I attended the Technology for Women Meetup at West Monroe Partners on June 25, 2014 and it was really cool. There were six of us in attendance; unfortunately, I don’t have any images of Dante and Emily, the co-organizers of the group.
Anyway, the theme for this meetup was Diversity in Technology: You Can’t Be What You Can’t See, and the conversation was absolutely fabulous. As you can see from the photos, there was a diverse group in attendance. And the men contributed their thoughts and opinions, which was great.
Krystin was the facilitator. She opened with the agenda, followed by a video of Sheryl Sandberg’s Ted Talk: Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders. Sandberg is the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook. The floor was then open for discussion.
Summary of our discussions:
Workplace Diversity
- Alan suggested that we ask companies that we work for or are considering working for where they stand on diversity. Are they doing it because it’s a good business practice or to stay out of legal trouble?
- Are companies actually embracing diversity and inclusion or are they just fake like they’re interested?
- Once you find out where they stand, ask yourself, “Am I okay with it? What can I do to make a change?”
Women Salaries
Our conversation shifted to salaries of women in the workplace.
- On average, only 5% of women negotiate for better salaries in the workplace.
- Employers expect women not to negotiate for better salaries.
When Alan asked us why we did not negotiate, typically it was out of fear of negotiating ourselves out of our gig. He gave us tips on how to do this effectively.
Unfortunately, I had to run for my train (my life story) so I couldn’t stick around. However, Alan is available to speak to your group on salary negotiations.
July 2014 Meetup
The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, July 30th and I will be speaking about Diversity in Social Media. Even though it’s improving, it is still an issue.
If you have a topic relevant to Diversity in Technology, let me know and I’ll pass it on to the organizers.
Hope to see you at the meetup next month.