Belinda mentioned in one of her recent posts that the consumer tech industry is now at a stage the car industry inhabited many years ago. Many car manufacturers have indeed started to take women as consumers seriously. For a long time, most cars are implicitly or explicitly designed for men and by men.

At London Business School, I have conducted some research with Volvo. A group of women at Volvo thought it was about time to show the world what a car designed by women may look like. This produced the first concept car designed by an all women team to provide the world with a practical example of how women would design a car. The car was presented in 2004, but there are some valuable lessons to learn here.

The task was to design a car that would not be futuristic but realistic in terms of the needs of women as well as men. Their research has indicated that in the premium car segment women are the hardest group to please and building a car that meets their expectations also means to build a car that will please men.

The team conducted an external and internal study to explore what women want in cars. The central idea about the project was to ask questions in a different way.

Research found for instance that women like an easy to park car not because they cannot park but because they park a car much more often during a day.

The team also challenged the idea that cars are designed with men in mind fitting their bodily features much better than those of women.

The concept car was very innovative because the team re-thought fundamentals of car design such as where the hand breaks or the washer fluid were situated or how the doors should open.

In addition a new concept of headrests was introduced allowing people with ponytails to sit comfortably and the layout of the car was a 2 by 2 version with the rear two seats being moved in slightly to allow the driver to see the rear passengers.

The team wanted to create a car that felt more like a living room and decided to include having movable cushions and different fabrics for the upholstery of seats.

Although it was never intended to be built, the concept car provided a lot of thought provoking ideas which influenced the design of other cars. Tasking women’s perspectives into consideration challenged how things had always been done. The result was a concept car that was built by women for everyone. 

In most Western countries studying computing has long been seen as a male endeavor. However this is not the case across the world. Vivian Lagesen’s research in fact shows that in Malaysia computer science is populated by women. In her summary report for Women-nomics, she stresses that in Malaysia computing is not seen as masculine but instead a good employment for women. In fact, faculty in computing degrees is often female. There are perceived to be plenty of jobs in computing and the office environment of IT jobs is seen as safe.  Vivian’s research shows how flexible the social construction of computing can be. 

 

 

The New York Times reported this week that the number of women studying computer sciences has fallen. 28% of all undergraduate degrees in computer science went to women in 2001. However by 2004-5 women only gained 22% of the degrees. This number is even lower at elite institutions like the MIT where only 12% of the degrees go to women. And according to this article, many computer science departments now report that women make up 10% of the newest entrants. This is in stark contrast to 25 years ago when – as the author claims – women made up up to 50% of computing classes.

Interestingly enough the article quotes figures stating the number of women in science and engineering has increased to 51% in 2004-5 up from 39% in 1984-85. Why is it that the numbers of women in science and engineering are rising while those in computing are not?

I found this very surprising because computing has changed significantly in recent years. Particularly the advent of Web 2.0 seems to attract more women to the internet in general and to working on Web 2.0 technologies in particular. The Fast Company magazine was celebrating women in Web 2.0 just this week.

 

However Web 2.0 might have little to do with what computer science is all about. The number of female web designers is sizeable but web design is by most tech specialists not seen as real programming and – as the article points out – it pays much less than software engineering.

 

Reasons for the lack of women in computing have been discussed widely. It includes that computers are seen as toys for boys, the constant questioning of women’s ability to engage with technology and the geeky and nerdy image of computing – to name but few. With more women using technology to get things done and technology becoming more intuitive and humane, one could have thought that the image of computing is changing.

 

Maybe women are voting with their feet against the way computing is portrayed and taught and instead chose to engage with technology on their own terms. Like with technology design, women might want different computing courses or a different marketing of computer courses. It might be time to explore why computing was a more interesting choice for women 25 years ago than it is today despite of the fact that computing is now omnipresent.

 

 

 

A couple of years ago I had a debate with a colleague at the UN World Summit on the Information Society about the paperless office. I voiced my frustration that despite of the fact that we now do so much online, we still print so much paper. I wondered if the paperless office would remain a dream. My colleague said that people just have to try it seriously but so far they have not. We then talked about how society has to adapt to technological change and how this might take time. That was in 2005.

 

What we did not know then is that since 2001 the paper consumption in the US was according to the Economist declining. While the paperless office is an idea of the 1960s, it has never really caught on – despite of the fact that new technologies like the Internet did not seem to rely on paper. However what happened is that many people printed their emails and treated them just like paper letters which were delivered via email rather than a postal service.

 

People need to adapt to new technologies and need time to change their established behaviours. The decline of paper usage is linked to the rise of a new generation. Generation Y or the millennials grew up with new technologies like the Internet and many of them adopted Web 2.0 applications readily. They do things online. They are not only paying their bills online but also network online. This younger generation is confident in reading on screen and filing documents virtually rather than physically. All is tagged and stored in the virtual cloud.

 

According to the Economist not all paper consumption is declining because people are still keen on printing for the special occasion. Sometimes it seems that good ideas just need time to develop. It needs time until people adapt or rather until the younger generations get rid of many routines and practices that influence how we interact with technology.

