This 9-minute video is loaded with insight from across the industry on this question. Whichever viewpoint you hold (there is a problem, there isn’t, it’s a mix), this is really interesting.
Response to Brodbeck’s Women in Tech Argument on TechCrunch
Tommy, our Girls in Tech COO, passed along an article to me, “Women and Tech: Focus On Female Consumers and the Founders Will Follow” (20 Feb), that looks like it’s gotten a bit of attention in the past few days. It’s written by Christina Brodbeck from ThelceBreak in San Francisco. I’d like to add a few quick notes to the discussion.
Please note, I’m not a fist-pounder when it comes to demanding women rights, boohooing our position in technology, etc (Yes, I know I’m the CMO of Girls in Tech, but keep reading). I find it equally as unproductive as the author. I’m not what you would call “a feminist” in the oft-thought angry sort of way. I’m a doer, and hopefully in the process, an empowerer.
I, like the author, have also been fairly lucky in my life in terms of having a supportive and encouraging upbringing, a good schooling, and the confidence to, as I say, Kick Butt. I also know many fantastic women who have likewise done the same.
However, I feel Christina’s argument is flawed in a few respects, and I would still argue that issue needs to be looked at. Allow me a moment.
Firstly, concerning her argument:
- I find it misplaced and disjointed. Being a consumer of technology and being a professional in the field (start-up or not) are two very different things. I’m unclear how this connection comes to “…and the Founders will Follow”…. Everyone, male or female, would love to get their hands on purse percentage of the female consumer, but the article didn’t make a strong enough connection in my mind (or hardly any connection) to how that draws more people into founding positions or increases the strength or number of women in technology. I’m happy to have a further conversation about this (leave any insights in the comments please!).
- All of the examples noted are not what I would consider a use of technology for most parts of the US. I’m still buying clothes off GiltGroupe, spa treatments and dinners off Groupon, finding dates on Match.com, and talking to other women… I’m just now doing it online. In most parts of the US, knowing how to hop on the internet and buy stuff and talk to people doesn’t exactly constitute “adding to the technology landscape.” There are so many other examples here that could have been used.
Beyond this, I want to make a few comments on the larger picture:
- On the start-up side and especially the investing side, there is still a disparity between women-run companies getting funding and women funders. Why? I would so love to see more women as Angels, and especially VCs. I don’t think the answer is just “hey, if you don’t have the chops, don’t come to the table,” is it?
- As I mentioned, I come from a lucky background. All to often, the people that jump in these arguments saying we’ve got to stop talking about women in tech come from just as lucky of positions, such as the author or myself. So I guess we just assume that everyone has those opportunities, right?
Nope. In my opinion, a better way to look at this is understand where to focus. Several women (and men) in the comments of the article said “just do it” because you all have or know women who have. Perhaps using that knowledge and reaching out and teaching other women who find that difficult for a multitude of reasons is a more constructive way to look at the issue, recognizing that you were probably nurtured and encouraged in positive ways growing up, had access to the tools you needed to excel in technology, you knew how to take charge and feel confident, yadda yadda yadda. Just because you were perhaps lucky in that respect (and I was too, don’t get me wrong) doesn’t mean everyone was.
For instance, if you take a look at K-12 (specifically middle school age) in the US, there are far fewer girls being brought up to excel in the sciences and maths. Almost every single state has a special program within the STEM initiatives that tackles this issue. Those initiatives are probably there for a reason.
And if you take examples outside the walls of our country, which is where this “women and tech” banter always resides for us, I don’t even need to begin listing the disparities of education and access that women face, even when you look at the numbers indicating that when women DO excel in these fields, they generally add significantly more to their communities than men do. That could be fixed, no?
Some people are, in fact Secretary Clinton has started a specific effort to reach more global women in these fields (there’s currently a delegation of top US women in tech in Sierra Leone and Liberia as we speak) and increasing global mentorship opportunities through the TechWomen program.
My point is this: From your position of success and accomplishment (and an awesome one it is!) I would love to see you not dismiss the issue as done, I did it, it’s a tired argument, let’s focus on people who are buying stuff (as they always were).
Take what you’ve learned and pass it along to others, or help me better understand what your suggestions (a seed fund for the consumer??) does for the big picture…. once you’ve done that I’m happy to listen further.
Related articles
- Adriana Gascoigne, founder of Girls In Tech quick interview at LAUNCH (DanielOdio.com)
- Pink Infographics Aren’t Fun, They’re Irritating (revenews.com)
Let’s move past the elevator pitch, maybe it’s time for an Elevator Tweet….
I was the Tech Garden last night listening to entrepreneur Steven Gal from Cornell University. In the midst of his talk, something popped out at me.
The elevator pitch – you know, the one they drill into your head as an entrepreneur or a student of entrepreneurship? The one you agonize over? – as a standard, is 140 words long. As Steven said, nowadays, that’s too long, no one’s paying any attention for that many words. You need to be concise. Try to make it shorter.
I want to take this one step further. In a world now dominated by digital connections – especially in the professional world – where social tools are becoming key ways to connect with people, discuss ideas and…. PITCH COMPANIES…
….why not make sure you have an Elevator Tweet? This isn’t just an exercise of conciseness, it’s a reality. It may actually be a key part of connecting with the right people, online or offline.
My challenge to you: TELL ME YOUR BUSINESS IDEA, AND ALL YOU GET IS A 140-CHARACTER TWEET!
- Leave them in the comments section (preferred) or you can tweet them to me – @just_kate
- Leave your business information if you’d like, so we can all double check!
- If you have an interesting anecdote on using twitter to pitch your business, or why you personally think this is important (or not!), let me know.
