What If a Student's MOOC Assignment POs Someone?

What would happen if something a MOOC student submitted for an assignment offended someone not involved in the course? It's bound to happen sooner or later. Considering the global reach of a MOOC there could be a lot of blow back. Wouldn't it be a great idea to take a pedagogically proactive approach to the possibility?

I had such a terrific time taking my first MOOC earlier this year ("How to Change the World" read about the experience here) that I signed up for another one. The MOOC I'm currently enrolled in is called "Beyond Silicon Valley : Growing Entrepreneurship in Transitioning Economies" led by Michael Goldberg at Case Western Reserve University. I am having as excellent an experience this time around. Beyond Silicon Valley is challenging, thought provoking, engaging and as with "How to Change the World" I'm learning incredibly useful information that has already paid off professionally in more ways than one.

One nice difference this time is that the course faculty are taking active part in the forum discussions. That provides an added sense of connection. On the down side, the assignments are assessed this time based solely upon word count and whether or not you submit the assignment on time. I found this out when I misread a due time (did "midnight" mean the start of the day or the end of the day?) and also when my assignments were scored instantaneously. I have to say that I miss the peer grading from my last MOOC; it wasn't always high quality, but it was interesting. And the opportunity to read and ponder other student assignments was enlightening and sometimes mind blowing.

As with my first MOOC, "Beyond Silicon Valley" asks the student to dig for answers and reflect on their implications for their own situation. But it goes beyond that with a midterm that asks the student to interview local entrepreneurs and write about their findings.

Herein approaches the sticky issue.

Some pretty sensitive stuff can come up when asking business owners about their company. Having interviewed people in a variety of professional settings for years, I know that even the most cautious interviewee let slip things they might prefer not be put in writing. A good interviewer can facilitate this happening. It then falls on the interviewer to employ wise judgement when writing up their story.

Having high journalistic standards (whether as a professional or student writer) is important. I suspect the vast majority of my peer students are not out to muck rake or hurt anyone. Hopefully they pay attention to how and what they write, and in sensitive situations perhaps run proposed text by the people they report on.

But do all students in a given class take such care? Perhaps more important for an educator to ask: Do students even know to think about this?

No, they all don't.

In a Coursera MOOC (both of my classes were by Coursera) the student signs an agreement not to distribute, copy, report or otherwise share anything written by another student without that student's express permission. This is good, and thus, should there be a leak of one student's material by another student, the source of responsibility and liability is pretty clear.

On the other hand, students also sign an agreement when they first sign up with Coursera  acknowledging they are aware that all their contributions will be readable by the university course staff and by Coursera personnel. In addition, the student agrees that Coursera may, at it's own discretion, use portions of student submissions. I can't remember the details, but basically the student agrees that Coursera has wide latitude in how it chooses to use student material. I have no problem with that. Coursera has the right to make that request in return for the educational service they are providing - for free. Until proven otherwise, I default to trusting Coursera not to abuse the situation.

Back to the stickiness.

Consider a scenario in which a student in a course such as "Beyond Silicon Valley"submits an assignment based upon an interview with a business entity. It's good. It's interesting. It's quality. As a result, someone on university or Coursera staff uses part or all of it for training or PR purposes. The business becomes offended for some unforeseeable reason.

The business may have assumed confidentiality, especially as this was a student assignment. The student may have not thought about the possibility that either a) what s/he wrote would bother anyone or that b) it would ever be seen outside the virtual course wall. The student may have not discussed the possibility of the the interview becoming public in whole or part. Yet Coursera has the right to use the student material. Everyone was acting in good faith. Nonetheless, the stuff hits the fan.

Who is responsible? Who is going to take the heat? Who is going to come out ok and who will be severely bruised?

It would be completely counterproductive for all concerned if this situation becomes bogged down in legal and bureaucratic wranglings. We're talking about education here folks; social change. Let's take the high road shall we and try to cut this off at the pass.

In a live or virtual classroom there is an opportunity for faculty to discuss issues of confidentiality, privacy, contractual agreements; implications of what you write, possible scenarios of how material can be used. Especially with regards to interviewing and how the material is written up. We shouldn't assume that intelligent well educated adults (as most MOOC students are) know all about this. Even if they do, the topic bears revisiting. It's good for faculty and students alike to remember that you can have all your facts and knowledge and entrepreneurial ducks in a row, yet if you step on the wrong person's toe you are toast.

Pedagogically, there is an important difference here between a traditional class and a MOOC class. The sense of distance inherent to a virtual environment can lead to increased complacency or denial of interpersonal communication landmines. Thus we have a challenge that needs to be addressed proactively.

Pedagogically we have a great opportunity.  MOOCs such as Coursera's want to change the face of education and benefit society by leveraging the power of the Internet. I'm all for it. In these early entrepreneurial stages of MOOC development, let's watch for these sticky issues and talk about them until we solve them.

History and Navigation Adventures in Techie-Land

Officer Mac of the Sunnyvale, CA Police Department

It doesn't get much more awash in tech than here in Mountain View, California. This afternoon I visited the Computer History Museum - an obligatory stop when you make the rounds here. Aside from the expected reminders of how fast tech moves (I saw an Osborne 1,  the earliest portable computer, weighing in at a mere 23.5 lbs in its carrying case, a carrying case I hauled proudly around in the days when I didn't worry about yanking out my spine or popping a rotator cuff), I learned some unexpected fun facts that even many of my super techie friends and colleagues might not know.

Did you know that punched cards were critical to the compilation of the British Atlas of Flora and Fauna, published by the Botanical Society of the British Isles in 1962? Data was compiled on 40 column punch cards and then used to create distribution maps. The maps were printed as dots on maps that covered the entire British Isles. Those maps, as well as some of the original cards, are on display in the museum.

Officer Mac was created by 21st Century Robotics (a US company) and in 1985 was known to visit schools as a goodwill ambassador for the  police department. Officer Mac, who was as tall as some adults, was operated by remote control. He showed public safety videos. But here's the really good part: Officer Mac (A ROBOT!) was used as a nonthreatening counselor to abused children. I really wished there had been more information to read about how this was done and how well it worked.

Have you ever heard of Barbera Stephenson? I hadn't. An engineering graduate of MIT, she was hired by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1961 as their first female engineer. There was a nice quote on the wall about how she dealt with the many men who were at  first unbelieving and then astounded to encounter her. She'd start politely rattling off the technical information they were looking for and then they'd react as if they had encountered a new life form.

Outside of my museum visit, and clearly in the giggle department, is my interaction with Google's navigation system this week. Here, in the heart of Silicon Valley, a few short miles from Google Central, I have had more quirky encounters with their navigation system than anywhere else in the country. As soon as I entered Mountain View the navigation started having trouble with street names. This morning for example, as I exited the driveway, the polite authoritative voice told me to TURN LEFT. Well, turning left was clearly going to go the long way around the block. So I turned right.

A few minutes later, as I encountered the first large intersection, the navigation told me to TURN RIGHT, naming a road that was clearly not the road in front of me. Now, in case you think that navigation was smarter than me, you would be wrong, for I had (as always) done a manual check of where I was going prior to getting into the car. Knowing where I was (a mere 2 blocks from my starting point) I turned right. Perhaps navigation was miffed. Because from then on: no more street names. For the rest of the day I was instructed to TURN LEFT or TURN RIGHT or GO STRAIGHT or CONTINUE without any identifiers or distances. When navigation ordered me to MAKE A U-TURN a split second after turning into the right most lane of a very busy multi-lane street, I could swear I detected a note of smug self-satisfaction.

