tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202900612024-03-05T12:59:07.768-08:00Rupa's BlogsHungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comBlogger66125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-47245943183340368872019-03-08T09:32:00.000-08:002019-03-08T09:33:02.445-08:00On this International Women's Day - 2019 !!! The year of massive change and traction...<h2 style="text-align: center;">
International Women's Day @ CodeChix this year !!!</h2>
<br />
We are heads-down on all fronts, gearing up for <a href="http://devpulsecon.org/" target="_blank">DevPulseCon 2019</a> and anticipating a fantastic crowd of women engineers and technical PM's from all industries to listen, network, talk and learn at our educational conference.<br />
<br />
<u><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=20290061#editor/target=post;postID=5221862044854482866;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=1;src=postname" target="_blank">Our founder has quit her full-time job and is dedicated to CodeChix full time to build it to the next level !!</a> </u><br />
<u><br /></u>
<u>If you want to help, ping her directly.</u><br />
<br />
On this day, we, at <a href="http://codechix.org/" target="_blank">CodeChix</a>, pledge to continue our grassroots work (which we started in 2009 before the "women in tech" or "diversity" movement took off) retaining fantastic women engineers, developers, scientists and mathematicians and technical PM's who were forced to leave the technical ladder because they didn't have the support and environment they needed to be successful.<br />
<br />
We have been "encouraged" to "become like other organizations" and focus on pure marketing and recruiting efforts to address the legal needs of tech companies with respect to "Diversity and Inclusion" through recruiting.<br />
<br />
Screw that.<br />
<br />
We chart our own path as we always have.<br />
<br />
We are about EDUCATION and GROWTH.<br />
<br />
The rest will follow automatically.<br />
<br />
We aim to bring the *TECHNICAL* in the "technical women" to the table in a way that will empower engineering leaders to build high-quality diverse teams.<br />
<br />
We also aim to *STRENGTHEN* technical men and women leaders so they can stand up to "bias" (covert discrimination) which is rampant in the industry, particularly, in the technical and engineering ladders.<br />
<br />
How will we do this? Well, you'll just have to wait and see :)...<br />
<br />
So, to all the<br />
<ul>
<li>women engineers, developers, technical PM's working in the industry and </li>
<li>those that are aspiring women engineers, developers, technical PM's hoping to make their mark as they enter the industry, </li>
</ul>
<u>do not think that you are alone.</u><br />
<br />
<a href="http://codechix.org/" target="_blank">We are here</a> and we are dedicated to building your support system and providing you with the means to succeed. You have to work hard but you already know that.<br />
<br />
And, the rewards will come. We want to help you get them as you show your quality and your track record.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Fyp3kfPRaFsR-inLCsoM7gbTLzgmG7JLzJyk_qmyCoo/edit" target="_blank">Join us</a> as we launch into a year of great and exciting change !<br />
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And, as always,<br />
<br />
May the code be with you !!<br />
<br />
<br />Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-52218620448544828662018-11-02T10:17:00.000-07:002018-11-02T10:25:18.844-07:00Today is a momentous day.... and the rubber hits the road as they say...<br />
Finally, after almost ten years of being in the proverbial "shadows" while the press, media and industry raged about the "pipeline" problem and focused solely on recruiting/hiring and massive marketing campaigns geared towards such things, I am seeing glimmers of realization from the press and some industry stalwarts, that the "retention" issue might be a serious problem (56+% dropout rate?).<br />
<br />
<b><i><u>And that all the progress on the recruitment initiatives are going to be futile without a bigger and much more serious commitment to retention initiatives from the tech industry. It is much harder to move the retention needle than the recruitment needle.</u></i></b><br />
<br />
Ha.<br />
<br />
So, two weeks ago, I tendered my resignation at my full time job, flew to speak at an open source conference in Scotland (<a href="https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/open-source-summit-europe-2018/" target="_blank">opensourcesummit.eu</a>) and returned to US soil earlier this week with serious jet lag.<br />
<br />
<b><i><u>Nov. 1 was my first day as full time staff at <a href="http://codechix.org/" target="_blank">CodeChix</a> as CEO & Founder.</u></i></b><br />
<br />
No, I'm not getting paid anything. Yet. Bootstrapping it is - just like all good startups :).<br />
<br />
Given that all sister non-profits in the "Diversity and Inclusion" space are doing rather splendidly as far as funding is concerned, I am confident I can get to a point in the next few months given our track record and reputation where we will have enough resources so I can get paid and build <a href="http://codechix.org/" target="_blank">CodeChix</a> to the next level as a global organization with serious impact to move the needle in the <b>retention space for women engineers and technologists</b>. And hire some wicked-good product managers and engineers to catapult us. And build a board to match our ambition and trajectory.<br />
<br />
<b><i><u>We are poised for growth, to challenge the status quo and to help the tech industry disrupt itself to become the leaders and role models with regard to retaining women engineers and technologists.</u></i></b><br />
<br />
We need everyone's blessings and help with fundraising (<a href="http://devpulsecon.org/" target="_blank">DevPulseCon</a> sponsorship, individual donations) in the next few months so we can achieve our goals.<br />
<br />
Stay tuned to <a href="http://codechix.org/">codechix.org</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/codechix" target="_blank">@codechix</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/devpulsecon" target="_blank">@devpulsecon</a> on Twitter as we launch our campaigns. If you can donate and get matching funds through your company, please help us (<a href="https://codechix-org.squarespace.com/take-action-bedford/" target="_blank">codechix.org/donate</a>). And please do share in your network - it is the only way we can grow our impact and make a difference.<br />
<br />
And we are expecting <a href="http://devpulsecon.org/" target="_blank">DevPulseCon 2019</a> to be a landmark conference as we catapult ourselves to lead the retention space.<br />
<br />
May the code be with you. Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-66151100094194257732018-08-23T09:23:00.006-07:002018-08-25T18:59:39.555-07:00Transitioning from a "Dev" to a "Product" person...It's been over 90 days since I joined WalmartLabs as Principal Product Manager for IaaS and, so far, it has been an interesting journey.<br />
<br />
Since the company (like any other company) has issues with me talking too much about what I do, I'll focus this post on how I did my transition in an effort to help a myriad women engineers who have reached out to me both internally and externally on how, they too, can transition into a product role.<br />
<br />
This post is specifically targeted towards software developers who have a significant history and tenure in the industry doing software dev and might have also done engineering management in their career. It is targeted for engineers who have greater than 7-10 years of experience doing software development and are pretty good at it.<br />
<br />
Here are some advice/learnings/thoughts:<br />
<br />
<b>Key Role:</b> You are the Swiss Army Knife of the organization. And that is a very hard job to do.<br />
<ol>
<li>Product management (PM) is a variety of skillsets, mindsets and deliverables rolled into one nebulous title. No two product managers do the same thing. They might have similar products they are managing, but their approach might have to be vastly different since one of the key tenets of PM is to get things done without having any direct reporting structure to you, i.e., the people whom you manage do not report to you and may have their own agendas/trajectory. </li>
<li>Product Mgmt. is vastly different from Project Mgmt. which is different from Program Mgmt. Know and understand the differences. You might have to dabble in all 3 but make sure you are doing more of Product than Project/Program. Some companies don't make any distinction and will give you a title of a Product M. and will expect you to only do Project or Program. Get the hell out if that happens - those places are deadends. You will lose valuable time and technical skills will get rusty.</li>
<li>You have to know and understand what "influence" means. As an engineer, I had very little knowledge or exposure to this concept and, practically, no experience in "influencing". As a founder and ED for a non-profit where everyone involved is a volunteer, I got some <b>extreme</b>, doses of reality over the last 9 years on how to get people motivated, committed (as much as I could) and get volunteers to deliver on tasks without having any direct reporting structure and <b>no money. This was the biggest lesson that I transferred from my work with CodeChix into my current PM role.</b> To be frank, most managers in industry become managers in order to "control" and "dictate" and set up a power structure in order to get work done by employees reporting to them so that said managers can deliver and look good and get promoted. This is the antithesis of a good PM. The first rule is to be able to sacrifice your own ego and anything related to it in order to help and showcase your team in every way possible. If I had not learned some crucial lessons the hard way through my work with CodeChix, I would have been an utter failure as a PM. I now know how valuable those lessons were - regardless of how abominably painful they were. Note that you need to keep a good record of all of your accomplishments and these are what you use in your performance evaluation with your manager. <b>THAT</b> is where you scream about how many great things you did and how you delivered on things. <b>THAT</b> is the <b>ONLY</b> time you get to bring out a saxophone and play your best tune. Other than that, <b>EVERYTHING</b> is about the dev team and you are only there to help them in whatever way you can so they can achieve their best. Their success is your success.</li>
<li>Hold your own with the Engineering team - their respect is the foundation of your success. Without it you are dead. You have been an engineer - you know how to do this. And you know how important it is to keep up your technical skills, so DON'T be LAZY and FORGET to do this!! It is a critical skill that will give you an edge over most other PM's in the industry. Learn the tools, techniques and high-level concepts for the languages, tools, techniques and go to as many technical seminars you can in your personal time. Yes, most companies will not give you time to do this as part of your day job which SUCKS. But, c'est la vie. Look for a place that might have a better balance of what you think you can live with.</li>
<li>List of resources - I'll post this soon. Ran out of time.</li>
<li>Prioritize like there is no tomorrow - I cannot stress this enough. <b><i>Every single day</i></b> - take a look at the list of high-level tasks/stories/whatever you have for the team, think about direction, strategy, alignment, fit, ROI, and prioritize, prioritize and repeat. Then share, share, share with the team and the dev manager and stakeholders (if needed). They will not like it - heck, when you were an engineer, you didn't like it when the PM tried to drill this into your brain either. So, now that you're on the other side of the fence, guess what, you're going to get some flak when you do this. Suck it up and keep at it. This will save your a** later. Trust me. Caveat: Don't change high-level direction too frequently otherwise chaos and mutiny will ensue. Deep and long term thinking are key here - develop both. Read books, go through YouTube videos, get your company to pay for Udemy and Pluralsight accounts and use them - there are lots of resources. Pick the ones that address your need and discard the rest until you need them. You have limited time, make the best use of it.</li>