 

 

 

 

Is her cleavage the ultimate signifier of a Lady Geek? Last Thursday I attended a Girl Geek Dinner and this was the question that led to a huge debate among the 100 plus women who work mainly in the area of technology.

 

Julie Lerman talked about her own journey as a woman in technology. She mentioned how her girlie interests were slowly relinquished to become one of the boys. She wanted to fit into the tech community and therefore she did not want to stand out as a woman. Over time she discovered how she can be a woman and a technical specialist and what combining these two identities means.

 

However she asked if some women in technology go in fact too far. Julie talked about how one female technologist used an image as her speaker photo for conferences which revealed her cleavage (the head of the woman was cropped to protect her identity). Julie commented that this sexualised image might go a bit too far. I somewhat shared her discomfort with it.

 

Some women in the room found this photo rather liberating. One woman said that men should get used to the fact that women have breasts. Others said that the cleavage shot is actually too sexualising and men would see the woman merely as a sex object rather than a serious speaker with a message. One woman replied that this might just be a clever way of advertising herself. But would that be an appropriate tactic for drawing attention to your work?

The issue came quickly to authenticity and being yourself. One woman said that the female technologist might just want to be herself. For her, this might mean to show her femininity through her cleavage. Is showing cleavage then the latest Lady Geek chic?

 

The discussion resembled debates around feminism and postfeminism. While feminists would stress that showing cleavage is demeaning to women because it objectifies them, postfeminists would say that it is actually liberating for women to show their cleavage and also – in a further step – to control men through it. We can think here about the Wonderbra ‘Hello Boys’ adverts with Eva Herzigova: many women found them empowering whilst others saw them as demeaning for women.

 

What would that mean for women working in technology and selling technology to women? Should technology being sold using women and their cleavages? This would be very similar to how technology actually used to be advertised. And these adverts speak mainly to men. Based on that, I would assume that only a fringe group of women would think that cleavage is geek chic.

 

There is also a professional dimension to all this: Women in the workplace in general have to navigate a narrow path of acceptable behaviour, and from my experiences, using too much of a cleavage is doing nothing for your professional image. It will position you mainly as an object of male desire rather than as a professional. That does not mean hiding your femininity but finding a way to emanate professional femininity.

 

 

 

Last week I had the pleasure to be invited by ?What If!, an innovation company, to join a good number of the Top 50 Women in Mobile Content. Jessica Sandin, who heads up mobile at ?What If! was named as one of the top 50 women in mobile content and to celebrate their success ?What If! invited them to the ‘Old Laundry’, one of their offices.

 

Offices sounds way too stuffy for ?What If!. It feels more like a mix between a living room and a playground. I wrote a case study about ?What If! a while ago and was impressed with how they generate innovation. Much of how they work resonated a lot with how I work with ethnographic methods in an academic context.  The difference is that we do not bring products and services to market but write academic articles.

 

The evening started with drinks and we then gathered around in a circle of sofas. We were not allowed to rest a long time because we had to complete a task: learn as much as possible about two women in the room. This was great fun.  We then heard more about what ?What If! does and Jessica started a discussion on what it means to be a woman in mobile content. The discussion resembled many of those ‘women in a male dominated environment’ discussions I witnessed before. At first there was some hesitation as to whether it is different for men and women in mobile content followed by a string of interesting stories which showed that being a woman does matter.

 

After an insightful discussion, we continued the evening with delicious canapés and fascinating conversations. All in all a fantastic evening to celebrate great achievements!

 

 

 

I love taking my iPod to the gym because it gives me the freedom to listen to music that reflects my exercise mood. However when using the iPod on the cross trainer, one of my favourite cardiovascular machines, I often manage to almost strangle myself. I wear my iPod with an armband around my upper arm (the earphone cables are dangling around and can get caught easily in the cross trainer). The armband looks a bit like an oversized sticking plaster but is overall quite stylish and does the job – as long as I don’t do anything where I need the biceps. The cable issue remains annoying and I developed a rather complicated system of keeping the cable out of my way.

However I then came across a much nicer solution: the Arriva headphones. You basically wear the MP3 player at the back of your head and have small cables leading into your ears. This does solve the cable problem. The downside: it is only available for the iPod shuffle and not for other iPods. Other iPods might be too big to wear them at the back of the head. It might also be difficult to change tracks. But it is a nice idea. Apart from using these headphones for sports it might also come in handy when you don’t want other people to know that you are listening to music. Particularly if you have long hair. 

I have been invited by Sarah Blow to contribute to a Girl Geek Dinner alongside Julie Lerman who will talk about what it means to be a geekette. The Girl Geek Dinner will take place on Thursday, October 09, 2008 from 06:30 PM – 09:30 PM and is generously hosted by Microsoft, London. I hope to see many of you there.

It does not relate that much to technology, but Alison Maitland has just published an excellent article based on my research in the FT. The research explores how female MBA students want to be one of the boys to fit into the masculine culture of the business school. Enjoy reading…