Strange things like this have been going on for days. Last weekend, as I drove south on Interstate 880 towards Mtn. View, navigation authoritatively instructed me to take one of the exits, go around the block and get back on the freeway. I knew that exiting was in error, but I was in no hurry, and curious to see what the system was up to. So I made the very short diversion through an empty office park before continuing on my way.

Is there a Bermuda Triangle effect at work here? Either that or my navigation system is malfunctioning. Nah...

Speed Rounds on What's Going 'Round in San Diego UX

It was Show & Tell for the San Diego UX Speakeasy crowd last night at our host Qualcomm. In our ongoing mission to build community, have fun, and demonstrate there is a lot of interesting UX work going on down here in Southern California we held speed rounds. Five energetic souls had 5 minutes each to wow the 100+ people (all the room could hold) with something UX-ish and interesting. Truly, only 5 minutes as the guy with the timer was on the job. There was a bit more breathing room during the following Q&A and for the most part the audience complied nicely with questions, comments and suggestions. All while noshing on some really good food.

First out of the gate was Erin Porringer making a report on World IA Day and the exciting ride up to Los Angeles on the Magic Bus. Apparently the bus ride was as wild and colorful as last year when I reported on it (sadly, I was unable to attend this year). But the best part of course was the event itself, which, according to Erin, involved, among other things, breaking up into groups and proposing solutions to some of LA's worst problems. Such as traffic.

If you have never experienced 14 lanes  (7 in each direction) going 85 mph then you haven't lived. Conversely, if you have never experienced those same 14 lanes (7 in each direction) crawling along at 5 mph for mile... upon... mile... then you haven't lived. (Now that I think on it, that particular stretch might be in Irvine.) A user experience in need of help for sure. It seemed only fitting to hear that one of the proposed solutions was to create a version of Google Maps with ratings - love that freeway? 5 stars. Hate that freeway? 1 star. I wonder if comments were going to be included for highlighting such things as really cool billboards and entertaining driver antics.

Second out of the gate was JC Nesci from Soso Limited. Soso hosted one of our meetups last year and thus we know they are always doing something creative. Last night we learned about a proposed redesign of the UI for Google Fiber network setup and configuration. As JC pointed out and we all know, it can be exceedingly painful to deal with a the likes of a Linksys router interface. (The audience groaned right on cue.) Most interesting, JC shared the thought process they went through testing out various interactive visualization prototypes for Google Fiber configuration. These got more fun as they progressed. Yes, fun - did you ever think online network configuration could be fun? I wanted to reach out and drag and drop those nodes, drag around those connections, plop those overlays on one another. Will Google use their ideas? TBD!

Third in the lineup was UX Speakeasy committee member Elina Ollila who in her day job works at Vigor Systems. Elina brought up a well known sticky challenge for large and small companies alike: where should UX be placed in a company and why? After describing what Vigor does, her job as the one and only UX employee (a temporary state of affairs she assured the audience), and the growing pains this small company is experiencing, Elina asked the audience for suggestions. Elina's presentation produced some of the most enthusiastic Q&A&S of the evening. Audience members made all sorts of helpful suggestions (hence the "S") about the role of UX within a corporate structure and why it might best be placed in one divisision or another - or ideally, integrated throughout all divisions. It was nice to see so many people voicing their ideas and the rationale for them.

Fourth, we heard from Kristine Angell, a UX Researcher, about a project called "The Domestication of the Internet".  Project management investigation for Supermoms on the Internet. Conceptions of time, time & task management. A bunch of data whizzed by in 5 minutes, as we  heard about study participants, mode of data collection and analysis. I was glued to this one because I just love research. 2010: 25 participants, 10 days online, 32 self reports, 5,600 data points. 2012: 12 returning participants, 6 days online, 10 self reports, 624 data points. Several interesting results including this one:  most family members delegate many of their tasks to the mother in the family. Supermom indeed. Lots of audience chuckles on that one. They already knew this particular result.

Last but not least, Paul Lafata from our host Qualcomm telling us all about their foray into wearable technology. In the form of a smart watch. There was also mention of a wireless dog collar to track down canine escapees. Managing to sneak past the allotted 5 minutes, Paul told us about all sorts of features and the tech underlying the smart watch. There was something about their mirasol technology based in some way on butterflies, but I missed the details because I was messing around with my camera. However, the entire audience was invited to a local pub afterwards to continue the conversation and ask Paul questions. I am sure they did so, because this crowd loves a good pub.

Making Connections b/w Computing Education & International Development Expertise

The concerns and constraints impacting computing education efforts in developing and developed countries surely differ in important ways that effect strategy and policy. To cite just one obvious example, when electricity is not reliable or perhaps even available, assuming people will learn on computers is not a given. Hence, as I mentioned in my previous post, the centrality of mobile phones as communication and delivery mechanisms in the developing world.

On the other hand, based upon much that I heard at the UNESCO Mobile Learning Week (UMLW), many issues of related to economics, pedagogy, and equity are shared by many countries and regions regardless of where they are on the development spectrum. What this means is that in policy conversations there are significant opportunities for cross fertilization of knowledge and understanding.

For example, let's consider pedagogical knowledge: Over the past few decades the education research community has delved deeply into both quantitative and qualitative studies of cognition and affect as it relates to student learning. Branches of this community have specifically focused on educational technology in the classroom. Other branches have focused on the STEM disciplines. We learned some time ago that technology in and of itself does not solve problems and that computing technology brings with it new classroom control and assessment challenges. In response there has been, and continues to be, research and significant dialog about how to leverage technology in support of student learning.

If you are part of the computing education community then most likely I am preaching to the choir. The reason I bring it up is because at the UMLW many people asked questions about basic pedagogical issues that arise when computing technology enters the classroom. My impression was that this was, for many, a new topic and a serious concern. It appeared there was a lack of awareness of existing relevant research. Here lies an opportunity for the education research community (computing, engineering, STEM) to share with like minded peers in the development community.

Now let's consider gender issues: The development community has extensive experience with the relationship between gender participation and economic development. My understanding is that it has been well documented how targeting women for education and training leads to improved economic circumstances well beyond that achieved by the women themselves. A lesser impact is seen when men in the same communities are the sole recipients of interventions.

You often get more bang for your buck (literally) by actively working to equalize opportunities for women in arenas where they are under represented or excluded. Fact, not philosophical position. Why should this be thought a phenomenon that applies only to developing countries? When one starts to delve into the details, it seems crazy to make such an assumption. Here lies an opportunity for the development community to share with like minded peers in the education research and policy communities (computing, engineering, STEM).

Then there is the matter of high wage high skill computing jobs world wide. In the US we have recently been discussing Department of Labor statistics about the large and growing number of well paying computing jobs predicted at least through 2020 (as far forward as current projections go). I heard virtually the same story about ICT workforce development projected statistics in Europe: a projected increase of 16 million high skill workers needed by 2015, and a projected lack of 900,000 people to fill these jobs by the same year. The speaker who rattled off these statistics then discussed affiliations with industry, education and policy leaders that sounded much like those we are cultivating in the US.

Although I didn't catch statistics, I heard reports on the growing need for engineering and technology savvy workers in countries across Africa as well. There was an interesting presentation about an Engineering education initiative that UNESCO has started in response to this need.

Policy and strategy implementation have to be contextualized. Considerations of such things as whether a country has a centralized government, an active Education Ministry, an established national curriculum, and a host of other things too numerous to mention are reminders that one size will not fit all when it comes to computing technology (ICT) education initiatives we may contemplate.

By touching on just one or two areas where I see opportunities for sharing and collaboration between communities working in the Developed and Developing world, I hope I have piqued your interest. Whether you are in education, industry, computing/ICT or the development field, I hope you are pondering ways we can learn from one another in pursuit of our common goals.

