It’s no secret that software and technology are heavily male dominated fields. However, unlike some other male dominated fields, we have not done a very good job at embracing gender diversity. As exemplified by presenations at the Flashbelt and Golden Gate Ruby Conference, women in technology are frequently put into offensive and objectifying positions. This is completely unacceptable.

Gender equality issues have been a recurring problem in the workplace, but I think that the current state of technology is a little different. In technology, we not only have a huge percentage of males, but also a much younger average age and much looser social restrictions than other industries. Finally, the software and web fields have developed a kind-of street cred based heirarchy. In the past, the equality issues have been largely intentional, wheras the current situation in technology is ignorance driven.  This is less of an old-school “women should stay in the kitchen” mentality like you see in Mad Men, but more like elementary school boys that hit girls because they don’t know how to cope with gender differences.

I’m not trying to justify any of these behaviours. The reasoning doesn’t in any way validate the actions, but it does affect the solution. 

We need to make this negative behavior unacceptable in all areas. Part of the reason many of these guys are under the false impression that this behavior is ok is because it’s been perfectly acceptable in other situations. Our own industry leaders, especially in many of the open source communities, make a habit of publicly trash-talking and bashing others.  The whole “If you’re offended, fuck off” mantra has been a staple of prominent developers like David Heinemeier Hansson for years. The community tolerated and in some cases embraced this attitude.

I seriously doubt that either of the presenters at these conferences intended to offend women. They probably didn’t view it any differently than other situations where they’ve picked on somebody else’s differences or used stereotypes to get a laugh. As an industry that has tolerated this community dynamic, we can’t really be shocked when it translates from differences of opinion to differences of gender. We can also expect this to continue on to differences of race, religion and sexuality if left unchecked. 

We need to grow up. We need to work as an industry to stop attacking each other, because as these presentations show, it can quickly escalate. We need industry leaders to step up and stop supporting this culture, because if we don’t start now, this will likely continue to escalate. We run the risk of creating a field rife with prejudice where the hate speach of forums and internet flame wars becomes acceptable.

Kelley and I will be at MIX 09 this week and we’re hoping to put together some solid video content. We will be roving around the conference with our camera interviewing random people. At the end we will be editing all together and producing a few videos.

Our goal is to ask a similar set of  questions for developers, designers and other web professionals at a variety of events. Since we attend a wide mix of MSFT, OpenSource and Social Media events it should be a good way to compare and contrast viewpoints about various topics across a several geek demographics.

If you have a minute, read the questions and track me down at MIX if you’ve got a good response. You can also post your response in the comments.

Do you believe that all software should be open source?

Do you think that the current web standards encourage or inhibit innovation?

Where is the future of RIA, AJAX or Proprietary Plugins(Flex, Silverlight)?

Is Facebook a powerful example of social interaction online or merely a stepping stone to more useful platforms?

What OS do you use and why does it kick ass?

Can Microsoft become a major player on the web? How?

Do you think  wide acceptance of cloud computing & Web OS is right around the corner or a long way off?

What’s the most powerful tool in your life? Why?

I hope to see you all at MIX! Hopefully this will be interesting.

Anybody who follows me on Twitter, likely knows that I’ve had some recent issues with Bank of America. Through a combination of new policies and the BoA website, I ended up getting an avalanche of overdraft fees resulting from one transaction.  The situation was resolved, but in the end it really exemplifies why I have a love/hate relationship with Bank of America. Hopefully, this post sets the record straight.

Let me note that this post was not solicited by Bank of America in anyway.

I’ve been with Bank of America since they bought Fleet Bank back in 2004.Bank of America has always seemed to have some arcane formula for generating and assessing fees like many other banks, but their staff has made up for it. I’ve had many issues, but not one of them has gone unresolved. In short, their branch staff are better than most of the banks I’ve dealt with.

Over the past few years, I’ve been relying more on online banking. While this is more convenient, it removes the human element and can often lead to confusion and unresolved issues.  The current issue arose from mistakes in transactions online not matching up with transactions in real life. I couldn’t tell what fees went with what transactions. The online balance sheet made it look like I was in the black, but I was getting overdraft fees left and right. At the branch, there are people to help sort out the mess, online I’ve got some obnoxious little live chat thing.

After getting nowhere with the previously mentioned live chat, I hopped on my Twitter account and unleashed the full angsty fury that I have a habit of unleashing.  Within a few minutes, I was contacted by contacted BofA_help. After resolving some communication issues, I was connected with people that could help. This may not seem like a big deal, but it’s really a pretty revolutionary thing.

Bank of America managed to bring the experience I expect at the branch to the web. I wasn’t talking to chat participant 18943, I was talking with David from Phoenix. David took the time to research what happened and called me to go over it. He then put in contact with another representative, Matt,  who helped me figure out how to avoid it happening again. This isn’t the first time I’ve had a problem with a bank, but this is the first time I’ve gotten this level of customer service online.

In summary, thanks to David and Matt for stepping up and fixing this. While I really don’t agree with the fees, at least I know I have people to talk to when things go bad.