Archive for the ‘“ninja”’ Category

Why Aren’t More Minority Women in Tech?

Minority women are taught to be risk averse. When I was growing up, I was told I had two options for my future career path: Doctor or Lawyer. My mother gave me these options because they were safe and respectable. Her grandchildren would be well taken care of if her daughter got a second degree and began a career making six figures. One friend told me she had to be a doctor because it was her parent’s dream and a way that she could guarantee providing for them when they got older and could no longer work. Growing up in a family that is financially insecure (as many minority women are), children are pushed to have a lifestyle with a steady income. The first careers that come to mind are not start-ups when financial security is the end goal.

Failing is not an option for minority women. Many great entrepreneurs fail a few times before they succeed. In the valley, starting a company that fails is a rite of passage. The price of failure for minority women is high and not looked at positively. If the startup I work for failed tomorrow, you can bet my mother would tell me either a. You should have stayed at Google. and/or b. You better start applying for law school. Minority women don’t have the same safety nets that their white male counterparts do.

Minority women by and large are not exposed to engineering and computer science. Many of my friends and co-workers who are engineers have parents who are engineers or went to high schools with a strong computer science curriculum. They grew up learning to code. My experience was vastly different. My high school "computer science" course was really focused on typing and learning how to operate a computer. I really had no clue what computer science was in high school and engineering always made me think of buildings and architecture. I ended up taking a few computer science courses at Stanford, but only in my junior and senior year when the fear of the unknown subsided. Many of the women I know in tech were only exposed to computer science in college which puts them far behind those who grew up working on projects of their own. Coming from families that are unaware of engineering as a career removes the exposure to tech that is so frequently apparent in engineering grads of today. (Source)

What Makes You Happy?

Images source

Writing what it means to be happy:

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet. - James Openheim

No, seriously, have you ever thought about it? Do you live the life you want to live, or is there an unlived life in you being held back by your very Resistance?

Edith Wharton once said that if we stopped trying to find happiness we could have a pretty good time. I never thought about it in that way, but I guess she is right.

.:ecomba.org->

He was an injured man…

We usually don’t post ads (except for all the ads we post…), but this one actually made me laugh my ass off. Not only is the kid cute, but what he says is too freakin’ much. Bravo.

Five Thousand Years of Debt

Image source

An excerpt from Eurozine:

This was the age that saw the emergence of coinage, as well as the birth, in China, India and the Middle East, of all major world religions. From the Warring States period in China, to fragmentation in India, and to the carnage and mass enslavement that accompanied the expansion (and later, dissolution) of the Roman Empire, it was a period of spectacular creativity throughout most of the world.

Big Think : Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Women in Technology

Image source

Who are the role models out there for women looking to get into technology…

The reason why girls are not getting involved in tech is because they are told "be perfect or don’t try" by the same noisy people who claim to be advocating for them. There are some bright spots in this whole mess— Girls in Tech does great work, as does Girl Developer IT— but most of the self appointed shepherds spend too much time deflecting attention away from imperfect women succeeding in tech and waiting for their geek messiah to appear and prove once and for all that we belong here too. (Source)

Mr. Rogers, BOYEEEE

Sorry, but I love this…

Philadelphia Syndrome

Image source

In search of a cure…

The only way to fight Philadelphia Syndrome is to put our heads down and create something great. Forget New York. Forget LA. Whether its an innovative school, a new way to work, or what we’re doing with Devnuts, don’t stop until people start noticing. Stop whining. For God’s sake stop whining. Stop talking about what you’re doing and just do it. Once that happens, Philadelphia will start to be known as a place where things are happening and not a place where things might happen.

The reality is, cities are like women. You’re attracted to the ones that don’t need you. New York doesn’t need you, it’s the center of the universe. LA is where movie stars live, you’re not worthy. Philadelphia begs for you to like them. Remember we’ve got such great art! Almost all cities have great art. That’s not a reason to live here.

.:mattmonihan.com->

What is Expertise?

Image source

Among investigators of expertise, it has generally been assumed that the performance of experts improved as a direct function of increases in their knowledge through training and extended experience.  However, recent studies show that there are, at least,  some domains where "experts" perform no better then less trained individuals (cf. outcomes of therapy by clinical psychologists, Dawes, 1994) and that sometimes experts’ decisions are no more accurate than beginners’ decisions and simple decision aids (Camerer & Johnson, 1991; Bolger & Wright, 1992). Most individuals who start as active professionals or as beginners in a domain change their behavior and increase their performance for a limited time until they reach an acceptable level. Beyond this point, however, further improvements appear to be unpredictable and the number of years of work and leisure experience in a domain is a poor predictor of attained performance (Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996). Hence, continued improvements (changes) in achievement are not automatic consequences of more experience and in those domains where performance consistently increases aspiring experts seek out particular kinds of experience, that is deliberate practice (Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Römer, 1993)-activities designed, typically by a teacher, for the sole purpose of effectively improving specific aspects of an individual’s performance.

.:psy.fsu.edu->