<li>Time management - become a master executioner - without this skill, you will burn out and die and slink into bed and not come out until next year. On a daily basis, you will be pulled in at least 3-4 different directions where you will have to wear 3-4 different hats and talk to different audiences (upper management, your PM team, your dev team/s, external dev and PM teams etc.). The context switching is pretty high so get used to that. Prepare for it mentally, emotionally and physically. PM is a role that can completely drain you and burn you out like a light if you let it. Be in charge of this and guard your personal time like a dragon. And if you're called names for it, tough. Just do it - it will save you in the end. But do it nicely and explain the why to everyone.</li>
<li> Politics is everywhere - get used to it. Get good at it and develop a special part of your brain to operate at this level. <b>This will probably be the most difficult thing for engineers to learn.</b></li>
</ol>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
I will post more as I have time - ties back to #7 :).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-92047866761623754322018-08-18T22:22:00.001-07:002018-08-19T13:04:45.621-07:00We are hiring !!! Woohoo !!Hallelujah !<br />
<br />
After almost 9 years of slaving on CodeChix at night/weekends, changing directions, board members, venues, execution plans etc. etc., I am finally at a point where I can ACTUALLY hire someone to help me!<br />
<br />
So, we have an opening for a Chief of Staff for CodeChix which is a unique position involving a high degree of project and program management skills as well as a deep interest and knowledge of the landscape of women engineers in industry. Ideally, it would be tremendous if I could find a former woman engineer who left the industry with formidable project/program management skills.<br />
<br />
Here's the JD: https://goo.gl/jMG9Kz<br />
<br />
The preference is to have someone who lives close to the Bay area so that we can meet F2F when needed but remote is also OK.<br />
<br />
I'm truly looking forward to being able to start scaling CodeChix to get to the level I would like to. Baby steps :) and fingers crossed we will find someone fantastic soon!<br />
<br />
Thanks to all our awesome supporters and volunteers who have made this day a reality after so many years.Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-74483070046633447662018-05-13T11:54:00.000-07:002018-05-13T11:54:05.613-07:00On leadership and male allies...Much has been touted about leadership and leadership styles - certainly in Silicon Valley over the last several years.<br />
<br />
Here's an article that seems to finally cut through a large extent of the BS and focus on what really works, based on history and the fact that we live in an imperfect world full of imperfect people who may or may not have their own short/long-sighted agenda's and have varying degrees of commitment and persistence to pursue their goals.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/leadership/getting-beyond-the-bs-of-leadership-literature">https://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/leadership/getting-beyond-the-bs-of-leadership-literature</a><br />
<br />
I haven't read all these books yet, but, would certainly like to.<br />
<br />
I get preached to by a lot of senior management and, sometimes, executives with varying degrees of success. Some say that I don't listen to "direction", some say that I'm "perceptive, visionary, resilient, gritty..." blah blah. Whatever.<br />
<br />
I say, what are you telling me that will help me reach my goal? Do you even understand my goal and the challenges that I (and people like me) face day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month and year-to-year? Are you able to advise and help regarding the specific challenges I have?<br />
<br />
If you don't, then no amount of talking to me and "guiding"/"directing"/"advising" me is going to work - it boils down to lip service. Which means, yes, I will probably not listen to your well-intentioned advice because it does not make any sense to me and it certainly does not help me or others. Which, also, means that you did not do your homework before providing "advice"/"direction".<br />
<br />
For male allies (or those that tout themselves as such), here are some resources to get under your belt and start your journey to building reliability as a male ally (note: this is just the minimum, baseline to getting started). It is not easy to be a male ally - you will face lots of opposition from both men and women alike. But, as they say, nothing that is worth doing is ever easy :). And, frankly, the experience might help you understand what women engineers and technologists go through everyday. The subtle behaviors that you might not see/notice, come to the forefront - not always, but, there's a high probability that you will if you let yourself see it.<br />
<ol style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<li style="margin-left: 15px;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-miller-black-panther-ally_us_5a92ac97e4b03b55731d1442?utm_campaign%3Dhp_fb_pages%26utm_source%3Dmain_fb%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook%26ncid%3Dfcbklnkushpmg00000063&source=gmail&ust=1523831750627000&usg=AFQjCNGq89VdKFrl5W8W9kMoGXF03SPSlQ" href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-miller-black-panther-ally_us_5a92ac97e4b03b55731d1442?utm_campaign=hp_fb_pages&utm_source=main_fb&utm_medium=facebook&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">https://www.huffingtonpost.<wbr></wbr>com/entry/opinion-miller-<wbr></wbr>black-panther-ally_us_<wbr></wbr>5a92ac97e4b03b55731d1442?utm_<wbr></wbr>campaign=hp_fb_pages&utm_<wbr></wbr>source=main_fb&utm_medium=<wbr></wbr>facebook&ncid=<wbr></wbr>fcbklnkushpmg00000063</a></li>
<li style="margin-left: 15px;">Twitter: Better Allies</li>
<li style="margin-left: 15px;">NCWIT: <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.ncwit.org/resources/read-online-maleadvocate&source=gmail&ust=1523831750627000&usg=AFQjCNFfNts5f1MHYh1DD-T4LVaVkq-etQ" href="https://www.ncwit.org/resources/read-online-maleadvocate" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">https://www.ncwit.org/<wbr></wbr>resources/read-online-<wbr></wbr>maleadvocate</a></li>
<li style="margin-left: 15px;">ABI: <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://anitab.org/news/abi-in-the-news/male-allies-support-women-technology/&source=gmail&ust=1523831750627000&usg=AFQjCNFw6GdoptSEsBi1cU4ZYWbcqE40pg" href="https://anitab.org/news/abi-in-the-news/male-allies-support-women-technology/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">https://anitab.org/news/<wbr></wbr>abi-in-the-news/male-allies-<wbr></wbr>support-women-technology/</a></li>
<li style="margin-left: 15px;">SLATE: <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.slate.com/blogs/better_life_lab/2018/01/08/want_to_be_an_ally_to_women_at_work_five_things_men_in_tech_have_been_doing.html&source=gmail&ust=1523831750627000&usg=AFQjCNG5uroTyrL-1uc1Mb8R2CKxv-mvJg" href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/better_life_lab/2018/01/08/want_to_be_an_ally_to_women_at_work_five_things_men_in_tech_have_been_doing.html" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.slate.com/<wbr></wbr>blogs/better_life_lab/2018/01/<wbr></wbr>08/want_to_be_an_ally_to_<wbr></wbr>women_at_work_five_things_men_<wbr></wbr>in_tech_have_been_doing.html</a></li>
</ol>
<br />
<br />
<br />Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-71519752168901041662018-04-13T13:16:00.001-07:002018-04-13T13:16:43.540-07:00Yup - I fell off the engineering ladder - finally. 23+ years was a good and difficult run...Written - 3/25/'18<br />
<br />
And now I am one more statistic in a long list of statistics - compiled, shared and pontificated over with much rah-rah and zero true effort from companies to make a difference. <br />
<br />
So, I'm looking at product management and realizing that there's a lot of similarity with what I have done and am doing for CodeChix. So, it's actually pretty good - I get to develop my skills in an area that I've never had a chance to look at but is essential to running a company.<br />
<br />
And I can no longer hide in my cubicle when I want to - time to learn some skills that I don't have... yet.<br />
<br />
I still refuse to wear heels or makeup. Absolute no.<br />
<br />
And in silicon valley, that's not a problem, thank heavens. Jeans and sneakers are still my staple - yay!<br />
<br />
And I'm still going to have opportunities to dabble with coding, I think - will have to see.<br />
<br />
And, oh yeah, I quit VMware.<br />
<br />
Went to New Zealand to climb my fourth glacier (Franz Josef - heli in/out which was cool), hike the Tongariro trail, see and photograph Mt. Doom ad nauseum (not to mention Hobbiton), visit the Weta Workshop, white watered Tutea Falls which was both terrifying and exhilarating since we had to morph into a rescue boat when another boat flipped over and 8 people ended up in churning waters with paddles and booties floating everywhere, stargazed at Mt. John observatory at 1 in the morning and saw the Magellanic clouds before the rainclouds moved in over Lake Tekapo (awesome night sky!), saw the unique glow-worms in Waitomo at night in an underground cave 150 ft deep in pitch dark (a bit unnerving) and, generally, had a hectic, activity-filled 3 weeks before heading back and starting a new job this week @walmartlabs. <br />
<br />
Nothing like adventure to rejuvenate and shake the rat-race doldrums.<br />
<br />
But, now, back to the rat race. And getting DevPulseCon squared away - fingers crossed.<br />
<br />Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-33657602242749044402018-02-04T12:27:00.002-08:002018-02-04T12:36:19.117-08:00My thoughts on the nomination for finalist for the Women in Open Source awardFirst off, I was not expecting to make it to the finalist round of this prestigious award.<br />
<br />
And I am completely, humbly grateful and happy to have made it this far, doing something that I gave up pretty much all of my free time (weeknights and weekends) for the last 9 years or so, when I started CodeChix in my living room.<br />
<br />
Open source has been a part of my tech life ever since I wandered into it during my student days at CU Boulder, where I was in the "dungeons" (that's what we lovingly called the windowless, card-entry large rooms of tables with SUN workstations) working on projects/homework etc.<br />
<br />
It started with hanging out on USENET groups and fiddling with Minix and, voila, Slackware showed up. And, the complete un-usability of the initial versions which kept crashing and backup/restore was an exercise in patience and stamina (including developing a great curse-word vocabulary in multiple languages). Fast-forward to the 2000's, the rise of programming languages other than C/C++, open source growing from a fledgling, struggling effort of die-hards with long beards (yup - you know the sort), and, in this decade, it is mainstream and has found a foothold that is no longer low-profile as it once was.<br />
<br />
My own dabbling with Python, Go and other languages and a variety of tools to help me build things that I need in my own day-to-day life, not to mention, at work, has been the best way for me to stay technical and keep the flame alive. I try to instill this in all others whom I interact with, to the point that some people take a different route if they see me coming down the hall (perhaps, I should dial back the enthusiasm a bit, hmmm).<br />
<br />
The entire premise, mindset, attitude and drive of the free/open source communities has been a huge inspiration to me - and one that I, personally, try to emulate as much as possible. It is not the mindset of hyper-competitiveness, aggression, climb-the-ladder-at-all-costs, put-other-people-down, oh-look-at-me-I'm-so-great and other attitudes that proliferate the industry. It is the co-operative and collaborative mindset, the uplifting of those who are struggling and helping put them on the path to growth and success, the inspiration and freedom to dabble in whatever technology you want without having to pay an arm and a leg to do it, the community of super-smart, diligent, committed and helpful people (most of them white men/women, BTW) who make this movement a movement. It is the way to free oneself from the bounds placed on us by either society or technology or environment. And find a way to contribute to a greater good by whatever means we have time and capability for.<br />
<br />
CodeChix has been my passion, my joy, my grief, my struggle and everything in-between these past several years. There have been countless times I have felt like giving up and just saying, "Hell with it - what am I doing? This is not going anywhere and there is no way I can make a difference in this quagmire."<br />
Particularly, when many former colleagues who join startups and become multi-millionaires, jeer at my foolishness for doing something that will never make me a rich, prosperous, status-symbol person. And, believe me, I am <i><b><u>constantly</u></b></i> asked why I'm not using my "great skills" to do something in the for-profit startup world with so much automatic help/mentorship from VC's and fellow startup-pers who can guide/help with every step.<br />
