Mobile Gmail, "Thingies" & Girl Geeks

July 28, 2011 by 1 Comment

The 2nd Girls Geek Dinner last Tuesday at the Barley Works in Waterloo was another fantastic evening of sharing stories and meeting fellow Girl Geeks.  Our group included ladies finishing off their degrees to industry experts.  We range from engineers to web designers, to social marketing experts and IT professionals.

Our speaker for the evening was Joanne McKinley from Google.  Joanne has worked on the Mobile Gmail application for several years.  She discussed the history, challenges and lessons learned from developing an application that most of us use on a daily basis.   Joanne took some of us on a walk down memory lane, and for others it was a great history lesson.  It was fascinating to see (and remember) the different versions of Mobile Gmail.  It is amazing to see how far mobile technology has come in such a short time.

A huge shout out to Google for providing wine glasses and massage “thingies” for the draw.  Thanks to Barley Works for providing the room and great service.

Girl Geeks dinner is the brain child of Cate Huston, Pj Lowe, and Michelle Kostya.  For us “Geek” Girls, we are always the minority in our industry.  Cate, PJ and Michelle have provided us with an opportunity to hang out in an estrogen dominant environment.  Girls communicate differently than our male counter parts and it is nice to be able to share ideas with other women in a relaxed and supportive atmosphere.

I and the other Girl Geeks will be looking forward to our next gathering in the near future.

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First Event: Ruth Morton on Cloud Computing, May 24th

May 12, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Ruth Morton — Technology Advisor — Microsoft Canada

Ruth Morton is a Technology Advisor for Microsoft Canada. Based in Mississauga, Ontario, Ruth spends her time connecting with IT professional across the country. She is the host for the AlignIT IT Manager Podcast Series(www.microsoft.ca/itpodcast) and writes on the Canadian IT Manager blog (blogs.technet.com/cdnitmanagers).

Before joining Microsoft, Ruth worked as an IT professional for over 12 years implementing enterprise technologies and formulating IT strategies for organizations in Canada, Europe and the US.

Ruth has a passion for IT and connecting with people. In her role at Microsoft, she gets to combine these passions to connect IT professionals to each other and to technical innovations from Microsoft.

In her work with Microsoft, Ruth travels across Canada building relationships with IT managers and professionals, and talking about the latest in technology. At our inaugural event, Ruth will share some of her inspiring journey from artsy to techie and reveal how she manages to stay up to date and current without tripping over her twin toddlers at home. She’ll also give us the low down on the latest buzz phrase – “cloud computing”  – what’s real, what’s not, and what it all means. It’ll be a fun, interactive session, so come armed with questions and get ready for some discussion.

Register for your ticket here.

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