- If you’re coming here from Girls in Tech, make sure you let me know, we’ll throw those up on our GIT website as well.
- I’ll highlight the best ones, or maybe I’ll run a poll to see which ones ring the most true, we’ll see how much action we get.
Related articles
- The Art of the Elevator Pitch (wired.com)
- How to Create Your Unforgettable Elevator Pitch (designdamage.com)
- Creating the unforgettable elevator pitch (venturebeat.com)
Doing Business in Boston: Why it’s good and why we should move on
On Monday, Henry McCance wrote about why he moved his firm from Boston to Silicon Valley, and why Boston isn’t a good place to start a company.
Well, I found this to be crap, and sent it to a few locals in high places to see if they had a response. One of them was Doug Banks, Publisher of Mass High Tech, who wrote a wonderful rabble-rouser of a post on the MHT blog (you should definitely read the whole thing, there are a lot of good retorts).
I wrote a comment on the post, and I wanted to repost it here and break it down.
“Completely awesome retort. Glad I sent you the article as you’ve done a great job in countering the many points.
To add a few myself, I think it’s a pretty weak claim to say that you shouldn’t do business in a place because it doesn’t have name brands. As far as I’m concerned, probably half of Silicon Valley went to Silicon Valley simply because name brands were there, not necessarily because it was a better place to do business…..”
As I’ll allude to later, a lot of what McCance talked about was simply “I gotta be where the cool kids are.” The Googles, the Facebooks. I might argue that many of those made it out to Silicon Valley for the same reasons. Granted, they are actually the cool kids, but couldn’t it be that the reason is because Silicon Valley is a great place to start a business (it’d be silly to say otherwise) and not necessarily that Boston is a bad place. And Doug has some really great points about the reality of this claim as well – there a lot of intricacies to the Silicon Valley vs Boston landscape that aren’t so simple as “SV/Cali is bigger and better than Boston…” As an addition here (forgot this in the comments), California in general is actually a really tough place to do business in overall – employee insurance/taxes are atrocious, rent in at least San Fran and LA at least equals and in many cases well surpasses Boston and even NY….. I could go on, but will stop…..
“….I started right out of college in the start-up environment in Cambridge. To your point about MIT, in most cases, the first place MITers would go is right across the street to CIC (founded by MITers). It was like their second home. If they couldn’t get something thru the MIT tech tranfer office, they’d go next door, not across the country. And based on the success of CIC, I’d say it’s a pretty supportive environment to start a company in, and it just keeps growing.
From there, I also had my stint at places like Bose. In terms of encouraging innovation, it’s not as cutting edge as Google, but the stuff that goes on in that place, and the support Bose gives to research and “tinkering” is amazing (Dr Bose started the company based on the premise of trying to solve many of the worlds huge problems, including cold fusion. They have a car that can jump over a curb, which Dr Bose developed based solely on a physics graph that said to him “this is possible.”…”
In addition to Bose, Doug mentioned a LOAD of other rocking start-ups that started and stayed in the Boston area. Are they Google? No (well, actually, as Doug mentioned Google’s second largest “center” is in Boston…). But they’re powerful and successful companies (zipcar, Staples, Monster) and some of the newbies are poised to be big names (Carbonite, iRobot).
That reminds me, someone should do a tally of the companies that have also gotten sold for valuable price tags, because I would also consider those a success…..
“….I agree, there is some work to do, but there are plenty of organizations that not only realize this, but are pushing for progress. Orgs like Mass High Tech, Girls in Tech and Boston World Partnerships are actively pushing for more visibility on the benefits of doing business in Boston….”
And this is important. Doug points out several gaps we have, and the fact that we know we have them. This debate has gone on for so long, we would be silly not to be trying to fix every hole. As Managing Director of Girls in Tech Boston, we had several conversations about this issue internally and externally.
We’re all proud of Boston and the supportive entrepreneurship community that’s here, and we darn well know we have a lot of substantial, meaningful things to offer to any business that wants to be here.
“…..McCance’s argument seemed to be based a lot on PR issues…. Silicon Valley has the brand, Boston doesn’t. That’s no reason to claim that Boston is a bad place to do business though. It needs a few improvements in that area, and a good PR campaign… that’s all.”
This is where I think the bulk of the problem lies. It’s a PR issue. McCance really doesn’t give any more substantial argument as far as I’m concerned. Doug says, “Even [he] agrees there’s “no compelling reason” why Silicon Valley should get all the credit for consumer e-commerce companies. So if it’s a matter of perception, then what should we be doing to change that perception?”
And THAT’s the question we should all be answering. It’s not about whether Boston is a good place to have a company. It is. But what can we all do to change peoples’ views on it?
We’ve got to develop a solid PR strategy, and the organizations I listed above along with plenty of others can get the job done. There’s no point in just letting this argument be an argument, a we’re-better-than-you-are discussion, because that’s not constructive.
Doug called for solutions and progressive movements forward, and I’m calling for them as well.
I’m also calling for collaboration and partnerships to get the job done. We’ve got the people, we’ve got the brainpower, and we’ve got an awesome city, with awesome people in it.
So let’s do it.
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- Greylock Partners on Why You Shouldn’t Start a Company in… Boston (fastcompany.com)
- Thought Leadership moves to Silicon Valley from Boston (cambridgecluster.com)
- Innovation Events: a Tale of Two Coasts (vocecommunications.com)
Strategy Magazine: Top 5 Tips for Entrepreneurs
Having been part of one failed start-up and having seen many start-ups fail around me, I’ve compiled a decent list of “what not to do” items. The following post in Strategy Magazine highlights those.
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