Are you a techie woman headed to VMworld in August? We still have a couple of spaces left on the all-lady v0dgeball team! What?
You don't know what v0dgeball is? Well here are the details:
Caroline Orloff and I are leading the Tech Ladies team. Our concept is that the women know how to come together across vendor lines to collaborate and kick butt. If you are a techie gal, agree with our philosophy, and want to play v0dgeball, we have a couple of spots left. Please let me know, and we'll add you. Similarly if you are a guy and you know a techie female co-worker who is coming to VMware please let her know about our team!
I will say, its pretty disappointing how few techie women are going to VMworld - from what I can find. Many of those I know about are either working on Sunday night, or they are on their company's team. Please help prove me wrong.....maybe all the other women are just heads-down working too, but we need them on the team! In the next couple weeks I'll update you on our team.
Unofficially we are the Cloud Bunnies...in a loving nod to @reillyusa. My daughter even designed a logo for us (still under review). If you have general questions about v0dgeball, @vcemonk is the mastermind - tweet him!
To post a comment login or create an account.
Unrelated comments or requests for service will be unpublished. Please post your technical questions in the Support Forums or for direct assistance contact Dell Customer Service or Dell Technical Support.. All comments must adhere to the Dell Community Terms of Use.
We've heard from some of the other teams ( EMC vSpecialists , XaaS Badgers ) and some of the fans ( @sthulin , @mjbrender ). Now it's time to hear from the only vendor neutral v0dgeball team at VMworld this year: the Cloudbunnies.
Who are we?
We are a group of women from six different technical companies. The idea came from Caroline Orloff, now of EMC Consulting. Instead of fretting that women are under-represented at big tech conferences, why not round up some ladies and wail some balls at their colleagues.
I stepped up to be team captain. One thing that really disappointed me was that I had a very hard time finding enough techie women to make up a dodgeball team . Per the rules, we needed at least 6 members and at max 10. To date, our team only has 8 members, even after a blog post, bugging all of my contacts, and all of our partners. Some women decided to play for their companies (ahem @friea ), so the pool of available technical women was very small.
One takeaway: techie women just aren't coming to these conferences. Maybe VMworld is hard for women since it happens right after school starts. Maybe women aren't asked by their employers to attend these events. My friend Alistair Croll , who organizes many tech conferences ( Enterprise Cloud Summit at Interop , Bitnorth , Startup Festival ) pointed out that if companies would submit speaker sessions led by women they would have a greater chance of having the session accepted, in large part because conference organizers are looking to diversify their speaker profiles. Big vendors, you know you have some lady tech superstars, get them presenting at these shows! Do your part to change the ratio .
Why are we doing this?
I'm proud of our Cloudbunny team. I think our collaboration across vendor lines shows what can happen when we as an industry work together. I personally feel this work cutting through the bs and uniting the practitioners of our craft to work as a team is the real "women's work".
But don't think for a minute we aren't coming to play. We are looking forward to skillfully handling our balls, and dominating all other teams.
And in all serious, we are playing this game for a really good cause: the Wounded Warrior Project . My brother is a disabled vet from the Iraq war, so I am totally behind this effort! If you are at VMworld, come watch the game and cheer on the Cloudbunnies! A $5 dollar donation to the Wounded Warrior Fund gets you into the festivities ( register here ) - games start at 7PM on Sunday. If you aren't coming to VMworld, please consider donating to the cause , and let them know the Cloudbunnies sent you!
The Team
Before I introduce you to the team, I'd like to give a nod to Christian Reilly aka @reillyusa . He is the one who coined the term cloudbunnies. We thank you sir for the inspiration!
Captain : Gina Rosenthal - Dell
Chris Weil - Centre Technologies
Caroline Orloff - EMC Consulting
Michelle Peterson - Dell
Annette Cormier - Dell
Laura-Beth "LB" Hatem - iLand
Liz Pierce - Acronis
Lindsay Sloan - iLand
Coach : Vanessa Alverez - Forrester