I attended the 2021 Grace Hopper Celebration, held September 27-October 1. Feeling lots of appreciation to the organizers of this year’s conference, and my fellow attendees who went out of their way to be resources for each other!
Since the event was virtual this year, I had an initial instinct to try to go to a hotel somewhere that I wouldn’t want to do any sightseeing or visit anyone. And I think that was a good instinct — to try to replicate the feeling of being there in person, of it being my full focus. But… that’s not what I created. I was visiting friends and had pulls on my emotions and time. I was distracted by logistics and emotions around leaving the continent the following week. And I had some technical difficulties, which meant I missed part of a few sessions.
I regret that I missed out on some networking and learning opportunities by not preparing better ahead of time (by reading every prep email closely, for example), and not making the time to figure out how to get to the sponsor sessions. I uploaded a resume to the career center, but didn’t book any 1:1s. And I didn’t realize until half-way through that there was a way to reserve one’s spot in the meetups, which were a great place to network, and hear from other women in tech. So I was unable to access two of these sessions, which was too bad as the ones I did get to were some of my favorite moments of the conference, especially when one woman set up a Discord chat room for us to use the rest of the week. Other helpful women set up shared Google spreadsheets for us to all put our names, linkedin info and whether we could use or offer mentorship. I received several LinkedIn connection requests from that!
Here’s some of my takeaways:
Thoughts about how to be an engaging speaker
- Don’t be boring, dry or rote — have energy and enthusiasm about your topic
- Don’t read from notes or powerpoint — be authentic and speak from your heart
- Find something interesting to say right away — you have to engage people from the start.
- If you do use powerpoint, include animation or a video
Motivation
There were several speakers who gave great advice and inspiration. Some of the quotes I wrote down:
What is your super power? Broadcast that!
Product manage your career! Ask yourself: Where do you want to go – where do you see your career/life going? Figure out the path. Then take a few minutes every day to move on your desired path.
The role of tech is to solve the world’s most urgent problems
Build for a better world
Fearless Authenticity:
If you serve your audience, you will build community
Concepts to think more deeply about
There were speakers on “Responsible Technology” and Access, and I very much responded to their messages, including the concepts of:
- Integrating ethics and responsibility in the product development cycle
- When considering social responsibility and ethics tech, we must also rethink our product management concepts. It is too late to wait until after launch for an ethics review or to review which communities can be most adversely affected. How do we take these considerations at every part of the product development cycle? How do we reconsider metrics, user experience, testing, and more?
- Accessibility = thinking more broadly about users
- Noticing that the world is generally designed and built for the “average (white, North American) man”
(Many physical products don’t even fit women! ) - Translation, localization for those whose first language is not English, and who don’t live in N. America. Make physical address optional on forms
I have discussed some of these concepts explicitly in projects I’ve worked on, but these are clearly areas of growing importance that I want to dig into more deeply.
Thinking about ethics, I found myself wondering about the many speakers at the conference drawn from large corporations. I felt like here was a disconnect in having the speaker on ethics be someone from Facebook or TikTok. One of them promoted an ethical relativism that “some things aren’t problems, they are dilemmas,” and “dilemmas have optimizations, not solutions.” While you can minimize harm, she said, “It will never be zero.” As I said in the Discord chat, receiving several votes of agreement, all of that seemed mighty convenient. It’s of course helpful to hear from corporate reps, but I would like to see even more space for voices critiquing current business practices. (This of course applies to all tech conferences, not specific to GHC!)
Finding My Niche
One of my mentors had assigned me the task of seeing what was not being talked about at the conference, what I might be able to pitch myself as an expert in to put myself forward to speak about at future conferences. In other words perhaps, what is my super power? I was dubious that I would identify anything, but before the conference even began, in perusing the agenda, I was able to see that there weren’t any sessions that spoke to the entrepreneur/ solopreneur/ freelancer/ project creator that I represent. The career sessions were all about getting jobs at big corporations and rising in the ranks there, finding allies to help you do so, and negotiating for raises so you can make as much as your male peers.
Which is all well and good — I’m all for having more women in every tech space! But I felt like young women were being given a very specific message about what a successful career in tech looked like. I want to make sure they know there are other options! A project-based rather than corporate-focused mindset. The freedom of freelancing can provide opportunities to spend more time with family and/or friends, to travel, and to engage in your own projects, perhaps leading to creating your own company. It also provides the chance to mix it up mentally and creatively — to work on a variety of projects for a variety of people and organizations, rather than serve the needs and products of a single corporation.
That describes the course I have chosen. I’m self-taught but didn’t go through a bootcamp that ended in corporate recruitment. I have created solutions for small businesses, non-profits (big and small), and artists. I have worked mainly with women leaders. I could certainly speak to my own experience choosing to be a freelancer, and the things that choice has freed me up to do: make a documentary, travel around the world, deal with an aging parent, work on my own project ideas, and support women with their business and non-profit ideas.
And hearing from some of the other women who work for these larger companies, I discovered another bonus: I don’t have to wait “3-4 weeks for a line of code to come back from QA!”
Next Steps
I’ve been to many tech conferences, but the experience of evaluating this one at this time in my career has inspired me to look for and attend conferences specifically geared toward freelancers or entrepreneurs. For example, I would love to be part of a discussion coming out of a question I posed in one of the meetups: What does it mean to be “mid-career” as a freelancer?
I want to find spaces that are created to match up founders with techs, and if I’m not finding those talks and spaces, make time for some ideas I’ve had about creating such spaces myself. I will be doing research on the number of people in tech who are indeed freelancers, contractors and gig workers, and what percentage of those are female. Freelancing does require a greater comfort with risk, and assertiveness to pitch yourself for jobs. Those are traditionally areas men are socialized to do better than women, but perhaps something in my experience can help folks of all genders explore the freelance option.
If you are someone who wants to talk about any of this, let’s not wait for a conference — jump in my calendar or send me your thoughts: hi@codyssia.com.
