“To give anything less than yourself is to sacrifice The Gift.” — Steve Prefontaine

I am currently preparing for Gather • Women’s Social Club’s next event. And, as we approach the date, I’m continuously considering the best ways to offer fun, value and tools for positive change, to the group. I specifically created this club with the intention of empowering young women with access to each other as a support system, to the tools to realize leadership roles, equal pay and fair treatment in business. To achieve those realizations, it takes strength and courage. And, it takes knowing your Gifts and giving your all to bring those to the world, regardless of the challenges.

Gather will meet at the end of July for a very interesting workshop. The workshop is the “I am Remarkable” Campaign by Google, crafted to help change gender related modesty norms and improve women’s self promotion skills, with the intended impact of closing the wage gap.

This particular workshop sold out in less than five days.

Where: Google HQ, San Francisco

What: Google’s “I am Remarkable Campaign,” lead by me (Patricia), on behalf of Gather, supported by Google

When: July 26, 2017

As per Gather’s modus operandi, we will first enjoy a reception to network, savor some quality food and beverages…and then dig into the work. For one hour, we will engage in exercises to learn skills that will help shift the way we, as women, own our contributions and understand their value in the workforce.

Because of the popularity of this workshop, I’d like to learn if there is a welcome for more workshops to be held. If you’re interested in experiencing this workshop, either for yourself or for your company, please fill out this Yes/No survey: [CLICK HERE FOR THE SURVEY]. Feel free to contact me directly to help you arrange for a workshop to be held for your team or company, if this interests you.

The July Gather event is sponsored by: Anita Barsca Photography, Bluxome Street Winery, Heptio, The Linux Foundation, Mali & Friends, OpenStack, Pivotal and Spring Fertility. We are grateful for this support.

If you’d like to chat with me directly about the workshop or other ways of building social cohesion and confidence within your team setting, please ping me directly on Twitter or send an email to [info at my domain here]. And, you may sign up for the monthly newsletters on the site: www.gathersocialclub.com.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Patricia

Last night, I had the honor of speaking at a Fireside Chat at Holberton School, a school which teaches dedicated students the skills to become Full Stack Engineers. We were a group of ~24 people, seated in the lovely work space of the School (fantastic art, lighting and energy), collaboratively embarking on a Fireside Chat with yours truly.

I shared more personal details in this one hour than I’ve done with the industry in the entire time I’ve been in it. More transparency about my feelings regarding diversity initiatives and the sprouting challenges there, feelings about the sexism (or any “isms”) in the workplace. Transparency and very, very real time perspectives for youth or those just entering the industry, addressing getting a foothold in a saturated, fast paced, complex ecosystem and tenacious industry.

We discussed:

Personal Branding

Brené Brown’s name came up during this section, so let’s give her talk, “The Power of Vulnerability,” a shout out.

My background in tech, but more specifically, the journey from graduating in December, 2011 as a re-entry student to get to where I am now.

Community Building. Talk points include identifying when hiring a community manager is a justified spend, and where culture and strategy matter in creating unstoppable, well-crafted, respectful, goal surpassing communities. We talk about [okay, Best, better and “Oh Wow!]” Practices and what best practice should mean in open source/developer/code contributing communities.

[OH: “When you have leadership that does not understand the community, there’s a problem there.”]

How to Get Into The Industry When You’re Just Starting. I gave a few tips on behaviors which opened up several doors for me.

How to Select Healthy Companies to Work For. This dialogue touches on diversity and ensuring one is able to scout out and work for companies which value people as a “whole person.”

How to Stay in the Industry, How to Grow in the Industry

I pointed out the value of the Grey’s Anatomy television show (especially the first ten seasons) in relationship to (my personal) life lessons, with the many quotes and sayings aimed at over achievers in a competitive field. My personal spin is to keep coming back to being proud of the value you provide, the hard work you do and any wins you (and your teams) have earned. Because, as Meredith’s mother said (Dr. Ellis Grey), “The carousel never stops turning.”

And, then, DIVERSITY…

We discuss the famed “All Male Panel,” Tumblr account and diversity in its many shapes in forms. Or, the lack of it.

Thought Leadership and Who Are The Ones to Watch. I gave a few mentions to interesting communities and people who lead in ways I respect: Kubernetes (k8s), Hyperledger, the container communities, and CNCF. And, then a few people who shift the plates in the world of tech.

It was incredible being able to have such an intimate and honest conversation with those who are in the midst of becoming Full Stack Engineers and being able to share perspectives and lessons in this most important time of change in the industry. I do believe we’re going into the next big push — a push that will show the industry behaving differently, more efficiently, more consciously and with greater innovation in the light of cloud and container technologies.

Hope you watch the video and share your thoughts on any of the topics we touched on. Thanks for your time and interest.

Video may be found [HERE].

