WIT Blog

Women_In_Tech_v3

Kim Capps-Tanaka introduces the panelists

On Wednesday, Women in Tech hosted an information session about the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, the world's largest technical conference for women in computing. As a non-engineer, I confess that I expected to just sit in the back and take notes as your humble reporter, but I was really swept into the excitement, and I left with an appreciation for just how inspiring and important this conference is.

The conference itself is a ways out -- it will be held in Minneapolis from October 2-5 -- but this meeting raised awareness for the March 15th deadline for submitting proposals for papers, panels, and posters. We want to be sure to have Yahoo!'s talented women well represented at the conference, and to that end, we heard from past conference attendees, Yahoo! executives, and even the director of the conference itself. Our panelists included:

• Elissa Murphy, VP of Engineering at Yahoo!
• Kristen Robinson, SVP of Human Resources at

If you're still working on your annual self-review, you're in good company. I'm still putting the finishing touches on mine, and I have list of requests for coworker feedback that I'm also chiseling down on. With deadline looming, I thought I would share some advice from Yahoo! leaders about the process.

Last week, Women in Tech gathered a panel to talk about the process, offer tips about how to write an effective self-review, and share what the review process really accomplishes. We were grateful to host the following esteemed speakers:

• John Matheny – SVP, Media & Commerce Engineering
• Rusty Berg – VP, Service Engineering - Platform & Data Services
• Alison Hu – Talent & Organization Development

Here are some highlights from the meeting, for inspiration. You can also keep them in mind in our next round of self-reviews, in Q1. Enjoy!

How much time should you spend on your self-review?

Our panelists agreed that no matter what else you might have on your plate, your self-review is

By Alexandra McClelland

On September 27, Women In Tech's Burbank chapter enlisted the help of five leaders for a discussion on work/life balance:

• The panelists: Julie Hsu, Stacy Desilets, Michelle Leong, Charity Rieck
• The moderator: Melanie Larsen
• Event Organizers: Jenna Maskell and Sarah Rosas

The event had an energetic start. After our panelists introduced themselves, the questions and answers began. We jumped right in to the first question: Is work/life balance possible?

The panelists dug right into this difficult topic! Stacy pointed out that at Yahoo!, we are encouraged to "work smarter, not harder". This certainly helps in achieving a work/life balance. Julie gave us two words to remember: organization and prioritization. She also emphasized that you must communicate often and make your needs known to others. Charity spoke on the importance of strategizing, and Michelle suggested a system of planning out your time with a "what can I get out of the way first?" philosophy, so that

Vivek Sharma chats with participants

Vivek Sharma chats with participants in one 5-minute mentoring session

“Speed mentoring” is an evocative name for an event. Is there anyone who hears it and doesn’t think of the venerable institution of speed dating, and possibly an awkward two-minute conversation with someone entirely incompatible with you? The big difference between speed dating and speed mentoring is that in the latter, you can completely control for the quality of the people on the other side of the table – and in its popular annual event this week, Women in Tech did just that. The WIT committee enlisted the participation of ten exceptional executives for a hour and a half devoted to short, small-group mentoring sessions:

• Rusty Berg, VP, Service Engineering, Platform & Data
• Olga Braylovskiy, VP, Corporate Applications
• Dean Chabrier, VP, Talent & Development
• David Diangson, Director, Business Development, Yahoo! Mobile
• Kevin Doerr, VP, Mobile Products
• Suresh Hosakoppal, VP, Chief of Staff, Technology & Operations

Group discussion at WIT lunch

Elissa leads the discussion at WIT's Let's Do Lunch event

As a technical writer in the Customer Care department, I don’t often have the chance to ask for career advice from people like Yahoo!’s Vice President of Technology, Elissa Murphy. But that’s just what I was able to do at yesterday’s "Let's Do Lunch" event! Elissa is the executive sponsor of Women in Tech, and she joined us for a lunch where WIT members could ask questions about anything impacting their careers at Yahoo!.

Last year, this was one of our highest-rated events, and by popular demand, we brought Elissa back for a similar, informal chat. Participants sat in a large circle, and brought up a wide range of questions for Elissa -- from how to ask a collegue to be mentor, to what to do if the role you were originally hired for evolves into something different. We didn’t hesitate from asking some tough questions, and Elissa didn’t shrink from answering them.

One of my favorite questions: How you ask someone to be your

Author and trainer Frederick Gilbert has mastered the art of giving a presentation to executives, and last week he came to Yahoo! to help us brush up our skills. Yahoo!'s Employee Resource Groups (of which Women in Tech is a proud member) hosted the 90-minute workshop, which was packed with evidence-based advice on what executives want to see in a presentation -- and how to get your point across effectively.

My favorite tip? Ditch your red laser pointer if you have one, and use an elegant chrome presentation pointer instead. Surveys say that people don’t like the red pointers, and you don’t need a survey to tell you that it’s annoying when a presenter forgets to turn the laser pointer off.

In case you’re prepping for a big presentation, here are some ideas that Gilbert shared:

• Present your conclusion first. It might get lost otherwise.
• Remember that C-level executives are under a lot of time-pressure and stress. At any public company, the executive office isn’t where the most

By Katherine Leahey

With the theme of this quarter’s lunch, Strengthen your connections in times of change, we acknowledged that there’s been a lot of change at Yahoo! these last few months. The session prompted some lively discussion about how to effectively deal with change, with a focus on networking and building relationships at work.

Elissa Murphy, Vice President of Product Development, kicked off the meeting with some advice about the importance of nurturing relationships. Hard work alone won’t get you where you want to be in your career, she cautioned; we need to also be conscious about developing relationships and nurturing your networks because other people can be greatest resource when it comes to unearthing career opportunities.

Alison Hu from Talent and Organizational Development (T&OD) then facilitated the event’s discussion, beginning by having participants think about how they were impacted by the company’s recent changes. Her “Richter Scale” activity invited