Strategic Portfolio Planning UX Speakeasy Style

The rest of the United States may be getting buried in snow *again* but this evening in San Diego the UX Speakeasy crowd was warming up to each other  in another one of our invigorating monthly meetups.

We have our version of seasons - at tonight's venue, if you went outside on the 7th floor patio and looked out over the darkened city sky, the wind blowing in your face might have caused you to feel it was Winter. If you then walked back inside with a reddened face and someone asked you where you got the sunburn you might have felt it was Spring. In the toasty room where we heard our presentation, you might have believed it was Summer. Looking at the leafless plant in the corner (see picture above) you could be convinced it was Fall.

Our marvelous patio view, and begging to be explored set of funky office suites at this evening's gathering were brought to the meetup crowd of 114 people by Vaco San Diego and their enthusiastic recruiting professionals. Our host, Mark Richards, gave the group a nice presentation about what to put (or not put) in your UX portfolio. In: specifics. Out: your cat. Portfolio in the larger sense of the word, for Mark provided his perspective on what to do (or not do) with your LinkedIn page, resume, digital demos and a few other important odds and ends.

While Mark was showing the crowd some interesting examples of online UX portfolios in the packed room, his colleague (Eric?) held up a large fan that was determined to steal the show once in a while. There was a UI issue of sorts here for sure.

Some useful online portfolio resources shared by Mark (take note UX people!) included: Behance, Dribble, and Coroflot. Somewhere in the middle of all this, as I was standing near a glass door, someone jostled someone and the next thing I knew there was a large amount of liquid running down the other side of the door. Very artistic.

Vaco was a great host. Did I mention that Eric (?) brought me a personal hand made name tag shortly after I entered? This was before he put himself in charge of the treacherous fan for the benefit of all sentient beings. For those of you in the San Diego area, if you'd like to connect with Vaco, they are holding their annual March Mingle on March 26th at the Hard Rock 207 (the bar in the Hard Rock Hotel downtown) which will be, so Mark tells me, a great opportunity for technical people of all ilks to network.

Intuit appears to be on a serious UX hiring spree based upon what our second speaker told us. Rich Bessel from Intuit spent a few minutes telling us about some of the things he values in potential hires. In addition to supporting Mark's comments, Rich added: Craft. Demonstrate your craft everywhere. Show your passion and that you care about your work. It should ooze through all your materials (ok, he didn't use the word "ooze" but he could have) because you want to show that you care, really care, about your work. Oh, and by the way: Check Your Ego At the Door.

Funding Opportunity: Think CS Education and Jobs

You probably are aware that computing jobs pay very well.  Every state in the country has high paying computing jobs. Did you know that? Yeah, it's true. All 50 states have high paying computing jobs. Not only do computing jobs pay very well but they exist in virtually every significant industry. The public conversation doesn't always focus enough on the ubiquity of computing and computing jobs as it relates to economic and workforce issues.

Sometimes I wonder why, because computing technology supports a global economic infrastructure that we all rely on. However, I'll sit on my hands, leaving the "why" for another day, and stick today with an important aspect of "what":

When we hear talk in the media about the growing numbers of STEM jobs, it really means computing jobs in a big way. That means potential economic benefit all around. You don't need to be in Silicon Valley or working for a traditional high tech firm in order to get a really good computing job.

Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. It is a word that gets people's attention. It's a word that gets government attention.

Given the very slow economic recovery (I heard on the news last night that the U.S. national unemployment rate is still around 7.5%)  it seems a no brainer that there would be a variety of federal funding opportunities to encourage preparing students for these jobs. Funding opportunities that computer science educators can take advantage of.

Many people I work with routinely look to the National Science Foundation for funding opportunities, but not so many people are aware that funds are also available at the Department of Labor. It makes perfect sense actually, given the economic importance of computing to our economy. 

As an example, I want to point you to one such opportunity which hasn't received much press: the YouthCareerConnect grant program. From their web page:

"The Department of Labor will use up to $100 million in revenues from the H-1B visa program to fund approximately 25 to 40 grants for individual or multi-site projects. Grants will be awarded to local education agencies, public or non-profit local workforce entities, or non-profits with education reform experience. All grantees will have to demonstrate a strong public/private partnership, and must include, at a minimum, a local education agency, a local workforce investment system entity, an employer, and an institution of higher education."

My guess is that this CFP (Call For Proposals) is being overlooked by computing educators because of its location in the DOL and because it casts a wide net. Nonetheless, this could be an excellent opportunity to make a large impact, especially if you are already working with, or in conversation with, other entities interested in pushing full steam ahead on the computer science education front.

Investigating the Inner Critic

I can be a bit critical of self-help books, so when Global Tech Women's next book club selection  ("Inner Critic Inner Success" by Stacy Sargent) fell so loudly and clearly into that category, I wasn't sure what I was going to think of it.

The reason my inner critic is so cynical about self-help books is that they are often loaded with well polished statements and implications about how the reader can rid themselves of some undesirable trait or situation with a minimum of effort. These books very often prey upon the reader who hopes that by shelling out a few dollars they will magically transform their life. 

However, I decided I would give it a fair shake, and so I dove right in.

Within a few pages, the inner critic in my head was reciting a well worn script telling me not to expect very much from this book. It seemed I had logic and facts to support this assertion. I found myself noting critically that Sargent was not saying anything new; everything she was talking about in the opening section had been written about in the cognitive science and psychology literature. And why didn't she cite the references? my little voice nagged dismissively.

A more forgiving and compassionate voice in my head waved to get my attention. It pointed out that Sargent was doing a pretty nice job of making those cog sci findings accessible to the average reader. I mean really, spoke up the quieter voice, how many people outside of the academic research community are going to read peer reviewed research studies? If putting the helpful information into a widely accessible form with a beneficial end goal in mind - might that not be a commendable thing to do?

Round 1 was declared a tie between the cynical critic and the compassionate commentator.

Having made strides on clearing the way mentally, things started to get interesting because this book is FULL of exercises and activities. Detailed exercises and activities. I don't have time for this! I groaned at first (the obstructionist cynic), but it occurred to me (the determined optimist) that perhaps I wouldn't be in a position to reach any justifiable conclusions if I didn't give it, all of it, a fair go.

How so? Well, it just so happens, that I am in the middle of undertaking some pretty exciting professional career planning. Thinking big, and figuring out how to pursue things I am really passionate about. Which, as you could probably predict, leads at times to wondering just how crazy I might be.

So when the book started asking me to apply certain activities and introspection to things that might cause me to get in my own way I discovered I had plenty of fodder to work with. The first couple of activities I embarked on were perhaps toughest because that same cynical voice said things like "you know yourself well already, you know what your greatest inner critic is, you can skip this exercise". I squashed that voice, but only because I had promised myself I would.

Er...and discovered on the very first activity, that, as Sargent suggested, things change as we progress in our lives and careers, and what I had assumed was my primary self-imposed stumbling block was no longer true (e.g. The Perfectionist voice is no longer my biggest inner critic. Other voices have insidiously taken front seats). That discovery meant that I could stop putting so much energy into addressing non-existent problems and pay more attention to other ways I might get in my own way.

That first discovery was enough to convince me that this book was on to something. I kept right on plowing along through activity after activity, not worrying about whether or not I was going to finish the book in time for the conversation this Friday. Because by that point, I found I was discovering quite useful things that I can apply to my entrepreneurial career planning. Perhaps foremost being: fooey on what the stick in the mud cynics out there might have to say (including my own inner critics, who pop up up like Whack-a-Moles).

