is an over-reaction”.
http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/?p=46&cpage=1#comment-6
http://martinfowler.com/bliki/SmutOnRails.html
The conference was all male minus about six women. I wonder what the reaction would have been if the images were suggestive pictures of men? I am sure many who posted comments like, “let it go and get over it” would have a polar opposite response questioning how the photos applied to programming. I know many woman, myself included, who have experienced degradation while in IT. This is just one of the areas that we need to progress in to help other women get into the field. Hopefully soon the future women of IT will have a different, more positive, experience.
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