Tamara Pesik (moderator) is the Visiting Speaker Series Manager in Microsoft Research. The series provides Microsoft employees with a place to think creatively about their work and to discuss new and challenging ideas about technology, education and social issues. Tamara has a Masters of Library and Information Science from the University of Washington.
Lili Cheng is Group Manager of the Social Computing Group in Microsoft Research. Lili has been at Microsoft Research since 1995 and played a major role in developing the Virtual Worlds Platform, a cutting-edge platform for the deployment of online 3D virtual worlds. She's also worked at Apple Computer in the Human Interface research group and is a registered architect who continues to lecture periodically at the Harvard Design School.
Kate Gregory is the Microsoft Regional Director for Toronto and a founding partner of Gregory Consulting Limited, which provide mentoring, consulting and development services throughout North America. Kate is the author of numerous books, most recently "Special Edition Using Visual C++ .NET;" she also teaches (and develops courses on) .NET, XML, UML, C++, Java, and the Internet. Her Visual C++ column appears at codeguru.com, and she's an adjunct faculty member at Trent University.
Marie Huwe is General Manager of Developer Marketing in the Developer and Platform Evangelism Division at Microsoft, responsible for the product management and marketing of Microsoft's tools, application developer platform and other products for developers. She has worked for Microsoft since 1997 as a product manager for various development tools; she was Director of SQL Server Marketing prior to her current position. Before joining Microsoft, she spent six years at Borland. Marie is a graduate of Northwestern University.
Linda K. Johnson is the Executive Director and CEO of The Women's Museum in Dallas. The museum is a Smithsonian affiliate and the nation's only comprehensive women's museum. Linda holds an M.B.A. from the University of Dallas and has worked in museum management as well as retail management and advertising. As CEO of The Women's Museum, she is instrumental in making it a catalyst for understanding women's history and choices for the future.
Lisa McNew is the CEO of Alliance of Technology and Women (ATW), an international non-profit organization focused on empowering women in technology. Lisa has spent 17 years in technology and specializes in issues of women in the workforce and the advancement of women in technology. She has a specific passion for mentoring, and has recently put that passion into action in starting ATW.
Sara Williams is the Product Unit Manager for the Microsoft Developer Network, where she is responsible for the direction and delivery of the MSDN Web site, magazine, and subscription products. Sara has worked at Microsoft since 1991 as a Technical Evangelist, Program Manager, and most recently, as a Product Unit Manager on the .NET Framework team. She holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Puget Sound. In her free time, she is an avid skier and aspiring dog owner.
Here is the list as per Julie:
(caveat - I tend to use terms like chick and babe and gal. These are all complements when coming from me, but could be taken a different way when used by others - so be careful when using those terms, especially if you cannot be described by any of those terms yourself!)
Marie Huwe - Marie is a totally cool chick who reminds me of a good friend from college. She is powerful and direct but at the same time very fun and accessible. Like the other women on the panel, every time she spoke she had something incredibly meaningful to say. She has the ability to inspire and empower other women.
Lili Cheng - The running "quip" about Lili is that she is the only real architect at Microsoft because she really was an architect (buildings) before she came to Microsoft. Lili is one of those women who can suprise you. She is lovely, a mother of three (?) young children and at the same time she is a very strong gal with great business sense and extremely centered. I imagine that she has the challenge of people make wrong assumptions about who she is by just her outward appearance.
Kate Gregory- If you read my blog, you know I am a big fan of Kate and happy to count her among my friends. Kate is probably one of the most respected programmers in Canada. She is a Regional Director and newly on the INETA Speaker bureau. Kate's focus is managed C++ and interop. Kate was one of the highest rated speakers at TechEd. She owns her own business with 5 employees and also is a mother of 2.
Lisa McNew - I am very interested in what Lisa is doing. Her interests lie within a much bigger picture than just developers. She is very up on the research and stats of women in the field of technology. Her organization is also working at the level of engaging girls in grade school and high school so that they will be part of the picture as they move into the professional arena.
Linda Johnson - Linda also brought a different perspective to the panel with an understanding of patterns of women in society in history and how they apply to women in technology.
Sara Williams - When Sara started blogging, everyone in MSDN was writing - oh my god, the big boss of all MSDN is blogging - and telling their stories about their history with Sara. I was absolutely shocked to see how young Sara is! Or maybe she has the great luck of just looking much younger than she is (? :-)) Sara is another one of those surprising people. She seems to have the ablility to look at a big picture and be able to focus right in on the key point of that picture. From talking with her a few more times during TechEd, I can see why it is that she is a top manager.