I still haven't finished the book. Maybe I will by Friday, maybe not. No matter: things have come around full circle andI heartily recommend Sargent's book.  Not only that, I'm really looking forward to hearing what other women have to say at the Global Tech Women book club meeting: join us this Friday at 9:00am Pacific Time.

Entrepreneurial MOOCs at the ACM Ed Council Meeting

Pardon the sizzling neurons: I'm attending the ACM Education Council meeting this weekend. This afternoon we heard from a panel of 4 tech industry speakers who are innovating in the MOOC realm; all are teaching introductory programming. The 4 were from: Khan Academy, CodeHS, Tynker and Google. Thought provoking to say the least.

There were some striking similarities among the 4 although they had different visions and philosophies. They all shared huge enthusiasm - incredibly dynamic enthusiasm. They were passionate and excited about teaching coding to kids. They focused on engagement; thus there was a lot of talk about "fun" and "cool" and one of the speakers was almost hopping up and down as she spoke - that was Pamela Fox from Khan Academy. With her partially purple hair. I would love to put Pamela in front of a bunch of middle or high school girls - she was technical, personable, enthusiastic and would debunk the idea that coding was blah or anti-social. Pamela spoke of community building, mentioned a concern with working for gender neutrality and incorporating accessibility into online learning; all the while sprinkling the conversation with blurbs that make it clear she was a solid techie. In fact, most of Pamela's talk was detailed info on her approach to designing an effective coding learning platform for kids. Her biggest focus was with creating solid debugging environments. She clearly gets the notion that what happens when we make mistakes is critical - do we come back and want to keep coming back or do we bail in despair?

One thing in particular Krishna Vedati from Tynker said really stuck with me. Like many of the panelists, he talked about asking kids what interested them and then having them code around that thing. While discussing the finer points of their software and approach he mentioned that he has a son and a daughter and his daughter always wants to write stories and his son wants to create games; he doesn't want to make his daughter code to create games (and by implication: he doesn't want to make his son code to write stories). It was a passing comment, but it captured an important piece of messaging embraced by most of the speakers.

One of the founders of CodeHS was Jeremy Keeshin and he was interesting enough that several of us had a long involved conversation with him at dinner. Grilled him actually. Jeremy put up with us with good cheer. Not only because he was surrounded on all sides and would have had to crawl under the table between us to get away. As part of his work Jeremy travels around the country spending time in classrooms where the rubber hits the road - meeting teachers and learning about what they do, why they do it, what they think and feel. His company works hard to work with teachers and schools rather than going around them. I am going to talk to Jeremy again in the near future because I think he and his company would interest enough of you that I want to write more here. Stay tuned.

Of course there was controversy; members of the Ed Council asked all of the panelists some tough questions. One recurrent theme had to do with how they know what they are doing works. Evaluation (how? what kind? what makes sense? what is practical?) is an ongoing challenge in any pedagogical setting and when you are talking about a startup (as 3 out of the 4 companies on the panel were) in the fast paced world of high tech - it's tricky. Some panelists addressed this question better than others. Needless to say I spent quite a bit of time on this - it was one of the longer topics of discussion over dinner at my table.

Neil Fraser from Google's Blockly project said some things that were unquestionably controversial. The one that really got me was when he said (several times, and with followup detail) that one of the things they had learned was to ignore user feedback. I can't remember his exact words after that but the idea seemed to be that users didn't know what was best for them. Coming on the heels of earlier comments that were less than tactful about computing degree programs and their graduates ... I have to give Neil credit for having the guts to share his views.

My brain is fried, no doubt about it, after a long day of meetings - this panel was just one piece of the long day. Tonight's sharing with you was a blurping of thoughts onto the page and there is a lot I need to process. But I can say right away that I believe we can learn a lot from the panel presentation. There were lots of technical and pedagogical details that I didn't get into here. But it's not that. What we can learn has more to do with - something in the non technical realm that hasn't gelled for me yet. The dialog needs to continue.

Global Tech Women: "Voices" Speaks Again

Have you heard about the "Voices" conference? Voices is presented by Global Tech Women and is unique in several ways. For starters, the conference is virtual - you can participate from anywhere on the planet if you have access to an internet connection. Second, the conference is global. It takes place not from one location but from many locations. Third, Voices will circumnavigate the globe for 35 hours. The first session will come from Australia and subsequent sessions will follow the rising sun. The final session will take place in Silicon Valley.

It's high quality stuff and it isn't going to break the bank.

Voices debuted earlier this year on International Women's Day and no one quite knew how it would all go. It turned out to be an incredible grassroots community building and empowerment event. Technical women who had never had the opportunity to participate in a gathering of their peers were able to do so. It was a great way to meet technical women from different cultures, to compare and share ideas and experiences, and to learn from the expertise and perspective of others. People participated and presented from every continent; the topics ranged from the technically nitty gritty to balancing the personal and professional. In my own opinion, the greatest result of the conference was the many lasting relationships that were established.

Therefore, Global Tech Women is putting together the Voices conference again for 2014.

Although International Women's Day is a long way off (March 8th), conference content planning is well under way and the call for participation closes November 1st. This is where you come in and the reason I'm whipping up this post now.

You don't have to be "someone important" to present - in fact, toss that silly phrase right out the window.

Curious? Interested? Have something to share with other technical women? Hopefully, I got your attention and you want more detail about the Voices conference and how to be part of it. Go Here to find out.

We are Still Leaning Into or Away From Gender Questions

Hands up please if you have heard something about the controversies surrounding Sheryl Sandberg's book Lean In. Keep your hands up if you have actually read it. How many of you formed an opinion or jumped to conclusions without having read the book?

I haven't read virtually any of the controversy, and I haven't watched the TEDTalk she gave prior to deciding to write the book. Sources tell me (I just love saying that) feedback after the talk led Sheryl to clarify with evidence many of her claims, which as far as I'm concerned shows an admirable receptivity to critique.

Being in the tech world, I can't help but have heard a lot about the whole thing, however I prefer to form my own opinions by going to the source. So I read the book. Sometimes I agreed strongly; sometimes I disagreed. I'm going to focus today on some areas where I resonated with what Sheryl had to say.

Perhaps one area where I have changed the most over the years and where I completely understood what Sheryl was talking about, was when she talked about how pretending that gender doesn't exist, doesn't make it not exist. We are acculturated, especially in the computing industry, to just try and fit in, to believe in a culture of meritocracy.  Sheryl points out - quite accurately in my experience - that gender is always there, just below the surface. It pops up, because as humans, we judge other  humans subjectively even when we think we don't.

I periodically have people tell me "there is no difference between men and women". I used to believe this. I used to operate as if there was no difference, which meant, in reality, that I was trying to be one of the guys. As far back as grade school, long before my life as a computer nerd, I found that the guys never believed for a second that I was a guy no matter how hard I tried to convince them otherwise. It wasn't because I really wanted to be a guy. It was because I learned early on that guys were often doing what I wanted to do and the girls weren't.

Somehow I missed the message that I should want to be doing what the girls were doing. So I busted my childhood butt to be one of the guys. It didn't work as planned, not in 6th grade, nor later in 10th grade, nor as a young software engineer in the 1980s. Just when I would think I was being accepted as an equal, something would come up to remind me we were not the same. In 6th grade it happened when suddenly the rage among the guys was the Playboy Bunny. That little black rabbit head started appearing everywhere in the classroom.

I remember the moment I found out what the bunny referred to and realized there was a problem. I had no idea what to do other than ignore it and pretend it didn't exist. It was about that time the guys threw me out of their fort in the woods and told me I was not welcome. I wish I could say this was an isolated incident but it was not. I wish I could say it doesn't ever happen in 2013 but sometimes it does.

