Two different blogs for Ada Lovelace day

Last year in this blog, I honored my fellow technical women working on Standards bodies.

On this day, I decided to honor technical women who run and shape up our digital communities.
I will not repeat the contents here. Please read my actual blog in at Force.com website.

My additional honorary mention is Moya Watson. I decided to add her to this personal blog, because she is a community leader inside AND outside her work. I met Moya when she was delivering a presentation internally at SAP before I got to know her. Later on, I attended her talk on web2.0 summit which I had the chance to attend the following year. It was Halloween. She came as a scarecrow and had the spirit to deliver a very creative presentation combined with visuals to her fellow workers in that outfit. The same day I debated whether I should show up at work with Lederhosen (well, this is a German company) for Halloween but chickened out. It was somewhat a conservative place after all.

Moya's energy and creativity is inspiring. She knows how to use the right technology to deliver her message, whether it is creating and drawing attention to No on Prop 8 website, or rallying against SF school teachers getting pink slip via twitter or getting attention to women tech leaders at work. Go Moya! I am very glad to be your friend starting from accidentally walking in to that presentation you gave on Eventus several years ago. For some reason, I think you would have liked the lederhosen outfit, too :)

Ada Lovelace March 24th, Time is running out

I am getting a bit depressed. Maybe it is my cold, maybe I mistakenly stood up a friend at a restaurant because I recorded the wrong date.

I am also depressed because Ada Lovelace day is upon us but not enough folks signed up yet.

Come on people. I can not believe that there are not enough technical women to brag about that is worthy of your attention. I am sure you know someone who made your day, even she may be just a colleague near your cube, slaving away in the Agile drumbeat just like you. Every appreciation counts.

Please go ahead and blog, publicize women technology leaders, contributors, thinkers, doers that you admire, love or simply think that they need a tad more recognition in their lives for what they do.

Please do so. The deadline is coming.

Time Scabs All Wounds

I realized it has been a while from my last blog. I have been to many places, met with a lot of people, especially old friends. In the meantime, I learned/Relearned a few things:

1. Get laid off to learn who your true friends are.
2. Spend several nights at the hospital attending others to appreciate health.
3. Spend several nights at the hospital as a patient to appreciate life.
4. Sometimes the best place to discover others is to be away from all.
5. When things get tough, the best way is to take a road trip.
6. Time passes by and every moment spent on worrying about silly things is stolen from people you care about.
7. America is full of scams. Especially regarding employment, finance and insurance.
8. You rediscover old forgotten friends as you get older.
9. The next generation of people have no intention to learn from the previous one's mistakes.
10. Never, ever forget the good, the bad and the ugly.
11. If a personal brand is really needed, then this would be mine "jack of all trades, master of all".

Time passed. Here we are, in a new year.

I intend to write about my trips later.

BTW, if you are looking for techie wisdom, I repeat some of my techie content here, but the inclined reader should check my current employers blog esp. on matters that I am currently focusing on. These days I am dealing with cloud computing.

Strolls in My Neighborhood in SF: Qoio in Noe Valley

This blog is not about technology. This is about one of my favorite stores in San Francisco. Period. I am not getting paid for doing this, I am not a marketer. Just writing a more meaningful note of my experience in my neighborhood.

I get so many complements about my necklace finds and about the presents given to friends, I had to let everyone know where they came from. Among all my gem design finds in US, probably 40% of them come from here, right in my neighborhood. Made by Gilbertina with her keen eye and creativity that spans materials including surgical wire. My other favorite place is in Turkey, specifically Antik Tugra at Ankara, which I will write about another time.

Austin discovered Gilbertina's designs several years ago (at least 7) when she had a small store in a basement, working from her store directly using a multitude of gemstones. He showed up with a necklace. I was hooked. I ended up with several of her unique pieces, purchased them for others as presents, introduced them to friends.

Although I learned how to make jewelry later on, my appreciation in her creativity as a result grew. The more you know, the more you appreciate how one approaches to the creative process. Furthermore, I got to know her, her attention to detail and her customers. Hence, the blog.

