How to Contribute to the Grace Hopper Bloggers Via Your Own Blog

If you are interested in writing blog posts for GHC, you will have to tag each post appropriately and determine the custom URL for an RSS feed with only those posts.  Luckily, if you use one of the more popular blogging services, this should be pretty simple.

The tag you want to use will include ghc plus the year of the conference.  For instance, in 2011, it will be ghc11.  You can add other tags to your post as desired; just make sure to include this one as well.

If you use Blogger, you can get the URL by adding a little bit extra to the end of your RSS feed. The format for the feed is as follows:

http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/ghc11

If you use Wordpress, all you have to do is add "feed" to the end of any category or tag link.  For example:

http://blogname.wordpress.com/tags/ghc11/feed
http://blogname.wordpress.com/categories/ghc11/feed

On Tumblr, you can simply add "rss" to the end of a tag link:

http://blogname.tumblr.com/tagged/ghc11/rss

Terri Oda wrote about how you can set up your feed for Dreamwidth, an independent, open-source community-centric service (if you haven't heard of it, check it out!).  Here are the templates for your tagged posts:

http://blogname.dreamwidth.org/data/rss?tag=ghc11
http://blogname.dreamwidth.org/data/atom?tag=ghc11

Finally, on Posterous, you would add the tag info to the RSS URL like this:

http://blogname.posterous.com/rss.xml?tag=ghc11

If your blog has a custom setup, or isn't one of those mentioned above, then you'll have to do some Google-fu to figure out how to set up your feed. If you get stuck, try leaving a comment, and hopefully someone will be able to help you out.

Collaborative Leadership in Driving Innovation

Listening to these four dynamic women as moderator, Rebecca Norlander, right, asked them to share their paths taken and the roads not taken, there were commonalities between them that has led to success in their respective fields:

• Mentoring was a critical component
  
• Perseverance when things got tough
  
• Resilience when things took the wrong turn
• Setbacks were viewed as learning opportunities
• Widened their perspective by reframing the experience
• Reinventing themselves became part of their "human fabric"
• Accountability for the personal and professional risks they took
• Savvy career transitions and adaptability to changing condition

Amy Alving, Chief Technology Officer, SAIC
Bio




Pivotal Moment in her Career

"I decided to give up tenure to keep my job in government that I loved. It was risky, but it was a commitment to a new path."

What Amy Looks for When Hiring

She looks for people who can recognize a problem instead of waiting for an invitation to solve it--they step up and own it. People stumble at the lack of initiative.

Reflection: What She Would Do Differently

I would get out of my comfort zone more often.



Kalpana Margabandhu, Director of WebSphere Development, IBM India Software Lab
Bio


Pivotal Moment in her Career

Being recognized and awarded for her accomplishments as a woman setting an example in her organization for for reaching beyond what she had considered a limit.

Reflection: What She Would Do Differently

I would take more risks.


Kelli Crane, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Thomson Reuters
Bio

Pivotal Moment in her Career

When a woman at the company walked up to her and said "We've never had a senior technology leader who was a woman - ever."

What Kelli Looks for When Hiring

Grounded and balance between work and life. I look for a good technologist with good communication skills and the ability to collaborate in driving innovation. People will watch how you handle diversity more than how you handle success.

Reflection: What She Would Do Differently

Have the courage to do the right thing more often and be true to herself all of the time.



Romea Smith, Senior Vice President, CA Technologies, Support
Bio



Pivotal Moment in her Career

When she moved from Texas to Virginia with three children - a big personal and professional risk.

What Romea Looks for When Hiring

You have to want to learn. Someone who is capable without blinders on and who looks for different ways to solve problems. Learning from failure is key. [Dee McCrorey's "Collaborative Risktaking" workshop suggested 15 days to "lick your wounds" and then get back in the game].

Reflection: What She Would Do Differently

I would delegate more.


Panelist Career Tips

• You don't need to be the best at everything - it's about breadth and depth
  
• Love what you do and success will follow
• Crucial conversations: define governance upfront
• You need teams at home and at work. Delegate. You need a team to support you
• You have to make your own choices and that include personal and professional boundaries.
• Influencing skills are different for everyone - try different approaches, if one thing doesn't work, try something else
• Mentors help you when your more junior and when you're more senior you mentor others
• You can't wait for companies to come to you - you need to manage your own career
  

Packing for Atlanta!

Ed here!  I wanted to do a quick post about what I'll be bringing with me to Atlanta this year.  Usually I do a video episode of Ed & Ashley's 5 Minute Show, but GHC came up so fast this year!  So, I'm going to do some episode-recycling...it's good for the environment, right?

Even though we say GHC 2009, this episode applies to GHC 2010.  I'm going to be packing much of the same things this year.