I don't have any mentors who have done what I'm trying to do (and have done so far) - working full time in a demanding job and founding/running a non-profit in my "free" time. And caring for elderly parents in even more "free" time.<br />
<br />
With all the flak that I have to take (both at work and outside of work) for CodeChix, I wouldn't change one damn thing. CodeChix has given me far more that I could have imagined - a voice and an outlet to share with others who are and have been running into the same issues (and more) that I have (and am) constantly run into. It has exposed me to so many fantastic women engineers (most of them far better than me technically and otherwise) who have inspired me to improve myself and others. Things I never thought I would have - ever. I have learned (had to) skills I never had in order to get past hurdles that showed up. And I have relied on so many wonderful, helpful people who were there for me through some very, very difficult times indeed. I would never have known them were it not for my work with CodeChix.<br />
<br />
Yes, the work is brutal - I have no life, as such. I work a tremendous amount - from board work, to fundraising, to vision, strategy, execution, accounting, taxes, technical scouting for the next thing to teach at DevPulseCon, speaking at conferences, listening/counseling/mentoring so many young and not-so-young women who reach out where I see the struggles they are going through and it enforces my will to continue to fight because no one else seems to care. And I take vacation time from work to do this. And, if I get sick, everything falls apart until I get better and re-chart trajectories with brutal prioritization and focus.<br />
<br />
This year might be a turnkey year (somewhat like last year) where the industry might <i>actually</i> start caring about retention of women engineers and technically-oriented women in PM and other roles. I'm hoping - time will tell. Maybe, all the millions of dollars spent on marketing/promotions and "looking good externally while trying to hide what's happening inside the company" will change and the C-level executives will start looking at the "Why" seriously and employing their formidable analytical/execution/financial powers to addressing the nebulous and insidious cultural issues that proliferate behaviors that affect retention. We will see.<br />
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In the meantime, I hope to use all my efforts (whatever I can spare) towards moving the needle by expanding DevPulseCon to India - fingers crossed this will happen if I get funding and significant support from companies both in the US and in India. First task is to have a great DevPulseCon in April in Mt. View this year - the line-up of speakers and workshops is looking fantastic :). I should be able to open registrations very soon, I hope. I still need a few more sponsor companies.<br />
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My fellow nominees for the Women in Open Source awards are all phenomenal - I am beyond honored to be considered to be in their league. As a builder of a technical community in a very niche area I hope to be able to win this award to bring light to the essential need for women engineers worldwide to have a voice, support and recognition for all our work/contributions and struggles so far.<br />
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To that extent, if any of the above resonates with you, I would love to have your support and your vote.<br />
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May the code be with you.<br />
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<br />Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-52286569214057154902018-01-31T21:49:00.002-08:002018-02-01T08:25:44.387-08:00Working towards DevPulseCon 2018 - April 20 & 21 @ Computer History MuseumWell..... this is the fourth year for DevPulseCon with our safe-space panels and open source technical workshop tracks - I never thought it would come so far and grow so fast. I'm pretty stunned, frankly. Which is both a good thing and a bad thing.<br />
<br />
Once again, I'm working weeknights and weekends trying to bring together all the threads to make this year's DevPulseCon another huge success like it was last year. And searching for new open source technology/software/hardware etc. to teach. And then find someone to teach it per our guidelines.<br />
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Each year I think it's going to get easier and each year, I have to work more and harder to get the same things done.<br />
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Sponsorships, board meetings, being the board chair and pushing things/people, recruiting, interviewing recruits, looking for volunteers, budgeting, streamlining the payment/account management process with my treasurer, coming up with which technical topics I want to target and what safe space panel topics would be most relevant at this time, finding speakers, instructors, coordination, logistics (food, venue, layout, A/V blah blah), blasting out emails, setting up eventbrite, website updates once we nail down the speakers/instructors/topics etc. <br />
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And the list goes on.<br />
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And it doesn't get any easier to try to find a conference chairperson with my limited budget. And to find volunteers - dedicated, no-nonsense, non-flaky volunteers who understand the mission and are passionate about technology.<br />
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My board has helped me find some sources this year (YAY!) since I have had NO time in my new group at work to dedicate time towards CodeChix work in the last 6 months.<br />
<br />
I'm still looking for sponsorships from companies across the bay area - I have 2 committed sponsors so far and need at least 5 or 6 more. Fingers crossed I will get them soon so that we can have the growth I need - another 50% growth in number of attendees. A whopping 300 women engineers - lick finger stick in the air. I'm hopeful.<br />
<br />
Last year, we had 220 women engineers attend for the 2 days of the conference. I had no idea there were that many women engineers in the bay area. When I started CodeChix nine years ago, I barely managed to find one other person - that too for a very short time since her schedule was as crazy as mine.<br />
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How did I manage to get to this point? By the great help and blessings of so many people around the world and open source friendly foundations and groups. I could never have done it without the fantastic women engineers I've met and learned from. I could never have done it if I hadn't seen so many women engineers suffering silently and being bullied and intimidated into submission for whatever reason. Like me at various points in my career. Brilliant, dedicated, sincere and committed engineers who truly want to be engineers (as opposed to many who just care about money/title/status and not about building unique, great and useful products).<br />
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I hope DevPulseCon gives them all hope that there is one place that they can come to where they will be able to talk about all the horrific things they have encountered and together we can find possible solutions (maybe build something) to mitigate these persistent and insidious cultural issues.<br />
<br />
And be reminded that the real reason they are doing what they are doing is because technology can free us all and that, since we're all engineers (not code monkeys), we have the power to truly make a difference. As they say, God helps those that help themselves.<br />
<br />
<i>Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I took the one less traveled by,</i><br />
<i>And that has made all the difference.</i><br />
<br />
- Robert Frost (<i>The Road Not Taken</i>)<br />
<br />Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-86774350811614633632018-01-27T12:55:00.000-08:002018-01-27T12:55:27.147-08:00A new year, new beginnings and new challenges (from Jan. 2017)This post, for some reason, didn't get published in January 2017. So, a year later, here goes. A lot has changed and a lot has not.<br />
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After a rather brutal 5 month release at work with long hours and pressure, I just returned from a much-too-short holiday season trip to Patagonia, Argentina (didn't have time to get to Chile) getting my fill of glacial climbs (Perito Moreno), icebergs of Upsala and Spegazzini and snow-capped peaks of Chaltén and, my favorite, the Gentoo and Magellanic penguins in Tierra Del Fuego. Hence, the iceberg and glacial references throughout this post. Hopefully, one day, I will have a chance to go back for a longer stay at one of the most beautiful and unique places on this planet.<br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">Gentoo Penguins, Perito Moreno Climb, Lago Argentino</span><br />
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As the new year gets underway and we gear up for unprecedented upheaval and turmoil and prepare ourselves to deal with unforseen challenges, I thought it would be good to understand the lay of the land from the perspective of the women engineers in the industry who have been working long and hard and kept under the radar.<br />
<br />
We are not the ones that give feel-good talks at so-called "technical" conferences where the "technical" aspect of the talk starts and ends with the title of the talk. In fact, most of us don't give talks, in general (unless, we're either pressured into it or feel like we have something reasonably worthwhile to talk about and we have high standards). We are too busy building things and making them work and doing so in a hostile and, often, insidiously toxic environments, designed and encouraged to intimidate, rule-by-fear and bestow racial and/or gender superiority and privilege.<br />
<br />
And yet, we are here, quietly (or, in some cases, not very quietly) being engineers and programmers and leaders and role models. But, only to those who are in the unenviable position of running into the serious hurdles that we run into when we have garnered the chops, brushed off the overt, superficial obstacles and have encountered the iceberg below the water. Well below. And it's enormity is overwhelming.<br />
<br />
The well-heeled (financially and socially) male dominated tech industry (glacier) is, finally, getting some scrutiny by a media that seems all too eager to look the other way. Some media headway has been made in this scrutiny over the last few years (some glacial melt ensued), but, I am expecting that headway to reverse course in the coming years. Perhaps, with a fierce backlash via an undercurrent. We shall see. This glacier might grow deeper and heavier as the climate shifts. And the icebergs will be bigger and, undoubtedly, deeper.<br />
<br />
So, let us prepare for stronger opposition to our being in this industry by finding ways to persist, contribute technically (possibly, non-technically as well, if it's needed) and be the resilient women that we are. Chalking a perilous route on the glacier to grab a nebulous foothold (you should have seen my 1-inch crampons - they were serious), isn't going to be easy. But, as I tell my good friend, Nithya Ruff, nothing that is worthwhile is easy. If it was easy, it would already have been done. And unlike my glacial climb, finding competent, dedicated guides who wish us well and protect and harbor us is going to be difficult, but, let's find them. They exist and are quiet as well - they too put themselves on perilous paths when they choose to be guides. And build that route and bring more women like us on to it. It takes a certain personality and character to do such things and it's not for everyone. Let us keep that in mind as well and not wallow in judgmental superiority or be portrayed as such because of who and what we are, for standing our ground and keeping it real. <br />
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Like the desert annuals, it might be that we bury ourselves to survive and wait for climactic shifts to grow again. That is what trailblazers do. Let's leave the "burn out in a blaze of glory and martyr ourselves" drama to the Hollywood movies.<br />
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<br />Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-62574209658191046482018-01-27T12:48:00.000-08:002018-01-27T12:48:32.072-08:00Of engineers and code monkeysThis is a post that has been delayed for months while I mustered up the energy/time to write it.<br />