The Designs I owned over the years:

The Amber:

This piece got so many comments such that I had to include it here. People stopped me on the street to ask me where I got it from! It was a birthday present. For some reason, Austin got this after seeing the Flintstones on TV, but I already had an eye on this design. Viola, it showed up as a b-day present. Later on, Gilbertina showed me that it appeared in a magazine.

As a klutz I am, I broke couple of the pieces by putting a heavy object on it. Gilbertina not only replaced them for me, but also rewired it.

The Coral:

What I love about this piece is the silver rosettes and the way it complements clothing. It looks fabulous with very casual as well as very dressy clothes. Shown here with a T-shirt.

The Amethyst:

I had this necklace and everytime I wear it again, the questions arise. Where did you get it? Now, you know. This piece is a combination of many gems, one being the African jade.

When I was looking for earrings to complement it one day, Gilbertina made them for me during a lunch hour break I had. Simply like that. So, if you need a complementary piece to finish the look, just ask. You may even get it while you are shopping for other things in the neighborhood.

The flowers:

This design is created by using surgical wire. I love this design so much that I gave it as a present to others or my friends who went shopping with me got them. Here, a friend is wearing the necklace.

Check out the Yelp review online for more designs and reviews. As you can see here though, you do not need to be a model to carry the look of the jewelry, they just turn simple clothes like T-shirts into something special. If you missed the T-shirt discussion, see the previous blog on this very topic.

As far as the prices are concerned, it varies with the amount of gems, the complexity of the design as well as the exposure of the designs. See more below.

Where is it Qoio?

The search on Google will bring you to their Columbus street location as seen below. But this blog is about the Noe Valley location.

Qoio www.qoio.com 509 Columbus Ave San Francisco, CA 94133-2801 (415) 982-4438 Get directions 1 review - Write a review More information »

I recommend checking out the Noe Valley store where Gilbertina is most of the time. It is so delightful to talk to her and get her to explain you the designs, make suggestions, seeing her match her designs with your style, it is well worth the trip. Several of my friends went to the store with me after seeing what I wear and they like their new designs. Further, it gets you to walk and discover famous 24th street, a great neighborhood with many discovery opportunities.

In Noe Valley, Qoio is located on 24th Street as shown below:

View Larger Map

The store front has many designs but it is like an iceberg. The interior of the store is divided into logical categories based on color coordination. It is simply beautiful. Thus, you can find your corals, your onyx, etc in separate groups with complementing stones. Anyone who steps inside gets amazed. They carry a large number of African masks and artifacts from Indonesia. Make sure to check out the lucky Garuda which is unique. However, don't bother to ask its price. It, certainly, is not for sale. I tried...

If you are looking for a true bargain, sometimes Qoio's original small store which turned into an annex is open and sells designs for more than 50% off. You will find many bargains on that day when you catch it. The annex is also in Noe Valley, on 24th street right below Artsake.

Enjoy your walk in Noe Valley.

Style, Shopping Locally, Internet and the Economic Crisis

I am a technologist. However, this is not a blog about technology. Well, not so directly.

I also, hum, like fashion. You may wonder. Why hesitate to say?

In every tech presentation on user roles, there comes a presentation where there is an icon for the HR, the techie "guy" (yeah, do not start me on that one, it is a guy, but lets pass this for the time being), the senior exec, and the user.

Yep, you know where I am going. The techie guy is depicted with Birkenstocks and a T-Shirt. The HR wears high heels and a skirt. The exec is a suit. The user is equally divided in a virtual presentation.

I love my Birkies and my Ts, too, but somehow the label restricts the spirit. Not only the gender, my existence also defies the stereotype. There are other women like me out there.

Defying the convention and the conventional defines my style. In our grand illusion of sorts, one would want to believe that they are unique. They are not. They also seek out those who are like themselves or whose styles they like.

I am not a prolific shopper. I have a very acute sense of style, what works or not. I also get amazing amount of positive comments. Given that people tend to criticize more than giving praise, I concluded something must work. Lots of my friends always ask me where I got this and dat.

So, where do I shop? How do I shop? What is my philosophy?

Sometimes people are amazed to see that they came from very humble stores, but mostly near my neighborhood or the neighborhoods I visit. I live in San Francisco, and I occasionally travel as my roots are in a different country. People may be passing by the same road like me many times, but have not got into one of these places or let their mind wonder or get to know the shop owner, inquire about items, etc.

