On the eve of her book release & just back from presenting at SXSW in Austin Texas, then the Information Architecture summit in Memphis; Donna Spencer talks to us today about being an Interaction Designer & how to get experience in useability in your existing role.
She shares what it was like to present at SXSW, about her upcoming UX Australia conference in Canberra as well as being invited to present at UX London and running some workshops in Denmark. Donna’s knowledge & passion for Experience & Interaction really comes across when she describes how to organise a conference from an Experience Design perspective.
We also have a quick chat about what its like to be a freelancer & balance (blend) work & family life.
And as we chatted, Donna got notification that her book was now available to download & she is officially an Author! Congratulations Donna!
With International Women’s day approaching on March the 6th, I decided to share some of the chellenges I have faced as a Woman working in IT. I am hoping that we can start a discussion about what it is like to work in IT, and start to address these challenges for the next generation of Women thinking of a career in IT.
Some of the topics I share include what it was like to Study IT at University, working as the only female in IT teams, the effect of taking maternity leave & attending It conferences as a female.
This week I managed to chase down Pia Waugh for long enough to have a chat about the exciting things she has been doing with the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Project. She is a founding member and volunteer for the OLPC Friends organisation. Pia is a passionate supporter of Open Source Software (OSS), actively involved in Australia’s Linux Community and also a powerful advocate & supporter for Women Working in IT, especially working with School age girls to challenge the stereotypes of working in IT to foster a growing Women in IT community.
I always love chatting with Pia - I find her passion & energy that she puts into her projects absolutely contagious - and I always feel so inspired after I chat with her! Pia is one of the awe inspiring Australian Women working in IT we have here, so it was a total honour to get to interview her for this podcast.
(Apologies for the background noise as the only place we could meet was a cafe)
While at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in LA last week, I was fortunate enough to make it along on the Sunday to the Women Build event based on Lego Serious Play Program (LSP). It was a fantastic event in which we got to play with Lego Kits to create models as metaphors for challenges that you are faced with when trying to integrate diversity in a workplace.
Our table had a fantatsic group that was made up of a mix of both male & female participants which included people from different cultures & nationalities. In our group itself, it was interesting to see the range of solutions provided & it really highlighted the value of working together, and the value you can achieve when you welcome the thoughts and opinions of diverse groups & work together (as well as the challenges with doing this!)
Throughout the event, I was able to grab a few of the organisers & facilitators & get some feedback on the ideas of how it all started - and what they had hoped to achieve. These can be found in the 3 short podcasts below:
There is now a WomenBuild facebook group that has been created to further support this initiative and we are all interested in getting the discussions flowing here, so feel free to join in & offer your opinions on the site.
You can also register for the MSDN Developer Conference coming to a US city near you for more experiences with WomenBuild and live delivery of PDC content!
This week I managed to chase down 
While at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in LA last week, I was fortunate enough to make it along on the Sunday to the 
