For Women in IT, It's Still Lonely at the Top

This week I had the privilege of hosting a panel of women leaders in IT (Information Technology) from WITI (Women in Technology, Inc.) at their Las Vegas meeting. (OK, enough snickering about women IT folks invading Vegas.) On my panel were the CTO of the MGM Mirage, the CIO of Cummins Engine, and a software entrepreneur for Mindjet, a tool to help visualize organizational processes.

Women in technology have become less rare than they used to be, but a look at the IT directory at any of these companies and most others shows we're not there yet. And anyone who doesn't think there's a difference between how the sexes think about everything from writing a computer program to managing a staff has been sitting alone at their computer screen for too long. (Never mind not reading enough pop-psych books.)

These women have different jobs in different company cultures, but there's a commonality to their challenges and insights that pervaded the conversation. It's worth encapsulating.

1. For years, the IT department served more of a "service function." Now, thanks to technology's front and center role, the IT department is right there at the forefront of most business decisions. That requires a change in style and a much more collaborative effort. Issues like disaster recovery, compliance, and business continuity are not solved by any one department.
2. Each woman had mentors—some men, some women, some formal, and some less formal—who played a pivotal role in shaping their careers.
3. They all struggle with the work/life balance but have made promises to themselves—like not logging in from vacation, doing volunteer work in their communities, or finding time for non-tech related passions like playing the piano or building a home.
4. They all are consensus builders, working across their organizations to make sure that data is being used to inform business and that systems are deployed with proper training and education.
5. They all want more young women to enter the IT profession, and believe the best way to make it so is to go out and show them IT in action. As one put it, "When women understand that there are lots of different kinds of jobs in IT they get past the notion that IT is about boys putting ‘pipes' together."
   

Sound a little new age? A little too soft? As we look to attract new talent into engineering and IT fields and fail, the more people who understand what goes on in the recesses of the department the better chance we'll have.