I know you’re busy. Very busy. And, I know you want to do exceptional work. I also know that you understand how important Twitter has become to our modern day workforce for establishing a more intimate brand sentiment, trusted engagement and thought leadership. Because of these things, I thought I’d give a solid “college try” to present a “how-to” for you, a busy executive, to win at using Twitter . And, I don’t know your version of winning, but this will at the very least, help you to know that you are doing your best to maintain your handle in a way that would make your company proud.

Basic Needs

Set up your Twitter handle

Fire up a handle, if you haven’t already, once you know you’re committed to having a Twitter presence. Flesh out your profile. I recommend stating your role at your company and the title that you represent. Also, sharing your city and state is good for potential networking opportunities.

Follow a core set of people at the get go

Utilize the resources you have on hand to help you get your root community established. If you know of even two to three people on Twitter, follow them and ensure they follow you back. Start keeping an eye out for if those you respect and admire are on Twitter and follow them. Use the mobile app for quick connections in this manner, especially at conferences and meetings.

Optimize your life to enhance growing your community

Add your *linked* Twitter handle to your email signature, when it’s not linked that’s useless to the end user

Add your handle to your business cards

Add your *linked* handle to all blog posts and other marketing communications which you engage in

I Can’t Possibly Find the Time to Tweet All Day

I have been so lucky to have a life filled with smart, busy people. Many are developers, engineers, CTOs, CxOs and more. Over the years, what I’ve noticed, is that so many of these people have the desire to engage and share but it’s impossible to innovate when one is actively trying to fit thoughts into 140 characters. And, consider this a fair warning, Twitter is like great chocolate — one bite often leads to many more, one Tweet will just unwrap the candy and those of us who spend our life passionately creating, just simply cannot tweet with an unending flow of conversation. So, here are my tips and perceptions around time and tweeting:

1. Realize that many of us (the ones who are really, really slammed) may have conversations which are infinite and don’t adhere to time, per se. So, if you don’t respond right away, no big deal. That said, the conversation is most likely to get forgotten.
2. Set aside a window of time to tweet daily, and stick to it. I recommend the evening time as it’s easier to feel conversational then and allow yourself to relax into your thoughts. That said, many executives have corporate communications to share, which only make sense to tweet when hot, early in the morning. In that case, I’d say to tweet corporate goodies in the morning, sign off. And, in the evening, set 30 minutes for dialogue, following new people, sharing interesting articles and bowing to the Twitter Deity for your daily devotional practice.
3. Many people use things like Buffer to share the cool things they read on social media quickly. So many executives gain access to the coolest articles, videos and the like. Also, note the apps you use generally have “social share” capacity for you to share favorite content with the click of a button. Remember to share them on social media and your community will thank you for it! Hashtag like a champ so that people know how to find your gems.

Holding the Mic

I will not lie. Twitter is an ecosystem which is exposed and vulnerable. There are no shortage of opinions, and people willing to share them. Many of the voices will come at a range of temperatures: tweeting while irritated at work, amped on caffeine, stuck on a tarmac, or just happy-to-be-alive. Truthfully, not everyone is listening to you when you tweet, and I’m not trying to hurt your feelings. But, to find your tribe — and this is the same in life, you have to do the time and dance the dance. There’s some etiquette and like a magnet, your Tweeps will come to you.

1. It’s about the quality

I have often said, “If Elon Musk and Oprah were my only two followers, would I be lame then?” as I’ve seen so many focus solely on the quantity of followers rather than the quality/demographics of followers. Tons of engineers say to me, “I”m bad at Twitter,” and I say, “You’re not SUPPOSED to be tweeting all day!” Focus on quality communications, content and camaraderie and all will sort itself out.

2. Use hashtags and @ for sharing content

Using hashtags relevant to the content is important to letting the Twitter ecosystem know that your tweets are important. It’s like adding them to a very specific library, tagging them with a hashtag which clearly defines the post to say, “this is what my tweet is about! People into this, should read my tweet!”

For example, if I were to tweet about vegan ice cream and I said, “I cannot wait to have #vegan ice cream with my friends this weekend!” that would work, as it’ll draw vegans to my thread. If I say, “I cannot wait to have vegan ice cream with my friend! #veganpartywithpatricia” that wouldn’t draw many people because the only time those customized tweets work are for things like wedding parties which have a group of people who know (and care) what #veganpartywithpatricia means. If that doesn’t make sense, just do a little research on how to use hashtags. :)

3. When you share content, check if the author is on Twitter if you have time. It’s a great way to engage and also, give props to people who have worked hard to create content you enjoyed digesting.

It Ain’t Serious

I know many people take follows and unfollows very seriously. It is a compliment, yes, when someone amazing follows me (not that you’re all not amazing). But, over the years, I’ve learned that…there’s actually something very cool about not really being attached to who follows or unfollows you. In fact, I read an article about how smart people deliberately “prune the garden” from time to time, follow new batches of people, let go of people they haven’t gained much insight from.

That’s your method to discover.

In any event, I hope this post helps you on your road to tweeting effectively, being the busy person that you are. Would love to hear your experiences and feedback.

patricia

@patricia_dugan