tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59755712295397399122024-03-12T16:08:34.939-07:00Lilit YenokyanAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-30324615341702782132017-07-14T01:39:00.002-07:002017-07-14T01:40:44.010-07:00Going with the flow, at least trying toThere are those days when everything seems to be easy, everything seems to flow. These days, alas, are not very often, at least not as often as we would like them to be. Yet some people seem to be in their 'element', in the flow all the time. Maybe they are, hopefully they are. Being in the flow means to me being in harmony with my mind, body and emotions. Those are the times when you don't need to overthink everything, no need to re-phrase the email 10 times looking for <i>just </i>the correct wording, no need to try very hard to remember the name of the coworker you have worked in the past with, no need to strain the brain muscles for solving rudimentary technical and operational problems of the day, but to just go with it. Go with the flow. Those days you know for a fact that you are going in the right destination, no need to jump up, no need to turn to the sides, but to accept the conditions, and do the best with them.<br />
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Other days can we quite the opposite. Not much sleep at night, the traffic is horrible when you leave the house and there is no parking once your reach the destination. The coffee is gone and the A/C unit is failing. Before it is 9am there is a production outage, and the partner teams come to you with urgent requests that all have to be addressed immediately. Meetings get scheduled at conflicting times, the interviewee does not show up and internet connection starts failing around 1pm. By the end of the day your big project gets cancelled and your neighbor calls you at work to alert about water somehow leaking out of your house. </div>
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Well this is a bit of an grim picture. But those days happen to, that is a fact. For the most part, the days are not completely rosy or completely brown (i.e. shitty) it is more about what we make of them and how we think of them. </div>
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I am working on this actively - assume best intentions of the person you are talking to. </div>
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Sometimes it is easy to think that the world is against us, especially on those brown days. Therefore, everyone has conspired to get us. But the fact of life is that everyone else is just as self-centered as we are. Let's agree to at least assume the best intentions to start with. Let's become genuinely interested in other people and try hard see things from their perspective.</div>
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I am very thankful for an amazing mentor and coach <a href="http://helmcoaching.net/">Maggie Helm</a> for helping me identify what was missing in my flow. Contact her for proactive suggestions how to make sense of things and improve life. The flow. It is my journey to restore it. </div>
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Have a good night. </div>
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P.S. As I looked for pictures of a flow in my photo archive, I found the colorful scarf picture above. It resonated more with how I picture my flow currently than my numerous pictures of rivers and waterfalls. Find your flow. It might not be a river, or a scarf or even anything conventional to associate with, or it might be just this.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-43039696946563412322017-06-15T00:14:00.003-07:002017-06-15T00:15:21.283-07:00Traffic and the cryptic billboardsTraffic is terrible in California metro areas. This is just a fact of life.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">[Photo: polybutmono/iStock]</td></tr>
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Similar to the fact that Bay Area is the Mecca of startups and innovation. You need to accept it as given when you make the move here, or be ready to pay the ever so unbelievable rent price for the place next to your office. Apartments in San Francisco are renting for close to $7K. Check out this announcement! What does $6700 rent you in San Francisco<br />
https://sf.curbed.com/2017/6/6/15749690/rent-sf-mission-craigslist-cost-soma.<br />
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But who cares when you are in the heart of Silicon Valley, where the dreams come true and opportunities fall from the sky.<br />
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I recall an opportunity that fell from the sky on my lap, that I turned down in 2012. Such opportunities haven't "rained" since, but if there is a chant you know to attract amazing opportunities in promising startups let me know.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CHDT-aqyPnw/WUIwXfoWFxI/AAAAAAAABUw/05UXDGLX8nEre1jAiuGz8iPt_ce4tnuDwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/61ZtYl8ty9L._SL1000_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CHDT-aqyPnw/WUIwXfoWFxI/AAAAAAAABUw/05UXDGLX8nEre1jAiuGz8iPt_ce4tnuDwCK4BGAYYCw/s200/61ZtYl8ty9L._SL1000_.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Amazon.com</td></tr>
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Probably, every seasoned engineer in the Valley will tell you her story of that one great missed opportunity. Most often however you get to hear stories of the other 9 pursued opportunities that didn't work out.<br />
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Here is a good luck bear that will attract the promising startups to find your LinkedIn profile. The opportunity will also be only 10 minutes drive from your home and provide onsite hairdressing and drycleaning services, as well as barista who makes your coffee 7am - 7pm and beer keg.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Christie Hemm KLOK/WIRED</td></tr>
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Only in Silicon Valley do the billboards across highways advertise better coding practices, or urge you to "Ask your developer" by Twillo. There are so many more that want to make sure you brain is not just resting during your commute.<br />
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I should not be complaining about my commute, since it is under one hour range, but I HATE my commute. I know I should be thankful, since many people got it much worse than I do, yet the though of standstill traffic for around 45 minutes after the long day at work feels dreadful. Move? you say.. Moving is always an option, but after buying a house and settling in, having arrangements for childcare, home services established, moving sounds very unappealing.<br />
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But most of us are so sick of looking at those billboards, where traffic piles up and we progress in 0.5MPH speed. Read this article if you happen to stumble across this page and your are not a programmer https://www.wired.com/2016/05/okay-dont-understand-billboards-silicon-valley/. It really is ok to not get all the billboards, I often don't. I know they are working on me, since when I don't get the billboard I do the research to understand what the company is doing.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-75861287982610289892017-06-08T07:09:00.004-07:002017-06-08T07:09:53.743-07:00Analysis paralysis | Movement for the sake of movementI feel that I haven't produced much contents lately, seeking perfection and not settling on creating anything that could end up being merely great. Even writing a single sentence takes number of attempts and tons of overthinking, deleting, editing, rewriting. It is not productive or conducive.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit https://dreamingwithdolphins.com/<br /></td></tr>
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So what is it that makes us super productive for stretches of time and unable to accomplish anything tangible for another sometimes longer time stretch?<br />
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Have you had one of those days, when you have 5 different challenging tasks on the agenda, and then you go to work, 2 hours in <span style="color: red;">ka-BOOM π£π£π£</span>, you killed it?! It is only 10am on Monday. The rest of the day and week continue being hyper productive, and you have accomplished months worth of work! Besides your productive day job, there was a social gathering, awesome workout session and on Thursday evening you get an email from an old friend, that opens up huge possibilities for collaboration.<br />
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There are also weeks like this. Motivation is absent, yet there is the unconscious need to move some place, because stopping and thinking seem too dangerous. Yet, the movement is not in any defined direction but somewhere arbitrary for no reason else other than the reluctance of stopping and reflecting.<br />
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I read the modern-classic novel "Firehouse 451" by Ray Bradbury this week, perhaps very timely with everything else happening in life. Wow, I am impressed with Bradbury's descriptions of the dystopian reality and the similarities of it with today and where we are headed. Our thirst of constant consumption of useless information, through social media, the mockery of news by leading media outlets like CNN and Fox, where every news is now breaking news, the digests of digests written for understanding anything deep without the need to think:<br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal;">βDigest-digests, digest-digest-digests. Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline!β </span></h1>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal;">β Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451</span></span></h1>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal;">Wishing you pleasant rest of the week!</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-44400170200428823892017-03-22T00:34:00.000-07:002017-03-22T00:34:44.119-07:00I am a mentor for Google Summer of Code 2017Today I have accepted the nomination to be a mentor at <a href="https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/">Google Summer of Code</a> 2017 (GSoC) , for Systers organization. This is the non profit organization behind the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) annual conferences for women in technology and ABI.Local communities in your neighborhood across United States and spreading around the globe.<br />
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I have been involved with both these initiatives for many years: spoke at GHC 2015, and was a founding member of ABI.Silicon Valley community. My involvement keeps growing, by becoming a conference review committee member for 2017, and bringing yet more events to Silicon Valley chapter of ABI. But that is for another blog post.<br />
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You can find more about the Systers mission for GSoC <a href="https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/organizations/5368506909458432/">here</a>. Open source software developed during GSoC this year will provide Systers around the world better communication and collaboration tools.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Systers + GSoC, my awesome graphic created in MS Paint</td></tr>
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I will be mentoring a student (who is yet to be identified) to build a new great mobile app for the community. This is really exciting, since:<br />
