There are not many female CEOs of companies around. Although women are traditionally underrepresented in technology professions, there were a number of high profile CEOs in the US in recent years. We can think here of Carly Fiorina, formerly of HP, and Anne M. Mulcahy, of Xerox. Now Xerox has entered history books by appointing the first African American female CEO to lead a major US corporation: Ursula Burns. Interestingly enough she is also the first female CEO who succeeded another female CEO.

 

Burns had a long-term career at Xerox. Burns, who holds degrees from NYU and Columbia University, joined Xerox in 1980 first as a summer intern and then in product development and planning. In 2000, she was named senior vice president, Corporate Strategic Services and in 2007 she became president of Xerox.

Business Week suggests that part of reason that Xerox appointed two female CEOs in a row is Xerox’s commitment to diversity. 30% of Xerox’s executives are women and 22% are minorities. Xerox has a long tradition of affinity networks. Xerox also had a Executive Diversity Council early on. In addition there are leadership programmes that foster diversity and managers are evaluated in their performance reviews on their ability to recruit, retain and promote underrepresented groups. If they fall short of expectations their chances of promotion are diminished and they pay is negatively affected. This shows that diversity programmes do have an impact – even though it might take decades for them to unfold their power.  

 

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!

 

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…

The Telegraph featured an article on 30 May 2008 entitled ‘Feminised gadgets: An eye for the ladylike’. The article claims that women become more and more interested in gadgets. Figures seem to support this. Sony Ericsson claims that women spend more money on gadgets than on shoes (£391 per year or £17 billion in total). Based on the article two-thirds of the Nintendo DS users are female.

The article assumes that feminised technology is something new in the West yet well established in Japan. DoCoMo asked women what they want in mobile phones and subsequently produced a hugely popular, small clamshell handset with an integrated camera. At that time few people understood the value of cameras in mobile phones but that has changed of course dramatically.

Women do seem to hold the key for many design innovations in the gadget market simply because they are often not asked what they want from technology. The article also quotes Ladygeek research saying that women do not want pink products but useful, easy to use products. They want phones that are also fashion accessories and beautifully designed.

The classic example is Jonathan Ive’s iMac design which showed that computers did not have to be beige or grey boring boxes but can be design features. My first generation iBook does indeed look stunning in my room and is regularly admired by visitors.

What appeals to women often does appeal to men too. The article claims that indeed ‘gender barriers are becoming blurred’ suggesting that men and women both want beautifully designed, easy to use technology. Rather than becoming feminised it appears that technology is finally being made fit for humans rather than just a certain group of technology savvy and nerdy men.

Ars Technica reported that Accenture recently surveyed internet users in the UK and the US by (just) phoning them to explore how they dealt with internet security issues. Some interesting country differences emerged. In the UK 70% remembered their passwords yet only 50% of the US population managed to do the same. US citizens were more likely to write down their passwords. And apparently there is a gender story too: women tended to write down passwords more often than men in both countries.

Another just-approach-them study conducted as part of the Information Security Awareness Week outside Liverpool Street Station in London tried to entice commuters to provide personal information in exchange for a chocolate bar. Overall only 21% were willing to give this information. However 45% of women and only 10% of men were willing to enter the chocolate-for-information deal.

The studies did not speculate on why this is the case. Is it that women are just more friendly and willing to help strangers when they approach them and are asked for their passwords? Might they just have too many things to juggle in their head already to remember all the passwords and therefore write them down? Difficult to tell. But remember to change your passwords from time to time and if a stranger asks you for information offering a chocolate bar, be vigilant!