Saturday 17 December 2022

Bit of light reading ahead for the holidays! 😁

I’ve recently joined the Australian Institute of Company Directors and will undertake the Foundations of Directorship course in April.



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Friday 2 December 2022

2022 Recap

fist bump
Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash 

The first thing to note is - the New Challenge was (a) successful and (b) completed. 

At the start of this year I set out to test myself. I lacked some confidence and was overly focussed on my perceived "gaps" in knowledge and what I'd missed. It took a very short amount of time to work out those thoughts were misguided. Others knew this too and I was rapidly promoted, twice, in a matter of months. 

In the last couple of months I embarked on a full application process for the vacant Head of IT role, which included screening more than 100 people over several rounds. I made it to the final two but ultimately lost out to another candidate who is currently a CIO. Given my application was realistic and not overly aspirational as I've done similar roles previously and run a business, I've chosen to move on to find a role at the right level for me. 

I’ve recently joined the Australian Institute of Company Directors and will undertake the Foundations of Directorship course in April, and I’m also planning to start an MBA in 2023. While I’ve run a business and also bought/sold a startup and I have a lot of experience, this is an opportunity for me to formalise some of that experience.


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Thursday 24 November 2022

This quote...

This quote comes up in my memories every year. I wish I could remember it better the other 364 days... 



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Friday 28 October 2022

NetThing 2022


This week I attended NetThing 2022, the Australian Internet Governance Forum, an event I've attended several times before and always get a lot out of.

From the About page:

NetThing is Australia’s Internet Governance Forum, an annual event for the discussion of public policy issues pertaining to the internet in Australia. It is a multidisciplinary community, forged by the common will to increase understanding of Internet related issues but, most importantly, increase understanding of a diverse range of stakeholders’ views on these issues.

NetThing aims to provide a diverse and inclusive platform for the exploration of Australian technology policy issues, to mobilise Australians to collaborate on solutions, and to connect Australia to the regional and global Internet Governance Forums.

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Tuesday 18 October 2022

Women in the Workplace 2022 report


Via http://leanin.org/wiw

Women in the Workplace 2022: report shows leadership disparity.

Today, Lean In released the 8th annual #WomenInTheWorkplace report, the largest study of its kind, and a joint effort with McKinsey & Company. This year’s report makes it very clear: We’re in the midst of a “Great Breakup.”

Women are demanding more from work, and they’re leaving their companies in unprecedented numbers to get it. Women leaders are switching jobs at the highest rate we’ve ever seen—and at a higher rate than men in leadership. The reasons women leaders are switching jobs are telling.

There are three reasons driving #TheGreatBreakup2022:

1. Women leaders are ambitious, but they experience microaggressions that signal that it will be harder for them to advance.

2. Women leaders are overworked and under-recognized—they're doing more to support employees and foster inclusion, but this important work is going mostly unrewarded.

3. Women leaders want to work for companies that are committed to flexibility, employee well-being, and #DEI.

If companies don’t take action, they’re at risk of losing their women leaders—and this has serious implications. To learn more about what’s driving the Great Breakup: http://leanin.org/wiw #WomenInTheWorkplace2022

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Thursday 13 October 2022

Tech suffers from lack of humanities, says Mozilla head

This article comes up in my memories every year, and is as relevant today as it was 4 years ago, and also the last 20 years. It's the primary reason I decided to study a humanities degree, to add to my STEM skillset, a decision I've never regretted.  

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/12/tech-humanities-misinformation-philosophy-psychology-graduates-mozilla-head-mitchell-baker

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Thursday 6 October 2022

Atlassian targets tree-changers in flexible working recruitment drive


My first focus reading this was all about Scott Farquhar of Atlassian working from a motorhome last year and I was already mentally dusting off my van cover - but actually the interesting line is this:

“We’re already at record low unemployment, so there’s not people sitting there, twiddling their thumbs, waiting to join the tech industry. We’re going to have to retrain people from other industries to do that.”

