Lady Geek

on November 16, 2008

. 4 Comments

The New York Times reported this week that the number of women studying computer sciences has fallen. 28% of all undergraduate degrees in computer science went to women in 2001. However by 2004-5 women only gained 22% of the degrees. This number is even lower at elite institutions like the MIT where only 12% of the degrees go to women. And according to this article, many computer science departments now report that women make up 10% of the newest entrants. This is in stark contrast to 25 years ago when – as the author claims - women made up up to 50% of computing classes.

Interestingly enough the article quotes figures stating the number of women in science and engineering has increased to 51% in 2004-5 up from 39% in 1984-85. Why is it that the numbers of women in science and engineering are rising while those in computing are not?

I found this very surprising because computing has changed significantly in recent years. Particularly the advent of Web 2.0 seems to attract more women to the internet in general and to working on Web 2.0 technologies in particular. The Fast Company magazine was celebrating women in Web 2.0 just this week.

However Web 2.0 might have little to do with what computer science is all about. The number of female web designers is sizeable but web design is by most tech specialists not seen as real programming and - as the article points out - it pays much less than software engineering.

Reasons for the lack of women in computing have been discussed widely. It includes that computers are seen as toys for boys, the constant questioning of women’s ability to engage with technology and the geeky and nerdy image of computing - to name but few. With more women using technology to get things done and technology becoming more intuitive and humane, one could have thought that the image of computing is changing.

Maybe women are voting with their feet against the way computing is portrayed and taught and instead chose to engage with technology on their own terms. Like with technology design, women might want different computing courses or a different marketing of computer courses. It might be time to explore why computing was a more interesting choice for women 25 years ago than it is today despite of the fact that computing is now omnipresent.

Obama: senator for the ladies

Published

on November 4, 2008

in Articles, Interesting and Uncategorized

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According to the US polls, women are the most important and difficult voter to win over. Not only are they in the majority (53%), they are more likely to be undecided in the run up to the election. Recent events show that Obama has been successful with women, particularly young women (Senator Obama won 35 percent of women, while Senator Clinton won 30 percent).

Why is women are drawn to Obama in a way they are not drawn to McCain or Hilary Clinton? What is that Obama has that is appealing to women that McCain does not have?

Obama has already been voted marketer of the year by Time magazine. His “organising idea” is focused on a clear and consistent message: Change. And he delivers it in an inspirational way through the media women use (youtube, blogs, facebook etc). But more fundamentally, the reason Obama is successful is because he focuses on what women care about.

Terrorism, the main theme of McCain’s messaging, is the kind of distant threat that only very wealthy, comfortable people can afford to worry about. Terrorism now occupies a lower rung in the heirarchy of fears suggests that people really are worried about more fundamental things, such as whether they can afford food, petrol or christmas presents. This is even more the case for women, particularly as most women are in charge of the day to day managing of the household expenses.

Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, states:

“Women see themselves as more economically vulnerable than men, more likely recipients of the social safety net at some point in their lives, and they see a larger role for government.”

As a working mum of two, I often find myself cooking the tea, washing up, shoving in some washing, on the phone paying a bill and doing the shopping online- all at the same time. Its me, not my husband, who thinks about the cost of food and energy going up. Its me who thinks about how to cut back this Christmas on presents. And its me who thinks that we should eat in rather than get a take out.

With women as the Chief Household Officer, Obama is making a relevant connection that brands could learn from. With Oprah behind him, Obama appears to be a ladies man.

Are you a narcissist because you are on Facebook?

Published

on October 29, 2008

in Interesting

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Are you on Facebook? If yes, chances are that you are prone to being narcissistic. This is at least what the BBC reported based on new research. A PhD student, Laura Buffardi and her advisor associate professor W. Keith Campbell from the University of Georgia found in their research that people with Facebook accounts score higher on a scale measuring if you arenarcissist or not. The full research is reported in the academic journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. They gave a personality questionnaire to 130 Facebook users (rather on the small side). In addition to these self-reports, the Facebook sites were coded based on objective and subjective content features. Then the Facebook pages were shown to people from the general public who had to assess the owners narcissism based on different scales.

Those who rated highly on the narcissism scale had more social contacts online and put more self-promoting material online. The researchers found that the number of Facebook friends and the number of wall posts correlate with the measurements of narcissism. Like in other research narcissist were shown to have many friends but not deep relationships.

So Facebook users are self-loving and fall in love with their own reflection on Facebook? One could assume that this is a bad thing. Who wants to be seen as a narcissist after all? However I felt reminded of Granovetter’s strength of weak ties. He argues that people with many but weak relationships can access contacts that are not accessible through strong ties.Narcissism or not, weak ties might be an advantage. In that light it might be interesting to explore scientifically what type of persons are not on Facebook.

No-one knows a woman better than her phone

Published

on October 28, 2008

in Uncategorized

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I’m often asked about good examples of tech brands connecting with women. Unfortunately there are very few tech brands that understand what women care about. This new Nokia campaign is a wonderful exception: It invites people to explore the lives of three fictional women in intimate detail and in real time, through their Nokia 7610 smart-phones.

