What Geeky Women Are Doing Now

Posted by ubergeeke on July 1st, 2008 in blogpost

I promise in advance: This Is Not A Rant.

Of all the tech sites or companies that I could gripe about - if I were prone to griping publicly, which I’m not - O’Reilly isn’t even on the list. While other sites, companies, and publications of all types might neglect to include women in their staff rosters or their focus, O’Reilly seems to be Doing Things Right.

Let’s just put aside for a moment the fact that they’ve got the best books in the business, that they’re publishing one of the best magazines *EVER* (Make), and hosting one of the coolest conventions on the planet (OSCON). Here’s what else they’ve done right lately:

• The most prolific bloggers listed on their FYI page are women.
• While other conventions seem to forget that there *are* women in technology, O’Reilly has included folks like Amy Hoy, Kirrily Robert, and Leslie Hawthorn. I’m not saying that they’ve got a decent number of women (yet), but at least they remember the contributions women are making to the tech industry.
• They’ve got women like Dru Lavigne writing their books.

All of which begs this question: why is this page so lame?

If you’ve visited .51 before, you know that this site was created because I couldn’t find this kind of information anywhere else. When I’m surfing on the web for “women in technology”, and I see a page on O’Reilly’s site with that *exact title*, I’d like there to be some content that isn’t over nine months old. In Internet time, 9 months is *eons*, people.

Now, it’s entirely possible that women at O’Reilly are just too damned busy to toot their own horns. I get it. I really do. And yet there are those of us who really need to see those pages. Even if they seem unnecessary because you guys are working your asses off and getting the respect and attention you deserve, other women need to know about it. And what do we do when we want to know about things? We enter “women in technology” in the search bar field! That’s the first page we see!

Even if that page only has links to other pages containing your actual work, that’s fine. In fact, perfect. Include links to publications at O’Reilly by women. Include links to the blog pages. Include links to the conference pages where women are listed as presenters. Yes, it’s redundant, but it’s necessary. If you’re doing things right (and you are), scream it from that page.

Hey! O’Reilly folks! Fix it! Otherwise, I’m stopping by the ginormous O’Reilly booth at OSCON to tell you in person!

Related posts:

1. WomenInTech: O’Reilly Gives Women Our Due
2. Pingdom on “Women In Open Source”
3. Who’s Got Real Tech? “Wired” Vs. IEEE’s “Spectrum”
4. Where Are The Women In Programming? Found ‘Em!
5. OSCON Expo Hall: First Report From The Floor

Related Posts

Related posts:

1. WomenInTech: O’Reilly Gives Women Our Due
2. Pingdom on “Women In Open Source”
3. Who’s Got Real Tech? “Wired” Vs. IEEE’s “Spectrum”
4. Where Are The Women In Programming? Found ‘Em!
5. OSCON Expo Hall: First Report From The Floor