Memory of my bunny  moment flashed through my head as Sheryl wrote about going out to dinner with the tech guys to drink whiskey and smoke cigars, only to find it made her sick. These experiences are not uncommon, and as most of us who have been around a while have come to learn, they aren't simply extracurricular activities that can be ignored. They are part of how important relationships are built and business gets done.

So with regard to those people who tell me there is no difference between women and men, I have come to realize that in most of the cases I encounter, these people are well meaning and are expressing an ideal. But that ideal is not reality. Stating it, and thinking that will make it true, is delusion.

Strong words? Yes. Sheryl talks also about how there is a danger, both perceived and real, to speaking openly about gender. As she puts it, you are wading into deep and muddy waters; it can be a no-win situation. Tar pit is what comes into my mind. On the other hand, there are a lot of very good reasons (discussed at some length in the book) for speaking out.  Professional as well as personal. I suggest you read the book and judge for yourself. Go to the source.

If, after reading Lean In, you want to talk about it with other interested people, Sheryl Sandberg's book is the subject of Global Tech Women's next virtual book club on Friday September 20th at 9am Pacific Time. Everyone is welcome.

In addition to all the practical reasons Sheryl discusses for speaking out, I will add that acknowledging what "is" can be a powerful thing. Living either in denial or ignorance doesn't lead to happiness. Becoming attuned to what is in front of you, in your here and now, has the potential to do so however. Not instantly - there is no free lunch. You have to decide what to do with your reality and taking action is work. Sheryl would call this leaning in.

ICER Day 1: An Unexpected Foray into Learning & Design

A Layout

Synchronicity can be a freaky and wonderful thing. Within the first two hours of the ICER conference today I realized that I had not left Design behind (see my last several posts), and that a book I am currently reading (and will eventually post about) on egotistical versus empathic people in the corporate world was directly relevant to pedagogy and computing education.

The keynote speaker today was Scott Klemmer, who, in spite of what that link says, has just moved here to UC San Diego, apparently split between the Cognitive Science and Computer Science departments. He was originally trained as a designer and it showed as he took us on an interesting adventure around UI design from the back end - code in other words. He started out with the statement "View Source is a great example of UI design". That got my attention - to spend the next hour talking about the UI (UX) aspects of something users never see (code) but computer scientists see day in and day out. How very very cool.

In contrast to the industry-oriented conference I reported on a few weeks ago, ICER is an academic conference. Thus, Scott's talk was loaded with wonderful theoretical backup, explanations, references and citations, thought provoking ideas and suggestions that researchers love to roll around in. It was great.

So when Scott said "intuition is a difficult thing to teach students" it was the opening volley into wide ranging but highly focused and well supported discussion about using examples to aid learning, to generate creative design, to generate effective design, to arrive at quality prototypes while building group (i.e. team) rapport. One theme: sharing and adapting examples is good technically and good for learning purposes. But in a much deeper way than you might think. The discussion then rolled on into the role of peer assessment in design and how it can be used in software tools. Drool.

One of the interesting areas Scott has worked on is researching single vs. parallel design development. We know (the "research We" for those not used to the lingo) that people become ego attached to their own ideas and are loath to let go of them, even sometimes to their own detriment. It is called Functional Fixation and was written about back in 1945 by a guy named Dunker. But, we are learning that this ego attachment is reduced significantly if people develop multiple ideas in parallel. It becomes much easier to hear critique and drop one idea for another if you have several ideas to compare and contrast. As opposed to if you have only one idea and you are completely invested in it's success or failure.

Lots of very practical application along with some wonderful theory - established theory and theory being built. Some of what Scott spoke about was targeted at formal pedagogy but I can easily see it adapted without too much effort to an industry setting. For example, he spent some time on how to incorporate self-assessment and peer assessment into the development of designs and prototypes in the computing classroom. One of the big challenges, as educators are all too painfully aware, is that novices aren't always very good at providing useful feedback. Even when the faculty supplies an assessment rubric as guide, all sorts of issues arise - if the rubric is too specific, it can stifle creativity and lead students to just check off the boxes without any deep thinking; yet if the rubric is too abstract it can lead students to have no idea what to do with it and either flail or provide random, not very helpful, feedback.

Here comes the useful research note that provides insight into not only the classroom, but the business world too (I refuse to say "the real world", because schooling is real; where ever you are at any moment in time is your real life).

Novices have a very hard time with abstract rubrics. The question becomes how to operationalize a rubric for the particular level of students you are working with? (CS1, CS2, an upper division course)? We have research about how novices become experts and how along the way they gradually become more able to deal with abstraction. Thus, the rubric that works for a sophomore level software engineering class is probably not the same one you'd use for a senior level software engineering class or for a newly hired software engineer or for a seasoned developer.

A technique, one that Scott is working with, is to create the rubric such that up to a certain point it is fairly concrete (i.e. you can get 90% of the possible points) and after that it is more abstract (you want an A, then you have to go above and beyond). What he didn't discuss, but where my thoughts were going, was that you could take the same (or similar) rubric and start shifting that abstraction point downwards as you work with more advanced students or professionals.

Fascinating idea to consider. Fascinating idea to strategize, design, prototype, implement.

SIGCSE: The Perils of Textbook Publishing

Today was a split day - SIGCSE in the morning and the beginning of the ACM Education Council meeting in the afternoon. Oh...and snow in between. A small romp on the sidewalk in the lovely snow, which unfortunately had all melted by evening when we popped out of meetings. It was great while it lasted.

Snow was a good mental cleansing agent after a fairly serious morning session about the high price of textbooks. There were four people on the panel - two publisher representatives and two authors. One of the publisher representatives was my editor from CRC Press, who I have nothing but good things to say about. I wanted to be in the audience as a friendly supporting face if needed.

No one disagrees that textbooks are very highly priced. Whenever I have to tell someone what my book costs I am prepared for sticker shock if that person is not from the academic world. And my book is definitely on the low end of textbook costs, in part because my publisher tries very hard to keep the cost of its books down.

What I learned, both from having been through the process of being an author, from specifically asking my editor about the subject, and then even more from listening to all points of view during this panel today, is that it is a complicated issue.

So here are some of the interesting things to consider. No one, including textbook representatives, will try and tell you that they are ok with the high price of textbooks - at least not anyone I heard from today. I was impressed to hear just how aware they are of how unhappy a lot of people are about textbook prices, and how much they are looking at different models to reduce prices. Depending upon who you are talking to, publishers are exploring a whole host of alternative business models from ebooks to custom publishing, to interactive online resources...at one point the representative from Wiley put up a list of options that was mind boggling. I had no idea. My brain hurt looking at it. So did at least one member of the audience who said it was all too complicated and could they please just make it simple?

Which leads me to another set of issues. It is flat out complicated and expensive to bring a textbook to market as compared to a trade book. A good publisher (and I count mine as one of those) works closely with an author, providing support, guidance, answers, and a whole host of services such as editorial development, professional design, layout, copyediting, typesetting (which is more labor intensive for textbooks than for a novel) iterative feedback, solicitation of professional peer reviews and other things - all before the book ever becomes a physical object. Then there is marketing and promotion. A myth is that printing costs are one of the major expenses for publishers and thus with the influx of ebooks prices should come way down. Not so I learned - printing costs are a very small percentage. And creation of quality ebooks is complex and expensive for a whole host of reasons I won't belabor here. And then there is volume - textbooks will never sell anywhere near what tradebooks can sell. So there are few economies of scale available to textbook publishers that are available to trade publishers.

