GHC13: Welcome & Keynote – Formerly, DARPA — Now, Dr. Valerie Taylor, Texas A&M

 

If you were expecting a blog on a keynote about DARPA by Arati Prabhakar, you’re in the right place.  However, due to the government shutdown, she was unable to travel.  Therefore, the new keynote for today was done by Dr. Valerie Harper from Texas A&M and her topic was “A Case for Diversity.”

Even though this presentation was not the one I had intended to blog, it answered a burning question I had had all week.  You see, I attended a meeting Wednesday morning before the conference started that was for note-takers and bloggers.  In that meeting, they said that the GHC conference had started in 1994 and it was the 13th conference.  Huh?  I don’t know who was in charge of math here, but I was having a hard time reconciling those numbers.

As it turned out, Valerie Taylor attended the first GHC in 1994.  There were 600 attendees.  (There are 4817 at this conference).  The conference was held every 3 years at that time.  In 2000, the conference started to be held every other year and in 2006, it started to be held yearly.  Aha!

Valerie visited Anita Borg in 1994 to talk about Valerie’s work.  SYSTERS of color was started at that time as a LISTERV group.  They held a BOF session at the first GHC and about 15 people attended.  At the 2004 GHC, there were more than 100 attended at the women of color BOF.  Now, there are multiple subgroups at GHC, not just women of color.

When Anita visited Valerie, Anita said, “Let’s go for a hike!”  Valerie was quite puzzled by this and was even more confused when Anita asked her what seemed to be personal questions — about her family, upbringing, etc.  Later, Valerie realized that she was just taking time to learn about her so that she would be able to know what she could bring to the table.  That led Valerie to learn the following three things about diversity:

1. Engage:  Take time to learn about others.  Learn about their background.
2. Embrace:  Embrace the background and allow it to come to the forefront.
3. Enhance:  When you engage and embrace others, you end up with something better than what you started with!

Later when she got a new job, she had to take a 40-hour mediation course.  She learned that mediation is not making a decision for the parties in conflict. Rather, it is navigating people in conflict so that they solve the problem themselves.  The three things she learned about resolving conflict is the following:

1. Conflict is about emotion — how some action made you feel
2. You need to use neutral language — watch the adjectives you use.  Don’t call one person’s question a good question and the other person’s question a great question.
3. Listening — you must repeat what they said to ensure you heard correctly.

Everyone brings something unique to the field of computing!  She believes strongly in the following Maya Angelou quote:  “We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.”

Valerie’s call to action:  Take time to engage with each other in depth, embrace backgrounds, and expand with others to use it to enhance the outcome.

One audience question I found quite interesting was the following:

Q:  What if you are engaging someone by asking questions and they seem to think the questions are too personal (or vice versa)?  Also, how do we know that if we tell someone about our background they aren’t going to stereotype us.

A:  Use open-ended questions such as “Tell me about yourself.”  Based on their answers, you should be able to tell their comfort level.  If you think someone is using a stereotype, talk to them.  Don’t let it perpetuate.  You can also use it as a chance to educate them.

GHC13: Best of Minnesota, Leader in Medical Innovations

Being from Minnesota, this seems to be the perfect session to blog!  In fact, I live in Rochester, MN, home of the Mayo Clinic.  And if that isn’t enough, I work at IBM where most of one side of my building contains employees working on IBM Watson and Life Sciences topics in conjunction with the Mayo Clinic.  I could only be more connected to this topic if I worked on it myself.

Logistics:  This session was held in an auditorium that overflowed yesterday for which I was turned away for a session, so I arrived really early.  It held about 250 people and my estimate is that 100 people attended it.  Over 50% of the attendees were from Minnesota.

This was a panel discussion in which the moderator started with a self-proclaimed commercial for the Minnesota High Tech Association, http://www.mhta.org/, and then allowed each of the four panelists 3 minutes to give a background of their companies.  The rest of the session was a Q/A from the moderator to the panelists and then a Q/A from the audience to the panelists.

How does Minnesota fare in medical technologies?