Putting pieces together is still fun. Just like constructing jewelery, writing some code, architecting a new solution. A lot of times it is not only the stones that make the piece, but who put it together and why and how they did it.

A lot of people shop from online catalog these days. Comparison price shopping apps are everywhere. Do I shop online? Sure I do. Yep, you can select a good outfit from Victoria's Secret anytime. Everything has its place. Apart from that, truth behold, my perspective to apparel shopping is not to look for item X online and compare prices, etc. You can do that for books, watches, airline tickets, sometimes shoes (yes, if you are looking for a Birkie in a certain style).

For apparel, and its variety of choices, it simply does not work all the time. Further, I am weary that my email is full of sales coupons, sales items, notifications, this and that. Too much. I almost need a soft spam filter for real businesses that I shopped before at this point.

I go back to my local neighborhood. Not everything is online. Not all experiences are online. Unique combinations are not online. Not everything that can be acquired online can provide you the sense of the style. Not all designers, brands are online. They may be in a different country. The pieces of a combination may be coming from different locations, different suppliers. If this was not true, women's magazines would also be in trouble, women will not go shopping with their friends anymore, they would not be talking about it anymore. Everything has its place.

Some people are thinking about cost and variety by now. I know.

• Not everything is about the price. If you are spending two hours on the internet for getting $10.99 difference in the price of an item instead of buying it in your local store the moment you saw it, you may have wasted, a lot of money. Cost is not only what you pay. Your time on the internet, the amount of connectivity you wasted, the sleep you sacrified at night (you are not doing comparison shopping while you are working, are u?) all have a cost. People are not good about quantifying them. One of the cost is the elapsed time in getting something. A lot of people utilize fast shipping options whereby increasing the actual cost of an item, as well. Shopper, be aware ☺

• Unfortunately, we, women, have very different bodies. It is unlike that we could order a 34 inch waist trouser and get into it. It aint work that way, even with catalogs online. Most of the time, when you get something online, you wait, you try, you discard, you sent back, or stick in the closet. Did you notice how Zappos made a lot of business, because you can send an item back free of charge. Of course, it is not completely free but they tried to take one aspect out of the equation: inconvenience. Still you lost time if something does not fit.

Instead you could have got some exercise, walk in the neighborhood and make your neighborhood a better place and discover something that may truly be different, try it out and buy it in place.

The economic crisis affected a lot of brick and mortar small stores, it has made the neighborhoods decline. Some stores in my affluent SF neighborhood closed. I fear that more are on the way. They are on the way in a lot of neighborhoods. Does this mean they do not bring any value and you can buy the same thing online? Hardly.

Local shops, especially those that are targeting unique, different items that cater to a particular esthetic can not be replaced by online experience. However, they can be helped and augmented by technology.

Technology can be used to help encouraging shopping locally for helping retaining the local economy. To execute what I preach, I decided to write a couple of articles about people, places and things I discovered over the years. Hope you will find my treasures acceptable. Hope you can see them yourself by going to these unique places. More to come.

Enjoy.

Women of High Standards

Ada Lovelace Day is a celebration of women in technology. 

In honor of this day, I would like to use this wonderful opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of not only one, but three fellow technical women. I shared a lot of experience with them in Standards Bodies. I loved working with them, learned from them and continue to correspond with them as this is a rare friendship. 

All the women in this blog demonstrated excellence in their contributions to the standards as they have high standards for their work. They are detailed, yet never lose the sight for the big picture; they excel in  understand the implications of the technology vs political decisions yet try to achieve to serve the community in the best way possible; they strive to produce easily consumable documents so that mere humans can read them; they are approachable and very nice to work with. Consequently, I enjoyed my relationship with them tremendously. Many specifications you may encounter, especially in the Web Services and XML area, owe a portion of their development to these women who never sacrifice quality. Further, they are multifaceted as they are also artists, musicians or athletes. 

I am honored to work with them and look forward to the next opportunity where we may work together again or simply discuss where the technology is heading to and how it is changing. 

