When you try to be more agile and innovative within your organization and/or when you are on-boarding a concept, a process or a technology, do you feel like you are on an island by yourself?
How do you define your industry voice?
Are you frustrated that your voice isn’t being heard?
Would you like acknowledgment from peers?
Do you want to share what you’ve learned?
Do you want to build knowledge?
Are you searching for ideas and collaborative engagement?
Would you like to network?
If any of these feelings resonate, Women Speak Tech can help you hone your industry voice and transform ways of thinking, working and problem-solving. Join in and support a thought leadership zone for today’s digital experience.
Join the WST Community at The Guild, smarter networking. Use code WST20>>
WST Movers encourage all voices of our industry to engage
Founding Partners: Robin Parisse, Jill Talvensaari, Linda Manes-Goodwin.
Contributors: Sharlene Siegel, Nicole Beckerman, Afshin Shirazian, Alexis Haselberger, Holly Jackson
LIKE-MINDED Women Speak Tech attendees are typically women who work in:
- creative development and production (e.g., Adobe Creative Cloud and…)
- content creation and production who access, manage, ingest and distribute assets, configure workflows and support creative operations
- marketing, marketing operations and social who are in creative and/or business roles focused on strategy, tactical implementation, on-boarding, sustainability and the management of systems, solutions, and teams
- metadata management, workflow, and/or curation who configure and optimize systems, and manage use, procedures, metadata definition and upkeep, and more for content and media-rich organizations
- IT and/or technology roles including web content management, content management, digital or media asset management (DAM or MAM), collection management, data management and/or information architecture
ABOUT US
HOW IT BEGAN
Formalizing Women Speak Tech seemed like a natural progression to engage a larger cross-section of industry professionals across technologies and disciplines who deal with the demands of increasing content and data. What started as a few women (and men at times) connecting casually at annual industry events, at local meet-ups, and/or via the occasional phone call, lunch catch-up or LinkedIn chat to commiserate or problem-solve together is gaining momentum. More and more, we need that additional lens or acknowledgment to stabilize and energize. In today’s fast-paced, fluid environments, collaborative relationships are the key driver to gain mindshare, commitment, and positive action.
So let’s throw the net wider to engage relevant and related diverse constituents (e.g., marketers, creatives, and technologists) and leverage collective experiences and expertise to solve for change: emerging technology impacts; the sunsetting of legacy solutions and practices; on-boarding and effective adoption; and more. Furthermore, let’s network, share and mentor to support other women, invest in advocating the roles and opportunities for women, and fundamentally instigate positive exchange and action.
WHY WOMEN
For the most part, women have been underrepresented and historically seen in traditional archetypes or roles. Industry voices have been predominantly saturated by men. But the world is changing. Emerging technology, coupled with content and data explosion, has impacted the industry so that once-siloed areas of our organizations not only are now co-dependent but need to be innovative to stay ahead in a competitive landscape. To effectively optimize resources together, gender is irrelevant, expertise and collaboration are critical. Now more than ever we all need to take a page from Sheryl Sandberg, “lean in”, continue to redefine conventional thinking through positive action and pave the way to attract younger talent and new ideas.
“Operating profit was 56% higher for corporations that had one or more women on its executive committee or board of directors,” reported a 2010 McKinsey & Company research study. (source: McKinsey & Company)
Together we can elevate our industry and ‘speak up’ on a regular basis, and do it in more places geographically.
WOMEN SPEAK TECH MOVERS
WST Movers are individuals and organizations who are investing time and resources to execute the speak up forum — a mash-up of relevant and related meet-ups and informal encounters
“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely, but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.” — Mark Twain
Our Speak Up Movers include:
- Founding Partners: the individuals who formalized the ‘idea’ and organized for action.
- Contributors: individuals who have a high level of active participation.
- Advocates: individuals who are involved and play a role to support activities.
- Underwriters: individuals and organizations who provide financial and/or in-kind product/services support.
Thank you to our ‘speak up’ movers who encourage all voices of our industry to engage and improve information technology practices and ideology.
FOUNDING PARTNERS: Jill Talvensaari, Robin Parisse, Linda Manes-Goodwin.
CONTRIBUTORS: Sharlene Siegel, Nicole Beckerman, Afshin Shirazian, Alexis Haselberger, Holly Jackson