• First in many areas such as in implantable cardiac devices, artificial heart vales, and digital hearing aids.
• Minnesota ranks 2nd only behind California
• Human capital involved in med tech:  MN ranks 4th and is consistently in the top 5

The Panelists

Mayo Clinic

• 150 years this week
• one of the first physician groups
• 35,000 employees in Rochester (which has a population of about 107,000)
• > 3000 physicians in Rochester
• Locations also in Jacksonville, Florida, and Scottsdale, Arizona
• Global — big internet presence
• Base is patient care, but also heavily involved in information services, research, and education

United Health Group

• More than an insurance company
• Create innovative solutions for physicians and consumers
• Heavily relies on big data and analytics

Starkey Hearing Technologies

• Founded in 1967 as an “all-make” hearing aid repair company
• Largest hearing aid manufacturer in the US.  Only fully American made hearing aids.
• Has much research and development
• “Inspire Fitting Software” to individual fitting and tuning of digital hearing aids
• Has mobile apps related to hearing

Medtronics

• Leading medical device company in the US.
• Founded 50 years ago
• Invented the first external pacemaker
• Now involved in neuro stimulation, cardiac devices, Parkinson’s devlices, artificial pancreas
• Started in developing IT innovations 4 years ago

Q:  What is the most transformational innovation in an internal sense and for your customer experience.

A:  United Health Group – health care reform has caused unprecedented changes.  IT now has a much larger role especially with big data and analytics.  It partners with Mayo and Universities.  We need to create tools and technology to lower the cost of health care.

A:  Mayo – Uses “group practice” concept and now IT is helping by working on individualized medicine.  IT team is now part of the whole team – group practice.

A: Medtronic:  Devices are now collecting real-time data and we need to combine it with the provider data for the best patient outcomes.

A: Starkey:  Digitally programmable hearing aids have changed both internal and customer experience.  Devices are much smaller. It’s not just an amplifier — has chips, wireless connectivity — requires firmware and mechanical engineering to make things as small as possible.  Causes multi-disciplinary challenges.

Q:  What are the challenges and best practices?

A:  Medtronic – biggest challenge was that the idea needed to be “sold” internally!  Discovered that they needed to have a working prototype and not just TALK about it.  This changed the “selling” from trying to sell an intellectual idea to getting an emotional response — I WANT that!

A: United Health – internal process improvements required.  Internal process could take 9-12 months for approval. Built an internal could where ideas were visible and internal collaboration possible.  Transformation wasn’t about the technology, but about internal process changes.

Q:  (Targeted to Mayo) – how has social networking changed medicine?

A:  They have a center of innovation.  Patients don’t just want their procedures done.  They want knowledge.  They now google their diagnosis and walk into the exam with an armload of printouts.  Mayo clinic has a patient app and mayoclinic.com has been around for 25 years (that seemed amazing to me).  NOW, they also have youtube videos where Mayo physicians that specialize in a specific thing discuss the topic and patients create communities around that disease or diagnosis.  Many “patients” never even come through Mayo’s doors and take advantage of these things.

Q: (audience) How do med tech places compete for engineers and programmers when all the big guys are getting them (Google, facebook, pinterest, etc.)?  How do you handle the brain drain?

A: United Health – we are a fortune 30 company with an IT budget of $1B. We are rapidly expanding.  Other companies have the IT expertise, but they have the medical knowledge.  They collaborate.  They aren’t worried at all.

A: Starkey – The challenges they face every day are super-interesting and multi-dimensional. It’s not just software.  They are making a difference and changing lives.

A: Mayo – They recruit from around the world.  They believe in the whole TEAM.  They are doing something that MATTERS.

A: Medtronic – The other companies come to THEM to partner because they have the medical knowledge.  They know how to get FDA approval on the algorithms used in the devices.  One example he cited was that someone with Parkinson’s was to give a presentation.  She couldn’t hold a glass of water or her baby, but when she turned on the device, the shaking stopped and she was able to give the presentation.

BOTTOM LINE:  Working in IT in the medical world means you are making a difference in people’s lives and quality of life.

GHC13: Integrated Leadership for the 21st Century – The Perfect Storm for Women Leaders

I am particularly excited to be attending this session and blogging about it!  You see, I’m a graduate of SHAMBAUGH’s WILL program (Women in Leadership Learning) in which my class was taught directly by the speaker,  Becky Shambaugh, for several sessions!  In fact, I have an autographed copy of one of her books:  It’s Not a Glass Ceiling, It’s a Sticky Floor! The reality is that my class was several years ago so I’m very keen to hear what’s new and different since then.  She has a new book — Make Room for Her — but, I don’t have that one (yet).

