Jenny Rasmussen

Whew.

What an adventure! My first Grace Hopper conference has come to a close. I am writing from the Minneapolis Airport, gate F10, where I am thinking about the whirlwind that the last few days have been.

It has been a very inspirational four days. Being surrounded by 4,600 other technical women is a boost for me.  Although I know that there are other women in tech, I don’t see them in person as much as I see men in tech. My husband’s entire team (save for two amazing women) are men. So many prominent people in tech are men. But I think we can change that, and I am really excited to be a part of making that change.

I wanted to share what I learned (or what I was reminded) over the last four days.

1. Women are awesome. AWESOME.

2. Women don’t negotiate their salaries enough and most often they are paid $6,500 less than their male counterparts – and that’s just starting salary.

3. I learned how to use Google Glass, and I had the opportunity to play with it. The wifi wasn’t working in the career fair center, so I didn’t get to use it in that capacity, but it was fun. I don’t know if I will ever want to own a pair, but it was fun to play with.

4. getraised.com. Fabulous resource. I had an opportunity to meet Matt Wallaert, one of the minds behind the site. He is a great speaker and I really enjoyed his lightening talk and speaking with him after. One of my favorite things that he said during his talk was, “Telling me that I care about feminism because I had an awesome mom is like telling me I only care about racism because I have black friends. And that is fucking bullshit.” I love that, we need more fantastic men helping women advocate for themselves and advocating for them when they can’t or won’t do it for themselves.

If you get the opportunity to see him speak, do it, he is a very energetic, engaging and funny speaker.

5. When speaking to a client about their product, write it down and follow up after the meeting via email to keep everyone on the same page. The human memory is faulty.

6. The Mall of America is huge. That has nothing to do with the conference, but I’ve never been there before, so that’s something I learned.

7. There is a very diverse opinion about MOOCs. Not all good, either. But I like them, a lot. They are an excellent resource to learn something new.

8. Brenda Chapman.

9. The TSA likes my Box shirt. Always a good thing, right?

10. Always talk to every company at a career fair, you never know where your next opportunity might present itself.

11.  Networking is EXHAUSTING.

12. Don’t forget to have fun!

There is a lot to learn by attending conferences, and I am really glad that I went. It helped, in a strange way, to combat my impostor syndrome. I hope it sticks around.

Cheers!