amy l. kovac-ashley

bits and pieces from my distracted life

[amylkovac-blog]

My Twitter gender audit results revealed

Inspired by Robert Hernandez's Twitter gender audit, I decided to do a little audit of my own. Generally, the point was to figure out the gender ratio of the accounts I follow on Twitter. Is there an imbalance one way or the other? Whose voices am I hearing when I look at my feed?

So here's what I did and what I discovered:

I follow 410 accounts on Twitter, a pretty carefully curated list of people and organizations that are tailored to my interests - family and friends, journalism, education and news about Washington, D.C., California and a few other places. So it didn't take me too long to go through the list by hand to assign each account to one of two groups - Gender Audit Prog: Male and Gender Audit Prog: Female. (Thanks again to Robert for coming up with those names for the lists.)

I do follow a number of accounts for organizations - 102, actually - for which I did not assign a gender. The rest (308) are people, and I put them in one of the two categories. Disclaimer: To my knowledge, I don't believe anyone I follow identifies as transgender. But I could be wrong, and that's definitely a flaw in this audit, since there isn't a way to know for sure and since some people don't like to be labeled from a gender standpoint.

Here is my final breakdown:

181 men 127 women

Put another way, you can see the share of all people I follow this way:

So the ratio of men to women is 3:2, which is about what Robert's ratio was as well.

So, what did I learn?

1. When I started, I really did think that I would follow about equal numbers of men and women - partly because I am a woman and I at least feel like I am conscious of trying to achieve balance in the voices I listen to.

2. The act of putting each person in a group was pretty revealing in itself. I could tell through the process that the end result would skew more on the male side. I just wasn't sure how much.

3. I seem to have followed more women at the beginning of my time as a Twitter user. Lately, I have been adding more men to my list.

4. In general, I tend to follow people I actually know and have met. There are exceptions, of course, for "thought leaders" in different spaces. Most of those, interestingly enough, are men.

5. When putting people in the groups, I received a number of inquiries on Twitter from the people I was categorizing. Of the 13 people who asked me about the list, only one was a woman. Some of the men seemed concerned that they were being put on such a list. And some were just being funny:

@terabithia4 Am I being punished for being a male?

— Drew Hansen (@Drubaru)

September 11, 2014

I was just added to something called the "gender audit project-males" by @terabithia4. This will probably end poorly for me.

— Chris Winston (@cwinston75)

September 11, 2014

6. One of the inquiries came from Aram Zucker-Scharff, who pointed out this interesting site, Twee-Q. You can input any Twitter account there to see the breakdown of how many retweets the account gives to tweets coming from men versus women. (I'm not totally sure how they assign a gender to all Twitter accounts, though.)

My ratio was pretty bad: 19:3 (men: women). The site responded to my numbers by posting this notice:

Oops, this user really has a tilted balance between the retweeted sexes... Find some more female tweeters to follow and repent!

So I have a lot of work to do there, I guess.

7. Lots of good questions came up: What is the gender breakdown of Twitter users overall? How active are women on Twitter versus men? What other characteristics should we audit as well? (Robert is keeping a list of "people of color," for example.)

8. I'd like to get our Georgetown Journalism master's students to try this in our Ethics classes as part of how they think about diversity.

9. While not scientific, this exercise was pretty enlightening, and I will definitely be thinking more about diversifying which accounts I follow. I encourage everyone to try it and share the outcome.

[amylkovac-blog]

The importance of surrounding yourself with Shiny people

“I don’t shine if you don’t shine.” – Shine Theory, according to Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow

Ever since I made the switch from full-time professional journalist to full-time journalism educator/administrator, I’ve been asked to do a lot of career advising. Much of that has been rather routine and pedestrian – helping students and alums think through their goals, pointing them to jobs or organizations that could be a good fit, providing tips on resumes and cover letters and prepping them for interviews. Most of these students seek this advice near the end of their time with our program, which makes sense. But I wish more of them would come when they start – because it’s at that point that I would want them to start thinking about creating their own “personal advisory boards.”