This session was packed and I believe people were turned away. Since it was full early, it got started early and had so much information it still ran to its expected end time.

• Corporations need to fully utilize the whole spectrum of human intelligence or their organizations won’t grow.
• Could you function with only half a brain?
• Men’s and women’s brains are different. We need both to satisfy the spectrum of all customers.
• Companies see 26% more ROI when both men and women are making the decisions together.

What men can do :

1. Identify biases
2. Coach and mentor
3. Find your comfort zone with women
4. Bring more women into the fold
5. Use an appreciative approach with women on your team.
6. Give women constructive feedback

What women can do:

You might think that then men have a long list, but I’m here to tell you that the list of what women can (and should) do is even longer and essentially starts with this thought:  Look inside yourself.  What are you doing to hold yourself back?

In her Sticky Floors book, Becky outlines seven things women consider when making career choices.

1. Managing work/life integration (I remember in WILL talking a lot about your own personal values and being authentic.)
2. Drive for perfectionism.  (She went on to give examples of how we still think we need an A+ in everything and we need to accept “good enough.”  My thoughts — this is a BIG one for many of us.  She didn’t say this line, but if we can all stand a little bathroom humor, an expression that someone said to me once that has stuck with me forever is this:  “Are you still polishing the turd?”)  😉
3. Staying in one role too long — the loyalty factor
4. Making your words count (I remember in WILL having to practice an elevator pitch as part of this (among other things))
5. Building strategic relationships.
6. Capitalizing on your executive presence and political savvy
7. Asking for what you want — The comment that Telly Whitney made in the conversation with Sheryl Sandberg this morning about her not getting as much stock as her counterpart really came to mind here! (See my blog post on that session for more information.)

Building Strategic Relationships

Much of the rest of the session was spent talking about building strategic relationships and executive presence.

Now, for me, building strategic relationships (sometimes referred to as networking) is one of my biggest (if not my BIGGEST) sticky floor.  I’d like to blame it on the fact that I’m from the midwest and I grew up on a dairy farm with no brothers. I had to milk cows (by machine) and feed calves and do all sorts of chores that cannot be discussed in public.  😉  That said, my biggest network growing up consisted of my numerous barn cats, my cattle dog (Tuffy), my pet cow (Pepper) and my pony (Roxy).  The term “networking” has always left a bad taste in my mouth as though it has a connotation of something unauthentic or untrustworthy and I don’t want to be a politician!  It’s a sticky floor I really have to work on.  Now that I’ve been to this session, when I get home, I’m going to reread that chapter.

• What drives advancement?  Harvard Business Review says that 77% of women say it’s “What I do:  hard work, long hours, educational credentials” while 83% of men say it’s “Who you know.”
• Who is on your personal board of directors?  Who can you go to for constructive feedback?  Who is going to advocate for you?  Who is going to go to bat for you?  Who is going to say what a great job you’re doing and put your name in the hat EVEN WHEN YOU’RE NOT PRESENT?  Sponsorship MATTERS!
• The power of network:  Relationships are not 1-1. They are multi-dimensional.
• If you continually hang out with people who think, look, and act like you, you are going to end up with “you”
• Women are over-mentored and under-sponsored.
• A sponsor enables job opportunities, influences others about you,  promotes your visibility and advocates for you for stretch assignments.
• People can’t read your mind and just “know” you’d want to change positions or want a stretch assignment (or whatever).

Some DON’Ts when working with your sponsor:  Don’t share your weaknesses with them.  (Discuss your weaknesses with your mentor.)  Don’t express reservations about new assignments.

Executive Presence Matters!

I will admit that at first I thought she was going to tell us not to wear jeans! She actually didn’t say much (if anything) about how to dress.

Executive presence is

• What you leave behind in the room after you leave (and she didn’t mean your purse)
• Something unique about you that is memorable (obviously, in a positive way)
• Your strategic thinking
• When people are drawn to you (sort of like charisma)
• When you confidently express your ideas and influence others

You need to consciously manage your state of mind:  The moment you show up, you energetically broadcast your state of mind and your executive presence.

