http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/2007/02/28/i-think-i-finally-worked-out-how-the-a-list-works/ An industry analyst blog looking at software ecosystems and convergence Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:28:48 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/2007/02/28/i-think-i-finally-worked-out-how-the-a-list-works/#comment-31574 Anne 2.0 » Blog Archive » Working with the Architecture of the Space Wed, 28 Feb 2007 23:31:17 +0000 http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/2007/02/28/i-think-i-finally-worked-out-how-the-a-list-works/#comment-31574 [...] Gender is an important category of diversity because women experience radically different life patterns and external expectations than men and so by including a critical mass of women you are more likely to get some orthogonal perspectives than if you include more men. Now of course you can go after diverse men too–and I think Adobe did a good job of that at Engage. But if you leave out women almost entirely, you are leaving out representatives of half your potential audience. Even given similar intelligence profiles, career paths, and temperaments, a woman and a man are likely to have very different views on technology… because they come at it from vastly different experiences of the world. We experience more conflicting messages and more ambivalence around working in technology and working with technology than men do. Society expects different things from us, so we in turn may focus on what seems unimportant or uninteresting to men. A second reason it’s important to include more women is to break the vicious cycle of women not being invited because they’re not visible and then not being visible because they’re not in attendance. James figured out how the A list works: you go to events like Adobe’s yesterday, you post or otherwise get noticed for your attendance, and you become more well known. Then more people seek you out. That’s a virtuous cycle. I consider that working with the architecture of the social space–not fighting against it. [...] [...] Gender is an important category of diversity because women experience radically different life patterns and external expectations than men and so by including a critical mass of women you are more likely to get some orthogonal perspectives than if you include more men. Now of course you can go after diverse men too–and I think Adobe did a good job of that at Engage. But if you leave out women almost entirely, you are leaving out representatives of half your potential audience. Even given similar intelligence profiles, career paths, and temperaments, a woman and a man are likely to have very different views on technology… because they come at it from vastly different experiences of the world. We experience more conflicting messages and more ambivalence around working in technology and working with technology than men do. Society expects different things from us, so we in turn may focus on what seems unimportant or uninteresting to men. A second reason it’s important to include more women is to break the vicious cycle of women not being invited because they’re not visible and then not being visible because they’re not in attendance. James figured out how the A list works: you go to events like Adobe’s yesterday, you post or otherwise get noticed for your attendance, and you become more well known. Then more people seek you out. That’s a virtuous cycle. I consider that working with the architecture of the social space–not fighting against it. [...]

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