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When I started my career as a software engineer in the mid-90's, I was indoctrinated (by the times) to learn about engineering (not just software even though my degree is in CS) and learn how to think about a problem, identify a possible path to a solution, think that through and, only then, consider anything close to coding/implementing a solution. And then test the heck out of it before thinking of a release - primarily because I was made very aware that any bugs that showed up in the field had enormous financial consequences to the company (think $1 million/day penalties). One never wanted to be on the infamous hit-list of major bug producers - trust me. So, much thought, consideration and vetting was done prior to any software/hardware release mostly in a waterfall-ish model. These are the people I grew up calling and identifying as "engineers" and up until a few years ago, I thought that most software engineers "grew up" in some similar work environments/circumstances.<br />
<br />
Well, I stand in the "delusional" category at this time with regards to my understanding of what "engineers" (particularly software) do and identify as.<br />
<br />
Over the last decade or so, there has been an alarming (to me) trend in the industry towards replacing "engineers" with what is generally known as "code monkeys" under the loud, drumbeats of "coding is great, everyone should/can code". <br />
<br />
So, what is a "code monkey"? <a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=code%20monkey" target="_blank">Urban dictionary</a> has several definitions, none of which, IMO, really convey what I mean by a "code monkey".<br />
<br />
To me, a "code monkey" is someone, who may or may not have college degrees in EE/CS or some other engineering discipline and is solely motivated by producing reams and reams of code in their language of choice without serious, dedicated thought about the problem at hand, root cause analysis, design or testing. S/he just wants to write some "code" - in the most thoughtless, error-prone, nightmarishly-insecure, unmaintainable fashion with the express purpose of proving that they can produce voluminous amounts of "code" which may or may not actually solve a problem. For a market that will pay money for it and use it and expect it to function reasonably well.<br />
<br />
Perhaps, I am being harsh. <br />
<br />
But, I have run into a number of people in this category who regale me with how many LOC they could write in the shortest amount of time. And that they were great engineers because they could do that. Any questions that I might have regarding, well, things like debugging where they would stumble with their answers (or outright lie), led to the assumption that I was "old school" and "out-of-date" and whatever I was asking was irrelevant to what their main goal was (producing reams of code). And work for a startup with "pedigree", make a "killing" and "retire". Or worse, start another similar endeavor. Which, frankly, boggled my mind.<br />
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These are the people that I'm relying on to build the next-big-thing in ML and Health apps and mission-critical systems? And fix security issues in other people's code? And, <gasp>, run future companies (not startups) and be part of senior management? I'm terrified. In fact, I'm beyond terrified - I don't know what to do/think. Talking to them to try to provide a different viewpoint did not yield satisfactory results.</gasp><br />
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So, I am, currently, pondering what I can do to try to address this big hurdle that I see - the principle source of which is the failure of universities and schools to teach/train young, brilliant minds to think critically and holistically. And for publicly traded companies to fail to instill basic training to indoctrinate good engineering practices, thought and decision-making in their new hires. Seems to me most companies have new hire on-boarding which is pretty much a marketing fluff show and games with some current process stuff thrown in. Oh yeah, and a "hackathon" to prove how technically savvy and cool a company is - really?<br />
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I never thought I got an exemplary education when I was going through school/college - needless to say, I stand woefully corrected and wondering what happened in the last couple of decades to trigger such a great deviation in the mindset and training of school/college graduates.<br />
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Or, maybe, I *am* totally out-of-it and my view of engineers vs code monkeys is something no one else cares about or wants to address. That makes me sad.<br />
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And, no, I don't think "engineers" can be replaced by robots. I definitely think "code monkeys" can.<br />
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<br />Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-79831263017364556992017-08-08T15:17:00.002-07:002017-08-08T15:17:41.950-07:00To the awesome women engineers and their allies at Google (& elsewhere) ...<br />
To the women engineers, developers, techies and their allies:<br />
<br />
I just want to say that as the world watches the repercussions of the memo that was leaked last week, we stand with you in solidarity as women engineers from around the world who are well aware of what you might be going through - because, we know what it's like to be in your shoes every single day.<br />
<br />
We know that you work supremely hard, that you are brilliant in all that you do (not just programming/coding) and that you will weather this current upheaval with grace, compassion, deep thought and conviction in your strengths and abilities as engineers and thought leaders. No one has any doubts in that regard.<br />
<br />
Except a small fraction of society that is deluded, terrified, uncomfortable and mentally/emotionally sequestered. <br />
<br />
There are many, both women and men, that create challenging environments for all of us in our different roles and responsibilities. Some are overt, others are not.<br />
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So, let's get back to being engineers - debug this, identify some of the root causes, pick one to target, innovate on it and build the next "hack the culture" tool to transform our workplaces for the better. No one can do it better than us.<br />
<br />
Please continue your great work, focus on the technology and your scientific and engineering strengths. The rest is just a distraction that you can watch on TV, if you have time :).<br />
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May the code be with you.<br />
<br />Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-41671873514726136822017-06-23T16:06:00.001-07:002017-06-25T12:02:11.021-07:00All of a sudden, I'm getting "Diversity"-hiring pings from random companies...<rant></rant><br />
This is a rant post.<br />
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I'm pretty tired and am running low on patience and I really don't want to have attitude-challenged companies ping me relentlessly to recruit women engineers in a desperate attempt to increase their "diversity" profiles. I do not want competent women engineers (who have got to this level despite all sorts of hurdles) to be put into companies that have no track record or clue about how to treat them and handle them. Unless they can prove they can.<br />
<rant></rant><br />
To all the companies (startups in particular) who have suddenly realized that their "bro-culture" is going to get them into serious trouble following the Uber drama and outcome, and are suddenly desperate to portray a "diverse" attitude:<br />
<ul>
<li>Do not ping CodeChix for "sponsorship" if you cannot prove the following:</li>
<ul>
<li>Active (provable) steps you took since Day 1 of your inception (company formation) that you wanted and cared about competent women engineers.</li>
<li>If your company is more than 2 years old and you had at least a couple of women engineers in your team, that they got promoted or compensated on par with all other employees commensurate with qualifications and recorded (untampered) contributions.</li>
<li>Written proof from your women engineers that they are actually happy to work with the rest of the team and don't have to put up with a bro-culture on a day-to-day basis. </li>
<li>A standardized set of technical interview questions that all candidates are asked regardless of gender. And verification that it is used consistently and has been for at least one year.</li>
<li>A record of why any candidate was rejected or hired - particularly, women engineers.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
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Otherwise, I suggest you REBOOT your company (see below). </div>
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And, yes, it's HARD. Starting and running your own company is HARD. Life is HARD too. </div>
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Deal with it. </div>
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It is MUCH harder for senior women engineers to find a decent company and colleagues to work with. Trust me.</div>
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How to REBOOT your bro_culture company<bro_culture_company>:</bro_culture_company></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><b>Fire anyone who instigated the bro_culture</b> (founder's decision. If the founder is complicit, no worries. The REBOOT will go into an infinite loop of it's own accord for this special use case.)</li>
<li><b>Rename</b> & <b>reform</b> company (preferably with a <b>competent, non-token, female co-founder</b>)</li>
<li>Follow guidelines above regarding <b>records and measures</b> - should be part of your handbook</li>
<li><b>Hire</b> your first <b>female</b> engineer - make sure her options are commensurate with her being one of the first hires in your company (Guideline: <b>if you IPO, she and the next 3 generations of her </b><b>family should not have to worry about money.</b>)</li>
<li>Have a % of her workload include <b>interviewing</b> (rigorously) <b>every</b> candidate that you hire. </li>
<li><b>Target</b> <b><u>3</u></b> <b>women engineers</b> as part of your employee pool <b>within the first year</b>. Make sure the women have complementary skills so they work well together and like/respect each other.</li>
<li><b>Evaluate</b> yourselves every year via polling of employees</li>
<li><b>Establish</b> and <b>evaluate</b> accountability measures for all engineering management. Take a look at the <a href="http://ncwit.org/" target="_blank"><b>NCWIT</b></a> site for information - particularly <a href="https://www.ncwit.org/resources/top-10-ways-managers-can-increase-visibility-technical-women" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="https://www.ncwit.org/resources/top-10-ways-managers-can-retain-technical-women" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://www.ncwit.org/resources/top-10-ways-successful-technical-women-increase-their-visibility" target="_blank">here</a>.</li>
<li>Ping me/CodeChix for sponsorship with the data you gathered and I will see what I can do</li>
</ul>
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<br />Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-74928647967142220642017-05-14T16:19:00.000-07:002017-05-14T16:19:42.203-07:00OSCON 2017 talk experienceAfter many years, I gave a talk at OSCON yesterday on my experiences with starting and running CodeChix over the last 8+ years. Something I tend not to talk about. My slides are posted at: <a href="https://t.co/GrPupvs18m">https://t.co/GrPupvs18m</a>.<br />
<br />
Initially, Nithya Ruff had proposed a talk about community building (she's on my board) and I had chatted quite a bit with her about various non-technical aspects of running and building CodeChix and having a full time job at the same time. So, when she suggested that it would be a good idea to share my experiences, I agreed to be a co-presenter with her on the talk. For this talk, I took PTO days from work since VMware was not involved in any way. <br />
<br />
After several rounds of editing of slides and feedback from Nithya and Kelsey, I decided to talk a little bit about my career background and then focus on CodeChix' impact over the last 8 years or so.<br />
<br />
It was great being able to talk to a small audience about OFconnect, CodeChix Technical Curriculums and DevPulseCon.<br />
<br />
I had to rush through the latter part of my presentation due to time limitations. There is so much to cover and even though I tried to be succinct, it takes time to explain the subtle differences between industry vs open source mindsets, the differences in the target audiences where I have one sector of very dedicated, driven women engineers who really care about engineering and another sector that is only interested in a job, not really interested in being particularly driven - just a secondary job to pay the bills while the husband does the primary job. Tailoring programs to meet both audiences is hard especially since my natural instinct gravitates towards the former. But, I have to meet the needs of both audiences despite my personal biases.<br />