Executive presence is a catalyst for great results!

Non-verbal communication matters!

Now, that comment led to a quick side discussion with my nearest neighbor about what to do if you work remotely.  So, I went to discuss this with Becky after the session.  In my case, I work in Rochester, Minnesota, but all of my team as well as my entire management chain is in Poughkeepsie, NY.  I have worked on this project for 6 years, but have only met my co-workers and managers once (which was just 1 year ago).

1. How do you have executive presence over the phone?
2. How do you build strategic relationships with people you’ve never met?

In our quick conversation she said these things:

1. Tonality.  Your executive presence isn’t visual.  Your tone of voice needs to project confidence and competence. (I don’t think we discussed it, but I also remember being coached not to lift the ends of my sentences up as though they are questions unless they really are questions — it makes it sound like you aren’t sure of what you are saying.)
2. Three minutes.  You have three minutes for the listeners to form an opinion.  (Going back to one of her points above — The MOMENT you show up…)
3. Preparation.  Know your audience: who they are and the purpose each has.  Know what you’re purpose is.  If you are on the phone and haven’t said anything useful, why were you there?

Becky also gave me her business card and asked me to contact her for further discussion on this topic.  When I get more tips, I’ll post again.

After attending several sessions now and hearing of the problems that some women have in the technical world, I am reminded by a comment that Maria Klawe said in the keynote yesterday about IBM along with an experience I had at SHAMBAUGH’s WILL program.  When I went to WILL, my class consisted of 15 women.  Six were from IBM and the other nine were from a variety of companies.  All six of us from IBM agreed that none of us had experienced anything like the other nine women had had at their companies.  I have to agree with Maria Klawe that the the diversity programs in place at IBM not only help the women, but help the men as well which is a point that Becky was making in her session today.

GHC13: Sheryl Sandberg, in conversation with Maria Klawe and Telle Whitney

I volunteered to blog this session because I am currently going through the Lean In lectures with a group of women at IBM.  We meet monthly and do the following:  recap the previous lecture, watch the next one, and discuss it. I was very interested to hear what Sheryl Sandberg had to say firsthand.

  

Yes, the pictures are from my cell phone; some are zoomed in; and all are held high in the air.  My hope is that they give you the scope of the conference. There are over 4700 people here, mostly women, and I was sitting about 1/3 of the way back. Thankfully, the session was projected!

As the title promised, this session was a conversation. Even though the questions were prepared in advance, the session was mostly successful in fulfilling the tone of a conversation among women leaders.

There were many statistics given such as the following:

• Men run 95% of the big companies in the world.
• Men apply for new jobs when they meet 60% of the criteria, but women don’t apply until they meet 100%.
• Numbers of women in computing have plummeted to 13%.
• We need 1.4 million computer science majors by 2020 and we are currently only training 1/3 of them needed.

Other anecdotes were provided as examples:

• When men are perceived to have been successful, they say it was their own skill.  When women are, they say it was due to hard work, help from others, and just being lucky.
• In fact, when Sheryl Sandberg was asked several years ago to speak at GHC, she turned it down thinking she wasn’t technical enough!  Another executive at Google (where she worked at the time) spoke at the conference and she thought, “Why is he qualified and I’m not?  He’s not even a WOMAN!”
• When little girls show leadership on the playground, they’re tagged as bossy.  When they are older, they are viewed to be aggressive.  When little boys show leadership, they’re just leaders.  When you see someone telling a little girl not to be so bossy, you should say to them, “They aren’t being bossy. They’re just showing they have great executive leadership skills!”
• Sheryl was at a conference on a panel with a couple men.  One of the men was asked about getting women in technology fields.  He responded, “Not all women are like Sheryl.  SHE’S COMPETENT!”  When the other man was asked for his opinion, he said, “Well, my wife is here and she thinks that if I hire women, I might sleep with them.  And, well, I might!”
• Gender has become an unsafe issue to discuss.  It is not illegal to talk about it!  It’s illegal to discriminate because of it.
• Concerning retention:  A successful man is more well-liked.  A successful woman is less liked.  When a young girl was asked “What would you think if Daddy did well at work and was liked better, but Mommy did well at work and was liked less?”  The girl’s response was, “Then I would do less well at work so more people would like me.”