Tamara Pesik - Tamara is another gal who reminds me of friends from college. (By the way, I went to a small woman's college near Ithaca, NY called Wells College. This is why these women remind me so much of Wells grads. I am at this very moment missing my 20th reunion and not too happy about that). Tamara is cool and smart. I didn't get a chance to talk to her during TechEd.
The lunch. Let's get this out of the way. They served the same awful cake that Marcie blogged about on Monday.
I sat right up front of course. I looked around to see hundreds of women filling up the tables. I just wanted to go to every single table and say "wow! are you a programmer? I am too. That's so cool!" but I restrained myself.
The meeting started off with Tamara suggesting that while we ate, we do a networking exercise. Each woman at the table shared the best piece of business advice that they have received with their other lunch companions. What a great idea that was. Sitting at my table were a woman who has been a technical trade magazine editor for many years, a woman who was in I.T. (first infrastructure person I think I ever met that was a woman) and another woman who heads up the web team at a huge corporation. Most tables had about 6 at each - but you know how people are about sitting up front! So that was a good mix when adding in myself, an independent contractor who is a coder. I thought the best thing I heard at my table was "take care of your boss". But I had an odd perspective on that advice since I work for myself. It actually made me think about the fact that I haven't been taking care of myself lately - so it was actually good advice for me because I really do need to think about that!
After lunch we shared some of our lessons with the room. The most memorable one I recall was actually from Sara Williams (who is full of these great quips) - "Praise publicly, criticize privately".
So basically after lunch it was q&a. There were a few runners with mikes who went around the room and women asked questions for the panel to respond to. There were a great range of questions - most about "how to deal wtih situation X". For example - an American company that was bought by an Asian company. Women are really ignored in Asian companies. How to deal with that? Also the obvious sexual harrassment questions came up. But again - we don't always have other women to share this stuff with so it was great fodder for discussion. (You will have to forgive the fact that my brain is on overload and I am just not going to remember lots of details here.) Another was actually about dealing with other women in the work place. For example, a woman who has children was complaining that her female boss, who also has kids, expected her to work overtime yet would not do that herself. The boss said "well, my family comes first." which seemed insane because she did not allow this woman to also put her family first. That was a bizarre scenario. Many questions revolved around work/life balance. This always amazes me. I don't even have kids and have an extremely difficult time balancing my work and my life. I am aways so blown away by the ability of women with children to balance it all.
Naturally, I felt a need to address an issue that is foremost in my mind - not so much as a question but as fodder for discussion: the 10% factor. The 10% factor is that everywhere you go it seems like there are only 10% women. I'm referring to my own experience within the developer community. I actually know that there are LOTS more than that. However, there is such a small number of women who are willing to speak up, stand out, be visible etc. that it seems like there just aren't a lot of us. Then this creates what I see as a vicious circle. Other women are daunted and therefore won't "put themselves out there". This is why when you go to conferences there are hardly any women speakers. I see repeatedly: Michele Leroux Bustamante, Kate Gregory, Kimberly Tripp. Occaionally Deborah Kurata and Kathleen Dollard. This is insane. There should be MORE MORE MORE MORE. Ooops sorry. :-) So it is my #1 agenda and stay tuned to see more on this because something is gonna happen!! There are about 30% women in my user group. But I cannot get any of them to do a presentation. Why is this? I try to be a really good example so that they can see it's okay and it's easy. Well, this is not a soap box. Back to the meeting.
While I was talking I mentioned that I was sitting next to a woman in i.t. and she was the first I had ever met. After the luncheon another young woman found me because she wanted to tell me that SHE was also an i.t. person. So she was excited about knowing that she wasn't the only one in the world. "I.T." has different meanings to different people. I'm referring to infrastructure, network, exchange, etc.
I think the lunch was a huge success for one big reason. We all got to see that there are a LOT of us and we are not each alone. I'm sure some great connections were made also. I was very happy to meet Kathleen Dollard (a Visual Basic MVP). When I moved from FoxPro to VB, Kathleen was the first woman who I connected with because she was a huge presence in the newsgroups. So all of these years later, I have recently reestablished an email relationship with her and we easily found each other at TechEd.
I know Michele Leroux Bustamante was in the audience because someone (who I couldn't see because she was sitting as she spoke) told an inspirational story about not being afraid to follow your heart and your instincts and the further she got into the story, I realized it just had to be her. I looked at Kate and mouthed "is that Michele?" and she nodded yes.
Marcie was at the luncheon but, again, it was such a huge room that I didn't see her until the end. Marie and Sara were thrilled to meet her since they had been hearing so much about her and of course immediately put on DataGridGirl buttons.
Well that's all I can think of now. Hopefully there will be some more blogs about this. I hope that I will be able to find out how many people were there.