Taking the long view in tech
Thoughts become things, things become thoughts.
I’d been looking forward to the Anita Borg Institute’s Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing for months; by May I’d already booked my hotel and flight for the October conference. After walking the convention center for three days with twelve thousand fellow attendees (nearly 90% female), I can say it was the very best tech conference I’ve attended. And, I’ve attended more than a few. Women definitely need to sponsor and attend more tech conferences for women; there are so many more opportunities to relax and have fun when you’re not walking on eggshells as an outsider.
My strategy was to join all the keynotes and afternoon plenary sessions for inspiration (they delivered!), then join a few key technical sessions and take several passes around the gigantic career fair. As I was packing up for the flight, I grabbed my ‘lucky punchcard’; when I arrived at the registration desk I tucked it into my badge holder.
I like to say ‘plans are just the things from which we deviate’, and my deviations included an opportunity to mentor with Mozilla during Open Source Day at the conference. What a pleasure and a great honor to work with these terrific women.