I started using this term with some of our Capstone students a few semesters ago. The Capstone comes at the end of the program, and it requires each student to produce a project of some heft and importance. They are supposed to bring everything they have learned in the program to bear on this final piece of enterprise work. In an orientation session with some of the Capstone students, I mentioned to them the idea that the project would challenge them because of the solitary nature of it. They would have some help in the form of their instructors, but the project really demands that they manage and motivate themselves throughout the process. This is not a group endeavor. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be looking to others for guidance and advice. And that’s where their personal advisory boards should come in.

Like mentors, these advisers should be hand-picked, with skills and knowledge related to the students’ career interests and aspirations. They should know the students well enough to know their weaknesses and strengths and how to give feedback in a way that the students would hear it and act on it. They should not only praise or only criticize. The students needed to ask these advisers what they thought of their story ideas – and get honest answers. Would they read/watch/listen to/engage with the story the student was trying to tell?

For many of the students, though, it was too late. They hadn’t formed such an advisory board by this point. They knew a few people they could ask for advice, but they often didn’t know if it was any good. They turned to friends who only praised them for their wittiness or creativity when their ideas needed more of a critical eye – supportive, of course, but critical nonetheless.

So it was with great interest that I attended the keynote discussion at the 2013 Online News Association conference that focused on Shine Theory. Ann Friedman, an editor and writer I have admired from afar, and her friend and co-conspirator Aminatou Sow presented the theory together to a room that was majority women. The basics of the theory can be summed up in one sentence: “I don’t shine if you don’t shine.” What that means in practice is that we should all seek out a group of people who we “invest in,” as they said, and who invests in us. Their successes become ours, and vice versa. The theory stresses collaboration over competition, and the three most important principles of the theory are transparency, trust and integrity. They also made a point that resonated well with me about “kissing down, not up.”

These things, they argued, can seem out of step with journalism, a fiercely competitive and often hierarchical field. But the theory has worked for them – and also helped get more diverse voices into the mix when they or others they know have given a boost and championed colleagues and confidants who aren’t part of the traditional hierarchy.

Some of the discussion was a little too squishy and Pollyannaish for my skeptical Gen X ears – a sentiment shared by someone who attended the session with me – and they did focus mostly on women helping other women, which is admirable, of course, given our tendency to tear each other down. But in total, I found a lot of similarities between what they were positing and the personal advisory boards I have been espousing.

Just like the Shine groups, the personal advisory boards are made up of a core group of people - not just any old group of people we know. It just makes good sense personally, professionally and karmically (not sure that’s a word) that we should not only create our own advisory boards for our own needs. We should be a willing participant and collaborator for others. We can learn from each other and provide support, advice, gut checks and yes, even criticism (of the constructive variety).

But we need to choose our collaborators carefully. We need to find the right mix of people who will play this important role. We may need a few of these go-to groups for different things, just as we have different facets to our lives. (I don’t know, for example, that I would go to the same group for professional advice that I would for parenting advice.) And we need to be open and willing to give of our time when others seek us out to play these roles for them.

So as the requests come in from soon-to-be alums, I am reminded that we need to find ways to get the idea of the advisory boards – and some Shine Theory – out to students earlier. And I am reminded that I need to do some thinking of my own about my personal advisory board and how I can be a better adviser to others.

And scene - at least for the formal presentation part #shinetheory #ONA13 pic.twitter.com/yA2fvcOImk

— Amy L. Kovac-Ashley (@terabithia4)

October 18, 2013

[amylkovac-blog]

Not a good way to spend a Sunday afternoon

After trying to dog-handle another pooch out of his food, Neepa ended up with a scratched face (right below the eye), which meant an emergency trip to the vet on a Sunday.

A few hundred dollars later, she walked out with the E-cone, as the vet called it. On the invoice, the full name was given: Elizabethan cone.

So, here's our Elizabethan dog in all of her (pathetic) glory:

[amylkovac-blog]

Blasphemy in the Church of Steve Jobs

I am not a fan girl. I'm a computer user who wants her machines - PC, Mac, whatever - to work. That's it.

