Enjoying GHC14 Remotely

Missing out on attending this year's Grace Hopper Celebration in person? Not to worry! There are many ways to engage with the energy that comes out of GHC, and follow along with the sessions thanks to our wonderful community volunteers.

First and foremost, be sure you bookmark the Community Blog Feed.  This is where all the blog posts from our wonderfully amazing community volunteers are all being collected.  You'll find a lot of general impressions of the conference as well as notes on specific sessions.

Speaking of notes, you'll find plenty of them, again on conference sessions, on our notes wiki.  Once again our volunteers will be providing this great content.

Then of course there's social media:

• Follow the #ghc14 hashtag on Twitter, and follow the @ghc account.
• Join the Grace Hopper Celebration LinkedIn group.
• Like the Grace Hopper Celebration Facebook group.

With all these great ways to engage with the conference from afar, you will surely get a lot out of it! Enjoy, and perhaps I'll meet you online!

Getting the Most Out of LinkedIn at GHC11

LinkedIn is a great way to connect with other professionals, but what if you're a student with little or no experience? I covered the basics of setting up a good LinkedIn profile last year, but some of my suggestions didn't always work for students.

Good news! LinkedIn has added some new features this year to make it easier for students to have a more complete profile than ever before.

The basics still apply: add a photo, use your full name, add your educational experience. All of those things will make your profile look more like it's owned by an actual human, and not a spam bot, which will make people more willing to connect with you and interact with you on various groups.  Also, it will make it easier for someone you've just met at a conference to know, in fact, that your profile matches up with the person they just had lunch with.

If you're a student with little experience, you can still list what type of work you're interested in doing in your summary. You can add a section that lists your favorite courses. You should expand on what some of your favorite courses were and why. You can do this in the summary.  Don't just say that you enjoyed your data structures and algorithms class, but talk about how you loved figuring out what the Big O value was for various algorithms, for example.

LinkedIn added volunteer positions and causes this year. Do you tutor high school students? Or help out in a middle school computer lab? Add those to your profile.

Did you get a patent for that work you did with a professor? There's a place for that, too.

LinkedIn has a new section for linking to papers and publications you may have written, as well as a section for honors, awards and organizations.

And don't forget about the skills section!

The more information you have on your profile, the more likely people are going to be to accept you to groups and be willing to link in with you.  I love to link up with people I meet at Grace Hopper, as it's a one stop shop for who they are, where they went to school and where they are currently working. It's just a great way to maintain your professional contacts.

And once you get everything set up, join the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology group and the Grace Hopper Celebration subgroup.

Did I miss anything? What new features of LinkedIn are you getting the most value out of?

Meet the GHC10 Communities Committee!

For months the Grace Hopper 2010 Communities Committee worked behind the scenes. They created Twitter hashtags for GHC tracks, designed GHC speaker badges, determined community volunteer needs, and planned topics.

In the last few weeks they've become more visible as GHC community evangelists. Across our GHC online communities on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, and the GHC Blog they're starting conversations, sharing introductions and favorite GHC memories, and inviting participation by community members.

Many of our hard-working Grace Hopper committees complete their tasks well before the conference: selecting program submissions and scholarship recipients, recommending speakers, and deciding on award winners. Not so for this committee, which is a new addition this year. They'll Keep working right through Grace Hopper to help you connect online before, during and (if I know them) even after the conference. So here's a quick introduction to the committee members:

	Co-Chair Ashley Myers just completed her undergraduate CS degree at DePauw University and will start at Microsoft later this month. She helps with the @ghc Twitter account and will co-moderate the Grace Hopper Celebrat­ion 2010 group on YouTube. Learn more about Ashley on the GHC blog in her post Introducing a Recent Undergrad Graduate.
	Co-Chair Erin ‘Ed’ Donahue also started coming to GHC as a DePauw student and now works at Lockheed Martin, a career connection she made at the 2008 conference. Learn more about Ed in her blog post Hi! My name is Ed! With Ashley, Ed helps with the @ghc account and will co-moderate the YouTube group. They also host Ed & Ashley's 5 Minute Show, featuring interviews with technical women interviewed at GHC and other events.
	Gail Carmichael is a doctoral candidate at Carleton University. Gail is the lead for our GHC bloggers and note-takers again this year, and also taking a leadership role on the GHC10 group on Flickr. Learn more about Gail on the GHC blog and check out her blog The Female Perspective of Computer Science.
	Kate Tsoukalas is a graduate of Simon Fraser University and now works at Microsoft. Kate helps moderate the Grace Hopper Celebration page on Facebook. Join Kate in Discussions on the Grace Hopper Celebration page on Facebook (requires login).
	Valerie Bubb Fenwick is a Principal Software Engineer at Oracle, arriving through the Sun acquisition. Valerie helps manage the Anita Borg Institute and Grace Hopper Celebration groups on LinkedIn. Learn more about Valerie in the Introduce Yourself! discussion on LinkedIn or Facebook.

