Innovation Inside Corporations

Some of the greatest innovations in technology come out of large, powerful corporations. You just can’t match the resources of those organizations in terms of money and technical prowess. The question this session tried to answer was how to get involved in the innovation within a large corporation, where it seems so easy to get lost. We heard from a panel of innovators from Microsoft, Sun, IBM, Cisco, and Intel, who shared all kinds of stories, information and advice for how to get your ideas recognized, funded, and adopted withing such corporations.

This panel was full of advice that I think would be incredibly valuable both within large companies as well as in other environments (like academia!). Some of the takeaways from the session:

Make sure you pitch an idea in an articulate way.
Engage a champion for that idea at the management level and get help to drum up support.
Make sure you understand the official (and unofficial) process very well.
The meeting doesn’t happen at the meeting. Talk to the decision makers ahead of time and pitch your ideas. Sometimes you only get one chance.
Find somebody at a more senior rank that you are helping with your idea, whose interests align with yours.
Make sure you are persistent, sometimes the timing just isn’t right.
Feeling uncomfortable is a good sign.. you are pushing through to the next level.
You may want to practice pitching ideas.
Don’e be afraid to ignore standard processes if they aren’t working for you…. don’t limit yourself to convention.

I must say I found this panel to be very inspirational, because I think we as technologists tend to be very innovative, and it’s great to hear about successful women who can talk about the fact that there are always bumps along the way. I also enjoyed hearing about the many processes and programs in place in these companies to encourage innovation.

Unique Needs: Producing a long-lasting outreach program

What are the best ways to recruit girls (and boys) in middle and high school into CS? More and more outreach programs at universities are being developed, often taking “the show on the road” with undergraduates and grad students directly interacting with K-12 kids.

This panel gave tips on how to make these outreach presentations and activities compelling, how to get funding for them, and how to create regional synergy. One of the highlights of the session was actually participating in some of the activities that each of the groups uses in their road shows.

Helping Businesses Invent the Future: Improving Engagement among Women in High Tech

This session was business focused, and I was interested in seeing the “other” side, since my experience (at least recently) has been primarily in academia. Heather Foust-Cummings from Catalyst talked about a recent study on women in tech workplaces (and tech women in non-tech workplaces). She presents some results from the study, although they aren’t published yet, so I can’t post about specific results. She also talked about some things that we as women workers can do to improve our situation in high-tech jobs, as well as what managers can do to make a difference.

As I’ve seen in many many talks and sessions here and previously, the number one thing that people say you need to do is find a mentor and network. To that end, we had a chance to talk to the people around us and kick off some of that networking.

Making the Future Web Accessible to People with Disabilities

The topic of this session was really interesting to me because it’s hard to imagine my own life without the web, and I wonder how someone with a disability might experience it. The presenter, Shawn Lawton Henry, from MIT (and working on the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative) gave some excellent examples, demos, and personal stories. She was also a particularly dynamic speaker, and engaged the audience throughout the talk.

Shawn showed us examples of how web sites would “look” to someone using a screen reader, illustrating how much incredibly simple techniques can matter for accessibility. One thing that I think is interesting is that, in general, the accessibility techniques (like using appropriate headers, alternate text for images, good link names, etc) lead to a better experience for everyone using a web site, not just someone with disabilities.

Experiencing first hand the way a web site can look when it’s properly marked up, versus improperly marked up was very enlightening. I already was aware of the huge impact the web has had on enabling people with disabilities to participate in many things that were not possible before. Now I have a new perspective on the challenges that remain. The takeaway here is that accessibility is VITAL, and we can all help to make it happen.

She proposed some things we can all do:

-Communicate the benefits of accessibility (more customers can use site effectively in more situations)

-Checking web accessibility (Take a look at your own web sites and see how accessible they are) You can get rid of your mouse and see how usable the site is. You can turn off images. Check the alternative text for images. Simple stuff, folks… why not do it?!

-Gently encourage accessibility

-Reward accessible websites.

I’m glad I attended this session, and I’ll be checking out my own web sites for accessibility in the coming days and as I create new content.

Angela Dalton
Official GHC 2007 Blogger

You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum.

Making the Transition to a Teaching-oriented Institution

As grad students, we aren’t really prepared for the “teaching” part of… well… teaching! For people who may be interested in a teaching oriented institution or positions, what should they know?

