DCTech – A Look at Women in the DC Tech Community
I’ve been fortunate enough to attend the last two meetups (both involving over 500 other techies at the 6th & I Historic Synagogue) and have consistently been impressed and inspired by the things going on in this city. However - I’m also a woman who understands what its like to be a minority in this business. Are there times when I’m the only female in a web development meeting? Yes. Am I aware that my fellow sisters in this field are very much in the same boat? Absolutely. Sure enough – the DCTech Meetup # 2 didn’t involve a single female as either a speaker or panel member. After a flurry of tweets asking for that to change – organized Peter Corbett declared Meetup #3 the ‘All-Female’ meetup. TechCocktail’s Jen Consalvo moderated a panel of women who are all changing the DC tech scene- one startup company at a time. However, the entire event felt like a glorified diversity day; wherein a gender that makes up 50% of the world’s population was being singled out because they were a minority in tech. Subsequently, may of the panel discussions focused on “what it was like to be a woman and ask for VC funding” and whether or not being pregnant was bad for running a tech company. While I’m not saying those are unimportant topics, I think the discussion should have centered more on the companies and tools that the women were developing. Would a man on a panel ever get asked: “How do you feel about being a man working in Tech”? Regardless – the meetup was a raging success and I walked away once again feeling energized and inspired by the community. The companies and technology that were presented are: 
DC has a vibrant entrepreneurial and information technology scene. It therefore comes as no surprise that the DC Tech meetups have been drawing as many as six hundred attendees at every get together. Not only good networking opportunities – these events are almost like job fairs/conferences – where fellow DC-techies learn about funding, small businesses, start ups, and what companies are hiring. The audience is very often more than 75% male.
Demo 1 - Marci Harris, CEO, PopVox
Demo 2 – Lisa Morales-Hellebo, CEO, Shop Suey
Demo 3 – Phyllis Klein, Founder, Fab Lab DC
Demo 4 – Jennifer O'Keefe, VP – Product, Personal
Demo 5 - Geraldine Le Roux, Marketing Manager, HelloWallet
Demo 6 - Jessy Kate Schingler, Developer
(photo credit Jimmie Gardiner via @dctechmeetup 's twitter stream)
Interested in coming to a DCTech meetup ? They are held on the first Tuesday of every month – check out their meetup page for more information.
Taking A Second Look at Arlington National Cemetery and Online Records
Every 10 year old in America knows where our nation’s heroes find their final resting place-the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery. Just outside of Washington, the National Cemetery contains the gravesites of some of our countries most revered and honors those who have served in our name.
However, in early 2010 the Cemetery came under fire from the U.S Department of Defense for a large number of mismanagement issues, including but not limited to mislabeling of graves, multiple bodies in single graves, and mismanagement of cremated remains. After a year-long series of articles and an in-depth investigation by the Washington Post, the national dream of Arlington as a pristine and well-run temple to our nation’s sacrifices.
A recent article by the L.A Times piqued my interest on this subject, and when I decided to take a look at their website, I was stunned. One of the main problems found by the Department of Defense is that Arlington National Cemetery is actually run by so many different groups that they couldn’t make any serious reform decisions-and it looks like none of these groups found time to fix up the online presence of the Cemetery.
Take a look for yourself at a screen capture of http://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/, the official site of Arlington National Cemetery.
This post could go on for thousands of words on the problems with this site; beyond it’s extremely outdated look, the fact that it doesn’t even fit the full browser window, and the Contact Us page being composed of a phone number and mailing address, the site is rife with areas for improvement. This is not only an example of how a large institution can lose track of managing its online presence-this is in fact a disservice to the families and loved ones of our nation’s most honored.
The counterpoint to correcting these problems is sheer bureaucracy; the Cemetery holds thousands of graves, has continuously updated news, events and has split leadership which has shown it’s inability to react positively to change. However, the actions of an enterprising 17 year old have shown that a more beneficial online presence for the Arlington National Cemetery can be built easily and effectively.
As profiled by the Los Angeles Times in late April, Ricky Gilleland is the one person who has decided to do something about this. The 17 year old from Stafford, VA heard about the Cemetery’s paper record system and decided he could fix it. What he came up with is preserveandhonor.com, a site that aims to “Honor America’s heroes buried in Arlington Cemetery who served their country in support of the Global War on Terror”.
The site contains records of each and every lost life in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that are entombed in Arlington. By searching the database, you can view the grave number, name, rank, military branch, birth and death dates, and Awards, and link to their official obituary. By contrast, on the official site, there is no database search capability. Perhaps the most important element of this site is the photos of the graves themselves. Now, family members, loved ones and inquiring minds from all over the country and the world can view every single grave stone from the 21st century wars. This single addition makes this archive head and shoulders above anything put together so far by the actual government system behind Arlington. And for that, the nation is grateful.
Visit preserveandhonor.com to experience the true cost of war in this century, and next time you see a government website underperforming, just think of how you much change one person can make.
Tracking World Press Freedom Day 2011 #WPFD with Slurp140
In addition to the great resources available on the United Nations Education Scientific and Culture Organization’s (UNESCO) website for World Press Freedom Day, we humbly submit our own Twitter tracking and analysis tool Slurp140: http://www.slurp140.com/wpfd/. Also be sure to check out the livestream going on right now!
Reposted from out Impact Watch Blog
Your Weekend on Twitter with #Slurp140: #WHCD, #Tcamp11, #Sweetlife
Just a friendly heads up that since you can’t be everywhere this weekend we have created several new instances of our recently improved Slurp140 Twitter tracking and analysis tool to follow some major events this weekend:
White House Correspondents Dinner: slurp140.com/whcd
For the inside scoop on the #WHCD, we recommend
following @whcinsider or visiting whcinsider.com
(A Bivings Group Client)
Transparency Camp 2011: slurp140.com/tcamp11
Sponsored by the Sunlight Foundation, Transparency Camp 2011 covers developments in government transparency at the federal, state and local level.
Sweetlife Festival: slurp140.com/sweetlife
With an all star lineup featuring The Strokes, Girl Talk, Lupe Fiasco, Crystal Castles, The Cold War Kids, Ra Ra Riot, Theophilus London and more, this Sunday’s concert at Merriweather post will most definitely rock. Check out sweetlifefestival.com for more information and some really innovative uses of social media by our friends at iStrategyLabs.
Introducing: The New SLURP140 Tool
SLURP140 – TBG’s twitter monitoring tool has been redesigned and re-tooled to be better, faster, stronger…and more accurate. We’ve mentioned the free product time and time again on the Bivings Report, but this new re-design is serious business. The biggest changes have been the re-tooling of the twitter-stream as well as the addition of the Klout Score. Now you can log into your twitter account and participate in the SURP140-tracked conversation right from the page itself. Likewise, every user can now see just how popular or influential members of the leader board really are.
All of these functionality changes are all in addition to making the site much more visually appealing. The new streamlined design (with added customization functionality) is aimed toward conferences and events who have SLURP140 up on their screens continuously. It also follows TBG’s mantra of practicing what you preach with good design and best practices in social media marketing.
Our signature tracking charts are still in full effect and can be relied upon for accurate monitoring of events that in progress as well as those that have already passed. And now every user who pops up on the leader board can now check out their own Klout score as well as see how well they rank when it comes to tweets and @mentions. For new instances of SLURP140 in action, you can take a look at: Continue reading “Introducing: The New SLURP140 Tool” »