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<li>Getting to know and work with a student on advancing his or her skills in mobile development will be really cool. The end product will make both of us, as well as Google Summer of Code committee and Systers proud we did this. </li>
<li>It will be up to the student and the mentor to choose the tools and languages to build the open source app!</li>
<li>While I was a student myself in 2008, had applied for GSoC from Ann Arbor, it is great to return to the program as a mentor. </li>
<li>I will get to meet mentors from around the world when the time for mentor summit comes this fall. Mentors come from a variety of backgrounds, different levels of skills and experiences, ranging from last year's students to industry veterans. We need this diversity. </li>
<li>Having exposure to open source and doing good! </li>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-13231135357714256512017-01-15T21:32:00.000-08:002017-01-15T21:34:16.121-08:00On parenting and the flu seasonSomehow the quote "Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans" keeps coming to my mind this weekend. Well, you either know from personal experience or may have heard many times, life changes after having kids.<br />
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When you are a fulfilled childless person, following the progression of how your friends, cousins and coworkers suddenly transition from being awesome to pretty boring after they have kids, you know what I am talking about. I had been witnessing this for many years. I followed my friends transition from fun and social, to fixated on baby diets, baby ballet lessons and going to bed with their kids at 8 pm. Suddenly my Facebook feed changed from beachfront weekend gateways, pictures of skiing, hiking and wild water rafting, to endless stream of babies. I judged at the time, yes, I did. "Your babies might seem cute to you, your immediate family and few friends, but others get irritated after the your 100th share of your baby's cuddly posture and cute outfit over the same weekend" had been on my mind for a long time.<br />
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Before even planning to get pregnant, I made a deal with my husband and my trusted girlfriend Anna, to let me know if I start turning into one of those people and become annoying on social media. So far neither of them have warned me, possibly because he posts just as many cuddly baby statuses and she is too kind to give me the reality check. I console myself with the thought that at social gatherings I still prefer topics of general geekiness over baby clothes and diet.<br />
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The changes to life of parents happen suddenly, they sneak on to you and unleash at full force. Suddenly having a dinner with friends at a nice restaurant doesn't appeal since you can foresee, how are going to be forced to spend most of the time asking your baby not to throw his food at other people, and convincing your toddler not to hit her baby brother. Later, you give in and turn on Peppa Pig (have your really not heard about it?) on your cell phone to try having an adult conversation, while you can feel the judging glances of other dinners burning your back, for egoistically exposing your children to screen time.<br />
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Sometimes, you shake yourself and decide to have a fresh start starting Monday. You commit to serious plans of participating in that professional event Thursday evening, having people over for dinner Friday, and working out out over the weekend. And then life with kids happens.<br />
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Things get especially bad during the flu season. Kids get the flu from daycares, schools than pass to one another and winter months sometimes seem like an infinite loop of snots in the chase of spring. It gets especially challenging when you have two careers, no backup childcare and have to juggle between two full time work schedules staying home with seek kids and not sleeping the nights. This guarantees to keep you overwhelmed at work for missing days and important meetings and with frustrated your spouse since he couldn't stay home that Tuesday which was so important for you.<br />
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Nevertheless, as any loving parent will agree that kids are so worth it all. My two fussy, contagious munchkins are the lights of my life and I wouldn't trade spending my evenings with them for anything.<br />
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Love,<br />
Overwhelmed working parent.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-70473597940432166602016-12-09T17:04:00.001-08:002017-01-15T15:14:39.563-08:00Create Windows apps in 30 secondsIt's been many years since I read the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-Hours-5th/dp/0672333317">Sams Teach yourself C++ in 24 hours</a> book by by Jesse Liberty and Rogers Cadenhead, and those 24 hours used to seem like an ethernity!<br />
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Today's hack is not about writing awesome code in 30 seconds but rather about simplifying your life working on Windows PC with convenient utilities. During my leave my team at work migrated from Google Talk to Slack for instant messaging and group discussions. Slack is awesome and has a multitude of fans, yet they ignored writing a Windows 10 application (but developed old school desktop application, don't ask me why).<br />
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Alright, are you ready? All you need is Windows operating system and Chrome browser. Now please launch Chrome. Click on the Hamburger menu (3 dots) select "More tools" and "Add to desktop":<br />
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Chrome will ask you for a confirmation, be sure to select the option "Open as window":</div>
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All Done. Now I have added "apps" for Slack, Google News and Google Finance. You can also select to add these to your Taskbar and Windows menu.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ecURFPxW5S4/WEtSDe6bBUI/AAAAAAAABQY/ckvHNxamqZ8Afd_uIE2z96SgCW-C-cAjACLcB/s1600/app_desktop.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ecURFPxW5S4/WEtSDe6bBUI/AAAAAAAABQY/ckvHNxamqZ8Afd_uIE2z96SgCW-C-cAjACLcB/s320/app_desktop.gif" width="216" /></a></div>
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Each of these apps run in their separate windows and create a separate process in Task Manager. Now I will have Slack app on my Desktop every time I boot the computer and not forget to launch it.<br />
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You can use the same tactics for your everyday tools, such as email, news, weather. They will be haunting your from your desktop so you won't forget to launch them. And if you really want to have them running by the time you log in create a job from your Task Scheduler.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-89477281950466794802016-09-20T23:26:00.001-07:002016-09-20T23:34:37.063-07:00Silicon Valley and the taboo of dress pantsLast week I had a speaking engagement at the ABI.Silicon Valley chapter <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=abidotsv&src=typd">launch event</a> for women in tech. The event was going to be memorable and exciting since it was the launch, and myself and other 4 awesome women in tech <a href="https://twitter.com/JEMificent">Jessica Mong</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/depptea">Deepti Gupta</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/ilucernei">Lulu Li</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/sttung">Steph Tung</a> were the organizers as well as local chapter leaders.<br />
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So, I was debating what to wear, and realized that the choices were between wearing a dress or jeans and semi-casual shirt and blazer. I took another look at my wardrobe and realized that I own no dress pants. I had got rid of all suits after they set in my wardrobe without being worn for 5 years, in fact I think I wore a suit last time for a job interview in Michigan in 2008. It turns out dress pants were gone as well.<br />
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This made me realize that there is a sort of a taboo on the dress pants as well as suits in Silicon Valley. Just look at these industry leaders delivering their big keynotes and their jeans!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg keynote address at F8 conference 2016</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Apple CEO Tim Cook at WWDC keynote 2016</td></tr>
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The morale of the day: if you want to make it to a top executive in Silicon Valley one day, don't wear dress pants on the speaking engagements.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-80910519503616770572016-07-31T23:58:00.001-07:002016-08-01T00:08:03.371-07:00Turning off the radio to hear your own thoughts..Let's face it, often time we use our time in the car to switch off the mind from everything but the road and whatever is playing on the radio, or CD/MP3, or your phone connected via bluetooth. Yet, there are times: before important meetings, when thinking on complicated problems, before presentations when you need to focus your mind and use the little commitment free time in the car to sit in silence and think, or sometimes a thought comes and you need to turn off the radio to hear it.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-50908344580718006592016-07-28T22:09:00.000-07:002016-07-28T22:09:21.804-07:00Rant about dreams and persuasion Recently I have had an opportunity to revisit some of my dreams from the past, those I have had and kept sacred for a while, those I abandoned at their infancy, those that are on the rise today. Suddenly a realization came that for a while no new dreams have appeared - besides the normal, the expected for this stage of life (travel the world, make sure kids are happy and successful). Looking back I see some shattered dreams for changing the world, reestablishing life and priorities, radically changing everything that have been left to relinquish and die somewhere there in the dusty corners of my past.<br />
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So this is a small piece of rant for you, dear reader, dare to change your life, to reestablish yourself and pursue your wildest dreams while you have the option and the ability to do that. The day will come and life will take it's toll with the obligations, routines and dependencies making it no longer feasible and eventually impossible.<br />
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I am still keeping my checklist of dreams, bucket list of projects but the few big ones I dearly missed today are to late to attempt. <b>LIVE your life and TAKE chance on that wild dream of yours, I dare you!</b><br />
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Cheers.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-31529505470917881552016-06-30T22:49:00.000-07:002016-06-30T22:49:18.534-07:00Why are there so few women at tech conferences? What can we do about it?These days there is an inspiring variety of tech organizations, tech conferences and events hosted for women. Bay Area being a hub of technology hosts great many of those events, participating in which leaves you inspired at sheer number of women involved and actives. This paints a very rosy picture, and after being exposed to a reputable developer conference, meetup or tech group, you might come to a shock, realizing how severely women are underrepresented. Sometimes having a 5% presence, often being limited to presence of 'eye candy' help desk or several speakers to create the illusion of diversity.<br />
