I finally sucked it up and went to BarCamp this year—by myself, which for those of you who know me really says something—and am so glad that I did. Not only did I sit in on some really insightful sessions, but I finally got to meet one of my most favorite people in the entire interwebs, newscoma. She has been so kind and supportive to me over the past few years of blogging within the Nashville community, so I was glad to be able to finally hug her neck and sit down and talk with her.
It was also great to meet some people I had only previously talked with on Twitter or via our blogs, and to see again those I hadn’t seen in some time. There was a great deal of killing folks on the popular iPhone game GPSAssassins (I’m a bad ass—Ian and I are relentless on our commute and will take your ass down), followed later by a lot of complaining.
(People, it’s called GPSAssassins, not GPSIHopeIDon’tHurtYourFeelings. Christ.)
Anyway, I had heard that these networking things can be kind of cliquey, so I was pleasantly surprised to find the sessions had a good flow to them and I was never just standing around looking lost, like the weird, awkward girl I really am.
Something I took away from the conference and broached on Twitter this morning, though, is the lack of female web developers/coders in Nashville. I can’t technically call myself a web developer (yet), but I’ve been learning as much as I can for work. I am not complaining about the tech dudes around here, as those who follow me on Twitter are always very quick to help me out when I have questions, but I am left wondering why there are not more women in the field.
The idea of me organizing a female-coder meet-up was broached (and a venue was graciously offered), but I’m afraid I wouldn’t really know how to set it up, or even how I would lead it. Maybe starting with a Facebook group first might be the way to go?
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“(People, it’s called GPSAssassins, not GPSIHopeIDon’tHurtYourFeelings. Christ.)” Pure gold, and I love you for it.
Regarding the Developing Women meetup (sorry, I couldn’t resist), I think a Facebook page or Ning is an excellent starting point and wouldn’t be too hard to put together. You’re sufficiently well connected at this point to get the word out, all it would take is a few well-placed retweets and you’d probably get a core of members interested. Take Nick up on his offer, get a range of possible dates/times, and submit those in a poll to the group to see when you can get the most people there. The first meeting can consist of introductions and a discussion of what direction everyone wants to focus on and how often they want to meet. For instance, it might be interesting for members to take turns giving quick lessons on their areas of expertise/interest (even if it’s “only” learning resources they’ve found), or maybe there’s a group project like a charity or open source project everyone would like to get together to work on. Also, it’s vital that someone bring vegan refreshments.
It’s equally beneficial to make it a social hour, but I’ve found the key to survivability with these things is to make everyone feel involved by contributing to the group. That also benefits you as the facilitator so you’re not put in a position of entertaining a bunch of people at every meeting. I’m sure you’ll agree that would be a good thing.
Amber Adams added these pithy words on
Oct 21 09 at
1:44 pm
