Trisha's Ramblings

I attended (one way or another) two events last week that got me thinking The first was  Girl Developers will Save the World  - a session that had me a little confused as to whether that referred to me, or  actual  girls, i.e. those that are not yet legally classed as adults.  The second was the  Remarkable Women Twitter  party the following day. Firstly, a caveat/disclaimer (as usual) - both events were useful, thought-provoking and overall worthwhile.  But the alarming thing to me was the number of times I heard "boys are…" or "women think…" or "girls prefer…".  And I know we often make generalisations to stress a point, but I'm becoming extremely wary of statements that group people together along some arbitrary boundaries.   "Google+ failed because it's design by men for men" - no, it's because it's not designed for anyone.  Its only purpose was to compete with Facebook. "Women are better at communicating an...

So, my first day at my very first OSCON .  I have to say that when Ben and Martijn told me I had to do OSCON, that it was one of the conferences to go to, I was sceptical - not because I thought it would be rubbish, but because I have enjoyed all the conferences I've been to for different reasons. But I'm really impressed so far. The program is packed with great topics and speakers, and so many things I want to see that clash with each other.  It's frustrating, and all the sessions get in the way of all that networking stuff! The people are so friendly.  They smile at you randomly in the corridor.  They talk to you for no reason.  As a Londoner it comes as a bit of a shock to the system.  And it's nice!  Great conversations with different people. The venue  is set up for these encounters with plenty of places to sit with the laptop or mingle or meet and sit with people at lunchtime. The exhibition area is not a total waste of time...

I've been challenged to do a session at a very large conference around women in programming.  Which leads to two reactions from me 1) wow, what an honour! and 2) *sigh*. The problem with these sessions is that you're preaching to the choir.  Those who turn up are a) women or b) men who are sympathetic and supportive to the cause.  People who are actively discriminating against women or, more commonly, those who don't know their actions are hurting diversity in our industry, are the least likely to receive the message. This tends to lead to the same types of sessions - yes, our industry under-represents certain segments of society (i.e. women); yes, we all agree this is a problem; yes, everyone in this room is trying their best to do the right things; no, we have no idea how to fix it at the industry-level. These sessions are boring . How do you make this subject interesting, relevant, and appeal to the types of people it really should target? I'm c...

Continuing the theme of Things I Have Heard I Don't Think I Agree With. To developers technologies are everything I can't remember the context of this but I hear the same sentiment in different guises over and over again.  Often from non-techies, but more alarmingly from developers. Is this true? It's true for a certain tribe of techies, sure.  And creating and effectively using new technologies is an important part of what drives the current information age forward.  But I'd be worried if I thought that 99% of developers were like this. In our day jobs, and also if we want to create something that makes any money, we need to be interested in solving people's problems and creating solutions.  Sure, we'll use technology to do that.  But if we were all only motivated by technology, we'd always be trying out the Next Big Thing when our customers wanted a simple CRUD web app.  Any organisation that encouraged this sort of technology um, infidelity? ...

Topping off my mini-tour at the end of May, I was invited to Rotterdam to  present to a brand new community of developers.  I was really interested in attending because my experience with user groups is pretty much limited to the London Java Community , and I knew this would be different due to being a) across a wider range of technologies and b) shiny and new. It was hosted (rather awesomely) in a brewery, and until then I'd never given a presentation in a pub.  Frankly it's something I'm keen to do more of.  Due to a total technology fail on the part of all of us, we couldn't get the projector working with any of the various laptops.  However, with 30-odd techies, free wireless and slides available on Slideshare , we managed a novel and collaborative presentation approach, with people clustered around the laptops with the largest screens, and someone at each one valiantly keeping up with my quick pace through over 100 slides of stick-men drawings ...

The "User's Guide to the Disruptor" presentation I gave at QCon London is now available on the  InfoQ site .  This is the same presentation as the one I gave at Skillsmatter in March , but the questions are different.  Plus since I'm winging it every time, I probably cover slightly different things or explain some stuff better / worse.

Three airports and three hotels in a week, and I don't know whether I'm coming or going.  Add to that a mere four hours sleep last night, and this might resemble the ramblings of a mad woman (more than usual that is). GOTO Amsterdam was a different affair to  GOTO Copenhagen , which is not necessarily a bad thing - it's great that the events have their own personalities and aren't cookie cutter versions of the same thing. Great communal area for meeting people, in a unique venue Amsterdam was smaller and shorter, and therefore felt even more intimate than Copenhagen, which didn't exactly feel massive either.  The venue was beautiful and imposing (and not at all air conditioned!), which I think also contributed to its unique feeling; the timetable felt less intense (although both conferences had a reminder that the next session was going to start, great for moving people at the right times); there was a different mix of attendees and speakers (fewer Danes...