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One of my favorite events I got to attend last year was Grace Hopper Celebration conference, gathering of 12 thousand people in Houston celebrating women and their achievements in technology, and paving the road for the next generation of women technologists to be more ambitious and successful. One of the recent inspiring events I attended was Women Techmakers gathering at Google, celebrating International Women's day. They hosted a panel of women founders, who came up with very successful startup ideas, had a few sessions by different educational channels targeted for women. There were boots were you could mingle and learn from all these inspiring women about their organizations, sign up, volunteer and participate. I left the event at a very high note, planning to join one of the organizations. Most of these organizations targeted at women in tech are great, but after a while of listening to different names you start to fuse them into one and (so offense intended of any of these organizations) realizing that they are all sound similar and essentially pursue the same goal, e.g. GirlDevelopIt!, WomenWhoCode, Femengineer, She++, etc. They all try to increase awareness that there are very few women in tech and provide resources for women to start or progress in their tech careers.<br />
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Just this week there are 2 tech leadership conferences happening in Bay Area for women in tech.<br />
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We (women in tech), leave those events feeling warm and fuzzy inside, with great hopes and plans for women in technology changing the future. It is not until you attend a highly reputable conference like Build by Microsoft, AWS by Amazon, or startup/founders meetup, that you realize there are NO WOMEN there! Google and Facebook have been cautiously trying to increase the participation of women through groups like Systers and special discounts for underrepresented groups (Participation of Google I/O rose from 8% in 2014 to 20% in 2015). I was disappointed to see that Microsoft hasn't done anything in this regard, although they say they have tried. I took few pictures of the crowd to share with female coworkers, shared with a challenging hashtag #spotAWoman.<br />
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There was a women in leadership session at Build, attended by all the ~30 women present at the conference, from the thousands of attendees. I go to ask the panel this very question "why are there so few women at this conference?". The answer was not satisfying "there are very few women engineers coming through pipeline, you see the same representation here". This is not accurate, there are 20%+ women entering the workforce in technology, if you look at the diversity numbers published by most tech companies (Google, Netflix, Microsoft) that number is far greater than 5%. Percent of every other minority in tech far greater then represented at the conferences. Let's face it, most reputable software conferences are mostly attended by White male population.<br />
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So what can you do to change this?<br />
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As an individual contributor - you need to raise this question to your management and to HR department at your company. Ask for the conference attendance budget to plan for more women speak and attend those events.<br />
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As a manager or director - encourage everyone on your team, especially women and racial minorities, to submit talk proposals and attend events/conferences.<br />
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As a event/conference organizer - talk to different women's groups to increase awareness of your event, and encourage women to join.<br />
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Finally as a woman in tech, step outside of your comfort zone. Don't wait for your management to offer you attending Grace Hopper Conference for the n-th year in the row, go ahead and tell them you need to go to JavaOne or Build or something else. Every organization has a limited budget for conference attendance, and unless you are a VIP engineer (e.g. authored books, have published widely used open source software..), you will have to pick one maybe a couple to attend every year, since you need to be developing/working rest of the time. Do your diligence and step out of your comfort zone, choose a non-women centered event and persuade your company to sponsor your attendance.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-38285749813844067702016-04-20T12:24:00.000-07:002016-04-20T12:29:06.973-07:00Build 2016 HoloLens<div style="text-align: justify;">
The long anticipated day came where I had to be at the Moscone center on April 1 at 7:30 in the morning for the start of my Hololense presentation. On my way to the conference center I discovered that hotel decided to lock me out (sent me a bill as if I had checked out already) and I had to spend 15 minutes at the front desk explaining that I needed a new key. By the time I got to the Moscone center there was a huge crowd waiting at the front entrance and security wasn't letting anybody in. I needed to inform the security guards that I was a part of the very special crowd to go upstairs and be part of the most popular event of the conference.</div>
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By the time I got up, it was around 7:50 am, the event had already started and apparently my spot was given away to somebody on the waitlist. Maybe it was my being one of the very few women invited (if not the only one), or my persistence, or looking very pregnant and sad, but they decided to let me in. The deal was that I don't get a computer to write the code since all the seats were taken, but a pair of Hololens for all the fun.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Taken at HoloLens photo booth</td></tr>
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So after all the frustration of the morning I was let to this huge room, setup in a coliseum shape, with the presenters at the center, and rows of desks and couches around it. One member of the staff was demoing how to code, while the other was talking the crowd through the steps. I didn't miss much since I had done the prework and familiarized myself with Unity. The staff was extremely nice and let me sit on their couch.</div>
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After the initial introductions and short talk we got to try the Hololens, every participant got to have the duration of the session one. We started by learning how to control the Hololens, and how to send voice commands, use Cortana. I felt that the fit over my glasses was rather uncomfortable and decided to keep the glasses off for the duration of the session, however I was told they fit fine over a pair of skinny classes.</div>
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First we built and deployed an object, basically you can take any 3D object in .3ds or other formats and convert it to "Hololensable". Then we learned how and were to mount the objects through Hololens. The part that started to become more fun was the team aspect of the task. Teams of 6-7 people were formed where we would setup and move our object called 'energy source' and had to collaborate.</div>
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With minimal code changes since everything was setup, which mostly involved copy and paste, and use of high level commands like Physics.Move() we added some cool avatars. Our avatars then were programmed to shoot each other, which is always exciting :) Well, to make things more awesome, as the final step of the demo, we added an external enemy, who we were fighting against as a group. Added a 'hole' in the ground where the external avatars were coming and we got to shoot everyone while dodging the bullets!</div>
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What was great about the setup was that there was one staff member appointed to help with coding experience and answer any questions for each 2 participants of the demo. This helped get some real questions I was concerned about answered. For example DirectX developers don't need Unity, they can continue doing their coding in C++.</div>
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Overall, the experience didn't disappoint my expectations, I left inspired to work on Hololens Netflix app one day and maybe write my own apps in spare time. The price tag of $3000 still seems rather steep for buying the prototype for personal use, and they won't start to ship for a while. But when the price goes down and I have spare time, it will be on the top of my hobby list to try. Awesome morning, thank you Microsoft and Hololens team for having the event, and especially for letting me in.</div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-79506830422614721242016-03-31T23:01:00.001-07:002016-04-07T03:06:13.106-07:00Build 2016 announcements and exciting updates<div style="text-align: justify;">
Has it been couple of exciting days? Yes. Has it been tiring? Yes. It it worth it? Absolutely.</div>
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So far it feels like very productive couple of days with opportunity to get hands experience with new products, ask questions to the key people in those products and explore what's coming next.</div>
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IoT and wearable technology are the highlight. You can watch they keynotes on Channel 9:</div>
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Day 1 keynote - <a href="https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/KEY01">https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/KEY01</a></div>
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Day 2 keynote - <a href="https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/KEY02">https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/KEY02</a></div>
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The most interesting topic for me this year is mobile. The key efforts highlighted at the conference are on building apps across multiple platforms (IOS and Android) using Windows tools and technology. Especially with Cordova and after Xamarin acquisition. The irony is that Xamarin Mobile Test Cloud does not support Windows (phone or Universal Apps). Trying to pressure them to give me a timeline when it is coming didn't work.</div>
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Few more highlights:</div>
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Cross-Platform Mobile with Xamarin - <a href="https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/B836">https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/B836</a></div>
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Turning Win32 apps into UWP - <a href="https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/P504">https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/P504</a></div>
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Linux command line (Bash!) on Windows - <a href="https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/C906">https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/C906</a></div>
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One of the innovations for this year's conference were interactive code labs, where you got an opportunity to sit at a computer and go through certain coding task to get started with particular technology:</div>
