The Making of “I am a Technical Woman”

I always enjoy having Jerri Barrett write for Nonprofit Conversation. She brings great insight on how to use, really use, technology to advance one's nonprofit. In addition to other things I do, I also do media distribution for government agencies and nonprofits. I get videos placed on hundreds of Public, Educational and Government (PEG) access television channels around the country. The videos air for free and that air time is worth millions of dollars to my clients.

I can't tell you how many government agencies and nonprofits have videos sitting on their shelves and aren't distributing them. What good is it to produce a video for internal consumption? Jerri tells you how to make your video go "viral." Enjoy. Bunnie

The Making of “I am a Technical Woman”

By Jerri Barrett, Vice President of Marketing, Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology

Two years ago (2007) I attended my very first Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC), which is put on by my non profit – the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology. It being only my second week on the job I was amazed by the incredible diversity of the women present at the conference – young and old, all races, and representing over 23 countries and almost all 50 states that year. But what really captured my attention was how happy everyone was. This was a technical conference, with a strong professional development component, but a technical conference nonetheless. Why was everyone so happy? My marketing mind at that moment told me that I needed to find a way to capture this feeling.

Months later as we were planning the 2008 GHC I proposed the idea of a video booth with a professional film crew. We needed professionals because the previous year’s team of volunteers and staff had accidentally overloaded and fried the inside of our video camera. We did get our footage but much of it was grainy or too dark to use. The film crew happened, thanks to a sponsorship by SAP, and we made a plan. Everyone that the film crew interviewed we captured saying I am a technical woman.

Once we completed editing all the footage we had over 99 instances of women saying I am a Technical Woman, computer scientist, etc and we had men saying I support Technical Women. Finally the video was completed.

The next step was the challenge. we had created this simple video and we wanted as many people in the world see it as possible. So I created a multi stage launch plan for the video involving both traditional media through our public relations firm and our communities (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter). Once I’d shown the video to my colleagues it was agreed that it would be shown at the 2009 GHC on the morning of the first keynote session. Most of our attendees would be gathered in the room to see the Keynote speaker. Simultaneously a number of things would happen:

The video would be introduced and shown to the audience of 1600 women. In the introduction to the video, I encouraged everyone in the audience to twitter about the video and direct people to our website where it could be viewed. The video was launched on Youtube and embedded in our website. A press release was launched as the video was being shown with a link to the video embedded in it. The press release and link were posted on Linked In and Facebook the same day. Teachers attending a K12 Workshop hosted by Anita Borg Institute, CSTA and The University of Phoenix all received DVDs of the video. On our website we offered downloadable versions of the video so that people wanting to show it at a conference wouldn’t have to stream it.

The results have been amazing:

1. The video has been viewed over 6850 times on Youtube.
2. The video has been downloaded from our website over 217 times to over 26 countries
3. When we launched the video over 700 people twittered about it in the hour after it was shown.
4. Over 40 different bloggers shared the video on their sites in the first month after launch
5. Numerous friends of ABI posted a link to the video on their facebook page.
6. The video has been shown at conferences in Japan and Australia.
7. The video is being shown in classrooms across the country.

My favorite outcome was from a co-worker who sent her 7 year old to school with the video. The response back from the second graders – I didn’t know that technical women could be so cool.

The question now is – how do you define a viral video? For me the definition is whether it is having an impact and people are sharing the video. In both cases that is a definite yes.

So please watch the video and let me know what you think about it. And be sure to show it to your daughters.

Launching a New Program: Savvy Geek Chix Case Study

Jerri Barrett, from the Anita Borg Institute, is back to tell us about a new program they have launched. What? A new program in this economy? Yes, because if you are not constantly examining your programming and figuring out new ways to serve your members, your organization will quickly become obsolete. Especially in this economy. Managing cost is a key theme in this article. Enjoy! Bunnie

Launching a New Program: Savvy Geek Chix Case Study

By Jerri Barrett, Director of Marketing, Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology

In early 2009, Deanna Kosaraju, the VP of Programs for the Anita Borg Institute, called a meeting to discuss a new idea. How do we take all of the great information we’ve gathered from our other programs: the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing and TechLeaders and create a series of affordable programs? We were all keenly aware of the impact the economy was having on our community – both the fact that travel and training budgets were being slashed and that many of our constituency were either experiencing layoffs or were worried about being laid off.

After doing some research on what else was being offered in the marketplace, the decision was made to offer a low cost program that would address directly some of the issues that people were facing. Our first step was to come up with a name. After much debate and many versions the name Savvy Geek Chix was arrived at – savvy because our program attendees are smart, Geek because we work with technologists and Chix because we work with women and the word Chix is often used in the tech world.

Once we had a name we started working on content for our first event. Given what was top of mind for most of our constituency – layoffs and job security we knew that "Weathering the Economic Storm" would strike a cord. We wanted to not just focus on what happens at a layoff but what you could do to better position yourself in your company before a layoff and what you should do after the layoff takes place.

After the name and general topic were established, many different activities around launching the program began to take place simultaneously. Kim McLeod, Program Manager for Savvy Geek Chix, began the process of recruiting panelists and building content for the program. Early on we decided to repeat a very successful activity from our 2008 Grace Hopper Celebration, the Resume Clinic. For the Resume Clinic I recruited a wide range of recruiters from tech companies and recruiting firms to provide 15 minute resume critiques. Sort of a speed dating for resume review. Attendees could sign up for a 15 minute slot with one of the 15 recruiters. This would be the first hour of SGC. At the same time a networking reception was taking place in another room. Kim built a diverse panel made up of people who could speak to the list of topics we’d developed for the program.