We are invited to follow the lives of the three characters as they make-friends, party, send text-messages to the wrong-boyfriend, break-up, flirt, make-up and do other gripping soap-opera-ish things that somehow nearly always seem to involve the use of mobile technology. The story unfolds through a series of multimedia-messages left by and on the three characters mobile phones. If you’ve got enough time you can piece together what happened on their latest night out. Nokia clearly hope that this will inspire phone users to use their phones more like Anna, Jade and Luca on their next night out.

I have to confess that I didn’t have time to work through the whole campaign - each of the characters have hundreds of messages to work through - but I was impressed by the tasteful design and immersive appeal of the whole thing. It’s full of neat touches, like the fact that you can customize the site by activating a number of tastefully selected tunes as the story unfolds - all of which are on sale at the new Nokia music store.

The TV ad and accompanying on-line campaign are great work and seem to be pitched well for a young-adult audience. I think Nokia will need to work really hard if they want to make their products as appealing to the next generation of phone-buyers as Apple’s much-hyped iPhone.

What I love about it is they have really understood the role of the mobile phone: “its a window into a woman’s life.” Women use their phone to film, flirt and play. I’ll never forget one woman telling me that no-one knows her as well as her mobile phone. I also love the idea of everyone secretly wanting to be a voyeur and wanting to go through someone’s phone. Everyone’s curious. I know I am. My new nanny left her phone in my house and I was so tempted to go through her phone to get an insight into who she was. I refrained. But had the phone been in my view for much longer who knows….

Compare this Nokia campaign to the lackluster Blackberry campaign - which looks like a messy pastiche of something Apple might have done five years ago.

The idea is similar ‘Life on Blackberry‘ but suffers from a lifeless execution which is unsure of it’s target audience. It’s little more than a visual idea and sadly lives and dies only on TV. Nokia’s latest campaign was born to span all media and truly captures the intimacy that women feel towards their phone.

For all of the project’s interactivity it’s not truly interactive: As far as I’m aware fans cannot text their favorite characters and get involved with them… the character’s facebook page has a kind of ghostly silence that contrasts wrongly with the fast-paced hedonism of the main campaign web-site. Users seemed to be confused as to whether these are real people or merely actors playing characters - how very post-modern to blur that line.

Lastly, I think Wieden could have promoted the idea a bit harder. It feels like they have missed the opportunity to release this via bloggers and create a real buzz around the campaign. For all the work they have done it would be a shame if this became the best campaign that nobody got to see.

The Dream of the Paperless Office

Published

on October 21, 2008

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A couple of years ago I had a debate with a colleague at the UN World Summit on the Information Society about the paperless office. I voiced my frustration that despite of the fact that we now do so much online, we still print so much paper. I wondered if the paperless office would remain a dream. My colleague said that people just have to try it seriously but so far they have not. We then talked about how society has to adapt to technological change and how this might take time. That was in 2005.

What we did not know then is that since 2001 the paper consumption in the US was according to the Economist declining. While the paperless office is an idea of the 1960s, it has never really caught on – despite of the fact that new technologies like the Internet did not seem to rely on paper. However what happened is that many people printed their emails and treated them just like paper letters which were delivered via email rather than a postal service.

People need to adapt to new technologies and need time to change their established behaviours. The decline of paper usage is linked to the rise of a new generation. Generation Y or the millennials grew up with new technologies like the Internet and many of them adopted Web 2.0 applications readily. They do things online. They are not only paying their bills online but also network online. This younger generation is confident in reading on screen and filing documents virtually rather than physically. All is tagged and stored in the virtual cloud.

According to the Economist not all paper consumption is declining because people are still keen on printing for the special occasion. Sometimes it seems that good ideas just need time to develop. It needs time until people adapt or rather until the younger generations get rid of many routines and practices that influence how we interact with technology.

Every Brand Needs an Enemy

Published

on October 21, 2008

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Adam Morgan writes very eloquently about the value of monsters and the value they have in stories: raise the stakes, add drama and conflict and most importantly give the ‘hero’ an adversary and position the hero as being the virtuous one to save the day. An enemy is a threat to you, but a monster is a threat to the larger community. Adam then goes on to talk about how “small human brands fight a large and faceless monsters” with the example of brands who have explicitly created monsters in order to position themselves as the champion of the community.

Dove’s monster is the artificial fashion industry. Richard Branson’s monster is BA, Sky and the Goliaths. Method’s monster is toxicity. Apple’s monster is Microsoft (explicity shown in their latest campaign.) Google’s monster is evil. Nintendo’s monster is Sony & Microsoft.

Do all brands need a monster, an enemy to fight, metaphorically or physically? Is it a common enemy - or is simply something that coalesces us into a concerted action with one another? And are brands that have a shared ‘agenda’ whatever that agenda might be, are they more appealing to women?

The academic and autism specialist Simon Baron Cohen writes: women tend to empathise, men tend to systemise.