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I can not judge for the all the modules, in fact I heard some good things, but I went to Xamarin Mobile 1 and 2 and felt like the sessions were not properly organized. Running scripts would fail, instructions were at times incorrect, most of the audience wouldn't complete half of the tasks in time, yet the speaker was disconnected, although there were few folks in the audience trying to help.</div>
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One of the good things about /Build// compared to last year's Google I/O is number of conference attendees. Since it is hosted in the same venue Moscone Center West in SF, it's easy to compare and see that it's possible to get to sessions, and you don't get "crashed by the crowd". Less is better. Although Google tried so hard with gadgets and decor, something that Microsoft has completely skipped on.</div>
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Another great thing about Build is the "Expert" or demo area, were you get to speak to representatives from Visual Studio, Store, Office, etc. and ask very concrete questions. I am super excited today about upcoming Store features to be announced tomorrow and trying out Visual Studio Code debugger for my Node.js app!</div>
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To end this on an even higher note, here I am at the 34th week of pregnancy rocking the /Build// conference!</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-74763053075631376932016-03-29T22:47:00.004-07:002016-04-09T23:00:56.279-07:00Build 2016 anticipations<div style="text-align: justify;">
This is the fourth year I have been attempting to attend Microsoft <a href="https://build.microsoft.com/">Build conference</a>, ever since I moved to California! All of this time Microsoft technology has been my primary technical focus. This time however instead of trying to be a single microsecond faster than the other developers sitting with their laptops as the registration opens and the site goes down (sorry to say it does, pretty much every time) I got it through a Netflix corporate deal with Microsoft.</div>
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The no hardware giveaway part of the announcement was a bit sad, otherwise I am super excited to be here. By "here", I mean that I am already in San Francisco, since keynote presentation starts at 8:30 am and had I attempted to drive from my house, I would have needed to leave at least by 6 am.</div>
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So far I have:</div>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Registered and got a T-shirt that is too small for me</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Had to skip the <a href="http://build.microsoft.com/Reception">Women@Build reception</a> because of timing issue</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Signed up for hands on Microsoft Holographic Academy event! </li>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">I think this is going to be the highlight of the conference </li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Build team initially rejected my application to attend, saying the opportunity was for people who paid the 3K and preordered Hololens. However a spot opened up. Woot-woot</li>
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<li style="text-align: justify;">Got the Build app on iPhone and spent a lot of time designing a custom schedule</li>
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These are the details of the Microsoft Holographic Academy event:</div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Date: <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_408365287" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Friday, April 1, 2016</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Time:<span class="aBn" data-term="goog_408365288" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">7:30AM</span></span> β <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_408365289" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">11:30AM PST</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Location:Moscone West Room 2022</span></div>
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I assume 4 hours is more than enough to marvel the awesomeness of HoloLens and we'll get to write a demo app for this. The prerequisite is to watch the <a href="http://stats.eventcore.com/wf/click?upn=x0IXmEraw-2BSAZWl0mHPX9jVB-2FSwudVkIdQpk60m4b7dZE2wDH3g78DQyo3MjU2Rr-2Fhsc3fuibIHQzGteI-2FaK3Q-3D-3D_X2AoBnyuj6m-2FmCOEaELk3ko8ABLSdaQEyn8KXX3VXHwgOMXrJQJrkNo2hhgC0hGtzedeuKiMc17xqzo5R9UMIEUA7OghN7wOk9oCYrgm55e68l0rW5LCifOmIkrX-2FOGzk7frDzS7Kill3-2BaOn8cr1H6y69JzGnjJndTlOcP-2FHFp62LBnr-2B75xQGzPC5aiFK8g8p7HoWAOEy050FY4N2OMtbr-2FFDi-2F3HKmSCj1o1DcF7PdCHTKr3UNURQQOeIx5uxLvIiTWua0AVviNDepqR-2BUcfyL7pnKOA-2FmTquOJCv1Al-2FTPSbGALiTI-2BcVDf8-2FKt6">Holograms 101E</a> video tutorials. I will post an update how this went after the event on Friday. Watching first few tutorial videos reminded me of my long gone 3D programming days with OpenGL and C++, and object modeling through 3ds Max. However the augmented reality programming is going to be much more powerful and have a great number of potential applications.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-19754117182948380632016-02-01T22:51:00.001-08:002016-02-02T21:48:38.314-08:00Delayed post on our GHC session "Balancing Career and Motherhood"<div style="text-align: justify;">
As we know, time files. It's been already four months since Grace Hopper Celebration 2015 conference, and for all these four months I have got multiple requests (believe it or not) to write a blog post and finally put my mind to do it. The reason this is happening today is that my co-worker Harini casually told me about her girlfriend today who lives in Atlanta, who attended our session and was so impressed that decided to make incremental changes in her attempts to balance work and motherhood. She had a memorable experience since she told Harini about it months later. There couldn't have been a better compliment! (BTW, dear friend from Atlanta, let me know the secret once your figure it out, I am still struggling:))</div>
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Over many months since hearing that our proposal was accepted, I had been thrilled and looking forward to being on stage in this unique context. This is the official <a href="http://schedule.gracehopper.org/session/a-fine-line-balancing-motherhood-and-career/">listing</a> of the session on GHC website. My co-presenter and I had met over email, and had few Google Hangouts sessions before heading to GHC in Houston. Even though I had initiated the effort and came up with most of the initial draft, my co-presenter <a href="https://twitter.com/unpixie">Carolyn Rowland</a> (a superwoman - mother of three, conference organizer and a manager at NIST) did the lion's share of work by creating the PowerPoint presentation and coming up with the game idea, she even printed the color coded sets of came cards for a room of 500.</div>
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We all met Carolyn Rowland, Neetu Jain, <a href="https://twitter.com/JadeGroen">Jade Groen</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/klewis529">Katie Lewis</a> and I on the day before our session at the conference, to have lunch together and plan what wasn't yet accounted for in the session. I am very impressed with every one of these overachieving mothers - successful technical women who magically do it all. I told them and I am happy to repeat here as well, I got four role models out of my experience with the "Balancing Career and Motherhood" session. </div>
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I was a little nervous about presenting, since it had been a while after my last public speaking engagement. Although I had to only a quick introduction and most of the session was moderating the game played in groups of 5-8, and answering the Q&A, it was still an unfamiliar territory that comes with frequented hearth beat. We had no idea how many people will show up, since some sessions were packed with a line outside the door and others where half-empty.</div>
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Our session turned out to be a very popular one, with a full room, and a waitlist at the door. Even though we didn't have much opportunity to rehearse and had to make some improvisations on the fly, the flow of the session was rather smooth and was a great experience. As part of the Q&A segment, we heard some very insightful observations from the small groups, and heard some questions that are an ongoing challenge for most of us. One of the most interesting observations that my "training session" at work revealed prior the conference and we got to hear at GHC as well, was that when faced with challenges e.g. "Your son is sick and needs to be picked up from school, but your boss asks you to stay for an important meeting", all the women in the group came up with solutions, yet none said "I will ask my husband/significant other to pick him up". </div>
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The most important message of that session was that we are not experts who are here to tell you the magic formula to establishing this delicate balance, we are all mother, who have gone through some of the same challenges you are going through, and we are here to share some of what worked and what didn't work for us.</div>
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I had the usual moment of self-doubt at the session that pursues all working mothers. There was a young mother with a baby about my daughter's age in the audience, so I stopped by to say hi and checkout the little cutie. The mom told me that she couldn't leave her daughter at the conference daycare and had to bring her in, since it was very noisy and dirty, my hearth dropped since my daughter was at the daycare that very minute. (My impression of GHC daycare was that it was organized excellently. It was run by very pleasant elder couple, staffed with kind and warm caregivers. Ella and I loved it).</div>
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My awesome coworkers TY, Anthony and Carenina also came to my session to support. They were extremely supportive and cheered when I mentioned working at Netflix. Here are some of the pictures from the session, courtesy of <a href="https://twitter.com/huangty">TY</a>:</div>
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Here are the details of the game if you are interested in trying it out yourself. Feel free to contact me or my co-presenters to help set it up:</div>