Now that that's out there, I can tell my story:

After only a little more than a year, my work MacBook Pro stopped connecting to the Internet. (That's a problem when you work remotely for a website.) It didn't matter how I tried to make contact with the outside world - Ethernet, wireless, aircard - nothing worked. Without Internet, there was no way for our IT folks to remote into my computer to fix it, so they suggested I go to the Apple store to get my laptop checked out.

I made my appointment online, because I know how crazy the stores can be. I showed up early and waited my turn, watching in awe at the hordes of people consuming and buying in the middle of what I still consider a recession.

When my name was called, I headed to the so-called Genius Bar. With a name like that, these people should be able to fix my computer, right?

As my designated Genius (who was quite nice, by the way) tried to figure out what was wrong with my computer, trying to connect with the Internet through various means, she kept opening Safari to check to see if the connection was working.

At some point, I couldn't help it and I said, "I don't ever use Safari if I don't have to. It's not a very good browser, and it crashes my machine all the time. You should try Firefox. It's much better."

I know. What was I thinking?!?

As the words came out of my mouth, all the other folks at the Genius Bar (who, by the way, were having very serious hardware problems of their own with their almighty Macs) and anyone in earshot, employees and customers alike, were silent for a moment and just gawked at me.

It was as if I were the devil and I had just walked into the Catholic Church. How dare I say such a thing??

I found it ironic that folks who couldn't get their various Apple products to work properly would be so loyal to a company that at least appears to be the inventor of planned obsolescence.

After the shock of my blasphemous comment wore off, the Genius went back to work, and the others around me went back to explaining how their hard drive had crashed or their computer was just ridiculously slow, etc.

An hour or so later, after trying everything she could think of, except wiping my machine and completely starting over with everything, the Genius admitted defeat. I gathered up my sad Mac and headed home, only to call my tech folks the next morning to figure out how I could send the computer back to them for major surgery.

They shipped me a new MacBook the next day, and so far my new computer is running fine. Let's hope it lasts longer than the last one. (Steve Jobs, I'm looking at you.)

[dailyvidette-blog]

[amylkovac-blog]

I'm not a cat fan, but this is pretty awesome. Go turtle!

thedailyvidette:

Hey! Welcome to the Daily Vidette tumblr, now under new management. To celebrate, here’s a video of a kitten riding on a turtle.

[amylkovac-blog]

We the Pizza walls of pizza pans.

[pierrekattar]

Guild 'disappionted' in WaPo publisher for $500k bonus

[amylkovac-blog]

pierrekattar:

The Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild wrote:

 ”As employees of the Washington Post and members of the Newspaper Guild, we were disappointed to hear that you accepted a bonus of nearly $500,000 at a time when the sacrifices made by so many people who work here — or used to work here — are still fresh.”

Full letter here.

[amylkovac-blog]

We can't have nice things, the security edition

On our way to Kansas City for a short trip to spend pre-Thanksgiving with J's family, I noticed this sign in the Washington National Airport. I was pretty saddened by it - not because I was carrying a snow globe, but because it seemed sort of anti-holiday to me. But I understand the point. It just goes to show how one (or several) bad apples can ruin it for everyone.

Guess everyone has to pack all those snow globes in their checked luggage and hope they don't break on the way from here to there! I wonder if the TSA will reimburse for broken snow globes...

[amylkovac-blog]

Christmas trains are coming

I'm a sucker for all things Christmas. I agree that the decorations come up a little too early, and that Thanksgiving gets short shrift. But I'm excited and have a little spring in my step since seeing the Christmas train being put up in Union Station.

[amylkovac-blog]

Union Station Chipotle is open

I was in Union Station today for a few minutes and noticed that Chipotle is now open. It had a pretty healthy line going around 6 p.m. Looks like it's already popular!

[amylkovac-blog]

A busy few weeks launching sites, traveling to Seattle

I haven't written in awhile, because it's been a really busy couple of weeks. In that time I've done the following:

-Launched two Patch sites (Riverdale Park-University Park Patch and College Park Patch) -Visited Seattle for the second time this summer -Attended my first Korean-Hindu wedding (a big congrats to Anna and Swaroop!) -Kayaked for the first time ever (see photos below) -Had my permanent retainer detached after 15 years in my mouth -Had my permanent retainer reattached (let's hope for another 15 years out of this bonding!) -Found a dentist -Dog sat -Cat sat -And about a million other little things I can't even remember. By far the most fun of the bunch was kayaking for the first time. We went out with a guide from Alki Kayak Tours named Ben who was awesome. He explained everything to us, from safety tips to how to put on our spray skirts. (Yes, Jim wore a skirt!)

