As we wind up to the beginning of VON, Andy is putting out a call for women to participate. He singles out Christine Herron, and notes that there are a total of 12 women on the participants list. Christine writes periodically about the same issue. I am not sure why there aren’t more women in the technology industry. Certainly there were many at Microsoft, and in every role in the company, but Microsoft is an anomaly.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
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Course, not saying that she isn’t talented, but Christine is pretty easy on the eyes. Just saying.
She’s very sharp
“I am not sure why there aren’t more women in the technology industry.” –> At MS I noted a good overall male/female balance, but many fewer women than men in technical roles — software development engineering, test engineering, and program management — and fewer still as you head down the software stack from apps/services towards middleware and operating systems. In Windows NT the ratio of women to men in technical functions (excluding marketing) was less than 1 in 10. In MSN that ratio was perhaps 3 in 10.
We worked super hard at making sure the interview process was fair and included a balanced set of interviewers, both male and female. This helped some, but the pool of female candidates was smaller to begin with. One signficant problem is further up the pipeline: average female university entrance rates into computer science and computer engineering programs are dropping across north america.
Hard to pinpoint a cause for this but we surely all can help by encouraging boys AND girls to think about technology careers.
As for not having enough female speakers at conferences, there really isn’t any excuse for that. Plenty of qualified candidates out there, you just need to look.
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