#adainitiative

[crossroadsalpha]

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com Steve's Tumblr) Management consultant Erwin Van Der Koogh wrote an essay on tech and how women are treated, "This industry and living life on the lowest difficulty setting," Go read the entire thing, but he pretty ...

[rckenned]

Leaving Yammer and raising money for women in computing

I’ve decided to leave Yammer in October. I don’t currently have a next thing in mind. I’m taking some time off to hang out with my family, take on more of the parenting, volunteer, work on side projects, and get back in shape.

I’m using some of this time to do fundraising for the Ada Initiative. I’m donating $4,096 and I’m using Microsoft’s matching program to double that to $8,192. I’m reaching out to friends and colleagues to support the Ada Initiative’s work and mission. I was introduced to the Ada Initiative by some colleagues and spent time learning more about who they are and what they do. “The Ada Initiative helps women get and stay involved in open source, open data, open education, and other areas of free and open technology and culture.” If you're already convinced, you can donate at this link - otherwise keep reading.

http://supportada.org/

There’s a lot of talk about diversity in technology. So much of it is focused on recruiting more women. But did you know 56% of women will leave tech within 10 years? That’s twice the attrition rate of men and it’s driven primarily by harassment and discrimination. See the history on Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian. Those are much more public cases than most, but they’re not rare occurrences by any means. If we focus only on recruiting more women in addressing diversity problems, we may achieve a greater diversity of new recruits but they will still drop out when they discover the same toxic, inhospitable environment that’s been there for years.

The Ada Initiative does a lot of work to improve the environment. Their Ally Skills Workshop, which I’ve attended twice, takes people who already want to help and makes them more aware of unhealthy situations and how they can handle them. Their Impostor Syndrome Training helps individuals who suffer from a sense that they’re unqualified to do the work they’re already doing. They’ve had an incredible 2014. But they’re a non-profit and they rely upon caring donors to fund their vital work. Please join me in supporting the Ada Initiative by making a donation here:

http://supportada.org/

Thanks for reading this. Lunch/coffee/whatever is on me if you donate. :)