We rode in a two-seater; Jim took the back, where he could steer using pedals, and I was in front. I was a little anxious at first, as we were strapped into the boat (again, with the spray skirts); if we had tipped over, we would have had to remove the skirts under water in order to get back up where we could breathe. But the boat we were in - the name brand of which I can't recall - was very steady, the "Cadillac of kayaks," according to Ben. Once we got on the water, I didn't worry so much about flipping over.

The paddle out to the Alki Lighthouse was lots of fun. We chatted with Ben, noting some of the real estate along the shoreline and even seeing some harbor seals. (Unfortunately, the seals moved too quickly to catch them in photographs, but they were quite cute when they popped their heads up from the water.)

My arms got a little tired along the way, but when I started using my core a little more by twisting at the waist, I was able to keep going for longer. Here are some photos that we got at the lighthouse where we stopped.

Here, you can see our "Cadillac" boats and paddles. In the foreground, you can also see the much more awesome kayak that Ben was using. (Thanks to Ben for taking this photo.)

In this one, you can see the lighthouse in the background. It was very modern looking. Unfortunately, it was surrounded by a fence, so we couldn't go inside to explore. You can see better that we're both wearing the spray skirts. Aren't they attractive?

This photo makes me look sporty, even though I'm not, so I like it. We didn't get too wet, but you can see that my hands are balled up in my coat because they got pretty cold and wet when I was paddling.

I'm hoping we can do this again sometime soon. Maybe the Potomac will be next on our list.

[amylkovac-blog]

Downed tree on 25th Place, NE, DC

After returning home from watching Inception at the Prince George's Plaza in Hyattsville (and dodging lots of debris on 295 and trying not to hydroplane on the East-West Highway), this is what I saw on our street:

You can't tell from that photo, but the tree came down and completely smashed a red car on the eastern side of the street. Here you can see the car underneath:

The police responded pretty quickly.

They were trying to help figure out how to get in touch with the owners of another car that was on the verge of being smashed by the same limb.

Another view of the tree limb over the car:

It took a bit, but the owners finally came out, and they were able to back the car out from under the tree, thereby saving themselves a major headache and a lot of money.

Thankfully, no one was hurt by any of this! But it was quite dramatic for our small street.

[amylkovac-blog]

This is one of the piers at the ferry terminal on Bainbridge Island. I'm trying to surface all of my Seattle photos during this D.C. heat wave, in the hopes that they will make me feel cooler.

[amylkovac-blog]

A jaunt on the High Line

About a month ago, when I was visiting Patch headquarters in New York City, a few of my colleagues and I went on an adventure to find and walk the High Line before the sun went down. When I lived in New York, from 2003 to 2004, I never knew anything about the plans for this urban oasis. And even when one of the other editors mentioned that she wanted to find it, I had no idea what it was. But I was up for seeing something new in New York - especially a place that seemed so atypical of the city.

The first section (Gansevoort Street to 20th Street) was opened to the public in June of 2009, according to the High Line blog, and that is the section that we walked. We got there just as the sun was slipping in the western sky, and it was glorious. If you ever get a chance to walk it, don't think twice about it.

When we walked up to the overhead path, the first thing we saw was row upon row of flowers. I just love the color of the flowers in these two photos.

My other favorite part of the view from the High Line was watching the sun go down. The timing couldn't have been more perfect. I only wish my photography skills were good enough to show the real beauty of that night. A big thanks to Sara, Ari and Kari!

[amylkovac-blog]

D.C. food: A full stomach from Ray's the Steaks, East River

On the last night of my parents' visit to D.C., we decided to take a trip to the newest Ray's the Steaks, just over the Anacostia River in Northeast, for dinner. I've eaten once at Ray's Hell Burger in Arlington and enjoyed it, but I've never been to the original Ray's. So this was a treat.