It looks like the weather in Atlanta for next few days will be in the 70s.  Like last year, light layers will be really helpful.  I think sunglasses and sunscreen are a must if you plan on being outside.

I haven't packed yet, so if I have time, I'm going to post a video of some speed packing!  These are things I'm not going to forget to bring to GHC!

• Light jacket or in my case an adorable cardigan :)
• Water bottle
• Business cards (although I'm hoping that I'll get to use my Poken a lot!)
• Important documents (resume, schedule, boarding pass, etc.)
• Electronics (Egg [my netbook], video camera, digital camera, phone, etc.)
• Chargers!
• Tons of excitement :)

I can't wait to get to Atlanta and see everyone!  I'll be wearing an orange Wheaties hat and I would love to meet you, so please say hello!

Introducing a Recent Undergrad Graduate

Hello! I'm Ashley Myers, and I am the other co-chair of the Grace Hopper Conference Communities Committee. As both Ed and Gail I have done, I am here to introduce myself. If you haven't yet, check out other attendees introducing themselves and introduce yourself on LinkedIn, Facebook, or any of the online communities.

I learned of GHC during my first year of college. It seemed like one of those things that only the lucky would attend. "The largest women in computing conference." I was a broke college student, there was no way.

The following school year, a classmate was awarded a student scholarship to attend GHC07. She came back with a ton of photos of her amazing time in Orlando and was totally energized about all things Computer Science. At some point toward the end of that school year, I came to the decision I was going to Grace Hopper in 2008. I applied to be a Hopper (GHC10 Hopper application closes on July 30th), crossed my fingers, secured funds from my university for the flight, saved cash from my summer internship for the hotel and registration (just in case), got a roommate via Twitter to split the hotel room with (Hi @emilyhowe!), and that was that!

Since I had not participated in the official call for participation, Ed (my forever roommate) and I signed up for pretty much everything asked of community volunteers: Twitter, Flickr, note taking, blogging, and video blogging. This involvement has made my experience these last two GHCs. I have met and most importantly kept in contact with so many women through these online mediums. I encourage you to either informally participate by tagging your tweets and blog posts with GHC10, or to officially volunteer (GHC10 online Community Volunteer application is live until August 24th).

The best thing about the online communities is you don't need permission to get involved. Here are all the places you can find and connect with me!

• Twitter: @OrganizeFISH (I will also be tweeting as @ghc, look for my signature ^amm)
• Blog: "Let's Eat That Big Fish!"
• Ed & Ashley's 5 Minute Show
• YouTube
• LinkedIn

This year marks a big change for me. This will be my first Grace Hopper I will attend as a women in industry rather than as a student. I will also be traveling from my new home in Seattle, moving officially for the first time in my life next month.

What's your story? Undergrad? Grad? Industry? Academia? Introduce yourself in the comments below, on LinkedIn, on Facebook, or any of the online communities! I look forward to meeting you!

Hi! My name is Ed!

Hello there!  I'm Erin 'Ed' Donahue and I'm one of the co-chairs of the Grace Hopper Communities Committee.  Just like Gail, I'd like to introduce myself.

That's me!

I went to my first GHC in 2008 with my good friend and forever roommate Ashley.  Just before leaving for the conference, we decided we want to be video bloggers and so we created Ed & Ashley's 5 Minute Show.  Since then, we've continued to do our 5 minute show, focusing on technical women.

In May 2009, I graduated from DePauw University in Greencastle, IN and moved to Colorado for my first job as a software engineer with Lockheed Martin.  Working a full-time job is totally different from being in school, that's for sure!  I'm learning new stuff everyday (although that did happen in school too).  Out here in Colorado, I organize the Colorado Front Range Girl Geek Dinners.  If you're ever in Colorado, please stop by!

I also love to salsa dance, play rugby, swim, and nap outside on my balcony. :)

I'm online!  Connect with me!

• Twitter: @creepyed (I also tweet as @ghc, look for my signature ^ed)
• Ed & Ashley's 5 Minute Show
• YouTube
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

We want to hear from you!  Introduce yourself in the comments or on Facebook or LinkedIn!

Introducing a Passionate PhD Student

Hi everyone! My name is Gail, and I'm on this year's Grace Hopper Online Communities Committee. I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and hope that you, too, will find a community you can introduce yourself in.

I went to my first Grace Hopper in 2008. We had just started our Women in Science and Engineering group (known as CU-WISE) on campus, and when I heard about the conference, I knew we had to go. My fellow executive members weren't so sure we would be able to get funding, but I pushed us to try, and lo and behold we succeeded! Attending the conference made an enormous difference to CU-WISE and our ability to put on a fantastic program at Carleton University.