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<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/carolynrowland/a-fine-line-balancing-motherhood-and-career-from-the-grace-hopper-conference-2015">http://www.slideshare.net/carolynrowland/a-fine-line-balancing-motherhood-and-career-from-the-grace-hopper-conference-2015</a>.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-8109320794493933762015-10-14T05:08:00.001-07:002015-10-14T07:37:27.657-07:00GHC here I come!Having 16 m/o Ella on my lap for 4 hours in the air made me question the decision for bringing my family to the conference more than once. She was a trooper for the most part, just couldn't sleep and kept climbing all over us (sometimes over the stranger sitting next to me to). The flight didn't have any open seats to have her on a separate seat. My 6'3" husband has enough trouble fitting himself in the economy class seats which seem to keep shrinking every year, to be able to hold Ella for the duration of the flight. Although he shared both holding the screaming child and complaining about the decision to come to Houston with me.<div><br></div><div>The car rental experience and the hotel check in went well, we have a room that has a pool patio (I hope to get a chance to use it). The only hiccup was the booking agency calling me minutes before the flight and saying that the hotel is going to cancel my reservation since the credit card had expired. Texas has a promising food scene, which we got a chance to sample last night and I am planning to be enjoying for the rest of the trip.</div><div><br></div><div>The keynote is just in an hour, so it is time to get ready and out there! I am really excited about the conference and the people I will get a chance to meet here, yet a little skeptical about the size of it! 12000 attendees. There is no typo, that is twelve thousand!!</div><div><br></div><div>Google sent about 1500 people, Apple about 300, and Microsoft about 800. Becides all the corporate representations I hope smaller companies and independent techies from the industry got a chance to come in. Wish you a good day, and it's time now to get ready an out there!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-72752679696370943112015-09-30T21:34:00.003-07:002015-09-30T21:34:28.259-07:00Cards we are dealtLast week I had a chance to listen to an inspiring panel of Armenian Women in Leadership. All the speakers were great inspiration: self-made success stories, mothers, wives, captivating speakers and leaders of the community.<br />
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Instead of asking the beaten question "Evaluate your [success/looks/happiness/...] on scale 1 to 10, one of the panelists proposed an alternative question: "Evaluate the cards you have been dealt from scale 1 to 10 and what you have done with those cards".<br />
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Everyone had different ideas, and this is more of a philosophical question, since cards you have been dealt made you who you are. I keep reiterating this question, trying to find answer to it for myself. It is easier to evaluate what I have done with cards I have been dealt (8/10) than what cards I got.<br />
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I am still looking for the answer to the question about the cards. How about you? What cards have you been dealt and what did you do with them?<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-8307453491345854882015-08-22T13:50:00.001-07:002015-08-25T13:49:29.315-07:00Maternity leave and returning to work in tech [in Bay Area]<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I started writing a post with this title many months ago, when the memories of hardships of returning to work with a 12 week old baby were fresher and long before Netflix <a href="http://blog.netflix.com/2015/08/starting-now-at-netflix-unlimited.html">announced</a> the updates to parental leave.</span></div>
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</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f1RuZj2V_bU/VdkgbdEQ1BI/AAAAAAAAA0g/MteCDmhMtlI/s1600/working-mother-810x540.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f1RuZj2V_bU/VdkgbdEQ1BI/AAAAAAAAA0g/MteCDmhMtlI/s400/working-mother-810x540.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #323232; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.142858505249px; text-align: start;">The ultimate question of balancing (Image: </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; box-sizing: border-box; color: #323232; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.142858505249px; text-align: start;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/natasha-koifman/motherhood-and-career_b_3547335.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3b5998; text-decoration: none;">Huffington Post</a></span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #323232; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.142858505249px; text-align: start;">)</span></span></td></tr>
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<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">draft from March, 2015</span></b></h3>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Disclaimer: Let me start with the statement, I love my job! This goal of this passage is not way to prove otherwise or advertise my employer in any way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Some months ago I found out that I was pregnant, something we had been hoping and praying for for many years. From that moment on the life got much more beautiful and meaningful. I was very fortunate to have a job I really liked, profession of Software Engineer which wasn't physically demanding. And it wasn't until the last few months that I started feeling how pregnancy affected my work, or rather how working on fast-paced environment started affecting me. Naturally, during the last month sitting through a two hour meeting without using a bathroom break was next to impossible, I was also struggling to find a comfortable sitting position at my standing desk, since standing was no longer an option. Once, on my eight month I needed to re-wire some of automation machines in the lab, I squatted and set on the floor bent under one of the lab desks, and was unable to stand back up. I stayed sitting on the floor until a coworker eventually walked in to the lab and helped me get up, and finished connecting my machines. (He is a father of two toddlers so my situation didn't shock him too much).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I was looking forward to maternity leave as a time to relax, read and dream about the arrival of the little one. At the same time, I was confident that I will end up calling work or even going in out of boredom, after all I hadn't been without a place to go to every morning since I started school at 6 years of age. The reality ended up being somewhat different: I did catch up on the baby literature that was considered as absolutely "have to read", cleaned and scrubbed the place when the "nesting syndrome" really kicked in - but I didn't miss work. I didn't miss being at work at all. I was so uncomfortable at the end, finding no good position to sleep, sit or stand and so sleep-deprived that I spent the last week on the sofa watching Netflix, and also eating chocolate croissants for breakfast, lunch and diner. The later I regretted pretty soon ;)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When the little one was born, as excepted of a new parent, I was overjoyed and ecstatic, feeling really tired at all time simultaneously. Breastfeeding my baby exclusively until her 6-month birthday became my number one goal in life, casting all the rest of life objectives to shadows. I can't quite recall the details of those days, everything seems like a dream that was happening to someone else.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I had committed to returning to work by Ella's 3 month birthday, and had my mind set to it. That's what I did and found the transition much harder than I expected. Naturally, I am forever grateful to my parents and in-laws for their support in that difficult time. Being away from the baby proved to be hard, not having a set schedule and at times having to leave the office past 7 pm was devastating. The most challenging part of the experience was pumping: several times a day between meetings, </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">discussions, ad-hoc code reviews. One day I might write a memoir on </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">pumping wars</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">, since booking the designated pumping rooms at certain times was exceptionally hard, leaving new moms to struggle and fight for the "prime" slots.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="font-family: inherit;">I was quite fortunate that California requires employers providing designated pumping spaces for new moms, my coworkers in Michigan were only given access to using the shared bathroom!</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For a while I wasn't able to give 100% because of time restrictions and certainly because of the pumping breaks. Once there was an incident of debugging a problem with coworker for half an hour which needed to be interrupted because of the "pumping time" (since I couldn't possibly book the room again for any other time that day), and then I couldn't find him and was interrupted for the same reason the next day. I felt embarrassed trying to explain to my all male team reasons I needed to take break from an important discussion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Looking back I would not have returned to work so soon if I was to do it again and had a choice not to.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="font-family: inherit;">August 2015 update</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">My employer (Netflix) recently announced a pioneered approach to paternal leave laws. According to the announcement new parents, both moms and dads, will have the option to take up one one year of paid time off. Alternatively parents can arrange working flexible hours, working from home, etc. This announcement is groundbreaking not only because it gives flexibility and paid time off to new moms, but also since it gives the absolutely same benefits to new dads. Both biological and adoptive parents are entitled to take advantage of it. This is already raising a new wave for companies offering better leave options to new parents: Microsoft announced extended parental leave later same week.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is great new for new parents at Netflix and those employed by other tech companies in Bay Area and Seattle. At this time companies trying to recruit top talent, should start considering paid parental leave along with </span><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kateharrison/2014/02/19/the-most-popular-employee-perks-of-2014/" style="font-family: inherit;">other perks</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">; e.g. free haircuts, on-site gym and ping-pong tables.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I am hoping that this announcement will be first among many, to set the course for congress to rule providing paid parental leave and job security to all salaried employees.</span></div>
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<i style="font-family: inherit;">In this post I focused on companies in tech sector, which is one of the most flexible and tolerant areas of employment. Many moms these days don't even have the luxury of job security, let alone paid leave that company would give for at least a few weeks. I am truly hopeful that positive change is on the way.</i></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-70676262413849763232015-07-23T22:42:00.000-07:002015-07-24T15:37:53.642-07:00Becoming more productive on a busy scheduleToday I am going to try my take on the million dollar question "How to become more productive at work and life? Juggling career, kids, marriage, continuous learning, relationships and enjoyment". Due to the inflation of US dollar the million dollar question has now surged into billion dollar range.<br />
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The overwhelming number of resources tell us about super-successful superheros, who seamlessly work a demanding job committing 50+ hours weekly, at the same time train for a half-marathon, have 3 children and 2 dogs, volunteer at the local charity, bake the best cakes in the neighborhood and are about to publish their second fiction novel. This list goes on and on.<br />