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Not to mention the little side story about the behemoth company which touts undying support of open source on their website and wouldn't let 2 of their women engineers contribute to OFconnect.<br />
<br />
I was glad I got to put one image slide of a glacier into the presentation after climbing an offshoot of Vatnajökull in Skaftafell national park in Iceland. The landscape navigation for our careers as women engineers is very similar to navigating/climbing glaciers, I think. <br />
<br />
I mentioned to the audience about the three main categories of hurdles for open source contributions by women engineers - Technical (not really an issue), Logistical (just needs more practice) and Cultural (biggest hurdle and gnarly). Also, about building a "trusted net" to rely on for support/deflection and how hard that is. And why. <br />
<br />
Overall, I think the audience was receptive - except for the one guy whose eyes kept closing every few minutes. Our talk was right before lunch - his blood sugar might have plummeted.<br />
<br />
Hopefully, I will get to present the rest of the material that I have (part of draft 1) at a developer-centric conference someday soon. <br />
<br />
Especially the part where I debunk some of the touted "solutions" and "recommendations" by clueless institutions in ivory towers who believe more in dictating untested bullshit and extracting lots of money on that premise. Unconscious bias training my foot - how about CONSCIOUS bias training? No wonder the proverbial needle hasn't moved in the positive direction over the last several years.<br />
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Time for companies and boards to do some root-cause analysis and have the hutzpah to be able to handle the hard work instead of focusing on the easy, low hanging fruit and patting themselves (and each other) on the back.<br />
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Peace. Nose-to-the-grindstone from next week for several months towards the next release of our product.<br />
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May the code be with you.<br />
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Oh yeah - had some awesome ramen at <a href="https://www.yelp.com/biz/daruma-ramen-austin" target="_blank">Daruma Ramen</a> in Austin about two blocks from the convention center. Try it if you're in the vicinity. Miso (with chicken), fried pork dumplings and green tea. And they had a pretty mean purple sweet potato ice cream which I couldn't eat much of because of my nasty cold (thanks to my long flight back from Rekjavik right before the conference).<br />
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<br />Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-89510095417233321722017-01-21T19:36:00.001-08:002017-01-21T19:36:03.114-08:00Open source legal implications, licenses and their impact...When you join a tech company, you usually end up signing some sort of employment agreement contract which, if you read carefully (<i>you MUST read this thoroughly</i>), probably states all sorts of restrictions on what you can or cannot do/own and the rights of the hiring company to own your work, whether it is during working hours or in your spare time including ideas you might have in the shower or anywhere else. In many cases, this extends to open source contributions that you might make which might be unrelated to anything you do at work.<br />
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As we grapple with a rapidly changing software and hardware industry where the open source juggernaut slowly, but steadily, steam rolls over proprietary software, we are faced with difficult and contentious issues of what "belongs" to the company (a proprietary, closed mindset) and what "belongs" to the employee that they can contribute towards during their spare time. Especially for contributions which are unrelated to the employee's day job.<br />
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So, it's imperative a developer/contributor understands the variety of open source licenses that exist, what they imply and how one should use them.<br />
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The choice of the open source license for a new project can directly or indirectly affect how it grows, how many contributors and maintainers it has, how it is used, whether people can make money using it commercially or not and, eventually, whether the project is sustainable.<br />
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Here are a few things to think about regarding licenses as you enter the world of open source:<br />
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<ol>
<li>Talk to the open source office at your company and ask them for clear guidelines on what is your intellectual property and what is the company's. If you don't have an open source office, locate the legal department and ask someone in that team. If they don't know, talk to the legal department about your concerns and see if you can get some sort of guidance from them.</li>
<li>Read and re-read your employment agreement to understand what the implications are for your ideas and contributions to open source. Does the company own any contribution you make regardless of whether it's related to work or not? Is it restricted to software, hardware, both? What about blogs, presentations at external conferences where you are not sponsored by your company, published articles in journals or technical magazines?</li>
<li>Read, re-read and <i>completely understand </i>what the different types of open source licenses are - start with this site <a href="https://opensource.org/licenses/category">https://opensource.org/licenses/category</a>. Also, look at <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/</a><i>.</i></li>
<li>If you create open source software or hardware, ensure that you are clearly stating what license is used for contributions to that project. If you're unsure about what license to use, ask around, go to open source-centric meetups and talk to speakers to increase your knowledge and get help online. Also, see <a href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-recommendations.html">https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-recommendations.html</a>.</li>
<li>If you contribute to existing open source software or hardware, ensure that you understand what license is used for your contributions and if you are allowed to share it, own it and use it as you and others intend.</li>
</ol>
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Your choice of license (whether you started the project or are contributing to an existing one) can have a significant impact on the culture of the project. MIT, Apache and BSD licenses are extremely open and allow contributors to share and contribute freely. Projects that use these licenses might not, however, have stringent rules and oversight to vet the quality of the contributions since anyone can contribute - whether they have an appropriate background or not. This could also lead to many new contributors asking for help and maintainers being overwhelmed (and, therefore, quitting). If you go the GPL route, the various versions have varying implications and your contributor/maintainer profile and personality might be quite different. What if it's more litigious - is this what you want for your project? Do you want your project to be commercially distributable with acknowledgement to the origins and contributions back to the original project? </div>
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I tend to use the MIT or BSD licenses for projects - <a href="https://github.com/CodeChix-OpenSource/CodeChix-Technical-Curriculums/tree/master/VMware-CodeHouse" target="_blank">CodeChix Technical Curriculums</a> contain a series of technical curriculums spanning mobile, security, NLP and Big Data under the MIT license. We used the Apache license for the <a href="https://github.com/CodeChix-OpenSource/OFconnect" target="_blank">OFconnect</a> SDN controller project.</div>
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But, that may not be the case all the time, depending on what makes sense and how I would want to structure the impact of the project and what I call the "target market" - as in what types of developers do I want to attract to the project. I'm still thinking about this a fair bit and pondering pros/cons and what would be most beneficial for my "target market" - women engineers in industry who typically have very little "free" time and energy.</div>
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Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-51338409448123376422017-01-16T12:54:00.002-08:002017-01-16T13:57:10.843-08:00On open source - scratching the surface<!--StartFragment-->
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At CodeChix, we have always been strong proponents of open source in all it's forms - software, hardware, design, photography etc. It's a fundamental requirement for all programs that we run (tech talks, hands-on workshops and hacking sessions) and our conference, DevPulseCon only accepts talks and workshops targeting open source projects.<br />
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Over the years, it's been an eye-opening experience for me that there are so many companies that tout open source support on their websites and marketing verbiage and, yet, when you look closely or instigate an open source project that might "compete" with a proprietary product at said company, all "open source goodwill" goes out of the window in a flash.<br />
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This happened to me when I was building the CodeChix team to work on the Open Networking Foundation's OpenFlow Controller international competition consisting of 4 fantastic women engineers from 3 different companies. One of the companies, a behemoth of networking software and hardware which proclaimed huge support for open source on their website etc., denied two of their women engineers (CodeChix members) on the team from working on this competition project. Their argument was it was a "competing" effort to their proprietary controllers and they would not allow these two women engineers to participate in this effort that was being run by CodeChix. Naturally, I pointed out the discrepancy between what they were touting on their website and what they were telling me. Which resulted in complete silence and I suspect my queries were relegated to the proverbial bitbucket.<br />
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So, I pinged the ONF Executive Director, Dan Pitt, about it and mentioned this dilemma - I couldn't build a team without these two engineers - they would be doing all the work in their spare time (nights and weekends) just like the rest of the team and I really needed them in order to meet all the submission criteria for the competition.<br />
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After several email threads with the ONF, myself and the legal department at the offending networking company, it was finally agreed that as long as CodeChix would open source all the work (of course, that was the whole point after all from my perspective), said networking company would be "OK" with the two women engineers working on this project. The whole process took about a month and half to get resolved. With a lot of angst and stress and juggling on my part. And the team took a big hit since we couldn't really be fully productive until both these team members had the green light to join and start their work.<br />
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The moral of the story being, never give up. And call out the industry when they try to ignore their own policies. I'm not saying this will always work - it helps to have a heavyweight organization to back your efforts. But open source is the future - for the women engineers who are truly dedicated, brilliant, persistent and resilient. It's not for everyone, I think. It requires a very different mindset and attitude from what traditional proprietary product development entails as far as processes, accountability, collaboration and effectiveness. In some cases, it's much more difficult to make a mark in open source and get recognition for it. It's not like you have a manager/boss who's watching you or assigning you tasks. You are your own boss and that can be a good thing or a burden - depends on your personality and motivation.<br />
<br />
