The Ada Lovlaces in my life
March 24, 2009
In honour of Ada Lovelace Day here is my post.
The early aspects of my technical interests are a co-mingling of gaming and personal computing. I gamed on Attari Pong, played variety store Pacman and then went on to first generation Nintendo Zelda at the Royles on Pheasant Lane. In addition I took a few computer courses in high school (and no, no punch cards were involved! ). Of particular note, I spent countless hours sitting in front of what had to be a first generation Macintosh computer in my high school’s library typing and formatting essays .
My teens were largely a voyage of technology self discovery. I finally met inspiring women #1, when taking a first year information management course at university.
Inspiring woman in technology #1 Teaching Assistant
Information Management TA, University of Guelph
The TA was responsible leading the lab that went with this course. She explained/demoed Paradox, Quattro Pro, WordPerfect 5.1 and T-Cosy (our campus email program). Unfortunately I don’t remember her name, but this women not only taught me every possible keystroke for operating a spreadsheet blindfolded, she introduced me to the construct of a relational database.
Inspiring woman in technology #2 Sherry Kappel
Arguably the world’s most knowledgeable woman in word processing technology
My first ever business trip took place in the spring of 1999. I went to Manhattan to attend a seminar. What a trip! Not only did I get upgraded into an awesome corner suite at the Omni (to this day the best hotel room I’ve ever experienced), I heard, for the first time, Sherry Kappel talk about the complexity of a document. This is the day I was introduced to the concept of cascading styles. Later that year, Sherry also introduced me to XML By Example, a book that has framed how I look at data and the Internet in my career to date.
Inspiring woman in technology #3 Patricia Morris
Professional Services Project Management Professional
My technology career started in earnest at a corporate law firm in 1998. While there I traversed the application spectrum from the desktop to the web. Starting with desktop applications, I worked on a word processing document migration project, introduced a document management and client relationship management system and truly began the web journey I am on today with my focus on intranets, knowledge management, taxonomies and information modelling. This all started under the guidance and coaching of Patricia Morris. Pat did not start her career in technology. In fact I don’t even think she would call herself a strong technologist. What Pat knows however, knows deep in her core, is the meaning and impact of change. She taught me that change is tough and uninvited and that the recipients of unwelcome changes aren’t to blame, they are just trying to do their jobs. Most importantly, she taught me that it is my job to make technology change as easy and as painless as humanly possible. And so began the development of my strong sense of user empathy which firmly set me on the road of user experience design and usability. The two areas that are in the centre of my professional life.
So there you have it. Three women; the Ada Lovelaces that set the course of my career in technology.
Entry Filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: AdaLovelaceDay09, Technology, women.
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