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Friday 23 September 2022

Brooks Law

A great way to demonstrate how lines of communication become more complicated when teams get larger.



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Friday 16 September 2022

3 ways women can reach the C-suite even though research shows the odds are against them


Not only is the percentage of women in leadership extremely low, but the path to reaching the C-suite decreases significantly after the first 10 years of a woman’s career. Here’s how to break that glass ceiling.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90782678/3-ways-women-can-reach-the-c-suite-even-though-research-shows-the-odds-are-against-them

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Friday 15 July 2022

How to increase gender diversity in tech


Improving gender diversity in the tech sector isn’t just about opening up more job ads.

https://financy.com.au/how-to-increase-gender-diversity-in-tech/

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Wednesday 29 June 2022

A New Challenge - part 2

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash 

Today marks 2 months since I started my job so it's a good time to recap to see how things have measured up.

First up - the people I work with are 100% the nicest workplace of people I've ever been in. I can't even explain the multitude of ways they're the most pleasant and caring group of people. Even when there's a disconnect, no bad words are said. Complete strangers will check in just to see how I am. Our household came down with Covid recently which resulted in 2 weeks of chaos and it was no problem at all; people were proactively getting in touch to see how I was and discuss leave options because I hadn't been there long enough to have much. Amazing!

I've also discovered some things about myself and my capabilities in the last 2 months, which of course is part of the journey and part of this experiment.

1. I have a "GenX" mindset, which doesn't truly reflect workplaces today. I was totally focussed on hours and making sure I did more than that every single day, because that's what I'd always done, at least before I started my own business. But these days the expectation is to get the job done, whenever and wherever. It's been an adjustment.

2. I'm older than a lot of people I work with. I remember when I was 20-something, thinking people my age were ancient. Now I don't feel ancient at all, but I suspect some of them might think I am! Happily a benefit of being this age is it doesn't bother me in the slightest!

3. It took about 2 weeks to realise my confidence issue was unfounded. (Now I get to live with my husband's told-you-so-ish-ness but actually he was right). It's been really good for me to realise that not only haven't I lost any real skills, but running my own business and gaining a degree and raising kids means I've actually got even more than I used to.

4. Unfortunately, I'm not getting to use them all. I'm doing a role that is 2 levels below what I was last doing as an employee and… I'm already a bit bored. The hierarchy is not configured very well, the workflow and processes aren't well defined and it's quite a reactive environment. The problem is, I prefer proactive, and my previous experience means I can see what needs to be done but I'm not in a position to be able to do much about it.

On the one hand it's easy to say "just chill, ease back in, do your job and have plenty of time to do other things, get that work/life balance you've never really had". Sounds great! But on the other hand - yawn.

At some point I'm going to need to make a decision - either slow down into an easy work/life balance with really nice people, or accept boredom is just not me and never will be.

 

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Friday 27 May 2022

The Impact of Digital Technologies


My degree in a nutshell.

"Technologies can help make our world fairer, more peaceful, and more just. Digital advances can support and accelerate achievement of each of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals – from ending extreme poverty to reducing maternal and infant mortality, promoting sustainable farming and decent work, and achieving universal literacy. But technologies can also threaten privacy, erode security and fuel inequality. They have implications for human rights and human agency. Like generations before, we – governments, businesses and individuals – have a choice to make in how we harness and manage new technologies."

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Friday 8 April 2022

A New Challenge

Photo by Peter Conlan on Unsplash
Last month was interesting. I got a job. 

I know this happens to a lot of people every day, but I've been self-employed for 15 years so for me it's kind of a big deal.

For the last few years I've been hearing that the corporate world is keen to recruit 45+ women with tech management backgrounds. I'm 45+ and I have a corporate tech management background. I also have a more recent business owner and business management background, and a current relevant degree. And now my kids are teens, my time is a bit more flexible. On paper it seems I'm exactly what they're looking for. I was interested!

