http://www.knowandnetwork.org/francesbell/weblog/49.html

We had a good time at the GWO COnference in Keele last week.   I learned such a lot about a broad range of gender issues and theories, and heard some wonderful speakers.

As well as the conference, GWO has a journal.  This edition could be very relevant to Women in IT.

Special Issue of Gender, Work & Organization - Gender & New Technologies Vol 14, no. 4
Click here to be linked to an online table of contents.
Papers include:

Defining Expertise in Software Development While Doing Gender
Esther Ruizben

Gendered Work Ideals in Swedish IT Firms: Valued and Non-Values Workers
Helen Peterson

Does Gender Still Matter? A study of the Views of Women in the ICT industry in New Zealand
Barbara J. Crump, Keri A. Logan & Andrea McIlroy

Old Dreams, New Means: an Exporation of Visions and Situated Knowledge in Information Technology
Maria Jansson, Christina Mortberg & Elisabeth Berg


 

http://www.knowandnetwork.org/francesbell/weblog/53.html

After the Gender Work and Organisation Conference, on June 30th 2007, we held an inaugural research workshop, KAN (Know and Network): Women in IT Research into Social Networking, where Professor Mike Thelwall spoke about Social Network Analysis.  Mike gave us a fascinating talk (see slides), followed by a discussion where we explored how social network analysis might complement qualitative approaches to community and network analysis.  I think this is an important area.

http://www.knowandnetwork.org/francesbell/weblog/55.html

Beryl and I were a little late for the start of the Business Leadership for Women in  Technology Forum (see details of speakers), so we missed Val Singh’s talk but we did hear an excellent talk from Avivah Wittenberg-Cox from Diafora.  Avivah argued strongly for the argument for businesses to adapt to benefit from women as leaders, talent and customers – to move the focus of the need for change from women to businesses.

 

 

 

 

 

After coffee, Isabel Aguilera from Google thrilled us with personal philosophy of success and happiness as a woman empowered by technology. She finished with the following advice:

1.      Break the rules.

2.      You need to believe and behave as rule-breakers consistently.

3.      It’s mainly up to you, the opportunity is there.

 

 

 

Lynda Grattan talked about the 4 waves  of gender action by businesses

 

1. Measurement & Reporting
2. Enabling women to be wives, mothers and carers (work-family responsiveness, flexible work options, leave programmes, re-entry programmes)
3. Creating supportive networks (mentoring, coaching, formal networking programmes)
4. Preparing women to be leaders (training, talent management, ‘stretch’ assignments).

Lynda identified policy and practice gap in family-friendly policies e.g. very few managers work flexibly.

 

Next Anne Widdop European Director, Technology Delivery at IBM, speaking about the Succession and Advancement of Women, started by telling us how pissed off she is by the lack of change that has happened.  Despite her ’rant’, she does think that change can happen, but reflecting what Avivah had already said, it’s men’s minds that need changing too, as a first step.  To successfully drive change, you need to break down the barriers but also manage risks and expectations.  IBM is taking affirmative action, in order to eliminate disadvantage rather than provide advantage.  Anne emphasized the importance of mentoring and sponsoring (not necessarily another woman), telling us about IBM’s requirement for senior executives to engage in reciprocal mentoring with women.

 The audience joined in before lunch, raising questions about legal frameworks and their influence on the status quo.  In New Zealand, equality entitlement kicks in after 32 hours, compared with 12 months in the UK.

http://www.knowandnetwork.org/francesbell/weblog/56.html

Louise Makin started this session with her story of career development in high technology businesses, working in large organisations to her current position as CEO of BTG plc, that develops novel pharmaceuticals and medical technologies.  She spoke of the challenge of leading groups of technologists, and how to get the best out of them, reconciling language and 'cultural' differences between, say, engineers and business developers and customers. 'Hopes and fears' conversations are where scientists and engineers can speak about things about which they have a hunch rather than a certainty - to surface risks and opportunities.  She had tips about communicating with everyone in the organisation 'asking everyone the same question' and 'making it safe for people to answer'.

She told stories to demonstrate 'masculine' and 'feminine' behaviours relating to:

• internalising/ externalising success
• speaking to gain power or establish rapport
• with whom you share things and why

Louise recommended talking about fears and problems with supportive friends (rather than your boss!) whihc is good news for Know and Network.

http://www.knowandnetwork.org/francesbell/weblog/57.html

Rachel Woolf

 

 

 

 

 

Sarah Churchill gave some very useful tips on how women can behave to develop leadership and be noticed, and then went on to show the changes that have been made at PwC to increase satisfaction and achievement by women in their organisation. 

 

Anne Oberon is a Leadership Coach who works with military establishments. Anne spoke out the about the followership model (Grint):

• How Committed are the followers?
• How independent are the followers?

low C, low I - hierarchical leadership, transactional consent

low C, high I - non-existent leadership, obstructive dissent

low I, high C - theocratic leadership, destructive consent

                                     high I, high C -  socratic leadership , constructive dissent

 Inspirational leaders                           Interactive leaders

create a vision                                    provide a framework for others to create vision

In high achieving organisations, interactive style predominates (Burnham, D.) Barrier is that interactive style needs leader to be in good standing otherwise interpreted as weakness and incompetence.  Anne described journey structure of narratives, that can be related to leadership development, for their symbolic relevance.

Stages of the journey:

1. Call to adventure - we move from ordinary world to 'other' world.  Display awareness and willingness to be called.
2. Resisting the Call - ask yourself why?
3. Meeting with the mentor
4. Crossing the threshold (into the other world) - fully embrace the change.
5. The watering hole - decide who is on your side and who is against you, build alliances, asseert your authority.
6. Contests and battles - important how you deal with successes and setbacks.
7. Approach to the inmost cave - confront inner demons.
   
8. Seizing the sword.
9. Return with the elixir
10. The final battle.

See Anne's web page

 

http://elgg.jiscemerge.org.uk/francesbell/weblog/683.html

David Dowdle and I are putting together a bid to be a supporting project (in the area of academic development) for other larger projects.  We have already talked to Maggi Savin-Baden  about the possibility of writing a mutual link into our bids - think win-win.

If this may be of interest to you, please contact us for informal discussions. 

http://elgg.jiscemerge.org.uk/francesbell/weblog/708.html

I don't think so quite, but .......

some of us are probably studying massive VCs with Second Life and MMORPG.  Anyway, if we are, this might be a good conference to plan for 2008 - IFIP WG 9.5 International Working Conference on Virtuality and Society: Massive Virtual Communities (warning  - this link only worked for me in IE not Firefox).  Niki Panteli comes highly recommended, see her work.

 

 

http://www.knowandnetwork.org/francesbell/weblog/61.html

I thought this was a lovely way to tell a story.

It made me think about how BG did this.  She took the photos as she went along but must have written the story afterwards, as she was in a hurry to get to a speaking event.