Year 10

When Bob was handing out Lotusphere buttons Saturday night, I started counting and... this is my tenth Lotusphere! There have been so many changes in those ten years - but Lotusphere is a thread that links it all together. Yesterday I co-presented an XPages Jumpstart with Maire Kehoe, for whom this is her first Lotusphere. Walking around she remarked that I seem to know everyone here... Now I don't really know everyone, but I do know enough faces and people to make this feel like a reunion. A Domino reunion.

So I'm now compulsively preparing for my next session (Domino Designer 8.5: A New Beginning) that is at 2:15 today. There's lots to show, and only 60 minutes, so I'm still tuning it. It's interesting to think of how much Designer has changed in the last ten years! And me with it. It feels in many ways like Designer and I have changed and grown together.

Back to prep for now, but after the session stress is done, I can focus on the reunion (and catch a replay of the OGS!)

a new track!

Earlier this year, I read a book that was recommended to me: Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing, by Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher. The book was a bit dry (in my opinion), but the points it made were spot on. From the first page, my feelings and experiences were validated. I love what I do - I love to build things and make them work. But I have always felt more insecure/less confident than at least most of the men around me appear to (and maybe the key word is appear...). I *feel* like my lack of interest in dissecting my laptop makes me less serious an engineer. And I feel like my desires to read novels, knit, and other outside interests make me less serious an engineer. And of course I am a perfectly serious engineer, and even know it on other levels - but it's about how I feel inside. This book made me realize - it isn't just me!

I had dinner with Kristin Keene at DNUG when I was reading this book, and was talking to her about it and how I felt. And she had this eureka moment - and decided that we should have a Lotusphere session on this! And a BOF! So if you're going to Lotusphere, on Tuesday, from 11:15-12:15, in Swan Mockingbird, some of us will be participating in GEEK102 "Nerd Girl" Panel: Making Geek Chic! The BOF is on Wednesday, from 5:45 to 6:45 pm, in Swan Toucan 2. The experiences of women in computer science affect all of us - male and female - let's see what we can learn when we share our thoughts!