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By no means I claim being one of these superhumans, and in fact I am very far from reaching the status of one. After working a typical intensive day at the office, picking up my 1 year old daughter from daycare and cooking dinner and her meal from next day, usually all I want to do is watch Netflix for the next hour before going to bed. Yet, I sometimes end up needing to catch up on some work after my daughter to bed, and if the day calls for a special occasion my husband and I will have real conversation at the dinner table, instead of eating in front of the TV while answering emails. On typical weekday I am too tired to go out and socialize, but I am thriving to improve changing one bad habit at the time.<br />
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Some several small changes in my daily routine made a big difference for me, especially after becoming a parent. Here are some of the tips that are helpful for me, and I will encourage you to try:<br />
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<b>1. Focus: Don't multitask, focus only on the task at hand. </b><br />
<br />
I am extremely bad at multitasking. However the expectations in today's workplace is that you should be able to juggle 3 projects at the same time. When you are trying to create paradigms and ideas, or even improving current features on 3 different projects, these ideas somehow blend into one and becomes tangled. It takes lots of unnecessary time and effort trying to untangle the mess and try to do something for half and hour only to discover you need to switch again. A good example of this is having 3 work meetings that have 30 minutes in between. That half an hour is wasted time.<br />
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The minimum amount of time I would commit working on one project is 4 hours or half a work day, usually morning till lunch or lunch until leaving office.<br />
<br />
<b>2. Have a list of goals</b><br />
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Having a clear list of goal for the week on Monday helps set priorities and realistic expectations for the rest of the week. I go into creating daily TODO lists, this effort also helps to reflect at the end of the week, month or quarter on all the things that were successful and not so successful.<br />
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I have a healthy obsession with Microsoft OneNote saving and syncing my lists on OneDrive. It is very convenient since the consistent syncing allows to stay on top of things across different laptops and tablets.<br />
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<b>3. Limit social/time consuming apps from phone/tablet</b><br />
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Each of us have our own obsessions, be that daily deals on Groupon, daily email newsletter from your community, Facebook/Twitter notifications, or Pinterest shares. Each new app I install from Iphone store, requests permissions to send notifications. In the result, phone is constantly buzzing, distracting you from meetings or focused work sessions. This also has a cascading effect similar to sneezing, once someone pulls their phone out during the meeting to check something unimportant, everyone else starts checking their phones for even less important news.<br />
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The best thing I have done was uninstalling Facebook from my phone. This dramatically decreased the temptation to randomly check the phone for interactive unimportant information. I still check Facebook several times daily from the desktop, this helps Facebook algorithms filter the feed to less entries that are more relevant versus checking every 5 minutes.<br />
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<br />
<b>4. Start the day early</b><br />
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Never before I could have been considered as an early bird, my typical day at the office would start at around 10 in the morning and continue past 6:30 in the evening. I remember occasions of complaining to coworkers for scheduling a super early 9:30 am meeting. I would usually wake up around 8:30 am, shower, have a nice glass of coffee and drive to work. Waking up late used to mean time being past 10 am.<br />
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However with the necessity to work around the daycare schedule which requires picking up children by 6 pm things had to change. Now I typically arrive to office within 15 minutes of 8:30 depending on the traffic. Waking up late means waking up at 7:30. Our morning TODO list has grown exponentially, requiring getting my daughter fed and ready for day at her daycare. The early mornings before summer heat becomes intolerable motivate me to go on a run, I am trying to find my best routine to get better at this. (Power of habit). Having the time limit to leave by 5 pm makes me much more productive. I know I can't procrastinate.<br />
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Besides the benefit of being more energetic and goal oriented, the 1,5 hours in the office before everyone gets in are invaluable. I get to check my email, and complete the task I had spent last evening on.<br />
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<b>5. Have a reliable support system</b><br />
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Occasionally there is a meeting that will run past 5 pm, or the feeling of *being in the zone* to finish a project. Many programmers will relate to this, the feeling that you need to finish your task, that everything is in the right place to do it, otherwise it will take you many hours to get back in that mode the next day.<br />
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Last night was such a day, I had a deadline that wasn't too close, yet I felt *in the zone* to finish a major infrastructure piece, so I asked my husband to pick up Ella. I left the office at 7 pm, tired but happy and accomplished.<br />
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<b>6. Don't sweat the small stuff</b><br />
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There are always distraction that come into place, your phone beeping ones in half an hour with Facebook messages from friends trying to decide where to meet up, emails about choosing the bakery or gifts for your child's birthday party, reminder to call your aunt for her birthday. All these are very tempting to get overwhelmed about, just to read your email, to make the call, confirm reservation with the rental company. At any time a coworker my stop by to ask how your weekend was and tell you all about his time on the cruise vacation. Yet, your precious momentum is lost and it will take a long time to recover.<br />
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Turn off the notification on your phone for personal email, add a calendar entry at 8 pm to call your aunt and deal with contractor emails at that time. Your coworker will understand when you tell him it will be awesome to catch up on lunch, yet you can't right now.<br />
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<b>7. Take time to refresh</b><br />
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One of the bad habits I developed after being time restricted on when to leave work was eating lunch at my desk. It seems very efficient at first, since there is an extra 30-60 minutes to get more done and allowed less temptation to cheat on my diet. However I ended up spending the time get distracted on reading the news and checking out your friend's vacations pictures on Facebook, yet overall it decreased my effectiveness. I am now committed to eating lunch with my team at least twice a week, which is the ideal place to chat about something very random and exciting, like a trip to Iceland or climbing Mt Shasta (which motivates me to be more effective at work and start planning my next vacation), it is also ideal environment to bounce some ideas, and get feedback on what you spent last 2 hours stuck on.<br />
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This applies to taking time off internet at night, not checking your email while in bed first thing in the morning, and being able to relax on vacation without checking your work email for entire week. You will be surprised how much more refreshed you start feeling in the short amount of time.<br />
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***<br />
I highly recommend <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1400069289/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=53941191638&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1670986498091757946&hvpone=15.13&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_8ottnu73fl_b">"Power of Habit"</a> by Charles Duhigg, identifying one thing that you want to improve and making small changes to reach your goal.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-86191328830923177862015-07-14T22:51:00.002-07:002015-07-14T22:52:51.843-07:00Executive Presence from the lens of an engineerRecently an experienced friend recommended me to read "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Executive-Presence-Missing-Between-Success/dp/0062246895">Executive Presence: The Missing Link Between Merit and Success</a>" by Silvia Ann Hewlett. I just finished reading it few days ago, and while some of the strategies in the book are universally applicable, I believe most of the advice does not apply in today's technology scene with exception of several industry giants. Since my career aspirations are to stay in startup or at most midsize company environment and create great things, instead of worrying about raising the career ladder some of the best advice won't apply, ever.<br />
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The main areas the books suggests to work on, summarized in one of Amazon review are:<br />
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β’ Gravitas (How you act) - you can master it, get a sponsor, hire an executive coach<br />
β’ Communication (How you speak) - seek for feedback, record yourself and listen to you speak, hire a speech consultant<br />
β’ Appearance (How you look) - lose weight if you are overweight, wear makeup if you are a woman, and dress for the position you want, not the one you have now<br />
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The most important aspect of one's EP is the gravitas - how you can take charge of your audience and keep people engaged. How you can change your actions and communication to portray more confidence, such as standing tall, using wide gestures, getting rid of your foreign accent (unless it is British).<br />
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Regarding the communication skills, best advice in the book is to improve public speaking skills, and get rid of empty phrases, e.g. "like", "just", "i mean". This reminds me of a great article on the word <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/former-google-exec-says-this-word-can-damage-your-credibility-2015-6?IR=T">just</a> in particular. Apparently best advice for women's career success on appearance is to wear high hills, always look polished, lose excess weight and wear makeup to look credible. Doesn't it sound sexist?<br />
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Examples in this book and most of similar leadership books are mid-level managers in large corporations, and based on the context I found myself thinking that for successful career these people don't need to perform actual work as much, but smile wide for the right audiences and mingle with the right people.<br />
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One of the key words was getting a sponsor in the company to help you grow, sponsor is your superior in the company who has an interest in seeing you succeed. I am pretty sure going to somebody and asking "Would you be my sponsor?" will not work too well, and have no clue, but would very much like to learn, how you actually get one.<br />