And watch for upcoming blog posts from committee members on how to make the best use of each GHC online community. Meanwhile:

• If you're coming to the conference, introduce yourself to the community.
• If you've attended Grace Hopper before, share your favorite memory.
• Follow @ghc/communities-committee to connect with these evangelists on Twitter.
• Sign up for the ghc10-attendees Twitter list when you register for GHC10.
  

Come join the discussion here or on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter!

My Favourite Grace Hopper Memories

My fellow Grace Hopper Communities Committee members wanted to share our favourite Grace Hopper memories over the next few days, and we hope you'll do the same! It's so much fun reflecting back on what has made Grace Hopper so special to me.

I picked a few of my favourite memories to share on my own blog. I hope you'll go check it out, then come back here and comment with your own memories.

Maybe you could pull up some of your past conference photos on Flickr, or find your favourites in the GHC09 Flickr group. Post the photos that give you the fondest memories on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or even here on the blog! You can find links to all the Grace Hopper online communities here.

Grace Hopper 2010: Collaborating (Online) Across Boundaries

The Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) 2010 conference will be held in Atlanta, Georgia from September 28 - October 2. The conference leadership and staff are very excited about this year's GHC theme: Collaborating Across Boundaries. As Communities Program Manager for the Anita Borg Institute (the nonprofit that presents the conference) I know our GHC online community members and volunteers will be right at home with this theme. That's because they have always collaborated across the boundaries of geography and institutions using our online communities to collaborate on conference sessions and to find answers, panelists, rides and roommates.

Are you working on a proposal for a Grace Hopper conference session? Thinking about how to convince your boss to send you this year? We’ve got something for everyone in our GHC online communities. Our new Grace Hopper Celebration page on Facebook is attracting fans and, currently, stories of interactions with Admiral Hopper herself. The Grace Hopper Celebration group on LinkedIn is a great place to make professional connections before the conference, whether you’re looking for a job or putting together a conference panel.

Follow our GHC updates on Twitter and connect with other conference twitterers. Subscribe to this blog and review the great content from last year’s conference. If you’re new to social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, you’ll find everything you need to get started on the Community Home and Getting Started pages. And don’t forget that the Anita Borg Institute’s email communities like Systers, LGBT and LiC (Latinas in Computing) are excellent sources of GHC collaborators and advice.

The Grace Hopper 2010 Call for Participation is open, with submissions due March 16. Don't be shy! Use our communities to find the information and collaborators you need. Oh, and see How To Ask Your Manager If You Can Attend GHC for an email template you can tailor for your own request.

I'm happy to answer any questions here on the blog or in the various communities. See you online!

Connecting Online with GHC 2009

What do Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have to do with the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing? They are all great ways to make and maintain connections online with other GHC conference participants!

On LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, technical women from around the world are introducing themselves; talking about their posters and panels; finding rides and roommates; asking and answering questions. But wait, there's more!

Our GHC Bloggers are sharing tips on how to get the most out of the conference, highlighting sessions of interest for first-timers, job-seekers, students, and more. During the conference there will be still more, as attendees share photos, videos, notes and blog posts about the conference. Our GHC community volunteers will be there for you, helping participants use these online communities and sharing their own notes, blog posts, tweets (Twitter updates), photos and videos.

If you're new to Web 2.0 social networking, check out Getting Started. Sign up now so you'll be ready to share your own photos, videos and more at the conference.

In all our GHC online communities, excitement about GHC 2009 is building and being shared. Come join us today!

Tips for Job-Hunting at Grace Hopper 2009

Our diversity-minded Grace Hopper Celebration sponsors know this conference is a great place to find talented technical women. They send recruiters and hiring managers, search our Resume Database, volunteer in the Resume Clinic, and interview job candidates during the conference. So whether you're about to graduate or have years of experience, GHC is a great place to look for (and find) a job.

In case you missed the recent article on Great Ways To Find A Job at Grace Hopper 2009 in the Anita Borg Institute's e-newsletter, here's a summary of tips given there plus a few additions to help job-seekers make the most of this opportunity.

Submit your resume online. Sponsors will begin accessing resumes from the GHC Resume Database on August 8th and will start setting up interviews with GHC attendees starting then. Submit your resume now so you don't miss this opportunity.

Register for the GHC Resume Clinic. In the Resume Clinic, experienced human resource and staffing professionals will go over your resume with you. Bring at least two copies of your resume for editing. Not only will your resume be reviewed, but the Resume Clinic is a great way to connect with recruiters from major tech companies and government labs. So be sure to sign up for a slot at the Resume Clinic when you register for GHC.

Use GHC's online community for professional networking. Take advantage of the CONNECT project to plan and organize your networking at the conference (sign up when you register). And join the Grace Hopper Celebration and Anita Borg Institute groups on LinkedIn to make professional connections before, during and after the conference.

Visit GHC sponsors in the exhibit area during the conference. You'll be able to talk one on one with GHC sponsors and also set up interviews with representatives from some of the most acclaimed tech companies and academic institutions in the world.

So don't delay: submit your resume to the database today, sign up for the Resume Clinic and CONNECT, and join our groups on LinkedIn.

And if you didn't receive that e-newsletter, subscribe now before you miss any more great tips on how to make the most of Grace Hopper 2009!