Session: How to be a Successful Super Woman in Technology
As a woman with more than 15 years’ tenure in the industry, I’ve seen firsthand how gender parity in technology can amplify creativity and innovation. Beyond the altruistic case for equality, it is important to understand the proven business and societal benefits from increasing ratios of women in technology. Studies show workforce diversity boosts innovation, profitability, and progress. It’s clear that the global environmental outlook, among other worldwide issues, is of increasing concern to both prominent scientists worldwide and respected organizations, like the United Nations. We need solutions to big problems as quickly as possible. This alone justifies aggressive investments in diversity, equity, and inclusion.
In many cases, corporate Diversity and Inclusion efforts can support these efforts. However, empowering women in technology, and those considering a tech career path, with tools to guide their own success is important. This session will cover some of the best success principles derived from Jack Canfield, but shaped from the experiences of women in tech and those interviewed through hundreds of hours of podcast interviews. We must intrinsically interweave these efforts into our education system and company cultures, so that women feel the impact. This combination of corporate investment and personal commitment to success, will help attract and retain women in technology. Then, we will have more technical savvy women who become Super heroes developing world-saving technologies.
Leave this session with a clear understanding of the value of women in technology and easy tools that can help you lead diverse teams, whether you are a man or a woman.
Feel free to reflect on what you are passionate about in life that can help guide your career with this pre-recorded passion test from Nicole: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HebsaH7AXa8&t=300s
Bio
Nicole Scheffler is a modern digital renaissance woman — a “Digissance Woman,” with robust tech skills, broad business background, and a passion for sparking tech diva success. Nicole began in the start-up space as a programmer, worked as a business analyst for Fidelity, and has been breaking molds at industry leader Cisco Systems since 2006. By day she provides the strategy and planning for the engineering team in the Americas Partner Organization; and by night, she puts on her cape to help women be successful in technology careers.
Nicole and her co-founder, Kathleen Norton-Schock, created the Diva Tech Talk podcast in 2015 to provide a story library of women sharing their inspirational and diverse career journeys to spur more women to enter and/or stay in technology. They have earned 5 Clarion awards from the Association of Women in Communication and Diva Tech Talk was also a finalist in the 2019 People’s Choice Podcast awards. Begun as a passion project, this show is a “labor of love” and is growing in popularity. One unique aspect is that Diva Tech Talk provides a linked written blog highlighting each guest on the website.
When Nicole isn’t at her Cisco career or working on the podcast, she serves her community as a volunteer, teaches as an adjunct professor, and speaks frequently to women, young and in career, about how to be successful in technology. She is a certified Jack Canfield Success Trainer and will be featured in a Jack Canfield book, Pillars of Success, later in 2020.