Our VP of Business Development, Jody Mahoney, simultaneously had to go out and find a host company for the event. The host would provide the space for the event and the refreshments for our attendees. SAP agreed almost immediately and a date and time were set for the event.

Once we had all everything in place recruitment of attendees became our number one priority. Given the low admission price ($25 for the first event) we realized that we couldn’t do expensive outreach. We focused mostly on promoting the event through our newsletter, our communities and through our personal networks. We encouraged everyone who registered for the event to announce it to their own networks on Facebook and Linked In – helping us carry the word as far as we could. And of course we worked with other non-profits as well.

The actual event itself took place on March 24, 2009. We had 87 paid attendees, 15 recruiters and the ABI Staff in attendance. Measurement is a critical part of every program the Anita Borg Institute offers. We found that 70% of the attendees had not attended one of our events before, showing us that these low cost programs opened a new niche for us. 97% of the attendees said the program met or exceeded their expectations and 98% agreed or strongly agreed that they learned useful skills, concepts and techniques to retain jobs or survive layoff.

These results clearly indicate that there is a strong desire among our constituency for shorter and low cost programs that focus on skill development in key areas. Planning will begin soon for our next Savvy Geek Chix program.

Contact Jerri at http://www.anitaborg.org/

Creating a Newsletter with Constant Contact – Tips and Tricks

I love how-to's! Practical information that gives me the best way to do something or de-mystifies a process. Jerri Barret, of the Anita Borg Institute, takes us through how to use Constant Contact to create a newsletter, step-by-step, and gives us practical work-arounds to potential glitches. Thanks Jerri! Bunnie

Creating a Newsletter with Constant Contact – Tips and Tricks

by Jerri Barrett, Director of Marketing

Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology

I’m writing this as I am concluding the creation of the first of two newsletters the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) will publish in February 2009. To quickly summarize our process prior to layout, each week we have a staff meeting. In each staff meeting I poll our team on what items should be going into the two newsletters. The first one each month is very program focused, the second is more article and column rich – though we do give shorter relevant plugs for the programs. The staff contributes topics and commit to writing articles, and I usually write a few myself. When the articles are submitted I edit them in Microsoft Word. Lengthy articles are posted on our website (http://www.anitaborg.org/) and the first two paragraphs will appear in the newsletter with a link to the rest of the article.

Constant Contact is very intuitive. To get started each month I copy the previous month’s newsletter. This enables me to have a consistent look and feel to the newsletter. Other templates are available and you can customize them so no two newsletters look exactly the same. Then, I simply go through and delete the previous month’s articles, unless they are program related and need to simply be modified or updated. Once the newsletter is scrubbed, I begin to add the articles.

Adding articles is probably the one area that is the most troublesome in Constant Contact. If you cut and paste articles out of Microsoft Word, the article frequently loses its formatting. It is best to take your word article and cut and paste it into Notepad then copy from there into Constant Contact. It’s an extra step but can save a lot of formatting time. You also need to go in and manually enter each link in an article which can be time consuming. Be sure to frequently save your work as you continue, Constant Contact will log you out automatically if there is no activity and your work will be lost.

Once the articles are laid out and the formatting is set, I go back and review the articles to see if an image would be appropriate. Images have to be small in size and in .jpg format – you upload an image into Constant Contact, determine what size it should be and insert it into the article.

The final stop is the arrangement of the articles on the page. You simply drag and drop the articles on the page until you the flow and order you want. In Constant Contact what you see is what you get. Then you create the table of contents. The table of contents does not automatically populate – you need to click on it and manually type in the title of each article. This is helpful if you have a lot of long titles – you can truncate them as needed. You always have to remember to update the table of contents before distribution – changes in the order of the articles changes the TOC and you want to be sure to double check it each time.

Once I’m satisfied the newsletter is “done”, I preview it and send preview copies to all of my contributing writers. It’s important for them to provide further proofreading and make sure the articles are accurate and the links are pointing where they should.

I make all the changes and once we’re done it’s time to schedule the newsletter distribution. First who does the newsletter go to? We are continuously updating our distribution lists for the newsletter from multiple sources – our newsletter registration site, our event registrations, and emails. Those are uploaded to constant contact from an excel spreadsheet – a quick process that takes about 5 minutes. ABI has a strict no spamming policy so we only add names of people who have agreed to receive our newsletter.

The final step is scheduling – I pick the date and time for the newsletter to go out and schedule it. The newsletter will be sent automatically without further intervention. The email out of office notices all come to my mailbox while bounce backs are recorded by Constant Contact’s reporting function.

Once the newsletter is out I wait 3-4 days then I go online to check the reports on that newsletter. I see how many newsletters were sent, how many were opened and which articles were clicked on. This is part of our monthly tracking and provides insight into what types of articles and programs are of interest to our readers. So what’s our number 1 click through month after month? Our column, Ask Jo, which is written by a professional coach – Jo Miller, the CEO of Women’s Leadership Coaching (http://www.womensleadershipcoaching.com/).

The advantages of Constant Contact overall is it is relatively inexpensive, easy to update and easy to use. A newsletter (excluding article writing) can be created in less than a day (including editing rounds). The primary disadvantages are the occasional glitches in the software – you may find yourself challenged in formatting for no apparent reason. The best work around – save and log out and log back in. And when push comes to shove delete an article and reload it into the software.

One final comment, in my last guest post I mentioned the Communities Manager for the Anita Borg Institute. I wanted to acknowledge the excellent work done by BJ Wishinsky in this role. As I write this BJ is working on new strategies to create new communities for the Anita Borg Institute.

Contact Jerri at jerrib@anitaborg.org