I belong to a writers and publishers professional organization in which the majority of the members are independent writers and publishers - i.e. they publish themselves. This allows them to price their books as they choose and keep all the proceeds. The organization (Publishers and Writers of San Diego) provides incredibly invaluable professional-quality information on all aspects of the business side of writing. One of the side benefits of belonging to this organization is that I see just how much work my publisher has done for me and how incredibly expensive it can be to develop your own professional quality book. It can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars and suck up untold numbers of hours on activities most writers have zero interest in (page layout and design for example? ee-yuck).

At times the invective in professional circles against academic textbook publishers has been quite nasty. Sad to say, the situation just isn't as simple as some people think (wish) it was. The situation with regard to traditional publishing is in many ways similar to the situation the recording industry went through recently. Changes in technology led to inevitable eating away at traditional music purchases and huge problems with piracy. The recording industry fought tooth and nail to force people to stick with a traditional model of music purchase.  It was a lost cause from the beginning.

Similar societal and technological pressures face the publishing industry. Until recently I just assumed that the publishing industry was as much a stick-in-the-mud as the music industry. However, it is now clear that publishers, academic publishers in particular (all I can really speak to), are running around like mad trying to adjust and figure out what business model will balance a need for financial viability with responsiveness to demands for greater availability, flexibility and lower cost.

It just isn't easy. New business models have to come into existence that acknowledge the (justified) demand for lower priced textbook while maintaining financial viability of good publishers providing the valuable infrastructure that brings a book from idea to reality.

Finally, I want to point out something brought up today by someone. Higher education is becoming more and more expensive and the financial pressures on students are only getting worse. Many complicated factors contribute to this situation, which those of you in education circles are all to familiar with. It's messy, it's political, it's entrenched in decades of attitudes and policy. We have to do something about our educational crisis and the growing equity gap with regards to access to higher education. However, it was pointed out that textbook publishers are a convenient scapegoat.

It is easy to direct a lot of anger about the overall state of higher education at publishers and textbook pricing. Publishers are not blameless, but should not be treated with such disdain nor blamed for so much more of the problem than is really deserved.

I rarely hear a balanced conversation of the challenges facing the textbook industry. It is hard to see their side of things if you haven't either been in their shoes or have worked with them as an author. As with many things in life, there is a middle way - in perspective and in actions taken. We need to work in a mutually respectful fashion to find that way.

I don't know about you, but my brain hurts again; I'm hoping for some more snow.

My New Kindle Fire Goes Rogue

Another one of the WIAD (World Information Architecture Day - see my last post) speakers gave me a an unbelievably timely perspective on mobile devices. Greg Nudelman from Design Caffeine streamed in live from the east coast to speak about cross-platform user experiences. Perfect timing because I'm in mobile mobilization mode.

Mobile in So Many Ways

 Greg pointed out that on a small device tapping is easier than swiping because you want one hand optimization for routine tasks. On a larger mobile device people want to use more of their hands (plural) in larger gestures. One of my friends is in the market for a new smartphone and was asking me about the differences between iPhone and Android phones. Dangerous territory to wade into, given the fervor with which people take up their cause. My friend is fairly new to this world and was describing the features she has experienced and likes, such as the ability to flip from landscape to portrait mode. Now that is a nice cross-platform mobile UX feature.

After I mentioned that to her, I took out my new Kindle Fire and started rotating it in a slow circle to see how well it kept up with me turning it around and around. I wished that my recently ordered Google Nexus 4 phone would arrive so I could flip them both together and see if one was more likely to give me motion sickness in a moving car. Both my friend and I get terrible motion sickness so this could be an important mobile UX feature. I wonder if anyone has created an anti-motion sickness mobile app.

Speaking of my new Kindle, I had the most interesting mobile UX nightmare when I first got it a few weeks ago. I was so geekily excited. The first thing I noticed (and was quite amused by) was that all the screen saver advertising was in French. Odd, but ok... (I was most definitely not in France). I poked around, got it set up. I only had to go online to the computer a few times to figure out how to do something - although why I should have had to go into the Amazon customer conversation forum at all is a valid UX question.

Then the real trouble began. There was supposed to be a category for "Kindle Owners Lending Library", and there was supposed to be a free trial month of Amazon Prime. I received email telling me my Amazon Prime had started. The Kindle itself popped up with a message welcoming me to Prime. But there was no Prime and no Kindle Owners Lending Library. There was however, a mysterious note on the Kindle suggesting I get the most out of my service by going local at Amazon.fr (Amazon France). In English. The Kindle apparently wanted to see the world.

Enter Nightmare: over the next week, over 8 hours reading Help pages, plus 7 phone calls to Amazon, 3 chat sessions, live conversations with at least 12 Amazon service reps at various nested levels, and each time (each time) I had to repeat the scenario over and over: this is what happened, this is what we have tried so far, this is what is going on, where is my Amazon Prime? Where is the Kindle Owners Lending Library?

We upgraded the OS (which for some reason was a few versions old), hard reset the system, looked at this that and the other things. The service reps were some of the most patient helpful people on this planet but the problem did not get identified. I can't tell you how many times I read out the names of the menus, categorization labels, and navigation aids. I don't fault the Amazon reps at all, because they seemed truly concerned and this was really weird.

Perhaps you have figured out what I eventually figured out: the Kindle had decided I was in France (clue: the French advertising) and placed geographic restrictions on my device.

Even after this dawned on me and I called Amazon to fix it, it took 2 more phone calls over a 24 hour period to get the machine permanently in the US. The first time they switched it to the US, the Kindle took it into its head to put itself back in France as soon as I turned it off. Perhaps it preferred the ambiance over there.

I was about ready to tear my hair out by the end of all this. I finally (knock on wood) have a properly functioning Kindle Fire. If the Kindle ever ever decides that I am in France (or New Zealand or Argentina) I don't know what I'll do. I'm a bit concerned, because I travel internationally sometimes and I planned to bring the Kindle. I'd have to contact Amazon to inquire.

I really like my Kindle I do. I am getting rather attached to it now. I lost over a week of my trial version of Amazon Prime, and I thought about asking Amazon to extend my expiration date, but that would mean having to contact Amazon and talk through this whole experience yet again. That feels a bit traumatic.

World Information Architecture Day - Cool Stuff

15 cities officially celebrated World Information Architecture (IA) Day on Saturday - possibly more than 15, but there were 15 official selected locations for WIAD 2013 around the globe. One of those sites was Los Angeles, sponsored by the User Experience Professionals Association of Los Angeles  (LA-UXPA) and I was there along with several hundred other people.

LA-UXPA did an amazing job. It was a high energy, well organized, event with an incredible amount of useful and thought-provoking information packed into a one full day of interdisciplinary speakers. You see, IA people hark from the arts, law, computing, psychology, design, sciences... I spoke to people from each of those fields. Disney was there (they sponsored  a tasty lunch among other things) along with a host of other generous sponsors. Every time you turned around your brain was being challenged to switch gears to look at things from another perspective. You gotta love this kind of event.

For example, one of the speakers, David Fiorito a self described computer geek, came out from Philadelphia to to talk about "thinking navigation". From his perspective, IA draws heavily on Linguistic Anthropology: recognizing the use of language as a common source of meaning among groups, drawing awareness to cultural meaning systems encoded in words (e.g. symbols) and utilizing ethnography to decode relationships between the symbols (words). To keep you on your toes, David also described IA in terms of ontology, taxonomy and choreography. That last item was a pleasant surprise; I had an immediate mental image of ballerina-like labels and categories (taxonomy) doing pirouettes among each other to tell a story (ontology).

A completely different sort of inspiration landed in my lap during Aaron Irizarry's opening presentation. Recently, I have been pondering how to address concerns in the computing education community about integrating sustainability into the undergraduate curriculum (the topic of my own presentation in a few weeks at SIGCSE 2013). Then Aaron launched into a discussion of tackling the MVP: Minimal Viable Problem.