One humorous example of how she met one of her colleagues was that about the first thing out of his mouth was “I haven’t read your book!”  Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I haven’t read her book either, but it’s not because I think I’m going to disagree with it!  It’s on my list.  Really!

That example took me back about 20 years.  You see, I was a first line manager at IBM early in my career.  It was at a time in my life where I just thought that that’s what you were supposed to do!  I had been with IBM about 5.5 years at the time and I think I had probably just turned 27.  One of the first things one of my department members said to me was “I have a briefcase older than you!” I don’t recall having a good comeback for that one.  I probably just stood there with my mouth open.  It took me only about 18 months to realize I missed coding to much to stay in management.

Now, does that mean that IBM was a bad place for young, women managers?  Absolutely not.  In fact, I totally agreed with and appreciated the comments by Maria Klawe in this session when she said that she was privileged to work for IBM the first 8 years of her career and she greatly benefited from the diversity programs for women and minorities.  She wished more companies did the same thing and it really furthered her career even though she went elsewhere.

There were quite a few quotable quotes and answer to questions in the session that truly resonated with me:

• Q:  “Sheryl, why did you write Lean In?”   A:  “The world is still run by men and I’m not sure it’s going so well!”
• Q: “Sheryl, how does the book translate to other cultures?”  A: Cultures are all so very different in their customs and traditions, but the stereotypes of men and women are universal.
• BOLD & CONFIDENT ^= BOSSY
• The fact that there are few women in computer science creates a deeply self-perpetuating stereotype.  If more women see more women in computer science, it will feed on itself.  Women are the best inspiration for other women and need to support each other.  Mentoring is good, but we need more PEER interaction.  Sheryl’s mentors actually DIScouraged her to take her last jobs whereas her peers ENcouraged her.
• You meed to ASK for what you want.  Example:  Telle Whitney retired with less stock than her male counterpart because she hadn’t ASKED for it.
• Q:  “Sheryl, why did you start the Lean In foundation?”  A:  To encourage and empower women in three ways:  1) Build a community (obviously, leanin.org and/or facebook, 2) Offer expert lectures online (see leanin.org lectures), and 3) Start leanin circles.

There was a disappointing moment in the session that I think could have been used as an example of how we need to continuously strive to overcome our own obstacles.  A fairly large part of this session was discussing Maria Klawe’s success at her college in getting women to major in computer science (48% of comp sci majors are female). When being congratulated on her success she said, “I didn’t really do anything.”  Hmm…

There was a clear call-to-action in this session especially since they announced a partnership between the Anita Borg Institute and Lean In:  Participate in lean in circles!  Start one, join one, go to next year’s GHC.  Lean In circles need to be started early — high school, college, and at every point after.  More women in computer science will perpetuate more women in computer science!

http://news.morningstar.com/all/market-wired/MWR1056014/the-anita-borg-institute-launches-co-branded-lean-in-circles-with-curriculum-for-women-pursuing-technology-careers.aspx

Random Thoughts from a Naive International Traveler

I may be embarking once again on the ITSO System z World Tour this fall. As I am starting to prepare for that, I was reminded of the tips, warnings, and general information given to me by various sources when I went last year.

I found out about that trip last year about 2 weeks before I left so plans had to be made very quickly. First, there were all the logistics: getting the plane tickets, hotel rooms, figuring out how to get from the airports to the hotel, calling AmEx twice to ensure I would get a gluten free meal on the plane because it wasn’t listed on my itinerary the first time, changing the hotel in one location when I should have selected “the other one,” figuring out the currency exchange, and getting a visa for China.

So, let’s step back in time to how I felt at this same time last year:

******************

I have NEVER needed a visa before and it deserves a bit of explanation. I had NO IDEA what the process entailed and was pretty stressed just thinking about it. I learned that IBM uses a service which will do it all for you once you send them the information and give them your AmEx number. That seemed easy enough until I discovered that the minimum required time to get a visa to China is 7-10 business days and I was leaving in 10 business days. FORTUNATELY, I also learned that if you pay them extra, they will expedite the process and you can turn it around in about 4 days! Whew.

First, you need a passport, new passport pictures, an application form filled out precisely that lists everything except your mother’s maiden name, a letter from the destination saying that they really do want you to come, and a letter from the manager sending you saying that they really do want you to go!

