Girl Geek Dinners Ottawa

March 4th marked the start of 2010 for GGD Ottawa. What better way to start than with another sold out event!  This time our topic was “Guerilla Usability for Girl Geeks”.

The majority of people in attendance were interested in Web Usability, so that’s what Laura Wesley (@resultsjunkie), our guest speaker, focused on. Quite a few attendees tweeted the event and you can find a capture of the tweet stream here.

Laura Wesley talks usability while an attendee looks on

Laura plans to make her presentation available via her blog, including a list of website resources related to usability, and we’ll update this post with a link to the presentation when it’s available.

In the meantime, here are some key points Laura shared:

• The sign of a really good product is a learnable product.  People don’t buy products they can’t (easily) figure out how to use.
• No door should need instructions.
• In the context of the government, there is a direct link between user centricity and user confidence and public trust.
• Usability helps you move the conversation towards evidence-based decision making.  e.g. “I know you like blue but he likes red.”  “This word might make sense, but the product or the service is not for you.”
• The way people process information is fairly similar.
• When conducting usability testing, five people is enough. You will start to see a trend if something works or not.
• Questions to ask during testing are: Did the users complete the task? How long did it take? Did they enjoy the experience?
• Brand loyalty is not the most important thing when it comes to usability.
• A/B testing and multi-variate testing – is a method of creating two versions of a page and presenting each to a different group of visitors. Which works best?
• whichtestwon.com – a site where you can see completed A/B tests and ‘guess’ which one works better.
• Track conversion rates – how many people did what you wanted them to do?
• Create ratios if you can.
• Usability isn’t a standalone process – you need to have search engine optimization, a proper business model, etc. You can have the most usable site in the world but if no one visits, it means nothing.
• Seven things that are most important for a web site to be: useful, desired, valuable, findable, credible, accessible (aside from Usability)

Thanks again to Laura for an interesting and engaging presentation, to our sponsors and to all who were able to attend.  As always we welcome your feedback.  Let us know if you have any suggestions on speakers or topics of interest.  We look forward to a great 2010 full of exciting people, topics, door prizes and of course dinners!

Door Prize Winners

Caitlin Kealey accepts wine kit prize courtesy of Randy Little of indyadvisor.ca

Cate Huston accepts her Corel Photo and Video Bundle door prize

Della Siemens wins two tickets to the performance "Elementos" at the NAC

Mary Mary Beth Baker with her eco-friendly lunch kit courtesy of Eco-Tav Creations

For our next Girl Geek Dinner (GGD), we are pleased to have Laura Wesley, a Business Analyst specializing in performance measurement, lead a discussion on usability and why it’s important to your website, products and bottom line.

Laura will discuss:

1. What is usability
2. Why it’s important and why we should all be aware of it
3. Usability methods
4. Resources & takeaways

The event details!

Join us Thursday, March 4 at 6 p.m. at the Heart and Crown on Preston Street! Register now.

Heart & Crown
353 B Preston Street (at Aberdeen Street)

Tell us what you want to know about usability

To help Laura frame her discussion on usability, use the comments section to tell us what you’re most interested in learning more about.  Usability in the context of:

a) web design & online service delivery
b) the real world
c) continuous improvement
d) performance measurement
e) other?

A bit about Laura

Laura is part of a growing movement of professionals using Results-based Management and User-Centred Design principles to foster a results-focused culture in the Federal Public Service. Cynical idealist and overachieving public servant, this Girl Geek spends her free time Inter-webbing, snowshoeing, learning & knitting.

Laura is @resultsjunkie on Twitter and blogs at http://usability4government.wordpress.com

See you March 4th!

*UPDATE* Student spots available!

Once again, thanks to a gracious sponsorship by Thornley Fallis Communications, we’re offering five student spots for this event.

What this means, is if you’re a full-time student, and one of the first five students to comment on this post, you’ll get free admission to the event *and* your meal paid for (up to $25).

So if you’re a student and want to take advantage, leave a comment and let us know what you are taking in school and why you want to attend.

If there are already five comments, please go ahead and leave one anyway in case someone can’t make it or more spots become available.

Thanks to everyone who came out to last night’s Open Mic event! Several attendees stepped up to the mic to promote their business, work experience and community projects. It was great to hear about so many exciting opportunities women in Ottawa aren’t just a part of but are actually spearheading themselves.

