My biggest frustration with blogging is definitely the way that ideas and issues raised in blogs seem to disappear from everyone's radar within days. Blogs encourage a "topic du jour" approach to the world. Once the discussion scrolls off the main page, it might as well never have happened. The swarm of readers is off in search of the newest idea high.
I've noticed this in myself--blogs are great for people like me with short attention spans, people who like starting things more than they like finishing them. Read, write, move on. There's too much to see, too much to think about, to stay focused on one thread for too long.
What got me thinking about this was my attempt this weekend to sit down and brainstorm a social software presentation for ETCon '04. And while I know it's probably not the right direction to go in terms of (a) getting something accepted, or (b) capturing the hearts and minds of the hard-core geek audience, I keep wanting to write something about the "female problem."
Last year's ETCon was an amazing example of how little input from women there is in the development of emerging technologies--even in the area where you might think that input would be particularly helpful, namely "social software." And I wrote about that. Here, and here In fact, the second one was one of most-commented-on posts I've written. Everyone was interested, everyone was concerned. For about a week. Then, so far as I could tell, it pretty much went back to business as usual.
In fact, when I started to write this post, I was originally going to call it "women and social software - why should we care?" Then I realized I'd already written a post called "why should we care?," back when I was talking about the book Unlocking the Clubhouse. Which is what made me wonder if there was any point at all in writing about this again.
In the end, despite the impermanence and apparent difficulty of effecting change through this medium, I decided there was a point. Kevin Werbach, for example, invited me to speak at SuperNova, in part because of those posts. I need to remember that even little waves lapping at the rock can effect change over time. So consider this one more in a series of attempts to erode existing gender imbalances. Eventually, the message may get through to the architects of new social software environments that systems developed only by hard-core geeks aren't likely to appeal to an audience much wider than those same geeks.
A serious question: Where is it that these issues are receiving respectful, sustained discussion? I'm not sure it's anywhere, frankly.
In which case, blogs are as good a venue as any. Stuff does drop off the immediate radar, true, but because blogs are imperfectly connected, there's a sort of sparkle effect -- a post here, a post there, a post someplace else, and after a while it's hard *not* to have reached a lot of people at least once, and likely more than once.
So don't run your efforts down, is what I'm saying. I think you've done more good than you know.
I agree with the disappointment about the short term discussions in weblogging, that sparkle effect as Dorothea aptly named it. Perhaps weblogging is the start for ideas fed on by discussion, and then it's up to us to nurture the discussion in some other medium, at conferences or in more permanent articles and books.
As for the issue of gender and technology, I think there's been more impact than is immediately apparant. I have a feeling more than one person will be aware of this issue next time they have a get together, conference or otherwise.
But times still aren't changing, true. I started breaking into the tech discussions almost three years ago, the only women, and I'm usually still the only woman. And I don't know what to do to make this change.
Good luck with the presentation idea for Etcon -- this is probably a step in the right direction for breaking the barriers.
It's actually only now that I'm teaching that I'm realising just how rare I am: almost all my students are men. Thank god I'm there, at least the few women present have a role model of sorts. Until now I've manage to pretend that it's not that unequal in "soft" techie subjects like digital art and writing.
Of course almost all the literature professors are men, too. And if you're in business class on a domestic flight in the morning or afternoon (meeting flights, you know) you're bound to be the only woman there, and that's in liberated equal rights Norway. It's not even just in technology we have this imbalance.
Keep licking away at those rocks. We'll get there. It's just going to take a lot of time.
I agree that it is very rare to find a long-term and deep discussion of any particular topic happening across blogs. This follows my general belief that blogs provide an illusion of productivity while requiring a relatively low amount of thinking. That is, most (but not all) blogs posts (like this comment) are off-the-top-of-my-head, stream-of-consciousness affairs, and not the deep thinking that happens in many other kinds of work. Blogs are useful, but they need to occur within a larger intellectual context for each individual.
The way around this, of course, is to start a blog (with comments enabled) on a particular topic of interest. That would provide the necessary focus point for the topic. The Internet Topic Exchange (http://topicexchange.com/) might also provide a solution, at least for people willing to ump through Trackback's hoops.