“The female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy. The male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems. Systemising and empathising are different kinds of processes. You use one process - empathising - for making sense of an individual’s behaviour and identifying others feelings and responding to them. Systemising - is about analysing and constructing a system and predicting. They are not mystical processes but are grounded in our neurophysiology.”

Based on this premise, it seems women are likely to respond to a situation where they can identify with the feelings of others. A community that they can feel part of. A movement that they can belong to. A safe haven for them and for those around then. In short, a shared agenda.

Every brand might not necessarily a monster, but to connect with women, they certainly need an ally.

Cleavage Geek?

Published

on October 13, 2008

. 2 Comments

Is her cleavage the ultimate signifier of a Lady Geek? Last Thursday I attended a Girl Geek Dinner and this was the question that led to a huge debate among the 100 plus women who work mainly in the area of technology.

Julie Lerman talked about her own journey as a woman in technology. She mentioned how her girlie interests were slowly relinquished to become one of the boys. She wanted to fit into the tech community and therefore she did not want to stand out as a woman. Over time she discovered how she can be a woman and a technical specialist and what combining these two identities means.

However she asked if some women in technology go in fact too far. Julie talked about how one female technologist used an image as her speaker photo for conferences which revealed her cleavage (the head of the woman was cropped to protect her identity). Julie commented that this sexualised image might go a bit too far. I somewhat shared her discomfort with it.

Some women in the room found this photo rather liberating. One woman said that men should get used to the fact that women have breasts. Others said that the cleavage shot is actually too sexualising and men would see the woman merely as a sex object rather than a serious speaker with a message. One woman replied that this might just be a clever way of advertising herself. But would that be an appropriate tactic for drawing attention to your work?

The issue came quickly to authenticity and being yourself. One woman said that the female technologist might just want to be herself. For her, this might mean to show her femininity through her cleavage. Is showing cleavage then the latest Lady Geek chic?

The discussion resembled debates around feminism and postfeminism. While feminists would stress that showing cleavage is demeaning to women because it objectifies them, postfeminists would say that it is actually liberating for women to show their cleavage and also - in a further step - to control men through it. We can think here about the Wonderbra ‘Hello Boys’ adverts with Eva Herzigova: many women found them empowering whilst others saw them as demeaning for women.

What would that mean for women working in technology and selling technology to women? Should technology being sold using women and their cleavages? This would be very similar to how technology actually used to be advertised. And these adverts speak mainly to men. Based on that, I would assume that only a fringe group of women would think that cleavage is geek chic.

There is also a professional dimension to all this: Women in the workplace in general have to navigate a narrow path of acceptable behaviour, and from my experiences, using too much of a cleavage is doing nothing for your professional image. It will position you mainly as an object of male desire rather than as a professional. That does not mean hiding your femininity but finding a way to emanate professional femininity.

Topshopisation of Tech

Published

on October 7, 2008

in Uncategorized

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I am sure people are bored of me eulogising about my Asus eee 901. Now I have a new Asus product to rave about: the Asus S101- the Macbook Air that you can actually afford. It retails at $699 for the 16GB Windows version or 30GB for the Linux version, that’s less than half the price of the “designer” product which it is imitating. This is great, for the same reason that Topshop is great.

Topshop is well known as the retailer that is famous for selling cheap clothes that look almost exactly designer styles. It’s uncanny how quickly they manage to replicate every season’s look. The reason that Topshop’s clothes are so cheap is that unlike original designer product, they are only intended to last for exactly one season. Is that a problem? It depends on whether you like old clothes.

In the past buying a laptop was like buying a very expensive designer dress; It cost so much you’d want to get a lot of wear out of it. You could buy a cheaper laptop but it would look unfashionable - not the sort of thing you’d want to take into the Executive Lounge. The new “netbooks” are different: They look great, they turn heads but they are still cheap.

When fashion becomes cheaper it changes the way we think about it. I used to carry my old Powerbook in a custom-made hand-decorated case. These days I carry my Asus in whatever I have with me. A handbag or an M&S carrier-bag. Anything will do. I haul it around like a piece of meat and I will discarded it when it’s no longer of any use. It will be ‘upgraded’ within a year and forgotten.

Rory Sutherland commented,

“The point is that it is cheap enough not to worry about all that much. As a result you discover that, never mind the weight and size, a £200 laptop is simply more portable than a £1,000 laptop. For instance you can carry it around in a carrier bag, not in a padded case.”

A government survey found that the majority of Britons believe that most products are not designed to last a lifetime. Sixty-five per cent feel that products do not last as long as they did 25 years ago, and that even larger items like washing machines will only last a few years before they must be replaced.

While others lament the passing of a ’slower’ society the unmistakable fact is that people are quite comfortable with planned obsolescence. Who amongst us has a phone older than two years? Even if you could make a phone last that long would you really want one that old? If you wouldn’t use a three year old phone, would you want a three year old laptop? When was the last time you wore three year old clothes?

A laptop is no longer for life, but could be just for Christmas.

The battle for my handbag

Published