Last week I watched the first female major party candidate for president accept her party’s nomination, formally launching what I suspect will be a successful march to the White House.
Regardless of your political leanings, you are witnessing history and there has to be some consideration for how far we have come as a country. In less than 100 years we have gone from women not being able to vote to a woman on the brink of the most powerful seat in the world. The fact that she is hoping to take the reins from the first African-American president underscores that progress.
The technology industry, in some ways, can be considered a microcosm of America. What used to be an old boys’ network is progressing, rather suddenly, into an equal opportunity career path, and there are plenty of female tech executives who are blazing trails and making investors rich.
In addition, it has long been known, through research and anecdotally, that women have a very strong influence on technology product purchases. In fact, more women then men make those purchasing decisions for their households.
Here at TWICE we decided it was time to formally recognize these trends. We have formed our first-ever Women Of Tech advisory board, made up of a diverse group of influential women who have devoted a large part of their professional lives to our industry.
Our intention is to gather intelligence, share experiences, learn perspective and give the women of the tech world a voice that can influence the way we do business and, at TWICE, cover the business.
When we reached out we got almost overwhelmingly positive feedback. I know we are doing something here that will benefit us, as the voice of the industry, and you, as the heart and soul of the business.
So a quick thanks goes out to the participants in our inaugural Women Of Tech Roundtable and our digital editor Lisa Johnston for spearheading our efforts and steering the ship in the right direction.
We hope you find our efforts informative and enlightening and well worth your time.
And if you are a woman working in the tech sector and want your opinion to be heard on any topic, whether it be opportunity, design, marketing, retail strategies, equal pay or anything else you feel is important, please feel free to contact me directly at [email protected].
You are the industry and we want to be your voice.
Star Power
In these days of “American Idol” and YouTube, everyone wants to be a star. For those rare lucky ones who achieve their dreams of fame, other opportunities inevitably open up. In this issue we took a look at what has become more than just a trend in Hollywood: the transition of celebrities from entertainers to technology moguls.
Ashton Kutcher, Jessica Alba, even Kim Kardashian, have ventured into the tech world and piled on to their riches with well-thought-out ideas for innovation. The fact that they all bring along thousands of fans, not to mention Twitter and Instagram followers, certainly gives them a built-in advantage over the Silicon Valley start-up in his garage. But, the fact is, some of these celebrities have done it right and we thought we’d call out the ones who aren’t just showing up at CES for the appearance fees and the free cocktails.