It's not easy though.

LinkedIn is daunting if you haven't used it much. (An acquaintance who had to jobsearch for the first time in years after a Covid redundancy described it as "soul destroying" and they're not wrong.) I didn't really know what to call myself any more. When you run your own business you wear ALL the hats so there were about a dozen job titles I probably could have done pretty easily, but I didn't want to do just one thing when I had experience in many. Then there were bunches of job titles that didn't even exist last time I was a corporate employee. As a business owner and ex-IT Manager I could probably run somebody else's organisation or department without too much trouble, but I felt weighed down by the "15 years out of corporate" thing. It was hard to know where to pitch. I'm not a fan of LinkedIn but I waded in and spent some time looking around.

I saw a job that looked interesting so I updated my old CV and applied. No response. I saw another job and applied. Nothing for a couple of weeks, and then a recruiter got in touch. Her first words were "You're not right for this job but I don't know what you are, there's too much in your CV". Alrighty.

She suggested I do a "How to get the most out of LinkedIn" course so I did. I learned I should "personalise" LinkedIn, "diversify my options" and "post new content". I didn't understand this - what's the point of talking about my family and love of travel and sport and coffee and wine, and posting random quotes purely to "have content" on a professional networking platform? It's not Facebook. Nobody's going to hire me because I say I like coffee. Neverthless, I updated my CV.

I decided to address my qualifications. When you're self-employed you don't spend a lot of time/money picking up CV-stuffers. I had a bunch of certifications from years of multinational companies but they were out of date, and I had my degree. But this makes things challenging when you realise that recruitment today relies on algorithms and keywords in your CV before anybody ever considers actually talking to you. 

I signed up to get new project management qualifications. I figured even if I didn't want to be a full-time project manager again, it would be useful to refresh myself with modern techniques and processes and formalise what I already knew, and if nothing else I could use the new skills to finetune my own business processes. 

It was March 2020 and Covid-19 was taking hold. There was speculation if the course would go ahead and at the last minute they agreed it could as long as we all sat far apart and sprayed everything with disinfectant. On the last day I wandered down Collins Street with new shiny certifications in hand. The city was virtually empty. It reminded me of those old westerns with the big dust balls rolling down the main street. Totally surreal. The train was almost empty and people were looking furtively at anybody who got too close. It was nervewracking. The next day, Melbourne went into the first lockdown and that course didn't run again for months so I guess that was lucky.

Melbourne during lockdown - Michael J Fromholtz, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

My business helps small business with online. Lots of small business needed to suddenly get online or improve what they had. There were no corporate roles being listed. It was easy to keep doing what I'd been doing, so I did.

In 2021 there was an article in the Fin Review where the CEO of a large organisation was talking about a program to help get tech women back into corporate tech roles. I reached out and was surprised when the CEO replied personally and introduced me to HR. Eventually I received an email inviting me to fill out a form - to apply for a customer service role. I've never worked in a customer service role in my life. It didn't seem very "tech" or a very practical use of my skills. 

The experience was deflating. It was easier to keep doing what I'd been doing, so I did. But it was getting harder. Small business was either saving their money, or expecting the world for very little, and there was a lot of stress.

By the end of 2021 I was burnt out. The challenges of the pandemic on small business were overwhelming, including on my own. I decided to take January off and chill out, and think about what my next steps might be. 

I knew my biggest challenge - confidence. My husband has told me for years I'm underselling myself but I still had that mind niggle. This is weird and hard to explain because I run my own business and I'm confident when dealing with clients and suppliers and technical resources. I'm confident in my knowledge of technology and how best to apply and deliver it, and how best to communicate it. I'm confident that I know what I'm talking about because I've done this successfully for years, and others who do what I do sometimes ask for advice. I'm confident in all the skills and knowledge I built while studying for my degree, and volunteering in a global open source software project. I'm confident that when I used to work in global IT, I was pretty good at it.