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The most amusing part of the read is the advice to ask your management to pay for your leadership coach, I can see me trying to explain this to manager, and his confused face trying to figure out what exactly is wrong with me.<br />
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So hereby I present my plan of action, a takeaway:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Improve my accent, take a class or use a recorder</li>
<li>Actively seek for public speaking opportunities</li>
<li>Proactively ask for constructive feedback after presentations and speeches (and always)</li>
<li>Wear a lot of makeup (just kidding)</li>
</ol>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-3722348240744754432015-06-09T08:30:00.000-07:002015-06-09T22:25:01.536-07:00Guess who's speaking at GHC this year?This year I am planning to go to <a href="http://gracehopper.org/">Grace Hopper Celebration conference.</a> As I am writing this post, I have confirmed my attendance and registered for the conference as a speaker. Registration is now open and likely to sell out. I had been hoping to attend for many years, ever since I first heard of it at University of Michigan back in 2006, but every year there was either some other pressing priority, or no sponsorship offered to attend the conference. Well, guess what, my proposal has been accepted and I will be co-hosting a workshop session! I am hoping some of the readers of this blog will be able to attend my session called <i><b>"A fine line - balancing motherhood and career"</b></i>. It will be quite useful for working moms, and especially women planning for motherhood and not knowing what changes to expect in the work front.<br />
<br />
I had made another paper submission this year about the cutting edge topic of continuous deployment that tech industry is trending about and every company wants to adopt. My paper illustrated different approaches and what we use at Netflix. Well, that proposal did not pass, and the one about balancing career and motherhood did. I understand that is much more relevant to well almost all the attendees of the conference who are moms or are planning to become moms.<br />
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So, wait for me Texas in October 2015! Hope to see you at GHC 2015!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-74180511797245135872015-06-01T21:08:00.000-07:002015-06-02T21:45:03.443-07:00My experience of Google I/O 2015<b>5/27</b><br />
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Today is the registration for Google I/O, and one the affiliated organizations invited me for dinner, that I am really looking forward to. I am staying in Park 55 Hilton hotel at San Francisco right next to Union Square and about 5-10 minutes walk away from Moscone center. This year keynote access is assigned based on the time of your registration, which opened at 9AM today, so getting to San Francisco early was definitely a good idea. An awesome coworker drove from Los Gatos to Downtown SF and I snitched a ride. We made it in time to sign up for the keynote, and got a few goodies, a water bottle and a shirt. For some reason registration staff really wanted to take our pictures with the little Android guy and I/O sign, so we let them do that. </div>
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Made it to the hotel, and got an awesome upgrade to a view with spectacular view on San Francisco. After a bit of shopping I am back to catch up on some work. Afterwards Women Techmaker's dinner at a great restaruant with amazing company.<br />
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<b>5/28</b><br />
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Keynote day... the line has been standing from 7:30. Keynote access was already assigned the day before but a lot of people went and stood in line to get a good seat. I arrived at 9:20 for the 9:30 kickoff of the keynote. It was the right decision, skipped the line yet got in for a seat (towards the back). Everything was visible in all the N screens around. The overall energy in the room was inspiring, with so many Google enthusiasts in the room. I am really excited about photo sharing update and free unlimited photo storage online.</div>
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At the end of the day I got the opportunity to meet with Systers - who were the main reason I ended up attending the Google I/O, and who I am very thankful to for the helpful advice and great-great opportunity to meet like-minded women.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VAvwIt3lLM0/VW0oK_abF3I/AAAAAAAAAwM/cQ-i2Np-1VE/s1600/IMG_4029.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VAvwIt3lLM0/VW0oK_abF3I/AAAAAAAAAwM/cQ-i2Np-1VE/s400/IMG_4029.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Some of the sessions after the keynote were interesting, but most didn't really apply to me. Some sessions were very high level such as "Monetizing your App", "Material Now". For some of the test sessions I was most excited about there was no way to squeeze in, because of overwhelming number of interested people and very few available bean bugs (and the people who occupied those were never leaving there "rooms").</div>
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<b>5/29</b><br />
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The day started with receiving the Nexus 9 - giveaway of the year, that my husband is very excited about. I got a chance to check out Android auto which is soo promising, as well as 360 degree camera.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-44849454521654732392015-05-21T21:31:00.001-07:002015-06-02T22:01:33.785-07:00Yet Another Fitness Tracker reviewFew months ago I gathered my courage and signed up for a <a href="http://www.runlikeadiva.com/Events/Divas__Half_Marathon___5K_-_San_Francisco_Bay__CA.htm">5K run</a> in San Francisco. I will be posting more about how it went in about a week. The run is girly and silly, it's not by any means a hardcore competition - up to the point were participants are given tutus to run in with registration. And I am actually planning to run wearing a tutu... So I am by no means a serious runner, here is my official confession that I haven't regularly exercised in nearly two years.<br />
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The run was a good motivation to get moving. But what is the point of running if you can't measure it by ten different parameters? As a reasonable geek, the workouts, especially runs seem dull and pointless to me if I can't pinpoint a number.. that being steps run, distance passed, calories burned, maximum hearth rate reached, and some other not entirely accurate information presented in numbers.<br />
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Therefore, before even starting to train I went to look for a new fitness tracker. I had previously had an <a href="https://jawbone.com/store/buy/up2">Up fitness tracker by Jawbone</a> that I was reasonably happy with for a few months. Until the time it started to incorrectly count the steps and shut down sporadically without any warnings. I gave up on it after shutdowns started happening every day, multiple times a day.<br />
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When Apple watch was announced I was reasonably excited about it, expecting to fall in love with it from the first glance (the feeling I had for iPad). From the very beginning I was convinced that I was going to by the cheapest model - <a href="http://www.apple.com/watch/apple-watch-sport/silver-aluminum-case-white-sport-band/">Sports edition</a>, because <a href="https://www.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_644619234"></span>Gold <span id="goog_644619235"></span></a>edition is for very rich people who I will not understand (no offense if you are reading this post from a over 10K worth iWatch), the intermediate model also seemed really overpriced, paying extra few hundred dollars for a strap sounds too much. I also wanted the bigger screen size 42" to give me more real estate for watching Netflix (kidding, kidding). But I really wanted the larger screen. So I finally got to try it, and really didn't like it, especially the Sports edition. The way the band and buckle fit are just awkward (band sort of goes under itself, pinching you every time). The <a href="http://www.apple.com/watch/apple-watch/stainless-steel-case-bright-blue-leather-loop/">intermediate edition I liked</a> was $700 before tax which seemed like too much.<br />
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After some more research I ordered <a href="http://www2.withings.com/us/en/products/pulse?">Pulse Ox by Withings</a> from Best Buy. First and foremost because I love their scale and app that comes with it, allowing me to track my weight changes overtime. (I especially enjoy the tracking when the weight chart goes down, not so much when it goes up). Secondly, a coworker who is hardcore runner and backpacker, recommended it, especially stressing that the battery only needs to be charge once every 2 weeks. Online reviews warned that it is very sensitive to water, if you happen to get some sweat during the workout or even few drops when washing your hands it gets fried. Therefore, I got Best Buy's incidental insurance ($29) and ordered the band for $120.<br />
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So far, I have had it for 3 days and absolutely I hate it! The band appeared nice until it broke within first half an hour of wearing. It broke irreversibly second time later that day. I am down to wearing it with the clip. One of the features it is advertised for is sleep tracking if you sleep with it around your wrist. Well that is a dangerous plan and you are sure to scratch your face and other body parts if you move your arm when you sleep, I took it off after first 5 minutes in bed. The band also has hearth rate monitor, for which to work you need to take if out of the clip/strap navigate to correct menu item and old hold against your finger. Something you are not going to do when running.<br />
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I haven't returned O2 yet, but I will soon. Please share your experience if you have better luck with other products.<br />
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<b>Update 5/31</b><br />
The run was a great experience. I survived it at 40 minutes, with about 12 minutes per mile. And here is the self-incriminating photo promise.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-38286782986161752772015-05-17T12:20:00.003-07:002015-05-20T19:39:26.390-07:00Microsoft girl going to Google I/O<div class="MsoNormal">
Wow, it has been over a year since my last post. I hereby promise to post *much* more frequently. My life has changed dramatically in this time, and I constantly felt the need to blog about so many things, the difficulty of choosing the most pressing topic to write about and the time to write about them. In one sentence summary of the changes: today I am proud mom of 11 moths old Ella, trying my best to best split my time between my family and the job I love β building things and breaking
things.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now focusing on my upcoming trip to Google I/O... </div>
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I
have been a Microsoft girl for a very long time. Even when I complained about
not planning to use Visual Studio few years ago, I ended up going back to it (I
know), and building the test infrastructure and automation frameworks of