But, if it is in your DNA to run things, open source is a potential path to success as you choose to define it - whether it's for contributing to solving hard problems, improving the world or teaching/learning.Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-74441520211711789262015-11-07T14:17:00.002-08:002015-11-07T14:17:31.694-08:00Coder[xx] - a resounding splash in a rather still and brackish pond...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqnmjD2pzezmlyeR_ZfEr3abrvzuwMkV7ZKklTYRLIRoZgNYnlaE9-z4CpG7Jjav1GOSq7oS7AmNRajB_JH6ga67l4Rmk8a9wcpGWrmanA9-Mq2vZpYXFffPbNwyHNuIuhIB1k3g/s1600/12182729_702871553177176_2738446758053741189_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqnmjD2pzezmlyeR_ZfEr3abrvzuwMkV7ZKklTYRLIRoZgNYnlaE9-z4CpG7Jjav1GOSq7oS7AmNRajB_JH6ga67l4Rmk8a9wcpGWrmanA9-Mq2vZpYXFffPbNwyHNuIuhIB1k3g/s320/12182729_702871553177176_2738446758053741189_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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It's been about two weeks since the inaugural <a href="http://codechix.org/" target="_blank">CodeChix</a> hyper-technical conference (<a href="http://coderxx.org/" target="_blank">Coder[xx]</a>). And I'm still recovering from it. To all the nay-sayers (both companies and individuals) who thought this is something that is not needed given the plethora of existing (mostly male) conferences - take a look, learn and rethink. The data is very clear that this is an absolute need and so is the enthusiasm and response.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizY4NLBwSgpYXG1B-kBX5jPL0PTR9UE181uqVqiBk95RwUyhjesE6hk2tVu0UI4qdcfcM6zyLxFQyqsGuWQ91t3Udzu5waraJjrUfcUy0T9yiR9XMWdMgl91nm0iAazeP6dQdG9w/s1600/12045519_701699719961026_9005780749014693085_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizY4NLBwSgpYXG1B-kBX5jPL0PTR9UE181uqVqiBk95RwUyhjesE6hk2tVu0UI4qdcfcM6zyLxFQyqsGuWQ91t3Udzu5waraJjrUfcUy0T9yiR9XMWdMgl91nm0iAazeP6dQdG9w/s200/12045519_701699719961026_9005780749014693085_o.jpg" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0aY8WPySVNlB67BIvX8Go1iOLYk4KBSlz_Ng5M7K_lIxkkrQq8ixwTGG0Yo9SB7q6IUaMRui0riuaOxX0DPoqVaTgV0Q6a2bcFcX7lYbxJE9cNN99SW1s8iJYjY8fkJiEtNSHKQ/s1600/12119995_701701596627505_4750026710056011169_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0aY8WPySVNlB67BIvX8Go1iOLYk4KBSlz_Ng5M7K_lIxkkrQq8ixwTGG0Yo9SB7q6IUaMRui0riuaOxX0DPoqVaTgV0Q6a2bcFcX7lYbxJE9cNN99SW1s8iJYjY8fkJiEtNSHKQ/s200/12119995_701701596627505_4750026710056011169_o.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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What an absolute pleasure to see such a huge demand from women engineers in industry (and a few students from SoCal and Sonoma) all over the bay area as well as some global travelers who happened to be in the bay area and joined us. We were sold out and pulled off a conference full of technical content spanning programming languages, tools, technologies, maker-ism and a panel session on how to get ahead which was packed and electric. All in 6 weeks. With no prior experience in this sort of thing. With almost no funding.<br />
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I set the tone of the conference in the beginning by welcoming everyone to a safe space, one that is open to women and all who identify as women (of which there were several attendees) and the supportive men who were there to help us succeed and to share their knowledge with us. And that we were all there to learn, share and learn about each other and what we work on.<br />
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I also made myself abundantly clear on my take on recruiting at the conference - not allowed in any way, shape or form. Including a promise of immediate, impolite and very firm ousting should I see this happen or hear of it happening.<br />
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It was, I thought, exactly the right size at almost a 100 headcount for what I had envisioned and made it easier for everyone to have a chance to actually meet/chat with a number of new people and establish connections.<br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Lou_Jepsen" target="_blank">Mary Lou Jepsen</a>'s keynote was absolutely fantastic and everyone who was able to find standing space (yes, we only had one large room so people had to stand) was inspired and she was mobbed for several hours afterwards answering questions and responding to a crowd of eager women surrounding her until I rescued her :).<br />
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The panel discussion on growing in your career took an absolutely candid look at the state of things as they stand from different perspectives (industry, some academia and freelancing) and hearing from an interested and engaged audience that started participating within the first 5 minutes or so.<br />
No recording or social media allowed - this was a safe space panel and I wanted to have everyone speak freely with no chance of retaliation of any sort. At least, that was my hope.<br />
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I couldn't have done it without the fantastic volunteers - both the core, dedicated team who helped with getting the conference organized and presented in 6 weeks to the day volunteers who stepped up to handle any minor hiccups and were there when we needed them !<br />
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Our surveys show an overwhelmingly positive response to our hyper-technical conference and we have already been bombarded with questions about when the next one will be.<br />
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Some of the survey comments:<br />
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"<span style="background-color: #e5f4f3; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="background-color: #e5f4f3; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px;">I think the conference was amazing! Hats off to the panel discussion!"</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #e5f4f3; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: #e5f4f3; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px;">"</span><span style="background-color: #e5f4f3; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px;">i am so glad i decided to go to this event, although i didn't get to meet anyone new (introvert thing), i walked out feeling so humbled, and yet so inspired! both the codechix team and all the speakers are just amazing! a big thank you! i am looking forward to coder[xx] 2016 already!"</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #e5f4f3; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: #e5f4f3; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px;">"</span><span style="background-color: #e5f4f3; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px;">Good talks and qualified, dedicated and passionate speakers, strong keynote Candid discussions, open career advice Good turnout for Sunday and possibilities of networking within engineers Helpful and dedicated organizers and volunteers Professional demeanor of speakers ,attendees , organizers and volunteers Overall very smoothly run conference- no major confusion or hoopla"</span><br />
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At present, we're trying to get all the videos wrapped up and posted on our <a href="http://youtube.com/codechix" target="_blank">CodeChix YouTube</a> channel...<br />
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Stay tuned for 2016 events and the next hyper-technical conference from CodeChix - we've set the trailhead and cleared some of the route for others to follow...<br />
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For the first time running a conference (the first of it's kind), the feedback is clear - women engineers need this, want this, will flock to it and this could be the catalyst for much-needed change.<br />
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The question remains - will the companies, who are mired in their introverted, ethnocentric outlook and bottom-lines, look up from their myopic viewpoints and see this? And, will they support it? <br />
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We'll see how this plays out over time...<br />
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<br />Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-44566259531479160802015-10-19T20:37:00.001-07:002015-10-19T20:40:13.471-07:00On Code Reviews - Part 1 of 3<br />
I've been pondering writing about this topic for a while and never really had the time to corral my thoughts and write it up. <br />
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Until I flew to GHC and had time at the airport and on the plane :).<br />
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This is not an exhaustive coverage of code reviews and is meant as a basic understanding and guideline for engineers. <br />
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It amazes me how many engineers (both young and old) still don't know much about code reviews and I have encountered some who have been working for several decades and have never had to do a code review (begs the question what sort of architecture/design/implementation have they produced?).<br />
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Some, usually the latter category, are vehemently opposed to having their code "poked" at by others and believe that they are entitled to writing/designing whatever they choose regardless of what others might think. Generally, one tends to avoid working with such engineers, but, they do seem to pop up rather alarmingly frequently.<br />
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So, in short, code reviews are essential and all good software (and hardware interface engineers, if applicable) perform them religiously.<br />
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<b>NOTE:</b> <i>A basic requirement for code reviews is to "Check your ego at the door". Your work is going to be reviewed/dissected and comments will arise that will not be easy to digest. This is a good thing.</i><br />
<i>A code review is not about you, it's about the code/product quality. And you won't be the only one - everyone has to go through it. So, deal with it graciously, be thankful that you have good reviewers and that you are, eventually, going to become a better engineer because of it.</i><br />
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<b>What is a code review?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
A code review is quite literally a <b><u>reading/understanding and critical thinking process that is applied to programs/code</u> </b>that either needs to be shipped as part of a product or used internally by developers to build products. Written and/or oral feedback is given to the author on whatever is being reviewed so that s/he can incorporate the feedback and improve things before checking in the code into mainline or a branch.<br />
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By no means is this an exact method for eliminating all errors in a given piece of software, but, it is reasonably effective (if used properly) at identifying errors, potential errors and, eventually, providing quantitative and qualitative feedback to the author about her/his technical approach and implementation. <br />
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The review might also include architecture/design of the component that is being reviewed as a background for the reviewers, particularly if the code is a critical path in the product and/or interfaces with other critical paths in the product. <br />
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There are a whole host of other definitions for a code review, but, this is the one that makes most sense to me.<br />
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<b>Why do we need code reviews?</b><br />
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Code reviews are and have been one of the few ways of mitigating programming and design risk associated with a product - early in the development cycle. Usually, it is a human process to understand and evaluate architecture, design and programming paradigms as well as algorithms in order to visually and conceptually understand how a given piece of a product works and is implemented. <br />
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In the end, code reviews help a developer/engineer become a better developer/engineer and, also, establishes technical standards within a group of developers/engineers, resulting in a better product in the end. It also provides a way for a team to understand and evaluate code that they might not otherwise know, should a bug in that piece of software appear in the field, and the original author may not be available to triage and fix it. <br />
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Apart from that, code reviews help developers identify integration issues well before the code is checked in and this alleviates the burden on QA/QE and, eventually, results in a better product in the end (again). The entire goal is to create a more robust, well-architected and well-designed product that has few bugs in the field and happier customers. <br />