But the thought of going back was somehow different. IT continually changes in ways a lot of other industries don't, and 15 years is a long time. I was quite anxious about what I no longer knew, and very conscious that both ageism and sexism were things even if nobody openly admitted it.

Even though I've been out of global IT specifically, my business is still in tech and I'll just go ahead and say it - tech is and always has been a bloke-fest. Most of the time I've loved working in tech and #MeToo has helped improve some things, but the exceptions really stand out. I'm not sure of the percentages in 2022, but in the 2000s women made up less than 10% of the IT industry. Logically, this can't possibly be due to lack of ability. Logically also, some of that 10% are the ones industry are now keen to re-recruit. 

Even though logically you KNOW nobody can possibly know all of it, part of you subconsciously thinks you don't know enough. Part of you believes that being out means you've lost some of what you had, even if you almost certainly haven't. My brother tells me it's called imposter syndrome and it's really common.

At 45+ after a gap, it can be confronting to put yourself out there in an environment like LinkedIn, to deal with recruiters who are often younger and don't necessarily understand your particular demographic. It's not obvious that all recruiters understand that women do CVs differently to men, or that hiring gender bias is a thing, particularly in STEM. Then if you actually get through to an interview for a tech role, you'll almost certainly face an all-male panel, many of whom are younger than you (but more "recent"). It's tough.

If there's one positive to take out of the global pandemic, it's the successful introduction of remote and hybrid workplaces. One of the main reasons I left corporate IT and started my own business was flexibility. Things were relatively simple to manage before I had a family, and after that much harder. IT was server-room and office-based and required a lot of hours outside of normal business hours. It was not geared to working mothers. Childcare only covered business hours, my husband also worked long hours and we had no family close by who could help. I got the hours done but I was exhausted, and one day I was offered a promotion which meant more hours and I had to make a choice. 

Now, everyone knows how to Zoom and it's acceptable and productive to meet and work that way. Flexibility is one reason I decided to take another look at my old career. Even though we don't need to juggle childcare any more, teenagers have different needs and flexibility means we can both juggle that a lot better than we once could.

In February I asked a couple of people for help with my CV. We took out the coffee nonsense and updated the lingo to 2022-corporate-ese. Turns out I had plenty of experience but not the right words to trigger the algorithms, and I'd left out some stuff I didn't think was as important as it actually was. 

The next 3 jobs I applied for, I got 3 interviews almost immediately. That helped enormously with confidence. And here I am with a new job.

I'm approaching this whole experience with an open mind, as I've always tried to approach new situations. I know it will be challenging. I've been able to set my own hours for years now and fit in family, a degree and volunteering as well, so I'm pretty good at multitasking and getting things done. But part of my brain still remembers how physically and mentally hard being a full-time IT employee was before I left, and I've had to talk myself out of some genuine deep-seated apprehension about giving up my fully flexible life.

The main reason I want to give this another go is to test myself - find out what I can do and know, see how much is new and what hasn't changed at all, work out how to apply everything I've learnt running my own business in new ways, build some confidence, gain perspective, and boost my super up a bit. I don't want to hit retirement and wonder "what if?" or as a friend said "die wondering". If the list of pros/cons leans positive, great. If not, that's fine too. Wish me luck. 😁

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Tuesday 1 March 2022

Read: One-third of professional women abused online


One-third of professional women abused online for sex, looks or motherhood

"...a third of Australian working women with an online presence had been targeted by gendered abuse. For some, the impact was so great it changed the course of their career. Nearly a quarter said gendered abuse had made them reluctant to take a public-facing leadership position."

https://www.theage.com.au/national/one-third-of-professional-women-abused-online-for-sex-looks-or-motherhood-20220228-p5a07o.html

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Friday 28 January 2022

Read: The Global State of Digital 2022


Read: The Global State of Digital 2022 by Hootsuite 

https://www.hootsuite.com/resources/digital-trends

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