Netflix on Windows phone 8.1 in C#. In the last few months I am focused on building
test framework (from scratch again!) for Netflix app on <a href="http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/about">Windows </a><a href="http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/about">X</a> coming
this summer. Since Microsoft is changing directions, and the native apps don't have to be written in .Net anymore, and they also promise easy conversion from Apple and Android apps to Windows, it is tempting to forgo .Net. That is what I am doing and using Javascript and Node for building the framework. In this world I switched away from
Visual Studio to Sublime. Have to admit, I miss the debugging utilities of VS.</div>
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Back to my excitement, Google I/O (<a href="https://events.google.com/io2015/">https://events.google.com/io2015/</a>) is one of the most popular developer conferences, that gets sold out in minutes
and offered a lottery system this year to buy tickets. A group I am member of, offered me to participate
last month. Of course I said yes. I am going to learn a ton about Google products, GO language and maybe their approaches on large scale deployments and designing automation frameworks. Coming up June 28-29, in San Francisco. Any topics or sessions that you think is not to be
missed?<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-19795144726982736172014-03-27T18:09:00.004-07:002014-03-27T18:10:37.222-07:00Reasons why I will no longer use Visual StudioVisual Studio has been the favorite tool of very many developers for a long time, especially those coming from background of using Microsoft tools, languages and environments. Realizing that many of my friends and especially ex-colleagues from Microsoft will disagree with this statements, still I want to share how unhappy I am with the "best ever" development environment.<br />
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Top reasons go leave Visual Studio as follows:<br />
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<i>1. Better open source alternatives are available. </i><br />
Try <b>Vim</b>, or <b>Emacs</b> if you are have experience with either of them or if you are feeling adventurous and like exploring. The best ever editor known to mankind for Unix environment was introduced in 1970s, and called Vi. I prefer to a slightly more modern alternative of it, Vim (in most modern Linux systems there is an alias set to default Vi to Vim, so I still type Vi to launch the editor in shell). But if you are feeling ultra edgy, or reluctant to remember the copy-paste, split screen or file switching commands, try also <b>GVim -</b> Vim with visual interface making it easier to copy-paste, open/close files with oh-so familiar mouse operations. Otherwise, take advantage of multiple-tabs offered in Vim, it increased my productivity by at least a double-digit percentage. I don't like the Windows Vim edition, feels very unnatural in Windows environment. Can't really comment on Emacs, since as every Unix developer I have met, I only use and love one of those two brilliant editors and hate the other one.<br />
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Try <b><a href="http://notepad-plus-plus.org/">Notepad++</a> </b>a free and excellent tool for coding, editing in Windows environment, it even does the code coloring and formatting for you. A slightly more advanced alternative is <a href="http://www.sublimetext.com/"><b>Sublime Text</b></a> which I have not used enough yet to judge. Those programming in Java environment a great option of <b>Eclipse</b>.<br />
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<i>2. Diminishing support for extensions</i><br />
With every new release and every passing year the extension library seems to have less exciting and useful options. I spent many hours unsuccessfully trying to setup Perforce plugin to work with Visual Studio 2013, which was released over 6 months ago. Perforce is to blame here, since they claim it works when it doesn't, however having a clear understanding of what is supported without spending this much time would have been nice. One extension/tool I really like is <b><a href="http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/">ReSharper</a></b>, it's great like most products from JetBrains.<br />
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<i>3. Updates don't work in Visual Studio 2013</i><br />
Spent over an hour today trying to install Update 1 for Visual Studio 2013, after update is done it keeps reappearing in this list. Developer Tools update never worked either. Microsoft, this shouldn't happen!<br />
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<i>4. If you have ever used Microsoft Test Manager, I am sure you can relate to the following</i><br />
This tools is a joke, it only comes with the Ultimate Edition of Visual Studio, takes forever to load at startup and when switching projects or trying to navigate around. Trying to enter new test case is changeling by itself, because you only can enter one step at a time, and there is no keyboard shorcut to jump to the next step (you can't use Enter key to go to next step!). It may have been introduced to keep the testers busy, ask their product managers.<br />
<br />
Imagine, entering a test case like this and saving it:<br />
1. Goto http://www.bing.com<br />
2. Search "Microsoft test manager"<br />
3. Click Search<br />
4. Click first search result<br />
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would have taken you at least 5 mouse clicks. Now let's compare time spent by a tester using <b>Testopia</b> by Bugzilla or other free or low-cost alternative versus Test Manager. If the tester enters 40 test cases per week with 10 steps on average, using Test Manager would add up to 400 mouse clicks. Assuming it takes you 15 seconds every time to move your hand off the keyboard, left-click next 'box', move your hand back to keyboard it would take 40 * 10 * 15 = 6000 seconds or 100 minutes more to use Test Manager than a free alternative. This means wasting over 1.5 hours of employee's valuable time per week on average "clicking", and this is excluding the wait times waiting for the product to load and respond.<br />
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<i>5. Price</i><br />
I have used the free Express Edition of Visual Studio though my years in collage, and until recently on my home computer. At my jobs where Visual Studio usage was required or recommended I have have had access to Premium or Ultimate editions, so haven't really paid the $500+ price mark for the tool. However, I purchased the tool as a Microsoft employee at a discounted price as a gift for a friend and myself.<br />
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<i>6. You don't have to use it</i><br />
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***<br />
<br />
If none of these reasons make sense to you to switch, maybe you need to stay with Visual Studio. Top reasons to stay in opinion are the following:<br />
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<br />
<ol>
<li>You work at Microsoft</li>
<li>You don't work at Microsoft, but it is a job or school requirement</li>
<li>You use C#, ASP.NET, etc. with highly integrated Visual Studio components</li>
<li>You have used it forever and you hate change</li>
</ol>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975571229539739912.post-70474045852471759732013-06-20T00:15:00.004-07:002016-07-28T22:14:21.307-07:00Dos and Don'ts for winning a Hack Day (and how I won it)One of my greatest accomplishments this year is wining the Hackday at <a href="http://netflix.com/">Netflix</a>!!!!<br />
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Even thinking of the idea of winning at first sounded a bit too good to be true, since (a) I had worked at the company for just two months at that point (b) it was the first time I was participating in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackathon">Hackathon</a> or Hack day type of event.<br />
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As many people in software industry, I had heard a lot about Hackathons different companies held in Silicon Valley and seen some pictures of many folks staying overnight to finish the most ambitious 24 hour projects ever! So now that I finally moved to Silicon Valley and heard about the initiative my employer was organizing, I couldn't pass on it (although two months is not enough time to learn about the internals of such a large company as Netflix). I devoted a day to this event, learned a lot, met new people, worked on a great idea, and won the Hack day!<br />
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Here is the list of dos and don'ts from my limited, yet successful experience. </div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Come up with idea</li>
<ul>
<li>Brainstorm about things you'd like to see added to the product, it really doesn't have to be specific to your project. Rather think as a customer of your own product, what would you like to see? What is the missing feature?</li>
<li>Another approach is too think from your viewpoint as an engineer, what is it that requires tedious effort? How to make your life easier? Is it maybe your build system? bug filing? IT ticket opening? Chances are others experience the same problems and would be very happy to see your hack implemented </li>
<li>Talk to others in your company and team, most people have really interesting ideas. Due to competing priorities not all ideas will get implemented, but it will help evolve initial idea</li>
</ul>
<li>Present your idea and get feedback</li>
<ul>
<li>Don't waste too much time on building 20 page Powerpoint presentation. The best way would be to show a prototype, if it's a UI project use Gimp, Paint, or my favorite tool<a href="http://www.balsamiq.com/"> Balsamiq Mockups</a></li>
<li>Send your idea to your peers, to any distribution list that is related to hacking, maybe someone else will join you. </li>
</ul>
<li>Keep it simple</li>
<ul>
<li>You have only 24 hours to implement your idea and very short amount of time to present it, so be careful not to be to aggressive with the concept</li>
<li>It's for the best, and increases the chances to win, if idea is straightforward, and many people including the judges of the competition can relate to it. So keep it simple.</li>
</ul>
<li>Join a team</li>
<ul>
<li>If you don't have a killer idea, and you see a team that has one, join it!</li>
<li>Or better yet work with people you haven't worked with before. It will give you a chance to meet new people and likely work in a team with diverse skills (and maximize your chances to win). I belonged into this category in Spring '13.</li>
<li>Divide work and stick to deadline. For example, plan to finish implementing web services by 8PM, binding it to UI by 10PM, and adding new feature until the sunrise next morning. Don't start working on features until web services are written, as you may run out of time.</li>
<li>Be flexible and prepared to let parts of the concept off, the time is short and pressure is on</li>
</ul>
<li>Learn something new</li>
<ul>
<li>Volunteer to write a piece of project that requires a skill you haven't used recently</li>
<li>Or skills you haven't used at all (no extremes although, it's not a good idea to commit to writing objective C component if all you code in is PHP)</li>
</ul>
<li>Have fun!</li>
<ul>
<li>The last the the most important point. Enjoy what you are doing and don't make winning your biggest goal</li>
<li>Give a fun and interesting presentation.</li>
</ul>
</ol>
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</div>
<div>
Happy Hacking!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01896865488835669977noreply@blogger.com0