Girls Gone Tech Wild

Last night I was fortunate enough to attend the Girls in Tech holiday party. Held at the bar at 5A5 Steak Lounge (yes, that's what it's called, a "steak lounge") in downtown San Fran, the event was packed with folks who were there to flog their latest projects, see and be seen, and generally shmooz as only the SF tech crowd can.

Not to be left out, I was there talking up my latest venture, TechnoGirlTalk. Seemed like the perfect party to find potential interviewees for the podcast, which will feature women movers and shakers in high tech.

It was, and it wasn't. I did meet some women who had all manner of new and potentially successful startups. For example, I snapped this rather badly lit pic of Eileen Conway, co-founder of a new site, GroopSwoop, which offers coupons and special offers to local Bay Area merchant offerings such as massages, mani-pedis, and today's special, cupcakes. Yumm!

As is becoming increasingly common, this was an occasion for an offline meeting with someone I already felt I knew. I'd previously connected with Anna Anisin on Twitter, where we had chats about my new haircut and other such topics. We were also now Facebook friends. Sadly, when we met face to face, it quickly became clear that she had no idea who I was. But she was friendly enough, telling me all about her startup Baseball Beauties, which merges girly-girl stuff like fashion with a love of baseball. A novel concept and one that apparently pays her bills, as she told me that she is doing this full-time. Wow. I'm impressed. I also met a woman named Krystyl, who is known for her tech events calendar at http://www.krystyl.net/ and her frequently re-dyed blonde and purple locks. Here's the even blurrier and more badly lit pic I took of her:

Sadly, the folks I was hoping to meet--the developers and IT admininstrators and other hard-core geek girls who would make the best subjects for my podcast--were rather thin on the ground at the party. Understandable, of course, and the crowd was still a rockin' one. And overall, I was impressed by Girls in Tech as an organization. In addition to its own series of talks, it has its arms around a number of related events. For example, they're a sponsor of She's Geeky, a tech "unconference" that I am seriously looking forward to attending when it arrives in the Bay Area in late January 2010. Also, they were very helpful when I told them my hopes and dreams for the TechnoGirlTalk podcast. Especially Cass Phillipps, who gave me lots of advice about who I should talk to, and who even got in touch with me today to follow up with more thoughts and ideas!

Okay that's your tech gossip download for the day. Be good, provision or dev well as is your wont, and remember, whatever they dish out to you, rock on, dudettes.