In 2009, I wanted to get more involved with the conference. I love blogging, and started to volunteer more and more to help BJ Wishinsky, the Communities Program Manager over at the Anita Borg Institute, set things up. I ended up becoming the Lead Blogger and organized all our bloggers and note takers, ensuring we brought you info on as many session we could!

This year, as I said, I am on the new Online Communities Committee. Our main goal is to "evangelize and promote the Grace Hopper online communities... [by] participating in the online communities, recruiting diverse community volunteers, and evangelizing the communities to all Grace Hopper participants." I'm super excited to help everyone make the most out of the conference with these communities, whether they can attend in person or not!

To wrap up, a bit about me (and why I titled my post the way I did):I finished my Masters last summer and just finished my coursework for the PhD. I am very passionate about education and learning (could it be because my mom is teacher?), and I want my research to tap into that. I am planning on working on educational games, and in particular want to use augmented reality, as I believe there are some real cognitive advantages to the technology. I am also interested in the role of games and technology in the classroom, and want to help revolutionize how we teach computer science.

If anyone is interested in reading my personal blog or connecting with me, here are some useful links - I'd love to hear from you!

• My blog, The Female Perspective of Computer Science
• Twitter, @gailcarmichael
• Linked In
• Flickr
  

Keynote, Fran Berman

Keynote, Fran Berman, Vice President for Research, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute


The keynote focused on the future of the information age.  Specifically how we're going to keep and archive current information.  We need to archive the information because "access tomorrow starts with preservation today.  You can't access tomorrow that which you don't have."  Together we much decide what we want to save.  Even before that, who is we?  There are so many groups of we, society in general, the research community, individuals, and each group wants to save different information from census information to the digital copy of home movies.


Along with what to save, we also need to decide how to save it.  Whatever archival form we decide to use, we need to stick with.  The amount of data that we want to save is massive and it would take copious amounts of time to change the format of all the information.  Think of how long it takes to put a VHS movie on DVD or to make a digital copy of an LP.  When we save it, we have to make multiple copies and be sure to tag it so we remember what it is (good advice for any information anyone saves!).


In order to deal with the future of the overwhelming information age, we need to create the next generation of leaders; the students of today!  We have to make sure they have the right knowledge and experience:

• There is no answer key for the real world
• The problems will be hard and the solutions won't necessarily be elegant
• Experience with failure
• Experience with international cultures

We have the power to create positive change.  We have the power of:

• Asking the question; you can't improve what you can't articulate
• Creating explicit goals and metrics of success
• Recognition and encouragement
• Policy, resource allocation, and prioritization

baby loading, please wait: pregnancy, grad school and computing

Do you ever wonder, How do women in tech/computing academia balance pregnancy and grad school?

In fact, it's a common question that comes up for a woman related to career and pregnancy. Other common questions are, Why should I have to pick between going to (or, finishing) grad school and having a baby?

Click here to read what a panel of women had to say about these questions and their experiences.

Women of color: Identifying and discussing the unique issues

This was a session attended by a diverse set of people. The panelists talked about the various issues faced by women of color. The list is long and considers the absence of small networks, role models, lack of guidance, how to communicate effectively and overload of committee services even for the very few number of women of color in various positions.

It was interesting to find out how the audience felt about all these problems. One of the audience asked us to look for a solution by being approachable and not talking offense very easily. This was a very positive way of looking at the problem. The panel members also agreed that we must take our time before we react fo any unwanted situation.

So, we then ask the question of how to deal with the issues.
One very interesting answer was about emotional IQ. It is the concept of using emotional intelligence which considers the socio cultural aspects along with the IQ. Another aspect of it is that, many of the times - the women of color have a natural way of using emotional IQ and can sense the environment. I have heard about this term for the first time but I agree very much with the concept that women have a natural way of using this emotional IQ.

There are other ways to deal with the issue which are very obvious like networking and professional development.

Computing Outside the Box

Martha Pollak talks about a very interesting idea, although she was supposed to talk initially about assistive living technology which I very interested in. She talked about different themes that considers how computer science can be more powerful by embracing more applied problems outside the domain of computer science. The field of computing can become very powerful as the computer scientists can help the other domain experts in computational thinking. Computer science can benefit by using other domain specific solutions to solve the different computer science problems. We have to consider that human are in the loop and many of the solutions require the socio computational aspect.

This idea seems very interesting from the perspective of a core systems student. We tend to think about the performance in terms of the basic systems terminology (throughput, latency etc.) while as we look at new application areas - we should consider the domain experts to help us judge various systems.

I was very interested to know about the assistive living technology but enjoyed the different approach very much. It opened up a new window and ofcourse added a huge pile of problems to think about !