We went pretty early - around 5 p.m. - so we were able to get a table quickly. The first thing that appeared on the table were mini jalapeno cornbread muffins. I was a big fan of these, even though jalapeno peppers are usually too strong for me.

We ended up ordered a second plate of these, and we finished them all between the four of us. (For some reason, all my photos from Ray's came through a little out of focus. Sorry about that! The lighting was kind of weird in there, and I was using my cell phone camera.)

I ordered the filet mignon, seen above before I devoured it all. It was just the right size of meat for me - not anything like what Jim or my parents ordered.

They ordered the prime rib. This is the Duke's cut, though I'm not sure what the actual weight of this piece of meat was. I tried some of Jim's, and it was quite juicy. My parents were pretty happy with theirs as well.

Equally good were the sides that we ordered. Each entree meal comes with a salad and two sides, which we thought was a pretty good deal. We got a lot of really good food for the money we spent. I ordered the cole slaw and macaroni and cheese.

This macaroni was some of the best I've had. It was so creamy and cheesy. I think the only thing that could have made it better was if it had a little bit of crunchy bread crumbs on top - not that I needed any more carbs!

My mom was pretty adamant about trying the sweet potato fries, so she and my dad shared these. Daddy's pick were the baked apples.

Jim ordered a baked potato (I didn't get a photo of that, since he started smothering it with sour cream before I could get to it) and greens cooked with a turkey neck.

We were all stuffed at the end of the meal, but we did share a piece of key lime piece (alas, I started scarfing that down before I remembered to shoot a picture).

All of this came to fewer than $70 (not including tax and tip), and our servers were great; we particularly liked Wilma, as she had a good sense of humor and made sure our drinks were never dry. We'll definitely be making a trip back to the East River location of Ray's the Steaks.

[amylkovac-blog]

Chompie the shark takes a bite out of Silver Spring

On a quick jaunt to Silver Spring today for an interview and some lunch, I couldn't help but notice that Chompie the shark has returned in anticipation of the 2010 shark week extravaganza. (Don't get too excited. It doesn't start until Aug. 1.)

Although that isn't the best picture ever, I love how you can see the guy in the foreground taking his own picture of Chompie. Almost everyone I saw come off the Metro stopped and did the same thing as I did when I saw him.

But unlike many others, I got a chance to get pretty close to Chompie, since my lunch date was with a friend who works at Discovery.

I took this from the fifth floor. My friend Sheila said he was smiling and friendly, but I think he was smiling because he's thinking of all the people he can eat in Silver Spring.

I think this is probably my favorite shot though, since all you can see is the tail on the building. The Discovery blog has more information about the stats on Chompie, but I was struck by how much energy it must take to keep him afloat, so to speak.

[amylkovac-blog]

Why I love Hobee's (and the blueberry crumb cake)

On a recent trip to Palo Alto after having not visited for several years, we made a special breakfast trip to Hobee's. For those of you who don't know what Hobee's is, you're definitely missing out! It's a wonderful, local Silicon Valley restaurant that excels with its breakfast and brunch menus. In particular, it is known for its unparalleled blueberry crumb cake.

We went to the Hobee's that was in the southern part of Palo Alto to avoid some of the crowds at the Town & Country location. The service was fast and friendly, just like I remember it.

Jim ordered the Almost Joe's Scramble. "It was good," he recalled when I asked him about it tonight. He's a man of few words, but I think his empty plate spoke volumes.

The above dish is the Best Darn Breakfast in Town, which lived up to its name. But of course, the eggs and hash browns were just the preview to the delectable blueberry crumb cake, which I got a little closer view on here:

So I messed up and didn't see the sunshine streaming in from the window when I took this photo, but you get the idea. The crumb cake is LARGE and fluffy with blueberries baked in and a crumbly top. My only criticism is that the dollop of butter is just too much, but you can easily scrape that off before diving in. Jim said he thought it tasted like a cross between a blueberry muffin and crumb cake, since most crumb cakes are a little denser than the Hobee's variety. I thought that was a pretty good description. If you ever make your way to Palo Alto, definitely make a trip to Hobee's!