As in: in an increasingly complex interconnected technology driven world, we will inevitably find ourselves in a room with peers who all want to "address it" but who don't even agree on what "it" is (IA, UX, Design...Sustainability). We struggle to arrive at a common understanding of terms, goals, expected common value of customer/user (student, faculty) experience. What is "it"? What is "its" value? How to respond to "we don't have the resources to do that"?

Is UX valuable? Is IA valuable? Is Sustainability in the Computing Curriculum valuable? Yes. Yes. Yes.

It doesn't matter if we are in industry or academia, if we are talking product development, service provision, or pedagogical content knowledge. So! went off the light bulb hovering over my head! When we are breaking new ground, we often slam into the same communication challenges. Aaron provided some nicely targeted insights into tackling this problem. Little does Aaron know, but he helped me a great deal with plotting and planning my presentation. Thanks Aaron!

There's more to tell about WIAD. I'm still hoarse from all the talking on Saturday. Stay tuned for Part 2!

Fruitful Thoughts About Career Trajectories

"Do you have career ADD?" 

I loved that question. Jo Miller, CEO of Women's Leadership Coaching asked her audience that question during the latest Global Tech Women webinar "Take Charge of Your Career Trajectory" (see also my previous post). Jo was discussing a common problem for ambitious successful women - do this, do that, say yes indiscriminately to all projects and tasks that come your way. On the one hand it can be exciting to take on all these different opportunities. Never a dull moment. On the other hand, everyone has a brand and what does it say about your brand if you appear to others to be always willing and available to do anything that needs doing? You need to be strategic about what you take on.

Everyone has a brand. It is good to be reminded of this every once in a while.  Often your brand is placed upon you rather than created by your own design. Stop and think - what is my brand? Whether you realize it or not, other people view you as ___________. Perhaps the least helpful situation is when you don't consciously position yourself as owning some area - this was Jo's message.

Once you start to think about your brand, you need to actively work on building it. This is how you will evolve your career and move upwards. You can define "upwards" however you like - traditionally or unconventionally. But if you just leave your self-brand to chance or are kind of wishy-washy about it, you miss out on the really awesome opportunities to go where you want to go professionally.

Perhaps the worst thing is to try to be something you are not. I know I have done this in the past and I'm sure many of you have as well. There are pressures from all quarters to make decisions that may mean squishing your multi-faceted self into a square box. Imagine taking a grapefruit (one of my favorite fruits) and shoving it whole into a small glass jar. You may get it in there and the lid may go on (screw it down tight) but it is going to be bruised and pulpy. Do you really want to be that grapefruit?

Jo wasn't talking about beating up on innocent grapefruit; that is what I thought of as I listened to her discuss the importance of Building a Scalable Brand based upon what is authentic about yourself. What is really you?

It was also enlightening to hear Jo talk about what works and what you need to do depending upon whether you are early career, mid-level, or senior level. It occurred to me that "early" "mid" and "senior" are not always obvious. It certainly isn't job title or size of paycheck that definitively decides. You can have a spiffy job title and a fat paycheck and be viewed as rather so-so in the hierarchy and dead-ending.

Do you know how others view where you are in your career trajectory?

SO much terrific information about being an emerging leader. I'm so glad I have my notes. You can make your own notes. If you haven't already done so you can view the video of Jo's presentation here.

While you do that I am going to go be nice to some citrus.

Computer Scientist and Spy

When I was a child I wanted to be: a Writer, a World Traveler and a Spy. Lofty career goals. Kids don't have all these embedded notions of what is and is not possible.

My passions led the way and I followed my gut. I kept a meticulously detailed Journal. It was most definitely a Journal and not a Diary, because a Journal meant serious business, whereas a Diary implied fluffy stuff. Each entry started with what time I got up in the morning ("Alarm went off at 7:32"), proceeded through the day, replete with commentary about my adventures, and ended with exactly what moment I went to sleep ("Lights out 11:46 1/2")

My favorite book was Harriet the Spy, and I wore my copy to shreds. Harriet was my mentor: brave, brilliant, determined, adventurous and a good friend. I emulated Harriet by toting around a Spy Notebook (so labeled on the cover) where I wrote down observations of my classmates. Strict reporting ("William is picking his nose again", "Tom hit me over the head with his book on the bus so I turned around and shot a spitball at him") mixed with opinions ("That is disgusting", "It is completely unfair to send me to the Principal when I was acting in self-defense")

No one was safe from Lisa the Spy. In the afternoons and evenings, when I was not out leading the neighborhood kids in high intensity games of hide and seek, I was sneaking around the neighborhood crouching under peoples windows and recording their (boring) conversations in my Spy Notebook. It wasn't the conversations that were really important, it was the act of being a successful, undetected Spy gathering accurate information.

Things got a bit muddled somewhere along the line, I lost track of my passions and found myself a Computer Scientist In A Cube. Stuck indoors all day, writing code. Code just didn't cut it. Constantly breathing recycled air just didn't cut it. Those ghastly pantyhose definitely didn't cut it (this was the '80s).

The story has a Happy Ending. Over a period of years, through a process of introspection, serious goal setting, muddling around, and several instances of life throwing some real zingers my way, I found myself not only a Computer Scientist but a Writer, World Traveler and Spy.

Being a qualitative researcher, author and program evaluator entails all of these activities. No cubicles, only rare short term incarcerations in germ-laden recycled air, and lots of globe trotting. No disgusting pantyhose. Ever.

It just goes to show there are endless opportunities in the computing field in spite of persistent stereotypes or what some people may tell you is "the way things are".

The reason I'm sharing all this is because of a webinar I heard last week: "Take Charge of Your Career Trajectory", the latest webinar produced by Global Tech Women. This particular webinar featured Jo Miller, CEO of Women's Leadership Coaching. Jo's first point (numbered "5") was that you need to Know Your Niche. Your ideal niche, not necessarily your current niche. You need to understand your passions and what makes you feel good. Really get clear on it. Steering yourself towards what you enjoy and feel good about makes the greatest difference over the long run.

Depending upon how far off you are from your ideal niche, it may take a while to get there. But it doesn't have to take several decades. Jo provided a ton of useful, actionable advice for technical women (and anyone else!) to consider. I found my way to where I am somewhat circuitously, but you can speed things up if you set your heart and mind on it. Heck, if I can be Lisa the Spy then you can be anything!

Luckily, the webinar is online. I highly recommend checking it out. While you are at it, if you are in the computing field and doing something interesting let me know. I'd love to write about you!

M & M s

Definitely Not A Hot Topic

Two puzzling phenomenon have been running around in my head for some time and I'm wondering if there is a connection between the them. If there isn't, let's make one.

I spend a lot of time working with researchers in the computer science education community, and I have at least one of my limbs firmly planted in computing education policy circles. There is, I suspect, no computing educator or affiliate who is not familiar with "the MOOC question". One of computing education's favorite topics of conversation for several years has been the Massive Open Online Course. Things are only heating up. Who is involved in their creation and propagation, who is not? Where is the quality and where is it lacking? What is the potential and what is the threat? How do we respond?

There are probably those who would rather sit this one out. In response to that and other burning MOOC issues, in my next column for the ACM Inroads Magazine, due to appear in March, I go on for about 1000 words about the importance of engaging  creatively with MOOCS. I don't hear too many people vocally advocating for ignoring MOOCS. That would be inherently contradictory.

The point is: in computing education circles, the hottest topic of the day is, arguably, MOOCS.