This panel addressed the preparation, experiences, environment, tenure process, and lifestyle of a teaching school job. The panelists answered a number of questions and gave perspective on the early stages of a teaching career.

As I prepare for my upcoming job search, and decide what kind of position I want to pursue, this was really valuable information to hear. There’s a whole different set of issues and considerations at a teaching institution, and even among such schools, there seem to be vast differences.

I’ll try to post some more highlights later this evening with some specifics from the panel.

20 Years of Empowering Women in Computing: Systers Past, Present, and Future

Many of us attending Hopper this year are members of the Systers email list. It’s a huge online community of women in computing, but do you know how it started? Do you know why? How about what the world was like for women in computing at the start? This session gave some background on Systers and perspectives from several members (new and not so new to the community).

It was a very different world in 1987, especially for women in computing. Carla Ellis, one of the original Systers (and my PhD Advisor!) told the story of how it all began. It’s a great story to hear at GHC, because this is really the only place you get the right image for perspective. Imagine the same female to male ratio as the one at GHC. Now invert everyone’s gender. THAT’S what it was like. The only places women ran into each other at the conference tended to be at the bathroom.

Through word of mouth, the 12 women at SOSP that year got together for lunch, exchanging email and raising suspicions of conspiracy! And now, 20 years later, Systers is a huge online community that has had far-reaching impact, both personally for many women, as well as through activism.

After hearing from Robin Jeffries (Her Syster’s Keeper) and Carla, we also heard from Dale Wolff, a long time syster with a background outside of academia (and thus has a different perspective). Finally, Laurian Vega, a new-ish syster, discussed the impact systers has already had in her life.

We heard some personal stories from the panelists and the audience, pretty much all bringing home the message that Systers keeps us from feeling isolated. We’re all in this together and Systers offers a unique community to support each other throughout our careers in computing.

Angela Dalton

Official GHC 2007 Blogger

You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum.

Joining the Game: Bringing Women into the World of Games

Did you know that the gaming industry is larger in revenue than the film industry? I didn’t… And the audience for games is 40% female. This panel included two CS faculty members (Diane Pozefsky from UNC Chapel Hill and Tiffany Barnes from UNC Charlotte) and two professionals in the industry (Colleen McCreary and Lauren Paone from Electronic Arts).

Game development is particularly interesting for women, I think, because of the breadth of challenges and the diversity of folks that you work with. As a researcher, I was particularly excited by hearing Tiffany Barnes from UNC Charlotte talking about all of the areas relevant to gaming. It got me thinking about gaming as both a teaching tool, as well as a really important application in my own research area (ubiquitous computing). Location based games, games that use the computing infrastructure (graffiti based walls, etc), and computer games that are integrated into the physical world are really gaining ground.

Using game development in the curriculum can expose students to some of the hardest problems in Computer Science:

Software engineering… Need effective team process to get this system working. Hard problems!
Game structure and flow, FUN — Need rapid prototyping process to make sure it’s actually fun.
Graphic design, HCI — More realistic looks, lots of research already, and continuing
Graphics, Animation, Physics, Audio — more and more focus in these areas now
Programming Languages — Underlying code in C/C++ but designers will use scripting languages (need C/C++ memory management)
Data Structure, Architecture — Multiple cores, parallelism!
Networks, Game AI — Multiplayer games popular, Game AI is still not very good

I also think that using games as a motivation for teaching software development BEYOND just Java could help bring C/C++ back as a large part of the curriculum.

Angela Dalton
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum.

In the bag

Evie and I arrived this afternoon in Florida. I checked in and picked up my goodie bag. We also wandered around to locate all the important stuff, like the child care. It looks like she’ll be having as much fun as I will. Then we went back to the room and took a look through the bag. Grace Hopper is always tops when it comes to conference bling. Here’s a look at what’s in the bag this year…

We headed to the opening reception and enjoyed schmoozing, eating, and sleeping. Here we are with Fran Allen!

Angela Dalton
Official GHC 2007 Blogger You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum.

Gearing up for Grace Hopper 2007!

Welcome to my Grace Hopper Celeblog. I’m looking forward to participating in this year’s Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. My first GHC was in 2002, when I had just begun working on my PhD, and I attended again last year, just a few months before my defense. I enjoyed the support and camaraderie tremendously, and I came away having made some good friends and learned a lot. I’ll be blogging about my overall experience at the conference as well as about some individual sessions.