As for the women in technology issue, I would just add my own data point, in that I teach requirements analysis and design of web sites, and approximately half of my classes are usually women. I also know that there are several woman instructors teaching at McGill in IT, from analysis to programming to Cisco certification, not to mention in other traditionally male-dominated fields. Probably not enough, but I would not consider them 'rare.'
Still, I am always interested in learning more about this subject because (a) my experience is probably not typical, and (b) I know that I can benefit from the POV and experiences of others.
The interaction over a post might be short-lived, but I think a good post lingers. Your original "why should we care?" post is one of the reasons I keep returning to see what else you have to say.
This is one of the primary reasons why I do not write something every day. I want to see what people have to say about a given topic, which may take a while. When a discussion settles down, or does not spark into much of a fire at all, then I am more apt to post in shorter intervals.
I also admire your continued resolve in trying to bring the gender issue to light and improving it; being a fellow participant in the RIT community I see firsthand what you speak of.
You said "My biggest frustration with blogging is definitely the way that ideas and issues raised in blogs seem to disappear from everyone�s radar within days."
It depend of your blogging motivations, I think. Personaly, I blog first for myself to construct sens with the echo of what I wrote. Feedbacks from someone help, but the main thing is "what I think just after I red" what I have written...
"I�ve noticed this in myself�blogs are great for people like me with short attention spans, people who like starting things more than they like finishing them." About that, what I have to say is �in education, we dont know when something we said, something we wrote will do effects... It could be in the following minutes, the day, the month, the year after and time is not an issue, really ! It give something anyway... So, I am not agree with this position you took. Be patient: "les paroles s'envolent, les �crits restent...
"There�s too much to see, too much to think about, to stay focused on one thread for too long."
That's the beauty of the engine: we feel the "vertigo power" to blog !
"I need to remember that even little waves lapping at the rock can effect change over time." I need to, Liz ! Thanks a lot for that post...
Liz, we need to have more people blogging about gender and tech - don't give up! There are not enough of us doing this (believe me, I have been looking). I will stick to my favourite blog saying - "If you blog it, they will come" - they will read, and eventually people will learn. "Why should we care?" because we need to "erode existing gender imbalances". Keep on bloggin!
I've often wondered how and if this could be improved... there are obvious solutions like categories (which I do find valuable), better archiving and structure etc. but they seem to be symptom curers rather than looking at the root issue.
Perhaps much more specific blogging (people writing about very specialist areas) will evolve as the blogging universe grows? Perhaps that'll give a little more depth & permanence. Although having said that, there's plenty more penance and depth in weblogging discussions and issues than in plenty of other contexts!!!
Perhaps we're all early adopters, perhaps we're the kinda people who do jump form one thing to another. Perhaps when my dad finally gets round to this he'll stay a bit more on topic, maybe...
(also on my weblog: http://radio.weblogs.com/0120501/2003/09/22.html#a372)
Liz, I wonder if the feeling of "impernanence" is generated by the rhetorical form of weblogs or by the interests and attention given to topics by the weblogger?
A good example: Lockergnome's RSS Resource (http://rss.lockergnome.com) which is as good a source as any for all things RSS....but I wouldn't go there to learn about Tivo. For that I would go to Matt Haughey's PVRblog (http://www.pvrblog.com), which covers things related to personal video recorders.
Suppose you were to write a "women & technology" weblog that focused primarily (if not exclusively) on that topic? I doubt the discussion would cease because the discussion would never "scroll off the main page" -- it *is* the main page.
Generalized publications attract a general audience...and the more general the audience, the less likely that audience is to latch onto any one topic for a protracted period of time.
However, if you tailor your weblog to a particular audience or topic, you are likely to be more successful in overcoming the impermanence of the generalist weblog.
The one thing I certainly miss from livejournal.com is threaded comments. Notifications are automatically sent both to the original poster and to the comment being responded to (if the commenter supplied an e-mail address). This makes it easier to keep a discussion going.