Off Topic » The chick flick effect

Off Topic

Late-40's feminist engineer talks about everything not about BPM

The chick flick effect

January15

The good thing about an unconference like EnterpriseCamp is that it doesn’t attract too many of the testosterone-laden alpha geeks that many tech conferences do, so although there were only 3 women in about 40 attendees, I had a pretty good time on Saturday. Also, there was no chance of a line-up in the ladies room.

Nevertheless, I felt the need for something a little kinder and gentler, and finagled Damir into going to The Holiday yesterday afternoon. I have to admit, it was even more chick-flicky than I had anticipated: Kate Winslet and Jack Black as a couple? As the credits rolled up, Damir turned to me and said “I need to go to the pub right now and drink a beer. And maybe eat some chicken wings. Or shoot something.” [Okay, I made up the shooting something part, but that was in the spirit of things] I reminded him that the season premiere of 24 was coming up in a few hours, and would have plenty of gratuitous violence to counteract the chick flick effect; that seemed to calm him somewhat.

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I’m a late-40’s feminist engineer, living in Toronto with Damir, my slightly eccentric Croatian husband, who is also an engineer. Since I do software and he does hardware, we’re pretty symbiotic, although he hasn’t yet figured out that the vacuum cleaner is, technically, hardware.

Born in Toronto at the very end of the baby boom, I grew up in a time early enough that women still had to fight for equal opportunities, but late enough that we at least had some chance of getting them; these experiences shaped both my career and my outlook on life. I’m the youngest of four siblings, which undoubtedly also shaped my outlook.

I love food, wine, cooking and travel, and it’s my goal to do at least one lengthy (3+ weeks) international trip each year. I’ve become addicted to Flickr, and carry my camera with me all the time to capture the weird things that happen around me every day.

In my day job, I’m an independent business process management (BPM) analyst, consultant and systems architect, specializing in BPM design, enterprise architecture and business intelligence. You can find my business blog here. In the past, I’ve started and run two companies: a desktop workflow and document management product company from 1988-90, and a 40-person BPM and e-commerce systems integrator from 1990-2000. During 2000-2001, I moved to southern California and worked for FileNet as Director of eBusiness Evangelism during the launch of their eProcess BPM product, where I ended up travelling to 14 countries in 16 months and meeting lots of people who I can now visit in other countries. Since 2002, I’ve been back to a one-person private consulting practice.

This blog came about because of all the posts that I was putting on my business blog that had the category “off topic”: rants about poor customer service, business ideas and topics that had nothing to do with BPM, links to my mom’s blog and more. I like to keep the business blog a bit focussed on professional topics, so this is my outlet for everything else in my life that’s not about BPM.

Sandy

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