• Maryann Hondo is an architect who is an expert in security and policy at IBM. We first met during a WS-Metadata Exchange meeting and I had the chance to work with her in WS-Policy working group in w3c. We collaborated on the guidelines for WS-Policy assertion authors document and contributed to the working group. Maryann has been instrumental in getting me enlightened about the security implications and the relationship of the policy framework as one feeds on the other. She brings perspective as to the challenges of a design may exist and what pitfalls one may fall into across multiple specifications and assertion families. Further, beyond our shared experience in standards, she is very versed about emerging technologies and how can shape our future. Maryann is my sounding board. 

• Eve Maler is a technical director at Sun Microsystems. I met Eve when I was involved in XML standards in Sun and she was our AC Rep to w3c. Her understanding of the evolving standards and how certain players may help or hinder the evolution of a certain specification never ceased to amaze me. She certainly understands how standards can help or hinder. Her contributions to XML and Security standards are too numerous to mention. Further, her positive personality is simply contagious. I look forward to a meeting to sync up with Eve and learn about the larger perspective. 

• Monica Martin is a program manager at Microsoft. She has contributed to with many vertical and XML/WS/ebXML standards and acted in leadership roles. Her keen eye in making the specifications coherent is impeccable. She can see the relationships and implications between specifications that others will miss and will work hard to correct inconsistencies between them. Further, Monica is always willing to share her knowledge with others. I learned a lot from Monica beyond our technical experiences in together. My regret is that I never had the chance to work with her on business processes. Hoping that one day it may change. 

At these uncertain times when many technical women are either forced to leave standards or technology altogether, these women and their invaluable work should be cherished. The institutions where they work are very lucky to have them. 

Hence, this blog. 

The Past and The Future at Bay Area Geek Girl Dinners

I am stunned and amazed. There are many technical, geeky women are out there in the bay area (and beyond who were visiting) that participated in the Bay Area Geek Girl Dinner. The third one in the series.

There were themes listed on each table. I sat at the cloud computing table. There was not much discussion on the topic though, rather who each other were and how we ended up at the dinner, what we do, and our thoughts about technology and its role. I did not even have time to tweet about the event, during the event.

The crowd is a younger crowd. Things are different, but also a lot the same. I was involved with systers mailing list very early on. No social media, no facebook, no twitter, no websites back then. Plain email. Word of mouth. I saw today the video circulating on the web/twitter about the birth of internet news http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/29/you-need-to-see-this-video/ and realized there is a similar analogy here. It is like an old Virginia Slims ad that stuck in my mind. "You've come a long way, baby". There are many tools, many communities. Technical women like to connect, but there are many other channels, now including She's Geeky unconference, as well as subinterest groups from technie women in SF to Linux geeks, women 2.0.

Systers mailing list is still there going strong. There were attempts to put the discussion on the web, but resorted to the simple "push" solution, email. Many many years later, the contrast reminds me how a younger generation is embracing different tools for the same purpose to create communities. The word of mouth is no longer in a single email, or with a friend, it is also on Facebook, it is on a news tweet, it is everywhere. The need to link up and feel part of the community is the same.

Just this week, my company is nominating me to be one of the Anita Borg Institute of technology ambassadors. I am looking forward to it. To my surprise, there are women in my table who did not know about ABI, the systers mailing list or the Grace Hopper Conference, YET. I am glad that there was a lineup of introducing the existing organizations geared towards technical women. Thanks to BJ Wishinsky who introduced ABI and distributed systers stickers and people had the chance to learn about it.

The internet, the way we work, connect, and communicate are changing. One wonders though whether the challenges that technical women face in the industry are, though. The technology is different, but
the road to success and recognition is still uncertain. Despite this new wave and energy, we have not succeeded in making more CTOs out of the talented technical women. YET. The problem is well documented in this study, Climbing the Technical Ladder: Obstacles and Solutions for Mid-Level women in Technology by Caroline Simard. The problem is real. Still real, after all these years.

My hope is that our new advanced ways of communication spread the word about this problem and get corporations to acknowledge it. Our collective thinking and cooperation may then allow us to help solve it, attracting more and new generation "sisters" who then in the future, hopefully, would not even know that such a problem ever existed.