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Leading to more money so you can afford that ridiculous mortgage and send your kids to a decent school... (I see this among all my married w/ kids friends).<br />
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Coming next...... Types of code reviews and pointers on how to conduct them effectively<br />
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<br />Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-27942768693967608542015-10-17T21:55:00.000-07:002015-10-19T20:54:15.868-07:00My dream coming true... fingers crossed<br />
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">A dream and a hope that I had 4 years ago is finally coming to fruition - all due to the gumption and hard work of a handful of volunteers who all decided at the end of July that they would really like to make my dream come true.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">And that they really didn't have any truly technical conferences for women to go to. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">We had gathered for a volunteer appreciation lunch and 5 of us decided that this would be worth it for all of us - Anne, Sushma, Deepa, Blythe and myself. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Blythe signed up to be the conference chair and I signed up to be her mentor/guide/instructor and whatever else was needed. And we formed the conference committee, recruited Val and Whitney for the website and graphics and we were on our way. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">That was 2 months ago. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">And so, on the heels of the Grace Hopper Conference this year, we, at CodeChix, are one week away from our first technical conference - <a href="http://coderxx.org/" target="_blank">Coder[xx] - Unleash the engineer within you</a>. To be held at the illustrious Computer History Museum in Mt. View on October 25. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Coder[xx] is pronounced "Coders" and the double-x stands for the double-x chromosome.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">And we are almost sold out. Thanks to PayPal and Deepa Dhurka for getting us some funding but we are pretty much running this conference on ticket sales.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">I had instructed Whitney to create a logo with the Andromeda Galaxy (I like stars/space) and with the slogan "Unleash the Engineer within you" and she, once again, created an amazing logo and banner. And it sports our well known VT100-inspired color-scheme of black and green which I had originated in 2010.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">And none other than the pioneering <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Lou_Jepsen" target="_blank">Mary Lou Jepsen</a> is our keynote speaker ! I am so happy and grateful to her for accepting my request.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">If you are a woman engineer who is serious about her career, you should come to this conference. And if you have a daughter, bring her ! I feel that both daughters and sons need to see their mothers in their element - being fantastic engineers and being serious about their professions. That is why, I created the "Mother & Daughter" ticket - for all the awesome mothers who need to show their daughters (we'll open it up to sons next year) how great they are.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">This is the banner Whitney created per my specifications:</span><br />
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Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-36793597638808659492015-08-20T21:52:00.001-07:002015-08-20T21:52:06.229-07:00KQED NewsroomHere's the video. No, that's not me in the first picture.<br />
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<br />Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-49301376228744816372015-07-31T19:14:00.000-07:002015-07-31T19:14:08.968-07:00On panels and interviews...<br />
I was on a panel interview today regarding the topic of "Women in Technology"/"Diversity". <br />
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And it reminded me why I stopped doing interviews and panels altogether.<br />
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It was nerve-racking. I had lots of make-up on (necessary according to the really nice woman who did my make-up), bright lights, no idea what questions would be asked and which direction the conversation would go (always dicey with me given my strong opinions and my dual-role as full-time engineer as well as a Founder/Exec. Dir.) and one never knows which bits of conversations might be used out of context etc. in the far future. Stressful.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3oUz6C13v3oA9J5We3KFJHAyplm-ZRmNOP9DPtrJtSrJfF3tcm87ho7H6kJjiC4bIYEJz_hzVFEvCg5BIxIlLzJlTXG53hmEtOVZ0DLbVL-hgjDsVQuGIsNX0OxlCmJwekuF8rQ/s1600/IMG_20150731_125928147.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3oUz6C13v3oA9J5We3KFJHAyplm-ZRmNOP9DPtrJtSrJfF3tcm87ho7H6kJjiC4bIYEJz_hzVFEvCg5BIxIlLzJlTXG53hmEtOVZ0DLbVL-hgjDsVQuGIsNX0OxlCmJwekuF8rQ/s200/IMG_20150731_125928147.jpg" width="112" /> </a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJcK-fRJqpqWvW5TuATKm2Ask9VS2lo2JZ11f0DIKfD13YrOngx4o1nADhNatGzP3SDRGZ-FHykPlOPMLB0jrY4KpVQrBB5RBe7ZyfBIvFbue7jYwxkhaH1at2sXBeEcd7rRJvDA/s1600/IMG_20150731_140005383.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJcK-fRJqpqWvW5TuATKm2Ask9VS2lo2JZ11f0DIKfD13YrOngx4o1nADhNatGzP3SDRGZ-FHykPlOPMLB0jrY4KpVQrBB5RBe7ZyfBIvFbue7jYwxkhaH1at2sXBeEcd7rRJvDA/s200/IMG_20150731_140005383.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="200" /></a>But this panel was special - it was at one of my favorite public media organizations - <a href="http://www.kqed.org/tv/programs/newsroom/" target="_blank">KQED</a>. I love NPR, have always listened to NPR for as long as I can remember (yes, even when I was little and my dad would put on PRI every morning on the ancient radio that we had) and donated whenever I could. The quality, breadth and depth of KQED/NPR programs never ceases to amaze me and I was honored that they wanted me to be on a panel.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkmPBNwk1zxd84zjvrt3MGbnLwYwT1GFndubcuoW2kIY-078dOAQvzdcbimLC3UVAv-N8c1x_V2qEarf01Mr38OxxQ531BODR5MygJnfZLj17KKeihhHjl_TAdfkD5gmuOBkzi-w/s1600/IMG_20150731_130904358.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkmPBNwk1zxd84zjvrt3MGbnLwYwT1GFndubcuoW2kIY-078dOAQvzdcbimLC3UVAv-N8c1x_V2qEarf01Mr38OxxQ531BODR5MygJnfZLj17KKeihhHjl_TAdfkD5gmuOBkzi-w/s200/IMG_20150731_130904358.jpg" width="200" /></a>So, I HAD to break my "no interviews" stance and go.<br />
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Not to mention, it was a chance to promote <a href="http://codechix.org/" target="_blank">CodeChix</a> in the hopes that maybe, someone who cared (enough) would donate substantial funds and we could <b>actually</b> become a non-profit organization that would have funds to <b>actually</b> make a difference. Hey, I can hope :).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ5XjecVrA-iP2PuTvGGOsk1paIdMS1-q7fQWGrUpgVbP_OZGs-WJzsk8iMEEyg3P7VYzO5S95_TyOK3B0mZXfOHLWDst8qaIRhJ-tgBJNKfEKTAPQ2QJGaFsqUDDs0FzRqOxPAg/s1600/IMG_20150731_140408899.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ5XjecVrA-iP2PuTvGGOsk1paIdMS1-q7fQWGrUpgVbP_OZGs-WJzsk8iMEEyg3P7VYzO5S95_TyOK3B0mZXfOHLWDst8qaIRhJ-tgBJNKfEKTAPQ2QJGaFsqUDDs0FzRqOxPAg/s320/IMG_20150731_140408899.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
The entire panel discussion lasted about 14 minutes (did I mention nerve-racking?), and I managed not to say anything too controversial :) - I think. My fellow panelists were great and their banter made it easier for me to relax a little. Sophy Lee from Shuddle (who brought her Public Relations manager with her), Cecilia Stallsmith from Bessemer VP (it's a venture capital firm).<br />
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We were shown a video of 3 women (all working in San Francisco, I believe) who spoke about the dearth of women engineers in the field, cultural barriers and how great coding was. I couldn't tell how many years of developer experience each of the three women had and whether their developer experiences were purely web development (typical for SF jobs). Guessing at their ages, it seemed like they were all pretty young (20's, maybe early 30's). It made me feel very old :).<br />
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Following the video, we were asked about our thoughts on the video and, then, Thuy Vu, our moderator, (who, by the way, is fantastic, as is Monica Lam, the producer), asked us questions about what we perceived regarding the retention and recruitment of women in technology. Not particularly specific to women engineers persay.<br />
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I talked about CodeChix and what we do and what I want to achieve through the organization. And quoted some numbers which I thought I remembered from <a href="http://anitaborg.org/insights-tools/infographics/why-women-leave/" target="_blank">this article</a> and, of course, got it wrong (sigh). I managed to mention something about "background radiation" towards the end when we were asked about Ellen Pao (all of us were a bit startled by that question) including mentioning that I was "cautiously optimistic" about cultural change.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;">Cool picture of the KQED Newsroom tech - not sure what all that equipment is (other than the monitors)</span></td></tr>
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To be frank, it all went by really quickly and I don't quite remember all the things I said and what all the questions were. But, it did make me realize that there needs to be a panel or some such discussion somewhere *just* focused on veteran women engineers/developers, particularly ones who work outside the "SF Bubble". And the unique issues that occur with our kind (especially the ones that have been around for a while and have seen many changes and have had many good and bad experiences). It is a controversial area and, unless it's talked about and pushed in front of people, the question of why the needle isn't really moving in the right direction, is going to continue to come up.<br />
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These are women engineers that built the long haul networks that carry cell/home/video data across continents, that built systems to distribute satellite video to thousands of households, that make the software that runs fortune 500 companies via virtual machines, that build gadgets that transform industries. They are the unsung heroes - and they should be heard (if they want). By the world. They are the ones that inspire and show us the true essence of grit, brilliance, handling the "background radiation" with balance and grace, and shining against the odds. Because the odds are not going to go away anytime soon. They might reduce a bit, but, that, too, is to be seen.<br />
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I am privileged to know such women - they are few and rare. They tend to shirk publicity (almost like the plague), but, I think I can convince them if the opportunity arises.<br />
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I haven't seen the video or audio recording of the panel yet. It's supposed to air at 8p tonight on KQED newsroom.<br />
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<br />Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-81120174298115781442015-05-31T18:38:00.001-07:002015-05-31T18:38:15.306-07:00Building a Theremin using an Arduino for all of $40<br />
We had an excellent workshop in May on the Arduino Uno and used it to build a Theremin !! Our very own Sushma Rao (represented CodeChix at Grace Hopper 2014 for her OpenCL talk with Sthiti Deka) organized this event. And it was a crowd pleaser for sure. We had many requests for encores.<br />
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We sold-out all tickets, prepared all the hardware, software and Smitha Pisupati instructed students ranging from experienced software and hardware engineers to complete newbies to 10-year olds who attended the workshop.<br />
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And everyone had a functional Theremin by the end of the 3.5 hour workshop !<br />
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Check out the photos and video:<br />
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Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-84415030642943852532015-05-31T18:34:00.003-07:002015-05-31T22:08:20.963-07:00Patience pays off - 501(c)3 Independent statusWell, CodeChix is now an independent 501(c)3 educational non-profit !! <br />
