The Joys of "She’s Geeky" Bay Area #5

Oh, how time files and I've spent another weekend with the women inspired to attend She's Geeky - Bay Area #5 (http://www.shesgeeky.org/).  Appropriately held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, my Friday morning began with an impromptu "around the water cooler" session at a common area table.

That's the cool thing about She's Geeky, or probably any unConference you might attend. If you aren't interested in a session that is scheduled for a time frame, it's pretty easy to find someone else in the same situation and have a great conversation anyway.  And if there is something you are dying to talk about, it's totally within your power to announce it, pick a time slot and make it happen.

Your session might be packed, or you might find yourself in a great brainstorming session with another woman or two. Whatever the outcome it was the outcome that was meant to be.  Jessica DeVita https://twitter.com/#!/UberGeekGirl) and I hosted a session on Disaster Recovery.  We didn't have much of a plan going into it, but once we were joined by two other women, we spent an hour talking about all different things that need to be consider when protecting your important data and paperwork at home or a work.  I think the purchase of some waterproof paper might be in my future.

And it's not all about what interest you in the here and now, or what you are working on at the office. You can also tap into the geeky interests of others to learn a new skill or get a taste of a completely different hobby.

On Saturday, I sat in on a hands-on session where I learned to solder.  Not something I'll need everyday, but it was fun to do something new and you never know when you might have to break out some solder for a home repair.  I'm certainly not an expert after one resistor, but now the tools and concepts aren't completely foreign to me.

As the weekend came to a close, I also enjoyed a fun lunchtime chat about Systems Administration and Operations, participated a great session on privacy and content management lead by @identitywoman, attended popular talk about dressing for success and picked up some good tips for working with cross-functional teams. 

At past She's Geeky events, I've learned about wine tasting and had the opportunity to hear about the "geek factor" behind backyard bee-keeping. With all the information that is at our fingertips via the Internet, it's still very easy to find yourself in a world filtered to your liking, where you a surrounded by people with similar interests and views.  She's Geeky gives you a great chance to spend an hour on something completely outside of your realm and find inspiration from other great women in science and technology fields.

She's Geeky is held annually in the Bay Area with another annually event some place else in the United States (DC, Twin Cities and New York have been past locations). Check out the website for information about the upcoming events or review some of the notes that were taken from sessions this weekend. 

I’m already looking forward to next year.