Looking for some techie women

Well... I would recommend that you actually dig up some resources and affiliations in the women's investment and start-up sector. Astia.org is holding a conference next month that my friend Lynn Brewer is doing the keynote for (and she lives here in Seattle.) Lynn is known for blowing the whistle at Enron(www.lynnbrewer.info).

Also on the gal's list - I would reach out to the editorial staff of blogher.org, there are a lot of friendly and bright ladies there. There are also thousands of helpful readers in that audience. If you want some other recommendations- you could also talk with Heather Gray (http://www.linkedin.com/in/heathergray). She knows the online space pretty well and did projects like Monster.com and Jobster.com.

In any case, while I understand the idea of keeping women involved in helping women earn more... isn't it a bit of a skewed methodolgy thinking that men/women don't know how to train/market/recruit each other?

Are you saying that you dont trust men?

Mikelann, my web mistress, Emma McCreary, is a member of Biznik (look in the Portland Oregon listings), and she's a wiz with all things internet related. And she's partnered with a back-end developer, also a woman, Emily Dickinson (yeah, she knows her name is rather famous...) You can find their contact information here: http://www.selfemployedcreatives.org/web.htm

Hey Fellas ~ please don't be offended. There are studies that show that boys/girls, men/women react to electronic everything differently.

Forrester Research has recently released a study about this very topic, "What Women And Men Want — Online" [http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,42324,00.html]. Although this report probably does not promote the idea of women working primarily with women in developing web offerings, one would think that it'd better the odds of creating an appropriate final product by using resources that intimately understand the needs and wants of the target market. I mean, if I were working on creating a web offering geared toward snow boarders, you can bet I'd prefer to work with programmers and designers and copywriters who have experience snow boarding. It just makes sense as they know the challenges, highs, lows, in and outs, and the nuances of the snow boarding culture.

It's just one way of skinning a cat when you have a fixed budget. Although I don't have quotable, hard-core, evidence, it seems to me that hiring people on your team who come from the area to which you intend to market your product/service saves time and money--provided they have the level of skill sets you need to do a great job.

As an entrepreneur you're always trying to make your money and time work harder for you, rather than the other way around, and being smart about who you hire to work for you is a big assist.

Does that mean you don't hire a man for this kind of job? Depends on the person hiring I suppose. Me, I'd weigh the pros and cons of who's available, and in my budget parameters, and whoever weighs the most in the pros arena would most likely win.

Just my 2 cents...

A.

even though I'm a guy, I may have some useful input. I have an online business community- paid membership- The Business Oasis, that seems to have shown up as 90%+ women, and is VERY active and engaged. I could use to learn how to get more men engaged on it, but in the meantime, what we're doing is working very well for women.

I have one woman in the community, who's been involved in online-community building for years tell me just today: "You could teach this to people who do this [build online communities] for a living- you've got something really going on here."

I'd be happy to have a chat with you if that would be helpful. The technology I'm using is very simple, and either low-cost or free (open source).

shae allen here on biznik might be a good person to talk to..want me to send an intro to you?

Hi Mikelann,

Know I'm jumping in here late but wanted to add my two cents to this and point out that women and men DO interact differently to marketing messages - both online and in print. Barry is right, blogher.org is a great place to network and build up awareness for your product. You might also check out startupprincess.com - they routinely do features on women like yourself who are in business which would be helpful in building your brand and exposing you to a lot of new and interesting women business owners.

For all you men...I just want to point out that anyone, male or female, can tackle this project depending on their skill level. However, I think what Mikelann is looking for is an intuitive understanding of what it's like to be a woman in today's business world and trying to make a living. If you haven't lived through the experience of being a woman and faced the issues she's addressing "earning your worth" it's difficult to create a message that will speak authentically.

Hey Mikelann, I'm sending you a message right now. :)

methinks mistress valterra would benefit greatly in keeping her business local...n lookie here^! my fav web diva hailing from seattle upper east side has made a splash here already! what's up Shae? Hope you kids can play nice now.

i'm out..

just wanna c u all blossom, Justin