[UbuntuWomen] Hi & Best Practices Links & asking for advices

[vid]

On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 6:23 PM, Natacha Rodriguez
<natachaviviana at yahoo.com.ar> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> First of all, thanks for making this group :) I've been following the email

Glad you are a part of us too, Natacha :)

> list for a while now, I think I never introduced myself, my name is Natacha
> (Naty being the nickname), and I'm a systems engineer from Argentina. I love
> reading this list, and I really loved the best practices topics, while
> reading them, I realized how many of my coworkers and former college buddies
> usually use them, the world would be a better place if those rules could be
> established in every workplace.
>
> Also, I'd like to ask for some advice, since my college is trying to start a
> group to deal with gender issues in all kinds of engineering carreers, and
> they notice that the girls in the group are not making any comments or
> suggestions, no kind of feedback at all. What can you recommend to inspire
> them to participate?

You mentioned its a "group", so is this a mixed-gender meeting or
restricted to women only? If its mixed, sometimes some people may be,
unintentionally, a wee bit more vocal than others. Usually a quiet and
shy person may give up trying to voice themselves if they are
constantly interrupted mid-sentence or spoken to loudly.  I assume
there is a moderator or professor or lecturer who conducts these
meetings, and you can request them to observe for this pattern and
rein in the most vocal person(s), which can be done very politely
without offending anyone.

Secondly, find out what each women are interested in and ask them to
prepare a small lightening talk -- say 4-5 minutes of presenting
(read, talking in front of the class) on their favourite language/tech
topic/etc.. Strictly enforce the time limit to ensure that everyone
who wants to speaks, gets to.

Hope that helps.
Regards,
Vid
॥ http://svaksha.com ॥