In the spirit of building community around the Girl Geek Dinner Ottawa (GGD Ottawa) brand, last night also featured a networking game that Veronica, Kelly and I created as a way to ensure all attendees had a chance to mingle and get to know one another.

While my explanation of how the game works lacked some clarity (I’m a new mom so I blame it on sleep deprivation), attendees seemed to get the hang of it and really got into the spirit of seeking one another out. And that’s exactly what we hoped would happen!

The "girl geektini" cocktail

I can’t forget to acknowledge the special treat of the night – the “girl geektini” cocktail – which was delicious, sweet and just a little bit sassy.

Finally, we want to take this opportunity to once again thank our sponsors Well.ca, 3rdLife and the National Arts Centre for providing some great door prizes. As you can see from photos below, the prizes are greatly appreciated!

A full album of photos highlighting the event is available on Flickr and is tagged ggdottawa.

The next GGD Ottawa event will be held in the New Year with details posted to this blog as soon as they’re available. Until then, happy holidays!

Door Prize Winners

Christina Stefanski accepts her Well.ca door prize from Kelly Rusk, featuring Burt's Bees lip balm, Ballbuster hand cream, Cold-FX 1st Day and Gylsomed foot balm

Terri Oda accepts her handmade makeup bag and pin made from vintage and recycled garments, courtesy of 3rdLife.

Caitlin Lafleche accepts her NAC door prize of two tickets to the "Guys and Dolls" performance.

Join us for the Girl Geek Dinner Ottawa Holiday Gathering – Tuesday, Dec. 8 starting at 5:30.

While we’ll have no formal speaker, this will be an Open Mic night–everyone will have the chance to jump up on the mic and engage the crowd with a 30-second pitch. Tell us all about yourself, your business, a cause you believe in, whatever you like really, but you’ve only got 30 seconds to do so.

As always you can win some fabulous door prizes *and* don’t forget to order yourself a ‘girl geektini‘– our featured cocktail for the night!

Register now…

This month’s Door prize donors:

• National Arts Centre
• 3rd Life – handmade eco-friendly designs
• Well.ca – Canada’s online health, beauty and skin care store

This is pretty short notice, so I hope most of you caught this news on Twitter.  Just in case, we’d like to bring your attention to a different kind of networking event taking place in Ottawa on November 12th and 13th.

Connect the Dots is THE women’s networking event of the year! It is designed to connect all leading women’s networking groups in the Ottawa Region and provide an opportunity to NETWORK, COLLABORATE, BE INSPIRED and GET MOTIVATED.

This fantastic event is brought to you by Ignite Potentials Training Inc. and the leading Women’s networking groups.

It’s taking place on at the Crowne Plaza Hotel (map) on November 12th and 13th

Girl Geek Natasha D’Souza is one of the speakers and if you hop on over to her blog you might get to attend the event for free!!

I’d like to start our recap by thanking all of the people that attended our second Girl Geek Dinner in Ottawa.  Not only did you guys make it out on a Monday night, but some of you already even blogged about it! As organizers we are grateful for your enthusiasm and you continue to motivate us to do better with each event.

Our venue of choice this time was The Empire Grill, the room was setup in a single, and very long table.  Turns out this was the perfect setup for the exercise our speaker, Maureen McCann, had in mind.  This exercise is a personal favourite of mind, the driving force behind it is that sometimes we get so caught up in our disappointments that we forget how many great things we have to offer.  It’s a game of first impressions. You are given a colored index card and asked to write your name and a word that you feel describes you.   We were then asked to pass our card to our left, take a look at the person to our right and write on their card the car that would best describe them.  This is the first impression part.  We passed the cards to the left again and are asked to write a beverage that best describes the person a couple chairs to the right.  And so we went for a couple more descriptions.  You then receive your card back and get to read how other people perceive you (at least for that night).  Most of us found our descriptions were pretty bang on!  I guess this is good news, since HR people and recruiters are forced to make decisions based on first impressions.

But enough games.  Did you know that a US survey showed 50-60% of respondents were unhappy with their current jobs?  How about that just in the same way you perform maintenance on your car, you should be performing maintenance on your career?

