International Women’s Day event — 17 March
Triangirls first event of 2021
On the 17 of March Triangirls hosted their first event of 2021. Similarly to most of the 2020 events, this workshop was remote. Since I moved back home, I have been missing the in-person Triangirls events — they were a big part of my student life back in the UK and while it is a bummer that we still cannot meet in person, having remote Triangirls events is a blessing for me as it’s the only way for me to still be a part of the community.
Topics of this workshop: career planning and how to create a community
The workshop could not have happened at a better time for me — I am currently working on my learning plan and sorting out my career progression priorities for the following months. At the same time, I’ve been honing the idea of creating a design community in my hometown ever since I came back here in November 2019.
The event started with an introduction from Triangirls organisers, Cleo (sponsor of the event), and Coding Black Females, followed by the workshops. All attendees were divided into two groups, each one attending one of the workshops and then switching places to participate in a second workshop.
First workshop — Career Planning
The first workshop I attended was Ria’s Jersani’s workshop on Career Planning. Ria is currently a user researcher at Cleo.
Note: You can find Ria’s slides here
Prior to the event, Triangirls shared the google doc Ria created with all the information we’d need for the workshop — during the workshop, she guided us through that document as we filled it with all the actionable items we would need to get closer to our goals. I found this approach highly effective as by the end of the event we had a written plan ready — having completed this somewhat daunting task of planning makes it much easier to follow through and complete your goal.
The workshop focused on three things.
- Goals
- Blockers (What is holding us back)
- Actions
Key outcome: Be intentional with your effort.
Ria did a fantastic job presenting and giving us a clear path for moving forward with our plans. At the end of her workshop, I felt inspired and motivated to pursue my goal (which is to get a promotion/become a mid-weight designer by Autumn).
Second Workshop: How to Create communities
This was followed by the “How to create communities” workshop, run by Charlene Hunter, Founder and CEO of Coding Black Females — a nonprofit organisation, dedicated to providing opportunities and supporting Black female developers — and Jessie Auguste, who is responsible for Events & Marketing at Coding Black Females.
Charlene and Jessie described their experience building and maintaining a community and shared their advice on how to create a community.
When creating a community, it is important to:
Understand your why
Think about what interests you
Think about what makes you excited
Charlene stressed that it is important to find your people/create your team. It is hard to create and manage a community by yourself so it is crucial to find like-minded people who share your vision and values.
They recommend starting with defining your vision/mission/values:
mission = driver
vision = direction
values = health
Starting with this step would help to give you direction and provide clarity.
Final thoughts and what’s next
At the end of the workshop, I felt motivated and ready to tackle the tasks ahead of me. Charlene, Jessie and Ria inspired me — I hope to see more of their talks in the future!
I am already looking forward to the next Triangirls event, which is going to be held on 20th April — you can find more info and get your tickets here.
