Harassment & unfair treatment of women in IT - Can we change the behavior and culture?
As a woman, have you experience harassment or discrimination on the job? It seems that it is as prevalent as ever…How can we unlearn all of the perceptions and discriminations that we learn as we grow up? These are the questions I am pondering as I’m reading a New York Times article on the research published by the Center for Work-Life Policy, a nonprofit organization that studies women and work.
Based on data from 2,493 workers (1,493 women and 1,000 men) polled from March 2006 through October 2007 and hundreds more interviewed in focus groups, the report paints a portrait of a macho culture where women are very much outsiders, and where those who do enter are likely to eventually leave.
According to the study, women at the age of 35-40 leave their tech jobs…some completely drop out, and some leave for “softer” job…due to the non supportive and hostile work environments.
The 147-page report is filled with tales of sexual harassment (63 percent of women say they experienced harassment on the job); and dismissive attitudes of male colleagues (53 percent said in order to succeed in their careers they had to “act like a man”); and a lack of mentors (51 percent of engineers say they lack one); and hours that suit men with wives at home but not working mothers (41 percent of technology workers says they need to be available “24/7”).
How much more evidence can we get to finally prove that things need to change?
Here are two stories of two different women….
Continue Reading “Harassment & unfair treatment of women in IT - Can we change the behavior and culture?”
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What is SEO copywriting? (Part 2 of 2)
Last week, I defined SEO copywriting. Here are some tips to help you ensure that your SEO copy is good.
To make the Google cut, your copy needs to be:
- Relevant: To the topic, to your customers, to the search engine. Google wants to see that you are actually writing about what you say you are writing about, so if you list “travel to Mexico” as a keyword for your page, make sure that travel to Mexico is a theme or idea you discuss on that particular page.
Trust me, Google will know if you are being tricky – it won’t work and you and your site will be penalized.
- Updated: If the last time you revised your web page or site was 2004, it’s not new or up-to-date. Google likes recency. And that’s the beauty of the online medium – it can be added to or updated almost instantly and constantly.
News, information, tips, new ideas – whatever you have to say, you can say it. Just make sure you keep your search engine ranking goals in mind at all times.
- More quality than quantity: Good SEO copy is not about making sure that your page or article has XX number of words or XX% of keywords. (Though you will meet tons of people who give you all sorts of percentages and density numbers.)
It’s about using the words you know you need to have in a way that is consistent, relevant, well-written and logical. It’s about following through – focusing on what you are telling Google through your meta tags that you’re going to focus on.
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Outlook plug-in to help you organize your flooded inbox
The solution of “How do I manage my Email?” seems to be on everyone’s to do list. I recently shared my tips on how to manage your inbox, save time, and respond in a timely manner and David Allan’s tips on getting email under control.
Xobni has been trying to solve the flooded Inbox issue with their Outlook plug-in. They have been in private beta for a while and have recently released their public beta version that can be downloaded for free.
The feature set that they offer is impressive. Watch their demo video below:
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Virtually Attend the 2008 IA (Information Architechture) Summit
Those of us who focus on the user experience try to stay up to date with the latest trends in information architecture, but many of us weren’t able to hop down to Miami in April to attend the 2008 IA Summit. Fear not, fellow IAers. Maybe it’s too late to get that Miami tan, but you can still catch up on the conference from your home computer and chime in at the next IA cocktail party.
The IA Summit’s website does an excellent job laying out the different sessions. You can search:
While many post-conference sites agree to share the slides with non-attendees, the IA Summit is kind enough to share videos of several of the slideshows accompanied by audio from the actual event.
| Here’s an image of slide from James Robertson’s presentation What do innovative intranets look like? The player on the conference website allows you to paginate to a particular slide and jump to that section of the audio as well. Some presentations are even available for download. |  |
The conference boasts a wide range of topics such as:
- Creating career paths for UX professionals
- How to be a user experience team of one
- Inspiration from the edge: New patterns for interface design
Another great resource is Boxes and Arrows, which recently posted a nice summary of Day 1 at the conference with embedded audio for each one. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before summaries of the subsequent days are there as well.
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What is SEO copywriting? (Part 1 of 2)
Everyone wants great search engine rankings, but most still don’t understand how to get there. (And there are those who think they know and don’t want to listen to anyone else…but that’s a whole other story.)
For the rest of us who always want to learn more, when it comes to natural or organic search engine rankings (as opposed to the kind you pay for, like pay per click), there are a number of issues to consider.
Back in the day, SEO (search engine optimization) copywriting wasn’t something most businesses even knew they were looking for. But all that has changed, and understandably so – these days, who isn’t trying to crack the Google code and catapult themselves and their business to the top of the search engine pages??
Most people do not (please don’t be offended) know how to write good, effective SEO copy – they just don’t. Good SEO copy needs to “speak” to two audiences – the target market who ultimately needs to make a buying decision AND the search engines. Both need to be spoken to within the same copy. And that same copy needs to do its job so well that both groups think that that copy is directed right at them.
A tall order, huh?
Learn more specifically what you need to know about good SEO writing for your website and other online marketing in my next blog entry.
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