Maureen self describes herself as the Simon Cowell of career coaches and says the biggest challenge people face in their careers is themselves.  Best way to save ourselves from ourselves?   3 steps:

1. Know who you are and what you have to offer.
2. Understand the local labor market.
3. Have the ability to sell yourself.  Take a look at yourself from the employer’s perspective and articulate the value you bring to the table.

Some more practical advice:

1. Don’t use Time New Roman font for cover letters and resumes.
2. Don’t use Word or Office templates…stand out.
3. Are you a designer? Why don’t you flaunt your stuff on your resume?
4. If you have 60% of the job requirements, go for it!  Don’t screen yourself out of the competition.
5. If you are looking for a senior level position and have 7 LinkedIn connection, step it up.
6. What goes online, stays online.  You’re on 24 hours, don’t leave half filled profiles.
7. Go beyond Googling yourself, setup a Google alert for your name.
8. Check out your Google Quotient (there’s a small cost for the tool, you’ll have to enter your email)

Whether you are searching for a job or looking to move up within your current company.  Don’t forget to celebrate your successes along the way.  An interview, a follow-up are all things to be proud of.  This builds up your confidence and you can tie that back to those first impressions.

Great night. Great speaker. Great company, so we are happy to call this event another huge success.  Thanks for attending, we hope we see you again before the holidays.

**update** This event is now sold out! Thanks everyone!

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Registration for the next Girl Geek Dinners Ottawa (#ggdOttawa) event with career coach Maureen McCann is now open!

Please join us by registering here.

When:

Monday, October 26 at 6 p.m.

Where:

Empire Grill, in the Market
47 Clarence St
Ottawa, ON K1N 9K1
(613) 241-1343

Don’t forget to participate in the event poll so we can find out which career topic you’re most interested in discussing with Maureen.

Then join the discussion on why you selected that response by leaving a comment on our original post for the event. We hope to see you next Monday night!

We all know that to land that perfect job or promotion there are certain skills you need. Sure you may have the right qualifications…but do you know how to create a resume that sells or how to market yourself effectively?

And what if you want to shift your career goals entirely? Where do you start?

Maureen McCann, career coach and founder of ProMotion Career Solutions, will be our guest speaker on Monday, October 26th, and she wants to know which scenario the GGD Ottawa community is most interested in discussing that evening.

When we started planning this event with Maureen she said,

What I hear from most people these days – is that they struggle to communicate their value to their employer. It is a frustrating exercise for them because they struggle to find the words and the stories that match the ideas employers are looking to find.

To find out which career scenario our GGD Ottawa community identifies with the most, we’ve created a quick poll we hope you’ll participate in. We will then use the results to orient an interactive discussion with Maureen! Please take a moment to answer:

Which of the following topics are you most interested in hearing about at the next Girl Geek Dinner Ottawa?(poll)

After you’ve responded to the poll, why not leave a comment to let us know the response you chose and any specific questions you may have for Maureen. You can also send Maureen a message on Twitter with @mypromotion.

Event details tbd so Save the Date!

When: Monday, October 26 at 6 p.m.

Where: *** We are still working on a location for this event and will share those details within a day or two so please save the date!  ***

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***Oct 20th – update*** register for the event here.

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A bit about Maureen (updated Oct 21)

An inspiring, resourceful, and well-organized Master Certified Resume Strategist and Career Consultant, Maureen McCann is passionate about communicating the value of business leaders. As a consummate career teacher, coach, and mentor, Maureen works with clients to develop the documents and interview skills required for success.

Maureen has been delivering one-on-one career counselling, resume writing and interview coaching to a diverse clientele for years. She helps clients break the cycle of career mediocrity by improving their confidence and marketability. As a testament to her leadership, in both 2007 and 2008, Maureen was honoured by the Career Professionals of Canada (CPC) with the Award of Excellence.

As a respected leader in the Canadian career industry, Maureen has been a central speaker at Opportunities 2008 “Workforce 2010,” the Ontario-wide conference for the employment community; Women 2.0 in Ottawa; Ottawa Citizen Job Fair 2009; and National Career Event for IT Professionals 2007.

A few years ago, Veronica and I have both had the opportunity to participate in a workshop Maureen conducted with the former Women 2.0 Ottawa chapter. She is a great speaker and I guarantee will offer some valuable insights on how to reach your career goals.