Not so in the private tech sector. I also spend a lot of time with people in the private sector and many of them barely know about MOOCS. Or they simply don't feel it is of concern to them. Having done a bit of asking around, I hear, and am told by well-placed friends as well, that the private tech sector isn't all that engaged with the MOOC question. There are a whole host of reasons why they should be engaged with it. Maybe I'll write a column about that...

On the other hand, one of the hottest topics in high-tech is Mobile. Mobile is not The Future. Mobile has Arrived, as one of my UX (User Experience) colleagues reminded me recently. The markets are hot, hot, hot in all sorts of places related to hardware, software, services based upon Mobile. If you aren't into Mobile you are behind the innovation curve. Those industry colleagues I know who aren't working with Mobile in some respect say, either aloud or quietly, they wish they were. Or, at the very least, think they should be. Whether for personal interest, professional mobility (ouch), or simply for not being perceived as behind the times.

As with the MOOC issue and computing educators, it is an endangered species of high-tech employee that will advocate for ignoring Mobile.

On yet another hand, computing educators and in particular computing education researchers don't seem to be doing much with Mobile. The primary discussions about Mobile are about how to get students to unglue from their devices and pay attention to their education.

Which brings me to the burning desire to ask:

What are the possibilities for getting the greater high-tech industry more actively engaged with MOOCS in creative positive ways? 

What are the possibilities for getting the computing education / research community more actively engaged with Mobile in pedagogically creative ways?

Mobile MOOCS? 

Not a far fetched thought at all. 

What else?

What Can Global Tech Women Do For You?

A conference like The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) is a fantastic experience. Having attended many times I can vouch for the fact that there is nothing (nothing) like being surrounded by a couple thousand other professional technical women. You don't realize until you experience it just how different the technical world, our world, would be if there were more technical women around. I can't describe the experience other than to say it is mind blowing, empowering and life changing.

However, most technical women around the globe don't have access to the GHC or one of it's sister conferences. They don't have access to the resources and connections available to those relative few who can physically attend a conference for women in computing. What to do?

Global Tech Women, introduced in my last post, intends to bridge the gap between globally dispersed technical women and the equally dispersed resources and like minded others. That means bringing resources for personal and professional growth to technical women on a local level. In their communities and homes. That also means providing technical women access to content and a network on a global scale. Global Tech Women (GTW) is employing both a bottom up and top down approach to supporting and connecting often isolated technical women.

"Women Talk Tech" Webinars. Information and expertise coming to you.

On September 21st Global Tech Women founder Deanna Kosaraju spoke in some depth about the organization: its vision, mission, goals, and plans.  What is going on as well as opportunities for you to get involved. This 30 minute webinar contains far more information than can easily fit in a blog post. Or even several blog posts. Deanna also hints at some nifty technology in the wings. If you want the full scoop on Global Tech Women, you can access the webinar and slides here.

Then there was the second webinar on October 12th which featured Caroline Simard getting into specifics about how to identify a work culture that is (or is not) actively supportive of technical women. I thought I knew a lot already about this topic yet I walked away with things to ponder and act upon. A particularly nice feature of this webinar was the active discussion from women across the career spectrum. Curious? The webinar and slides are archived here (scroll down the page).

The next webinar is ... Friday. It looks like we are going to hear about disruptive innovation. You can still sign up here. If you miss it, don't worry - like all the other webinars it will be archived.

"Voices" - an International Women's Day Conference. We return to the challenge facing technical women who would like to attend a conference geared toward their personal and professional goals.

Voices will be held on International Women's Day of course.  March 8th, 2013. What is truly innovative about this conference is that you don't have to go anywhere to participate. The conference comes to you. As described in detail in the first webinar video, Voices will take place over a 24 hour period, following the sun as it circles the globe. Not only can you attend the conference but you can participate in the planning and execution. In other words, if you want to hear about something, share about something, if you know about something worth sharing at the conference, you are encouraged to contact the organization to discuss how to make it happen. The agenda is not going to be decided by "someone out there".

A Customizable Open Source Platform with resources and connections geared towards your profile.

If every social media savvy marketing organization can target you with ads based upon what they creep around snooping out about you (yuck), doesn't it make sense to turn things on their head and *ask* technical women what they want to help them achieve their personal and professional goals and then deliver it? Sometime soon, the GTW website will provide you the ability to create a goal driven profile which will be used to connect you with resources, ideas, activities and people that fit where you are in your life and career.

The platform will likely require an entire blog post of its own sometime down the road. Meanwhile, in order to eventually provide oodles of bloggable material about how this platform serves your needs, you can contribute to its architecture and development. This is yet another example of Global Tech Women walking the talk - they want to involve technical women in the creation and direction of this platform.

It dawns on me, on this, the waning week prior to our incredibly close national election here in the US, that just as I hope all of you in this country get out and voice your opinions by VOTING (this is no time to be apathetic or too busy to register your opinion), I hope that all technical women reading this, wherever you are in the globe, take the opportunity to take part in the participatory democracy presented to you by Global Tech Women. In whatever way works for you.

Introducing Global Tech Women: Are You a Technical Woman?

Technical Women are Leaving

It is a well known fact that there are not as many women in technology careers as men, and equally well documented that numbers are declining rather than increasing - unlike in most other science and engineering disciplines. The problem doesn't stop there - reliable data show that many women who complete a technical degree choose not to pursue a technical career. To cap it off, women in technical careers around the globe leave those careers at an alarming rate. The whole situation is completely crazy when you consider that lucrative computing jobs are increasing by leaps and bounds and many companies (not just in the US) have difficulty finding people to hire.

As many of you know, there are excellent organizations around the globe that have set their sights on addressing one aspect or another, one facet or another, of this incredibly complex problem. But...

I'm going to hazard a guess that many of you don't know about Global Tech Women. Global Tech Women (GTW for short here) is different. This organization, the brainchild of Deanna Kosaraju who you may know from her previous role as Vice President of Programs at the Anita Borg Institute, takes a holistic approach to the problem. In other words it is about the technology but it's not only about the technology. It's far more than that. As Deanna puts it, GTW wants to support technical women in becoming "connected, inspired and self-actualized".

This vision leads to a different approach than many other organizations, starting with an important definition:

What is a technical woman?

Answer: You get to decide. Yes, you.

If you self-identify as a technical woman, then you are a technical woman. Period. 

Why should someone else tell you if you "are" or "are not" technical?

Not everyone takes the same trajectory into a technical career. We know this, yet at the same time there are people who apply an exclusive "definition". i.e. you must have a technical degree, or you must work for an established big-name corporation or... If you don't, then you are excluded either explicitly or implicitly. When I write it out it sounds ludicrous to my ears, but some people/organizations will exclude from their definition, and hence exclude from support, someone, and often this means women, who take unconventional routes to achieving their technical and life goals. Global Tech Women starts from a position of inclusiveness and empowerment.

As Deanna pointed out in one of our recent conversations, technology can be truly interdisciplinary. Technology cuts across disciplines. For example, Deanna told me about a woman she met who has a graduate degree in Sociology and is now developing apps in a developing country. Here is the key take home point - this woman did not "leave" Sociology. She incorporates her training into her work as a technical woman helping people in Africa. There are a lot of women out there like her. Who is to tell them they aren't really technical?

If you choose to identify yourself as a technical woman, Global Tech Women wants to be there to support you in defining success for yourself, and in connecting you with resources to make that easier. GTW may be a fairly new organization but Deanna Kosaraju brings years of executive experience in the technology world and in non-profit organizational management to this endeavor. She has already established some impressive partnerships and more are in the wings; (see the GTW website); in addition she is in the process of forming a consortium of technical women's groups around the world to talk about best practices.

So - what can Global Tech Women do for you? I thought you might ask. In the next post, I'll dive more deeply into Global Tech Women's ongoing activities.