Herein was a problem. The letter from the manager sending you needed to be an ORIGINAL. Apparently, the assumption is that you must work in all one location! I’m in Rochester. He was in Poughkeepsie. It was Friday and he was out. I needed it by Monday. Fortunately, a manager in his line management is in Rochester and signed it for me even though he was WFH (we just met on a street corner along North Broadway)! Whew (again). Everything got sent off Monday morning from the IBM mail room via UPS overnight. (It honestly gave me the willies putting my passport in an envelope and handing it over to the mail room).

I camped on the UPS tracking number. The package arrived in Chicago Tuesday morning. Exactly one hour later, I had a phone call. “Mrs. Arndt, we received your application this morning and there’s a problem. The letter from China needs to have the IBM China seal stamped on it.”

Huh? There’s an IBM China seal? If I had been in a better mood, I might have asked if that seal could balance a ball on its nose, but you just don’t mess with those passport and visa people! Unbelievably, the person at IBM China that had originally sent the letter (via email as a pdf) was on sametime even though it was the middle of the night there. “Could you please send me a new pdf with the IBM China seal stamped on it?” I asked.

The next morning, I had a new pdf with a round circle “stamped” on it. It was in Chinese letters so I just trusted that it was what I needed and sent it off. This was now Wednesday, ten actual days and eight business days before my flight. Obviously, the story turns out well because I’m sitting in the airport right now, but let’s just say there was “just a little” stress involved in all of this process and I almost kissed the UPS guy when he handed me my package on Friday morning.

Other interesting travel tips that were given to me by co-workers, a friend who used to live in Japan, and a physician at the “Travel Clinic” that I had to visit before they’d give me a Hepatitis A shot:

• In Japan, your AmEx card will likely not work.
• In Japan, most of your other cards won’t work, either.
• In Japan, don’t assume you’ll be able to find an ATM.
• In Japan, the concept of gluten-free doesn’t exist because they apparently don’t have much Celiac disease there.
• You probably will not be able to get Chinese currency outside of China, but attempt to exchange cash into the other currencies before you go.
• You’ll need to take a taxi from the airport in China to your hotel. Be sure to email the hotel beforehand to get the address in Chinese to give to the taxi driver.
• In Japan, you’ll have to take a bus from the airport to the hotel. Good luck!
• In China, the rice will often be mixed with barley. Good luck! (Barley has gluten.)
• Don’t drink the water (this should be fairly obvious), but the instructions went more like this: Don’t drink anything that isn’t in a bottle that you haven’t opened yourself unless it’s hot. Don’t drink fountain pop even if it’s at an “American” establishment such as McDonald’s. Don’t assume a carton of milk has been pasteurized. Don’t use any ice.
• Don’t eat anything uncooked (including vegetables).
• Don’t eat any food that was once hot that has now been allowed to cool.
• Don’t eat any fruit unless it has a thick peeling (such as an orange or a banana) and you have peeled it yourself.
• If you wake up and there’s a bat in your room, go immediately to a large hospital.

I went shopping. My suitcase is packed with about 40 gluten free granola bars, Jif “To-go” peanut butter, trail mix, dry rice noodle soup packets, and Nutella. I bought some gluten free “Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough” bars. I hungrily opened one thinking it would be SUCH a treat! It was a weird brownish color. I took a bite. It was chewy. I chewed some more. I took a second bite. It was REALLY chewy. I just don’t recall cookie dough having that texture and it had a weird taste that resembled fruit cake! I looked at the ingredients. The second ingredient was dates…I have an inside seat on the plane…

And the journey begins…

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At least this year, I have this blog post to reread to remember all those tips!

Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing — next week!

I’m excited to say that I’m going to the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing next week in Minneapolis AND I am volunteering to be a blogger.  So, I had to set up this external blog which I may just end up using more often than my internal one.  We’ll see. 😉

I’ve never been to the GHC conference before. Since I’ve been at IBM for over 25 years now, I’ll be hanging out in the technical sessions for “mid-career” women.

You can find out more about me by going to the “About” page of this blog or by viewing my linkedin profile: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/karla-arndt/21/4a1/a4b

More next week!

And, as always, my thoughts, comments, and opinions are my own, not those of my employer.