Read Maureen’s job interview advice in this Oct 21, 2009 Globe & Mail article Simplify the search: Be organized.

I don’t think Mel, Kelly or myself could have asked for a better kickoff to our Ottawa Girl Geek Dinner chapter.  A packed room, great food and an exciting, passionate entrepreneur and author as our speaker.  We hope you guys had as much fun as we did and that you got a chance to meet at least one other amazing woman.

So the night started around 6pm at the Black Tomato as old friends and new started to arrive.  First thing was first…we put in our food orders!  Once we got that covered we gave the mic to our speaker, Tara Hunt.  As anyone within a mile of her can tell, she is an entrepreneur at heart and she wishes that for everyone.

Tara speaks to Ottawa's geeky girl community about her career experiences in high tech and interactive marketing

Tara told us she started her first company while a single mom to a preschooler.  She began to attract clients through speaking gigs, attending events and just good old fashioned networking.

She had big goals and during her first attempt to take over the world, or at least Toronto, she took some big risks that didn’t work out and ended up having to put her entrepreneurial dreams on hold.

Tara is a firm believer that taking big risks isn’t a bad thing.  When she set out she wanted to “change marketing.”  Why marketing? Like most of us, she spends a great deal of her time being a consumer and wants to be informed. Making informed decisions doesn’t only apply to buying great products and services, but also applies to buying from companies that (and while Tara put it a different way) lets just say “don’t suck.”  We all work hard for our money and we want it going to a good place.

Inspired by The Cluetrain Manifesto Tara set-out to start her second company in San Francisco.  With a smart blog, a great partner, and a mentor she could relate to, Tara stuck to her beliefs and continued to take risks making it all come together for the launch of Citizen Agency in June 2006.

Tara’s message to us:

Going into business is risky, you will fall on your face, you will be broke, you will wait for clients to pay…BUT…it is the most rewarding thing you can do.”

Her hope is that more women entrepreneurs will answer the call that has been put out by VCs and Angel Investors.

“There is money available and we need more women entrepreneurs, especially in the technology sector.

So there’s the secret.  Find your passion, work hard, network, take risks, stick to your beliefs and find a way to turn your passion into your business.

I can’t end the post without thanking the people that made our first Girl Geek Dinner in Ottawa happen:

1. Social Media Breakfast – who brought Tara to Ottawa and introduced her to us.
2. Thornley Fallis – who sponsored 10 hard working students so they could attend our dinner.
3. CanvasPop – who have offered all our attendees a discount and a $100 gift certificate for one lucky lady.
4. Scott Lake – who donated a hot looking AND talking ipod shuffle.
5. Natasha D’Souza - for sponsoring our blog and helping us move our content over here.

Of course we also owe thanks to the Ottawa Girl Geek community for making the event such a success! We’d love to hear  your feedback. Leave a comment below and let us know your thoughts on the event, Tara’s experiences and what advice / message she had that struck a chord with you.

OK, I just have one more thing for you guys.  Don’t forget to follow Tara’s dog Ridley on Twitter who is not only very cute, but also wears a hat.

Ever wished you could walk the red carpet?  Well, here’s your chance!  You are cordially invited to attend the Reliving Old Hollywood Gala on Saturday, September 26th, 2009 at 7pm.

The Gala is in support of ovarian cancer research and will have as a special guest “Canada’s Sweetheart”, 1988 Calgary Olympics Figure Skating Silver Medalist, Elizabeth Manley who will be sharing a few words about her experiences with her mother’s journey with ovarian cancer.

Each year, approximately 2600 women in Canada are diagnosed with ovarian cancer, 80%-90% of these women are diagnosed at advanced-stages of the disease.  Diagnosing ovarian cancer is not easy.   A pap test does NOT detect ovarian cancer.  Even in its advanced stages ovarian cancer symptoms may be confused with non life threatening conditions.

Come support ovarian cancer research through this fun and unique event.  It has it all; ”red carpet paparazzi”, charity casino tables, photo booth, door prizes and live music by Juno award-winner Tracey Brown and the Richard Page Swingtet.

Best part?  We have a free ticket thanks to Nancy O’Brien, the Chairperson of the event.  Just leave us a comment below letting us know you would like to attend and one randomly drawn lucky person will get their ticket for free.  We’ll do the draw Friday September 18th at 12:00pm EST.