Manda QoP

Myles Matheson from Microsoft will be presenting "Demystifying Business Intelligence" and Carolyn Sanders from Fronde Systems Group will be presenting "Scrum 101 - Unleashing the theory!". Tickets are $35, price includes dinner and a glass of wine. Tickets available from www.girlgeekdinners.co.nz . DEMYSTIFYING BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE BI is real hot right now, but I often find myself in situations where I have to try and explain Business Intelligence (BI). It’s not that easy to define BI in a universal definition that everyone agrees with. BI is as much a collection of technologies and principles as anything else. My talk will be about how companies use BI and what it means to the IT professional. I will take you through the first principles of BI. The who, why, and how we deliver BI systems today. We will also look at an end to end solution that many businesses already own. Myles is a Solution Specialist for Microsoft New Zealand. He has worked in the fiel...

Friday Friday night I headed on over to Cassette9, Auckland's new music venue in Vulcan Lane. I was not disappointed. It's a great bar and they've set up the sound really well. You can hear all the instruments - it's great! The bands start late at this venue, reminded me of playing gigs in the UK where as the main band we didn't go on stage until 1am, so if you're into your early nights, possibly not the venue for you. The first band, Clap Clap Riot went on stage around 10.30am. They're really tight with very well structed songs and a lot of energy. The vocalist was a little lacking in dynamism as he mumbled incoherently into the mic between songs, but when playing/singing he was great. F in Math - this is the solo project for the dude from the Mint Chicks. It was O for Awsome. He was totally alienating most of the audience but along with an insane girl who seemed to want to scream at every opportunity, I loved it, just not quite as vociferously....

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 ...

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...

We've got another Girl Geek Dinner coming up in August in Auckland. This time we'll be holding it in a Chinese Restaurant, so there will be lots of lovely food, a speaker, a quiz, some prizes. The ladies who came to the last event got pretty lucky with the prizes as Microsoft gave us some fantastic goodies to give away. For more information on the next event go to: www.girlgeekdinners.co.nz See you there.

The NZ Branch of Girl Geek Dinners have their first dinner arranged. When: 22nd November 2007 Where: The Komodo Rooms, Parnell, Auckland Speaker: No-one yet but I'm hoping to get something good for the first dinner. Cost: $30 per head - this goes towards covering the cost of food and venue hire. Drinks: You will be able to purchase drinks from a bar all night. For more information about NZ Girl Geek Dinners go to: www.girlgeekdinners.co.nz