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I got the paperwork from the IRS earlier this year and then, well, life happened. And everything took a back seat till I got my job, health and responsibilities sorted and am just now beginning to get back to an even keel (so-to-speak).<br />
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O'Reilly and CodeChix are partners this year - they are really great!<br />
<br />Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-69512649146738993652014-10-22T12:39:00.000-07:002014-10-22T12:39:37.352-07:00On growth trajectories for women engineers/developersI subscribe to a few mailing lists for devs and someone asked a question regarding career path for developers/engineers and keeping up with what I call the "new college grad" syndrome, i.e., early 20's, can do all-nighters easily and armed with the latest/greatest skill set from uni. etc.<br />
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So, I shared some of my thoughts in the hopes of helping this person determine what she should do for her career. She wanted to know what others did/thought and the challenges on keeping up with "young whipper-snappers" - her phrasing, not mine :).<br />
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I've been a developer/engineer/IC for over 2 decades in both startups (of various sizes/industry) and multi-nationals. It has been a very conscious choice on my part which included making decisions based on my needs (skills, happiness, balance, interest etc.). I have had the good fortune of being a part of many fantastic products and can say that most people around the world use products that execute my code (no, I did not work for Google), when people use their cell phone or tv. It has been a great way to learn new tech and skills (mostly on the fly) and be dynamic.</div>
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In a large company, your choices will probably be limited to either "technical" or "management"/ "pm" track. And you will probably be asked to choose. So far, the growth trajectory for most female developers has been to transition to the "management" track or "pm" track. Very few pursue the "technical" track - there are associated challenges with this particular track which encompass non-technical issues that persist in our industry.</div>
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I keep getting pushed by management (especially recently), to move into a management-centric role. In the past, I have turned down such requests regardless of my skill set simply because I didn't see it as something that I wanted to do. However, keeping up with the "young whipper-snappers" is very much a conscious thought in making my decision. If you choose to be on the technical track, this is something you must accept. You cannot have one without the other. </div>
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Management has it's own set of challenges - I'm sure others can comment on this more than I can. However, it might be less affected by the "new college grad" syndrome, as I call it :).</div>
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A role where you are managing as well as coding/designing, is probably most available in a startup environment. Balancing the two (sometimes conflicting skill/mindsets) can be a challenge depending on your skills/interests. You will be creating/building/leading something fantastic and it will be thrilling and fun. However, the stress that it could create can be quite damaging at times - some trade-offs to think about.</div>
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So, it boils down to what really drives you and makes you happy. Trade-offs come with whichever path you take.</div>
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Note that this quandary is common for both men and women. The difference is that the support system for the two genders is completely different (that is a whole other topic that could take days to discuss). And the societal/cultural pressures might also push each gender in a particular direction depending on where you live and what role you fill in your personal life.</div>
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I hope this helps you get an idea of what's out there and what the trend is. </div>
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Once again, thanks for broaching this great topic and</div>
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May the code be with you,</div>
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- Rupa</div>
Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-15839695998150093482014-10-20T21:43:00.000-07:002014-10-20T21:43:15.664-07:00Grace Hopper - 3rd year in a rowA couple of weeks ago, I had the good fortune of attending and speaking at Grace Hopper (USA) about PiDoorbell. This was the third year in a row that I spoke at GHC. In 2012, Chiu-ki Chan, Christina Schulman and I did our first major talk about "Letter to my younger self - Things I wish I knew when I started working". And we talked about Career, Networking and Negotiation to a room of 370+ women (fire code turned away many). I was in charge of negotiation since I had a lot of stories about this category. So, we did three skits on Negotiation in that talk. Which are still talked about since I got pinged by a young woman engineer at Google's GHC meetup a few weeks ago. Apparently, it was vastly entertaining - especially when I asked for a pony and Christina said "No Ponies !!!".<br />
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And in 2013, I talked about the RaspberryPi along with a bunch of women from Cisco and VMware at the Grace Hopper Conference in Bangalore, India. That was yet another standing-room-only workshop and we had a bunch of Rpi's that people got to ssh into and look at for a short while. I spent hours in my hotel room (while jet lagging like mad), setting up 4 Rpi's with breadboards, jumper wires, LED's etc. so that each table in the workshop could have their own setup. And that was great fun - it was fantastic to see super-smart women engineers and try to answer their questions. Some of them I just couldn't answer - they definitely knew more about hardware that I did.<br />
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2014 : Guess who I meet in the elevator - Prof. Alex Wolf - my Algorithms and Data Structures professor from CU !!! He is now the President of the ACM and was a keynote speaker :).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjghV_LeDgs0FCzT8VIDODE2KR1Xvgpx2zuKvJV5ySqeWMJYPL4Gjxj8DnZJ6FJwj6zEVCQDEECEPTlHaow8WNoLEgCYnAeB2NJvdIHCzMXMySjfVYXoh-1QMN2BSfu4_ckwwgDzg/s1600/alex.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjghV_LeDgs0FCzT8VIDODE2KR1Xvgpx2zuKvJV5ySqeWMJYPL4Gjxj8DnZJ6FJwj6zEVCQDEECEPTlHaow8WNoLEgCYnAeB2NJvdIHCzMXMySjfVYXoh-1QMN2BSfu4_ckwwgDzg/s1600/alex.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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This year, I presented PiDoorbell at GHC and mentored Sthiti and Sushma for their first GHC presentation on OpenCL. It was the usual stresses that PiDoorbell presents that kept me tied up until my presentation was over. This was the first time I did a live demo of Phase 3 of PiDoorbell and it worked quite well. My good friend Kimberly Spillman was the guinea pig and she was AWESOME! What a good sport - especially when the first try didn't quite work and she had to come back a second time. With the slides not advancing temporarily, no table, no network cable etc., I detached a chair from the audience section and placed it next to the lectern to put my hardware on it, connected to the power from the lectern (used by the laptop), created a hotspot from my cell phone, tethered my mac to my cell phone, connected the Rpi to my laptop with dhcp and ran pidoorbell in interactive mode on my laptop to show the audience what was going on. And the photo being uploaded to Dropbox and then tweeted out. And showing up on my phone. <br />
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My good friend Christina Schulman was there as were a bunch of women from VMware and many others. I was happy to finally be able to present to a crowd that was majority women as opposed to the numerous other conferences I have presented at. It was a special event for me - I spoke about the need for all women engineers to step up, create/build their own projects and talk about it at conferences. I don't want to be the only one doing hardware/software demos - I want to see my friends, colleagues, relatives - anyone, also, stepping up and being a role model for other women engineers to follow. I hope I was articulate enough and that some of the audience members will follow in my footsteps. And inspire others to follow them too.<br />
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I was so busy chattering, walking, listening and doing, that I forgot to take photos. The only other photo I have of GHC this year is of the food at the Systers lunch (the chocolate ganache was really good). <br />
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I know there were some controversial events that occurred at GHC this year and some of it got a lot of media attention. But, that is less important than the fact that this is one conference that is a huge success and is a great way to meet and reconnect with fantastic women from all walks of life, backgrounds and cultures.<br />
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I hope I get to go next year too. <br />
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Oh yeah, and I might take some male principal engineers with me next time. I think it would be interesting for them to be in an environment that is close to what women engineers face everyday. Might give them some food for though and, perhaps, positive action.<br />
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<br />Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20290061.post-74090675390004342052014-10-05T12:58:00.002-07:002014-10-05T12:58:51.834-07:00Mentorship... and hurdlesI saw a post today by an EMC exec on mentorship:<br />
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<a href="http://chucksblog.emc.com/chucks_blog/2014/09/on-being-a-mentor-and-being-mentored.html">http://chucksblog.emc.com/chucks_blog/2014/09/on-being-a-mentor-and-being-mentored.html</a><br />
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There are some good points in it specifically around the fact that very few people are "good/capable" mentors and even fewer are "good/capable" mentees. It takes an inordinate amount of time/energy for a mentor to "connect" (mentally, emotionally, career-wise, lifestyle, background etc.) with a mentee. And without a sustained connection, it is difficult to discuss deep issues/thoughts and wants/needs, let alone chart a course for the future. Which, in turn, can lead to an unfruitful mentor-mentee relationship resulting in no progress.<br />
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Lately, I've been bombarded with well-meaning people (both men and women) wanting to "mentor" me because they think I need "guidance" and "advice". None of them have a clue about me, made any attempt to truly understand me, my life, my background, what I'm about and what makes me tick. I believe that they really do want to try to "help" me (in so much as trying to mold me into something that resonates with their own "acceptance criteria" so-to-speak), but, it has resulted in me being unresponsive to their offers.<br />
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I did run into one person several months ago whom, I think, I would like to have as a mentor, but, she is inordinately busy and has no time/inclination to mentor or even talk to me. I imagine she gets bombarded with requests by too many people and is probably completely overwhelmed given that she is a VP at a rather large corporation.<br />
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And, I wonder, what's in it for the mentor? The mentee gets someone who is instrumental in their development and progress resulting in, perhaps, something tangible. The mentor gets a "feel good" ticket which may or may not last very long, resulting in burn out or disinterest. Putting "Be a mentor" on your annual performance goals at work, sure doesn't seem right (to me). <br />
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I have mentored so many women over the last few years and some have done well and some are still struggling. But, it has also burned me out a bit - the emotional/psychological bolstering, career scoping/focus, and creation of balance for each person requires a lot of deep thought, analysis, framing and gentle (or not) nudging. And regular feedback.<br />
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So, what is the balance? Have you found it? If so, do let me know.<br />
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<br />Hungry Pokahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11609755254406778572noreply@blogger.com