Technically Women

Generally on Ada Lovelace Day the idea is to pick a woman who inspires you and toss up a blog post extolling her virtues. I’ve done so over on my own blog, but when the Technically Women posse started talking about how to tackle the topic, I opted to scramble up to 30,000 feet and look at a trend that, while still early to tell, may portend some exciting things for women ahead.

To be clear I harbor no illusion of gender parity having been reached in business, let alone technology, but I have to say that if my recent trip to SXSW is any indication, we may well be at least moving in the right direction. I don’t know the official stats, but from where I sat the female power at this year’s Austin fest seemed more solid than ever. Granted this may be due to my paying more attention this year than at other times, but be that as it may I found myself proudly perusing the preponderance of powerful females populating panels and permeating parties (sorry, alliterative itch had to be scratched).

Quite a few months ago, when panels were submitted for SXSW, the gals of Technically Women swapped myriad emails proposing sessions, helping each other promote panels and ultimately Jennifer Leggio proffered this great post about the way women were going to be taking over SXSW. Fast forward several months to the final stretch of weeks before SXSW and I got a call inviting me to be among a small group of women honored at “Digitini” a luncheon held at the Frost Building in Austin.  Orchestrated by Sloane Berrent and Sarah Evans – two women whose work I hold in high regard – the idea was simple: honor 7 women from various sectors of business and tech at a women’s luncheon. While I admittedly had a bit of an issue with the girly girly name and the fact that the invite leaned a bit too much towards the pink and frilly, in practice this gathering was all bid-ness.

From the moment I walked through the door for that luncheon, which took place on the first official full day of SXSW Interactive, it was clear the honorees were just part of the story. As I looked around the room noting the women who were in attendance, I felt more and more humbled at being among this remarkable crowd. Every person there was worthy of recognition. It also merits noting that after this luncheon I seemed to keep running into great women – it’s as though the event opened my eyes to just how many of us there *are* … kind of like meeting someone at a party, finding out they live in your neighborhood then suddenly you start running into them everywhere

Everywhere I turned during my week in Austin there were more powerful women.

From the opening keynote delivered by the always-insightful danah boyd to a panel on “open science” populated by not one, not two, not three but four female speakers (who, for the record, were: Ariel Waldman of Spacehack.org; Dr. Kiki Sanford of This Week in Science; Natalie Villalobos from Institute for the Future; and Jessy Cowan-Sharp from NASA), to Women Techies United, a fabulous booth and related events set up by a collection of the top women-focused groups in tech there seemed to be no shortage of places catering to the women of SXSW.

Have we shattered the glass ceiling? Have we won the battle? Hell no. In fact, if anything the next phase of really hard work starts now. There must be no resting on laurels. There must be no complacency. We must continue to support each other, revel in our female ferocity and push the limits for where we go next.