After blogging here on a mish-mash of topics for a number of years, I'm shuttering this blog and moving on to a new domain, focused on web development and technical management. I hope you'll join me at Obi-Wan Kimberly!
Hi, my name is Kimberly Blessing. I'm a computer scientist, Web developer, standards evangelist, feminist, and geek. This is where I write about life, the Web, technology, women's issues, and whatever else comes to mind.
Another year, another Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing!
This year I’m attending both TechLeaders and GHC. Last night I even got to party with the Tapia folks!
If I have time to write more here, I will… but otherwise watch the GHC flickr group, twitter, and wiki to learn about what’s going on!
I owe some thanks to colleagues and friends in the Web world for recent highlights and opportunities, so here goes…
Kudos to Meri Williams for setting up the Make Me a Speaker site and thanks for interviewing me for it! Meri set up this site after the topic of women speakers at conferences came up back in February. A lot of the hype has died down, but I hope that the information and resources on the site will continue to be useful for anyone seeking to start or improve their career as a speaker/presenter.
Kit Seeborg and I met at SXSW last year, and this year she invited me to speak at WebVisions in Portland. I was grateful for the opportunity to start speaking about how I’ve made process the driver behind integrating Web standards, but I was even more grateful for the chance to finally visit Portland (having heard so much about it from Ben Henick) and to meet some great people, like Erica O’Grady (yet another woman who does so much for the Web industry, and just so much in general!). Sadly, I didn’t get to spend any time with Kit, but Erica and I did have a good heart-to-heart while perusing the shelves at Powell’s Books. It was a great conference and a great weekend, and next time, Kit, we’re doing dinner — work be damned!
Then I was absolutely bowled over when Rob Dickerson invited me to give the closing keynote at the Penn State Web Conference. I’ll admit that, at first, I wasn’t sure how I’d translate my industry experience for an audience that was supporting academia… but then I realized that that’s how I started out, and academia actually helped prepare me for much of what I encountered in industry! I just hope that all of my ‘how to be an evangelist and advocate for processes and roles that support standards’ mumbo-jumbo translated well, and that attendees will find it useful. I was thoroughly impressed by the other presenters, most of whom were from the university system, and I had a great time at Quaker Steak and Lube (a restaurant… really!) with Jared Spool, Dan Frommelt, and company. And I got to have ice cream at the PSU Creamery! Mmmm!
I’ll have more to say about other aspects of SXSW later, but I wanted to say that the Non-Developers to Open Source Acolytes: Tell Me Why I Care panel was the best panel I’ve ever been to at SXSW. The audience was diverse (about 50/50!) and engaged, and we had a discussion that even enlightened me about something I thought I knew quite a bit about.
Thank you, Elisa Camahort, for organizing such an interesting and engaging panel. Now I really want to attend BlogHer because I’m sure you organize a kick-ass conference.
It was also really wonderful to hear from Annalee Newitz (co-editor of the very awesome She’s Such a Geek), Dawn Foster, and my friend Erica Rios. Erica made poignant references to women’s involvement in creating technology and to the opportunities available to women via open source, which received a round of applause. Needless to say, that discussion needs to be continued.
Note to Hugh Forrest: Bring back Elisa as a moderator — or maybe as a keynote?! — and bring back these panelists to continue a discussion that brought everyone to the table!
Alrighty folks, it’s SXSW time.
Come to the WaSP Annual Meeting where we’ll tell you what we’ve been up to, and where we’ll be Takin’ it to the Street on Monday, March 12 at 5 PM.
My AOL pals are doing another “How to Convince Your Company” panel, this time on embracing mashup culture. And Arun is also doing a browser wars panel, and I honestly can’t think of anyone else who’d be better at leading such a discussion.
I was surprised to learn that PayPal is also getting involved in SXSW, by sponsoring an evening event: the PayPal SXSW Showdown. I’m going to meet the organizer later today and find out what it’s all about. If you want to attend, be sure to RSVP!
Other stuff I’m looking forward to…
If you see me, stop me and say hello!
Sure, this comes a little late, but better late than never, right?
The good folks at the SxSW Festival have finally posted the podcasts for the panels that I was a part of. The following links will take you straight to the MP3s:
