Manda QoP

Someone raised an interesting point on Monday night at a GGD dinner and I feel they have missed the entire point of Girl Geek Dinners and have also, with their comments, seriously undermined other women who are looking to come out of their shell and interact with other 'geeks'. If you don't agree with what we're doing then don't come to a Girl GEEK dinner, and certainly don't turn up and throw cold water on people, make belittling comments and then moan that it was too technical and you didn't enjoy it. So what is a geek? There seemed to be some confusion. These women throwing around the derogatory comments seem especially confused. So let's refresh everyones' minds. You don't need to be in IT to be a geek folks! It's not an exclusive club limited to women who don't baulk at the thought of writing code. We're a diverse crowd and we celebrate each others geekiness, even if it isn't something we're into. We certainly

After pulling an all nighter at the weekend my TechEd talk has been submitted to TechEd for peer review - WOO HOO! All I need now is a fantastic SaaS or S+S case study and feedback from the peer reviews to get it closed off. It feels so great to finally get that completed and means that I can spend the weekend concentrating on making sure the next Girl Geek Dinner is a fantastic success, preparing the GGD slides for TechEd and maybe fit in some shoe shopping as well. :-) PS: http://www.girlgeekdinners.co.nz/ if you want to buy tickets to the GGD event on the 28th. ;-)

And no, I don't mean the one at the back of that book you're reading. I'm talking about that pesky little flap that hangs out with the intestines, acting all cool and detached for 30 years, doing absolutely bugger all and then one day for no apparent reason it pops its top! I was finally looking forward to a weekend of being able to work on my TechEd talk and whammo, 6.30pm on a Friday night (excellent timing there by my internal appendages don't you think?) we have a little trippette to A&E. I've now been let out of the gynaecology ward (don't ask - I have no idea why). Sitting at my computer for more than half an hour without the support of copious amounts of drugs is not possible, however, my TechEd talk must be written. If there is a surreal section in the middle of my presentation it's the drugs talking and I apologise in advance. Thank goodness for peer reviews. LOL! I am now off to hold a wake for my appendix having spent the last minute wri

Here's an alternative sponsorship request for you! Microsoft & Girl Geek Dinners are hosting a special Girl Geek Dinner at Tech Ed this year on Monday the 1st September. There will be around 300 women at this event at Sky City in Auckland. As a novel form of advertising, NZ Girl Geek Dinners are going to hand out free t-shirts during the Girl Geek Dinner at TechEd and at the TechEd conference itself. This is as an alternative to handing out flyers. The t-shirts will also be available from the Microsoft Stand and any other company stands who will let us cadge some space - hint hint. We are looking for sponsors to help cover the costs of making the t-shirts. Sponsorship for t-shirts will cost $500 per business. In return for sponsoring us you'd get your logo on the back of the t-shirt and on our National and Wellington websites. I am keen to give our existing and previous sponsors first dibs at this and will be limiting the number of sponsors so that the t-shirt does

This year I'm talking at TechEd in the Architecture Track (ARC206 if you're interested) and it's my first time speaking at TechEd. It's a great topic and one that I'm really enthusiastic about so I can't wait to let other people know about it. There is a big, splodgy black cloud hovering at the moment though. I am really struggling to find time to make the talk as fantastic as I want to. Why? Clients tugging on both arms. Well, not literally though it does feel a bit like that at the moment. After working for 10 hours at one client (who are an hour south of here), I have to stop off at the other client on the way home and work 2 hours there + all weekend at this second client. Yes, I'm knackered! Yes I've put my foot down and am refusing to work the evenings. I really need to get this talk written and am beginning to feel like there is some major conspiracy going on to stop me getting it done. All this work is also really starting to interfere with Half-