Giddy Up! I’m going to She’s Geeky: Women’s Technology Un(conference)
Kaliya Hamlin is organizing an (un)conference for women in technology. I was giddy to get this invite.
Because it addresses a personal growth need of mine. I have felt in wild territory, starting up Dreamfish as a new category in a mashup marketspace of Social Networking…. as we stitch together the divides between the
contexts of professional in-person social networking, traditionally the expertise of organization development and applied behavioral sciences…. and online social network services, the area of technologists. This evolving integration of collaboration and social design services is exciting. Eugene Kim of Blue Oxen Associates has taken a lead in bringing process experts and developers together to think together about both creating space and tools of collaboration.
As a woman into creative technologies of social networking, online and offline, I can't wait to be with hundreds of women in one room, networking to collaborate, learn and grow in the space o technology. That's a thrill. More women tend to work in our field of in-person facilitation services. Facilitation and networking is so relational, so fem. Women traditionally are the ones building connections and holding SPACE for the growth processes of systems. Yet, when with technologists, I am often in a room with hundreds of men, talking about the TOOLS of social networking. (That's a thrill, too.). Then, I am happy to see Kaliya there, whose passion is bringing people processes to IT. Here's a nugget from Kaliya's article on Face-to-Face Collaboration in O'Reilly Network , where she explains why narly IT problems need to be addressed by human processes..
"such issues can't be solved by protocol alone; they must be solved in a web of human relationships and high quality process that fosters a culture of trust through growing mutual understanding, and shared meaning. If these issues are not addressed successfully and rapidly, I am fearful that we will lose the open network–and perhaps one of the most amazing transformative forces for good on the planet.
You go girl! So, what will happen when hundreds of women hold space and tools?! Can't wait. Woopee!!
The conversations I like to be in are about helping people to join together in enlivening ways to learn, grow as humans and work for a better world. What pains me is when I see an alienating social experience where people are regressing, bored, isolating, checking out and acting out. To know what I mean, think back to school (or maybe yesterday at work:) , as boredom and alienation thrive in institutions. However, pain motivates people to do something differently. So, often, I am called in to problem-solve – to fix the pain in a system and design an experience like a conference, an organizational change initiative or a social ritual, where it is perceived that something has not gone quite right before. Helping to fix the pain is an opportunity to begin to effect some transformation in the organization or community.